Jericho Point Read Free Page B

listening to the rain. Procrastination wouldn’t make this go away. I took out my phone and called Jesse.
    Outside Chaco’s on State Street, wet asphalt shone gold under the streetlights. Palm trees thrashed in the wind. I pushed through the door. Inside, a lively crowd was listening to indie rock, a local band on the little stage, the wispy girl singer tilting her head toward the microphone, eyes shut, deep into it. I scanned the room. Jesse wasn’t here yet. I worked my way to the bar.
    The music swelled, drums crashing. But I heard the ocean booming against the cliff. I couldn’t stop picturing her—feeling solid wood slip away from her and seeing the balcony recede. Plunging into bitter waves. Struggling up to reach air. Breaking the surface, only to find herself alone.
    The song finished on a minor chord, the airy singer smiling, hands at her side, the crowd applauding. The room felt as if it were rolling.
    I rubbed my temples. This wasn’t news you gave over the phone. Besides, when I called him Jesse had sounded up, saying, ‘‘Let’s catch a late set.’’ Hearing enthusiasm in his voice had touched me. Joy, any spark at all, had been missing for a long time. And if it was finally rekindling,I was going to douse it once I told him about the mess in Isla Vista.
    Patrick John. Make that going, going, almost gone. He was enrolled at the university, but at twenty-three was nowhere close to graduating. His curriculum emphasized recreational chemistry. He spent most of his time playing guitar, working odd jobs, and nosing around the edges of the music industry.
    I glanced toward the door, watching for Jesse. It cut at his heart that his brother vanished when push came to shove. But as angry as I felt, I could never resent P.J., because he had been here for me when it counted.
    That day—a gleaming Saturday morning, when the hibiscus in the garden flared red and the scent of jasmine saturated the air, he rang my bell. I saw him through the French doors, a big kid in a baseball cap, wiping a runny nose, his foot jittering up and down. I knew right away he could only be Jesse’s brother, and my bad mood deepened.
    I opened the door and stood there with my bare feet and messy hair and burr-under-the-saddle grouchiness, saying, ‘‘Make this a good story.’’
    His blue gaze jumped around. ‘‘Jesse asked me to come over.’’
    I crossed my arms. ‘‘To tell me why he stood me up last night?’’
    My new boyfriend, apparently, was a chickenshit. Wouldn’t you know—star athlete, absurdly sexy, with a blinding grin and switchblade wit. And he had sent his brother to deliver the basket of excuses.
    So I thought. I didn’t know that I was standing at the edge of a divide, and P.J. had come to take me across.
    He wiped his nose again and met my eyes. ‘‘Jesse’s been in an accident.’’
    Now the band started a new number, up-tempo. The singer yanked at the mike and growled and sang. Next to me, a man took a seat on a stool and reached for the peanuts on the bar. He wore an aloha shirt and sweet cologne. The bartender asked what I wanted. I ordered a beer.
    I could still see P.J. standing on my porch. Those few last seconds of sunshine and blue jays crying in the trees, the smell of freshly cut grass, my sleepy-headed annoyance, before I grasped it. Accident. P.J. was almost falling over from fear and grief. It was beyond bad. The white noise started in my head.
    The man on the stool picked through the peanuts. ‘‘Yeah, this band’s halfway decent. But they could mike the vocalist better. The monitors are wrong, and the mike’s too hot.’’
    Evidently he was talking to me. Taking off his glasses, he smoothed his Pancho Villa mustache and hunched against the bar, squinting at me as he chewed. His front teeth protruded—usefully, because several others were missing.
    ‘‘They play here regular. Like a house band.’’
    He worked his rounded shoulders back and forth, as if his aloha shirt was