SARAH

 

Troy was staying the night with his family, so I managed to have Lucy all to myself. This meant that I was able to get to Josh by five. When Lucy wheeled me through the doors of Withered Peaks, I immediately saw a very neat and tidy Mr. Kelly waiting for me in reception, standing with a bunch of wild flowers in his hand. He was extremely well groomed, with a pair of tight-fitting, black cotton trousers, displaying his considerable thighs, that hung above his ankles over neat brown yachting shoes. On his torso, a tight, mauve t-shirt that had a deep v-neck reaching down to the bottom of his sternum showed off his muscular, mahogany-tanned chest. Over the top of this he wore a gray, casual suit jacket that bore the crest of Ralph Lauren over the breast pocket. He had clearly dressed in order to impress me.

“Madam,” he said politely as he bent forward and handed me the posy. “As a way of saying sorry for my indiscretions of last time,” he added in the same well-mannered tone.

I took the flowers and blushed. Half because of his romantic gesture and half because I myself was rather underdressed in a simple cotton dress of white and red stripes, only a little black eyeliner at the corners of each eye to accentuate their shape.

“I picked them from the garden this afternoon,” he explained, retaining his playfully charismatic tone. “I hope they are to madam’s satisfaction.”

“They certainly are,” I said, taking a sniff of the flowers’ sweet aroma.

“I’m glad that madam finds them so,” he replied with a cheeky wink. “Now if you’ll follow me to my humble abode—or I can push madam if she so wishes—our table is awaiting us.”

Above me, Lucy was giggling to herself at his antics, and I too found him charming, even if it was contrived.

Josh looked up at Lucy and said, “I’m afraid I’ve only prepared dinner for two. If I had known that a second beautiful lady would be joining us for this evening’s pleasures, I would have set a place for three and, therefore, cooked a sufficient amount.”

“That’s okay,” Lucy snickered. “I’ll leave you both alone. What time shall I come back for ‘madam’?”

“As it’s my last week or so inside this wretched facility,” he answered her, “I’m allowed to have people visit me until nine PM. However, I would never presume that your sister would want to stay with me that long, so I guess madam will have to call you. Is this explanation satisfactory?”

“Yes it is,” Lucy replied with a chuckle. “If you could be so kind as to ask madam to call me when she’s ready.”

“I will,” Josh assured her with a playful bow.

This produced such a comical effect for Lucy that she burst into laughter and had to cover her mouth to suppress it. Still giggling away like a clucking schoolgirl, she said goodbye to us both and left.

“Would madam like me to push her to my abode?” Josh asked.

“That would be most kind,” I replied in a similar manner.

He came around the back of me and began guiding me out of reception and along a corridor that ran through a collection of rooms, their doors lining either wall. Having reached the door to his own room, Josh swept around me and opened the door. I gasped a little as I saw the inside.

He had created a little oasis. All the furniture was covered in patterned throw-overs, disguising the room’s true purpose, and on all the surfaces he’d placed candles, their flickering flames twinkling like stars in the velvet shadows of space and giving the room a somber yet tranquil feel. In the middle of the room was a round table set out for dinner and in its center a wine bottle stuffed with flowers, similar to the ones I held in my lap.

He pushed me inside and placed me round the table, his own chair opposite. Then he pressed something on his phone and the room filled with the mellow sounds of classical music flowing from a speaker situated out of sight somewhere, Beethoven I think. As I sat there, he fetched two wine glasses from the side and placed one in front of me and one opposite in his own place. He then surprised me by pulling out a bottle of wine and holding the label out for me to see, just like a waiter. It was a bottle of French Sancerre, a picture on it of a rolling vineyard with a church steeple upon the horizon.

“Wine?” he asked with a wink.

“They let you have alcohol here?”

He leaned over and whispered in my ear, “It’s actually sprite. But the bottle makes it all a little more romantic, don’t you think?”

This made me smile.

“Then in that case, I would love a drop,” I said.

He poured us both a glass, before placing the bottle back where he’d gotten it from. Once he had, he came and sat down opposite.

“Now if you’ll excuse me,” he said, “I’ll call for the food.”

“Call for the food?” I asked incredulously.

He took his phone out and dialed a number.

“We wish to dine now,” he said into it when the call was immediately answered.

Within seconds, there was a knock at the door and there appeared a young man in his early twenties, pushing in a cart with a silver platter upon it. Josh smiled at me as the so-called waiter came inside, stopped beside the table and began organizing things on the cart. I couldn’t help but gaze at the man. He looked rather odd dressed in black skinny jeans and a white t-shirt with a black bowtie printed below the neckline. But it was what was over the top of the bowtie t-shirt that made the most comical impression. It was a black suit jacket with what looked like a pair of trousers stapled to the back of it in order to give the impression of coat-tails.

“Dinner is served,” the young man pronounced in his best British accent.

He lifted the platter and revealed two plates of meatballs in tomato sauce with linguini, placing one carefully before me and one before Josh. He then placed a basket of bread between us.

“Thank you, Parker,” Josh said to him with a grin.

“Will that be all, sir?” he asked.

“It will, Parker.”

“Bon appetite,” Parker pronounced to us both, before bowing so deeply that I feared he might hit his head on the floor.

He then turned sharply on his heels and left with the cart.

“Who was that, your butler?” I inquired once he’d left.

“No,” Josh replied, smiling boyishly as he did. “He’s just a friend of mine here doing me a favor. His name’s not even Parker! I managed to find him that costume from among what I could gather from the wardrobes of the other people here.”

“I especially loved the stapled on trouser coat-tails,” I remarked with a glinting smile.

“Impressive, weren’t they!”

“So is that to say he cooked the food then?”

“No!” Josh let out, making a face as if he were taken aback by this. “I cooked the food. I even made the pasta fresh.”

“Did you bake the bread?” I asked, picking a piece up.

“No, I didn’t,” he conceded.

“Ah!” I couldn’t help letting out with a grin.

Grinning himself at my mischievous fun, he took a serviette from the table and laid it out upon his lap.

“Dig in,” he insisted as he did.

I laid my own serviette out and began eating. The food was excellent and I tucked into it with relish.

“I wanted this time to be a little special,” Josh said as we ate. “Last time wasn’t really what I wanted it to be.”

“You were upset, I understand that.”

“It’s still no excuse. I wanted to show you that I’m not always an asshole and I can be nice.”

“I never doubted that you weren’t,” I said in a gently sardonic tone.

“An asshole or nice?”

“You decide.”

He gave me a playful frown, which slowly suffused into a beaming smile. I found him so cute in that moment that it made me blush.

“Whose recipe is the food?” I asked, wanting to take my mind away from his stunningly attractive face with its strong jawbone, gently aquiline nose and tranquil blue eyes.

“It’s Holman’s, the guy I told you about, the man that carried your friend to safety and helped me with the door. He used to cook it for me all the time, until one day he taught me how to make it myself. It’s one of the only things I can do.”

“I’m sure you can do many things,” I put to him.

“I’m not sure what you mean by that, but you’ll find that even though I’ve been educated at some of the best schools with the best tutors, I’m a little short on skills that could help me in the real world.”

“Then thank God you don’t have to live in the real world.”

A crooked smile twisted his lips at this and I could tell that I’d touched a sensitive spot in him.

“Sorry,” I said, “I didn’t mean to upset you.”

“No, it’s okay,” he replied, straightening his smile out. “It’s just I get a little tired of everyone thinking that I get it easy just because my father’s one of the richest men in the world.”

“I wasn’t implying that it was easy for you. I was just saying that you don’t really live in the normal world.”

“You’re right, I don’t. There aren’t many out there that get to fuck up as regularly as me and get away with it.”

“I don’t think you get away with it. I’m sure that deep down you regret some of your actions.”

“I guess,” was his brief answer.

He was silent for a moment as we continued to eat the food, the sultry candlelight adding to the tense feeling that appeared to be brewing between us. I felt that, like last time, our conversation was going too deep, wandering toward subjects that were too raw, open wounds. I wished to bring it down a notch, so I asked him what he usually did outside of rehab.

“I’m at my third college,” he stated in a bored manner.

“Studying what?”

“I’m studying business management.”

“Do you like it?”

“No. It was my father’s idea and I don't really get much of a say in anything. He still dreams that one day I’ll join his empire.”

“Do you want that?”

“I don't know. It all bores me as much as everything else. Plus I look at my dad and see someone that’s been dead a long time.”

“Oh,” was all I could say to this, and I took another forkful of pasta, twisting it around the end, before placing it within my mouth. “What would you want to do, if you had the choice?” I asked after I’d swallowed the food.

“I honestly don’t know the answer to that. Most of the time I just find everything tedious.”

“What are your passions?”

“You really want to know?”

“Yes.”
“Well, my passions are women, gambling and narcotics.”

This disappointed me; I felt he was teasing me, trying to be provocative.

“Don’t you find that all a little shallow?” I asked him.

“Yes,” was his immediate answer. “I know it is. It only prolongs my boredom, numbs me to it for a while before bringing it back harder than ever. I know that I suffer from ennui, Sarah. I’m not stupid. I lack occupation. But I have too many ghosts in my closet to ever leave me alone long enough to do anything meaningful. Sometimes, especially just after I’ve gotten out of here and I’m clean, I go back to college for a while and really try. I attend all my classes and complete all my work. But this only ever lasts for one semester at most. After that everything begins to fade again and I lose my purpose. In the end I always fall back into my bad old ways.”

“Then you should try your hardest not to. Maybe next time you’ll succeed.”

“For someone like you who has a clean conscience, that’s easy to say. But that’s not so easy for someone like me.”

“What is it that you’ve done so wrong that you feel you can’t live your life?” I put to him.

The second I asked him this question, the color in his face faded and in the gloomy light of the candles he almost looked like a ghost.

“You really don’t want to know that,” he said in a somber voice.

A pang struck me in both my heart and my stomach, making the food suddenly unappealing. The name Heather Todd came floating to my mind, but I bit my tongue, not wanting this meeting to deteriorate into another argument.

Instead I decided to ask him less directly about his behavior:

“Tell me one thing you’re ashamed of. One ghost, as you put it.”

“You really want to hear the types of things that I’m capable of?”

“Yes, I do,” I replied confidently.

He made a face as though considering what he should tell me.

“Okay, we’ll start with my most recent,” he began. “That night you hit me, do you remember a weedy-looking guy wearing a suit three sizes too big for him? He was standing at the edge of the crowd.”

I had to think hard until the memory came to me. His oversized suit had made an odd impression as he’d stood to the side of the laughing rabble.

“Yes, I do,” I answered.

“Well, that guy is currently sporting two broken arms and two broken legs because of me.”

“You beat him that badly?” I gasped.

“No no no,” he let out. “I was responsible, but I didn’t do it. I never touched Charlie physically, but I did touch him here.” And he pointed to his temple with his finger. “I got in deep,” he went on, “into Charlie’s brain. I planted a worm in him which bored its way inside.”

“But how did that end up with him breaking his arms and legs?” I felt compelled to ask.

He told me about the story of him manipulating Charlie into cheating with him at the card game.

“… My petty revenge was worth more than a thousand Charlies to me,” he went on once he had. “The kid looked to me as a friend. He didn’t really have anyone else. I simply sucked him in and used him. He was nothing more than a tool for my own needs. I didn’t even see him as human. That is”—and Josh’s face went even paler here in the candlelight—“until I looked into the kid’s eyes when those animals had ahold of him. I knew the second I saw his huge round eyes looking despairingly at me that I was a coward and a bastard.”

“So you were caught cheating then?”

“Yes, we were. I smashed a bottle and held it to the neck of one of those slimy weasels and managed to get out of there. But I left Charlie to be mutilated.”

“And you feel guilty for this?”

He froze for a second or two, his eyes searching the shadows at the edge of the room. Perhaps it was the face of big-eyed Charlie he saw gazing forlornly back at him. Whatever it was, it took the last of the color from his face and his eyes misted over.

“I feel absolutely ashamed,” he admitted in a hoarse whisper that appeared to flow out of him like air. “I wish I didn’t,” he added, before pausing and then looking into my eyes and saying, “That’s wrong though isn’t it?”

“What? Wishing you didn’t feel guilty?”

“Yeah. Sometimes I get so guilty and ashamed about things I’ve done that this storm of anger rises up. It makes me angry to feel that way. I wish I was like my father at times, wish I didn't feel any of it, could go through life setting fires and simply watching everything burn.”

“That’s terrible, Josh,” I couldn’t help remarking.

“It is, isn’t it?” he uttered in an empty tone, turning away from the shadows and once again gazing into my eyes.

We sank into silence for the moment and finished our meals, the mood rather solemn now, matching the doleful light of the candles. I wondered what type of person could so willingly endanger another’s life for their own ends. It wasn’t uncommon—I’m not naive to think that it doesn’t exist everywhere in the world and in many forms—it’s just, I always find it deeply distressing to think that some people only see the rest of humanity as nothing but matter to be manipulated in the name of their own will.

“You know when you called this morning,” Josh said once we’d finished our meals, “I decided to write a letter to Charlie admitting all my ills to him. I wanted to at least explain things as truthfully as possible. Be honest with him for once.”

“And have you apologized in this letter?”

“Of course, that’s the main point. Because I do regret what I did to him and I want him to know that I am sorry.”

“Are you going to send it to him?”

“That’s what I was going to ask you. You see, I would send him the letter, but I’m sure the moment he sees it’s from me, he’ll rip it up.”

“So I take it you want me to bring it to him, get him to read it?”

“Exactly,” he exclaimed shining a grin at me. “If you sit with him and make sure he reads it—”

“You want me to force him to read it!?”

“No!” he said, laughing gently. “I just want you to explain things to him. I was hoping that maybe you could read the letter a couple of times, memorize it, and then tell him about it. If he hears my apology from your mouth he’ll accept it. I’m sure.”

“Why me? Why don’t you get this Holman to do it?”

“If you knew Holman as I do, you’d understand that this wasn’t a job for him. The reason it has to be you is because there’s something about you. Your look puts people at ease—your shimmering eyes and soft expression. There’s benevolence and compassion in them and folks tend to let their guard down to you.” He paused for a moment and gazed mournfully into my eyes. “Please, take my message to him,” he added almost pleadingly.

He continued to look sadly at me from across the table. I wasn’t sure if this was a form of emotional exploitation. Whether he was willingly manipulating me, just as he’d obviously done to Charlie. But I agreed to take the message anyway.

“Awesome,” he said once I’d agreed.

Going over to a drawer in his desk, lifting up the throw-over as he did, he brought out a sealed enveloped.

“Open it when you get home,” he stated, handing it to me.

“I will,” I replied, placing the letter in my handbag.

For the rest of my time with him, we enjoyed talking about much lighter subjects. He asked me about my sisters and about my father and about the work we did at Dillinger and Associates. He seemed to be genuinely interested when I talked to him about it and was a keen listener. Not at any time did he attempt to say anything controversial or provoke me. As it turned out, he was better and much more relaxed when he was listening to someone else and asking the questions, rather than when it was the other way around.

Having spent two hours in his company, most of the candles now either out or dwindled down to their ends, I called my sister and she came to fetch me. When I said goodbye to Josh at reception, we hugged and I felt a cascading warmth move through us as he gripped tightly to me.

After that his eyes watched me as I left and I couldn’t help but look over my shoulder and smile as Lucy pushed me through the doors. With a heart brimming with hope, I wondered whether Josh Kelly could truly be saved from himself.