CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
At half-past six in the morning, I had stacked the dishwasher for the last time during the shift. I was tired and heartsore, and Jarrod had already gone.
There’d been a silent consensus between us, we’d not be toge ther that day, and Jarrod had left with the rest of the staff, trooping out to haggle over shared taxis and carpools, leaving me behind to finish up.
I switched on the dishwasher, took the last batch of towels out of the dryer, loaded the final wash into the washing machine. I hung the wet towels over the drying rack since they never left the dryer running in an empty house.
I didn’t have to sweep or vacuum, there were two cleaners who came in during the day and did that, but I did a final check of all of my rooms to make sure there were no condoms or dildos on the floors. The cleaners hated that and always complained, and I understood. I didn’t have to pick up the mess often, the boys were careful about cleaning up, but it turned my stomach when he did.
Selene was waiting, yawning in the kitchen when I had finished turning off the oil burners which saturated the entire building with the sickly smell of patchouli. We handed both of their keys over to Autumn, who let us out of the room.
Selene yawned again and said, “Good night, Jude. Drive safely.”
I nodded. “Good night, Selene. See you tonight.”
My car was where I left it, down the street from the bro thel, and I slid behind the wheel.
It didn’t hit me, what Jarrod and I had done, until I opened my bedroom door, ready to collapse into bed. The smell of sex, not just any sex, but anal sex, hit me like a blow.
We had sex.
And it had been mind-blowing good, the best sex I had ever had.
Part of me wanted to leave my bed just the way it was, soiled sheets, come-soaked quilt, make it all into a memento because I didn’t think it would ever happen again.
The rest of me knew, I had to clean up, so I stripped my bed and replaced the sheets, then found a blanket to replace the soiled quilt. I loaded the quilt into his second-hand washing machine and set it going, then turned off and disconnected anything was likely to wake me, except for my alarm clock, before crawling into bed.
The Xanax Jarrod had bought off Yuki at work hadn’t worked, and I was still wide awake at ten, staring at the blank wall beside my bed.
I needed to sleep, had to, so I pushed back the sheet and padded across the room to find the second Xanax. I needed decent downers, something that was guaranteed to knock me out, but Yuki had had none. She’d get me a couple during the day, as I asked her.
Oblivion, that was I wanted. Something to wipe me out for twelve hours before I had to get up and go to work again. I had whiskey left; that and the Xanax would do it.
When I left the house for work, there was a man loitering near my car, looking like he was waiting for me.
He looked up as I approached and stepped forward to meet me.
“Mr. Everett?” the man asked. “Mr. I Everett?”
“Yeah,” I said. “That’s me.”
“I’m a deputy from the civil department of the sheriff’s office. I’m here to serve these papers to you.” The man held out a manila envelope, which I took. Regardless of who it was, that was pursuing me for money, there wasn’t any point in avoiding the collection notice. Looked like I’d be putting the house on the market the next day.
“Thanks,” I said, and I signed the clipboard that the man held out. However shitty my job was, at least I wasn’t serving papers for a living.
The man smiled at me and got into the car parked across the road. I unlocked my car and got behind the wheel and slit the envelope open with my finger. I better find out who it was.
I got part way through the relevant bit of the papers before the anger hit, white-hot bright anger, so intenseI couldn’t read for a moment. This was no debt collection notice. This was an ex-parte order preventing him from seeing Billy.
I wanted to scream, I wanted to kill Daniela, I wanted to snatch Billy and run for the border, but I made myself put the papers back in the envelope and start the car.
I would not call her, not until I calmed down. If I did, I’d say bad things to her, things that would lead to an apprehended violence order against me too.
I drove to work, and the anger eased a little and an icy calm replaced it. I would do what I needed to get Billy back. I’d get an attorney, another attorney. I had a divorce attorney, but I’d never paid the bill from the child support and custody hearing, and that attorney wouldn’t represent me without being paid.
I needed money, needed it fast.
I gripped the papers in my hands when Selene let me in, and I must have looked like shit because she said nothing to me, just closed the door after me.
I put the papers in my locker and began the routine of getting ready to open. Check rooms, put towels out, change bedcovers, refill oil burners, refill lube pumps.
By the time I’d done my routine, there was staff collected around the kitchen table. Jarrod was there, making toast, and something of how I was feeling must have shown on my face because Jarrod followed me into the utility room, toast in his hand.
“What is it?” Jarrod said in a low voice. “What’s happened? You look like shit.”
I opened my locker and took out the papers and handed them to Jarrod. “Read them,” I said.
Jarrod put his toast on top of the lockers and opened the envelope and skimmed the papers with his eyes. “God,” he said. “When did you get these?”
“On the way to work.”
Jarrod looked at me with concern. “What are you going to do? How can I help? Do you need me to go away?”
I paused. The injunction claimed I was living off the proceeds of prostitution and allowing Billy to have contact with prostitutes. If Jarrod disappeared, that was one claim countered.
If Jarrod disappeared, then I would never see him again, and I didn’t think I could bear that either, not at that moment.
I shook my head. “No. I need to get an attorney. Right now.”
Jarrod bit at his bottom lip. “I think you should ask the rest of the staff for help. Jen and Lanie have kids, they might know what the Family Court here thinks of prostitution. They might have had one of these served on them even.”
I nodded. It hadn’t occurred to me that anyone here would know what I should do. “Show them the papers,” he said.
Chloe peered at me over her reading glasses, looking scholarly despite her push-up bra and make-up, like a naughty librarian.
“You need a real attorney, hon,” she said. “I can’t help you, not since I’ve been disbarred, and anyway I only know about contract law in any detail.” She looked around the table at the staff, all sitting, waiting for her opinion. “Any of you a divorce attorney?”
There was a universal shaking of heads, and Chloe studied the papers again.
Yuki said, “What about the union? Will they help I?”
Chloe pushed her glasses up her nose. “Bet they would. Do you belong to the union, Jude?”
I shook my head. “I don’t even know which union you mean.”
“Hello?” Chloe said. “Which union do you think we’d be talking about? The prostitutes' union.”
I stared at Chloe in disbelief. There was a union?
Jarrod said, “If Jude joins it, will they help him right away?”
“Only one way to find out,” Chloe said, and she reached into the bag she’d taken her glasses out of and found her cell phone.
Whoever Chloe was calling, she had the number on speed dial.
“Hi, honey,” she said into the phone. “This is Chloe from The Groove. One of our boys has got himself into a spot of legal trouble. If he joins, can you help him right away?”
She tapped her acrylic nails against the table, and I looked down at my hands. It seemed so long ago that she and Yuki had painted my nails, but not all the paint had worn off his nails yet.
“And how much is that?” she asked. She made a quick note on the corner of the notepad in front of her with her pen. “Thanks, darling. Have a good night.”
She switched her phone off and smiled at me. “Good news. If you pay a year’s membership up front, they’ll get you an attorney.”
“How much?” I asked.
“$209,” Chloe said, my dismay at the amount must have shown on my face because Chloe opened her wallet and dropped a ten-dollar bill onto the table.
There was a flurry of movement around the table, and they added bills to Chloe’s offering until there was a little pile of cash in front of her. Even Selene leaned across and added a twenty. Chloe pushed the pile across the table to me and said, “Here you go; take that into the union office tomorrow after midday and join up, and they’ll get you a free attorney.”
My eyes filled with moisture as I gazed at the pile of cash. “Thank you,” I said, and my voice cracked. “Thank you, all of you.” The generosity of the people around the table touched me deeply, after the shock of the papers, and I wiped my eyes.
Yuki, who was sitting beside me, patted my shoulder. “It’s only fair, Jude. You look after all of us so well. You rescued Clay, and we all know it could have been any of us. We want to help you get your son back.”
I stumbled through the rest of the night in a daze. I knew Jarrod and Glenn were busy in-house and that Shane was busy on call-outs. I knew Eamon was grouchy because Clay was still off work and was talking about advertising for another guy.
At one point Chloe handed me a stack of printouts about ex-parte orders restricting child access, so Autumn must have let her onto one of the work PCs to do research.
The night before had been hell because of Jarrod, but that all seemed far away now, remote from the new hell I found.