Different Circles

“I see,” Jake said slowly, his mind automatically going to the worst-case scenario. There must be a death or an impending death in her family. Why else would the man suddenly make contact after all these years of silence? He sighed as he thought about this, wondering how it was going to change their plans; specifically, their immediate-term plan of getting laid and their intermediate-term plan of continuing their much-needed vacation. True, Laura had not spoken to anyone in her family in years—they most certainly did not approve of her choice of husband and the lifestyle she lived with him—but family was family and they inherently had plan-derailing power. “Did he give a number he could be reached at?”

“He did,” Pauline said. “Do you have something to write with?”

“I do,” Jake said, picking up a pen from the writing desk and pulling the little complimentary tablet over. “Fire away.”

She read off a number that started with area code 208. He wrote it down and then read it back to her to confirm he had written it down correctly.

“All right,” he told his sister. “I’ll give her the message.”

“Let me know if there’s anything I need to do or if there is any help I can offer,” Pauline said. She had obviously gone to worst-case scenario as well.

“Will do,” he told her. “Talk to you later.”

He hung up the phone and then turned back toward the bedroom. A moment later, Laura emerged from the bathroom. She was now dressed in the aforementioned birthday suit and looked like she was quite ready to put Part A into Slot B. Jake felt the familiar tingle of arousal he always got when he looked at her in such a state. Though the bruise on her hip was purple and brown and dark blue and it was roughly the size and shape of the surface of a clothes iron, though she had a scattering of other bruises on her arms and legs, though her hair was in complete disarray from being worn under a ski helmet all day, she was still able to get his motor running. He considered whether or not it would be a marital faux pas to tell her about the call from her brother after they fucked, but she inadvertently beat him to the punch.

“What was the message about?” she asked.

“Uh ... well ... it was from your ... uh ... your brother,” he said.

Her eyes widened a bit. “My brother?” she asked. “Which one?”

“Joseph Best the second,” Jake said.

“Joey called me?” she asked, alarm starting to appear now. It seemed she was going worst-case scenario as well. “Did he say what he wanted?”

“I didn’t talk to him,” Jake said. “The message was from Paulie to let us know he wanted to talk to you. He left his number.”

“She has no idea what this is about?”

“No,” he said. “Just that he wants you to call him. The number has the Idaho area code.”

“He still lives in Pocatello where we grew up,” she said. “The last I heard from my mom he was still working for the city driving a garbage truck.”

“A garbage truck?” Jake asked.

“Somebody has to drive the garbage trucks,” she said. “He got the job way back in the late seventies, back when ... uh ... well...”

“Back when what?” Jake asked.

She sighed. “Back when he got his girlfriend pregnant and had to cancel his mission for the church and find a job to support them,” she said slowly, a clear expression of familial shame on her face.

“Wow,” Jake said. “That shit is kind of frowned upon by Mormons, isn’t it?”

“To put it lightly,” she said. “Mom and Dad didn’t disown him like they’ve done to me, but they never let him forget that he brought shame to the family. I don’t know for sure, but I strongly suspect the scandal is a big part of why Mom and Dad packed us up and moved us to Los Angeles. We did that about two months after the baby was born.”

“And your brother stayed behind,” Jake said, trying to wrap his mind around the story.

“He did,” she said. “Dad made it pretty clear that he wanted Joey and Sarah and Brian—that’s my nephew’s name—to stay behind. And so, they did. He and Sarah got married and got a place of their own and started their own life. Mom and Dad have stayed in touch with him over the years, but only on the phone, and usually only to berate him about how he turned out and to tell him he will never be allowed admission into the Kingdom of Heaven. None of us have been back to Pocatello since, and he’s never visited us in Los Angeles. I haven’t seen Brian since he was a tiny baby. He has to be—God, nearly twenty years old now. And they have two other kids too. I’ve never even met them at all.”

“All this because he knocked up some chick back when he was ... what, twenty years old himself?”