Robert Browne: Down Among the Dead Men

After the funeral, it seemed as if some foreign entity had invaded Jen’s soul. Her shyness gene receded and died. And back at school, she began sneaking away with the older girls to smoke cigarettes in the woods. And God knows what else. She openly flirted with the school gardener, a part-timer from the local college, who was a good six years older than her.

Jen was possessed, Beth often thought, by some crazed demon who looked and sounded a lot like the old Jennifer but was most certainly an impostor.

When Mrs. Llewellyn told them that they’d be leaving the Academy at the end of the school year to live with their grandmother up in San Luis Obispo, Jen screamed and went running from the room, and kept on running, only to be found, hours later, sitting in the Academy clock tower, threatening to do a swan dive into the shallow waters of the school fountain.

A crowd gathered, their classmates snickering, Mrs. Llewellyn shouting for Jen to come down, but Jen refused, and it was up to Beth to climb into the tower and talk her out of this silliness. This hadn’t been Mrs. Llewellyn’s idea, of course, but Beth the Dutiful had known what she needed to do, so she did it, despite the headmistress’s commands for her to stop.

By the time she climbed out onto the ledge and sat next to Jen, Beth could hear sirens approaching.

“What are you doing?” she asked softly. “Why are you up here?”

“It’s all their fault,” Jen said. She was fifteen at the time, just two years younger than Beth. Tears in her eyes.

“Mom and Dad?”

Jen nodded. “If they loved us, they wouldn’t have gone. Or they would’ve taken us with them and we could all be in Heaven together.”

“It was a business trip. They couldn’t take us.”

Jen looked at her, defiance in her gaze.

“And what about the week in Paris? The cruise around the Greek islands? Where those business trips, too?”

Beth didn’t respond.

“Face it, Sis: They didn’t want us around. This school is more of a family to us than they ever were.”

“They had a business to run.”

“And kids to raise. But what did we ever get out of them besides holidays and summer vacation? I’m almost glad they’re dead.”

“Stop it,” Beth said.

Jen was quiet for a long moment.

Then: “I don’t want to live with Gramma Jean. I don’t want to leave school.”

“I know. Neither do I.”

“And Gramma Jean’s not gonna be too happy when she finds out about…”

Her voice trailed.

“About what?” Beth asked.

The tears welled up in Jen’s eyes.

“I think I’m pregnant.”

It turned out to be a false alarm.

Thank God.

Jen’s menstrual cycle had merely been thrown off-kilter by the emotions of the last few weeks, and after three days of panic she began to bleed and told Beth she’d never been happier in her life to use a tampon.

But just the fact that Jen was having sex was shocking enough to Beth, who herself had not yet met a boy she was willing to lose her virginity to. And although Beth wanted to stay at the Academy as much as Jen did, she thought that moving in with Gramma Jean might turn out to be a good thing.

It didn’t.

But they did their best to cope.

Besides her health troubles, Gramma Jean was not the most loving grandparent in the universe, and Beth began to understand why her own mother had been so aloof.

She made a vow to herself that if she ever had kids-and she fully intended to one day-then she would love them like nobody’s business. And when she died, you’d never hear a single one of them say they were almost glad it had happened.

The two girls settled into life at San Lucas High, Jen immediately starting up where she left off at the Academy. Instead of in the woods, cigarette breaks were taken behind the band building. A quick way to make friends. And because the school was co-ed, Jen was never short of potential boy toys. It didn’t help that she’d developed into a first-class stunner, with nearly every male in school lusting after her. Including some of her teachers.

“Just remember how scared you were when you were sitting up on that ledge,” Beth warned.

“I don’t think anyone ever got pregnant giving blow jobs,” Jen said.

Beth certainly couldn’t argue with that.

Now, standing at the rail, she let the ocean breeze wash over her, thinking about the last ten years. Ten years that felt like a hundred.

While Beth went off to college and law school, Jen stayed true to her nature and continued to play wild child, eventually getting married to a tattooed motorcycle mechanic named Bradley-who was a sweet enough guy but no match for Jen. When he wanted to stay home, she wanted to party. When he wanted to go for a Sunday ride, she was too hungover to climb onto the back of his bike.

The marriage lasted three years. And only that long, Jen explained, because of their “monster” sex life.

Beth herself had used her time a bit more productively. She graduated from law school, spent a year clerking for a Santa Barbara Circuit Court judge, then snagged an ADA post with the Los Angeles District Attorney’s Office.

And fell in love.

His name was Peter, a young assistant prosecutor, and there was a time she thought he could do no wrong.

But, oh, how times change.

Thinking about Peter, however, was too painful right now, and as much as she loved looking out at the ocean, she was still wearing her dinner dress and starting to get cold. Better to go back to the cabin, slide into bed for the night, and hope that Jen had learned her lesson.

Tomorrow would be a better day.

At least Beth was determined to make it one.

She was about to head for the door or hatch or whatever the hell you called it when “Beautiful night, isn’t it?”

Startled, Beth turned and saw the silhouette of a man sitting in the shadows behind her on one of the deck chairs.

Had he been there all along?

Her face must have shown her surprise, because he said, “I’m sorry, did I frighten you?”

An accent. Slight but unmistakable.

Then he rose, moving into the moonlight-one of those big movie moments, where time seemed to momentarily stand still. He was in his mid-thirties. Hispanic. Dark hair pulled into a ponytail-not a style Beth particularly liked, but that didn’t much matter, because he was so damn gorgeous he had no trouble pulling it off.

Buffeted by his presence, she felt herself take a slight step backward.

“I did frighten you.”

“No,” she said. “I mean…a little, I guess.”

She tried a smile, but it was an awkward one at best. Thirty-one years old, a prosecuting attorney for one of the biggest cities in the world, and here she was, suddenly acting like a complete spaz.

Get a grip, girl.

“You thought you were alone out here. It was rude of me to sit in the dark and watch you. Even worse to interrupt.”

Beth shook her head. “It’s no big deal. I was headed back inside anyway.”

“Oh? Then let me apologize by buying you a drink.”

Beth hesitated. After four years with the DA’s office, she was naturally suspicious, but such an offer didn’t exactly fall into the realm of criminal behavior.

Still, at this point in her life, it was hard for her to believe that anyone would be even remotely interested in buying her a drink, let alone someone who looked like this. She couldn’t help wondering what his angle was.

“That’s kind of you,” she said, “but there’s nothing to apologize for.”

He nodded. “No apologies, then. Just the drink.” He held out a hand to shake. “My name is Rafael Santiago.”

Beth hesitated again, then took the hand.