Turning The Page

The fog drank up everything. Even the most ostentatious headstones were grayed out, joining the humble ovals and crosses in a sea of obscurity, like crumbs on a giant’s table. All that was left of fuller, more vibrant things that had been consumed.

And still her grave, her grave, drew the eye. Colonel Sebastian Byers knew where it was, he’d been there when it was filled in, but even if this were his first time here, he thought he would’ve been able to sense it. The dead end where so much love had arrived and had nowhere else to go.

He sat on the bench with Jason. It was cold and it was wet, a miserable day like only New England could make, but he bore it without complaint. A military man should be able to handle a little weather, especially after a career like his. And it was the least he could do for Jason Clancy when the man had done so much for him.

Finally, Jason spoke. His voice was deep as ever, a bass rumble fitting his six foot five frame, but he pitched it so low, into such a whisper, that Byers thought it could’ve come from one of those graves. One waiting to be filled in, maybe.

“This is the part,” Jason said, “where you work your way up to asking how I’m doing.”

Byers was glad for the cold mist that blew out between Jason’s lips when he spoke. It told him the man was alive, despite the graven look on his face and the dead light in his eyes. “How are you doing?”

“I see her everywhere. At the grocery store, trying to figure out what cereal to buy, like it makes a difference. In the car, fiddling with the radio station, like that makes a difference. At home, of course. Of course. Even in the kitchen, like she ever cooked anything outside a toaster.”

Byers looked to Jason’s mouth again. Another breath of fog. It said he was alive much more than the man’s words.

“I had her. I could just… turn to her and say anything to her, ask her anything. Touch her, just touch her. And now what can I do? Sit here? Think about? Not stop thinking about her?” Jason shook his head.

“It wasn’t your fault.”

“Yeah, but everyone who did it is dead. And I’m still around.”

The colonel decided to change tact. Normally he’d try to be more subtle about it, but he didn’t think Jason was in any position to appreciate subtlety. “I can see you’re still keeping up the exercise.”

“You drilled it into me too good. I don’t feel right unless I do a few hundred push-ups every morning.”

“Good. Then you can’t be too rusty.”

When Jason shook his head this time, it was more like a convulsion going through him. “No. I’m done. I’m out. Finished.”

“This isn’t work. It’s a cakewalk. VIP always wants the best of everything. That’s you. You put on a suit, carry a gun in a holster, hold her shopping bags now and then. Nothing. No AK-47s, no driving a Humvee like a bat out of hell… you probably won’t even have to jog.”

“The perfect job for me,” Jason said bitterly.

“It’s something to do,” Byers emphasized. “How long do you think you can keep running on fumes—going on nothing more than grief and regret and whatever routine hasn’t broken down for you yet?” He put a hand on Jason’s shoulder and was shocked by how cold the man felt. Like one of the frost-rimed statues dotting the cemetery. “She was a good woman, Jason. The best. All the times she saved your life, you think it was just so you could fade away without her?”

Jason pulled his arm away until Byers had to let go of him. “That’s why you’re giving this to me? Because it’s what she would’ve wanted?”

“I don’t know what else to try on you. You always flew close to the edge, damn close. When she showed up, I thought it was the universe sorting itself out. But before you met her or after, you always squared yourself away when you had something to focus on. I know this isn’t much. But give it a shot. If it doesn’t clear your head, straighten you out, this bench will still be here. And at least I’ll know I did something.”

Jason scratched at his unkempt hair. “I must be out of my goddamn mind… okay, what fucking—Saudi princess do you want me to babysit? And where is she? Dubai? Paris? Italy?”

“Georgia.”

He nodded. “I’ll brush up on my Russian.”

“No, Georgia. As in peaches.”

“As in, between Alabama and Florida?”

“That’s the one.”

Jason made a noise deep in his throat that could’ve tried to be a laugh, once upon a time. “What’ve you got between Alabama and Florida that needs a warfighter?”

Byers reached into his greatcoat’s pocket, brought out a folded-up magazine, and unfolded it.

Jason took it from him.

It was this year’s Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue.

“Told you it was going to be a cakewalk,” Byers said.

***

Jason shut off the car’s engine.

It wasn’t because he was at his destination. He was almost there, but—nope.

Since his meeting with Byers, he’d had his good suit laundered, shined his shoes, tied his lanky hair up in a bun and given his beard a rudimentary trim. Ending up looking about right for Delta Force. If she wanted better than that from him, she wasn’t getting it.

Then there was the flight out to Georgia, the rental car agency, the drive. All uneventful. But proving Byers’ point, in a way. Having one thing after another asking for his attention kept him from fixating too much on the past. Even on the flight, he’d been able to focus on researching his would-be client instead of brooding. He’d even gotten some sleep without nightmares; ones that he could remember, at least.

He’d gotten to the site of the job interview early, ten minutes before he was scheduled to meet with Jacob Soy, her business manager. She lived and conducted business in a sprawling Antebellum mansion, bleached so white it probably set off painful race memories in any black person who got within a hundred yards. Not that Jason cared. He liked that beautiful things like that were still around. And as long as they were around, someone with more money than sense might as well live there.

No, what pissed him off was that he was on time, tie tied, breath mint melting on his tongue, and three times he’d hit the intercom, three times been told to wait, and three times been forgotten about until he hit the intercom again.

It got to the point where Jason felt bad about the environment, idling in his car outside the car, contributing nothing to the world but carbon dioxide.

So, engine off and still waiting, Jason picked up his tablet and went over the life and times of Bettie Page once more.

She was one of those celebrities he’d missed out on by being thirty years old. Started acting at age eleven, if you didn’t count school plays. Starred in kid shows, Mickey Mouse Club for zoomers, then the precocious little sister on one of those teen shows about twenty-somethings in high school having sex because they were so darn pretty. Then she was the main girl in a horror movie. One of those endless sequels about rednecks being zombies and torturing people because of grief or trauma or something. Both her characters were fan favorites. She was one of the 20 Under 20. Invited to the MTV Movie Awards and everything.

She was inbetween filming a bit part in a Scorsese movie (note to self, Jason thought, Jesus) and promoting her new album when it all went sideways. Driving a car way too fast with way too many drugs in her system. At least, the wrong kinds of drugs. Judging from the amount of ‘concerned friends’ who gave interviews about her to TMZ, she needed Thorazine more than cocaine. But then, who didn’t?

Skip ahead two years. She’d done a stint in rehab, a year in college before she decided it ‘wasn’t for her’ (as Kimmel and Fallon dutifully joked about), then traveling abroad, only seen through her Instagram account. Which actually clawed her back a following. She made for a serviceable travel writer and people seemed to enjoy knowing that she was doing alright, taking photographs of Costa Rica and breathlessly extoling the restaurants she ate at and the people she talked to.

Someone had reached out to her and she’d started doing video diaries as a segment for The Drew Barrymore Show. She’d looked good. No more overplucked eyebrows, no more anorexia ribs, just a winsome, good-looking girl recently turned twenty, talking about how sushi was made (or, well, not made—it being raw fish) like it was the grooviest thing she’d ever heard of.

Pretty soon talk started about her making a comeback. Bettie played coy: only if it was the right script, the right director, blah blah. Some Hollywood agent had seen an opening, linked her up with a whiz kid horror phenom, and together they’d made a low-budget movie about the ghost of a giant monster.

Jason could appreciate the deftness of the move. The combination of a nifty little creature feature and Bettie Page’s ‘return to horror’ made for a box office smash. All the old fans were back and they brought plenty of friends, happy to see a child actor that had turned out okay for once. She’d done the Swimsuit Issue… although Jason didn’t think one in five men would call what she wore a swimsuit… and was now kicking around ideas for a new album while mulling over her next movie project.

On the surface, a perfect comeback story. Kid who grew up, lost her way, then pulled it all together. Dreams come true. Jason might be a cynic, but what he read between the lines was a girl who had to succeed, had to prove herself, or she went back to being seen as a failure. It meant she’d be fraught, unpredictable. At the very least, she didn’t have her shit together, as evidenced by the fact that she’d bought Stately Wayne Manor with her points on the back end but didn’t have staff who knew how to buzz open the gate.