Chapter 23 All Out for Love
TWENTY-THREE
ALL OUT FOR LOVE
By the time we got to Jinx’s to pick her up that night, I felt like I’d been through multiple proverbial battlefields.
It started shortly after Linda sat down with her margaritas, which was when Bill got home from work and noticed we were talking weddings.
First, we got an earful because we were talking weddings without him.
Then we had to go through the repeated sitch of Bill not being a fan of sharing the wedding planning of his dear friends with a stranger with a crewcut.
This was smoothed out around the time Gabe texted, Stay put. Sorted with the parents for 2nite.
He texted this because my text shared that I had time to have dinner with our parents, but with the Jinx thing, not a lot of it, thus we needed to figure that out.
Since I was neck deep in fabric swatches and floral ideas, I was down with Gabe seeing to that.
Not to mention, of course Gabe was that guy who noted a couple’s sitch with their evening plans needed to be sorted, and he just sorted it.
Oh yeah, I was so down with that.
Until I figured out what “sorted with the parents” meant.
That being, half an hour after Bill got home, Mom, Robbie, Mike and Shelby showed at the Oasis (I was right, Mike chucked the button-down, and he was in a tee that once, I guessed, was the Colorado state flag, but now was so faded, I couldn’t be sure).
And five minutes after that, Gabe showed carrying six massive boxes of pizza, a six pack on top, with Cap following him carrying two more six packs.
This would not be bad, per se, since the Oasis was always up for a party, I had a life vow never to say no to pizza, Mom and Robbie weren’t strangers to the ways of the Oasis, and Gabe and I were still at warp speed, so might as well introduce Mike and Shelby to it.
It went off the rails when I belatedly realized I should have set the scrapbooks out of sight.
Mom got hold of mine, she lost her mind with delight that Gabe and I had a wedding scrapbook (and she approved of the periwinkle), but Robbie, Mike and Shelby showed concerns about this particular indication of warp speed.
Cap took them aside to explain Tod’s wedding obsession.
They appeared to be mollified after that, but only slightly.
Then Tod let slip about the Jinx thing, and Mom decided instantly to come along. Even Shelby seemed interested.
The words “pretty woman” became a verb, and they were all into pretty woman Jinx.
Thus commenced Raye, Luna and I talking them down, which wasn’t easy, but we finally won when I said, “Listen, Jinx is already feeling insecure about this, she’s scared, and she doesn’t need a bunch of strangers, however well-intentioned, to flip her out even more.”
They saw the wisdom of this.
Though, Mom, all teary-eyed, grabbed my hand and said, “I love my girl is going all out for love.”
Considering the double meaning of this, I got teary-eyed too. So did Alexis. And Linda. And Bill. Also Tod.
Jessie and Harlow showed (which meant Eric and Javi showed), then Joey and Gemma showed, and when the time came, those of us with men gave them kisses, there were additional hugs, and the Angels piled into cars to go to the storage unit to switch out to our undercover cars.
And we headed to Jinx’s.
I wasn’t entirely certain how she did it, considering her income was illegal and therefore she probably didn’t report it to the IRS, so she couldn’t report it to a mortgage company.
But Jinx owned her little house that was much like Duane’s except the people in the neighborhood cared, so the houses and yards were well-kept, and there was even some Halloween décor that was up.
Jinx’s house was well-kept too, and as we trooped up to the front door, we all paused to stare at the trio of cute ghosts sitting beside her front stoop, one of them holding a sign that said Boo to You.
“Would you peg Jinx as a cutesy Halloween sign person?” Luna whispered.
“Not even a little,” Jessie whispered back.
Raye knocked on the door.
Jinx opened it.
She then promptly announced, “Not gonna happen, gringas,” and tried to shut the door.
There was a kerfuffle as we forced our way in. I didn’t speak Spanish, but I had a feeling much of what came out of Jinx’s mouth during this hubbub were curse words.
She could curse all she wanted, even though she was wily and street-smart, there were eight of us, so she didn’t stand a chance.
Though, she almost slipped away when we got inside, and we all saw butter-yellow walls, a wicker chair and coffee table, a comfy white couch covered in a traditional blanket and banked with interesting toss pillows, a fabulous, fringed rug over the wood floors, and Mexican accents hanging on the walls and sitting in a corner curio cabinet.
It wasn’t that we’d think Jinx would live in a dump.
It was just that she had a flare for welcoming comfort with a twist of pride in her culture mingled with a hint of femininity that was super freaking cool.
But we got over our admiration.
And now we were in that living room, Jinx was in her wicker chair, Luna was behind it, squeezing her shoulders like she was Jinx’s trainer and Jinx was facing a heavyweight bout, and Raye was sitting on the coffee table in front of Jinx giving a pep talk.
“You deserve this,” Raye said. “You’re kind and salty and pretty and funny and smart. He sees all of that. He sees you, Jinx.”
Jinx was zoned out with anxiety, so I wasn’t sure a single word penetrated.
“Jinx, you’re one of the strongest people I know, you can do this,” Raye told her.
“I wanted to be a schoolteacher. For the real little kids. Like Barbara Howard, without the pearls and singing in the church choir. I got a shit voice,” Jinx blurted.
We all stood still and silent because Jinx never ever shared.
At least, not this deep.
Jinx kept talking
“Papá got sick, and Mamá was working so hard. All the kids had to help. I don’t know how it happened.
My brother and sister got in with some bad guys.
I tried to get them out, and I got sucked in.
Papá and Mamá were so sad and so upset at us, and they were rundown, and there was hardly enough money to eat, much less send me to college.
I got out of that mess, my brother got dead in that mess, my sister got stuck in it, but I had to feed myself.
I had a rap sheet by then, no one wanted to hire me, and this is all I could do.
” She shook her head. “This is all I knew how to do.”
Part of me wished she still hadn’t shared, because that tale of woe was seriously woeful, and I hated that was her life.
Even so, I was honored she gave it to us.
“And you did what you had to do so you could eat,” Jessie told her and flicked a hand out to indicate the space. “Then you got yourself a nice place, built yourself a life. You’re not strung out and forced into this, giving a take to some guy who has you under his thumb. You’re your own woman.”
“I sell sex,” Jinx said bitterly.
“So?” Luna asked, giving up on the shoulder rub and coming around the chair to get face to face. “You aren’t the first, you won’t be the last. You did what you had to do, and if anyone judges it, fuck ’em.”
Jinx was blurting again. “He was bored.”
She was talking about Noah now.
We were all so keen to hear about Noah, we shut up.
“That’s what he said,” Jinx went on. “I was the first whore he slept with because he said he was so sick of the women he met. He was so sick of how obsessed they were about their hair and bodies and buying designer shit and doing everything every influencer told them to do. He said he felt like he was a walking stack of cash they wanted to lay claim to. He said the sex was mierda. Like they were doing it for a camera, waiting for their closeup.”
Well, that had to suck.
Jinx kept going.
“He said all the men he knew were boring. The parties he went to were boring. The restaurants he went to were boring. And he could see a life ahead of him with a woman whose reason for being was taking off her baby weight and competing with her friends for the most pimped-out Christmas tree. And the only thing he had to look forward to was a round of golf with a trio of tedious men who were his only friends.”
We were now all struck silent because it was clear Noah shared a lot.
Seriously, he was so totally in love with her.
“And he hates golf,” Jinx finished.
Yep.
He’d shared a lot.
And he was so totally in love with her.
“So he decided to take a walk on the wild side,” Joey said quietly. “And found you.”
“Yeah,” Jinx confirmed. “He said he was searching for real.”
“Well, sis, you’re as real as it gets,” Shanti replied.
“Okay, so what happens when he decides he’s done taking that walk and real ain’t all that fun when she’s in his kitchen with ratty hair making toast?” Jinx asked.
“Uh, from what you just said, I’m thinking he’s got the wild in him, Jinx, and he needs a partner to keep life interesting,” Gem replied.
“So what’s he gonna tell his friends about me?” Jinx asked.
“Sounds like he doesn’t give much of a shit what his friends think,” Raye answered.
She shook her head. “I can’t hope. Papá died.
Mamá was so damned tired and sad, about losing him, about what became of me and my brother and sister, only a few years later, she followed him.
My sister is a junkie. She’s messed up. And I’m twenty-eight and been making a living on my back since I was nineteen. ”
She was my age and didn’t look older, but she acted a lot older.
A whole lot older.
That made my heart hurt (more) for her.
Further blurting came from Jinx.
“I come for him.”
We all exchanged glances.
“No, he puts the work in to make me come,” she amended. “Every time. Even the first time. I’d never gotten off with a guy before Noah. Sure as fuck no clients put in that effort.”
Oh my God.
She sooooo had to give this a shot.
“Listen,” Harlow said, sitting down beside Raye. “If you don’t want to do this. If it’s too much for you. You don’t have to do this.”