Chapter 50 – Josie
chapter
fifty
Josie
My mother was in Zurich. She’d been there all week for work. How had I forgotten that?
I’d missed her damn call while I was in Principles of Marketing. I’d considered ditching, but Kimmy had said baddies don’t skip class over a boy, and I figured she was right.
I saw Mom’s voicemail on my walk back to the apartment.
Hey, baby, it’s Mama. I’m probably elbow-deep in Kane’s quarterlies, so leave a message, and I’ll call you back when I surface for air.
My throat tightened at the sound of her voice. I called three times because I needed to actually talk to her. Every call went to voicemail, and we were officially playing phone tag.
I slid down to the kitchen floor, back against the cabinets, knees to my chest, and called a fourth time. I left a message this time, kept my voice level, said I just wanted to talk, and that it wasn’t urgent. Call me when you get a chance, Mama. I love you.
Then I stared at the water stain on the ceiling and waited.
The phone rang minutes later.
Mom flashed across the screen. I grabbed for the phone so fast I dropped the damn thing.
“Baby?” she said. “You only call four times when something’s wrong. Talk to me.”
I’d been careful for four days, keeping meals to whatever I could eat standing up, not crying anywhere anyone could see it. If you’d asked, I’d have said I was fine.
“Are you okay?” I asked. “Has anyone from the Kane office called you? Has Dalton said anything about your job?”
“Josie.” Her voice dropped to the tone she used right before she tore into somebody. “What on earth are you talking about?”
“Marcus.” My voice wavered, but I kept going. “I broke up with him, and he said you were going to lose your job. He swore Dalton would cut you loose by the end of the week.” Then I told her the rest.
She didn’t interrupt. When I finished, I braced for her to ask why I’d been so careless.
She laughed, the real laugh that comes up out of her chest when somebody’s said something stupid enough to be funny.
“Dalton Kane,” she said, “can kiss my Black ass.”
I blinked. “What?”
“I’ve been his CPA for years, Josephine.
I know where every body is buried—financially, and in a couple of cases, not entirely figuratively.
He messed with your future, so I’m going to talk to him.
I’m not worried about my job. What can he do, fire me?
I’d quit, go somewhere that pays more, and leave him to train my replacement himself.
He’d be screwed. Let me do the worrying.
Don’t let that narcissistic pissant mess with your head. ”
She wasn’t scared or worried at all. The floor was cold through my leggings.
“You’re not worried?” I said. “You’re okay?”
“I have never been more okay. What’s the line from that movie. ‘You can’t bullshit a bullshitter.’” Her voice softened. “My job was never in danger, baby. As good as I am, I’m basically Teflon. He can’t afford to lose me, and he knows it. Whatever Marcus told you was bullshit.”
For three years, I’d always been a little afraid of Marcus. How was she not afraid? I’d been scared enough that I’d left Waylon to keep her safe.
A tear hit the back of my hand, then another.
“Josie,” Mom said. “Talk to me. Tell me what’s actually going on.”
It can’t actually hurt.
So I told her about falling in love with Waylon, how annoying he was and how he always called me Flash, and how I’d walked away.
I told her the truth about Marcus, not the trimmed-down version. Everything. Three years of getting worn down so slowly I hadn’t felt it happening, the bruises, the way he said my name like he was correcting me, the way he pressured me for sex.
She was quiet for a while after I ran out of words. “Marcus Kane did all that to you,” she said, “and then he used me to make sure you’d stay. That’s what happened. You hear me? None of this is your fault.”
The tears flowed freely. “It feels like it is. I believed him.”
“You believed him because he trained you to. That’s not you being weak, Josie. That’s the whole point of him. That’s the job he was doing. But you’re going to hear me now.”
“I’m listening.”
“Then hear me. You don’t have to make yourself small for him anymore.”
I held the phone tighter.
“He needed you to believe everything was your fault. If you thought you ruined everything, you’d spend all your time fixing yourself instead of looking at what he was doing. That’s how he kept you scared. That’s how he kept you from walking away.”
“I’ve done my job for nine years without you protecting me,” she said. “I was fine. I was always fine. You were scared, baby, and he made damn sure you stayed that way. That’s not the same as protecting me.”
I pressed my fist to my mouth.
I’d ended something good to keep Mama safe, and she’d never been in danger. Marcus had made sure I never saw that. She didn’t need protecting. She was the one who had something on him, and I’d had it backward the entire time.
“He made me believe I was the problem.” My voice cracked. This time, I didn’t care.
“I know he did. You are not the problem, Josephine. You never were.”
I sat on the cold floor with the phone against my ear and cried the way I hadn’t let myself in years, loud and messy, without worrying about who might hear.
She stayed on the line and didn’t once tell me to stop.
When I’d wound down, she said, “This boy. The hockey player.”
“Yeah.”
“You ended it to protect him.”
“Yeah.”
“Do you love him?”
I shut my eyes and saw his dimples, the way he’d called me Flash that first day, the way he’d held me through the storm and listened when I talked about Marcus, the way his whole voice changed when he talked to his mother. Mostly, I remembered how safe I’d felt with him.
I already knew the answer.
“Yes,” I said.
“Then quit protecting him from something that was never your fault,” she said, “and go get him. That’s what you do, Josie. You go fix it.”