The Return of Jonah Gray Read online

  I was smiling by then. I liked that he seemed content to let the conversation wander. Clearly, he wasn’t an efficiency-minded drone who immediately saw to his business and then hung up.

  “Me, I like manatees,” I offered.

  “I’m sorry, Jeffrine,” Jonah Gray said. “I think I interrupted you back there. I realize I don’t know what you’re calling about. Do I know you?”

  “Uh, no,” I admitted. I was embarrassed by my manatee confession. What had I been thinking? Why would I tell anyone that? “I’m calling from the Internal Revenue Service,” I said.

  I felt the cold begin to seep through the line in the pause that followed.

  “Hello?” I said.

  “Yes,” he said. “I received a letter from a Ms. Gardner. Apparently she’s auditing me. You know her?”

  “Gardner?” I asked.

  “Sasha Gardner. There can’t be too many auditors with that name.”

  “Yeah. She’s, uh, she works in this office.”

  “Should I be scared?” he asked. “Don’t tell me—I got the worst one. It would be just my luck to get the worst one.”

  “No,” I said, too quickly. “Sasha’s fine. Actually, she’s nice. And fair. And smart. You know, she’s a person like anyone else. Just because she’s an auditor doesn’t mean she can’t have nice, normal relationships.” As opposed to Jeffrine, I thought, wincing. Apparently Jeffrine was a manatee-loving misfit.

  “I shouldn’t have been so judgmental,” Jonah Gray said. “I try not to be. I guess her letter just arrived at the wrong time. But I trust you, Jeffrine. You’ve gotta trust a person who likes a sea-cow.”

  I smiled. “So you did get her letter. That’s good. Well, not for you, I guess.” Of course he’d received the letter. It was posted on his Web site. But Jeffrine might not know that, I reminded myself.

  “No, not for me,” he agreed.

  “At least we know the postal system is working!” I hoped that Cliff, in the adjoining cubicle, couldn’t hear me sound like a simpleton.

  “To what do I owe the pleasure of this call, Jeffrine?” Jonah asked. “Are you just confirming that I received the notice? Because I received it. Did I ever.”

  “Oh, right. No. Not exactly. Actually, I’m calling to request another copy of your tax return,” I said. “A photocopy would be fine.”

  There was a pause and then, “Why?” he asked. There it was, his journalism background revealing itself. The ferreting. The curiosity.

  “Just standard protocol,” I said. I hoped that sounded official. I had decided on that phrase over lunch.

  “Can’t you make a copy? You must have my return somewhere in your offices. Go ask the infamous Sasha Gardner.”

  “Have you ever been audited before?” I asked, though I knew that he hadn’t.

  “No,” he said. He sighed. “This is going to be a real chore, isn’t it? Everyone’s been telling me what I’m in for. I guess I didn’t realize it would begin so soon. Where should I send it?”

  I was relieved. “You can send it to me. The same address that was on the letter you received. The Oakland district office.”

  “And you said your last name was Hill?”

  “On second thought, send it to my boss. Sasha—”

  “Gardner. I know. So, does she live up to her name?” he asked.

  “I’m not sure what you mean.”

  “Oh, you know, when I hear Sasha, I think—”

  “A Russian boy,” I cut in.

  “Well, Russian, at least.”

  “I don’t think that’s her background,” I said. “I once heard her mention that she was part gypsy.”

  “And of course, when I hear Gardner, I think—”

  “Gardening,” I finished. Based on my last name alone, everyone expected me to love the feel of dirt beneath my nails. I enjoyed the outdoors, and I had as much affection for trees and grass and other flora as the next person, but gardening to me had always seemed like a lot of effort for little reward. Of course, I wasn’t going to tell Jonah that.

  I heard him pause. “You know, that’s a common misperception. Actually, the surname Gardner comes from a different root,” he said.

  “It does?”

  “Don’t sound so surprised, Jeffrine,” he said. “There’s no reason you should have known that.”

  “Right,” I said.

  “Most scholars think the surname Gardner comes from the Saxon for battle cry. I guess I wanted to know whether she was a fighter, a real warrior princess.”

  “It’s not from gardening?” I repeated. “How strange. I always assumed it was.” I wondered whether my father knew that.

  “Like I said, it’s a common misperception.”

  “Huh.”

  “So, is she?” he asked.

  “A fighter? Not professionally. But she looks scrappy.”

  He laughed. It was a wonderful sound. “I’ll send a copy of my return out tomorrow morning.”

  “Great. That’s great. Thanks.”

  “Anything else?” he asked.

  I wanted to say yes. I wanted to ask what had happened in his life, what had happened when he went to live with the father he’d never known. I wanted to ask why he’d left everything behind, left Tiburon, the Catalina, the Wall Street Journal. I wanted to ask him so many things.

  “No, that’s it,” I said. I heard disappointment in my voice.

  “I must say it’s been an unexpected pleasure chatting with you, Jeffrine. Give a holler if you need anything else.”

  Chapter Nine

  TWO AFTERNOONS LATER, I WAS ON THE PHONE WITH Martina, who’d been unable to make my parents’ anniversary party. After two months of waiting, she had finally been assigned to a new account—something to do with beef jerky—and had spent the weekend at a brainstorming retreat. I took great pleasure in pointing out that forty-eight hours of thinking up new approaches to dried meat made my job look almost normal.

  Martina and I were discussing where to meet for happy hour. The Escape Room was closed for fumigation, and Martina had suggested that we meet nearer to her work, at someplace called the Ball Bar.

  “I’ve never been in, but one of my colleagues thinks it’s a sports bar. She thinks this because of the name.”

  “What do you think it refers to? Testes?” I asked this at the same moment I noticed Jeff Hill waiting at the entrance of my cubicle.

  He waved.

  I cringed. I covered the mouthpiece. “I’ll be right with you,” I whispered.

  “Take your time,” he said.

  “Who are you talking to?” Martina asked.

  I lowered my voice to barely audible. “New guy,” I said.

  “I can’t hear you,” she said. “Your mother is right. You don’t enunciate.”

  “Did you watch the news last night?” I asked. “Did you see the story about that guy?”

  “Oh, there’s someone there,” she said. “A news guy?”

  “New,” I said.

  “Oh, new guy. The new guy is right there. Am I right?” She sounded pleased with herself.

  I looked up again. Jeff was leaning against the gray-beige supports that stood in for walls. He was tall enough to enjoy an uninterrupted view across the entire sea of cubicles. He gave me a little smile, then pulled a brochure off the top of my bookshelf.

  “You got it,” I told Martina.

  “Is he cute?”

  I glanced at Jeff out of the corner of my eye, hoping that he wouldn’t notice the once-over.

  “Fine,” I said.

  “Fine like okay, or fine like ‘damn, he’s fine’?”

  I looked again and considered the adjectives I might use for him. I felt certain that he’d catch on if I tried to work obsessive and compulsive into a sentence.

  I covered the handset again. “Is it important?” I asked Jeff.

  He shook his head. “Take your time,” he said.

  “Somewhere in between,” I said to Martina.

  “Is he standing r
ight there?” she asked.

  “Pretty much.”

  By that point I’d grown self-conscious. I didn’t think that Jeff was listening intently to everything I said, but the conversation was no longer private. He’d overheard things before.

  “I got the address. I’ll catch up with you there,” I told Martina.

  “Ball Bar,” she said. “Not to be confused with the Sac Shack.” She was laughing at her joke as she hung up.

  “Sorry about that,” I said to Jeff. “I was on the phone.”

  “So I saw,” he said.

  I waited for him to continue, but he didn’t. I looked around and shrugged. “Did you need something in particular? Can I help you with something?”

  “Oh, no,” he said. “I was just on your floor, so I thought I’d drop by and say hello. I guess you’re going out tonight?”

  “Yeah. With a girlfriend of mine.”

  “Is the Ball Bar a favorite of yours?”

  “You know, I’ve never been,” I said.

  “You’ll have to tell me how it is.” He gave me a little wave and left.

  Normally, I’d have been gone by five-thirty. But Martina didn’t work government hours, so I dawdled, adding a little mascara and messing with my hair in the bathroom before returning to my cubicle for the rest of my things.

  I could hear my phone ringing while I was still in the hallway, and I broke into a run to try to catch it in time. I fully expected it to be Martina, telling me that she was running late. I hated to sit at bars by myself, curled like a shrimp with my back to everyone else, waiting, fake smiling if I did make eye contact, bringing a book with me so that I’d have something to disappear into. A book to a bar? No wonder I’m still single, my mother would have said.

  When I reached my cubicle, I lunged across my desk for the phone, knocking over a mug of pens and stack of Post-it pads.

  “Sasha Gardner!” I said. It came out as a desperate almost yelp.

  It wasn’t Martina. In fact, the voice on the phone wasn’t one I recognized.

  “Why?” a man asked.

  “Why?” I repeated. “Why what?”

  “Why do this to the poor guy? He’s been through so much, and now this.”

  “You know, I’m not the worst thing that could happen to Mr. Gray,” I said. “I’m not some heartless—”

  “You know how I met Jonah?” the man asked, cutting me off.

  “How?” I settled into my chair.

  “We were both in San Francisco. I was growing all these cacti. Now, those are succulents. They can’t do with too much water.”

  “I know what a cactus is,” I said.

  “Well, it was raining like the dickens, and the building starts leaking all to hell, pouring down on my poor plants, only I was gone, see? I was out of town.”

  “Okay.”

  “So the water proceeds to leak through to the condo below. Turns out, that’s where Jonah lived. He comes up to my place, figures out what’s going on, that I’m out of town but those cacti are in there, and you know what he did? Do you know?”

  “He cleaned up?”

  “No, lady. He didn’t just clean up. He spent all afternoon shuttling my plants into a dry room and turning on heat lamps. Even before he got his own place straightened out. And cacti, often they got these thorns.”

  “I know what cacti are like,” I said. “Listen, I appreciate the story. I get that he’s a good guy. But these audits are random. It’s not personal.”

  “See, that’s where you’re wrong,” the man said. “Everything you do in life is personal.”

  “Don’t worry about it,” Martina said. “Drink your beer.”

  “They keep on calling,” I told her. “It’s amazing how protective they are of him. I hate that they all think I’m the bad guy. I’m not the bad guy.”

  “You work at the Internal Revenue Service,” Martina said. “Since when do you care what people think of you?”

  “I don’t know. Since now, I guess. I’m getting tired of it. I want to be out in the world.”

  “So quit. Go out into the world.”

  I froze. “Nah,” I finally managed to say.

  “No?”

  “What else would I do?”

  Martina frowned. “Anything, Sasha. Be an accountant somewhere else. Or not. Do something totally unrelated.”

  “Now doesn’t seem like the best time.”

  “You say that every time we have this conversation.”

  “Have we had this conversation before?” I asked. I honestly couldn’t remember.

  Martina rolled her eyes and set her drink on the bar. “So tell me more about that new guy, the one who was in your office when I called.”

  I thought of Jeff Hill and wondered what Martina would make of him. “He’s nice. He collects bugs. He’s pretty serious. Unlike my audit. Did I mention how I was sitting alone in my cubicle, reading this article he wrote and totally cracking up—”

  “Is he cute?” Martina asked me.

  “He’s tall and thin,” I said.

  “How on earth would you know that someone was thin from a tax return?” Martina asked. “God, don’t tell me that you people are starting to ask for height and weight. As if the government didn’t get personal enough.”

  “I was talking about Jeff Hill,” I explained. “You’ll recall that Jonah Gray lives in the geographically undesirable city of Stockton and I’ve never met him. I don’t know if he’s thin or tall.”

  “You sure seem obsessed by this audit. Way more than usual. I think you like him. And hey, didn’t I say I thought you’d be a good match? Can I get some credit here? Wait, are you guys secretly dating?” Now she was interested.

  “How did you get all the way to dating? I’ve talked to the man on the phone once. I actually told him that I like manatees.”

  Martina shook her head. “Why do you insist on making things so hard on yourself socially?”

  “He started it with whales. And he’s interesting. He had a great life that he up and walked away from.”

  “Was it some scandal? Now that would be interesting.”

  I shook my head. “I don’t think so. He’s a quality guy. I mean, I think he is. I’m pretty sure he is. I feel like we connect on some level.”

  Martina’s eyes went wide. “I was right. You do like him!”

  “I don’t even know him. It’s crazy, right?”

  “No, you like him. You never say that shit about connecting.”

  It was true. I’d rarely been drawn to someone the way I found myself drawn to Jonah Gray. But why not? What was it—about Gene or any other guy—that hadn’t drawn me in? Why was it so hard to find someone I felt at home with? I’d always believed that there was something less complacent about me, something that held out for more, if only I could find it. But when I heard Jeff Hill brag about memorizing Social Security number origins, I had begun to realize that maybe I was part of the problem.

  Maybe I wasn’t drop-dead gorgeous, but I was pretty enough to get hit on regularly and asked out by the smaller subset of guys who weren’t repelled by my job. And anyway, there were plenty of average-looking people out there who had found someone willing to go the distance with them. Hell, the entire world was full of average-looking people—even actively unattractive people—who’d found someone to sleep beside and debate paint colors with and read the newspaper aloud to.

  It’s not like I couldn’t find someone, I reminded myself. I’d found Gene (or rather, my mother had), and he’d been willing to read the newspaper with me on Sunday mornings. But he hadn’t found me.

  “I know it sounds cheesy,” I said, “but I always find myself envying those couples that go around wearing matching track suits.”

  “Painfully cheesy,” Martina agreed.

  “But they’re such a set. I’ve never felt like I’ve matched anyone to that extent.”

  “There you go, assuming that togetherness like that is always positive. Those couples remind me of trees that have gro
wn all tangled together. You know how, in the spring, that tree in my yard looks like it has two types of flowers?”

  “I like that tree,” I said.

  Martina rolled her eyes. “Well, it only looks like that because some moron planted two different trees way too close. Now they’re all pressed up against each other and their roots are tangled. It’s not healthy. For plants or people.”

  “Maybe everything would have been easier if I’d just stuck with Gene,” I said. “I wouldn’t be here, wondering whether I’m crazy and broken and destined to be alone.”

  “We’re back to Gene? Gene drove you crazy.”

  “Maybe I just didn’t give him enough time. Maybe I didn’t give us enough time. Maybe we could have grown together and we’d be wearing matching track suits right now. Don’t you ever wonder whether there was someone you would have done that with, but you broke up with him too soon?”

  Martina frowned. “Me in a matching track suit? I don’t think so.”

  Chapter Ten

  MAYBE IT WAS THE CONVERSATION IN THE BALL BAR OR maybe I was just impatient. The next day, I called him again.

  “Jonah Gray,” he answered, there at work at the Stockton Star.

  “Hi, I called you a couple of days ago. My name is—”

  “Jeffrine,” he said. “I recognize your voice.”

  “You do? Right. I guess you must have.”

  “What can I do for you, Jeffrine?”

  “I just wanted to double-check that you’d sent—”

  “Oh, I sent it.”

  “Because it hasn’t shown up yet. But it’s probably stuck in our processing center.”

  “I imagine you get a lot of mail over there. The IRS probably doesn’t rent the smallest post office box.”

  “I think we probably rent the post office,” I agreed. “By the way, I read one of your articles. In the Star,” I said.

  “You did, did you? Mind if I ask which one?”

  I had reviewed them all at that point, so I just chose at random. “The one about the kids spray-painting those poor cows.”

  He laughed. “You read that? You must have been doing your homework. Soon, you’re going to know all my secrets.”