“Okay,” Jake said, wondering what this was about. “Thank you for the information.”
“Would you like me to connect you?” she asked.
“Uh ... sure,” Jake said. “That would be cool.” He recited the area code and number for her.
The phone beeped and booped in his ear for a moment and then began to ring. It was picked up on the second ring and his sister’s voice spoke. “Pauline Kingsley.”
“Hey, Paulie,” Jake said. “It’s me. Just got your message. What’s up?”
“Hey, little bro,” she said. “How goes the skiing?”
“It’s a little painful at times,” he admitted. “A lot of fun though.”
“Maybe I’ll give it a try one of these days,” she said. “Obie used to be into it back in the days before me, but he lost interest after breaking his leg and his arm in Aspen.”
“I can see how that would dissuade one,” Jake said. “Anyway, what’s up? Do we have new shit hitting the fan, or do you have some good news for me?”
“I’m not exactly sure what kind of news this is,” she said. “Is Teach there?”
“Yeah, she’s in the other room changing. We just got back from the slopes.” The fact that what she was changing into was her birthday suit, he did not mention.
“I fielded a call earlier today at the studio,” she said. “It was from a gentleman by the name of Joseph Best ... the second.”
“Joseph Best the second?” Jake said, pondering that. Best was Laura’s maiden name. Joseph Best, he had been told a few times during their relationship with each other, was the name of her father, the staunch, conservative, rigidly orthodox Mormon who had disowned her back when she had taken up residence with Phil and stopped contributing ten percent of her meager income to the tithe. Joseph Best II would have to be one of her two brothers, likely the oldest, the one who she had once told him had not moved to Los Angeles from Idaho with the rest of the family and was not in a state of grace with the rest of the Bests for reasons that were never explained to him.
“He says he’s Teach’s oldest brother,” Pauline confirmed for him.
“What does he want?” Jake asked carefully.
“To speak to her,” she said. “He gave me no details as to what it was about, only that it was important.”
“I see,” Jake said slowly, his mind automatically going to the worst-case scenario. There must be a death or an impending death in her family. Why else would the man suddenly make contact after all these years of silence? He sighed as he thought about this, wondering how it was going to change their plans; specifically, their immediate-term plan of getting laid and their intermediate-term plan of continuing their much-needed vacation. True, Laura had not spoken to anyone in her family in years—they most certainly did not approve of her choice of husband and the lifestyle she lived with him—but family was family and they inherently had plan-derailing power. “Did he give a number he could be reached at?”
“He did,” Pauline said. “Do you have something to write with?”
“I do,” Jake said, picking up a pen from the writing desk and pulling the little complimentary tablet over. “Fire away.”
She read off a number that started with area code 208. He wrote it down and then read it back to her to confirm he had written it down correctly.
“All right,” he told his sister. “I’ll give her the message.”
“Let me know if there’s anything I need to do or if there is any help I can offer,” Pauline said. She had obviously gone to worst-case scenario as well.
“Will do,” he told her. “Talk to you later.”
He hung up the phone and then turned back toward the bedroom. A moment later, Laura emerged from the bathroom. She was now dressed in the aforementioned birthday suit and looked like she was quite ready to put Part A into Slot B. Jake felt the familiar tingle of arousal he always got when he looked at her in such a state. Though the bruise on her hip was purple and brown and dark blue and it was roughly the size and shape of the surface of a clothes iron, though she had a scattering of other bruises on her arms and legs, though her hair was in complete disarray from being worn under a ski helmet all day, she was still able to get his motor running. He considered whether or not it would be a marital faux pas to tell her about the call from her brother after they fucked, but she inadvertently beat him to the punch.
“What was the message about?” she asked.
“Uh ... well ... it was from your ... uh ... your brother,” he said.
Her eyes widened a bit. “My brother?” she asked. “Which one?”
“Joseph Best the second,” Jake said.
“Joey called me?” she asked, alarm starting to appear now. It seemed she was going worst-case scenario as well. “Did he say what he wanted?”
“I didn’t talk to him,” Jake said. “The message was from Paulie to let us know he wanted to talk to you. He left his number.”
“She has no idea what this is about?”
“No,” he said. “Just that he wants you to call him. The number has the Idaho area code.”
“He still lives in Pocatello where we grew up,” she said. “The last I heard from my mom he was still working for the city driving a garbage truck.”
“A garbage truck?” Jake asked.
“Somebody has to drive the garbage trucks,” she said. “He got the job way back in the late seventies, back when ... uh ... well...”
“Back when what?” Jake asked.
She sighed. “Back when he got his girlfriend pregnant and had to cancel his mission for the church and find a job to support them,” she said slowly, a clear expression of familial shame on her face.
“Wow,” Jake said. “That shit is kind of frowned upon by Mormons, isn’t it?”
“To put it lightly,” she said. “Mom and Dad didn’t disown him like they’ve done to me, but they never let him forget that he brought shame to the family. I don’t know for sure, but I strongly suspect the scandal is a big part of why Mom and Dad packed us up and moved us to Los Angeles. We did that about two months after the baby was born.”
“And your brother stayed behind,” Jake said, trying to wrap his mind around the story.
“He did,” she said. “Dad made it pretty clear that he wanted Joey and Sarah and Brian—that’s my nephew’s name—to stay behind. And so, they did. He and Sarah got married and got a place of their own and started their own life. Mom and Dad have stayed in touch with him over the years, but only on the phone, and usually only to berate him about how he turned out and to tell him he will never be allowed admission into the Kingdom of Heaven. None of us have been back to Pocatello since, and he’s never visited us in Los Angeles. I haven’t seen Brian since he was a tiny baby. He has to be—God, nearly twenty years old now. And they have two other kids too. I’ve never even met them at all.”
“All this because he knocked up some chick back when he was ... what, twenty years old himself?”
“He was nineteen then,” Laura said. “And Sarah was eighteen, just graduated high school. She was the daughter of the Bishop of our ward. The Bishop stepped down after it became known that Sarah was pregnant. He and the entire family disowned her. As far as I know, they’ve never spoken to her again. As for my family, we were forbidden to talk about Joey to anyone in the Los Angeles ward or even at school. Mom and Dad have lived in constant fear that the new ward would find out about him and the whole thing would start over again. At least ... they used to worry about it until I started being mentioned in the papers for living in sin with you. I’m pretty sure their shame of me overrode their shame of Joey.”
“Wow,” Jake said again, shaking his head. “This is a level of intolerance that I cannot even begin to wrap my mind around. Do your people really believe that disowning family just because they dipped their wick and a little miracle happened is what God wants?”