The Other Half

  Copyright 2018 © by Jess Whitecroft

  All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  Cover photography by oneinchpunch and Imran's Photography, licensed by Shutterstock.

  The Other Half

  by

  Jess Whitecroft

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  Chapters

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Epilogue

  Also by the same author

  1

  Jody

  It was when they busted out the barbecue sauce that I knew shit was way out of hand.

  One minute I’m doing a slow grind to Black Velvet on the table and the next I’m balls naked on the bar room floor with a bridesmaid squeezing Sweet Baby Ray’s all over my dick.

  “She loooves barbecue…Madison! Madison, get your ass over here!”

  I try to get up, but a bolt of pain shoots across my back and round my side. “Wait,” I say. “I think I broke a rib.”

  “I got your ribs right here, sweet thing,” says the bridesmaid, giving me another dose of the sauce, on the belly this time. Next thing I know someone has grabbed the bride. “Get down, girl! It’s your last fling!”

  The bride lands on her hands and knees astride me. She’s blonde and slim and under different circumstances I might have found her attractive, but right now she just looked mortified. She meets my eyes and mouths a single word – sorry – and then the head bridesmaid starts shoving her face down towards me. The other women are chanting now – lick it off, lick it off!

  “Help,” says the bride, almost face down in the slick of barbecue sauce now covering my belly and junk.

  Lucky for her I’m a professional. It’s not the first time I’ve wound up in the middle of a bachelorette party gone Lord of the Flies, although the barbecue sauce is a new one. I guess it makes a change from whipped cream.

  “I don’t wanna do this…” she says, but her friends are drunk and screaming and cheering her on, determined that she’s gonna ‘go girl’ and bang the stripper in the interests of sexual equality or something.

  They shove her down again, her face inches from mine. “Play along,” I say. “I can get you out of this.”

  “Dude, I don’t want to bang you,” she says.

  “It’s cool. I don’t want to bang you either.”

  My back burns as I get up off the floor. I’m not even sure I’m going to make it onto my feet, but I have to try. The alternative is some kind of barbecue sauce flavored sex Thunderdome, and neither of us wants that. I scoop her up bridal style and carry her into the backroom of the bar. The bridesmaids howl and whoop.

  “Oh my God,” she says, as I set her down. I close the door behind us and bolt it.

  “You need better friends,” I say.

  She hurries to the sink and tries to get the sauce stain out of her t-shirt. “They’re not so bad. It just got a little wild after the third or fourth margarita, that’s all. I did tell them not to hire a stripper.” She turns to look at me, sees I’m still bareass naked and quickly looks away. “Not that you’re not…oh God. I’m so sorry. It’s everywhere.”

  “It’s cool,” I say, wiping off with a paper towel. “I wax. I’m like a wipe clean surface.”

  “I don’t know what happened out there,” she says, scrubbing busily at the shirt. “I’m not like that. I don’t know why she thought I’d want to cheat on him with a stripper, for God’s sake.” She flinches when she realizes how that sounds. “Not that there’s anything wrong with being a stripper, of course. I mean, I’m sure you’re very nice and all, but…” She turns pink. “Should I just stop talking?”

  I wriggle into my jeans and grab my jacket. There’s a fat blunt in one pocket, and I was saving it for later, but my back feels like someone smacked me with a two by four, and she looks like she could use a break. “Hey,” I say. “You wanna smoke up while they think we’re banging?”

  She exhales and gives up on the shirt. It says BRIDE TO BE in glitter pen. “Yes,” she says, looking at the joint with more lust in her eyes than I’ve seen all night. “Very much so.”

  I open the door to the fire escape and light up. She comes out shivering a little and I offer to put my jacket around her shoulders, but she says no.

  “You’re wearing fewer clothes than I am,” she says. “Seems kind of unfair.”

  “It’s not so bad. Warm for the time of year.” When I breathe out the only smoke in front of my face is dank. “So,” I say, handing her the joint. “It’s Madison, right?”

  “Yeah. Sorry. I didn’t catch your name.”

  “Jody.” We do an awkward handshake, still sticky with barbecue sauce. “So…uh…you getting married?”

  She gives me an arch look. “Obviously.”

  “Is it?” I say.

  “Um, yes. I’m wearing a t-shirt that says BRIDE TO BE at a bachelorette party. You don’t exactly have to be Sherlock Holmes to figure this one out.”

  “Nah,” I say, as she passes back to me. “That’s exactly the kind of thing Sherlock Holmes would look at and be like ‘that’s too obvious’. And then he’d take the whole thing apart in some mind-blowing way and tell you that your fiancé’s grandmother was from a small town somewhere near Utica and how many dollars you spent on the dress.”

  “Three,” she says, and folds her arms tight around herself.

  “Three dollars?”

  “Three thousand,” she says. “It’s couture. And I’ve had it altered already.”

  “Is that why you’re getting married?”

  She laughs, like she can’t believe how rude I’m being. “No. I’m not in the habit of getting married out of social awkwardness.”

  “Sunk cost fallacy,” I say.

  “What?”

  “Sunk cost fallacy. It’s when you’ve poured so much money into something that you’re determined to get some kind of payoff for your investment, even thought it’s like, clearly a financial black hole.” She’s staring at me like I’m an asshole, but somehow I keep talking. “What you’re describing – that’s like a textbook example of the sunk cost fallacy. Not social awkwardness.”

  Madison stares at me. “You have barbecue sauce on your genitals,” she says. “And you’re mansplaining? Really?”

  “Sorry. I’ll shut up and smoke.” I take another hit. “Want the last toke?”

  She shakes her head. “Nah. I always burn my lips.” She yawns and blinks out into the darkness. “That’s good shit, by the way.”

  “Yeah, I know. I got someone who hooks me up with the medical grade stuff.” I can feel how my back is going to kill me tomorrow, but it’s receded to a background throb. “So,” I say. “Other than the whole dress situation, what is your reason for getting hitched?”

  “Isn’t it obvious?”

  “No.”

  She laughs. “Are you being dumb on purpose? We’re getting married because we’re passionately in love and we want to spend the rest of our lives together.” My skepticism must be showing, because she laughs even harder. “What? What is that face you’re making? That is a perfectly cromulent reason to get married.”

  “No, totally,” I say, fixin
g my expression to something I hope is less hilarious. “It’s a great reason. It was the reason my mom got married.”

  “There? See?”

  “All eight times.”

  Madison blinks. “Eight?”

  “Yep. Took the plunge for the first time when she was only seventeen. Lasted thirteen months, which was pretty good, for her. Shortest one was less than a week, although I’m not sure they were even legally married. A shaman married them, apparently; I don’t fucking know. All I do know is that every single one, she was in love with them. Madly, passionately in love. Right up to the moment when she wasn’t.”

  She doesn’t laugh this time. “That must have been hard for you.”

  I shake my head. “Hey, I’m a stripper. Product of a broken home. Total cliché.”

  “You’re a very good dancer,” she says.

  “I’m not, but thanks. I’m hot and I’m hung. That’s all that’s required.”

  “And modest, too.”

  “Meh. False modesty is for Mormons and English people. Nobody needs that shit.”

  “So I guess you’re not married?” she says, sneaking a look at my left hand. As if I’d be wearing a wedding ring while prancing around on tables with my dick hanging out.

  “With those examples?” I say. “Are you fucking kidding me?”

  She sniffs and shivers a little. Enough time has gone by that we could go back indoors by now. Enough to pretend that we had sex. But she’s hanging back. That smoke seems to have made her thoughtful, and thinky-stoned is a bad state to be in when you have to interact with loud, drunk people.

  “Do you think it can ever work?” she says, like she’s trying to talk herself into something. Trust me to think I got the lid back on the can of worms, only to find that the bottom had fallen out and the worms were everywhere.

  “I think it’s outdated,” I say. “It’s a thing people used to do because they got pregnant, or because they needed money. Or a new toaster. Or because they needed to shore up property and inheritance and shit.”

  “That’s very cynical.”

  “Hey, if I’m cynical, so was Jane Austen.”

  She laughs. “You read Jane Austen?”

  “Oh, snap. Who’s being condescending now? Strippers can read. Hate to blow your mind and all…”

  Madison blushes. “Sorry.”

  “It’s cool. I’m just saying. The whole idea of getting married for love is a modern thing. People used to get married for money and titles, and to make alliances and all that shit. They never expected to be happy. Most of the time they hoped they could stand one another long enough to make babies, preferably boys, so they could secure property rights or whatever. It’s like a legal framework, not a love thing. Even in fairytales, look who’s always the villain – it’s the stepmom, because she’s liable to pop out a boy child and undercut the heroine’s inheritance.”

  “Yeah, but they always live happily ever after,” she says.

  “Sure. Because she always marries the prince. Who is fucking loaded. She doesn’t go off and live happily ever after with Grigor the Shit-Gatherer or whoever is head peasant of the hovels around the castle. Happily ever after was always about money and status, not love. It’s just a thing Disney slapped on a bunch of medieval folk tales so they could sell more tickets to the Magic Kingdom.” I sigh and realize I’m running my mouth. I always risk turning into my dad when I’m stoned. “Sorry. Am I mansplaining again?”

  She nods, polite enough to try to hide that she’s starting to laugh again, but she doesn’t make it. “Like crazy,” she says. “But I’m too fucking high to care.”

  The giggles hit her hard, and before I know it I’m laughing because she’s laughing. “Oh God,” she says. “Why are you making me think about these things? This is worse than if I’d had sex with you. Am I getting married for the right reasons? Like, is there any point?”

  “Don’t sweat it,” I say. “You’re cool. A friend of mine calls this particular strain The Mind Wipe. Seriously. You won’t have any doubts in the morning because all you’ll remember is you smoked some good shit, but you won’t remember we had this conversation. You’re gonna walk up that aisle in your three thousand dollar dress, say ‘I do’, eat a bunch of cake, drink champagne and then fuck off to the Dominican Republic for two weeks or whatever.”

  My phone rings. It’s Becky.

  “And live happily ever after?” says Madison, still giggling.

  “Yeah, maybe,” I say. “Excuse me. I gotta take this.”

  “Jody?” Becky’s voice is thin and strained, although that’s nothing new. She starts talking in a rush. “You have to help me. They want to take me to the hospital and I’m not going. I’m not doing it. You have to tell them that they can’t make me.”

  “Whoa, whoa – slow down,” I say, going back indoors and retrieving the rest of my clothes. “What’s going on? Are you worse?”

  She sighs and I know that means yes. That’s the same sigh she gave when she pulled out her first whole handful of hair, or when they told her that her lymph node was going to have to come out. It’s not like a resigned sigh – more like a ‘not this shit again’ kind of sigh. “I fell,” she says. “They think I cracked my hip, but I’m not going back to that hospital. I can’t take any more. I want to stay home, Jody. I want to die here.”

  “No,” I say. “No. You’re not dying.”

  “I am.”

  “Okay, you are. But not, like, now. I’ll be right over.”

  I lace my boots in a hurry and leave via the fire escape, passing Madison on my way out. “Where are you going?” she says.

  “Medical emergency.”

  “What about your money?”

  “Paypal me or something.” It’s not like she can stuff it in my thong. I never wear one, although I’m starting to think maybe I should. Seems like some people think that if they’ve paid to see your dick that gives them the right to smear barbecue sauce all over it. I thought I’d got the worst of it off, but as I drive over to Becky’s place the sticky sweet smell fills the front seat of my truck. As I bump down the pitted drive I have this moment where I realize I’m a) way too high for this b) reeking like a rib house and c) not even sure what ‘this’ is, but I have a feeling it’s very, very bad.

  There’s an ambulance outside the house. The back hangs open and the first thing I do is stretch my neck to look, but it’s empty. The front door is open and the lights are on, so that the old stained glass windows glow like jewels in the dark. The house is a creaky old Victorian and I always thought it was cool as hell, but when the porch steps creak under my feet I worry – not for the first time – if they can take my weight. Can they take the weight of two paramedics and Becky on a stretcher?

  Can the take the weight of a coffin? And pallbearers?

  No. I can’t think about that right now. Besides, isn’t she Jewish? As far as I know they don’t do that Irish thing where they leave the body lying around in the parlor for the wake. And what am I thinking? She’s not even dead yet.

  Becky is in the parlor, lying in the middle of the floor. Even at a first glance I know that something is really wrong. They’ve put a blanket over her and a pillow under her head, but even under the blanket I can see that her legs are sticking out at wrong angles, like those of a bug that’s been smacked with a book. She looks flattened, tiny and just about done.

  “Oh shit,” I say. “What did you do?”

  “Nothing,” she says. “I’m fine. They keep saying it’s broken but it’s just a cramp.”

  “Let me see.”

  Becky shakes her head. When her hair grew back it came back white and weirdly shaggy, so that now it looks like a feathery pixie cut. There’s flesh on her bones for the first time in ages and from the neck up she almost looks like her old self. She’s dying and we both know it, but she’s been almost cool with it since the final rounds of treatment ended. Sure, she coughs up blood and her bones ache like fire, but she still insists it’s better than living on
popsicles, weighing seventy-five pounds and staring into a toilet bowl night and day.

  “It’s nothing but a part of the grand procession,” she said, a handful of days ago when we were watching the leaves fall in the yard. And we were both pretty baked at the time, but I think I got what was she was saying. That the world would turn and the seasons would change and she would die and other people would be born and they – in turn – would die, too. And that was okay, because that was just what happened. You could only hold off the inevitable for so long, she said. We’re all wormfood in the end.

  I cried for her, but it felt like a kind of victory, because she was cool with it. But not this. This feels like a disaster and a setback. It’s more suffering she doesn’t need, and it’s not fucking fair.

  “Please let me see,” I say, and I lift the blanket. Her whole thigh and hip is black with bruising. I drop the blanket back over her in a hurry.

  “See?” she says. “You shouldn’t have looked.”

  How long has she been lying here? It takes a while to bruise that deeply. That’s not something that happens in a matter of minutes.

  “You always want to fix things, Jody,” she says. “That’s your trouble.”

  “Maybe,” I say. “But this looks like it needs fixing.”

  “It’s nothing. Just a ding. It’ll buff right out.”

  “If it’s just a ding then why won’t you let these guys take a look at you?” I nod to the paramedics, who are hanging back at a safe distance, hoping I’ll talk her round. “They’ll give you a quick buff and spot of Turtle Wax and you’ll be good as new. Come on. They’re raring to go.”

  She sighs, and this time it’s not the ‘here we go again’ sigh. It’s different, darker. It’s final. My stomach flips over like a pancake.

  “I can’t do it, Jody,” she says.