AGAIN
Chapter Four: Peace and War
"I think you should speak now, Suze."
"It has to beep first Doc."
"Just start talking."
"Are you sure this thing is recording?"
BEEP
"Hi, Suze? Is me, Mike Hertz? I've been doing the paper work, I'm going to put your divorce request on Monday but I need to work out some fine points with you. Why don't you come by the office around one? We'll do Lunch and talk about it, I know a great pasta place. Okay? Bye."
Jesse
Pasta place…
I should have seen it coming.
I had been there when Susannah's lawyer had called; Jack and David had gone out to get food while Susannah and I finished painting her kitchen when the phone ringed and she let the machine pick up, I was laughing because of her message, I was still laughing when this Mike person hang up but I had heard about their lunch plans.
Still, when Sherry came and told me she knew the perfect pasta place to have lunch that Monday, I didn't remember. So, I was seating there with Sherry, trying to have a romantic conversation when…
"I don't know Suze. I'm pretty sure you could get some money out of your husband. I would help you to get a good start."
"I don't want Paul's money. I just want all of this to be over." Susannah was saying.
"I just don't understand why you married him in the first place?"
"At the time I had my reasons." She said sharply, looking away. "I don't want to be short with you Mike, you've been real help, but I don't want to talk about it."
"Hey!" Sherry said when she noticed I was looking at Susannah and this Mike-guy "Isn't that your friend? The woman from the hospital."
"Yes, that's her." I answered, hoping she would drop it. Sherry is the type of person who wants to know everything about you, whereas you want to tell it or not… but I doubt she would have been receptive about the whole Ghost thing. Anyway, I could tell she wanted to ask Susannah about my past.
"Well, let's go and say hello." Sherry said, standing up before I could stop her.
"Sherry," I groaned.
"Hi!" she was already by Susannah's table. "Don't you remember me? I'm Sherry Wendell, from Carmel Memorial?"
"Of course," Susannah said, shaking Sherry's hand. "This is Mike Hertz," she added, introducing her companion.
"Nice to meet you," Sherry said brightly. "I'm sure you remember my boyfriend Jesse, he told me you guys were friends."
Nombre de Dios.
ReporterGal: Spill it Simon! How did your date went with Dylan McDermont.
Suzesays It wasn't a date, Cee Cee and don't call him Dylan McDermont.
ReporterGal: What's wrong with Dylan? He was a hottie back in his day. And so is your lawyer-friend… look that with all that dark hair and greenish eyes…
Suzesays: Might I remind you that you're already spoken for?
ReporterGal: Whatever. How did it go?
Suzesays: Down the gutter. Jesse and his GIRLFRIEND were there, you do the math
ReporterGal: Ghost-guy has a Girlfriend?
Suzesays: Yeah. 5'6 maybe, blond wannabe, blue eyes, kind of pretty in a Kelly Prescott sort of way, if you get my drift.
ReporterGal: Oh, it sucks.
Suzesays: I know. One moment I was there trying to explain Mike that I don't want Paul's money and next thing I know I'm in an attempt of double date with Mike, Jesse and his girlfriend! My life so suck
Suzesays: I need chocolate.
Suzesays: I need chocolate real bad… NOW!!!!!
ReporterGal: Chill, Suze.
Suzesays: Don't tell me to freaking CHILL!!!!
ReporterGal: Wow! You really need chocolate...
Suzesays: I told you.
Suzesays: Want to know what's worst?
ReporterGal: What?
Suzesays: That Jesse didn't tell me he had a gf, I mean, we are supposedly friends again – he even painted my bloody kitchen for cryin' out loud – but he doesn't tell me this kind of stuff. What kind of friend is that?
ReporterGal: Gee, I don't know… maybe the kind of friend right for the kind of girl who goes of and marries her boyfriend's mortal enemy totally out of the blue, and…
ReporterGal: Suze?
Suzesays: What?
ReporterGal: You aren't jealous, are you?
Suzesays: CEE CEE!!! Of course not!
ReporterGal: Okay, just checking! Let's ditch work and get chocolate!
Two days later…
Suze
Okay, it was a lame excuse, I'll admit it right here.
But it was the only way I could think of to contact Jesse and don't' sound so stupid… so I called him and made him go with me to the animal shelter so I could pick up a pet… all the while I had been meaning to do this, get a pet, I mean…my house could get really lonely and I though a little bit of dog-love would help it to feel even more like home.
Anyway, since I knew Jesse had been meaning to get a new cat, I thought it wouldn't sound so suspicious that I asked him to go with me and suggest that he might find a pet for himself.
In truth, all I wanted was to talk to him and get some facts straight about this "friendship" of ours. If we were to be friend he would have to tell important stuff to me, like him having a girlfriend. Though now that I think about it, he was never particularly talkative back when we first meet… I mean, he only admitted Maria's and Diego's scheme to kill him after said girl-in-hoop-skirt threatened to kill me and I went all the way up to Shadowland to get Jesse back.
But whatever, this time we were setting things straight from start.
"So…" I started when he picked me up at my place.
"You want to know why I didn't mention Sherry." Jesse said flatly. How the hell does he does that? "The truth is that I rather keep my past and present apart… I don't think Sherry would take it so well if she knew that in the past we were… er… involved."
Involved, alright. Involved to the point where we did the horizontal mambo… several times… back when he was a ghost. I guess that Jesse was right about that, if I were the new girlfriend I wouldn't take too well to know that my current flame is hanging out with his previous girlfriend.
"Okay, I'll give you that. But still, you should have told me you had a girlfriend, friends tell to each other this kind of things."
"I know." Jesse said. "But it's hard. I don't really know how to be your friend. I could be 16-year-old-Susannah's friend. But now…I don't know… Life has happened to both of us –in more ways than one – and it's hard."
"I know." I said, looking up at Jesse as we walked to the shelter. "But I do want to be your friend, I've missed you these past years, you were a really good friend to me. And I want that back, but we have to be honest to each other."
"I think I can do that." Jesse said.
I smiled.
And with that clear we went and picked up our pets. We found a puppy-dog for me and a kitten who thought was a dog for Jesse.
"You don't worry, Fido." I told my dog – it was one of those mixed race dogs that no-one wanted. "You'll still see, Ruffus." Ruffus was Jesse's cat; apparently my puppy and the kitten were both orphans and had adopted each other. "Jesse lives a few blocks away from us, and you two will still play."
"Susannah, you're talking to a dog. Do you really think he understands you?"
"Well, Jesse, I talk to ghost, if they can understand me, so can my dog. Thanks."
And after that I started to see Jesse almost everyday, we pet-sat for each other, sometimes, when he had to work late, he would drop Ruffus by my house. Other times, when I wanted to go out with Cee and Adam, I would drop Fido by Jesse's house.
Things were so working out…
Two weeks later.
Jesse
I shouldn't have said anything.
When Paul came trying to provoke me I should have kept my mouth shut.
But no, oh boy, I did not!
"RICO!" I heard Slater yell all the way down the hallway were I was suturing a little girl who had fallen off a tree. "
"What do you want Slater?" I asked, meeting him in the hallway.
"You're behind all of this, aren't you?" he asked angrily.
"Whatever are you talking about?"
"This!" He threw a paper at me. "You convinced her to divorce me, didn't you?"
"Susannah made the decision on her own. I had nothing to do with it. It was you who drove his wife away, not me."
"That's it, isn't it? You can't deal with the fact that she is MY Wife, that I have her, that I own her. You just can't deal with, that for the last five years your querida was mine. That I had her on my bed each time I wanted and…" Slater was off in a rant; I should just called security and let them deal with him.
But no, oh mi Dios… I couldn't keep my bloody mouth shut.
"And how does it feels like that your wife has never loved you. That the only reason she married you was because of me. That she loved me more than what you could ever know… What if feels like to know that the very night before she married you she was making love with me?"
"You, son of a bitch!" That did it.
On my defense I can say that he started it. He tried to punch me first and next thing I knew we were fighting right there in the middle of the hospital.
By the time security broke the fight both of us were all bloody.
"This isn't the end of it! De Silva, mark my words, this isn't the end!"
"Tú, maldito bastardo hijo de…" I was yelling in Spanish, trying to get Jeremy to let me go so I could continue beating Paul.
He cursed me on his way, I really thought that was the end of it, but oh no. I was dead wrong.
Ring… Ring
Suze picked up her Cell phone.
"Hello?"
"Suzie, darling!" Paul said all fake cheerful.
"Paul. I've told you before not to call me."
"I know, sweetie," he continued in his fake, sugar coated voice. "I just thought you might like to know that I got the divorce papers. AND THAT THERE IS NO WAY IN HELL I'M GRANTING YOU A DIVORCE, you little slut." Now his tone was dripping menace. "I don't care what I have to do I'm going to bring you back home"
"I don't mind what you call me. And I won't go back to your house. If I have to go to court with you. I'll but I'm going to divorce you."
"No, you aren't. We had a deal, Suze. I brought Rico Suave back to life; you can't go back on your part of the deal now."
"The deal was that I would marry you, you never said anything about me not divorcing you. One would think a lawyer like you would think about that kind of clauses when putting up a contract."
"You think you're so smart, don't you?" Paul asked with sarcasm.
"I just know that I don't want to go back to be your puppet."
"But you would willingly go to be De Silva's puppet, wouldn't you, Suze?"
Suze froze, what was Paul playing at… before she had time to think of in an answer, Paul continue to talk.
"Tell me something, wifey, what does it feels like? To have sex with a ghost?"
"What are you talking about?"
"Oh, don't bother dying it. Your precious Jesse told me all about it. All about how, the night before you married me you were fucking him. I can only imagine how trilling was to screw a guy who had been dead for a century and a half."
Suze couldn't think straight, so all she did was hang up her phone.
And then left her office at the magazine's head quarters. She had a former ghost to kill.
Jesse
I was in the aftermath of having fought Paul when Susannah came. She looked mad but I thought that maybe she was just mad because last time she had left Fido with me I had fed him with a can of cat food instead of dog food, and she had found out.
"Hey, Susannah!" I said cheerfully, doing damage control. "You look radiant today…"okay, I was ass-kissing but she still looked plenty mad. "Okay, I'm sorry, I didn't mean to, but Fido was seriously whining when I was giving Ruffus his can and…"
PLAFF!!!
Susannah slammed her hand down against my cheek. "How could you?"
"Hey, it was just a can…"
"Is not that, you idiot. How could you go telling Paul about our past sex life? I'm here, trying to quietly divorce Satan and you go on telling him about our past!!!! Jesse, are you seriously stupid or something?"
"Susannah, I can explain."
"What? What can you explain? You know, this is the entire Tad episode again."
"The Tad-episode?" Jerry asked, jumping in, it didn't help that we were at the reception desk.
"When I was sixteen this guy Tad asked me out and we were kissing goodbye at my drive way and Jesse materialized right there and went in this prissy voice 'Usually, when people say goodbye they keep their tongue to themselves.' That's the Tad-episode." Susannah explained.
"Ouch." Jerry said. He is so not help.
"Look Susannah, I'm sorry, I really am. I just lost the sense of stuff,"
"Oh, I lost sense of stuff too. I did it when I agreed to marry Paul because of you. I think that's the biggest mistake I ever made! I practically sold my soul to the devil!"
"And who asked you to do it? I certainly didn't!" I yelled.
"You know what, you're right. I was stupid. I loved you so much that I… but you know what? Forget it! Just stay out of it Jesse. Stay out of my life all together!"
With that she turned around and left.
Notes:
Thanks for reading!
Here is the next chapter, I hope it doesn't suck.
The names of the pets were Sidney's- also known as DD - idea. So here is to her...
I hope you guys still like this one.
Please, R/R
CrazyClavie
