Spirits

By Michael Jesse

Chapter 17

Jack was not entirely sure if what he was experiencing was actually happening. A grown-up Millie Jenkins had suddenly, beyond all expectation, appeared before him, her arms now around his neck, squeezing him. His face was at this very moment in her neck, and he could see nothing but her red hair and white, freckled skin as she whispered in his ear, "Johnny, oh Johnny!"

Until this moment, Jack would have said — even to himself— that he had gotten over his teenage crush, but now every emotion he had ever felt about her came rushing back — including the one and only previous time she had held him this way, the day his mother died.

The hug may have lasted a few seconds or all of eternity, and then Millie released her grip but now stood before him, her face inches from his as she said, "I was hoping it was you when I saw the name, but I didn't think it was because it said 'Jack' Goddard. When did you turn into 'Jack'?" She giggled as she said this, and he remembered that sound, Millie's laugh. It was really her.

Because he was always prepared, or nearly always, Jack did have an answer for her question. It was a lie he had already told several times whenever someone realized his legal name was actually "John." He would explain that when he was in his second year of college, he would hang around with a group of guys from his dorm and, as it happened, three of them were named John. The rest of the guys decided that at least two of the Johns needed nicknames. One of them had the last name Cooper, so thereafter he became "Coop." His own last name provided no nickname inspiration, so they followed the precedent of the Kennedys and started calling him "Jack." By the time he started writing for the school paper, all his friends knew him as Jack, and that became his byline and carried over from college to his professional work.

It was a good explanation, but none of it was true. In his second year of college, he did not hang around with anyone, and no one decided to call him "Jack" except himself. Now, looking at Millie's blue eyes -- brimming wet with emotion -- he did not want to start out with a lie, so he just said, "It kind of happened in college."

"Well, to me you will always be my Johnny," she whispered, her hands now on his cheeks, "but I will try to call you by your big boy name." She made a familiar pretend-pouty face as she said this, and the sheer radiance of her attention filled him with joy. He remembered this feeling because he had experienced it with her before when he was so young. When she looked at him like this, it was as if he were the only other person in the world.

But there were, he knew, other people in the world -- several of whom were now gathered around them, witnessing the reunion. As his brain became aware of this again, it sternly reminded him that this was just how Millie Jenkins spoke to everyone. If he had been some other acquaintance from childhood suddenly before her again, Millie would have had the same tears of love in her eyes for that person, too. He was not special, the voice in his brain reminded him. It was important for him to remember that he was not special. You can't be hurt if you do not mistakenly believe you are special.

"Millie," someone said, "your cab is here."

"Oh gosh, I have to get to the airport," she told him. "It's my annual conference. But I'm so glad you're here, Johnny. We'll catch up when I get back."

And then, in a whirl of goodbyes to her staff, Millie was out the door. As she left, one of Jack's coworkers on the business desk poked his head in to tell him the afternoon news meeting was about to start. Jack hurried off to join him, waving thanks to Phil and already starting to doubt that what had just happened had actually happened.

The afternoon news meeting was the same format as the morning meeting, with each department summarizing what it had for the next day's paper. By this time of day, however, most of the news gathering and photo assignments had been completed, so the desk editors knew what they had. Much of the discussion was on which stories would go on page one and how the page would be illustrated and designed.

Before he knew it, the workday was over and Jack was stepping out onto the sunny plaza feeling exultant -- or as close to that emotion as he was capable of. Everything had gone well on his first day on the job -- and Millie was suddenly in his life again! Not "in his life" the way he once imagined it, because she was married and probably had a slew of kids (having started young). But Millie Jenkins worked at the same place he did, and he would see her nearly every day. That alone was more than he would have imagined possible.

Instead of heading across the plaza back to The Essex, Jack walked two blocks south to Walnut Street. One of his new co-workers on the business desk had told him about some older downtown buildings that had converted unused office space to apartments. The new mall was going in north of the square, so owners of properties south of the square were not affected directly but hoped to benefit peripherally from any increase in activity downtown. One such property was the Roosevelt Building, a 12-story limestone edifice considered a "skyscraper" when it was built in the 1920s. Built on a narrow corner lot, it still towered above the neighboring shops. Originally an office building, the Roosevelt had been largely vacant for years, but some of the upper floors were now being renovated into apartments in anticipation of the city center's rebirth.

Jack had made an appointment to tour one of these apartments, but had about half an hour to spare, so he stopped at a little bar that looked promising. It was quiet and dark inside, not smoky or seedy, and most importantly, not busy. He sat at the bar and ordered a double vodka tonic as he rooted through his briefcase for the Employee Directory he had been given with his orientation packet. Sucking in the first welcome jolt of the drink, he paged through the directory, first alphabetically, but there was no one with the last name Jenkins. He didn't really expect to find her under that name, but he couldn't remember Todd's last name. Next, he looked under the department listings and found the Library, and there she was at the top: "Library Director Millie McGuire." Yes, he remembered now, Todd McGuire. She could, of course, be divorced while keeping her married name, but that seemed unlikely. Not that it mattered, really. Millie was just an old friend from his childhood, and it was nice that he would get to see her again. That's all.

Jack had a second drink and paid his tab before popping a mint and heading back out into the sunshine. He found the Roosevelt building easily because of its height, plus he remembered it from his childhood. There was still a restaurant on the first floor, and he remembered walking past its windows from the outside with Grandma, but they never went inside. He knew at the time that it was too expensive for them with its white linen tablecloths and folded cloth napkins placed just so on the tables. It had not changed much, but had never been remodeled, and the tablecloths now seemed threadbare and gray. But at least it was still operating.

He took the elevator to the ninth floor and found the door with 909 painted on it. It was open, and the leasing agent was waiting for him inside. It still looked like a 30-year-old office suite, though it was now furnished as an apartment and had a new galley kitchen. Best of all, from Jack's perspective, the main room had large windows looking north towards the new mall project. It was several blocks farther away than his Essex view, but was three stories higher in altitude. Jack decided immediately that he wanted it, but acted indifferent until the deal was negotiated -- including parking in a nearby deck. He signed the lease on the spot and was told he could move in as soon as he wanted.

Back out on the street, Jack again felt that unfamiliar sense of elation. Someone else might have let out a whoop of celebration, but Jack was content to give himself a smile in the reflection of a shop window as he walked back to the Essex House. On his way, he cut over to Wabash Street to stop at the liquor store for a pint of vodka and then to the Burger King on the corner. His food was still warm when he made it back to his room. He ate his Whopper and fries while watching the national news and sucked down a few gulps of his Coke to make room for a splash of vodka. More than once, he looked again at the Morning Star employee directory to be sure Millie's name was really there.

When his fast food dinner and the national news were both over, Jack opened his computer to connect to the Internet. As he listened to the familiar whine of the modem making the connection, he made a fresh drink and settled in at the desk. After the connection was established, however, Jack sat for a long while, staring at the opening screen without clicking through to Molly's site. An ethical debate had started going on among the committee of voices in his brain. Did the fact that he had just been reunited with real-life Millie, and would be seeing her on almost a daily basis, have any effect on his previous decision to write as Molly? He had discussed this with his committee several times before, and they all ultimately concluded that Molly was a completely separate fictional person who was only based on Millie. That was still true.

It was, of course, a separate question whether it was wrong and/or creepy of him to be pretending to be a woman on the Internet. He knew how bad that sounded, and so he had taken strict precautions to keep his identity secret. No one must ever know he did this because they just wouldn’t understand. He didn’t really understand it himself, but he knew his motives were not nefarious. He wasn’t trying to hurt or take advantage of anyone. Molly didn’t overtly flirt with her readers, nor communicate with any of them privately, nor in any way encourage someone to have romantic feelings about her. Although she recounted stories of her nude adventures, they were not remotely pornographic, and she was never a victim. She was a fundamentally wholesome girl who was confidently in charge of her own life and who simply enjoyed being naked in social situations where everyone else was dressed. Jack's primary objective in writing these stories wasn't necessarily for readers to find Molly's stories erotically arousing, though that was a secondary objective. The main thing he wanted was for people to believe a girl like her could actually exist. He could not have explained why.

Having again resolved this debate, at least for the present, Jack clicked open Molly's main page. It had been an eventful day, and Jack had completely forgotten about the Jesus post he'd made that morning. Now, he saw more than a dozen enthusiastic comments from Molly's readers, all of them praising her response to anti-gay bullying. Her post had apparently been copy-pasted into other discussion groups, and some of those groups' readers then discovered her stories. The number of followers of Molly's page had tripled in one day. As he read the responses, he could tell that many of Molly's new fans were actual gay people of both genders who now celebrated Molly as a badass champion of gay rights.

Jack wasn't sure how he felt about that. Lesbian sex made sense to him because it still employed the same body parts as regular sex, but gay men had branched out to employ an additional orifice that John felt viscerally certain was not intended for that purpose. The only object that had ever been inserted into his own body from that direction had been a doctor's glove-clad finger, and that had given him the unpleasant sensation that he was passing a turd right there in the doctor's office. He did not understand how anyone could get sexual pleasure out of that experience, but if other people did, well, that was their own business -- and they certainly shouldn't be harassed over something so private. He felt an unexpected sense of pride to have Molly on their side.

But now he had something else to worry about. Molly's original readers had all appeared to be straight males who probably didn't know enough about lesbians -- or even women in general -- to see through Molly's persona. He decided to do some more research and found a site listing slang terminology within the LGBT community. He decided that Molly's roommates all fit within the category of "soft butch" or "flannel butch." Jaye, however, was in a different category. She was "dandy butch" because she was always impeccably dressed in vintage men's suits. Molly and Jaye had not yet had sex, but he knew that's where the story was going. Skimming over the terminology for lesbian sex acts, Jack learned about "scissoring," "tribbing" and (to his horror) "fisting."