Thread of Hope

SIXTY-FOUR

Olivia Jordan was sitting on a leather sofa in an expansive living room littered with expensive furniture. She wore jeans similar to the ones she wore the first time I’d met her and a red blouse with a wide collar and silver buttons. Her legs were crossed, the boot heel of the top leg bouncing as she paged aimlessly through a magazine.

She glanced up when I came into the room and tossed the magazine on the sofa next to her, impatience and irritation mixing in an ugly way on her face. She held up a hand. “Here I am. Waiting for you as ordered.”

“You were a hooker,” I said, sitting down in a chair across from her.

The impatience and irritation disappeared quickly, replaced by embarrassment. “What?”

“You fucked men for money.”

She was rattled, throwing her eyes toward where I’d come from, probably wondering if her husband was coming in behind me. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Seriously? That’s how we’re gonna play this? I’m gonna tell you the truth about your past and you’re gonna just sit there and try and look bewildered?”

She blinked her eyes rapidly, the corners of her mouth twitching.

“In Vegas,” I said. I picked up a marble coaster from the table next to me, rubbing my fingers along its smooth surface. “I don’t know if you were doing it elsewhere, but you were doing it in Vegas for sure. Don’t know if your husband was a client. Maybe that’s how you two met and…”

“Stop,” she said.

“…maybe he decided it was cheaper to marry you than pay for you on a nightly basis.”

“Stop,” she said again, more force behind it this time.

I dropped the coaster back to the table and she flinched. “And now your daughter has apparently picked up where you left off.”

Her entire expression froze. I searched her face for some sort of recognition, some tic, some cue, that told me she wasn’t hearing that for the very first time.

I found none.

“What did you say?” she whispered.

The question sat between us for a long moment.

“Meredith has been working as a prostitute,” I said finally.

She immediately shook her head. “Impossible.”

“Nothing’s impossible.”

“Meredith isn’t like that.”

“Like you?”

“She’s not at all like me, Mr. Tyler,” she said, her voice edged with anger.

“Did she know about your past?”

The anger faded and was replaced with hesitancy.

“I can run down your history in Vegas if you want,” I said. “I got it from a cop. I know I’m not wrong.”

She whispered something that I couldn’t understand.

“What?”

“Jon doesn’t know.”

I stayed quiet.

She placed her hands on her knees and for a moment, I thought she was going to vomit. But she took several deep breaths, staring at the ground before she looked at me again.

“Jon doesn’t know,” she said. “I’ve never told him. I met him…” Her voice trailed off.

I sat there, my mouth closed, watching her.

“I met him after I’d already decided to leave…that life,” she said after a long pause. “I didn’t want to revisit it with him and I knew what he’d think.”

“So you were done hooking when you met?”

“He wasn’t a john, if that’s what you’re asking,” she said.

“No, what I asked was if you were done hooking when you met?””

She was trying to strike an indignant pose, but couldn’t quite put it all together. And I wasn’t entirely sure why I was pressing her as to how she and Jordan had met, but I felt like I was close to uncovering something I’d been looking for.

She remained silent and that gave me my answer. “So you weren’t out of the game then.”

“I was on my way out,” she said, averting my eyes.

“Much easier to go out on the arm of a really rich guy, I’ll bet.”

The anger percolated in her eyes again. “I love my husband. I always have.”

“I didn’t say you didn’t.”

“No, but I understand what you’re insinuating,” she said, her words hard and cold. She sat back in the sofa and folded her arms across her chest. “Of course it was easier to walk away with someone like Jon. But I’d already decided to leave. I don’t give a shit whether or not you believe that.”

“And he doesn’t know?” I asked.

“I’ve never said a word to him,” she said, her eyes slipping away from mine again.

“Did Meredith know?” I asked.

Her expression changed to something I couldn’t read. She looked down at her hands, as if the answer might be written on her fingers. Her fingers clamped tighter to her knees. “Yes. She found out.”