Reassured, Jack walked on a block. Over the last couple of weeks, he’d felt a change within himself, and it had all happened since he’d seen Nicole. Bumping into her had made him step back and assess his own life. He knew he was in danger of being just as insular as his father, only seeing things one way, never questioning before judging, and he didn’t like the way it made him feel. He’d always been able to talk to her over the years when he’d finished school, gone to college, graduated and started work. He often wondered whether, had Nicole stayed, she’d be able to help him start on a new direction in his life. God knows he didn’t seem to be able to do it himself.
He was about to cross the next block when he realised he hadn’t taken Evie’s necklace home as promised. It was probably way past fixing and needed a new chain, but he’d take care of it, no charge. He turned back into the flurry of snow just beginning to tumble from the skies above and dodged pedestrians who had their eyes glued ahead, the only way to walk without being bustled out the way, and made his way back to the brownstone to collect the necklace.
He crossed over the road, but as he approached the brownstone, some thirty feet away, he stopped. Evie was outside again, and she wasn’t alone.
Jack stepped onto the second step of an earlier apartment block so she wouldn’t see him. The man she was with was older than her, probably in his fifties, a tall reed-thin man with thinning hair and a menacing way about him, and Evie didn’t look at all happy to see him. They were clearly arguing, but in the New York mayhem with a truck, a motorcycle and then a taxi passing by, Jack couldn’t hear anything at all.
He let the conversation go on. The man was showing her something, waving it in her face. It looked like photographs. She tried to snatch them, but he had held them way out of her reach, sneering at her from what Jack could make out beneath the yellow blast of a nearby streetlamp. Evie was backed up against the railings and the man seemed about to leave, but then he moved closer, pressed himself against her and that was when Jack made his presence known.
He walked towards her and wasn’t sure whether she looked more frightened or relieved. ‘Everything okay here, Evie?’
‘Who the fuck are you?’ the man snapped, but backed away from Evie. ‘This is none of your business.’
‘Evie’s a friend, it’s my business. It looks like she doesn’t want you around her. Am I right, Evie?’ He didn’t take his eyes off the man for a second.
‘So you have a friend, Evie.’ The man’s smugness made Jack want to punch him. He balled his fists in case the man tried anything, but he was all words, no action. ‘I wonder if your friend would like to know a bit more about you, Evie Jefferson.’
‘I think you’d better go.’ Jack stepped forward, fists ready.
‘Oh, don’t worry, I’m going. But here.’ He pushed a photograph against Jack’s chest, holding it face down against his coat, his hand still against it. ‘Take this. And Evie, I’ll be seeing you.’
Jack held the photo as the man left; but before he could look at it, Evie’s hand covered his own against his chest.
‘I’m begging you, Jack …’ Tears sprang to her eyes, showing her well-hidden vulnerability. ‘I’m begging you not to look at that photograph. Please.’
His voice softened. ‘Are you in some kind of trouble?’ The photograph was pinned in place against his chest, her slender fingers still covering his gloved hand over his beating heart as he decided what to do for the best. Evie looked to the ground, but still she didn’t move her hand. Jack looked at the pom-pom on top of her hat, smelt the fresh laundry detergent it had been washed in last.
‘Are you in trouble?’ he asked her again.
Her head snapped up, and she yanked the photograph from him before he had a chance to stop her. ‘That’s all that matters to you, isn’t it? You’re worried I’ll bring trouble Nicole’s way.’
‘It’s a fair question. And maybe I’m worried about you too.’
‘As if,’ she huffed. ‘You’re just the same as him.’
‘Who?’
‘As bad as the man I saw at the hospital.’
‘Braydon? What’s he got to do with anything?’
‘Because he judged me just as you’re doing now. To someone like you, I’ll always be the person you saw first … the homeless woman begging for food and handouts. You’ll never see me any differently. People like you never do.’
‘People like me?’
‘Rich. Judgemental. People like you.’ She shook her head, clutched the photograph as though her life depended on it.
Jack’s voice hardened defensively. ‘Who was he, Evie?’
‘I can’t tell you.’
‘Can’t or won’t?’
She didn’t answer. ‘He’s a part of my past, and I need to sort this out on my own.’
‘And can you do that?’
She fixed him with a glare.
