Perfect Fifths_ A Jessica Darling Novel - Megan McCafferty [98]
Marcus takes a deep breath, clasps a clenched fist to his heart, and in a spot-on imitation of a certain geeksta performer they both know well, sings two words from the chorus of the eighty-seventh most popular song on iTunes.
“My … SONG …”
Jessica gasps in instant recognition. “So you do know about Len’s song!”
“Of course I know about Len’s song!” Marcus clears his throat, then launches into the chorus.
“You have stopped the arrow of time … There’s no meaning to this rhyme … Because my SONG will never mean as much as the one … He once sang … For you, yes, you …”
Marcus had known about Len’s song all along, just as Jessica suspected. Therefore, he also knows about how she fucked Len after refusing Marcus’s marriage proposal, knows as much as there is to know on the subject of Jessica and Len. He knows, he knows, he knows, and he doesn’t care. He doesn’t care in the same way that Jessica suddenly realizes that she no longer cares about the ex-lover who gave him the gorgeous cashmere sweater, or any of the girls who came before her, for that matter. She doesn’t care, and he doesn’t care, because none of those other people are in this elevator right now. It’s just Jessica and Marcus, oxymoronically alone together.
Jessica applauds, and Marcus takes an operatic bow. She wants to tell him that Len was right about his song never meaning as much, that is, until Marcus just sang it for her in the elevator. But she can’t. Not yet.
They take another anticipatory step backward as the elevator stops on the fifteenth floor. But, as before, no one gets on. There are still just the two of them in this elevator, and Jessica is both aching for and aching from this realization.
“When you started singing with me,” Marcus continues, “I was singing the note as it should have been sung. You were singing an imperfect—or, if you want to be technical, bare, open, or empty—fifth above it. Together, we created a vocal spark that sounded like a perfect fifth, the most stable of all harmonies.”
A vocal spark? Is that the explanation behind the evangelical fervor she felt onstage? Jessica can tell that Marcus is being totally sincere about this, but she can’t allow herself to agree to it, nor follow up in the obvious way. In other words, Marcus, we were perfect in our imperfection.
Instead, Jessica blurts, “You once called me sloppy firsts.”
“What?!” He snaps to attention, quickly sobered by this statement.
“You did.”
“That’s offensive,” he says with a frown. “And it doesn’t even make sense. I mean, I’ve heard of sloppy seconds, but sloppy firsts? I guess I didn’t know what to say to you, so I just said something stupid to fill the void. Something like Blame Byron!”
They both laugh at this very recent memory.
“Sloppy firsts,” Marcus says, rubbing his temples. “What does that even mean?”
“I don’t know, either,” Jessica says, “and I’ve been spending the last ten years trying to figure it out.”
Jessica can hear motors grinding as the elevator continues its climb. Then, over that whirring sound, Jessica hears the sound of skin sliding against skin as Marcus rubs his palms together.
“Strange but true,” he says. “A man pays one hundred dollars to have his fortune read by a New Orleans voodoo Queen. She takes his money, then takes his hands. She tells him he’s going to get run over. Two days later, he is run over in the Newark Liberty International Airport by the only woman who has ever mattered to him.”
“Wait,” Jessica says sharply. “When did this happen?”
“Two days ago.”
Her eyes narrow. “You were in New Orleans two days ago? But I thought…”
“I was coming from New Orleans when you ran over me, not going.”
The gears turn, turn, turn. “So you’re not flying out anywhere tomorrow?” Her voice is pinched.
Marcus can’t let his over-the-top impulsiveness, his need to prove that he still cares, be the very thing that drives her away yet again. He won’t join her on her flight to St. Thomas. The ticket will go unused. He’d rather lose $895 (he doesn’t have) than lose her again. He briefly considers