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Janie, stop. Mama J is dead, and you don’t have the care home expenses anymore. Stop and think about it.
She ignored her inner voice. She needed a second job. If she had a second job, she wouldn’t spend her time thinking about how much she missed Luke or that with Mama J dead, she was truly alone. More panic rose in her, and she pushed it down. Using her phone, she checked the local job ads, searching with growing desperation for weekend waitress jobs. There had to be something out there.
“Jane?”
Luke sat in bed beside her, rubbing his hand across the scruff on his jaw. She gave him a fleeting smile before scrolling through her phone again. “Hi, Luke.”
“What are you doing?”
“Looking through the job postings for a second job,” she said.
“Why?”
“Funerals are expensive.” She squinted at her phone. There was a posting for a waitress job at a nightclub on the west side. It would be a hell of a bus ride, but beggars couldn’t be choosers.
“Jane, stop.”
Luke’s hand closed around her phone, tugging it away from her.
“Hey, give that back,” she said.
“Just stop for a minute, honey.”
“I can’t,” she said. “I need a second job for Mama J’s funeral. She deserves a nice funeral!”
Her voice was rising, and she stopped and took a few deep breaths. “Please give me back my phone.”
“I’ll pay for the funeral,” Luke said.
She burst into loud and bitter laughter. “You’re fucking kidding me, right?”
“No,” he said. “I want to pay for the funeral, Jane.”
“God, you really do think the worst of me, don’t you?”
“No,” he said. “Honey, I don’t. I shouldn’t have -”
“Here,” she collapsed on her back and spread her legs, “climb on and have a go, Luke.”
“Jane,” he said. “Stop it.”
“Why?” she asked. “That’s what girls like me do, right? We spread our legs for guys so that they’ll buy us shit. I guess I’ll probably be the first woman to fuck for funeral costs, but hey, aim high in life.”
“Stop it!” He sat her up and gave her a gentle shake. “Don’t say shit like that.”
“You think I’m a whore.”
“I don’t,” he said. “I don’t think that, and I’m sorry for what I said. I should never have believed that asshole, and I don’t know why I did. I’m so sorry, Jane.”
“What did Jeremy tell you?”
“Does it matter?” he asked. “I was wrong to believe him, and I’m sorry.”
“Tell me,” she said. “It matters to me.”
He sighed, and she listened numbly as he recited what Jeremy had said to him. When he finished, she said, “You believed him.”
“I shouldn’t have. I was upset and surprised and acted like an idiot.”
