Naive by Charles Royce (world best books to read .txt) 📕

takes a huge puff and exhales, motioning to the waitress at the same time. “I could start with my friend from work, who, oh God, witnessed something horrible in Union Square the same night as your party. She’s still traumatized, and I need to go see her, so I only have time for like a latte or something. Did you read the story in the Times?”

“You mean the story on my launch party, or the story about Lennox’s murder?” Josh leans in, already ready to talk.

“You made it!” says the waitress, startling Jenna. “Can I get you something, ma’am?”

“Yes, I’ll have a latte please”—she matches the waitress’s sugar-sweet tone—“and could you please bring it in one of those little porcelain cups? Not the take-away cup.”

“Sure thing.” The waitress smiles.

Jenna raises her eyebrows at Josh, who responds with a shrug. The waitress grabs the two menus on the table and heads back inside the restaurant.

“It’s awful, isn’t it?” he asks.

“Yes, she is.”

“Lennox, smartass.” Josh leans back and stares into space. “It’s hard to believe, really. I mean, I’ve only hung out with Lennox a couple of times since, you know, we broke up and stuff. But still.”

“Um, ‘broke up’ is a bit of an understatement, don’t you think? I think you mean after Micah found out about you two and ordered you to stop seeing him, stop talking to him.”

“That.”

“I can’t believe it either. I loved that man.” Jenna’s emotion surfaces and her voice cracks. She pretends to cough as she rests her cigarette on the side of the empty place setting in front of her. “Sure, he was a complete mess at times, but he had such a good heart, didn’t he?”

Recognizing her question as more of a rhetorical statement, Josh nods and allows her to continue.

“He was always there for me, even after you guys split up. Didn’t seem to bother him at all really, my being friends with you. And I love Micah, despite how you may feel about him. He kinda fancies you, even though he hates you. And you do look quite similar, which I always found very weird and unnatural.”

Josh nods again. He is used to Jenna’s occasional way of speaking, a kind of sensible nonsense, as if she were on the side of a stage, speaking her own language in a run-on soliloquy to anyone who would listen. He realizes her need to process.

“I mean, we are such great friends. Were great friends.” She coughs as her cigarette nub burns her fingers. “Shit.”

“Do you remember when we first met?”

“Do I remember? You were hooked, my friend. Hook line and sink-, sink-, sink something.” She extinguishes the butt on the black metal table.

“Sinker. Yes, yes, I was. He had this way about him. I couldn’t get enough of him.”

“That’s the truth. You were at our office almost every day, which I loved. I got used to you using your relationship with me to spend time with Lennox. As a matter of fact, it was kinda fun being the one caught in the middle. God. Forbidden shit is always the best. I mean, do you know how many emails I had to delete from Lennox’s account? The nasty ones between you and Lennox? Hundreds. And I musta missed a couple because isn’t that how Micah found out?”

“I assume so, yeah.”

A breeze rushes through, sending napkins flying through the air and silverware dropping to the cobblestones. Josh welcomes the wind. It soothes him. He closes his eyes.

“Josh, he’s not here anymore. Lennox is dead.” Jenna picks up her spoon, napkin and cigarette butt. “Do you realize that he has been murdered? Murdered, Josh. The paper says he was stabbed thirty-three times.”

“Thirty-three?” His voice is calm, his eyes shut.

“Yes!”

The breeze grows stronger. Jenna begins to lighten up.

They each lean back in silence, as if reliving every moment they’d had with Lennox … Josh with his sordid “one that got away” affair, his ensuing fight with Micah, his anguish over losing Lennox without getting to say goodbye; Jenna with her juggling Lennox’s personal life and professional responsibilities, her covering up the affair, her hiding company secrets and lies according to Lennox’s wishes. They are lost in very different memories.

“Do you think Micah could’ve done this?” Josh opens his eyes.

Jenna hesitates for a split second. “Absolutely not. God, they loved each other. If you didn’t break them up, I don’t think anything would.” She lights another cigarette, takes a drag. “Plus, they just got married a year ago, and they had this, God, what was it, three-week trip overseas planned after tax season next year?”

“Well, we’ve both seen Micah angry. I think he totally coulda done it.” The ensuing confrontation after the affair is permanently etched in Josh’s mind, imprisoning it like a straightjacket.

“Impossible. Micah was with me at your event until he got home. The paper said the time of death was around that same time, and Lennox had been missing the entire night. Doesn’t make sense.”

“What do you mean it doesn’t make sense? Maybe he kept him locked up or tied up, and then killed him when he got home.”

“That’s ridiculous. Why would he go to all that trouble?”

Josh pauses. “Things that make you go, ‘hmmmmm.’”

They laugh.

C h a p t e r   1 2

Micah chuckles at the question.

“How am I doing?” He repeats Shawn’s inquiry back to him over the hotel landline. “I gotta take it moment by moment. But in this moment, I’m okay, I guess.”

He turns off the television and walks toward the window. He holds the phone away from his face so he can lean into the view outside. Local news vans are parked all along the street outside his temporary residence at the W Hotel.

“I can’t get used to seeing my face all over the news,” he says, turning from the hotel television to the gray storm clouds developing above the media crews outside. “So there’s that.”

“I know, it’s terrible, my friend, I can’t even imagine.” Shawn pauses to make