An Arrangement of Sorts Ch. 02

Moreth had some wheels turning in his head. "Jocelyn, ..."

"Please, call me Joss," she said, "My ex-husband called me Jocelyn. I don't like to hear it anymore. Besides, nobody ever knows how to spell it, since there's so many ways to."

She thought about his name. She'd seen it in the embossed letters of his credit card as he'd paid. "Your last name is a little unusual," she remarked, "I mean, there's nothing wrong with it, it's just that I've never heard of one like that. It sounds a little bit medieval or something."

"Well, I guess that's because it is, pretty much," he said, "It's an old name for an old family. What's your last name?"

"Whitfield," she replied, "nothin' fancy."

He nodded, taking a sip of his coffee, "My favorite kind."

She tilted her head, "Favorite kind of what?"

He smiled, "My favorite kind of fancy."

The smile that he got for that hit him almost like a soft kiss. "I'm glad that you came in," she said, "I'm very thankful for everything and all. I feel a lot better."

"Well I'm glad," he said, "you've got such a nice way of smiling when you're not starving. I've got a couple of ideas, Joss. Don't ask me, I just get 'em now and then. Look, I work at a big place, and if you'd like, I can see if there are any jobs open there, but there's something that might be a snag, depending, ... before I look, I need to know one thing about you, if you don't mind too much. It's a government facility, so have you ever been convicted of any kind of offense?"

She shook her head, wondering about him now, "No, why?"

"It doesn't matter much to me if you have, but it can affect whether you can work there, that's all."

Joss looked down for a moment, "Ok," she sighed and then looked at him again, "I'm guilty of believing lies too often, and I'm guilty of being in love with a man who didn't love me – well not like I thought he did, anyway. I don't think I've broken any laws. Well, I got a speeding ticket once, if that counts."

He shook his head, "None of that counts, and I'm guilty of the same things, I guess."

"You too?" she smiled, "It's awful, isn't it? The way some men can just make you fall in love with them and then –"

"I was in love with a woman," he said.

"Well thank God, then" she grinned, "I thought you were trying to tell me that you were, you know, ... but at least it would explain why you don't want to – "

"Stop," he said laughing, "I told you that I'd love to. We just can't talk about that here, Joss, and I came in here and saw that I could maybe make a friend. And that's still what I want. You want to talk about the other thing, then we need to be someplace else for me to even listen, that's all. But even so, I'd still want to have a friend."

"Why can't you talk about it?" she asked, "are you a cop or something?"

He nodded.

"Really?" Joss was a little amazed and of course, she also felt a little stupid. "Am I under arrest or, ... are you going to arrest me?"

He shook his head, "No, of course not. I didn't hear anything that you said about that, so don't say it again."

"So what do we do now?" she asked him.

"I'll try to find out of there are any jobs and if there are, then I'll try to help you to get one," he said, "but you need money. Do you have any kids? Or a cat or anything?"

She shook her head, "No, and I won't have my little apartment anymore of I can't come up with two hundred dollars by Friday."

"I'll tell you what," he said, "I've got a teleconference call coming up in about an hour that I have to get ready for, and that'll likely take up the whole damn afternoon, they way that they usually go. By the time that it's over with, my butt will be pretty sore from sitting in one place. If you're up for it, can I maybe meet you here at say, six tonight? I'd like to take you to dinner and we can talk some more. While I'm on that call, I'll check the job postings where I work, since I'll be on their internal site anyway, what do you say?"

"I'd like that, "Joss replied, not comprehending how this had gone from what she'd thought she'd have to do to where they were now. It seemed a little unreal to her somehow.

"So it's a date then?" he grinned hopefully.

"Yup," she nodded, "I'll be here at six."

But she wasn't.

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Joss walked through the park, thinking. She liked Chris an awful lot in only minutes, but that didn't change anything for her.

She had an image come to her mind of him in another place and time. To her, she seemed to see him as a knight or something in a strange setting, but the armor that he wore was black, or at least, very dark. She most definitely didn't see him as evil in the good guy/bad guy simplicity of it, that was just the way that she saw him. She smirked to herself that it was likely that right now, she could use somebody like that, as adolescent as it seemed to her

But there was still reality to be tended to.

Joss had learned at least a little in the time that she'd been on her own after Bobby had ripped her life apart.

Men don't mean what they say a lot of the time.

They don't mean it when they say that they love you, or when they tell you that they'll do something.

They don't mean it when they have to lie at the part where it says 'till death do you part', none of that.

They don't mean it at all.

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Chris looked at his notes while the meeting dragged on. He got up and walked into the kitchen with the tiny headset on his ear, still listening as he made himself a coffee – the third one since it had begun. As he waited for the kettle to boil, he went to the bathroom to urinate, grinning a little and hoping that nobody else on the call could hear the sound of it.

He was listening and added his comments now and then, but he was multi-tasking. Walking back to his den, he continued to peruse the job listings at the camp facility. He sighed, she'd never said anything about any post-secondary education, so he had to assume that she didn't have any.

There must be hundreds of positions open, he thought. Couldn't there just be one that didn't require a master's degree in rocket science, or comparative nano-bioluminescent horse-hockey?

He wanted to sweep the expensive laptop right off of his desk and against the wall.

He knew what he'd seen in that girl's eyes.

Yeah, he'd seen that she was desperate enough to sell herself. Other than the huge risks to a lovely woman who didn't have much of a clue about what she was trying to do in her desperation, he had no problems with that. It was just something that she figured that she might be able to do to scrape up some money with to go on living another day.

It was the other thing that he'd seen in those soft blue eyes. She should never even have a thought like that cross her lovely mind. He knew one thing for damn sure.

She was just about that close.

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He did his best to get done with the teleconference and made the notes to himself that he figured that he'd need to chew on about some of the issues that the call had raised, in addition to the ones that had landed in his lap. So nice to be on vacation, he mused. That didn't count for shit once you were above a certain level.

He hadn't resolved Joss' problems either, though he did keep having one possibility keep rising to the surface. He'd have to see. He got Honey into the back seat of his Chevy Avalanche.

When he got to the place, he saw that she wasn't there, and of course, he'd been very afraid that she wouldn't be. If he could have gone back in time, he'd have had at least two hundred dollars in his little jogging pouch to give her that morning. He had no explanation for it in his mind, but he knew that she was worth it to him for some reason.

A little more thought and it came to him.

He'd found someone who made him feel different. While he'd been with her in that diner, he didn't feel as though he was dead anymore. He thought that she must be a goddess if she had an ability like that.

And then there was that other all-important reason, too.

He just liked her.

They drove around for hours.

He was driving past the local grade school when he looked at his watch. It was headed for eleven-thirty. He must have been up and down the length of every single street and road in the area at least six times and he felt a little defeated, somehow.

On his last pass down Main, he saw her sitting hunched down with her back to a doorway and her arms around her knees. Half a block away, two men were walking toward where she was siting, but they hadn't seen her yet. He could tell that they were far from sober.

He also saw the grille of the cruiser just sitting there poking out of a nearby alleyway with its lights out. A second glance told him that there was someone inside. He thought about it for a second and pulled a U-turn on the deserted street. That ought to get the trooper's attention, he thought.

He hadn't had a ticket in years.

Chris pulled up alongside where Joss sat and ran the passenger window down. "Hey, Joss,"

Joss looked up and he could see the tracks of her tears across the twenty-five feet between them.

"You uh, you got a minute?"

She shook her head, "I want to, Chris, but I – I've gotta make some money soon, I –"

"Joss, "he said exhaling heavily, "Just do what I tell you and come here. Please?"

She stood up and came to the truck.

"Is your name really Jocelyn Chloris Whitfield? Chloris, as in Chloe?"

Her eyes widened, but she nodded, "Yes. Are you really a cop?"

"Kinda-sorta, or I wouldn't have been able to find that out," he nodded, pulling out his wallet to show her the badge.

"Are you going to arrest me?"

That got her another sigh from him. "Yes, if I have to. Please get into my truck. That'll get you away from this and it'll get us an interview with the trooper in that police cruiser there in the alley behind my left shoulder. I just want to get you in here before anything bad happens to you."

"It already has," she said miserably, "a long time ago."

"Please get in," Chris said, "I want to help." He could see that she was doubtful.

"Joss, if you don't get into this vehicle right now, I swear that I'll arrest you. I really do want to help, but one way or another, you're getting into this truck. The only variable will be whether you'll be in handcuffs or not."

She opened the door and got in. Moreth hit the lock button on his door console and opened the rear passenger window about six inches. Honey was definitely not pleased as she saw the two men who were now stepping off the sidewalk in her direction.

"Hey! "One of them said, "That's our bitch, y'all."

Moreth laughed, "Really? She doesn't like you, then." He indicated the dog as he held up his badge again having to shout a little over Honey's barking, "United States Marshal. How much longer do you want to talk?"

They backed away in surprise, but turned to run when the cruiser slid to a stop in the street with its lights brightening up the street. The window slid down and Honey's disposition changed instantly as she pushed Moreth's head forward a little to look out of his window on the other side of the truck. He rolled his eyes.

Joss was surprised at the motion that it caused and she stared at the large animal.

"Hi Honey," Shannon grinned. Her partner in the front seat looked mystified.

"Honey?" Joss said.

"She means my dog. That's her name, though I'm thinking of changing it now," Moreth replied.

"Chris, what are you doing?" Shannon asked, "This looks a little off to me. So is the Marshals Service running anti-prostitution sweeps too now? What's going on?"

"Is he really a marshal?" Joss asked her, "Are you really a marshal?"

"Yeah," he nodded before turning to answer Shannon's question.

"Holy Cow, ..." Joss said.

"My friend Joss and I were just talking, Shannon, that's all. I don't know about anything else."

"Call us in as investigating a suspicious vehicle," the trooper said to her partner. She opened the door and walked over.

"Look, Chris, level with me," she said, "We've been watching this woman all evening. I know what she thinks she's here for, and I can see that she's about near the edge of falling over. That's why we've been parked over there for the last hour. I was hoping that we wouldn't get a call for something. Now, my partner can't hear us if you keep it on the down low, ok? What the hell are you doing here?"

She looked at Joss and then back at him, "If she's your friend, Chris, then tell me her last name."

He smiled a little, "Her last name is Whitfield, and I really am here to talk to her. I just wanted to get her off the street for now and talk to her about getting her a job."

She looked at Joss, "What is this man's last name, Miss?"

It took her about a half a second and it surprised Chris a little to hear her say it.

Shannon Peters looked hard at Moreth for a moment. "All right," she sighed, "I don't know how the hell I'm going to log this, but you have a good night." She reached out her hand to rub Honey's ear for a moment. "She already smells better, so I can see that you both survived her bath. You take care of him, Honey." She walked away with a small laugh.

"Can I see your badge?" Joss asked, "and what was that about how I smell? I didn't really catch all of that."

"That's why I'm thinking about changing my dog's name," he groaned as he handed over his wallet, "We met her a couple of days ago when Honey really needed a bath."

"I didn't know there was still such a thing," Joss said as she stared at the badge. He turned on the map light on her side for her.

"It says that you're a Supervisory Deputy United States Marshal. I'm in really deep trouble aren't I?"

"No," he laughed, turning off the light and taking his wallet back as she handed it to him, "not at all. I found out about that Drunk and Disorderly charge, but you've been pardoned for it. Looked to me like a drunk teenager on the rampage."

"Yeah," she smiled a little for the first time as she wiped her eyes. There would have been a huge mess if she'd had enough money to be able to afford mascara, "that's pretty much what it was. It was so long ago that I forgot to tell you about it this morning. So I'm not under arrest then, either?" She sounded a little disappointed.

"Well, I could arrest you, if that's what you really want, but then I'd have paperwork to do and anyway, without a charge to lay, I'd have to let you go the next day anyway. Why? Do you want to be arrested?"

"No," she smiled, feeling a little better, "I think I'd just like to be in handcuffs sometime, that's all. What was that you said about getting me a job?"

He put the truck into gear and began to drive. "Well first, I'd like to yell at you a little for not believing me, but I can't since I can understand it. Let's get something to eat, since I promised you that, and Honey and I have been starving all this time driving around looking for you."

He looked back at the dog who was now busy sniffing Joss's clothing, "Well, her more than me. I can go without a meal, but her – well that's something else.

Look Joss, what I want is that you get into a situation that's on more familiar ground than I see you on right now. You're somewhere that you don't want to be and you don't have all that much of a clue how to be there. There's nothing wrong with that, but just from talking with you earlier, I can see that you've got a brain in there. You're just outside your frame of reference. Those two assholes, ..."

"They told me that they had something to do, but they'd be back, ..." She looked to be on the verge of tears again.

Moreth nodded, "And that's why the troopers were there. Didn't it seem like Main Street was just a little quiet for this time of night?"

She thought about it and nodded, "I guess I really am in the wrong place. I wish that I could find the right one for once."

"That's what I'm here to talk to you about," he said as they pulled into the lot of the large, and well-known restaurant chain. They idled through the drive-through and then spent the next half-hour eating and watching Honey clown and fawn around them as she played in the lot.

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She stood leaning against his truck in amazement. "Really?"

"It's up to you, Joss," he said, "We'd need to uh, define it a little better, but I guess the official name for it is that I'd like to hire you as my housekeeper and secretary. You can't do all of that part of it because of the security clearance required, but you can sure do some and that'll be a help. The job is eight hours a day or so, since my life is pretty nutty, and five days a week. I'm pretty sure that I can afford to pay you a hundred a day, though taxes will have to come off of that.

It's not that much, I'm afraid, since you'll have to look after 'Miss Bouncy' here as part of that as well as run my house, do the shopping, cooking and cleaning and all of that. I personally think it's a bit light, but it's a live-in job, so room and board are expenses that you won't have to pay for."

"What happens after?" she asked, "like weekends?"

He thought about it, "I guess that if it works out, you can have the use of my other truck, as long as you don't go on road trips or anything, and on weekends, I'll do what you normally do during the week, unless I'm not home. I have to travel sometimes, but so far, it's not too bad. I want to say that I'm going to try to do this right, and that means that it's a real job. I can't exactly do the Hollywood thing and have you working for me for cash, because of my job. It'll mean that it'll be even more expensive for me, but that's my problem, I guess. I've been living with Honey for a few days now and I can see that I need the help.

The way that I see it, you can do this, at least until you have enough money to finish your trip home. Where's your dead car? Maybe I can fix it."

She looked down, "I meant it when I said that it died, Chris, it caught fire and burned, right out on the highway. I got most of my stuff out of it, but the fire department got there too late to do much."

She looked over at him. "You're being awful nice to me. I know I shouldn't question it too much, but, ..."

He sighed. "Look, I saw you for a few minutes in the park this morning while I was there with Honey to go running. When I saw you in the diner, I knew a couple of things from the way that you said 'hello' to me, and when I sat down, I saw all that I needed to in your eyes. What I got from that is that I was sitting with somebody who was near the end and couldn't handle all that much more."

She nodded, "I've tried everything that I could think of, and all that's left was ..."

He shook his head, "I know that, Joss. But that's not what I was talking about. I saw everything. That's why I sat down with you."

He looked up for a moment at the few stars that he could see as an advancing cloud front began to hide them, "I've lived alone most of my life, but I was married and that turned into a really strange thing that took me a long time to leave behind me. Thirteen and a half years of being in love, but only a few months of actually having her near me. The rest was me trying to make it normal, but she wouldn't have it. She just kept me on the string that I was prepared to hang onto all of that time. It's my fault. I did it to myself."

He took her hands in his as she stood there in shock before him. "I saw everything, Joss, all the way down. I knew what I was looking at right away, and I decided that I want to know you because you're someone who needs for somebody to know them and believe in them, not, ... not what I saw there, not that. I've seen it before."

She stared at him, understanding him in an instant. He knew. He knew everything, she thought. Maybe not the details, but she could tell that he knew the pain and the overwhelming sense of hopelessness for the knowledge that it didn't matter what one did, somehow. Once you'd fallen into a well that deep, ...