Rosetta's Ball (Chapter 1)

Naked ice rattled his empty glass of Wild Turkey. Jackson Green had been there before, not the bar, the situation. Since he lost her seven years before, this had been his life. Alone, again, it was New Year’s Eve.

Leaning against the rail of the bar, he was waiting for anything to excite him. But there was no Casablanca for this restless Bogart, only a posh warehouse-turned-bar, stuck out on the end of Long Island, packed with beautiful faces that bored him. The clock ticked down to another fake hoorah and Jackson knocked another shot glass down on the mahogany bar, sliding it towards the well.
“Whiskey on the breath can be the death of a man,” his Grandfather used to say.

Jackson Green, a twenty-nine year old whose eyes looked older than his age, knew this all to well. Life can do that.

Born in Memphis, Tennessee, his sixteen-year-old mother named him Jackson, after his father, a seventeen-year-old musician from Baton Rouge who died four months before he was born.

Jackson, taken in by his Grandparents at the age of eight, grew up in a warm three story brownstone, on the Lower East Side of Manhatten.

He knew his mother but looked to his grandparents as Ma and Pa. They owned an art gallery in Soho, where they lived. His grandfather passed away a few years before.
Jackson auctioned off the art collection at Christie’s, consolidated the offshore accounts, and sold the apartments in San Francisco, New York, and Paris, keeping only the beach house in the Hamptons that he now lived in alone.

So there stood a man, dressed to the nines, ready for anything, yet behind his eyes of satisfaction and ease was a paradise lost.

“Tommy!” he yelled across the the bar. The bartender saw him and nodded as he served another customer, as to say without words, “Yeah, Jacky, another. Just wait a moment.” So much in New York, or anywhere for that matter, was said without talking that a man grew to understand his eyes could be not only his number one asset, but also his most significant weakness.

After a minute or two, Tommy walked over with a double Wild Turkey. “Hey kid, look down at the other end of the bar, see the brunette in that black dress, she got you this one,” Tommy chuckled as he slid him the rocks glass.

“Jesus, Tommy,” Jackson laughed, “I guess that means she wants something.”

“I don’t know how you do it Jacky. I should be as pissed off with my life as you are with yours,” Tommy said as he continued down the bar.

The club was an old mill from the twenties. It was just one giant open room with a 30-foot high brass ceiling and an upstairs that mostly hosted private parties. The bar ran along the right side of the room and stretched a good eighty feet.

Jackson sipped the bourbon and felt the slow burn he’d come to love. After a few minutes he walked over to this brunette wearing a timeless black dress that clung to all the right places. Jackson weaved in and out of people on the way, stopping once or twice to say, “hi,” or get an early New Year’s kiss; then, stopped in the middle of the floor, he realized she was beautiful, in the same way Toni had been.

This mystery girl glowed; bathing in soft light that hung to her as if she, herself, mesmerized it. She was the kind of girl that either the whole room noticed all at once or the girl you felt lucky to find, afraid that sooner or later she’d be noticed and taken away to someone's table or private party upstairs. She was five seven with shoulder length chestnut hair.

Approaching her, she laughed, revealing her neck, long and slender. Her hair danced within the light that was already dancing with her.

Jackson abruptly stumbled upon her. “Hi!”
“Oh, hello,” she responded, a little startled by his sudden involvement.

Jackson stood there, a little out of place for about five seconds. “Thank you for the drink,” was all he could think to say.

“What drink?” She snapped back confused. Time stopped.

Red in the face, Jackson slowly put his head down and started to laugh, “Never mind.”

“Nevermind?” the girl asked.

“Excuse me,” he said as he slowly turned heading for the bathroom. On the way Jackson saw Tommy laughing behind the bar and he kindly gave him the finger.

Although The Public House held a good 500 people, it only had one little bathroom with two urinals and a toilet. The line was long and it gave him time to think about how desperate he had been lately.

After ten minutes Jackson was able to splash a little cold water on his face.

As Jackson walked out of the bathroom he heard a soft, “Hey?” Leaning against an old jukebox to his left was the mystery girl. “Sorry I snapped, but what was that all about?” she asked.

Caught off guard Jackson took a step back, and looked at her, then looked away. “Um, yeah... Tommy, the bartender, he just told me that you bought me a round. I guess it’s his way of trying to find me a date. Sorry I startled you like that,” said Jackson.

“Oh...oh,” she started to laugh, “it’s okay. I’m just here with some girlfriends I met last summer. I worked out here then, I’m Katelynn,” she held her hand out, “everyone calls me Katie but that sounds so childish, so I try to go by Katelynn, but it hardly ever works.”

He paused, then answered the gesture saying, “I’m Jackson. I don’t really care if anyone calls me that. It’s a little too southern for all these aristocrats,” he leaned in and softly asked, “you know what I mean?”

Katelynn broke into a smile that just seemed to last, like those summer days that linger in October. ”Would you like to walk outside? They have a garden in the back, it’s… quiet,” Jackson asked.

“Okay.”

They walked down a tight hallway to a set of French doors leading to a quaint, walled in outdoor patio with few amorous couples scattered around random tables. The East End of Long Island stretches out toward the Gulf Stream to where the weather can be mild in the winter. It was chilly, but comfortable. There was even a fireplace built into the far wall. Katelynn and Jackson walked over to warm their hands.

“So, Katelynn... what brings you to New York?”
“I spent last summer with my aunt working as an au pair,” Katelynn said, looking away as if he’d object. “This Christmas I came back to see my aunt. She’s in her eighties. She lives on Sunset, just a few blocks from here.”

“You’re not from New York are you?”

“No, I’m not. What are you getting at,” she asked with a smirk.

“Conversation, just conversation” he replied, holding his hands up in defense.

Smiling still she continued, “Mom and Dad are in Iowa, but I chose New York. I just couldn’t spend the rest of my life dressing up to go out to Walmart.”

Jackson laughed. “I sing,” she blurted out. Rambling on she continued, ”Or, I should say I baby-sit and work at a library in Manhatten, but-but I sing, when someone is foolish enough to pay me.”

“I am sure you’re wonderful,” Jackson assured her.

“How do you know that?” she asked moving in closer to him.

“Just because,” he said touching her arm.

Jackson always had that effect on women. Oh, it wasn’t just young girls his age, but all women. Some how he could make them all just smile, laugh, fluster. It takes a certain type of individual to just talk to people, and that's what Jackson did. He just didn’t care what other people thought. He’d hit on grandma, and she loved it.

Katelynn was definitely blushing by this point.

“What do you do, Jackson?” she asked.

“I live…”

“Oh, really? You live. Now what does that mean?” Katelynn asked.

“Why do you care what I do?”

“Isn’t it normal to ask what someone does. What are you a drug dealer or something?” Katelynn said with a look of anticipation.

“No, not a drug dealer, but close. I’m a lawyer,” he said. Katelynn squeezed his arm and laughed under her breath.

“Well, can I buy you a drink this time?” he asked rather coy, as if she was going to decline. He never came across too eager, or too pretentious. He wasn't cocky, he was just confident enough to make fun of himself.

“Well?” she lingered.

“Well what?” he snapped playfully. “Champagne!” he remembered. “My God, we can’t have a New Year’s kiss without champagne,” he announced.

Kiss? Katelynn laughed and took his hand. In the few minutes they had been away from the bar, the place had started hopping. Five to midnight was a pretty tough time to find a bottle of champagne, a bartender, or even just a space to stand.

Jackson was able to get Tommy’s attention by just holding is arm up, pointing at his watch. Tommy nodded, then bent down lifting up a bottle of Krystal.

Pulling Katelynn through the crowd, she just gazed at him. He missed this, concentrating on getting through the crowd.

What Jackson never knew was that even though he felt entirely alone, they all had looked at him this way, with soft eyes that said yes. With eyes that said, “This is him, Mom,” they didn’t know any better, yet neither did he.
Jackson thought he was alone, but in reality it was just a feeling of loneliness, as if there was something he was destined for but hadn’t found yet, or maybe his destiny was constantly there, exactly what he refused to notice.

“Thanks Tommy,” Jackson yelled over the crowd as he finally snagged the bottle. He turned and he saw her. Trapped in the flashing lights and drunks kissing one another, counting down, 10, 9, 8… he saw her for the first time in seven years and his heart tied knots around itself. Was it just around the eyes, her smile, or her perfume? Whatever it was startled him, and as he started to say, “I can’t…”

She kissed him.