Jessie steps in, laying his arm on the wall, effectively pinning me in, and I welcome the cool feel of plaster against my back. His head towers over mine at least a good foot. His eyes do a soft sweep of my features. We’re so close I can feel his breath on me in short staccato bursts. And here I am, the girl who thought it was a good idea to eat a cheeseburger with extra raw onions less than an hour ago. Of course, Melissa is free to eat all the onions she wants. Her boyfriend is clear across town at USC. All I can do is hold my breath, and hope I don’t pass out. Jessie seems like a nice enough guy. He’d probably offer mouth-to-mouth and vomit soon thereafter.
His brows soften, and his lips twitch with apprehension. Apprehensive is something that I wouldn’t peg Jessie Fox as. “You want to hang out sometime?”
Hang out? Did Jessie Fox just ask me—Jennifer Tits McGee Barkly to hang out? Under normal circumstances, I would be elated. Under normal circumstances, this wouldn’t be happening. And, in a plot twist of epic proportions, a self-righteous anger brews deep inside me.
“Look”—my voice comes out curt and hostile right off the bat—“I’m not flashing my boobs at you again. It’s not happening, so you get any ideas of hanging out with me out of your head. In the event you haven’t noticed, I’m not exactly your type. I’m not one of your floozies, and I wasn’t throwing myself at you the other day on the field.” The room hushes down in our neck of the woods, and my entire body slaps with punishing levels of heat.
“I’m sorry. I swear, that’s not—” Just as he’s getting to the good part of his apology, Mr. Murphy does that annoying finger whistle that every dog within a ten-mile radius can appreciate.
“Everybody freeze!” Mr. Murphy’s round face turns a smug shade of purple as he grins out at the vicinity. “The five closest people to you are in your group. Tag one another, then come up with something to call yourselves. Keep it clean. Your first assignment is a how-to speech. Each member of the group is to explain a part of the process. You can decide as a unit what you’d like to describe.”
Heather bolts over, along with Connie, and Rachel joins in on the fun, leaving Jojo thankfully stuck with the rest of the Journey Girls and a couple of cotton candy headed Charms. I can see their speech now—how to gift an effective hand job.
My gaze meets up with Jessie’s, and I straighten. An entire series of electrical impulses races down my spine at the thought of touching him that way.
“We need a name,” Connie spits it out tough as rusted nails. A cloud of fake Obsession permeates her like a gas and causes me to gag a little. I like the real version. My mother wears Obsession faithfully, and I love it, but, for whatever reason, it’s one of the tougher scents to fake. “Something wicked awesome.” Wicked awesome is Connie Ferraro’s signature phrase. She’s a transplant from New York, so it’s sort of her way of indoctrinating us into East Coast culture. “How about Wicked Awesome?”
“No,” the four of us say in unison.
We toss out a few names, The Smurfettes—Rachel’s ridiculous idea because for one it’s not gender neutral. We have her boy toy in our group. You’d think she’d be cognizant of this. You can’t get any manlier than Jessie—he’s a lot of things, but he’s not a small blue female, three apples high. I still happen to think he’s incredibly hot, even if I did just knife off his balls and hand them to him on a Trapper Keeper.
“Jessie’s Girls.” Heather gives a sly wink my way.
“No,” I flatline. This time I openly shower him with my discontent, and there’s something in his eyes as if he’s shocked. It’s as if he likes the challenge I’m proving to be, and he’s glad to take me on.
Wet dream on. I scowl at him.
Jessie bears his golden gaze into mine, the slight impression of a smile brewing on his lips, and for some reason, this infuriates me. “How about the ThunderCats?”
“The ThunderCats?” I say with a note of serious disdain. But secretly, I love it. I love anything that pays homage to an animated state of being, but a part of me doesn’t feel like gifting him the satisfaction.
“That’s like totally cool.” Heather nods to me as if asking me to agree.
Connie and Rachel seem onboard, so ThunderCats it is.
“So, what are we going to demonstrate?” Connie wrings her hands as if she can hardly wait to get down to business.
Rachel snaps her gum, and her chest bucks with a laugh. “Maybe The Barker here can like demonstrate how to take her clothes off.”
“Enough,” Jessie says it so loud and sharp all four of us startle to attention. “She has a name, and it’s Jennifer. If you can’t remember that, maybe you shouldn’t be a part of this group.”
My mouth falls open as Heather, Connie, and I gape in wonder at the brave boy in front of us. I think it’s safe to say Rachel can kick all of our asses combined and maybe Jessie’s, too.
The hour drifts by, and we settle on a demonstration of how to make a pizza. Connie came up with the idea, and Jessie suggested we get a bunch of pizzas to give the class afterward. I think we’ve got our first speech in the bag—or the pizza box as it were.
The bell rings, and Heather and I race out of class.
“Are you okay?” She pulls me near the stairwell close to her locker. I know it’s killing her to know what Jessie and I were talking about.
“More than okay.”
Maybe the rest of senior year won’t be so bad after all.
* * *
After school, I take off for my new tutoring “gig” as Mom likes to refer to it. I follow the directions she gave me to a T and horror of all horrors find myself sitting in front of Jessie Fox’s extravagantly oversized, rather hotel-like home. I’ve stalked it a time or two before on the occasional drive-by once I got my car. To say it’s simply huge would be like saying the Mall of America is just your average shopping strip. This house is enormous, as in it would take days just to trek from one end to the other. Both Russell and Joel live in really nice houses, but neither of them is as showy as this one is on the outside. A three-tiered fountain takes up real estate right in the center of the expansive circular driveway. The two front doors are made of cut glass, and there’s an actual tower coming off the eastern wing of the house. I swear, they don’t have nice houses like this on Dynasty, Knots Landing, Dallas, or Falcon Crest combined.
My body breaks out into a nervous sweat. It’s one thing to have to deal with all of my personal topless embarrassment at school, to have had the balls to tell off the only boy I’ve ever seriously crushed on earlier this afternoon—I’m still shocked by my own audacity, not that it was audacious, it was well warranted, at least it was until I realized he wasn’t trying to be a pervert—but now sweating it out in front of his multi-story quasi-castle of a home, I’m starting to rethink my brand new “gig.”
What if there is no gig? What if this was all a ploy to get me into his bedroom? Maybe when he saw my “girls,” as Connie so delicately put it, bouncing up and down free as the day they were born, he decided he liked the merchandise and wanted a taste test to see which one he likes best? Crap. I stiffen my hand against the steering wheel. What the hell am I supposed to do now? Then it dawns on me that my mother happened to mention this gig right before I went out for my infamous run that morning; therefore, this has nothing to do with me or my tits. In fact, she and Dad stayed in on New Year’s Evil, so she must have gotten the request before I ever embarrassed myself that infamous night as well.
“Huh.” I head out and up the long walkway, giving three crisp knocks to the oversized door.
The sounds of shouting and cursing come in clear as the door swings open, revealing a redheaded woman, frazzled while untying an apron.
“I’m outta here. She’s all yours.” She plucks a set of keys from her purse. “Tell Jessie there’s enough frozen meals to feed them for a week. He’s a smart boy. He can figure his way out around a microwave.” She stalks off down the driveway.
“Wait!” I call after her. “Who am I tutoring? I’
m not tutoring Jessie, am I?” All sorts of inappropriate thoughts race through my mind—Jessie naked with nothing but a pencil, me with a Pee Chee between us and not much else.
“What?” she squawks, pausing momentarily from her escape. She’s considerably shorter than I am, her hair matted out an entire foot around her head, giving her more of a crazy appeal than anything stylish. But, there’s something no nonsense and familiar about her that demands instant respect. “No! It’s Jilly. She’s upstairs in her bedroom.” She takes a few steps in, shooing me with her hands. “Go on, get! She can’t stand to be alone. You think she’s ornery now? Wait until you leave her be for a solid five minutes!”
“But I’ve never met Jilly.”
Her shoulders hike back as she gives a knowing smirk. “Good luck with that.” She disappears behind the hedges, and I’m left alone in the doorway of this hollowed-out cave.
My feet carry me into the foyer without my permission, and the heavy cut glass door closes with a quiet flush behind me. It’s beautiful inside, museum-like, with enough wood paneling to provide firewood to a five-state radius for the next three years. A black and white checkered floor sprawls out before me in a dizzy display and offers the place an Alice in Wonderland effect. On each of the opposing walls of the entry hang larger-than-life paintings, the size of billboards—one of a young chubby boy with serious eyes and a scruffy puppy at his feet. I can tell that’s supposed to be Jessie. I’d recognize those hazel high beams anywhere. And is it sick that I melt a little looking at this much younger, much less man-of-steel version of him? I suppose if I confessed that to anyone I’d forever be branded as a freak, but, then again, this is me I’m talking about. Freak is practically my middle name now.
“Hello?” My voice comes back to me as an echo.
An opulent marble staircase rises in grand capacity to the second level, and I follow it upstairs to a maze of wood-lined hallways.
Heather once told me that the first time she was in Russell’s huge house she thought she might need a map to get out. I remember laughing at the time, but, right about now, it doesn’t feel so funny. Lucky for me, the staircase spills out to the front door. I follow one of the hallways and quickly get lost in the labyrinth.
“Jilly?” I call out so loud my throat burns from the effort. My skin prickles with heat. I’m in Jessie Fox’s house! I should feel like I’m lost in some sort of romantic fairy tale, and yet, any minute now, I’m expecting to find Rosemary’s Baby in one of these heavily paneled rooms. All of this dark casket-worthy wood is really starting to freak me out.
That’s it. I start opening doors at random. A laundry room the size of my living room. A room equipped with a bevy of weights and a stationary bike. Figures. The Foxes are so rich they’ve built themselves a gym right here in their own house. An expansive second floor family room with a rich burgundy leather sofa and a television twice as big as the one Russell’s parents have in their media room.
“Geez.” I marvel at the tower of videos straddling it on either side. “Open up your own video store, why don’t you?”
My feet scuttle me through the expanding reserve and back down another hall. I open a door and peer in to find it painted a rich navy blue. A dark burgundy strip rides halfway up the wall, and there’s a dark mahogany desk in the corner and an oversized bed in the middle of the room that looks as if it could eat my twin mattress for dinner. But I can tell from the oversized posters of basketball and football games pinned to the walls, the Farah Fawcett adjacent to his closet, the endless trophies lining every free shelf above his desk, this indeed is the promise land—I’m actually standing in Jessie Fox’s bedroom.
“Oh my God,” I say it breathless as I delve deeper inside. Welcome to the Holy Grail. I walk over to his bed and press down onto the mattress as if testing it out for firmness. The quilt is a simple dark blue, no print, adding to the overall midnight effect going on in here. I wonder how many girls he’s had on this bed? How many he’s had on that quilt I just touched?
Without meaning to, my feet carry me over to his nightstand, and I pull the top drawer out a few inches. My grandfather used to tell me I was “Top Drawer.” I never knew what that meant, but I did understand it to be a compliment. I am pretty sure, however, that it wasn’t meant to inspire me to snoop in someone else’s nightstand.
A picture frame of a woman and young boy stares back at me, and I pick it up. I’m not sure what I expected to find—a box of rubbers? A complete minibar? Perhaps a bag of chips and a New York Seltzer? But this sweet silver heart with a wreath of pink and blue rhinestones on top was not it. The woman has a broad, open face, pretty, big smile, lots of perfect white teeth. The young boy is about three, with his chubby finger pointed at whoever it is holding the camera. But those eyes give away his identity once again. It’s Jessie. So, who’s the woman? His mom? I wouldn’t have pegged Jessie Fox as a mama’s boy. He certainly doesn’t surround himself with anyone worthy of bringing home to meet her.
“What are you doing?” a high-pitched squeal comes from the doorway, and I drop the frame right onto my jelly sandal, hard as a mallet, and a piece of the plastic netting separates. That’s what I get. Ruined shoes, ruined reputation—it’s like I’m going for the gold, and we’re still tucked high up in January. Right about now, I’m hoping to make it to graduation in one piece.
“Shit!” I whimper, bending over to pick it up and note a hairline crack in the glass. “I’m so sorry!” I turn to find a little girl at the doorway, about ten or twelve, blonde, petite, very fucking angry looking. “I didn’t mean to—I got lost. Are you Jilly? My name is Jennifer, and I’m your new tutor.” I tuck the picture where I found it and hop out of the room in three easy strides, leading us both to the hallway before Jessie comes in and finds that not only have I thoroughly snooped through his bedroom—but I’ve broken precious things in the process. “Please don’t tell your brother. I was looking for you, and I’ve never even set foot in this house before.”
“Relax.” She folds her arms across her tiny chest. “Don’t do it.” She wags her head over her neck, and for a second, I think she’s about to break out into one of Frankie Goes to Hollywood’s greatest hits.
“Um, like that frame back there? I’ll do my best to replace it.” My throat goes dry because it seems my streak of cruelly embarrassing myself in front of Jessie is long from over. “Is that your mom?” Like it’s any of my snooping, frame-breaking business.
Her mouth opens and closes just as fast. “Yes, it was.” She turns up her pointy little nose and sneers. “I suppose someone as nosy as you wants to know what happened to her.”
A breath gets locked in my throat. She’s right, but still.
“Well, she’s dead.” Her big blue eyes bug out, big as golf balls. “She died right after I was born. She pushed and pushed and pushed, and out I came just as her head exploded all over the place.”
I suck in a sharp breath. “Oh my God, that’s awful!” My hand flies to my chest just as Jilly takes off wailing down the hall. “Crap.” I chase her down to the room at the end and enter into a pink enchanted forest of a bedroom with obscene amounts of tulle and lace. A giant mural of a hillside with an entire flock of unicorns sitting on it stretches over the back wall. A legion of Cabbage Patch dolls lines a shelf that skirts around the entire room. A cluster of Glo Worms and My Little Ponies lies strewn over the floor. And a short, round desk has pieces of a Spirograph littered over it. The entire room looks adorable, but perhaps more appropriate for a five-year-old than a preteen.
Jilly flings herself onto her enormous bed, bucking and kicking, crying hysterically at the top of her lungs.
“I’m so sorry!” My voice pitches just above her wailing, but that doesn’t deter her from turning up the volume. For a second, I think she’s totally faking this, but her face is slap-cheek red, and real tears pour from her, staining her pink comforter a darker shade of rose. I toss my backpack down and do the only thing I can think of, dive in and pull her into a
nice, long, necessarily strong, somewhat reassuring hug. “I’m sorry,” I whisper into her soft angel-like hair. “I’m sorry that I brought it up, and I’m very sorry that your heart is broken.” I mean it. I can’t imagine losing my mother. I can’t imagine never knowing my mother.
Her body molds to mine as she reduces to a soft whimper.
“How about we get to your schoolbooks? You think that will help take your mind off things?”
She lets out a weak grunt while shaking her head. I know she’s young, sixth grade, I’m guessing. But there’s something about her that feels more in line with what this room suggests, about five. Who can blame her? She lost her mother before she ever had the chance to meet her.
“Okay, how about we draw? You want to draw something together? Or maybe you can draw a picture for your dad or for your brother?”
“No.” She pulls back and dries her face with a wipe of her hand. “I want to do something for my dead mom.” Her lip curls in disgust at me. “Now that you have me thinking about her, I’ll never get her out of my head.”
“Okay”—I pat the air in a state of panic—“why don’t you draw her a picture?”
“Are you kidding, you freak? I just said she was dead!” she belts it out into my face. “What part of dead don’t you get? She’s dead, dead, dead!”
“I get it.” I toss my hands up over my ears in horror. This can’t be happening. Jessie is going to find out I’ve set off his sister, and, with my luck, I’ll end up behind bars. “But if you want, you can still draw something for her. People write letters to their deceased love ones all the time. It helps them work things through—sort of like a diary.” God, why am I so brainless? I should have suggested a diary to begin with.
“A letter?” She sits up straight. “I’m so in.” Something about her softens, and for a split second, she really does emulate the little angel she looks like on the outside. “Can I tell you something, Jenny?”