Chapter 2 Jessie
Jessie
Jesus.
Jet lag is bad enough on its own without the constant disruptions from Luke.
The wall between our rooms is paper thin.
I can hear everything he does. Every. Single.
Thing. He’s noisy as fuck. He’s like a bull in a China shop.
He’s up and down until almost midnight. He goes to the bathroom and has a long, loud shower, complete with a rendition of Somewhere Over the Rainbow.
I kid you not. After that, I think he’s settled in for the night, but nah, he gets up and goes to the kitchen twice for a snack.
He boils the kettle once and opens and closes the fridge three times.
I fall asleep in between each disturbance, but the wakeups plus the jetlag are making me feel crazy.
I wake up around two AM for good. I guess my stomach thinks it’s lunchtime, or something.
My mom and I text back and forth for a while since it’s daytime for her. She seems okay, so that’s good. It makes me feel a little better. After that I read for a while and try my best not to think about what a terrible mistake I’ve made coming here.
I must fall back to sleep at some point, as the next thing I know it’s light and I can hear Luke in the living room. The smell of coffee drags me out of bed. I stumble through, bleary eyed, only to run slap-bang into my new housemate. He’s naked except for a pair of sleeping shorts.
“Jesus!” I say.
“Morning! How’d you sleep? You must feel so much better after a good night. Jet lag’s the worst, huh? What’d you feel like doing today? Your dad might have plans but if not, we could hang with some of my friends. They’re amped to meet you.”
Oh fuck.
A morning person.
This shit’s going from bad to worse.
“Can I get some coffee, please?” There’s a desperate note in my voice that I don’t like but am helpless to remove.
He falls over himself getting it to me as quickly as possible.
He almost knocks a box of cereal over in the process.
His calf muscles flex as he reaches up to grab a mug from the top shelf.
His back dents and ripples too. It catches me off guard because he was such a weedy little kid when he was fifteen.
Aside from the I’m baby blue eyes and the over-eager smile, it’s hard to reconcile this Luke with that Luke at all.
He offers me a tub of yogurt, I decline, and as I sit down to inhale my coffee, he tucks into his.
He lifts the foil lid slowly. Overly-carefully.
Then he sets about scraping it clean with his spoon and when that’s not enough, he licks it with a broad stroke of his tongue.
I try not to look. It’s like driving past a car crash.
You know you shouldn’t look; you know it’s going to be disturbing, but for some reason you can’t help it.
“Are you ready for breakfast?” he asks as soon as I set my empty mug down.
“Haven’t you just finished eating?”
“That? Nah, that was my first breakfast. Plus, it’s Saturday today.” He looks at me kindly, as if I’m very sweet but a bit clueless.
I’m finding it a real challenge to keep up, so maybe I am. Clueless, that is. Fuck knows I’m far from sweet. “What does that mean?”
“Pancake Saturday, bruh! Your dad makes the best pancakes ever.”
What now?
He cannot seriously mean to tell me my dad’s making pancakes.
Pretty sure I’ve never seen my dad manage more than getting a piece of fruit out of the fridge.
Against my better judgement I allow myself to be dragged across to the main house.
Believe it or not, I’m met by the sight of my dad cheerfully, and competently, flipping pancakes.
Rachel has her hair down, jutting off to one side in a tangle, and is wearing a fluffy white robe.
She’s perched on a kitchen stool, nursing an Ayurvedic beverage, and Ella Fitzgerald is accompanying this image of domestic bliss.
The fuck?
My dad’s face lights up when he sees me. He sets down the spatula and gives me a firm back-of-the-neck squeeze. “How’d you sleep, Jess? Feel a little more human?”
“Not really.”
“Ah, it takes a few days. We can take it easy and hang out at home until you’re feeling better. Might be a good idea to spend some time at the pool.”
“Yeah,” agrees Rachel, “spending time outdoors is the best thing you can do to get your body clock back on track. Sunlight helps you adjust.”
“Maybe we should all go for a run?” suggests Luke.
I’m trying to reserve judgement on this guy.
I swear I am. My dad’s married to his mother, there’s nothing anyone can do about that.
We have to get along, but if he’s going to go around saying dumb shit like that in my presence, I can’t see myself being able to be around him for any length of time. I really can’t.
My dad arranges the stack of pancakes on a large platter and sets it down on the kitchen island for us to tuck in to.
Luke all but drowns his pancakes with maple syrup.
His entire plate is drenched in it. My dad and Rachel have theirs with mixed berries and an amount of syrup commonly associated with normal people.
Just to prove to myself that all this is really happening, I pick up a pancake with my fingers and bite into it.
Well, fuck me.
Luke was right. My dad does make good pancakes.
I look over at my dad. He’s going gray but he’s kept most of his hair.
He has more of a tan than he used to when we lived in LA.
He’s in better shape, too. His eyes are clear and sparkling.
Blue-green like the ocean, but not stormy like they used to be.
He watches Rachel as she eats. His happiness, contentment and purpose in life all hang in the balance.
“Mm,” she sighs, “I think these might be your best yet.”
He smiles like a man who has just reached Nirvana.
Who the hell is this man and what has he done with my father?
“How about that run?” says Luke when he’s finished his meal.
“Uh, no, thanks. I’ve got to unpack.”
“Rain check!”
Oh, shit.
A morning person, an energizer bunny, a momma’s boy, and fuckwit.
Not a good combo.
I unpack my things, taking my time so I have less of it to spend with the freaks who call themselves family.
I find it harder than I thought I would.
There’s something really permanent about the act of taking your possessions out of a bag and placing them in a wardrobe with the intention that they’ll remain there.
Homesickness pangs between my ribs as I fold my T-shirts and jeans.
Handling them gives me flashbacks of packing them at my mom’s place in Sydney.
I feel the same thing I’ve felt since the day my parents split; traitorous.
It doesn’t matter where I am, or who I choose. It’s always the same. I can’t make them both happy at the same time.
“You ready for a swim? The water is sweet!” says Luke, swinging the top half of his body into my room, hanging onto the doorframe to stop himself from barging all the way in.
“You go ahead. I’ll be out in a minute.”
When he leaves, I pick at the Van Halen poster above my bed, contemplating ripping it clear down the middle. I can’t make the leap, so I make a small tear on the bottom left corner. It’s not big enough for anyone else to notice, but I know it’s there.
I hear a thunderous splash from outside, followed by an exuberant whoop. I sit on my bed and think how unbelievably lucky orphans are to have no parents.
No parents.
No stepparents.
And best of all, no stepbrothers.
Lucky fuckers. They’re living the dream and they don’t even know it.
After a while I become aware that if I don’t go outside voluntarily, a friendly, well-meaning face is going to peer into my doorway again and drag me out forcibly, so I put on a pair of boardshorts and head to the pool.
Luke and my dad are in the water, tossing a ball back and forth. Rachel is in one of the flower beds attacking a bush with a pair of pruning shears. I find a lounger that doesn’t have a towel on it and lie back, squinting into the sun.
Shit.
Left my sunglasses in Sydney.
My dad throws the ball high and wide. An impossible catch.
Luke launches himself at it regardless, abs knotting under his skin, as he goes for the ball with a level of doggedness that borders on madness.
The effort sees his chest, belly and a good portion of his shorts emerge clear out of the water.
Sunlight glistens on his skin as it hits the droplets of water running down his body.
He not only catches the ball; he makes it look easy.
“Nice catch, Sport,” says my dad.
I’m about to start googling the cost of one-way flights to Sydney when I notice Rachel standing beside me, quietly setting down a mug of coffee and a couple of chocolate chip cookies on the side table to my right.
“Thanks.”
“No problem.” Her voice has a musical quality to it.
Reedy and unaffected. It’s the kind of voice that makes it easy to believe what she’s saying.
I’ll bet she’s spent years telling Luke what a great place the world is and how everything always works out in the end.
She acts nice and all, but in actual fact she probably has quite a lot to answer for.
I take a cautious sip of coffee. It’s black and bitter. No sugar, just how I like it.
Rachel heads inside for a bit and when she gets back, she dives into the pool at the deep end.
My dad gets out of the water and moseys on over to sit with me.
He looks a little out of breath from trying to keep up with Luke.
Rachel picks up where he left off, changing the game in the water to volleyball.
It occurs to me that whether they’re doing it in premeditated fashion or not, they’re playing tag-team to keep Luke entertained.
Either Rachel is better at it, or she has a lot more experience parenting a boisterous nineteen-year-old.
Her ball game is high intensity and has him laughing from the sheer joy of playing with someone who comes close to matching his energy level.