Ch. 21 – Jax
J ax leaned back in the driver’s seat of her bug and stared at the large, two-story home in front of her. She’d been sitting in the driveway for a good five minutes. Her phone dinged with a text. She glanced at the screen. It was from her brother.
Bobby: Mom installed a motion sensor system 3 mos ago. We all know you’re here.
Jax unwrapped a lollipop and stuck it in her mouth. Tart cherry flavor coated her tongue. Bobby didn’t have to specify the mother in question. Mom Clarissa. It was always Clarissa. The house itself was an embodiment of Clarissa. Neat, respectable, and a little too grandiose. If Mom Jeannie had been in charge, they’d live crammed in a tiny bohemian bungalow surrounded by a yard of wildflowers.
Her phone dinged again.
Bobby : Only gonna get weirder the longer you wait. [Eye-roll emoji]
With a sigh, Jax left her car, grabbing the bottle of Rose and Thorn pinot grigio on the passenger seat. Coming home shouldn’t be this hard. Ignoring the regal brass knocker, Jax opened the front door and walked in.
“There she is!” Mom Jeannie enveloped Jax in a tight embrace that included several side-to-side rocks. A light cloud of chamomile enveloped Jax, and she felt her shoulders relax just a little. Mom Jeannie was the absolute best, from her bouncing brown curls to her jangling bracelets and hippy-dippy flowing green dress. If it’d only been Mom Jeannie waiting for her, Jax would never mind coming home.
“Still with the lollipops?” Mom Clarissa stood in the entryway of the sitting room, which, as far as Jax could tell, was just a pristine living room no one ever used. Mom Clarissa arched a dark eyebrow. Always the dentist, she took every grain of sugar Jax consumed as a personal affront.
“So, how were your finals?” Mom Jeannie finally released Jax from the hug and accepted the bottle of wine. “Were they hard? When do you get your test scores?”
“They weren’t so bad,” Jax replied. “I’m sure I got As and Bs on everything.”
“Wonderful!” Mom Jeannie clapped.
“Bs?” A note of scandal tinged Mom Clarissa’s voice. She wore a soft pink blouse and pristine navy slacks. She wore her dark hair pinned in an elegant chignon, and her makeup, as always, was perfect. She looked as if she’d just come home from church. It was Saturday.
For the millionth time, Jax wished Mom Jeannie were her biological mother. Instead, her dark hair, olive complexion, and stupidly humongo boobs were all genetic gifts from Mom Clarissa.
The soft sound of guitar strings wafted from the living room.
“Frank here?” Jax asked.
“Of course,” Mom Jeannie said. “He wants to celebrate with us.”
“And he never turns down a free dinner,” Mom Clarissa added.
When it came to Frank, both things could be true.
Jax strolled into the living room and confronted the myth, the man, the legend himself. Frank looked gloriously out of place sprawled on Mom Clarissa’s fancy white couch in the middle of her chic, minimalist living room. He wore his usual uniform of faded Phish T-shirt and ripped jeans. His one true love, his guitar, perched on his small potbelly.
“Hi Frank,” Jax said.
He looked up from his strumming, and his honey-brown eyes sparkled with delight. Jax gazed into those same brown eyes every time she looked in the mirror.
“Hey, kiddo!” Frank’s voice was low and raspy. “I heard you finished your classes.”
“Just for this semester.”
“That’s great. Just great. Though I was never one for school myself. Dropped out after—”
“Your first semester,” Jax finished for him. She knew the story by heart. He’d set out to find himself but found Phish instead and followed them around the globe for a few years. He’d met Jeannie at Burning Man and they’d become fast friends over mushroom tea, yoga, and weed.
Frank was a central node in the great conundrum of Jax’s existence.
Universal mystery one: How had warm and bubbly Jeannie ever fallen for an ice princess like Clarissa in the first place?
Universal mystery two: How had the three of them worked out a deal where Frank provided his special Frank recipe to first Clarissa, then Jeannie, to propagate their family?
The adults never talked about their child-spawning arrangement, but Jax still couldn’t imagine a world where Clarissa had acquiesced to Frank’s stoner, hippy juju instead of sperm-milking some tall, blond, pre-med Harvard student who also played the cello and had all four grandparents alive and well in their 90s.
It was an enigma she wouldn’t solve today .
“Where’s Bobby?” she asked. Frank’s eyes drifted back to his guitar as he started a new tune. Right. Frank had always seemed more like a goofy big brother than her biological father. She turned to Mom Clarissa.
“Where’s Bobby?”
“In his room. Dinner’s in ten minutes.”
Jax strolled down the hallway, past an orderly collection of pictures in matching frames hanging on the wall. She tried to ignore how many of them featured her standing in front of a tennis net hefting a trophy or showing off a medal.
She knocked on Bobby’s door, then swung it open.
“Hey, Butt,” she called.
“Hey, Jerk,” he replied, swiveling away from his massive gaming computer. “At least you knocked this time.”
“Just in case your hand was in your pants.”
“You’re so gross.”
“But am I wrong?”
“I’m not answering that.”
Her brother’s room was spotless thanks to Mom Clarissa’s compulsive obsession with cleanliness, but Jax could still smell that slight musk of teenage boy beneath stringent applications of Febreze. She sat on Bobby’s bed and admired the fan art hanging on his wall—pictures of dragons, knights, and more than a few female elves with huge tits barely contained within elegant corsets.
Then again, Bobby was fifteen.
It took all her strength not to reach over and ruffle her brother’s curly brown hair. She used to do it all the time when they were growing up. But he was older now and already wise beyond his years, which made Jax achingly sad for some reason.
“You hiding out from the Moms here?” she asked .
He looked away. “I guess.”
“What’s wrong?” Jax had spent half her life babysitting her little brother and could read him like a book.
“Nothing.”
“Lie.”
“Girl.”
“Ahhhh.” Jax leaned back on his bed and crossed one leg over the other. “Tell me.”
Bobby shrugged and readjusted his glasses. He was well into the awkward stage of teen-hood. His body had grown long and lanky. Oil shone on his forehead, and he was doing his best to rock a wispy brown mustache. One day, many years from now, Jax savored the idea of relentlessly mocking that monstrosity. But for now, she let it slide.
“She’s in my D she could practically taste it. But at the moment, she seriously needed a break. A skittering sound caught her attention. Styles scampered across the living room batting a plastic bottle cap across the floor. The kitten tackled the bottle cap, performing an impressive side roll.
Jax laughed and reached for the feather toy Styles loved. She paused. Was it time?
“Styles, you want to go outside?”
The spotted kitten looked up at her from the floor. “Meow.” He rolled onto his back, inviting her in for a tummy rub-a-dub. That seemed like an enthusiastic feline yes.
“Let’s do it,” Jax decided.
Styles was still skittish as she carefully slipped the harness around his lithe body. He watched her carefully but allowed her to lift his paws and slip them through the openings in the harness. After snapping the buckles in place, she gave him a dried chicken treat, which he eagerly accepted. She clipped the leash to the harness and studied her handiwork.
“Meow?” Styles gazed up at her with emerald eyes. He seemed just as unsure about this whole harness situation as she did.
“Yeah, this is kinda dumb,” Jax admitted, “but let’s try it anyway.” As she picked up the cat, a small part of her wondered if this whole cat-walking thing was a practical joke.
Nope, the practical joke was the silly romance book still sitting on her coffee table. She glanced at the ludicrous cover, scoffed at the half-naked models, and marched to the door. With one arm, Jax swung open her door. It snagged on something, a wad of pink bunched beneath the bottom lip of the door. Jax’s mouth turned down as she recognized the notorious, noxious tennis dress. She’d thrown it in the corner of the room last week, but Styles had probably been playing with it when she wasn’t looking. Jax bent down, tugged the dress from beneath the door, and dropped it in the middle of the living room .
She’d been meaning to donate it or throw it away, but with studying for finals and leashing training the cat, she’d forgotten all about it. What she hadn’t forgotten was a certain handsome reporter. If she was being honest, Jax’s mind had drifted often to Rico over the past week. After publishing the profile article, she’d braced for an angry call or text from him. Maybe a demand that she unpublish it.
But nothing. Not a single peep.
Still holding Styles like a spotted football under her arm, she closed the door of her apartment and walked down the front steps. The kitten squirmed. “I won’t tell anyone about this if you don’t,” she promised him.
The night was cool but not unpleasant. She probably should have grabbed a light jacket on her way out, but she’d survive in her T-shirt. Crickets chirped as Jax looked around for a good spot to set down Styles.
Thoughts of Rico clouded her mind. Why was she so obsessed with what he thought of the article? He probably hadn’t even read it. The East County Caller was a small-town publication, and he was an important and busy reporter.
Jax knew she should probably be grateful he hadn’t reached out. Then, why wasn’t she? Why had she spent the week checking her phone for missed voicemails or jumping every time a text came through? Why did some reckless, rebellious part of her want to see him again?
Jacklyn.
Dammit! Now she was even imagining his voice calling her name. What the hell was wrong with her?
“Jacklyn.”
Okay, either her imagination had somehow learned expert ventriloquy, or . . . She turned around and came face-to-face with Rico Torres.