Chapter 14 Jackson
Jackson
Jackson hates when Charleigh does this to him, leaves him hanging, waiting for her.
Not thirty minutes earlier, he was in his home office, iced tea in hand, the crossword puzzle from Sunday’s Times stretched out before him.
He likes to linger over it, make it stretch out into the week.
It’s one of the things he does on break to shut off his mind: unlock a solution to something that’s been eluding him.
Then Charleigh called, all in a huff. “What are you doing right now?”
Jackson’s head spun with different excuses. He set his ballpoint down, sighed. “Working on a bid, actually,” he lied. “Why?”
“For who?” she demanded.
None of your business.
“Just a small deal; it’s nothing really.” I promise you’re still my biggest client. “Why, what’s going on?”
A groaned wheezed out of Charleigh. “Nothing.”
He pinched the bridge of his nose. “What is it?” Nothing always meant something, usually something big with Charleigh.
“Can you sneak away? Meet me at the Boat House for a daiquiri? I just met that new family, the Swifts, and am dying to talk to you about it.”
So now this is happening. Jackson’s sitting outside on the deck, stabbing his frozen drink with his straw. He feels like a spectacle here. In Longview, yes, but especially at this chichi members-only club.
Dressed in dusty-rose IZOD khakis and loafers, Jackson subtly tries to signal that he’s gay (no other man in this town would dress in any shade of pink), even though he’s only out to Charleigh.
But it always fails. One of the old guard here, a woman in her late fifties, hair piled into a shellacked beehive, will spy him sitting alone and approach, usually with a not-so-attractive young woman in tow. The young’un is still single for a reason.
Jackson, who was raised with manners and is a people-pleasing middle child, thank you very much, will usually diplomatically extricate himself from these desperate attempts at setups by referring vaguely to a love interest back in Dallas.
The gorgeous women in town, on the other hand, are mostly all taken. Not that he has an appetite for them, nor they for him, once they get a clue. But it somehow doesn’t stop them—when they’ve had enough to drink—from pawing at him.
One thing he learned a long time ago: wealthy women think they own everything, everyone.
Charleigh included. To her credit, she’s never drunkenly groped or hit on him; she’s too in love with Alexander, for starters, and who wouldn’t be? But her thirsty possessiveness is insatiable.
He takes a long, icy pull from the strawberry daiquiri and is immediately punished with brain freeze. But it’s smoldering out. Even with the fans whirring, Jackson feels like he’s hovering over a steaming pot of gumbo, and the afternoon sun spackling the lake only makes it feel hotter.
Where is that woman?
He tugs his Ray-Bans down, another attempt to ward off anybody who feels the need to approach him.
Ugh, this town. Jackson isn’t used to this, this fishbowl-like existence.
He was raised in a metropolis—Houston, for Christ’s sake—then went to college in Dallas.
The only reason he’s here? His smothering mother, Willamena, refused to hand over any of her massive inheritance from his late father to help Jackson kick-start his design business.
“Find you a nice wife to marry, settle down with, and you can have all the money you need,” she said to him the last time he saw her, her coral-colored lips pressed into a smirk.
So he worked for a year in Dallas as a bartender at a club on Greenville Avenue, lived in a cheap studio apartment, and stashed away as much cash as possible.
He hoped to find an affordable place to set up shop.
But when he went looking, he was dismayed.
He wanted to stay in Dallas, live in a city with thriving gay bars and nightlife, but he had to cast his net wider.
The drab suburbs didn’t appeal to him, but when he went just a few hours east, he landed in the lush piney woods and was enchanted. The moment he laid eyes on the craftsman-style home for just $5,000, he was sold.
His long-term goal is to get to San Francisco. And he’s determined to make that happen, to keep his overhead low, funnel as much of his earnings into savings as he can bear.
But that doesn’t mean that this town doesn’t get to him sometimes, doesn’t drive him bonkers.
There actually used to be a lone gay bar here on the outskirts called the Rainbow Room, but there were too many assaults in the parking lot, too many closet-case rednecks making it a sport to beat the hell out of the handful of gay guys brave enough to patronize the place.
That was before Jackson’s time here. So now there’s really no place to find a potential boyfriend. He goes back to Dallas as much as he can, crashing on friends’ sofas over the weekend, but for now, he’s stuck here.
It’s not all bad. He loves his home, loves his yard.
Has trained a row of wild muscadines that grow along his back fence into a thriving orchard.
Not that he makes wine with them, not yet anyway.
Just preserves. But he adores puttering around his back patio, watering his potted plants, taking his coffee out there in the early mornings with a book, sitting in the shade of the giant magnolia, whose blossoms are so fragrant, they smell like gardenias.
Charleigh’s laugh barks through the air. He looks up to see that she’s trapped talking to someone, raising her eyebrows at Jackson as if to say, Save me?
She looks impeccable; nothing new there. Hair in a sleek ponytail underneath a broad sun hat. Bronzed shoulders bare in her strapless jumpsuit. She must’ve taken her sweet time getting ready.
Jackson raises his hand in a wave, which gives Charleigh all the ammo she needs to launch herself away from the woman.
“Hiiii!” she trills.
“Hey!” He stands to hug her. “So, what’s the big emergency?”
Half of Jackson’s daiquiri is now gone; he’s actually buzzed enough to want to hear the dirt.
But Charleigh’s eyes scramble for the waitress. She flicks her hand up in the air until the server comes over.
“What are you having?”
“One of these”—Charleigh motions to Jackson’s drink—“and another for him. Also some mozzarella sticks. That sound good?” she asks Jackson.
He nods.
She grabs his drink, sucks in a large sip through the straw. “Sorry, I need this. Can I have the rest? Pretty please?”
Jackson grins at his friend. “By all means, my lady.”
“Okay, so I went out to see the Swifts. Like I told you last night, all the girls are already using the wife’s potions or whatever, so I had to see for myself, and for Nellie.
The new girl, Jane, wasn’t there. She was on her horse, if you can imagine it, but when I say that family is weird, I’m talking total freak show.
Plus, they’re super religious, like too religious if you know what I mean. ”
Nobody can skewer like Charleigh Andersen, and Jackson would be lying if he said he didn’t enjoy the gossip. What the hell else is he supposed to do for entertainment in this godforsaken, small-minded town?
The waitress places the basket of fried cheese between them, sets down their drinks.
“How so?” he asks.
“The woman breastfed in front of me!” Charleigh nearly shouted, causing all heads to swivel in their direction.
“Yikes. Really?” Jackson has his act of mock horror down to an art. “Like, covered with a blanket in front of you or—”
“No! She just flopped her big knocker out for all to see, smashed her daughter’s face into it!”
“Gross! I mean, boobs are already gross but yuck.” He dipped a mozzarella stick into the ramekin of marinara, then took a bite.
“That’s not even the gross part,” Charleigh hissed, nearly spraying him with daiquiri. “She chewed up a strawberry, spit it into a bowl, then spoon-fed her daughter the mix!”
“Ewwww! Maybe don’t tell me this while we’re drinking frozen strawberry daiquiris?”
Charleigh cackled, took a criminally long pull of her own drink.
“So, I can see why Nellie already can’t stand the daughter.
Like, that wasn’t the worst of it. The worst of it?
That woman. Abigail’s her name. There’s something about her that irritates.
She just has this…audacity about her. Like whyyyy?
” Charleigh’s eyes are swimming with booze.
“She literally has nothing. Lives on a farm. Wears homemade dresses. Is okay-looking but nothing great. Of course, I didn’t buy a thing.
And I really can’t see why the others are already so up on her. ”
Bingo. This is what’s actually bothering Charleigh, Jackson thinks, but keeps it to himself. The fact that her friends are into this woman.
The hum of a boat approaching makes them both turn to look. It’s a ski boat, with a teenage blond at the helm, filled with other teenage girls. The driver of the boat waves to the crowd on the dock like she’s the queen of England.
“Fucking Blair,” Charleigh spits.
“Ah, yes, Nellie’s friend—”
“Nemesis. Little brat.”
Blair lowers the lever on the boat, causing it to speed, sending a powerful wake toward the deck. Lake water tides over the boards, soaking the edge of the deck.
“I hate her.”
“I know you do,” Jackson says. “And I know you secretly hate the woman who spawned her, even though you still insist on hanging out with her, but back to the Waltons.”
Charleigh laughs again. Jackson loves making her laugh.
“I just left without buying any of her bullshit products. Didn’t buy anything from the husband either.”
“Husband?” Jackson lowers his shades, eyes grinning at Charleigh. “Do tell. Details, please.”
Charleigh rolls her shoulders, heaves out a sigh that blows her bangs skyward. “He’s smoking hot. Like ridiculously good-lookin’.” She shakes her head, stirs her drink. “Too good-lookin’ for that woman, I’ll tell you that.”
Jackson picks up a cheese stick, passes it over to Charleigh. “Eat. At least one.”
“Fine.” Charleigh pulls it apart; hot cheese strings downward over her plate. She devours it. “Guess he makes custom furniture or something.”
“Really?”
“Yep. But I turned him down, too. We don’t wanna have anything to do with that family.”