Chapter 4 Jill
Jill
Jill Scott stood at her bedroom window, watching her mother drive away. When the station wagon reached the top of the driveway
and turned right, something loosened in her chest. With her mother gone, she could relax.
She finished making her bed, folding the top sheet over the powder-blue comforter and smoothing away all the wrinkles. Then
she put her nightgown away, placing it neatly in the drawer next to her socks and underwear. When she shut the drawer, a tiny
shudder ran through the piece of furniture, causing one of the carousel horse music boxes on the hutch to play the opening
notes of “You Light Up My Life.”
Locating the source of the sound, Jill ran her fingers over the yellow roses on the porcelain mane. The horse had been a Christmas
gift from her parents, an addition to her collection, and though she’d pretended to love it, she hid it behind the other horses
to avoid looking at it.
She didn’t like its open mouth or the way its lips peeled back in a snarl. It looked like it wanted to take a bite out of
something with its little Chiclet teeth. Its black eyes seemed accusatory, as if it was Jill’s fault that its body was impaled
by a silver pole.
There were eight carousel music boxes on the shelf. Jill’s favorites played “The Way We Were” and “Greensleeves.” She was about to turn the winding key on the horse with the blue flowers woven into its mane when she heard the rattle of Una’s car.
Dimples popped on Jill’s cheeks, and her braces flashed as she smiled.
She waited until she heard Una’s key scratch the front door lock. She gave her time to put her things down and to call out
a greeting before emerging from her room.
Justin, her baby brother, was less reserved than Jill. He came racing out of his room at the end of the hall and hurled himself
into Una’s arms.
“Good morning, my darling.” Una giggled. “Soon, you’ll be so big and strong that you’ll knock me over like a bowling pin.”
Justin raised his little arm and flexed his bicep, mimicking J.J., the oldest of the Scott children. Justin was a surprise
baby, which explained the seven-year age gap between himself and Jill, who was twelve, and J.J., who was thirteen.
“Oh!” Una admired Justin’s arm. “I could use muscles like that in the garden today. What do you say?”
Justin nodded and ran back into his room. Within seconds, Jill and Una heard him talking to himself and making car engine
noises.
“He loves his Hot Wheels,” Una said, her eyes shining with affection.
Jill’s face clouded. Everyone loved Justin. Her mother most of all. She was always hugging and kissing her youngest child.
She stroked his hair, rubbed his back, and let him climb onto her lap when they all watched TV. Jill couldn’t remember the
last time her mom had spontaneously reached out to hug or kiss her.
“Mom got him a new pack of cars for being good while she was at work.”
“He’s always good,” Una said. “And so are you. Do you want me to braid your hair?”
Jill didn’t have much time before she had to catch the bus. Their stop was at the top of the road, and their house was at
the very bottom, perched on a narrow stretch of lawn overlooking the harbor. It was an uphill walk to the bus stop, which
Jill hated, but a downhill ride whenever she rode her bike home from her best friend’s house, which she loved.
Grabbing her hairbrush and two hair ties, Jill followed Una into the kitchen and sat at the table while Una filled the kettle
with water.
Una started every shift with a mug of tea, and Jill loved the scent of it. Una carried the tea leaves in her purse and would
scoop them into a little silver ball. When she lowered the ball into her mug of hot water, the aroma of herbs and flowers
would fill the air.
Once, when Jill had asked about the tiny purple flowers in the tea, Una had gotten a faraway look in her eyes. “That’s Arctic
thyme. It grows in Iceland. My amma loved to use it for tea. Now I do, too. But mine also has mint. Keeps my breath nice and
fresh.”
Jill loved Una’s scent, which was a blend of mint, lemon furniture polish, and Pond’s Cold Cream. It was nicer than the perfumes
her mom wore, or the body spray the older girls at school used after gym class.
“Alright, let’s get your braids in,” Una said, running the brush gently through Jill’s dirty-blond hair. Using the edge of
her fingernail, she parted Jill’s hair down the middle. In the background, the water in the kettle gurgled softly.
Jill said, “I need to tell you something.”
Una started braiding. “Okay.”
Jill thought she heard a sound coming from down the hall. A few notes of music, tremulous and strange. She pictured the carousel
horse with the bared teeth slowing turning.
She wanted to hide the thing away—to shove it in the back of a drawer. But if she did that, her mom would notice. And what
could Jill tell her? That the horse creeped her out? If she told her the truth, her mother would frown or let out a sigh,
her face etched with disappointment.
It would’ve been easier if Jill collected trophies instead of music boxes. J.J.’s shelves were stuffed with dozens of shiny
gold swim trophies. He had so many that he barely had room for his comics or D&D handbooks, and after this summer, he’d have
to find another place for his other possessions. Summer was right around the corner, and for J.J., summer meant more trophies.
Jill had a few trophies. None were gold. Hers were the color of old pennies.
Just once, she wanted to see her name on one of the big two-tier, first-place trophies J.J. casually collected, but she had
to make the team first.
Every day this week, she and J.J. had come home from school, changed into their swimsuits, grabbed goggles and towels, and
headed to the yacht club for tryouts.
To get to the yacht club, they’d cross the back lawn and jump off the seawall onto the strip of beach behind their house.
Heading west, they’d pass a vacant lot, then Mrs. Smith’s boathouse and beach, then another vacant lot. A seawall topped with
a thick layer of concrete marked the beginning of the yacht club’s property. From there, it was a short walk past the snack
bar to the outdoor pool.
J.J. always increased his pace when they reached the parking lot. He didn’t want to be seen with his sister. At school, she was the more popular of the two, but he was the king of the pool.
A year ago, Jill and J.J. were the same height. Now J.J. towered over Jill. He was tall with wide, powerful shoulders and
strong legs. He could outswim the rest of the boys in his age group with ease.
Jill wasn’t fast or strong. She kept hoping she’d shoot up in height—for the equation of her body to balance out. Instead
of getting taller, she just got thicker in the waist and thighs.
“You need to watch what you’re eating. You don’t want to look like the Pillsbury Doughboy. Boys like a girl with a slim figure,”
her mother had said a few weeks ago when Jill was trying on last year’s swimsuit to see if it still fit. “I’m not going to
spend good money on a new suit until we see which team you’ll be on, but if you want to move up, you should exercise more
and snack less.”
Jill had desperately wanted to be a Flying Fish. All week, she’d been worried about spending another year as a Bluefish, losing
any chance of winning one of the coveted gold trophies at the end-of-season banquet and finishing another season with a small
participation trophy.
But at the end of yesterday’s tryouts, Coach Patrick had read out the names of the newest members of the Flying Fish, and
Jill had made the team. Fueled by joy, she couldn’t wait to share the news with her parents.
Though J.J. had made the team without even trying, he’d been in a foul mood on their walk home.
Jill had seen his sullen look when Coach called her name, and she knew he didn’t want to share his place in the spotlight.
The idea made him angry, and when J.J. was angry, he was cruel.
“Hey, Jill!” he’d yelled when they reached Mrs. Smith’s beach. “Wait up!”
The false note of brightness in his voice didn’t fool Jill. She pulled her towel tighter around her shoulders and kept walking.
“Don’t you want to hear what Aaron said about you?”
This gave Jill pause. She’d had a crush on Aaron from the moment he’d boarded the school bus last September. With his chiseled
cheekbones and head full of soft coffee-brown curls, he looked like one of the Greek statues she’d seen on a field trip to
the Met. And when he’d smiled at her, his eyes shining in the morning sunlight, her heart had somersaulted inside her chest.
Every time she saw him, she felt breathless. She could never think of anything to say to him, so she just stared at him when
he wasn’t looking. At home, she wrote stories about him. In every story, he fell in love with a girl just like her.
She didn’t think Aaron had said a word about her to J.J., but there was a small chance her brother was telling the truth.
Swinging around to face him, she said, “What’d he say?”
“That it was cool you made the team.”
Jill glowed with pleasure. She wanted to run to her room and shut the door so she could picture Aaron’s face from every angle
as he talked to J.J. about her. She wanted to hear Aaron’s deep voice repeating the line over and over again, even if it was
only in her head.
J.J. gave her a few seconds of happiness before sliding the dagger in. “Mike said something, too. He said you should get a new suit because everyone can see your mosquito bite boobs through this one.”
Jill’s skin grew hot with embarrassment. She wrapped her towel around her torso, mortified by the thought that her suit was
actually see-through.
Why didn’t you tell Mike to shut up? she wanted to shout at J.J., but he wasn’t that kind of brother. He never defended her. He always joined in when other kids teased her, eager to see her taken down a peg or two.
“Mike’s an asshole, and so are you!” she spat.