Chapter 7
Chapter Seven
OF TOSSER AND TWIT
“ N o! No, no, no, no!” Jack exclaimed as he tried to catch up to Thomas, who was hurrying down the hallway.
“Yes! She owes me…and you for that whole Eden thing.”
“Fine. Then she can make it up to us in literally any other way! But this is not it, Thomas! This is not it!”
“You heard Mick. We don’t have much of a choice.”
“Yes, we do. We can…have Jada call some of her single lady friends.”
“You’ve met them all, Jack.”
“Alright…Avi! Avi’s got to know some locals that are interested in finding love.”
“First of all, Avi doesn’t have the easiest time getting to know people. Second, they don’t need to be interested in finding love if they’re just filling a spot so filming can continue. And third, Mick needed to start filming an hour ago. Even if Avi knew some locals, it could take hours to get people ready to put a nine-day pause on their lives and get over here.”
“Oh, but it wouldn’t take hours to convince Zuri to do it and another hour and a half for her to get here, even if she agreed?”
“She’s already here, Jack.”
“She’s what?” Jack whispered as he slammed Thomas against the wall.
Thomas whimpered with fear before Jack covered his mouth. Jack scanned the hallway in one direction. Then the other. Then he looked back at Thomas.
“Are you loopy? You brought her here?”
Thomas tried to mumble his response through Jack’s hand. Jack slowly let go but gestured for Thomas to respond quietly.
“I couldn’t come down to Shawford for nine days to help you and watch both kids all by myself. So, Zuri agreed to come help babysit. Plus, Jada could use some time away from the kids to unwind and write a little.”
“Thomas, do you realize what you’ve done to Tae and Talia? Every young boy needs his mother in his life. And Talia’s still nursing! What will she do without her mother’s milk?”
“Jada sent me with an entire cooler of the stuff. And Tae’s a daddy’s boy.”
Jack was hardly listening as he kept nervously looking down both ends of the hallway for any sign of Zuri.
“Relax, mate. She’s not in the house. She’s with the kids outside. And why are you acting so loony? If anyone should be worried about what the other person’s capable of, it should be her worried about you. You’re the one who tormented her growing up.”
“She returned fire! And while it’s true I won the war, she wants her revenge. She deserves her revenge. Don’t you see? Eden was only the tip of the iceberg. She’s coming…and hell’s coming with her.”
Jack’s speech - derived from two of his favorite movies - must have worked, for he witnessed the fear gloss over Thomas’ eyes.
“You’ve released the Kraken into my toilet, Thomas.”
It wasn’t Jack’s best line, but it was an original. Still, it felt like an overreach. He could feel it, and apparently, Thomas could too because he seemed to snap out of his state of frightened silence and return to his normal volume.
“Would you stop it?” he said as he pushed Jack away. “She’s my sister.”
“She got her fingerprints on my comics!” Jack shouted.
“Grow up, you pillock. We’re going to clear all this up right now,” Thomas said as he grabbed Jack by the arm and pulled him through the hall.
Jack put up an honorable fight, but about halfway down the stairs, he realized resistance was futile. Zuri was going to be there for nine days whether he liked it or not, and even though Hawthorne Hall was huge, crossing paths was inevitable. Thomas was right for wanting to get their first interaction out of the way, so as he and his best mate approached the bottom step, Jack continued fighting, but only at half-strength.
The light of noon seemed to punch his brain square in the occipital lobe. As Jack’s bloodshot and aching eyes had time to adjust, he was soon able to make out a trio of blurred forms down by the stream. Tae was climbing up the tree swing, Talia was on the blanket trying with all her little might to crawl…and She Who Must Not Be Named just sat there, the most boring of babysitters. No games. No laughing or running around. No doubt, the children hated their “aunt” just as much as their Uncle Jack did. But as he and Thomas closed the distance between them, and the three blurred forms came into focus, something strange happened: Jack found her…attractive.
Jack shook the thought from his head - preferring the pain upon his brain it induced to the nauseating alternative. But every time he looked back up at her, the feeling persisted. How could this happen? Had he really known her for the majority of his life and never noticed? Growing up, Jack spent more time at the Burke’s home than his own. But, in his defense, it was probably also true that by the time he was a teenager, she had learned to avoid him and his hilarious pranks as much as possible. Had he really not seen her since her metamorphosis into this from that gap-toothed, twiggy tween she once was?
The closer he came, the worse it got. The beautiful hazel eyes she had kept hidden for so long behind her granny spectacles were asinine and stupid! And the way they seemed to glow against the dark honey tone of her skin was downright dumb! Had he never seen a single framed photo of this abhorrently breathtaking creature on Thomas’s and Jada’s walls? Maybe it wasn’t normal to hang a photo of one’s sibling in their home, but in this case, Jack felt somewhat furious at Thomas for being such a neglectful brother.
Still, Jack had seen and dated countless beautiful women. She was nothing new or special. Even worse, she had ruined his comics and sent Eden on a mission to crush his soul.
“Dad, can we ride horses now?” Tae asked when he spotted his father.
Zuri looked in their direction. Jack looked away. During their brief moment of eye contact, Jack determined the hazel he’d seen from her profile was more green than gold. Green: the color of slime, and mold, and cartoon vomit.
“Soon, Tae. I promise. But first, Aunt Zuri and Uncle Jack have some things to hash out.”
“You sure?” Jack asked. “I mean, I don’t want to question your parenting style, but you’ve already taken the child away from his mother. Are you sure you want to deny the boy his horse, too? Come on, Tae Tae. Uncle Jack will take you.”
“Jack!”
“Fine,” Jack said as he steered his line of sight into the sky and crossed his arms. “She starts.”
“Nope. He does,” she demanded.
“Zuri…” Thomas interceded.
“No. This pathetic man-child traumatized me for more than a decade .”
“Yeah. More than a decade ago.” Jack shot back. “I say the person who committed the most recent offense goes first.”
“And I say the person who committed the most egregious offense s - with an s - goes first.”
“Tell your sister offense already has an s in it even without making it plural.”
“Tell your mate he’s full of s, ” Zuri said as she covered Talia’s little ears, “if he thinks I’m going to go first when, because of him, I spent the better part of my childhood locked up in my room, like a prisoner in my own home.”
“Is she kidding?” Jack asked before doing his best falsetto impression of her. “Oh! It was so terrible that the hot upperclassman took time to show me some attention so I could go pretend like I was all upset about it with my nerdy little mates,” Jack mocked. “Maybe I did her and the rest of the world a favor by keeping her out of the public’s eye.”
“Tosser!”
“Twit!”
“Alright! Thomas exclaimed. “That’s enough. Both of you. We ain’t gonna do this for nine days. Got it?”
Jack sulked and nodded his head. From his peripheries, he saw Zuri do the same.
“Now, Jack, you know I love you, but she’s right. You were a tosser for all those mean tricks you played on her. Apologize.”
“Sorr…”
“Like you mean it, Jack.”
“Fine! Zuri, I’m sorry, okay? I was a tosser. I thought the pranks were funny, and they weren’t, and I apologize.”
“Good,” Thomas said before turning to his sister. “Zuri, was it not a twitty thing to do to exact your revenge through Edie?”
“I didn’t know she was going to throw wine in his face!”
Thomas shot her a frustrated glance.
“Fine!” she said. “In all fairness, I was entitled to my vengeance…”
“Zuri…”
“BUT…I’ll admit, the timing was…maybe merciless. I should be better than that, and I apologize.”
“There,” Thomas said with a relieved smile. “That wasn’t so hard, was it? We all square now?”
Jack and Zuri both nodded.
“Great!” Thomas continued. “Now Zuri can be in the show.”
“Wait! What!?” She asked as she shot to her feet.
“Yeah. The show needs one more contestant, and I offered you up as tribute.”
“To date him ? Absolutely not!”
“For once, I agree with Zuri,” Jack added.
“Oh stop! You really think I’d throw your name in the ring to legitimately date this guy? No offense, Jack.”
“...Some taken.”
“Zuri, you’ll just be a stopgap. The show needs nine and has eight. Jack will send you home during the first elimination ceremony, the show will go on, and he’ll have his shot at finding love with one of the real contestants.”
“But no one watching will believe I have any interest in this man.”
“Good. Then it’ll be all the more believable when he sends you home first. Come on, Zuri. You owe him for Edie.”
Zuri looked as if she wanted to pull out her hair and scream herself out of existence.
“Alright! I’ll do it. But I’m doing this for you and Jada - for Edie getting wine all over your rug. Not for him.”
“Good. Great. Grand. Wonderful. Are we done here?” Jack asked, but - before Thomas could respond - added, “Swell! Because Tae Tae and I have a date with some horses. Don’t we, pal?”
“You wish. Talia, Tae, and I have a date with some horses. You and Zuri have a date with Wardrobe. Mick said he needed you both in makeup and full attire as soon as she signed on, remember?”
Without saying a word, Jack began his disgruntled journey back to the house. And Zuri followed far enough behind so as to avoid any further unpleasantries.