But because Jessie refused to set her own alarm and had consistently demonstrated a failure to rise on time, Daddy dear had taken it upon himself to make sure she didn’t sleep in. She had school to think about. And grades. And a tardy student does not bring home the kind of grades that make the future bright.
What made matters worse was that Jessie couldn’t simply roll over and smack the alarm silent. Instead, she had to force herself out of bed and stagger into her father’s room.
By then, she was awake. Groaning, but awake. Irritated, but awake. And she knew that somewhere out there in the working world, her sadistic jerk of an old man was smiling.
A shower put her in a better mood. She liked the water needle-hard and hot enough to redden the skin. She shampooed, shaved her legs, and by 7:35 was wrapped in a towel and ready for breakfast.
As always, her father had left a bowl, a spoon, and a box of Cocoa Puffs on his breakfast nook counter. She had been staying with him for nearly two weeks now and the routine had never varied. This time, however, she was surprised to find a small, neatly wrapped box sitting next to her cereal bowl.
Not a birthday gift, that’s for sure. Number fifteen had come and gone months ago. So what the heck was this all about?
A note card was taped to the box. She ripped it free and unfolded it, the neat, economical strokes of her father’s pen staring up at her:
TRY NOT TO LOSE THIS ONE
She could hear him saying it in that no-nonsense tone of his. A tone of authoritative disapproval he’d cultivated after too many years on the job. She knew immediately what was in the box and felt like throwing it across the room.
But what would that accomplish?
Truth was, Jessie was too impatient for her own good. At least when it came to her father. It was obvious he loved her, and okay, okay, maybe she loved him back. But cut her a little slack. This was all new to her. She’d barely seen the guy in years. After half a lifetime of awkward, two-minute phone calls on birthdays and holidays, they had only recently reestablished contact.
She supposed part of that could be blamed on distance. Before moving back to the city, she and Mom and Roger had been trapped in Gooberville for what seemed like an eternity. But her father hadn’t exactly strained himself to keep in touch.
Until now, that is.
Something had happened, he’d told her. Something that had made him realize what a fool he’d been for allowing their relationship to become so fragmented. What that something was remained a mystery, but at the time he said it, his words had been like a melody to Jessie, a sad but reassuring song about love and loss and hope.
Unfortunately, the second verse didn’t quite live up to the hype.
Shortly after he contacted her, Jessie had agreed to meet with him for lunch. Hot dogs and malts at Superdawg, one of the family’s favorite haunts when she was a kid. But the meeting turned out to be just as awkward as those two-minute phone calls. And what talking they did do felt like an interrogation-Daddy dear obsessed with her love life, wanting to know who she was dating and how he treated her.
Jessie didn’t hide her irritation.
“Who I hang out with,” she finally told him, “is none of your fucking business.”
She’d thrown in the F-bomb for shock effect, showing him that she was no longer his darling little girl. And it worked. That moment, in fact, was the sour note that knocked the entire melody off-key.
By the time he dropped her off at home, their conversation had been reduced to monosyllabic, caveman grunts. And after he left, she went directly upstairs and cried into her pillow for three straight hours.
But Jessie wasn’t a quitter.
Despite the disaster, she couldn’t escape the feeling of longing she had whenever she thought of her father. She wanted to hate him, but couldn’t. Something about the smell of him reminded her of her childhood, of a time when all was good and clean and safe in the world.
He smelled like home. And Jessie wanted more than anything to be back beneath his protective cover.
So she called him, and they met again.
And a third time.
Better, but not perfect.
But maybe perfect was a pipe dream. Because no matter how hard she tried, Jessie just couldn’t rid herself of the resentment she felt. A resentment that seemed to underscore their entire relationship.
Yet here she was now. Standing in his apartment on a chilly Thursday morning.
Mom and Roger had gone away for the month, and despite her mother’s skepticism, and her own serious misgivings, Jessie had accepted her father’s invitation to spend the time with him.
It was almost as if he wanted to prove himself. To prove to her that this newfound desire for contact was more than just a passing fad, or half a decade’s worth of guilt piling up on him.
The least she could do was give him that chance.
So instead of throwing the box across the room, she ran her thumb up under the spot where the edges of the wrapping paper met and tore it open. Just as she suspected, inside was a single key, attached to a tiny, ceramic figurine of Lisa Simpson.
The key chain was a nice touch. Jessie had been a Simpsons fan for as long as she could remember. When she was small, she and her dad had watched the show together every Sunday night, and she still made an effort to catch the nightly reruns.
The key fit the front door to his apartment. He’d given her a copy her first day there, but she had lost it at school a few days ago and had been forced to wait in the lobby until he came home that evening.
He was really pissed at first, lashing out at her with a sarcastic remark about teenagers and their lack of responsibility, but one thing she had learned in these two weeks was that he was the kind of guy who couldn’t stay mad for long.
Not at her, at least.
And while that small fact didn’t exactly have her jumping for joy, it was, she supposed, a step in the right direction.
She missed her bus and had to catch a cab to school. Not something she liked to do, but she was a big girl. It was either that or be late again, and late was not an option.
“Bellanova Prep,” she told the driver, and gave him the directions.
The driver was a bald-headed perv who acted as if the only time he’d ever seen a girl in a school uniform was in some cheesy porn flick. All the way there he kept glancing at her in his rearview mirror.
Jessie shifted uncomfortably on the backseat and folded her arms across her chest, watching the morning whip by.
Vendors washed down sidewalks in front of flower shops and bakeries and delicatessens that promised mile-high pastrami sandwiches; harried moms dropped their squealing kids off at concrete nursery schools; men in gray suits with gray faces marched dutifully toward gray office buildings. It seemed to Jessie that people were always in such a hurry to get somewhere, but did any of them really know where they were going?
She sure didn’t. Not yet, anyway.
After a while, some guy in a funky old Jeep pulled up alongside the cab and blocked her view. Not that she minded. He was pretty cute. Way too old for her, close to thirty probably, but he looked familiar and she was sure she’d seen him on TV. Maybe one of the entertainment channels. She couldn’t be sure.
The ponytail was a bit much-who the heck wears ponytails these days? — but the body wasn’t bad. Taut, muscular, looking like he’d spent a lot of time outdoors chopping wood or something. He had nice gray eyes and an easy smile, which he flashed in her direction as he sped up and turned a corner.
Bellanova Prep was less than a mile away. Jessie had half a mind to tell the driver to turn around and “follow that Jeep,” but that would be a little reckless, now, wouldn’t it?
Jessie was not a reckless girl.
Moments later, as she paid the driver and got out of the cab, she could swear she saw the Jeep again, out of the corner of her eye. She glanced up the street, but saw no sign of it-if it had even been there in the first place.
