I glared at him. “Makes no difference to me if you stay or go. The sun’ll rise and set tomorrow either way.”
He lit up one of the Camels he was always taking from Jewel. “Then if it’s all the same to you, I think I’ll stay,” he said, exhaling a steady stream of smoke. “I kind of like it here.”
“I bet you do. You’ve made yourself right at home.”
“Can’t blame me for that. I’m just doing what your mother told me to do. Why the very first day I came, she says, ‘Jesse, now make yourself comfortable because my house is your house.’”
“Is that so? Well, her house is also my house and just because she’s weak minded, doesn’t give you the right to take advantage of her. Don’t you ever intend to pay for anything? Or you planning to live off us forever?”
With the cockiness of a man who knows he’s got the law on his side, Wistar Paist leaned back, blew a smoke ring, and said, “Forever is a long, long time. I don’t quite look at things the way you do, Darcy. You look at me and see some man who rode in here with empty pockets looking for a handout. But the way I see it, I’m providing a service to your mother, a very valuable service that she’s been wanting and waiting for a long time. And like all services, it’s got to get paid for one way or another. I choose another.”
I clenched my teeth to keep from spitting. “You’re a pig!” I exclaimed heatedly. “And even saying that, I’m insulting the pig!”
Jesse stood up suddenly, his face gone red, and for a moment I thought he would hit me. I hoped he would, because hitting one of her daughters was something Jewel would never have stood for. But he recovered himself quickly enough and sat back down. “I guess I’m just going to have to live with the fact that you don’t like me, Darcy.”
Next day, I asked Jewel to make him leave.
“But why?” she said, looking woebegone. “He hasn’t done anything.”
“Not yet,” I said, “but he will.”
“Oh, you’re always planning for the flood and seeing the worst in everybody. Jesse is just down on his luck, that’s all. I don’t see why you’re all the time picking on him.”
“I don’t trust him. He’s got shifty eyes.”
“You don’t trust anybody.”
“That’s right, and if we’re going to survive in this world, you’d better not either.”
“I won’t listen to anymore,” she said, childishly covering both ears with her hands. “He’s our guest, and I couldn’t possibly ask him to leave. It’d be unkind.”
I was smart enough to know when I was beat, and sharp enough to salvage what I could. “All right, Jewel. But promise me you’ll never tell him about the justice’s money. Not where it’s hid, not even that it exists.”
“Of course, I won’t,” she said with irritable exasperation. “Honestly, I wonder sometimes just how dumb you think I am.”
“I don’t think you’re dumb. I just think you’re…well, a bit silly when it comes to the lowlifes who wander our way.”
“What do you mean, silly?”
“Well, just look at the way you go riding all around the neighborhood on the back of his motorcycle, wearing his helmet. Mrs. Hennessey must be in her glory, watching you make such a fool of yourself. And with a man half your age, no less.”
Jewel stared at me, piqued. “It may surprise you, missy, to learn that Jesse is twenty-seven and I am thirty-one, which doesn’t exactly qualify me to be his grandma.”
“Maybe not,” I said, “but it should qualify you to be a decent mother and show some sense, instead of acting like you were still in the throes of puberty.”
Then Jewel did something that she had never done before in my life. She slapped me, a slap that seemed to surprise her more than me, for immediately, she started to cry.
Now completely bewildered, I said, “What are you crying for?”
“Because I hit you,” she cried, between sobs. “I never did that before, not even when you were bad and expected me to!”
“Well, there’s no need to cry about it. It didn’t hurt,” I consoled her.
“Oh, Darcy,” she said softly. “I know that I’m being a fool. But I haven’t had much fun in my life. It’s not that I’m complaining. I know I’ve been real fortunate having you and the girls with me, but being with your children, no matter how much you love them, is different from being with a man. These last few years, I’ve felt so old. And when Jesse came, it was like he brought youth and fun into my life. I don’t suppose he’ll stay forever, probably just until he gets enough money to go, or gets tired of me. But while he’s here, let me enjoy him. Please. Someday you’ll understand what it’s like to want a man. Fate is kind and I got a feeling that destiny has picked out someone real special for you.”
I looked down at my feet, suddenly ashamed. “You don’t have to say more,” I mumbled. “I’ll try to be nice to him from now on.” And I did try, and largely succeeded, though I never could bring myself to feel anything but ill will toward him.
The year that Jesse arrived was a black one all around. It was in September of that same year that Aaron Hamilton first tried to rape me. He’d always been strange, but puberty had made him unbearable. He was forever bothering the girls at school, which in itself wasn’t all that odd. Most of the boys were feeling some stirrings of maleness that year, and they all teased the girls. Except for me. No one but Aaron ever teased me or conspired to brush up against me in the coat closet. Early on, I’d accepted that I
