by Willow Rose
How strange.
Jazmine closed the book when a raven pecked on the window. She walked to it and let the bird inside. It came with three of its friends as they usually did. The birds sat by her as she looked out into the dark night. She saw a flock of bats pass in the sky and heard an owl hoot. In the distance, a dog was barking. Jazmine felt good when animals were close to her. It made her feel safe. Animals made her calm, she had realized, and she needed that right now. She felt uneasy knowing her mother was out there at night. She didn't know what she was doing, if she was meeting some guy, maybe, like Adrian believed, or if it was something else. It was that something else that Jazmine had started to fear. She couldn't stop thinking about that earring and how strangely her mother had been acting lately. It was like she had completely forgotten Jazmine's dad. She never mentioned him; she didn't even seem to be mourning him anymore. Jazmine had thought that the pain would lessen as time passed, but that wasn't the case—at least not yet. It was still there, and there were still days when it felt like it was going to crush her. It wasn't getting smaller at all. She was just learning to live with it. Was it the same for her mother? Or had she somehow managed to get rid of the pain and move on?
Or maybe she cast a spell on herself, making it go away?
Jazmine turned her head and looked at the book, wondering if that was what had been on the page that she had ripped out. But why remove it from the book? Why not give it to Jazmine so she could get rid of the pain as well? Didn't she want her to be relieved of it?
Jazmine closed the window and spotted Robyn as she rushed back to her own house, running so she wouldn't be seen by any of the parents. Jazmine chuckled till she spotted Mr. Aran in his driveway. He was standing in the darkness only lit up slightly from the light coming from his house, petting one of his tarantulas while the other crawled on his neck. Even though it was dark, she was certain she could tell he was grinning.
Chapter Nine
I was nervous the next morning as I woke up. I ate my mom's paleo bread and drank her beet-smoothie without even complaining or noticing how bad it tasted. I was nervous because I had to go back to that newsroom and face Olivia. I had a few ideas written down, but I feared that they weren't good enough. I had watched the news this morning and read through everything local I could find online, trying to prepare myself, but I had come to realize I didn't really know what she was looking for. A good news story, yes, but what was that?
I sighed as my mother turned to look at me. Lucky for me, my three cousins were still asleep. I was trying to stay as far away from them as possible. I could tell my mom was getting tired of having them in the house and, hopefully, she would throw them out soon. The problem was that they had nowhere else to go, she said. They had been kicked out of the condo they were renting because they were partying too wildly at night and never paid rent. And their mother, my mom's sister, had moved into a smaller place and didn't have room for them. I wondered why my mother saw it as her job to take them in. But maybe it was a vampire thing?
I decided it wasn't my problem. I had enough to worry about, trying to be the perfect daughter and impressing my editor.
"I'm gonna go now," I said. "I want to get there early to be prepared properly for the day."
My mom turned on her heel and smiled. She handed me my lunch and kissed my forehead.
"Have a wonderful day, dear."
"Thanks, Mom."
I walked to the door and found my shoes. I had barely put them on when someone rang the doorbell.
It's seven-thirty. Who can that be?
I opened the door. Outside stood a woman. She was wearing a leather jacket and leather pants. Her hair was long and blazing red like mine, but a lot prettier. She was wearing sunglasses and a hat and a thick layer of sunscreen on her pale skin. She looked at me from above her glasses, her sparkling green eyes piercing me. She looked like she could be a high school student, but something about her told me she was a lot older than that.
She smiled wryly.
"You must be Robyn?"
"Well…yes, I am. And who are you?"
In the blink of an eye, my mom came up behind me, standing so close I could feel her coldness.
"Mom?"
I literally dropped my jaw. I stared from my mother to the woman standing outside.
"Mom?" I asked. "What do you mean by mom?"
My mother didn't answer. She stared at the woman outside like she was a ghost.
The woman spread out her arms. "Well, if you're not gonna tell her, then I will. Robyn, dearie…I’m your grandmother!"
Chapter Ten
"Can I come inside?" the woman—or should I say Grandma—asked.
My mom cleared her throat. My grandmother threw out her arms again. "Are you gonna let an old woman stay out here in the burning sun?"
I stared up at my mother. Was she just gonna let her stand there? Why wasn't she inviting her inside?
"Of course," I ended up saying. "Come on in."
"Sorry, sweetie. It has to be your mother who invites me in," Grandma said.
"Oh, okay," I said, not completely understanding why. I looked at my mom again. She was completely paralyzed and not even blinking. "Mom?" I said. "Think about the neighbors. They'll start talking."
That seemed to work. My mom blinked again, then forced a smile. "Yes, of course. Come on in."
"Thank you so much," Grandma said and stormed past my mother and into the kitchen, where she sat down at the breakfast counter. Adrian came down the stairs, rubbing his eyes.
"What's going on here?"
"Grandma is here!" I said excitedly. "Our mother's mother."
He rubbed his eyes again, then shook his head. "That's not Grandma."
"What do you mean?" I asked.
"I met Grandma, and that’s not her," he said as he opened the fridge and peeked inside.
Grandma leaned over toward me. "He's thinking about that other woman that your grandpa hangs around; well, she isn't your grandmother, sweetie pie; I am. I raised your mother till your grandpa had enough of me and exchanged me for another model. I would say younger, but she wasn't. Just different."
I sat down, suddenly in no hurry to get out the door. The woman next to me fascinated me greatly.
"Wow."
"You left me," my mom said. "Let's not confuse things."
"Because your dad was sleeping around with that Tatiana woman," Grandma said.
"Who was the one who actually ended up raising me since I was only five when mother dearest here left. Tatiana is the one I consider to be my mother since she taught me everything I needed to know. Including how to be a mother myself."
Grandma scoffed. "You mean being cold as ice." She winked at me. It made me smile.
"Where did you go?" I asked. "Where have you been all these years?"
"I joined a circus."
"As in Circus Fantastico?"
"Exactly. We just rolled into town, and I thought I'd stop by for a visit. See how my family is doing these days."
My mom rolled her eyes and turned away. Grandma pulled out a package of cigarettes. She put one in her mouth, then held the package out toward my mother.
"Want one?"
My mother's eyes grew very wide. "NO! Mom!"
"What? Are you afraid it might kill you? Ha-ha!" She winked at me again, the cigarette dangling on her lip. My mom grabbed it and pulled it out of her mouth.
"No one is smoking in this house. No one!"
"Easy now. Is she always this uptight?' she asked me and put the cigarettes away.
I shrugged.
"Cigarettes are awful, and you know it," my mom said. "It ruins the skin."
Grandma laughed. "My skin is fine, and I have been smoking for two hundred and…" she received a look from my mom and stopped herself. "For a very long time. Let's just leave it at that."
She winked at me again, then leaned back in her chair with a grin. "So…tell me, are there any decent men in this neighborhood?"
Cha
pter Eleven
I was late for work. They had already started the meeting when I arrived. Olivia gave me a look and, frankly, so did everyone else. I knew what they had to be thinking. I had gotten the internship because I was Duncan Pritchard's girlfriend and I wasn't going to take it seriously at all.
"I am sorry," I said and sat in the back, blushing.
"Well, as I was saying…we need to see if we can get an angle on it; anyone have an idea?"
"How about a story about how they treat the elephants?" a reporter asked.
Olivia gave him a look. "How very Water for Elephants. Kind of a cliché by now, don't ya' think?"
The reporter looked away.
"How about something about the lions?"
"What about them?" Olivia said with a sigh. "We can't just make something about anything. When has something ever been enough? Come on, people, there needs to be a story here. We're not just making a piece about some animals because you like them. It's not enough."
"How about a piece on the way they live?" another reporter said. "Circus life in today’s modern world. There aren't many circuses left. It's a dying breed, the circus people."
Olivia thought about it for a few seconds. "Not bad. But I contacted the director this morning, and he doesn’t like the press. We'll never get to talk to the real circus people."
I cleared my throat. "I might know a way."
The entire room turned and looked at me.
"You?" Olivia said. "Really?"
I nodded. "My grandma works and travels with them. She just came into town."
Olivia chuckled. "Your grandmother? Now, there's a story. And what exactly does she do for them?"
"She's a clown."
Everyone in the room burst into laughter. Olivia turned and looked at me, biting her lip.
"You know what? That ain't half bad there, little Miss Jones." She closed her notebook. "Jimmy, you make the story with little Miss Jones's help. Seven minutes about the circus grandmother working as a clown. You have three days to make the piece. Miss Jones, you study closely how Jimmy does this and help him with anything he needs, okay? If he wants coffee, you bring him coffee, okay?"
I swallowed. "Thanks."
"All right, people. What are you still doing here? You have work to do, airtime to fill. Go!"
The meeting ended, and the reporters spread out. As I was about to leave, Olivia stopped me.
"Nice work today. If this turns out to be any good, then you might have a future in this after all. But don't blow it. This is your chance, missy."
I nodded eagerly. "I won't. I promise."
Chapter Twelve
"You're telling me that I already fixed the lawnmower? But it just broke?"
Jayden was eating his cereal when his parents entered the kitchen.
"No, it broke right before Christmas, remember? You fixed it a month ago. It was a filter or something that needed to be changed."
Jayden's dad shook his head. "I…I don't remember doing that. Shouldn't I be able to remember that?"
Jayden's mom sighed and found the bacon in the fridge. She ripped the package open.
"Yes."
"I’m telling you, Claire. This forgetfulness, it’s beginning to worry me. It's like I can't remember anything from the past few months, but everything else from before then is completely clear. Like, I remember the lawnmower breaking down like it was just a few weeks ago. And now you tell me I fixed it? I…I don't know how to deal with that."
"It's your short-term memory," Jayden's mom said, then smiled at Jayden. "Good morning, sweetie. Did you sleep well?"
Jayden shrugged and ate his cereal.
"Maybe I should see a doctor," Jayden's dad said.
Jayden's mother sighed and put the bacon in the pan. It sizzled. "Maybe. It's just…you know how doctors react when they examine us. You know with the rapid heartbeat and insane pulse we have compared to humans. They usually think we're about to have a heart attack when they take our blood pressure because it's off the charts."
Jayden's dad sighed and poured himself some coffee. "Yes, you're right. I hate that look they get on their faces as they freak out and think something is terribly wrong with you."
"It's especially not amusing when they're rushing you off to the hospital in some ambulance like they did to me the last time, thinking I was having a heart attack."
Jayden's dad chuckled, then sipped his coffee. "I had to sign all those waivers when I wanted them to release you before they started to fill you up with medicine. Oh, those humans. They think they know everything and yet they see so little."
"You ready for your first day at your job?" Jayden's mom asked him.
"Ah, yes, the diner. See, that, I remember," Jayden's dad said. "That is short-term if anything is. It was just last week that he got that job and I remembered that he was going to start today."
Jayden's mom paused, then flipped the bacon. "That is odd."
She served her husband the bacon and eggs, and they all ate in silence. Jayden said goodbye to them as they rushed off to work a few minutes later. He still had half an hour till he had to be at Sophie's Diner, and decided to grab another cup of coffee, when his brother came down, grinning from ear to ear as always. Jayden began cleaning up after breakfast. Trying to avoid his brother, Jayden decided to leave early and walked out of the kitchen.
"Running off, are we?" Logan asked.
"I have to get to work."
"You just don't want to face me because I gotcha last night. I caught you red-handed."
Jayden snapped. "So what?"
Logan approached him, moving fast. He grabbed him by the collar, putting his face close to Jayden's.
"So…my friend. My brother. You do as I tell you to from now on. Or…I'll have to accidentally spill the beans."
Jayden sighed, anger rising inside of him. "What do you want from me?"
"I want Jazmine, your ex. Get me a date with her, and I won't tell Mom and Dad about Robyn."
"I can't do that," Jayden said, dumbfounded. "She's with Adrian, and you know that.”
"You make sure she is mine by the end of the month," Logan said and let go of his collar.
"She's with someone else; can't you understand that?" Jayden asked and pulled away.
Logan grinned. "That's really not my problem now, is it?"
Chapter Thirteen
"I hear you impressed today."
Duncan appeared as if out of nowhere when I walked to my car. It was almost evening and starting to get dark out. It had been a good day. I had researched about the circus life and gotten a lot of good material to help Jimmy with the story. I knew a lot about the different circuses all over the country and how old they were and so on. So many of them had closed in the past several years. Circus Fantastico was one of the few still able to make a living from it. But some critics believed it wouldn't be long before they too had to cave, especially since it was often criticized for having too scary of a clown act at the end, making children leave crying. The circus director defended the circus, stating that clowns had become this scary thing because of horror movies and that was why the children were suddenly afraid of what was supposed to be just a funny and goofy act.
"Horror movies ruined clowns for children," he was quoted saying in a national newspaper. I had saved the quote for later.
"I knew you'd be a hit," Duncan said.
"Well, to tell you the truth, it kind of fell into my lap," I said.
"The best stories do," he said.
I chuckled. "What do you know about journalism?"
"I’ve taken journalism classes at Harvard," he said matter-of-factly. "I did a two-month internship at The New York Times."
I stopped. "Oh. I didn't know. I’m sorry."
He shook his head. "No problem."
"There's so much I don't know about you," I said.
He smiled. "We have plenty of time to catch up. An eternity."
I swallowed. The very thought made me shiver. He said it like
it was something to look forward to, but I didn't. I didn't want that life.
"How's Stacy?" I asked to talk about something else.
"Crazy as a bat," he said.
I chuckled. "Still?"
"Oh, it's getting worse, I think. I’m trying to control her, but she's…well, she's still young at being a vampire."
"Is she still all over you?"
He rolled his eyes. "Don't get me started on that."
"Really?" I said, feeling a small pinch of jealousy.
Duncan looked at me and smiled. "Does that make you jealous?"
I shook my head. "No. No. Of course not."
"It does. It totally does," he said.
I turned to walk to toward the car. "Don't flatter yourself."
He grabbed my arm and pulled me back toward him. He was so strong and powerful it made me lose my breath. He held me in a tight grip, placing his lips close to mine.
"You're very sexy when you're jealous; has anyone ever told you that?" he whispered.
His lips brushed against mine, and I closed my eyes, fighting my desire to kiss him. I could feel his breath on my skin and remembered what it had felt like kissing him. I wanted to feel that again. I craved it.
But I couldn't.
I pulled away. "I…I have to go."
He let go of me, and I rushed to my car and got inside. I saw him in the rearview mirror, still standing in the parking lot, looking after me as I drove away, my heart racing in my chest.
Why did my life have to be so complicated?
Chapter Fourteen
I couldn't help myself. During dinner with my now crazily expanded family—I couldn't stop myself from bursting into laughter every now and then, even though I tried hard not to. My mom wasn't fond of it and gave me a look whenever it happened, a look of discontent but also slightly of hurt. It was my grandmother who kept making me laugh. She was funny and so very different from my own mother, it became comical.