Sheep's Clothing

by Josi Kilpack

  They had Jess right away, and Kate loved being a mom. But she had to work while Brad finished school, and it was heartbreaking to leave Jess with Brad’s mom every day. They decided to put their family on hold until Kate could stay home. When Brad graduated with his CPA three years later, they made up for lost time by having five kids in ten years. With Brad’s mom to mentor her through it, Kate’s joy in motherhood just kept growing.

  Jess would be sixteen in a couple months—a young woman, soon to be an adult. The baby of the family, Chris, was eighteen months, more and more independent and less and less the little boy for whom Kate was the center of the universe. Possible complications or not, the kids weren’t getting any younger, and neither was Kate. She’d also felt sure for months now that they were ready to invite one more spirit into their home. She wouldn’t feel this strongly if she wasn’t meant to have just one more child. Would she?

  She looked at Brad’s reflection again. He was laid against the pillows, his eyes closed and his face relaxed. He let out a breath, the kind of breath that testified of the long hours he was working, with it being tax season, and the evening he’d just spent alone with the kids. Probably not the best time to bring up the idea of having another one. She’d need the right moment, and until then she’d pray that his fears of what might or might not happen wouldn’t overshadow the family they’d always planned on.

  She flipped off the lights. They were so busy these days that the time to just be together, be a couple, seemed to slip away from them more often than not. Nights when they actually went to bed at the same time seemed few and far between. But she was feeling better and didn’t have a science project to help with tonight. Brad wasn’t at the office getting just “one more thing” taken care of.

  “It’s dark,” Brad said as she made her way toward the bed, using his voice as a compass.

  Kate smiled to herself, glad that even after seventeen years the world could still stop just long enough for the two of them.

  2

  ——Original Message——

  From: jjk_hollywood@hotmail.com

  To: emjenkins000@yahoo.com

  Sent: Wednesday, March 22, 4:18 PM

  Subject: Re: Hi

  Emily,

  I’d love to be e-pals too. What’s it like in Pennsylvania? I’m afraid I don’t know anything about hockey—sorry. I don’t think it’s very popular here in Salt Lake. I looked at your bored too. You’re older than me, I’m just a sophomore but I’m almost sixteen. What are your favorite subjects at school? I love Math and Biology—I’m thinking I might be a chemist one day but I can’t take Chemistry until next year. Anyway, I’d love to know more about you. Do you have a boyfriend?

  Gotta run, I need to help my mom with something.

  Laters, Jess

  “Perfect,” Mom said. The three ponytails Justin had put into her hair flopped to the side when Mom cocked her head. Mom’s auburn curls looked ridiculous held up by the pink and red barrettes. Jess let go of the picture frame she was helping set straight and took a step away from the wall. Mom cocked her head to the other side, the ponytails flopping again. Didn’t Mom care that she looked like an idiot with her hair like that? Jess hoped no one came to the door.

  Jess still didn’t understand why Mom needed her help in the first place, but sometimes it seemed like Mom just asked for help for the sake of asking. Jess was already in a bad mood, since Britney, her supposed best friend, had ditched her for lunch again. She really just wanted to veg out today.

  Keith and Justin came running through the back door, waving sticks as if they were swords and yelling at each other with screechy pirate-like voices. Both Jess and Mom had to move out of their way.

  “Gosh, you guys, go away!” Jess said when Keith’s swipe of his “sword” nearly took off her head.

  “Be nice, Jess,” Mom said, still looking at the frame. “Some day your brothers and sisters are going to be your best friends.”

  Jess bit her tongue to keep from saying, “Yeah, right.” Since Mom didn’t have any siblings, she had no idea how annoying they were. Jess didn’t say anything out loud though, not wanting to invite a lecture. She contented herself with making a face at the retreating backs of her brothers when Mom wasn’t looking.

  “Do you like it?” Mom asked. Jess turned her attention to the picture they’d just hung. It was a needlepoint Mom had done of the Jordan River Temple; that’s where she and Dad had been married. Their wedding date was stitched across the bottom—ten months before Jess had been born. She wasn’t quite a honeymoon baby, but close enough to count. That’s what Mom always said. Jess didn’t want to think about that stuff—it gave her the creeps—so she thought only about the picture. It was nice, for needlepoint, and Mom had been working on it for over a year. But Jess liked the wreath that had been there before.

  “It’s nice,” Jess said, then felt bad when Mom’s face fell a little bit. She had worked really hard on it, and she always made a big deal when Jess did well at something. “I mean, it’s really nice,” Jess corrected, then worried she’d showed too much enthusiasm. She had to be careful or Mom would offer to teach her how to do it for the hundredth time.

  “I could show you how to do needlepoint,” Mom said and Jess smiled. It was kinda cute how Mom always wanted to show her how to do the stuff she never learned to do as a kid, but Jess wished Mom’s idea of quality time was taking Jess to a movie or something. Jess didn’t like all that crafty stuff Mom was into. “Ya know, my mom never did stuff like this. I had to learn it on my own.”

  Bummer, Jess thought sarcastically, since needlepoint is such an important life skill. It was okay for Mom to do it—she was old—but the last thing Jess needed was needlepoint to make her even more weird.

  It was a challenge to find just the right amount of disinterest without hurting Mom’s feelings. “Maybe sometime,” she said, not making eye contact and wishing she could just get back to her game. Jess got forty-five minutes of free time on the computer every day, and she still had fifteen minutes left—she’d paused the timer and was anxious to get her time in before one of the kids needed the computer. Homework always took precedence over free time. Mom had been sick last week and Jess hadn’t gotten much of her time. That had been totally lame. Jess had to make dinner almost every night last week and do the laundry—all of it. It was cool to make all her favorite dinners, but Jess was glad Mom was finally feeling better.

  “You can go finish what you were doing,” Mom said in that tone that always made Jess feel bad, even if she was sure she hadn’t done anything wrong. Mom lifted her hands to her hair and finally started undoing Justin’s hairdo. “I think I’ve been pushing myself too much,” she said. “And I’m just wiped out today. Can you help me with dinner before we go to gymnastics?”

  Gymnastics, Jess thought darkly, wanting more than ever to lose herself in the computer game for a little longer. “Yeah,” Jess said, but she thought Caitlyn ought to help with dinner since Jess had done it so much last week. But even though Caitlyn was the next oldest, she was barely twelve. Still, it didn’t seem quite fair.

  Sharla came upstairs whining about Justin having played in her room while she’d been at school. Then the phone rang. Jess made her escape.

  “Thanks, Jess,” Mom said on her way to the phone. “You can have another half hour on the computer before we get started.”

  Sweet! Jess thought. At least there were perks now and then. Jess sat down at the computer, wondering if Emily would write back soon, then felt lame for being so excited that someone other than spammers had noticed her bored. She had barely reset the timer and gotten back to her game when the computer dinged, announcing she had an e-mail. When she saw it was from Emily she broke into a wide smile. Maybe Emily needed a friend as bad as Jess did. Jess hit reply, then put her fingers on the keyboard and started typing.

  3

  ——Original Message——

  From: emjenkins000@yahoo.com

  To: jjk_hollywood@hotmail.com<
br />
  Sent: Wednesday, April 12, 11:13 AM

  Subject: Hellooooooooooooooo

  Jess—

  where are u girl? it’s been like three days since you wrote to me last. yr not mad at me r u? i’d just die if u were mad at me. do you have gymnastics today? i’m so sorry. that sucks yr mom makes u go even though u hate it. remember my cousin Colt—like my best friend in the whole world. He’s moving to florida. i’m so bummed. i’m going to be so lonely without him. i wish u were here. u would understand, wouldn’t u? can u believe we’ve been e-mailing for three weeks? weird. anyway, rite back, K

  what’s it like having such a big family? do u like it?

  Em

  “Brit,” Jess called, holding her books against her chest and hurrying toward her friend. They only had one class together this trimester and hardly ever saw one another these days. Britney turned, her long blonde hair swishing through the air like a shampoo commercial. She smiled when she saw Jess and waited for her to catch up. Their friendship often felt like that these days: Jess trying to catch up. Unfortunately, Jess felt like she was always lagging behind no matter how hard she tried.

  “I didn’t see you at lunch,” Jess said, annoyed that she was a little out of breath from running a whole ten feet. She had to talk loud to be heard over the voices of the thousand other students at her high school.

  “Yeah,” Britney said. “Candace asked me to go to lunch with her. I tried to catch you this morning to let you know, but you were already gone. And then I had to hurry out of computer class cause I’d left my English book in Candace’s car.”

  Jess wasn’t sure how Britney had missed her that morning, since their lockers were in the same hall and Jess had seen Britney talking to her friends. But that kind of thing had been happening a lot lately. Ever since Britney made track team, she had all kinds of new friends. But Jess didn’t want to come across as a whiner. She shrugged to emphasize it wasn’t a big deal. “No biggie. I just wanted to make sure you hadn’t gone home sick or anything.” It sounded lame, even to herself, but Jess had never been very good at coming up with things off the top of her head. They walked a few more steps, Jess dodging this way and that to avoid collisions with students coming the other direction. She noticed the crowds seemed to move out of the way for Britney, so she stuck closer to her and was able to benefit from the parting sea of students.

  “I have a track meet tonight so the coach gave us an hour to go home, get some food, and then come back. Do you want to walk home together?”

  “Sure,” Jess said, hoping she didn’t sound too excited. They used to walk home together every day, but it had been weeks since Britney had had a practice-free afternoon. They arrived at Jess’s locker, and Jess started turning the lock.

  “Great, I’ll be right back,” Britney said. Her locker was at the other end of the hall.

  But Britney didn’t come right back. She was stopped by Micah, a boy Britney’d had a crush on all year. Once she finished flirting with Micah, one of the other girls on the track team caught up with her, and Jess watched from her locker as Britney laughed and talked about things Jess probably didn’t know anything about. She tried not to let it bother her—she really did—but it was so hard. Jess wanted to have exciting things to talk about. But Jess had never been as social as Britney was, and all she had to talk about was piano, which no one cared about besides her parents. While she waited for Britney the social butterfly to take a breather, Jess organized her locker, rearranging the pictures taped inside. Most of them were of her and Britney, though she had the school photos of some of her other friends as well. Would she be a total nerd if she sat down in the hall to start working on her math homework while she waited?

  “Sorry,” Britney said a few moments later. Jess smiled and shut her locker. She’d been ready to go for almost ten minutes.

  “That’s okay. Who was that you were talking to?” Jess asked as they pushed through the big glass doors. Most of the students had left, but a few stood in clumps talking or waiting for a ride. It wasn’t too cold for April, and though the sky was overcast, at least it wasn’t raining.

  Britney went on about all her new friends, what events they ran in track, what grades they were in. Many of them were seniors. Jess didn’t even know a senior, other than the ones she went to church with. Jess’s jealousy grew, but she tried not to show it. When Britney finally ran out of things to brag about, she asked Jess how life was.

  “Good,” Jess said, searching for something exciting to talk about—anything that was new and interesting. Emily—why hadn’t she thought of that sooner? “I met this girl through mybulletinbored.com. She’s really cool.”

  “You met her online?” Britney asked, raising eyebrows that looked shapelier than they used to. Why didn’t Britney tell her she’d started waxing her eyebrows? Jess raised a hand to her own bushy red eyebrows, then lowered it. She didn’t need any more self-defeating thoughts at the moment. But she liked that she’d got Britney’s attention.

  She shrugged as if she’d met lots of people online. “Yeah, she’s really great. We have so much in common.” Would Britney be jealous of that? Jess wondered.

  Britney was quiet for a few seconds, and Jess felt the glimmer of victory until Britney spoke again. “Doesn’t that like, freak you out? I mean it could be some psycho. My mom made me watch this Dateline thing where they catch all these guys that try to hook up with teenagers—talk about creepy.” Britney’s tone was much closer to disapproval than envy.

  “She’s not a psycho,” Jess said, rolling her eyes to emphasize how ridiculous it was. “She’s a junior and she’s cool—she lives in Pennsylvania.”

  “You don’t really know who she is,” Britney said as if she were talking to her little brother. “Sure, I use the bored too—but only with kids I know from school.”

  Jess bristled. “Forget it.” They walked in silence for several seconds.

  “So,” Britney said as if she’d been searching for another topic to talk about. They didn’t used to have that problem, and Jess didn’t understand why things had changed so much between them. If they were really best friends, wouldn’t they still have a hundred things to talk about? Britney continued, “How’s that quilt you’ve been doing with your grandma?”

  Jess smiled. “Great, I’m going to her house on Saturday to put it up on Grandma’s frame now that all the piecing is done. It’s so cool, though, I wish I could keep it.”

  “That’s cool,” Britney said, but she didn’t ask any more questions, and Jess felt dumb for acting so excited. She’d noticed that the popular girls never acted excited about anything except clothes and boys. “How’s gymnastics?” Britney asked after another awkward pause.

  “Horrible,” Jess said, her mood further darkened just thinking about it. Up until now she’d been able to forget it was Wednesday—or as she thought of it, humiliation-in-spandex day. “I so wish my mom would let me quit.”

  “Come on,” Britney said, playfully nudging Jess with her shoulder. “It’s good you’re doing something.”

  Jess turned to look at her friend. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  Britney’s face flushed. “Uh, nothing, just that gymnastics is your thing, ya know?”

  “It’s not my thing,” Jess said. “It’s my mom’s thing.” It had always been Mom’s thing. She wanted Jess to have all the opportunities she didn’t get. It never crossed her mind that Jess wasn’t her—that she didn’t care about the same things Mom cared about. But Jess hated complaining about it, especially since she lost every argument she ever started with her mother.

  “Well, yeah, but you don’t really want to quit, do you? I mean, you’re really good and you can do back handsprings and stuff.”

  Not very well, Jess thought. Especially compared to the twelve-year-old toothpicks in her class. “You know I hate gymnastics,” Jess said, disappointed that she had to remind Britney of that fact. She’d only complained to Britney about gymnastics for the last three years. “I�
�m the fattest girl in the class, and it’s awful.”

  “Well, maybe you should lose weight. My mom just lost ten pounds. She could give you some tips. In track, every pound makes a difference. Lael, she’s a senior, you don’t know her, but she gained like six pounds last summer and lost almost two full seconds on her hundred meter.”

  It was Jess’s turn to blush. She couldn’t believe Britney was saying this. She felt tears prick her eyes. Even though Britney was perfect, cute, thin, and popular, she’d never once flaunted those things in front of Jess. Until now Jess had assumed Britney didn’t really care. “I forgot something at school,” Jess said quickly, turning around so Britney couldn’t see the tears she couldn’t seem to blink away.

  “Oh,” Britney said in surprise, stopping on the sidewalk. “I’d go with you, but I’ve got to get home and then get back to the school.”

  Jess hadn’t stopped walking. “No big deal,” she said over her shoulder, ten feet now between them. “Good luck at your meet.” Her voice cracked on the last word, but she hoped she was too far away for Britney to notice.