The Trouble with J.J.

by Tami Hoag

  “So you’re Genna. Jared told us all about how you helped him through the ugly business with Simone. We all owe you a huge thank-you, darling.”

  Genna blushed as Grace engulfed her in an exuberant embrace. “I didn’t really do all that much,” she protested.

  Grace ignored her remark and pinned her son with a meaningful stare. “I’m so glad we survived the drive from the airport so we could meet you, Genna.”

  “Mom,” Jared said between his teeth.

  Grace pressed onward, undaunted, “Jared couldn’t get us here fast enough, could you, Jared?”

  Genna shot him a curious glance. He was blushing like a sheepish teenager.

  “Now, Mom—”

  “And I can see why,” Grace continued, a familiar twinkle in her eye as she ignored her sputtering son and gave her full attention back to Genna. “But he really should have gotten a ticket—”

  “Mom!”

  “He must have scared a year off the lives of those little nuns in the VW.”

  By now Genna was biting her lip. Grace was giving Jared a little of his own medicine which, Genna thought, he richly deserved. She felt an instant bond with Grace.

  “I tried to tell that officer to go ahead and write the ticket, but—”

  “You got stopped?” Genna asked, trying hard not to laugh at the fierce look on J.J.’s face. “And no ticket? Just how fast were you going?”

  “Not that fast.”

  “Sixty-five in a forty mile zone,” Grace supplied.

  Jared scowled at his mother and steered Genna away.

  “The trooper was a Hawks fan?” Genna suggested sweetly.

  “Meet my aunt Roberta, Genna,” he said quickly, his look clearly telling her the previous subject was being dropped. “Aunt Roberta, this is Genna. Genna, my mother’s sister, Roberta Palmer.”

  “Nice to meet you.” Genna smiled.

  “Oh, my word, J.J.!” Roberta exclaimed in a voice as rough as sandpaper. A cigarette bobbed up and down on her lip. She was a thin, birdlike creature with a bird’s nest of gray hair and black brows that winged over glassy green eyes. “She’s a doll! A doll.” Her eyes bore right through Genna. “Oh, honey, you’re just a doll!”

  “Th-thank you,” Genna stammered, not quite certain how to react.

  “She’s a doughnut or two shy of a dozen,” Jared whispered, tapping a finger to his temple as he herded Genna toward yet another Hennessy.

  There was his elder brother, James, a priest. Alyssa called him “Uncle Father.” And youngest sister, Marie, who was seventeen and in training to make the Olympic team as a figure skater. Rounding out the group was the youngest brother, Bryan, a graduate student of parapsychology at Purdue.

  The plan was for the group to stay the week, with more family members arriving on the weekend for Grace’s surprise birthday party. Grace and Bill were staying on to take care of Alyssa while Jared was away at training camp.

  The bulk of the group disappeared into the house, leaving Jared and Genna standing on the sidewalk.

  “So, what do you think?” Jared asked, his expression boyishly expectant.

  “Oh … they’re …” Genna felt shell-shocked. Her head bobbed around as if the action might jar loose an appropriate word. “Overwhelming.”

  “Yeah.” He grinned. “They’re great, huh?”

  “Eeeek!”

  A blood-curdling scream prevented further discussion and sent the two of them tearing into the house and up the stairs on the heels of the rest of the family. Aunt Roberta staggered out of the bathroom into the hall, where everyone stood staring at her.

  “Oh, mercy, J.J.!” she gasped, clutching his arm. “There’s a dead woman in your bathtub? How the hell did she get there?”

  All eyes swiveled to Jared, who said, “She’s not dead, she’s a dummy.”

  Roberta clucked at him and glanced askance at James. “Don’t be disrespectful of the dead, J.J. Not in front of a priest.”

  Genna peered in the bathroom door. Candy the mannequin sat in the bathtub wearing a red and white striped towel and a polka dot shower cap, a back brush taped in her hand.

  “She was out of your sight there,” Jared said in answer to Genna’s raised eyebrow.

  “The back brush is a nice touch,” James said.

  “She couldn’t hold on to the loofah,” Jared explained.

  Everyone nodded in agreement.

  Genna closed her eyes and leaned her forehead against the doorframe.

  Half an hour later, when everyone was gathering in the dining room for lunch, Roberta pulled Jared aside.

  “J.J., honey, I don’t know what you paid for this house, but I think you ought to know there are birds nesting upstairs.”

  “Birds?” Jared glanced at Genna, who glanced at Roberta and back to Jared.

  “Birds. I went into the closet in my room and there they were.” She took a long drag on her cigarette and exhaled a stream of blue smoke. “Damn near had a heart attack. Heart attack. You’ve never seen the like; they’re huge and pink.”

  Genna bit her lip and turned away, the mental image of Aunt Roberta discovering a stand of flamingos in the closet was almost more than she could handle.

  Roberta tapped Jared’s shoulder. “You’d better get them out of there, honey, or they’ll make a hell of a mess.”

  Life was certainly anything but dull with Jared’s family in residence. His house was constantly bustling with activity. Bill was forever busy with his notes and diagrams and trips to the garage that involved some secret project. Bryan had the upstairs of the house booby-trapped with electronic contraptions to detect any paranormal behavior; Aunt Roberta kept setting them off. When Grace wasn’t regaling the neighborhood kids with one-woman dramatizations of fairy tales, she was sneaking off to enjoy a secret cigarette (she had supposedly quit smoking two years before). The Hennessy siblings were always involved in some sport in the yard.

  They were a diverse and overwhelming group, and Genna felt about as interesting as a wet newspaper when she was around them. She liked Jared’s family, but all their unique qualities cast one glaring spotlight on her ordinariness. It had never bothered her that she was an ordinary sort of person. In fact, she had always made an effort to be as ordinary as possible. Now she suddenly found it depressing, and it was doubly depressing because she never had a minute alone with Jared and triply depressing because he didn’t seem to care.

  On one level Genna understood his desire to be with his family. They lived all over the country, and he didn’t often get to see them. But on another level, where new love had only just taken root, she didn’t understand at all.

  Jared was leaving in a matter of days. In Genna’s mind the date of his departure was a deadline. It would mark the end of their summer romance. Jared hadn’t said or done anything to make her think differently. They had never spoken of a future together, and the more time she spent with his family, the more convinced she became that they wouldn’t have one.

  She’d known all along she was no more Jared’s type than he was hers. He might like her as a friend and occasional lover, but eventually he would want someone unique, more exciting than a kindergarten teacher and compulsive cook. Maybe that was what he was trying to tell her by insisting she come to dinner every night while his family was there. He was probably hoping she would take the hint and bow out gracefully.

  The wonder was that he’d been attracted to her at all. Jared was an attractive, athletic, popular man. She was from the studious, sensible-shoes group. The two didn’t mix. It wasn’t anything personal, it was just chemistry. She’d known about that since junior high.

  She’d been right all along in looking for a man from her own social group. A nice, staid business-type guy wouldn’t keep her off balance with his outrageous antics or make her bones turn to cottage cheese with his searing kisses and crushing embraces. There was more to life than raucous fun and unbridled lust. There was constancy, stability, life insurance, golf, and boredom.

&nb
sp; All that to look forward to, and she’d spent the whole summer with the wrong man. Well, she was a modern woman, a woman of the eighties. Modern women had affairs like this all the time. They enjoyed men like entrees at a buffet, savoring one then moving on down the table of life to the next without a second thought.

  Then why did she feel so miserable?

  Because you love him, stupid, and there isn’t anything modern about you, she told herself.

  Genna simply wasn’t capable of giving her love casually. Nor was she capable of sustaining a relationship indefinitely without a commitment.

  She wanted something lasting with Jared, but for all her outward appearance of self-assurance, the plain unvarnished truth was that she was scared. She was scared to ask Jared for more, for fear of losing him as a friend. They’d had an understanding going into this relationship; now she wanted to renege on the deal and cling to him like ivy to a brick building.

  What would he think of her if he knew that? Simple. He’d feel sorry for her, be embarrassed for her, maybe even be angry. She knew; she’d been through it all before.

  It would be better, safer, to just let the flame die out. She would let him go, and she would get over him just as she had promised herself. At least that way she would still have a very good friend and she would still have her pride.

  She sat on the edge of Jared’s patio with her chin on her drawn-up knees, watching Jared, Marie, Bryan, and Father James play touch football with Jared’s Super Bowl game ball. Jared’s every move was so unconsciously graceful, it made Genna’s breath catch in her throat. His body was one finely tuned human machine. And he had a great fanny too.

  The evening was uncomfortably warm. Jared wore nothing but a pair of silky electric blue running shorts and sneakers. When he moved just right, Genna could glimpse the delicious little curve of his muscle where thigh met buttock. The feel of that meaty swell beneath her fingers as they made love was too vivid in her memory, and she had to glance away, catching Grace’s watchful eyes on her.

  “I suppose a mother shouldn’t say so,” Grace said airily, “but the boy’s got a bod to die for.”

  Genna smiled. “That’s the general consensus.”

  “Jimmy?” Roberta’s black brows bobbed over her glassy eyes. She recrossed her legs and tapped the ash off her cigarette on the arm of her lawn chair. “He’s a priest, for heaven’s sake, Gracie!”

  “Not James. Jared, darling. Though I willingly admit with a mother’s pride that all my children are beautiful.” Grace held her arms out to Alyssa, her eyes glowing with love. “And my grandchildren. Come sit with Gramma, Alyssa.”

  Alyssa smiled her shy smile and climbed onto Grace’s generous lap, abandoning her game of tug-of-war with Flurry. The puppy ran off with a sock in his mouth.

  “My stars, she looks just like you, Gracie. Just like you.” Roberta puffed on her cigarette, tapped it on the chair arm again, and looked down at Genna. “Doesn’t she look just like Gracie, Jeannine?”

  “Yes.” Genna didn’t bother to correct the slip on her name. Roberta hadn’t called her the same thing twice yet. “You do look like your grandma, Lyss.”

  Alyssa and Grace appeared mutually pleased by that news. Alyssa wrapped the voluminous sleeve of her grandmother’s white and lilac gown around her arm.

  “You wear such pretty dresses, Gramma.”

  “You think so?” Grace beamed. “Well, thank you.”

  “She’s got your taste too, Mother,” Bill said, blowing a bubble. He sat on the patio to Grace’s right, his legs stretched out on the lawn, arms braced behind him for support. He wore ragged cutoffs and a fluorescent-green Hawaiian shirt that made Genna’s eyes hurt. His steno pad lay open on his lap, and his felt-tip pen was tucked behind his ear as he watched his children play ball.

  “Maybe I’ll grow up to be just like you, Gramma,” Alyssa speculated.

  Grace glowed.

  Roberta exhaled a cloud of smoke and reverently crossed herself with her cigarette.

  Bill chuckled. “You’re in like Flynn now, Lyss.”

  Alyssa slid off her perch and threw her arms around her grandfather’s neck in an exuberant hug. “I love you, Grampa!”

  Bill laughed, his pale blue eyes crinkling at the corners just the way Jared’s did. He wrapped his arms around his granddaughter and rocked her back and forth. “I love you, too, baby.”

  Genna tried to choke down the rock in her throat. Jared’s family was undeniably weird, but they loved one another and never felt any compunction about showing it. They were forever hugging and kissing and slapping one another on the back. They made Genna’s family look like polite strangers. They made her feel like an outsider.

  No. That was her own fault. She had always longed to be a part of a family that was secure in loving one another. Spending time with the Hennessys only reminded her that she wasn’t, and her prospects weren’t so great either. She bit her lip and stroked the puppy, who had fallen asleep on her lap.

  An exultant cry of “Touchdown!” from Father James drew her attention to the lawn. James was several years older than Jared, and the guy was drop-dead handsome. Not as handsome as Jared, of course, she hastened to amend, but handsome. In his cutoffs and white polo shirt, his black hair windblown, Genna could easily imagine he’d broken a lot of hearts when he’d taken the vows. And no doubt he heard a lot of confessions about lust.

  At the other end of the touchdown pass stood Bryan. Bryan was quiet and studious like his father. He never said more than five words at a crack. He wasn’t as tall as his brothers, but he was athletically built. His hair was almost blond, and he wore black-framed glasses over fathomless blue eyes. Women must itch to take those glasses off him.

  Marie looked like her father with a Dorothy Hamill hairdo. Jared lifted her over his head and turned around and around as if they were pairs skaters, Marie changing leg positions for dramatic effect, then somersaulting down in front of him.

  Jared laughed and jogged over to where Genna sat looking forlorn and forgotten. She had begged out of the football game, claiming her ankle was bothering her, but he had his doubts about that. She’d been getting quieter and quieter all week, and nothing he did to tease her out of her mood worked. He was terrified she was getting ready to back out of their relationship. In two days he would be leaving for training camp, what better time for her to break it off?

  Dammit, he thought, grabbing up his discarded T-shirt and toweling himself off with it, things had been going so well. What had triggered this? His family? Genna seemed to genuinely like them, but they were an eccentric bunch, and she wasn’t into that. Had being around them sent her back to believing he wasn’t her type or some such ridiculous nonsense? That made sense, according to the way Genna’s mind worked. He was going to have to find out soon and set her straight on a few things.

  He would have to be careful about it, though. He had promised her to keep things light. He couldn’t just up and tell her he was changing the rules of the game.

  “Hey, gorgeous, how’s the ankle?” he asked, dropping down beside her, a teasing grin on his face.

  “Fine.” She flashed him a smile that she feared fell short of looking authentic.

  He reached out and tipped her chin his way, stealing a kiss.

  “Don’t kiss in front of the priest, J.J.,” Roberta scolded, grinding out her cigarette and reaching for the half-empty pack on the white wrought iron table.

  Jared laughed. “He’s my brother, Aunt Roberta.”

  “Ha! Don’t try to fool me.” She shook her cigarette at him. “I can see perfectly well who you’re kissing. It’s Geneva.”

  Jared and Grace rolled their eyes. Genna squeezed hers shut. Bill scribbled on his steno pad, then his head shot up and his eyes glazed over.

  “Boys,” he said, suddenly jumping up and marching for the garage, James, Jared, and Bryan hot on his heels.

  “Where do you suppose they’re going now, Jemima?” Roberta asked, smoke rolling in a cloud around her he
ad.

  “They are undoubtedly in there planning my surprise birthday party,” Grace said, fluffing at her hair. It was caught up high on the crown of her head and cascaded dramatically down in a froth of inky ringlets.

  “You know about your surprise party?” Genna asked, thinking how disappointed the men would be when they found out.

  “Of course.”

  “Oh, my word, Gracie!” Roberta said between puffs.

  “I always know. Bill’s given me a surprise party every year for thirty-seven years. Every year I know, and every year he knows I know.”

  “It’s a tradition,” Marie said with a mischievous grin that was a female version of Jared’s.

  Roberta cackled, reaching down to pat Genna’s shoulder. “They’re a crazy bunch, aren’t they, Jeanette?”

  When the men emerged from the garage, everyone headed for the house and their nightly game of Trivial Pursuit. Everyone except Genna. She backed away from the door Jared held open.

  “I can’t stay,” she said, sending a vacant smile to the space between James and Jared. She figured they would know she was lying since she was terrible at it, and she had the distinct impression she would burst into tears if she looked into Jared’s beautiful eyes.

  The brothers exchanged meaningful looks.

  “I’ll walk you home,” Jared said evenly.

  They walked across the dew-damp yards, Genna forgetting to limp. Twilight was staining the sky purple and fuchsia in the west. Crickets chirped. Across the street Kyle Dennison and Brad Murray played basketball, the ball thunk-thunking on the Dennisons’ driveway.

  Jared slipped an arm around Genna’s shoulders. He pulled her close to his side and leaned back against her house beside the back door.

  “My family driving you crazy?” he asked, only half teasing.