Jess recoiled, just as she did as she heard about anyone from her high school class, her college class, or even, lately, her generation, who had made good. Unlike her.
“And the man is nuts,” Andrew went on. “I think if I had all that money and a life that cool I would be a little bit careful… you know, live as long as humanly possible. But it’s almost like he has a death wish. He kept giving the bus driver shots of Hot Damn.”
“Hot what?”
“Hot Damn. You know, like, Cinnamon Schnapps? And then when the bus driver started weaving and swerving, Jake just pushed him off his seat and started to drive the bus himself. Once, he nearly tipped us into the Colorado River. We asked him where he learned to drive a bus and he just laughed, sort of maniacally, and he said, ‘I didn’t.’”
So Jake had nearly killed her brother and all her brother’s friends a few days before his wedding, and he had royally messed up Andrew’s face, which was bound to be a problem with his fiancée, but, to Andrew, he was the ultimate champion.
One other thing was certain: He had changed. Her Jake Lassiter. Her quiet, introverted, fantasy man with the satiny kiss. He had changed.
Jess’s hands began to shake then, and she wasn’t sure why.
“Want to give me a hand with these centerpieces?” she asked, not bothering to soothe the edge from her voice. “They are ripping my hands to shreds, and they’re for your wedding.”
Andrew picked up a rose, twirled it once, and set it back down again. “I don’t know if you get it, Jess. You didn’t see him in People magazine, I guess. Or on 60 Minutes? He lives with this super hot girl. I mean supermodel hot. Smokin’ hot. They have a place in Malibu. All windows. By the ocean. He drives a frickin’ Ferrari.”
An image of Jake’s girlfriend popped into her mind, though she had only Andrew’s description to base it on. Long, sculpted legs. A fluttering, windswept mane of honey blonde. Eyes, brilliant blue, flickering with lust. Jess’s precise opposite in every way. Hell, she was probably a doctor, too.
“Let me guess.” Jess sneered. “His Ferrari is candy apple red.”
“I think it is, in fact.”
“Does he have a helicopter, too?”
Andrew studied her. “I don’t know.”
“He just… he sounds like a cliché is all.”
“Yeah, he’s a cliché. A cliché of cool.” Andrew leaned back in his chair and folded his arms, resting his head back. “He’s my hero. I can’t believe you know nothing about him.”
“No, Andrew. I don’t read People magazine. I’ve been in…school.”
“I get it, Jess. We all get it. You haven’t had time for anything fun.” His tone took on a sing-songy quality and Jess’s skin prickled. So now he was going to mock her.
“Ironically, you need his book more than anyone I know.” Andrew snorted. “Probably more than anyone in the whole entire world.”
Jess’s heart pounded. Suddenly she wanted nothing more than to slam down her shears, to break the roses from their stems. To scream, to push her smug brother right out of his chair.
Where was this rage coming from? She didn’t know, but she did know she wanted to spit in Andrew’s face.
“You know what?” Andrew continued, oblivious. “I’ll grab the book for you. I think I loaned my copy out, but I know Kelly has a copy at her house.”
Jess’s voice was shaky and tight. “I don’t need to read his stupid book.”
“Kelly loves him so much. Her copy is probably all marked up and highlighted. Hopefully you’ll still be able to read the words underneath all her scribbles and notes.”
“I don’t need to read his stupid book.” Jess’s breath was coming fast now.
“On second thought, I am going to call up Jake right now and ask him to hand-deliver a copy. I bet he would even autograph it for you.”
When Andrew pulled his phone from his pocket, Jess’s arm shot out, snatching at the phone, and knocking it from his hands.“You’ll do no such thing.” Heat ripped through her.
“Geez, woman. What just crawled up your butt?” Andrew retrieved his phone and pawed at the screen to view his contacts.
“Just…don’t call him. I don’t want his stupid book.”
“Okay, whatever. I’m just trying to help.”
“Well, stop it.”
“Alright. Jesus. I just thought, you know, since he asked about you last night. Twice…”
Two
Jess
Something had come over her. Something dark. She had to leave. She slammed the storm door behind her. It slapped against the frame and the rattle reverberated as she stood on the other side, trembling. She had to get a hold of herself. Why this sudden wrath? Was she having a nervous breakdown?
Even when she realized that she would be a medical school dropout, even when she fully understood that she had screwed up her own life in an irreconcilable way, she hadn’t felt rage. Disappointment, numbness, deep, deep regret. But not rage. And why at her brother? Why over a light-hearted conversation about his bachelor party?
She began to walk, then. One foot in front of the other. One step at a time, pacing her breathing with her steps. Inhale, two, three; exhale, two, three. And that is how she arrived there, by the river, without entirely meaning to. It had been her favorite place to go, to think, back in high school. The path was dirt and it meandered along the water’s edge, bumping over stones and sawed off tree trunks. Their swollen roots bulged and swelled from the soil, resembling the veins on Grandma’s hands. Exposed vessels of vulnerability, spinning on a fragile planet.
This is how she felt. A brittle shell, shucked from the world. For the past couple of years, she had found it increasingly difficult to enjoy anything, and, now, impossible. Her brother irritated her. Her sister irritated her. Jess tripped over a stump in the path. Hell, even nature irritated her.
More than that. It haunted her. Every moment of free time. If she wasn’t such a baby, such a coward, she would be graduating in a month. She would be ready to start the career she had always dreamed of. She would be fulfilling her lifetime sense of purpose, which had been overriding and all-encompassing, all the way until Year Two. That’s when the darkness had begun to descend. That’s when the fear set in—the fear that perhaps this wasn’t the right path for her after all.
But then many people told her they’d felt this way, too, at this stage in the game. They all told her to keep hanging on until Year Four. That’s when it gets better, they had said. They told her to choose a new specialty. To choose new rotations until she found one that fit. So she had. Child Psych, Adolescent Psych, Pathology, Oncology, Emergency Medicine. Each day, she took in information and spit it back. Then one day, the exhaustion was absolute. She found that she couldn’t go in any longer. She couldn’t bear it. The whoosh of the hospital doors. The sterile scent in the air. The patients with their needy, pleading eyes. The knowledge that she couldn’t make a mistake. Not ever. Not here.
When she didn’t show up for her rotation that next day, the school had sent a therapist to her home. Apparently, this was a common enough occurrence that there was a protocol to follow. And so a petite woman with a tight and tiny mouth and a laminated name badge stood in front of her and told her that she needed to move on, that medical students experience these kinds of emotions all the time, that there were people and resources that could help her, but, the woman had said, the stupidest, most foolish thing she could possibly do would be to simply leave, because that would close all of the doors behind her. “That would,” she had said, “create a situation in which you would never find employment allowing for loan repayment.” And then her voice had taken on a soaring, practiced tone as she asserted, “Now is your chance to show the world, and yourself, what you are made of.”
And so Jess had shown them. She boarded the next bus for home. Then she sat in her old basement bedroom, numb, for three straight days before borrowing Grandma’s Oldsmobile and driving back to get her things. Now here she was. Unable to
enjoy a walk by the river, a rollicking tale of an old classmate, the preparations for her twin brother’s wedding. And so she sat on a smooth, round rock, and she stared at the earth beneath her feet.
***
She didn’t know how long she had been gone, but when she returned to the house, all forty-eight bowls were tied with ribbons and filled with floating red blooms. The bowls covered the kitchen table, the dining room table, and the coffee table. Amid them, Grandma lay still in her recliner, her head tipped back, snoring softly. The skin on her hands were marred with tiny lashes.
Shame surged through Jess and heat rose to her face. Grandma had felt impelled to finish the centerpieces in her absence. She swallowed hard and decided to let her rest. She tiptoed to the basement, and, there, on her pillow, was a book. His book.
Had Jake Lassiter been here? Jess sniffed the air, without meaning to. She remembered, then, his scent. The scent of that day. Of him, of his kiss. It was sharp, almost peppery. But the basement smelled only of dampness. Of long-forgotten cats and the dank sweetness of lilies, kept past their prime.
Jake’s face flashed through her mind. The way it looked just before he’d kissed her. His wanton walnut-colored eyes. His chiseled nose of infallible perfection. Those marble cheekbones.
And now he was writing bestsellers and chartering buses and flinging long-lost friends off mountainsides—when he wasn’t wriggling atop supermodels in Malibu.
Who could have guessed? Jess stared at the book. It was clearly a new copy. She looked around and wondered again: Had Jake Lassiter been in her bedroom?
And what difference did it make? She lifted the book from her pillow and weighed it in her hands. The cover was simple enough. Live Every Day of Your Life. This was the title? Not super imaginative, but, she supposed it was good advice, if completely obvious.
Beneath the title was an overexposed image of a hammock, strung up on two palm trees, and nestled deep inside, a dark haired man. Was this supposed to be him? Was that what he looked like now?
The book made a popping noise as she opened it, releasing the scent of paper, of newness. She turned one page, and then another.
Her throat throttled and her heart pounded. She could feel it in her temples.
On page one:
“I race Formula One cars in Italy.
“I paraglide from peaks in France and Switzerland.
“I dine with ultra-beautiful women on both coasts of the nation, in each hemisphere of the world.
“I know the secrets of living fast and free.
“I live this way, and so can you. “
Ick. Ick. Beyond ick. It was absurd and arrogant. What was he? A champion of irresponsibility? A captain of non-industry?
She shuddered. Fast and free? No reason to read the rest of that. She slapped the book shut. Then, quickly, she flipped open the back cover. Just to see. Just to get a glimpse. Yes. There it was. There he was. Staring back at her from a photograph, three inches square. She lifted the book close to her face. She had forgotten the tiny chip on his front tooth. Those eyes, like liquid. That’s what he had made her feel like that day. Liquid.
There was a bang on the final basement step and then a rush of damp air on her face. Suddenly, Monica was standing over her, over her bed, her black shiny hair dangling so Jess could see just the ends of her ringlet curls.
“What do you have there, Jess?”
Instinctively, Jess shoved the book under her pillow, and Monica pounced on her, giggling. “What are you hiding?”
Monica grabbed for her hand under the pillow, and Jess had to fight a sudden urge to bite her shoulder.
Monica laughed. “Did I catch Miss Priss with porn or something?” She finally grabbed the book and pulled hard, sliding it out of Jess’s fingers.
“Oh,” Monica said, raising up and looking at it. “It’s just that book.” She put it down beside her and splayed out next to Jess on the bed, as though the effort to wrestle her sister had exhausted her.
Jess was silent. She slung her arm over her face.
“So what’s the big deal, Jess? Why are you hiding it?”
Jess didn’t answer, and after a moment, Monica sighed. “Isn’t Jake Lassiter so fine?” she asked.
Jess sat then and turned toward the wall. Monica had never given him a second glance in high school.
“Wouldn’t it be cool if he would come back here someday?” Monica continued. “What I wouldn’t do to him. And for him. And across him. And down him.”
“He’s coming to the wedding.” Jess said, then. She found herself wanting to shock her sister, suddenly. Wanting to let Monica know that she didn’t always know everything about everyone.
“Ha.”
“No, really. Didn’t Andrew tell you? Jake was here last night for the bachelor party.”
“No shit?”
“So he said.”
“Well….” Monica snorted. “Oh. I see…. So you’re doing your homework. You actually think you’d have a chance with this guy.”
“No.”
“Well, don’t get your hopes up, darlin’. He’s taken. Did you read the article in People? That chick he lives with is so beautiful.”
Jess exhaled. “That’s exactly what Andrew said.”
“Is Jake bringing her along, do you think? To the wedding?”
“No idea. It doesn’t sound like he brought her last night.”
“So he really was at Andrew’s party?”
Jess nodded. “I guess so. I heard it was really something. I guess that guy you were with last night missed out.” She knew it was a cruel thing to say, but she couldn’t help herself. Monica could bring out the worst in her, like no one else.
Monica thought for a moment and then shook her head. “Nah. He didn’t miss out on nothin’. Sometimes, Jess, a little good loving is worth everything. Everything.”
When Jess didn’t reply, she went on. “So why are you reading his book in the semi-dark, like it’s something dirty, instead of getting ready for the rehearsal dinner?”
The rehearsal dinner! She had nearly forgotten. Jess snapped to her feet.
Monica laughed. “Don’t worry. I’ll tell everyone why you’re delayed. That I found you just hanging out on your bed. Getting dirty with Jake’s little book.”
Monica stood, still laughing. She adjusted her bra straps so they just showed at the edges of her boat neck blouse. Then she was gone.
For the first time, Jess wondered what she might wear that evening, and she wondered what the chances were that Jake would be there.
***
The minister’s words droned on and on, and her dress was so tight. Why had Kelly chosen such snug little leave-nothing-to-the-imagination bridesmaid dresses? She felt like a Munchkin or an Oompa-Loompa standing up there, even in her teetering heels, next to the bride’s statuesque sisters. Jess clutched her bouquet of peonies and bent her knees. She scanned the crowd once again.
“So where is he?” Monica whispered, next to her. “Where is Jake?”
Jess shrugged imperceptibly and scanned the crowd again. Andrew would be disappointed. Jake hadn’t made it to the rehearsal dinner, and he hadn’t made it to the ceremony.
Finally, a kiss, a cheer, and the bride and groom were walking back down the aisle. When would this event end? When could she take off these heels? Jess had hardly slept the night before. She had even considered faking a mysterious illness, so she didn’t have to appear in the wedding and watch Monica and the rest of the women in town throw themselves at him. But Jake hadn’t even shown up. Apparently, Jake Lassiter was only in it for the parties. That’s what life was all about, after all. Fast and free.
Jess swallowed, pulled her shoulders back and painted on a grin for the receiving line. Then she took a post by the gifts, ensuring that no one had any questions or needed her help in any way. She tried to look official and relaxed, like a wedding coordinator. Events like these were always easier for her if she immersed herself in a task. She had just finished arrang
ing the gifts into picturesque stacks and was straightening bows and envelopes when, pop!, something small and red smacked her straight on the nose.
A ripple of laughter. What the hell? She looked up briefly, her eyes narrow, and resumed her gift-aligning. Then another smack of something. This time on her cheek. More laughter.
Someone was chucking tiny fruits at her face. Cherry tomatoes. Seriously?
And then she saw Jake’s face. Directly in front of her and just as she remembered it. High cheekbones. That perfect classic nose. Silky dark hair. Arresting, bronze-colored eyes. His gaze locked on hers, and he gave her a quick wink.
A rush of noise forced the realization that the entire front half of the reception hall was awaiting her reaction.
Jess’s nostrils flared and she raised her chin. She found herself suddenly bewildered, with no thought as to an appropriate response. What was wrong with her? She wanted to cry, to sink down, there on the floor, to put her hands to her face and bawl.
She felt her face redden and she turned and pushed her way out to the hallway.
“She was supposed to laugh,” she heard Jake say to the crowd. Another chorus of laughter. Then the soft, rapid click of his shoes on the tile behind her.
“Here we are, Jess,” Jake called after her. “In the hallway. Again.”
He really was quite stupid, wasn’t he? Yes, they were in the hallway. Jess kept walking, moving faster now.
“That was another joke. You were supposed to laugh.”
What joke? His words, from his book, came rushing back to her. I dine with ultra-beautiful women on both coasts of the nation, in each hemisphere of the world… Ick. She shuddered and kept walking.
“Hey, Jess, stop.”
She turned. Her heart was racing. “You stop. Stop throwing stuff at my face.”
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