Kiss Me If You Dare

by Nicole Young

  Therese introduced us. “She belongs to Suzette and Roger Jamison.”

  We shook hands. Neither of us spoke, probably stunned speechless. There seemed no credible explanation, except that we both had Noah as a common ancestor. After a moment of silence, those around the table began to fidget, no doubt as uncomfortable as I felt.

  “Please help yourself to some food, Tasha,” Therese said, helping me out of an awkward spot.

  I gladly dove into the array of breads, meats, cheeses, and side salads. Filling my plate, I wandered into the living room, looking for an opening in a conversation. The group on the sofa discussed the state of the Labrador/ Newfoundland economy. I steered away when I heard grumblings over some sort of lopsided agreement the power company had with Quebec. Two couples standing near the hallway had extreme weather on their minds, with battery chargers and the high cost of fuel their main concerns. I drifted toward the front door where a man and a woman ate their sandwiches in silence. His back was turned to me, but she seemed to watch my every move.

  I smiled at the eye contact. Then, feeling foolish and alone in the center of the room, I beelined in her direction. She seemed to panic as I drew near, her forty-something forehead scrunching as she made some sort of eye signals to the man across from her. I almost let the behavior chase me away, but I figured I might as well take a risk. What were the chances I’d ever see any of these people again?

  I stuck out a hand as I drew near. “Hi. I’m Tasha.”

  She fumbled with her plate, nearly dropping it. “Suzette. Nice to meet you.” Her hand felt sweaty in mine. “Oh, you’re Monique’s mom.”

  I turned to the man, expectant. “And you must be Roger. Therese couldn’t wait to introduce me to your daughter. From the looks of it, Monique and I could be sisters.” I was the only one laughing.

  Keeping his head down, Roger stuck out his hand. “Nice to meet you,” he said.

  I grabbed his fingers in mine. A shock of static zapped us on contact.

  “Woo. Sorry about that,” I said. At my words, he looked up and I got a peek at his face. “Hey. You’re the guy I ran into at the mess hall. We’re just doomed to have one painful encounter after another.” I’d hoped he’d loosen up at my joke, but he seemed to have the same sickened reaction as our last meeting.

  “Excuse me,” he said, heading off down the hall.

  Suzette covered for him. “He’s not feeling his best today.”

  I nodded, surreptitiously wiping my hand on my pants to get rid of any virus before I touched my food again.

  She jumped in to fill the silence. “So you’re from the States?”

  “Yes, I am.”

  “What brings you to town this time of year? Skiing?” “Good heavens no. It’d be like a giraffe on ice skates.” I got the smile I’d hoped for. “I’m actually here looking for a lost relative.”

  Her face seized up. I was touched by her concern.

  “What have you found?” she practically whispered.

  “Nothing yet. But here-” I dug in my purse for Can-dice’s photo. “This is what she looks like.”

  Suzette took the picture from me. Her body visibly relaxed. “She’s very lovely.”

  “Have you seen her?”

  “No. Never,” she said, handing it back to me.

  I took the photo. “I suppose it would be too simple if she were here.”

  Suzette pulled at the collar of her blouse. “What makes you think she’s in Churchill Falls?”

  “Travel plans made but never used. I thought maybe she arrived here later, by some other means.” I shrugged. “Might be a wild goose chase.”

  “Best of luck to you,” she said.

  Therese called from the kitchen. “Time to sing. Gather round, everybody.”

  I made my way to a corner near the refrigerator and fought tears as we sang to the beaming birthday girl. I tried not to compare my special day with hers. Why go there? But I couldn’t stop the tug of memories. Gram’s kitchen back in Walled Lake. The guests were her church friends, gabby women who somehow thought a sixteen-year-old would prefer a round of bridge over capture-the-flag with people her own age. I took my slice of cake into the living room, curled up on the couch, and read Jane Eyre for the third time. It was late when the gaggle left. Gram said good night, and I cleaned up the mess.

  Therese gave her daughter a big hug. “My baby is sixteen!” She held her by the shoulders and smiled. “Just look at you. So beautiful! I love you, Renee.”

  “Love you too, Mom.” The girl returned the hug, tears in her own eyes.

  I looked out the window and stared at the pattern of lines made by blue siding on the house next door. Aluminum made a very practical covering for homes this far north. Very practical, I decided, as Renee screamed in glee from her dad’s bear hug. I probably would have gone with tan. The baby blue gave me a headache.

  “You are the best daughter a man could have.” The affectionate voice cut through my musings.

  I brought the lines back into focus. Yes, tan would have been a better choice. Much softer on the eyes.

  The crowd in the kitchen started to break up, and I turned toward Therese, my head pounding. “Thank you for the invitation. I had a wonderful time.”

  She took my hands in hers. “It’s been a pleasure. I hope we will see you again while you’re here. Let us know if there is anything we can do to make your stay more comfortable. Anything at all.”

  “I will.” I located my outerwear and hurried to put it on. “Goodbye,” I said to the faces behind me and walked out the door.

  The cold shocked me into action. I took off at high speed toward the inn, the rub of my parka against my ears and the thud of my feet hitting the ground the only sounds in the darkness.

  The hotel clerk had her nose in her book again as I hurried through the lobby and up to my room. I shut the hotel room door behind me. The slam echoed in the emptiness, reminding me I was alone. I leaned against it, focusing on the rasp beneath my breath, hoping to drown out the sounds of family and friends gathered for a special occasion.

  After a minute, I blew out a puff of air and hung my coat. Boots off, I went to the bathroom and splashed water on my face. The towel felt rough on my skin, increasing circulation to my capillaries as I rubbed. My headache lightened up with the massage. I stared in the mirror, face red and raw. How come I was the one inside this body? Why couldn’t my soul have been born in that girl Monique instead? Same mouth, same nose, same face, but a thousand miles and two parents difference.

  I leaned on the counter and gave a disgusted sigh. Why did I always do that to myself? Why did I think everybody else had it so much better than Patricia Amble? I met my eyes in the mirror. The green seemed extra bright through tears. Mother dead when I was eight, father out of my life since birth, raised by a drunken grandfather and a bitter grandmother, a prison sentence, betrayed by a friend, a boyfriend dying by his own free will, house pilfered by an almost sister-in-law, and now stuck in the middle of an arctic wasteland looking for the only thing that could possibly make me feel better. Revenge.

  I was pathetic.

  I took two aspirin and curled up under the covers. I could feel myself sliding down that dangerous but somehow soothing path toward despair. It was no state of mind to be in before ending the killing rampage of the woman who virtually ended Brad’s life. I had to stay sharp, pull myself out of this slump if I was going to get the job done. Of course, I had to find her first.

  But, too emotionally exhausted to do anything about it tonight, I stretched to reach my suitcase on the floor by the bed and pulled out the envelope of photos I’d brought along for the trip. I set the pile on the bed next to me and picked up the top one. My mother. A line of tape ran down the center of the photo where I’d patched it together. Cousin Joel had torn it in two in a fit of rebellion when he first learned I was moving into the old lodge, a home he once considered his inheritance. My fingers tightened their hold on the shiny paper. And now the traitor and his w
ife had snatched it from me.

  I looked at my mom’s playful eyes. I’d almost forgotten what her face looked like, but now I could remember her smile.

  “Bedtime, Tish,” she’d say.

  “In a minute, Mom.” I never obeyed the first time.

  “Uh oh. Here comes the tickle monster.”

  “Eeeek!” I’d scream and run and she’d chase me and grab me in her arms and haul my little body to the bedroom. Then we snuggled and read bedtime stories. I yawned after the first one, but whined until I got a second story. Then it was kisses and a tuck in.

  My eyes went back to the tape stuck across her beautiful face. My mom. Taken from me the day Frank Majestic’s clowns forced her Ford into the quarry. Maybe I should be going after Majestic instead of Candice. He was the true source of my pain.

  I tried to block out images from the birthday party, but the thought of Therese hugging her daughter invaded my mind. The more I tried to push it away, the more I could feel my mother’s arms around me, tickling, holding, loving.

  My hands flopped to the bed, the picture landing facedown. Oh, how I loved to torture myself. I left the photo where it was and grabbed for the next one. Why stop now? I was on a roll, reaching for my next dose of pain like an addict.

  Mom and I at the beach, compliments of Candice LeJeune Photography. I really needed that reminder of Candice’s ploy to infiltrate my life, only to destroy it. I slapped the picture onto the comforter.

  The two of us on the woods path. Me on a swing. Each photo only made me angrier. I flipped to the next one- and froze. Brad and I. Sharing a Coney at Sam’s Diner back in Rawlings. I’d never seen the picture before. Brad looked so handsome in his polo shirt and khakis, so full of life. And I had a huge smile on my face. I squeezed my eyes closed, remembering how it felt to be happy. I opened them and tried to remember when the photo had been taken. Must have been a Sunday after church. We’d always gone with a crowd to eat and visit. I flipped it over.

  Brad, thought you’d want this! Love, Pastor John.

  How had it gotten among my things? It belonged to Brad. I bit my lip. He must have gotten rid of anything to do with me. I looked at the shot, tears pouring down my cheeks. I could understand why Brad hadn’t kept it around. Who wanted to be reminded about what might have been?

  From deep in my chest, a wail gushed up. I threw the photos to the bed. They scattered across the comforter. I flung back the covers and got up, pacing the room, wondering how I could get rid of this pent-up rage. What had Candice told me one day over tea? That it was best I’d been raised without my father’s influence. It gave me a chance to escape the Russo family curse. Well, it hadn’t mattered. Father or not, the curse had found me. Everything had gone wrong with my life. Maybe I shouldn’t waste my energy taking things out on Candice. Maybe I should just end my agony here.

  The thought splashed like a bucket of water across my brain. What was I thinking? Where was I headed? Time to step back and take a breather.

  I turned on the shower, hoping I’d get a fresh perspective after a good dousing. I gave the water a chance to warm up, heading back to the bedroom to clean up my mess. I gathered the photos, careful not to let any of them register in my mind and fan the flames of my fury. But despite my efforts, one image leaped out at me. I took the picture in my hands. It was my mom and dad, sitting together at the Watering Hole the night my mom died. As I squinted at the photo, studying my father’s features, I realized I’d just seen an older version of that face. It belonged to Roger Jamison.

  Hands shaking, I drew in a breath and blinked away the insane thought. But there was no denying it.

  I’d found my father.

  34

  I’d come here to find Candice LeJeune. Instead I found Jacob Russo. I collapsed on the edge of the bed.

  His hand. I’d touched his hand and I hadn’t even known he was my father.

  Somewhere above my twisting stomach was a lump that pushed against my heart. The pressure threatened to crush the delicate organ.

  The man who had been a cloudy, faceless blur in my memory was right here. Right here in Churchill Falls.

  I didn’t even know what to do with that information. He wasn’t some homeless bum on crack. He was a responsible member of society, an employee at a power plant, a husband to Suzette… a father to-I raced to the bathroom and wretched into the toilet, the convulsions stopping only when the sixteenth birthday party was flushed away. Wracked with chills, I crawled under the shower and scrunched up like an infant in the tub, letting the heat warm my bones. Steam filled my lungs and I struggled to take slow, even breaths.

  It’s okay. It’s okay. It’s okay.

  I let the chant block any thoughts from my mind. Water pelted my face and body. The constant drone against the painted metal blotted out all other sounds. But the sensory barrier was only temporary.

  Despite my efforts, Monique’s face exploded into my head.

  All those years.

  All those years that I had been without a father, she’d had one. She’d had mine.

  I couldn’t stop the little whining sounds from coming out of my throat, like a sad little puppy left out in the cold.

  Monique looked about the same age as her friend Renee. My fingers wiggled as I did the math. When I was seventeen and graduating from high school, Grandma Amble the only family member in the audience, my father was having a baby with another woman. I did some calculations. That would have made him thirty-sevenish. Just a little older than I was right now.

  My fist smacked the water puddled in the tub. How dare he?

  He was supposed to be with me.

  “Me.” I said the word out loud.

  Didn’t he know Mom died that night and I was all alone? Didn’t he care that I cried myself to sleep a whole year? Didn’t he hear me calling for him in the night?

  “Daddy. Daddy, please, come get me, Dad. Don’t leave me here. Dad, I want to be with you.”

  One night, somewhere around eleven years old, I told myself that he must be dead too and that’s why he wasn’t coming and I was completely alone in the world. And as long as he’d been dead or destitute, I’d been okay. But now-how could this happen? How could he be fine and doing well and living life? All without me?

  It was wrong.

  Spiraling into shock after an overdose of reality, I sat up in the tub, as if stuck on automatic, and wiped the streams of water from my face. I washed up and dried off. With a towel around my hair, I stepped to the bedroom and slipped into comfortable pajamas.

  The remote sat on the bedside table. I clicked it and stared at the blur of images across the TV screen, not caring what was on. The hours slipped by. At some point I escaped into sleep.

  My eyes flicked open, alert after a sound penetrated my slumber. I lay still, listening. The heating system hummed, doing its job. A few minutes passed and I decided the noise had been imaginary. Only in my dream.

  The digital clock read 6 a.m. Way too soon to be moving. But my mind was already awake and processing its latest information. I felt better this morning, ready to put the kibosh on the whine-and-cheese party and take some action instead.

  I dressed for the day, contemplating my next move. I had to confront Roger Jamison, alias Jacob Russo. The man was not getting off the hook a day longer. Thinking back over his first reaction when he saw me, I realized he had known who I was. He’d known I was his daughter. And what did he do? Run to the bathroom.

  And his wife Suzette. She’d known who I was too. I was sure of it. Only Monique and I suffered in ignorance.

  Monique. I even liked her name better. What kind of name was Patricia anyway? Everybody was named Patricia. If it hadn’t been for the saving grace of my nickname Tish, the name my mother had always called me, I would have made myself a Sabrina or a Victoria or a Genevieve. Something a little more romantic than Patricia.

  Still, that was the name Puppa called me. Patricia. He made the word formal, proper… important. Special even. I kind of liked t
he name when it came from Puppa’s lips.

  Puppa. In the bathroom mirror, the brush paused, inches from my hair. Monique was his granddaughter too, but she had never known him. She’d never been to the lake house, ridden horses, eaten supper, or harassed sick people with him.

  My cheek quirked a smile at the memory of Puppa congratulating me on kissing my sleeping prince.

  The brush continued through my hair. Monique had no idea what she’d been missing. We lived opposite halves of the same life. She got-I swallowed hard at the thought-she got our father. But I got our family. Puppa, Joel, Gerard, Grandma Olivia. Maybe I should be feeling sorry for Monique instead of myself.

  With the new perspective, I realized there were plenty of things Monique missed out on. Summers at the lodge on Valentine’s Bay, the Fourth of July celebration in Port Silvan, playing ambush with cousins on pine-needle covered trails… Maybe when she found out about Dad’s family back in Michigan, she’d feel as gypped as I did when I thought of growing up without a dad.

  That in mind, I decided to go easy on Monique when I told her the truth about why we looked like we could be sisters.

  We were sisters.

  I inhaled a sharp breath at the thought, somehow realizing for the first time that I had a sister. A little sister. We shared only half blood, but blood nonetheless.

  While I plotted my strategy for chastising my deadbeat dad, I also planned how Monique and I could become friends. More than friends. Sisters.

  Finished with my morning routine, I scoured the bedside table for the local directory. It only took a second to find the number for Roger Jamison on Osprey Avenue. I picked up the phone to dial. But at the sound of the tone, I put down the receiver. What was I going to say?

  “Hi, this is your firstborn, Patricia Amble. Can I come by for a cup of coffee?” I’m sure Suzette would be thrilled to welcome into her home the daughter of her husband’s ex-fling. Dear Old Dad would probably spend the whole time in the bathroom with the dry heaves, anyway.