Possessing Jessie

by Nancy Springer

People stared at her shining new black car and stared at her, and she liked it. She felt cool. She wished she were dressed in black jeans and a black hoodie. She’d feel even more cool then.

  She took her time at the gleaming racks of sunglasses, looking often in the mirror as she tried on pair after pair of fashionable shades, settling finally on Oakley Flak Jacket Asian Fit, black frames, deep purple lenses. She paid the bill, well over a hundred dollars, with her duplicate of Mom’s credit card, meant only for emergencies. Hell, life was an emergency at this point. Yet she felt so no-problem about everything. In fact, she liked living this way, like a spy in a foreign place, wearing a disguise that might betray her.

  Even though it was getting dark, she put on the new sunglasses right away, feeling without acknowledging the envious looks some people gave her as she strutted to her new car.

  Sweeeet.

  She took an indirect way home, driving fast, savoring the way the Z-car handled and cornered. She didn’t say a thing to her mother as she walked in the door, sunglasses still on. But Mom beamed a high-wattage smile as she told her to go wash her hands for supper.

  Upstairs, laying the Oakleys on top of Jason’s dresser, Jessie noticed three other pairs of sunglasses there. Why hadn’t she stopped to think Jason had shades already? She’d gone and wasted all that money–but within a moment she shrugged it off. Mom was such a space cadet that she wouldn’t notice, or if she did, she wouldn’t care. Anyway, it had been fun.

  Supper was steak with double-baked cheese potatoes. Jessie had never liked cheese potatoes, but she ate them anyway, and they tasted better than she remembered.

  Then instead of doing any homework, she watched TV, taking charge of the remote before Mom could get to it. She found herself interested in one of those shows about oversize, heavily tattooed men battling each other hand and foot inside what looked like a kind of chain-link fence. She didn’t have a clue what they were trying to prove, but it looked like they wanted to kill each other. Interesting.

  Mom got up and left the room. “That sort of thing gives me nightmares.”

  But Jessie didn’t have any nightmares. She was sleeping in Jason’s bed now, with essence of Jason in the pillow, the blanket, the camouflage-print sheets. She fell asleep right away. And she had a good dream. She dreamed Jason was sitting in the room with her. She saw his handsome face grinning at her. Way to go, Sis. She saw him give her thumbs-up. He didn’t look like a dead person.

  Chapter Eight

  As soon as Alisha got out of school, she headed for the post office, where she asked a pimply, red-faced woman behind the counter whether Mr. Ressler had left a forwarding address. She had made up her mind that Jessie’s father had to be told what was going on, and she, Alisha, had to tell him. But she didn’t have the phone number, and it was no use asking Jessie for it–Jessie had made it pretty clear she wouldn’t cooperate. Alisha had no idea where Jessie’s father lived now, but she hoped if she could get his forwarding address, she might luck out with a phone number from Information.

  The pimply woman repeated, “Mr. Ressler?”

  “I don’t know his first name.”

  “Well, you’d better find out, hadn’t you?”

  It had been over two years since Jessie’s father had left, but Alisha remembered he used to work at the State Farm Insurance office, so she trudged down Main Street to ask there.

  “Ressler?” said the receptionist, a young woman with a face that looked as if it had been spray-painted around her impossibly green eyes, probably colored contacts. “Ron Ressler? He hasn’t set foot in here for years.”

  “Do you know where he moved to?”

  “Indianapolis, wasn’t it? Or maybe Grand Rapids. Or was it Saint Louis? I can’t remember.”

  “Do you, um, have it on file someplace?”

  “I doubt it. Why would we?”

  Starting to get blisters on her toes from her new sandals, Alisha trudged back to the post office and asked for the forwarding address of Ron, or Ronald, Ressler.

  The pimply, red-faced woman told her, “We don’t give out that information. Privacy laws.”

  Alisha cried, “Why didn’t you tell me that in the first place?”

  “Don’t get smart with me, young lady.”

  Clamping her mouth shut, Alisha turned to leave. As she went out the door, the woman called after her, “It’s been more than a year, anyway. We only keep the forwarding addresses for a year.”

  So she knew who I was talking about all along, Alisha thought, with a familiar sour feeling swelling in her belly, a kind of emotional indigestion. She wondered whether the woman had treated her that way because she didn’t like teenagers, or whether she was hateful to people in general, or whether it was because Alisha was Black. It was hard not to assume the worst, and it was no use asking. She would never know for sure.

  She never did know for sure.

  Except with Jessie.

  Around a corner away from the post office, Alisha plopped onto a park bench, slipped her sore feet out of her sandals, and grabbed her cell phone, aching to talk with Jessie. But she couldn’t let Jessie find out she was trying to track down her father. She’d just talk with her. She wanted to hear the sound of her voice. She dialed Jessie’s cell phone, but it rang and rang. Five times, six, seven. Finally the voice mail picked up, robotic. “You have reached the mailbox of …”

  And then Jessie’s real voice. “Jessica Ressler.”

  A sweet, soft voice. Tears stung Alisha’s eyes. She clicked off. Couldn’t leave a message. Didn’t know what in the world to say.

  She took a long breath, got up, and got moving again. To the public library this time, to use a computer, since her family didn’t have one at home. It was just her, Mom, and Grandmom. Mom worked hard for not much money. Grandmom cooked spicy food and gave out advice, superstitions, and warnings. Such as, don’t mess with other people’s business. Especially not what she called “funny business.”

  Alisha saw nothing funny about it. And if she didn’t try to help Jessie, who would?

  On the computer, she quickly discovered that most of the “Find People” sites wanted money. She tried the Whitepages.com without success. She really needed Ron Ressler’s middle initial. She tried MySpace and Facebook and LinkedIn; no luck. Same problem. Time to go low-tech. At the library’s reference desk she asked whether they had old phone books for the local area. They did. Looking in the phone book from three years ago, Alisha found that Jessie’s father’s name was actually “W. Richard Ressler.”

  Richard, not Ronald. Clueless One at the insurance place had gotten it wrong. Why hadn’t the damn woman at the post office corrected her?

  It doesn’t matter. That woman is a total waste of organs that could be donated. Don’t think about her.

  W. Richard Ressler. Alisha wondered what the W stood for. It was probably something Mr. Ressler didn’t like. Walter? Wolfgang? Wilberforce?

  I have to start all over.

  And she’d wasted so much time. A smart person who had a clue, like a private detective or a cop on TV, would probably be already talking with Jessie’s father by now, but Alisha hadn’t even gotten to first base. Who the heck did she think she was, a stupid girl trying to be a hero.…

  Stop it. Don’t dis yourself. Just do it.

  She’d never stayed at the library so late before. Mom was home by now. Alisha phoned to tell her where she was and said she was working on a school project.

  By now Alisha was so hungry it hurt. Also, she had a headache. The computers were crowded, and she had to wait her turn. Once back on, she went to Whitepages.com with the correct name. But still no luck. She tried to find W. Richard Ressler among a listing of State Farm Insurance agents, then insurance agents in general. But she didn’t find him there, either, and she didn’t even know whether he still worked in insurance. She didn’t know much about him at all except gossip about the Ressler divorce. Some people said it was because Mrs. Ressler was kind of selfish and shallow. Other peop
le said it was because Mr. Ressler was inclined to drink and screw around. Probably both things were true. Which came first, the shallow wife or the straying husband?

  Well, wherever he was, he was probably still chasing women.

  Huh.

  Alisha went back to the home page and clicked a heading called “Singles.”

  It was like stepping into the bar district of a strange, sleazy city. Voices calling “Want Me, Want ME!” Advertising loud and louder. Why did these people have to advertise? Did older mean lonely? The neediness reaching out of the computer screen made Alisha uncomfortable. It took her a while to get things sorted out in her mind. Most of the “Find Your Soul Mate” sites wanted money; she couldn’t go on them. Others were so nearly pornographic they warned her away. Still others consisted of classified ads, such as “DWM seeks WF into Rollerblading, boogie-boarding, other athletic pursuits” which did not help her–there was no way of telling whether any of the DWMs were Jessie’s father. There was too much to sort through, and it was taking her too long. Sites for certain regions did not help, as Alisha did not know where, geographically, Jessie’s father was. Sites that gave only first names but showed photos–

  It was a long shot, but Alisha did know what Mr. Ressler looked like.

  She was scrolling through posed picture after posed picture–Look, I’m cool, See my style, See my shoulders, See my boobs, See my smile–and, for the first time in her life, feeling grateful she was still in high school and didn’t have to go through this kind of virtual humiliation, when she heard an adult voice speak to her. “Alisha.”

  One of the librarians.

  “Alisha, it’s time for you to get off the computer. Other people are waiting.”

  Of course she had used up her half hour and then some, and of course Alisha didn’t talk back because there was nothing to say, but she wanted to scream. Or cry. The next photo could have been Jessie’s father.

  Yeah, right. Odds about a million to one.

  Alisha clicked the computer back to the home page, stood up on legs stiff from sitting, left the library, and trudged toward home, mind-weary, heart-weary, soul-weary. She still hadn’t found Jessie’s father, and she wasn’t going to quit trying, but she felt scared it might already be too late for him to help Jessie.

  Chapter Nine

  The next morning Jessie made sure to be on time for school, because she wanted everybody to see her purring into the parking lot in the black Z-car. She wore Jason’s black American Outfitters T-shirt, his black jeans, and her–or maybe his, really–new black Oakley shades, and she rolled in like a visiting raja, relishing yet ignoring the shouts and squeals of the onlookers.

  She parked the car diagonally across two spaces, which was strictly against the rules. Walking tall, she wore her sunglasses into school, also against the rules. The other kids kept their distance from her and watched her silently, acting more impressed now than hostile. No shouts of “pervert.” Instead, one of Jason’s teammates from wrestling, a tall, broad-shouldered blond boy named Shane, walked up to her. Jessie’d had a crush on Shane, who was her age, since middle school. Mutely she adored him almost as much as she had adored Jason. He had never noticed her, had never spoken to her before, and she had never spoken to him.

  Now here came Shane calling, “Hey, um, Jason.” He said the name like yeah, right, but he was smiling. Challenging, yet not unfriendly.

  As if in a dream, Jessie could not feel the floor under her feet. Yet she did what she had to do, answering promptly in her Jason voice, “Yo, Shane, ’sup?”

  “That’s what I want to know. What’s up.”

  Jessie answered only with a smile. Shane’s smile pulled it out of her while she struggled against it, so it may have looked like a girly smile or it may have looked more like a boy smile.

  It seemed to puzzle Shane. He loomed over her, scowling. “Let’s see how Jason you really are. Dead End Bend tonight at dark, all right?”

  Jessie shrugged. “Yeah, yeah.”

  “Yeah, yeah,” Shane mimicked, turning to walk away. “I’ll believe it when I see it,” he shot over his shoulder as he left.

  Jessie felt her heart pumping honey. Shane, talking to her! Interested in her! Life had never been so exciting before.

  And it continued that way. The minute she walked into homeroom, the teacher ordered, “Take off those sunglasses, Miss Ressler.”

  Jessie stared. Instead of her usual homeroom teacher, it was Coach, the one who had made her cringe at the door on her first day dressed as Jason. If it weren’t for that memory, Jessie might have taken off the sunglasses like a good girl. Really, she knew, she was still Jessie and she needed to make good grades and stay out of trouble. But the way Coach said “Miss Ressler” made it sound like being Jessie was equivalent to being a garden slug. She did not answer, only shrugged and slouched back in her desk chair, arms crossed over her chest, chin up, grinning defiance the way Jason might have.

  “Jessica Ressler! I’ll give you one more chance. Remove your expensive but nonfunctional eyewear.”

  Ooooh, sarcasm, ooooooh, so scaaaaary it made Jessie laugh.

  The teacher said between clenched teeth, “Report to the office, Miss Ressler.”

  What the hell, she thought as she swaggered out. She would have ended up in trouble sooner or later because of the way she’d parked the Z-car.

  In the office, they had her sit and wait for quite a while. Maybe they were trying to make her sweat, but they just made her bored and irritated.

  Or maybe they were trying to figure out what to do about her. When she was finally called in, it was not to the principal’s office, or the vice principal’s. A secretary took her all the way back to the school’s “life wellness” office.

  The psychologist’s office.

  Which meant they thought she needed psychiatric help. They thought she was crazy.

  Jessie found herself facing one of those ultra-thin, fashionable, aging ladies terrified of their own wrinkles, whose attention to her face–plastic surgery, Botox?–did nothing for the baggy, sagging skin of her neck. “Good morning, Jessie,” she said with a show of unnaturally white teeth. She was probably trying to be warm, gentle, reassuring, to project the message You’re not in trouble after all, Jessie. I’m your friend.

  Yeah, right. Jessie just gave a Jason-grunt and slumped in a chair.

  “Please take your sunglasses off, dear. I need to be able to see your eyes.”

  Jessie couldn’t really explain why she was getting so annoyed with everything. Before today, she had never worn sunglasses indoors. They were making her world awfully dark, yet she did not want to take them off, because the fun of messing with people’s minds more than made up for the inconvenience. She challenged, “Why?”

  “So I can try to tell how you’re feeling, dear. Why you’re acting this way.”

  “What way?”

  The psychologist’s warm-and-gentle pose began to erode. “Jessica, you know perfectly well what I’m talking about. Your dressing this way to assume your sadly expired brother’s identity is particularly concerning. Allowances have been made for you because grief takes many forms, but now it is time for this to stop.”

  “According to what calendar?” Jessie shot back. Skinny old bag, she pisses me off. Jessie had never felt so angry.

  “According to common sense, Jessica. The school administration–”

  Jessie jumped out of her chair. “Don’t give me that. There’s no law–”

  The woman leaned forward with what was probably meant to be compassion but felt more like the pity of a superior being dispensing wisdom. “We all have to deal with reality, Jessie.”

  Anorexia lady thinks I’m crazy just for wearing Jason’s clothes? Fine, Jessie decided, she’d be crazy. “That’s not my name,” she said loudly. “Jason. Call me Jason.”

  “Now, Jessie, you know we can’t do that.”

  Why not? Jessica, super-student, knew that by law, as long as she wasn’t committing a crime she
could use whatever name she wanted to. “Call me Jason.”

  The argument went on for some time and ended in a deadlock. Jessie kept her sunglasses on. Jessie said her name was Jason. The school psychologist finally let her go back to class, and for the rest of the day when she wrote her name on her papers, she put Jason Ressler. It looked funny in her neat, oval handwriting instead of his wild scrawl.

  Coincidentally, on that same day in a small city several hundred miles away, W. Richard Ressler was also seeing a psychologist, to whom he confided, “It’s Wendell. Wendell Richard.”

  “Nothing wrong with that,” the comfortably plump woman responded.

  “I know that now, but when I was in school–kids can be awfully cruel about nothing. Wendell Witchie! Wendell Witchie! I hated it.”

  “They bullied you? Over a period of several years?”

  “Oh, yeah. They threw me on the ground and rubbed my face in the dirt whenever they felt like it.”

  “We’re just starting to realize how much that sort of childhood abuse by peers is internalized, contributing to a lifetime lack of self-esteem. It’s no wonder you are still trying to find yourself.”

  Yeppers. And he had gone about it all the wrong ways at first. Leaving his wife and family. Running here, running there, thinking he would feel like a different person in a different place. Bars and fast cars and liquor and drugs, months of partying, until he had ended up in detox. He’d pretty much wasted two years, but now he was clean and trying to stay that way.

  He didn’t have to tell the doctor any of this; she knew. He’d been seeing her awhile.

  “I’ve been holding down a job and mostly stable for almost six months now,” he remarked.

  “And?” She smiled at him.

  “And I’ve been thinking–maybe …”

  “Go on.”

  “I feel almost ready to face my kids now.” Damn, what a fool he’d been. He wouldn’t go off the deep end ever again if he could just have his children back in his life. The divorce had given him visitation rights, of course, but try telling that to his ex. She never called to let him know how his son and daughter were doing, and when he tried to phone her, or them, his call was blocked. He had called from other numbers only to have her hang up on him. And she was always the one to answer the phone. Always had been. The house was her domain, and she reigned there.