Black Tuesday

by Susan Colebank

  “I’m okay. Thank you.”

  “So formal.” He moved his head closer to hers, until his breath was brushing her lips. “Let’s see what we can do to fix that.”

  In the next instant, his lips covered hers and a hand moved to the small of her back. She gave in to the warmth of his mouth, tentatively.

  Then she felt it.

  His tongue touching her lips.

  Did he want her to open her mouth? Her head was swimming with the fact that she was kissing a hottie. Here. In her house.

  This was only the third male mouth on hers in her entire life. And one didn’t even count (well, it could, but that would be utterly disgusting considering it was her dad’s when he used to kiss her good night when she was little).

  The only problem she had in her life right now was whether or not she was supposed to let Darian’s tongue in her mouth. That, and her brain didn’t seem to want to shut off long enough for her to just enjoy the damn kiss!

  “Well, lookie here.”

  Jayne pulled away so fast from Darian that her elbow bumped a picture on the wall, unhooking it from its nail. Reflexively, she turned around and caught it between the wall and her body.

  Tom stood in the hallway, wearing that pissy look she’d seen at the pool.

  Beside him was Lori.

  Lori, who should’ve been wearing green greasepaint to warn people about her toxic personality.

  The one who’d been sending her those e-mails. And those text messages.

  “Excuse me.” Those two words dripped with saccharin. Lori pushed her way between Jayne and Darian. “I need to use the little girls’ room.”

  As Lori headed down the hallway, she threw back, “I’m surprised at you, Jayne.”

  Lori was looking for a fight. Usually, Jayne wouldn’t have given her one. She wasn’t that kind of girl.

  But tonight, she’d been blindsided by an enemy, thrown into the pool, given pissy looks by her best friend, yelled at by her mother, kissed by a hottie, and now ordered around by this witch.

  She’d had enough. “That I actually enjoy the male persuasion, unlike you?”

  For a brief moment, Lori looked surprised. Before Jayne could feel good about getting the upper hand, though, the witch regained her composure. “Oh, I enjoy the males. I enjoy them a lot.”

  Lori’s smile was creepy. Like Jack Nicholson’s in that Shining movie. Right before he went on a killing spree.

  “I’m just surprised that you’re able to kiss anyone at all after killing Jenna’s sister and all.”

  If Lori was eaten by a pack of coyotes, would anyone even miss her? If Lori was lost in the Andes with five other people and someone had to be killed for the others to eat, how would they murder Lori?

  After Lori’s parting words, Jayne had gone up to her room. Attempted to calm down. Attempted to stop wanting to rip Lori’s face off.

  “Hey.” Darian’s voice came from behind her. She turned, her eyes not meeting his.

  “Jayne, I knew already.”

  “You knew what?”

  “I knew about the girl. And the accident.”

  She finally looked at him. His eyes were warm and sympathetic. Like Tom’s had been. The only difference was that she didn’t want to punch Darian in the face for cavorting with an enemy.

  “You knew?”

  “Yeah.” He pushed away from the doorway and ran a hand through his hair. It was a little less spiky today. The chlorine had a way of doing that. “Maria told me.”

  A flash of . . . anger? shock? . . . popped through Jayne. “I thought that was confidential.”

  “I was in her office one day and she sort of let it slip about what had happened. She didn’t mean to tell me anything.” He put a hand over his heart. “Honest. Don’t be mad at her.”

  For the second time that day, she felt betrayed. First Tom, now Maria.

  But this betrayal didn’t cut quite as deep as Tom’s had.

  Small consolation, though.

  “What I’m trying to say, though, is that what that girl said out there didn’t mean anything.” He was close. Close enough to put his hand on Jayne’s cheek. “And that I like you a lot.”

  She thought maybe her heart was going to drop into her stomach. That hand felt good. It felt like it was grounding her in this topsy-turvy world of disappointed mothers, useless dads, turncoat best friends, and loose-lipped counselors.

  And for the second time that day, Jayne Lee Thompkins kissed a boy.

  This time, she opened her mouth.

  21

  THE MUZAK IN THIS PLACE was driving Jayne nuts. She picked up another National Geographic, flipping through it but not really looking at it. Instead, she looked at her watch for the hundredth time.

  Larry the Fairy was running late.

  She stopped on a page that showed the flattest, starkest cliff she’d seen in her life. The caption read “Inishmore Island, Aran Islands, Ireland.”

  That lonely, stark place looked like it would’ve been a one hundred percent improvement over this land of seventies furniture, gray carpet, and tropical rain forest.

  This office sort of reminded her of Val’s office. Except the plants here were real and very shiny.

  A door opened around the corner. “Jayne? You ready?”

  Larry came out, his hair going in every which direction, his big bug eyes popping out of his head. He was wearing a Hawaiian shirt, khakis, and flip-flops.

  Larry sure didn’t know how to dress for his clients. Or in general.

  “Yeah.” She put the magazine under her arm and walked past him. After the weekend she’d had, she didn’t give a crud about putting up appearances. She wore a pair of sweats with a hole at the knee and a black Metallica shirt that had been her dad’s back in college.

  Her mom had tried to make her change her clothes, but she’d failed. Anyway, Gen had already gotten her way once today. And that was Jayne’s quota.

  She was here to see Larry the Fairy, wasn’t she? To help straighten her out, as her mom put it. “Jayne, I don’t know what’s gotten into you, but you need to get back on track. School starts in a month and I need to see A’s from you.”

  Her mom didn’t insist on driving her here, though. It was like she’d made a pact with her dad to keep some distance from her. Jayne could tell her mom wanted to say stuff to her, though. She had that pinched look she got when something was bothering her.

  Larry clicked a pen, a noise that made Jayne stop with her Gen thoughts. The hum of the humidifier was the only other noise in the room.

  “How was your week?”

  “Fine.”

  He nodded and just sat there. The faithful humidifier hummed its song over in the corner, and Jayne let her mind wander.

  Okay, Jayne. You better think of something before you tell him something out of sheer boredom.

  That’s when she came up with Shakespeare soliloquies she’d had to memorize back in Freshman Lit.

  What’ll it be today? Um . . . Polonius, maybe.

  Brevity is the soul of wit . . . Wait, no, there was something else before that. What was it?

  “It looks like you’re in the middle of some deep thoughts there, Jayne.” Larry was watering one of his many plants.

  “Yeah.” She looked at her fingernails, bitten down to the quick. “I was just thinking about what color I was going to paint my nails. I’ve got it narrowed down to Berrylicious and Berry Frost.”

  Larry made a sound in the back of his throat as he drizzled water over the plant. “Sounds like you have plans tonight.”

  “Nope.” The word came out before she realized she’d said it. At his raised eyebrow, she shrugged. “There aren’t too many plans in Jayne Thompkins’s life nowadays. No big deal.”

  Even she heard the forced flippancy in those last few words. She tore her gaze off of Larry and opened up the magazine she’d brought in.

  Feeling like she’d said too much already, Jayne didn’t talk for the rest of the hour.

  22


  WHY DO YOU need me here again?”

  This chair was really digging into her in all the wrong places. It had been almost a half hour since Jayne had come to her mom’s studio, and she was bored.

  And a little pissed.

  Her mom still hadn’t told her what she was doing here. And the mystery was sort of eating at Jayne.

  Whatever the reason was, it couldn’t be good.

  Gen was across from her at her immaculate desk, scribbling on a yellow legal pad and concentrating on whatever was written on the Post-it she was transcribing.

  It was midweek. Her mom had given her the lame excuse that she needed someone to file her clippings. Diane was out of town, doing some legwork on a story for Gen.

  Filing had taken ten minutes. Somehow, Jayne didn’t think she was here because the world would end if clippings weren’t filed.

  Jayne had a feeling that she was here to repent for her grades. And for yelling at her mom.

  “I just thought it would be good to get you out of the house. Give you a change of scenery.” Gen pulled her knee up and leaned against it as she continued to write. She had two hours until she went on air and was wearing a velour tracksuit. A salmon suit was on the hook behind her door, freshly pressed.

  Jayne thought it was her mom’s best outfit. It made her look professional. Approachable. Even kind.

  It was a miracle worker, in other words.

  “I have to be at the Outreach program in, like, forty-five minutes.” Not that Jayne was aching to answer phones and be bored. But another day meant she was closer to being done with it.

  Plus, Darian would be there.

  “This won’t take long.” Her mom scribbled her last note before dialing a few numbers.

  “Cameron? Yeah, Jayne’s here. Can we swing by? Great.”

  Jayne was confused. She stayed seated as her mom got up and smoothed the creases from her pants. She looked at Jayne expectantly. “Coming?”

  “Why are we going to see Cameron?” Cameron Tolliver was the producer of her mom’s Saturday show. She’d said hi to him a couple of times, but they’d never had a conversation that lasted longer than three words.

  “You’ll see.” And with that mysterious response, she pulled Jayne up and guided her to the door.

  Cameron’s office was smaller than her mom’s with a big poster of some naked chick in the middle of a stack of tires. Classy. Then again, she hadn’t expected anything less from a guy who’d stripped off his swim trunks at midnight at their Fourth of July party.

  In front of her mom and dad, Ellie, and pretty much all their guests.

  Darian had let Jayne know the producer had the smallest pecker he’d ever seen.

  “Gen, Jayne, take a seat.” He got up and came around the desk. In her mind, the words smallest pecker, smallest pecker, smallest pecker were skipping around like a broken record.

  He sat on the edge of the desk as Jayne and her mom sat on the chairs in front of him. He must’ve been her mom’s age, but he looked much younger with those chipmunk cheeks of his.

  Jayne turned to try to read her mom’s face. Gen was staring straight ahead and had her newscaster smile on, her hands folded over her crossed knees.

  This wasn’t going to be good.

  “So, Jayne, your mom and I have been talking and came up with something that we think you’ll be excited about.”

  Unless it had something to do with a paid trip to Italy, she doubted that whatever was about to come out of his mouth was going to be good.

  “There are millions of teenage girls like you, Jayne. Pretty, smart.” He paused and hummed, like he was trying to find the right word. “Directionless.”

  Jayne now knew what a trapped animal felt like.

  “Gen and I have been brainstorming, and we think it’s time to sit down and discuss The Thompkins Tragedy.”

  Jayne still felt paralyzed, and no words came to her. No words except for the dazed response of, “I’m already going to Larry the Fairy.”

  “What?”

  Jayne looked at her mom, who was still wearing that Stepford-like smile.

  “Are you trying to be our family counselor?” Jayne asked.

  Cameron laughed. The boyish giggle grated on her for the thirty or so seconds he shook and his face turned red. When he caught his breath, he wiped his eyes. “That was priceless. No, I meant you and your mom should sit down in front of the cameras. Discuss what happened.”

  Jayne didn’t say anything. She was not comprehending a thing.

  “Jayne, what Cameron is attempting to say is he wants you to come on my Saturday show,” Gen said, her words crisp and precise. “The whole hour. Just you and me and The Thompkins Tragedy.”

  Suddenly the situation became very clear.

  “Are you friggin’ kidding me?”

  “Dead serious, Jayne. You’re out of control. I think this sit-down will help.”

  “Help? Help who?”

  Then it became crystal clear. “What, Mom,” she mocked, “are your ratings down?”

  Then something happened that Jayne had never seen in her whole life: Her mother blushed.

  Cameron started talking again, but he was looking at her mom. “We want you to share your story. Girls your age want to know your story. Like that girl who was at your folks’ party the other night . . . Lori, I think? Lori told me she’d love to see you on TV, talking about what happened.” He put his hands in the air, forming a box. “Picture it. We’d have you go back to that day when you hit Brenda Deavers—”

  Jayne stared at his mouth and tried to process his words. Or were these her mother’s words? She glanced at Gen.

  Her hands were folded, her eyes averted.

  “—and of course there’d be a psychologist there to help with the interview. You know, discuss what the psychological toll is, what a person goes through after such a horrible happenstance, how a person can get over it.”

  This guy was certifiable. And her mom? Her mother finally looked at her.

  And had the gall not to look embarrassed in the least.

  Jayne was no longer Gen’s daughter at this moment. No, she was a story that could help Gen move from the small time to . . . to . . . whatever Oprah was considered.

  “Excuse me.” Jayne interrupted Cameron as he went into something about beating the other networks at the ratings game.

  “Yes, Jayne? Ask me any questions. We’re here to make this experience as smooth as possible for you.”

  Jayne smiled. Well, her lips smiled, but that was only to keep them busy so she wasn’t tempted to call this guy a gutless worm in front of her mom. Actually . . . “First of all, Cameron, you’re high on crack if you think the idea you have here is a good one.”

  “Not a good one?” He sounded confused, like he’d never considered the possibility of Gen Thompkins’s daughter saying no. Funny how he’d ignored the “high on crack” comment.

  “No.” Jayne’s voice was low and her hands were curled around the edge of her denim skirt. Her stomach was a hail-storm of acid right now. “Not now, not ever.”

  “Jayne, take a moment and consider this opportunity. It could count toward your counseling hours.”

  Jayne didn’t say anything. The inane comment didn’t deserve a reply.

  She turned to look at her mom again. She had her cool-and-collected-journalist face on. Like Jayne wasn’t even her daughter.

  “It’ll be like when you and Ellie were little and did those commercials for the station.” Her mom’s voice had taken on the quality of “Remember the happy times?”

  “This is not the same thing, Mother.” Those commercials had been of her and Ellie riding a covered wagon with their mom advertising Channel 16 as the “Best in the West.”

  And both she and Ellie had fallen into scorpion weed and had a burning rash for two weeks.

  Yeah, fun times.

  “It’s either this or we’re tripling your sessions with Larry.” Her mother really could’ve been a ventriloquist. H
er lips had barely moved as she offered the ultimatum.

  An ultimatum? The way Jayne saw it, she could either be humiliated in front of a live studio audience or have her mom spend even more money a week to have Larry water and Jayne read.

  She knew a no-brainer when she saw one. “I’ll take Larry.”

  The expression on her mom’s face told Jayne she had made the wrong choice.

  “I see here that maybe some more thought needs to go into this. Cool beans.” Cameron rubbed his hands together. “I’ll just line up that dog trainer instead, Gen, the one who works with those Westminster dogs. Sound like a plan?”

  Gen didn’t take her eyes off of her daughter. “Sounds fine, Cameron.”

  He picked up his phone. “So, if we’re done here, I better get on the horn, line up that trainer. Hopefully she can make it this Saturday, it being such short notice.”

  This Saturday? Her mom had wanted her to do this next weekend? Jayne felt her face grow red. Her mom must’ve noticed, because her expressionless newscaster mask was slipping a little. Jayne thought she might’ve even seen a little bit of uncertainty in Emmy-winning but ratings-loser Gen Thompkins’s eyes.

  Jayne got up and left. A bus stop was just three blocks from here.

  She was propelled by disgust and . . . yep, rage. So this is what rage feels like.

  Like her stomach had a pot of water boiling in it.

  Water that was beginning to boil over.

  It was only twelve-thirty in the afternoon, but it was already pushing 110 degrees.

  Jayne closed her eyes. Her mother had ambushed her.

  And she wasn’t the least bit remorseful.

  She tried to calm herself down. She visualized Gen sitting in one of her thousand-dollar suits interviewing a dog trainer. Trying to keep her smile in place and the look of disgust off her face for following a story that was beneath her.

  Gen wasn’t big into what she considered unsuccessful people.

  Jayne had always known that. But for the first time, she was really seeing it.

  She opened her eyes and tried to forget about the whole horrible experience. But it was hard. Especially since she was in yet another horrible situation, sitting at a bus stop with a lady who reeked of stale garlic and too much rose perfume.