“I know. You know what they say about picking your battles. The voodoo stuff is harmless.” She hit the main street outside our sprawling neighborhood of acre lots and gunned the car down the hill.
“This isn’t exactly harmless.” I scratched the incessant itch, loosening scabs, watching tiny dots of blood well. “She’s throwing voodoo curses at me. Probably you too.”
Mom’s lips pinched tight. Silent, we headed toward the medical center housing our family doctor. By the time I hopped onto the exam table, I wanted to chop my arm off and beat Jade with it, then wrap it up in the crinkly paper sticking to my bare legs.
Dr. Meeks examined my rash, clucking his tongue. A nurse drew a blood sample, and I grew woozy, stars twinkling in my vision. I hated having my blood drawn. I lay flat on the examination table while I returned to earth. Wimp, much?
“Appears to be a rash,” Dr. Meeks joked. “In all seriousness, you may have an allergy. We’ll know more after the blood tests. Anything new you’re using or wearing, or new in your surroundings in general?”
“Do you believe in curses?” I sat up slowly, holding onto the table’s edge to ensure my wooziness didn’t roll me onto the floor.
His bushy eyebrows arched and he tapped on his tablet. “You think you were cursed?”
“Ivy reads fantasy novels with witches and supernatural beings,” Mom explained from her seat by the door. She kept clicking her shoes on the linoleum floor. In a big hurry to dive into your bottles of pills?
“Cursed by someone who thinks she’s a voodoo witch.” I swung my legs over the end of the table.
“A good old-fashioned allergic reaction. I’ve called in a prescription for antihistamines and anti-inflammatory, anti-itch cream. Follow the directions on both. You didn’t answer my question. Anything new in the house? Cat, dog?”
“Yes. A new sister and brother. Incense and cigarette smoke,” I replied.
“Shadow!” The town crier answered the million-dollar question. “It must be Jade’s cat.”
“I don’t get it. I’m around Rex—Rutherford—all the time. He doesn’t make me itch like a witch.”
“We’ll call with the blood results tomorrow.” Dr. Meeks patted my head. I started to bark, caught myself, and snapped my mouth shut.
We stopped at the drugstore on the way home. They knew me by first name. Yeah, here comes the drug-addict’s daughter marching in the big pharma parade now.
Sitting in the leather passenger seat of the car, I slathered on the cream, smiling in ecstasy. It soothed my itchy skin way better than the over-the-counter stuff. The cream numbed my upper arm and it became a phantom arm. Heaven, I’m home.
A weird guilty silence greeted me in my temporary haven. Mom’s mind seemed to float in the clouds in her own heaven or hell. My recent life upheavals had caused me to forget my suspicions. Time to up the ante.
“Did you do that polygraph?”
Her mouth tightened in a straight line. “My therapist encouraged me to talk to a lawyer first. The lawyer suggested not taking it unless they filed charges.”
“You didn’t set the boat on fire, right?” My voice dropped to mouse level.
She huffed out an indignant breath. “Of course not. Why would I kill your father?”
Whoa. What? Because he abused you and treated us like his own personal minions. He hooked up with another woman, had a bastard child, and adopted a boy without your knowledge? Shall I continue with the obvious? Life insurance policy, hidden savings account, and gassy hoodie stuffed in the garage, unaccounted-for absences, and a mysterious person named N. Um, yeah. There’s no reason or evidence. None whatsoever.
“Well for starters—”
“I didn’t do it,” she snapped. “Leave it alone.”
Leaving it alone didn’t stop my constant dread from leading me to the ledge. Maybe she’d paid someone to do it. I wished the police would finally rule it an accident and move on to the real criminals. As far as I knew they already had. Mom had shut down and it was useless to talk to her further. The story of my craptastic life.
Her cell rang and I filched it out of the cup holder. She made a grab for it, but not before I saw the N. She hit ignore.
“Who’s N?”
“My therapist, if you must know.”
“You getting chummy with your doctor?” Chummy was such an old-fashioned word. But Mom and hooking up didn’t fit together in the same sentence.
Her hands whitened on the steering wheel. “He’s a nice man. What’s the big deal if I’m getting friendly?”
“Were you seeing him before Dad croaked?”
Her head swiveled to stare at me. “Why would you ask that?”
Defensive, much? Her own lies, evidence, and secrets created a huge knot of alarm in my intestines. Knot, meet the gang. Whoa. Were the Lynwoods just a bunch of liars and stewards of secrets? Were we both turning into He Who Shall Not Be Named? The knots twisted and turned as the implications grounded me further into this new reality.
Chapter 24
Tomorrow we’d leave for Tahoe. Riding shotgun with us was a two-week imprisonment with my new half-monster, my increasing horror of my mother’s guilt, and the ramifications to our lives if the police charged her with murder times two. I spent Friday doing laundry, sorting through my clothes, packing, and trying not to trip off that crumbling ledge. As usual, the Lynwood-Jerome asylum’s four inhabitants avoided each other like the zombie infected. We didn’t live together. Instead, we existed in thin fragments of connection in the house, like lost puzzle pieces.
Jesse texted to ask about my healing arm, nothing more.
I texted him back. “Better. Thx for asking. Have a good day.” The front door shut as I passed by the foyer on the way upstairs. The soft roar of his SUV sent my spirits spiraling farther into a black hole of self-pity. My depression hit hard, and I had a difficult time moving my arms to pack. Jesse was the only person I wanted to see, and we were blips on each other’s radars.
Camped on my bed, I fought the tears threatening to turn me into a lovestruck idiot. Why, oh why, did I ever lay besotted eyes on Jesse? Boyfriends led to heartbreak and torment. It really seemed easier to just avoid boys. I didn’t need the added headaches packed onto my parental aches and pains. Again, I saw no way out, as I was falling hard for Jesse the more we avoided each other. How could that be, I wailed inside my head.
By the time dinnertime arrived, I was a hot mess. Just kill my hormones now. Mom knocked on my door and declared she was heading to a therapy session. Probably meeting her accomplice in crime, the mysterious N. Another new perfume wafted toward me, exotic jasmine. She wore a slim black dress accentuating her slender curves, bare arms and legs, dressed to attend a cocktail party not a therapy session. It wasn’t her funeral dress, but something new she’d added to her wardrobe of approved pastels. Black looked good on her, so elegant and so unlike the black Jade hid behind. Had she dressed to impress her therapist?
“I’ll be home after eleven. The therapy group is going out for drinks afterward. I left a homemade pizza and salad in the fridge. Jesse’s eating dinner with his band and will be home late. Jade’s under lockdown. Do I need to worry about shenanigans?”
“I can’t vouch for them. I’m hanging in my room.” Nor did I plan to play the parent any longer. She’d made it clear parenting was her job.
“Fine, Ivy. Thanks for your cooperation.” She slammed the door, leaving me surrounded by my books and music. The only place I’d always felt alive and accepted, a place called Alone. Alone changed days and locations and fit where I wanted and needed it to fit. Now, it served to amp up my depression.
“Screw your cooperation,” I grumbled. “After twenty years of pretend-parenting, you wise up after J-squared taxes your lame parental skills. Thanks for protecting me from Dad’s Macho Moron syndrome.”
I waited ten minutes for her to leave the property before I slogged down to the kitchen. Jade stood in front of the open refrigerator, grazing like a glassy-eyed cow.
&nb
sp; “You want pizza?” I asked, trying not to engage, while trying to extend kindness. As those mysterious old people say, you catch more bees with honey. Mostly I was starving and her black ass was in my way.
“I guess.” She took the pizza out, shocking me senseless. A burgeoning awareness enveloped me in her first positive response. Was pizza our token of peace?
“Half salami and half pepperoni. You have a favorite?” I unwrapped the plastic from the pizza, and Jade punched the buttons on the oven.
“Pepperoni. Alice already asked me.”
“Perfect. Mine’s salami.”
“Salami’s Jesse’s favorite too.”
Whoa. We were having a real honest-to-freaks conversation. “Do you want salad?”
“I’m not into greens much.” She pulled out the bowl of garden salad. “But I’ll try a little. Looks good with all the extra toppings your mom adds.”
Mom had copied my salad-making skills, adding tortilla strips, cheddar cheese, nuts, and bacon bits to the normal salad vegetables. “This was Dad’s favorite salad.” Using tongs, I tossed the veggies, maneuvering the heavy bits to the top.
“He didn’t eat salad.”
“Oh.” My heart did that skip beat thing every time I spoke about the differences between families. “He did here. Weird.”
“Understatement.”
Before she snapped a bolt or a lock of her straw hair, I shut my mouth and we sat in the family room on the floor at the coffee table, watching a funny sitcom I let her choose. Mom’s “pick your battles” advice careened in my skull.
We got a few mutual laughs in during the show, and after it ended Jade helped me clean up our dinner dregs. We were newborns learning to do things for the first time together. Quick, someone snap a photo.
“Will it be cool in Tahoe?” she asked. “I’m not sure what to pack.”
“In the evenings. Pack for both warm and cooler weather, layers.”
Amazed, I finished packing food and condiments and stowed the bags in my SUV. Still no word from Kristen if she’d make it to Tahoe. I assumed she wasn’t driving up with us, so we had plenty of room to seat four in a wonderful harmonic steel prison for the four-plus-hour drive.
I sat in the dark garage at the bar and texted Kristen. “R U coming to Tahoe?”
“Maybe. Still working on boss. Luv u,” she replied.
“Please work hard. Need you. You need to meet them.” My thumbs flew on the screen.
No response. The garage door rolled up, the rollers a quiet drone from their monthly lubrication. Jesse’s SUV crawled into the old Porsche spot.
He eased out of the vehicle, gazing at the empty Mercedes stall. Without a word, he stepped to the remote control on the wall by the door and shut the garage, shutting us in the dimness of the single light. He approached me, and I was unable to move under the ferocity of his expression. The confusion furrowing his forehead transformed into the dark eyes of desire I loved. We locked gazes, unable to break contact. He eased closer until he stood between my legs, and slid his fingers to the nape of my neck. A fierce shiver coursed down my length. But it was a shiver of desire carving apart my entire being, and I welcomed the damage. It proved I was alive in all ways that mattered. I loved the way he made me feel.
He bent over me and nibbled my earlobe. “Nothing changes.”
In a heartbeat, he gloved himself around me and held me like there was no tomorrow, no ever after. I clung to his neck and choked down an ecstatic sob. His skin and muscles fed my hungry roving fingers. I loved the sound of his raspy voice and the way his skin warmed beneath my fingers.
“Your mom’s gone?” Words stuck in his throat.
“Yes.”
“Jade?”
“Upstairs.”
Tension sprouted hard knots in his shoulders and quickly stretched down his arms in solid waves against me. Damn Morticia.
“You’ve been absent,” I tapped his temple, “this week. I thought maybe things had changed.” I snuggled into his embrace, relishing his arms holding me to him as if he’d break if he let me go. Although we’d texted each other all week, it wasn’t enough. Not when we had to pass each other in the halls and kitchen and not be able to touch, or had to curb our words.
“Had to take care of band stuff.” He stiffened, and his heart crashed against my cheek. His touch intoxicated me and kicked my pesky insecurities down a notch.
“I understand you’ve still got a life in Santa Cruz. It can’t be easy to walk away from it to live in San Jose in a house of strangers.”
“I’d give it all up for you if I had to.”
Prickles zipped up and down my spine. “I don’t expect you to.”
“My distance is due to your mom and Jade. They need to think we’re brother and sister. I won’t mess us up.”
“My mom totally bought it,” I conceded, breathing him in. “You smell so good. I miss you.”
He groaned and kissed the top of my head. “You aced it with your suffering. It killed me to watch you.”
His words gave a weightlessness to my heart, but they also saddened me. Our relationship was as forbidden now as ever, dangerous and guilt-ridden at once. The headlines zoomed at me: Father’s ghost scares daughter and adoptive son to death for looking at each other.
The grinding and groaning of Ax’s beater approached the garage, and we both froze.
“My mother didn’t say Drop Dead Dumb couldn’t visit.” I mentally prepped for Jesse to go postal.
Our arms dropped, mine dangling uselessly at my sides. He clenched his fists as he stomped to the door remote and hit the button to open the empty stall door where Ax usually parked outside.
“Yo, dawg, almost made me piss my pants.” Ax jumped back from the opening door.
I wished he had left fuel for ridicule on the front of his torn, scummy jeans hanging off his tortilla-flat ass.
“Jade’s grounded.” Jesse spread his legs in a defiant stance.
“Chill, man. Hey, Phoenix says to look her up next time you’re in town.” Ax winked at Jesse and made a rude hand gesture aimed at his crotch.
Insecurities soared inside me again like pesky flies. An old girlfriend? I never believed I’d become the jealous girlfriend type.
“Fuck off, Ax.” Jesse’s voice floated to Mrs. Wellington watering her garden along the side of their house. Her head sprang up.
I waved and she tentatively waved back. She’d met Jesse already and understood our peculiar circumstances. I dare say she preferred the neighborhood better when it was just the Lynwood girls, i.e. the two whole days of freedom before the Jeromes had stormed the gates.
Squealing, Jade streaked out of the house and straight into Ax’s arms, her legs fastened around his hips, lips locked and loaded.
Cringing at the Axhole and Jade Porn Parade, Jesse said, “Jade, give it a rest, will ya?”
A pair of neighbors out for an evening stroll slowed on the sidewalk and Jesse shoed the parade into the garage. The garage door rolled down, and Jade and Ax broke for air.
“Jesse, open up. We’re leaving.” Jade straightened her tight black tank.
“No. You’re not,” he replied.
“We’ll beat Alice home.”
“You’re grounded,” I said.
“You my watchdog? Get a life, Vine. Just because we ate dinner together doesn’t make us besties. Roof and meals are all I want from the court. Not you. Tell your mom we had a nice night, hung in our bedrooms, and didn’t pound on each other.” She punched the garage opener and the far door rolled up.
Ax faked a sizzling match. “Score, baby.”
I sighed. Thanks for buttering me up during our fake friendly pizza night. “I have a life.”
“Goodie for you. Now I’m having mine.” She dragged Axhole toward his deathtrap truck and the dirt holding the pieces from falling into a pile of metal.
Jesse charged behind her. “You really want to risk everything for this loser?”
“Who you calling a loser?” Ax
jabbed Jesse’s shoulder.
“Butt the hell out.” Jesse shoved him, sending Ax to a handy seat on the dangling front bumper of his truck.
“I’ll tell Alice I caught you two doing the nasty if you spill about this,” Jade threatened.
“Good luck with that. She won’t believe your lies,” I said.
“Hell she won’t. She’s eagle-eyeing you two. One word from me and she’ll bind your snatch in cement. Or send Jesse to boot camp.”
For some reason, I believed her. The days of fooling my mother had followed Dad to the grave. Once she’d cut down her happy pill allotment, a real parent had emerged.
The blossom of affection I’d felt toward Jade earlier wilted and died on the vine before the sun hit it. “Just let the twit go.” I threw up my hands. “My mom said not to expect her before eleven. If Jade’s smart she’ll beat her home.”
Jesse glared Ax down. “Ten o’clock. No later.”
Moments later, Ax’s vehicle backfired down the driveway as though to say “see you, suckers.” Alone with Jesse, I met his piercing eyes. His sexy lips parted in sudden awareness of the opportunity in our laps. Why had we resisted?
“Pool house in ten?” he half-asked, echoing the suggestion rolling inside my brain. Anticipation whispered over the back of my neck.
One slow, sure step after another I shut the garage door and approached him. I skimmed my fingers down his chest, a tease, a taste, his quivering skin a heady invitation. And a wakeup call.
“Who’s Phoenix?” I needed to know my competition before the night progressed.
Jesse dipped his head and kissed me. “Ax’s sister. She was Jade’s best friend. Once Jade started dating Ax, they had a fight and broke up.”
“Did you date her? Is she a groupie?”
“No and no.” He kissed my cool, stiff neck. “She’s bad news. Been hitting on me since Jade hooked up with Ax to get back at Jade. I don’t play those games.” His soft, warm lips on my neck gave my jealousy the smackdown. “You smell so good, I have no control.” He nipped my neck, and I groaned, his lips kindling a trail up to my ear. “Go. Change. Now.”
I left my lights and music on low in my room and locked my door in case Mom returned early. Jesse did the same. Like minds. We met in the upstairs loft, my notebook of poems pressed to my chest and his acoustic guitar slung over his shoulder. His hair shone wet from a quick shower and mine glistened from a quick brush. What kind of music would we make later? I hadn’t dwelled on us going all the way, but every time we were together, my body practiced its right to liberty. That night my head easily fell to the demands of my body.
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