The Trouble With J.J. (22 page)

How could he have been so stupid? Genna had been burned badly once by assuming a relationship was going to go further. Naturally she was wary of the same thing happening again. He’d been so sure
she was giving him the old heave-ho, it had never occurred to him that Genna might be feeling insecure because summer was over and he was leaving in the morning.

“Oh, Genna,” he said with a sigh.

Genna braced herself, mistaking the tender, apologetic look in his eyes for pity.
You’ve done it again, Genna. You should have known better
.

“We’ve got to have that talk tonight. I have to leave first thing in the morning.”

Even though she’d known it, hearing Jared say he was leaving was a hammer blow to her heart. She’d tried so hard to take a sophisticated attitude toward this whole … affair. The word was as bitter as aspirin in her mouth. She didn’t have affairs. She fell in love. Which was unfortunate, because it seemed no one ever fell in love back.

“Let’s go in—” he started.

A movement outside the window had them both ducking down automatically. Genna’s heart lodged in her throat like a chicken bone. Was she going to have insult added to injury and be discovered in the potting shed? She could see it now—Theron Ralston would take one look and flip his Willard Scott wig. Theron was so far to the right on the political spectrum it was a wonder he didn’t fall off
the planet. If he found the kindergarten teacher in his potting shed with a notorious playboy football star, he’d petition to have them put in stocks on the town common at the very least.

Cautiously she peeked out the tiny window.

“Who is it?” Jared whispered.

She sighed with relief. “Just your mother slipping into the garage to sneak a cigarette.”

“Oh,” he breathed. Cigarette? In the garage.
“Oh, my God!”

Jared bolted from the potting shed with Genna right behind him as realization struck them both like a bolt of lightning. He shoved her back from the door, sending her rolling in the grass as he plunged inside after his mother. Grace had just struck the match when her son grabbed her arm and yanked her out the door. They hit the ground, tumbling in a tangle of arms and legs and Grace’s voluminous pink gown. Jared came up wearing the white feather boa just as an explosion sounded. In the next second the roof of the garage went off like a Roman candle.

Women screamed. Everyone in the backyard dove for cover except Bill and Aunt Roberta. They stood on the far side of the lawn watching fireworks shoot up into the black sky.

“My land, Bill, those are lovely. Just lovely.” Roberta perched a hand on one bony hip and puffed on her cigarette.

Bill frowned at the explosion of color in the sky, pulled his felt-tip pen out from behind his ear, and made a note in his steno pad: Too much gunpowder.

Thankfully Jared had parked his cars on the street so they wouldn’t have any difficulty wheeling the fireworks display out. The Corvette and Mercedes had escaped unscathed. The flamingos Jared had moved out from Aunt Roberta’s closet hadn’t fared as well. The heat from the fire had reduced them to a grotesque mass of molten pink plastic.

The explosion had scattered debris everywhere. The Ralston’s vegetable garden was covered with shingles. Golf balls littered the ground like fallen hailstones. Jared had had ten cases of them stored in the rafters of the garage. A grateful sporting goods company had given them to him as a bonus for doing a commercial for their product. One had rendered the Ralstons’ poodle unconscious.

A confused paramedic threw cold water on Mrs. Ralston instead of the dog, soaking her dress, plastering the thin fabric to her enormous bosom.
Livid, she grabbed a loaf of French bread from the refreshment table and smacked the young man over the head with it.

The fire department had the flames under control in no time, and the deejay kept the music going as partygoers turned into a clean-up crew. Near the Ralstons’ potting shed Father James came up with a pair of blue silk panties.

“Size five.” He quirked a brow at his brother.

Jared flushed red, giving James a look caught somewhere between indignant and sheepish. He snagged the lingerie away from his brother and stuffed it into his pants pocket, his eyes searching the crowd for the owner of the garment. But Genna was nowhere to be seen.

TWELVE

O
NCE THEY HAD
the fire under control and it had been established that no one had been injured, Genna slipped away. It was after midnight. Jared had his hands full with the firemen and the disaster area that had been his backyard. She doubted he had noticed her wandering away, and that was just how she wanted it.

In a few hours Jared would be leaving for training camp. Genna didn’t want to hang around to watch him go, and she certainly didn’t want to have that serious talk he kept insisting on.

It wasn’t that she was a coward, she thought as she drove down the empty highway out of Tory
Hills and into the country. It was just that she couldn’t see the sense in embarrassing the both of them with that “I’m sorry you’re more involved than I am” speech. She didn’t want Jared to feel obligated to give it, and she wanted to retain some small scrap of pride by not being the one he gave it to.

She parked her car off the road under a white oak by a pasture gate and spent some time trying to make out what kind of animals were sleeping on the next hill. Their dark shapes didn’t resemble cows. Horses, she decided. She tried to rub a grass stain off her plaid shirt with a tissue.

It was better to let things end this way. Jared would be gone for three or four weeks. When he came back she’d be busy with school. She’d pretend she hadn’t really fallen in love with him, at least not any more than he had with her. They could still be friends. His friendship was precious to her, she didn’t want to lose it. She’d never have to let him know she’d gone and broken her heart into a zillion too-familiar pieces hoping for something that was never to be.

She went and sat on the hood of her car as the sun was coming up and finger-combed the grass out of her hair. Sunrise was her favorite time of
day. It was the most peaceful time, when most of the world with its problems was still asleep. At sunrise a person could feel nature all around in soft light and stirring breezes. At sunrise a person could think without the events of the day cluttering the mind. At sunrise a person could be totally alone.

Well—she sniffed back a stray tear—so being alone wasn’t the greatest thing today. Some days it was wonderful. She would focus on that. Her life was full and rewarding. She was her own complete person, she didn’t need to be part of a matched set like crystal salt and pepper shakers. She was an intelligent, reasonably decent-looking person with a job she loved, a comfortable home, good friends, interests, and talents.

Catch 22, she thought. Having this great life made her want to share it with someone special. Jared. And Alyssa.

She was grateful she had had at least some time with Jared, grateful he had bullied her into spending time with him, or she might never had known what a wonderful guy he was. She might never have looked past the punk hair and the diamond earring and the annoying macho act.

The animals in the pasture began to get up and stretch. Funny-looking horses, Genna thought as
she watched them crane long necks this way and that. One stood up in the tall grass in front of her car. It was a llama.

Genna shook her head. Nothing was ever what it appeared to be anymore.

Eventually she drove home, showered, and put on a pair of madras plaid shorts and an oversize T-shirt. For an hour and a half she sat on a stool at her kitchen counter and just stared. For the first time in weeks she couldn’t think of anything to bake.

At ten o’clock she walked over to Jared’s house to make sure everyone was okay after the wild events of the evening. The Corvette wasn’t there, so she was certain Jared had gone. She tried to ignore the sense of loss that knowledge brought her.

“Gilda!” Roberta exclaimed as she opened the door. Her gray hair stuck up in every direction, making her look like an exotic bird. She wore red high-top sneakers and a ratty blue bathrobe. Shaking her head, she took a long drag on her cigarette and pulled Genna into the house. “I am
so
glad you dropped by. Our J.J. was looking all over for you.”

“Really,” Genna said, trying to blink the smoke out of her eyes.
Tough luck, J.J. You’ll just have to save your noble speech for someone else
.

“I won’t tell James, honey,” Roberta said in a conspiratorial whisper. She stuck her cigarette into her mouth and patted Genna’s arm. “Really, though, Georgia, you shouldn’t fall for a priest. There’s no future in it.”

Genna sighed and rubbed at the dull headache settling between her eyes. “I just wanted to make sure everyone was okay after last night.”

Roberta threw her hands up in the air. “Dead to the world, the lot of them! Dead to the world. Bill’s fire works just did everyone in. Weren’t they lovely, Janet?”

“Yes.”

“My word, they were beautiful.” She stubbed out her cigarette in an overflowing ashtray that balanced precariously on the edge of Jared’s cluttered desk, and promptly lit another.

Genna had hoped someone a tad more lucid than Roberta would be up and around, but she had to give up hope of anyone rescuing her. Slowly she started inching back toward the door. “I should be going—”

“Oh, stay!” Roberta exclaimed. “I was just about to have breakfast. Omelettes—chocolate chip and cheese. It’s my specialty.”

“I’ll bet.” Genna forced a smile, hoping she
didn’t look as green as she suddenly felt. She slipped one leg out the screen door. “Really, I can’t stay, Aunt Roberta. Thanks for the offer, though.”

“Some other time, then. Say, Glenda, some man stopped by from Alyssa’s school to pick up her records. I heard J.J. tell Gracie they were in a manila envelope here on his desk, and I just dug around until I found it and gave it to the fellow. Was that all right? Do you think that was all right?”

Genna tossed a glance at Jared’s desk. As usual, it looked as though a bomb had gone off on it. “I’m sure that was fine. It was probably Mr. Adams from the secretary’s office.” She slipped the rest of her body out the door. “Bye now.”

“Bye-bye. Come again!” Roberta said, leaning out the door with her cigarette as Genna started across the lawn. “Oh, wait! Wait, Gardenia!”

Genna stopped and turned around to see Roberta disappear into the house. She came back out waving a piece of paper in one hand.

“J.J. left this for you.” She handed the paper to Genna.

It was a check for the second half of her salary and a hastily scrawled note thanking her and saying he’d call. That really said it all, didn’t it?
Genna’s heart sank to a new low. She’d been his for the summer, bought and paid for.

Back in her own house, Genna settled down on a dining room chair prepared to do some heavy staring. She decided she would take it up as a hobby since it was easy, cheap, and portable.

The back door banged.

“You’re not baking,” Amy said as quietly as her grating voice allowed.

“No. I’ve covered every major holiday through 1990. I even did Hanukkah and Queen Elizabeth’s birthday.”

“So, what are you doing?” she asked, planting her plumpness on the chair opposite Genna’s.

“I’m staring.”

Out of deference for her friend, Amy sat and stared for a minute. She didn’t have the required patience to do it well; however.

“Where did you go after all the excitement last night?” she asked, focusing on a deep red apple in a wicker basket on the table.

“I went to watch the sun rise on the llamas.”

Amy thought it best to let that one slide. She pretended not to have heard. “J.J. was looking all over for you.”

“I wanted to be alone. Explosions do that to me.
I just need to go off after a good explosion and be by myself.”

“Bull roar.” Amy blinked as her eyes teared up. “You ran out of here like Walter Payton.”

Genna managed to scowl and stare at the same time. “Who
is
this Walter Payton guy?”

“Never mind,” she said. “So did you guys have a fight, or what?”

“What would we have to fight about?”

“Since when do you need a reason? You haven’t been rational since he moved in. Maybe you got into a fight about your relationship.”

“We don’t have a relationship. Not in the sense you mean.”

“Genna,” Amy barked, abandoning her attempt at staring to glare at Genna, “can the crap. We’re best friends, remember?”

Genna broke her staring and held a hand up to halt what was undoubtedly going to be one of Amy’s lectures. “I freely admit to being involved with Jared. I freely admit to being in love with Jared. But as far as he’s concerned, we’re just friends who had a fun summer together.”

Amy screwed up her pudgy face and gave an unladylike snort that was a pretty good imitation
of a whoopie cushion. “You get the most asinine ideas—”

“It’s the truth,” Genna said wearily, “We made a deal: We’d have a light summer romance, no strings attached.”

“What a bunch of hooey! The guy is in love with you!”

“Yeah? Well …” She handed Amy the note Jared had left her. “I’m no authority, but this doesn’t win any prize as a love letter in my book.”

“‘Genna, thanks for all the good work. I’ll call you when I get a chance.’” Amy frowned in confusion. Genna and Jared’s relationship may have started out light, but she’d have sworn J.J. had fallen in love at least as much as Genna had. She couldn’t have missed the mark by that much. Something here didn’t fit, and she was going to find out what. Meanwhile, she’d stall as best she could. She slid the slip of paper back across the table. “This is no kind of evidence. It’d never stand up in court. It doesn’t prove anything.”

“You’ve been watching
Divorce Court
again, haven’t you?” A long, slow sigh slid out of Genna. For a moment she just sat there doodling storm clouds over sad faces on the back of the note. “I
wish you were right, friend. I for one don’t have to be hit over the head to get the message.