“Nope.” She might have minded a group discussion of Jimmy Dean on her birthday two minutes before, but considering it shifted the focus from her lack of rapport with the homeless population of Austin, it was actually an improvement.
“You talking about Jimmy Dean?” Judith said. “I know it’s wrong, but I can’t get enough of this scandal.”
“What are we up to now?” Quentin asked. “Ten accusers?”
Jessica nodded. “Something like that. But now he’s dating one of them who’s trying to discredit all the others.”
“Figures,” Natalie added. “There’s always that one bitch that goes and does something stupid and sets the rest of womankind back another decade.”
Rex bobbed his head up and down adamantly, humming, “Mm-hmm … Mm-hmm …”
“From a psychological standpoint,” Miranda said from the end of the table, causing the rest of the chatter to fall silent, “there’s likely an element of Stockholm Syndrome present in her decisions, so we probably shouldn’t vilify her. It’s not uncommon for people who experience trauma they can’t work through to bend it to a narrative that’s less painful to confront.” She paused, and Jessica considered all the trauma Jimmy had put her through and how she’d never once let it stir lust inside of her for the horrible man.
She was trying to find the words to express that without ruining the tenuous truce with Miranda, when Miranda added, “But regardless, fuck Jimmy.”
“Amen!” shouted Destinee, slapping the table and causing a few of the nearby glasses of water to slosh over the rim.
“I honestly do not know how you haven’t smote him yet, Jessica,” said Natalie. “I would’ve if I were you.”
“We know,” Kate said.
“God doesn’t want me to,” said Jessica. “Believe me, I’ve thought about it.”
“Who cares what God wants?” said the least likely person to spout such a thing.
Jessica’s head swiveled around to stare at Jesus, who shrank in his seat a little at the sudden attention. “I don’t know where that came from,” he murmured.
Destinee was the first to speak. “Don’t worry, Joshua, a little blasphemy with friends is no biggie. Otherwise that child-support-dodging son of a bitch would have struck me down a long time ago.”
“I don’t think anyone would blame you,” Chris said, “if you did end up smiting him. It’s like he does everything just to make you mad.”
Like being all over the news on my birthday?
“I’m not smiting him,” she reiterated.
“But if you did,” Chris persisted, “no one would blame you. That’s all I’m saying.”
“Maybe you ought to head out to the smiting range to blow off some steam,” said Miranda. “Especially when he’s—” Her hand flew up to her mouth, and her eyes went wide.
Jessica groaned and flopped back in her seat, waiting for the onslaught of questions.
Quentin was the first with a simple, straightforward one: “Smiting range?”
“Sorry,” Miranda said, staring at Jessica who struggled not to be angry.
“Is that a joke?” Chris said, his attention ping-ponging between Jessica and Miranda. “A smiting range?”
“No,” Jessica said. “I was practicing.”
Chris shifted in his seat. “That’s … Wow.” He didn’t seem upset. Quite the opposite.
“I don’t go anymore,” Jessica said. “We just went a few times. My aim still sucks.”
Chris was a bloodhound who’d caught a scent. “But we could go back, right? I could watch you smite?”
“Easy, there,” Quentin warned. “Keep that kind of shit in your shared dreams, Riley.”
Jesus cradled his face in his hands. “Please don’t mention those.”
“Oh right!” Quentin shouted, shaking a finger at Jesus. “We did meet that one time! You looked totally different, though. Jess and I were in the car and you—” Quentin cut himself off, clearing his throat.
The significance of Jesus’s appearance in the shared dreams was lost on those around the table who didn’t know Joshua’s true identity or the nature of those dreams.
But it wasn’t lost on Chris. “The fuck?” he said, shoving Quentin. “When was this?”
“A long time ago,” Jessica said. “Don’t worry about it.” She stood. “I’m gonna go get some dessert.”
“Good idea,” said Quentin, standing abruptly.
Chris stood, too. “Not without me, you’re not.”
“Why don’t we all get some dessert?” Judith suggested dryly, pushing out of her chair.
As they snaked their way through the tables, Chris hung back and grabbed Jessica’s arm. “Why didn’t you tell me about the smiting range?”
“Can we talk about this later?”
He conceded with a minute nod.
And when dessert plates were cleaned without a single person at the table having suggested going out afterward, Jessica felt a heavy weight lifted from each of her shoulders.
While Chris squared away the check with the waiter, Jessica moved outside into the hot July night to say goodbye to her friends.
Quentin peeled off quickly after telling Jess they’d do another night out on the field soon. While Judith and Brian shared a few last jokes with Natalie and Kate, and Jesus, Destinee, and Rex listened closely while Jeremy explained the role of Big Soda in a recent rise of gang-related drownings, Miranda and Desmond approached her, smiling.
“Thanks for coming,” Jessica said.
Another awkward hug.
“Yeah, I’m glad your mom invited us. Hey, I wanted to say”—Miranda stared at the ground for a moment before meeting Jessica’s eye in what appeared to a Herculean effort—“I understand why you covered for him. And I’m not mad at you anymore. Or Chris. Or even Quentin, for that matter. Everyone becomes comfortable with who they are at their own pace.”
While Jessica wanted to ask if that meant Miranda would get back together with Quentin, she suspected the answer already hovered over Miranda’s shoulder in human form, smiling in a way that seemed to say, “Oh yeah, she told me all about this. We talk about everything. I know her better than you do.”
“I’m really sorry I didn’t tell you, Miranda. I didn’t know what to do.”
“No, you did the right thing.”
Jessica decided to take a chance. “Want to get coffee soon? I work all week, but if you come into the bakery, I can hook you up and take a little break.”
When Miranda winced, Jessica felt some of her lasagna climb back up her esophagus. “I would, but”—she cast a quick glance behind her, into the face of her new man—“we’re leaving for Berkeley in the morning.”
“Oh. Well, what time? Maybe you can swing by before.”
Miranda shook her head slowly. “Red-eye. Have to be at the airport at four thirty.”
“Ah. Okay.”
Desmond piped in, “Actually, we had better get going if we want to get sleep.” He wrapped an arm around her shoulder, and with one last halfhearted wave, she left.
“Aw, damn …” Chris said when he joined her a few minutes later. “Did Miranda already leave?”
“Yep.” Jessica said. “She’s gone.”
Chapter Twelve
“Come on, Jess. Just one. Please just let me see you do it once.” Chris extended the hand-painted ceramic plate to his side, ready to chuck it into the air toward the high ceiling of the empty ballroom at a moment’s notice.
“No. I don’t want to.”
He threw his head back, groaning. “But it’ll be so hot.”
She probably should have been suspicious about what Chris was up to the moment she fell asleep and found herself in this grand ballroom, a long banquet table running down the center with startlingly incorrect place settings. She wasn’t exactly Miss Manners, but she knew the forks and knives weren’t supposed to be wrapped in a napkin and stuck in a juice glass next to each plate.
“I don’t find smiting hot, Chris, I’m sorry. And
I don’t understand how you do, either. I can still see the look on your face when I smote that grackle.”
Chris tossed the plate to the side, sending it shattering on the marble floor. “Jess. That was”—he paused for the math—“seventeen years ago. You think I’m going to let a little childhood trauma stop me from making sweet love to my woman after she smites the shit out of a dinner plate?”
“I would hope so, yes.”
He reached past her and grabbed another plate off the table. “Well, I’m not. Ready, set, go!” He chucked the plate into the air, his eyes glued to it, waiting for the moment of explosion.
But Jessica didn’t lift a finger, and when the plate remained whole until it collided with the tile floor, he glared at his girlfriend. “Come on! It’s not a big deal.”
“Why are you so set on this?” she demanded. “It’s a fucking plate!”
“I just think the smiting could, you know, spice things up a bit,” he said. “Not that sex isn’t already great, it’s just that … we haven’t been having it.”
She flopped back onto the king-size four-poster bed placed conspicuously next to the banquet table. Chris had been in charge of the location this time, and it was clear he hadn’t put that much thought into it, failing to consider how each piece would complement every other one. “Oh come on, Chris. It’s not like we’ve been trying and you can’t get it up. We haven’t been trying to begin with. We don’t need to worry about spicing things up until we start putting in a little effort again.”
He stepped forward eagerly. “Then let’s do it! Let’s have sex!”
Jessica winced and scratched the back of her neck. “I don’t know … A girl can only get tackled by a three-hundred pound man so many times before the mood is lost.”
Chris crossed his arms. “And a man can only be interrupted mid-orgasm by an oven timer so many times before he develops performance anxiety.”
He raised a valid point. Jessica softened. “Don’t you see what’s going on here? If it takes me smiting something for us to want to have sex, maybe … the spark is dead.”
“No,” said Chris precisely. “That’s not it. I refuse to accept that.”
“You don’t have to accept it for it to be the truth.”
He reached out and placed his hands on her upper arms. “Sex is what’s keeping us together long-distance until one of us can move to where the other lives. I refuse to give up on it.”
Did she want to give up on it? Was that what was happening here? She’d fought for it, even when God had done so much to make it impossible. She didn’t want to follow the path God laid out for her, and that meant staying with Chris until … marriage? Death? Was it worth it just to prove a point if the relationship was no longer what she wanted?
She was tired, even in her dream. Tired of fighting her so-called fate. Maybe she could fight it later, in another arena, but when it came to her and Chris, it felt like the war was over. They’d lost.
Tiny hooks that had lived in her heart for all these years, tethering her and Chris together came unstuck all at once. But not without leaving behind deep, stinging, open wounds. “I don’t want to live in Philadelphia, Chris. I have a business here. And you’re there for at least four years. If sex is the only thing holding us together, and we haven’t been having sex …” She let him fill in the blank.
He swallowed hard, the corners of his mouth sagging as he stared at her. “I don’t want this to happen.”
“I know,” she said. The impulse to hug him was strong, though it wasn’t colored with the usual sentiment. “I don’t know that I want it either. But I think it’s already laid out for us. Like this table.” She motioned to it, adding, “Well, probably better than this table.”
“Yeah,” he said, morosely, “I never took cotillion.”
“Neither did I. But just for reference, the forks and knives lie flat next to the plate.”
“But which side?” he asked, desperately.
She shook her head slowly, regretfully. “I really don’t know, Chris.”
His hands fell from her arms. “Can we still call each other, or should this be a clean break?”
“I’m fine with calling.”
He bowed his head. “Okay. You can call me anytime you need, Jess. Day or night. I still love you.”
“And I still love—”
He disappeared in a puff of white powder before she could even finish.
It was over. She and Chris were broken up. The fact that it had been amicable and logical made it instantly worse. Or at least it would probably feel worse if she could feel anything at all.
How could she not want to hurt him yet want him to beg her not to end it at the same time?
Wait, no, there it was. She could feel something. Something big, like the bulge in the ocean surface just before a tidal wave …
She whirled around just in time to smite every last plate, cup, and spoon along with the entire banquet table.
Chapter Thirteen
Breakfast for dinner had become the new norm for Jessica since she opened the bakery. While she bagged most of the leftover items that could be put in pairs or groups of four to sell at a discount the next day, certain ones like the cream cheese danishes and broccoli and cheese empanadas didn’t have that long a shelf life before they became soggy and the dairy became unfit for public consumption. Those along with the odd ones left after the rest of their kind were grouped went home with Destinee, Judith, or herself. The pro was that Jessica hadn’t needed to cook dinner in months. The con was that pooping was becoming a real labor. She suspected the same drawback might have been affecting her employees as of late, as they politely refused what Jessica tried to send them with at the end of the day.
Tonight, though, Destinee wasn’t refusing, and Jessica was happy to have company at her condo for her carb-y dinner. Her mom and Rex had accepted the invitation gladly, perhaps sensing that Jessica would only make a point of inviting them over if there was a good reason for it.
It was Sunday, July eighth, which meant Jessica had closed early like she always did on Sundays (and because she now had Sampson, bless his awful heart, she could enjoy a little time to herself after work). It also meant it had only been hours since she’d woken up from her break-up dream to find Chris’s side of the bed cold and him and all his things gone to the airport. He hadn’t even woken her up to say goodbye.
Jessica pulled a quiche from the oven and popped a baking pan with a half-dozen strips of turkey bacon in its place.
“Smells delicious,” her mom said as Jessica set it on the island in front of their high stools where Destinee and Rex were perched.
“I appreciate you going to the effort,” Rex added, “and while I believe you when you say you don’t need my help, I do hope you’ll let me know if that changes.”
Jessica forced a smile while she sliced up the quiche. Watching her perform any traditionally female role made Rex crawl in his skin, but she supposed he’d also learned the flip side of that, where he was supposed to let women decide what they did and didn’t want to do. She almost felt for him. Feminism, like femininity, often existed in a web of unnavigable contradictions. It must be hard to enter into that logical maelstrom in adulthood, not having been primed since childhood for the confusion by being told you were both too fat and too skinny, too passive and too bitchy, too prudish and too slutty.
“Wait,” Destinee said, staring at the slice of spinach quiche on her place. “You’re not gonna miracle it first?”
Jessica paused, the knife hovering over the surface where she was about to cut her own slice. “Are you kidding me? You see me do that every day at work.”
Destinee pursed her lips. “Well, ex-cuse me for not becoming numb to the miracles of my only child. And no, I’m not kidding.”
“Fine.” She closed her eyes and waved her hand over the remaining portion of quiche like she was swatting at a fly. “There.”
“Ooh! That’s a good one, baby! Look, Rex, you can even see tha
t little freckle under her left eye. She’s had that since she was a baby.”
“That’s just a piece of bell pepper, mom.” Jessica switching out Destinee’s piece with a gluten-free one.
After they’d started in on the meal, Destinee began fishing. “That was quite some birthday dinner last night, wasn’t it?”
There were a lot of ways Jessica could have played this. She considered going along for a while, recapping the highs and lows, then slowly leading into the dream and what had transpired. Or she could simply stick to the dinner and wait a while before dropping in that Chris took himself to the airport first thing, inviting Destinee to ask why.
But both of those required more emotional energy than she had left after the long and painful day.
“Chris and I broke up.”
Destinee inhaled deeply, sitting up straight, which dislodged a burp. She pounded her chest twice to make sure that was the last of it, then said, “I’m sorry, Jess. You doing okay?”
Jessica leaned her elbows against the island, bending at the waist. “Surprisingly, yes. I mean, I’m not great, but it doesn’t hurt like I thought it would. Maybe later on it will.”
Rex piped up. “He’s a good man, that Riley, but if you believe the relationship was stifling your continued growth, then it was the right call, McCloud.”
“Thanks, Coach.”
“Mind if I ask why?” Destinee said.
Jessica shrugged and made for the fridge, pulling out three beers—two Dos Equis and one of the craft beers she’d grabbed in her emotional haze on the way home because the labels had zebras on them. She put the two imports in front of her guests and popped open the other for herself. “It’s kind of what Rex said. There wasn’t a future in it. At least not one right now. I really wanted to make it work to prove God wrong and show him I could make up my own mind, but then it turned out that my mind wasn’t into it after all. I just want to focus on the bakery for a while and let Chris focus on his football. Is that weird?”
In the Details Page 9
