by Tawna Fenske
“Yeah, but this is Nana we’re talking about,” Adam said. “She’s probably got a little more fighting spirit than the average ninety-year-old.”
“Could be,” Shelly said, dropping into a tufted leather chair beside the television. “Then again, she might be ready to quit fighting and rest for a change.”
Jenna slid her hand to Adam’s knee and gave a small squeeze she hoped he took as comforting rather than lecherous. Then again, he might find lechery comforting. Now that she’d met Gramps, she wouldn’t be surprised.
She turned to Shelly, who was making fast work of her own glass of wine. “Do you have any videos of your grandmother? I’d love to see what she was like before she got sick.”
“That’s a great idea,” Shelly said, thunking her wineglass onto the end table and dropping to her knees in front of a large chest fringed with copper rivets. “I’ve got a bunch of old VHS tapes here. I swear, I’m the last person on earth who hasn’t converted them all to DVD.”
“Luckily, you’re also a packrat,” Adam said, plucking Jenna’s wineglass from her fingers and taking a sip. “You’re also the only person on earth who still has a VHS player.”
Shelly grinned and shoved a tape into the player, while Jenna leaned back against Adam’s arm, feeling warm and safe and stupidly happy. “You like the wine?” she asked.
“I do,” he murmured. “It’s different from what you’ve been introducing me to lately—Sangiovese and Chianti?”
Jenna nodded, surprised he noticed. “The cab is really juicy—a little higher in tannins. Chianti and Sangiovese tend to be a little closer to medium bodied, and the earthy ones are my favorite. Kinda like the one we had with dinner.”
“Juicy versus earthy,” he repeated, taking another thoughtful sip of the cab. “Yeah, I think I see what you mean.”
“You sure you don’t want your own glass?”
“Nope, I don’t want the wine,” he said, planting a kiss along her hairline as he handed the glass back to her. “I just wanted a chance to put my lips someplace yours had been.”
“In that case,” she whispered, “you should work on your contortionist skills.”
He laughed and kissed her forehead this time, pulling her tighter against him so she could feel the ridges of his abs against the base of her ribcage. Funny how aware she was of every spot where their bodies touched, all the little ways they connected. She felt like she belonged here. Like they’d always been together, connected by breath and bone and skin.
“This should be a good one,” Shelly said, sitting back on her heels and hitting a button on the VHS. “It’s from that family reunion six or seven years ago. Remember that?”
“Yeah,” Adam said, nuzzling Jenna’s hair. “Nana wore a red dress that Gramps said made her look like a tart.”
“He meant it as a compliment, I’m sure,” Jenna said, watching as the video flickered to life on the screen and a scattering of relatives appeared, joking and laughing as they juggled paper plates and bottles of beer.
“There’s Uncle Martin,” he said, nodding toward the screen. “Ten bucks says he’s already wasted.”
“No bet,” Shelly said, getting to her feet. “He was wasted before he got there. Speaking of which, I’m going to grab the wine bottle so we don’t have to get up again. You sure you don’t want your own glass, Adam?”
“I’m good,” Adam said, pulling Jenna closer.
She snuggled against him and took a slow sip of her wine as Shelly moved toward the kitchen. Jenna kept her eyes fixed on the screen, watching Adam’s relatives smiling and singing and tossing a Frisbee. “Who’s the woman in the white shorts?”
“That’s my cousin, Ginny. She’s a brain surgeon out in Vermont. We don’t see her much. That guy over there in the Hawaiian shirt is my dad. That was just before he and mom joined the Peace Corps.”
“You must miss them a lot.”
“I do, but I know they love what they’re doing. They’re happy.”
Jenna nodded, transfixed by the sight of Adam’s dad throwing his head back and laughing the same way Adam did sometimes. The scene swiveled left, landing on a woman in a brown peasant skirt who waved at the camera, then stuck her tongue out and crossed her eyes. They were the same as Adam’s eyes, the same speckled green Jenna had come to know so well in the last few weeks. She nestled deeper against his chest, savoring the feel of his fingers stroking her hair.
The camera swung right, landing on a couple locked in a passionate embrace beneath an oak tree. The man dipped his hand into the curve of the woman’s back, pulling her tight against his body just like Adam did when he kissed.
Jenna blinked. It was Adam. And the woman arching her body against his was Mia, her long red hair trailing down her back as she twined her fingers around his neck, her wedding ring glinting in the sun.
“Oh,” Jenna breathed, staring at the screen.
Behind her, Adam tensed. The hand that had been stroking her leg stopped in mid-caress, his fingers frozen on her knee. “Shit. Hey, Shel? Where’s the remote?”
“What? Oh.” Shelly scrambled from the edge of the kitchen, dropping to her knees in front of the television. She fished around on the floor, fumbling with a silver controller.
“Dammit, wrong one.”
Jenna couldn’t look away. She wanted to—God, she wanted to—but there was something pulling her eyes to the screen like magnets. She couldn’t blink. She couldn’t breathe. All she could do was stare at the young couple kissing, so passionate, so young, so in love.
“So disgusting,” Shelly said, dropping the silver remote and picking up a black one. She aimed it at the television and hit a button. The image lurched into fast-forward, and Jenna watched the blurry figures moving at warp speed as Mia realized they were being filmed and turned laughing toward the camera, waving them away. The image shifted to another scene, a set of school-aged kids chasing each other with squirt guns. Shelly took her hand off the button and the image slowed to normal speed.
“Sorry about that,” Shelly said, giving Jenna a sympathetic look. “That’s the kind of shit you can’t unsee, huh?”
“It’s fine,” Jenna said, blinking at last.
“I’m so sorry,” Adam murmured into her hair. “We were newlyweds there. I didn’t realize—”
“Don’t be silly,” Jenna said, taking a sip of her wine and trying not to notice the way the glass shook in her hand. “It’s not like it never occurred to me you might have kissed someone else before me. I have a past, you have a past, we all have a past.”
“Yeah, but how often does Adam have to watch videos of you polishing some guy’s tonsils with your tongue?” Shelly set the remote down as the camera settled on an image of Gramps passing a soda to a younger, healthier-looking Nana. Jenna watched, feeling numb as Gramps glanced around, then reached around his wife to give her backside a firm squeeze. Nana laughed and swatted him away, looking rosy and vivacious and not the least bit eager for him to stop.
Jenna took another sip of wine, her eyes fixed on the television. Had Nana been diagnosed yet at this point? Did she know what lay ahead for them?
She blinked back the tears, pretty sure Gramps and Nana were to blame.
Back in their hotel room that night, Jenna took a long time getting ready for bed. She scrubbed her face with the soft, white washcloth from the rack, hoping to soothe away any traces of puffiness around her eyes.
She was being ridiculous. It wasn’t like she’d never considered the possibility Adam and Mia had an intimate and loving relationship at some point. They’d gotten married, had a honeymoon, and stayed married for five years. People didn’t do that without some serious affection between them.
It also wasn’t like she herself hadn’t been intimate with anyone else. She’d loved her fair share of men, exchanging kisses and family stories and promises neither of them ended up keeping. Hell
, she’d been engaged. She’d even conceived a baby with another man, for crying out loud.
But there was something different about witnessing someone else’s affection in living color. Something about knowing the trill of Mia’s laugh, the softness of Adam’s lips.
“Jenna? Everything okay in there?”
She nodded at her reflection in the bathroom mirror, then felt silly. “Coming.”
“That’s unfortunate,” he called from the other side of the door. “I kinda hoped you’d wait for me.”
Her mouth twisted into a half smile, and she turned away from the mirror to open the door. She walked out to find Adam sitting on the side of the bed.
“Hey,” he said softly. “Want to talk?”
“About?”
“Oh, I don’t know—world religion? Recipes for corn bread? Child-rearing techniques of the early nineteenth century?” He held out his hand, and Jenna found herself reaching for it before she’d even made up her mind to join him. “Come on, Jenna. I think we’re past the point in this relationship where either of us can fool the other into thinking things are peachy keen when they’re not. I know that video upset you. I’m sorry you had to see that.”
She sighed and sat down beside him, her knee bumping against his through the terrycloth of her hotel robe. He wore nothing but boxer shorts, and the urge to touch his chest almost overwhelmed her urge to talk this through.
Almost.
“It’s stupid,” she said. “It’s not jealousy I’m feeling, exactly. I don’t know what it is.”
“Want me to get out one of my NVC worksheets with a list of emotion-related words you can pick from?”
She laughed and shook her head. “No, that’s okay. Tell me this, though—if you saw a video of me making out with my ex-fiancé, do you think it would upset you?”
He seemed to consider it a moment, then nodded. “Probably a little.”
“A little? Okay, how about a sex video?”
He frowned at that. “Okay, a lot.”
She smiled and edged closer, feeling something inside her start to thaw as Adam folded an arm around her. “That’s the thing about modern dating. Back before the age of technology, all you had to go on were your own mental pictures of how things were in your lover’s last relationship. A man could picture his new girlfriend’s ex with a tiny penis or a receding hairline, and it would automatically make it so.”
Adam nodded and pulled her closer to his side. “And you could imagine my ex-wife as some horrible shrew I never really loved, due in part to her grating personality and preponderance of warts.” He planted a kiss on her temple, and Jenna felt herself start to melt. “Doesn’t work out so well when the shrew is your best friend.”
“Or when there’s video evidence to the contrary.”
She snuggled under his arm, content to just settle there with her feelings, whatever the hell they were. She might not be able to name them, exactly, but there was something reassuring about discussing them with a guy who acknowledged they were there.
“So about that sex tape,” he said, kissing her neck this time instead of her temple. He planted another kiss behind her ear, his breath warm and soft against her skin, and Jenna shivered despite the heat of the room. “Was that just an example, or is there really an illicit video floating around out there?”
“Oh, it’s not floating,” Jenna said, closing her eyes as Adam kissed his way down her throat and pushed aside her robe, baring her shoulder. “It’s in a box under my bed, along with two hundred unsent wedding invitations and a bunch of sex toys that wouldn’t be appropriate to use with other partners, but I’m not sure what to do with them. Seriously, is there a recycling center for adult artifacts left over from past relationships?”
“Mmm,” Adam murmured, peeling her robe further off her shoulder and baring the tops of her breasts. “Are you trying to make me jealous?”
“Not really. Are you trying to make me forget?”
“Absolutely. Is it working?”
“Without a doubt,” she breathed, and pulled them both back onto the bed.
The call came at 5:00 a.m.
Jenna heard the faint buzz of Adam’s cell phone on the nightstand, and she tried to roll over. She found herself pinned beneath the weight of his arm and the heft of his bare leg.
“Adam? Wake up, Adam, it’s your phone.”
“Hmm?”
“Your phone. I think it’s ringing.”
She watched his eyes blink open, saw him roll and reach for the phone, knowing with a heavy feeling in her gut what the call was about before he even answered.
“Yes?”
He was silent a moment, and Jenna reached out to wrap his fingers with hers.
“So she went peacefully? Of course. No, I understand. That’s what we’d hoped for, I guess.”
Jenna sat up, pulling the sheet around her breasts as she wrapped her arms around Adam and just held him. He leaned against her, his bare shoulder chilly, but solid.
“And Gramps agreed to that? No, I think it’s best. I appreciate you doing that, Shel. Okay then. We’ll be there.”
Adam disconnected the call and sat quiet for a moment.
“She’s gone?” Jenna whispered, already knowing the answer.
“Yeah. Shelly has Gramps at her place. She invited us to come for breakfast. We can go now, or we can stop by the assisted living facility to say our goodbyes.”
“What do you want to do?”
He sighed. “You know, I feel at peace with it. Like I already said my goodbyes this afternoon. Or years ago, really. Is that wrong?”
“Not at all. There’s nothing that says you need to look at a dead person to have closure.” She winced. “I’m sorry, did that sound insensitive?”
Adam offered a small smile and moved in her arms, turning to face her in the dim glow of the hotel’s clock radio. “No more insensitive than if I tell you I’m looking forward to my sister’s bacon. Come on. Let’s get dressed.”
They showered together with the lights out. Jenna meant to keep a respectful distance, to stay stoic and supportive and reverent. But Adam reached for her in the dark, his hands slick and searching. She slid willingly into his arms, crying out as he drove into her beneath the hot spray of the shower.
They got to Shelly’s house a little after sunrise. True to Adam’s word, she had a platter of the best-looking bacon Jenna had ever seen. Shelly’s eyes were red-rimmed, but she smiled as they walked into the kitchen.
“I’m so sorry,” Jenna said, wrapping Adam’s sister in her arms.
“I’m glad you could be here,” Shelly murmured, hugging back with her hands smothered in oven mitts. “Adam might act tough, but he’s an emotional guy. I know he’s glad to have you with him this weekend.”
“I’m glad to be here. Is Gramps sleeping?”
“Yeah, he drifted off a few minutes ago in the guest room. I’m not going to wake him. We can save the food for when he wakes up.”
Jenna nodded and stepped back, letting Adam take her place in his sister’s embrace. She watched as the two siblings clung together, murmuring words of support and love and memories.
“I’m just going to run to the bathroom,” Jenna murmured, knowing they didn’t hear her. She turned and walked down the hall, patting the back pocket of her jeans as she felt her cell phone vibrate.
She closed the door behind her and pulled the phone out. A chill snaked up her arms as she read the words of Mia’s text message.
Emergency with Aunt Gertie. Please call right away.
Chapter Thirteen
Jenna dialed the phone with trembling fingers, Mia’s words imprinted on her brain in bright, neon letters.
Emergency with Aunt Gertie. Please call right away.
“Mia, hello? What is it, what’s wrong, is Aunt Gertie alive?”
On
the other end of the line, Mia gave a surprised gasp. “Alive? Of course she’s alive. You don’t really think I’d use a text message to tell you your aunt kicked the bucket?”
“No, of course not.” Jenna let her body sag, sliding down the wall until her palms pressed into the cold tiles of Shelly’s bathroom floor. “I’m sorry. I must just have funerals on the brain or something.”
“That’s some girls’ weekend you’re having there.”
Jenna winced as the sour taste of guilt surged up the back of her throat. Did Mia suspect anything?
“Anyway, sorry to scare you,” Mia said. “There is an emergency, though. You know that screen test Gert asked me to drive her to?”
“Yes. It was for some little cable TV program that broadcasts in Nebraska or something, right?”
“Wrong. Well, that’s what Gert told us, anyway. Turns out it’s a much bigger deal.”
“How much bigger?”
“Remember that time we went to that male strip club and we saw the one guy with the modest marble sack dancing next to the guy who looked like he’d shoved a salami in there?”
“Um—”
“That much bigger. Like, enormously bigger.”
“Mia, what is it?”
“Good Morning America. They loved the interview she did with the local station, and they want more. They offered to fly her to New York to tape an in-studio piece that will air later this week.”
“Oh, Jesus.” Jenna dropped her head into her hands, feeling her temples start to pound. “What did you tell her?”
“I told her I needed to call you. Not that she needs your permission, but it seems like something the two of you might want to talk about if she’s going to put herself on-air in front of five million viewers.”
“Oh, God.”
“She didn’t commit yet. She said she wanted to talk to her lawyer first anyway, which I told her was a very good idea. Jenna? Are you still there?”
“I’m here.” She bit her lip. “How much do you think the hospital administration would freak out about this?”
