Wild Child: A Novel

by Molly O'Keefe

  Amazing, she thought—we have so much in common.

  “Would you like a drink? We’re all set up in the back.”

  “Sounds great,” she said, falling into step with him as they headed through the rest of the house, past a white tiled kitchen with aging appliances.

  The back garden was like a scene from a movie, or a magazine article about how to throw an elegant outdoor party.

  “It’s so beautiful,” she sighed. The lights, the slight flap of the linens on the table—it was all so inviting.

  “I’m glad you like it. Wine?” He dug a bottle of white wine from a bucket of ice and water, but she shook her head and pointed to the glass decanter of lemonade sweating in the humidity.

  “Lemonade would be great.”

  He seemed slightly surprised, but there was nothing she could do about that anymore.

  “So what was America Today coming over for?” she asked, accepting her lemonade. Her finger brushed his on the handoff, and something charged and slightly painful swirled through her. Awareness, sexual and sharp. She took a step back, her heel sinking into the grass. “Or do you often have morning shows over for dinner?”

  Jackson poured himself a glass of wine and she couldn’t help but watch him, the sharp line of his nose, the delicate lace of his outrageously long eyelashes. Why did men always get those kinds of eyelashes?

  “America Today and Maybream Crackers are hosting a competition for small towns that have lost industry. Maybream will move its whole operation to the town that wins the contest. We’ve made the semifinals.”

  She blinked, eyes wide, a bunch of incredulous rude words springing to her lips, but she swallowed them. Clearly, her experience in this town was not the norm. This was a beloved home to lots of people; she’d be well served to remember that. “Congratulations.”

  “Thank you.” He inclined his head. “Though so far it just means we have a suitable factory. The hard part comes this week.”

  “You have to eat those cookies they make?”

  He laughed. “No. At least I hope not.”

  “They are gross.”

  “That is the consensus.”

  “So how did I get the invite and not them?”

  “I had left the invitation to dinner with the hotel staff and told them to pass it on to the producer and crew, who are supposed to arrive sometime in the next few days to film. And considering how few celebrities we get out here, Gwen must have thought you were involved in some way.”

  “ ‘Celebrity’ is a stretch.”

  “Your book has made you famous. I heard they were talking about making a movie—”

  A bee buzzed over her lemonade and she waved it away, feeling its wings momentarily against her fingers, a minor brush with danger. As close as she got these days. “There’s always talk.”

  “Still, from what I understand it’s a very popular book.”

  She eyed him shrewdly, delighting in the way he seemed so obtuse about the book, talking about it in the abstract. “Why do I get the sense you haven’t read it?”

  “Is it obvious?” He laughed, still gracious, and she wondered what it would take for him to drop his guard. As soon as the thought occurred to her, she was stunned by how badly she wanted to see that. He was flirting with her and he’d never read the book. Every man who flirted with her these days looked at her as if waiting for the show—the big sex rock-star show—which was probably why she didn’t flirt much anymore.

  “Afraid so—you haven’t asked me any questions about rock stars.”

  “You caught me. One of the few people left in the world who hasn’t read Wild Child.”

  “Well, it’s a sordid tale. Not for everyone.”

  “Trust me, my ignorance doesn’t make you any less a celebrity.”

  “I’m afraid that’s exactly what it does.” She was actually enjoying herself. Amazing.

  “I read your first book. The one about groupies,” he said. Her heart kicked at the reminder. That was how she’d met Jenna. A kindred damaged soul, Jenna had spent her formative years backstage making the same bad decisions Monica was making.

  “So you were the one,” she joked, pushing aside her grief.

  “I read your book of poems, too.” She groaned, putting her head in her hand, and he smiled, that half-boy, half-man smile that went right to her knees. They each took a sip from their glass as if rinsing out the end of that conversation.

  “You’re awfully young to be a mayor, aren’t you?” she asked.

  He stared down at his wineglass as if the liquid had something to tell him, but then he shook his head and took a long sip. “No one else wanted the job,” he said. “And aren’t you a little young to be a worldwide bestselling author?”

  “Well, considering I was a sixteen-year-old runaway, I had a lot of room for improvement.” Her heels kept sinking in the lawn and she pulled them out, lurching toward him by accident. His hand grabbed her elbow, the bare skin there warming on contact. The younger her, the damaged kid, would have gone bonkers to have this handsome man touching her in any way. On that kid’s behalf, Monica memorized the sensation.

  “I can’t imagine that improvement was easy.” He let go of her, one finger at a time, and the intimacy of the conversation, his touch—all of it was too much.

  “Well, it made for good reading.” She stepped away, popping that small inclusive bubble of intimacy around them. “It looks like you were going to entertain a crowd. I’m sorry I wasn’t who you were expecting.”

  “I’m not. Sorry, I mean.” His words did something to her heart, disturbed the mechanics, and she thought she was past all that: the blushing, the sweaty palms, the heart thumping. Those were things for another woman, lifetimes younger.

  And yet here she was contemplating a girlish giggle.

  Coy behavior was for the old Monica she had spent years burying, and so instead she stared right at him.

  “Are you flirting with me, Jackson Davies?”

  “I thought you were flirting with me.” His smile was an invitation to deeper secrets, darker rooms.

  “It’s mutual, then,” she said.

  “I can’t believe I’m so lucky.”

  Me neither, she thought. The only man in the world who hasn’t read that damn book. They smiled at each other in silence, until Jackson finally blinked and turned away slightly as if the moment had been a little too much for him.

  What are you doing? she asked herself. What is the point of flirting with him? There’s no way any of this will go anywhere.

  And that was the appeal. Flirting in a safe place, dropping her armor, revealing herself in glimpses and side glances. All the while knowing nothing would happen.

  He was too much of a gentleman to pursue anything without the right signals from her, and she was far too broken to even know what those signals would be.

  “I remember you,” he blurted, and then winced. “I’m sorry.”

  She nodded, bracing herself internally, but externally she laughed. A version of the trick from Jenna, only Monica was far better at it. “That day outside the police station? It looked like most of the town showed up.”

  “I’m sorry,” he said, and that was shocking. The apology actually took a few moments to assimilate. “After what you had been through, you deserved better than people standing around to watch you leave.”

  She glanced at her lemonade and lifted it, as if to take a sip, but realized she had no taste for it.

  “Thank you,” she said, meeting his eyes again.

  “So, Monica,” he changed the subject with grace. “How long are you staying in our fair town?”

  “Indefinitely,” she said and he blinked and straightened, as if he’d been poked.

  “The Wild Child is moving to Bishop?”

  Her heels sank again and she jerked them out, uncomfortable with the nickname, a leftover from that ill-fated two-year reality show Simone had signed them up for when Monica was a teenager, ripe for rebellion. And while the moniker mig
ht have worked when she was sixteen, at thirty it was wearing thin. She hadn’t danced on a table, started a fight, smoked drugs, screwed another girl’s boyfriend, or any of the other things she did on and off the screen in years, though no one seemed to care.

  Titling the book Wild Child had been her publisher’s idea, and all it did was make sure no one ever forgot the girl she’d been.

  She’d written two works of nonfiction, the first a pretty crappy exposé on groupies, the second a bestseller about growing up a wild child, a life lived on the road and backstage, traveling around the world and through the rocky and terrible terrain between girlhood and womanhood.

  She’d written bad poetry, waited tables, traveled the world, and held her best friend’s hand while Jenna died in near poverty, too proud to ask for money until it was too late.

  But no one was interested in those things.

  It was as though she were in frozen animation—a wild child forever.

  “Not quite. I’m here to write a book, and I’m not sure how long it will take.”

  “What’s your book about?” He eyed her over the edge of his glass before taking a sip.

  “The night my father was shot.”

  He swallowed and coughed. “The murder?”

  Inwardly, she cringed. She really was growing to hate that word.

  “Yeah. I’m a little behind and my deadline is coming up quick, so I need to do some interviews this week.”

  “Interviews?” He made it sound as if she’d said rectal exams. “With whom?”

  “Some of the people there that night.”

  “This has to be a joke,” he muttered. “It has to be.”

  She laughed, awkwardly trying to fend off his tension, his increasingly obvious dismay. “Is this a problem for you?”

  “A problem? That you, Monica Appleby, are writing a book about the night your father was shot dead by your mother in Bishop, the most notorious crime in our history? And you want to talk about it with people here? This week?”

  She didn’t like it said that way, the part about her mother—it was like someone dragging a rake over a chalkboard, and all of her internal organs cringed.

  “I’m not sure why this is important to you, or why you’re suddenly being an insensitive jerk about it.”

  “Oh Jesus.” He put down his glass with a thump, his eyes widening as if he’d just thought of some new horror. “Is your mother coming?”

  “No. And who the hell cares if she does?”

  “I do. I have one week, Monica. One week to get this town to win that damn TV show, and I can’t have any drama or theatrics get in the way.”

  “I’m not here to cause trouble.”

  “But isn’t that what you do? Isn’t that what you’ve always done?”

  She stiffened and set down her own glass. All that lovely buzzing awareness, all that sweetness behind those eyelashes—it was all gone. “I’m going to go back to the Peabody. Thanks for the lemonade.”

  She took off across the lawn and left Jackson swearing under his breath. She was inside the house before he caught up with her. His touch on her elbow made her whirl. Life had not done her a whole lot of favors in the last few months. She was raw with grief and confusion, and more than ready to use smacking the daylights out of his handsome face as a reason to feel better.

  He held up his hands. “I’m sorry,” he said.

  “Good.” She continued walking; the sound of her heels hitting the oak floors of the Big House had a satisfying violence. If only she could punch holes through that floor.

  “No, Monica, please.” He stepped around her, barring her exit. She huffed to a stop.

  “This is a little much, Jackson.”

  “I am deeply sorry for the way I was talking. Especially about your father’s death. I extend my sincere regret.”

  “You can stick your sincere regret—”

  “Please.” He smiled, but it was careful again, strained—that whole lying with his face, telling the truth with his body thing—and for some reason that made her pause. “I … I am heavily invested in the results of this show. The whole town is, as you can imagine. The okra-processing plant has closed, the recession has hit us particularly hard, and the town needs this competition. And it needs to win. And perhaps I’m paranoid, but I have worked very hard to make sure that nothing jeopardizes our chances.”

  “And you think I will?”

  “I think … you,” again he gave that careful smile as if he were trying to sidetrack her from the horseshit he was throwing at her, “and talk of the murder might be a … distraction.”

  “I have a book to write. A deadline. People are counting on me.”

  “People are counting on me.” He shook his head, correcting himself. “On this show, I mean.”

  Total deadlock. They stared at each other.

  “Just spit it out—what do you want?” she asked.

  “Can you … leave? Just for the week?”

  It took some effort to pretend her heart didn’t take a dent after all that flirting to be told it would be better if she left. Another reason why flirting was best left to the young. She was not nearly as resilient as she used to be. She took this shit personally.

  “Screw you.”

  “You asked.”

  “Well, I’m not about to leave and I’m not about to stay locked in my hotel room, Jackson.”

  “There’s a compromise here,” Jackson said.

  She crossed her arms over her chest. “Sure.”

  “Can you just not … interview people for a week?”

  “No.”

  He sighed, hard. “Do you know what ‘compromise’ means?”

  For a moment she contemplated giving him nothing. Contemplated, in fact, setting up a booth in his precious downtown and inviting everyone to come and tell her their favorite story about her and her mother.

  Maybe she’d organize some reenactments.

  “Monica,” he said, dropping all that charm for the moment, and she saw just briefly the strings he held, the control he was trying so hard to exert. It was so vulnerable she wanted to turn her head away; it was like watching a car crash on the highway. “I cannot express how important it is that nothing jeopardize this America Today contest. They’ll be examining us closely this week, and that night … I don’t want them to see that night.”

  Monica had very little practice in not doing exactly what she wanted, exactly when she wanted. Outside of taking care of Jenna, she’d spent the last few years answering only to her publishing house. And to what passed for her conscience. She was as spoiled as Reba. So her compromise was rusty and came out petulant.

  “Okay, because I understand the situation, even though you’re a jackass—”

  “True. Very true.”

  “I’ll interview people quietly.”

  “Quietly?”

  “I’ll be discreet. That’s all you get.”

  “Then I guess I’ll take it.”

  Sun fell through the window over the door in a box of light, right between them, filled with glittering dust motes and the stench of his judgment. They stared at each other, all pretense gone. That zinging awareness from the backyard had turned sour.

  I see you, she thought. All the parts you hide behind that smile. And they aren’t all pretty.

  “I liked you better when you were polite,” she said.

  “I liked you better when you were flirting with me.”

  Like that is ever going to happen again.

  “Goodbye,” she said and passed through that glittering box of sunlight, through his judgment, to the other side and right out the front door.

  Turns out The Big House—and Jackson—were a disappointment, like so many others.

  Chapter 4

  Twilight sank over Bishop, and the Big House always got dark the moment the sun slipped behind the oak trees. Jackson pulled his shirt on over his head and walked the shadowed hallways to his sister’s room.

  He knocked lightly on her closed
door and since it wasn’t latched, it swung open, revealing his sister on her bed, head bent over a book. Gwen’s natural habitat.

  Bubba, the old mutt, lay curled up at the foot of her bed, despite both of them being told dogs didn’t belong on beds.

  “Hey,” he said, leaning against the doorjamb, keeping the bubble of distance between them.

  The bubble.

  A few months ago, when things got really dicey between them—that was when he noticed the bubble. The distance that lived and breathed between them. If he shifted left, she shifted right. If he walked into a room, she’d walk out. And it had seemed like a new phenomenon. But lately, at night, aware of the silence in the house and its slightly malevolent nature, he wondered if it had been there longer.

  If it wasn’t something he’d created years ago, coming home from law school to take care of his eleven-year-old sister after the accident. He’d been clueless and sad and resentful, and maybe … he created the bubble. Considering the most recent example of his dynamic and powerful people skills with Monica, there was a very, very good chance that the bubble was his fault.

  And now he had no idea what to do about it.

  She just needs to get to college, he thought. Spread her wings. And maybe she was picking up on the fact that he was ready to spread his wings, too.

  The thought—and the guilt that came with it—gave him heartburn.

  “Gwen?”

  She glanced up, her wheat-colored hair slipping down over one eye. One black-rimmed, heavily made-up eye.

  “What … what’s on your face?” he asked.

  She looked back down. “Nothing.”

  “That eye makeup. Were you wearing that at your shift at the hotel?”

  She sighed heavily, the sigh of judgment. Condemnation. Jackson, the sigh said, you’re a total jackass.

  Yeah, he thought, and you look like a freaking owl with that shit around your eyes. But he didn’t say anything. He wasn’t her father, as she so loved to point out.