“I see your point, but I don’t want followers.”
“I know.” She stepped to the side and motioned toward the front door. “After you.”
Jessica dropped the tin foil package on Dr. Bell’s desk and waited for the professor to look up from her laptop and unwrap it.
“What’s this?”
Jessica grinned. “You want the literal answer or the figurative one?”
Bell laughed. “One then the other.”
“Literal: It’s cinnamon rolls. Figurative: It’s the smell of my future.”
Bell paused to inspect Jessica’s face closely from her place behind her desk. “O-kay. I don’t know how to respond to that yet.”
“Open them.”
The angel swallowed hard, set her jaw, and then carefully peeled back the tin foil. Four images of the daughter of God grinning up at her like a Warhol painting. “I don’t really know what to make of it.”
“It’s a miracle,” Jessica said. “It’s my latest. And it’s perfect, because not only is it what the world needs, but it’s what I need.”
“How so?” Bell seemed unable to tear her eyes from the blackened images.
“Don’t take this the wrong way, but my two business classes this semester are torture. I can’t stand another year and a half of it.”
“So is there a culinary department I don’t know about, or—?”
“The content is great,” Jess continued, “but come on. Business majors are the worst. All they care about is making money, which is fine, but also makes them shitty people.”
Dr. Bell laughed, her eyes on the real Jessica now. “Didn’t you just declare that your major?” She waved off the irrelevant fact. “No, sure, fine, go on.”
“So I need you to teach me everything you know about running a small business.”
Bell nodded. “I mean, you know I have to say yes, existentially speaking. But where do the cinnamon rolls come in, if you don’t mind me asking?”
“They’re gluten-free. I can make regular bread gluten-free. It just has my face on it afterward.”
Bell returned her eyes to the rolls again. “Huh.”
“Taste one.”
Bell hesitated then shut her eyes for a moment, inhaled deeply, and opened them again. She tore off a soft piece, popped it into her mouth, and moaned. “Oh wow, that’s good.”
“Does it taste gluten-free?”
Bell shook her head. “No. Man, these are incredible.” She helped herself to another gluttonous bite and Jessica wondered when was the last time the muscular woman had allowed herself to eat a baked good of any kind. “Are these from HEB?” Dr. Bell took another massive bite.
“Well, yeah. I haven’t really learned the ins and outs of baking my own stuff.”
“My gosh, I’ve missed these.” As the professor stuffed the last bit of the first roll into her mouth and reached for a second, Jessica added, “Where they’re from isn’t the point, though.”
“Was-a-oint?” Bell asked around the half-chewed roll.
“The point is that I figured out what I want to do with my life.”
Dr. Bell swallowed. “And what’s that?”
Jessica grinned. “I’m going to open a bakery.”
Although the professor nodded thoughtfully, she clearly hadn’t quite grasped the idea. She may have been listening to Jessica, but she definitely wasn’t hearing her. “With HEB foods?”
This was not going like she’d envisioned. “No. Well, maybe some at first. But I’ll figure out how to bake my own— listen.” She took a deep breath to reset. “I’m going to use my miracle to open a gluten-free bakery. And I need your help.”
“Sure, sure,” Dr. Bell said quickly. But her eyes were still on the two remaining rolls. “Whatever you need, I’ll help.”
At least Jessica got what she came for, even if it hadn’t played out as the dramatic reveal she’d imagined. “Okay. Um. Cool. Then I guess I’ll see you—”
“Just send me an email with the details,” Bell said dismissively.
Jessica stepped toward the desk to grab the foil but paused to reconsider. “Should I just leave these with …?”
Dr. Bell finally looked up at Jessica, but didn’t say a word. She didn’t have to. Her eyes held a challenge that Jessica was not about to take her up on.
Jess gave her an uneasy thumbs up. “Yep. Okay. Enjoy those.” She backed away slowly toward the door, which she closed behind her. Everyone deserved a private moment of indulgence here and there, even bodybuilder angels.
Mason strummed on his guitar as Jessica hunched over her desk, trying one more time to read the chapter on capital gains tax. Why did she have to learn this? Any self-loving business owner would just hire an accountant. Hell, Maddy was studying accounting. Jess could just hire her. She sighed and glanced down at Mason where he sat on the floor, his back supported by the side of her bed as he silently fingered the frets. “I can’t believe I have to do another year of this before I can actually start on life.”
“Yeah, it sucks, but I bet you’ll persevere. You’re God’s daughter.” He grinned up at her. “His sexy, sexy daughter.”
She rolled her eyes. “Not particularly relevant here, but thanks.”
As he started playing a muted version of his latest Jessica-inspired tune, “Rye Freedom,” she went back to her text book. This was ridiculous. Dr. Bell would be annoyed with her if she didn’t finish it before their private lesson, but Jessica could handle people being annoyed with her. She’d had a lifetime of practice behind her. She pulled her notebook over to her and set it on top of the textbook. She’d made a list. All the things she still needed before she could start her own bakery and all the things she already had. Under the things she had, she immediately wrote, miracle, enjoyment of bread, desire to own bakery, Mrs. Mathers. She paused, stared at the list, then added by the last item, if still alive.
The second column would be trickier, because it required wracking her brain for things she’d learned in her short few months as a business major. In this column, she wrote, money, location, lawyer, accountant, help.
That seemed pretty basic, but it was a start. Then she considered it more. Well, couldn’t she just get money the same way she always had? From scratch-offs? She would likely need such a large sum, though, that it would arouse suspicion from the authorities, as it should, really. Using scratch-offs to subsidize her tuition with Destinee’s meager contributions was one thing, because it could be spread out over the course of years. Fifty grand over four years wasn’t too suspicious. At least she’d finally come to an agreement with the gas station clerk that if he didn’t flag her, she’d throw him an occasional winner.
Yes, it was a bribe. But she was okay with it if God was, which He clearly was.
However, a bakery would be much more expensive and she’d need it all at once in a way that didn’t draw too much attention. So Powerball, Maga Millions, and Lotto Texas were out. Plus, God had mentioned that the larger jackpots were actually one of His more cleverly disguised punishments. They were one of his favorite instruments for teaching not only the winner but those who followed the story that, no, money doesn’t buy happiness. Jets, yes. Happiness, no. So she made it a point to steer clear of any lottery that had the possibility of winning more than five thousand dollars.
Surely she could find money another way, though. A loan wasn’t entirely out of the question, but she’d have to do a little scouting to find someone who would give a loan to her when she had no credit and likely couldn’t find a guarantor. Destinee wouldn’t qualify, obviously. Even with her promotion at the pharmacy, she was hardly making enough to pay for Jessica’s books each semester, which she’d insisted upon doing, even though Jessica told her it wasn’t necessary.
She put a star by money. While she hadn’t found the solution yet, she felt she could find one, and it wasn’t something that another expensive year of school would necessarily help her with. Location was the next on the list. Where did she want to start a bak
ery? She would need to research the markets, see where the biggest demand for such a thing was. Maybe she could do it in San Marcos, except no one here had any money and restaurants and bakeries came and went faster than a Texas thunderstorm in July. No, she’d have to move somewhere else to open it. That was a no-brainer.
She had an idea.
“Hey Mason, you want to go on a road trip over Thanksgiving break?”
“Yeah, that’d be cool.” He continued strumming, shutting his eyes now and really feeling it, you know?
So that was settled. They’d go scouting in a couple weeks.
Lawyer. That went back to money. Or did it have to? She thought of Wendy, who just last week had called Jessica to ride her about how long it’d been since she’d sent out a decent tweet. Wendy had been working for Jessica pro bono for years now. Maybe I should start paying her at some point. But Jessica doubted Wendy would accept the money. It was worth a try, anyway. She resolved to give it a shot whenever she had a steady flow of income. Maybe Wendy would agree to be paid for PR for the bakery.
The next was an accountant. Her thoughts on that were similar to the last. Wendy worked with so many famous people, she must know a good accountant. Or, realistically, she probably used a good one herself. If her stylish clothes and perfectly done hair and nails weren’t a dead giveaway to the piles of money stashed somewhere in a vault—did banks still do that? She hoped so—then Jessica didn’t know what was.
Help was a different matter. She shut her eyes and tried to imagine the daily life of working at a bakery. Mrs. Mathers’ came to mind. Tables set up for folks to sit and chat, share stories and maybe swap bits of their food, get started for the day or wind down after a long one. There was always someone behind the counter, sometimes two, but rarely was it Mrs. Mathers herself, who stayed back in the kitchen until it was time for her to come out and greet her patrons and offer up samples of whatever new confectionary treat she’d been experimenting with. It was exactly what Jessica wanted, just like that. A case full of croissants, cookies, breads, cupcakes, donuts. Then her mind populated the fantasy with hundreds of portraits of herself staring back from the glass case, and she groaned. That would be part of it, too. Maybe she could flip the cookies over so the faces didn’t show. That wouldn’t be so bad.
She played around with who she would want behind the counter. Miranda, obviously, but her best friend would probably have other things she wanted to do with her life, which was understandable. The next face that came to mind was Kate’s, though Jessica wasn’t sure if that was due to the sound of Kate’s screeching voice floating through the window from the front yard or not.
“Damn, she’s really going after them today, isn’t she?” Mason said as Jess opened her eyes and stared over his head at her window.
“Well, it is the last week of pledging …” But Mason was right. Even for Kate, this sounded a little rough.
She stood from her desk, her knees aching from sitting for so long, and pulled the blanket that she kept around her shoulders closer. With such a big house, the downstairs almost never warmed up when it was this cold outside. She crawled onto her bed and peeked out the window. She could just see the tail end of the line of girls from there. They were wet again, except this time, perhaps because of the cold she felt hovering around the window, she knew immediately that this wasn’t okay. At the end of the line of pledges were Rebecca, Grace, and Courtney, each standing on one leg, arms outstretched to the side while someone who was obscured by the edge of the house brought the spray of the hose across them again and again. The shouting Jess knew immediately as Kate. How was the girl not hoarse yet? So much hazing, so many late-night excursions with blindfolded pledges.
Kate appeared in view, standing only a few inches ahead of Courtney, who seemed relieved to have a momentary break from the water. The Wurst girl kept her arms outstretched as Kate began speaking to her, though Jess couldn’t hear what was being said.
In that moment, seeing the clear determination and pain on Courtney’s face while Kate bared down on her, it finally clicked. Jessica had neglected to take Judith’s advice and decide on a specific point where she would begin to trust Courtney, but she didn’t need to. Because it was suddenly crystal clear.
Courtney had changed. She wasn’t some trained Russian spy trained to withstand this sort of torture. She really wanted it. She wanted to change. Only genuinely wanting it could carry someone through this. What else could motivate her this way?
Unless …
She pulled out her phone and texted, “It’s Jess. Any chance Trent is being held hostage somewhere?” but paused before going any further.
It would be the first text she sent Chris from the phone he’d given her months before. Was this really how she wanted to break the ice?
But it was important, so she pressed send.
Not fifteen seconds later, he responded with. “Not really. I saw him trolling Stephanie Lee on Facebook just yesterday.”
No additional, “How are you?” or “I miss you,” or any other nonsense. She appreciated that. But it also left her feeling a little …
Didn’t matter. No hostage situation of note. That settled it.
She jerked her attention back around to the hazing when she distinctly heard Kate’s voice shout, “Pigfuckers!”
“Did Kate just shout pigfuckers?” Mason asked amusedly from the floor.
Jess didn’t answer. On the front lawn, Courtney Wurst was sobbing and shaking, and the leg she’d been holding up straightened and planted on the ground as her arms fell too. Then Kate rounded on her.
“Uuuuuugh,” Jess moaned.
“What is it, my fierce muse?”
She ignored her least favorite pet name of all time. “I’m about to have to do something awful.” Jumping off the bed, she power walked out of the room, through the downstairs, and out the front door, making straight for where Courtney stood crying, Kate still at her throat.
“Damn you, Johanna!” Jess spat, when the sister holding the hose turned suddenly toward her and sent a stream of freezing cold tap water across Jess’s midsection.
Johanna gasped, grabbed her chest, and fell to her knees, dropping the hose.
Jessica sucked in air, grimacing. “Oh shit! Sorry! I forgot I did that.” But she didn’t have more time to spare for it than that. Assuming there were no preexisting congenital heart conditions at play, Johanna would be fine.
How long had the pledges been out here? While she’d been sitting inside worrying about lawyers for her bakery, she should have been outside, worrying about lawyers suing the shit out of her sorority. Wendy would likely wind up hospitalized with an aneurysm if NAO ended up in the news for a hypothermia-related hazing fatality. In Texas, no less. Talk about avoidable.
“You trying to tell me your family is practically pigfucker royalty, but you’re not?” Kate shouted just before Jessica wedged an arm between her and Courtney, shoving the pledge mistress back a few steps.
“We’re done,” Jessica said, staring Kate right in her intense eyes. She turned to the pledges. “We’re done for the night. Go warm up and dry off. Shit.”
None of the balancing pledges moved, though. They remained focused on Kate. Jess exhaled a chuckle. She couldn’t believe it. “I said, you’re done. Go dry off so you don’t die.”
A few pledges started to lower their legs, but that was all. “This isn’t a test. I’m the president of this organization, not to mention a messiah”—she hated playing the messiah card, but she could deal with that later—“and I’m telling you to stop putting up with this shit and go warm up. Isn’t listening to everything I say one of your goddamned commandments?”
More pledges lowered a leg, but none put a foot to the ground.
Then Kate said, “Do what she says. She’s God’s daughter, for chrissake!”
Feet hit the ground and the pledges hurried off inside, except Courtney, who seemed too beside herself to do much of anything. Jessica wrapped an arm around her shoulders and
pulled the girl along with her, up the front steps and into the house, where she sat her at the table then ran and grabbed a towel. She wrapped it around Courtney’s shoulders then sat at another chair facing her long-time nemesis.
Once Courtney’s sobs had subsided, she managed, “Does this mean I’m out?”
Jessica laughed before she could stop herself. “What? No. This means … I don’t know what this means, but we wouldn’t kick you out for this. That’d be awful.” She paused. “Do you even still want to be in NAO?” If Jess had been asked to endure that sort of treatment, she would have been long gone. She had enough shit in her life to deal with without torture added to the list.
Maybe someday, though.
She shook the morbid neurosis from her mind to focus back on Courtney.
“Of course.”
“Of course? I mean, sure. Of course.” She looked around the room, where other pledges were scattered, waiting in line for the bathroom or simply shivering under their towel. “I’m gonna call you a cab. I’m sorry Kate called you a”—she steadied her voice so she wouldn’t laugh at the ridiculousness of it, which would sort of ruin the sentiment—“pigfucker.”
Courtney shook her head. “Doesn’t matter. Nothing I haven’t heard before.”
Jess wondered briefly if she’d rather be called the Antichrist or a pigfucker before standing again and heading back outside to deal with the second part of this awful equation.
Kate was ordering around Johanna, Jane, and Simone as they cleaned up the hodgepodge of strange objects, the uses of which Jessica couldn’t even begin to guess at—beach balls, a small trampoline, a few crumpled wind socks.
“We need to talk,” Jess said as assertively as she could. Kate looked up, not appearing even the least chagrined.
“Yeah?”
“You went too far.”
Kate nodded understandingly. “I think you’re overreacting.”
“It’s thirty degrees out here! You had them lined up like some sort of Karate Kid wet T-shirt contest from hell! Are you trying to get us sued?”
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