by Bryce, Megan
Justine smiled. “I know you like him despite the fact that he’s a yuppie lawyer.”
“Well, I like you despite the fact that you’re a yuppie accountant.”
Justine side-hugged her. “And we like you despite the fact that you’re a hippie artist without a dollar to your name.”
“You know what’s really funny? I actually have a dollar to my name right now. It feels pretty good.”
Ms. Woodson had a drop of paint in her hair. It was distracting Jack.
He could only see her hand stroking a small brush across the ceiling, a very small brush and he knew it was going to take a very long time for her to finish the ceiling, and the drop of paint in her hair was still distracting him.
She was a painter, paint would get in her hair.
She said, “Can I turn on some music?”
“No.”
“It’s so quiet. How can it be so quiet? Why aren’t your minions running in and out begging to do your bidding?”
He looked up at the scaffolding. All he could see was her hair, red corkscrews poking out over the sides, and her very small paintbrush.
He said dryly, “I don’t like distractions.”
He bent to his computer again, then looked back up. “You have paint in your hair. It’s pink.”
“Redheads can wear pink. And paint happens.”
“How do you get it out?”
“I shave my head when it gets too bad. It’s why I hate painting ceilings.”
He fought a smile. He finally said, “That would be a shame if it were true.”
“Everything I say is true.”
“Nothing you say is true. You just like to shock and awe.”
She stuck her head over the side of the scaffolding. “Do I shock and awe you?”
“Every minute of every day,” he said and she laughed, a husky low sound that made him think he’d surprised it out of her. Like she thought she shouldn’t think he was funny.
He had to admit, not many people did.
And, he hadn’t been trying to be funny. She did shock and awe him.
With her wild hair, her sarcastic comments.
He could close his eyes and see her dragging that scaffolding across the room without even thinking of asking for help. She’d hated him helping her, would have spent ten minutes doing it herself to keep from thanking him.
Every time she had to go clean paint off her brushes she gave him a dirty look when she thought he wasn’t looking. And every time she slammed the door behind her, he laughed.
He would have told her she could use his bathroom after she’d trudged down the hall the fifth time in one afternoon, he hadn’t realized how often she would need water, but he didn’t want to. He couldn’t think of the last time anyone had given him a dirty look.
He didn’t know why he thought it was entertaining that she so obviously didn’t like him.
He didn’t know why he kept egging her on.
She hummed a little tune and though it was soft and pretty, he said, “Please stop humming.”
“It’s Adele. You can’t possibly object to Adele.”
“I do. Stop humming.”
“You have no soul.”
He bit his tongue to keep from smiling. “Excuse me?”
She said louder, “No soul. If you don’t like Adele, you have no soul. I’m sorry to be the one to tell you.”
She wasn’t sorry at all.
He looked up Adele and said with disdain, “She released her first album when she was nineteen. I have no soul if I don’t want to hear a silly nineteen-year-old sing about the boy she lost?”
She peeked down at him. “How do you know that?”
“I just looked her up.”
“And have you listened to her?”
“I’ve never heard of her until just now.”
She gasped, “You’ve never heard of Adele?”
She scurried down the ladder to stand behind his chair. She leaned over him to read the screen and she smelled like paint and. . . lilacs?
She said, “Look up ‘Rolling in the Deep’.”
He brought it up, listening with his eyes closed.
Ms. Woodson whispered into his ear, “Why do you have speakers if you never listen to music?”
“Conference calls,” he said and he didn’t have to look at her to know she was grimacing.
Jack said, “She was nineteen when she recorded this?”
“Twenty-one. She has an old soul.”
He nodded and Ms. Woodson said, “Maybe you do have a soul after all, corporate shill.”
He opened his eyes. “No. I don’t.”
She shook her hair and headed back to the ladder. “I know. I was being polite.”
She was halfway up the ladder when he said, “Ms. Woodson–”
She froze, turning her head toward him and looking at him with her disgusted green eyes. “Please stop calling me that. I feel like you’re about to fire me every time you start with Ms. Woodson. It’s just Delia.”
She stared at him and he stared back.
She said, “Come on. You can do it.”
“Fine. Delia. Would you mind?” He pointed to the door.
She gave him a dirty look and muttered, “I am not getting paid enough.”
She opened the door and he said, “Thank you, Delia. I’ll let you know when you can come back in.”
She slammed it shut behind her. And he laughed.
When she came back in half an hour later, she said, “Did you even call anyone?”
“Of course.”
He’d called his sister. He trusted Ms. Woodson, Delia, with his business because he’d never met anyone who radiated disinterest like she did.
Disinterest in him, disinterest in his business, disinterest in his money.
He’d met plenty of women who’d tried to but none who had ever succeeded before. He knew when women were lying.
He did not, however, imagine that disinterest would extend to family drama.
He didn’t even want Delia to know he had a sister. His sister would be right up Delia’s alley.
Jack said, “I was checking this quarter’s earnings per share. Price-earnings ratio. Gross margin.”
Her eyes blanked and she turned away from him, climbing up the scaffolding with a groan. When she got to the top and disappeared from view, he smiled and went back to work.
Three
Jack’s sister burst through his door ten minutes to five.
The ever efficient Ms. Charles closed the door right behind Augusta. They’d both learned there was no stopping his sister when she was in a mood and it was better for the explosion to occur behind closed doors.
He pointed to the ceiling and she said, “Don’t shush me! I’m not a child, Jack! You’re not my father!”
He said, “I was pointing to the painter whose interest you have now attracted.”
Augusta looked up to find Delia looking over the side.
Augusta said, “Oh, the ceiling,” in a conversational tone and Jack had stopped long ago being surprised at the speed she could change moods. Give her another second and she’d be screaming at him again.
“I don’t know why you let Mother keep decorating your office. It’s like a men’s club in here. Dark wood, dark furniture, and now the ceiling?” Augusta held her hand up to Delia. “Sorry. No offense.”
Delia said, “None taken. I think it’s a stupid idea, too.”
“Then why. . .”
“I like to eat.”
Augusta nodded. She turned back to Jack with a small grin. She whispered, “I like her. I bet she drives you crazy.”
Delia said, “I can hear everything you’re saying. There’s some weird parabola effect.”
Jack looked up at her. “Were you going to tell me about that anytime soon?”
“Not really. I just love hearing about cost margins. And earnings. . ratio. . . thingies.”
Jack said, “Ms. Woods–”
He stopped and remembered he
wasn’t going to call her that anymore when he heard her growl. Augusta’s mouth fell open and she turned around again, her head tilted back to gape at the woman glaring daggers at him.
“Delia. Perhaps it would be best if you called it a day.”
His sister turned back around to stare at him, her mouth still open.
She said, “She growled at you.”
“She likes to shock and awe.”
Delia muttered, “I’d like to shock and awe you,” and Jack could indeed hear her. There was some kind of parabola effect in this room.
Augusta turned around and said, “Who are you?”
“Delia. I’m a painter. Who are you?”
“Gus.”
Jack closed his eyes at the unfortunate nickname she’d picked for herself. “My sister, Augusta.”
“His much younger half sister. And you can call me Gus.”
Delia smiled, then chuckled when she saw Jack’s frown.
“Gus. Does he ever call you that?” she asked, nodding to Jack.
“Never. And neither does my mother.”
“Well, you can’t expect a woman who would think painting a ceiling was a good idea to like the name Gus for her daughter, can you?”
Augusta giggled, looking around carefully in case their mother had miraculously appeared to hear that blasphemy.
Delia climbed down and Jack thought that though her movements were still a little tense, she was getting used to being up there. Maybe she’d been right and she wasn’t afraid of heights.
Augusta watched her with wide-eyed wonder.
When Delia made it to the ground, she turned around and ran her eyes from Augusta’s head to her toes. Her blond hair dyed black, one side long, one side short and spiked. One long cross-shaped earring in one ear, her black leather vest studded, her jeans shredded.
Delia said, “God, I’m older than I thought. I remember when this style came around the first time.”
“It’s for a Halloween party.”
“Oh, thank God.”
Jack said, “A Halloween party you’re not going to. Not with him.”
“Not my father, Jack. Remember? And last time I checked, I was an adult.”
Last time Jack had checked she’d been ten years old. Shy and quiet and she’d just lost her father. His mother had just lost her second husband.
Both of them had been devastated and Jack hadn’t known what to do, had only known to move back home. To be there for them. He’d taken over the role of man of the house, had taken over this office because his mother couldn’t anymore.
The only person Augusta had wanted to see then, the only person she would speak to, was him. She’d loved him, needed him.
And now she was suddenly eighteen and she didn’t.
Delia waved the tension in the air away with a shooing motion. “Excuse me, Gus. It was nice meeting you but I have quite a walk ahead of me to get to the bathroom. If I want to get out of here by five, I’d better start now.”
Augusta waved behind her. “There’s one right there.”
Delia looked at Jack. “I know.”
She turned away and when she opened the door, Jack said, “Don’t.”
She looked between him and his sister and said, “Just this once,” and closed the door with a soft snick.
Augusta said, “Who is that? Doesn’t she know who you are? Doesn’t she know who we are?”
“I really don’t think she does. And even if she did, I don’t think it would impress her.”
He guessed if Delia Woodson knew who they were it would only make her curl her lips up in disgust even more.
Augusta threw herself into a chair in front of his desk. “And you haven’t fired her for insubordination or something?”
“You don’t think I have a sense of humor?”
Augusta shook her head and Jack said, “You’re right, I don’t. But I don’t want Mother to bring in another painter. Delia’s already started and most of the time she’s quiet.”
Except when she was slamming doors.
And why he laughed at that, he still didn’t know.
Jack turned off his computer, cleared the few things that had found their way onto his desk. It was early for him to go home but he didn’t think he could get Augusta to not go to the party any other way. He said, “I’ll give you a ride home.”
“I’m going to the party, Jack. You can’t stop me.” She shook her phone at him. “And stop calling. I’ll block you. I will.”
“I pay for that phone. I could just turn it off.”
Her eyes widened into saucers. “You wouldn’t.”
Had he been eighteen once? Had he ever thought the worst thing imaginable was losing his phone?
No. The worst thing imaginable had already happened to him by the time he was eighteen.
It had happened to Augusta as well. And if he was in a different mood he would pat himself on the back for letting her be a normal teenage girl. For giving her the stability he’d never had, for giving her a soft place to land when her world had come crumbling down.
She jumped out of the chair. “Turn it off! I don’t care. The only person I want to talk to I’ll be with. Maybe I’ll just move in with him, he wants me to.”
Jack knew he hadn’t kept his face emotionless when she smiled in triumph.
She said, “And you don’t want me to do that, do you?”
“It is one of my top three fears.”
She slammed the phone onto his desk, leaving it there for him. “I’m going to the party. And just maybe when I’m done, I’ll come back home.”
She flung the door open hard enough for it to bounce against the wall. That doorstop Ms. Charles had ordered installed had come in handy more than a few times.
Jack watched her stomp out of his office and leaned his head back against his seat, closing his eyes.
Moments later, Delia said, “I’m pretty impressed that you didn’t go stomping after her.”
“It doesn’t work. Nothing works.” He silently sighed. “I know why teenage girls are always locked away in towers in fairy tales.”
“Don’t do that.”
He opened his eyes to find her standing on the other side of his desk. “Don’t do what?”
“I’m starting to feel bad for you. And then if you start having a sense of humor, well, God, I might just start liking you.”
The muscles around his mouth relaxed and his fists loosened. “And that would be bad?”
“It would destroy everything I know to be true about this world.”
He nearly smiled.
She stared at his mouth and said, “You want my advice?”
“No.”
“She’s trying to figure out how to be an adult. Let her do it.”
“She’s trying to figure out the quickest way to give me a heart attack. She’s found it with a motorcycle-riding kid who’s going to hurt her and leave her pregnant.”
He didn’t know why he was surprised that Delia laughed at that. She shrugged and said, “Some mistakes have to be made.”
“No, they don’t. Not that one.”
“I’m sure you’ve never made a mistake before but for most of us that’s what we call life. Fixing our mistakes is what turns us from self-centered children into adults.”
“Some mistakes destroy us before we have a chance to become adults.”
She shook her head with conviction and said with compassion, “No, they don’t. We’re just afraid they will.”
“Do you have any other advice that is not horrible and could instead possibly help me?”
She laughed at him, her face bright and shiny, and he remembered that she didn’t want him to have a sense of humor. Jack thought he might not want her to smile at him like that again.
Delia said, “Does she live at home still?”
“Still? She graduated high school five months ago.”
“No college?”
“No.” And that had been a never-ending fight. Augusta had not got into the
school she’d wanted, expected, to get into and had decided she wasn’t going at all.
Jack had only given up when school had started in the fall.
Delia said, “Well, personally, I don’t know why you don’t just kick her out. Make her worry about paying the rent and putting food in her belly. There’s no time in the real world for going to parties and getting knocked up just to shave ten years off your brother’s life.”
He couldn’t tell if Delia was trying to shock him or if she really believed that. “Is that what your parents did with you? Kick you out?”
“I left when I was sixteen. I couldn’t wait to be on my own.”
“And they let you go?”
She snorted and headed back to the paint cans. “Yeah.”
She cleaned up the detritus that somehow collected throughout her workday, taking off her booties and inspecting her boots carefully. It was a ritual for her, the last thing she did before she headed out the door.
She stuffed her arms into her coat and when she got to the door, she stopped. She said softly, “She’s going to go, Jack. Either you can let her go gently so that maybe she’ll want to come back one day, or you can hold on tighter and tighter until she has to rip herself away.”
He didn’t know what shocked him more– Delia calling him Jack or how much her words hurt.
The little girl he’d loved, the little girl he’d protected and babied and sacrificed for was gone. She hadn’t left yet but she would.
Jack just wasn’t ready for that.
Jack arrived home late. He’d stayed and worked, not having any good reason to leave.
He found his mother in the front parlor and she tilted her cheek for him to peck a kiss on it.
She said, “Augusta?”
“What do you think?”
His mother pinched her lips together. “That boy is a horrible influence. I can’t believe you would let her go with him.”
“What do you want me to do, Mother?”
“Something.”
“As she has said, I am not her father. And even if I was, she’s eighteen.”
“Take away her allowance. He won’t be sniffing around her anymore if she doesn’t have any money to throw around.”
