Chapter Two
Jade was a pretty girl in the current fashion. Tall and slender; she was conservative in her dress. Collegiate, casual, sophisticated taste, defined her style. Never overdone in clothes or makeup. Her dark maple hair just brushed her shoulders and she had a habit of tucking it behind one ear when she smiled in conversation with a friend. She never troubled herself overly with appearance. Her skin was gold like sun touched maple brightened at the cheeks with a flush of pale rose. Her eyes were gold-flecked burnt umber, fringed with long, dark lashes and arched with full, becoming brows. There was a freshness about her that reminded her mother of health, vigor and playing out of doors.
As a little girl she’d worn glasses and her teeth came in crooked. At eleven she traded her glasses for contact lenses and began regular visits to the orthodontist. The result of these minor adjustments was a perfectly lovely, self-possessed young woman with no reason to apologize to anyone for her appearance. She was not vain, but rather took her own good looks for granted.
That night before coming home for Christmas her sophomore year Jade hung up the phone thoroughly disgusted with herself. Why, she wondered, do I always become the kind of person I can’t stand when I talk to my Mom? She turned her head from side to side, her face creased in a frown. She rolled her eyes and sighed. “I’ll just have to do better next time.” She really thought she would, too. She loved her mother. Why she had this need to hurt her was a complete mystery but Jade told herself she didn’t have the time to figure this one out and still make her flight home for the holidays. Maybe she’d think it over during the layover in Pittsburgh.
Once on the plane Jade gave her thoughts over to remembering how Christmas, birthdays — any holiday or special occasion, really — felt when she was young. She remembered such occasions as glowing with light, color, music and laughter. Both her mom and dad went the distance when it came to fulfilling her every childhood wish. But it all came to an end the year she turned eleven years old. The year her dad died. The year her mom lost her husband and best friend.
She was in the fifth grade and the school year was nearly over. She and her family lived in a beautiful wooded neighborhood in a house Jade loved. She excelled in school in every subject and was a contender on the swim team. She was part of this group of super smart kids in Odyssey of the Mind plus she was loaded with friends.
Jade’s dad, Marc Thorpe, was a sweet and gentle man who treasured his little girl. The church he pastored had a small, middle-class, liberal congregation. Jade’s mom was active in church, school and community events. Sometimes Jade’s friends teased her a little bit about her parents because they were so openly affectionate with each other, but Jade knew they were just jealous of all the love in her home and family. Jade’s dad was quieter, more serious than her mom who was always her silliest self when her husband was away. Sometimes Jade and her mom would forget the time and Marc, returning from work, might walk in and surprise them in a late afternoon duck and hide spit-ball game accompanied by the kind of rock and roll music Marc dismissed as juvenile and mind-numbing. At such times Jade noticed how her mom jumped in surprise and rushed to turn off the music and retrieve the tiny wet balls of paper from the carpet in the living room, dining room and kitchen. At times it occurred to her that her mom was sort of a different person when her dad was around, but it didn’t cause her great concern. When the three of them were together everything seemed balanced enough — harmonious, even.
The day she found out her dad was sick she felt as if her world would end. It was all so sudden. She remembered it now as if that whole time in her life — from the time the doctor told them he was sick, until six weeks later when he died — like it all happened in slow motion and the smoky gray colors of a dream.
One day her dad was showing her how to do a perfect dive off the high board; one day he was teaching her to ride a bike; one day he presented her with her first pair of Roller Blades with hot pink shoe strings and purple wheels — the next day he was crippled with painful headaches that made him vomit. The day after that he was full of drugs from chemotherapy and shot full of radiation — his eyes dark, sunken circles, in his formerly youthful, formerly handsome face.
He was only thirty-seven years old. He’d never smoked, didn’t drink, except for an occasional beer, exercised regularly and ate low fat, high fiber food. There was no explanation. When she looked back over her childhood all she could see was wish after wish and hope after hope coming true — then this … Why?
Funny, she thought, how it all seems like it happened in slow motion now, when really, it happened so fast she still hadn’t had time to process it, to completely recognize her loss, even these nearly ten years later. Seems like she had to be so strong. Felt like it was expected of her, but she didn’t know why it felt that way. Her mom, though heartbroken herself, had done all the right things Jade supposed.
Her mom had wanted Jade to go to grief counseling and did that herself, but Jade decided right after the funeral to just get on with her life and pretend it was just like it had always been. She got a big fat reminder things weren’t the same, though, when she was home alone with her mom on those special occasions she and her family had always shared. For some reason, it just plain old made her mad to see her mom. Had made her mad since right after the funeral and she couldn’t think what she could do to feel any differently.
Her mom had tried to do all the same things to make the days special like they were when her dad was living. Still Jade couldn’t help but blame her for the dismal failure of these occasions to rise to their former glory.
* * * * *
After her phone conversation with her mother about how ready she was for a break from school and how much she looked forward to Christmas, Jade knocked on the door of her friend Emily’s room. Emily still had a couple of exams to finish up before she planned to drive the several hours to her family home in upstate New York. The other two housemates left the day before and, though Jade knew Emily was feeling the pressure of the upcoming exams, she also knew she’d be receptive to a break from her studies. Emily answered the door in an extra large, plaid flannel shirt, a Tiger applique on the pocket. The shirt covered her to her knees. She wore no pants and her feet were big as boats in her bear shaped Winnie the Pooh bedroom slippers. She pulled a cherry tootsie pop from her cheek and Jade could see she was nearly to the chocolate-y rich center.
“Hey, Em.” Jade walked past her friend into the room and sat on the bed next to open books and the lap top computer.
“Hey. What you up to? Want a tootsie pop?” Emily extended a lopsided clay bowl Jade knew her little sister, Ginny, had made for her. Some of the pops were stems up so you couldn’t see the flavors so Jade took the bowl and dug until she found an orange one.
Jade unwrapped the Tootsie Pop and told Emily about her conversation with her mom.
“God, I know what you mean. What’s that about do you suppose? Sometimes I’m just so nasty! Like with Ginny, for example. When I’m gone from home I’ll think about her sometimes and, I don’t’ know … just the thought of that funny lookin’ little kid … Well, it just makes me smile, or sometimes even laugh. And I miss her so much. I’ll call her right up thinking I’ll tell her how happy I am she’s my sister ¾ but the minute I hear her voice on the phone something happens to me. I snap. I become some kind of a monster and say something to hurt her feelings. Is that kind of what it’s like for you? I mean, with your mom?”
Jade’s mouth was full of tootsie pop but she spoke around it. “Yeah, I guethh,” she slurped the word and pulled the sucker from her mouth making a loud smacking sound. They looked at each other and laughed. Shook their heads.
“Feel like a beer?” Jade offered.
“Well ¾ I shouldn’t, you know. I do have two exams tomorrow. But, hey, what the hell.” She kicked the twin Winnie’s from her feet and pulled her jeans on under her shirt. She dug in a drawer of her dresser and came out with a striped turtleneck she pulled on over her head and let rest in a tight circle around her neck as she unbuttoned her Tiger shirt. Her breasts bobbled there, exposed to the air and Jade’s comfortable gaze, as she casually bent to pull on a pair of socks. She caught a glimpse of herself in the mirror and Jade sitting there sucking her tootsie roll pop and staring at her breasts casual as can be. It struck them both funny at the same time. Em gave a little jump once her second sock was on and set her breasts to further bouncing before she grinned and pulled her shirt snugly around them. She ran her fingers through her cap of frizzy, short brown hair, pulled a Chapstick from her jeans pocket, smeared and smacked it around her lips, opened the door and said, “After you, slut.”
Jade gave her a big sticky orange kiss on the cheek and preceded her through the door.
It was snowing big wet flakes as they walked arm and arm down the hill to Smitty’s Campus Bar. The snow had been falling for a while now so the two inches or so on the ground silenced their foot falls. Not many students were still on campus. An eerie sense of intimacy and the sudden passing of youth descended on Jade. After tomorrow so much would change. She wouldn’t return to school -- this campus that had been her first semi-adult home -- for another nine months. She wouldn’t have been able to say for sure if it was joy or sorrow she felt in this moment, but there was some sort of importance here in the walking so quiet and close to Emily.
In the bar the jukebox was playing “Crazy Love” by Van Morrison. Her mom loved that song and Evan did too. Her heart filled with something warm and liquid. So did her eyes.
“Must be love,” said Em. “Want a Bailey’s?”
“Yah sure! You bet ya.” Jade exaggerated her Minnesota dialect, threw an arm over Emily’s shoulder and steered her in the direction of the waiting bartender.
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