Jane Austen Girl (8 page)

Too restless to sleep, she picked up the remote control and flicked through fifty or so channels, not a single one catching her interest.

For the past few hours, she’d immersed herself in work she’d brought along on her laptop, answered e-mails and reviewed her notes for tomorrow’s interviews. All in a futile attempt to avoid thinking about what Priscilla Randall had said about her mother and whether it was true that she was living in the nursing home at the edge of town.

She flicked off the TV and dropped back against the pillows behind her, one arm flung over her eyes. The thought was too horrible to contemplate.

She let herself remember the place now. At Christmas, during her sophomore year in high school, she’d gone there with the choir to visit with the residents and sing carols. They’d taken along hot chocolate and cookies, as well as some gifts she’d quickly realized were the only ones most of them would be getting that holiday. Before leaving they’d sung one last song,
Oh Come, All Ye Faithful
, and she’d stood in the back row, looking out at the faces staring up at them with such gratitude. That was the part that humbled her, lifted sobs from deep inside her so that she could only stand there, mute, tears streaming down her cheeks.

She pictured her mother now sitting in that audience of faces, and an actual pain knifed through her chest. Even all those years ago, the place had been a rundown, sad excuse for an ending. Maybe someone had bought it and turned it into something different than what it had been then. But judging from the look on Priscilla Randall’s face when she’d mentioned it earlier, that wasn’t too likely.

What had she expected, though? For most of Grier’s childhood, her mama had lived her life paycheck-to-paycheck, bottle of booze to bottle of booze.

Truthfully, she guessed she’d imagined her finally finding a decent man to love her. She wasn’t sure what kind of logic she could possibly attach to this assumption, since a decent man had never once managed to find his way to her mother’s door while she’d been living with her.

Guilt nagged low inside her now, even as she determined to push it back. Choices, she reminded herself. Life was all about choices. Every single one mattered somewhere down the line. For the bad ones, there was eventually a price to pay.

And still.

She was her mother.

A knock sounded at the door. She sat straight up on the bed, startled out of her misery. Sebbie woke up and started barking. “Shh,” she said. “It’s probably just Beaner with some ice.” He’d already been up three times, once with a newspaper, once with flowers and the last time with complimentary coffee and dessert.

Sebbie resumed his position, head on his paws, eyes wide open.

She reached for a robe to pull over her cotton pajamas and went to the door. But the man standing outside was not Beaner. The man outside her door was Bobby Jack Randall, Darryl Lee’s brother.

She stared at him, at a loss.

He stared back.

“Could I help you with something?” she finally managed, pulling her robe closed at the neck.

He shook his head, blinked hard. “I—you’re—”

“Grier McAllister,” she finished for him. “We met this afternoon. With Darryl Lee.”

“Yeah. I know,” he said, running a hand through wavy black hair. “I thought you were—”

“The current wedge in your brother’s marriage.”

He folded his arms across his expansive chest, giving her a long look. “And you’re not?”

“Hardly. Look, Mr. Randall, would you like to tell me how you found my room?”

He hesitated and then admitted, “Beaner Purdy’s a sucker for banana splits.”

“Ah. Nice to know the security here is of such high standards. Is there something I can do for you, Mr. Randall?”

“You’re doing the interviews for that show –
Dream Date
?”

He said the show’s name as if it left a bitter taste in his mouth. “I am,” she said, bristling a little.

“Could we talk for a minute?”

“Sure,” she said, waving a hand for him to continue.

He glanced over his shoulder and then back at her, his green eyes lasering her to the spot. “Somewhere a little more public,” he said, his gaze lifting over her shoulder to the room behind her.

She tightened the belt of her robe, cleared her throat. “Mr. Randall, I was about to go to bed. I’m expecting a long day tomorrow.”

“It’s Bobby Jack. And please, this won’t take long.”

She glanced back at Sebbie, now studying them both through eyes at half-mast, his chin still resting on his paws. “Why don’t I meet you downstairs? Give me a few minutes to change.”

“Thanks,” he said, taking a step back. “I’d appreciate it.”

He turned and headed for the elevator while she stood for a moment, noticing the ways in which he favored Darryl Lee. An athlete’s build. Wide shoulders, long legs. And yet, there was a noticeable difference, too. In high school, Darryl Lee’s walk had defined confidence. Bobby Jack’s took it a step further, and she could imagine that he wasn’t used to taking no for an answer.

Maybe he needed some practice.

DOWNSTAIRS, SHE FOUND HIM
waiting for her in a sitting area off the main lobby. Lamplight threw soft shadows across the sofa and chairs arranged in the center of the room. Upon spotting her, he stood, wiping his hands down the front of his blue jeans, as if he were nervous.

“Please,” he said. “Sit down.”

She took the chair opposite his corner of the couch, crossed her legs and said, “Mr. Randall, what can I do for you?”

He studied her for several long moments, until she began to feel uncomfortable under his assessing gaze. “I mean you no disrespect, Ms. McAllister, but this thing you’re doing here tomorrow. I don’t want my daughter to have any part of it.”

For a moment, Grier had no idea what to say, the disapproval in his tone impossible to miss. And not a little insulting. “How old is your daughter?”

“Sixteen.”

“Well, since she’s under eighteen, there’s a consent form. It has to be signed by a parent.”

“That would be her mother.”

“Let me guess. Priscilla.”

“I believe you two met this afternoon.”

“Yes. We did.”

“Priscilla thinks this is a good thing for our daughter. I don’t.”

Grier sat up in her chair, tugging at the collar of her blouse. She suddenly felt as if she’d arrived in Timbell Creek pulling a trailer full of snake oil. “I’m not sure what you’ve been told about the show—”

“I know enough,” he interrupted. “Andy’s a smart girl. She doesn’t need something like this.”

“And what exactly is this?”

“Frankly?”

“By all means,” she said.

“Nonsense.”

She managed a short laugh. “That’s frank.”

“As I said, I mean no disrespect.”

“Mr. Randall—”

“Bobby Jack.”

“Bobby Jack,” she said, attempting to keep her voice even, “I’m obviously an outsider, but it seems to me that the person you’re disrespecting here is your daughter.”

Heat flared in his eyes, and she could see that she’d overstepped her boundaries.

“You know nothing about my daughter,” he said.

“You’re right. I don’t. And you’re also right that there’s no Nobel Prize waiting for the winner of this contest. But neither is there a bloody death or a one-way ticket to life-is-over-as-you-know-it.”

He sat for a good minute without responding. Grier determined to wait him out. “I’m not criticizing other people’s choices,” he finally said. “Frankly, I don’t care what other people do. But I do care about my daughter and what happens to her. You’re not here to watch out for her best interest. You’re here to pick some girl who’s going to think she’s won a fairy tale when the ending will not be happily ever after.”

Despite her best efforts at composure, Grier wilted a little beneath the heat of the words. “And how do you know that?” she asked, her voice not as steady as she would have liked.

He stood up abruptly and headed for the door. “Because,” he said, turning to glance back at her, “there’s no such thing, Ms. McAllister. And that I know for a fact.”

When I look in the mirror, what I see is someone I never wanted to be.

Andy Randall in a chat room confession

at LivingSolo.com

CHAPTER EIGHT

Andy sat in front of her computer screen, staring at the blinking cursor. When the conversations got too personal, the questions too intense, she just backed out. That was the great thing about the Internet. Now you see her. Now you don’t. A girl could be her own Houdini.

She closed her eyes, leaned her head against the desk chair. She heard her father’s voice, his words pounding at her temples.
Maybe you could tell her how to get pregnant and force the guy to marry her.

Somewhere deep inside, maybe she’d always known the truth. She wondered now if this was something a baby could feel, even inside its mother, whether it was wanted or not.

For Andy, hearing the truth was like throwing light across the nagging feeling she’d always had about her parents’ marriage. She got up and walked over to the bed, dropping onto the pillows. She rolled over and curled up in a ball, her knees drawn tight against her chest.

From beneath her bed, Tangerine meowed, then shimmied out and jumped up beside her. She rubbed a hand across the back of the orange tabby cat, smiling a little as he arched high, his tail straight in the air.

He meowed again, then leaned down to rub his face against hers. She pulled him close and held him in the curve of her arm while he began to purr, the noise rising in volume until it sounded like the idling engine of a small car.

She’d spotted him on the side of the road one morning when her daddy had been driving her to school. At first, she’d thought it might be a little roll of yarn someone had tossed out the window, but after seeing it move, Andy had pleaded with him to stop. They’d pulled over to the side of the road, and she’d jumped out, running back to the spot where the little orange kitten sat, mewling. As gently as she could, Andy had picked him up, a soft cry of despair erupting from her throat at the sight of his crusted-together eyes and the little body that was nothing but fur and bones.

They’d driven him straight to the vet who’d pronounced him blind from the infection that had gone too far to save his vision. With the realization that he would never see, Andy had cupped the tiny kitten to her chest and promised she would take care of him for the rest of his life.

And she had.

He never left her room, his food and water bowl always placed in the same spot where he knew to find them. The same for his litter box. He roamed the room as if he could see every inch of it, napping on the windowsill in the afternoon sun, waiting by the door for her return and pouncing on her shoestrings when she did with absolute joy for the game.

Sometimes, Flo would sleep with them at night, and the cat would curl up on the pillow beside the dog’s head, purring them both to sleep.

Andy wished all love could be as simple as her love for Tangerine and his for her. It really wasn’t that complicated, was it? Love was just needing and being needed. People made it complicated. Her mom. Her dad. Kyle.

A knock at the door made her jump. “Andy. Honey. Please. Let’s talk.”

She heard the worry beneath each word in her father’s voice and squeezed her eyes shut tight, refusing to let herself care. “I think I’ve heard about all I need to hear for one night,” she said.

“Let’s not leave things like this.”

“Not now, Daddy. I don’t want to talk now.”

Silence. And then finally, she heard his footsteps receding down the hallway.

For now, she wasn’t going to think about her mother or her father or Kyle. She would focus on what was immediately ahead and nothing else. Winning the Jane Austen Girl contest. She put on her pajamas and climbed into bed. Tangerine curled up next to her, and under his soft roar of contentment, Andy finally closed her eyes and went to sleep.

Inner peace has its own stamp of beauty. Settle up with your old issues. Left unresolved, they can fume away inside you like a toxic chemical and eventually make their way to the surface in the form of worry lines and other signs of premature aging.

Grier McAllister - Blog at Jane Austen Girl

CHAPTER NINE

Grier tossed and turned until the clock by the bed blinked a mocking 3:15, after which she fell into a thin, restless sleep that left her groggy and grouchy when the alarm went off at six a.m.

She shrugged into enough clothing to appear decent and then trekked outside with Sebbie to do his morning routine. He sniffed several bushes and a half-acre or so of grass, before finally relenting and taking care of the serious stuff.

Back in the room, a look in the mirror made her wish for a couple more hours under the covers. But the group meeting was scheduled for eight o’clock, and she wanted to be prepared. She stood under the warm spray of the shower, thinking about last night’s visit from Bobby Jack Randall, and its ensuing effect on her sleep.

 The man had nerve, she’d give him that. She wasn’t sure whether to feel sorry for or envious of his daughter. She wondered what it would have been like to have a father like that when she was growing up. Someone to walk along in front of her, not only willing, but insistent on pointing out the hairpin curves as they appeared on his radar.

Was that what she looked like to Bobby Jack Randall? A hairpin curve he was convinced could only throw his daughter off track?

Something about the assumption bothered her.

But then something about the man himself bothered her, too.

Maybe it was the arrogance. It was different from Darryl Lee’s cockiness, an attribute that had always been so obvious as to be inoffensive, sort of like Wile E. Coyote and the Road Runner.

Bobby Jack’s dismissal of her and the reason she’d come here had nothing to do with surface level interpretations, but with his own gut check that obviously told him she and her sideshow, as he saw it, were bad news.