Jack Who?

CHAPTER 17

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POURING SPICED CREAMER into her cup, Olivia stirred without a word, and Marissa knew what her friend was thinking but was too nice to say.

     ‘And look how that worked out.’

     But, Jack was not like Kel.

     In just a couple of days of being with him, and a couple of weeks on the phone, she found in him an integrity that so many men were lacking. He had been a fantasy beyond her reach for so long, and now that he was within her grasp, she knew she was franticly clutching.

     “Liv,” she implored willing her friend to understand. “I know that I shouldn’t be playing games. But I feel like he is so far above me, that it’s the only way to win him. And I want him more than I have ever wanted anyone or anything except Tristan.”

     Olivia watched as she ripped a napkin to shreds in her nervousness, and made one last valiant effort to talk some sense into her, but Marissa held firm.

     It felt important that Jack see that she had options, and that she was not some desperate white trash mom, or some grown up groupie.

     “Fine,” Olivia drug the word out and promptly punched in the call to her husband.

     Less than an hour later, the double date between the four of them, Olivia, Michael, Joel, and Marissa was set. They would have an innocent meal at an upscale Italian restaurant.

     Reconciled to the date, Olivia took in Marissa’s appearance and asked, “Want to raid my closet?”

     Marissa did more than borrow a slinky black dress from her friend.

     Olivia sat with Tristan the next day while Marissa sat in a salon having professional highlights streaked through her hair and a trendy trim to the long, layered length. On the day that Jack was to arrive, she did her own nails while Tristan napped off his Tylenol. The physical therapy session that morning had shown optimistic improvements. Tristan was moving about with his crutches better than ever before, and seeing that put a happy spark in her eyes.

     Jack sent a text that he was on the ground, and she knew that soon he would be in a rent car navigating an electronic map to their little house.

     Pulling a shirt from the dryer, she tossed it to Tristan who was in his tiny recliner with his tablet.

     “Why do I have to wear this?”

     “Because Jack is coming over and you need a clean shirt.”

     At the reminder of Jack’s visit, his eyes lit, but he stubbornly pushed the shirt away. “I want my red shirt.”

     Tristan spoke of his shirt with the flaming guitar across the front, faded from so many washes. The hem of the borrowed black dress had a tendency to ride up, and pulling at it, she rushed to the utility room where she rooted through the dryer for the requested shirt. Tristan pulled it over his head just as the doorbell chimed.

     Shoving the two shirts Tristan was not wearing deep down in the side cushion of the couch, she straightened and gave her clingy skirt another yank managing to work it to a few inches above her knees. Her heels clicked as she crossed the hall floor to the door.

     Peeking through the peephole was a mistake.

     The effect of seeing Jack never lessened, and she froze for a moment taking in the same basic ensemble as both visits to the hospital: jeans, tee shirt, jacket, and hair pulled into a ponytail. A couple of necklaces, one long and one short, were a new addition as well as a flat onyx looking stud in each ear.