Freaks of Greenfield High (22 page)

Caro interrupted her little sugar-rush. “What’re you going to feed us? And more importantly, when? Starving, here!”

“Caro,” Tyler scolded. “Don’t be so damn rude. Where’re your manners?”

His sister smirked at him. “Next thing you’ll be digging up napkins and wanting Jay to set the table with the
good
—” she formed quote marks with her fingers “—crockery. What are you? Our mom?”

“Ignore her, Jay,” Tyler advised. “She’s practically a savage until she gets fed.”

The savage sauntered over to sprawl on the settee. “So what’s it to be? Burgers? Pizza? Hope it’s pizza. I haven’t had pizza in ages.” She sniffed the air. “Though it doesn’t smell like pizza.”

Jay quirked an eyebrow. “You don’t think much of my abilities as a chef, do you? I thought we’d start off with
San Jacobos
, which are a type of Tapas. Then I’ve made Pork Cassoulet for our main and—”

“Pork Casso-what?” Tyler asked.

“Cassoulet. It’s a well-known French dish based on white beans cooked with pork, bacon, sausages and a variety of other ingredients. I realize that it’s more winter fare, but it was a favorite of my father’s and I wanted to share it with you.”

“Uh, right. Sounds pretty fancy.”

“And like you went to far too much trouble,” Tyler chimed in.

“It was no trouble.” Jay waved a hand to indicate the slow cooker on the bench. She’d assembled the ingredients this morning, and put the cooker on a timer to turn on at mid-morning. She lifted the lid to gave the contents a stir, and switched the dial to High. “I just have to pan-fry the sausages and add them to the cassoulet, then it’ll be ready in about thirty minutes.”

Tyler wandered over to peer over her shoulder. “Looks pretty good,” was his considered opinion. He inhaled, closing his eyes. “Smells even better. And what’s for dessert?”

“Little pots of chocolate.”

“Little pots of chocolate?” Caro asked.

“I think she means instant pudding,” Tyler told his sister.

Jay opened her mouth to explain there was nothing “instant” about her melted chocolate, double cream and egg mixture which had been flavored with pure vanilla essence and a dash of brandy, and then thought better of it. “Yes,” she said. “That’s exactly what I mean. There’s ice-cream, too.”

“Yum!” Caro said, which Jay gathered signified approval of the dessert menu, at least.

“Where’re these Tapa thingies?” Tyler asked.

“In the refrigerator on the large white platter. If you wouldn’t mind taking them over to the coffee table while I finish up here? Paper napkins are in the cupboard to the left. Don’t feel you have to wait for me. If you’re hungry then help yourselves.”

“Sure thing.”

Tyler performed his chores while Jay fished a pan from a cupboard. From the corner of her eye, she noted her guests exchanging mystified looks over the platter of Tapas. She considered reassuring them as to the edibility of the Spanish appetizers by listing the ingredients and explaining the cooking method, but decided showcasing her knowledge would only make the situation worse.

Perhaps she should have gone with her first instincts, which had been to provide numerous bags of potato chips. But she’d wanted to cook something special for Tyler. Obviously she still had a lot to learn about acting “normal”.

Her guests seemed to have reached an agreement which involved them counting to three, and simultaneously popping an appetizer into their mouths.

“This is really tasty!” Caro sounded so astonished Jay couldn’t help smiling. “What are they called again?”

“
San Jacobos
.”

“Fancy name for ham and cheese fried in breadcrumbs?” Caro guessed.

“Exactly. They’re often served hot but as I had to make them this morning—” Jay shrugged, and for once the gesture felt natural and not forced. “I’m told they’re equally delicious served cold.”

Tyler crammed another one in his mouth. “They sure are,” came his muffled response.

“You must have gotten up really early this morning,” Caro probed.

“Something like that.” In truth, she hadn’t gone to bed.

In the short time it took to brown the spicy sausages and add them to the cassoulet, Tyler had made huge inroads into the Tapas. In fact, Caro had taken possession of the platter and adamantly refused to relinquish it until Jay had sampled some.

“You’re such a guts!” she complained to her brother. “Anyone’d think you got worms.”

“I’m a growing boy. Hand ’em over.”

“No way. And the only thing growing on you is the moldy crust ’round your barely-used brain. That, and your expanding stomach if you eat any more of these things.”

The banter—insults—flew thick and fast, and Jay watched, fascinated. She regretted the silence that descended shortly after she served the main dish and her guests, now confident of her cooking abilities, turned their attentions to the contents of their bowls.

“That was fricking fantastic.” Tyler had eaten two helpings. He groaned and slid back on the settee ’til he was completely horizontal. He patted his stomach. “Don’t think I could manage another thing.”

“Pity,” she said. “I’ve been told my chocolate pudding is heavenly.”

“Heavenly, huh? Maybe I could find room for some.” He groaned again and closed his eyes. “Just give me five minutes to digest.”

Caro threw Jay a mischievous look, cautioned her to silence with a finger to her lips, and edged from her chair. She tiptoed over to Tyler and pounced on him, kneeling on his legs and tickling his ribs.

Jay grinned. She was merciless.

“Gerroff!” Tyler did his best to fend her off but Caro had the advantage. “Dude!” he yelled at Jay. “Some help here?”

Jay shook her head. “I don’t think it would be wise for me to interfere with sibling rivalry.”

He managed to roll off the settee. Caro threw a cushion at him and the play-fight began in earnest.

Jay’s grin grew wider still. She found herself wishing Father had created another like her, someone she could have talked to, confided in, shared dreams with…. Beaten up in a mock fight.

Her grin turned wry. What a ridiculous fantasy. She had been created to be self-sufficient in every way. She had no need of friends. She did not require companionship. She—

The cushion that smacked into her face was a most effective end to her introspection.

Caro howled with laughter. “Gotcha!”

Jay reached behind her and launched a cushion unerringly in Caro’s direction. It caught her right in the midriff.

“Ooof!” Caro wheezed. “Hey, easy on the missiles, Champ! You’ve got a heck of an arm on you, I’ll say that much.”

Tyler didn’t bother to throw his cushion. He walloped the back of Jay’s head with it instead. “Hah! Gotcha, too.”

When she turned to face this new threat, Caro took the opportunity to grab another cushion and whack her on the back.

“Hey!” Cushion-less and outnumbered, Jay fended off both antagonists with her hands, taking care not to hurt them with her superior strength. “That’s no way to treat your host. What would your mom say?”

They merely sniggered and walloped her with renewed vigor. The cushion fight soon degenerated into a full-on wrestling match, with a heap of tickling thrown in. Jay wasn’t ticklish, but she crowed with laughter along with her guests. Even though she had to hold herself in check, she hadn’t had so much fun since….

Ever.

Tyler’s flailing foot knocked the empty platter from the coffee table and Jay, intent on escaping Caro’s nimble fingers, rolled atop it. She felt it shatter beneath her and surged to her feet.

Caro and Tyler both froze, eyes wide with chagrin.

“Shit! Sorry, Jay.” Tyler reached out to pick up one of the larger shards of crockery.

“Leave it,” she told him, concerned that he would cut himself. “I’ll clean it up. And don’t worry, the platter was old but hardly an antique. No harm done.”

“Actually,” Caro said, her voice sounding wobbly and strange, “there has been harm done. Look.” She’d risen to her knees to point at Jay, but now she sank back against the settee, her face pale beneath her makeup, the pupils of her eyes hugely dilated with shock.

“What’s wrong, sis?” Tyler was instantly solicitous. “You not feeling too hot or something?”

“N-not me. J-Jay. She’s hurt. Her arm. Oh God. Tyler, do something!”

Jay glanced down at arm. “Oh.”

“Shit!” Tyler stared at her, obviously appalled by all the blood. Or perhaps it was the large shard of crockery piercing Jay’s biceps.

Jay yanked up her sleeve to better examine the injury. She extracted the shard from her flesh and let it drop to the floor. The slash bled freely. Blood dribbled down her arm.

Caro made a strangled noise, and Jay glanced up to see she had turned an even paler shade of white beneath her makeup. “Call 911,” she told her brother in a voice that was husky with shock and fear.

“Unnecessary,” Jay said.

“You’re so gonna need stitches,” Caro insisted.

“I won’t. I’ll be fine.”

“No freaking way will you be fine!” Tyler yelled.

Jay pinched the wound together with her fingertips. “The bleeding will stop soon.”

They both stared at her, disbelief straining their eyes, creasing their faces, hunching their bodies. “I could do with a soda, though,” she said, not because she was thirsty but because she hoped to break the tension.

“Get her a soda, Tyler.” Caro’s gaze remained fixed on Jay as her brother leaped to do her bidding. “You really should get that seen to,” she said, visibly shaking off her shock and trying her best to assume a parental role. “If you’ve got some phobia about hospitals or doctors, and you’re scared to go on your own, we’ll come too.”

Jay smiled gently at her. “Thank you, Caro. But it’s not that I’m scared of doctors, it’s that I truly don’t need the attentions of one.”

“Bullshit.” The slight tremble in Caro’s voice betrayed her.

Jay gave her wound one final squeeze with her fingers. She performed an internal diagnostic. Given the depth of the wound, it’d take a couple of hours to heal completely but it was hardly a serious injury. Turning aside so Caro couldn’t see what she was doing, she licked her fingers to coat them with saliva and brushed them down the already knitting slash. Her saliva would further speed up the healing process and ensure that her dermis healed without scarring. She swiped the blood from her skin with her fingers and then licked them clean.

She heard a muffled imprecation and looked up to see Tyler’s horrified face. He’d seen her administering to her wound. He’d noted how quickly it was healing.

Wordlessly he handed Jay the soda and then joined his sister, sitting on the floor by the settee and leaning up against Caro’s knees. He appeared to draw comfort from the physical contact.

Jay considered the situation, running various scenarios and options. Logically, she knew she could—and should—provide some feasible explanation for what Tyler and Caro had witnessed. But her programming stuttered when factoring in the human equation of friendship. And trust.

She ignored her programming. Again. “You should make yourselves comfortable,” she said, popping the tab on her soda. “Both of you. I have something to tell you.”

In eerie unison, Tyler and Caro levered themselves up onto the settee. They sat very close together, knees touching, united in the face of something strange and disturbing.

She envied them their closeness. She’d shared some of that today—enough to know she’d give all she possessed to have more. But once she told them her secret, their freely offered friendship would die, to be replaced by fear and loathing…. Loathing of her. And everything that she was.

Jay wouldn’t taint their friendship by lying about what they’d seen. She would tell the truth. And then she would do what she always did: Cover her tracks and run. A pall mantled her at the thought of leaving this town—of leaving Tyler, giving him up. Even Caro now held a place in what Jay had come to think of as her heart. She liked having a female friend to “hang with”.

She gazed about her apartment, the place she’d tried to make a home. And wondered whether she had injured something more than merely her arm, for everything about her abruptly seemed drab, colorless, lifeless. She felt….

What did she feel?

She analyzed the waves of unfamiliar emotion. And was forced to conclude what she felt right now was similar to what she’d felt when Father had sacrificed the remaining few months of his life to protect her. She felt immeasurably sad, as though she’d lost something precious.

But why did she feel sad? Why did she feel anything at all?

That, she could not answer. So she drank off her soda and crumpled the empty can in her fist, shaping it into a sphere with her fingertips. Without looking, she lobbed it over her shoulder toward the kitchen. The missile arced towards the stainless steel bin she’d placed next to the counter for recycling purposes. It hit the domed lid at precisely the correct angle to set it swinging open. The can popped through the opening, landing with a tinny thud before the lid swung back. “Slam dunk,” she said.