The Trouble With J.J. (19 page)

She stood on Jared’s front porch, fidgeting. He had insisted she be there when the family arrived. Right off the bat she had thought that wasn’t such a hot idea. She had protested, pointing out to him that he should let everyone settle in and relax before trying to make introductions. But trying to get
Jared to see reason when he didn’t want to was as futile as trying to balance Otis Paige on the head of a pin.

So she stood on the porch with her hands buried in the pockets of her khaki shorts, scuffing up her loafers as she nervously bent her feet over on their sides and back. She wished Bernice hadn’t abandoned her to go bowling; it would have been nice to see another familiar face in what she imagined would be a sea of loony Hennessys.

“When are they coming?” Alyssa asked for the millionth time as she tugged at the leg band of her lacy white panties.

“Soon, honey.” Genna bent to smooth down the girl’s navy and white dress yet again.

“You said that a long time ago,” Alyssa said with a scowl.

“Well, it takes a long time to get here from the airport.”

“What if they never get here? What if they get lost?”

“They won’t get lost. Your dad knows how to get there and back.”

“What if he forgets?”

“He won’t.”

“What if—”

The Dennisons’ burgundy van screamed around the corner and slid to a jolting halt in front of Jared’s house. All the doors opened at once and people spilled out of it talking a mile a minute. Alyssa bounded off the porch and dashed for the group. Genna remained rooted to the spot in frozen shock. Suddenly a grinning Jared grabbed her by the arm and dragged her into the middle of the crowd to make introductions before anyone even made it to the house.

Bill Hennessy, Jared’s father, stood all of five feet nine inches tall and was built like a whip. He had a full head of gray-streaked nut-brown hair which he wore long and slicked back. He was a handsome man. Jared had obviously inherited his father’s short straight nose and strong jaw. Clad in old jeans and a loud red Hawaiian shirt, Bill nodded pleasantly through the introduction, never stopped chewing his bubble gum, and immediately wandered off toward the garage jotting down notes in a green steno pad with a felt-tip pen.

“Dad has lots of ideas,” Jared explained enthusiastically, swinging Genna toward his mother. He nearly had to shout to be heard above the racket. “Mom. Mom! This is Genna.”

Grace Hennessy broke off her conversation with
one of the other Hennessys and turned to look down at Genna with eyes so blue they were almost startling. Grace was six feet tall if she was an inch and possessed a magnificent mane of raven-black hair. She wore what could be described only as a “flowing robe,” a long, layered, diaphanous caftan in lavender and deep purple. A trio of wide silver bracelets rattled on her arm as she reached out to take Genna’s hand. Her smile rivaled the sun for brilliance.

“So you’re Genna. Jared told us all about how you helped him through the ugly business with Simone. We all owe you a huge thank-you, darling.”

Genna blushed as Grace engulfed her in an exuberant embrace. “I didn’t really do all that much,” she protested.

Grace ignored her remark and pinned her son with a meaningful stare. “I’m so glad we survived the drive from the airport so we could meet you, Genna.”

“Mom,” Jared said between his teeth.

Grace pressed onward, undaunted, “Jared couldn’t get us here fast enough, could you, Jared?”

Genna shot him a curious glance. He was blushing like a sheepish teenager.

“Now, Mom—”

“And I can see why,” Grace continued, a familiar twinkle in her eye as she ignored her sputtering son and gave her full attention back to Genna. “But he really should have gotten a ticket—”

“Mom!”

“He must have scared a year off the lives of those little nuns in the VW.”

By now Genna was biting her lip. Grace was giving Jared a little of his own medicine which, Genna thought, he richly deserved. She felt an instant bond with Grace.

“I tried to tell that officer to go ahead and write the ticket, but—”

“You got stopped?” Genna asked, trying hard not to laugh at the fierce look on J.J.’s face. “And no ticket? Just how fast were you going?”

“Not that fast.”

“Sixty-five in a forty mile zone,” Grace supplied.

Jared scowled at his mother and steered Genna away.

“The trooper was a Hawks fan?” Genna suggested sweetly.

“Meet my aunt Roberta, Genna,” he said quickly, his look clearly telling her the previous
subject was being dropped. “Aunt Roberta, this is Genna. Genna, my mother’s sister, Roberta Palmer.”

“Nice to meet you.” Genna smiled.

“Oh, my word, J.J.!” Roberta exclaimed in a voice as rough as sandpaper. A cigarette bobbed up and down on her lip. She was a thin, birdlike creature with a bird’s nest of gray hair and black brows that winged over glassy green eyes. “She’s a
doll!
A doll.” Her eyes bore right through Genna. “Oh, honey, you’re just a
doll!”

“Th-thank you,” Genna stammered, not quite certain how to react.

“She’s a doughnut or two shy of a dozen,” Jared whispered, tapping a finger to his temple as he herded Genna toward yet another Hennessy.

There was his elder brother, James, a priest. Alyssa called him “Uncle Father.” And youngest sister, Marie, who was seventeen and in training to make the Olympic team as a figure skater. Rounding out the group was the youngest brother, Bryan, a graduate student of parapsychology at Purdue.

The plan was for the group to stay the week, with more family members arriving on the weekend for Grace’s surprise birthday party. Grace and
Bill were staying on to take care of Alyssa while Jared was away at training camp.

The bulk of the group disappeared into the house, leaving Jared and Genna standing on the sidewalk.

“So, what do you think?” Jared asked, his expression boyishly expectant.

“Oh … they’re …” Genna felt shell-shocked. Her head bobbed around as if the action might jar loose an appropriate word. “Overwhelming.”

“Yeah.” He grinned. “They’re great, huh?”

“Eeeek!”

A blood-curdling scream prevented further discussion and sent the two of them tearing into the house and up the stairs on the heels of the rest of the family. Aunt Roberta staggered out of the bathroom into the hall, where everyone stood staring at her.

“Oh, mercy, J.J.!” she gasped, clutching his arm. “There’s a dead woman in your bathtub? How the hell did she get there?”

All eyes swiveled to Jared, who said, “She’s not dead, she’s a dummy.”

Roberta clucked at him and glanced askance at James. “Don’t be disrespectful of the dead, J.J. Not in front of a priest.”

Genna peered in the bathroom door. Candy the mannequin sat in the bathtub wearing a red and white striped towel and a polka dot shower cap, a back brush taped in her hand.

“She was out of your sight there,” Jared said in answer to Genna’s raised eyebrow.

“The back brush is a nice touch,” James said.

“She couldn’t hold on to the loofah,” Jared explained.

Everyone nodded in agreement.

Genna closed her eyes and leaned her forehead against the doorframe.

Half an hour later, when everyone was gathering in the dining room for lunch, Roberta pulled Jared aside.

“J.J., honey, I don’t know what you paid for this house, but I think you ought to know there are birds nesting upstairs.”

“Birds?” Jared glanced at Genna, who glanced at Roberta and back to Jared.

“Birds. I went into the closet in my room and there they were.” She took a long drag on her cigarette and exhaled a stream of blue smoke. “Damn near had a heart attack. Heart attack. You’ve never seen the like; they’re huge and pink.”

Genna bit her lip and turned away, the mental
image of Aunt Roberta discovering a stand of flamingos in the closet was almost more than she could handle.

Roberta tapped Jared’s shoulder. “You’d better get them out of there, honey, or they’ll make a hell of a mess.”

Life was certainly anything but dull with Jared’s family in residence. His house was constantly bustling with activity. Bill was forever busy with his notes and diagrams and trips to the garage that involved some secret project. Bryan had the upstairs of the house booby-trapped with electronic contraptions to detect any paranormal behavior; Aunt Roberta kept setting them off. When Grace wasn’t regaling the neighborhood kids with one-woman dramatizations of fairy tales, she was sneaking off to enjoy a secret cigarette (she had supposedly quit smoking two years before). The Hennessy siblings were always involved in some sport in the yard.

They were a diverse and overwhelming group, and Genna felt about as interesting as a wet newspaper when she was around them. She liked Jared’s family, but all their unique qualities cast one glaring
spotlight on her ordinariness. It had never bothered her that she was an ordinary sort of person. In fact, she had always made an effort to be as ordinary as possible. Now she suddenly found it depressing, and it was doubly depressing because she never had a minute alone with Jared and triply depressing because he didn’t seem to care.

On one level Genna understood his desire to be with his family. They lived all over the country, and he didn’t often get to see them. But on another level, where new love had only just taken root, she didn’t understand at all.

Jared was leaving in a matter of days. In Genna’s mind the date of his departure was a deadline. It would mark the end of their summer romance. Jared hadn’t said or done anything to make her think differently. They had never spoken of a future together, and the more time she spent with his family, the more convinced she became that they wouldn’t have one.

She’d known all along she was no more Jared’s type than he was hers. He might like her as a friend and occasional lover, but eventually he would want someone unique, more exciting than a kindergarten teacher and compulsive cook. Maybe that was what he was trying to tell her by insisting
she come to dinner every night while his family was there. He was probably hoping she would take the hint and bow out gracefully.

The wonder was that he’d been attracted to her at all. Jared was an attractive, athletic, popular man. She was from the studious, sensible-shoes group. The two didn’t mix. It wasn’t anything personal, it was just chemistry. She’d known about that since junior high.

She’d been right all along in looking for a man from her own social group. A nice, staid business-type guy wouldn’t keep her off balance with his outrageous antics or make her bones turn to cottage cheese with his searing kisses and crushing embraces. There was more to life than raucous fun and unbridled lust. There was constancy, stability, life insurance, golf, and boredom.

All that to look forward to, and she’d spent the whole summer with the wrong man. Well, she was a modern woman, a woman of the eighties. Modern women had affairs like this all the time. They enjoyed men like entrees at a buffet, savoring one then moving on down the table of life to the next without a second thought.

Then why did she feel so miserable?

Because you love him, stupid, and there isn’t anything modern about you, she told herself.

Genna simply wasn’t capable of giving her love casually. Nor was she capable of sustaining a relationship indefinitely without a commitment.

She wanted something lasting with Jared, but for all her outward appearance of self-assurance, the plain unvarnished truth was that she was scared. She was scared to ask Jared for more, for fear of losing him as a friend. They’d had an understanding going into this relationship; now she wanted to renege on the deal and cling to him like ivy to a brick building.

What would he think of her if he knew that? Simple. He’d feel sorry for her, be embarrassed for her, maybe even be angry. She knew; she’d been through it all before.

It would be better, safer, to just let the flame die out. She would let him go, and she would get over him just as she had promised herself. At least that way she would still have a very good friend and she would still have her pride.

She sat on the edge of Jared’s patio with her chin on her drawn-up knees, watching Jared, Marie, Bryan, and Father James play touch football with Jared’s Super Bowl game ball. Jared’s every move
was so unconsciously graceful, it made Genna’s breath catch in her throat. His body was one finely tuned human machine. And he had a great fanny too.

The evening was uncomfortably warm. Jared wore nothing but a pair of silky electric blue running shorts and sneakers. When he moved just right, Genna could glimpse the delicious little curve of his muscle where thigh met buttock. The feel of that meaty swell beneath her fingers as they made love was too vivid in her memory, and she had to glance away, catching Grace’s watchful eyes on her.

“I suppose a mother shouldn’t say so,” Grace said airily, “but the boy’s got a bod to die for.”

Genna smiled. “That’s the general consensus.”

“Jimmy?” Roberta’s black brows bobbed over her glassy eyes. She recrossed her legs and tapped the ash off her cigarette on the arm of her lawn chair. “He’s a priest, for heaven’s sake, Gracie!”

“Not James. Jared, darling. Though I willingly admit with a mother’s pride that all my children are beautiful.” Grace held her arms out to Alyssa, her eyes glowing with love. “And my grandchildren. Come sit with Gramma, Alyssa.”

Alyssa smiled her shy smile and climbed onto
Grace’s generous lap, abandoning her game of tug-of-war with Flurry. The puppy ran off with a sock in his mouth.

“My stars, she looks just like you, Gracie. Just like you.” Roberta puffed on her cigarette, tapped it on the chair arm again, and looked down at Genna. “Doesn’t she look just like Gracie, Jeannine?”

“Yes.” Genna didn’t bother to correct the slip on her name. Roberta hadn’t called her the same thing twice yet. “You do look like your grandma, Lyss.”

Alyssa and Grace appeared mutually pleased by that news. Alyssa wrapped the voluminous sleeve of her grandmother’s white and lilac gown around her arm.

“You wear such pretty dresses, Gramma.”