I may have my dad’s eyes, but everything else is the spitting image of my mother. I usually like my appearance, it’s unique. Inormally appreciate my dark honey skin tone with light eyes, my wide nose and full lips, but not right now.
“Jacquelyn, I said I don’t want to.”
My heart sinks into my shoes.
At least I had a few minutes.
“Alright,” I say, hands lifted in surrender. I don’t tell her I’m not my mother, Jacquelyn. Understandably, she never forgave my mother for leaving us. Honestly, I’m not sure she ever forgave my mother for being, well, charming.
Gran was ahead of her time. She didn’t care that her soft-spoken,All American Boyson had fallen for a Black Jamaican girl from one town over. Gran instantly loved her grandkids who weren’t exactly the spitting image of her son. But my mother was young, alluring, artistic and free-spirited. She tried to convince my dad to leave Juniper Falls over and over, and when he wouldn’t, she started drinking. When he died, she left without hesitation.
I sniff as I watch the woman who raised me turn and give me her back. I say, “I’ll visit again soon.”
“I wish you wouldn’t,” she spits back.
She’s talking to mom, not me.
I long to hug her again. I ache to tell her I love her, tell her I miss her more than I can even say with stupid, measly, little human words, but the moment is over. There’s no point. To try to reorient her, try to convince her or explain, to go on at all, for myself, will only bring her discomfort. I won’t do that to her.
I nod, sniff, shrug and wave goodbye. Then I leave.
I head back to the Mellman’s office, totally off my game. The grim reaper actually startles me as I pass into my department. I took an early lunch to see Gran but didn’t eat, so now I’m emotionally drained and starving and distracted. I grab a beef jerky from my blood sugar stash in my desk and log back in on my work desktop.
Calm comes over me as I get back into the most recent spreadsheet I had open. The numbers are simple and concrete. Sure, there are 2,121,008 dollars and fifty cents missing, but I’ll find them.
Because numbers don’t lie. They don’t gamble or charm or drink or leave or lose their memories or any of the awful crap humans do in the real world. I put on white noise in my noise-canceling headphones. Screw the real world.
I can’t fix Gran.
I can’t fix Jack.
I can’t fix the fact that I have to move in with Benedict tomorrow.
But last year’s numbers? Now that, I can fix.
_____
I put my headphones in my desk drawer and stretch. I did a lot of work today. A huge lot of mustard had been mislabeled, to the tune of 425,352 dollars. My eyes are stinging from staring so long, or from my emotional lunch break. I close them and take a breath as I pop my back.
I pull out my phone and notice two missed calls from the billionaire.
Janie: What’s up?
Benedict Clark: I wanted to deviate from our plans
Janie: Don’t love that.
Benedict Clark: Hence the phone call. Care to return it?
Janie: I’m about to drive home.
Benedict Clark: Okay, well there’s this grand invention called speaker phone, we could try it.
I smile but don’t reply. I didn’t notice when people started leaving at five. It’s almost six. I guess I really was thrown off today. I walk out of the front door and inhale. You can really smell the seasons in Juniper Falls. I didn’t realize that was a thing until moving to New York where it kind of just always smells like whatever corner of the city you live in.
Here, it’s definitely fall. People are grilling, so there’s a smoky smell but it’s not the same as the fireplace smoke of winter. The breeze is crisp and spiced. The sun is setting, a few leaves crunch under my feet.
I breathe deeply, feeling refreshed by the air after the long afternoon hunched at my desk.
