Jess
Adam Hawkins even looks big in a much bigger house.
My father’s house, that is.
I’m discreetly watching from the kitchen as he attempts to settle himself on the sleek, cream leather couch in what my stepmother Bernila calls “the front room.” I’ve never really seen the point of this room—with its uncomfortable-looking seating and weird art pieces and its bulky coffee-table books about the history of marble sculpture or some other boring thing that Bernila likes. But now, I get it: It’s a room designed for a conversation with a near stranger. It’s a room where you put someone when you don’t really want them to know anything about you.
It’s perfect.
I thought a lot about this meeting before I made my call to Salem Durant this morning. Where I wanted to have it, who I wanted at it, what I wanted to say. In the small hours of last night, after Tegan had finally fallen into a snoring sleep on top of her covers—more exhausted than she’d ever admit, I think, both from our tense conversations throughout the rest of the day and from keeping her secret for so long—I’d paced back and forth across my own bedroom floor, working it out.
Tegan may be eighteen, and she may have forced my hand into going on this trip.
But I’m therealJess Greene.
And surely, Salem Durant would think I have value to her awful podcast, too.
I knew I needed to use that value to protect Tegan as best I could.
So I called Salem, and I set up this meeting. I chose my dad’s house, only about ten minutes from mine and Tegan’s, because I won’t talk about any of this in a public place, and because this house, which my dad and Bernila bought after I moved out of their previous home when I turned eighteen, reflects nothing of me or my history. And I chose Adam Hawkins—I’m not calling him Hawk; what a ridiculous suggestion—because I don’t trust Salem not to try to use this meeting to get information about or an interview from my dad, and also maybe because I’m not ready to face her just yet. I told her I had conditions, and we wouldn’t be going anywhere until I got to lay them out.
It’s possible—given Tegan’s determination, herrighteousnessabout all this—that I was bluffing about that last point. But Salem hadn’t argued.
And she’s sent Adam Hawkins here.
I finish filling another water glass and watch him fidget with the binder he walked in with. He sets it beside him on the cushion but then seems to reconsider, which I guess I can relate to because that couch probably gets dirty just from someone looking at it. I can tell he’s thinking about putting it on the coffee table, but then he’d have to move one of the books about marble sculpture out of the way, and that’s to say nothing of the big, oval-shaped ceramic platter that’s full of actual sculptures (non-marble), that I guess are supposed to look like avant-garde pine cones. He cocks his head to the side as he looks at them, settling for putting the binder on one of his muscular thighs.
I admit. He’s very attractive.
My dad clears his throat and I almost drop the water glass.
“I’ll be out back,” he says, gesturing to the French doors that lead to his and Bernila’s patio. He’s looking at me with a familiar expression. Part confusion, part frustration, part pity.
Part affection, too, but sort of . . . a sad kind. AnI love her, butkind.
I guess that’s because I’m making him sit outside while I have a meeting I’ve told him only very basic information about for now—that there’s a journalist interested in the man Mom left with ten years ago, that there’s a possibility of finding her after all these years. He knows, at least generally, that Mom sent me a few postcards after she left, so I didn’t have to go through explaining that again, and it isn’t as if he pressed for more details. He didn’t even do that when she first sent them, probably because he knows I wouldn’t have told him anything anyway. My dad may not be quite as reticent as me, but he’s quiet enough—contained enough—that he seems to understand the instinct, even when it worries him.
So, I’d asked him to wait outside while I had this meeting, and he’d frowned at me, but still, he’d agreed. Because of the affection. TheI love her, butfeeling. Probably the pity, too, which he’s had ever since that day my mom left an envelope for him.Brent and I need some time on our own,her letter had said.Once he and I have a solid foundation, I’m sure I’ll send for Jessie.
She hadn’t. Dad had taken care of me for all the months she was gone. And for all the months after, too, when she finally came back. No Brent, but Tegan in her belly. My relationship with her changed forever.
“Thanks,” I tell him, trying to gentle my voice, and he nods and ducks out the door to where Bernila waits for him.
I head back into the front room, where Adam Hawkins waits for me.
“Here,” I say, holding out a glass of water. He didn’t ask for one, but once I opened the door to him, I needed an excuse to walk away for a minute. Without Salem, he is much more . . . noticeable.
And it isn’t as though he was hard to miss yesterday, even when I was halfway to a panic attack.
“Thank you.” He takes the glass about as awkwardly as I offered it. His eyes drift to the coffee table, but there are no coasters there among the avant-garde pine cones.
I sit in a nearby chair. It’s more of a stiff, upright hammock than a chair, but I do my best to make it look natural. I don’t have anywhere to put my glass, either.
He clears his throat, but since I spent basically the entire day yesterday getting caught off guard, I don’t want him getting the jump on me even in conversation. I speak first.
“Mr. Hawkins—”
“You can call me—”
