Page 10 of All Fall Down

Chapter Five

“I thinkyou should talk to him,” Josie announces the next day.

“Who?” I ask in confusion. “Maddox?”

Even Marion had begun to question having a safety detail parked outside her house at all hours. Personally, I’d taken to grabbing him Starbucks when I went out on errands. Considering Maddox doesn’t get involved unless he’s needed—and he hasn’t been—he’s a bit more like having a faithful guard dog. Plus, I’ve discovered, his bark is worse than his bite. He might look like a pit-bull but secretly he has the heart of an English bulldog. A little dumb and very lovable.

“Not Maddox. Jameson.”

“Oh, him.” Josie is probably right. I should talk to him. It’s the rational thing to do, which is why I’m not doing it. Not a single aspect of my life falls into rational or logical at the moment. Why should he?

“Your mom told you that Nathaniel isn’t your father.”

“And you believe her?” I ask. “Because everything she says is so credible.

“I don’t really have a reason not to believe her. She admitted that Becca was Nathaniel’s.”

“Here’s a better question: does she even know who my dad is?” It seems my mom had spent the late 90’s bed hopping. “My dad could be anyone.”

“Your dad is your dad,” Josie corrects me. “My dad could be anyone.”

“Sorry, Jos. I didn’t mean to make you feel bad.” According to Marion, Josie’s dad was a visiting businessman who gave her a bogus name and a bogus occupation. When she tried to track him down she discovered that the company he worked for didn’t exist. “You know, I’ve been thinking your mom probably could’ve paid someone at the hotel to give her the registration information on the sly.”

Josie shakes her head quickly. “Don’t ever suggest that to her,” she advises me. “Mom’s feelings on it are pretty strong. She says that if he wanted her he wouldn’t have lied to her in the first place, and…”

Neither of us have to finish that thought out loud. If he hadn’t wanted Marion, he definitely didn’t want Josie. Given the generally disappointing men I’d encountered in my life I’d say the Deckard women were both better off.

“Don’t let your mom ruin what you have with Jameson,” Josie interrupts my thoughts, bringing me back to the topic--one that I’d been trying to avoid.

“The fact that he might be my brother is what might ruin things with Jameson.” I practically spell it out for her.

“Well, then he deserves to know too.”

“Josie, we didn’t do it, but we did other stuff,” I say, striving to maintain some delicacy, “and you know, I just ... I don’t want him to be thinking about ...”

“You don’t want to wreck it?” she guesses.

“What if he starts thinking about the fact that I might be his sister and then if I’m not, he can’t look at me.”

“Psychologists don’t analyze things this much, Em.”

“You’re probably right.” I’d grant her that but it doesn’t mean I’m going to call him.

“Um, are we expecting company?” Josie asks, pausing the TV so that we can both hear the car pulling into her driveway. We wait for a minute, half expecting it to turn around but it doesn’t.

“Maybe it’s Maddox. Probably wants to go on a caffeine run.” I hop up and go to the window, but it’s not Maddox’s familiar black sedan parked out front. It’s a tiny, gold convertible. The kind of ostentatious car that only one person I know could pull off driving.

“If I were you I’d hide,” I tell Josie. “The Wicked Bitch of the West has come to call.”

“Life was so much simpler six months ago,” Josie says with a sigh, scrambling off the couch to seek sanctuary in her room.

“And yet you’re the one who wants me to call Jameson.”

“If you call him maybe my house won’t be Grand Central Station,” she yells before she shuts the door.

“Hormones much?” I say to the now empty living room.

I save Monroe the humiliation of having to come inside a 2-bedroom house and meet her outside. Judging from the fact that she hasn’t gotten out of the car she already views this as a self-service errand. Her worst half, Sabine, glowers at me from the passenger seat.