"Ha. You're such a dweeb," Audrey laughed. The cousins loved game shows, and each tried to outdo the other when it came to answering the questions. "The second word only has six letters."
Katy counted the illuminated tiles. "Oh, yeah. Shit." Her arm shot out again, and she pointed at the screen. "Andrew Jackson!" she yelled, absently reaching between the couch cushions for more cereal. "That has to be it."
Audrey rolled her eyes at her cousin. Then she noticed Jacie's glum expression and suddenly remembered something Nina had asked her to do that morning. "Hey, Jacie," she greeted, reaching over Katy to grab the notepad they always kept by the phone.
"Hey," Jacie answered dully, her eyes straying to Nina's door.
I need to apologize. I freaked out for nothing. All she wanted was a little time to get used to things, and I had to go and be a bitch.
"I have three messages for you this morning. Nina said you decided to sleep in for once."
"Good for you," Katy murmured, as she watched the show. "You've seemed stressed out lately."
Jacie ignored the comment, knowing it was true but unwilling to admit that she was working too much. The strain of being crazy about Nina but being too chickenshit to do anything about it had taken her to the breaking point. "Nina's not home?" Jacie asked, trying her best to sound casual as she picked at the couch cushion.
"She went to the laundromat," Katy said, relaxing now that it was a commercial.
Audrey passed over the messages.
The first was in Nina's handwriting and told Jacie that her mother needed a ride to church for the afternoon service. At it often was, her car was in the shop and her mother expected Jacie to find a way to help her. The second message, written in Katy's dark scrawl, was from her boss — Jacie needed to be at work an hour early tonight. "Crap." She didn't want to go to work or go to pick up her mother. She wanted to wait for Nina and beg her forgiveness. She shuffled the papers again and then glanced back up at Audrey. "You said three messages?"
"Yup."
Unexpectedly, Audrey pulled Jacie into a big hug. "Nina said to give you this from her," she squeezed a little harder, "and to tell you everything would be okay."
Stunned, Jacie could only swallow, relief washing over her in great waves.
"That must have been some fight you guys had," Katy commented, her eyes narrowing as a thought struck her. "Nobody ever hugs me."
"Aww." Audrey lunged for her skinny cousin and quickly pinned her in a massive bear hug, squeezing the air out of her lungs. "I'll hug you."
Katy gasped and wiggled frantically to squirm free from Audrey's strong arms, laughing and wheezing the entire time. "Gee." Another gasp. "Thanks."
"Welcome," Audrey said. "Pennsylvania!" She shouted, pointing at a beaming Vanna White, who was rapidly turning over letters.
"Shit!" Katy groused, grabbing the cereal box and stuffing her face for comfort.
Jacie stood up, visibly happier. "Katy, can I borrow your car for a couple of hours?" She hoped she had enough change in her coat pocket for a gallon of gas.
The blonde gestured toward a key rack by the door, her attention once again riveted on the television. "I filled it up last night."
Jacie's face relaxed into a full smile. "Stand up, Audrey."
Audrey's eyebrows jumped. "Huh?"
Jacie tapped her foot impatiently. "Just do it, okay?"
Reluctantly, she did and then let out a surprised whoop when Jacie wrapped her arms around her and hugged her so completely that she lifted her feet from the ground, her curly locks bouncing in all directions. "You give
that
to Nina and tell her I'll be back later."
"Musta been some fight," Katy repeated absently, her fingers finding the toy surprise in the cereal. She examined it from the corner of her eye. "Cool! A glow-in-the-dark four leaf clover ring." She slid it on her pinky and wiggled the digit happily.
Audrey looked down at the ring. "Cool," she agreed. Then her gaze sharpened. "Isn't it my turn for the toy?"
"Fuck, no," Katy said tartly, making a fist to protect her booty.
And then they were grappling for the ring.
Utterly accustomed to the mayhem, Jacie headed for the door, grabbing a sweatshirt from the coat closet along the way. She could feel it bubbling up inside her. Her luck was changing.
* * *
The drive to Hazelwood wasn't a particularly long one, but it wasn't one that Jacie made very often. As she pulled into her parents' driveway, she waved at one of her neighbors who was mowing his lawn. The sight of the freshly cut grass caused a twinge of guilt; she hadn't been home since Christmas.
Her father's car was parked on the other side of the driveway. Jacie shut her car door in disgust. This wouldn't be the first time her dad had refused to drive or to let her mother use his car.
When she opened the front door, she was greeted by the heavy, greasy smell of fried chicken and gravy. Her stomach rumbled in appreciation. "Hi, Mom," she called out, rounding the corner into the living room. "I'm–" she stopped when she saw Gwen sitting in a recliner across from her parents, who were seated stiffly on the sofa. "What are you doing here?" Then the fancy car she'd seen parked across the street made sense. It was Malcolm's.
Gwen drew in a deep breath and laid her hands across her bulging belly, doing her best to calm her raging nerves. "I needed to come by and talk to your parents, Jacie."
Jacie just looked at her. "You did?"
Gwen wrung her hands together. "I–"
Jacie's mother, a tall woman with thick, turquoise eye shadow that perfectly matched the color of the curtains in her kitchen, shot off the coach and glared at her daughter. "Tell me that something so disgusting isn't true," she demanded, her chin quivering dramatically.
Gwen's and Jacie's eyes widened at the exact same second.
Confused, Jacie turned to her father. His square jaw was clenched hard; his dark eyes unreadable as he gazed quietly back at her. "Does anyone want to tell me what's going on?" she said, shifting uneasily from one foot to the other.
Jacie's mother, never one to mince words, got right to the point. "Your friend Gwen tells us that you're a…" she paused as her entire body shuddered in revulsion, "homosexual."
Jacie's jaw dropped and she gave Gwen a stunned blink.
"But of course, I told her that couldn't be true," Grace Priest continued nervously, her voice wavering, doubt clouding her eyes. The middle-aged woman fingered the heavy cross she wore around her neck. "I'm waiting, Jacie Ann."
Jacie felt as though she'd been kicked in the chest. A million thoughts roared through her head, each one more confusing and upsetting than the last. How had Gwen known? How could she betray her this way? And worst of all, had Gwen done the same thing with Nina's parents?
"Jacie?" her mother prompted.
The young woman's heart began to race. She had imagined this moment many times, and now that it was here, she took another look at her parents' guarded faces and realized it was going to be worse than she'd even pictured. "I-I-I-"
"Just great." Jackson Priest bowed his head; Jacie's lack of an instant denial the same as an admission in his eyes. He glanced up at Jacie, his green eyes glinting with disappointment and anger. "Girl, what are you thinking? What's wrong with you?"
Jacie's mother gaped at her husband. "Jack, she didn't answer yet." She pointed at him, her hand shaking. "She did not answer! Don't you put words in her mouth!" She made an emphatic gesture towards Jacie. "Tell him. Tell him you're not like that!"
"Ma–" Jacie had to stop and swallow. She covered her face with her hands. This isn't how she wanted things to go. They were already beginning to spin out of control.
Mrs. Priest took a step closer to her daughter. "Answer me, Jacie Ann!"
"Yes!" Jacie blurted loudly, the words hitting her parents like stinging blows. "Okay?" She lowered her voice, her tone defiant. "I am like that. I always have been and I always will be."
Jackson scrubbed his face, his hands rubbing over a heavy layer of stubble that he let accumulate every weekend. "You do realize what you've done, don't you? This isn't something anyone can ever know about. I'm sure your friend Gwen won't say a word."
He pinned Gwen with a lethal look and her head bobbed dutifully.
Jackson nodded. "Have you thought about what decent man would ever want to marry you after this? Or have a family with you?"
"Jesus, Dad, the entire point of being a lesbian is that I don't want a man," Jacie said hotly. "I–"
SMACK!
The sound of Grace slapping Jacie hard in the face woke Gwen from her horror-induced stupor. She gasped and jumped to feet as quickly as her protruding belly would allow. Without regard for herself, she stepped between Jacie and Grace, who were glaring at each other like two prize fighters about to square off. "Mrs. Priest! Stop!" Her gaze flickered to Jacie who was rubbing her face but didn't look half as shocked as she herself felt. In that instant, she knew that Jacie wasn't surprised, and that this had to have happened before. A sliver of doubt about what she was doing wrapped around Gwen's heart and squeezed like an icy fist.
Grace simply spoke around Gwen as though the young woman wasn't even there. "How could you do that to us, Jacie? To yourself? To God?"
Tears formed in Jacie's eyes, but through sheer force of will she refused to let them fall. Her cheek hurt but the pain in her heart was far worse. She suddenly sounded very tired, feeling as though the entire world was ganging up on her. "I'm not doing anything to anyone. I haven't hurt anyone. And I haven't done anything wrong." Jacie began to think she might be the only person in Missouri who truly believed that, though, with Gwen doing something so hurtful and Nina's confusing behavior that morning, despite her reassurances to the contrary.
Grace blinked. "You can't know what you're saying. Listen to yourself! You're not only admitting to fornication, but to some bizarre form of unnatural fornication. Your actions reflect on us all. How can you be so selfish as to only think of yourself? What about me and your father?"
Jacie tamped down the urge to roll her eyes. "Everything's not about you, Mom."
Grace's eyebrows rose. "It isn't? Do you really think you can do any sick thing that you please and that people here won't find out about it?" She fanned her face as though warding off a case of the vapors–something she'd never actually gotten, though she acted as if she required smelling salts on a daily basis. "What will Pastor Douglas say? What about the men at your father's office and our friends? He has to work with the people in this town to make a living! Now they'll pity us." Her eyes widened as a terrible thought made her sick. "No, not just pity, blame us for what you've become!"
"Mrs. Priest," Gwen interrupted desperately, her voice an octave higher than normal, "we were talking about counseling for Jacie before she got here. Remember? I told you about the brochures I'd seen for family therapy?"
"You were talking about counseling," Grace pointed out crabbily. "Doctors can't fix a person's morals, can they? But maybe prayer and–"
"This has nothing to do with prayer. I don't need to be fixed!" Jacie roared, blood pounding through her veins so hard she felt lightheaded. "Nothing is wrong with me!" She gave her father a pleading look, her eyes begging him to understand and make things better for her instead of worse. "Please, Dad."
A quiet sigh. "Jacie's right, Grace."
Three sets of stunned eyes stared at Jackson Priest in shock.
"Prayer isn't the answer." God, he was sick of his wife's obsession with religion. "Jacie's sick. She needs a doctor."
"Oh, Jesus," Jacie moaned, her hopes disappearing like a wisp of smoke.
"She needs the Lord in her heart," Grace corrected firmly. "She never did listen when I took her to church. You said it didn't matter. But now look!"
"Bullshit," Jack said bluntly, his lips twisting into a snarl. "It isn't my fault that she couldn't stand going to that place anymore than I can."
"I don't want a doctor or a preacher," Jacie broke in, her gaze straying to the door as she longed for escape.
Grace shook her head woefully. "We never should have supported you going to that school. You don't even want to change and God only helps those who help themselves. Somehow that college has put these sinful ideas into your head or maybe you've got some new friends we don't know about."
Jacie shook her head. "There is nobody to blame. So you can stop looking. This is me, and you're going to have to learn to live with it."
The hair on the back of her father's neck lifted. "This is my house and I don't have to learn anything. I'm not the one who's doing disgusting things, now am I?"
Jacie's back stiffened. "You didn't even flinch when Mom just hit me in face." She touched her own red cheek. "That's pretty disgusting from my point of view."
Jackson's face colored, but it was from anger, not embarrassment. "I won't spend a dime of my hard-earned money to support some perverted lifestyle."
"You've never supported me."
Gwen's gaze flew between Jacie and her father. "What does she mean?" she said finally, the tension in the room so thick she felt like she couldn't breathe.
Jacie almost didn't answer, but things had gone this far and now there was no turning back. "That means he won't continue to give me that entire 35 dollars a month he chips in towards my tuition. Even though he knows it'll mean I have to drop out of school." She was speaking to Gwen but looking into her father's eyes the entire time.
From the corner of her eye, Jacie saw Gwen's mouth drop open; she snorted softly at her surprise. "And he only does that because one of his co-workers asked if sending me to college was setting the family back. He was too embarrassed to say nothing."
"I work hard for that money, you ungrateful brat!" Jack shot back, a vein in his forehead beginning to show.
"Mom gives five times that to the church every month. And I don't see that fat preacher working two jobs or skipping any meals the way I do."
"Jacie Ann Priest, how dare you!" Grace screeched, trying to step around Gwen to get to her daughter.