Son of Destruction

6




Jessie


She didn’t need glasses to know that was Chape Bellinger’s old Jeep or name the others: Bobby Chaplin, Buck Coleman, Stitch Von Harten. F*cking Brad Kalen, God damn his eyes.

The minute the elevator doors close on the kid, Jessie hits 8 on her speed dial. She entered the number in a blinding rage when she re-entered Fort Jude. Given that she wants to smash her fist into that big, wet smacky mouth of his, she’s avoided Kalen ever since. In spite of the fact that Jessie Vukovich from Pierce Point is now a member of the Fort Jude Club in good standing and last year he was the f*cking Commodore, she’s managed, but now . . .

She always suspected that life’s a bitch. Turns out, it is.

His machine picks up, which is probably just as well. Jessie has been sitting on this for so long that acid fills her mouth. Things the bastard bastard needs to hear pile up in her head – packed in like enough nitro to blow up the world. If they spoke, it would all come out too fast, and Brad is stupid. Let the walking slime mold dangle by the short hairs for a little bit. She wants to see him hang by his guts, twisting in the wind while she takes her sweet time, laying it out for him.

As it is, the slick, radio-announcer track he laid on the machine goes on forever, smoothly supplying his cell-phone number and the number at the club. She has a full minute to compose before she spits:

‘Now, don’t call me back and don’t ask questions. Just be aware that nothing you did is ever over. In fact, it’s come to town. After what you did, it damn well serves you right.’

Shaking with fury, she ducks into the office. She has to compose herself before she can do makeup and put on her chic silk jacket and her diamond studs and high heels for lunch at the prestigious Fort Jude Club. She hates that she can’t stop thinking of it as the prestigious Fort Jude Club. People who couldn’t see her for dirt in high school have changed toward her since she came back to town in her Lexus and bought this hotel outright, thanks to the late Billy James, her fourth and final ex. The shittiest snots from Fort Jude High are her new best friends now, and even the boys look at her differently. Last year she sat down on the club patio with the Friday Lunch Bunch – on a trial basis, she thought, but she’s been sitting down with them regular ever since.

It’s silly, but given that everybody used to think of Jessie James, née Jessie Vukovich, as that cheap girl from Pierce Point, it’s a very big deal. She has to get her shit together and get her smile working right so she can go down there and face them.

Even though it’s the desk clerk’s day off, she shuts the office. When he comes back down to the lobby, cute Dan Carteret will think she’s gone for good, which is just as well. She likes the kid, but she doesn’t want to talk to him, not as raw and hopeful and helpless as he is. There are things he doesn’t know and things he should never have to know.

Poor kid, she thinks. Thinks he can walk in cold, ask around, and everybody will open up and tell him everything. Fat chance. There are some things only Jessie knows, and she’s not about to tell anybody anything. She sighs. Poor kid, his knuckles were white when he signed the book, this is a very big deal for him.

Then she focuses on the real problem. The Lunch Bunch. What to say when they ask why she’s late. They’re nice enough to her now, but underneath Jessie knows who she is and they know who they are and there’s still a huge difference between them. She’s learned to hide it. In Fort Jude, the littlest things can give you away, so she has to be careful. Appearances are that important.