AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“If she’d told me who was giving her trouble, I would’ve talked some sense into that kid.” Mr. Jerrell breathed shakily. “Now it’s too late.”
He looked straight at Kay, then at Elliot. He rolled his chair next to the couch, and took his wife’s hand between his, then raised it to his lips and held it there for a moment, sobbing quietly, whispering, “I’m so sorry, please forgive me,” over and over. She caressed his hair, leaning her forehead against his for a long moment. Then he looked at them and said, “I need to be alone now, if you’ll excuse me.” He turned away and disappeared into the bedroom.
A moment later, he closed the bedroom door behind him. A pang of anxiety unfurled in Kay’s gut; there was an unspoken finality in the man’s words, in how he’d said them, in the calmness that shrouded him, freezing the pain on his features as if it was etched in stone.
Maybe she was imagining things; he was understandably distraught. Before she opened her mouth, she had to consider the consequences if she was wrong. After weighing her options, she let the air escape her lungs with a sigh and decided to keep her concerns to herself.
Kay and Elliot were walking over to the door, ready to leave, when Mrs. Jerrell said, “Talk to Mackenzie Trenton and Alana Keaney; they’re Jenna’s best friends.”
Kay’s eyebrows shot up. “Oh, so she had close friends after all? Since April, I mean?”
The woman’s lips trembled. “I don’t know anymore. She used to have. But even those girls… they stopped coming around so much. Maybe they’ll tell you why.”
The sharp sound of a gunshot ripped through the brief silence.
It came from behind the bedroom’s closed door.
ELEVEN
GIRL TALK
The dentist in their rearview mirror, Alexandria drove toward the coast while Alana sulked with her arms crossed, slouched in the passenger seat, staring out the window.
Her daughter had been a complete brat at the dentist. She’d barely said hello to the staff, glaring at everyone over the lenses of her oversized shades. She’d squirmed and whimpered during a perfectly painless procedure, a simple scan of her teeth. Then she’d rolled several f-bombs when she heard the dentist finally agreeing with Alexandria and ordering aligners for three more months of orthodontic treatment.
It took some doing, the new aligners. At first, the dentist was totally defensive, probably thinking Alexandria was trying to get the new aligners for free. Once she cleared the money issue out of the way, he mellowed out, although he’d dared to say a bit of overbite wasn’t all that bad.
The gall.
Not all that badwasn’t going to cut it for her daughter. Her incisors had to be absolutely perfect. Everything had to be perfect.
She sometimes fantasized that she was Alana, young and naïve again, and that someone with means and good intentions had invested the time and resources to make her the best she could be. Maybe if her teeth had been straight and perfectly spaced, Miss Hawaii would’ve been the runner-up, and she would’ve taken the crown. Perhaps if she could’ve afforded better shoes, she would’ve been a movie star today instead of that Puerto Rican who’d cut ahead of her, clacking on the podium in her red-soled Louboutins.
Alana didn’t know these things like she did. That’s why it was her job to teach her daughter how to win at the game called life, whatever the cost. Fairly or not.
The silence had lasted long enough. “Come on, it wasn’t so bad, was it?” Alexandria said in a cheerful voice, looking at her sulking daughter with a quick encouraging smile.
“Whatever.” Alana chewed gum loudly, with her mouth open, and popped bubbles with obstinance, sending droplets of saliva in the air. She knew better, but that was her way to punish her mother, by behaving like a total embarrassment, someone spawned out of a trailer park deep in the Midwest.
It wasn’t the first time, and Alexandria had learned not to let herself get aggravated by her daughter’s appalling behavior. One time, when she’d dragged Alana away for a doctor’s appointment she didn’t want, her sweet little daughter took revenge by telling dirty jokes to a bunch of sweaty construction workers who were laying tile in the building. When she came back from the lab, Alexandria could’ve sworn at least three of them had erections. The lewd smirks on their faces made her sick to the stomach. She wanted to drag Alana out of there by her hair, but she knew better than to humiliate her daughter in front of them.
This time, she was determined to ignore the sulking and pretend nothing was wrong. After all, she deserved a good day, too, not just Miss Congeniality over there.
“I know how you feel,” Alexandria said as if they were having a real conversation. “Some of us aren’t blessed with straight teeth, and we have to work for it.”
Alana crossed her legs, bouncing her foot rhythmically against the fine leather of the car door. She shot her mother a disapproving glare, then resumed watching the scenery. Cedars and live oaks lined the freeway, their shapes more contorted as they approached the windy shore.
“Take Jenna, for example,” Alexandria continued, her voice soft like a knife with a velvet-covered handle. “She was born with perfect teeth. Otherwise, that poor girl… I don’t believe her parents could afford braces. If they could, it would have to be the cheap wire ones.” She threw her daughter a quick glance. “But she doesn’t need braces. Her smile is absolutely perfect, isn’t it?”
Alana glared at her mother without a word. She inflated a gum balloon until it covered most of her face. She kept blowing into it until it popped, falling in sticky, disgusting shreds against her nose and chin. With a swift move of her tongue, she collected the remnants and continued chewing with her mouth open.
Alexandria smiled briefly. Her tactic was working.
“She’s really sweet, isn’t she?”
“Who?” Another pop.
“Jenna. Isn’t she your best friend?”
