Black Tuesday (15 page)

“Nope.” The word came out before she realized she'd said it. At his raised eyebrow, she shrugged. “There aren't too many plans in Jayne Thompkins's life nowadays. No big deal.”

Even she heard the forced flippancy in those last few words. She tore her gaze off of Larry and opened up the magazine she'd brought in.

Feeling like she'd said too much already, Jayne didn't talk for the rest of the hour.

22

WHY DO YOU need me here again?”

This chair was really digging into her in all the wrong places. It had been almost a half hour since Jayne had come to her mom's studio, and she was bored.

And a little pissed.

Her mom still hadn't told her what she was doing here. And the mystery was sort of eating at Jayne.

Whatever the reason was, it couldn't be good.

Gen was across from her at her immaculate desk, scribbling on a yellow legal pad and concentrating on whatever was written on the Post-it she was transcribing.

It was midweek. Her mom had given her the lame excuse that she needed someone to file her clippings. Diane was out of town, doing some legwork on a story for Gen.

Filing had taken ten minutes. Somehow, Jayne didn't think she was here because the world would end if clippings weren't filed.

Jayne had a feeling that she was here to repent for her grades. And for yelling at her mom.

“I just thought it would be good to get you out of the house. Give you a change of scenery.” Gen pulled her knee up and leaned against it as she continued to write. She had two hours until she went on air and was wearing a velour tracksuit. A salmon suit was on the hook behind her door, freshly pressed.

Jayne thought it was her mom's best outfit. It made her look professional. Approachable. Even kind.

It was a miracle worker, in other words.

“I have to be at the Outreach program in, like, forty-five minutes.” Not that Jayne was aching to answer phones and be bored. But another day meant she was closer to being done with it.

Plus, Darian would be there.

“This won't take long.” Her mom scribbled her last note before dialing a few numbers.

“Cameron? Yeah, Jayne's here. Can we swing by? Great.”

Jayne was confused. She stayed seated as her mom got up and smoothed the creases from her pants. She looked at Jayne expectantly. “Coming?”

“Why are we going to see Cameron?” Cameron Tolliver was the producer of her mom's Saturday show. She'd said hi to him a couple of times, but they'd never had a conversation that lasted longer than three words.

“You'll see.” And with that mysterious response, she pulled Jayne up and guided her to the door.

Cameron's office was smaller than her mom's with a big poster of some naked chick in the middle of a stack of tires. Classy. Then again, she hadn't expected anything less from a guy who'd stripped off his swim trunks at midnight at their Fourth of July party.

In front of her mom and dad, Ellie, and pretty much all their guests.

Darian had let Jayne know the producer had the smallest pecker he'd ever seen.

“Gen, Jayne, take a seat.” He got up and came around the desk. In her mind, the words
smallest pecker, smallest pecker, smallest pecker
were skipping around like a broken record.

He sat on the edge of the desk as Jayne and her mom sat on the chairs in front of him. He must've been her mom's age, but he looked much younger with those chipmunk cheeks of his.

Jayne turned to try to read her mom's face. Gen was staring straight ahead and had her newscaster smile on, her hands folded over her crossed knees.

This wasn't going to be good.

“So, Jayne, your mom and I have been talking and came up with something that we think you'll be excited about.”

Unless it had something to do with a paid trip to Italy, she doubted that whatever was about to come out of his mouth was going to be good.

“There are millions of teenage girls like you, Jayne. Pretty, smart.” He paused and hummed, like he was trying to find the right word. “Directionless.”

Jayne now knew what a trapped animal felt like.

“Gen and I have been brainstorming, and we think it's time to sit down and discuss The Thompkins Tragedy.”

Jayne still felt paralyzed, and no words came to her. No words except for the dazed response of, “I'm already going to Larry the Fairy.”

“What?”

Jayne looked at her mom, who was still wearing that Stepford-like smile.

“Are you trying to be our family counselor?” Jayne asked.

Cameron laughed. The boyish giggle grated on her for the thirty or so seconds he shook and his face turned red. When he caught his breath, he wiped his eyes. “That was priceless. No, I meant you and your mom should sit down in front of the cameras. Discuss what happened.”

Jayne didn't say anything. She was not comprehending a thing.

“Jayne, what Cameron is attempting to say is he wants you to come on my Saturday show,” Gen said, her words crisp and precise. “The whole hour. Just you and me and The Thompkins Tragedy.”

Suddenly the situation became very clear.

“Are you friggin' kidding me?”

“Dead serious, Jayne. You're out of control. I think this sit-down will help.”

“Help? Help who?”

Then it became crystal clear. “What, Mom,” she mocked, “are your ratings down?”

Then something happened that Jayne had never seen in her whole life: Her mother blushed.

Cameron started talking again, but he was looking at her mom. “We want you to share your story. Girls your age want to know your story. Like that girl who was at your folks' party the other night . . . Lori, I think? Lori told me she'd love to see you on TV, talking about what happened.” He put his hands in the air, forming a box. “Picture it. We'd have you go back to that day when you hit Brenda Deavers—”

Jayne stared at his mouth and tried to process his words. Or were these her mother's words? She glanced at Gen.

Her hands were folded, her eyes averted.

“—and of course there'd be a psychologist there to help with the interview. You know, discuss what the psychological toll is, what a person goes through after such a horrible happenstance, how a person can get over it.”

This guy was certifiable. And her mom? Her mother finally looked at her.

And had the gall not to look embarrassed in the least.

Jayne was no longer Gen's daughter at this moment. No, she was a story that could help Gen move from the small time to . . . to . . . whatever Oprah was considered.

“Excuse me.” Jayne interrupted Cameron as he went into something about beating the other networks at the ratings game.

“Yes, Jayne? Ask me any questions. We're here to make this experience as smooth as possible for you.”

Jayne smiled. Well, her lips smiled, but that was only to keep them busy so she wasn't tempted to call this guy a gutless worm in front of her mom. Actually . . . “First of all, Cameron, you're high on crack if you think the idea you have here is a good one.”

“Not a good one?” He sounded confused, like he'd never considered the possibility of Gen Thompkins's daughter saying no. Funny how he'd ignored the “high on crack” comment.

“No.” Jayne's voice was low and her hands were curled around the edge of her denim skirt. Her stomach was a hail-storm of acid right now. “Not now, not ever.”

“Jayne, take a moment and consider this opportunity. It could count toward your counseling hours.”

Jayne didn't say anything. The inane comment didn't deserve a reply.

She turned to look at her mom again. She had her cool-and-collected-journalist face on. Like Jayne wasn't even her daughter.

“It'll be like when you and Ellie were little and did those commercials for the station.” Her mom's voice had taken on the quality of “Remember the happy times?”

“This is not the same thing, Mother.” Those commercials had been of her and Ellie riding a covered wagon with their mom advertising Channel 16 as the “Best in the West.”

And both she and Ellie had fallen into scorpion weed and had a burning rash for two weeks.

Yeah, fun times.

“It's either this or we're tripling your sessions with Larry.” Her mother really could've been a ventriloquist. Her lips had barely moved as she offered the ultimatum.

An ultimatum? The way Jayne saw it, she could either be humiliated in front of a live studio audience or have her mom spend even more money a week to have Larry water and Jayne read.

She knew a no-brainer when she saw one. “I'll take Larry.”

The expression on her mom's face told Jayne she had made the wrong choice.

“I see here that maybe some more thought needs to go into this. Cool beans.” Cameron rubbed his hands together. “I'll just line up that dog trainer instead, Gen, the one who works with those Westminster dogs. Sound like a plan?”

Gen didn't take her eyes off of her daughter. “Sounds fine, Cameron.”

He picked up his phone. “So, if we're done here, I better get on the horn, line up that trainer. Hopefully she can make it this Saturday, it being such short notice.”

This Saturday? Her mom had wanted her to do this next weekend? Jayne felt her face grow red. Her mom must've noticed, because her expressionless newscaster mask was slipping a little. Jayne thought she might've even seen a little bit of uncertainty in Emmy-winning but ratings-loser Gen Thompkins's eyes.

Jayne got up and left. A bus stop was just three blocks from here.

She was propelled by disgust and . . . yep, rage.
So this is what rage feels like
.

Like her stomach had a pot of water boiling in it.

Water that was beginning to boil over.

 

It was only twelve-thirty in the afternoon, but it was already pushing 110 degrees.

Jayne closed her eyes. Her mother had ambushed her.

And she wasn't the least bit remorseful.

She tried to calm herself down. She visualized Gen sitting in one of her thousand-dollar suits interviewing a dog trainer. Trying to keep her smile in place and the look of disgust off her face for following a story that was beneath her.

Gen wasn't big into what she considered unsuccessful people.

Jayne had always known that. But for the first time, she was really seeing it.

She opened her eyes and tried to forget about the whole horrible experience. But it was hard. Especially since she was in yet another horrible situation, sitting at a bus stop with a lady who reeked of stale garlic and too much rose perfume.

She was trying to see how long she could hold her breath when she heard a squeal of tires. She looked up.

And saw Darian in his BMW, the passenger-side window rolled down. “Hey there, stranger. Want a ride?”

Her heart did a double flip. His being here was surreal.

His grin was big and inviting. “Just came from renewing my vehicle registration and I need something to wash away the taste of the DMV. Wanna get a shake?”

Jayne grabbed her bag, every fiber of her body humming. Then she saw the little old lady was waving her over.

“Honey, I'm taking down his license plate in case anything happens to you.”

For the first time in recent memory, Jayne laughed. Out loud.

And for real.

23

JAYNE DIDN'T GO HOME. She had Darian take her to Outreach Arizona. She beelined it to Meadow, telling her that she needed her help. When the bored rich girl had heard about the plan, she'd gotten on board.

“What color are we going for here? Cookie Monster blue? Bubbleicious pink?”

“Brown.”

The girl with the orange mohawk and shredded Lindsay Lohan T-shirt smirked at Jayne.

“Aren't you quite the daredevil.”

“C'mon, Jayne, get a little wild.” Meadow sat on the velvet sofa in the center of the black-on-black salon, her eyes meeting Jayne's in the mirror. “I brought you to Destiny because she's great at Technicolor.”

Jayne didn't need wild. She needed shock factor. Especially after today, when her mom sprang that little ambush on her. She needed something Gen Thompkins would swallow her tongue over. That's why she was letting a girl with more holes in her than a golf course stand over her with a straight razor and a smile.

That's why she wasn't with Gustav, her mother's colorist. The guy who'd made her a blonde at age thirteen and every eight weeks thereafter.

Just thinking about it made the rage burn bright, white-hot. What kind of mother would cajole her pubescent daughter to burn her scalp with peroxide?

The same woman who'd told Jayne, “You'll be prettier, and prettier is always better in this world we live in.”

Jayne scrutinized herself in the round mirror. “I'm going with plain brown. That's my natural color, anyway.”

Destiny ran her fingers through Jayne's long, silky strands. “We're keeping the length, right?”

Jayne suddenly felt like little fairies were making flowers grow in her stomach. She was
that
excited. “Nope. Chop it.”

Destiny's mouth opened, showing the silver barbell piercing the flesh of her tongue. “We're not talking
G.I. Jane
buzz cut, right? 'Cause I don't do ugly.”

“No.” Jayne pulled her hair back so that the only hair that was showing was what was left on the top and sides. “Short like Charlize Theron will do.”

Destiny ran her hands down the sides of Jayne's hair, her head cocked to one side. A tiny silver skull dangled from the six-inch chain pierced to her ear. “I can see that on you. You've got the bones to pull off something like that.” She put her hands on Jayne's shoulders, her eyes growing serious behind her cat-eye rhinestone-studded glasses. “I know you're messing with your hair to piss someone off, but can I at least suggest some red highlights? Your hair will still have the piss-off factor but it will also have some style.”