Jex Malone
Authors: C.L. Gaber,V.C. Stanley
C.L. Gaber & V.C. Stanley
F+W Media, Inc.
This book is dedicated to our families, who each day provide meaning to the mystery.
Introduction
NEW JERSEY
FAMOUS GIRL DETECTIVE QUOTE:
“Very few of us are what we seem.”
âAgatha Christie
So, this is what it's like to be condemned. Here I am, Jessica Malone,
nice to meet you
, sentenced to my mother's version of an industrial-strength great idea.
She is usually full of them.
Here I am, sitting on this hard wooden bench in the Arlington County Courthouse with cold shivers running up my spine. Quick question: If you sit absolutely still, is it technically possible to go completely unnoticed and just dissolve into spaceâespecially if you don't move a molecule? You know. Move it or lose it.
Just wondering.
I'm sixteen and will be seventeen this April 19. No biggie, but it does make me an Aries, and each day I take my fire-sign self and act out the complicated role of being a junior at Kennedy High School in Spring Heights, New Jersey. It also makes me legally too young to do certain major life things like sign a lease for an apartment, get a passport, or move to a foreign country to avoid my mother.
Oh, I'm also not allowed to defy court orders.
Insert a few choice cuss words here.
Right now, my mother is taking me to see a real judge to prove a point. It started a few months ago when I refused to show any freaking respect to this big manila envelope delivered to our doorstep by the cutest UPS guy in the history of boys who actually look good in putrid brown. Touching fingertips with him was the only highlight because inside was a bunch of legal mumbo jumbo that boiled down to one thing: I would be spending the summer of my 17th year on this earth in HELL.
Mom tried to talk me into respecting the envelope, but I told her no go. She begged me to read the court order tucked neatly inside. I said it was like reading Chineseâand I'm taking Spanish this semester, thank you very much. Or should I say,
gracias, mi madre?
She tried to scare me with words like
jail
or
violation of the child custody agreement
. Since I do watch
Law & Order
and grew up on all the great girl mystery novels, I knew where this was going, but I gave her that blank look that murder suspects use on the police.
“You are being so ⦠infuriating,” Mom huffed. It was never good when she used that many syllables on me.
By the way, it's not like I'm
that
defiant. I make my bed, get straight Bs, and show up at precisely 9:59
P.M.
on summer nights because my curfew is 10. I'm a law-abiding citizen ⦠except when it comes to staying with strange men for an entire summer season.
“He is not a strange man,” Mom huffed in that gurgling type of voice designed to show me she was having a physical reaction to my point of view. Medically speaking, this was stress-induced strangulation from her excess phlegm-ing over The Topic We Dare Not Speak of in Our Two-Bedroom Townhouse.
After clearing her throat so many times I thought we might have to call 911, she said the four words I hate the most. These exact words were the reason I was being sent to HELL.
“He. Is. Your. Father,” Mom grumbled until she was overcome with phlegm, threw her hands up in the air, and searched for an organic, nontoxic, non-tree-killing tissue.
It was ten weeks later and Mom announced she was “beside herself”âwhatever that meantâexcept it was all about the drama.
She decided a few weeks ago to get a judge involved because each time she brought up the envelope I alternated the words “not in your lifetime” with “not in my lifetime,” or if I was being really creative, I would race up to my bedroom and yell back downstairs, “Only a crazy person thinks I'm getting on a plane on the first day of summer vacation to spend the next eight weeks with a crazy man I don't even know.”
The response? He. Is. Your. Father.
Infuriating!
“Was there ever a DNA test?” I inquired with a sweet smile before Mom started gurgling again.
What can I do with her?
She. Is. My. Mother.
Since the words inside the envelope state that Mom might go to jail if she doesn't put my butt on a plane on June 1, she became “beside herself” and made an appointment for both of us to visit an actual walking, talking, breathing Arlington County judge who would tell me “what's what.”
“You won't listen to me,” Mom gurgled. “You will HAVE to listen to a judge.”
Shhhh. Don't tell anyone, but I'm really scared.
It's a cold March day and we're waiting in the dank hallway of the county courthouse where my heart races because I'm not exactly sure what a real walking, talking, breathing judge will do with a girl like me.
Where is Judge Judy when you really need her?
On judgment day, spring is taking one step forward and one step back. A lonesome train whistles in the distance, making this entire morning seem even more like a movie-of-the-week that should have starred a young Tori Spelling in her post-
90210
re-establishing herself era.
I can't allow my mind to wander to vintage TV stars now because the
clack-clack-clack
of high heels trotting double time across the ancient, black linoleum floor makes my heart lurch in a non-Tatum Ryan-just-walked-into-the-room kind of way.
“Your daughter's case is next,” announces the old lady courthouse clerk who previously plopped usâas in Mom and meâin a dank, moldy-smelling courthouse hallway an hour ago.
She stops click-clacking for a second to look down at me in that disgusted way only old ladies with cat-eye glasses on strings can manage when the fine scent of youth is in their presence.
“Sit up straight, Jessica,” Mom, otherwise known as Professor Elizabeth Beatrice Malone, mouths. When she is truly upset, Mom mouths words without sound, forcing me to read her lips. I think she saw this in an old Bette Davis movie where the actress actually was mute. My mom has a speaking voice, so there is no real excuse.
I've tried to cool it all day, but I can't stop a runaway eye roll. I'm not sure what's worse: Mom's silent-but-still-speaking act or the tap-dancing clerk who repeats the word
teenagers
as if it were made up of four letters.
Despite my mom's stern mind-your-manners-missy look, I sneak-reach for my cell, which is vibrating like it's doing some spazzy new dance. Glancing down, I can see that my BFF Kelly has sent me
only
twenty frantic texts. It makes sense. When your BFF is at the city hall courthouse in danger of doing “time” in a faraway Dad zone not of her choosing, nonstop, nervous, ADD texting is the least you can do.
When Mom looks away, I hit that magical right silver button and the text is illuminated.
Kelly:
No freakin' way. Your mom actually went through with this insanity! Are you doing time yet? LOL. PS: You don't look good in stripes.
Me (typing with the phone hidden in the fold of my sweaterâit's a skill):
Here come da judge.
PS:
Jail would be a vacation from my regular life. Would I have to take our calculus final in the Big House?
“Jessica!” Mom mouths. Again, she's soundless, but still makes my name sound like a tragedy.
Me:
TTYL.
Death sentence. Coming.
Kelly:
K.
In the Big House, they serve bologna on white bread. Gross.
Me:
You're just hee-larious. Gotta go. It's judgment time.
Just like in the movies, a heavy oak door squeaks open in an excruciatingly slow way like nails lingering on a chalkboard. Under the brass nameplate of Judge Joanne Goslee, Ms. Nosy Clerk pokes her head out just past the door jam. I guess she has clacked enough for one day.
“Malone vs. Maloneâthe judge will see you now,” she barks, not looking at my mom or me, although we're still the only people sitting in the hall.
Like, who the hell else is this all about?
“Right this way,” the clerk snaps, still not making eye contact as Mom grabs me by the flesh in my upper arm and pulls me into my uncertain future.
Her Honor, the judge, has a ton of books. That's what I notice first. I guess being a judge gives you a lot of free time to read because this judge has reading material piled up to the ceiling and crammed onto every inch of the dark wooden shelves in her cave-like office.
Judge Goslee doesn't choose to acknowledge me.
She's psyching me out. I know. But I won't break.
It's not call waiting in here. It's life waiting.
Meanwhile, Judge Goslee flips through a file folder for what seems like another eternity. Mom is still standing, too, and we shift nervously in our designer-wannabe faux leather pumps, burning calories from a combo workout of weight shifting and stress.
I'm trying to read Mom's mind and I hope she's thinking, “Maybe this wasn't such a good idea. Let's get out of here now. Let's grab a burger and ⦠”