Possessing Jessie (6 page)

In the office, they had her sit and wait for quite a while. Maybe they were trying to make her sweat, but they just made her bored and irritated.

Or maybe they were trying to figure out what to do about her. When she was finally called in, it was not to the principal's office, or the vice principal's. A secretary took her all the way back to the school's “life wellness” office.

The psychologist's office.

Which meant they thought she needed psychiatric help. They thought she was crazy.

Jessie found herself facing one of those ultra-thin, fashionable, aging ladies terrified of their own wrinkles, whose attention to her face–plastic surgery, Botox?–did nothing for the baggy, sagging skin of her neck. “Good morning, Jessie,” she said with a show of unnaturally white teeth. She was probably trying to be warm, gentle, reassuring, to project the message
You're not in trouble after all, Jessie. I'm your friend
.

Yeah, right. Jessie just gave a Jason-grunt and slumped in a chair.

“Please take your sunglasses off, dear. I need to be able to see your eyes.”

Jessie couldn't really explain why she was getting so annoyed with everything. Before today, she had never worn sunglasses indoors. They were making her world awfully dark, yet she did not want to take them off, because the fun of messing with people's minds more than made up for the inconvenience. She challenged, “Why?”

“So I can try to tell how you're feeling, dear. Why you're acting this way.”

“What way?”

The psychologist's warm-and-gentle pose began to erode. “Jessica, you know perfectly well what I'm talking about. Your dressing this way to assume your sadly expired brother's identity is particularly concerning. Allowances have been made for you because grief takes many forms, but now it is time for this to stop.”

“According to what calendar?” Jessie shot back.
Skinny old bag, she pisses me off
. Jessie had never felt so angry.

“According to common sense, Jessica. The school administration–”

Jessie jumped out of her chair. “Don't give me that. There's no law–”

The woman leaned forward with what was probably meant to be compassion but felt more like the pity of a superior being dispensing wisdom. “We all have to deal with reality, Jessie.”

Anorexia lady thinks I'm crazy just for wearing Jason's clothes
? Fine, Jessie decided, she'd be crazy. “That's not my name,” she said loudly. “Jason. Call me Jason.”

“Now, Jessie, you know we can't do that.”

Why not? Jessica, super-student, knew that by law, as long as she wasn't committing a crime she could use whatever name she wanted to. “Call me
Jason
.”

The argument went on for some time and ended in a deadlock. Jessie kept her sunglasses on. Jessie said her name was Jason. The school psychologist finally let her go back to class, and for the rest of the day when she wrote her name on her papers, she put Jason Ressler. It looked funny in her neat, oval handwriting instead of his wild scrawl.

Coincidentally, on that same day in a small city several hundred miles away, W. Richard Ressler was also seeing a psychologist, to whom he confided, “It's Wendell. Wendell Richard.”

“Nothing wrong with that,” the comfortably plump woman responded.

“I know that now, but when I was in school–kids can be awfully cruel about nothing. Wendell Witchie! Wendell Witchie! I hated it.”

“They bullied you? Over a period of several years?”

“Oh, yeah. They threw me on the ground and rubbed my face in the dirt whenever they felt like it.”

“We're just starting to realize how much that sort of childhood abuse by peers is internalized, contributing to a lifetime lack of self-esteem. It's no wonder you are still trying to find yourself.”

Yeppers. And he had gone about it all the wrong ways at first. Leaving his wife and family. Running here, running there, thinking he would feel like a different person in a different place. Bars and fast cars and liquor and drugs, months of partying, until he had ended up in detox. He'd pretty much wasted two years, but now he was clean and trying to stay that way.

He didn't have to tell the doctor any of this; she knew. He'd been seeing her awhile.

“I've been holding down a job and mostly stable for almost six months now,” he remarked.

“And?” She smiled at him.

“And I've been thinking–maybe …”

“Go on.”

“I feel almost ready to face my kids now.” Damn, what a fool he'd been. He wouldn't go off the deep end ever again if he could just have his children back in his life. The divorce had given him visitation rights, of course, but try telling that to his ex. She never called to let him know how his son and daughter were doing, and when he tried to phone her, or them, his call was blocked. He had called from other numbers only to have her hang up on him. And she was always the one to answer the phone. Always had been. The house was her domain, and she reigned there.

For the same queen-of-her-small-realm reason, she was always the one to bring in the mail. He had written to both Jason and Jessie several times, but he felt sure they had not received the letters, because he had never heard back from either of them. When he tried to call them on their cell phones, he got a wonking voice telling him the numbers were no longer in service. Probably their doting mother had upscaled them to BlackBerries or something, and even their own father had no way of finding out their numbers.

“I believe I suggested you should contact a lawyer to help you insist on your parental rights?”

“Um, yeah, but I haven't done it yet.”

“Why not?”

“I–I want to get past that six-month mark.” Then he'd feel strong enough, he hoped. Damn, probably both the kids thought he didn't care about them anymore. No way could they have any idea how badly he wanted to contact them if he could just feel a little steadier on his feet. This was Jessie's senior year. She might very well be her class valedictiorian, and he
would
be there for her graduation–it was a promise he had made to himself and, although she didn't yet know it, to her. Plus, he could hardly wait to see Jason again.

Jason. What a son! Strong, and knew what he wanted from the first day he stood on his feet. You could bet Jason had never been bullied the way his father had been. One hell of a wrestler, and the best-looking boy in town, and the kid had probably been in the pants of every girl in the high school by now. Damn, it was hard not to be rooster-proud of Jason, although Mr. Ressler realized guiltily that he ought to worry, to hope the boy didn't get a girl pregnant or leave a trail of abortions and broken hearts. Because, to tell the truth, Jason wouldn't care. Jason was about as self-centered as they come, what with the way his mother had spoiled him. Mr. Ressler had seen this, but he'd never had the heart to try to reduce the magnitude of Jason's ego, so much the opposite of his own. He adored his son. There was something larger-than-life about Jason.

And Jessie adored Jason the same way, but what was more important, Jessie had adored
him
, her father, when he was still in her life.

The therapist was saying, “Do you really think an arbitrary date will make that much difference?”

“I–I can't delay much longer, I know, but I need to feel ready.”

“The word ‘stalling' comes to mind. You may never feel ready. Don't you think your children love you regardless?”

“I, um, yes, I guess so, but I don't want to do anything that would make them ashamed of me.”

“Why would you? Weren't you a good father before?”

“I tried to be.” Especially with Jessie, taking her on father-daughter “dates” to the zoo or a movie, plus ice cream or pizza, trying to make up for the way the little girl's mother just didn't take much interest in her. It made him ache to the core when he thought about her, when he missed her and realized how badly she must miss him. And how she was probably still trying her darnedest to win her mother's love, when the sad truth was there just wasn't much love
there
–except for Jason.

Meanwhile, it had fallen to him to parent Jessie. Help her select modest clothes to wear. Buy her classy jewelry, real ruby, her birthstone. Talk to her about boys, how to be careful, how not to get sweet-talked into trouble. His daughter had a real good reputation, and she was
smart
, a genuine scholar, and even though all that brain was certainly no way to impress her clueless mother, it made Daddy really proud of his little girl, almost as proud as he was of Jason.

His therapist was watching him. “What are you thinking?”

“How much I love those kids.”

“They probably believe you deserted them. When are you going to set the law on your ex and get back in touch with them?”

“Every time I think about my ex, I want a drink.”

“I know how that is. You just deal with it, that's all.” She paused. “I also know it's nice to dream about how wonderful it'll be to see the kids, right? And maybe you're scared to leave the dream behind and face the reality?”

She was right. In his imagination, Jessie and Jason were just the way he had left them. He didn't want to think anything might have changed.

“Don't you think it's time to man up?” his counselor challenged. “Anything could be happening to your children.”

When school let out, Alisha went straight to the public library to continue her search for W. Richard Ressler, starting where she had left off yesterday. She looked at every photograph on the singles dating sites, but she could not find him. And even if she did, would he be able to bring Jessie back to being Jessie?

Chapter Ten

After school, Jessie hung around in the lobby, pretending not to watch kids gawk at her new car. It was still parked diagonally. Maybe worn out from dealing with Jessie, the office staff hadn't said anything about it all day. But while the administration ignored the Z-car, some of the kids were practically kissing it. They were still avoiding Jessie herself, and some of them walked past the black beauty trying not to look as if they were eyeing it, but others clustered around it, stroking its sleek hood, stooping to peer into its tinted windows, owlish looks of awe on their faces as they exchanged comments with one another.

Jessie watched, smiled, got bored, idly pulled Jason's cell phone from her pocket, and flipped it open. The instant it lit up, her heart turned over because she knew she was making a mistake, just asking for grief by snooping to see what her dead brother had on his phone. Turn it off, quick–Wait a minute. It said there were new text messages.

Maybe from the day he had died? Messages he had never answered?

Aching, Jessie knew she had no choice. Pain if she looked, pain and regret if she didn't. She thumbed the button.

And stared. The phrase “stark, staring mad” shot through her mind, and for an instant she wondered what “stark” meant, anyway.

The messages were not from ten days ago, when Jason was killed. They were received today.

Lcum bak J

Who u think u r

DEB r ded

2nite DEB r u chikn

Scrw u + ur car

Jessie couldn't tell from the initials who had sent them. Nothing made sense. Why were they texting him? He was dead. Why about Deb? Who was Deb?

Wait. DEB.

Dead End Bend.

Challenge.

Confrontation.

Her brother's friends daring her to show them that she had a right to go around pretending to be Jason.

Not that it was any of their business, Jessie reminded herself. She didn't care what anybody else thought. She had never cared what kids in school thought of her. A few times in the past, some imbecile had insulted her to her face, calling her a nerd or geek or whatever. Her response had been to turn and walk away. People like that, no matter how crappy they made her feel, were not worth bothering with.

But these commonsense thoughts did Jessie no good. She felt her heart pounding, her neck going hot, her fists clenching, and she knew why: it wasn't about her. She was nobody. But Jason was–had been–somebody, and this was about Jason.

Jason's legend.

Jason's daredevil legacy.

Jason's right to a brand-new, expensive black sports car.

Jessie's blood burned with a new glad-mad defiance even stronger than the anger she had felt in the school psychologist's office. Yes, she would show up at Dead End Bend tonight. Maybe confronting the challengers would put a stop to some of the ugliness in school, she told herself, but even without that rationalization, she would do it anyway.

And she was looking forward to it. She had never felt so bone-deep excited in her whole polite, boring little life.
Thank you, Jason
, she thought, because this rush felt like her brother's gift to her from the grave.

Alisha truly could not think what more to do, but she would not stop trying to locate Jessie's father. Wandering around town, she started looking for adults about the right age and asking them at random. The guy in the hardware store: “Do you know where Mr. Ressler lives now? Yeah, Richard Ressler, do you know where he went when he moved out–no? Never mind. Thanks anyway.” Woman in the coffee shop, same thing, guy in the auto-parts store–Alisha realized she was wasting her time, but also it had come to her where she should be asking: the bars.

Not her idea of fun.

Scared her, actually.

But she had to try.

By now it was almost nighttime, and the bars were beginning to fill. As she entered the first one, the bartender took one look at her and said, “Honey, you ain't old enough to come in here.”

“I'm just trying to find out where Richard Ressler moved to.”

For some reason a few laughs went up from around the room. “Dick? Detox,” one guy said.

“Playboy Bunnyland,” said another.