Just Add Spice

“Oh, definitely. To me, it was akin to Disneyland. All those new sights and sounds and people. I couldn’t wait to get to school every morning, and I didn’t mind hanging around the playground until our parents picked us up if they were late coming back from someplace. It was a whole new world.”

“So you were happy?” He finally perked up.

Jenna drained her martini and he fixed her a new one while she took time to consider his question.

It wasn’t exactly an easy one to answer.

After another gulp and a nibble on an olive, she dropped the toothpick into the glass and stood. “We both were for a while. But the bloom fell from the rose when I made my first friend. Her name was Abigail and she was a delicate southern belle with springy blonde curls and a smile brighter than the sun. ‘Course, now I understand why she was such a deliriously happy child.”

Jenna crossed to the tall windows and stared out at the beautiful lights of San Francisco, the Transamerica Pyramid glowing along the skyline.

In the reflection of a large glass pane, she saw Tad move to the sofa so he had a better view of her as she spoke. Jenna drank more of her cocktail, then told him, “She invited me to her house one day. A stunning Victorian home with a dozen bedrooms and as many bathrooms. The hallways were a maze we played in. And then she took me up to her room.”

Jenna’s throat constricted as emotion bubbled upward. She said, “Her room was as big as this entire suite. Lavender walls, a polished hardwood floor with plush area rugs, an enormous canopy bed in the center, decorated in fluffy white with stuffed animals piled high on top of it. She had a closet full of clothes. A stereo system in the corner. A TV. A desk with her own chair. I remember every single detail, right down to the tiny lilacs on the frilly white drapes that covered half a dozen windows. The view below was of the rose garden her mother grew.”

“Oh, dear me. I know where this is headed,” Tad said in a soft voice.

“I stood in the middle of the room, completely and utterly shell-shocked. How could she have so much space? And so many stuffed animals and dolls and clothes? It boggled my mind. Linney and I had a few toys—this girl had an entire trunk full!”

“I bet you played at her house every chance you got.”

“No.” Jenna remained quiet for endless minutes, gradually polishing off her second martini.

Tad graciously poured her another one, saying, “Two is always your limit, dear heart.”

“I’m feeling the need to get nicely tanked.”

He frowned. “Careful, sugar plum. You might regret that in the morning.” He returned to the sofa and asked, “What happened with Miss Abigail?”

“I stopped speaking to her the next day. I literally pretended she didn’t exist.”

“Good Lord,” he sighed. “How devastating for her.”

Jenna said, “She had plenty of friends. She probably didn’t even notice. And besides, two months later, we were out of there.”

“Sweet Mary, this is depressing.”

She turned back to the window. “And you wonder why I never wanted to talk about this.”

“But, Jenna, how can you not? Especially with me? Or with Rafe?”

She dragged in a breath. Slowly let it out. “He knows I have a sister. He knows we don’t talk. But I never told him why. Just that we lost touch with each other.”

“Did she have friends, or was she like you?”

“A loner?” she asked, her tone a bit sharp. “She was worse, actually. Until her late teens. In fact…” Jenna fortified herself further with another sip. She’d be sufficiently anesthetized shortly, she was sure of it. And could use the break from the emotional upheaval coming to San Francisco had brought on.

She told Tad, “Linney used to give me a hard time about the journals I kept. After the frilly lavender-bedroom incident, I started recording the names of the people I wanted to remember, starting with Abigail, because she was so pretty and sweet. And she’d been really nice to me for the short period of time we were friends. I’d write down who they were, a description of them and what I liked about them.”

His gazed narrowed on her. “Why would Linney ridicule you about that?”

Jenna stared at him in the reflection in the window and said, “Because she didn’t see the point of it. She told me no one would remember us, since they’d only known us briefly. They wouldn’t recall our names… Why should we want to remember theirs?” She paused before adding, “I suppose she was right. I mean, I didn’t put much thought into it when I was a kid, but later on, it started to sink in. Eventually, I felt…inconsequential. Insignificant.”

“You’re breaking my heart,” Tad told her, a sullen look on his handsome face.

“You said you wanted to hear this.”

“Yes, but. This is all so tragic, Jenna.”