“First things first,” she said aloud to the cavernous emptiness of the house. She swore she could hear her voice echo. “I’m going to get all those damn nutcrackers.”
Her dad had adored the little wooden Christmas soldiers, even though Jillian had never in her life seen him shell and eat a nut himself. The nutcrackers served no purpose but were scattered all over the house anyway, cluttering up every shelf and mantel. Sometimes, with a suspiciously and, in retrospect, forebodingly wicked sense of humor, her dad had even hidden them away like Easter eggs so unsuspecting guests would open a medicine cabinet looking for aspirin and find a six-inch mini-nutcracker staring back at them instead.
Some of Jillian’s coworkers complained about the hassle of dealing with the Elf on the Shelf fad, and it always made Jillian feel like the hard-bitten veteran in some old war movie: Kid, you wouldn’t believe the shit I’ve seen.
Blue-coated nutcrackers. Red-coated nutcrackers. Darth Vader nutcrackers. Jaws nutcrackers. More nutcrackers than a ballet company. She was amazed he’d been able to leave them behind.
Of everything in the house, they were the most unilaterally his. Jillian, her mom, Tiffani, a parade of girlfriends and mistresses and “secretaries”... none of them had ever been able to bring themselves to do more than tolerate the toys, and most of them had actively pled for their removal. If any assets were going to be seized because of the poisoned well of her dad’s money, the nutcrackers, in Jillian’s humble opinion, should be the first in the firing line.
So she went from room to room, gathering them up in armfuls, not even wanting to stop for a box to make the job easier. Maybe she didn’t want it to be easy. There was something cathartic about actually breaking a sweat hauling them around and up and down the stairs. By the time the Marshals came, Jillian would be able to show them that at least one Marcus knew the meaning of hard work.
She was still lining them up in military-precise rows on the gold-streaked marble floor of the foyer when Tiffani came back with a bag full of groceries and slightly runny mascara. Jillian knew without asking that she hadn’t escaped the public eye even in that short trip out, and her stomach ached with the unfairness of it. Poor Tiff.
Tiffani went straight for the tissues, blew her nose, and then said, “What are you doing?”
Jillian wiped sweat off her brow. “Cooperating with a federal investigation.”
“You think they’ll want those?”
“Some of them might be collectibles,” Jillian said doubtfully. Most of what her dad had bought, he had bought because of the price tag, but for some reason, when it came to the creepy nutcracker collection, his heart had been pure. He had bought them up with an innocent enthusiasm rather than an antique-dealer’s cunning eye. “Mostly it just makes me feel better to be doing something. And if they’re going to have to count and collect everything, why not make it easy for them to get Dad’s stuff first?”
Tiffani smiled. Despite the still-red edges of her eyes, it looked genuine. “I like the way you think. You always know what to do.”
Did she? It didn’t feel like it.
Jillian had spent her whole life making decisions by the WWDND method: What Would Dad Not Do? He had dedicated his life to grabbing every dollar he could? She would dedicate hers to non-profits devoted to helping out the underprivileged his tactics screwed over. He’d had a string of loveless relationships? She would wait to get serious until she found someone she unquestionably couldn’t live without. He ran when things got tough? She would stick it out no matter what. He’d been selfish? She’d be selfless... well, she’d try.
Now she could add one more thing. He got indicted for too many white-collar crimes to count? She would do everything she could to make things easy for law enforcement to get some of that stolen money back into the hands of the people who’d lost it.
She just wished she felt half as sure of herself as Tiffani always thought she should. Confidence was something she had always struggled with. As much as she didn’t want to be her father’s daughter, it had always left her wrong-footed to be such a complete alien in her own family.
Even physically! Her dad was one of those chiseled, flinty-eyed men who looked, even in his sixties, like he should have been captaining a yacht, and he had married and dated a string of glamorous, model-slim women with sleek hair and flawless fashion sense. Jillian didn’t look anything like any of them, not even her mother. Where they were gazelles, she was... she couldn’t think of a flattering animal.
They were delicate and doll-like, and Jillian had always been anything but. Her body was all generous curves—arguably too generous. Years of self-defense training—the women’s shelter she volunteered for required its regulars to attend five sessions, and Jillian had just kept on going—had made her strong and honed beneath the soft roundedness. But nothing, seemingly, could take away her voluptuousness. Her mom had always clucked her tongue at Jillian whenever she saw her; had always moved the bread basket away from her hand at restaurants.
She’d never forget what her mom had said to her when the divorce proceedings first started. Lila Marcus had come over with her Louis Vuitton luggage and loaded up what was important to her. Even as young as she’d been, Jillian had known that didn’t include her, but she’d trailed her mom from room to room anyway, hopeful of some kind of acknowledgment or sentimentality.
For a moment, she’d thought she was getting it. Her mom had found her honeymoon gift earrings, these delicate silver spirals threaded with pearls, and held them up.
“These,” she’d said, “were from back when your father knew how to give gifts, back when he still gave a damn what people thought of him. Custom-made, Jillian, from my own drawings, and he did it as a surprise. His second wife will never get that effort out of him. But I can afford to leave them. Bryce will buy me something better.”
She’d laid them back in the jewelry box just as Jillian said, “Then can I have them? They’ll always remind me of you.”
“Oh, honey,” her mom had said. “I just think they won’t look right with that chubby little face of yours.” She’d pinched Jillian’s cheek. “But maybe you can slim into them one day.”
Not a great recipe for self-esteem.
It had taken years, but Jillian liked herself. She liked her body. She liked her ethics. She liked her choices. Defining herself against her parents had made her into someone she could respect.
But here she was, twenty-six years old, with no more parents around to push against and with only Tiffani to support her. She felt adrift. A little bit more of that about-to-cry feeling started to tighten up her throat. Nope. Not going to happen.
&
nbsp; She was saved by the scent of baking cookies drifting out of the kitchen. Huh. Tiffani’s baking was actually working out. Maybe there was hope for them after all.
Okay. She could do this. She just had to take it one nutcracker at a time.
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