Granted, I didn’t know her very well. I didn’t need to. She was a weak person. Like most who were acquainted with her parents, I felt a degree of pity for her, yet thoroughly enjoyed her banana cake. She also made great sourdough bread, zucchini muffins, and quiche.
Actually, everything she baked—that I’d tried to date—was profoundly delicious. She had a gift. Her multiple blue ribbons and large trophies awarded at the state fair were warranted. But she was also a pushover. She was under the thumb of her ambitious momma and zealously irrational father. Her upbringing plus her frail temperament meant she was a tool, a means to an end.
And that was sad.
It was also none of my business.
How she lived her life—or allowed others to live it for her—was none of my affair. I’d hung up my cape; I’d sworn off rescuing lost causes. People didn’t want to be saved. All my meddling efforts were now focused on my family and their happiness, whether they liked it or not.
Which brought me back to now and the skittish Jennifer Sylvester. Her uneasiness was good news for me.
I prepared to unleash my somber nod. “You know, Jenn,I don’t think you want to do this.”
Her fingers flexed on her legs, she lifted her chin, then she spoke through clenched teeth. “Don’t tell me what I want.”
Okay. Wrong approach.
I tried something else, lowering my voice and making myself sound sinister. “If you give me your word you’ll delete the video, we can forget all about this.”
Two unhappy lines appeared between her eyebrows. “It’s too late for that.” I got the sense she wasn’t talking to me. “And, besides, I don’t trust you to forgive and forget. You’ll take revenge sooner or later, it’s what you do. No . . . I’m going to see this through.”
I stared at her, likely gaping. I was flummoxed.
You’ll take revenge sooner or later, it’s what you do
How could she know that?
I sat back in my seat and stared out the windshield, much of what I knew about the order of the universe rearranging itself. Perhaps Jennifer Sylvester wasn’t feeble after all. Perhaps Jennifer Sylvester was fierce.
That makes no sense. Nobody is that good at playing possum. Well . . . nobody but me.
I’d often thought in the past that she resembled a neglected puppy, eager to please. This made how her kin treated her difficult to watch. I’d stopped watching.
My eyes slid to the side and I examined her anew. Jennifer’s jaw was clenched with determination, the little point of her chin made sharp by the set of her resolve. Her face was usually sad or shy.
A touch of guilt flared, like an old wound. I quickly extinguished it, suddenly anxious to finish this peculiar conversation and return to a world that made sense.
“All right, what is it that you want?” I asked plainly, dropping all pretense. “Why am I out here? Why did you record the video, and what are you going to do with it?”
She released an unsteady breath and then looked at me. Her eyes were in shadow due to the rim of her hat. Vaguely, I recalled Beau once saying her irises were purple. I’d dismissed this claim because, unless Jennifer was an albino—which she wasn’t—her eyeballs could not be purple.
Regardless, I’d never noticed before, but the shape of her eyes was surprisingly attractive. Now, forced to reassess my knowledge of this woman, I found myself trying to discover the color of her irises as she spoke.
“I didn’t record it on purpose. I was there to record the sheriff for a—well, that doesn’t matter. But I didn’t record you on purpose. When I reviewed the video later, after hearing about what happened at the station, that’s when I realized you were in the video.”
“Okay, fine. I believe you. You didn’t record me on purpose. Now what?”
“I need your help,” she said, her voice softer, timid; her eyes large and hopeful.
This was the Jennifer Sylvester I knew, not the one with grit and granite.
“Hmm . . .” I squinted, disliking the possibility that there could be two sides to this woman. As a rule, I don’t believe in hidden depths, where hidden depths were defined as admirable but previously unnoticed qualities. I noticed everything.
Manufactured depths? Yes.
Disguised depths? Perhaps.
But not hidden depths.
Jennifer swallowed fretfully under my examination. I caught the slight tremor of her hands before she balled them into fists.
“What do you want?” I asked, no use beating around the bush.
She gathered a large amount of air into her lungs, closed her eyes, and then bellowed, “I want a husband.”
I frowned.
She opened one eye.
I blinked.
She opened the other eye.
I parted my lips to request clarification, but then thought better of it and snapped my mouth shut.
“Hmm . . .” I nodded, quite somberly.
Again, she’d taken me by surprise. Jennifer Sylvester wasn’t fierce. She was nuttier than a pecan pie.
“Right.” I continued nodding, turning my attention to the darkness beyond my windshield, then repeated, “Right.”
“You think I’m crazy,” she said in a rush, her hands grabbing my arm and holding on like I was a life preserver.
“Yes. Yes I do.”
A sound of desperation escaped her throat, then she said, “I want a baby.”