But as easily as all of that came to him, it wasn’t what he did with Jem; the real JJ spilled out instead, devoid only of the death and the killing that usually dominated his life but here seemed to leave no readily apparent blank spaces, Jem satisfied that she was talking to a full, rounded person.
It was only in the innocuous detail of his life that he was being open with her, but those had been the details he’d been most cagey about in the past, like they were the key to cracking him open and getting the rest. And he didn’t know why he was choosing to be open with her like that, perhaps because of having met Jools again or because of the easiness he’d found in Holden and the rest of them, perhaps only because the last week had taught him that being cagey didn’t deliver very much.
Whatever the reasons, it was liberating to sit there with her and share stories of their childhoods and families, and of love, relationships, of the common ground they had between them. It was liberating for once to meet someone new and feel only an unhindered desire to share personal histories, with no caution, no uneasiness, and, maybe most ironic of all, with no baggage.
He liked being with her, liked the way she spoke, the way her eyes came alive when she was talking about something, the way she broke into an easy smile, becoming bashful then when he asked what she was smiling about. He liked simply sitting opposite her, being able to look into her face.
It was just one of those rare encounters, a language quickly emerging between them, and it was something again that reminded him of being her age, of the growing teenage awareness that there were other people out there to connect with, the feeling of no longer being isolated.
They walked back to the inn together afterward, a sense of having come to know each other well in the hours since they’d walked out together, and as they passed the church she said, “I’m glad you came to my dad’s grave with me.”
It was a strange thing to say, even now, and he let a note of confusion creep into his voice as he asked, “Why?”
“I don’t know,” she said, “It’s just like, kind of cool that you came.”
“You must miss him,” JJ said, thinking maybe she’d shared the same closeness with her father that Jack had with Susan.
“Not really,” she said, answering casually, backing herself up then. “It was Thanksgiving when it happened.” That was right; it had been a Thursday, Thanksgiving, and Bostridge had chosen to spend it there, inadvertently choosing the day of his execution, inadvertently tainting every future Thanksgiving for his family too.
“So?” asked JJ, questioning the statement as a matter of form.
“So it wasn’t like, unusual for him to be away for Thanksgiving and stuff. I guess what I’m saying is, it’s hard to miss someone who wasn’t there that much.”
“I suppose you’re right. A lot of people are in the same position though. You know, business.”
She looked at him earnestly, as if he needed to be reassured. “Oh, I don’t like, blame him or anything. And I guess I miss what we might have had together but ...” She trailed off, adding then, “Let’s not talk about my dad. I’m glad you came to his grave, that’s all.” She seemed bored by the subject rather than uncomfortable with it; she’d probably spoken about it a lot in the time since, everyone wanting to talk about it with her, demanding catharsis the way people did.
So they chatted about other things for the rest of the way, talking less though. And when they got back to the inn they stood in the lobby and said bye to each other, dwelling a little over it, stilted pauses before she said finally, “Am I keeping you? I mean, do you have plans or anything ?”
“No, not at all,” he said quickly, the signal clear. She smiled again in response, an edge in her eyes he couldn’t quite read.
“Good,” she said then. “There’s something I wanna show you.” She led him into their side of the house, a stillness in there, of stopped clocks, nobody else home. As he followed her up the stairs he realized they were going to her room, the one where he’d seen her lost in sleep with Freddie; a low-level buzz of anticipation caught him at the thought of it.
It meant nothing to her though to be taking him there. She casually cleared some discarded clothes from the bed as she led him in, saying, “Take a seat,” as she threw them into a closet. There was a small armchair in one corner, a chair too in front of the desk where she had books open, half-finished homework, but he sat on one side of the large bed and took in the teenage clutter, the way the whole of her life was jumbled into that space.