***
Late that same night, after the crew had gone, jumbles of wires and cables now strewn everywhere, Jackie left her room and found her mother sitting on the couch. Deirdre was in her flannel pj’s, her feet up on the coffee table, a MacBook on her lap. Jackie couldn’t help but notice the lines around her mother’s eyes and arching down from the corners of her mouth. The woman was tired, beaten down. Jackie had been so consumed by her own feelings that she hadn’t really considered what this whole ordeal had been doing to her mom.
“Hey, Jax.” Deirdre closed the computer and patted a spot on the couch.
Jackie sat down, but she didn’t snuggle in as it seemed her mother hoped and expected she would. She stared at her hands for a long moment before letting out a big breath of air. “Mom, why are we doing this?” Jackie motioned to the cameras that had been installed in all four corners of the living room ceiling, each one seeming like a malevolent eye just waiting to wake up.
The interminable pause before her mother answered told Jackie most of what she needed to know. “The truth?” Deirdre asked. Jackie nodded. “Money.” Her mother’s voice was flat, devoid of life.
Jackie didn’t know how to respond to that. She thought back to the day she learned the real value of money.
When she was eight and Megan was six, they set up a lemonade stand at the end of the driveway. Jackie could still remember the feeling of anticipation as she and her sister and mother squeezed lemon after lemon, mixing the juice and the rinds with water, ice, and sugar. The kitchen, to Jackie, smelled like summer.
Because she was between second and third grade and had mastered her writing skills, Jackie was tasked with creating the sign that read “Lemonade, Fifty Cents.” The next line, “Keep Cool. Keep Fresh,” was a slogan Jackie had devised on her own, and it made her swell with pride.
Her father set up a card table, along with a shoe box filled with quarters and dollar bills to make change, and they waited. Then, as Jackie believed with all her heart would happen, a car stopped. And then another. And then another. They kept on coming.
Some of the drivers refused to accept change, making the lemonade stand profits soar, and each looked like a happy, satisfied customer. Thinking back, Jackie realized that most of the “customers” were neighbors and family friends that Deirdre had probably called and asked to stop by. But on that July day, Jackie felt every bit the entrepreneur. When all was said and done, the girls had made ten dollars, five dollars each.
“What are you going to do with your money?” Deirdre asked.
“I’m going to buy a tiara!” Megan, only six, was already well along the path of the person she was destined to become.
“I’m not sure,” Jackie said. “I think maybe I want to buy a book. But is five dollars enough to buy a book?”
“I’ll tell you what,” Jared answered. “Let’s go tiara and book shopping and see what we can afford.”
Twenty minutes later, the whole family was in the car, the girls each clutching a pocketbook filled with their newfound wealth.
“Can we go to the tiara store first?” Megan asked.
“Actually, Peanut, we’re closer to the bookstore.” Jackie knew her father would want to go to the bookstore first. The family seemed to find time almost every weekend to pay a visit to Powell’s. Jackie loved it. Megan groaned.
After they parked, as they were about to go in the front door, Jared put a hand on Jackie’s shoulder. “Hold up a sec.” Deirdre, Jackie, and Megan followed his gaze and saw a man sitting a few feet down from the door. A sign that read “This is awkward for me, too …” was propped in front of him, and next to it sat a tattered basket lined with a smattering of loose change and dollar bills.
Jackie watched her mother’s alarm as her father approached the man. Jared had recently won his first election and had been going out of his way to connect with the community. Jackie thought this must be part of his job. She followed her father, Megan and Deirdre staying a few feet behind.
“Hi,” Jared said.