Jessica Hayles
July 16, 2020 3:20 PM
Disclosures. by Jessica Hayles
Jessica dropped lightly down on Lola’s little bed, curling up slightly on her side both so that she could fit more comfortably and so she could see her sisters, who were sitting on the floor of Lola’s room, playing yet another round of Go Fish. Mara glanced up at her, but Jessica avoided her eyes.Mara knew something was up, of course. Jessica supposed she had not done the best job of concealing it. When they had been playing What Ifs in the living room (Dad posed some circumstance, likely or unlikely, and asked Mara and Jessica how they would respond if they were in charge of the company when it happened), she had needed a bit of prompting just to come up with a response to a simple question about how to handle marketing if there was a situation where most people would suddenly need to wear face coverings for a season. She had come up with something about lip balm protecting dry lips from cracking and creating an entrance point for pathogens; effective, as Daddy had said, but he and Mara had both looked slightly disturbed, able to tell, she thought, that she hadn’t had her head in the game. What Ifs was a great favorite in their family, and normally, Jessica and Mara got highly competitive about it, trying to outdo each other designing responses. Today, well…Lola’s response when Daddy had asked her a simplified version of the question had not been very good (“I make it all pink and purple!”) but at least she had been enthusiastic about it.
“Jezi, play fish?” asked Lola, looking up at her.
“No, thank you,” said Jessica. “I was thinking we should play hide-and-go seek. I bet you can hide so good that me and Mara could never find you.”
“I can! I can!” said Lola, dropping the cards. “You count!”
“Okaaay,” said Jessica. “One…two….”
Mara began counting in time with her, calling the numbers in Spanish, a mix which hurt Jessica’s brain to hear in time with her own English words. Lola shrieked and ran out of the room. Jessica finished counting slowly, then dropped her hands from her eyes to see Mara starting toward the door as she called ‘ready or not, here we come’ in Spanish.
“Mara,” she said quietly. “Hang on a minute?”
She was a coward to do it like this, she knew. To slip the information in while they were engaged in an activity, so they wouldn’t have to have a conversation about it straightaway, so Mara could process the information and Jessica could hopefully avoid receiving the brunt of her sister’s emotional response, if Mara had a strong one. She didn’t do well with strong emotions, her own or anyone else’s. That didn’t, however, make it any less cowardly to do it like this, forcing Mara to remain composed (hopefully) for her sake….
“What’s up?” asked Mara, frowning, as Jessica avoided her eyes again, using the pretense of collecting the playing cards off the floor and tucking them back into a neat stack.
“I found out something right before we got out of school that I think you should know,” she said. She began flipping through cards, looking to make sure they were all pointing the same way, trying to align their edges perfectly. “I, um, I ended up talking to Felipe. He wanted to apologize for some of the things he said to me last year, and we ended up…trying to talk through things. Except for the part where I freaked out,” she admitted with a wince. She almost hoped Mara would interrupt her, to ask why she should care, but Mara didn’t, clearly sensing that Jessica wasn’t to the end of the story. “Em…you know he knows about you.”
Mara frowned more intently, apparently confused. “Yeah,” she said. “That’s not exactly news, Jezi.”
“I know. The news part is…he didn’t keep his mouth shut about it. Jackson knows.”
Mara’s face went very blank. “Huh,” she said.
On the surface, this reaction seemed quite controlled. Despite the fact Mara had just folded her arms, though, Jessica could still see that Mara’s hands had just closed into fists.
“That was the part where I freaked out,” said Jessica. “I just…panicked.”
“Huh,” said Mara again. “Interesting. That she knows, I mean. Not that you freaked out. That’s sucky, I’m sorry that happened again. You okay?”
Jessica stared at her. You okay? That was not the response she would have expected. “I’m okay now,” she said. “We…we decided to talk again after we get back, try to figure out…where things went wrong. And he promised he hadn’t really meant to tell anyone, and wouldn’t tell anyone else,” she added quickly.
Mara nodded slowly. “But he already told Jackson,” she repeated.
“He says she wouldn’t do anything with that information, but he’s obsessed with this idea she’s a good person, I don’t know, I guess that’s what keeps him glued together…I told him you had to know, though. You have a right to know who has dirt on you.”
“Right,” said Mara flatly. “Well. Thanks for telling me. Let’s go find Lola.”
16
Jessica Hayles
Disclosures.
1442
1
5