BACK WITH YOU
Chapter Twelve
Dinner turned out wonderful and Jessamyn was
shocked at how much she was enjoying herself. Charlie acted shy and reserved
around people he didn't know sometimes, but when they were sitting together in
the back of the restaurant, she saw him open up and she was reminded of why she
had become his friend in the first place. She hadn't laughed so hard as she had
when he told her about the time he was at his grandmother's old plantation and
during a game of reenacting the Civil War with some cousins--in the house, no
less--had accidentally blown a hole in a toilet and managed to talk his way out
of it by saying he dropped something. Jessamyn thought she had mastered the art
of getting out of things; obviously she had been proved wrong.
They had eaten Cajun food, which Charlie had
deemed not as good as in New Orleans, but it was all right. Jessamyn thought it
was pretty good, but she decided that Charlie was probably right. If anyone
should know about Cajun stuff, it was he.
Now Jessamyn sat on a bench bolted to the
wooden boardwalk down by the pier. Charlie was off getting ice cream cones, so
for the moment she was alone. It was getting to her favorite part of the day,
when the sun began to set behind the horizon and painted a beautiful landscape
of watercolors across the dimming sky. She had never seen sunsets as beautiful
as the ones in California, and had once remarked so to Rose. But her mother had
just given her a tiny smile and murmured a soft, "If only you knew."
Her legs were not long enough to reach the
ground unless she was sitting on the edge of the bench and since she wasn't,
she dangled them over the side and just let them hang there. It had finally
started to warm up and feel like spring. Jessamyn was strangely happy about the
fact that she could now wear sandals and show off her feet without them
becoming cold. She was admiring them when Charlie came back and sat down beside
her, draping his arm casually around the back of the bench after handing her a
cone.
"Are you tired?" he asked after a
minute.
Jessamyn, who had been yawning, managed to
shake her head. "No, just...relaxed," she said happily. Her chocolate
ice cream tasted so good that she wanted to be a pig and eat it quickly.
Thankfully, she restrained herself and managed only to take little licks.
Neither really said much other than what had
just corresponded between them. Jessamyn was wrapped up in her thoughts and
Charlie was trying to think of some more questions to ask her. They had
discussed everything from their school days to Jessamyn's recent realizations
of what had happened to her mother and father. She hadn't told him everything,
but Charlie got enough of the story to know that her parents had been through
something horrible and then her father had died. Jessamyn seemed strangely
reserved about the whole thing, like it was deeply affecting her, so he didn't
press for any more information.
"Do you miss home...Maine, I mean?"
Charlie finally asked softly.
Jessamyn turned slowly to look at him. Her
smile disappeared and she sighed. "I don't know," she confessed.
"I suppose I do, in some way. I guess I miss the familiarity, you know. I
slept in the same bed, I ate dinner with the same people, I was in the same
house for so many years. It's strange, even now, not having it all. But I'm
getting used to life here. I feel more…" She paused for a moment to think.
"…at home here with Rose. As much as I love the Calverts, she is my real
family. It makes my life here more comfortable. I miss Maine less and
less."
Charlie wondered if her attachment to Rose
had anything to do with the tragedy surrounding the death of her father, but he
kept his wonderings to himself. Instead, he casually pulled her closer to him,
a way of showing her that he was there for her.
It was quiet again until Jessamyn perked up,
seeing something on the beach. "Look at that!" she exclaimed
excitedly.
Charlie followed her gaze. She was staring at
someone galloping down the beach on a horse. There was a local guy who rented
out the rides for about two dollars an hour. He was surprised Jessamyn didn't
know about it yet. Knowing her, she probably would have sacrificed her week's
pay for the chance to experience that thrill for longer than an hour.
"Oh, that just looks like so much
fun."
"Yeah, it’s a favorite among
tourists," Charlie explained. He'd lived there long enough to not consider
himself a tourist now. "But I'll tell you what, it doesn't beat the long
days on a horse in Texas."
"I thought you grew up in New
Orleans," Jessamyn pointed out teasingly, poking him in the arm. And then,
"Damn," as she watched her scoop of ice cream fall to the sand below.
Charlie started laughing as he took her empty
cone. "Want another one?" he asked.
Jessamyn shook her head and licked the ice
cream off of her fingers. "No, thank you."
He turned around and threw the cone away in a
trashcan behind the bench. Then said, "I did grow up in New Orleans. But
my uncle had a ranch over in Texas that my sister and I would spend summers on
while my parents went to Europe or someplace. I had this one horse, Albert, and
I used to take him out before dawn. We'd watch the sunrise over the desert. It
was amazing. You could ride and ride for hours without running into another
person."
"Sounds...romantic," Jessamyn
gushed softly. "Cowboy," she added teasingly after a moment.
"Yeah, right, that's me," Charlie
scoffed and then he started laughing.
Jessamyn laughed along with him. She was
enjoying their little talk, not to mention his arm around her shoulders. She
could have stayed there forever, and probably would have if Charlie had not
suggested that they take a walk. He had long since finished his ice cream and
was beginning to get restless, especially since the sunset was not so brilliant
now. So she agreed and got up, slightly disappointed. But when he grabbed her
hand in his, she didn't object and gladly grasped it back.
They hadn't gotten very far when Jessamyn
felt Charlie tug her hand to the left and she unconsciously followed. She was
kind of in a trance and didn't quite realize that they had stopped next to
another bench.
"Hey, Mr. D! Where have you been
lately?"
Charlie's greeting brought her out of the
stupor and she was shocked to see whom he was talking to. It was none other
than Mr. Jack, the man she had met on the train. How odd, she thought, that he
was still here. And quite honestly, she had to admit she had forgotten about
her seat partner. Assuming she would never see him again, she had let him drift
out of her mind. But now he was here again.
Jack smiled, recognizing Jessamyn as well.
He, unlike her, had not forgotten. Her presence was too overwhelming to forget.
It was like a strange deja vu every time he thought of her. And he couldn't
explain it. How weird that she knew Charlie. What a small world.
"Hey, Charlie," he finally
responded. "And hello...Jessamyn, right?"
She nodded and gave him a little smile.
"Nice to see you again, Mr. Jack."
Charlie was notably confused as he began to
look from his date to Jack. "Do you two know each other?" he asked.
"We were on the same train coming down
here," Jack explained as he stood up from his seat on the bench.
Jessamyn watched him get up and noticed he
still was carrying that stupid leather sketchbook around. She had not forgotten
the drawings that were inside it, the awful, depressing ones. But now when she
thought of them she had a strange feeling come over her and held Charlie's hand
tighter as a form of support.
"Have you been here the whole
time?" she asked him, her voice surprisingly cold. She could feel Charlie
turn and look at her.
Jack nodded, noticing the change in her
demeanor. "Yeah," he answered. "I can't bring myself to leave just
yet. I've rented out a house and got a job working part time in a
gallery."
"Are you still drawing?" Jessamyn
blurted out the question, forgetting that he didn't know that she knew about
the sketches.
"Yeah," Jack said softly, and then
he changed the subject by asking Charlie about school. He answered and they
started up a conversation without Jessamyn, which was fine with her. Her mind
kept fixating on that one haunting picture of the woman standing on what
appeared to be an upper deck of a ship, as if the artist were watching her from
above. Even now, she could remember it pretty clearly; it reminded her of
someone. But she couldn't think of whom. It was only when she heard Charlie say
that they had better get going that she was brought back into reality. It was
dark and she wondered how long they had been standing there. Politely, she said
good-bye to Jack and then let Charlie guide her down the boardwalk once again.
When they were almost to the car, Jessamyn
remembered something. "Charlie?" she asked softly.
"Mmm hmm?" was his only response.
He sounded tired, but that didn't stop her from asking the next question.
"Why did you call him Mr. D?"
"Because of his last name."
"Which is..."
Charlie stopped walking and dropped her hand.
"Dawson," he answered softly. "I thought you knew each
other," he pointed out. "Wait, he is related to your mom?"
Jessamyn didn't even hear his last question;
her mind was off and running again. Jack Dawson? The drawings are what did it
for her as a tiny light bulb came on in her head. But there was no way he was
he same man...right? Rose had said her father had died. She had quite
emotionally described his death. Jessamyn had watched her cry talking about it.
Was Rose lying? She thought about it for a minute and no, she didn't think her
mother would do that. There had to be more than one Jack Dawson in the world,
she decided. That could be the only answer: it was simply a coincidence.
Unless...
Jessamyn turned around, ignoring Charlie's
worried words, and looked toward where Jack had been. His eyes were awfully
familiar, and she did have that strange feeling, like she knew him or
something. Was that man her father?
"Jessamyn?"
Charlie's voice finally came through the mist
in her mind and she shook her head in an attempt to bring herself back to
reality.
"Are you all right?" he asked in
concern.
Jessamyn linked her arm through his and
smiled. "Yeah," she said softly. "I just was thinking of
something."
He grinned at her. "Wanna take a
drive?" he asked as they started walking again. "I don't need the car
back for a while."
She nodded. "Sure, Charlie." She
couldn't shake the thoughts of Jack, though. They stayed with her throughout
the drive through the countryside and when Charlie finally took her home. Even
when he kissed her, she felt disconnected from him. All she could imagine was
her mother lying to her, making up the whole story. It was sick and twisted if
it was indeed false and Jessamyn was about to go talk to her, but Rose was
asleep. So she just went into her room and lay down. She wanted desperately to
believe that it was just a big misunderstanding. But the coincidences were just
too...odd, beyond normal ones, at least. She couldn't very well ignore them.
There had to be some explanation. There was no way this Jack Dawson was Rose's
Jack. It couldn't be.
Jessamyn finally fell asleep after racking
her brain for several hours. She was going to have to do some serious research,
or else have a very heated discussion with Rose. But somehow she knew things
were about to change, one way or another.