Fidelity Files (13 page)

I pulled my car to the side of the road and began to formulate an escape route. Not the kind where you jump from the car, run for the bushes, and wind up on the six o'clock news. The psychological escape route. It's much more effective.

I watched in my side-view mirror and silently thanked God when I saw that the officer was a man. That made my life a hell of a lot easier. I rolled down the window, switched on the overhead dome light, and sat up straighter in my seat.

"Good evening, ma'am," he said, stepping over to my open window.

"Miss," I corrected him in a tone that was not so much annoyed by his wrongful prefix but more like granting him permission to use the right one.

"
Miss,
" he emphasized, with no break in his unforgiving front.

"Bluffing is half about putting forth something that is untrue and half about reading your opponent."

Tonight my opponent was married. His wedding band glimmered in the light of my overhead dome lamp. I handed him my driver's license and proof of insurance and he studied them. The trick now was to figure out what
kind
of married man he was. The kind that was undyingly faithful to his wife or the kind that I normally deal with. The fact that he was wearing his wedding ring on the job is evidence of the former. But it wasn't enough.

And that's when I noticed the small, white stain on the shirt pocket of his uniform. It was faded and appeared as if someone had tried to wipe it away in a hurry with a wet cloth, but there just hadn't been enough time to remove it all.

"Once you've read the opponent, then you're set. You can design your play."

Officer Kendall, as I read off his name tag, was happily married. Or at least for now. Which meant I would have to put the seductress card back in the deck tonight. He would have none of it.

Most married couples with a young baby – at least one young enough to still spit up on Daddy's uniform right before he leaves for work – are in a state of renewed marital bliss. Their relationship, as well as their existence as human beings, has reached a new level. They've brought life into the world. And combined with the proud sporting of the wedding band, Officer Kendall wasn't going to let some sexy girl in an overpriced SUV stand in the way of that bliss.

Which meant I would have to come up with another angle.

He pinned my license onto his clipboard and shined the flashlight into my open window. "The reason I pulled you over tonight, Miss Hunter, is because..."

I squinted into the light. "I know, I know. I was speeding. I'm very sorry." My voice was apologetic. Genuine and free of all traces of mocking.

"You were going pretty fast," he pointed out, flipping open his ticket book.

I subtly cocked my head to the side in order to get a glance at the pen he was pulling out from his shirt pocket.

Bingo.

My angle.

I lightened the tone of my voice considerably. "You know, you look really familiar. Have I seen you before?"

He was highly unamused. "No." He began to copy down the information from my license.

I pretended to rack my brain, all the while watching his pen fly across the page out of the corner of my eye. "Yes! You're trying to change careers, aren't you? My colleague is handling your file at Lex Harrison."

His face lit up. "You work with Mona Pietrik?"

"Sure do. I remember seeing you in there the other day." I giggled girlishly. "You're the one with the new baby, right?"

I could see his whole exterior soften, and I knew I was on the right track. Nearly home free. Or restaurant free, rather. The pieces were all fitting together: new baby, new lifestyle, new, safer career that would assure he was home in time for dinner every night... and without a bullet wound in his head.

"Yes, that was me."

I smiled like I was greeting an old friend. "I had no idea you were a policeman."

He sighed. "Hopefully not for long. Writing speeding tickets is definitely not something I want to do forever."

I groaned. "I know what you mean. Before I started working in the career counseling office I had this awful job collecting used towels at the gym. I came home every day smelling like other people's BO!"

He laughed aloud. "That's horrible!"

"Tell me about it." I paused. "Well, Mona is excellent at her job. I'm sure she'll find you something perfect!"

"Thanks," he said, ripping the half-written ticket from his booklet and crumpling it up in his hands. "Will you tell her I said hi?"

"Of course I will!"

He handed me back my driver's license and insurance card and closed his ticket book with a friendly wink. "Have a good night... and slow down out there."

TEN MINUTES later I pulled into the parking lot of a cheesy Italian chain restaurant in Westlake Village. I was the last one to arrive. Hannah yelled out my name and came running halfway across the restaurant to greet me. I hugged her thin frame close to me and stroked her curly blond hair as she buried her head against my collarbone.

"Hi, honey! Happy birthday!"

"Thanks!" Hannah said, giving me a squeeze before prancing back to the table and reclaiming her seat at the far end. As I followed after her, I saw my mom seated at the opposite end. I paused for a moment, pretending to take in the lively walls of the restaurant, which were covered in photographs of people I didn't know but somehow thought that I should.

In all actuality I was mustering up the courage to talk to her. I wasn't sure how much she knew about my dad's engagement, and frankly, it placed me in quite a bit of a catch-22... again. I certainly wasn't going to be the one to tell her, because I could care less about what my dad did these days. But I also didn't want to be the recipient of any more details than I already knew. He was getting married. That was plenty. But my mother wasn't the kind of person to store away her emotions. And ever since the divorce two and a half years ago, with my dad bitterly cut out of the picture, I'd been the involuntary beneficiary of the manifestations of those emotions.

And I wasn't sure I could handle another eruption tonight. Not with everything going on in my own life. Not when I had to store away so many emotions of my own.

Just as I'd done for the past sixteen years.

To protect her.

I pointed at a framed black-and-white photograph of a heavyset woman holding two watermelons in front of where her breasts would be and offered a small laugh. "That's cute," I said as I walked over to my mom and pecked her on the cheek. "Hi, Mom."

She reached her arms over her head and hugged me awkwardly around the neck. "Hi, Jenny. Did you get my last e-mail with the botany IQ test?"

"Yes, I got it on my phone. Sorry, I've been busy. Haven't had time to take it yet." Ever since my mother discovered the Internet a few months ago, she's basically turned into a fifteen-year-old Web junkie, spending the majority of her time doing online personality tests, downloading music and TV shows, sharing photographs, talking in chat rooms until the wee hours of the night. I think she even mentioned something about instant messaging a few weeks ago. Just the thought of my mother online talking to strangers around the country about her favorite lasagna recipe was too farfetched for me to even process.

I pulled out the chair next to her.

"No, here!" I heard Hannah shout from the other side of the table. "I saved you a seat over here!"

I turned to my mom and flashed her a look that not only expressed my apologies but also said, "What can you do? She's twelve." She smiled back and nodded her acceptance.

As I scooted in-between Hannah and one of her friends, I couldn't help but feel a small wave of relief. Followed quickly by guilt. I should
want
to sit by my mother. I should
want
to hear every tiny, painstaking detail of what she's going through. Because she's my mother, and she's been through a lot. Too much. But as I settled in to hear stories of makeup and annoying homeroom teachers and girls that clearly stuffed their bras because their boobs are totally uneven – and lumpy – I was reprehensibly grateful for my involuntary seating assignment.

I apologized for being late, intentionally leaving out the part about my near speeding ticket. My mother would reprimand me for driving too fast and putting my life in danger. And the rest of the table would want to know how I managed to talk my way out of it. I didn't really feel like explaining it. Plus, it would arouse suspicion. Jennifer Hunter doesn't talk her way out of speeding tickets. Or if she does, then why hasn't she managed to talk her way
into
a marriage proposal?

"We weren't sure when you would finally show up, so I went ahead and ordered for the table," Julia said in an accusatory tone that grated on my nerves.

I bit my lip and restrained myself from making a snide comeback, deciding to save my energy for later, when the questions start coming and I'm forced to remember all my cover stories flawlessly. Because one tiny, erroneous detail is almost always caught by someone. And then I find myself having to invent stories to cover up for the fact that I don't remember my original stories. And once you change the original stories it's like breaking the valve on a water spigot: The questions start flowing uncontrollably and with no end in sight.

I still failed to understand why Julia insisted on hanging out with my mom's side of the family anyway. She was my dad's daughter from his
first
marriage. I knew his first wife, Julia's mother, lived in some far-off state like Connecticut and Hannah only saw her about once a year. But why on earth wasn't she having family dinner with our father and his
new
fiancé? Why did she always want to hang out with my mother? When I was growing up she always seemed to hate her... and me for that matter. And after she got married we hardly ever saw her. It wasn't until recently that she mysteriously moved three streets away from my mom and suddenly became her new best friend.

Hannah immediately took command of the conversation and introduced me to the two girls sitting to my left, Olivia and Rachel. I said my polite hellos and waited patiently for the inquisition to begin. And less than five minutes after I sat down, like clockwork, it started. The questions began right on schedule.

"So, Jen. What's the latest with the dating scene?"

At that moment it was as if everyone at the table stopped what they were doing. Conversations fizzled out. Fidgeting came to a halt. All eyes were on me. Even Olivia's and Rachel's. And they didn't even know me.

"Always bluff believably. Use the cards already on the table to come up with a credible story."

"Well," I began. "I went on a date with this one guy I met at the gym. Clayton..."

I watched the faces around the table light up one by one, like staggered Christmas lights. Julia, her husband, my mom, Hannah, her two teenybopper friends. They were all waiting. Could this be the one? Could he be it? I like the name Clayton. Maybe he'll be my new uncle/brother-in-law/son-in-law. Maybe he'll save Jen from the looming perils of eternal singlehood. After all, she
is
almost thirty.

"But it turned out he had a girlfriend," I completed the brief story.

The woes of disappointment filled the air. I tried not to laugh. Because to me it was somewhat comical. How predictable they all were. How one mention of a new man's name left them all salivating at the mouth.

"What a slimeball!" Hannah exclaimed.

I patted her hand gently, thanking her for her reassuring insight.

"Oh well," my mother said. "Better luck next time."

"Yep," I agreed, and then for good measure threw in, "He's out there somewhere," hoping to put a definitive end to the conversation. The ultimate silencer.
She's optimistic. I guess that's all we can ask for at this point. Let's move on, shall we?

"Well then, how's your job?" Julia's husband asked.

I shrugged. "Fine, you know. The usual."

"The bank keeping you busy?" asked my mom.

I nodded and took a sip of my ice water. "Superbusy. Just got back from Denver last week and I'm off to Vegas tomorrow."

"Wow, Jen. Your life is so cool. I'm so superjealous!" Hannah said.

I forced out a humble smile as I reached for a piece of bread and shoved it in my mouth. Anything to keep me from starting to chew on my bottom lip. Tonight I was going to try my hardest to make sure
this
family reunion didn't end as most of them did... with the taste of my own blood in my mouth.

HALFWAY THROUGH the meal I could tell that Hannah and her friends were starting to get antsy. They had been picking at their plates of pasta for the last ten minutes while Julia talked incessantly to my mom about her most recent living room redecorating project. So I leaned in and suggested to Hannah that she and her friends come to the bathroom with me for some girl talk.

The three girls perked up immediately, eagerly pushing their chairs back.

As soon as we entered the ladies' room, I produced a small wrapped box from my bag and handed it to Hannah. "Don't tell your mom you got it from me," I said with a wink.

She wasted no time tearing off the wrapping and revealing the tube of Trish McEvoy designer lip gloss that I had bought her for her birthday. "Yes!" she exclaimed, opening up the box and removing the contents. "This is exactly what I wanted!"

Hannah turned to the mirror and applied a thin layer of the gloss, and then handed the tube to Olivia, who eagerly applied the next forbidden coat.

"Nick is going to flip when he sees you in this," Rachel said to Hannah, admiring the color.

I suddenly felt my stomach flip slightly. "Nick? Who's Nick?" I tried to sound casual and curious, as any girl talk participant would.

Hannah turned to me, her eyes immediately lighting up. "This boy at school that I like but barely even knows who I am."

"She doesn't just like him. She's
obsessed
with him!" Olivia clarified, and then passed the lip gloss to Rachel. "His third-period class is right next to her locker, so she always takes an
extra
-long time to get her books for that period."