Summer of '69(71)

“Tennis lessons canceled,” Exalta says. She gives Jessie a kind smile. “You can go on back to bed.”

If Jessie was looking for a sign, she has found it. Going back to Little Fair and burrowing under the covers as she listens to the patter of rain against the roof is a tempting choice—but it’s also a cowardly one.

Jessie takes a seat across from Exalta. “Nonny, there’s something I have to tell you.”

Her grandmother gazes at her with interest. Exalta isn’t wearing any makeup, so her wrinkles are revealed, and there are pouches under her blue eyes. Her lips are the same color as her skin. Her hair, which looks silvery blond when combed, now looks gray, the color of steel. Jessie tries to imagine her grandmother as a thirteen-year-old. Of course, that would have been in 1907, before most people had automobiles or flew on airplanes, before Russia was an enemy.

“I lost your necklace,” Jessie says. “The one Gramps gave you for your anniversary.”

Exalta blinks, and this split second while Exalta is processing what Jessie just said is the worst moment of Jessie’s life.

The silence that follows is equally awful. Jessie sees no choice but to fill it. “I took the necklace from your room. I wore it to dinner with Mom last Thursday.”

Exalta executes a nod so slight Jessie wonders if she has imagined it, but it’s followed by a change in Exalta’s expression. The corners of her mouth fall a fraction of an inch. She isn’t frantic at the news, or appalled. She is simply disappointed. Jessie has revealed herself to be as untrustworthy as Exalta feared. Not worthy of the necklace. Not worthy of the family.

“You took it without asking,” Exalta says. “Do you know what that’s called, Jessica?”

“Stealing,” Jessie says. A bolder, braver version of herself—Jessica Levin at eighteen, or even sixteen—might have pointed out that since Nonny had given her the necklace, it was hers, and by definition, she couldn’t steal something that already belonged to her. Nonny might then have pointed out that she had decreed that the necklace was for special occasions only—but dinner at the Mad Hatter qualified, right? Nonny hadn’t meant that Jessie had to wait for her high-school graduation or her wedding, had she?

“Stealing,” Exalta repeated. She made the word sound vile. Only criminals stole—Bonnie and Clyde, John Dillinger. “And this isn’t the first time you’ve stolen something, is it, Jessica?”

“I…” Jessie falters. What does Nonny know? Jessie inhales and prepares to…what? Lie? Cowards lie. She sits quietly for a second and regroups. Telling the truth when you’ve done something wrong is the most terrifying thing in the world. Never mind that Jessie was angry—her tennis instructor touched her inappropriately, her grandmother refused to let her use her own last name, her brother had been called up by Selective Service—her actions weren’t justified.

“No,” she says. “It wasn’t the first time.”

“Mrs. Winter told me that Bitsy Dunscombe told her that you took five dollars and a lipstick out of Heather Dunscombe’s bag. And I told her that I would bet all of my worldly belongings that this was not the case. Do you know why I said that, Jessica?”

Tears rise at the vision of her grandmother defending her against Mrs. Winter and Bitsy Dunscombe. “Why?” Jessie says.

“Because I thought you were different from the other three children,” Exalta says. “I thought you were sensitive and thoughtful. Trustworthy.”

At this, tears fall.

“Now I see I was mistaken.”

Jessie cries. She sobs. It’s too awful—not that Exalta is disappointed; this, she could have predicted. What’s awful is that Exalta had believed in Jessie, that she attributed wonderful qualities like sensitivity and thoughtfulness to her, and Jessie hadn’t realized it. She knew she was different from the other three children, yes, but she had always felt lesser, somehow—small, dark, strange.

“I’m going to sit here while you retrieve the five dollars and the lipstick,” Exalta says. “I will return them.”

Exalta will return them? Isn’t the correct punishment to make Jessie give the money and the lip gloss back to Heather along with a full, mortifying confession and apology? But then Jessie understands that Exalta needs to save face.

Jessie runs through the rain back to her bedroom at Little Fair. She opens her top drawer and pulls out the five-dollar bill and the Bonne Bell lip gloss—and the wristbands and the Twizzlers. When she gets back to the kitchen and drops the items on the table, Exalta looks unsurprised.

“Is that everything?”

“Except the necklace,” Jessie says. The matter of the precious heirloom, lost forever, seems to have been forgotten.

“Mr. Crimmins found the necklace caught between the floorboards in the hall,” Exalta says. “Lucky for you. And I have tucked it away for safekeeping.”

Jessie’s relief can’t be described. She feels so light she could float. Mr. Crimmins found the necklace! She is happy not because she’s been let off the hook but because she genuinely cares about the necklace.

“Don’t worry, I’m not taking it away from you,” Exalta says. “But I will retain custody of it until you’re older. Sixteen, perhaps.”

“I don’t deserve it ever,” Jessie says. This is how she feels. The necklace would be safer with Blair or Kirby or even, eventually, one of Blair’s children.