Chapter 2
"Ted Potter, you haven't eaten enough to keep a bird alive!"
"Goddamn it, Helen, I've got a headache!"
Mikki, busily feeding her two year old twin daughters, looked up in surprise at the sudden exchange between her parents. Jacqui, more inured to the outcroppings of temper that marked their parents' later years than her twenty-three year old married sister, continued to gobble her food nonplused.
"Let me get you a couple aspirin, daddy," Mikki offered, rising from her chair.
Ted, his face buried in his fleshy palms, looked up at his eldest daughter affectionately and managed a smile.
"That's okay, sugar. Sit down and finish your dinner."
Oh, puke! Jacqui winced behind a forkful of mashed potatoes. Ol' daddy-waddy and sugar-poo are at it again!
Ted reached across the table and patted the back of Mikki's hand.
"Thanks for asking though, sweetheart." He noticed Jacqui's obvious displeasure then, and cast her a warning glance. "And you, young lady, had better wipe that goddamn smirk off your face!"
"Oh, Ted," Helen protested feebly. "Leave her alone. She didn't do anything."
"You stay out of this, Helen! Maybe if I'd taken a strap to her smart little ass more often when she was younger, we wouldn't be putting up with her crap now!"
"Shenanigans, Ted. She's never been in any serious trouble. And please lower your voice in front of the twins."
Ted glowered at his wife for a long moment, then looked from one to the other of his two daughters. Mikki, her face reddened with embarrassment, had returned to feeding Tammy and Debby, while Jacqui stared blankly down at her plate, her full green eyes brimming with tears.
"Shenanigans, huh?" he chuckled sarcastically. "You call getting kicked out of school two times in the same term for smoking, shenanigans? "
Helen, too, looked at her two daughters. She loved them both, and it saddened her that their differences in personality had always been a sore spot with her somewhat reactionary husband. Physically, the two girls were as alike as two peas in a pod, with Mikki only a little heavier now that she was a mother, and Jacqui slightly taller and leggier. But, in temperament, they were as different as night and day ... even more so than the considerable eight year difference in their ages might indicate. Helen wondered, often, if things mightn't have been a little easier for everybody if she and Ted had had a son. Actually, that's what they had planned on in the first place. For years after Mikki was born, Helen had tried unsuccessful to get pregnant again. Then, out of the blue, came Jacqui. Helen could still remember the look of absolute defeat on Ted's face when he'd come into her room at the hospital ... carrying that little catcher's mitt. And she could remember crying herself to sleep after he'd gone. Oh, he'd tried, God knows he tried, but he had never seemed to get as close to Jacqui as he had to Mikki. "The Bonus Baby " he used to call her, but there was always a ring of irony in his voice when he said it.
"Mikki damn sure never pulled any of them kind of goddamn shenanigans," Ted pressed cruelly. "Did you, honey?"
"Daddy, please!" the older girl pleaded. "If not for Jacqui and Mama's sake, then for the twins!"
Ted lapsed into a reluctant silence.
It bothered Mikki to see the friction in the family that had seemingly become an almost nightly ritual. She couldn't remember it having been that way when she was still living at home, and she was almost sorry now that she'd let daddy talk her into putting the house up for rent and moving back home while Ward was overseas. But then, she'd never been really able to put her foot down where daddy was concerned. It embarrassed her, sometimes, the way he showed his partiality in front of her younger sister, but then Jacqui could be such a hateful little person sometimes - almost like she was going out of her way to cause everyone trouble. And Mama, poor picked-on Mama, he didn't show her much consideration anymore, either. God, how old was Mama now? Forty-eight, forty-nine? Certainly too young for her hair to be more gray than brown, the way it was. Daddy would be fifty-five in another month, and he looked younger than Mama - despite the worry lines etched into his face of late.
"Ted, your meat must be ice cold by now. Here, let me put some warm gravy on it for you," his wife said solicitously.
Jacqui raised her head then, fighting back the tears of outrage she was determined not to give her father the satisfaction of seeing.
He's got about as much class as that pork sausage he sells, anyway, she thought angrily. I just wish the fat old bastard was half as cool as Jeff's dad.
She stared at "Goody Two Shoes" then, watching her alternately stuffing her own mouth and those of her brats, then at her whiny little Mama dutifully ladling the gravy on daddy-waddy's untouched slab of meat. Gick! God, how she wanted to get out of this house ... and these hicky little people!
"Mikki made a nice peach-cobbler for dessert, Ted." Helen sighed hopefully. "That's your favorite."
She's his fucking favorite, Jacqui grimaced. He'd still bounce her on his stupid knee if she'd let him!
"Did you make your of daddy his favorite dessert, Mikki darlin'?"
Jacqui felt her knuckles whiten around the handle of her fork as she idly pushed her peas around in her plate. Her temples pounded furiously.
"Bullshit," she muttered under her breath.
"Sure, daddy," Mikki swelled proudly. "The way you've been working so hard lately and everything, I sorta figured you deserved a little something spec-"
"Bullshit!" Jacqui repeated loudly, rising to her feet to the utter surprise of her family. "Mikki this, Mikki that ... Mikki, Mikki, Mikki! That's all I've been hearing all my life! It's ... It's-"
SLAP!!! Her father's hand came down hard across the side of her face.
"Ted!" Helen cried.
"Butt out, Helen!"
"Yeah, Mama. Butt out, Tarzan's pounding his chest again!" Jacqui choked, trying with all her might to check the tears threatening to spill down her cheeks.
Ted Potter, on his feet and trembling with rage, managed somehow to restrain himself from striking his daughter a second time as she spun on her heels and ran toward the bathroom. Slowly, he relaxed, slumping back down on his chair. Mikki, SHHHing the twins, glowed with infinite satisfaction. Jacqui had deserved that!
"Ted, do you really think-"
"Shut up, Helen!"
Helen Potter rose then, her lips compressed in a tight little line, and began to clear the supper dishes from the table.
"Daddy," Mikki began as soon as her mother had left the dining room, "if you want my opinion, it's that kid she's been going out with all summer."
Ted Potter, never one to follow his youngest daughter's amatory pursuits, blinked curiously at his surreptitiously beaming married daughter.
"What kid?"
"Jeff Trimble."
The color drained instantly from Ted's heavy face.
"S-She's been seeing that little Trimble bastard?" he asked incredulously.
"You know him, daddy?"
"I know who his old man is. We'll just see if we can't put a stop to that business, right now ... Jacqueline Marie Potter, you march your fanny out here this instant!"
There was a short silent pause, followed by the sound of the toilet flushing. Then, the bathroom door flew open, and Jacqui pranced out, haughtily tossing her shoulder length wealth of sunshine blonde hair. Ignoring her father and her older sister seated at the table, she climbed the stairs leading up to her room. Ted, an impatient man, stood waiting at the foot of the stairs when she returned, buttoning up her white trenchcoat.
"And just where the hell do you think you're going?" he pressed as she inched past him on the stairs.
"Out," she said, opening the front door.
"You come back here, young lady! I have a bone to pick with you!"
"Go to hell!" The door slammed behind her. "Let her walk it off, daddy. She won't get two blocks in this rain."
"Jeff, this is Jacqui. I'm calling from the drugstore around the corner from my house."
"Christ! Did your old man throw you out of the house or something?"
"No, we just had a fight. Oh God, Jeff, it was terrible. Dad hit me, and-"
"He hit you?"
"In the face, Jeff. It was just awful ... C-Can you come and get me?"
"Right now?"
"Yeah, could you, Jeff?"
"I can't, Jacqui. I just put my car up on the blocks. Tommy De Shazo and me are putting the new 'mag' wheels on tonight, don't you remember?"
"Oh, Jeff ... please! I can't go home tonight, I just can't!"
There was a long pause on the line.
"Jeff?"
"I'm thinking, Jacqui ... Hey, listen; my dad's having a meeting tonight, and it ought to be breaking up pretty soon. Maybe I could get one of dad's guys to run you somewhere ... Maybe over to Polly Tanaka's"
Jacqui choked back another sob. She didn't want to go to her girl friend's house, she wanted to be with her guy ... But then, anything would be better than going back to that house!
"H-How will I know him, Jeff?"
"He'll probably be driving dad's Continental ... the black one."
"Okay, Jeff ... I love you!"
"Yeah, same here, Jacqui. Hey, listen, I gotta go now, Tommy's starting to pull the wheels ... I'll call you later on at Polly's, okay?"
"O-Okay, Jeff."