Perfect Fifths_ A Jessica Darling Novel - Megan McCafferty [101]
twenty
Something just happened. And Jessica is not sure what. She can hear the sound of running water in the bathroom. The sound of Marcus taking a shower.
Marcus is naked in the shower, she thinks. Goddamn him for making me think about him naked in the shower right now!
To distract herself from thoughts of Marcus naked in the shower (STOP THINKING ABOUT MARCUS NAKED IN THE SHOWER), Jessica teethes on the deck of cards, bites off a piece of plastic, spits it across the duvet. She unsheathes the cards from their wrapping, shuffles the deck. The cards make a fluttering sound that brings her straight back to the Silver Meadows retirement home, waiting patiently while her grandmother shot the moon, beating Marcus, her late-in-life partner, Moe, and a perpetual crank in sweatpants whose name Jessica can’t remember. Three out of four of those players are dead. Death. Gladdie’s funeral… Jessica and Marcus furtively kissing behind closed doors … their first kiss … in a bathroom …
This is not helping her get her mind off of Marcus naked in the shower.
The phone lights up. Barry Manilow sings. Jessica sees the Pineville area code followed by an unfamiliar number. She picks up, expecting to be disappointed. “Hello?”
“I’m totally breaking the rules right now.”
Jessica nearly drops the phone. “Sunny?”
“Anyway, I had to wait until everyone left before I could call you. I’m supposed to be resting, but I’m, like, hello?! I was comatose for three days, I think I’ve rested enough.”
“Y-y-y-you’re awake?” Jessica stammers.
“Well, duh,” Sunny says. “How could I talk if I were still unconscious?”
“B-b-but you suffered a traumatic brain injury. You can’t just wake up and go right back to normal! I read all about it on the Internet. It only happens in the movies.”
“It’s not like I just woke up a minute ago. I was kind of in and out all through last night and the early morning, then more awake than not as the day went on. I still look like hell. I mean, I look like I’ve been run over.” Sunny pauses dramatically before adding, “Which I was. And now I’ve got an even worse haircut to grow out. But other than that, the doctors say I should make a full recovery.”
Jessica’s throat is closing. “Did you know I was with you last night?” she croaks.
“I have a memory of you talking to me,” Sunny replies, “but I honestly don’t know how much of what was going on in my head was really happening or a figment of my imagination.”
Jessica nods in commiseration even though Sunny can’t see her. Her phone beep-beep-beeps to warn her that the battery’s almost dead.
“My parents told me that you were so worried about me. I told them the only reason you like me is because I’m your alter ego, the Korean reincarnation of your younger self, Pineville High’s current model of the cynical girl who has it all yet has nothing at all…”
A spider army skitters up Jessica’s spine. What did she just say?
The phone beep-beep-beeps again.
“It’s almost too bad I got into Columbia early decision, or this would have made one hell of a get-into-college essay, huh? Oh, and think about that supa-dupa bonus layer of depth and profundity you could have added to my letter of recommendation—oof!” Sunny gasps. “Shit, I gotta go, I hear the nurse coming. I’ll talk to you later.”
The call ends without good-byes. And to belabor the point, Jessica’s phone beep-beep-beeps one last time before shutting down completely.
Jessica cradles her darkened phone, stunned by how quickly tragedy turns to comedy and back again. She crashes onto the bed, shaking seismically from the inside out, laughing and sobbing ferocious tears of relief.
twenty-one
Marcus isn’t proud of cranking it twice in six hours, but desperate times call for desperate measures. If he unloads (again), he’s fairly confident he can make it through the next few hours with monklike reserve. He fills his palm with liquid soap and is about to commence another round of jerk-and-pull when he hears a terrifying noise over the sound of the water rushing out of the shower head, the guttural wail of