Perfect Fifths_ A Jessica Darling Novel - Megan McCafferty [23]
“Take it,” her mother insisted. “You may not be hungry now, but you’ll thank me later.”
Jessica scowled at the bag.
“You told me you’d be in the Virgin Islands,” Mrs. Darling said. “If I had known you were coming home, I could have shopped accordingly.”
“But from Papa D’s donuts, Mom? Really?”
“Those donuts still pay for Marin’s private school education, Jessica.”
Jessica now growled and scowled. She didn’t have a problem with the donut, per se; she didn’t want to take it as a matter of principle. G-Money had bought out his business partner a year or two before and now was reaping the profits from dozens of drive-through locations all over the country, proving his theory that portable angioplastic treats were a recession-proof commodity. Apparently, in times of crisis, Americans cling not to guns and religion, but coffee and crullers. Therefore, to support Papa D’s donuts was to support G-Money. And though G-Money and Bethany had, by all accounts (both figurative and literal—as there were several million dollars in assets to divvy up), divorced amicably two years ago, and had both quickly and happily reattached themselves to new romantic partners, Jessica wasn’t so eager to forgive and forget as everyone else—including the betrayed. Bethany’s apparent ambivalence about her ex-husband’s affairs (“Once the divorce papers were signed, it was all water under the bridge,” she said. “More like sewage,” Jessica muttered) and her insistence on shielding seven-year-old Marin from any of her Daddy’s wrongdoing (“He’s a jerk, but he’s still her father!”) sometimes made it difficult for Jessica to talk to her sister about anything deeper than the latest tabloid captions. (BAD BRIT! LOCO LILO!)
While Jessica obviously hasn’t been married and freely claims ignorance on the complexities of that subject, she does understand the motivation to cheat, having once been a cheater herself. She cheated on Marcus as a sophomore in college. She cheated with someone she didn’t care about. She cheated knowing that Marcus would be devastated by the betrayal. She loved Marcus, knew he loved her back, and yet she cheated anyway.
One might think that her own experiences would make her more sympathetic toward Bethany’s straying husband, since she had failed to make good on her own monogamous promises. But the truth is, every cheater is a saboteur. Cheaters make the choice to violate trust, break vows, renege on promises in full view of the messy consequences. Jessica suspects that G-Money’s reason for cheating on Bethany was similar to her own reason for cheating on Marcus: It requires less effort to fuck up a relationship than to make it work. At twenty years old, this behavior is condemnable yet indicative of the inexperience of youth. Fifteen years later, it’s just goddamn pathetic. Bethany and Marin deserved better, and they got better. And if G-Money was so unhappy in the marriage, so did he.
Jessica couldn’t explain this to her mother, especially not in the last seconds before heading out the door for the airport. Mrs. Darling, as always, was fully turned out at eight A.M., her professionally unlined face all the more awakened by the invigorating presence of her daughter back, albeit briefly, in the fold. She welcomed this opportunity to be helpful, to serve a purpose in her younger child’s independent life, even if the attempt was unwanted and wrongheaded. Jessica could see how eager, almost desperate, her mother was to provide her with this coffee and donut. To reject the offering would be to reject her. Haunted by the memory of Mrs. Dae’s shattered face the night before, Jessica accepted both the coffee and the donut bag with a smile and a simple thank-you. Seeing her mother’s expansive, overreciprocated smile made Jessica want to pay reparations for every smirk, snort, and eye roll she’d ever casually and cruelly delivered.
Jessica downed the coffee and jettisoned the mug, accidentally leaving