Part 6 - Goth No More
"I didn't say come in." Jessica snapped at me when I knocked on the door.
That took me back too. Exactly like the waiting for her had taken me back. I had been sitting in the car for almost an hour, showing up where she wanted me to a little before noon and seeing her pull in seven minutes after the appointed time. She'd wrestled out two kids, one in one of those pop-out car seats and another just wobbling on her two legs. They disappeared inside, for a while, and then for a really long while. I messaged her twice, once twenty minutes later to tell her I was out here, another fifteen minutes ago to ask if this was off. She hadn't answered or even looked at them.
I might have thought I'd made a mistake but she was all dolled up. Her long brown blonde hair had braids coming off her temples, pulled together ponytail like at the back of her head, the rest of it loose and perfectly straight. Her small but lovely mouth was painted in bright red lipstick, very very unlike the Jessica of old. Lots of eyeshadow did bring a little more of the girl I dated back to this woman. Red top, black jeans, with a red belt, and red shoes. The outfit hugged her curvy body nicely, the top showing off a gulp-worthy amount of cleavage.
"Who is it Jessica?" Jessica's mom stood up from talking to one of the kids to see me. Immediately started plucking at her plain blouse and hair, preening. "Who... Oh my you should have war... Westley?"
"You recognize him?" Jessica asked turning around in shock instead of waving and hissing her mom away, as she'd been about to do.
"Well, he has changed SO MUCH since you two dated but I used to see him around high school things and, he still has those kind and caring big brown eyes." The smile turning to a blush at the way she stared into them and the perhaps too friendly compliment.
"Miss Soder! Can I say, you look literally exactly the same, I thought I'd stepped back in time." Shaking my head at the sight of her, I wasn't just saying it. My eyes flicked over to Jessica, she too looked young, if not for the tiredness of raising two (or three?) kids she would easily pass for just out of high school. "I'd almost think there was something supernatural about it." My eyebrow came up, but there was nothing in her expression to tell me she had used some other magic device to slow the aging process. So I went back to her mom who was smiling big. "I'm not just saying that, I'm serious!"
"Oh my god! Really? That's so sweet." Miss Soder had always been a single mom with two kids. She looked the role completely, a pretty round face, a really mom body too, not skinny and not chubby, that hadn't changed either. Her blouse and pants were not tight enough to show off her body as well as I would have liked, younger me had thought the same thing as magically always aroused twenty-five-year-old me. For a mommy, she was kinda yummy. "I guess looking young isn't everything. A young-looking grandma who looks like this is still a young-looking grandma that nobody wants to date. I mean nobody! And..."
"Mom! He's gay." Jessica snapped at her mom who may not have been flirting but she had certainly been unconsciously fishing for compliments.
"What? Really? After you?"
"No! After Marcy Goldstien."
"I don't think that's how it works," I told them both, with a laugh at their earnestness, if pressed I'm sure they'd say otherwise but it did indeed seem like they thought people just went gay after a bad relationship. Which I guess maybe could happen but was probably more of an eye-opener than a sexuality changer. "And..."
"And he just wanted to catch up over lunch, he's moving to San Francisco."
"I thought you said it was a girl from high school."
"It basically is."
"Alright, well, it was really nice seeing you Miss Soder. And grandma or not you're lovely, you should look into online dating, Defluer is too small to just expect to run into the handsome great guy you COULD get and probably too small to find the one you deserve." Miss Soder was letting off her fluttery laugh, dotted with snorts that I had always strived to win out of her all those years ago, Jessica dragged me out.
"Don't put that kind of shit in her head!" She growled at me. "If my mom gets a boyfriend then she'll be out with him instead of home and happy for the company." I was thinking she needed her mom for comfort and companionship. Wondered if that meant her and Jacob's relationship was rocky. I didn't want to win her away but it would make me feel better about this affair thing. But no, I had it all wrong. "She's FREE babysitting and never says no, twenty-four seven. You better not have fucked that up for me."
"Sorry." Only for poking the bear, not for telling her mom what I did. Her mom was still standing in the open door waving at us as we got into my car, I had to ask. "Did you do something? Magic? With her and... Yourself. She really does look like not a day has passed, and you're the same."
"Really?" Jessica did the hair thing, pulling it down over her lips as she laughed happily. "No, it's just natural. Mom, me, my sister we all look young." I nodded, unsure if I actually believed it or not. "I gotta see it."
"See what?" I asked although I had a sinking suspicion that I knew.