Jonathan watched Jennifer as she slept next to him. The room was dim save for the warm glow from the night light next to her side of the bed, which had been activated by the slowly dissipating light of day. They had both fallen asleep after having made love, but fatherly concern had invaded his slumber, awakening him before her. Had they been at home on Willow Pond, that would have been his cue to trek across the hall to peek in on J.J. His waking thought had been to phone her, but the room's telephone was over on Jennifer's side and he didn't want to wake her in reaching for it. Getting up to get his cell from the table across the room would have disturbed her as well. So he remained, lying silent and still, by her side admiring her long slender body twisted sexily in the sheets.. 

In his reverie, he contemplated several things. First was his admiration for Stephen Edwards. That was one spirited, mean old man, but underneath that tough, leathery exterior, he  had come to realize, existed a warm inner nature and a heart of gold. After Suzanne's death, Jennifer had probably been the only person in his life who had been able to penetrate that suit of armor he tended to wear for the rest of the world, and that he pretended to wear with her. She knew and had told him a long time ago that imperious emperor had no clothes. 

In their years together, he had never come to regard Stephen as anything more personal than Jennifer's father, his father-in-law, and his daughter's grandfather. However, it was through his association with the Edwards family that he had achieved the satisfaction and sense of belonging that came with being part of a good family. They were the essential life elements which had eluded him in the years before Jennifer. Before her, he'd achieved success, made lots of money, dated all kinds of women, traveled the word, but it wasn't until they were married that he stopped feeling as if he were on the outside of life looking in.

Stephen had never been very demonstrative toward Jennifer in terms of displays of affection, but he had communicative eyes when it came to his daughter, and they were always easy to read; Jennifer had the same expressiveness to her eyes. Her father's visage lit up when she was in his presence. His eyes warmed when he spoke of or with her. They reflected his joy and pride in her many accomplishments, and they filled at those times that it was apparent that he was seeing Suzanne in her. That began happening more noticeably often once J.J. came into all their lives. 

He reminisced that there had been times where, as an outside party observing Stephen as he watched J.J. and Jennifer interact, he could see that after all the time that had gone by, his father-in-law still missed his wife terribly. It was a wound that would never heal. Looking at Jennifer lying there, he could empathize. Losing Jennifer would be the end of him despite still having J.J. He wasn't sure that he could force himself to go on without his wife as Stephen had done for Jennifer's sake.

It crossed his mind from time to time over the years, as it was at that moment, to wonder what his mother-in-law must have been like. He knew that Jennifer looked like her, and that she had been an intelligent, capable young woman, but that was as much as he knew. Neither Jennifer nor her father spoke much of her voluntarily, and out of respect for them and their privacy, he had never asked. Even Sabrina rarely spoke of her, and when she did, it was in reference to how sorry she was that J.J. and Suzanne had missed out on meeting each other in life. However, both Stephen and Sabrina had more than once alluded to the fact that J.J. had qualities like her grandmother. By not having ever met her, he couldn't be sure if they were actually seeing Suzanne in her, or if it was just something they wanted to see because she was her grandmother's only descendent.

J.J. was the only descendent. On all sides of the family, J.J. was the only one.

If things played out in natural progression, there would come a time when J.J. would be all alone in the world. He wondered if she had ever reflected on that. Almost as soon as he had that thought, he knew that she had considered it. It would be like J.J. to think about things like that realistically. It was one of the qualities that he admired in his daughter: she was a pragmatist. She had never been one to fantasize or pretend like most children. 

In the very beginning, he had been a little disappointed that she never believed in Santa Claus. As a very tiny girl, of two or three, he'd watched her as she listened to Jennifer's Christmas stories with a skeptical look on her little face. Then when he tried to play Santa for her, she called him "silly Daddy" for trying to fool her with that Kris Kringle costume. She'd pulled the beard down, laughed at him, and given him a kiss.

At Macy's, she'd embarrassed Jennifer to no end the year that she took her to have her picture made with the Easter Bunny. J.J. went up to take her turn on the Bunny's lap. He greeted her and then she proceeded to answer him, speaking into the gap at his neck, where the bunny's head separated from the body, to ask the guy inside if he was hot in that get-up. That was the year that she was four.

Prime, front row seats at a Sesame Street show had been a complete waste. Jennifer had come home with five-year-old J.J. in tow, totally disgusted at having sat through the performance surrounded by a theatre full of energized toddlers and frenzied pre-schoolers and kindergarteners who stood on the seats happily singing, dancing, and clapping their appreciation, while her own child sat quietly on her lap, telling her that if she looked really closely at the eyes of the characters on stage, she could see the people inside the costumes. It had been all he could do to not laugh at the situation in Jennifer's frustrated presence, but that was the last time that J.J. went to a children's performance of that kind with either of them.

When she lost her first baby tooth and the tooth fairy left money under her pillow, J.J. got up the next morning and arrived at the breakfast table with it, nonchalantly thanking them for the donation. Peter Pan, Peter Rabbit, Peter and the Wolf, it was all the same to J.J., a figment of someone's overactive imagination. She enjoyed the stories, but never bought into them, not one iota. Kindergarten story time had been an unusual adventure in preschool cynicism for her teachers. They took to allowing J.J. to read the books her mother sent with her, on her own, away from the group, during story time to keep her from converting every one else in the class to her line of practical thinking. 

That girl was a realist from the top of her head to the bottom of her feet, so she probably had it figured out that she would be alone in the world at some point in her future. That was probably why she formed such strong friendships and why she surrounded herself with well-grounded, like-minded people. She had little tolerance for shallow, pretentious individuals, and those were the people she put to the side. Her mother was that way, only Jennifer was more subtle about it. People almost never realized that Jennifer had moved on until she wasn't there any more. With J.J., there was no doubt. She wasn't rude, she just wasn't there from the start.

Jennifer's aunt, her mother's twin, Sabrina was also a realist. Right off, he had fallen in love with that easygoing character when he met her the night before he and Jennifer were married. She infiltrated his bachelor party, and wound up staying for the entire thing. Strangely enough, the guys in attendance were crazy about her. She drank like a fish, swore like a sailor, and played cards like a demon. Even though she had hung tough with them that night, at the wedding the next day she sat in the place that would have been Jennifer's mother's looking like a million attractive bucks. She and Stephen had still been engaged in their ongoing silent feud, but they had risen somewhat above it for that one day. Even though they had been cordial to each other in fulfilling their duties for Jennifer's sake, not one word was exchanged between them at any point.

Sabrina didn't give a damn what others thought of her. She lived her life to the fullest, to the max. Speaking of Max, there had always the feeling between he and Jennifer that Sabrina and Max had gotten together on one of their early trips to France to visit her in Perpignan. It was never discussed, but the gut feeling was there. They had all spent the nights at her house, and Max would be looking mighty suspect in the mornings. Sabrina had definitely been Max's type, and being male, he had been hers. Back in those days with Max, whenever she would phone from France to speak with her niece, if Max picked up, it would be a while before he turned the call over to Jennifer. Even at present, on the high side of seventy, Sabrina maintained several, he and Jennifer suspected, amorous relationships with her gentlemen friends.

Although he loved Sabrina dearly, he could understand Stephen not allowing her to raise Jennifer after her mother's death. Jennifer was a different type of woman from her aunt. The free and easy lifestyle Sabrina maintained would not have suited Jennifer's sensibilities. She was more sensitive, more private with her thoughts and feelings. But for some reason he could see that Sabrina was good for J.J. As much as it scared him to admit it, there was a lot of Sabrina in his daughter and every summer at the end of her two week visits, he would be chomping at the bit, ready to get in the plane to go retrieve her. It wouldn't just be that he missed her, it was that he knew that J.J. was doing whatever she wanted, which suited her perfectly. He noticed that lately, within the past couple of years, J.J. and Jennifer never talked much with him about J.J.'s visits to Perpignan, which confirmed his belief that Sabrina and J.J. were too good for each other.

It startled him when Jennifer suddenly raised her head from the pillow as if something woke her. She immediately looked to him, and her eyes were frightened, confused.

"What's wrong, darling?" He asked as he switched on the lamp on his side of the bed.

She was even more tangled in the covers, and she began to struggle to get free. He could see that she was disoriented.

"Wait." He said calmly to her while he helped her get loose. "Just wait."

When she was completely situated and more awake, she turned over on her back and asked sleepily, "What time is it?"

He checked the clock. "It's a quarter to eight."

"At night?"

"Yes." He answered, thinking that she must have been pretty far under. 

It had been quite good, even better than usual, and if his mind hadn't been on J.J. and everything else, he might still have been asleep himself.

"Did you call me, or say something to me?" She asked, sounding as confused as she had looked upon waking.

"I didn't say a thing. Jennifer, are you alright?"

"I don't know." She answered. "Someone was calling me, telling me it was time to get up. But they were calling me, "Jenny". Nobody calls me... It couldn't have been you. You never call me that... nobody has ever, except..." She abruptly pulled the covers away from her body and sat up. "I need to go see my father." She said. "Now."

She rushed into the bathroom.

"Do you want me to drive you?" He called to her hoping that she could hear him over the water she was running in the shower. "I can go over to Waverly and check on J.J. while you go see your father."

"Suit yourself." Was her answer. "Maybe we can find something to eat once I get finished talking with Pa. I'm starved."

Out in the bedroom, he smiled. She usually was famished after making love. Between them, a whole lot of energy still got expended in their sessions. He could eat a horse himself.

When J.J. woke again, the room was quiet and dark. She was alone, but the bathroom door was open and she could hear voices coming from the other room. Her ankle was throbbing and she realized that she had somehow in her sleep moved it from on top of the pillows where it should have been propped. Swallowing the pain and stiffness, she moved it back in place and lay back on the pillows afterward to catch her breath, wondering how she came to be in the bed. The last thing she remembered was sitting, eating ice cream, and talking with Teddy in the Common Room.

Despite her injury and the trouble she had narrowly missed getting herself out of, she was glad she had come to Gresham Hall with her mother. It turned out to be a fun experience. She had learned some amusing, enlightening things about her mother and Pat, a few things about her old friends had been put into perspective, and she had met some delightful new friends. She wondered if Teddy was in the room next door. In a way, she hoped not. She didn't want him to get into any trouble, but at the same time, she actually did want to see him again. She enjoyed his company and was truly sorry that she was laid up like she was. She really would have liked spending the day riding with him, and to have gotten up the next morning to get a ride in before it was time to leave.

To leave. They would be leaving, but going to Briarwood instead of home. She loved Pa, but she didn't like the idea of spending a whole week at his place with an injury that would keep her sidelined and off her horse. Triple J. was back at Briarwood from racing in Virginia, and there was nothing better than taking him out to the flat fields and racing him across that plain. That wouldn't be happening this trip unless her mother took him out, which she most likely would do. Her mother was going to be making her do what she was supposed to do, and just as her father had said, there would be no distractions. Well, at least Marnie was going. She wondered if anybody had let Marnie in on that particular detail yet.

She reached over and clicked on her cell to punch in a number.

"What's up?"

"Hey, Tommy, it's me, J.J. What's up with you?"

"Hey J.! Are you back? I thought you weren't coming back until tomorrow."

"I'm still in Massachusetts. But I'm not coming home tomorrow, after all. I'm going from here to my grandfather's for a week."

"To Maryland? Why?"

"I hurt my ankle. Twisted it kind of bad, and I have to see a doctor there. Daddy wants me to stay there until its better. He thinks that I won't do right at home."

"He's got your number, J. You wouldn't. You'd be slipping around, trying to walk on it. I know you, too. You've got to take care of that ankle, girl. That's your ticket to fame, those long legs and those fast feet. You said you were going out for  All-City next term, so rest up. This will all be here whenever you make it back."

"I hate I'm not coming home. Summer goes by so fast as it is. Now I'm going to be laid up for part of it, and I'm not even going to be able to see my friends. At least at home you all could come by and keep me company. Now I'm going to be all by myself, except for Marnie. She has to go with me."

"Then it shouldn't be all that bad with Marnie there with you. That's going to be just like when you're at home. Quit crying and whining, girl. It's for the best. So, like, are the preppy guys all trying to get next to you since I'm not in the picture, J.J. Hart?"

"I've met some people, and it's been fun. And boys try to talk to me even when you're in the picture, Tommy Steele. You don't scare anybody off. But I still wish I was coming home. How's the group? What are you guys doing this weekend?"

"I haven't seen anybody. Deon and Hector took some girls to the movies last night. I didn't do anything.  I worked yesterday at Hart and then I came home and crashed. I worked on the bike today, and that's about it. I did have go to lunch with my Grandmother at her club at the Marina today."

"Ooh Tommy! Lunch at the marina. That play last week. The art showing the week before that. Sounds like your Grandma Fee is setting you up for hobnobbing with the hoi-polloi."

"Whatever, J. She brought up going to Stanford again, too."

"So, what did you say?"

"I told her again that I'm enlisting in the Navy. My mother can't afford to send me to college. She'd have to mortgage the house or something. And even if she could send me, I wouldn't want her to. She needs to take care of herself. The Navy can take care of me when the time comes."

"It sounds to me like your grandmother wants to finance it. And what about scholarships?"

"I already told you. I don't want my grandmother's money, and I can't count on a scholarship. Look, did you call me up to fight with me, or what?"

"No Tommy. I didn't call you up to fight. I'm sorry. I just wish you'd consider all the angles before you decide on signing up for the Navy, that's all. Okay, back to what we were talking about. So what are you telling me? The girls aren't all over you since I'm not in the picture, Thomas Jordan Steele?"

All he could do was laugh at that. Leave it to her to turn a thing back on him.

"Well, I guess I'll see you when I see you, Tommy."

"I guess so, J. Keep the cards shuffled, and I'll buzz your cell tomorrow some time."

"You do that. Talk to you later."

She clicked off and put the phone down.

Lying there in the dark, J.J. thought about her mother and that room. The bed she was in was the same antique bed that her mother had slept in when she was in attendance at Gresham Hall. She wondered what her mother thought about when was lying there in the dark, and if she got into trouble just because she was having a good time like she did, or because, like Dee, she didn't want to be there. Her mother didn't talk a lot about her childhood or what it was like for her growing up. When she did say anything about it, she usually spoke about things in general, not about how she felt or what she went through. J.J. wished that she would, but she felt that it wouldn't be proper to press, even though her mother always encouraged her to tell her all the whys, what-fors, and to talk to her about how she felt about things when they had their talks. The thought of her mother not being anywhere that she could reach her gave her the creeps. How had she done it?

She had complained about having to go to Briarwood for a week. She had disliked the idea of being there at Gresham Hall for the weekend. Suddenly she felt selfish.

Her mother had been there for six years, and she couldn't go home until Pa said that she could. Pa would be overseas and relatively unavailable most of the time. There was no mother to whom her mother could turn. Her mother had been there all alone except for Aunt Pat, who also pretty much had nobody. 

She, on the other hand, had her mother, her father, her grandfather, Aunt Pat, Uncle Bill,  AND Marnie there with her for that one weekend. Then, her mother and Marnie would be there with her for the following week at Briarwood, not to mention Pa himself. When that week was up, she would go home- with her mother- to her house and her father, her room, her dog, her friends, and her life in Los Angeles. She also knew that if she made enough noise about it, she was sure that she could talk her father out of that trip to Briarwood if she wanted to. 

But she didn't want to. It wasn't that deep. She would make the best of it, and get back on both feet so that when she did get home she would be ready to get back to her summer.

She called out, "Hey, can somebody in there come and either help me into the bathroom, or bring me a bed pan? I really have to go!"

Madison and Marnie appeared at the door, switching on the lights. They were quickly joined by Dee and Dakota. The other two roommates had gone home after the presentation that afternoon.

"It's about time you woke up." Madison said to her as she sat up. "We thought you were out for the night. We've got something to show you. We were waiting for you to get up."

"How did I get up here?" J.J. asked. "Miss Smythe? I feel like I've been asleep for a week. I must have really been out.

"We wheeled you up here." Answered Marnie with raised eyebrows and a mischievous smile. "But Teddy undressed you and put you to bed."

When J.J. looked a bit shocked, Dakota piped up. "No he didn't. He just lifted you out of the wheelchair and put you in the bed. We did the rest. Marnie, you are so bad!"

"Whatever." Was Marnie's reply. "But he is cute. He could put me to bed, and I would like it."

J.J. rolled her eyes and then simply summed her up, "Tramp."

Madison, who was as tall as J.J., leaned down to let J.J. put her arm around her neck as Dee assisted in getting her up, while telling her, "We almost got caught with Teddy in here when your grandfather came up here with the Dean. We cut that real close."

"My grandfather and the Dean? Why were they here?" J.J. asked as she hopped slowly on one foot toward the bathroom with the others' assistance.

Madison made an exasperated face. "Your grandfather came to see you, of course. He said that he wanted to talk to you since he hadn't had the chance to see you at the presentation. By the time it was over, the boys had gotten you out of the balcony to bring you back here. The Dean had come over here with him. So like, what are they, a couple or something?"

"Just friends, I think." J.J. answered. "I really don't know much about it."

And even if she did, it wasn't something she would discuss with anyone.

They had her inside the bathroom. "You can leave me now." She directed them with a wave of her hand as she balanced herself against the sink. "I don't need an audience. I'll call you when I'm finished."

As they went out, J.J. could hear Marnie talking to the others as she closed the door: "You know, J. is my girl and all. We do everything together, and I'd do anything for her. But I never thought I'd be putting off going for a ride with a boy so that I could take care of her, or that I'd be taking her to the toilet. The things you do for your friends."

It was Madison's voice she heard in response, "You didn't need to be going off with Josh in his car anyway."

The next voice was Dee's: "Yeah, because I would not have covered for you if J.J.'s mother had come back up in here asking where you went. She looks like she doesn't play. So you could just go right ahead and blame me for her showing up on Lookout Point looking out for you and Josh huddled up and making out in his car. If she asked me, I'd have given her the license plate, make, color, year, the whole entire shot."

"And I wouldn't have blamed you a bit if you did." That was Marnie. "Hell, I've sold J. out a couple of times to her mother when she had me backed up in a corner."

The mental picture of the Duchess hemming Dee up to make her confess, and then Marnie getting caught acting grown, as her mother put it, with Josh at Lookout Point made J.J. chuckle to herself.

What Marnie said about their relationship made her think about all the nice things her new friend, Teddy Baxter had done for her in the short time that she'd known him.

And she wondered what the girls had to show her.

When Bill got up and went into the bathroom, Pat took the opportunity to phone into the room next door. She needed to talk to Jennifer, to tell her what was going on, to ask her opinion. There was no answer. 

Where in the hell was she?

She got ready to dial her cell, but hung up when Bill came back into the room with a smile on his face and the unmistakable look of lust in his eyes.

"Ready for round three?" He asked as he pulled her up by the arms from the bed into his arms. As he did, the towel in which she had been loosely wrapped fell away.

"Are you?" She asked.

"I can go all night with you, Patricia." He answered with a hint of challenge.

Pat felt the swell of heat rising from her thighs into all the proper places.

Talking to Jennifer about the future would definitely have to wait at least until the morning.

Stephen and the Dean sat in the front room talking until it began to grow dark outside. The conversation had dwindled to a comfortable silence. He had begun to grow tired some time ago; their walk to and from Waverly House having worn him down. But, after having taken dinner with Agnes and Belinda, he remained sitting up after their return, to wait for Jennifer. He wanted to speak with her before going up for the night.

It gradually became quiet out on the Quad. Having exerted himself with the walk over to Waverly, and his full stomach from his meal, he grew increasingly sleepy. Still Jennifer hadn't come. He'd called Justine's room right after dinner, but she had been still sleeping, according to Marnie.

Finally he told Agnes, "I think I'm going to retire for the night. I've had a fuller day today than I've had in some time, and I still haven't spoken with my girls. I don't know what could have happened to Jennifer. It isn't like her to not do what she's told me she was going to do."

"She's probably still coming Stephen." Agnes replied, trying to make him wait just a little while longer. 

She didn't want him to go to bed as disappointed as he seemed. "If she told you that she was coming, I'm sure that she intends to do so."

But he pushed himself forward anyway, and used his cane to stand all the way up. "I'm tired, Agnes. I'm going up. Jennifer and I will just have to get together in the morning. I don't know that I have the energy left now for the conversation I planned to have with her anyway."

"I'm anxious to meet your Justine in person, Stephen." Agnes smiled as she got up from her chair, making ready to walk with him to the elevator. "I'm so curious to see if I can see what you say is there."

He took her hand and squeezed it. "That's something else for Sunday, as well, Aggie. We have a lot to look forward to tomorrow, don't we?"

"Yes, that we do, my old friend." She agreed. "Tomorrow and the rest of our days."

Jonathan had waited in the car at the curb in front of the Dean's residence while Jennifer went alone to meet with her father, and he wasn't going to pull off until he was sure that Jennifer was inside the house. It surprised him when she turned away from the door and walked back to the car. He was a bit disappointed too. Whatever was going on in her head concerning her and her father, it was upsetting to her and that was a problem for him. He could tell that she was having trouble with it no matter how hard she was trying to act as if she wasn't. And she'd had some sort of disturbing dream that evening, that was confusing and upsetting to her, but either she wouldn't or couldn't talk about it. He knew that it was all somehow connected to her late mother, but he didn't have any idea how it was connected. Being in this place seemed to bring long put-away things back to the forefront in her.

"What happened?" He asked as she slid into the passenger's seat after opening the door.

"He's already gone up for the night." She answered.

"Why didn't you just go up to him in his room? He wouldn't have minded. He'd probably have been pleased to see you. You know he stays up half the night. He probably wasn't asleep."

"It can wait." She sighed. "I asked Margaret to let him know that I had come and that I would see him at breakfast in the morning at Waverly House with J.J."

Jonathan looked over at her, trying to read her, but her eyes were downcast, looking into her lap. Her body, however was tense once again. "Are you alright? Jennifer, what is it about all of this that bothers you? It's your father who wants to speak with you, not some stranger. What's the problem?"

"I don't know." She answered, the confusion sounding in her voice. "I really don't."

"Is it that you don't want to hear what he has to say? Is it because he might want to talk about himself and Dean Marchand?"

She suddenly looked up at him, and he could see that there was smoke in her eyes. "Why didn't he tell me?" She asked, almost as if she were demanding an answer. "What can he possibly want to tell me now?"

Suddenly sorry that he asked, Jonathan had to try to move them away from it for the time being. Whatever it was, it was stoking an old fire within his wife, and he didn't understand any of it. He wasn't sure that she did either. All he could surmise was that it had to do with her mother. She'd told him a long time ago that only her mother called her "Jenny", the name she'd heard in her dream.

"Whatever it is, Darling." He said, taking her hand to reassure her. "It will wait until tomorrow when you catch up with your father. It'll get taken care of then. Let's go find something to eat tonight. I know you're hungry. So am I."

"What about stopping in to check on J.J.?" She asked.

"Where's she going?" He laughed. "She's been seriously slowed down for the rest of this trip. Couldn't run off  if she wanted to. And with her down, Marnie is going to be right there, anchored somewhere close by her side. That's how they operate."

"You sound very sure of yourself, Jonathan."

"I know my girls, Jennifer. It's you and me tonight. We'll see them first thing Sunday morning."

And they drove off headed for downtown Boston.

"Where'd you guys find this thing?" J.J. laughed as she leafed through the yearbook of the Gresham Hall class of 1962. She was back in the bed flanked by Dee and Marnie. "Look at the hair-dos! The clothes!"

"While you were sleeping, we went up to the attic library where they archive all the yearbooks. There's your mom." Dee pointed to a picture of a girl with a pencil to her lips, sitting at a desk surrounded by papers.

J.J. nodded. "Nothing's changed. That's how she looks at home all the time now: chewing an eraser off a pencil, then fussing about how none of her pencils ever have erasers, surrounded by books and papers, except now there's a computer and computers discs all over as well."

"Go to the "Most Likely To" section." Directed Marnie. "I couldn't believe it."

J.J. flipped through.

The Most Likely to Succeed girls were her mother and Pat. The girl Most Likely to Win a Beauty Contest was her mother. But there were gag categories as well, and Most Likely to End Up in the Penitentiary were her mother and Pat. There was a picture of them looking as if they were being chastised by the Dean in her office, and the picture had been placed behind bars that were secured by a huge lock. Someone had drawn the bars and the lock over the picture before printing it in the book.

"Look real close at your mother." Urged Marnie.

Peering at the picture, scrutinizing it carefully, J.J. saw that someone had drawn a cigarette in her mother's hand, which was behind her back, and they had made tiny smoke rings come from it.

 "Oh my God!" J.J. hooted. "I have seen it all! Is there a copy machine here, Dee? I MUST have a copy of this shot!"

Marnie was in tears. "I know you would die when you saw that one, J.! They must have been true hellions for everybody to know it like that and for them to make the yearbook in that capacity. They are definitely holding out on us. There's another one you need to see."

Marnie licked her thumb and quickly turned a few pages, "Gresham/Brookfield Class couple." She said when she stopped,  pointing with her index finger. "Looky there."

J.J. recognized the girl right off, but she had to read the caption in order for her mind to process it. When she did, she was thrown for a loop. The class couple were Patricia R. Hamilton and Theodore M. Baxter. She looked up at Dee.

Dee nodded. "Teddy's father." Madison and Dakota were nodding too.

Instantly giddy, J.J. began to bounce excitedly, completely forgetting, but instantly painfully reminded, about her injured ankle. "Teddy told me this afternoon that his uncle and his father knew them." She confirmed. "He told me that his uncle said the two of them were on the wild when they went to school here. And my mother has the nerve to talk about me."

Reading on, the yearbook went on to say that the two of them would attend the senior prom together. J.J. lay back on the pillows wishing that she could walk and handle her own business. She would have copies made of every bit of ammunition she could find in that book before midnight.

"God has a way of slowing us down." Her mother had said to her just earlier that day. She sat back up. "Dee, you got any paper in here?" 

Her mother had also told her that when God closed one door, he opened another; where there was a will there was a way. 

J.J. Hart had the will and a way.

"What kind?" Dee asked as she slid off the bed.

"Any kind." J.J. answered. "I just need to mark the pages that I need copies of."

"What are you planning?" Marnie asked. She could almost see the devious wheels furiously turning in her friend's head.

"I don't know yet." J.J. answered as she began to tear the sheet of paper Dee handed her into little strips. "But I want these pictures just the same. I've got the concrete goods on the Duchess and her girl. Tomorrow somebody is going to get roasted, and for once it won't be me."

"Hey J." Marnie said, sounding as if she had just remembered something. "What's this about me going to Briarwood with you tomorrow? Nobody asked me if I wanted to go."

"Two for one, Marn." J.J. answered as she marked her pages. "You know the rules."

Continue on to Sunday

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