Jilly-Bean (Jilly-Bean Series # 1) Read online

  “Jillian! I hardly recognized you.” He was looking her up and down.

  Her hair was shorter, much shorter than the waist length she had been wearing it at since fourth grade— a blunt cut with the bangs longer in the front— and her clothes were casual dress, not her usual jeans and T-shirt. “Oh, I'm just going for a job interview. I have to look presentable, you see. My hair— ” Jillian was rubbing the back of her neck as if it were sore. “It's a different look.”

  “It makes you look— older,” he said, smiling.

  Jillian gave a little shrug and looked away. “It's not what I'm used to.”

  “So, where are you off to?” he asked in a low voice.

  “Oh, I have a job interview at the Toronto General Hospital for the summer, but I still have some time. Wanna join me for a coffee?”

  She noted Andrew's breathing had suddenly grown shallow and quick. “Is everything all right?”

  At first he said nothing, but just stood rigid, staring at her, as if he were suddenly tongue-tied. “Oh— oh yeah, I'm fine. H-how did you find out about the job opening?”

  “The Canada Employment Centre” she answered, giving him a quizzical look. “Care to have a coffee with me?” He smiled and nodded. They fell into stride together along the sidewalk and decided to have a coffee at the Coffee Tree café, which was known far and wide for roasting its very own coffee beans daily and sending the aroma wafting throughout the neighbourhood. Not surprisingly, the place was crowded with young people and seating was limited. The young woman behind the counter smiled at Jillian and Andrew in a friendly but harassed way and handed them their drinks and pastries. Then they sat on high stools in front of a large open window, watching people stroll past.

  “This neighbourhood never changes,” he remarked after a while.

  She was looking at him sidelong and taking little sips of her tea. “Well, I've changed. I'm older, and so are you.”

  “Yeah, I know. It just seems like last year we were starting high school, and here we are— graduates. Scary.”

  “I still feel the same. It's still me in there,” she pointed to her head: “ Jillian at age nine, Jillian at age five. I'll probably feel the same when I'm fifty.”

  “You're going to Queen's, right?”

  “Yup.” She was smiling at him.

  Andrew took a swig of coffee and stared at his plate as if contemplating things. “I'm taking a year off to do volunteer work in India. I need to experience something more than just Western materialistic civilization.”

  “No way!” She was astonished. Andrew Waits' parents were rich, and she knew he had been accepted into an Ivy League school in the United States. “When did you decide this?”

  “I've been toying with the idea for a couple of months now. My parents fully approve.”

  “Really?” Jillian looked at him closely. He must be keeping something back, she thought. How could his father, a cardiologist at Mount Sinai Hospital, approve of this sudden change of plans? “When will you be going?”

  “September. I told my dad that I didn't want to wake up an old man like him one day and find out I hadn't lived. I'd like to have fun while I'm still young. When I think of the four years of my life I spent in high school, I'm amazed I didn't go out of my mind. I need to travel— get away from here, see the world! Just for a year. I promised my mom and dad that.”

  “Ah, these visions of freedom you have, Andy. You're such an idealist.”

  “I don't know if I'm an idealist; more like a realist,” he retorted, eating steadily.

  Jillian listened intently as he went on about his plans for the future and making a difference in people's lives. India sounded so exotic, so far away. She felt envious of his pure spirit. To give oneself for a cause and not care about base Western materialistic needs. “Ah, yes,” she exhaled loudly and found her eyes welling up. She had been going to tell him about her apartment-hunting in Kingston and starting at Queen's in the fall, but somehow that fell short by comparison. Andrew Waits, looking thin and probably getting only thinner in India, eating vegetarian food. He was glancing sidelong at her with his clear grey eyes and a half-smile on his face, as she ate a cherry turnover that was oozing and dripping jelly from its sides. She frowned as she discovered that it had dropped onto her new dress— the dress that she had specially purchased for the job interview in an hour's time. She paused to carefully wipe the spot clean with a paper napkin. They reminisced and laughed about friends and teachers in high school and growing up. Jillian was laughing so hard, tears were streaming down her face— a fact that did not escape Andrew, whose look promptly became concerned, perhaps embarrassed, by this display of emotion. “Are you okay? You're not crying, are you?”

  She made a little wave of her hand, “No, no, absolutely not!” Quickly she dabbed her eyes and face, then looked up and saw him giving her the queerest expression. God, breaking down in front of Andrew Waits; and maybe he was thinking that she was crying for him. Her tears had not been for him but for something lost, her lost youth. It went much deeper. He then took hold of her hand, which was clutching a wet Kleenex, pressed it into his, and held it tightly for an instant before she pulled it away. The moment quickly passed. Both fell abruptly silent. Then Andrew jumped up. “I have to go. Good luck with your interview,” he mumbled. She looked up at him in wonder, but he had already turned and was rushing out the glass door slamming it so hard that the windowpanes rattled behind him. She glimpsed a blurry image of a skinny figure quickly walking away down Bloor Street without looking back. Only then did she realize that Andrew was the one boy in her small circle of friends whom she had known almost forever and whom she could be herself with. “Silly boy, of course I'll miss you,” she said out loud; but of course, he could not hear.

  *****

  “Which way to room 208? ”

  She took an elevator, which was large and seemed intended for service rather than passengers, up to the second floor and then walked along eerily quiet corridors that gleamed and appeared to go on endlessly in either direction, following occasional signs that eventually led her to room 208. It turned out to be a large quiet office, with well stacked bookshelves, cabinets and a large fish tank where an assortment of colourful neon tetras and goldfish swam in slow motion through exotic green vegetation, which shot up in ringlets to the water's surface. Beyond a partition was a bay window that was letting in a pearly green light through sheer blinds, and next to that was a large imposing mahogany desk. Behind it a regal-looking woman with half-moon glasses sat shuffling quickly through some papers. Her movements were agitated and quick: those of a Type-A personality, Jillian decided. She looked like a busy woman, an important woman, with things to do and important people to see. Her hair was shiny yellow blonde, thin and limp, with a deep part in the middle that laid parts of her scalp bare. As her secretary ushered Jillian in, the woman's round face lifted upwards towards her, and her eyes glittered as she quickly assessed the young girl standing nervously before her. After a moment's pause, she lowered her gaze and announced in an official tone, “Well, Miss Crossland, please have a seat.”

  Jillian sat quietly. In the background was the constant humming drone of the motor that ran the fish tank. She found she could not take her eyes off the way the older woman shuffled the papers on her desk and the long slender fingers with which she scribbled a few illegible words; the scratching and grinding of her pen on the paper as it crossed the t's and dotted the i's sounded like an aggressive nervous tick. The woman stopped writing, leaned back in her chair to adjust her glasses and looked keenly and searchingly at the young applicant; she then announced in a low purring voice, “I'm Ms. Bradshaw, Head of Human Resources, and you, of course, are the applicant. You are here for the position of nurse's assistant; is that correct?” There was a moment's pause. Jillian saw a glint in Ms. Bradshaw's eyes.

  “Yes Ma'am,” replied Jillian primly.

  Ms. Bradshaw lowered her gaze and began reviewing Jillian's resume, while Jillian glanced d
own at her own hands, which looked very small as they rested on her knees, motionless. Next to the chair on the floor was a black patent-leather purse. Her feet were poised side by side, toes pinched, in brand new black patent-leather shoes that she had purchased the day before at Brown's Shoes in Kingston. Slowly and cautiously she looked around the office, eyeing a Bachelor of Commerce diploma from the University of Toronto encased in a shiny gold frame, mounted on the wall.

  “Yes, the University of Toronto is my Alma Mater— the Harvard of the north so they say. I graduated back in '75. The picture beside it is of me receiving my admission into the Institute of Chartered Accountants.” Ms. Bradshaw's voice had become syrupy sweet. Jillian gathered that she enjoyed hearing herself talk, and so she listened with feigned attentiveness as the middle-aged woman went on and on about her past accomplishments. If truth were told, what really fascinated her were Ms. Bradshaw's protuberant eyes— much like those of one goldfish in the tank, which had stopped swimming minutes before and was now staring back at her. The woman had hardly any eyebrows, which made her face look doubly shocked, startled. Maybe she shaved them each morning as a man shaved his whiskers? Good thing women didn't have to shave their faces— not like eyebrows, which had to be plucked— something Jillian had resolved she would never do. She had plucked her eyebrows once with her friends, Annie Treadway and Amelia Hartmann. She remembered her adolescent voice, laughing and half pleading, because it was a dare:

  “Are you sure this isn't supposed to hurt?”

  “Jilly-B, this is nothing, wait till you try waxing your legs; now, that will make you scream,”

  “Ouch... Stop!”

  Jillian could see that something was wrong. Ms. Bradshaw had stopped talking and was staring at her with a wide-eyed, startled look. Had she spoken out loud? Ms. Bradshaw leaned forward on her desk and asked gently, “'Stop'? Did I hear you correctly? Would you like me to stop, Miss Crossland?”

  Jillian was speechless. Her eyes were guiltily fixed on the spot above Ms. Bradshaw's eyes where the eyebrows should have been.

  Ms. Bradshaw shrugged, “Never mind. I thought I heard you tell me to stop.” She cleared her throat. “You'll basically be helping out the nurses in the geriatric ward.”

  She paused to look down at the resume one more time. “Hmm, the name Crossland sounds very familiar. One doesn't come across many people with that name. I knew a Geordie Crossland back in my university days.”

  Jillian beamed a smile, “Oh, that's my dad. You knew him?”

  “Why yes, what a small world. I knew him casually. So you are Geordie's little girl. What's he up to these days?”

  “He's a day trader.”

  Ms. Bradshaw leaned forward on her desk as if she hadn't heard correctly. “Excuse me? A day trader?”

  “Oh, he flips stocks. He's quite good at it.”

  Jillian talked nervously for a few minutes about her family and growing up, while Ms. Bradshaw fixed her protuberant gaze on her, murmuring “Ah, yes” at appropriate intervals. Then leaning back in her chair, she glanced at the clock mounted on the wall, turned to Jillian and asked softly, “Now, about the job. It is in the geriatric ward, as I said. Have you any experience?” Jillian nodded enthusiastically and felt her face grow flushed as she talked nervously and inanely about looking for medical experience as she intended to apply to the faculty of medicine at Queen's University and eventually specialize in orthopaedics. No, she had no experience. She needed a summer job so that she could save for her tuition fees for September. No, she wasn't expecting her parents to foot the whole tuition bill.

  Ms. Bradshaw paused to cough into some tissue paper and wiped her mouth a few times. “Well, Miss Crossland, that is quite a noble ambition.”

  Jillian wavered for a moment and replied, “Is it?”

  Ms. Bradshaw was looking apologetic. “You are still very young, if you don't mind my saying. I'm sure your plans will change a dozen times before you graduate university. Mine did. Well, getting back to the job, I still have a few more applicants to go through. We'll be in touch.”

  *****

  She flung herself into the familiar dent of the reclining leather chair with the extra-soft cushions that enveloped her body like a warm hug, closed her eyes and knew she was home. The rain had cleared, and the early evening sun pierced through the leaded glass windows and refracted prisms of violet, red and yellow that danced about the furniture and the walls, filling the room with a dreamlike brightness, as if it were part of a rainbow. It was eerily quiet, and Jillian wondered where everyone could be. A current issue of Elle magazine lay on the table next to the recliner, and she picked it up and began vaguely flipping through its pages. All the pictures were of beautiful girls, smiling flawlessly back at her, taunting her with their effortless beauty. Maybe if she got the right foundation or the right shade of lipstick— cherry-red bee-stung lips were the current rage. A wave of tiredness overwhelmed her, and she yawned; she desperately needed to shut her eyes and sleep. She stared at the image of one model clad in a bikini, ringed by three handsome males, tanned and beautiful. The model reminded her so much of Sarah. She did shut her eyes and eventually fell asleep, the magazine slipping from her hand and dropping to the floor.

  Hardly five minutes had passed, or so it seemed, when she was awakened by muted laughter coming through the open window. Voices followed that seemed to be getting closer, then footsteps up the walkway, and suddenly a middle-aged grey man was standing just inside the front door, staring at Jillian with utter surprise on his face. Then he brightened and exclaimed, “What? Well, hello! When did you get here?” He didn't wait for a reply. “Look who's here! Jillian's home,” he called out to the others, who were just coming up the stairs— her brother Adam and his girlfriend, Olivia Spears. Her father drew his handkerchief, blew his nose loudly and then, regaining his composure, added, “We thought you weren't arriving till Monday; otherwise I would have gladly picked you up at the train station.” He passed another clean tissue over his forehead, mopping up the perspiration. She realized that the off-and-on rain showers had considerably raised the humidity.

  “Oh, sorry, dad. I had my interview at the hospital today. They told me about the appointment while I was in Kingston. So I left a few days early.”

  Olivia Spears came over to embrace her, breathless and smelling of strawberries. She had been Adam's girlfriend for six months— a girl of about 19, thin and pretty with dark kinky hair that became even puffier with the heat and humidity of the summers near the lake. Usually she wore it loose on her shoulders, waving like the current of a stream, but today she'd coiled it into a girlish French braid that was loosening now in wispy strands over her large brown eyes. Her dark hair and eyes complemented her olive complexion. She wore dangling oversized gold pirate earrings, which brushed Jillian's face as she turned away.

  “How did the interview go? And what about the apartment?” asked her brother.

  “The interview went great but I won't know for sure for a couple of weeks. I found the greatest house in Kingston. It's such a find. I'm sharing it with three other girls. It's super-close to the campus. They want first and last month's rent, though.”

  “Where did I put my chequebook? I'll write you a cheque for the deposit,” said her father, fumbling through a side-table drawer.

  Olivia giggled, and her brown eyes sparkled bright as she announced, “Andrew stopped by a few times during the week while you were away in Kingston.” Jillian turned to Olivia and gave her a glacial stare. “Not that it's any of my business, of course,” she added playfully, “but I think he may have already made an appearance earlier today.”

  Jillian felt the blood rush to her face. Yes, she was secretly “in like” with Andrew. Yes, they had known each other since kindergarten, but she would never admit these feelings to anyone, especially not Olivia. But in Olivia's fevered imagination Andrew and Jillian were already a romantic couple. Jillian stated firmly and seriously, “I've known Andrew for years, Liv. We're just
good friends, that's all.”

  “I've seen childhood friendships develop into something— big. Marriage, in fact,” Olivia replied. She held up a compact mirror and critically examined her mascara, dabbing it with her right forefinger. “I believe it's called P-U-P-P-Y-L-O-V-E.” She closed the compact mirror with a snap and returned it to her purse, then abruptly glanced up at Adam, who was standing a few feet away from her, regarding her with a weary, hostile look. “Well it happens all the time,” she added quickly, shooting Adam a playful grin. Then she walked over and nudged him in the ribs as she made her way to the sofa beside the bay window and sat down.