Down By Contact - Jessica Ruddick Page 0,1

the decent thing and claimed me, much to my stepmother’s ire, who would have preferred my dad handle the problem the way he handled every other problem, by throwing money at it. Sometimes, I wondered how much money he would have offered my mom and if we would have been better off—probably not. Knowing my mom, there was no way she would have rationed the money to last my entire childhood. Financially, we’d been better off with the monthly child support. The jury was still out if any other aspect of my life was better.

“Are you still there?” Grace barked.

I unclenched my teeth. “Yes.”

“The next order of business is your dress,” Grace said.

“My dress?” My head instinctively swiveled toward my closet, where I had several garments that were contending for the honor. I tried to view them from Grace’s eyes. They were perfectly appropriate for a wedding. However, they were from the sale rack at Kohl’s, and none possessed a high-end designer label with an unpronounceable name. I couldn’t give two shits about whose name was sewn in my dress, as long as it was flattering and covered my ass and tits.

She sighed. “Don’t you read any of the emails I send you?”

I had been cc’d on too many wedding emails to keep track of. “I must have missed that one.” Or stopped reading them all together. Because seriously, she sent out more newsletters than the university alumni center.

“Your fitting is next week.”

I nearly choked. My fitting? “Excuse me?”

“In Roanoke. I sent you the details.”

I contemplated making up an excuse to put her on hold so I could skim through her emails to figure out what the hell she was talking about. I rejected the idea. “You ordered me a dress?”

“Yes.”

“Oh well, thanks, I guess,” I said slowly, trying to figure out her angle. With Grace, if it seemed too good to be true, it was. “You really didn’t need to go to the trouble.”

“Yes, I did,” she spoke slowly as if explaining things to a dimwitted child instead of a soon-to-be college graduate. “It’s all in the email. Although you’re not a part of the official wedding party, you will be included in some of the pictures at your father’s request, so your dress must complement the bridal party dresses.”

Since my stepmother preferred to pretend I didn’t exist, my father’s request must have been a bitter pill to swallow. I wished I had been there to see her choke on it, though it was probably best that she couldn’t see my shit-eating grin. My father wouldn’t tolerate my being left out. He might have been a miser with his affection, but he loved me in his own way. Or so I assumed.

At least he was generous with money. It was thanks to him that I would graduate with no student-loan debt, so I couldn’t complain. Anyway, I didn’t need his affection. I barely knew the man, and at that point in my life, the situation was unlikely to change.

Grace was a piece of work. Most women would have divorced a philandering husband, but Grace liked to play the martyr, as if she’d sacrificed her dignity by keeping the family together for the sakes of Vanessa and my older half brother, Vince. That was a load of shit, though. She didn’t care that my father had cheated—she only cared that he’d been careless about it. Their marriage was practically a business arrangement. Despite my father’s unfaithfulness, she was getting the better end of the deal.

“Okay.” I was so eager to wrap up the call that I would have agreed to nearly anything. “Anything else?”

“I will appoint a suitable young man for you for the weekend.” She sighed heavily, as if it was a burden I had put on her instead of a self-inflicted one. “I’ll have to call in several favors, but for you, it’s a sacrifice I’m willing to make.”

My eyes narrowed at her passive-aggressive dig. Appoint me a date? Oh, hell no. I’d be damned if my wicked stepmother was going to appoint a man for me. That was some upper-crust horseshit.

“Don’t,” I said through clenched teeth. “I don’t need your help.”

“Dear”—the term of endearment sounded poisonous coming from her mouth—“you obviously do. Attending an event of this scope without an escort is simply not—”

“I have someone. More than someone, actually. A boyfriend.”

“Well, who is it?”

I said the first name that came to mind. “Justin. Justin Olmsted.”

***

Justin

WITH NOT AN ounce of regret, I placed a double shot of