The Soulmate Equation by Christina Lauren

TWENTY-FOUR

STANDING IN VONS the next evening, Jess looked up from her grocery list and realized Juno was still staring at the half mile of cereal options. “Junebug, can you pick one? We still have to drive home, unload this, and get you bathed and into bed.” Jess glanced at her watch, dreading the amount of work she still had to do when she got home. With her nights suddenly River-free, she should have been all caught up, with plenty of time to spare. And yet. Her focus had been terrible, and when she wasn’t busy being sad and staring off into space, she was helping Juno with homework or, like earlier tonight, going to the physical rehabilitation center with Nana and Pops.

Juno gazed up at the colorful boxes, eyes narrowed as she considered. When a seven-year-old is told for the first time in their life that they can pick whatever cereal they want, it’s a big decision. “Hmm.” She tapped her chin. “Cinnamon Toast Crunch looks good but Trix is fruity.” She reached for the box. “I’ll get Trix.”

“You know it’s not real fruit, right?”

Her daughter: ever confident. “Yes, it is. Look, it says ‘natural fruit flavors.’”

Jess saved the lesson on tricky advertising for a better mood and tossed the box into the cart.

A shocking amount of money later, they were loading groceries into the trunk when her phone rang with an unknown number. “Go ahead and get in. I’ll finish,” Jess told Juno, and motioned that she had a call. “Hello?”

“Jessie!”

Tinny music filled the line and Jess glanced at the number again. “This is Jessica. Who is this?”

“Jessie? It’s Mama.”

“Mom? I can barely hear you.”

In the background, the sound of shuffling and muffled laugher, and then Jamie was back, the line quieter from whatever room she’d moved to. She let out an annoyed scoff and sounded like she was speaking to someone else when she said, “Assholes wouldn’t turn it down.”

Jess loaded the last bag and leaned against the back of her car, listening closely. “Whose phone are you using? I didn’t recognize the number.”

“I got a new one. Was getting so many unwanted calls. Just all the time.”

Jess’s heart sank. Bill collectors. This was Jamie’s third new number in as many years. And now that Jess could hear better, she registered a definite slurring.

“Mom, are you drinking?”

Her Jusalilbit came out as one fluid syllable, meaning what she said next lacked any credibility: “Only beer. Not drunk, though. I promise.”

Closing her eyes, Jess took a deep, steadying breath, and then slammed the trunk shut. So much for clean for eighteen months.

“Listen, Jamie, I’m out with Juno, and we have a car full of groceries. I have your new number now, so I’ll call you later.”

“No, wait. Baby, I need you to come get me.”

Jess worked to keep the annoyed edge from her voice. “Sorry, I can’t tonight. I need to get Juno home and I have a lot of work to do. Sleep it off, and I’ll talk to you tomorrow.” She turned to take the cart back.

“Jessie, I think I’m in trouble.”

Jess stopped. “What kind of trouble?”

“With the cops,” she said, sounding like she’d put a cupped hand around the phone. “I’d drive myself over to your place, but I had a little to drink and probably shouldn’t.”

Jess returned to the car. “Mom, you can’t come to my place if the police are looking for you, are you serious right now?”

“That’s all you have to say?” her mother asked. “Aren’t you even a little bit proud of me?”

Jess’s mouth dropped open and for a few seconds she honestly had no idea what to say. “Am I—? For getting drunk? For having a problem with the police?”

“For not driving,” Jamie snapped. “You know what, never mind. I’ll just wait twenty minutes and then drive myself.”

“Mom, wait.” Jess closed her eyes, counted to five. The sun was already starting to set. Nana and Pops were out with some of his navy friends; Fizzy was on a deadline, and Jess couldn’t keep running to her anyway. River—River was apparently out of the picture. She was on her own.

“Don’t drive,” she said. “Just … send me the address. I’ll come now.”

THE ADDRESS JAMIEsent was to her friend Ann’s house in Vista, over half an hour’s drive away. Jess had met Ann a few times and knew she wasn’t the worst of Jamie’s people—she was, after all, responsible enough to have a steady home. A few cars littered the long, wide driveway—Jess didn’t see Jamie’s, but that didn’t mean anything—and the sound of classic rock filtered through the open windows.

“Whose house is this?” Juno asked, peering through the windshield at the two-story orange stucco house. She scrunched her nose. “It smells like that comic book shop we went to.”

Weed. It smelled like weed. But that was the least of Jess’s worries.

“It’s Grandma Jamie’s friend’s house.” Jess helped her daughter from the back seat and took her hand. “I want you to hold on to my hand the whole time, and don’t talk to anyone.” They made their way up the driveway, but Jess stopped. Who knew what they would find inside? “Just—don’t look at anything if you can help it.”

Juno nodded, gripping her mom’s hand in her clammy little one. Jess tried to keep most of the bad stuff from her kid, but Juno knew enough about Jamie to not ask too many questions.

The front door was partially ajar and Def Leppard blasted sharply out onto the front porch. Juno gave her mom a wary frown before Jess pushed the door open and took a step inside. “Hello?”

Jamie walked around the corner with a tumbler of amber liquid in her hand, but when she saw her daughter, she immediately put it down on a cluttered table. She was barefoot and wearing a knee-length sundress; Jess tightened her grip on Juno as she glanced uneasily around the room. There was a man passed out on a couch, a woman in the kitchen anxiously pacing as she murmured into a phone. God only knew what was happening upstairs. “Get your things, Mom. Time to go.”

Jamie spotted Juno, and her face brightened, arms went wide. “There’s my baby girl.” Her voice was too big, smile too wide. “Give Grandma a hug.” Juno took a step back, wrapping her arms around Jess’s waist and hiding behind her legs. Dejected, Jamie straightened and turned her attention to her daughter. “Didn’t think you’d be here so soon.”

Jamie didn’t seem falling-down drunk, but her complexion was pallid and vaguely sweaty. She swayed where she stood. As if reading Jess’s thoughts, Jamie swiped self-consciously at the mascara smeared under her eyes and ran two shaking hands through her hair.

“It’s late,” Jess said flatly. “It’s a school night. Everyone in this house is probably drunk or high, including you.”

“Why do you always assume the worst of me?”

Jess wasn’t in the mood to argue. Picking up Juno, she turned toward the door. “I’ll be in the car. If you’re not out there in three minutes, I’m leaving without you.”

Almost exactly three minutes later, Jamie walked out, still barefoot, and climbed into the front seat. As she passed in front of the headlights, Jess could instantly see that she’d lost weight. Jamie had always been slim, but she got rail thin when she was using.

“Where are your shoes?” Jess asked, putting the car into reverse and backing out of the driveway. Not that it mattered; Jess wouldn’t turn back for them. She’d give up her own shoes first.

Jamie looked down at her dirty feet and frowned. “Oh … I’m not sure.”

It took intense effort for Jess to focus on driving safely. She was so furious, so disappointed, she was afraid to even open her mouth. A glance in the rearview mirror reassured her that Juno was watching Lady and the Tramp on Jess’s iPhone, eyes heavy with exhaustion and headphones firmly in place. With any luck she’d be asleep before they were even on the freeway.

The miles passed in tense silence as they headed toward Jamie’s apartment farther inland—a new address since only a handful of months ago.

“You didn’t have to come,” Jamie finally said, clearly trying to smooth things over by sitting up pin-straight and enunciating. Jess was very rarely mad at her. Her mother had forgotten holidays, mostly missed her high school graduation, and outright lied to Jess about her sobriety more times than she could count, but Jess always let it go. Jamie was her mom. She didn’t have any other choice.

But right now, Jess was so tired. “You asked me to come get you.”

“I could have called an Uber or something in the morning.”

“You said you were in trouble.”

“I did?”

Jess exhaled a slow, calming stream of air. It wasn’t worth getting into it. “You said you’ve been sober for eighteen months, so what are you doing drinking at Ann’s?”

“I had one beer.” Jamie let out a curt laugh and turned toward the passenger window. “Of course, to you that ruins everything. You’re always so quick to judge.”

“I’m not judging. I’m upset that I have a hundred and fifty dollars’ worth of groceries in my trunk, including frozen stuff that’s probably ruined. I’m upset that I dropped everything, and instead of having my daughter asleep in her own bed, I had to drag her to some drug party, and you can’t even be straight with me. What’s going on? How on earth did you get in trouble with the police?”

“It’s a stupid misunderstanding.”

“With who?”

“Skin Glow,” Jamie said. “I ordered some product to sell. But now the owner says she’s going to press charges if I don’t pay her. It’s ridiculous. How am I supposed to pay her for product I haven’t even sold yet?”

“Product?”

“Some creams and serums, vitamins. That kind of stuff.”

“So, you bought stock on credit, and pay it back from the profit, I’m guessing?”

“Yeah.”

“Mom, I’m sure all of that is in the terms of whatever agreement you signed to buy it.”

Jamie shook her head. “When I went in for the consult, they said I’m really good at sales, and should come in at the Blue level. It’s a really big deal to be told that, trust me, and Trish understood that I was taking on a lot of inventory.” She lifted her chin. “But I had a lot of people who wanted to buy the stuff, and a lot more who are interested in buying, they’re just waiting to get paid.”

Jess felt like she couldn’t breathe, like she knew what was coming but didn’t want to hear it.

“Some bills got a little ahead of me, so I used the money from my first sales to cover them. I was planning to pay it back. I just haven’t had the chance yet, and she’s being such a bitch about it. She says she’ll report all of the inventory as stolen.” Her mother squinted over at her, indignant. “Can you even believe that?”

“You ordered product, sold some, and used the money for your bills instead of paying for the product you ordered?”

Jamie nodded, turning her face to the window again. “It’s not like I’m not good for it. If Trish trusted me to come in at Blue level, then why can’t she trust me to get these orders sold?”

Jess tightened her grip on the steering wheel. “How much?” Jamie didn’t answer, and ice-cold dread slipped over her skin. “Mom, how much do you owe?”

“I don’t know. Like ten thousand.”

Jess gaped at her, eyes wide with horror, and had to swerve to stay in her lane. “Ten thousand dollars?”

Rolling her eyes, Jamie mumbled, “Here we go.”

“You ordered ten thousand dollars in face cream? Wholesale?” Jess … couldn’t even wrap her mind around that. And then it hit her.

Trish was most likely not the only person her mom owed money to.

“You have two felonies,” Jess said, and her hands were shaking on the wheel now. “California is a three-strike state. Do you understand what that means? If this woman presses charges, you could go to prison for twenty-five years.”

Jamie waved this away. “It’s not going to come to that. I just have to pay Trish back.”

“Mom—how? How are you going to do that?”

Her nostrils flared, and she clenched her jaw. “I’ll pay her back out of my cut of the product I have left to sell.”

“You really think you can sell ten thousand dollars of skin care product to your friends?” Jess glanced at her and then back to the road. Jamie’s friends didn’t have money, either.

“Yeah, that’s not going to be a problem, seriously everyone loves this stuff. But I might need you to loan it to me so I can get her off my ass—”

Tearing her eyes away from the road again, Jess cried, “What in the world makes you think I have that kind of money lying around?”

Jamie studied her shrewdly. After a long pause, she said, “I figured you could ask your new boyfriend.”

Jess felt like she’d been punched in the chest. “What?”

“I saw the Today show.” Jamie had the nerve to appear wounded when she looked back over at her daughter. “The guy who started that company that’s going to be such a big deal?”

Jess had to push the words up her throat. “I don’t know if he and I are—”

“You weren’t even going to tell me. Probably because you assumed I’d just come to you looking for money.”

She gaped at the black asphalt ahead, at the mile marker she passed, the speed limit sign. “Isn’t that what you’re doing?”

“Not for a handout! Jesus Christ, Jessica, I’m talking about paying it back within a month! I only need it now because fucking Trish has me backed into a corner! Hasn’t she ever been late on a bill? Haven’t you?”

Glancing into the back seat, Jess was relieved to find that Juno had fallen asleep. She turned and stared straight ahead, blinking back tears. Jess had the money. She’d been holding it for braces and insurance and a rainy day, but she still had it.

Why can’t you just be my mom?

“It’s fine,” Jamie said. “I’ll figure something out or I’ll go to prison, but either way it’s not your problem.”

Jess blinked up to the mirror again. Juno’s mouth was softly open, her head bobbing gently with the tiny bumps in the road. Jess couldn’t keep doing this anymore.

“I’ll give you the money.”

Jamie’s face whipped to Jess. “You will? I’ll pay you back with my first check. I’m telling you, Jessie, before all this happened Trish said she’d never seen anyone sell like me.”

She pulled into the apartment complex that made her own look like a palace and parked in the first empty spot she found. “Don’t pay me back,” Jess said flatly. “I’m giving this to you. But after I do, I don’t want you to call me anymore, and I don’t want you to come by.”

“What? Why—”

“I’ll transfer the money, but that’s the end. I don’t want to ever see you again.”

The car idled, and the silence stretched between them. Jess had no idea what else to say. Would Jamie even pay her debts, or would she take the money and run?

It honestly didn’t matter. Jess was done.

Jamie looked at her granddaughter in the back seat, and her gaze seemed to sober as it moved over Juno’s sleeping face.

Resolved, she turned back around. “You still have my account number?”

Sadness and relief braided hot and painful through Jess’s limbs. “Yes.”

Her mother nodded and slowly faced forward again. “Okay.” Her fingers wrapped around the door handle. “Okay.” She pushed it open and stepped out into the darkness.