Promise Me (Book One of the Kirkland Family)

Promise Me: Chapter 6

Chapter 6

On Friday morning, Josie walked out of her grandparents' house, pointing a video camera at Hannah.  “What are you doing?” Hannah asked.  

 Josie grinned.  “I’m going to film my whole summer!  Ain’t that a great idea?!”

“Not if you’re gonna point that thing at me the whole time,” Hannah said, putting her hands up in front of her face.

“I thought you wanted to be an actress,” Josie pointed out.  “You should be used to it.  You know...’making love to the camera’.”

Hannah pointed a finger at her.  “Okay, you’re just a kid.  Don’t be saying things like that.  You’re too young to even know what that means.”

Josie rolled her eyes, still filming Hannah and the surrounding farm.  “Whatever.  I’m not clueless.”

“No,” Hannah agreed, “but it’s creepy and gross.”  Then as a thought occurred to her, she asked, “Is your dad going to see this?”

“Why?  Do you plan on doing something you shouldn’t do?”

Hannah got a naughty smile on her face.  “Maybe.”  She leaned over and looked into the lens, knowing the camera was getting an up-close and personal scan of her nostrils.  “I guess that means I can’t flash my boobs, huh?”

Josie giggled.  “Eww!  No!”

Hannah grinned and looked right into the camera.  “Don’t worry, Justin, I won’t corrupt your daughter that way, even if you do think that’s all I’m capable of.”

“Oh...”Josie said slowly and carefully, “Don’t take that stuff personally, Hannah.  Daddy thinks that of all women.”  Hannah sent her a sharp look.

“What do you mean?”

“He thinks every woman is like my mom.”

“Ah,” Hannah said, hearing more to the story than Josie was telling her.  What bothered her most of all -- besides Justin Kirkland’s views on women -- was that Josie was completely aware of it.  “Well, maybe you should make a video that proves him wrong.”

“Why do you think I’m filming you?” Josie asked, blinking with unfeigned naivete.

“Actually, I was kind of hoping it was for an A on a school project,” Hannah replied, uneasy and adjusting the neckline of her top while Josie kept right on with the camera.  “You know, that What I Did During My Summer Vacation stuff.  Who else will think of filming their entire summer?”

“Oh, I didn’t think about that,” Josie said, her eyes wandering for a moment.  “Okay, I’ll go with that explanation, if it makes you feel better.”

“Oh, it does,” Hannah muttered as she waved Josie into her car.  “Come on. We’re gonna be late.”

By the end of that day, Hannah’s nerves were on edge.  Josie’s camera made her feel itchy and jumpy, like someone was breathing down her neck or staring at the back of her head all day.  She’d never been one to succumb to stage fright, but that blinking red light just kept right on...well, blinking.  Hannah was seeing it even when she closed her eyes, and once that day, she doubled checked the bathroom just to make sure the camera wasn’t hidden away behind the toilet while she did her business

Why is this  bothering me so much? she asked herself while sitting under their shade tree, eating lunch.  It must be because Justin might see what she did all day – which wasn't all that glamorous – and how she normally looked – dirty jeans and a tank top – and it made her a little self-conscience. The camera sat on a flat of paving stones, glaring at both of them, and Hannah’s shoulder kept brushing the side of her neck as though to get rid of that weird someone’s-watching-me sensation.  “Can you turn that off for a while?”

“I’ll miss something if I do,” Josie said, munching on a granola bar.  “Besides, when I get back home, and have nothing to do anymore, then I can turn on the videos and see how happy I am now.”  She grinned for effect, and Hannah rolled her eyes.

“You make it sound like your life sucks,” she told Josie.

“Well, it kind of does,” Josie said.  “I go to an all-girls school, I have one friend in the whole wide world, and I’m not allowed to go anywhere unless daddy or Teresa is with me.”

Hannah frowned.  “Who’s Teresa?”

“Oh, she’s our housekeeper,” Josie informed her, shrugging as though it was no big deal.  

“What is she doing while both of you are gone?”

“Daddy gave her some time off to go back home to visit her family.  She’s from the Dominican Republic,” Josie said.

Hannah leaned back against the tree.  “Okay, so let me get this straight.  Your life sucks because you’re rich, you've got a housekeeper to pick up after you, you live by the ocean, can go swimming any time you want, your father sends you to a private school so you can get a pedigree education, and he’s doing his best to keep safe by making sure someone is with you, since, you know, you’re thirteen.”

Josie huffed.  “Jeez!  Since you put it that way!  I’m freaking privileged.”

“No need to get upset,” Hannah said calmly, “but yes, you are privileged.  Not many kids grow up like you."

"You mean, like you?"

Hannah laughed, a sarcastic tone to it.  "I think you've got it a little easier than I did."

Josie rolled her eyes.  "Please...I already asked Grandma about you."

Hannah raised her eyebrows.  "Oh, really?  And what did you find out?"

Josie flicked a finger between the two of them.  "You and I...we're practically the same person."

Leaning back against the tree trunk, Hannah said, "This I've gotta hear.  Enlighten me, Josie.  How are we the same person?"

"Well...we're both raised by our dads," she began, and Hannah snorted, the sound coming out like a congested elephant.

"So was Al Pacino's daughters," Hannah gawffed.  "Let's compare ourselves to that childhood."

Josie's jaw flopped for a second.  "We both love to sing..."

Hannah shook her head.  "I don't sing anymore."

"But you still love to, right?"

Deciding to not answer that question, mostly because she didn't have an answer, Hannah waved at Josie to get on with her argument.  "What else do you have?"

"Oh, um...guinea pigs?"

Hannah started giggling.  Josie grinned and added, "And we're both intelligent and beautiful women."

"I'm a woman," Hannah corrected, "You are a young lady."

"But I am smart and beautiful," Josie argued with a waggle of eyebrows.

"More like sneaky and adorable," Hannah said, throwing a potato chip at her.

Josie retaliated and threw a cheese puff at her, saying, “Yeah, I am.  But you love me anyway.”

Hannah just smiled, thinking, It’s kind of hard not to.

*****

One week later...Thursday…the middle of the Atlantic Ocean...

Justin popped a peppermint in his mouth as he settled into his bunk.  Three weeks had already passed since he dropped Josie off at his parents, and he’d been on this submarine for over two of them. Originally, he was only supposed to tag along, working on the communication systems, until the boat reached Spain, where he would hitch a flight back to the states. Those plans had already changed. It was going to take another week to work out the bugs in the system – after stopping in Spain -- and that meant another week that Josie would have to stay with her grandparents.