"So," Stef awkwardly cleared her throat, keeping her eyes glued to the road in front of her, "do you want to listen to the radio or something?"
"Sure, yeah. I mean music's always good," Alexandra said, staring out the passenger-seat window.
"Okay," Stef said. "Any station preferences? Or, I mean I guess you probably don't know the stations down here, but any music genre preferences?"
"Oh, uh, really anything's good with me," Alexandra replied.
"All right then," Stef made a move to power the radio on, figuring she'd just flip it to the Hot 100 or whatever crap Mariana always insisted it be on. All teens liked that, right? You couldn't go wrong with the Hot 100. She cranked the knob over to the station. Nothing. That was odd. Sighing, she turned the knob a little more. Still no sound. Irritated, she began to move the volume controls up and down, yet nothing was working.
"Okay so how about no music."
"No music is perfectly fine," Alexandra agreed, nodding.
Stef raked a hand through her hair. Of course, today of all days would be the time where the damn radio breaks. Now there was no escaping the awkward silence that took over. She was either going to have to ride out the suffocating quiet or start talking. If she knew that it wasn't completely impossible, she would've thought Lena masterminded this whole thing just to force them to confront each other.
"So…I guess this gives us some time to talk, yes?" Stef began in a desperate attempt to prompt some conversation.
"Yup. Suppose you're right," Alexandra replied, her eyes still fixed pointedly out the window, her head permanently turned to the right and in the opposite direction of Stef.
"So where have you been living? Before you came here, obviously," Stef asked, trying to keep her tone calm and conversational, not resembling anything that could even be considered remotely interrogational.
"New Jersey," she replied simply. She had learned her lesson about over-sharing. She would keep it as vague as possible from now on.
"Oh that's cool."
"Yeah."
Stef tapped on the steering wheel. "And you go to school I take it?"
"Went."
"Right. I mean, of course, or else you obviously wouldn't be here in the middle of spring," Stef nodded. "So you graduated already, then?"
"Mhm."
"Good. That's good. Any college plans, or…?"
Alexandra shrugged, "maybe eventually. I'm actually working right now though. Or, was working. I took some time off to come here."
"That's nice. Where did you work?"
"Waitress at a small diner up there. It's family-owned, you wouldn't know it."
"Probably not. No, but that's great. You know, taking responsibility, finding a job and all that."
"I guess."
Stef pursed her lips. This girl was not going to make this easy on her. This was probably payback for earlier. It was no wonder she didn't want to talk. She just wished she'd give her something, anything really to stop this painfully trite conversation. Any topic, really. Sports teams, the weather, politics-
"What was our father like?"
-anything, of course, but that.
The car came to a screeching halt as Stef slammed on the breaks, jerking them both forward, the seatbelts digging into their necks. "Sorry, I almost missed the turn," Stef said quietly, pulling the car into the motel parking lot.
"No, I'm sorry," Alexandra apologized. "That was a…that wasn't a good question. Or good timing. At all."
Stef found a parking spot and turned off the vehicle.
"I-you don't have to answer that if you don't want to, I just-" Alexandra unbuckled her seatbelt and made a move to open the car door. She was ready to bolt. She wanted nothing more that to sprint into the hotel room and never come out. This was a mistake, a big mistake. It all was. "I'll just go get my things, I-"
Stef stuck an arm out, grabbing at her shirt and pulling her back inside the car. Alexandra looked at her, puzzled, but shut the door and leaned back into her seat.
Stef took a deep breath, leaning her head against the headrest of her seat and closing her eyes. "Dad was stubborn," she started. "He was very…opinionated and he wasn't afraid of anyone knowing it. I guess that wasn't a good or bad thing necessarily but, uh, sometimes it wasn't the most convenient."
Stef looked up at Alexandra, who was nodding and listening intently, no doubt soaking up as much information as she possibly could.
"He didn't exactly approve of my relationship with Lena. Didn't even come to our wedding, actually," Stef said, slightly bitter.
"Seriously?" Alexandra asked quietly, looking up with Stef with big, sad eyes. Stef stifled a sigh. She couldn't do this to her. She couldn't break her heart like this anymore. She knew she must've put him on a pedestal, and she couldn't bear to ruin that image entirely. After all, Frank really wasn't a bad guy. And Stef missed him – missed him a lot. Stef just happened to blame a lot on him, for her own insecurities and fears. Whether that was justified or not, she didn't know, but her father wasn't a bad guy. Not really. He always wanted what was best for her. Sometimes he just had a little trouble showing it.
"But there were so many good qualities about him, too," Stef smiled slightly.
"Yeah?"
"Yeah," she nodded, thinking back to all the good memories. "He was caring, protective, and he'd always have your back. He was generous, too. Bought us this car actually just a few days before he died."
Alexandra smiled. She liked that. That was a good image to have. She was sitting in a seat her father had bought, a seat he'd touched. In a way she felt more connected to him, even if it was just a car.
Stef recalled all the snapshots she had filed in her brain, down to the vivid details. How he'd always take her to the parks on Sunday and push her on the swings. How he'd helped her build a birdhouse. How he bandaged her up when she scraped a knee. How he mortified her by intimidating the crap before her first high school dance when her date showed up. How he'd teased her about her misconceptions of snow. "He was all about his family," she said, reminiscing, it slipping before she had a chance to think about it.
Her eyes snapped back to focus on Alexandra, whose smile slipped off her face, now to be replaced by pursed lips and a wrinkling forehead.
"I'm sorry, I didn't -"
"Do you think he knew? About me, I mean?"
Stef was starting to feel like she was the one being interrogated. Except this time it was questions she had no answers to. Questions only a dead man knew.
"I don't know, sweets," Stef said, the affectionate term naturally slipping without her consent. But was that really such a bad thing? "I don't know."
Alexandra nodded, looking down at her hands. "Well, I should probably go get my stuff now," she said, beginning to climb out the door.
"Alexandra?" Stef asked, stopping her in her tracks.
"Yeah?" she turned to face her.
"You need some help?"
Alexandra thought about it for a moment, but in the end decidedly shook her head. "Nah, I think I got it."
Stef nodded. "Okay. Well, I'll just wait here then," she said, pulling out her phone in the meantime.
"Oh, and Stef?" Alexandra said. "You can call me Alex, you know. If you want, I mean. Alexandra just sounds so formal, you know?" she shrugged, a hand still on the car door handle.
Stef nodded, giving her a small smile, "go get your stuff, Alex," she said, purposely tacking on the new name.
Maybe this wouldn't be so bad after all. Maybe she really did just want to know a little about her father and that would be that and it would all be okay. She seemed responsible enough. Besides the nose-ring, she seemed to have a decent head on her shoulders. Maybe she was overreacting and this would all just be an odd blip on the radar.
Stef began to scroll through her emails, passing the time before Alex came back. Suddenly, she saw a light blinking from the seat next to her. Alex had forgotten her phone when she went in to retrieve her things.
She shouldn't do it. She couldn't. That would be a complete invasion of privacy, one that Lena would give her hell for if she ever found out Stef was even thinking about. It was inappropriate and wrong and none of her business….but was it?
She couldn't say that she felt totally at ease about this girl. Sure, they had had a little moment discussing Frank, but she still had a gnawing suspicion she didn't know Alex's whole story. It was too strange a situation, right? And if something was going on, she had a right, no, a duty to find out and protect her family, to make sure her wife and kids were safe first and foremost.
The phone blinked again. The damn thing was taunting her. It was now or never. God, this was terrible timing. Before she could stop herself, she quickly swiped her finger across the screen. Thank God she didn't have one of those pass codes her kids were so fond of. Not that those were too hard to crack. Mariana's was her birthday for God's sake. She didn't snoop often, just when she felt it was necessary. And after the whole Ana fiasco, she had enough ammunition to hold over the girl's head until she had kids of her own.
'Two new messages from Jackson' the home screen informed her. She entered into the texting inbox, what she saw making her blink, her breath catching a bit. "Shit," she muttered, seeing Alex making her way back to the car, a few bags of luggage in her hands.
She quickly clicked off the phone and placed it back where it had been before messing with it. She had to act casually. That was definitely something she was not supposed to see, and she was at a loss for what to do. She would have to wait until she could think things over a little more and possibly discuss this with Lena. All she knew was that she was going to have to keep an eye on this girl – a very close eye.
"You get everything?" she asked, plastering on a small smile. "Here, I'll help you load that stuff in the trunk," Stef said, popping the back open and taking some of her bags.
"Uh, thanks," Alex said as she transferred some of the bags to Stef.
"Well, let's hit the road again. When you get back you'll meet everybody," Stef said, trying to distract herself from what she'd seen.
"Everybody? Who's everybody?" she said, wrinkling an eyebrow, lifting her phone off the seat and into her lap.
"Well, you've met Lena, but you still have to meet the kids," Stef said, trying to do the near-impossible multitasking job of driving, holding conversation, and watching Alex carefully, to see if she could gauge a reaction.
She saw a small flash of light from the corner of her eye, no doubt another texting notification. She studied Alex carefully as she saw the girl pick up the phone, her lip twitching down into a small frown.
"That okay?" she asked, on the surface about meaning the kids, but really asking about whoever Jackson was, sending her texts from the other end of the line.
"That's fine," Alex said nonchalantly, putting her phone in her pocket and facing the front window.
Stef's lips formed into a line. Things certainly weren't fine. She couldn't get those text messages from tossing and tumbling around in her head. I know what you did, the first had said. It was accompanied seconds later by another, one that sent chills down her spine.
You're dead.
Oh snap. Thanks as always for your wonderful reviews - your feedback is awesome and much appreciated. And special thanks to Liz and Grace for being amazing and helping me with this!