Chapter Eight

Many Questions and No Answers

Including former disclaimers, I don't own the Razor phone, Melrose, America's Next Top Model, and Frosted Flakes.

By now it was past noon. Melissa didn't know what to say to Jack. What could one really say to a man that they had just met, who was in their house, and time traveled three hundred years into the current day?

After changing out of her pajamas (her very-sexy-but-not-meant-to-be-seen-in pajamas), she put on a white button-down shirt and denim shorts, then had some breakfast with Jack (cereal, which he complained was cold countless times).

The rest of the time, they had retreated to the cool downstairs, where it was growing warmer by the minute upstairs. Melissa had put on a music channel and dimmed it to a quiet level. Even then, when they were sitting across from each other, she could feel the confusion and awkwardness between the two of them.

She flipped open her pink Razor and saw the picture of a white lily that she had taken a week ago outside. Melissa loved lilies. At her wedding, she always planned to have lilies as her flower choice.

The name across the top of the phone screen read "Melissa Rose." It was a name from, her point of view, unjustly given to her. Rose was her middle name, she had just stuck it in there to make it sound more sophisticated.

Melrose from America's Next Top Model had made her name famous last year. Kate had started calling her Melrose, but then Melissa hit her whenever she called her that. She hated it, and besides, she didn't want to be a copycat. Melissa said that she hated her name, but Kate said that Melissa was a beautiful name.

"Do you hate your name?" she asked Jack. It was the first thing she had spoken in about fifteen minutes.

"Huh?" he asked, frowning.

"Do you hate your name?"

Jack chuckled. "Why would I hate me name, love?"

She shrugged. "It's just a question."

"O' course not! Captain Jack Sparrow...sends fright through all the military men n' sailors all o'er the world. Just sounds strong...masculine...the best name in the world, if you ask me."

"But what if you took the Captain part out? What if it was just Jack Sparrow?"

"It'd still be the same person," he said. "And Jack Sparrow is a force to be reckoned with."

Melissa rolled her eyes. She found his cockiness and arrogance to be annoying. She didn't know how people put up with him, or what all those fangirls saw in him.

"Why? Thinkin' about changin' your name to Melissa Sparrow?" Jack asked, a grin upon his face.

"No! Why would I do something like that?"

"Curiosity. If you don't like your name, Melissa Sparrow wouldn't make it better. 'Cause I'm never goin' to marry or have a child. At least I don't think I have a child. Gisele's been keepin' a secret from me otherwise."

"Jack, why would you think that I'd be experimenting my name with your's?"

He grinned. "'Cause you love me, love."

She could feel her nostrils flaring, something that happened when she was embarrassed or angry. "I do not. I think you're full of yourself."

"You keep telling yourself that, sweetheart. Maybe one day you'll believe it."

Melissa flipped her phone shut. "I just hate my name. Melissa Rose Lewes."

He shrugged.

"You don't like it, either?"

"Melissa's kinda exciting, I suppose. Not as boring and ladylike as Elizabeth or Katherine. Although Lizzy was hardly either o' those things, 'n look at what happened with her."

"Rose is boring, though," she said. "Nothing exciting about that."

"Aye, but it does let people know you're a girl. At least they won't be confused."

Melissa narrowed her eyes. "Are you saying that I look like a man?"

"Well, not your face, so much. You just don't have much, eh...assets, we'll put it that way, love."

"Yes, trust me, I know that I'm so flat that the walls are jealous! You don't have to tell me that!"

Jack looked at the wall behind him and grazed his hand over it. "Yep, the walls are pretty flat."

"Shut up!" she said, crossing her arms over her – nonexistent – chest. "You know, you're not very polite."

"Pirate," he grinned.

"Doesn't give you an excuse," she mumbled to herself. She walked over to a bookshelf and pulled out a thick history book to keep him busy.

"What's this?" he asked.

"It's a history book," she explained. "Maybe you'll think of less witty remarks if you keep your mind busy."

"And why would I want to do that?" he asked.

"Because I told you to," she ordered, opening up to a page titled "Spanish and Portugese Empires."

"But there's so much!" he complained.

"Don't worry. It has lots of big pictures and small words," she said, trying to get him riled up for insulting his intelligence level.

"Then it should be a piece of cake then, eh?" He read the first sentence, then groaned. "But it's goin' t' take forever! Really, Lizzie's punishment wasn't as cruel than this! And that was a bloody cruel punishment."

"I'm not punishing you. I'm keeping you busy from..."

"From saying that you're flatter than a wall? Flatter than the plank that I walked on? Flatter than–"

"Shut up!" she said, taking a seat across from him, watching him hold a book up to his face. She could hear the snickers from behind the book, even though he tried to muffle them.

After going on the computer for a while, Jack was asking Melissa a sea of questions. "What's the Revolutionary War?" he would ask. "What's a covered wagon? Why are all those people on a boat waving to a big green statue? What's cloning?"

Melissa now knew why Jack had a crazy crew: he drove them to insanity. She could feel herself slipping to that point already.

She suppressed a sigh as she explained. "The Revolutionary War was a war that the American colonists fought in the late 1700s to gain their freedom against the British. The Americans ended up winning. The colonies got their own country, now known as the United States of America."

"That's interesting," he said to himself. "But why would ya need a covered wagon?"

"I don't know, I wasn't there! The pioneers used them when they were moving out west to California for gold, something like that. Please don't ask anymore questions." She rubbed her temples. "I think I'm getting a headache again."

"What's that statue?" he asked, ignoring her discomfort and request.

She closed her eyes. "That's the Statue of Liberty. It was a symbol for freedom when people were coming to this country. It was the first thing most people saw. It's in New York, that's where my parents are right now."

"What's cloning?" he asked, skipping to the next question.

Jack reminded Melissa of a boy she watched last summer, Andy, who constantly asked questions and never stopped to take a breath. Andy was pretty smart, too, but no one could stack up against Jack.

"Cloning is where a person can make a replica of something. They first cloned Dolly, a sheep in Scotland, in 1996. Jack, please stop asking questions because I really don't know all the answers and you are really starting to get on my nerves."

"Why am I getting on said nerves?" he asked innocently. "I would never do that!"

"Get back to reading," she said, turning back to the monitor.

"What's that thing you're at?" Jack asked.

"Get back to your book, Jack," she warned as nicely as she could.

"You communicate with the great beyond through it? You're not talkin' to Barbossa or Davy Jones or Lizzy, are ye?"

"Please stop talking," she warned again.

"I knew it!" he said, standing up. "I knew you were one of those all-knowing people! Just like Tia! And you're goin' to bring back Barbossa, aren't ya? Just to make me–"

"Sit down and shut up or I'm going to make you eat cereal again!"

Jack slowly sat down. She remembered that this morning he said that he would kill someone if he ever had to eat cereal again. He said it was disgusting and cold.

"Nothin' but a liar," he mumbled. "Said that it'd be good...Why are all women liars?"

"I'll get the milk and Frosted Flakes right now," she said, getting up.

He slowly picked up the book and kept his eyes locked on her until he had to read. Satisfied, Melissa turned back to the computer.

Melissa's Blog Entry

Three words: Jack. Is. Annoying. Really, that about sums it up. How am I supposed to live with him? Can't I just drop him off like a bad mother at Kate's doorstep or something? I'm sure those two would be fine with each other...I'm sure a million girls would kill to be in my place with this handsome pirate...why do I want out, then?

Love,

Melissa Rose