Chapter 13
Jess
The rain fell against the café window, stealing Jess’s attention from her work. The book about King David had rejuvenated the scholarly side of her, as well as her harbored dreams of writing articles about the most prominent figures in world mythology. It wasn’t often she took some time off to spend money at a caféandwork on passion projects. Yet as soon as she turned in the five articles to Mr. Thompson, she hit up one of downtown’s many musky coffee shops and contemplated a series of books to rival Joseph Campbell’s lectures.
The only problem was deciding what to focus on. Would she be starting up her own blog for monetization, or submitting her articles to scholarly journals? Hell, some periodicals were more than happy to take academic articles that had been “dumbed down” for public consumption. Still, did that meanThe Wall Street Journalwould run a series of articles about the Real Lives (trademarked) of Biblical figures?
Probably not. Jess needed a backup plan, like always.
“Jezebel!” she announced rather loudly, and to the shock of everyone around her. “That’s it!” Jess huddled over her notebook, jotting down the names of every woman she could remember fromat leastthe Old Testament. She giggled when the name Lilith appeared under its own header. This would be fun! Scholarly Biblical articles with a feminist twist!“The Real Women You Never Knew from Sunday School.”Hm. She might have to tweak that.
She had made it to Ruth when her phone buzzed with a message. At first, Jess didn’t believe her eyes. Shannon? Really?Shannonwas texting her out of the blue, let alone in the middle of the day? She didn’t have a job, did she?Oh, right. She’s a photographer.Her hours were as erratic and unpredictable as Jess’s.
“What are you up to? Are you in the area?”
Jess’s eyes crossed as she attempted to decipher that message.“Around what area?”
“Dunno. Downtown? Northwest?”
“I’m downtown. Why?”
She waited for a few seconds before putting her phone down. There were names to jot, and this wasn’t college – she wasn’t a slave to waiting with bated breath for Shannon to talk to her again.
But that’s how the universe worked, wasn’t it? Whenever Jess stopped wanting something, it fell into her lap. If only she knew that was the trick to getting Shannon to be her girlfriend ten years ago.
“Oh! I’m around downtown as well! What café?”
Seriously? She wanted to come join Jess? What year was this? What dimension was this?All right, what’s her fucking game? Where’s the pie about to fly at my face?Jess didn’t have the patience for this.
Ten minutes later – after a streetcar suspiciously came and went outside – Shannon appeared, waving at Jess through the window. Jess pulled her backpack out of the chair at her table and waited for the woman who once had the power to steal her breath away come storming in.
“Hey! Not interrupting you, am I?”
Jess looked her up and down. Jeans and a turtleneck. How photographer of her.No, seriously, what does she want?The friendlier Shannon became, the warier Jess grew. “If I were too busy to say hello to you, I wouldn’t have told you where I was.”
Shannon plopped down in the empty seat. “That looks like work, though.” She pointed to the stack of notebooks and the pencil case opened beside Jess’s laptop.
Shrugging, Jess lowered her laptop lid and closed the notebook. “It’s actually hobby work. I finished my work for the day and am goofing off.”
“Dare I ask what your hobby is?”
That made Jess’s nose twitch. “I’m contemplating writing a series of articles about the women from the Bible.”
“Forfun?”
“Yes.” She closed her pencil case with finality. “For fun.”
“I’m not sure I could name five women from the Bible. Besides Eve and Mary, I guess.”
“To think, there were two prominent Marys.”
“Oooh, right. The virgin and the whore!”
The same people who had jumped at Jess’s outburst earlier now glared at Shannon, but she was too distracted to notice. “Yeah, that’s how the Church portrays them in Canon,” Jess said. “But the historical truth might be quite different. Assuming they existed.”
Shannon sagely nodded, as if she had a clue what the hell Jess meant. “You really know a lot about Christianity.”
“I know a lot about lots of religions. Like you must know a lot about politics.”
