Hello.
Last Fall, I began to work on a story called “Jessica Jones.” I haven’t been able to work on it for months, but just started back at it today. The creation of this story began as a conversation with my roommate about the Christy Miller series (a youth Christian fiction series, that was extremely cheesy). The idea was to write a story just as cheesy, but I found myself wanting to make it real and funny and honest.
I was going to start posting it as installments. So, here is part One of “Jessica Jones.” Enjoy.
Jenny
Jessica Jones: Part One
Jessica Jones was in the middle of a beautiful dream when the kitchen blender whirred and blurred and startled her into the morning. She stared at the ceiling and then jumped up. She inspected herself in the mirror. No, she didn’t look or feel any different. “But I have to be,” she said to herself. “I’m 17 today. Everything changes when you’re 17.” She walked into the kitchen and witnessed her mom putting the final touches on the celebrated Birthday pancakes – complete with a smiley face on top.
“Morning birthday girl,” her mom said, planting a kiss on top of Jessica’s forehead. “Juice or milk?” “Coffee please,” Jessica answered nonchalantly. “And you started drinking coffee when?” her mother replied. “I’m 17,” said Jessica. “Things change when you’re 17. Life gets exciting and you need to drink coffee to keep up with it all.”
Jessica took a sip of coffee, her right of passage into the adult world, and went straight for the milk and sugar. By the time she finished it was almost white. And even then she only drank a quarter of the cup.
Her Dad walked in the door with the paper. He threw it down and picked up Jessica, twirling her around. “Happy Birthday little girl!” “Dad,” she said, backing up. “I’m not a little girl anymore. See, I’m drinking coffee – I’m all grown up now.” Her dad smiled and replied “OK.” He picked up the paper and was reading through the business section. “Oh, I almost forgot. Bob and Randy both need two new pairs of gloves,” her dad said without looking up. “Already?” Jessica questioned. “But I just gave them new pairs a month ago.”
A year ago Jessica had knit her father a pair of gloves for her father to use when on his motorcycle. Her dad looked every bit the stereotypical accountant – scrawny, slightly balding, glasses and a pocket protector (until a few years ago). However, he also loved his Harley. When he wasn’t crunching numbers, he was taking the streets by storm with his biker buddies, The Highway to Hale crew (Hale was the diner they frequented). The gloves Jessica knit were a huge hit with his friends and they all had to have a pair. It was a great side business and she was always working on new designs for them.
Jessica finished her breakfast and went to her room. She took extra care getting ready this morning. As she smoothed her hair one last time she looked in the mirror as if to say, “Hello world.”
She picked up her new notebook – this one was clean and had no writing on it. She had learned her lesson about writing on notebooks. What started off as a simple declaration of faith turned into an embarrassing nightmare that took months to live down. She had written “I love Jesus” on her notebook and would proudly walk down the school corridors. That was until one person in class announced “Jessica loves Jes`us!” Jes`us – a sophomore at her school. She repeatedly tried to explain that she loved Jesus and not Jes`us, but to no avail.