A Date with Fate (Jessie's Girl)

SS26: "A Date With Fate (Jessie's Girl)"

***

This is SS #26, entitled "A Date With Fate (Jessie's Girl)." This is part one of a two-part sequel to my story "Step-Mommie Dearest." This is the non-erotic portion, setting up the forthcoming actual erotic portion (which will be SS #27, called "And The Truth Shall Set You Free"), and so I'm tempted right now to quip, "Don't even read this, just go ahead and start one-bombing it." But, I shan't.

***

August 19th, 2:12 p.m.

Jessie was studying her reflection in the mirror from a number of angles as her future step-mother strolled by.

"Hey, Gretch?"

Gretchen Peterson paused and cautiously turned in her direction.

"...Yes, Jessica?"

Jessie took a couple tufts of her moderate-toned brunette hair in her hands.

"Can I ask your opinion about something?"

Gretchen was nervous, but she acquiesced. "Okay."

"I'm gonna get my hair done. How do you think I'd look with blonde-lights?"

"Oh, uh...well, hon, I...I think you're beautiful no matter how you look, or what you do with your hair," Gretchen evasively sidestepped. "You should do whatever makes you happy."

Jessie had to think about that piece of advice for a moment.

Whatever makes me happy...who even knows what happiness is? she wondered.

She nodded back to Gretchen knowingly. "Point taken."

The affable yet somewhat impish smirk on Jessie's face still gave Gretchen a bit of a chill. Ever since their incident a week ago, Gretchen certainly respected Jessie, but at the same time she wasn't terribly anxious to spend a great deal of time with her. Obviously, marrying William Townsend meant also marrying his daughter, in a way, and while she didn't have a deal-breaking problem with Jessie's homosexuality, she still couldn't personally understand it. And what she couldn't understand had always frightened her a little. Unfortunately, she didn't see herself being able to approve, either, but fortunately, it was a small enough situation that she didn't think the whole marriage had to be averted. At 52, Gretchen Peterson was a bit old-fashioned and set in her Christian ways, but she adored William, and wanted so much to like Jessie too—uneasy though it was after last week—and she was willing to do whatever it took to get the marriage to work.

She nodded politely to Jessie and said, "Well, um...I'll...see you at dinner then."

"See ya at dinner," she heard Jessie call as she headed off. Jessie kept trifling with her hair, which over the past year and a half had worked its way down her back, almost to her waist. As she bounced around Europe on her school tour, enjoying all the exotic culture and scenery, she didn't have a lot of time to locate a good hairdresser and visit him or her, but highlights or no highlights, it was definitely time to get a trim. Before leaving home on her scholastic journey, she'd been seeing a brilliant stylist named Marlene who could wrestle her thick hair into submission to do whatever Jessie wanted with. The woman was a hair genius. She hopped online to check if her office had moved. Googling her, she noticed the office location was the same, but there was a new phone number.

She grabbed her phone to dial for an appointment. The phone had a touch-screen—no numbered buttons—which could be bothersome at times, but the device normally behaved itself well enough. Jessie pushed the buttons on the phone display, focusing more on her computer screen than what her phone was doing.

Ring...ri— "Yello!" said a female voice she didn't recognize.

Well, that may have been a girl on the other end, but this wasn't the greeting Jessie expected at Marlene's salon. She hesitated.

The mystery voice came again, the 'y' changing into an 'h'. "Hello?"

Jessie stammered out a response. "H—...uh, hello?"

"Hello?" the recipient of the call echoed.

"Uh, is this Marlene's?" asked Jessie.

"Mm, no, I'm ever so sorry, but it's not," said the confused but friendly female voice.

"Oh, gosh, I'm sorry," Jessie replied, insisting the apology was hers to make. "Is this..." She double-checked. "...555-2610?"

"Oh, no, no, no, my dear friend, this is 555-2640."

Jessie removed the phone from her ear and looked at the display. 2640, there it was. Oh, for cr—...you dumb phone, she thought, realizing what must have happened. The '4' was directly below the '1'. She'd meant to press the '1', and despite her certainty, the phone must have thought she wanted the '4' instead.

She put the phone back to her ear. "Oh, shoot. Well, that's a little embarrassing," she stated. "I was trying to reach a Marlene."

"Well, I'm sorry I'm unable to help you there," the other voice chuckled back. "Zero Marlenes here, so you're kinda C.O.L. But if you happen to be in need of an Annabella, I'm your girl!"

"Annabella?" said Jessie. "Huh. That's an unusual name...oh—very pretty name, though," she quickly added.

Annabella giggled through the phone. "No, no, you're right, it is unique. You don't run into too many chicks named Annabella. And even fewer dudes."

They shared a chuckle. "Well, splendid to meet you; my name's Jessie," she intro'd herself. "Actually, now that you mention it, I think I did know an Annabella once," she said, trying to think back. "Yeah, yeah, I think I went to elementary school with her. I seem to recall she had some kind of...funny multisyllabic last name too."

The other end was silent for a moment.

"Just before I tell you...quick query," said Annabella. "Ridgeway Elementary?"

"Yes!" said Jessie. "And I'm pretty sure she and I were in the same grade."

"Uh-huh," said Annabella. "Righty-o, big question then: was her name...Annabella Fiorello?"

Jessie gasped. "Oh my God, yes!" she exclaimed. "That's it! It's all coming back to me now! Holy smoke, that was you??"

"That was me!" laughed the voice. "Still is, actually! Kooky, huh?"

"Wow, yeah, that's amazing!" said Jessie. "Yeah, now I remember thinking, what a goofy name! But, y'know, I was just a kid, so..."

"Hey, I still think it's goofy myself," laughed Annabella. "Oh, I caught some holy ribbing for that, I did. An Italian name can get you teased like nobody's beeswax. But like you just said, we were kids."

"Aw," said Jessie. "Well, I honestly don't remember, but I'm really sorry if I ever teased you about it."

Annabella chuckled again. "It's okay, Jessie. It could've been worse; they could've known my middle name's Serafina."

Jessie took a second to digest that. "...Wow."

"Yep: Annabella Serafina Fiorello. Three names, twelve syllables. How many cats can lay claim to that?"

They ended up gabbing a good while longer, like a couple of old friends. Annabella was Jessie's age, 23, and worked as a human resources coordinator for Team, Inc., her forte being interviewing potential colleagues. A friend helped her land her position right out of high school, Team, Inc. being a company which actually encouraged nepotism and the like, and such a vocation was so important to her, she hadn't much time for a college education. She wasn't the most scholastically gifted student anyway, so she worked full-time, and spent her leisure hours in pursuit of numerous different activities.

She sported a fascinatingly diverse array of non-vocations and personal projects, Jessie noted. She did bips and bops of volunteer work here and there, she belonged to a biweekly-meeting craft club, she shot league billiards on the weekends, she liked to sing and play the piano, and she was learning her ancestral homeland's native language—Italian—oh, she said, and then there was her most recently up-taken hobby, of which she was proudest yet: designing perfume.

"...Good grief," said Jessie when she finished. "When do you sleep?"

"'Sleep'? What's that?" joked Annabella.

They giggled again. Jessie very much liked the sound of her laugh. Her voice was very pleasing, even when not laughing. Her pitch was slightly lower than average, but her timbre was high and feminine, and she used a lot of words Jessie hadn't heard in years, like "groovy," and "boss," both in the context of meaning "terrific". Now that she was back home from being abroad at school, Jessie was looking forward to tossing herself back into the dating arena, or at least the flirting circle, and trying to meet a nice sweet girl. She was aware of course she and this girl had never met face to face—well, as adults—but she didn't see what she had to lose. She thought she would throw out something of an escalator.

She offered, "Y'know what, it's funny, I've always wanted to wear perfume"—which was true—"but I never have"—which was also true, technically, although she did occasionally dab herself with a drop of her Dad's cologne, should a pretty girl with a keen sense of smell cross her path. When she was a teenager, she was excited because the bottle informed her that it was "guaranteed to attract women." But she was quick to learn that was merely a sales pitch.

Annabella took her "bait." Kind of. "Oh, you should swing on down to the mall then!" she told Jessie. "You can find me there at the Aromaworks sometimes. I've got a deal with the managers where I bring them my scents, and if they like them, they offer them as samples to customers, and if they become popular enough, they market them!"

"Oh gosh, that's so cool!" said Jessie. "So how many have you gotten marketed?"

"Just one so far." Her voice deepened as she proudly purred out its name. "It's called 'Torrid.'"

Jessie was suddenly very intrigued.

Annabella's voice returned to normal. "But even if that's the only one, hey, that's still crazy awesome for me. That was already beyond my wildest expectations when it happened. This is just a really fun kick for me. Now I mean, if it had the potential to become a career someday, that might be a different story. But right now it's just a hobby."

Sounds like fun to me, thought Jessie. She took a chance and asked, "Cool! So, eh...what does your husband do then?"

"Oh, I am married not, my good lady," Annabella accentuated with a chuckle.

"Boyfriend?"

"Nope; I am free as a bird."

Ah. So now came the challenge. "Well, that's cool; so am I," Jessie said, keeping her advance paced and matter-of-fact. "I'm also gay though, so...y'know."

"Oh, nice," replied Annabella. "I'm a bi-er."

For a second Jessie was about to ask, "Buyer? I thought you said you were a human resources coordinator." But then she quickly realized what Annabella meant. And it interested her yet further.

"Well, then," said Jessie, now becoming eager to find out more about this girl, who clearly had a comely voice, an active personality and a good sense of humor. "I might just have to make my way on down to the mall then!"

The level of their conversation ascended slightly from casual chatting to subtle flirting. Now that she knew Annabella was both unattached and could theoretically like her, Jessie was excited. She started to really enjoy her inflections and elocutions. Annabella accentuated her words just so that her voice seemed to hug the corners of the consonants and pour just the right amount of nuance into the vowels. She's brilliant, Jessie thought as she listened to her. I think she could read me the phone book and I'd be all ears.

After a few more moments of friendly conversation, Jessie was trying to think of a way of maybe taking this chance encounter to the next level, but before she had the chance, Annabella broke the news to her that she had to head off.

"Aw," said Jessie, hoping Annabella would pick up the coy disappointment in her voice. "Well, hey, uh...are you on Facebook?"

"Um, duh! Who isn't??" Annabella chortled.

"Oh, cool, I'll look you up!" said Jessie. "What'd you say your name was, Annabella...?"

"...Serafina Fiorello," she finished for her.

Jessie wasn't terribly good with names. Especially long ones.

"Yeah...y'know what, maybe you could look me up instead?..."

***

August 29th, 5:38 p.m.

Jessie successfully dialed Marlene and made an appointment. She had more thought to put into her hair and overall appearance now that she actually could have something that might or might not be a date. When Annabella had found Jessie on Facebook and they exchanged adds to learn more about each other, their conversation resumed in Instant Message form. And it lasted until 2:00 in the following morning as they unearthed the numerous random things they had in common, only ending because neither could keep her eyes open another minute. After a couple more evenings spent in one another's cyber-company, they planned an initial in-person rendezvous. Jessie would meet Annabella at the mall on Tuesday, the 29th, late afternoon, for an evening they both had free. "Approx 5:30, 5:45 sound good?" Annabella asked her.

Jessie threw on the outfit she informed Annabella she would be wearing—her Beatles T-shirt with the lyrics to "Love Me Do" speckled on the back, jeans, black socks and hush puppies—tossed her Dad and Gretchen a quick "see ya later" and bounded out the door, more excited than she could remember being in a while.

Annabella didn't tell Jessie what she would be wearing, as she preferred to surprise her. It was one of the ways in which she was delightfully quirky. She simply told her, "You'll see me. Just go in Aromaworks and cast an eyeball around for the babe with the chestnut brown hair." This didn't seem like a lot of help to Jessie, but she figured between the two of them they had enough to go on.

When she parked, she checked the rear-view mirror for a reassuring look at the highlights Marlene'd given her. She purposely had several strands of hair out of place to match her normally laid-back nature. She finger-brushed the hair forming her widow's peak down into her forehead, giving herself some makeshift bangs, decided she looked cute as could be, grabbed her purse and got out.

Cast an eyeball around for the babe with the chestnut brown hair, Jessie repeated to herself as she circumnavigated the mall until she reached Aromaworks. Not much of a clue...then again, I'm not a detective. Probably not a huge crowd in there, after all, and maybe she's dolled-up. Maybe she just dresses nicer than I do.

Her heart did speed up a bit when she located the store. As she wandered in, a happy salesperson greeted her.

"Good afternoon, ma'am!" she said far too cheerily. "Would you like to try our new papaya and pomegranate splash fragrance??"

Y—...your new WH—...? "Uh, no, no thank you," Jessie politely declined. "I'm just looking for someone."

"Oh, fun!" replied the little girl, just as bubbly. "Well, there's Tilly, Candy, Dolly, Trixie, Muffy, Buffy, Fluffy and me!" She referred Jessie to her nametag which read, Hello! My name is Colette!

...Did I hear that last one right?? Colette was almost starting to frighten Jessie just a little. She looked around the store. She'd never been inside before. It was larger than it looked from the outside.

"Do, erm...do you know if there's an Annabella here, by chance?" Jessie cautiously queried.

Colette batted her eyes a few times. "Huh?" she asked, baffled but still with a chirpy smile on her face.

"Uh...never mind, I'll find her myself," Jessie said, patting Colette on the arm. "You just keep it up; you're doing a beautiful job."

She poked around the store, making sure her Beatles shirt was in plain view. She headed to the back of the store, towards the registers, reasoning that if Annabella did her biz with the management, she'd likely be in that general vicinity. She tried one or two of the scents which looked interesting, and subsequently hoped no one in the store saw her reaction after sampling them.

She hesitated to simply call out the girl's name. Given the choice, she'd opt to do this without drawing attention. However, someone else had other ideas. After another few minutes of browsing, she heard a familiar voice singing loudly behind her—

"Love, love me do!/You know I love you!/I'll always be true!/So plee-ee-ease...love me do!..."

Halfway through the performance, Jessie turned around, even though she already knew this was clearly Annabella. They may have only spoken on the phone the one time, but aside from more evidence of that glittering persona, that voice would be hard for Jessie to forget. She turned around, and her eyebrows jumped at what she saw.

In the initial moment they met face-to-face, Jessie could've sworn she'd stepped into a time machine and dropped off somewhere in the middle of 1958. Annabella was wearing—Jessie had to blink a few times to make sure her eyes weren't playing tricks on her—a knee-length red and white polka dot dress, white gloves, and saddle shoes. And that was chestnut brown hair, all right, elegantly swooping down around her face and shoulders and curling up at the ends. It also just happened to be adorned with a headband, a flower, and her Audrey Hepburn cat eye sunglasses. No wonder that was all Annabella had told her on the phone. If she had told Jessie she'd look like this, Jessie probably wouldn't have believed her.

Even though she was about 99.9% sure, Jessie asked, "Signorina Fiorello, I presume?"

"Ever so astute!" Annabella replied with a small bow.

When she'd finished singing the lyrics on Jessie's shirt, Annabella'd given her a big, giggly smile. Already visually charmed, Jessie extended her hand. During their electronic conversations, she'd gotten the sense that Annabella was kind of idiosyncratic and free-spirited, but she saw now she'd even still underestimated. Annabella, ladylike, accepted her hand and curtsied.

Jessie was starting to feel a little ordinary standing next to this extraordinary-looking damsel. She felt slightly underdressed, though she reminded herself that first of all, she did get her hair streaked and she made sure her reflection approved of her and vice versa, and secondly, she couldn't see herself in an outfit like this. It looked great on Annabella, but on Jessie, not quite so much.

"Gosh," she said, giving Annabella another look up and down. "You look...uh..." She searched for the appropriate word to match the era of Annabella's remarkable fashion choices, and finally located it. "...fabulous!"

Annabella looked away shyly with a wave of her gloved hand. "Oh, go on," she teased. "I bet you say that to all the dollies."

Not really, no! Jessie thought in amusement. Just the ones that're dressed like the cast of Grease. She was quite the flirt, Jessie could see already. However, Jessie had a few courting tricks up her sleeve as well. She'd do her one better. She took Annabella gently by the arms and planted a large, audible kiss on each of her cheeks. When she stepped back, it was Annabella's turn to be charmed. She blushed just a touch and fanned herself. "Oh my!" she commented.

"Oh, excuse me," Jessie said innocently. "I just came back from my three semesters abroad in Europe. I hope you'll forgive me if a little of the culture rubbed off."

She was feigning bashfulness and actually toying with her. The truth was, Jessie knew exactly what she was doing. She was being affectionate and then acting as if she were unsure of herself, when in reality she was completely sure. She could read the signs in Annabella's face to tell her she was interested. The kisses seemed to catch her a little off-guard, but she said, "You're forgiven."

"Grazie, amica mia."

Annabella was impressed. "Parli italiano?"