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Chapter or Story 
Chapter or Story
Disclaimer: The Pretender and its characters don’t belong to me. But since those who do own them won’t use them I’ll just borrow them for a while as we wait for the DVD release. (March 15th, 2005 in the U.S. – Pre-order is available. See TVShowsonDVD for details. )
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The Door of Memory
Part 11 – By Phenyx
12/12/04
“Sooner or later we all discover that the important moments in life are not the advertised ones, not the birthdays, the graduations, the weddings, not the great goals achieved. The real milestones are less prepossessing. They come to the door of memory. “
Susan B. Anthony
-
Jarod turned off the alarm clock five minutes before it would have done its duty. His leather jacket creaked as he moved.
“Twenty-four hours, exactly,” he whispered to the prone figure on the bed. Sitting carefully on the edge of the mattress, Jarod leaned over and kissed Parker’s forehead. She shifted in her sleep, giving Jarod better access to her lips. “Good morning,” he murmured against her mouth as she woke.
“Hi,” Parker responded.
“Did you miss me?” Jarod asked.
“If I say yes,” Parker answered. “You’ll never let me forget it.”
Jarod grinned. “You’re evading the question.”
“Damn right.”
“Well,” Jarod said as he kissed her again. “I missed you.” He slid his coat off his shoulders, dropping it carelessly to the floor. “I missed you terribly.”
“It’s your own fault,” Parker chided him. “I’m not the one who sent you traipsing halfway across the country.”
Jarod peeled off his shirt and kicked off his shoes before climbing onto the bed. He used the weight of his body to hold Parker’s down while he nibbled on her lips some more.
“Jarod,” Parker gasped as soon as she got the chance. “You’ll make me late for work.”
“So, be late.” Jarod groaned against her neck.
“I can’t,” Parker told him. “I have an 8:30 meeting with Sydney about plans for the rehabilitation center.”
Snaking his arms over the edge of the blankets, Jarod wormed his hands down Parker’s sides. “Hmm,” he said as his fingers found the hem of her nightgown. “Cancel. Tell him you had a hot date.”
Jarod caressed the flesh of Parker’s hips making her shiver in response. “I wouldn’t call this a date, Jarod,” she gasped. “You would never stoop to something so mundane.”
“Hey,” Jarod answered with a frown. “I’ve been on plenty of dates and no one has complained so far.”
“Plenty?” Parker asked. “Define plenty. Would that be more than ten?” As Jarod gaped at her in wounded surprise, Parker laughed and rolled away from him. “I really need to get ready for work.”
Parker disappeared into the bathroom. With an amused shake of his head, Jarod propped a pillow against the headboard and leaned against it. He sat there, staring mutely at the door while he waited. When Parker emerged sometime later, Jarod was still sitting on the bed, gazing thoughtfully into midair.
“Uh-oh,” Parker mumbled. “That frown on your face is never a good sign, Pez-head.”
Jarod shrugged. “You were right,” he replied. “We’ve never even gone to the movies together.”
“I was teasing, for crying out loud,” Parker said. She sat on the edge of the bed and entertained Jarod for a few minutes by pulling on a pair of black silk stockings. “Popcorn and nachos isn’t really my style anyway,” she added. Slipping her shoes onto her feet, Parker stood and did a quick twirl in the middle of the room. “How do I look?” she asked.
“Stunning, as usual,” Jarod said.
“Good. I have to go.” Parker placed her palms on the mattress on either side on Jarod’s legs. She leaned forward and gave him a lingering kiss. “I did miss you, Rat.”
Jarod grinned with delight. He was still trying to find the words to express his joy when Parker straightened and quickly left the room. Crossing his arms behind his head, Jarod sighed in contentment.
-
Jarod was having a good day. His mood, buoyed by Parker’s parting confession, had yet to diminish. As a result, Jarod was running on an endorphin high. It was a rush better than anything chemically induced and Jarod allowed it free rein. He had showered and shaved, following his morning toilette by scrubbing the bathroom. Then he’d cleaned the house from top to bottom, washed and waxed Parker’s second car and raked the leaves in the yard.
And it wasn’t noon yet.
Jarod’s happiness was bordering on euphoria, near giddiness. The fact that he’d ingested large quantities of sugar in a variety of forms, only served to increase his hyperactivity. Having run out of chores to do, Jarod started to get bored. He did his best to occupy himself. He spent thirty minutes fiddling with a leaky faucet and another thirty working on his laptop. But in the end, Jarod still found himself impatiently pacing around the house. Parker wouldn’t return for at least five more hours, and Jarod really didn’t want to wait.
There was one fact that Jarod knew better than anyone else. A bored and restless pretender never amounted to any good. At the moment, Jarod was very bored and extremely restless. So, he did the only thing he could do under the circumstances, he began to think of ways to cause mischief.
It didn’t take him long to come up with an idea. The entire plan was little more than an elaborate ruse for seeing Parker before the scheduled time. But it did serve multiple purposes. First, Jarod would get out of the house. Second, he’d see Parker. And third, he’d test some incursion and evasion tactics that hadn’t been used for two years.
Breaking into the Centre held little danger for Jarod now. If caught, the worst that could happen would be Parker’s disdain. She would never let him live down the humiliation. But an hour later, as Jarod snuck through dark corridors, he was as cautious as if Raines was still alive and hiding around every corner.
Jarod slipped through the doors of Parker’s office without being seen. The hardest part of the exercise had been waiting for Parker’s secretary to leave his desk so that Jarod could pass. As Jarod had waited in the shadows though, he had gathered some important information. Parker was in a meeting, leaving her office empty for the next half hour.
A bit surprised at how easy it had been to get here, Jarod plopped down in the leather chair that sat behind Parker’s desk. He spun around, admiring the décor in the room as he pondered his next move. Jarod considered writing a cryptic message and leaving. The exasperating yet meaningless clue would be a playful reminder of the past he and Parker had once shared. But if Jarod did that, he’d miss out on one of his main reasons for coming. He wanted to see Miss Parker.
Discarding his first impulse, Jarod toyed with the idea of going through the large filing cabinet along one wall. He wondered how often Parker cleaned her files and whether or not she still had any notes from her pursuits of a certain pretender. But almost as quickly as the thought had surfaced, Jarod squelched it. He did not want to do anything that Parker might interpret as an invasion of privacy.
Sighing with boredom, Jarod allowed himself the temptation of opening just one drawer of Parker’s desk. The long, slender middle drawer held an assortment of pens, paperclips and a half-used pad of legal paper. Slouching in the chair to get a better look, Jarod peered into the darker recesses of the drawer. He found an empty manila folder, a spare cell phone battery and a box of pencils.
Placing the unopened box on top of the desk, Jarod pushed the drawer closed. There was nothing unusual about the writing utensils. They were standard yellow number twos. Jarod glanced at the ceiling and broke into a mischievous grin. A moment later he was looking around the room for the tools he would need to complete his plan.
It took ten minutes for Jarod to sharpen all the pencils and line them up on the desk in front of him. Another three minutes passed while he found the best technique for his purpose. It wasn’t like throwing darts. It instead required a flicking of the wrist that was more akin to flipping a coin.
With a satisfying sound, “Thwack!” the third pencil embedded itself into the acoustical tile above Jarod’s head. The fourth was in the air to join its mates when the office doors opened. It wasn’t Miss Parker who entered.
“What the hell?” Lyle growled from the doorway.
Jarod shot his old rival a beatific smile. “I saw this in a movie once,” he explained. “It is really much harder than it looks.” Another pencil struck, creating the design of a cross.
“What are you doing here?” Lyle asked.
“Waiting for Parker,” Jarod replied honestly. He did not pause in his task.
Lyle looked as if he was about to fall over. “Waiting for…” he stammered. “Oh shit,” he added, a look of astonishment crossing his face. “You’re the new boyfriend.”
Jarod’s smile grew. He tossed another pencil before replying, “I guess so.”
“Shit,” Lyle hissed.
“I gather Parker hasn’t said anything,” Jarod observed.
“No,” Lyle snapped. “She hasn’t said anything. But she’s been in an awfully good mood lately which means…” Lyle paused. His eyes closed as though he was in pain, as if the unthinkable had happened.
“Thwack!” Only four yellow shafts of wood remained on the desktop.
Lyle opened his eyes and glared at Jarod. “You‘re boffing my sister,” he snarled.
“Every chance I get!” Jarod almost giggled, but he managed to contain his amusement, for the most part anyway.
Parker chose that moment to enter the room. Jarod sent the last three pencils flying in rapid succession, each one blurring through the air before the one in front of it could strike home.
“What are you doing here?” Parker asked him.
“That’s what I’d like to know,” Lyle ground out between clenched teeth.
Jarod smiled. With a shrug he said, “Adding to the ambiance?”
Parker followed Jarod’s gaze with her eyes and saw the yellow figure eight design stuck in the ceiling tile. She frowned. “How old are you, nine?”
“I’m pretty sure I’m a bit older than that,” Jarod drawled. “Otherwise you’d get arrested.”
Lyle sputtered with indignation causing Jarod to laugh.
“You’re enjoying yourself,” Parker accused.
“Immensely,” Jarod admitted.
With a long-suffering sigh, Parker crossed her arms and glared at the man sitting in her chair. “How did you get in here?”
Jarod shrugged again. Placing his elbows on the desk, he folded his hands and propped his chin on top of them. “It looks like you may have a few holes in your security,” he replied innocently.
“Are you going to tell me how to fix them?” she asked.
“A good magician never reveals his secrets,” Jarod answered with a smirk.
Stomping around the desk, Parker glared at Jarod. “Get out of my chair,” she commanded.
“Yes Ma’am.” Jarod rose. In a smooth motion, he shifted his weight and perched on the corner of the desk.
Parker took his place in the chair and asked. “What do you want, Pez-head?” By unspoken agreement, she and Jarod had both decided to ignore Lyle presence in the room.
“I came to ask you out,” Jarod replied. “I was thinking dinner and a little dancing. You know, a date.”
Steely eyes glared up at him skeptically.
“I’m serious, Parker,” Jarod said. “A real date. I promise there will be no nachos involved.”
“When?” Parker asked with a sigh.
“Tonight.” Jarod jerked his thumb toward Lyle. “Ditch the stuttering simpleton and go out with me, Parker.”
Jarod could see the smile that Parker was trying to hide. They were both having great fun at Lyle’s expense. Reaching out, Parker pressed a button on the phone on her desk. A voice rose immediately from the speaker. “Yes, Miss Parker?”
“Brad,” Parker said. “Get security in here to escort our visitor to the front gate.”
Jarod shook his head in mock sadness. “ Are you going to have them cart me away?” he teased.
“You were hoping for a goodbye kiss, I assume,” Parker said.
“Actually.” Jarod grinned wickedly as he caressed the desktop. “I was hoping for a quickie before the sweepers came.”
“Oh god,” Lyle moaned. He turned and fled from the room abandoning whatever reason he’d come in the first place.
As the door slammed on Lyle’s retreating figure, Jarod collapsed into laughter.
“You are so bad,” Parker scolded him.
“Did you see the look on his face?” Jarod asked between gasps for air. “Lord, but that was fun!”
Two large men that Jarod didn’t recognize came into the office. He quickly sobered at their appearance. “Mr. Jarod needs to be shown the way out,” Parker told them.
With a shrug, Jarod stood and went with the sweepers. When he had reached the door, Parker called to him. “Pick me up at the front entrance at seven o’clock, Jarod,” she said. “If you’re late there won’t be any second chances.”
Jarod smiled. “But Miss Parker, we’ve got nothing but second chances.”
-
The Door of Memory
Part 11 – By Phenyx
12/12/04
“Sooner or later we all discover that the important moments in life are not the advertised ones, not the birthdays, the graduations, the weddings, not the great goals achieved. The real milestones are less prepossessing. They come to the door of memory. “
Susan B. Anthony
-
Jarod turned off the alarm clock five minutes before it would have done its duty. His leather jacket creaked as he moved.
“Twenty-four hours, exactly,” he whispered to the prone figure on the bed. Sitting carefully on the edge of the mattress, Jarod leaned over and kissed Parker’s forehead. She shifted in her sleep, giving Jarod better access to her lips. “Good morning,” he murmured against her mouth as she woke.
“Hi,” Parker responded.
“Did you miss me?” Jarod asked.
“If I say yes,” Parker answered. “You’ll never let me forget it.”
Jarod grinned. “You’re evading the question.”
“Damn right.”
“Well,” Jarod said as he kissed her again. “I missed you.” He slid his coat off his shoulders, dropping it carelessly to the floor. “I missed you terribly.”
“It’s your own fault,” Parker chided him. “I’m not the one who sent you traipsing halfway across the country.”
Jarod peeled off his shirt and kicked off his shoes before climbing onto the bed. He used the weight of his body to hold Parker’s down while he nibbled on her lips some more.
“Jarod,” Parker gasped as soon as she got the chance. “You’ll make me late for work.”
“So, be late.” Jarod groaned against her neck.
“I can’t,” Parker told him. “I have an 8:30 meeting with Sydney about plans for the rehabilitation center.”
Snaking his arms over the edge of the blankets, Jarod wormed his hands down Parker’s sides. “Hmm,” he said as his fingers found the hem of her nightgown. “Cancel. Tell him you had a hot date.”
Jarod caressed the flesh of Parker’s hips making her shiver in response. “I wouldn’t call this a date, Jarod,” she gasped. “You would never stoop to something so mundane.”
“Hey,” Jarod answered with a frown. “I’ve been on plenty of dates and no one has complained so far.”
“Plenty?” Parker asked. “Define plenty. Would that be more than ten?” As Jarod gaped at her in wounded surprise, Parker laughed and rolled away from him. “I really need to get ready for work.”
Parker disappeared into the bathroom. With an amused shake of his head, Jarod propped a pillow against the headboard and leaned against it. He sat there, staring mutely at the door while he waited. When Parker emerged sometime later, Jarod was still sitting on the bed, gazing thoughtfully into midair.
“Uh-oh,” Parker mumbled. “That frown on your face is never a good sign, Pez-head.”
Jarod shrugged. “You were right,” he replied. “We’ve never even gone to the movies together.”
“I was teasing, for crying out loud,” Parker said. She sat on the edge of the bed and entertained Jarod for a few minutes by pulling on a pair of black silk stockings. “Popcorn and nachos isn’t really my style anyway,” she added. Slipping her shoes onto her feet, Parker stood and did a quick twirl in the middle of the room. “How do I look?” she asked.
“Stunning, as usual,” Jarod said.
“Good. I have to go.” Parker placed her palms on the mattress on either side on Jarod’s legs. She leaned forward and gave him a lingering kiss. “I did miss you, Rat.”
Jarod grinned with delight. He was still trying to find the words to express his joy when Parker straightened and quickly left the room. Crossing his arms behind his head, Jarod sighed in contentment.
-
Jarod was having a good day. His mood, buoyed by Parker’s parting confession, had yet to diminish. As a result, Jarod was running on an endorphin high. It was a rush better than anything chemically induced and Jarod allowed it free rein. He had showered and shaved, following his morning toilette by scrubbing the bathroom. Then he’d cleaned the house from top to bottom, washed and waxed Parker’s second car and raked the leaves in the yard.
And it wasn’t noon yet.
Jarod’s happiness was bordering on euphoria, near giddiness. The fact that he’d ingested large quantities of sugar in a variety of forms, only served to increase his hyperactivity. Having run out of chores to do, Jarod started to get bored. He did his best to occupy himself. He spent thirty minutes fiddling with a leaky faucet and another thirty working on his laptop. But in the end, Jarod still found himself impatiently pacing around the house. Parker wouldn’t return for at least five more hours, and Jarod really didn’t want to wait.
There was one fact that Jarod knew better than anyone else. A bored and restless pretender never amounted to any good. At the moment, Jarod was very bored and extremely restless. So, he did the only thing he could do under the circumstances, he began to think of ways to cause mischief.
It didn’t take him long to come up with an idea. The entire plan was little more than an elaborate ruse for seeing Parker before the scheduled time. But it did serve multiple purposes. First, Jarod would get out of the house. Second, he’d see Parker. And third, he’d test some incursion and evasion tactics that hadn’t been used for two years.
Breaking into the Centre held little danger for Jarod now. If caught, the worst that could happen would be Parker’s disdain. She would never let him live down the humiliation. But an hour later, as Jarod snuck through dark corridors, he was as cautious as if Raines was still alive and hiding around every corner.
Jarod slipped through the doors of Parker’s office without being seen. The hardest part of the exercise had been waiting for Parker’s secretary to leave his desk so that Jarod could pass. As Jarod had waited in the shadows though, he had gathered some important information. Parker was in a meeting, leaving her office empty for the next half hour.
A bit surprised at how easy it had been to get here, Jarod plopped down in the leather chair that sat behind Parker’s desk. He spun around, admiring the décor in the room as he pondered his next move. Jarod considered writing a cryptic message and leaving. The exasperating yet meaningless clue would be a playful reminder of the past he and Parker had once shared. But if Jarod did that, he’d miss out on one of his main reasons for coming. He wanted to see Miss Parker.
Discarding his first impulse, Jarod toyed with the idea of going through the large filing cabinet along one wall. He wondered how often Parker cleaned her files and whether or not she still had any notes from her pursuits of a certain pretender. But almost as quickly as the thought had surfaced, Jarod squelched it. He did not want to do anything that Parker might interpret as an invasion of privacy.
Sighing with boredom, Jarod allowed himself the temptation of opening just one drawer of Parker’s desk. The long, slender middle drawer held an assortment of pens, paperclips and a half-used pad of legal paper. Slouching in the chair to get a better look, Jarod peered into the darker recesses of the drawer. He found an empty manila folder, a spare cell phone battery and a box of pencils.
Placing the unopened box on top of the desk, Jarod pushed the drawer closed. There was nothing unusual about the writing utensils. They were standard yellow number twos. Jarod glanced at the ceiling and broke into a mischievous grin. A moment later he was looking around the room for the tools he would need to complete his plan.
It took ten minutes for Jarod to sharpen all the pencils and line them up on the desk in front of him. Another three minutes passed while he found the best technique for his purpose. It wasn’t like throwing darts. It instead required a flicking of the wrist that was more akin to flipping a coin.
With a satisfying sound, “Thwack!” the third pencil embedded itself into the acoustical tile above Jarod’s head. The fourth was in the air to join its mates when the office doors opened. It wasn’t Miss Parker who entered.
“What the hell?” Lyle growled from the doorway.
Jarod shot his old rival a beatific smile. “I saw this in a movie once,” he explained. “It is really much harder than it looks.” Another pencil struck, creating the design of a cross.
“What are you doing here?” Lyle asked.
“Waiting for Parker,” Jarod replied honestly. He did not pause in his task.
Lyle looked as if he was about to fall over. “Waiting for…” he stammered. “Oh shit,” he added, a look of astonishment crossing his face. “You’re the new boyfriend.”
Jarod’s smile grew. He tossed another pencil before replying, “I guess so.”
“Shit,” Lyle hissed.
“I gather Parker hasn’t said anything,” Jarod observed.
“No,” Lyle snapped. “She hasn’t said anything. But she’s been in an awfully good mood lately which means…” Lyle paused. His eyes closed as though he was in pain, as if the unthinkable had happened.
“Thwack!” Only four yellow shafts of wood remained on the desktop.
Lyle opened his eyes and glared at Jarod. “You‘re boffing my sister,” he snarled.
“Every chance I get!” Jarod almost giggled, but he managed to contain his amusement, for the most part anyway.
Parker chose that moment to enter the room. Jarod sent the last three pencils flying in rapid succession, each one blurring through the air before the one in front of it could strike home.
“What are you doing here?” Parker asked him.
“That’s what I’d like to know,” Lyle ground out between clenched teeth.
Jarod smiled. With a shrug he said, “Adding to the ambiance?”
Parker followed Jarod’s gaze with her eyes and saw the yellow figure eight design stuck in the ceiling tile. She frowned. “How old are you, nine?”
“I’m pretty sure I’m a bit older than that,” Jarod drawled. “Otherwise you’d get arrested.”
Lyle sputtered with indignation causing Jarod to laugh.
“You’re enjoying yourself,” Parker accused.
“Immensely,” Jarod admitted.
With a long-suffering sigh, Parker crossed her arms and glared at the man sitting in her chair. “How did you get in here?”
Jarod shrugged again. Placing his elbows on the desk, he folded his hands and propped his chin on top of them. “It looks like you may have a few holes in your security,” he replied innocently.
“Are you going to tell me how to fix them?” she asked.
“A good magician never reveals his secrets,” Jarod answered with a smirk.
Stomping around the desk, Parker glared at Jarod. “Get out of my chair,” she commanded.
“Yes Ma’am.” Jarod rose. In a smooth motion, he shifted his weight and perched on the corner of the desk.
Parker took his place in the chair and asked. “What do you want, Pez-head?” By unspoken agreement, she and Jarod had both decided to ignore Lyle presence in the room.
“I came to ask you out,” Jarod replied. “I was thinking dinner and a little dancing. You know, a date.”
Steely eyes glared up at him skeptically.
“I’m serious, Parker,” Jarod said. “A real date. I promise there will be no nachos involved.”
“When?” Parker asked with a sigh.
“Tonight.” Jarod jerked his thumb toward Lyle. “Ditch the stuttering simpleton and go out with me, Parker.”
Jarod could see the smile that Parker was trying to hide. They were both having great fun at Lyle’s expense. Reaching out, Parker pressed a button on the phone on her desk. A voice rose immediately from the speaker. “Yes, Miss Parker?”
“Brad,” Parker said. “Get security in here to escort our visitor to the front gate.”
Jarod shook his head in mock sadness. “ Are you going to have them cart me away?” he teased.
“You were hoping for a goodbye kiss, I assume,” Parker said.
“Actually.” Jarod grinned wickedly as he caressed the desktop. “I was hoping for a quickie before the sweepers came.”
“Oh god,” Lyle moaned. He turned and fled from the room abandoning whatever reason he’d come in the first place.
As the door slammed on Lyle’s retreating figure, Jarod collapsed into laughter.
“You are so bad,” Parker scolded him.
“Did you see the look on his face?” Jarod asked between gasps for air. “Lord, but that was fun!”
Two large men that Jarod didn’t recognize came into the office. He quickly sobered at their appearance. “Mr. Jarod needs to be shown the way out,” Parker told them.
With a shrug, Jarod stood and went with the sweepers. When he had reached the door, Parker called to him. “Pick me up at the front entrance at seven o’clock, Jarod,” she said. “If you’re late there won’t be any second chances.”
Jarod smiled. “But Miss Parker, we’ve got nothing but second chances.”
