Looking for JJ

Alice is a petite 17-year-old girl who lives with her foster mother, Rosie. Alice has a job at the local coffee shop and a boyfriend named Frankie who attends the local university. Alice is obsessed with reading about a girl named Jennifer Jones, who killed another child years ago when she was 10 years old. She served six years for murder and was released and relocated with a new identity. Alice is particularly troubled by the question of how “a ten-year-old girl [could] kill another child” (4).

On her birthday, Rosie gives Alice a card and a present of small gold earrings. Rosie is planning a dinner with her mother and Alice to celebrate the occasion, as well as Alice’s six-month anniversary at Rosie’s house. Alice makes breakfast and reads another article about Jennifer Jones in the paper. Alice reflects on the story of Jennifer Jones’ case and her release from prison, and the narrator discloses that Alice knows where Jennifer Jones is now.

Alice works at a local coffee shop, where she notices a large middle-aged man in a leather jacket. Alice is preoccupied because she and Frankie have argued the night before.