A State of Jane (30 page)

“Hi again,” she said with a grin.

“I forgot to tell you something.”

“What's that?”

“My sister and I made up and she'll be giving birth to my precious nephew any day now.” The lady smiled but I could see sadness in her eyes and I figured she was thinking of her own sister. “Thank you for your advice and for telling me about your sister. I'm sorry for your loss. It helped me see the big picture.”

Her eyes welled up and I felt guilty for bringing up bad memories. She took my hand in hers. “Thank you for telling me that. You're a sweet girl.” Looking embarrassed, she said, “Woman. You're a sweet woman. You'll make some man very happy someday.” At that, the light changed and the bus pulled over to the right. When it came to a complete stop, we exchanged one more “goodbye” and she stepped off into the street.

I held my book against my chest the rest of the way home and closed my eyes. I was too exhausted to read and figured I'd probably
enjoy the movie more if I didn't know the ending. At least that's what I'd tell Marissa when she pouted about my lack of preparation for our movie night. I was making a red velvet cheesecake. That should be preparation enough. Especially since Marissa and I rarely saw eye to eye on books anyway. She loved Harry Potter and I liked romance — although I'd buried my Harlequin collection at the back of my closet a few months prior. I opened my eyes just in time for my stop, tossed my book in my Trader Joe's bag, and began walking to the rear door. As I stepped off the bus, my phone rang. It was my mom. “Hi mom,” I said cheerily.

Her voice catching, my mom said, “It's your sister.”

C
HAPTER
54

Since Claire's water had just broken and my mom said it would be a while, I stopped at my apartment to put away my groceries and change out of my skirt into leggings and a long T-shirt. I was just happy the food made it into my refrigerator this time rather than in a puddle on the corner of 82nd and Third. As I walked briskly to the hospital, my heart beat rapidly in the knowledge that I was going to be an aunt by the time I went to sleep that night. Unless she was in labor all night. I hoped the delivery would be quick, but not so quick that she'd give birth before my parents and I got there. We were lucky we lived close enough to wait in the hospital. Poor Kevin's parents would have to wait by their phones in Philadelphia.

The nurse wouldn't let me see Claire so I sat in the waiting room and texted Marissa the news. Not a minute after I sent the text, she called me.

Feeling uncomfortable talking on the phone from a hospital waiting room, I whispered, “Hi.” I made eye contact with the couple sharing my space and gave them a closed mouth smile.

“So are you excited, Aunt Jane?”

Still speaking softly, I said, “Totally. Just waiting for my parents to get here. Could be a while.”

“Oh, yeah. Friday night traffic from Long Island? With any luck Grandma and Grandpa Frank might arrive in time for Baby Boy Williamson's first birthday!”

I giggled at the thought of my mom as a grandmother. She still freaked out when her roots came in and some of the gray in her hair was visible.

“Earth to Jane.”

Jolted out of the vision of my mother in a house dress with her teeth in a glass by her bedside, I said, “I might have to postpone movie night. Depends on how Claire is. She might want me to come over.”

“Or she might have postpartum depression and want nothing to do with you.”

I bit my lip. “I hadn't thought of that.”

“Don't worry. She'll probably be fine. But it happens sometimes.”

“Thank God my mom will be here. I hope they don't want to sleep over at my place. Lainie and Antoine might be there.”

“So? You afraid your parents will catch them humping on the kitchen table or something?”

“Perish the thought! I eat off of that table!”

“He he.”

“So, get this.”

“What?”

“I met a woman on the Third Avenue bus a few months ago. I was in my ‘all about me’ phase and venting to the woman about Claire. She said her sister died and urged me to appreciate Claire while I still could. That very same night, Claire was admitted to the hospital.”

“Interesting coincidence!” Marissa laughed.

Anxious to tell her the rest, I said, “Wait. It gets better.”

“Do tell!”

“I ran into her again tonight on the same cross-town bus. The very same night Claire went into labor!”

“Wow! I thought things like that only happened in movies. Bizarro world!”

“I know!” Adopting a creepy voice, I said, “
Do do doo do doo do
, you just crossed into the Twilight Zone!”

After we hung up, I glanced at the wall clock in the waiting room. Even in light traffic, it would probably be at least twenty minutes before my parents arrived. Kevin was with Claire, so having no one to talk to, I sent texts to Lainie, Bethany, and even Andrew to occupy my time.

“Jane!”

I looked up to see Kevin in scrubs grinning like a three-year-old boy. I quickly erased the text and stood up. “Did she have the baby?”

“Not yet. Her contractions are getting closer though. I figured you'd want to know the status.” Glancing around, he said, “Your folks here yet?”

“Nope. On their way.”

“OK, I'm gonna call mine,” he said before walking to a corner of the waiting room.

“Wait,” I called out.

Kevin turned around and grinned. “Yeah?”

I bet that wide grin had been on his face all day. I just hoped he had the common sense to remove it during Claire's contractions. “How's she doing?”

“Surprisingly calm. Not yet screaming for an epidural, but that might have changed by now.”

“Make sure they don't wait too long and lose the window of opportunity!”

Kevin shook his head. “She'd kill someone before giving birth without drugs. Trust me.”

“Good. OK, well, tell her I'm here and can't wait to meet little Nathaniel.”

Kevin raised an eyebrow. “Nathaniel is it?”

“Or whatever you two decide to name him,” I said, rolling my eyes.

“Gotcha,” he said before walking away to make his call.

For the next hour I flipped through the hospital's collection of
New York Magazine
but looked up every two minutes hoping to see my parents. My mom sent me periodic texts, updating their estimated time of arrival, but I was impatient. I also had to use the bathroom but didn't want to leave the room in case Kevin came back. Or in the event one of the doctors burst out the double doors bearing bad news. Despite the bed rest, I knew this was a relatively routine delivery and not an episode of
Private Practice
, but ever since my date with Andrew at Hillstone (the first one), I liked to prepare for the worst-case scenario.

I decided the waiting game would be much more fun if the hospital invested in a movie room. There was a television, but I was too embarrassed to change the news station to something more exciting like
CSI: New York
. I returned the magazine to the stack, reclined my head and closed my eyes.

“There she is. Sleeping.”

With my eyes still closed, I said, “I'm not sleeping, just resting my eyes.” I opened them to see my mom standing over me with a large Barney's bag. “What's the story?” she said.

Eyeing the bag, I said, “Do some shopping on your way?”

My mom sat down next to me. “No. I brought my knitting needles. And a few magazines for your father.”

“You're really getting into this grandma thing, aren't you? Since when do you knit?”

“It has nothing to do with becoming a grandmother.” Removing what looked like the beginnings of a yellow bootie from the bag, she said, “We're reading all of those knitting novels in book club. Seems to be the newest ‘it’ activity. So Barbara and I signed up for lessons.”

“Cute.”

“I'm not cute, Jane. I'm trendy.”

Standing up, I said, “And I'm dying to take a piss.”

My mom's eyes opened wide in either amused or annoyed surprise. I wasn't sure which, and didn't want to stick around to find out. “Sorry. I really have to go.”

Dismissing me with a wave of her hand, my mom said, “Don't let me stop you. Go!”

After I went to the bathroom, I decided to be nice and buy coffee for my parents.

Before I got to the coffee though, I walked past the vending machine which, as usual, beckoned to me with its tempting individual bags of Fritos and Cool Ranch Doritos. I said, “No thanks” but my stomach grumbled and I knew if I didn't succumb then, I'd be back within ten minutes. I decided on the healthier bag of Baked Lays, but somehow entered the code for the Cool Ranch Doritos instead. I squatted down to remove the chips from the machine and when I stood back up, felt a presence behind me.

“I'll be out of your way in a second. I just want to get something for my…” I turned around mid-sentence, looked up at the tall, lanky guy sharing my space and felt my face turn white as I remembered doing a striptease for him.

C
HAPTER
55

“Jim.” I firmly gripped the bag of chips and swallowed hard, remembering how I never heard from him again after a sexual encounter I barely recalled being party to.

Jim removed his Tigers baseball cap from his head, ran his hands through his black hair, and put the hat back on, this time backward. “Hey Jane. Come here often?” he said cheerily, his facial expression hinting no recollection of how things ended between us.

“Come here often?” Really?
Embarrassment quickly turning to anger, I removed a hair from behind my left ear, twiddled it around my finger and coldly said, “Not quite. My sister is in labor.”

Jim gave me a wide grin. “Awesome! Congrats. Wish I had such an exciting excuse to be here.”

Was I supposed to care why he was there? As unenthusiastically as I could, I said, “Why are you here?”

“Just being a good colleague. A guy on my team had trouble breathing at happy hour and we insisted he have it checked out.” Jim shrugged his narrow shoulders. “Not the Friday night festivities I was hoping for.”

I couldn't believe I used to think his laugh lines were cute. And that he was actually a decent guy. Now I just thought they were signs of old age and he was prick. I narrowed my eyes at him and said, “Yeah, I'm sure you'd rather be picking up chicks.” Jim didn't
say anything and I watched his eyes dart around the room, probably to avoid eye contact with me. “So. It was nice, er, interesting seeing you again. But there's no reason to make small talk.”

A film of red rising from his neck up to his face, Jim said, “Look, Jane, I'm sorry I never called you.”

“First of all, please don't ‘look Jane’ me. I've moved on. But for the record, it was very douchey of you. Just because sex isn't mind-blowing the first time, doesn't mean it won't get better. It's certainly no reason to blow a girl off!”

Looking embarrassed, Jim said, “Oh God, Jane. That's not why I didn't call.”

“So you would have blown me off even if I screwed like a porn star?”

Reddening more, Jim said, “No!”

“I figured as much. Seriously? You're a dog!”

Stammering, Jim said, “No. That's not, that's not what I… That's not what I meant.” He leaned his tall frame against the vending machine and removed his baseball cap again. “The truth is, Jane, I really liked you.”

Rolling my eyes, I said, “Yeah, you made that abundantly clear.”

“No, really. I thought you were adorable. And sweet. And romantic.” Jim looked down and shrugged. “Perfect really.”

I
was
all of those things! “So you liked me so much that you couldn't bear dating me anymore? Is that the excuse you're gonna use for being a cowardly child and running away?”

Jim shook his head, looking like an eight-year-old boy in a man's six-foot-two-inch body.

“Well?” I did not feel the slightest bit guilty about bullying him.

“The girls I met in the city before you were so insincere and desperate. And cynical! It's like they assumed I was dating a different girl every night and basically not willing to believe I was actually looking for a relationship. They'd tell me all about their other dates, the restaurants they went to, and even how many dates I'd need to take them on before they'd sleep with me.” Jim looked hard at me. “You weren't like that.”

And yet you fucked me over!
“I'm going to ask again. What happened?”

Jim went to remove his baseball cap again and, infuriated, I quickly grabbed it from him and hid it behind my back. “Speak,” I demanded, wondering when I became such a tough bitch and kind of liking it.

“You were so sweet on our first two dates, but, I don't know, you kind of changed.”

“Changed how?”

Jim rubbed his forehead and closed his eyes. He opened them and said, “Well, you kind of freaked me out the way you threw yourself at me.”

This time, it was my face that probably turned beet red as I took in his words. “Seriously? You're complaining that single girls in this city are insincere? Well, why do you think that is, Jim?”

Jim looked at me blankly.

“It's because of the men in this city! You dump us when we don't sleep with you. You dump us when we
do
sleep with you. And sometimes, you dump us for no reason at all!” I raised my arms and dropped them to my sides dramatically. “No wonder we're so cynical! I'll have you know that the only reason I slept with you was because I told the guy I dated before you that I wanted to take things slow and he blew me off. I liked you, Jim, but I didn't want to sleep with you so soon. I just thought I had to.” Feeling tears in my eyes, I rubbed them away. “I
am
sweet and I
am
sincere. And I'm a God-damn romance-aholic! I felt horrible when I never heard from you again.”

Biting the nail on his thumb, Jim looked at me sheepishly. “I'm sorry, Jane. I did really like you. I didn't know. I just thought it was kind of weird and unexpected.”

“Not weird enough to turn down my advances apparently.”

Jim averted eye contact again. “Yeah. Uncool. But a pretty girl comes on to me, it's hard to resist, you know?”

I sighed. “No. I really don't know. It's just impossible to play the game because the rules keep changing.”