The Book of Jane (12 page)

“Oh good,” she sighs. “Because I have some big news. News I hope you'll be happy about. We're coming down to New York tonight.”

“That's the big news?” I ask, rolling my eyes.

“No,” she says. “We're coming down to tell you all about it. Please,” she takes a deep breath, “try to be happy.”

“Who is we?”

“Your father, Jim, and I,” she says. “We have a reservation at Balthazar at seven. See you then?”

I pause. On the one hand, this is destined to be an uncomfortable evening of silent accusations and awkward apologies. On the other hand, they are my family, and they are promising me free dinner at a nice restaurant.

“See you then,” I say.

Chapter 15

Y
ou're what!?”
I yell. I am shocked. Horrified. Mostly shocked.

“Engaged!” Jim says and laughs. “Who would have thought? All those years I had a crush on Patrice and she wouldn't give me the time of day, and then, bang, we're getting married.” His eyes light up as he talks about her.

My parents look like they have died and gone to heaven. I reach for my water.

“Wha—when did this happen?” I stammer. Jim, my brother. The man who wanted to join the circus and marry the fat lady. The one who dropped out of college because he couldn't be bothered to show up for class. He got stuck in a revolving door last year, for goodness' sake.

“Two days ago,” he says.

“B—but the whole Patrice thing?” I ask. “When did you two…” He couldn't show up on time to work if his life depended on it. He doesn't even own a day planner.

“Oh, we started dating about two months ago.” He smiles. “When I moved back home, we started hanging out again, and, well, we really hit it off.” He grins again. I cringe. He's like the cat that got the canary. “It was like I had come down with a strange dread disease,” he says and looks wistfully over my shoulder at nothing. “I couldn't eat. I couldn't sleep. I lost my mind. I kept the ticket stubs to our first movie. I have every e-mail she ever wrote me printed out and filed. I have fortune cookies from the Chinese restaurant where I first held her hand. I even saved the tissue she blew her nose on,” he says and laughs.

“Gross,” I say.

“Love,” he says, a dopey grin on his face.

I stare at him. Jim's keeping weird mementos that make him seem like a stalker, and my mother seems delighted. Who are these people? Where is my nice, normal family? “So, um,” I say slowly, trying to wrap my head around the fact that my screw-up brother convinced someone to marry him, “when did you decide you were going to marry her?”

“On our first date,” he says, his eyes crinkling. “I took her out to dinner, and I watched the way she ate her salad, and I just knew.”

“How could you possibly know by watching her eat a salad?”

“I just did,” he sighs.

“Oh yeah?” I cross my arms across my chest. “And what about school? Are you still going?”

“Nah,” he says, shaking his head. “I'm going to get a job. We're saving up for a house,” Jim says. Dad smiles proudly.

“But how can you just not go to school?” I ask. “You already told them you were coming. It's totally irresponsible to give your word and—”

“Jane?” my mom says, her voice steady. “We're so happy for Jim. I know it isn't what you expected, but—”

“You can't always plan the way things are going to work out, kiddo,” Jim says, taking a sip of the water. “I thought I finally knew what I wanted. And God had something else up his sleeve. The way he worked things out is so much better than what I had planned.”

I force a smile at him, trying to be convincing. But everything suddenly feels completely backward. Jim has always bumbled through life, winging it from one misadventure to another. And now, he's the one who has it all together. As I look at him, beaming across the table, I wonder if maybe he's always had it a little more together than I ever gave him credit for.

“She wants you to be a bridesmaid,” Jim says. “Will you?”

Will I? I guess I don't have much choice. He's my brother. And I want to be happy for him. I really do. But this is so…sudden. And what's all this God talk now? From the guy who once asked me in front of all my youth group friends where the verse about not having sex with donkeys was?

“So, um, this dinner wasn't about coaching me on how to get Tyson back?” I ask, quietly.

My mom looks at me as if I've just confessed to hating her pot roast. My dad looks confused. Jim looks crestfallen.

“Jane,” my mom snaps. I look at her, and the expression on her face gives me the sudden urge to duck under the table and hide until it's safe. “Not everything is about you.”

“Does
anyone else need anything before we start?” Raquel asks, gesturing toward the untouched table of snacks.

“You're sure you don't have any cucumber juice?” Caroline Truesdale asks, raising her perfectly groomed eyebrows in hope. Caroline is Abby's mom. As in Abby who will do anything for candy. All of a sudden things are starting to make sense.

Raquel shoots me a knowing look and calmly replies, “I'm afraid we're fresh out. But we have lots of cookies left if you want one.” Caroline visibly shudders—all one hundred pounds of her—and picks up her ice water in resignation.

Apparently when Raquel invited all the Girl Scout mothers over for an emergency meeting, she forgot that these Upper East Side moms don't eat anything unless it's sugar free, fat free, carb free, hormone free, and pesticide free. I'm the only one who's touched her homemade Oreo balls or her chocolate chip macadamia nut cookies. At least Eleanor Pearson, Kaitlin's mom, bothered to ask if the cookies were made with carob, but upon hearing they were tainted with real fattening chocolate she contented herself with iced tea and Sweet'N Low. When Raquel noticed none of the snacks she spent all morning baking were being touched, she finally brought out some carrot sticks, which were a huge hit and disappeared within minutes.

“If everyone's set, then, why don't we go ahead and start,” she says smiling sweetly. “I'm sure you know why I asked you here.” Caroline and Eleanor look at each other and roll their eyes. Raquel clears her throat and says, “Jane Williams has been falsely accused and prematurely judged, and I wanted to give her a chance to defend herself.”

Margaret Ann Markelson, mother of Bella and the woman who ruthlessly cut me off from my girls, sniffs and raises her hand. “I really don't see why we have to go through all this again, Raquel,” she says. “We just don't want someone with loose morals teaching our children. Period.” She smugly takes a sip of ice water. She's staring at me like I am the Whore of Babylon.

“I don't want anyone with loose morals teaching my children either,” Raquel says. “So we agree on that. But I'm afraid there has been a misunderstanding here about Jane, who is the most moral and upright person I know.” My heart swells to hear Raquel defend me. “But what I'm really concerned about is that when you were worried about the leadership of this troop, you took immediate action and did not even contact me about it. While I might not have been the leader of the troop at the time of the article's publication, I was, at the very least, Haven's mother, and I was not told,” she says, glaring at Margaret Ann, who has elected herself the new troop leader. “I only found out after you ruthlessly fired Jane Williams as troop leader, a woman who has selflessly led this troop by my side for years now and was a very capable leader on her own. Now, as you all know, I stepped down because I'm having another child,” she says, rubbing her belly. “And I felt completely confident leaving Jane in charge. She has been there for these girls through thick and thin. She has taught them and led them with patience and care, and has always made them and their safety the most important thing.” She looks around the room coolly. “Now, let's open the floor for you all to ask Jane questions so that we can get to the bottom of all of this nonsense.”

“Why were you running around with that celebrity when he had a pregnant fiancée?” Margaret asks without missing a beat. Ten pairs of eyes turn on me.

“Matt Sherwin and I were working together, not running around together,” I say. “I was doing PR for a charity campaign, and he was the celebrity spokesman.”

“So kissing celebrity spokesmen is part of your job too, then?” she asks archly. Why is she so smug? She seems to be the only one questioning me. The others watch in interest, but none of them seem to have anything to add.

“
He
kissed
me
,” I patiently explain. “On the cheek. Once. Unfortunately, this one time was captured by a camera and published in that gossip rag.” Margaret Ann looks horrified that I called it a rag, as if she honestly believed she was reading serious award-winning journalism.

“Then why were there pictures of you two in a hotel?” She looks around at the other moms triumphantly, but they avoid her eye.

“That was a business meeting. The location was his choice. We talked, and I left,” I say, fighting the urge to roll my eyes.

Caroline raises her hand tentatively. “Why should we trust you? These are our daughters,” she says quietly. Margaret Ann beams. “There is nothing more important than who we leave in charge of them.”

I look around uncertainly. Why
should
they believe me? Caroline is right. There is nothing more important to these women than their daughters, and protecting them is their job. They're right to pay close attention to who they get to spend time with.

“I understand your concern, and I wish there was something I could do to prove to you how serious I am about this. But I can't.” I take a deep breath. “All I can do is promise you I never had anything to do with Matt Sherwin aside from work. I never called him, never talked to him, never went out with him unless it was about the Strike Hunger Campaign. I loved my boyfriend. I respect what a relationship is. I would never do anything to break up a family.” I look around uncertainly. They are eyeing me, but they are listening. “Your girls mean the world to me. They made me laugh, and I loved spending time with them. It wasn't until I found out I couldn't lead them anymore that I realized how much I really loved them. It would break my heart to never see them again. But even if I never see any of them for the rest of my life, please believe me when I say that I would never have done anything that would give them the wrong ideas.”

“Please,” Raquel says, “she's suffered enough. She already lost her job over this. And I have no qualms about leaving Haven in her care. Can we give her another chance?”

The women look around uncertainly. No one says anything. Caroline takes a sip of her ice water.

“We'll have to discuss it another time,” Margaret Ann says, looking pointedly at me.

“Okay. Thank you for hearing me out,” I say weakly. Raquel smiles and gets up to start carrying her untouched sugary goodies into the kitchen. “I guess I'll go now.” I start to stand up.

“One more thing, Jane,” Eleanor says, and I sit back down. Oh no. What can she possibly ask that would make this better? Here it comes. I'm ready. Bring it on. Slowly, Eleanor breaks into a smile. “What's Matt Sherwin really like?”

“Yeah,” Abby's mom says, leaning forward. “Is he as cute in real life as he is in the movies?” Everyone is smiling and nodding, anxious to hear what I have to say. I almost want to laugh. Aren't we fickle? Suddenly, I am a star.

“I've always had such a crush on him,” Margaret Ann confides, giggling and shrugging her shoulders.

“I'm dying to know,” Eleanor asks, winking at me. “Is he a good kisser?”

 

I put
the key in my lock and open my front door. I inhale the smell of newly minted construction and see that the skylight is installed and the plaster around the hole is new. I resolve to begin my job search in earnest tomorrow. After all, I've been working in PR for a while now. I have a lot of contacts. It can't be that hard to find something new. I slip into my cute monkey pajamas that Mom gave me four Christmases ago and find my fuzzy slippers. There. That's more like it.

There's a knock at the door. It's probably Lee. I hope he has an update about Mary Sue. As I walk over to the door, I pull my hair up into a messy ponytail.

I swing it open and am staring at Tyson. “Huh…,” I gasp.

He stands there awkwardly. My mind flashes back to the last time I saw him. He wasn't there for me. He failed me. And I just let him slam the door in my face. After everything we've been through, I just let him slam the door in my face like I was some kind of stranger. All at once I decide that this time he's not getting off that easily. I walk forward and put a finger on his chest and press on it hard. “You. I have something to tell you, Mr. Denver.” He takes a step back and rubs the spot on his chest, looking wounded. I go in for the kill. “You were everything to me, and you let me down when I really needed you.” He stares at me blankly.

I take another step forward into the hall, and he drops a plastic bag and stumbles a little.

He looks down. “Jane—”

“Don't Jane me. Jane you.” Okay, I'm not making a lot of sense right now. Stay focused, Jane. “I needed you that night. Do you have any idea what I had been going through that day?”

“I—” he stammers.

“Trust me, you don't. It was easily the worst day of my life. My roof caved in, Charlie almost died, I lost my job, I was mugged, I lost—” I realize that the worst part was losing him. I hesitate. After all, he dumped me. “And then to go to you in my time of need only to have you, who I loved, who I wanted to spend the rest of my life with, turn me away?” I stare at him, wild-eyed. “Well, Tyson, it was almost more than I could bear.” I rock back on my heels, done for the moment.