The Book of Jane (17 page)

There is a long silence. I look up defiantly. Annie is studying me, frowning. Finally, she leans forward, puts down her pen and takes off her reading glasses.

“I used to be a day trader,” she says and breaks into a big smile.

 

On
Thursday night I'm sitting on my couch drafting a formal letter of complaint to the building management company about the roof expense. The insurance company is going to come through to replace the furniture, though I'm still waiting on that check, but the roof is another story. I know I should be grateful to have my roof back at all, but I am not letting them stick me with that bill. I look up when I see something slip under my door out of the corner of my eye.

It's a little envelope. Charlie barks at the envelope for a second. He sniffs it. I walk over and pick it up. The outside says “Read me.” I obey.

Inside is a little printed card that says:

 

spon-ta-ne-ous

Pronunciation: spän-'ta-ne-as

Function: adjective

Etymology: Late Latin
spontaneus,
from Latin
sponte,
of one's free will, voluntarily

1: arising from a momentary impulse

 

I read it again, trying to make sense of it, when I hear a knock on my door. I peek out the peephole and see Coates standing there. What on earth? After our horrible date, I figured we both understood that it was over. I must have been half insane to agree to the date in the first place. Besides, I'm in my pajamas. I crack the door and lean out, but Charlie escapes. After sniffing Coates a moment, he tries to jump into his arms.

“Um, hi?” I say, annoyed. Coates leans over and scoops up Charlie. I need to teach that dog to be a little more suspicious of strangers.

“Jane,” he says, smiling devilishly. “I believe this is yours.” He hands Charlie back to me. I stay planted in the door and take Charlie back.

“Are you concerned about my vocabulary today?”

“A little, particularly where it pertains to that word.” His eyes take in my pajamas. “Could you get your coat? I'd like to get on with our date.”

I shake my head. “I wasn't asked on this date. Nor did I accept.”

“Isn't that thrilling?” He rakes his fingers through his dark hair. “I don't like to follow the rules.”

“Me either,” I say. “So, good-bye.” I shut the door in his face. I can't believe he'd just show up here like that. We don't click. Why does he want to try again? I shouldn't have answered the door.

I sit back down on my couch and turn back to my letter. Another envelope slides under the door. I roll my eyes and go back to typing, but soon yet another one slides under the door. Charlie is looking at them and at me and at them again. He gives a small bark at them. I give in and go over to retrieve them again.

I open the first one. He has written:

Please?

I open the next one:

You won't regret it.

“You're not funny,” I say through the door.

“I've got fifty envelopes out here,” he says back.

I swing my door wide open. “How did you get my address?” I ask.

“It's really lovely out tonight. The air is so crisp and clean.”

“Why are you doing this? Remember our last date?”

“So this is a date, then?”

“Argh!”

He smiles at me and waits.

I shake my head at him in defeat and say, “Come in. I'll go throw some jeans on.” Coates comes in and plops on my couch. Charlie jumps in his arms and begs with his little brown eyes to be petted. As I walk to my room I call out, “Don't suppose I get to know where we're going?”

“Didn't you read the first card?” he calls back to me.

I pull on my favorite jeans and a top and grumble, not quite to myself, “I hate this kind of thing.”

Chapter 20

C
oates is
wandering the aisles with a look of glee. I'm following behind him, feeling snookered. Some wonderful spontaneous date this turned out to be. We're cooking together. Hurrah. If only he had called me and checked with me first on this one I would have had the chance to tell him that I don't know how to cook at all, that I once burned scrambled eggs, that my idea of making dessert is pouring a bowl of Count Chocula, that I've only been grocery shopping in New York twice. That I don't date men who are being sued. But instead here we are stumbling around in Whole Foods, which is, from what I can tell, the Henri Bendel of grocery stores, with me wishing that we could just go pick up something to go. I already pointed out the section with precooked meals, but Coates laughed like this was some kind of good joke. At least someone is having fun.

“While I go and inspect the olive oil selection, why don't you work on getting the arugula,” he says.

“Sure,” I say and smile.

“We'll need two cups of it, chopped.”

I nod confidently, wait until he walks off, and then begin to wander around. What is arugula? I think it's a vegetable of some kind, but I really can't be sure. I think it was on something I had at a restaurant once, but there was a lot of stuff on top of that tuna steak. There was some leafy stuff, a drizzle of something red, there were some crunchy nutlike things, I think one of the things on top was maybe in the mushroom family. That's it! Arugula was that weird mushroom thingy. I wander over to the mushroom section and look for a sign that says “arugula.” I need two cups chopped, I repeat to myself. This isn't that hard. Okay, let's see. There's Portobello, baby Portobello, shiitake, morel, button…no arugula kind. I frown. Then I see someone who works at Whole Foods and tap on his shoulder.

“Can you please show me where the arugulas are?” I ask. I motion behind me at the mushrooms.

The worker cocks his head a little. “I'm sorry?”

“I'm looking for the arugula mushrooms please?”

He puts his hands on his hips. “You want arugula or mushrooms? Both?”

Maybe it's not a mushroom. I blush. “Look, I just need two cups of arugula.”

It dawns on the employee what's going on, and he smirks. “The arugula is over here with the
greens
,” he says,

Green what? Everything over here is green. I follow behind him obediently until he deposits me in front of a big sign that says “Arugula.” How did I miss that? “Do you need arugula or baby arugula?”

Baby arugula? I don't want baby food. “I just need regular arugula.”

He points at a big stack of green leaves and walks away. I hold one up and inspect it. It's covered in dirt! I gasp and throw it back down, rubbing my hands together to try to get the dirt and water off.

“How's it going?” I hear behind me and jump. This whole nightmare experience has really gotten me ramped up.

I turn around and try to smile at Coates. “I, um, found…the stuff.” I gesture at the arugula sign.

“Indeed. Could you get two cups' worth for me? Just put it in the baggies there,” he says, motioning at a big spool. I suddenly have a hazy memory of my mother doing this once when I was little. This is really her fault. She never cooked either.

I stride over, wrestle with the baggie spool for a while, pull off two bags by accident, and then come back to get two cups of arugula, chopped. But it's not chopped yet. It's, well, it's just kind of big, long, and green and looks kind of like where Cabbage Patch Kids come from.

Coates is watching me, smiling from ear to ear. I won't let him make a fool of me. I bravely pick up a bunch of arugula and put it in the bag and then try to hand it to him.

“I'm afraid that's not even close to two cups chopped,” he says.

I lean in to him and whisper, “Are you sure we should be buying it here?”

He looks around and then leans in to me. “Why?” he whispers back.

I pick up another bunch and bring it over to him. “It's dirty. Do you see that?”

He lets out a big belly laugh. “Jane.”

“What?”

“Where do you think arugula comes from?”

“An arugula tree? An arugula chicken?”

“It grows in the ground. That's why it's dirty, as you say.”

I stuff one more bunch into the bag while he guffaws in the greens aisle. What fun being spontaneous is turning out to be.

 

“We're
making pizza?” I ask, raising my eyebrow at the recipe in front of me. “You do know this is New York, right?”

“Is that right?” he asks, and then looks out his window in mock surprise.

“Hello, McFly. Pizza grew up here. There are probably twelve pizzerias on this block alone. Three of them claim to be the Original Ray's,” I say, walking past the granite counter into the living room. I see a splash of pink plush and freeze. Judy Garland, my elephant, is in there. In the corner. Just behind his entertainment center. I take a deep breath and turn back to face him. “There is a whole world of good pizza out there,” I say, recovering. “Why bother to make it? It doesn't make any sense.”

“Why indeed,” he says. “Would you please hand me the yeast?” I rummage around in the shopping bag and find the little yellow packets. I toss one to him. He adds it to a bowl of flour and begins to knead the dough with his hands. I watch. Making our own pizza. Who ever heard of something so ridiculous?

“Your turn,” he says, extracting the ball of dough from the bowl and handing it to me. I take it tentatively.

“What am I supposed to do with this?” I look down at the dough and up at him.

“Knead it,” he laughs, sprinkling some flour on a wooden cutting board in front of me. I place the ball of dough gingerly on the board and poke at it with my index finger.

“No, silly,” he says, coming up behind me. I flinch. He wraps his arms around mine and places his hand on top of mine, then guides my hands toward the dough. My heart skips a beat. He smells good. He moves my hands gently, showing me how to push on the dough and work it around. I lean back slightly and feel him subtly lean in to me. Maybe making pizza isn't so bad after all. We work the dough together. I can feel his warm breath on my neck. Focus, Jane. You hate this man.

“By Jove, I think she's got it,” Coates says softly, pulling away. He walks to the sink and turns on the faucet, rubbing his hands together under the water. I don't look up. “You keep doing that for a few minutes, and I'll get started chopping the arugula,” he says as if everything is normal. I start to breathe again, nodding.

The kitchen is quiet. I can't meet his eye. I glance at the recipe again so I look busy. “Three-Cheese Pizza with Onion, Sage, and Arugula.” Hm. I run my eye down the ingredient list. “Oh no, Coates!” I say, panicked. He looks at me, smiling calmly. “We forgot the Gorgonzola.”

“No we didn't,” he says, unfazed, turning off the faucet. He reaches into a cabinet and pulls out a bottle of red wine.

“But it calls for Fontina, Parmesan, and Gorgonzola, and we forgot to buy the Gorgonzola, so how can we—”

“I don't like blue cheese,” he says, shrugging as he opens the corkscrew. He places the tip against the cork and begins to twist. “All the mold and the veins. I figured we'd just leave it off.” My face must register the shock I feel, because he continues, his face softening. “I hope that's okay. If you really want it we can get—”

“How can you just leave out an ingredient?” I ask. I may not cook much, but I know you are supposed to follow the recipe. “You can't do that.”

“Why not?” he shrugs, pulling the cork out with a satisfying pop. He reaches into another cabinet and pulls down two red wine glasses.

“Because,” I stammer.

“This is our pizza. We can make it however we want,” he laughs, pouring ruby-red wine into the glasses.

“But…” I stop. Why not? I look at Coates.

“Come on, Jane,” he smiles. “Spontaneous. You can do it.”

I look at the recipe and back up at him. I look at my hands in the dough.

“Fine,” I say. “It's totally fine.” I try to sound sure. “It doesn't matter to me.”

“I knew you could do it,” Coates says, handing me a glass. I reach for it and take a sip, then put my glass down and turn away. He takes a sip and raises his eyebrow slightly. “You know, Matt Sherwin is really not your type.”

My face flushes, thinking about that stupid article. “Thank you,” I say, throwing my hands up in the air. “
That's
what I keep telling people. Sure every woman in the world thinks she'd just jump at the chance to date Matt Sherwin, but trust me, spending quality time with that man is like brain drain.”

“Plus,” Coates says, turning on the oven, “I have a policy of never believing silly lies about people.”

“Me too,” I say with a nod. Why couldn't my boss be this sensible?

“Whether they are published in some silly tabloid like
Star Power
,” he says, “or even the lofty
New York Times
.”

He looks at me, and his gaze pierces right through me. Oh. I see what he's getting at. I knead the dough. But the
Times
is not
Star Power
. What they say is well-researched fact. Coates stands close to me.

I bite my lip. Do I want to hear this?

“That article was not entirely false,” he says, but I don't look at him. “Yes, I am being sued by two previous assistants. Yes, my conversion to Christianity did anger my family.” He takes a deep breath. “Yes, many people over the years have found me—let's see, what were the words they used?—‘impossible, arrogant, and stubborn.'”

I look up, but I can't meet his eye. I look at his mouth and focus on what he is saying. The article was true.

“But I have never mistreated someone and not gone back to apologize. I know how I come across at times, and I am working on it. And the two young women who are suing me simply saw an easy mark.”

I roll my eyes.

“Jane, listen to me.” He touches my shoulder. “Just today I got word from my lawyer that the judge threw the case out. They have nothing against me. Their claims are preposterous.”

Oh. I frown at myself.

“Coates, I—”

He raises an eyebrow at me.

I swallow a lump back in my throat. “I owe you an apology,” I say, my mind racing. It is beginning to dawn on me that even while I was convicting Coates for crimes he did not commit, he was arranging for me to get a roof over my head. In my darkest hour, he was the one who knew what I needed most and provided it discreetly with not so much as a thank-you from me.

He shrugs. “Let's drop it. But I could tell it was bothering you. I handled it wrong when you brought it up before, but forgive me. I had no idea that anyone even believed that article.”

“It was in the
Times
,” I say, shrugging. “I don't believe it anymore.”

“Good, then we'll put both of our allegedly sordid pasts behind us and move forward from this moment on.”

“Agreed,” I say and put out my hand for him to shake. He takes one look at my flour-covered hand and shakes his head. “Of course, the arrogant part is still true.” I plunge my hands back into the flour, pouting.

I see the flour hit his face before I register that I threw it. He looks at me, stunned. He looks so comical, standing there in his well-appointed apartment with his perfect gleaming teeth and a big burst of white powder on his tanned face. There's only one thing to do now. I laugh and grab another handful from the open bag and launch it at him again. He ducks, breaking into a smile, and the flour falls softly all over his spotless kitchen. He reaches toward the bag, but I block him with my body, and grab another handful myself. Within minutes we're both covered with fine white powder and laughing hysterically. He's holding on to my waist as we slump against the counter. I am gulping for air.

We sit next to each other on the floor, and all of a sudden our laughter seems to die. I can hear him breathing next to me and smell the good, clean smell of his detergent on his clothes. I turn my head slightly and look at him. He reaches a hand out and uses his thumb to smudge a little powder off my cheek.

“Got yourself into a little mess, I'd say,” he whispers, resting his hand on my thigh when he's done.

I smile at him. “The way I see it, it's not really my fault,” I say at normal volume.

He cocks his head at me. “Really? Shall I refresh you on how all of this started?”

I laugh. “But I was just caught up in the moment,” I say and put my hand on top of his. We lock eyes and fall silent again. A long moment passes.

I look down at my clothes, covered in flour, and I lean forward to him. I don't think I mean to kiss him, but for some reason, I just want to be closer, to be touching him. He leans in too, and we both pause, our faces an inch apart. I can smell his cologne faintly, and his breath is warm and slow on my cheek. And then I shut my eyes and lean in to kiss him. We kiss slowly, delicately, a still, sweet, longing kiss. I pull back and look at him again.

“Being spontaneous isn't so bad after all, is it?” he asks as I lean in to kiss him again.