Jane Air

by Anna Wellschlager

  Five heads peer at me from the kitchen.

  Everyone but Jane.

  “Hi…” I say, hands stuffed in my pockets. This was not expected.

  Jessica raises an eyebrow, crosses her arms over her chest. She says nothing.

  “Where is Jane?”

  “Where were you?” Jessica asks.

  “I had to go to L.A.” I answer, stuttering almost under her gaze.

  The tall one, Kate, stands up from the table where the others sit. Her friend, Dawn, continues to gape, mouth open.

  “She’s gone away.”

  My heart starts pounding again. “Gone away where?”

  “We don’t know. She asked me to come by to water her plants,” Penelope offers from the table.

  “And I was just dropping off some leftovers,” Dory adds.

  “I was in the neighborhood,” Christine smiles.

  “I…I don’t know why we’re here,” Dawn says helplessly, her gaze darting between me and Kate.

  Jessica, still standing next to me, points wordlessly to a book on the kitchen counter. Simone de Beauvoir, it looks like.

  “Why are you here?” Kate asks, standing next to Jessica, who gives me one final look before returning to the table, picking up a glass of something and emptying it in one large gulp, her eyes never leaving mine.

  “I came back,” I say again, still almost stuttering. Jesus, these women are intimidating.

  “Good,” Kate states, eyebrows up as if she’s supposed to be impressed but isn’t.

  “Figured your shit out, yet?” The friendly one, Penelope, is significantly less friendly this time around.

  “Where is Jane?” I grit out.

  “We don’t know,” Christine says, her eyes soft and sympathetic.

  “I tried calling her earlier, to see if she wanted me to bring anything over, but it went straight to voicemail. So, I just came by,” Dory adds.

  “Well,” I look between the faces, some warmer towards me than others, “where do you think she is?”

  Penelope and Jessica shrug. Dawn continues to stare like a deer in headlights. Dory and Christine look to each other then back to me, no answers on their faces.

  Even Kate has no idea.

  “Would you like a seat?” Dory offers, but I shake my head. As friendly as she seems, it feels like a piranha inviting me for a swim.

  “I’ll head home but,” I pause, “if you see her, tell her to return my calls, ok?”

  “You’ve called?” Penelope looks up. “Again?”

  I nod. “Several times.”

  They all turn to each other. Eyebrows raised.

  “She said you hadn’t,” Jessica pins me with a gaze.

  “I did. Just now, getting off the plane.”

  “What about earlier?” Dawn asks.

  “It’s been over a week,” Christine says softly, giving me a reproachful look.

  “She said she wanted to take some time, to clear her head,” I sputter, defending myself. “I was trying to give her space.”

  The women nod, looking at one another. Dory tilts her head, and they all seem to agree.

  “What did she tell all of you?” I ask.

  Penelope shrugs, “Well, at first she said that you had called, but then you blew her off all week, so…” She shrugs again. “I was on your side, originally, but now…” A third shrug, this one complete with a head turn away from my direction and a haughty sip from whatever she’s drinking.

  “Come on,” Kate puts her hand on my arm, and steers me back towards the door. I follow her, at a loss for words.

  We exit the house, Kate closing the door behind me. Standing on the porch of the bungalow I look down at my hands, that sinking feeling in my stomach growing bigger. A part of me, a large part of me, knows I have fucked up epically.

  “She said she wanted us to be sure,” I mutter, more to myself than to anyone else, “that we needed to take time to figure things out.”

  “And are you?”

  I nod, slowly at first, still looking down. Then vigorously. I look up. “Yes. Fuck, yes. It took less than a day back in L.A. to realize that everything I want is right here.”

  “Then why did it take so long?”

  “Loose ends don’t tie up themselves,” I grit out.

  Kate nods. “Then you have to prove it to her.”

  I look at the house, this sweet home of the woman I love, the simple walls and windows and roof containing everything I care about. “I know. I will.”

  “Need help?”

  I pause, an idea forming in my mind. It’s crazy. It’s over the top. It’ll probably freak her out and have her regretting ever going swimming in my pond that night, but what the hell. Life is for the brave.

  “Do you know a carpenter?”

  She nods.

  “Great,” I pull out my phone. “Give me his number. Yours too.”

  “You have my number.”

  I look up. “I do?”

  She nods.

  I think back to the unknown number, the texts from the ‘friend of Jane’ and realization dawns.

  “You know, I told you not to fuck this up,” Kate says, hands on hips now, staring me down. “Texted you too.”

  “How?” I glance down at my phone.

  “You think you’re the only one with connections in this town?” She laughs, pulling a card from her wallet and handing it to me. “Call him. He’s great. Fixes anything, builds everything.”

  “Anything? Even something…huge?”

  She shrugs. “Try him. I’m here if you need help.” She turns back to go into the house and pauses, looking over her shoulder. “We’re all here, if you need us.”

  36

  Jane

  After visiting my mother’s grave, I returned home to find Kate at my dinner table, drumming fingers on the wood. With less than twenty minutes to pack a bag, she whisked me into her car, drove me to Christine’s house, where we left her car and piled into Christine’s SUV (brand new- honestly, where does she get the money?) and met Dawn, Jessica, and Penelope at the gas station down the road. Penelope led the way, and three hours later we were camped out in an AirBnB upstate, enjoying the lake and roasting marshmallows over the outside fire pit.

  No answers to any of my questions. Just a “girls trip,” apparently. Even Dory, who joined us a day later, made arrangements for Philippe and Mohammed to take care of the cafe while she was away.

  No explanations, but no questions either. We slept in, go for walks, enjoyed margaritas and curly fries at the only restaurant in town. Penelope and Jessica went skinny dipping. The rest of us packed bathing suits. One morning, Christine took us all out on the water in a sailboat that appeared overnight at the dock attached to our rental house. I asked her where she learned to sail and she just smiled, passing around a cooler of drinks.

  I must have left my phone in my house when I was rushed out the door, but its absence has been a welcome reprieve. I don’t know if David has called. I don’t know if he is back from L.A. Either way, I feel like a weight has lifted. Visiting my mother’s grave, talking to her as I haven’t talked in years, as I never talked to her, actually, even when she was alive, loosened a part of me. I let go of so many things that afternoon, and I feel unshackled, as if a piece of myself has returned to me, a piece I didn’t even know I was missing.

  The night before we leave, we sat outside, enjoying the sound of the crickets and noises of night animals. Seated around the fire, wrapped in blankets, I watched my friends dance to the only radio station, all 80’s, that came in up here, crackling through Penelope’s ancient, portable radio. They laughed and sang and I knew, whatever happens, I’d be just fine.

  This afternoon, five days later, Christine follows Penelope’s rust bucket down country roads back to Midnight, and I enjoy the setting sun on my face and watch the farmland speed by us, houses getting closer together as we near Midnight.

  Penelope’s car peels off towards her house, everyone inside waving as we part ways. Ch
ristine pulls into Kate’s driveway. Kate hops out, grabbing her bag from the back and comes around to my side of the car. She grabs my hand, and if I didn’t know better I would think there were tears in her eyes.

  “Good luck, Jane.” She reaches in quickly, through the open window and hugs me to her. I have never received a hug from Kate in my life.

  “Is she ok?” I ask Christine, laughing at Kate’s retreating back and her unexpected display of affection.

  Christine smiles and heads back onto the main road.

  A few minutes of silence are interrupted when I say, “You missed my turn,” and point to the road sign now behind us. It’s getting dark, but the familiar streets are easy to make out even in the fading light.

  “Did I?” Christine asks, her eyes never leaving the road.

  “Yes. And you know that.” I turn to her.

  “Hmm,” she says, still refusing to meeting my gaze.

  “Christine, where are we going?”

  She says nothing, ignoring me, and I wonder if I am experiencing the friendliest, nicest kidnapping in human history.

  “I have classes in a week, Christine. If you bury my body in the woods, the dean will notice my absence.”

  She continues to ignore me.

  We turn onto the street with the orchard at the end and I realize. She’s taking me to David’s house.

  She pulls up his driveway, woods dark on either side of the gravel path, ignoring my protests with a placid calm that some might describe as pathological. We reach the front of the house. I see lights on inside, his car in the driveway.

  He’s here.

  “Go inside,” she says, her voice quiet and low.

  I stay seated. As much as I have made peace with our unknown future, there is still a small part of me that enjoys the possibility of a future with him. The thought of snuffing out that last, tiny candle of hope leaves my stomach cold.

  “Go inside,” she says again, this time turning to me.

  “Did…did you plan this?” I wonder at the timing of our random, spontaneous week away.

  “Yes. We all did.” Christine smiles. “Oh, and here’s your phone.” She removes it from the glove compartment and drops it in my lap. The battery is dead.

  “How-”

  “Kate stole it from your bag when she picked you up. We hid it from you,” her face brightens, “but you can have it back now!”

  I grip the phone in my hand, clinging to it like a lifeline. I look up at Christine, at her calm, reassuring smile. I offer one back, much wobblier and less self-assured. She waves as I shut the door and stand in the driveway, watching her drive away.

  The front door is open, just a bit. I push forward, and step inside.

  He’s standing at the entrance.

  “Hi.” I open my mouth. It’s the only word that comes out. It’s been over two weeks now. I haven’t forgotten what he looks like, obviously, but seeing him in the flesh again reminds me of how shockingly good-looking he is.

  “Hi,” he says, stepping towards me.

  I don’t know what to say. I don’t know where we are together, if we are still together.

  He smiles. “Did you enjoy your week away?”

  I glance down at my dead phone, then up at him. “How did you know about that?”

  “Oh, your friends and I have been in constant contact.” He grins.

  “I thought…there was no cell service up in Rangeley,” I say, thinking back to everyone’s overly loud complaining about the lack of phone usage.

  He laughs and shakes his head. “Not for you, but everyone else was fine.”

  My eyebrows go up. I can’t help a small laugh.

  “What-”

  He holds out a hand. “Follow me.”

  I take it. He leads me into the house, still empty, dark with most of the lights off. Past the kitchen, down the hallways, and towards the double doors outside that enormous, empty room with the chandelier and the floor to ceiling windows.

  He stands behind me, brushing the hair off my neck and placing a light kiss on my shoulder. “Close your eyes.”

  “What-”

  “Shh, just close them.”

  I do as I’m told. His arms are around me, and I feel him reach across to open the door, gently leading me through, walking behind me and directing me into the room.

  I hear him flick a switch, another one, another one, and behind my closed lids I sense light illuminating the room.

  He moves me forward again, and I step hesitantly.

  “One more step,” he whispers, mouth hovering above my own. He slides his hands down my arms, all the way to my fingers, and lifts them, holding them in front of me and placing them on a shelf of some sort.

  “Now open,” he whispers, stepping back from behind me.

  I open my eyes. I am facing a bookcase. A bookshelf, directly in front of me. I peer closely, and I am looking at a copy of Jane Eyre, my copy in fact. I recognize the binding, and the faded square where I removed the price sticker that was on it when I bought it from the bookstore in Cambridge.

  “Why do you have my book-” I turn to ask him.

  And then I see it.

  The room.

  The giant, weird, empty, grain silo room with the chandelier and the three story windows.

  It’s a library.

  He grins at me, that beautiful face, covered by flickers of light from the lamps installed in the walls, interspersed between book cases, carved in elegant arcs so they perfectly fit against the curving shape of the circular room. Bookshelves that go all the way up. I tilt my head back, my mouth open, counting the rows of bookshelves above my head, up to a circular platform that follows the walls of the room, a walkway, complete with sliding ladder to reach the second level. I look past that, and see a second ladder, and a second platform, positioned even higher up, the third floor, to access the highest level of book shelves.

  The glow of the lamps cause the chandelier to sparkle, the crystals creating dances of light across the marble floor, the carved wood of the shelving, the bindings of all the books. To my left, the fireplace is stocked with wood, with two large, leather chairs in front. The perfect place to spend an evening.

  I walk to the shelf next to me, peer closer, and see another book of mine. A copy of something Jessica gave me. Next to it, another of mine, and another, and another.

  “How-”

  He comes towards me, looping my hands in his and kissing my knuckles.

  “I got them from your office,” he winks. “Cynthia helped.”

  My brain is blank and I can barely manage a word. “What-”

  “Oh this?” He looks up, taking in the extraordinary splendor of our surroundings as if it were a nondescript office space. He smiles down at me. “This was my idea, but your friends helped.”

  My confusion must be clear on my face because he continues, “I wanted to do something to help you understand how I feel, how certain I am about how I feel. Kate gave me the number of a carpenter she knows. Oh, and she’s also been sending me threatening, anonymous text messages, but I think those will stop now.”

  I open my mouth, but he continues. “Cynthia let me into your office. Jessica got me into your basement, where you had even more books stored, all in Tupperware. Penelope, it turns out, is friends with all the local sculptors and woodworkers in town, so she called them. Dory connected me with her electrician, and everyone else made sure to get you out of town for a week, so this could all get done.”

  I pull away, moving slowly across the room, trailing a hand across the shelves. I tilt my head up again, turning to him.

  “Jane,” he whispers my name, standing a few feet from me. “I was in L.A. for thirty seconds when I realized I didn’t want to be there. Or, I didn’t want to be there without you.” He strides towards me, pulling me towards him, and pressing my face against his chest. “Jane, you asked me to be sure, and I’m sure. You told me to think about it, but I don’t need to. You’re the one, Jane. The one I want. The only one
I want.”

  He holds my head in his hands and kisses me, his lips warm and soft against mine. I sag against him, a soft moan rising from my throat.

  “You didn’t need to do all this,” I murmur against his mouth, when his lips release mine.

  “I want to show you, Jane.” He presses soft kisses across my eyes, atop each closed lid, my nose, my cheeks, his lips smiling against my skin. “I want to you know I have no doubts.”

  “But this…”

  “This is the gift you always wanted, remember? The one thing that will ruin you for all other men.”

  I nod, a smile spreading across my lips, bright and brilliant and larger than any smile I’ve ever given anyone before. “It is. It’s exactly…I just can’t believe you did all this.”

  “I want to do everything for you, Jane. Anything.” His arms are tighter around me, squeezing me as he lifts me off my feet, twirling us around and I laugh, my arms holding onto his neck.

  “We don’t have to live here, if you don’t want-”

  “You still don’t have any furniture,” I laugh again.

  He kisses me hard, his mouth urgent against mine and I reach for the hem of his shirt. “Buy some. Or not. We can live in your house, and just come here to read. Fuck it, fill the whole house with books if you want. I don’t care. I just want you.”

  I jerk the shirt out of the waist of his jeans. “I like this house, but it needs some tables and chairs…”

  He’s kissing the side of my neck, unbuttoning my shirt and I melt into him.

  “Buy all the tables. All the chairs. I don’t care. As long as I have you.”

  “A bed-” I barely get the word out before he swallows it, mouth on mine again, pulling me to the floor.

  We tear at each other’s clothes, fumbling with the condom wrapper in his pocket and, when he slides into me and I ache with having missed him so, he stills, holding my face in his hands, eyes locked on mine.

  “I love you, Jane,” he says it slowly, deeply, each word punctuated by a thrust of his hips.

  I gasp against him, writhing beneath him.

  “I love you, Jane,” he repeats, faster this time, moving above me, inside of me, as I arch against him. He reaches a hand between us and soon I’m saying it too, crying out his name, begging for him to continue, crashing against me, words of love on my lips as he repeats them against my mouth.