Hopefuls (Book 1): The Private Life of Jane Maxwell

by Jenn Gott

  “This way,” Amy’s cheerful voice said. Her touch ran down Jane’s arm until their hands were folded against each other, and then Amy lifted both of Jane’s in hers. Soon Jane found herself holding the tops of Amy’s shoulders, the light fabric of Amy’s blouse cool underneath Jane’s fiery palms.

  Jane swallowed hard. The slope of Clair’s shoulders, the rich pull of muscle against bone as they flexed strong and full of life. With what Jane considered to be her primary sense shut off, the rest of them jumped to attention, eager to prove themselves. The way that Amy had positioned Jane’s hands, Jane’s index fingers just brushed Amy’s neck; the skin was baby smooth, Amy’s pulse beating beneath the surface. They toddled down the sidewalk together, taking slow steps so that Jane didn’t stumble. Jane’s finger traced familiar lines against Amy’s neck until Amy reached up and gripped her hand so hard that Jane jumped.

  “Sorry,” Jane muttered, though it was impossible to know if Amy had heard her, because a moment later they’d stopped, and the heavy shunk of a door opening broke the air.

  Jane expected a bell to tinkle, announcing their arrival, but it didn’t. A soft breeze wafted out, tinged with the smell of a dozen different perfumes. Jane heard the soft intake of breath that should have preceded a question, and felt from the shift of Amy’s muscles that she held her finger to her lips. Their footsteps changed pitch underneath them as sidewalk was replaced by wood flooring.

  “Can I take this off now?” Jane asked.

  There was a grin in Amy’s voice as she said, “Almost.”

  Jane sighed. “Amy—”

  “Al-most,” Amy said, drawing the word into two distinct syllables. “Trust me, it’s worth it.”

  “Fine,” Jane said, with far more ill humor than she actually felt. In truth, her heart was racing, though how much of that was due to the surprise, and how much was the simple chemical reaction of her hands on Clair’s (not Clair’s) shoulders, it was impossible to say.

  “All right,” Amy said. She came to a stop, Jane came to a stop. Jane tried not to feel a flush of disappointment as Amy stepped out from underneath her grip. “Ready?”

  Jane nodded. She felt Amy move behind her, the gentle tug as she undid Jane’s blindfold. She was warm at Jane’s back, her hand rubbing Jane’s arm as she drew away the scarf. Her voice came softly in Jane’s ear: “Ta-daaaah.”

  The silk fell away. Jane opened her eyes. A panel of black, and then a blurred, almond-shaped view of the world around her, and then the room.

  The room took Jane’s breath away. She hurriedly put her glasses back on, taking in the details.

  They were in the middle of an art gallery. A large space with a domed ceiling high overhead, pale wood underfoot. The walls, solid white, had tastefully spaced paintings of a variety of sizes and styles. Interior walls divided the room like a maze of cubicles, the better to utilize the otherwise empty floor space.

  Jane grinned. “You didn’t.”

  “Oh, I did.” Amy grabbed a tiny plate off of the tray of a passing waiter: three grapes, two canapés, several waferlike disks of pale pink and green. Amy popped a grape for herself, then passed the plate to Jane. “Canapé?”

  It was all that Jane could do to keep from laughing. She and Clair had a ritual: whenever Jane had gotten into a funk from overworking herself, Clair would drive her out to the most self-important art show she could find. Clair’s work as Assistant Curator at the museum gave her an inside edge into the gallery world, and she always knew exactly which ones to bring Jane to. Sometimes they were actually good: pieces that shocked Jane, pieces that used color and texture in ways that she didn’t expect, or amateur artists where you took one look and knew they were destined for greatness. But more often than not, Clair tried to find the shows that would amuse the hell out of Jane. Poor copies of the world’s greatest artists, or abstract art that took the concept of an installation piece just a little too far, or still Jane’s personal favorite: the one show they went to, shortly after their wedding, that was nothing but paintings of the same porcelain doll from fifteen different angles. The doll itself was one of those creepy Victorian-style girls that you could find on the Home Shopping Network, and the artist hadn’t changed the background or the lighting or any piece of the setup from painting to painting. Its eyes stared out like satanic pools, its mouth slightly parted as it smiled at you.

  “See, it’s about the futility of modern commerce,” Clair had said, as the two of them stood in front of the fourth painting and tried to look as if they were taking it Very Seriously.

  “It’s about the desperation of being alone at two in the morning,” Jane said.

  “The tragedy of a maxed-out credit card: only being able to afford one doll.”

  “Do you choose the doll, though, or the genuine carbon steel knife set?”

  “Oh, the doll, always,” Clair said. “It’s far more lethal.”

  This was the point when Jane had dissolved into unstoppable giggles, the two of them rushing for the bathroom so that they could calm down away from the scrutiny of the beady-eyed old ladies running the show.

  The memory of it brought a sad smile to Jane’s face.

  As if sensing the melancholy turn, Amy took one of the pastel wafers from her plate and held it up to Jane’s mouth. Amy did her best to keep her fingers from touching Jane’s lips, but as the minty confection hit Jane’s tongue, the softest brush of skin passed between them. Something deep in Jane’s core stirred, a slumbering thing half-roused from its hibernation.

  “Ready?” Amy asked, smiling at Jane as if this was all the most natural thing in the world.

  A sense of calm settled over Jane. Ready. For the first time in a long time, she felt like she actually was.

  * * *

  “But what’s it really like?” Jane asked.

  It was several hours later. Amy had led Jane through the gallery, which was a seemingly random mishmash of local artists and featured pieces that were both profoundly beautiful and incredibly twee. They’d exited in high spirits just as the sun was beginning to set, and after poking around some local shops, they’d found themselves standing in front of the most incongruous restaurant imaginable: a steakhouse, surrounded by the sea.

  It took only a single shared grin for them to decide to step inside. They entered and were promptly seated at a table in the corner. A light crowd filled the place, mostly locals from the looks of it, while a single musician sat on a bar stool in the corner under the bright lights, crooning and strumming his acoustic guitar. Now they had ordered, and were waiting for their appetizers, glasses of iced tea sweating between them.

  Jane tore a straw out of its wrapper as she waited for Amy to reply. She’d drawn an artist’s interpretation of Amy’s powers a hundred times over, but had never been happy with the result. It had always felt too pat, too cliché. Amy’s eyes closing, then a swirling, fade-to-dream effect across the bulk of the page, a faint image emerging in one long panel along the bottom. These drawings had never made it into the comic. Jane had scrapped them every time, choosing instead to let Mindsight relay what she had learned. Some critics lambasted Jane for her choice; while, conversely, there was a popular fan theory that Mindsight’s powers were something entirely different, and the whole “empath” story was a clever ruse to fool either the reader or the rest of the team.

  Amy smiled softly as she considered Jane’s question. She looked at her hands, forever ensconced in the fingerless gloves. Her nails were freshly manicured, trimmed short and painted bleach white. The tips of her fingers were still enough to pick up senses from the world around her, but it was large amounts of contact that got her into trouble: gripping something tightly in the palm of her hand, a full-bodied hug if she wasn’t wearing enough layers, falling asleep on someone else’s pillow.

  “It’s hard to describe,” Amy said finally. She picked up her fork. Pinched it between her bare fingers, held it out toward Jane. “You’ve heard of synesthesia, though, right? How some people see letter
s as different colors, or associate different tastes with sounds?”

  Jane nodded. “Yeah . . . Doesn’t Devin have that?”

  “Exactly. Right, so, this fork? It doesn’t really belong to any one person, but it kind of belongs, temporarily, to everyone that uses it. You see it, and it’s just a fork. You can see the scuffs along the edges, the shine of the metal . . . when you touch it, it’s either hot or cold, the handle is smooth and heavy. These signals are relayed through a series of nerves to your brain, and your brain understands them and processes them into words that you can express.”

  “Okay.”

  Amy turned her attention to the fork. Her eyes shifted slightly, as if she wasn’t really looking at the fork so much as into it. She rubbed it idly between her fingers. “The last person that ate with this fork didn’t know how to come out to his family as trans. The waitress that brought it to us is worried that her daughter might be dealing.” She shuddered, setting the utensil down hastily on the table. A shrug later, and she’d brushed off whatever sensation the fork had given her. She smiled at Jane—patient, polite. “It’s just there, the way that texture or color or smell is. And like how a smell can vary in intensity, the impressions left behind vary depending on how much time a person spent with an object, how important it was to them . . . things like that.”

  “And you know it all,” Jane said. It wasn’t a question, though a hint of awe did leave her statement open to either confirmation or rebuttal.

  Amy made a noncommittal head tilt. “I know enough.”

  “You don’t always have to be modest, you know.”

  “What, you mean that Clair wasn’t modest?” Amy said.

  Jane looked away.

  No, Clair was modest all right. She never wanted coauthor credit on any of Jane’s comics, no matter how many of the ideas had come from her, no matter how many times Jane had sat up late picking Clair’s brain as she tried to untangle a plot twist. She took compliments simply, politely, smiling and saying a genuine “thank you,” but never lingering, never wanting to then tell you how she’d done something, where she’d bought it, what had inspired her choices. She tried to give more than she took.

  “I’m sorry,” Amy said a moment later. “I didn’t mean to—”

  “It’s okay,” Jane said. She made herself look up, made herself look into Clair’s face. Not Clair’s face. She didn’t have to make herself smile, though—that happened naturally, her chest loosening as she took in Amy’s familiar features. “I’m glad that you’re here.”

  A tinge of pink tinted Amy’s cheeks. “I’m glad that getting away for a while is helping.”

  Jane shook her head. “That’s not what I meant. I mean . . . just, here. In this world. With me. I’m glad that . . . somewhere, in some way, that there’s still an Amy Sinclair. Even if she’s not mine.”

  “Ah.” Amy bit her lip. She gave Jane a tight smile, and raised her iced tea as if for a toast. “Glad to be of service.”

  The clink of their glasses coincided with the arrival of the appetizers.

  “You ladies out celebrating something tonight?” their waitress asked as she set down first one and then the other enormous plate, so large that the word “plate” felt inadequate—these were more like platters, laden down with enough food for an entire family. And this, just the first course.

  Jane opened her mouth to say something, but then she glanced at the waitress and remembered what Amy had said about her, how she was worried that her daughter might be dealing. The restaurant felt crowded, suddenly, this woman too close, the information too personal. She didn’t look like she was worried about anything, except perhaps how many tips she was going to make that night, if she was going to spill any of the plates she had to juggle.

  How did Amy do it? Live with all this insider knowledge? Look at people, and smile like she didn’t know anything?

  “Nah,” Amy said, giving the waitress an easy smile as she shook her head. “No celebrations. Just good friends who haven’t seen each other in a while.”

  The waitress grinned. “Then I’d say that’s a celebration, after all. Let me get you something stronger,” she said, nodding at their iced teas. “On the house.”

  Jane and Amy exchanged a look, then a shrug.

  “Why not?” Amy said. “We’re taking the ferry back, anyway.”

  The waitress laughed. “That’s the spirit, darlin’s. You only live once, right?”

  “More or less,” Jane said. She ignored the funny look the waitress gave her, her whole attention fixed on Amy. Clair’s smile, Clair’s blush. Amy, but not Amy. Clair, but not Clair.

  You only live once, true.

  Unless you live in comics.

  They missed the last ferry.

  It was obvious even as they were racing down the darkened streets: the ticket booth was shut down, the shutters drawn against the rain that had sprung up toward the end of dinner. A chain ran across the dock, but that didn’t stop Jane and Amy from running up and pounding on the window as if somehow a magical ferry elf might pop up and summon the boat for them.

  “Shit,” Amy said. She banged on the window frame again for good measure, her palm slapping against the rain-soaked wood.

  Jane shivered. Water was pouring down her back. Her clothes and hair were plastered against her. She could barely see through her glasses, though at this point what was the sense in taking them off? “I don’t suppose there’s an emergency number . . . ?”

  Amy snorted. “No. They’ll only operate off-schedule if the police show up, and even then they charge two hundred dollars.”

  “They charge the police?”

  “Welcome to Charlotte’s Landing,” Amy said. She hugged herself for warmth, turning back toward the town. “I suppose that we’ll just have to find someplace to stay. You can’t exactly fault this place for a lack of B&Bs.”

  “Do you have any more cash on you?”

  “Some,” Amy said. “And a credit card that’s almost maxed. You?”

  “I guess we’ll find out.”

  The closest was two blocks down, a three-story Victorian called the Horse and Tack. The proprietor, a middle-aged man with a port wine stain on his cheek, was none too happy about being roused just after midnight, and had little sympathy for their story about missing the last ferry.

  “You say you’re from around here?” he asked, as he nonetheless took the last scraps of their money. Before they could answer, he added, “Then you should know better than to stay out this late.”

  Jane shot him a nasty look, though Amy had the sense to look abashed. They were dripping on the man’s carpet, after all.

  “Don’t wake my other guests,” he said, his voice shooting daggers, as he handed over their key. “Top of the stairs; to the left.”

  It was the cheapest room in the house: an old attic-style bedroom with a slanted ceiling painted white, and a single brass bed. A bouquet of fresh daisies rested on a white end table. A stiff and overstuffed loveseat sat opposite the bed. The bathroom had a claw-foot tub with a rubber stopper, and crystal handles on the pedestal sink.

  They took turns showering—Amy first, then Jane. The pounding of the rain echoed the drumming of the water against the base of the tub as Jane washed the day from her skin. She ran the shower as hot as she could stand it, the better to fight off the chill from the storm. The metal chain that held Clair’s ring sparkled underneath the water and suds, brighter than brand new. Jane was flushed by the time she was done, pink contrasting sharply against the white fluff of the robe that she found on the back of the bathroom door.

  Amy was sitting up in the bed when Jane emerged. Cross-legged, her own robe modestly arranged over her lap. She tossed Jane a smile as she looked up. Their clothes were already spread across the bars of the old-fashioned radiator, their shoes lined up neatly beside it.

  Amy held her phone toward Jane, screen out. “What do you think?”

  Without Jane’s glasses, the screen was a little blurry at this distance, bu
t Jane could still tell that it was paused on the opening shot of their go-to movie choice during all the giggly slumber parties they’d had together as teenagers.

  “I was going to pop out and buy some ice cream and pizza rolls,” Amy continued, “but aside from the fact that my clothes are out of commission, I’m still way too full from dinner.”

  Jane bit down on a giggle. She came around and flopped on her side of the bed. Amy had spread a fresh towel across the two pillows, to protect them from their wet hair.

  “How many times do you think we watched that?” Jane asked, as Amy slid down until she was lying side by side with Jane. They tipped their heads together, the better to see the screen.

  Amy made a hmming sound. “Nineteen thousand and five. Give or take.”

  Jane swatted Amy’s leg. “Seriously.”

  “I am serious,” Amy said, though the laugh in her voice betrayed her. She shrugged. “I don’t know. A lot.”

  “We still watched it sometimes, you know,” Jane said. “Me and Clair. Not often, but . . . whenever we felt nostalgic.”

  In fact, they’d watched it shortly before Clair’s accident. A weekend earlier, maybe two. It had been ages since they’d seen it. They’d curled up on the couch, Jane on her side and Clair squeezed like a spoon behind her. A pillow propped Clair’s head up just enough to see over the top of Jane.

  Amy lowered the phone. “You two must have loved each other very much.”

  “We did,” Jane said simply. “So much. You have no idea.”

  “When did . . . ?” Amy started, but then she trailed off. She shut her lips tight.

  “What?”

  Amy shook her head. “Never mind.” She held the phone back up, her finger poised over the big Play button in the middle. “Ready?”