Plain Jane

by Fern Michaels

  Mike slowly shook his head. “No. I am not—I repeat—I am not kissing the dog.”

  Jane shrugged. “Okay, fine, but if you don’t, she won’t let you get up. You can try if you want.” Her pigtail swinging, Jane turned to leave the kitchen. “While you’re deciding, I’ll just mosey up to the attic and start throwing things out.” For emphasis, she shook the trash bag she’d gotten out of the hall closet.

  Mike rolled his eyes. “Okay, okay, I’ll do it. Pucker up, Olive.” He bypassed her wet nose and kissed her forehead instead.

  “I taught her that,” Jane said with pride, as Olive bounded out of the kitchen.

  Mike’s face was an unflattering shade of red. “You better not plan on telling any of our colleagues what I just did, Jane Lewis.”

  “It’s on the top of my agenda to tell everyone at the psychiatry convention in New York later this year,” Jane giggled. “Love is a many-splendored thing, you know. Animals, especially dogs and cats, love unconditionally. It didn’t hurt you to do that, and it made Olive feel good. Let’s just forget it, okay?” Jane turned and started for the stairs.

  “On one condition,” Mike said behind her.

  Reaching the top step, Jane turned to confront Mike. “I don’t think you’re in much of a position to lay down conditions, but what is it?”

  His gaze was riveted on her face. “That you tell me the truth. Did you or did you not have a crush on me back in high school?”

  Jane laughed out loud. “I think I might have been smitten for a day or two. Then again, it was a long time ago, and it could have been Hughey Monroe.”

  “For a day or two?” His voice rose. “What the hell kind of impression did I make?”

  “Actually, you were rather disgusting back then as I recall,” she said, enjoying the gentle sparring as much as he did. “That’s why it only lasted a day or two.”

  “Disgusting how?”

  “Stuck-up. Full of yourself. I suppose you had good reason. Every single girl in my class would have prostituted herself for a smile from you.”

  “Except you, right?”

  “Except me,” Jane lied. She opened the attic door. “Here we are. Are you sure you want to go through all this old junk?”

  “Sure I’m sure.”

  She flicked on the light and led the way up a steep, narrow flight of stairs. “I haven’t been up here since just after I moved in.” The steps creaked under her weight. “I hope there aren’t any mice up here. I don’t like mice.”

  The attic smelled of dust and decay. There were stacks of old books everywhere. A tattered dress form stood off in one corner, looking lost and forlorn. Wooden crates and humpbacked trunks lined the wall beneath the one window—a round, stained-glass window. She looked at the garbage bag in her hand and laughed. One bag wouldn’t even make a dent.

  Mike reached the top seconds after her. “Wow! This is great. I can’t believe you haven’t been up here looking through all this stuff.”

  Jane sighed. “I told you I’ve been busy.” She walked toward the window. “Since I don’t know exactly what it is you’re looking for, I don’t know where you want to start.”

  “I don’t know myself,” he said, gravitating toward the trunks. “An old Bible, maybe. In the old days, they used to list the births and deaths in the front of the Bible. You did say the family died off, didn’t you?”

  “So I’ve been told.”

  Jane busied herself going through a trunk of old clothes. They’d been carefully wrapped in an old quilt to keep the dust off them. She found a two-piece dress of a heavy, black material, the bodice decorated with jet beads. She recognized the style as Victorian, around 1885, if she wasn’t mistaken. And in mint condition. Not something she should be throwing away. Maybe at some point in time she could donate them to a museum or historical group.

  Three hours later, Mike whooped with pleasure. “I found one. Wouldn’t you know it would be at the very bottom of the last trunk?”

  Jane smiled at his excitement. When was the last time she had whooped with laughter? Probably not since she was a kid, if then. Maybe she should do a little whooping of her own just to show him she wasn’t an old fuddy-duddy.

  Mike took the Bible to the window. “I think this might be it, but the ink is so faded I can barely make it out. Did you say the boy who fell into the well was fifteen or so?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “It looks like a capital B for the first name and a capital J for the last name. I guess the writer dipped the quill in the ink for each name, and it came out thick for the first letter.”

  Jane put the dress back into the trunk, covered it up, then walked over to the window. “Could it be Billy Jensen?” The hairs on her arms stood upright.

  “Yeah, yeah, I think that’s it,” Mike said, peering down at the page. “No, I’m sure that’s it. How’d you know?” he asked, looking up at her.

  “I’ve had a couple of dreams . . . At least I thought they were dreams,” she said, rubbing her hand across her cheek. “A boy—A boy about fifteen was in both of them. He told me his name was Billy Jensen and that he was a ghost.” She waved her hand in dismissal. “That’s silly. I think you might have planted the whole ghost idea in my head the other day when you were here.”

  Mike’s left eyebrow rose a fraction. “Maybe. You said there was a dog, too.”

  Jane stared blankly across the room. “Jeeter,” she blurted. “The dog’s name was Jeeter. He was a mutt.” She glanced at Mike and saw that he had been studying her.

  “I’m through here,” Mike said a moment later. “Let’s take the Bible downstairs. Do you have a magnifying glass?”

  Jane nodded.

  “I know you don’t want to believe it, but I think we tapped into something. I could just kiss you for allowing me to come up here. This is like Christmas morning when I was a kid. Maybe better.”

  Jane ignored him and started for the steps.

  “Not so fast, Dr. Lewis!” Mike grabbed her, turned her around, and gathered her in his arms.

  With cobwebs tickling her face, he kissed her like she’d never been kissed in her life. Long-dormant feelings sprang to life, electrifying her. She felt her knees weaken as his tongue explored her mouth.

  “Whoa,” Mike said, breaking away to stare into her eyes. “I had no idea.”

  “No idea of what?” she asked, pulling a deep breath.

  “That you would—That you—” He crushed her to him and pressed his mouth to hers.

  It was Jane who pulled back the second time, not because she wanted to but because she heard scratching in the corner. “I think we better go downstairs,” she said, peeking around Mike’s shoulder.

  “Not until you answer a question for me. Did you hear bells and whistles?”

  “No. But I did hear that.” She raised her hand and pointed off to the right, where a little gray mouse was scratching near one of the trunks.

  He turned his head to look, then turned back. “No bells and no whistles, huh?”

  “Maybe next time.” Jane giggled as she made her way down the stairs. “You can wash up in the guest bathroom off the foyer. I’ll meet you downstairs. Would you like some sweet tea?”

  “I’d love some.”

  “Good.” Jane smiled as she hurried off to her bedroom to collect herself and freshen up. It would take more than splashing cold water on her face to put out the fire Mike had just ignited. She touched her finger to her lips and clung to the memory of his kiss. In all her life, she’d never dreamed a kiss—a simple kiss—could stir such passion. She could hardly wait to tell Trixie about it. Once she got the sound of the bells and whistles out of her ears, that is.

  Jane finished fixing the sweet tea just as Mike walked into the kitchen. The moment she saw his face, she knew things had changed between them. The I-don’t-care, easy camaraderie was gone now. Mike was looking at her like he’d never seen her before. A slow rush of heat circled around her belly and worked its way upward. She knew her face was rosy pi
nk. God, had she ever blushed in her life? Not that she could remember.

  “Front porch or back porch? I have some lawn chairs in the garage if you want to get them. They’re right next to the door.”

  “The steps are fine. We can lean against the posts. We can drink our tea and talk about your patient now if you like. Or . . . We could talk about what happened upstairs. I’d like to know more about you. Your adolescence. Your college years. You know, the usual stuff.”

  “I thought you wanted to have a closer look at the Bible.” She pulled a magnifying glass out of the kitchen drawer.

  “I’m in no hurry. It’s only ten o’clock. We’ve got all day, don’t we?”

  All day. Oh, God, she thought. Will there be more stolen kisses? Will we end up in bed together? “If I tell you all that stuff, then you’ll start analyzing me. I know how that goes.”

  “I wouldn’t think of it.” He sipped his tea. “I like sweet tea. Westerners don’t know how to make it. In fact, I don’t even think they know what it is. They just drink iced tea and put their own sweetener in. This is just right. My mother makes sweet tea like this. Do you hear how I’m babbling? That’s because of that kiss. And if you don’t stop looking at me like that, I’m going to kiss you again and nothing, not even a herd of scratching mice, will make me let you go.”

  “There’s no such thing as a herd of mice,” she said, putting the magnifying glass into his pocket. “C’mon, let’s go outside where it’s cooler.”

  Once they were comfortably seated on the top step, Jane started to talk. “My childhood wasn’t that great. The truth is, it pretty much sucked. My mother wanted a pretty little girl she could dress in ribbons and frills and show off to her friends. Instead she got me and hid me as much as she could. I was a very great disappointment to her. I remember trying to please her until I was around ten or so, then I just gave up. I don’t think she even noticed. She was a beauty pageant queen—Miss Louisiana. She was also Miss Rice Queen Festival, Miss Frog Queen Festival, Miss Camellia Queen Festival, and Miss Crawfish Queen Festival. Hell, she was the queen of every festival we have around here, and you know how we love our festivals. She never let anyone forget it either.

  “Now my dad, he was wonderful. He did the best he could, but a girl needs a mother. I was fat, homely, mouthy, and wore thick glasses. My dad loved me in spite of it all. So did my godparents, who were my father’s best friends. They stepped in. But, you always want what you can’t have. And I wanted my mother. She had this incredible ability to make me feel guilty with just a look. Like it was my fault I was so plain, so this or so that. Guilt is a terrible thing, Mike. Believe me, I know from experience. Lots of experience.”

  “Yes it is,” Mike said, taking her hand. “But look at what you’ve become. I bet if your mother were here now, she’d be so proud of you she’d be chomping at the bit to show you off.”

  Jane shook her head. “No. The only thing that mattered to her was physical beauty. After her funeral, I had to clear out her things. She had boxes and boxes of makeup and perfume. She had stuff I didn’t even know was on the market. I got this old barrel out of the shed, poured in some kerosene, and burned it all up. Then I did the same thing with all her designer clothes and fancy handbags and expensive shoes. I thought if I did all that, I wouldn’t feel that awful, gut-wrenching guilt anymore. It didn’t work. If anything, I made it worse.

  “I remember my mother asking my father once how it was possible for a beauty queen to have an ugly duckling for a daughter, and he said his side of the family was full of ugly ducklings, himself included. She never forgave him for that. When I was nine or so, I overheard Daddy tell my mother that he wanted another child. She said no because she didn’t want to take the chance of another child turning out like me. I don’t think my parents ever had sex again after that, which explains why my dad had so many affairs.”

  Mike squeezed her hand. “Sounds like a rough childhood. Is that why you decided to become a psychiatrist?”

  A warning bell sounded in Jane’s head. If she wasn’t careful, she would end up telling him the real reason she had become a psychiatrist. She wasn’t sure she was ready to do that. They hardly knew each other. But on the other hand, maybe it would help to tell him. The only other people who knew were Trixie and Fred, and while they’d always been sympathetic, they didn’t really understand the guilt that continued to plague her. But Mike would.

  “My mother might have been one reason, a small one. How about you?” she asked, mentally running away.

  “I didn’t wake up one morning and say, hey, I want to be a shrink. It just more or less evolved. I think I was meant to do what I do. The mind is just so tricky. I found myself fascinated with why people do what they do and what leads them to make the decisions they make. Like my battery guy. I know he’s obsessed, but I don’t know why he’s obsessed. I’ll figure it out one of these days, and hopefully I’ll be able to help him get over it. It’s there, I’m just not picking up on it. What would be your guess?”

  Jane thought a moment. “Obsessions come from so many things. Maybe his parents gave him a battery-operated toy and forgot to give him the batteries. Or maybe the toy made too much noise, and his parents threw away the batteries. I don’t know. Did you try hypnosis?”

  “Not yet, but I’ve been thinking about it.”

  “It’ll probably come out under hypnosis.”

  “Yeah, probably.”

  “Can I throw out a hypothetical at you, Mike?”

  “Shoot,” he said with a shrug.

  “If you were married or engaged to be married and your wife or fiancée was raped, would you be able to handle it or would you turn away from her?”

  He sucked in his lower lip and stared out at the street. “I don’t honestly know, Jane. I’d like to think I would be there for her and that I could work through it, but since it’s never happened to me, I can’t give you a cut-and-dried answer.”

  Jane steepled her hands and touched her chin. “Okay, let’s try a different approach. If the woman you loved was raped, would you feel like she was sullied, dirty?”

  “I don’t think so. Maybe because of my training. I don’t know. I know a lot of relationships end because the man can’t deal with it for one reason or another. I remember this one asshole who thought his wife actually encouraged the rape. Mind you, she had been stabbed, too. Like she would really encourage that.”

  “Since you’ve dealt with it, what’s the mind-set, Mike? Try to pin it down for me, will you?” She didn’t realize she was digging her nails into his arm until he put his other hand on top of hers.

  “Hey, take it easy, Jane, and tell me the truth. Are you talking about your patient or about you?”

  “All of the above and before you can ask, no, I was never raped, but a friend of mine was.”

  “A close friend?” When she shook her head, he went on to the next question. “Married or soon to be married?”

  “Soon to be married. She was afraid to tell her fiancé because she was sure he would break off the engagement. I tried to convince her that he wouldn’t do that, but now I know I was probably wrong. I don’t think most men can deal with rape.”

  “When and where did it happen?”

  “On the campus of LSU, the night before the last finals. There were five guys. Three of them raped her.”

  “You were there?”

  She nodded. The memories of that night had never faded. Each and every detail was crystal-clear—except for their faces. “Yes, I was there. I tried to help her, but they held me down and kept me quiet. They didn’t rape me if that was your next question. I was too fat and ugly. Miss Piggy, one of them called me.” She paused to get a second wind. It had been a long time since she’d told her story, and yet it hurt her as much now as it had way back then. “I was finally able to get out a scream, and it scared them all away.”

  “Was your friend badly injured?”

  Jane heaved a huge sigh. “No, not that she would admit anyway. I
tried to get her to go for help, to the police, the hospital or the crisis center, but she wouldn’t do it. She insisted I take her back to the dorm. Once we got there, she said she felt dirty and wanted to take a shower. I saw her ugly bruises. She was battered from head to toe. I could only imagine what she’d been through.”

  “I’m sure you did all you could. There’s only so much you can do. In the end a person has to make up her own mind. You know that.”

  “I don’t know that, Mike,” she said, casting her eyes downward. “She was in no mental condition to make rational decisions. I was, so I should have been more persistent and got her the help she needed. Instead, I let her swear me to silence, and I’ve regretted it every day of my life since. She killed herself two days before graduation.”

  “Christ.” Mike closed his eyes and raked his fingers through his hair. “I’m sorry, Jane.”

  “I’ve always wondered if she took my advice and told her fiancé after all. He sure as hell didn’t mourn long. He got married a year later, a real trophy wife. They have three kids—the kids Connie had dreamed about having. After I found out what she’d done, I considered telling her parents what happened. I thought they had a right to know. I never did, just like I never took her bag of discarded clothing to the authorities like I swore I would. I thought it would help find the rapists, that the semen would still be on the clothes. A day doesn’t go by that I don’t think about what I didn’t do. Then this jackass patient of mine comes along and starts complaining about his wife being raped. It all came back front and center. The guilt is wearing me down.”

  “That’s a hell of a load of guilt to be packing around all this time. You didn’t do anything wrong, Jane. Can’t you see that?”

  “No, Mike, I should have tried harder. She was such a beautiful girl, so warm and friendly. My mother would have loved having her for a daughter. Connie said her mother was writing out the wedding invitations that very night.”