See Jane Snap

by Crandell, Bethany

  My heart twists at her obvious pain, but more so at the unease that’s swelling in my chest. Not being able to provide for Avery is my greatest fear, and unlike Iris, I’m not so sure I’d be brave enough to take matters into my own hands to get it done.

  I take a long drink of coffee, then ask hopefully, “Have you found another job?”

  “Just temp work. All the hospitals and clinics around here are tight on money these days. Nobody’s hiring nurses.”

  I blow out a frustrated breath. Chicago hospitals aren’t the only ones short on money.

  “Well, I think you did the right thing,” Burty says over a firm nod. “It’s not like you were stealin’ just to be bad. You were doin’ it to help yer son. And a good mom will do anything for her kid.”

  It’s obvious that Burty’s comparing Iris’s situation to that of her and Rosebud, and despite the sincerity of her words, I can’t help but laugh a little. She sure does love that ugly dog.

  “What about you, Jane?” Burty suddenly shifts her attention to me. “What were you charged with?”

  Her question slams into me as gently as a brick to the face. My eyes snap wide and I reel back, totally unprepared for how to answer her, which is completely ridiculous. We’ve just spent the last ten minutes talking about everyone’s charges—a topic I stupidly brought up—so it only makes sense the tables would turn back on me.

  My breath suddenly catches, though it’s got nothing to do with the fear rising inside me. It’s because over Burty’s shoulder, I see that Chavez has just walked into the diner. And today he’s not wearing his usual jeans and thermal combo; he’s donned a charcoal suit that hugs every inch of his muscly frame so well Calvin Klein must have sewn him into it with his own hands.

  A flutter of frustrating excitement starts rippling through my lungs.

  Good grief, he is pretty—

  “Oh Lordy, should I not have asked you that?” Burty suddenly reaches across the table and grabs my hand, stealing my attention.

  I blink hard. “What?”

  “That question. It was too personal, right?”

  She clearly misread my reaction—at least the gasping part—and despite her concern, my gaze darts right back to Chavez. He’s standing at the register near the front door, like he’s waiting for someone.

  He casts a lazy glance my way, his gaze sweeping over me, only to dart right back as he recognizes me. A true double take. My heart stammers as his dark eyes lock in on mine and his ever-present smirk slides into a warm smile.

  A senseless giggle rises in my chest.

  “I don’t think your question is the problem, Burty,” Iris chides, her neck craned over her shoulder, following my gaze.

  “Huh? What do you mean?” With all the subtlety of a semi, Burty whips her head around to see what—or, rather, who—we’re looking at.

  “Son of a biscuit!” she gasps, then quickly turns back toward the table. “That’s that detective guy—”

  “Mmm. Yes, it is,” Iris growls.

  “He works with Bates,” she goes on. “He must be here checkin’ up on me about that note. I told y’all it was a bad idea.” She braves another peek over her shoulder, then just as quickly turns back around. “Look at the way he’s starin’ at me. He’s laughin’. He thinks this is funny. I told y’all I was gonna get caught!”

  I redirect my gaze from Chavez to Burty, eager to address her misdirected panic, but Iris beats me to it, saying, “Relax, girl. He’s just picking up some food.”

  In unison, both Burty and I turn back to Chavez. Iris is right. There’s a waitress at the register now who’s going over the contents of several Styrofoam to-go boxes with him.

  “Well, then why was he starin’ at me like that?” Burty asks.

  Iris swats her arm. “He wasn’t staring at you, you goof—he was staring at Jane.”

  “Jane?” She faces me again, blonde brows furrowing. “Why would he be starin’ at Jane?”

  Iris turns back to the table, a playful smirk on her face. “’Cause he’s sweet on her.”

  My jaw drops.

  Iris!

  “He likes you?” Burty asks me.

  Once again, she’s just landed me with a question I have no idea how to answer. I shift against the seat. Since when is this booth made of razor blades?

  “Does he?” she presses.

  My gaze instinctively darts back to Chavez, as if he can somehow provide an answer that will satisfy Burty’s curiosity, but he doesn’t need to, even if he could. The heat that’s erupting across my cheeks answers the question loud and clear.

  “He does,” she snips. “And you like him too.”

  There’s a tangible disappointment dragging down Burty’s statement that reclaims my attention. My heart twists when I see the disapproval filling her eyes. It’s the same look she had when we rescued her on Monday: that gut-wrenching combination of anger, sadness, and betrayal.

  She thinks I’m a cheater.

  Just like Wade.

  Just like Dan.

  I shake my head while raising my hands in retreat. “No, it’s not like that. It’s not what you think—”

  “Then what is it?” She crosses her arms over her chest.

  I swallow hard beneath her accusing glare, then cast a desperate glance toward Iris. She offers me a little smile in return but understandably can’t supply any backup, because as far as she knows, I could be just like Wade, or Dan, because neither woman knows the truth . . .

  Shit.

  Neither of them has any reason to believe I’m not like Dan.

  Dread settles on my lungs like a wet blanket, forcing me to close my eyes and inhale a shuddery breath.

  I don’t want to do this.

  I don’t want to tell them—

  Or . . . maybe I do?

  Am I really going to do this?

  “You okay, Jane?” Iris asks.

  “Yeah, I just, um . . .” I inhale several deep, shuddery breaths, willing Dr. Deedee’s soothing voice to once again penetrate my quickly building fear.

  I am strong. I am capable. I can do anything I set my mind to . . .

  I slowly reopen my eyes, grateful to see Chavez walking out of the diner with his to-go orders in hand.

  “Jane?” Iris prompts.

  I keep my gaze fixed on the door for a long beat—tears pricking my eyes, heart threatening to beat out of my chest—before I finally return my attention to them.

  Burty gasps. “Oh Lordy, you’re cryin’—”

  “No, it’s okay.” I knuckle back some of the moisture from my eyes. You can do this, Jane. You can do this. “I’m okay. I just, um . . .” I exhale a deep breath, then look directly at Burty and almost robotically say, “I’m not cheating on my husband. He’s the one cheating on me—”

  “No!” she gasps, and Iris moans, “Oh, no . . .”

  “—and it’s with another man.”

  “What?” Burty’s eyes practically pop out of their sockets, and despite the topic, I can’t help but smile a little. My ego needed a gut reaction like that.

  “My husband told me a couple of months ago that he was gay. He’s been cheating on me for our entire marriage. Almost eighteen years.”

  “Oh god. You’re kidding me,” Iris groans, for once looking rattled by her surroundings.

  I shake my head. Definitely not kidding.

  “Aww, Jane . . .” Still looking dumbfounded, Burty reaches across the table and lays her hand on top of mine.

  “Does your daughter know?” Iris asks.

  I cast her a weary glance as I nod my response.

  Burty makes a little whimpering sound.

  “It’s so hard when the kids are involved,” Iris says. “On one hand, you want to protect them from everything—try to keep things as normal as possible—but on the other, you know you’re not doing them any favors by letting them see you keep being taken advantage of. Kids don’t want to see their moms being abused; they want to see them being strong and confident. That’s how
we actually protect them. But that’s hard to do when you’re feeling worthless. It’s about the worst situation a woman can be in.”

  I nod again, gobsmacked by how accurately she just conveyed what I’ve been trying to wrap my brain around for the last two months.

  “You got that,” Burty adds in more of her misguided solidarity.

  “So, what happens now?” Iris asks. And even though she doesn’t say the word divorce, I know she’s thinking it.

  Or maybe that’s just me . . .

  I sigh. “I don’t know. For the time being, I’m not supposed to say anything to anybody. We have to act like everything’s perfectly normal between us.”

  “Come again?” Iris says.

  I drop my head a little. “There’s a lot more at stake than just my marriage.”

  I tell them all about Dan’s job, the situation at the hospital, and how the ultra-conservative Hoffstras are the ones holding the purse strings to my entire family’s future. Iris nods a lot—her own life experiences undoubtedly giving her insights as to where I’m coming from—while Burty just sort of stares at me, offering up the occasional “Lordy, Lordy” and other southern sentiments that suggest she’s on my side, even though she can’t necessarily relate. Neither offers a solution to my problems—not that there are any to be had—but both provide me more encouragement than I’ve felt in a very, very long time.

  And for the first time since that fateful trip to Denver, I feel like I can breathe.

  “Well, you sure seem like you’re handlin’ it good,” Burty says when I finally finish. “If I was in yer shoes, I’d be holed up in a ball somewhere.”

  Despite the tears still pooling in my eyes, I bark out a laugh. “Are you kidding? I had a breakdown over all of this—in the middle of a grocery store parking lot!”

  Her eyes snap wide. “You did?”

  “Oh yeah. I completely lost my mind and started attacking a woman with oranges. That’s why I got arrested.”

  “No way.” Iris snorts.

  “No, it’s true,” I say, sickeningly delighted by the surprised look on her face. “I chucked like a dozen oranges at that poor woman—”

  “Why? What’d she do?” Burty cuts me off, while Iris starts to laugh. A deep, rumbly sound from way down in the pit of her belly that brings a painfully big smile to my own lips.

  “She left her shopping cart in the middle of the parking lot—”

  “Ugh, I hate when people do that,” Burty grumbles.

  “Well, first she bought way more than fifteen items,” I say, correcting myself as my own amusement starts rising to the surface, memories of that night now spiraling through my mind. “But then . . . yeah, she left her cart right there next to her car, and I just sort of . . . snapped. I was screaming all kinds of horrible things at her and just throwing orange after orange at her car—”

  “Oh my god, Jane!” Burty slaps her hand over her mouth, her childlike giggle seeping out from between her fingers. And now I can’t help but laugh too. With a little perspective, and the right audience, it’s actually pretty funny.

  “So that explains the assault charge,” Iris manages over sputtery breaths. “But if memory serves, you were also charged with possession—”

  Burty gasps. “You do drugs too?”

  From the corner of my eye, I see the same cop who eyed us earlier glance our way again, but now I’m laughing too hard to care what he thinks.

  I shake my head and say, “No! Not intentionally. That night after I threw the oranges, I got back into my car and thought I was taking a Zoloft that I took from a friend, but it actually turned out to be ecstasy—”

  “Shut up!” Burty shrieks.

  “Yeah! I was stoned out of my mind,” I go on, raking an embarrassed hand through my hair. “That’s when I got arrested. The cops found me all doped up in the parking lot, licking windows and making up stupid songs . . .”

  Iris is hunched up in the corner of the booth, cackling, while Burty’s saying, “Lordy be, that’s so embarrassin’!”

  “Well, at the time I didn’t know what was going on,” I confess over a hearty snort, happy tears quickly replacing the scared ones of just moments ago. “But the next day was pretty bad. Especially when I realized that Chavez was the officer who arrested me.”

  “Oh girl.” Iris comes up for air, eyes wide in disbelief. “Are you kidding me? That’s how you guys met?”

  “No. Actually, we know each other from high school. It was just a random coincidence that he was there that night.”

  Amusement giving way to disbelief, Iris smacks the table, saying, “Are you serious?”

  “Yeah. Crazy, right?”

  “Well, it definitely explains all the Bambi eyes.” She smirks while batting her lashes dramatically. “What, did you two used to go out or something?”

  “No.” I drop my gaze a bit. “But he did tell me that he had a crush on me back in the day.”

  “Aww. That’s so sweet.” Burty presses a palm to her chest, prompting a swell of embarrassment to flood my cheeks.

  “No, no, no.” I shake my head. “Like I said, there’s nothing going on with us. We’ve just been hanging out a little. Turns out we’ve got some . . . mutual interests.” Like beating the shit out of cars. And eating pie. “We’re just friends.”

  Iris levels me with a skeptical look.

  “Well, that’s a waste,” Burty groans. “He’s hotter than a two-dollar pistol, and Lord knows you’ve earned some fun, considerin’ what your husband’s been up to.”

  “She’s right, you know,” Iris jumps in. “Good ole Dr. Osborne shouldn’t be the only one enjoying himself.”

  My blush deepens as an image of Chavez suddenly comes to mind. The same image I’ve regrettably called upon more than a few times in the last week. How sexy he looked underneath the parking lights at the impound lot. Despite the layers of clothes, they somehow still silhouetted his frame so perfectly. It was like I could see all his muscles—

  Another frustrating flutter erupts in my chest, startling me back to the present. I quickly right my thoughts with a shake of the head. “Okay, we’re done talking about me now. Somebody else’s turn.” I grab my fork, scoop up an obnoxiously big hunk of cobbler, and shove it in my mouth as if solidifying my statement. Jane is officially out of the hot seat.

  Iris rolls her eyes at my obvious deflection while Burty says, “Well, I guess that means it’s my turn.”

  “Oh, no, Burty—” Still chewing, I raise my fork to stop her. “I didn’t mean you had to share anything.”

  “No, it’s okay. Y’all shared your stories, so it’s only fair I go next.”

  “Well, do tell then.” Iris grins while helping herself to another bite of pie. “What did Burty Bedford do to get herself arrested for indecent exposure?”

  Burty places both her palms flat on the table like she’s bracing herself, then inhales a deep breath and starts. “All right, so, I’m not sure if y’all noticed it the other day, but Wade was wearin’ this little elephant over his boy parts—”

  I choke over the bite in my mouth.

  Iris clears her throat, no doubt suffering from the same shock as me.

  “Um, yeah.” She winces against the pie that clearly went down her throat too soon. “Now that you mention it, I guess we did notice that. Jane, do you remember the, um . . . elephant covering?”

  She launches an amused glance my way, and despite the laugh that’s actively turning in my stomach, I somehow maintain my composure. I swallow hard against the half-chewed bite in my mouth, then over a slow nod say, “Oh, right. Yeah. I vaguely remember an elephant.”

  “Okay, well, that’s called a willie warmer,” Burty goes on, oblivious to our rising hysteria. “We got a whole online business where we sell those. B&W’s Willies, that’s what it’s called. And we sell all kinds of ’em. Animals, superheroes, cars, fruit . . .” She’s using her fingers to count off her inventory while horrifying visuals start infecting my brain. I quickly roll my lips
over my teeth and clamp down to keep from laughing at what she obviously takes so seriously. “You name it, I can make it,” she goes on. “My granny taught me how to knit and crochet when I was real little. I can make anything—”

  “I bet you can,” Iris mumbles against her fist. It’s pressed firmly against her lips and acting as a levee to keep her own amusement secured, though based on the way her shoulders are shaking, I don’t think it’s going to hold up for long.

  My chest starts to shudder as my own laugh threatens to give way. I quickly drop my attention away from Iris and fix it on the golden flecks adorning the laminate tabletop.

  “So, anyway,” Burty goes on. “A couple a months ago, we was workin’ on this new product for our ladies’ line, and we needed to get some pictures of it for the website. So, we went out to this kinda forest area near our house where the lightin’ is real good and there are all these really pretty trees. It’s where we take all our pictures,” she adds, as if that makes any difference. “Anyway, there’s usually nobody out there, except this day there was a bunch of little kids there on a field trip, only we didn’t see them until we was already in the middle of the shoot . . .”

  Her voice trails off a bit, prompting me to raise my head to check on her. My heart swells when I see that her cheeks are the same color red as the cherries in her pie. But my sympathy does little to ease the laugh that’s aching to explode out of me in anticipation of whatever it is she’s about to say.

  “What, um . . .” Iris’s laughter sputters behind her words. “What new product were you taking pictures of?”

  Burty drops her head sheepishly, the slightest grin tugging on her lip. “They’re called . . . kitty titties—”

  Iris blows out the world’s loudest snort, while I collapse against the table, howling, before she can even begin to explain what a kitty titty is.

  Not that she has to.

  Or should.

  No explanation will ever be necessary.

  CHAPTER 18

  Twenty-four hours ago, my cheeks ached from laughing harder than I have in years, but now they just hurt from all the smiles I’m having to force out.