The Book of Jane

by Anne Dayton

  “What? No. I thought they were getting married this June. As in June-June.”

  My mother smiles at me, suppressing a laugh. “Oh no. You are mistaken. They aren’t getting married until next June.”

  “But it’s only November. That’s a year and a half away.”

  “I know,” Mom says. She scribbles, “Don’t invite guests prone to hat wearing.”

  “But what about the dress shopping?”

  “Mmm-hmm.”

  “And the undercover research?”

  “Eighteen months.”

  “She has the invitations ordered already.”

  “Next June.”

  “And the wedding planner who acts so frantic all the time?”

  “Jane, it’s next June.”

  I can’t help it. I dissolve into quiet giggles. This is too much. “This family is insane.”

  Mom looks at me and, for a moment, a weird look crosses her face. Oh no. I shouldn’t have said that. We were finally starting to get along better. But she winks at me and says, “Mixing our blood with the Lovells certainly isn’t going to help matters. Those people are mad as hatters.”

  I sit at the café table, nervously tapping my fingernails on the wood. He’s late. He’s probably doing it to torture me. I bet he’s not even coming. I bite my lip, trying to calm myself down. He’ll be here. He’s the one who asked me to come. And it’s not like I have anywhere to be.

  I distract myself by thinking about my conversation with the building management company today. After endless letters and phone calls, it turns out all I had to do was mention that my dad is a real estate lawyer to get them to approve my request for full reimbursement for my expenses from the flood. When the check comes, I’ll pay down my credit card, and maybe replace my television and—

  “Jane?”

  I look up. Coates stands in front of me stiffly, wearing his coat and tie from work.

  “Hi,” I say and smile. I can’t read his face. He’s so stiff and nervous. Has he come to yell at me? Make up with me? “Want to sit down?” I ask, pointing to the chair across from me. He sits, and looks at me seriously. I frown. Whatever he is here to say, it doesn’t look good.

  “I thought we should talk,” he says. “Thank you for coming.”

  I nod, waiting for him to go on, bracing myself for the barrage. He reaches down and opens his briefcase.

  “I wanted you to see these,” he says, pushing a stack of printouts across the table to me.

  I look at the stack and then at his face. Is he suing me? Is this a long, angry letter? I should have known better than to trust someone who doesn’t like blue cheese. That’s always a bad sign. His face is blank and he looks exhausted. I reach for them and look uncertainly, flipping through the stack.

  “Apartment listings?”

  He nods and breaks into a big smile. I could be wrong but it almost looks like he’s ready for me to swoon and fall at his feet for such a romantic gesture.

  “Um?” I say, laughing. “Thanks. But why? I’m not moving.” This is not exactly the direction I thought this conversation would go. At least he doesn’t still seem mad at me.

  He looks confused.

  “I thought you were pretty sure you were going to get the job at the YMCA.” He softens a little.

  “Yeah,” I say quietly. I cough. We haven’t talked since the scene in his office, so I haven’t told him the news. “I got it. They called Tuesday.”

  “I knew you would,” he says, all business.

  I wait. And…

  “Oh. And congratulations.”

  “Thank you,” I say, still baffled.

  “And I thought you mentioned it was a significant pay cut,” he says. I nod. “I don’t want to assume, but as you know, math is one of my strong suits, and I must say, I don’t think you can afford your place anymore.”

  I sit up straighter. “Yes, I can.” I cross my arms across my chest. “You don’t know what my finances are like. It’s going to be fine. A little tight, but fine.”

  He raises his eyebrows to me. “Sorry. Maybe I shouldn’t have assumed. I’m sure you have it under control.” He looks down, and we are both quiet for a minute. My head is reeling.

  “A little cutting back, of course,” I say. I pick at the wooden table with my fingernail. Is he right? I hadn’t stopped to think about that. Technically I can still pay my mortgage. But what if something happens? I won’t have any buffer. And there’s my credit card debt.

  “Of course,” he says, nodding. “Sure.”

  I look up at him. “I love that apartment.”

  He looks at me, and I think I detect a hint of tenderness in his eyes.

  “I know,” he says, exhaling. “But it’s just an apartment. It’s not what makes you happy.”

  I roll my eyes. “Easy for you to say.”

  “Money is not what makes me happy, Jane.”

  “Sure.” My spirits deflate. My apartment. My home.

  “All the money in the world couldn’t make me fall asleep last night,” he says, taking my hand in his.

  “No, but it can buy you a lifetime supply of Ambien.” I start to pull my hand away, but he tightens his grip.

  “Jane?” He looks at me. “I’m being serious. I can’t sleep. I miss you, and I wanted to see you, no matter how many times I tried to convince myself otherwise.” I watch him. “And I realize that perhaps I overreacted. I was upset, Jane.” I nod. “I’m sorry. And today, I thought I’d make it up to you.”

  This is how he wants to get back in my good graces? Talk about practical gestures. “With apartment listings?” My head is spinning.

  “I pictured it differently somehow,” he says, frowning. He looks like he’s beating himself up. “It made you feel worse though, huh?”

  I shake my head. What is it with this man?

  “Okay,” he says, standing. “We’re going to try this again. I messed it all up. Meet me here tomorrow morning. Nine a.m. sharp.” He scribbles an unfamiliar address in Brooklyn down and hands it to me.

  Chapter 25

  As the propeller whirs above our heads, I grab Coates’s right hand, clutching it with all my strength. Through my headphones I hear him say, “Ouch, ouch. Stop it, Jane. I need that hand to fly this thing.” I laugh and transfer my hand to my knee, gripping it so tightly that it seems plausible my whole leg might snap off. But in my defense, I’ve never been in a helicopter before, and as much as I like Coates, I’m not confident that he knows how to fly one.

  We lift off above Brooklyn from the helipad, and my heart and stomach do a little wobbly dance. I swallow down the queasy feeling in the back of my throat and slowly, as we sway back and forth a bit in the air, I open one eye to peek out the window. Below me is all of New York, and I can’t help but gasp aloud, open both of my eyes, and press my face to the window. Coates hears me gasp through his headset and smiles at me.

  “It’s really gorgeous, isn’t it?”

  We both sound like we’re using walkie-talkies in this thing and it’s tough to hear him over the sound of the propeller, so I just nod back at him and look out the window again, ignoring the fact that he’s doing the flying. I’ve never even seen him drive a car before, so watching him fly a helicopter is a little more than my logical left brain can take.

  He swoops the helicopter across the East River and heads toward downtown Manhattan. I see my Lady Liberty in the distance, and I give her a small wave. I miss having her as my client. I hope my replacement, Natalie, is taking care of her.

  As we near downtown Manhattan, I can’t help but grin. No view is more beautiful to me than downtown Manhattan. Keep your leafy forest or painted desert, you can have your sugarlike sand beaches or rugged coastline; for me the delicate, glistening skyscrapers of New York, patched together like an elaborate puzzle, teeming with busy, happy life, are the ultimate scenic view.

  Coates continues flying north, straight up the center of the island. He points at a silver Art Deco building, gleaming in the sun. “The Chr
ysler Building.” I look down at it and am surprised how close we are.

  “How safe is this?” I ask.

  He looks at me, smiles, and shrugs. I roll my eyes.

  “Does this thing have a parachute?”

  “Relax, Jane,” he says. He leans over, pats my knee. I push him back.

  “Focus, will you,” I say, hoping that I sound like I’m joking, even though I’m not.

  Soon we are hovering above Central Park. I see Sheep Meadow, where I love to lie on the grass and nap on a quiet spring day. We spy two cops on horseback meandering on the Bridle Path. And we can see all the people twirling and holding hands at Wollman Rink. I love Central Park this time of year. No tourists, no leaves, just naked trees and hushed silence on the walkways. And, when God smiles upon us, beautiful, peaceful snow.

  By the time we fly past Central Park, I have relaxed and become accustomed to the feeling of hanging in the air. We soar over bridges and miles and miles of residential neighborhoods, choked with tall gray buildings, and I marvel at the sheer number of people who call this glorious city home.

  As the city gives way to parklike Westchester County, with its cute wooden houses and tree-lined streets, I wonder what I have been doing with my life. How can this be my first helicopter ride? Hey, wait—I’ve never taken a hot-air balloon ride either. I try to come up with risky things I have done. I’m selling myself short, right? I’m sure I’ve done plenty of risky things over the years like, let’s see: I went to Columbia after high school, but not because I was scared to leave New York—no, because it’s a great school, and because I wanted to stay near my family. I interned at Glassman Co. the summer of my junior year and they offered me a job when I graduated, but I would have been crazy to pass up that kind of opportunity. I bought an apartment. There; that was risky. The real estate market is never stable. I’m changing careers—that was risky too. But a little voice in my head reminds me, I was forced to change careers and the apartment pretty much fell in my lap one day when my parents’ friend put it on the market. I cross my arms across my chest and then turn my focus back outside again.

  “Where are we?” I ask.

  “We’re almost to Fritz Farms,” he says, looking out his window.

  “What?”

  “Outside of Fritz Farms really. It’s in Saratoga County. I need your help with something.”

  “What is Fritz Farms?”

  He looks at me and smiles. His dark hair gleams in the winter sunshine. “A Christmas tree farm.”

  We touch down in a big, grassy field that Coates swears to me is the local helipad and airport and then hop into the back of a hay-lined trailer hitched to a big red truck that drives us to Fritz Farms. Each day during this time of year, they stop by the airport and the bus station to pick up visitors. The trailer already has a few other New Yorkers like us huddling together for warmth and taking deep gulps of the country air. I can’t stop smiling.

  Once we arrive at the farm, we walk through long rows of Christmas trees to pick out our very own. Coates insists that we cut it ourselves. At first I am very nonchalant about the errand. It isn’t my tree, really. But, after a while, I get over the initial shock of seeing so many trees in one space and scour the aisles for the perfect one. It turns out I’m a Fraser fir kind of gal, and, well, I like ’em tall, just like my men. After an hour of wandering around the farm and getting down on my hands and knees to peek up each potential tree’s skirt to look for thickness, and pinching all of their needles, I find the perfect tree for him. It has big, thick, soft needles and climbs eight feet in the air. Thank goodness Coates’s apartment has twelve-foot ceilings.

  He bends down to begin to saw the trunk in two, but I stop him. I want to give it a try. I saw and saw for ten minutes straight, but don’t make much progress. Plus my hands are now sticky with sap, so I relent and let him take over. After we cut it down, we drag it up to the staff so that they can ship it overnight to his place in New York. Then they invite us to go and take part in the festivities.

  I take a sip of my spiced apple cider and slide in a little closer to Coates at the picnic table. It’s cold out today, but the sun is shining and we are both bundled up, watching women select the perfect handmade candles and holiday wreaths at the outdoor stand. Children are running around in unfettered delight and a group of carolers in period costumes serenade the customers waiting in line for a real old-fashioned sleigh ride. It’s a perfect winter day.

  “Want any more of this donut? I’m going to finish it all if you don’t hurry.”

  I slide the paper plate with the still-hot apple-cider donut closer to me and cut another piece off. This is not the kind of day when you worry about your diet. I have had apple-cider donuts at the Union Square farmer’s market on occasion, but this one beats them all. It is fresh, hot, and positively coated in cinnamon sugar.

  I slide the plate back to him and bury my face in his big winter coat.

  He looks down at me, and I smile. “I’m so happy,” I say. “I just can’t get over how good life is.”

  Coates takes a sip of his steaming cider. “And here I thought you might not be talking to me by the time we got here.”

  “Why?” I say.

  “I wasn’t sure how you were going to take the helicopter surprise,” he says. “But the new Jane is surprising even herself.”

  I smile at him, proud of myself. “It was fun,” I say. “If a bit nerve-racking at first. How on earth did you figure out how to rent a helicopter?”

  “Rent?” he says, looking at me sideways.

  I put down my cup of cider in shock. Wait. What?

  “Jane, that’s the Glassman family helicopter. I’ve been flying it since I can remember.”

  I stare at him in shock, feeling my face redden in embarrassment. We’re from such different worlds. My parents will be paying the mortgage on their house until they die, and his family owns a helicopter. “Oh,” I say. “Sure, of course.”

  He slides over a little on the picnic bench to be able to look me in the eye. “I’m sorry. I thought you knew that. It’s no big deal,” he says.

  I nod, trying to recover from my shock and act normal. What happens when he meets my family and sees the carpet in the hallway that should have been replaced years ago, or Dad’s collection of tacky coffee mugs from around the country, or Mom’s handmade scrapbooks? And what will I do when I meet his parents? Will it be on their yacht? Will I accidentally use his father’s bread plate? I put these thoughts out of my mind. He loves me. I love him. It doesn’t matter about the money. It’s just going to take some adjusting after having dated a starving artist for so long.

  “It’s not a big deal, right?” he asks. He nudges me a few times in the leg with his leg.

  “Are you kidding me?” I laugh. “No way. I just wish I had known earlier about the helicopter. Imagine the shopping possibilities,” I say.

  “Good,” he says and slides back to my side to get warm again. “I’m glad.” He kisses my forehead and takes one of my mittened hands in his.

  “Are we okay, Jane?”

  I look at him, his delicious profile lit by the setting winter sun. He looks hopeful. I take another sip of my cider, and it fills me with warmth.

  “We’re okay.” I nod. He smiles and leans in toward me. The kiss we share is more than okay.

  Chapter 26

  I sit at my desk, an old hunk of metal from the late sixties, squished into a tiny closet of an office, and look at my giant plastic wall calendar to see what’s on the schedule for today. Aside from the daily homework help, arts and crafts, and organized sports, today we have optional foreign-language classes, a water balloon volleyball game, a treadmill distance race, and a performance by the drama group that meets Tuesdays and Thursdays. Under my carefully handwritten list of activities, one of the kids has scrawled “Pizza Party” in blue marker, apparently in the hope that I might mistake the handwriting for my own and call in an order for a dozen pizzas. Hope springs eternal around this place.


  I make a note to start working on reserving fields in Central Park for our softball teams this summer and decide to check my e-mail. While I used to sit hungrily in front of my computer reading every e-mail the second it came in, now I’m away from my desk so much that I instituted a policy of only checking in at my e-mail account twice a day and dealing with all the messages then.

  I open up Outlook and I see a message from the Wickham Charitable Trust, to which we’ve applied for a grant for the money to replace the broken floor of the basketball court, and one from Coates, confirming our dinner tonight. I click on that one first and start to write him back when a tiny head pops into my office.

  “Yes, Michael?” I smile. Michael was one of the first kids I met at my new job, and he latched on to me right away. His hardworking mother holds down two jobs to feed and clothe Michael and his two brothers, so he spends mornings here and then goes to a babysitter’s later in the day. While he always has a blast with the other kids, I suspect he’s looking for a little adult attention, and so even though he’s not technically part of my after-school program, I always make an effort to say hello to Michael. This little guy is a handful, but he has a smile that could end world wars.

  “Ms. Williams, can I have a basketball?” He grins at me.

  “Didn’t I just give you a basketball a few minutes ago?” I ask, narrowing my eyes at the child who I suspect is the culprit behind the broken soda machine in the lobby.

  “Um,” he says, rolling his eyes up as if searching for the answer above him. “I guess so. But I lost it.” He looks as if he’s trying to look sheepish.

  “How did you lose it between here and the gym floor?” I eye him suspiciously.

  “I don’t know,” he says, shaking his head, his eyes wide. He looks so earnest that I can’t help but laugh.

  “Why don’t I come help you look for it,” I say, trying to look serious. His face lights up and he nods, reaching out to grab my hand as I stand up. I smooth my jeans and then take his little hand in mine.

  “Thanks, Ms. Williams!” he laughs, pulling me out the door and grinning like he’s just won the lottery. Somehow, I feel like maybe I just did too.