They were rehearsing, but Jane was a familiar face, so she was able to slip backstage and up to the upper catwalk. She waved at the audio/lighting guys in the control and sat down, watching from an opening where an unused spotlight was mounted. Lacey was upstage running a scene. Jane watched, entranced.
“Hey, stranger,” a voice murmured in her ear.
She jumped, knocking her head into the casing of the spotlight. “Ouch,” she said, rubbing her temple.
It was Jake, who she had helped paint previous sets with. “You scared the crap out of me,” she said, swatting his arm. He apologized, saying that he had not meant to startle her. After that, there was a bit of an awkward silence. Jane was never much of a conversationalist, outside of Lacey, Wyatt, and her parents.
After a bit, Jake asked, “So what are your plans, now that you have graduated?”
She shrugged then said, “They’re kind of up in the air."
She went on to say she was starting a temp job, and hopefully, she and Lacey would be road tripping once the run was complete. Jake seemed to think that was pretty cool and asked where she thought they would go. Since Jane was in the very early planning stages, she didn’t know what to tell him and instead asked what he was doing over the summer. If she had remembered correctly, he was one year behind them in school. He was also in the theater arts program, as Lacey was, but studying the off stage craft versus what Lacey had studied.
It turned out this was a full-time gig for him over the summer and the theater. He was in charge of the lighting and had been checking other spotlights when he ran into Jane. Otherwise, he was just taking it easy over the summer, probably going with friends to a lake house once the show was over. He confessed to also needing a hand if she wasn’t busy that day.
Not doing anything else, she thought. Why not? She followed him down to a storage closet and helped him sort through lenses for the different lights. Some were in bad shape, so he needed to evaluate if it would be better just to replace them or if they were still serviceable. There were many different effects and colors used to give the feel of maybe different weather or times of day on stage.
She was enjoying herself so much she lost track of time and when he mentioned being starved, she checked her watch. It was past when her folks normally ate dinner, and since she had turned her cell phone to silent for her interview, she had not heard her mom call. This whole being home by a certain time like she was in high school again was going to take some getting used to. She apologized to Jake for having to run and went to look for Lacey.
Lacey was getting changed in the dressing room. Jane waved to her and asked if she wanted to grab a bite. As Lacey finished changing, Jane called her mother and explained why she had not heard the phone. Promising not to do it again, she gave her the good news about her meeting at the temp agency. With her mother now calm, Jane let her know that she would be having dinner with Lace and would come home right after.
Leaving their cars where they were parked, the girls walked to a nearby Mexican place. Jane pulled the travel books out of her satchel as they munched on chips and salsa while waiting for their food. Each with a book in hand, they called out interesting destinations they wanted to see on their road trip. When Jane brought up Chicago, Lacey became suspicious. She had known Jane far too long not to be.
Jane innocently shrugged at her and said that there were just many places there that seemed really interesting. Besides, hadn’t Lacey herself always wondered if it really was that windy? Lacey dropped the subject but still wondered about it. They put the books away once their food arrived. Jane filled Lacey in on her employment success over dinner and told her how, before she helped Jake, she was watching her rehearse.
“Lace, you looked amazing down there,” Jane gushed.
Lacey, never one to shy away from praise, grinned. “It felt really good today,” she said.
After dinner, Jane headed home. Her mother had already gone to bed with a book, and her father was watching TV in the living room.
“Hey Janey,” he said as she sat across from him “Your mother told me about the job. I’m proud of you, kiddo."
“Dad,” Jane moaned, suddenly feeling ten again.
He smiled and went back to watching his program. She watched for a bit with him but felt really tired and just went to bed and crashed. The next day, she focused on laundry and organizing her college things into her room. She had all of her winter season stuff labeled and boxed to be put in the attic. Then she started to purge some of her childhood relics that were taking up valuable surface space in her room.
Her hands lingered on a framed picture of her family on their trip to Paris. That was one of the happiest moments of her life. She allowed herself to rest in that memory for a beat. What she wanted more than anything else was to feel that type of excitement and joy again. For a fleeting moment, she acknowledged that she had never felt that way with Wyatt. She quickly banished that thought from her mind, thinking to herself that it was up to her to make that relationship work.
Even though she boxed up many mementos from her school years for storage, she could not bring herself to pack that picture. She broke for lunch and had a sandwich with her mother on their screen porch.
It was very pleasant until her mother asked, “When was the last time you spoke to Wyatt?”
Jane mumbled something unintelligible in response.
“Jane is everything alright with the two of you?”
Unable to meet her mother’s eyes, she shrugged.
“I knew it. I just knew something was wrong,” her mother said, standing up. “What did you do?” she demanded.
At that, Jane crumpled and said that he just thought their relationship had run its course. Jane’s mother thought that was a clear sign that he expected her to fight for him. To Jane, that didn’t sound like Wyatt at all. She tried to explain to her mother that he would consider fighting for him a sign of desperation.
Luckily, her mother could see the logic in that.
“Well, what are you going to do?” she asked.
Jane admitted she wasn’t quite sure and had mainly planned to try to stay busy, so that if he did call or visit, she would not appear to be pining over him.
“What if he does not call or visit?” Mrs. Martin demanded.
Jane explained that she might be able to run into him, by chance, on her road trip with Lacey.
“Oh, but if he sees you in Chicago after not hearing from you for a couple of months, he will see he was wrong and try to get you back. Very smart Jane."
Her mother sounded more proud of this plan to get Wyatt back then she had been of Jane graduating college, Jane observed. At the very least, her mother was now in complete support of the road trip. She even gave Jane the thumbs up as she stood up to gather their plates. Jane rose to help her and cleared the rest of the table.
Chapter 14
Jane spent the rest of the day finishing doing laundry and organizing her room. After dinner with her folks, she called it an early night and went to bed. She wanted to be well rested for her first day of work. The next morning, she didn’t eat very much because she was so nervous. She packed a breakfast bar in her purse in case she was starving later on.
When she got to the office building, she was processed through Human Resources. They set her up with a temporary badge for the week and gave her a quick tour. She was then led to the room where they were working on the mass mailing. The company that she was temping for was required to mail out any changes to their corporate terms to their clients on an annual basis. They used temps for this function because it was only done once per year.
The updated terms were in booklet form, printed on tissue paper like sheets. The temps were tasked with tri-folding an opt-out form and placing it with the booklet and a return envelope in another envelope. They were given trays to set the stuffed envelopes in. Once the trays were full, another temp would take them and, with a glue stick, seal them all. After they were sealed, someone else would run t
he envelopes through a postage meter.
A couple of hours into her shift, Jane excused herself to go to the restroom. Once inside, she inhaled her breakfast bar. She was sure she had breaks, but so far, the only temps to take one were the smokers. Once back in the room, she made small talk with a middle-aged woman next to her. When it was time for lunch, they walked across the street together for some fast food.
The rest of the day passed without anything interesting happening. Jane wasn’t sure why she was so tired. It’s true; it was manual labor, but on the extreme light side. When she got home, she begged off dinner, ate a bowl of cereal, and went to bed. She was punctual, polite, and a fast learner. By Thursday, it was clear she would be invited back to temp in a different department.
She was thrilled when she finished up on Friday, looking forward to staying in her PJs as long as possible on Saturday. That night, Lacey’s show opened, and she had reserved seats for Jane and her parents. The show was wonderful, and afterward, Jane went backstage to give Lacey a bouquet of flowers.
Jane’s parents took them out for ice cream. It was a beautiful night, and the girls sat on a wooden bench and people watched while they enjoyed their waffle cones. Jane opted for White Chocolate Raspberry while Lacey got Mint Chocolate Chip. Lacey was almost lit from within, high off of the adrenaline of her performance. Everything was beautiful or wonderful or amazing. Jane could not stop giggling at her.
When they were finished, Lacey walked them to the parking lot where both of their cars were parked. She let Jane and her parents know that her folks were going to be in town the following weekend to see her show and wanted to know if they would like to all go out for dinner Wednesday night since Lacey did not have a performance that night.
Jane’s parents accepted since they always got a kick out of Lacey’s crazy mom. They even offered to put them up but Lacey was living downtown, so they had picked a hotel close to her apartment. They said their goodbyes and returned home. Jane had no plans for Sunday. She went to the neighborhood pool and took a travel book.
On Monday, she returned to the company where she had temped to be reprocessed for work in another department. This job was more open-ended than the previous appointment. Now, she was doing data entry. This company maintained the software and customer service of retail stores’ check-processing functions.
Jane was given photocopies of checks, and would enter the writer’s name, address, driver’s license number, and the check amount. They maintained this information and reconciled it against any checks that were returned by a writer’s financial institution. By having this information, they were able to code the system to recognize the driver’s license number of a writer who had bounced a check with any retail partner in their system.
If someone bounced a check at one place, the system would decline his or her use of a check somewhere else. Jane was a decent typewriter, so she fit in well with this group. They were a mixture of full-time employees and temps. Jane enjoyed this job; it was quiet, and she was able to let her mind wander while she went in autopilot with the data. With luck, she might be able to stay in this role until her road trip with Lacey.
Lacey was doing an amazing job as well in her show. A couple of local publications even did reviews and gave her raves. Things were good, but Jane could not help but be impatient. It had been weeks since her break with Wyatt. She had held out hope that he would have reached out to her on his own by now. The fact that there had been no contact what so ever made her even more nervous about her plan. She did her best to shake off the nerves. It was the one thing that she had to be certain of to make it through this, and that was that she and Wyatt belonged together.
The weeks passed by. Lacey and Jane began their trip-planning in earnest. They plotted out hotels and motels, and in some situations, bed and breakfasts that had high safety ratings. It was also important to them, as single girls, to not travel too far off the beaten path. They were going to take Jane’s car. About two weeks before their trip, Jane’s dad took the car in for an overall for an oil change and transmission flushes, four new tires, and any other recommended maintenance. Later, he was satisfied the car was road trip worthy.
Jane’s temp job went on until the Friday before their trip was starting. She had been such a good employee that the company even offered to take her back once her road trip was done. She declined. With any luck, she would be moving at the end of her trip. She went to both the matinee and final performance of Lacey’s show to cheer her on. Once it was all complete, Lacey bowed with tears streaming down her face.
Jane took her out for ice cream after. Part of her wanted to hit the road right then and there. Lacey was cautiously optimistic that Jane was over Wyatt. She still had a sneaking suspicion about the stop in Illinois having something to do with Wyatt. She just felt that Jane had never dealt with the breakup.
She had been there for their prior breakup and was certain that Jane was avoiding this issue. She was able to talk Jane into waiting until Monday like they had originally planned. They both spent Sunday finishing packing. That night, Lacey spent the night at Jane’s. After a complete breakfast, thanks to Jane’s mom, they hit the road.
Chapter 15
They headed south first. Lacey had found this place near Clearwater, Florida called “Weeki Wachi” where you could see mermaids swim. They weren’t actually mermaids rather young women dressed up as mermaids performing an underwater show. Lacey’s favorite movie of all time was the Little Mermaid, so it was the first sightseeing spot of their trip. Traffic south was light given it was a Monday, as opposed to Saturday and beach traffic.
The girls’ hope was to make it to Weeki Wachi in one swoop. The navigation system registered it as13 hours away. Jane’s mother had packed them a lunch for the first leg of their journey. Otherwise, they planned to eat via value menus on the road while attempting to avoid chain restaurants during their stops. Lacey could not resist a McDonald's sweet tea on their way out of town.
“You're going to regret getting an extra large iced tea, babe,” Jane said, sliding into the driver’s side as Lacey slurped happily away at her ginormous sweet tea. “We are only stopping two more times ‘til Florida,” Jane went on.
“I have the bladder of a camel. You do not scare me Jane Martin,” Lacey said bravely.
Two hours later, Lacey was dancing in her seat again. They had already stopped once for her. Jane grumbled about another unscheduled detour but, smiling, pulled off at the next exit anyway. Lacey took over driving after that, only to have greater control of her next bathroom break. Jane eventually dozed off, and Lacey shook her awake for their last pit stop of the day. She groaned as she stretched her legs out, putting her hands on the small of her back, dipping her shoulders. She hoped she would not be this car sore the whole trip.
They arrived at the motel both very stiff. It was hot and humid. Luckily, the motel pool did not close until 10 pm; the girls immediately grabbed their suits and went for a dip after checking in. The pool did wonders for their sore muscles. After an hour or so, they were exhausted and returned to their room. Jane called her parents to let them know they had arrived safely.
Other than the occasional giant flying roach, their room was decent, sparsely decorated with very creaky bed springs and thin mattresses. The next morning, they took their time getting up and ready as the mermaid show's first performance was not until 11 am.
The show lasted an hour. It was something right out of an Esther Williams movie. Lacey loved every minute of it. On their way out of the park, they stopped by The Fudge Shop to eat a very unhealthy lunch before getting back on the road.
Lacey could not stop talking about the mermaid show. She wished she had recorded it, so she could watch it again and again. Although Jane didn’t expect to enjoy it as much, she felt the same way. Surprisingly, the show had reminded her of what she had felt that first trip to the Louvre. It was a feeling of simple bliss. Every little girl pretends to be a mermaid while swimming in her local pool.
/> The girls stopped for coffee at a gas station on the way to Alabama. Jane also picked up her first spoon of the trip. She did not need one for every state they were going to, but Florida happened to be one her collection was missing. She remembered as a kid wondering why they had never gone to Disney World as it seemed every other child she grew up with had. Their trip to New Orleans was leisurely and enjoyable, passing through Biloxi, laughing and singing along to the radio on the way.
When they finally arrived and checked into their hotel, they wandered to the Saint Louis cemetery. Jane was both struck by the artistic beauty of the above ground crypts and completely creeped out by the whole thing. Lacey enjoyed the macabre of it all. It was then Jane predicted if Lacey ever got married it would be on Halloween. After they walked around for about an hour, they made their way into the French Quarter. Jane refused to be anywhere near the cemetery at dusk. There was a famous cemetery near their school in Richmond called Hollywood Cemetery; neither of the girls had been, and Jane promised to go there with Lacey someday once back in Virginia.
They had delicious Cajun food and yummy drinks at French 75 Arnauds. Even though they were months late for Mardi Gras, Lacey still managed to get some beads for flashing her bra to some guys on Bourbon Street. From New Orleans, they headed west to San Antonio, Texas. The girls struggled to find anything but country music on the radio station. Over it, Lacey turned the radio off and practiced her accents from around the world. Her Australian accent made Jane laugh so hard she cried as Lacey asked her over and over for a vegemite sandwich. Lacey pulled out some nail polish and started painting her toenails.
“Ugh, that stinks," Jane said cracking her window. "Can’t you wait to do that at the motel?"
Lacey innocently replied, “What if the check-in clerk is an Ian Somerhalder look-a-like and does not fall madly in love with me because my toe nail polish is chipping?"
A Bridge of Her Own Page 7
