“And,” Campbell goes on, sliding her finger down the page, “Anna-Grace said her father-in-law’s landscaping company can donate sod for the front entrance.”
She presses a hand over her heart, tilting her head down with an exaggerated sad face. “You are an actual angel.”
Anna-Grace made a fucking phone call and got some free shit, which doesn’t really seem to qualify her for angel status, but what do I know?
I take another cheese straw off the plate. I’m just jumpy because of everything with John, which is making me bitchier than usual. I’m supposed to be proving to these women that I’m one of them, not thinking of them as the competition, and I need to remember that.
Campbell turns back to her binder, sitting back on her heels. “Okay, so that ticks off most of our summer goals. We should probably go ahead and start looking at fall.”
“Girl, if you say the word mums, I am leaving,” Landry says, rolling her eyes, and they all laugh.
I laugh, too, but once again, I’m about a beat too late again. As far as I can tell, they’re speaking some foreign language.
“No, no mums, don’t be basic, Landry,” Campbell assures her with a smile. Then she clasps her hands underneath her chin, her rings sparkling. “I was thinking we could do something fun with football,” she says. “You know, half the front flower bed in red and white, half in orange and blue.”
The other ladies all ooh at that, and I look around, smiling, but once again, having no clue what’s actually going on here.
Landry must notice my face because she grins a little, leaning forward. “The Iron Bowl,” she says, like that explains anything, and I raise my eyebrows, still smiling, still lost as fuck.
“Are you a Bammer or a Barner?” Anna-Grace says as she pulls the bottle of wine out of the bucket. It’s nearly empty, though, so with a tutting sound, Emily gets up and heads to the kitchen.
“Jane isn’t from the South,” Campbell says as she ticks something off of her list. Then she glances up at me. “Auburn and Alabama,” she explains. “Big colleges here, big football rivalry. Most everybody declares for one or the other since birth.”
“Landry and I both graduated from Alabama,” Anna-Grace says. “So, ‘Roll Tide’ and all that.”
“And I’m an Auburn girl,” Emily adds, coming in from the kitchen, open bottle of wine in hand. “So, War Eagle!”
I accept her offer of more wine, my head spinning, wondering how college football is now a thing I need to care about.
“Where did you go to school, Jane?” Anna-Grace asks.
She’s not quite as pretty as Campbell and Emily, her features a little too sharp, her hair a little too blond for her fair skin. As she crosses her arms, bangles jingle on her wrist, and I have to fight down the urge to want one. Not just one I can buy, but one of hers.
I think about lying to them. Making up some obscure college they’ve never heard of. But I’ve already got too many lies going at this point, and there’s something about the way Anna-Grace is looking at me that makes me think she’d go home and Google, or invent a friend who went there, too. Something to throw me off.
So I tell … okay, not the truth, but something that at least feels closer to it. “I did community college, then online courses. I was working a lot, so that fit my schedule the best.”
“Yeah, Campbell and Emily were telling me you were their dog-walker?”
She says it like a question, but it’s not.
I smile. “Yup, sure was.”
“And that’s how you met Eddie?”
“Mmm-hmm.” I take another cheese straw even though I don’t want it. The crumbs leave greasy little dark spots on my new beige leggings, and whoever made them used too much cayenne. It stings my nose, making my eyes almost water.
“God, if I’d known you could meet hot, rich widowers walking dogs, I wouldn’t have bothered with those stupid dating apps,” Landry offers, and now I remember that her name was familiar because Emily and Campbell were gossiping about her doctor husband having an affair with a drug rep a few months ago.
“Guess I’m just lucky,” I say, making myself smile. I can’t quite manage the faux-humble thing I did with the others, though. Maybe because of how she’s looking at me, maybe just because I’m tired of doing that shit. I’m here, aren’t I? Isn’t that enough?
“So where were you before Birmingham?” Landry asks as she sits up a little, fluffing the couch cushion she’s propped up against.
I’d been expecting this, and had already decided that vague was the way to go here. “Oh, gosh, lots of places,” I say, shrugging. “My family moved around a lot.”
It was actually me who did the moving, sliding into different families. A cousin here. Another cousin there. Eventually foster homes. Then the last home, in Phoenix.
The memory makes the wine go sour in my mouth, my stomach suddenly roiling, and I sit my glass back on the tray, almost catching the lip and dumping pinot grigio everywhere.
“Obviously, I never lived in the South before now,” I say, grinning again and trying to cover the awkwardness of the moment. “Or I’d know my Roll Tide from my War Eagle.”
That makes them laugh, like I’d hoped, and I’m hoping we can move back into talking about flowers or flags or whatever other dumb shit they want. I’ll spend another grand on fucking light-up lawn ornaments if we can stop talking about me.
“But I sure hope you’re planning on staying in the South,” Landry says, all saccharine now. “Now that you and Eddie are…”
She trails off, waving one hand.
There’s nothing pointed about it, and her gaze is nowhere near as searching as Anna-Grace’s was, but I feel a question hanging in the air.
Campbell finishes her train of thought. “I do not know why he doesn’t just go ahead and wife you up, girl.”
“Seriously,” Emily says, nodding and pouring herself more wine. “If he’s going to have you living with him, the least he can do is put a ring on it.”
“Caleb wanted us to live together before we got married,” Anna-Grace says, shaking her head so that her ponytail brushes her back. “And I was like, ‘I don’t think so!’ If a man wants a woman to basically be a wife, he needs to make her a wife.”
The others all hum in agreement, and I look around, at these ladies drinking in the middle of the afternoon on a random Thursday, all of whom seem to have decided that “getting married” is a woman’s chief accomplishment.
And I finally get it.
I can join all the committees, wear all the right clothes, learn about fucking football, say all the right things, and none of it will matter.
I’m never going to be one of them until Eddie proposes.
14
For the next week, I try so hard not to think about Emily or Campbell or any of that, try not to want more than I have. What I have is, after all, like winning the fucking lottery, and I’ve learned the hard way that wanting more is what fucks you in the end.
But it sits there under my skin, itching—the way they’d looked at me, the questions, the insults disguised as jokes.
And it’s not just the Thornfield ladies. It’s John, it’s whoever was calling him and asking questions. I feel like he got what he wanted that day in the Home Depot parking lot—to lord something over me, to watch my fear and anxiety creep in, plus two hundred bucks out of the deal. Surely that was enough for him. And as weird as it sounds, I trust John.
Okay, trust is not the right word.
I know him, I guess. People like him. All of us who stayed permanent foster kids, who met at group homes or shelters. John might follow me and maybe even call one of these days, making insinuations, but he’s not going to turn me over to the cops.
Or at least, I don’t think he will.
Being Mrs. Rochester feels like another brick in the wall between me and threats like that, like maybe John wouldn’t even attempt it if he thought it would involve Eddie.
So that’s the plan. The new plan.
>
It’s not enough to live with Eddie. Being the girlfriend is not the way in. I have to be the wife.
Which means I have to be the fiancée first.
So, for the next few days, I study Eddie. I don’t know what the signs are that a man is thinking of proposing to you—I’ve actually never known anyone who got engaged. People I’ve met are either firmly single or already married, and not for the first time in my life, I wish I had an actual friend. Someone to talk to, just one person who knew the whole truth about everything.
But I’ve only got me.
* * *
About a week after the committee meeting, Eddie comes home from work a little early and asks if I want to take Adele to the Cahaba River Walk.
It’s a park not too far from us, and one of the places he brought me when we first started dating. I like the quiet of it, the meandering trail along the water, the shade of the trees, and as soon as he suggests it, my spirits lift.
It’s a place he knows I like. It’s special to us because we’ve been there before.
And he never comes home early.
The idea that maybe I won’t have to do anything at all to get him to propose is dizzying, and when we get out of the car, I’m practically bouncing on the balls of my feet.
Laughing, Eddie takes my hand as Adele runs ahead of us, barking at squirrels. “You seem happy,” he says, and I lean over to kiss his cheek.
“I am,” I reply.
And I really am. Right until Eddie settles us both on a bench by the river and pulls out his phone.
“Sorry,” he says as Adele flops at our feet, panting. “I just have a few emails to send, and I need to get them out before the end of the day.”
So much for our nice afternoon in the park. I sit there, sweating and fuming, while he types and a couple of guys kayak on the river.
There are also people walking, and as two women move past us in their workout shorts and fitted tops, I see their eyes slide to Eddie, see one of them, a brunette with the same shiny hair and tiny waist as Bea, look over to me like she’s thinking, Huh. Wonder what that’s about.
My face is warm from more than the heat now, and I sit there, wondering, too. What the fuck is this about?
Eddie is still on his phone, and I decide to go for subtle.
“I need a manicure,” I say on a sigh, wiggling my fingers in front of my face. “When I was at Emily’s the other day, all I could see were everybody’s perfect nails. Well, perfect nails and a metric fuckton of jewelry. I’d be nervous wearing more than one ring.”
Okay, so that last little bit was maybe not as subtle as I could have been, but desperate times and all.
Eddie snorts at that, but doesn’t look up. “Bea always thought it was tacky how much jewelry they all wore. Especially when they’re mostly just staying home all day.”
“Okay, well, I don’t have to be dripping in diamonds, but I should probably take better care of my nails.”
Still looking at his phone, Eddie catches my hand, absently bringing my fingers to his lips.
I want him to say something about not minding my nails like that or not noticing, but instead he says, “The place in the village is supposed to be good.”
Nodding, I take my hand back, twisting my fingers in the hem of my shirt. “Is that where Bea went?” I ask, and finally, I have his attention.
He looks up from the screen, blinking, before saying, “As far as I know, yeah. All the girls in the neighborhood go there.”
“Women,” I say, and when he screws up his face, I sit up a little taller. “Just … they’re all in their thirties at least. They’re not girls.”
His face clears, and he gives me a smile I haven’t seen before.
It’s not the sexy grin, or that delighted quirk of lips I get when I’ve said something that charms him. It’s … indulgent.
Slightly paternalistic.
It irritates me.
“Right, sorry,” he says, turning back to his phone. “Women.”
“Look, I get that you’re older than me, and have, like, seen more of the world or whatever, but you don’t have to patronize me.” The words are out before I can stop them, before I can remember to be the Jane he wants, not the Jane I actually am.
Then again, I’m remembering, he sometimes likes the Jane I actually am.
He lowers his phone and gives his full attention to me. “I’m being a dick, aren’t I?”
“Little bit, yeah.”
There’s his real smile now, and he takes my hand again, squeezing it. “I’m sorry,” he says. “I’m just swamped. But I wanted to spend time with you today, and to get you out of the house for a little bit. You’ve seemed out of sorts the past week or so.”
Ever since John.
I sit there, my mind working, wondering what I can say, how much I can share. There’s an opening here, an opportunity, one of those chances to mix a little lie in with some actual truth, and it occurs to me that it might get me what I want a lot faster than dropping hints about fingers and rings.
“I guess I’m just wondering where all this is going,” I say, and he frowns, that crease deepening between his eyebrows. On the river, one of the kayakers calls to the other, and another pair of women jog by, glancing down at me and Eddie.
“It’s not that I don’t love living with you,” I go on. “I do. I really do. But when you’ve been a charity case for most of your life, you start to really resent that feeling.”
Eddie puts his phone down now and sits up straighter, his hands clasped between his knees. “What does that mean?”
I keep my own eyes trained on the river in front of me, on the families pushing strollers around the trail. The one couple with their arms around each other’s waists.
“You saw where I used to live. You know what my life was like before I met you. I don’t … I don’t belong here.”
He snorts at that. “Okay, again, I don’t know what that’s supposed to mean.”
Now I turn toward him, pushing my sunglasses up on my head. “It means that I’m not Emily or Campbell or—”
“I don’t want you to be any of them,” he says, taking my hand. “I love you because you’re not them. Because you’re not…” He trails off, and I see his throat move as he swallows.
He wants to say because you’re not Bea. I know it, and he knows I know if the way he suddenly looks away is any indication. But for the first time, I’m left wondering what that means. He had obviously adored her, so why is being different from her such a bonus to him?
“I’m sorry.” Eddie squeezes my fingers. “I’m sorry if I haven’t made it clear how much I want you here. How much I need you and how, yes, you do belong here.”
Turning to look at me, he ducks his head so that our foreheads nearly touch, his lips almost brushing mine. “I am fucking in love with you, Jane,” he murmurs, the words sending an electric spark down my spine, his breath warm on my face. “That’s all that matters. None of this shit with the neighborhood, with Emily, any of that. That’s all just noise. This.” He lifts our joined hands between us, squeezing again. “This is real. This is what matters.”
Eddie kisses my knuckles, and I wait, practically holding my breath because if ever there were a moment to propose, it’s now, here in the park at sunset, him looking at me like that, me not even having to fake the wide-eyed swoony thing. How did I not realize sooner that I wanted this?
But then he drops our hands and turns away, sighing. “I’ll try not to be gone so much, though, okay? I’ll let Caitlyn handle more things at Southern Manors. Running two businesses is too much, but I can’t really give up either of them right now. You understand that, right?”
I’m still sitting there feeling the imprint of his lips on my fingers, wondering how this moment got away from me, wondering why we’re back to talking about his work and not getting engaged, so all I can do is nod and manage a feeble, “Yeah.”
Clearing my throat, I shake my head a little. Jesus, Jane, get it together.
I scoot closer, threading my arm through his elbow and resting my head on his shoulder. Disappointment sits like a rock in my stomach, heavy and hard. And not just because I feel even further away from cementing my place as Mrs. Rochester.
Because I genuinely want him to want me.
Because I want Eddie.
15
We have the next meeting for the Neighborhood Beautification Committee at Eddie’s house.
My house. Sometimes I think of it like that. But thinking it and actually feeling it are two different things, and as I carry our empty wineglasses to the sink once the meeting is over, I can’t shake the feeling that I’m right back where I started: a servant, rather than the lady of the house.
The meeting was mostly pointless, and I think the ladies only agreed to it for the chance to get back inside this place. The whole time we’d been sitting in the living room, talking about Pinterest boards and “Festive Fall Fun Décor,” I’d felt their eyes cataloguing what was gone, what was new.
Campbell and Emily linger after the other women have gone home, saying it’s to help me pick up, but I know it’s to do some more digging.
“This place looks great,” Campbell says, putting our wine bottle in the recycling. “I mean, it always did, but it just feels brighter now, doesn’t it, Em?”
Emily hums, nodding as she sips the last of the wine from her glass. “Totally.”
The house can’t look any different from how it did the last time they were in here. There might be a few pictures missing, but it’s not like I’ve gone on a redecorating spree.
I can’t tell if they’re being nice or fishing, so I decide to do a little fishing myself.
“Everything was so gorgeous that I didn’t really want to change anything. Bea really had excellent taste.” A self-conscious little laugh for effect. “I mean, I guess that was her whole career, having excellent taste.”
Emily and Campbell share a glance I pretend not to see.
The Wife Upstairs Page 9
