by Kate Morris
Jane’s mother, Maureen, was Nana Peaches’s only daughter and only child, and she was born out of wedlock, which was a scandal within her family. Her grandmother attended a good college on full scholarship to study botany. However, the wrong guy came along and easily seduced her because she was sheltered and had grown up very innocent. He’d promised her the sun and the moon. He’d broken that promise the second he found out she was pregnant, and he was never heard from again. Nana Peaches shared the story with Jane one night after she’d drunk a scotch. It was rare that she drank, but it was after her daughter’s trial. It was stressful for them all, even for Jane’s father. Nana Peaches had dropped out of college and had given up everything. She’d moved back to the family farm, the same house she and Jane still lived in. With the help of her parents, she’d raised her daughter. Then history had repeated itself, even though Nana Peaches had done everything right, had protected Jane’s mother, had taught her what and who to watch out for, and had given her street smarts. With the exception of Jane’s father, every man in Maureen’s life was no good.
“So, you don’t care if I go out tonight with Dez?”
“No, just use good judgment. No drinking. No drugs. You know the rules.”
“Nana, I’ve never been drunk in my life, and I have no intention of ever doing drugs. I don’t need any more lessons in that,” she said, referring to her mother.
Nana Peaches nodded, her soft cheeks pink, the lines around her eyes wrinkling tightly as memories assailed her. Maureen had put the entire family, what was left of it, through hell. Jane felt like crap for bringing it up.
“Why don’t you go and rest,” Jane suggested. “I’ll clean this up. Dez doesn’t care if I’m late.”
“Is that girl ever gonna pass her driving test?” her grandmother asked with a chuckle and rose in unison with Jane to take her own dish to the sink.
Jane laughed loudly. “Good Lord! I don’t think so. She’s supposed to be going to NYU next fall. I told her she’d better invest in a good bicycle.”
“No doubt,” Nana Peaches remarked. “Jane, run along. I’ve got this. You always do the cleaning up. I’ve got it tonight.”
“But our deal. You cook. I enjoy it. Then I clean it. You’re buckin’ the system, Nana.”
“Get a shower, girl,” she ordered. “You smell like a horse.”
Jane laughed, sniffed under her arm and grimaced dramatically. Nana Peaches smiled and shook her head. Jane kissed her cheek before she could dodge it or pull away, which was what she usually did. She’d explained to Jane one time that her folks hadn’t been overly affectionate people. She’d just learned it from them. That’s just the way they were. Her parents loved her, but they just weren’t touchy-feely. Jane didn’t care. The only physical contact she had with anyone was when she could get her grandmother to hold still long enough for a hug. She could never find the right words to show how much she cared for her grandmother, so the occasional peck on the cheek or gentle touch was her way of showing her how much she meant to her.
She took a fast shower, blew her hair dry, applied cherry flavored lip balm because the dust and dirt and sand at the barn always gave her chapped lips, and pulled on clean clothing. She had a very fashionable rip in her jeans on the right knee, except that hers hadn’t been done by someone at the jeans manufacturing plant but had occurred when she’d stumbled over her own two feet and fell on the concrete aisle at the barn when she’d tried to gracefully hop over a bucket in the way. She still had a fading scar from the scrape, too. It was just one more attractive thing about her. She pulled on a faded black concert t-shirt for the band Journey on it. The shirt used to belong to her father. He really loved their music, so she stole it from him. He loved all the oldies from the ’70s and ‘80s. She topped it off with a men’s flannel shirt that belonged to her great-grandfather. It was about three sizes too big, but it was all she had of him. Nana Peaches kept most of their things in the attic, and she’d told Jane to use whatever she wanted or needed when she first moved in. She’d still need a jacket but would grab her barn coat from the hook in the mudroom. It probably smelled like the horses and dirt, but it was the warmest one she owned.
She jogged down the stairs and found Nana Peaches in front of the t.v. It was tuned into the news. No surprise there.
“I’m heading out, Nana,” she informed her. “You don’t have to wait up. Get some rest.”
“Got your key?”
“Yep,” Jane answered. “I won’t be late. I gotta go to the barn tomorrow morning before the restaurant anyway.”
Her grandmother offered a sympathetic smile but nodded and reminded her, “Be careful, Jane.”
“You know it,” she returned and kissed the top of her head where she was relaxing in her favorite recliner. Then she petted the cat. “Take care of Nana Peaches while I’m gone, Delores.”
She pulled on her black leather ankle boots. Then she headed out to her truck. It was the only vehicle they owned. It had belonged to Nana Peaches’s father, who’d passed nearly twenty-six years ago. He’d wanted a brand new truck his whole life and had finally splurged on one only to die six weeks later. At least he got to drive it for a while. It was hardly new now, but Jane liked it anyway. It belonged to him, and like the shirt, connected her to her family. However, as she pulled up to the brick guardhouse at the gated neighborhood next door, she remembered that it didn’t exactly fit in with most of the community full of imported German sports cars, high-end SUV’s, and impractical for Ohio weather convertibles.
Reluctantly, the guard passed her through, and Jane offered a tight smile and a wave. She drove straight to Destiny’s home and parked at the curb. Her younger twin brothers were playing on their skateboards in the driveway with the outdoor lights on for illumination. They waved and smiled at Jane. They were cute kids.
“Hey, guys!” she greeted and returned their wave.
“Dez is in the house waiting for you,” Jesse called over to her.
Jane sent him a thumbs-up sign and walked toward the front door. Destiny’s mom answered the knock. She was so tall and graceful, a former model who’d traveled all over the world when she was younger. She reminded Jane of the hippies she’d seen in books the way she wore her hair in long braided extensions and dressed in flowy skirts and peasant blouses done in bright colors. She was big into yoga, too. She’d even forced Jane and Destiny to go to a class with her once. For Jane, who was not athletic at all, it had been hell. She hadn’t been able to walk well the next day, which Destiny found funny.
“Jane!” she exclaimed with her usual enthusiasm. “Come in, honey. Come in.”
She accepted the invitation and wondered for the thousandth time why Destiny’s parents allowed their daughter to hang out with her when nobody else in the entire community would have encouraged the friendship the second they found out about her family. She suspected that Destiny’s mother also didn’t fit in all that well in Jackson. She was bi-racial herself, beautiful, stunning really, and exotic and confident and probably made the other boring-looking, cookie-cutter mothers rivalrous. Either way, Jane was appreciative of the fact that she let Dez be her friend.
Destiny’s mother called up the stairs to her daughter and turned right back to Jane, “How’s school going, Jane?”
“Oh, fine. Just fine,” she said.
“How’s your grandmother? I need to stop over there tomorrow for more apples. I swear, Peaches grows the best apples in the whole country!”
“It’s the secret fertilizer we use.”
“Really?” she asked as her eyes grew large with the anticipation of hearing some well-kept secret.
“Yep. Dinosaur manure. Best fertilizer there is.”
Her mom burst out laughing. “Oh, Jane! You are so funny. Ahh…”
She sighed expressively and loudly. Dez’s mom was always loud and boisterous, unafraid to show her feelings and express them with vigor. She had a huge personality, and Jane really liked her.
Her friend boun
ded down the stairs, pecked her mom on the cheek and said just as loudly as her mom spoke, “See ya! We’re going out!”
“Where to, young lady?”
“A party. We’re planning on getting drunk, high, and pregnant tonight,” Dez teased. “Checking off that bucket list.”
“Destiny Marie,” her mother scolded. “What time will you be home?”
“Not late, ma’am,” Jane said for her friend, who scowled at her answer. “I have to work at the stables tomorrow morning.”
“Oh, suck,” Dez remarked.
“Fine. You girls be careful,” she said as someone knocked on the front door.
They followed her mother to the door as she answered it. The person on the other side couldn’t have been more surprising to Jane.
“Hello, Mrs. Bradshaw,” Roman Lockwood greeted.
“Oh, hi, Roman,” her mother said with a big smile.
“Yeah, I was just seeing if the girls wanted a ride to the party. I know we’re all headed the same way,” he said, surprising Jane even more. She allowed her eyes to dart to Destiny’s. Her friend shrugged as if she, too, were surprised.
“That’s very thoughtful, sweetie,” her mother said. “Girls, I think that’s a good idea. You should all three ride together. It’s better if you’re planning any of the activities that you listed a minute ago, Dez.”
“Mom! I was joking,” Destiny said through gritted teeth.
“Still, it would be safer if you three left together and came back together. I’d feel better about it. I know Roman doesn’t drink.”
“No, ma’am,” he confirmed, again shocking Jane. She assumed he was like his friends. He probably was just like them and was only lying to impress Mrs. Bradshaw.
“We’re fine, Mrs. B,” Jane interrupted. “I can drive.”
“Nonsense, Jane,” she said. “Dez said you worked at the barn today. You’ve got to be tired, honey. You kids get outta here. Go have fun!”
With that, she left, heading for the sidewalk to wrangle the twins and bring them in for showers, to which they both started laughing and running away from her.
She, Dez, and Roman were left standing in the foyer of Destiny’s big house staring at one another.
“Well, we’d better get going!” Dez said.
“Wait,” Jane protested.
Destiny brushed past her, grabbing her jacket from the hook by the door and went straight out. Then she was left standing with just Roman.
“I don’t need a ride,” she said all the while realizing she forgot her own jacket. Hopefully, she wouldn’t need it tonight.
“I just thought,” he started but stopped short and just stared at her.
Jane looked behind her. Was someone there? What was he looking at? Then she frowned and looked back at him.
Roman shrugged and said, “Ready?”
“How’d you know we were going to Terry’s party?”
He opened the door for her, and Jane squeezed past him without making eye contact.
“I overheard you two talking about it after class,” he told her.
“Oh,” she answered lamely and joined her friend near his SUV, wishing they could hop in her truck instead and take off without him. She looked at Dez and whispered, “Are you sure about this?”
“Unlike you, I like Roman. He’s cool,” she said as he caught up to them.
“Ready?” he asked, getting an enthusiastic nod from Destiny.
Of course, Destiny liked him. They were next door neighbors and had known each other since Destiny’s family moved here when she was in the third grade. A thought occurred to her. Perhaps Roman had a crush on her best friend.
Destiny automatically climbed into the rear passenger seat and shut the door of his sleek, black Range Rover that probably cost more than any car or cars combined Jane or her family ever owned. She was actually sure of it. Roman opened the front passenger door for her. Jane was faced with either getting in or walking around to the other side and getting in beside her friend in the back. She didn’t want to be rude. Rudeness was not her specialty. That was Stephanie and her followings’ forte. Jane got in and murmured a quiet “Thanks.”
“My pleasure,” he answered.
Roman walked around the front, staring through the windshield at her.
“What the heck, Dez? Seriously? Why’d you shut the door on me….” Jane asked angrily and cut herself off as he got in beside her.
“Sorry, Jane,” she apologized from the back seat.
Jane tossed her an irritated expression over her shoulder and fastened her seatbelt.
“What about?” Roman asked as he backed out of his driveway.
“Nothing!” Jane spouted before Dez got involved.
“Hey, Roman, do you know where Terry lives? I’ve never been there,” Destiny asked. “He sent me a text.”
“Yeah, he lives out by the quarry off of Easton Place,” he answered. “His folks own some land out there, and he and his dad moved out there after his mom…you know.”
“Oh, yeah. That’s right. She died,” Destiny recalled.
“What from?” Jane asked, not familiar with this. She didn’t know a whole lot about most of her classmates, though, so it wasn’t exactly surprising. Terry was usually nice to her, but he certainly didn’t go out of his way to stand up for her if Stephanie’s gang was around. He was passive and shy.
“Cancer,” Roman answered. “It was rough. Happened when we were in the seventh grade. Terry had a tough time of it.”
“Hm,” Jane acknowledged, not knowing what to say. It was a terrible situation.
“Right, that would’ve been about a year before you came here to live, Jane,” Destiny said.
“Where’d you live before?” Roman asked, not something anyone had ever done, other than Destiny, of course.
“Cincinnati,” she answered honestly. There were other cities, many others, but she left that part out.
“I went to a Reds game down there last year. Big city. Lot of traffic,” Roman said, uncharacteristically talkative.
Jane just looked at him and nodded before peering out her window again.
“Are you a Reds fan?”
“Baseball?” she asked, getting a nod. “No. I don’t watch baseball.”
“Ever been to a game? A major league one?” he asked.
Jane shook her head and tried to drop the subject by being dismissive. There was never money for expenditures like that. Why did he want to know all this about her? So he could take it back to his group of jerk friends? Was Stephanie running out of ammunition? Was this a set-up?
“We should go sometime,” he suggested.
Jane whipped her head to stare at him with wide eyes. Was he serious?
“Yeah,” he said, answering her unspoken question. “We could go to an Indians game. They won the world series last year, so, of course, the tickets cost a lot more now. But we should go.”
“The three of us?” Destiny asked from the back seat.
Jane looked at her as if she were out of her mind, too. Dez just grinned back at her and stuck out her tongue.
“Um…yeah, sure. That would be fun,” he answered.
Jane resumed looking out her window and wishing she hadn’t agreed to this night. It was starting out awful.
“So? Do you wanna’ go to a game?” he asked again.
It caused the same knee-jerk reaction of shock as Jane regarded him with an open mouth.
“I don’t know,” she stammered. “I work a lot.”
“Yeah, I know,” he said, surprising her yet again. “Do you want to? Go to a game, I mean.”
How did he know that? Would Roman and his friends show up at her place of employment to torment her further there? She sent him a scowl of displeasure and turned back.
“I don’t think so,” Jane finally answered.
He drove kind of fast for Jane’s taste, who preferred to stay under the speed limit. When she’d first started driving a few years ago, she’d been pulled over and left of
f with a warning. It was all the encouragement she needed to obey traffic laws. Of course, Roman’s family had a lot of money, so he probably wasn’t worried about getting an expensive speeding ticket. She was way too fearful of the law to break it. Police scared her. She didn’t want any trouble from them.
Destiny cleared her throat in the rear seat as if she were uncomfortable and said, “Are your parents out of town, Roman?”
“Yeah, of course. It’s just been Connor and me all week.”
“That sucks,” her friend said with sympathy.
Jane asked, “Did you have a death in the family or something?”
He chuckled and said, “No, I wish.”
“What?” she asked with surprise.
“Sorry, I didn’t mean it like that. I just meant that would mean they’d be home soon for good. No, my dad travels a lot for work. So does my mom. Neither of them are home very often. It sucks.”
“Yes, it does,” Destiny concurred. “I hate it when either of my parents has to travel. They try not to do it at the same time, though. And now that my mom is pseudo-retired, it’s a lot easier. But my parents never travel as much as yours, Roman. It must get lonely in that big house by yourself.”
“I’m not alone. I’ve got Connor. He keeps me busy. He’s a good companion, too, very entertaining,” he answered with an amused chuckle. “My parents wanted to get a nanny, but I told them to hold off till I go to college. I’d rather spend time with him until then. I think it will be a hard adjustment when I leave.”
Jane frowned. His life sounded terrible. It seemed as if he were raising his little brother.
“Where are you gonna go to school? Have you decided yet?” Destiny asked him.
The light turned green, and he made a left. They traveled north on Market Ave outside of the city.
“No plans on school,” he answered Destiny. “I’d like to take a year off and just travel. My grandfather backpacked through Europe. I always thought something like that would be cool.”
