Plain Jane

by Fern Michaels

  “I think it’s time for bed. I’m going to dump everything in the sink just in case Olive gets adventuresome during the night. Up and at ’em, Jane.”

  Jane finished eating, then headed up the stairs. She threw back the covers, crawled into bed, and was asleep before Mike finished brushing his teeth.

  Olive sat on the floor looking up at him. “It’s okay, Olive. I think I’ll sit here on the chair and watch over your mistress. You want to come up here and sit with me?” She stood up on her hind legs and put her paws on his knee. “Come on,” he said, reaching for her. He settled her into his lap, petting her head. Dogs were great companions. Olive was one in a million.

  Mike closed his eyes as he sighed with contentment. They snapped open a moment later when Olive jumped off the chair and raced out of the room, her tail swishing with excitement.

  “Hello, Dr. Sorenson. How are you this evening?”

  Mike rubbed his eyes. “Who are you?”

  “Billy Jensen. Olive just chased my dog, Jeeter, out of the room. They play together every night. It’s been a long time since Jeeter had a friend.”

  “I didn’t see a dog,” Mike mumbled.

  “He stays invisible sometimes. I don’t know why. We need to talk, Dr. Sorenson.”

  “About what? You’re the ghost, aren’t you?”

  “I’m not of your world if that’s what you mean.”

  “Are you sure this isn’t a dream?”

  “I’m sure.”

  “What do you want to talk about? I’m all ears.”

  The boy giggled. “Then you would have ears all over your head. I only see two.”

  Mike couldn’t resist. He wiggled his ears the way he’d done when he was a kid. “Talk to me, Billy.”

  On the adjoining farm, Trixie McGuire snuggled against her husband. “That was nice, Fred. Real nice. And we owe it all to one little pill,” she said, eyeing the prescription bottle on the nightstand. Were her eyes playing tricks or were there three pills still in the bottle? “Fred, there are still three pills in this bottle. I don’t understand.”

  “Trixie honey. I can’t lie to you.” He raised up on his elbow.

  “But you said . . . I thought . . . do you mean . . . all those other times you didn’t take . . . ?”

  He shook his head. “Nope. I didn’t need them. I just let you think I took them. Don’t ask me why. Maybe because we had that dry spell there for a while. I didn’t want you to lose interest in me, Trixie.”

  “Fred, that would never happen. If I gave you the impression . . .”

  “You didn’t. It was me. I kept thinking I wasn’t the man you married anymore. I want it to be the same as it used to be. We’re getting up there in years, but I don’t feel old. I don’t ever want to feel old. Those pills made me feel old, Trixie.”

  “I didn’t know you felt that way. You should have told me. Fred, it can’t be the same. We’re in our seventies. All our juices have been drying up. We tried to ignore it, but reality is reality. You never took any of the pills?”

  “I washed the others down the drain,” he admitted.

  Trixie pressed closer. “You’re a hunk, Fred McGuire. Those young studs out there have nothing on you. Throw that damn bottle away. When it works, it works. When it doesn’t, it doesn’t. As long as you’re near me and we’re together, that’s all that counts. Can we go to sleep now?”

  “I thought you’d never ask, my little love muffin.”

  “I love it when you talk like that, Fred.”

  Flash barked and put his big paws on the side of the bed.

  Trixie turned over. “Okay, boy, you can come up here now. We’re all through for tonight.” She cuddled the dog close to her. “Good boy, yes, we love you, too,” she crooned.

  9

  Jane eyed the kitchen calendar as she stood by the sink drinking her first cup of coffee of the day. One week until Christmas and two weeks until the new year. She closed her eyes for a moment. This was going to be a bad week. A hectic week. A week of decision making. And she still hadn’t found a special present for Mike, Trixie, or Fred. Maybe she should go shopping today after the Christmas luncheon her colleagues held every year. Then again, maybe not. She wasn’t exactly in the mood to shop. Not for presents and not for the Christmas tree Mike said he wanted them to have.

  He wanted to decorate the house, too. A together project, he’d called it. Jane sighed at the thought of all the work. What was the sense in it anyway? They weren’t going to be around to enjoy it all. She and Mike were spending Christmas Eve with Trixie and Fred. Then they were going to get up early and drive to New Orleans to spend Christmas Day with Mike’s parents. Her heart started to beat faster at the thought. What if they didn’t like her? What if she didn’t like them?

  Jane poured a second cup of coffee, thinking about how much she dreaded today’s luncheon because Sharon Thomas was going to be there. The woman had called the office the day before and said they needed to have a talk and could they do it before the luncheon started. Sharon’s voice had been frosty and angry-sounding. Jane figured it probably had something to do with Betty Vance’s inability to make a decision as to which psychiatrist she wanted to treat her. As far as Jane was concerned, she was Betty Vance’s friend, nothing more. She’d turned over her file to Sharon the first day her colleague resumed her practice. Betty still came to the farm with Golda and called Jane to talk about the dog. That, to Jane’s mind, didn’t constitute patient poaching.

  Mike said she should have severed all ties to the young woman so as not to confuse her. But Mike also didn’t believe in getting involved with his patients. In Jane’s opinion, severing all ties with Betty would be tantamount to abandoning her. Something she could never do. If Sharon Thomas had gotten her panties in a wad over it, she was just going to have to untangle them.

  Jane added more coffee to her cup, which was a mistake since it would keep her running to the bathroom all morning. With the office closed for the holidays she had scheduled the morning for a full body massage, a new hairstyle, a manicure, and a pedicure. She’d get home with just enough time to take a warm bath and put on the new dress she’d bought just for the luncheon. Providing she had enough guts to wear the provocative outfit. Trixie had helped her pick out the black silk because of its slimming qualities. “You look like a skinny pencil in it, honey,” Trixie had said. The intricate gold belt emphasized her new waistline. She’d dropped eleven pounds since meeting Mike. She’d thought the dress a little too severe, too clingy, until Trixie pointed out the way the dress flirted with her knees and showed off her legs and womanly curves. The diamond frog pin she’d bought to fasten onto the shoulder would complete the outfit. Her strappy, black heels and the small Chanel bag with the gold chain, Trixie’s latest birthday gift, would make Mike do a double take. She crossed her fingers that the new hairstyle would be everything she’d hoped for.

  “I have this feeling, Olive, that Mike is going to give me a ring for Christmas. I could be wrong,” she said, starting to feel her mood improve, “but I don’t think so. You’re going to Trixie’s today, girl, so get your gear ready. I just want to check my e-mail, and then we’re good to go.”

  Jane turned on the computer and waited for it to boot up. She wondered why she bothered. She’d sent out queries by the dozen over the past two months, to all of Connie Bryan’s friends that she’d been able to locate. So far, no one had responded. All her leads, all her ideas were proving to be dead ends. She looked at the plastic container with the disks she’d brought home from Slidell. There was nothing on them of any importance with the exception of one that required a password. A password she didn’t have and one Connie’s parents weren’t aware of. For all she knew, it could be blank. She’d come up dry, too, in regard to Brian Ramsey.

  “The one I should probably be checking on is that bastard, Todd Prentice,” Jane muttered to Olive, who had gotten her rawhide bone and was patiently waiting for them to go. “Why didn’t I put him into this mix? I’m going to d
o that tomorrow or maybe tonight when I get home. I have an inkling that Joshua, Alice, and Peter’s father is in this up to his damn, fat neck.” Olive woofed. “Yeah, yeah, I know, I’m getting involved again. Who cares? Not me. I’m going to be packing it in real soon, but first I’m going to get to the bottom of this if it’s the last thing I do.”

  She turned off the computer and closed the plastic square that held Connie’s disks. She slid it to the far corner of her desk. At the last second she reached for a green glass frog Beth Goins had given her and set it on top of the Lucite box. Now it didn’t look so ominous.

  Jane gaped at her reflection in the floor-length mirror. Was this svelte, fashionable-looking creature really her? She swirled and twirled as she laughed in delight. The dress really did make her look slim, thinner than she’d ever appeared. The strappy shoes were downright sinful. She did have nice legs, she realized, twisting this way and that to see them from different angles. But it was her new hairstyle that tickled her the most. It was short now, feathering on her forehead and around her ears. The hairdresser had thinned her hair first, then applied a straightening agent to bring her tight curls under control. Jane continued to stare at her reflection. In her entire life she’d never looked this good. The makeup she’d taken an hour to apply looked like she wasn’t wearing any at all, which was her intention. A little perfume behind her ears and on her wrists, perfume the salesgirl said would make men melt in their shoes and women drop with envy. Oh, yeah.

  Her good mood disappeared the moment she asked herself what her mother would think if she could see her now. “Plain Jane, huh? Up yours, Mother Dearest!” she said, flipping her mother the bird as she pranced out of the room.

  For the most part it was your standard Christmas party-slash-luncheon, with the men outnumbering the women and the men letting the women know they were outnumbered in a gentlemanly way. There was the inevitable backslapping, handshaking, and a lot of subdued laughter. The women eyed one another as they calculated the cost of each other’s outfits.

  Every male eye in the room turned on Jane as she entered. For the first time in her life she knew she was being appreciatively stared at. It was a totally new feeling for her and one she liked. What would Mike’s reaction be? she wondered. Where was he? She didn’t see him, but she did see Sharon Thomas nibbling from a cheese tray.

  “Merry Christmas, Sharon,” Jane said, holding out her hand. Sharon’s grip was deliberately hurtful. The open hostility on her colleague’s face was something Jane didn’t understand, but she refused to let Sharon know she’d noticed. “You said you wanted to talk to me about something. Do you want to talk here or outside in the lobby?”

  “Let’s go to the lobby so I can smoke a cigarette,” Sharon said. “I almost didn’t recognize you, Jane.”

  Jane felt her chest puff out. “I lost a little weight and got a new hairstyle. I like your dress, Sharon.”

  “Is it true you and Mike Sorenson are an item?” Sharon asked, ignoring the compliment.

  “Yes.” Jane held the door for her colleague. She waited until she lit her cigarette before asking, “What did you want to talk to me about?”

  Sharon blew a perfect smoke ring. “My patient, Betty Vance.”

  Jane repositioned herself so the smoke wouldn’t drift into her face. “How is she doing?” she asked even though she already knew the answer.

  “She might do a little better if you’d stop horning in. She’s torn between the two of us. I wish you hadn’t taken her off her Valium.”

  “As I told you in my report, Sharon, she wasn’t just taking the Valium you’d prescribed but at least two other medications as well. She could have easily overdosed. As for horning in. She calls me from time to time, but it’s always a conversation about her dog. She’s not asking for advice, and I’m not giving it. I haven’t been face-to-face with her since I turned her back over to you. From the way she talked, I assumed she was doing well.”

  “I told her I would release her if she wanted to continue with you, Jane. She said no. This is a bad time of year for our patients, as you know. Betty’s on her own now, something you suggested, which I think was unwise. That means she’s going to be alone for the holidays, a particularly dangerous time for someone like her.”

  Jane was determined not to get into it with Sharon, especially in a public place where everyone seemed to have two sets of ears. “My godmother invited Betty for Christmas dinner, so she won’t be alone, Sharon. They’re good friends now, and Betty visits them often. I wish I could join them, but I’m going to New Orleans with Mike to meet his parents. What is it you want me to do?”

  “Leave her alone,” Sharon said with icy contempt.

  “I can’t do that, Sharon. You wouldn’t do it either. At least I don’t think you would. I’m a friend to Betty Vance, nothing more.”

  “This isn’t going to work, Jane. You telling her one thing, me telling her something else. She’s still much too fragile. It will confuse her even more.”

  “You keep saying she’s fragile. I beg to differ with you because that young woman has a lot of inner strength. She’s drawing on it without the aid of drugs. When I took over, she was so dopey she couldn’t even drive herself to her appointment. She literally could not function. How can that be good? So she had a bad week until the drugs left her system. She survived. She’s sleeping, holding down a job again, she has an efficiency apartment, and she’s driving again. I’d say that’s damn good from where I’m standing. I’ll try to talk to her less frequently, but I will not stop being her friend. Let’s both make sure we understand that, Sharon,” Jane said, looking her colleague straight in the eye.

  Sharon crushed out her cigarette, her body rigid with anger.

  “Sharon, this probably isn’t the time to mention this, but I might not see you again during the holidays. I’m thinking of selling my practice. If you’re interested, let me know.”

  “My, my, my, I guess it is serious with Mike. I’ll think about it. I meant it, Jane, leave Betty alone.”

  Jane stared down at the dirty ashtray and wished she had a cigarette. She wondered how many of the doctors inside the room smoked. She backed up a step when four of her colleagues filed past her and lit up. So much for the Surgeon General’s report. She took a seat at the far end of the lobby to wait for Mike. She eyed the elaborate Christmas decorations. How festive it all looked. The tree was fresh, the scent almost overpowering. Packages wrapped in silver foil and tied with huge red-velvet ribbons surrounded the fragrant balsam. She wondered if they were empty or employee gifts. Empty, she decided, her cynicism winning out. The packages were just decorations. This was the new millennium after all, where everything was bogus and phony. Well-meaning psychiatrists included.

  Closing her eyes, Jane struggled to remember what the Christmas trees looked like when she was a little girl. They must not have been special because she couldn’t remember any of them.

  Trixie’s trees were always works of art. She hung all her childish trinkets on them: Popsicle sleds, macaroni wreaths, construction-paper ornaments, and a ribbon-framed thumbprint with arms and legs sketched in to resemble a bug. All those keepsake items were worked in with her one-of-a-kind blown-glass ornaments.

  Jane clearly remembered making cookie-dough ornaments and painting them when she was at Trixie’s house. Afterward, Trixie would hang them in the middle of the tree so everyone could see them. She called them her treasures. Tears burned behind her eyelids at the memory.

  “Jane!” a welcome voice called.

  She twisted around. “Mike!” She held her breath. This was the moment she’d been waiting for.

  His eyes swept over her. “I didn’t recognize you at first. My God, you cut your hair!” He looked positively horrified.

  Jane’s heart fluttered in her chest. “You don’t . . . you don’t like the way I look?”

  “You look . . . totally different.”

  A cold knot of dread formed in her stomach. “My . . . my hair will grow
back,” she said apologetically, then wondered why in the hell she was defending herself. “Wait just a damn minute. I happen to like the way it looks, and it’s easy to take care of. If you don’t, that’s your problem! I didn’t insult you when you decided to grow a beard.” Her gaze boldly met his.

  His eyes crinkled at the corners as a smile grew on his face. “Wait a minute yourself and stop making assumptions. I do like it. You just took me by surprise, especially because all of a sudden you look like—”

  “Like what?” Jane asked coolly.

  “Coletta.”

  “Coletta! Your old girlfriend? Now you are insulting me, Mike.” She looked away, her pride and newfound self-confidence wounded.

  “Insult you! Coletta is gorgeous. She could have modeled. How can you be insulted by that remark, Jane?”

  She turned back, eyeing him narrowly.

  “Jane, you should have told me you were getting your hair cut. I loved your hair. I loved all those curls. I wasn’t expecting—” He suddenly became tongue-tied. “If I wanted another Coletta in my life, I would have found one.”

  Jane gave him her most withering expression. “You should have quit while you were ahead, Mike. Somehow your comparison just doesn’t do it for me.”

  “I’m sorry, Jane. I didn’t mean . . .”

  “The hell you didn’t. It’s time to go inside.” Jane flounced her way down the hall to the banquet room. She took her seat on the left side of the room. Mike was sitting on the right side.

  Jane made small talk and listened to meaningless chatter as she tried to see over the poinsettia centerpiece. She opened a bright red napkin and settled it on her lap, her eyes sparking angrily as she tried to get her emotions under control. From time to time she risked a glance in Mike’s direction as she listened to the boring speeches she wouldn’t remember an hour from now. Satisfied that he looked miserable, she relaxed.