by lanie love
“I’m sorry.” I say. “Go on. I want to hear it.”
“My brother petitioned the court for custody. Richard and Bernadette didn’t contest and gave up all parental rights. My brother changed my name to Mary Jane Winters. Winters was our mother’s maiden name. We left for San Francisco and I’ve never seen Richard or Bernadette again since.”
“Your brother didn’t press charges? He didn’t tell the courts the reason he wanted to adopt you? He didn’t make them pay?” I’m ticked off at him for not avenging her.
“No, I wouldn’t have been able to handle that, Michael. I was catatonic by the time he found me. I was locked deep down in my own head. I was that way for years. I would just sit and stare, without ever even saying a word.”
“How did you stop being... Uh...” I stop, at a loss for words.
“My brother, Nathan, he switched careers. He started studying mental health. I was his case study. I know it sounds weird, but it allowed me to be seen by his professors who then asked their colleagues for help. I was treated by some of the best mental health experts on the west coast. Slowly, once my mind realized it was safe to do so, I resurfaced, I guess you can say. But I was fourteen when I was finally able to leave the mental hospital.”
“Fourteen, Jesus. When did you move back to LA?”
“Three years ago. My brother ran into my dad. They’d moved close to where we lived in San Francisco. Just the thought of them being on the same coast was hard enough to handle, let alone the same city. So, I packed up my mom’s beat up old Edsel and came back to LA, because it was familiar to me. But still, it was the first time I was on my own and I was terrified. One day, I was at the library, preparing to read to the kids and I just panicked. I nearly relapsed. I would have, if it wasn’t for your mom. When I asked how she knew what to do, she told me about you.”
“Are you alright?” I say when she begins to cry again.
“It’s late and I’m really tired. Can we just go to bed?”
“Yes, of course.” I get up so she can get under the covers.
“And can I ask a favor?”
“Anything.”
“Will you hold me? My brother used to do it when I was afraid to sleep. It helps me to know someone’s there.”
“Okay.” I get under the covers with her back to my front and wrap my arms around her waist and hold her tight.
“Jane?” I say after a while. “Do you remember your real mother?”
“Hmm, a little. I remember she would always smell like cookies or some type of delicious pastry whenever she picked me up to hug me. She would smell so good. I found out later that she owned a bakery. The peach pie I made was her recipe.”
“Baking reminds you of your mother?”
“Yes.” She whispers, smiling at a memory as she drifts off to sleep.
I stay awake for as long as I can, watching in case she has a nightmare and afraid of my own if I was to sleep. Eventually, I drift off, not being able to fight it any longer.
I feel warm breath on my face. My eyes fly open to find Jane inches away from my face, staring intently at me.
“Man, you scared the life out of me.” I tell her, making her laugh, as I turn on my back. “You looked like one of those creepy dolls they have in the thriller movies.”
“I’m sorry.” It’s all she can say between breaths of laughter. “Good morning. Did you get any sleep?”
“I did, actually. I slept well. You?”
“Pretty good.” She says.
“Pretty good? Judging by the way you were snoring, I’d say better than good.”
“I do not snore.” She squeals.
“You were calling hogs, as my grandfather would say.” I tease her. That gets her laughing again.
We eat breakfast and goof around a little more while we wait for a car rental to open.
Driving back to LA, I want to ask Jane more about her past, but I can sense that she is no longer willing to talk about it, so we stick to lighter topics. She informs me that my mother is lying in wait for me when we get back. She is determined to get me to her Annual Children’s Hospital Fall Festival Carnival again this year.
“Are you going.” I ask her in hopes that at least I’ll have some kind of fun.
“Not me.” She says. “I’m all for planning the events, but you can count me out of attending them.”
Now, I’m left feeling disappointed. I am determined to find a way to convince her, to not only come to the carnival, but to be my date.
****
You would think that the night we shared would have brought us closer, but it has had the opposite effect. Jane and I barely speak outside of the Triple H meetings. For an entire week, I’ve been left to pine for her from afar. There is really no other word for it, but pining. I am determined to get back into her good graces, not that I was ever there in the first place. None of my usual charm is working on her, which only serves to make me feel inadequate around her. If it wasn’t for the constant swooning of other women I come in contact with on a daily basis, I would swear I’d lost my touch. “Mom, how nice to see you.” I kiss her cheek as she joins me in my living room.
“I can’t stay long, I just dropped by to be sure you were coming to the carnival tomorrow.” She says.
“Is this the carnival weekend?” I pretend to check my schedule in an attempt to get out of it.
“You know very well it is and I expect you to not only put in an appearance, but to stay until it’s over.” She points her index finger at me in authority. “Perhaps you can convince Jane to come along as your date.”
“Ha! I’ll have better luck with finding the lost city of Atlantis.”
“Michael, are you telling me that you are interested in pursuing a relationship with her?”
“I am.” My eardrums nearly shatter from her yelling. I dismiss Karen, my housekeeper, who has just run in to investigate.
“I knew it. I was right, wasn’t I,” she says, begging me to admit it.
“Yes, mother.” I sigh at her. “Not that it matters. She wants nothing to do with me right now.” I make a show of dramatically slumping down on the couch.
“Oh, she’s just scared. Trust me when I say she feels the same way about you.” I’m eager to hear how she could possibly know this. The only conclusion I can come up with is that Jane must talk to her about her feelings for me. I’m as giddy as a school girl gossiping with my mother about what was said about me. “Well, I really can’t really break trust, but you’re going to have to trust me. She told me that she confided in you about the Claysons and that it was okay for us to talk about it if you chose to.”
“Jesus Christ, Mom, when she told me that, I was thrown for a loop. Never in my wildest dreams would I have come up with that being the thing that happened to her. Based on her charity work, I just thought she was poor, you know, unable to afford food, but never would I have guessed her childhood was so horrific because Bernadette and her own father.”
“I know. It’s a terrible thing to live through and if anyone can sympathize, it’s you. But you must be patient with her. This is all very new and she is still very fragile mentally.”
“So, I should leave her alone then?” I’m crushed by the thought. Leaving her alone doesn’t sit well with me.
“No, absolutely not. I think you can be good for each other, but she is very inexperienced when it comes to matters of dating, if you catch my meaning.”
“Sex?”
“Yes, dear, that would sum it up.”
“I already figured as much. Mom, those men, did they rape her?”
“No, they didn’t.” I release the breath I didn’t know I was holding. The tension in my muscles relaxes.
“Well, it’s not like I’m eager to hop back in that saddle again after dealing with Bernadette these last few years. How could I have ever thought I loved that monster?”
“We will no longer focus our energy on that despicable excuse for a woman. Go to Jane and convince her to come to the carniva
l. I think it will be a good start.”
“I don’t even know where she is right now.”
“I happen to know that every evening about this time, she can be found at the library on Fourth Street.”
She yelps in surprise when I grab her by the shoulders and plant a big kiss on her cheek before I rush out the door.
****
It doesn’t take long to spot her. She is like a ray of light in this dull, dreary place that smells of old rotting paper. She is in the middle of a long, wide row of books with her face buried in one, leaning against the bookshelf. “You know this place has lots of chairs,” I say, leaning next to her. I swear it’s like she’s expecting me. There is no surprise on her face at all when she looks up at me.
“They’re too out in the open.” She explains. “I didn’t peg you as a public library kind of guy.”
“I came looking for you. My mother said this is where you hang out.”
“Is something wrong?” She closes her book to give me her full attention.
“Yes. And I am in desperate need of your help.”
“What is it?”
“My mother’s carnival.”
“Yeah?”
“I need you to go with me.”
“Michael, I don’t think so.” She shakes her head.
“You will be doing me a great favor.”
“How so?”
“Well…” I stop to look around, making sure no one else can hear me. “I’m afraid of the Ferris wheel.”
“Oh, come on.” She tilts her head and twists her mouth, narrowing her eyes at me.
“I swear it’s true. The thought of being rotated that high off the ground, in a small box that’s attached to a wheel that it took some carny all of a few hours to put together, freaks me the hell out.”
“Well, when you put it that way, it’s perfectly understandable. But you know it’s relatively safe. Statistically, you could be killed just standing on the street before you would be riding on a Ferris wheel.” I don’t even ask how the hell she knows that.
“It still scares the bejesus out of me and what’s worse is that Jimmy Junior knows it. Every year he double dog dares me to get on it.”
“So, say no.” She simply says with a shrug. I look at her like she’s just sprouted wings.
“Jane!” I yell in surprise. I’m quickly subdued by a resonating “Shhhhh” from somewhere in the library, as I have obviously broken the quiet rule. I lower my voice. “Jane! It’s a Double Dog Dare!” I whisper a yell as I emphasize each word. Surely, she knows no one can refuse a double dog dare.
“Right, of course. I mean, how could I not see that before.” She chuckles. “So, what do you want from me?”
“I need you to ride it with me.”
“So, you want me on the death wheel just for your double dog dare?”
“Now you understand. It’s either that or I can use you as an excuse. I can say you’re too chicken and have forbidden me to ride it.”
“But then Jimmy Junior wins. No way is that happening. He. Is. Going. Down.” She says, willing to conspire with me to get back at Jimmy Junior.
“So, you’ll come with me?”
“Yes, I will.”
“As my date?” I say, wanting clarification.
“No.” Damn. “I want you to come as my date.”
“Jane, be reasonable.” I tell her frustrated. What kind of a man lets a woman take him out on a date?
“I am.” She says. “Don’t think I haven’t noticed that you have not cashed a single check I’ve given you to pay for your Maserati.”
“I don’t need you to do that.”
“Okay, but at the very least, you can let me treat you to this carnival.” She says, crossing her arms. “Or no deal.”
“Okay, deal.” I give in to her. My pouting like a child makes her laugh.
****
“It’s just after sunset and we’re finally getting some relief from the heat. This is the longest I’ve ever been at this carnival. I’ve spent the entire afternoon having fun with Jane. I swear she’s turned me into a big kid. She got me to ride the bumper cars, the tilt-a-whirl, and that damn dragon swing at least three times. If I didn’t take karate, I wouldn’t have been able to keep up with her as she zipped back and forth through the fairgrounds. She was only slowed down by a 15-minute hayride and then her appetite as she insisted we try every strange food stand in sight, from pink and blue cotton candy to mint flavored malts.
“Are you ready?” Jane asks. We’re standing at the front of the Ferris wheel line. Her forehead furrows at the sight of me looking up at it.
“Completely ready.” I’m the epitome of calm as I take her hand and help her to her seat.
Well, we meet again. You garish circle of twisted metal, all adorned with your bright lights and smiley clown faces that mock me while you beckon me in, knowing the dangers that lurk ahead.
“Don’t do it, man.” Junior yells a warning at me, knowing I’m about to chicken out. “Double dog! Double dog! Double dog!” I give him double “fuck you” fingers as he chants, watching us slowly rise in the air. Mom’s voice rises over his, reminding me of the children all around. My stomach drops from the rest of my body when the Ferris wheel stops at the very top.
“Now, see this isn’t so bad.” Jane says, ignoring that I have a death grip on her hand. I’m surprised I haven’t fractured one of her fingers. “Are you alright?” The fact that I’m sitting stock still is beginning to worry her.
“Uh huh.”
“You weren’t kidding, were you?” She wipes the beads of sweat off my forehead with the napkin from the funnel cake we had before we got on. In hindsight, I probably should have waited to eat that funnel cake. My nonexistent stomach may betray me more so than my nerves at this point. “How on earth did you get on this thing last year if you’re this scared?”
“My mother rode it with me.” I tell her, truthfully. She tries hard to stifle her laugh.
“I’m no Norma, but maybe I can help you. Okay, just focus on me. And I probably shouldn’t say this, but whatever you do, don’t look down.” And of course, as soon as it comes out of her mouth, I look down. My eyes are so wide they feel like they are about to pop out of my head. My heart is racing and I’m freezing from the sweat that’s pouring off me. I think the air is thin up here because I’m having trouble catching my breath. “Relax. We’re perfectly fine. Just breathe.” She takes my face in her hands turning me towards her so I stop looking down. “Just focus on me.”
My fear goes straight to hell having her this close to me with her soft hands now cradling my face and her big warm eyes looking sympathetically into mine. I realize what a mistake it was to bring her up here. Because now, sitting here alone in our own little box, looking up at the dark clear sky and the twinkling stars that seem to catch her eyes, gives me a sudden unwavering need to take her in my arms and kiss her. She takes her thumb and wipes away the moisture that has accumulated on my upper lip. I flick my tongue out and brush its soft pad, causing her to gasp at the unexpected contact.
“Jane?” I call her, noticing her breathing has accelerated slightly.
“Michael.” She whispers. I lean in closer.
The tips of our noses are almost touching. She licks her lips and I can’t stop myself. I must kiss her or I will expire right here on this damn Ferris wheel. I close the distance. My lips touch hers softly, giving her a chance to push me away. She moans as she leans her body into mine. I brush her lips with my tongue and she opens her mouth, giving me permission to enter. She tastes of funnel cake and strawberry soda. Her hand moves around to grab the back of my head, pulling me in closer as she deepens our kiss. I wrap my arms around her waist and hold her tight, unwilling to break our kiss as the Ferris wheel spins again.
“Way to go!” The obnoxious voice of my brother brings us back to reality.
He’s smooching loudly with his hand like he’s in grade school. And of course, the boys waiting in line take note of h
is antics and join in the fun.
All the while, Mom busies herself snapping pictures of the two of us with her Polaroid. I make a mental note to have her send me those later. Jane puts her hand over her mouth to hide her embarrassment as I help her off the Ferris wheel. We make our way over to the nearly abandoned win-a-prize booths. I watch as she checks out some of the stuffed animals.
“Do you want me to win you a few?” I ask her.
“Why don’t we both try. That way our chances are better.”
I don’t know why I set myself up this way. Of course, she wins the best stuffed animal, a large panda, all by herself, leaving me with an overstuffed gray ugly elephant. I go to toss him.
“Don’t you dare.” She says, coming to his rescue and grabbing him. “He just happens to be my favorite.”
I smile at her knowing it’s because I won him for her.
“So, what are you going to call this guy?
“Mr. Mason, of course.”
“Of course.” I say to her as I chuckle.
Finally worn out from the carnival, Jane falls asleep as we drive back from Beverly Hills.
“Sleeping Beauty.” I gently call to wake her as we sit parked outside of her apartment. “Thank you for agreeing to come with me.” I tell her as I walk her to the door.
“I really had fun. It was a perfect first date, Michael.”