Plain Jayne

by Laura Drewry

  “I can’t believe you did that.”

  “He was screwing his whore in my house, Jayne. In my bed! Would you have just left without doing something? Oh, I don’t think so.”

  Jayne didn’t answer because that’s exactly what she’d done with Barry. Boy, did he get off easy.

  After promising to call her later, Maya dropped Jayne at the apartment, then went to her flower store whistling “Tequila.” It took Jayne three tries to get the back door unlocked because of the way her hands shook. Good God, had she just aided a crime? And if so, how could she possibly sit across from Brett tonight and not look guilty?

  The whole thing was so ridiculous, she couldn’t help but laugh. A couple times she almost felt bad for Will, who had no idea what his house had just gone through, but those moments didn’t last long. He deserved it. And more.

  All day, every time she thought of little Maya swinging the nine iron through the plasma screen, she laughed again, and then reminded herself to never piss that woman off.

  By late afternoon, she found herself rereading the letter from the lawyer. Something seemed off. She lifted the key from under the tape and stared at it; what could possibly be in that locker? After all the crap they’d hauled out of here, the thought of doing more was too much.

  She turned the key over in her hand, then reached for the letter again.

  On her specific instruction, you were to receive this key only if you reopened the bookstore.

  Only if she reopened the store? What the hell? Was it supposed to be some kind of weird bribe? Why the hell would Gran care if she reopened the store or not? The old bat had closed it up years ago and done God knows what with the stock.

  Jayne stared down at the letter again. No way. Was Gran really that crazy?

  With the key stuffed in her pocket, Jayne left everything else on the kitchen counter, locked up, and ran all the way to Lakeside Storage. Once there, it didn’t take her long to find the locker, but it took her a good five minutes to actually work up the nerve to put the key in the lock.

  She could do this.

  If the books were in there, she needed to get them out. If it was just more crap, she’d simply lock the door and walk away; the lawyers or the facility management could deal with it. Hell, they could burn it for all she cared.

  She released the lock and unclipped it from the hasp, then grabbed the door handle near the ground with both hands and hauled it up until it grabbed and rolled up toward the ceiling.

  “No freakin’ way.” Jayne’s mouth fell open, her throat went bone dry, and she couldn’t even blink. In fact, she was afraid to blink in case this was some kind of mirage and by blinking, she’d lose sight of it.

  Six evenly spaced rows of identical boxes, stacked five high and fifteen or twenty deep. Each box was labeled in Gran’s precise handwriting, but it took Jayne another minute to realize what she was reading.

  Fiction: Paperback A–AR

  Fiction: Paperback AR–BA

  No. It couldn’t be. And yet it was. Up and down each row she went, reading each and every label. Genres were boxed separately, hardcover from paperback, adult fiction, children’s, young adult, science fiction, history … they were all there.

  “How the hell did you manage this?” she whispered. Gran had never stood an inch over five feet tall, but each stack of boxes was easily a foot higher than that. “And why?”

  She ran her hand over the boxes, reading each label as she touched it, but even as the words soaked into her brain, she couldn’t let herself believe it yet. For eighteen years she’d lived in Gran’s apartment, but it had never been her home. The only place she’d ever felt at home was in the store surrounded by all those books.

  And now she had them back. She had a home again.

  Eventually Jayne made her way back to the front of the unit, to the first box labeled Fiction: Paperback A–AR, but she didn’t open it. For a long time, the only thing she could do was stare at it, her hand flat against the side. If she opened this box and it wasn’t full of books … if it was full of something else, like more baby clothes …

  “Come on, Gran,” she muttered. “Don’t fail me now.”

  She reached above her head, gripped both sides of the top box, and slowly wiggled it far enough forward that it tipped toward her.

  Please don’t land on my head.

  When she finally managed to get it down, she set it on the floor and stared at the thick tape holding the flaps closed. Of course she hadn’t brought any tools with her, so she pulled the key out of her pocket and used it to slice the tape open.

  Why was her heart beating so fast? With the weight of the box, it was hard to imagine it being filled with anything other than books, but it was almost too much to hope for. After everything else, it just didn’t make sense.

  Very slowly, she lifted the flaps, then a handful of packing paper.

  Books. Oh yes, there were books. Packed neatly with enough paper to keep them from shifting in the box, spine up, and alphabetized by author name. It was one of the most beautiful things Jayne had ever seen. Weird and unexpected, given everything else Gran had left behind, but beautiful nonetheless.

  Jayne ran her finger across the spines, some almost perfect, others cracked and creased. Her eyes burned but she didn’t care. As fast as the tears came, she swiped them away with the hem of her T-shirt.

  Richard Adams, Mitch Albom, Maya Angelou, Jeffrey Archer.

  Beautiful.

  She moved her hand back over the spines, loving the feel of them beneath her fingers. As she moved over the Archer books again, she felt something else. She peered closer, and sure enough, there was white paper jammed between A Matter of Honour and As the Crow Flies.

  She pressed her finger and thumb between the two books and pulled out a white envelope with her name on it, again printed in Gran’s precise script.

  Okay, this was just getting creepy.

  Jayne lifted the unsealed flap and eased the letter out. It wasn’t dated, and going by the number of different-colored inks, it was safe to assume Gran hadn’t written it in one sitting. Jayne closed her eyes and breathed deeply. Did she really want to read this? Was there anything Gran could say at this point that would change anything?

  No. Still, Jayne couldn’t not read it, even when the first thing she noticed was the lack of endearment in the greeting.

  Jayne,

  This is not a letter full of regret, as some might expect, for I have no regrets. I only thought to explain what you’ve found here and why.

  Your grandfather left me a month shy of Kirsten’s second birthday. He said he could no longer handle the responsibility and that we were better off without him. In his defense, both statements were true. Kirsten was a difficult baby from the start, colicky and fussy and the pickiest eater I ever met in my whole life, but she was also the most beautiful baby, everyone said so, and I must have told her as much a million times if I told her once. That was a mistake.

  Yeah, Jayne snorted. What girl wants to hear she’s beautiful?

  Without a husband to help, I was forced to work two jobs, which meant Kirsten ended up in day care. To say she hated it would be a gross understatement, but it was bad enough my husband had left, I wasn’t about to shame us more by quitting my jobs and going on welfare. You know how I feel about that kind of thing.

  Every week was a new battle, and I can’t deny many were my fault, but rules are made to be followed and she refused to accept most of them. She knew how to use her pretty face to get what she wanted, and for too many years, she managed to get out of a lot of trouble with a smile or a quick tear. By the end of her sophomore year, she was smoking cigarettes and marijuana, drinking alcohol, lying about where she got it, and missing curfew. She was sixteen the first time she was arrested. I refused to bail her out.

  I won’t detail every single thing Kirsten did, but suffice it to say that two years later when she announced she was pregnant with you, she’d moved on to heroin, had been arrested three more
times, and, while I don’t know the exact number, I do know you were the first pregnancy she did not abort, though as you know, I did try to convince her to do so.

  Jayne slid to the floor and sat staring at the pages with wide eyes. Was she supposed to thank Gran for the effort? Apologize, maybe, that Kirsten hadn’t aborted Jayne? What the hell?

  To her credit, she tried to stay clean during her pregnancy, and for the most part, I think she succeeded. You were born on a Wednesday, of course, full of woe. Kirsten begged me to take you both in until she could get a place of her own. Given our history, I did not want to, but how would it have looked if I turned out my own grandchild, regardless of the fact you were born a bastard?

  Some people say Kirsten’s death was accidental, but to my way of thinking, it was her decision to take the drugs that killed her, so it amounts to the same as suicide. I was left to raise you, a single mother again, only this time, I was not your mother, but your grandmother, and now I bore the added stains of a illegitimate grandchild and my daughter’s drug-induced suicide.

  I had already raised one child and failed miserably at it, but I had learned from my mistake and I was not going to repeat it with you. It was my fault Kirsten thought so highly of herself, and every time I looked at you, I saw her, except you were even more beautiful, and I knew that could only lead to trouble.

  Jayne dropped the letter onto her lap and exhaled slowly. Part of her brain screamed at her to shred the damned thing and be done with it, but the other part forced her to pick it up and keep reading.

  Like ripping off a Band-Aid, she’d do it fast.

  To prevent you from taking the same road she did (the very road I pushed her down by doting over her as a child), I made the decision to push you the other way. It was the only hope I had to save you from the same fate as your mother. You needed to be humble, to never think you were better than anyone else, to never ever use your beauty to get by in this world, and to get yourself as far away from this town and your family’s shame as you possibly could.

  I breathed an enormous sigh of relief the day you walked out the door with your suitcase. You survived your childhood despite your pretty face and you had no sentimental feelings toward me which was important if you were to stay away from this town and build a better life, to become more than what your mother ever was, and to see everything the world has to offer. In any case, I knew you’d be back eventually. It wouldn’t be to see me, because after that first couple of years when you repeatedly tried to contact me, you finally gave up, and once that boy married the nice little blond girl, I knew you wouldn’t be back for him, but you’d be back for the store. I knew that as much as I knew the sun would rise in the east.

  On your twenty-third birthday, I closed the store, papered up the windows, and spent an ungodly amount of time boxing up and moving all the books over here. It was a full-time job, to say the least, but I figured since you respected my wishes, the least I could do was preserve the one thing you loved so much in case you ever returned, which you obviously have.

  Once you look at the other things I saved for you, you will see the reasons behind why I chose them. The Santas, for example. Never in my whole life did I meet a child who tried so hard to NOT be excited about Christmas. It’s not right to be so indifferent to it, Jayne, so I found you five of the biggest Santas I could and hope you bring them out every year to decorate your home.

  At the time of my writing this, you’re newly thirty years old, so you might be well past the stage of needing all those baby clothes, as I assume any children will be at least into the toddler stage, so if you can’t use them, I hope you donate them to a good charity. And since we both know the only plant you didn’t neglect was the weed necklace that boy made you, I found a few silk plants even you couldn’t kill.

  Somewhere in the boxes are stacks of tabloids and National Geographics. Those are fun to look at when you’re old and feeling a little nostalgic. I still like to look at old pictures of Michael Landon and Lorne Greene in the trash magazines.

  That boy’s mother told me you got a job as some kind of editor, so I started saving red pens for you, though I guess they do all that nonsense on the computers now, don’t they?

  My hand is getting too tired to write more, so I trust you will be able to determine the significance of everything else I kept for you.

  Since you have opened this locker, you obviously mean to reopen the store, if you haven’t already, and I’m certain you will do well with it. You were always a strong child. You never cried at anything, and I suspect that strength will see you through much more in your life.

  Tilly

  * * *

  Nick jumped out of the shower and grabbed his phone on the third ring. Private number. He hated private numbers.

  “Nick Scott.”

  “Hey Nick, it’s Brett.”

  It took him a second to see past the red haze that clouded his brain. Why the hell would he be calling? Shouldn’t he be out with Jayne?

  “Yeah, what’s up?”

  Brett cleared his throat. “Is Jayne with you?”

  “Uh, no.” He grabbed a towel and rubbed it across his face and over his head. “Sorta thought she was with you.”

  “Yeah,” Brett muttered. “She didn’t show up.”

  Yes! Nick managed to catch the word before it fell off his tongue, but he didn’t even try to stop the grin that came with it. “Did you call her?”

  “She didn’t answer, so I stopped at the store and Maya said she hasn’t seen her since this morning. But she left her phone and wallet in the apartment.”

  Not good. “D’you call Ellie or Regan?”

  “Not yet.” Some more throat clearing. “I figured if she was with anyone, it’d be you.”

  Why did that twist Nick’s gut so much? He put the phone on speaker and set it on the bed while he grabbed the closest T-shirt and jeans he could reach. “Maybe she went for a walk.”

  “Maybe.” Brett didn’t sound convinced. In fact, his voice had started to take on that cop tone. “Does she often miss an appointment?”

  “Appointment?” Nick snorted. “Is that what you’re calling this? Not a date, but an appointment?”

  Silence.

  “Sorry.” Nick grabbed the phone and his keys and jammed his feet into his running shoes as he moved. “No, she doesn’t usually miss them, but it’s not unusual for her to be a little late.”

  “What’s ‘a little’? Because it’s been almost an hour and a half.”

  Really not good.

  “No, that’s not normal, even for her.”

  Brett sighed. “I’ll go down and talk to Ellie, see if she knows anything.”

  “Right.” He almost dropped the phone as he fumbled to jerk the truck door open. “I’m on my way out, so I’ll keep an eye open for her, too.”

  He clicked the phone off, threw the truck into gear, and tore out of the driveway. As he waited at the red light, he grabbed the phone and punched in Maya’s number.

  “Maya, it’s Nick. When did you talk to Jayne last?”

  “This morning.” Her voice was a little shaky. “We went to my house to pick up some of my stuff, but we were back just after ten, and she said she was going back to the apartment.”

  “She didn’t say anything about what she was going to do today?”

  “N-no. Brett already asked me that. Do you think something’s happened?”

  The knot in his stomach tightened until he almost doubled over.

  “Did she seem upset?” The light changed and he gunned it through the intersection. For a few seconds, the only response he got was the sound of sniffling on the other end of the line. “Maya! Was she upset?”

  “Well, y-yeah. I mean last night she was. I don’t know what you guys talked about but she wasn’t happy when she came upstairs, and then she got that letter, and neither one of us slept much and then we went—”

  “What letter?”

  “What?”

  Nick almost ripped the steer
ing wheel off its column. Was it too much to ask that she focus for two minutes?

  “The letter, Maya,” he ground out. “Who was the letter from?”

  “Her grandma’s lawyers.” She paused, her voice confused. “Didn’t she tell you about it?”

  A puddle of dread began to pool in Nick’s belly. He hadn’t spoken to Jayne since she kicked him out of the store. “What did it say?”

  “Something about … hang on, I think this might be it.” Something jangled, papers rustled. “Yup. This is it. There’s a storage locker with more stuff in it.”

  “Shit.” Nick jammed his fingers through his wet hair and turned toward downtown. “Where?”

  “Lakeside, number 427.”

  Nick punched his phone off without so much as a goodbye. Damn Tilly. Damn her to hell and back.

  He blew through two four-way stops and cranked the truck around to the huge open lot that housed Lakeside Storage. Where the hell were the numbers? There. 220. Shit. He drove down the aisle, then up the next side.

  Second from the end, the door was up and a pale light spilled out onto the road. Nick slammed the truck into park and jumped out, leaving it running and the door open.

  His brain registered two things at the same time; the first was the sight of all the boxes, so orderly, so precise. The second was the faint sound of sniffling coming from the gloom at the back of the locker. It couldn’t have been more than fifty feet to the back, but the dim light only shone at the front, leaving the back in grayish shadows.

  “Jayne?” He paused to glance inside the open box at the start of an aisle, sighed, then headed straight for the sound of sniffling at the back. “Sweetheart. Come here.”

  A second later, with a bunch of papers crunched in her fist, she walked straight into his arms, shaking and sobbing against his neck.

  “Sh-she’s crazy.” Jayne’s sobs came so hard and fast, her chest heaved with each breath. “All th-that garbage, all that crap was for me. She purposely saved it for me, Nick, and I … I threw it all out. I threw it out!”