She did not trust Mark because she didn’t trust men in general. As far as she could tell, Mark was perhaps the most baggage-less man she’d ever met. But she was ready to seize upon the only red flag she could discern: that he was forty and, by his own admission, had never had even one “near miss” at a serious relationship. She, at least, had had committed relationships, even though they had not worked out.
Would she marry or was she better off alone? She’d told Abby and Rachel often enough that, while she found the idea of a man attractive in many ways, eventually you also had to accept the inconvenience of their presence — farting, belching, scratching, and consuming all of a woman’s natural resources. “I mean,” Jane had told Abby recently, “a man is fine to have, but do you really want him hanging around and smelling up the place?”
Perhaps sex without commitment was the best solution — friends with benefits. She certainly did not want anyone to curtail her freedom. She wanted to pursue life on her own terms. Since working at the farm, she was able to send her mother money each month. While she wasn’t particularly close to her mother emotionally, she appreciated how hard she’d worked to keep the family together. Her mother still worked, but she was getting on in years now, and Jane was a dutiful, if not a loving daughter.
She needed a free rein to make such decisions. She was sure, despite no evidence, that Mark would not permit the freedom she required. She was so ready to catch that rarified scent of masculine assumption that had been common to her experience of men, she invented it on Mark’s behalf. How could it be otherwise? Had patriarchy suddenly died? With all of his money, charm, good looks, and lack of drama, how could he have any real depth? Men, she told herself, expected her wishes, her goals, and dreams to take a back seat to theirs. And when a man accidently shared an idea that she’d already held, he congratulated himself for having thought of it for her. That was how her brothers, her boyfriends, her dissertation advisor, and most of her male colleagues treated women. It was unlikely that Mark could be different, she reasoned. She put the finishing touches on her inner judgment, summing Mark up, “besides, he just wants booty. And I’m not risking my job to be his booty call.” Her ire sufficiently aroused by the idea of being remotely sexually used, however unfounded and unfair to Mark, helped Jane tumble past her fear of falling in love and her sadness that a relationship had not, would not work out for her. Anger at the plight of women made her strong. And as the international judges awarded straight tens, she was determined to forget the kiss, and laughed at herself for sequestering it ominously and significantly in “the past.”
• • •
Friday came and Jane was ecstatic when she heard Abby’s car roll up the drive. She ran out and greeted her friends and got them thoroughly settled in their rooms. The pair decided that they would be simply snug in Jane’s lovely old farmhouse, even if there hadn’t been three baths. Jane, of course, still had to do her chores, but Abby and Rachel wanted to help as much as they could, so long as it was afternoon housework and not crack-of-dawn barn work.
Once they were all settled in and Jane had finished her chores with Mac, the girls gathered round the kitchen and prepared their first meal together. Rachel had put a rosemary chicken into the oven. She rubbed the skin with butter and lemon juice, and then dusted it lightly with salt, pepper, and Bell’s seasoning. Abby put the finishing touches on an apple pie, and Jane seasoned some small russet potatoes for baking. And they all made contributions to the salad, while they drank wine and chatted freely.
Jane told Abby and Rachel the whole short but intense story of Mark from the beginning, the attraction, the date that was not a date, and that tempestuous kiss that had her knees buckling.
“So, what happened after that?” Abby asked.
“Nothing. He left. Evidently, to go back to the city,” Jane said.
Abby asked sympathetically, “Oh, honey, are you okay?”
“Of course! It’s not tragic or anything. I’m just a little mixed up about what it is I want or expect. I’m trying not to have expectations — they’re the kiss of death, anyway. Besides, I’ve sworn off men,” Jane laughed, pouring herself another glass of wine.
Abby looked hopefully at Rachel and asked if her spidey senses were tingling.
“You know Jane never wants to know her future. She wants to live it, not hear about it. The only strong impression I get is that Jane is … horny,” she laughed.
“Rachel! What, horny? Even if I were, he’s my boss … ”
“True. It’s all clear. No conflict except the incredible attraction and the intense desire to damn the torpedoes and away all boats. You know you want to throw caution to the wind and go for it. Fear holds you back.” Rachel challenged her.
“Do you think I should? Just let it be light and get crazy with it for as long as it lasts?” Jane asked.
“If you can, why not? The real question is can you?” Abby continued, “We all like to think we can be like a guy, have some incredible, frivolous sex, no strings, and then forget about him. But … ”
“Yah, I know. It just doesn’t work for me,” Jane had to admit. “I have to like a guy before I can sleep with him, and if the sex is really great — it’s like a drug. I’m hooked. And then,” she sighed, “somebody’s gotta take the three-ten to Yuma. And I love this job, so it ain’t gonna be me.”
“Relationships are always doomed. It’s a wonder the race has survived,” Rachel observed. “I read somewhere that there’s a chemical released in women’s brains when we have sex that produces the feeling of being in L-U-V. I can’t remember the name of it, oxytoxy or something, but apparently it’s more addictive than crack.”
“And yet, part of me wants to go there. Not good.” Jane exhaled. “You know how I get. I like a guy, I get infatuated, I get involved, and then … eeeh, scary Jane rises from the grave. Okay, Rachel, I’m ready for my fortune cookie now. Give it to me straight.”
“Honestly, Jane, until I’ve met the man, I can’t really say. All guys are dolts when it comes to relationships. He’s forty and still single, right? It could go either way — and this is not the psychic talking, just the woman. He might be at a turning point. Maybe he’s tired of having any woman he wants and never having to feel responsible. Seriously, some guys change, and some don’t.”
Jane sighed and Rachel continued, “I know it’s hard, but try not to think about him. Just be you.”
Chapter Nine
The next day, Jane noticed Mark’s Porsche in front of the manor. She ran into him on one of his customary walks as she was coming back from the field with the horses. It had been drizzling and foggy earlier in the morning and was merely gray and damp now. His greeting was warm and friendly. Jane realized that he wasn’t about to bring up the fact they’d almost screwed on her kitchen island, and she had no intention of mentioning it. So, they chatted about the farm, and Jane mentioned that her friends were visiting, and that Rachel, her psychic connection, would be happy to play gypsy fortuneteller at the party — “have Ouija, will travel.”
She told Mark that she’d taken Rachel and Abby on an abbreviated walking tour of the farm. They’d gone far enough to discover a rather comely old manse that Rachel had particularly admired and was interested in perhaps renting. It needed a lot of attention, but had a wide porch with huge pillars, not unlike the house. Jane couldn’t imagine why it was left to rot. It seemed such a grand place rising up from its former lawns, now mere weeds and brush. It was literally molding away.
Continuing with this safe topic, Jane said, “Rachel is quite taken with that Fall of the House of Usher-looking mansion — you know, the one about three miles from here. She’d like to rent it, maybe. Do you know the place? It’s white, or it was at one time, with green trim. It’s a little crazy looking … ”
Mark said he’d be glad to let Rachel have the place for free. “But, you should tell her, it’s suppos
edly haunted. No one will stay there for more than a week. My parents tried letting it out for free a bunch of times. No go. We offered it to the crews — guys who eat barbed wire for breakfast, but run like little girls from the old Whitcomb place.”
“Haunted?” Jane smiled, “No wonder Rachel likes it — she’s a sensitive, you know. She believes in ghosts. What about you? Have you ever stayed there? You know, the requisite twenty-four hours for your inheritance?”
“I don’t need an inheritance that bad,” he laughed. “No way I’ve stayed in the place — haunted or not, it’s a mess. If your friend is serious, it’s hers. I’ll see if I can get the crews to work on it — I’ll talk to Manuel about it.”
“What happened there — who’s supposedly haunting the place?”
“That, no one seems to know. An artist lived there a long time ago. That’s all I know.”
Having exhausted the haunted mansion conversation, and facing another awkward silence, Jane switched the topic to Mac. “Oh, good news: Amazingly, Mac was able to fix the old John Deere. So, we don’t need a new one, after all.”
“Good for Mac. That saves a tidy sum. Is he still working out?”
“Absolutely! It took him a while to stop calling me ‘Miss O’Hara.’ He doesn’t call me anything, now. He can’t seem to wrap his mind around calling me just plain ‘Jane.’”
Mark smoothly interjected, “No one could call you ‘plain,’ Jane.”
Jane smiled and blushed. “Well, he’s really great with the horses,” she said, breezing past the compliment with a smile, “I don’t mind saying, I wasn’t crazy about handling the stallion, but Mac’s got him in hand, beautifully. We should breed our mares this spring and summer. There’ll be a new generation of warm-bloods on the farm. By then, the green horses should be well along,” She halted abruptly, feeling that she had started to babble. The two horses she had on leads to bring in from the field raised their heads from grazing, their attention diverted by the sound of a car rolling down the gravel road. Relieved from an awkward silence, they saw it was Ben, who waved to them. “Hmm, that’s odd. He was just here yesterday to see the stallion,” Jane said, perplexed that Ben was here again so soon. “I’d better go see what he wants.” She smiled at Mark and continued toward the barn and Ben.
• • •
Whew! That’s done. And it was fine. Mark sighed, his relief tinged with a slight regret. She really is so lovely. He didn’t think he knew any women past thirty who blushed. But Jane did, often. She was such a mysterious combination of competence and shyness, of beauty and lack of self-possession. She was just interesting, he thought. When enough distance lay between them, he gave a surreptitious glance over his shoulder. It didn’t take Margaret Mead to recognize Date Man. Ben wasn’t there for the horses. Mark immediately discerned that Ben was interested in Jane. He was awkwardly holding flowers, for the love of Mike. And he had that slightly spruced-up look with his hair a little slicked back, his clothes less rumpled than his usual country vet appearance. He must have actually run an iron over his khakis, an idea that Mark found mildly annoying because it signaled forethought, planning, effort … hope.
And suddenly regret mounted to something like irritation: he was abdicating the field, but ironically resented the idea that someone else might like to picnic there. He had to accept that Jane was a free agent, and if she preferred the likes of Ben to him, well, let her have him, then. He’d already concluded that he had to back off from Jane, for her sake. He wanted her, but it would be selfish of him. Jane just wasn’t the “roll in the hay” type. With other women, Mark had always been able to find equal footing. But Jane was different. There was something beguilingly fragile about her, not physically, but he discerned a shyness in her, a depth he couldn’t ignore and yet wasn’t ready to deal with.
Mark kicked through the grass at his feet, violently smashing a mushroom in his path. He glanced over his shoulder once more, shoved his hands deep into his pockets and picked up speed.
As he imagined Jane being happy with Ben, he acknowledged that Ben was everyone’s idea of a good man. “He was the marrying kind, too,” he thought. “Hell, even I’d marry Ben.” He had a great business, and oozed that boyish folksy charm. Even Mark’s mother liked Ben. She’d remarked more than once that Ben was a comfort to have around.
Mark, on the other hand, began to feel a certain inner emptiness. He’d warmed himself by the fires of many women. He never lied to them. But he did withhold truths for which there was no graceful admission. To be perfectly honest, he believed, would have been rude, cruel even, and certainly a mood killer. Sexual intimacy without emotional intimacy was something both men and women craved, wasn’t it? Wasn’t it perfectly fine to pursue that gratification as long as the woman was consenting and also satisfied — and Mark was very good at that.
He had always believed that it was really women who held all the cards. A man could seduce all he wanted, but a woman got to say “yes” or “no.” And his success with women had always seemed ample evidence to support his theories of sexual equality. So he couldn’t explain the baffling emotional chaos that often followed a sexual relationship. It seemed that women, whom he’d thought strong and self-assured, became clingy and needy, demanding. He had not considered until that moment that a man’s power of seduction capitalized on a woman’s hope, especially, if or when she was vulnerable. And why would a woman, he wondered, want to kill a mood by saying, “just so you know, I’m hoping this turns into something.” Perhaps, he thought, just as he didn’t want to destroy the pleasure of the chase, women didn’t want to announce that they hoped to lasso a man.
He began to see that he chose, as if he’d had specially developed radar from NASA, women whom he thought subscribed to his theory of sexual equality, for fun and recreation. He began to understand that there really was no equality between the sexes and wondered if men didn’t have an unfair advantage, after all. In fact, he was never attracted to women who approached him, who really were on an equal footing with him, who truly wanted only recreational sex. When women pursued him with that assertive, what he regarded an aggressive, interest — no matter how beautiful they were, he was not interested. There was limited pleasure to be had there. He preferred to be the one who “chased” a woman. He enjoyed the seduction far more than the conquest. But once the woman began to have expectations of him, and once he felt that he was disappointing her, he was off and running.
The day was chilly and damp, the sky darkening and gloomy. His pace slowed to a shuffle, and he turned back toward the house with heavy steps. What he needed more than anything this afternoon was a great quantity of Scotch — neat.
Chapter Ten
Ben handed Jane the flowers, the last remaining from his own garden, a wild, rather beautiful arrangement. Jane needed to put them in water, which meant inviting Ben into the house. She liked Ben, and the realization that he was clearly attracted to her pleased her, but didn’t necessarily attract her to him in return.
She’d heard enough of the local gossip about Ben to know that he’d been deeply hurt by an ex-wife, and she did not want to lead him on. Still, if he were courageous enough to bring flowers, she would give him a chance to see if he could make her happy. Abby had to be on campus two days each week. It was a school day for her, and Rachel had gone antiquing, so Jane knew the house would be empty. She dismissed immediately the foolish entrance of Mark into her thoughts, as if she were somehow “cheating” on him. “Don’t be insane. It was just one kiss,” she insisted to herself.
She arranged the flowers with care in a large green-tinted glass vase and chatted amiably with Ben. He was extremely cute. There was no doubt about that. He was tall, but not excessively, measuring in at about five-eleven, she guessed, maybe six feet. She couldn’t help mentally sighing at the comparison to Mark’s six-three.
Ben had soft brown eyes and sandy colored hair that was beginning to th
in in the front. But he had a great build — slender and strong, a winning smile, and he had both a keenness and a kindness about him. He seemed to look deeply into Jane, as if returning her scrutiny. All told, Jane thought he was a great guy with a wonderful career — a career she could enjoy with him and support him in. But, no sizzle, she thought, as she kept her hands around the vase, feeling its round smoothness. “It’s too bad my friends are out, Ben, I would have liked introducing you to them,” she said. “Would you like a drink?”
“I better not,” Ben replied, “I’ve got to go to Pottersville — a client’s hunter colicked last night. I want to make sure that he’s okay — the horse, that is.”
Jane chuckled. “Colic? What kind?”
“Impaction, most likely. I dosed him with mineral oil, and had the groom keep him moving. He passed stool and seemed okay. I just want to give his barrel a listen.”
“We are so lucky to have you as our vet, Ben.”
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