The Book of Jane

by Anne Dayton

  I look around like he’s mad. Who would know such a thing? But sure enough, I hear chubby little Abby, wearing her sock tassels even now, say confidently, “The inside edge and the outside edge.” I see Kaitlin snicker, but the other girls look at Abby with envy and respect, even Haven, who is quietly singing Mariah Carey’s “Always Be My Baby.”

  “That’s right,” Sven says. “And today we’re going to learn how to make use of both edges so we can get you skating like the pros!” he says, bursting with athletic mania.

  “I might accidentally fall down a lot today so that Mr. Peppy will come and pick me up,” says Eleanor Pearson under her breath to Margaret Ann Markelson.

  “Did you catch a load of those buns of his? Do you think it was the inside edge or the outside edge that did that?” Margaret laughs.

  An hour later, we’re skating around the rink drastically improved. Sven beams with pride at everyone. Everyone, that is, except Haven. As it turns out, Haven may be good at social politics, but she can’t skate to save her life. Meanwhile, Abby, who I just discovered has been taking lessons since she was three, was allowed to go into the center of the rink because she was so bored with the basics, and Sven periodically drops by to help her perfect her salchow and lutz.

  Haven wipes out again in front of me, and I think she might finally be reduced to tears on what must be her hundredth fall. Raquel’s going to think Haven got a good paddling today with all the bruises she’ll have on her bottom. I skate over slowly to help her up.

  “Jane,” she says, poking out her bottom lip. “I hate ice-skating. It’s stupid.”

  I squat down next to her. “It’s not stupid, Haven. It’s just hard.”

  “How come it’s not hard for Abby?” she pouts. Haven looks with awe at Abby, who is spinning like a top in the middle of the rink. Bella and Kaitlin are standing next to her, trying for all they’re worth to spin too.

  “Abby has worked hard for many years to be able to skate like that,” I say. I put my arms under her armpits and hoist her back up. “If you practice, you can be really good at ice-skating too.”

  She crosses her arms across her chest and scowls at me. “I am good at ice-skating,” she says. But then she looks around at the other mother–daughter pairs, and I know I don’t need to tell her the truth. It’s apparent. All over the rink, the women and the girls are skating hand in hand, trying out stopping correctly, slowly turning one wobbly circle. Our eyes travel back to little Abby, spinning as if nothing in the world made her happier.

  I lean over and give Haven a hug. She doesn’t tear her eyes away from the center of the rink.

  “Jane,” she says. “Isn’t Abby beautiful right now?”

  “Yeah,” I say. “She really is.”

  I arrive at the tiny West Village restaurant Le Gigot about ten minutes late, or exactly as I planned. I open the little wooden door to the restaurant, which is pocket-sized and charming in its simplicity. Coates is sitting at the table in the back, and he stands as he sees me. I take a deep breath and try to walk over casually and elegantly. I’m dressed to kill.

  When he called last weekend and asked me to join him for dinner, I wasn’t quite sure what to say. He didn’t use the word date, and I had no idea if that was what he meant. But I did something I’ve never done before. I just said yes. With Tyson, I practically forced the poor guy to ask me out so that by the time he finally did so, I already had it tentatively scheduled in my day planner. But dinner with Coates was foreign territory, and the moment I hung up the phone, I started freaking out. Dinner with Coates? What was I thinking? As I walk toward him now, my heart starts beating a little faster.

  “Jane,” he says. He’s wearing a suit and tie, and I am struck by how handsome he is. “You clean up just fine.”

  He comes around behind my chair and pushes it in as I sit down, defeated.

  “I clean up just fine?” I repeat. He goes around the table to sit down again.

  He smiles at me and winks. “That is to say, your skin is all better now, isn’t it?”

  I touch my face. “Um, yeah. It was nothing.” I cough. “But that’s not really much of a way to start off the evening.”

  He inhales and nods to himself. “I’m afraid you may be right. I don’t do this as often as you might have been led to believe.”

  I eye him. “I’m beginning to believe you on that.”

  “And I’m me,” he says with a shrug, “which can’t be helped.” He leans in and pulls my hand across the table. “Tell me what was the right thing to say.”

  I pull my hand back immediately. Whoa. “‘You look amazing,’” I say. “That’s what I thought you might say.” He smiles at me, and I feel a little silly. “I mean, that’s what people have said, um, people say, I’ve heard sometimes that they say that.” I laugh a little. No. Don’t let him win. Be tough, Jane.

  He looks me dead in the eyes and says slowly, “You look amazing.” A chill runs down my spine. But I can’t help thinking about the Times article and the lawsuit against him, and I hate myself for being here at all.

  “This place is charming, just like the review said.” He smiles as he looks around. I try to picture him researching restaurants online. “Have you ever been here before?”

  “Once,” I say, nodding. “Ty and I came here for our anniversary.”

  “It’s supposed to have an excellent wine list,” he says smoothly, as if he hasn’t heard me. “Would you like to look?” He hands me the drink menu.

  The waiter comes and gets our drink order, and Coates gives me a look that seems to say that he is very amused by all of this. I remind myself that he is arrogant and condescending, that I’m not over Ty, that this is not the sort of person Jane Williams dates.

  The waiter returns with our drinks and the bread, and we place our food orders, then fall silent. I realize I haven’t had French food in a long time because Ty always thought it was too rich. That night we came here together was a concession to me. Coates looks at me silently, seemingly unbothered by the lack of conversation. I clear my throat, trying to think of something to say.

  “I have a job interview next week,” I say.

  “That’s wonderful. What’s it for?”

  “Do you mean who’s it with? I’m going to stick with PR.”

  Coates studies me for a moment. “Okay. That’s fine. It’s funny, though. I just can’t see you in PR.”

  I laugh. “My West Village mortgage sure can see me in PR.”

  Coates shrugs. “Just don’t choose your job by the zeros at the end of it. As an actuary, I can tell you that everyone who does regrets it at the end.”

  I laugh at him. “A Glassman is lecturing me about how it’s not about the money? That’s rich,” I say and take a sip of water. I decide to change the topic. I don’t really want his unsolicited advice on my career. “And I got rid of my day planner.”

  “Do you mean you put it away in a box and next week in a moment of weakness you’ll get it back out again?”

  “No. I went cold turkey. I burned it in the fireplace.”

  Coates gives a deep-bellied laugh. “Jane, you amaze me. And how long has it been since your last entry?”

  “Two weeks, three days, and four hours. I really think the worst of it is over now.” I take a piece of bread and put it on my plate.

  “Really? I can’t believe you know that.”

  “No. Not really,” I say. “Wait a minute. I got you!” I point at him. “I got you! You thought that was true but it wasn’t.”

  “I can be wrong,” he says. He takes a piece of bread and then a tiny piece of butter. “I can’t actually see into your life. I just take guesses.”

  “And predict when I’m going to die.”

  “That’s not exactly how I would phrase it.” He smiles mischievously.

  “You work for an insurance company, calculating projected life spans, right?” He nods. “You ask all these questions to figure out someone’s life, or, actually, death.”

  “Ba
sically, yes.”

  I take a sip of my wine and study him across the table. “I want to try,” I say, as I watch him buttering his bread with precision. How can anyone take so long to butter one piece of bread?

  “Oh, I’m not going to die for a long time, Jane.”

  I ignore him. “I’m going to study you for a moment, and then I’ll tell you stuff about you I ‘know,’” I say.

  “All right,” he says and stops the buttering process. “Study away.”

  “Go right back to what you’re doing there, mister. I’m not studying you doing nothing. That’s not how you learn.”

  He raises his eyebrows at me. “My, my. They grow up so quickly.” We lock eyes, then he goes back to the buttering. He spreads it evenly all over the slice of bread, right up to the crust. Then he takes a small bite and chews it for a full minute. “Are you getting all of this?” he asks.

  I cross my arms over my chest. “Okay, I’m ready. The doctor is in.”

  “Please proceed,” he says and gestures forward.

  “First of all, you are a little bit OCD.”

  He nods. “Very impressive. Correct. And how did you decide that?”

  “You have the second-cleanest apartment I’ve ever seen, after some woman named Jane Williams. And have you ever thought about your buttering technique there? It’s a little neurotic.”

  “You see, you’re more intuitive than I gave you credit for,” he says. “Anything else?”

  I look askance at him. “You dress like Prince William, but actually you find clothes a bore and simply buy what the saleswoman suggests for you.”

  “Good. I like to brag that I can get my shopping for the year done without ever showing up. Just send some things over from Saks, and I’m fine.”

  “You’re a little obsessive about staying in shape,” I say.

  “Aha!” he says, after finishing his bite of bread. “Now, there you are wrong. I have to force myself to work out, and I only do that because my doctor is upset about my cholesterol.” He sits back and beams at me. “I’ve never been on this end of things. It’s exhilarating. Keep going.”

  “Okay,” I say, reaching for one last sip of water. “You come from a wealthy, prominent New York family.”

  “That’s cheating. You already knew that.”

  “You don’t need to work, but you do just for the challenge.”

  “Wrong.”

  “In college, you were the kind of guy who took a lot of philosophy classes and thought that you were above the silly pep rallies and frat parties.”

  “They’re pointless, don’t you think?”

  “You don’t like modern art.”

  “Even I could draw that.”

  “But you do have a soft spot for opera.”

  “Hate it.”

  I take a bite of bread and chew thoughtfully. I look at his shiny dark hair, his clear, tan skin. He is good-looking. I guess I can admit that now.

  I think back to the article I read about him months ago.

  “Why are you here?” I say slowly.

  “That’s not how the game works, Jane,” he says, smiling at me. His eyes sparkle in the candlelight.

  “Fine.” I brush my hair behind my ear. Now that I’m here, he doesn’t seem like Satan incarnate. But he’s still an arrogant rich boy. And even if I were to begin to think otherwise, that doesn’t change what I know. “How about this. You’re being sued for mistreating women.”

  His smile fades, and the sparkle drains from his eyes. He stares at me, lifting his chin. “You observed that just now?” he asks, setting his jaw.

  My breath catches. I look away, but I still feel his gaze on me. I play with my napkin. He didn’t deny it.

  Coates takes a deep breath as the waiter sets our plates down in front of us. He looks down at his food, and he doesn’t look up.

  Later that night, I sit on my rooftop deck, staring up at the stars with Charlie in my arms. I have a blanket wrapped around me because the fall seems to really be coming on fast this year. We probably won’t have too many more nights out on the deck, and I need to clear my head. I’m even more confused than ever after seeing Coates. Luckily, it’s unlikely I’ll ever have to face him again, but the whole evening was kind of…unsettling.

  I think about what he said about not seeing me in PR. What would I do if I didn’t do PR? It’s the only thing I’ve ever done with my life. It makes the best use of my God-given talents—the gift of gab, strong organizational skills, and decent public speaking. Granted, I don’t exactly get to help people very often. Is there some way to do something like PR but also help people? I think about how I feel when I’m with the Brownies. Those are some of my happiest times. A day-care worker? No. I admire day-care staffers, but I don’t think I could do it. Those places seem like hothouses of germs and crying kids. A missionary? No. Too extreme in the other direction. I get nervous at the farmer’s market, and when I actually leave Manhattan it feels like my throat might be closing up.

  I hear my porch door open and see Lee coming out. “Hey, Steel Magnolia,” I say. “Long time no see.”

  He comes over and sits at the edge of the chaise longue I’m reclining on. In the moonlight I can see the tears running down his face. I sit up, throw my blanket around the three of us, and hug him for a while. I listen to him sniffling and say, “There, there. It’s okay,” like my mom would always say, but in my heart, I know that something must really be wrong.

  After a while, he stops heaving and looks me in the face and frowns.

  “Talk to me,” I say.

  “I didn’t know. She kept it all from me. I didn’t know.” He begins to cry quietly again, and I hold him and wait.

  After a minute or so, he tries again. “Today, my mother got an e-mail from my Auntie Di. I’ve been checking her e-mail for her while she was at the hospital. So I open it up to read and find out—” His voice fails him. He swallows hard. “I find out that she’s gone, Jane.”

  “Who’s gone? What?”

  “She is gone. She’s already gone.”

  “Mary Sue is gone?” I ask. How could this be?

  He shakes his head violently. “Not yet. They gave her three months to live in Charleston. That’s why she came up here. She only had three months this whole time, and she didn’t tell me. And now the cancer has metastasized and is in her lungs, her stomach, everywhere.”

  I hold him again and listen to him sobbing on my shoulder.

  “Why would she have kept it from me?” he asks.

  I pull back from our hug and look at him. I think about the last time I saw Mary Sue and what she said about Lee. “Honey, she still sees you as her little boy. Just like I don’t tell Haven bad things. You keep things from your children because you want to protect them from the hurt and pain of life.”

  He looks into his lap. “I would have done it all different if I had known that we only had three months together.”

  I rub his back. “That’s exactly what she didn’t want. She wanted her last months to be as normal as possible with you. She didn’t want to focus on the negative. It’s her way.”

  Lee looks at me. “I can’t lose her. I still need her.”

  I smile at him. “First thing tomorrow morning, we’ll go and tell her that.”

  Chapter 19

  My future sister-in-law and her mother are clutching each other as if neither is able to stand without the support of the other’s willowy frame, dabbing their eyes ever so gently with matching monogrammed linen handkerchiefs. They are crying in elation at the first dress brought out by the svelte woman at Barney’s, who is our personal wedding dress shopper.

  Patrice called last week to “beg” me to come to help her pick out a dress for the wedding. She positively refused to do it without me, her new “sis.” I have been avoiding my family like the plague, so I had half a mind to refuse, but Patrice is so sweet and kind that denying her requests is physically impossible for anyone born with a heart. I remember the time she baked me a cake when
I broke my arm in second grade, hoping it would make me feel better. As I recall, Jim devoured most of it before I even got home from the doctor’s office. Patrice reminds me of a little hopeful bunny, so I relented, even though she’d told me that our moms would be there, and my mother is about the last person I want to see right now.

  “Isn’t this exciting?” my mother asks and squeezes Patrice’s arm. This is the fifteenth time my mother has said this. I’m keeping count in order to stay focused. Poor Mom. I think she’s out of things to say at this point. She glances at me for help, but I look away.

  “Mom,” Patrice says to my mom, catching me off guard, “this is the happiest day of my life.” Patrice hugs my mother again, and my mother returns it. This is the eighth hug of the morning. If she starts jumping up and down, holding my mother’s arms, it will be the second time. Definitely the highlight so far.

  “It sure is, honey,” my mother says. And then “Morg,” Patrice’s mother, starts whimpering all over again and I nearly lose it and laugh.

  Luckily for me, according to the Lovell ladies, the only proper place to buy a wedding dress is Manhattan, so it didn’t take too much for me to roll out of bed this morning and meet the other women for a coffee at Starbucks to “talk strategy.” And when I say coffee, I mean nonfat, no-whip, sugarless, grande, vanilla latte, extra hot. There, Patrice’s mother, Morgan (please-call-me-Morg) Lovell, brought out a thick binder and listed all of the places we had appointments at that day. Barney’s was our third stop. We’d already been to Bergdorf-Goodman and “Vera.” At Vera, Morg had pulled me into a corner and demanded to know from me, a true New Yorker, if Vera was “over” or not. Didn’t everyone go to Vera? Hadn’t she become a bit, well, common? I waffled until she pressed me harder and harder, and I realized I was going to have to come down on this (non)issue one way or another. I took a deep breath and pronounced Vera “not over” and then cited the example of a recent starlet using Vera Wang for her wedding. Morg was quite relieved.