The History of Jane Doe

by Michael Belanger

  “Pretty ugly, huh?”

  “No,” I said. I brought her wrist to my lips and kissed her scar. “There’s nothing ugly about you.”

  I guess we lost track of time, because a little while later, we heard a car pull into the driveway. I glanced at the clock and saw that it was already past eleven. Jane and I sprung out of bed and threw our clothes on. My mom was cool, but she wasn’t girlfriend-alone-in-the-room cool.

  “Shit,” I said.

  “Calm down,” Jane said. But by the tone of her voice I could tell she was just as freaked out as I was.

  “I’ll hide under the bed,” Jane said.

  “I’m a horrible liar,” I said. “I’d probably give you up.”

  “We could . . .” Jane nodded to the window. The branches tapped against the glass from a light breeze.

  “I’ve never snuck out,” I said.

  “Your call,” she said. “Wait for your mom or . . .” She paused. “Escape.”

  The front door opened.

  “Ray?” my mom yelled up the stairs.

  “Let’s go,” I said. I grabbed my phone, straightened out my comforter, and buried the condom wrapper in the trash.

  Jane crawled out the window, took hold of a branch, and lowered herself to the ground. I hesitated, surveying my room one last time. Knowing there was no turning back, I leaped to the tree, the branches like little fingers scraping against the side of the house.

  Jane started running, past my yard and out into the street.

  I trailed behind her, the cold night air rushing through my hair.

  “Where are you going?” I called.

  “It doesn’t matter,” Jane yelled back.

  I followed, the two of us running as fast as we could. Something came over me, and I felt the need to scream in celebration, as if we’d just escaped certain death. I attempted a Beddington green cow howl, something every kid in Burgerville learns in elementary school. Jane laughed and joined in, until we were both mooing at the top of our lungs. We kept going until we arrived at Beddington’s statue, the site of our first date.

  “We made it,” Jane said.

  Beddington’s gaze remained focused on Green Cow Acres. Clouds hovered at the edge of the horizon.

  “My mom’s going to kill me,” I said.

  “At least now you won’t die a virgin,” she said.

  “Good point.”

  We sat down in front of Beddington, our backs resting against the base of the statue, as my phone began to vibrate in my pocket, the energy of an angry mother transformed into a digital scream. Just like our first date all those months ago, I felt Jane lean into me, only now the entire weight of her body pressed against me.

  “Tonight was so cliché,” Jane said.

  “What are you talking about? No chocolates. No horse-drawn carriage. Only a couple sappy speeches—”

  “I loved it,” Jane said.

  I called Simon and he picked us up a little while later. Instead of sneaking out, he told his parents he needed to go to the store to grab some milk—always believable in Simon’s case. When he arrived, we silently thanked Beddington for the hospitality and piled into the back of the Red Rocket.

  “Where’s Mary?” I asked.

  “She had to go home.” A smile spread across his lips.

  “How was dinner?”

  “We never made it to the restaurant.”

  I tapped him on the shoulder, smiling.

  “It’s a miracle,” Jane said.

  “Hey,” Simon said, “any girl would be lucky to take my virginity.”

  “Not that you lost your virginity,” Jane shot back. “That somehow we all found each other.” Simon drove on, the moon hidden behind the clouds moving in from Murphy. A silence settled over the car and I had the strangest feeling that we were taking off, gravity loosening its grip as we hurtled through space.

  243 DAYS AFTER

  THE CAR METHOD

  Rich’s favorite new acronym is CAR, which stands for Change, Accept, Reframe. He likes it because, in his words, the CAR method is “a vehicle that gets you where you need to be.”

  At which point I gag, then promptly apologize and blame it on a bad case of acid reflux.

  “Say what you want,” Rich says. “I’ve already seen the CAR method do a lot of good for my other clients. You can stand on the side of the road all you want.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “You tell me,” he says.

  We become locked in an epic stare-down.

  “You’re right,” I finally say, looking away. I’m tired of pretending.

  “What?” Rich says, surprised.

  “I have to take some little steps, right?”

  He passes me a worksheet with Copyright Richard Dawson written all over it. “That’s right,” he says hesitantly, as if it’s all an elaborate setup for a punch line and green slime is about to pour on his head. “You’ve gotta take some little steps . . . and maybe I can give you a ride along the way.”

  Problem #1: Simon and I aren’t nearly as close as we used to be. We didn’t go to the homeless shelter in Murphy, we didn’t hang out over Christmas, and we’ve only watched one horror movie since the beginning of the school year: Founding Monsters, a historical saga that asks the burning question “What if the Founding Fathers were actually bloodthirsty vampires?” It’s not like we had a big fight or anything, it’s just that things are different without Jane.

  X Change

  ___ Accept

  ___ Reframe

  Next steps: I guess I can reach out to Simon and invite him over to watch another horror movie. There’s one I’d like to see about a hybrid vampire-bear that terrorizes a small village in the Midwest, which of course raises the question of how the monster came to be. Eek. It’s called Count Grizzly.

  Problem #2: Rich’s new goatee. It’s one of those things that sound great on paper but doesn’t work in reality.

  ___ Change

  ___ Accept

  X Reframe

  Next steps: I have to understand that Rich is a grown man and if he wants to have a goatee and alienate his wife and kids and potentially his clients and maybe somehow set the world of facial hair back at least fifty years, it’s up to him.

  Problem #3: Everything with my dad. When he moved to Florida, part of me thought it would only be temporary. He’d realize he made a mistake and come rushing back home. But a week passed, then a month, then a year, and I started to doubt the effectiveness of my Cold War–era diplomacy strategy.

  X Change

  ___ Accept

  ___ Reframe

  Next steps: I can reach out to him and say something cheesy like, “Let’s put the past behind us.” We could go to a baseball game, eat Cracker Jack, talk about how much we’ve both grown (for some reason I picture him with a big belly).

  Problem #4: My last night with Jane.

  ___ Change

  X Accept

  ___ Reframe

  Next steps: Jane was right. You can’t change history.

  111–84 DAYS BEFORE

  THE TRUTH ABOUT GRANDMA IRENE

  Once Simon and Mary started dating, and both Simon and I found ourselves with girlfriends—which, according to Simon, could only mean the end of the world was near—the dynamic of our group began to change.

  “We did it again,” Simon told me a few days after he’d picked Jane and me up at Beddington’s statue. I couldn’t tell if he was letting me know he’d had sex or was confessing a crime.

  “That’s nice,” I said.

  “On the kitchen table.”

  We happened to be eating lunch at his kitchen table. I pushed my plate way. “Gross,” I said.

  “I never thought I could be so happy. How are things going with Jane, if you know what I mean?”
>
  I wasn’t entirely comfortable sharing my sex life with Simon, so I simply nodded and made up a story.

  “We did it in your minivan,” I said.

  “Where was I?”

  “I’m kidding, Simon.” While I may have also thrown in a ridiculous story involving chocolate syrup and marinara sauce just to mess with Simon, the truth is, Jane and I were sneaking off whenever we had the chance. Sometimes in the car (sorry, Mom), in the basement of the library, even a few times in the Lost Woods, which I wouldn’t suggest, considering I got a rash from poison ivy in an area that really makes you understand the value of underwear.

  After a brief discussion about the pitfalls of mixing food and sex (a list that included third-degree burns, diabetes, and the potential dangers of Pavlov’s response being translated to other situations), Simon seemed to be lost in thought. He paused and patted the kitchen table like an old friend. “Can I ask you a question about sex?”

  “No,” I said.

  Simon asked anyway.

  (The following has been edited to be PG-13 friendly. Or, if you have a pencil, it’s been edited to become a game of Mad Libs.)

  “When you ______ with the ______, how do you know the ______ is not ______?”

  “You’re a ______,” I said. “You ______ and make sure to ______.”

  “But doesn’t that hurt the ______?”

  “Simon, do you even know what a ______ is?”

  “Isn’t a ______ a ______ located on the woman’s ______?”

  “I hope you’re kidding.”

  Simon shook his head.

  “I’m surprised you still have a ______.”

  “She seems to enjoy it,” Simon rebutted.

  Such were our conversations about sex.

  The four of us tried to make the new dynamic work. I know, I’m probably sounding like my mom and dad, but it’s true. We still hung out together whenever we could. We all went to see Mary in her debut role as a tree in the school play, or, as Simon called it, her “starring role as a tree.” Simon beamed proudly, while Jane kept asking, “Which tree is Mary?”

  When Simon’s dad was elected to the town council, running on his Vietnam War record—not for fighting in the war, but for organizing a protest in his fourth-grade class—we all went to the victory party as a group. Mr. Blackburn made a speech about his road to vindication, from being called a traitor for his heartfelt letters to Ho Chi Minh to now being celebrated as the youngest anti-war protestor of all time.

  At the party, we stood in the corner, watching the who’s who of Burgerville congratulate one another on their vaunted status, the powerbrokers in a town with more cows than people.

  “We’re with royalty now,” I said.

  “The prince of Burgerville,” Jane said.

  “And his princess,” Simon added, pulling Mary close.

  Jane gagged.

  We even went to the grand opening of the new O’Reilly’s in Murphy, where, true to the town slogan, they ran out of silverware, so we had to eat with our hands, two cases of salmonella were reported, and the mechanical dragon that spits fire accidentally triggered the sprinkler system. Things were good.

  * * *

  • • •

  Still, Jane sometimes seemed to be somewhere else. Someone else. She’d get really quiet and ask me to bring her home. I’d try to cheer her up, but in those moments, nothing seemed to work.

  “An elephant with a human nose,” I’d say. Or “The Flying Possum of Williamsburg wearing a leopard print leotard.” Sometimes she’d smile, but other times, it was like she couldn’t.

  It was on one of our drives through Burgerville that I learned the truth about Grandma Irene. I was trying to cheer Jane up with her grandmother’s music, but she wasn’t having it.

  “Maybe it really is just as simple as Grandma Irene makes it out to be,” I said. “If you want to be happy, be happy.”

  “That’s not how it works,” Jane said, an edge to her voice.

  “I know, but maybe part of feeling better is pretending for a little while. Maybe that’s what Grandma Irene meant.”

  “She was just as unhappy as anyone,” Jane said.

  “Why? What happened?”

  “My mom never tells the whole story about the Folk Williamsburg Festival,” Jane said.

  “There’s more to it?”

  “She always leaves out the ending. The town officials were worried about all the young people voting them out of power, so they passed a bunch of laws to silence them—no more big gatherings, no more tie-dye, and Grandma Irene was accused of inciting a riot. That’s when she decided to move back to New York.”

  I thought of the portrait hanging in the Does’ stairwell. The look of confusion. The happy, upbeat folk masking the truth of her sadness.

  Grandma Irene continued singing, her voice bright and cheerful, as the Burgerville landscape rolled by.

  “But the older I get, the more I realize that all of her happy music was just a way to trick herself,” Jane said. “My grandmother was never really happy. Not back then, not ever. I remember my mom and me bringing her to doctors’ appointments. The long talks with my parents explaining why Grandma Irene didn’t feel like listening to music with me. And that it didn’t mean she loved me any less. I didn’t get it then, but I get it now. Just like it was a part of my grandma, it’s a part of me.”

  “So I guess my random images aren’t much help,” I said.

  “I think it’s about things helping a little bit,” she said. “There are no miracles in real life. It’s all the little steps that make a difference. At least that’s what my therapist says.”

  “You’re seeing a therapist?” I said.

  Jane nodded.

  “That’s good, Jane. That’s really good.” The happiness must have creeped into my voice, toddler taking their first steps kind of happiness, because Jane quickly said, “Jeez, I feel like I just told you I’m going to the Olympics for bobsled.”

  “I’m just happy, that’s all. And you’d make a terrible bobsledder.”

  “Hey,” she said.

  She paused, bit her lip. “I’m taking some medicine too.” She said it quietly, like she wasn’t quite sure she should be telling people.

  I realized how hard it must have been for her. To go around feeling like you had to be embarrassed and ashamed. That your love of folk music, your drawing, chasing conspiracy theories and weird histories—you could add all of them up, but they’d still feel less than your sadness.

  “I’m proud of you,” I told her as some sort of flute whistled through the speakers. “Your grandma would be proud of you too.”

  “Gee, thanks,” she said.

  “Seriously,” I said.

  “I know.”

  Out of the corner of my eye I saw her smile—a real smile, no sinister edges creeping in—before she leaned over and kissed me. We kept driving for a while after that, neither of us speaking, all the spots on our tour of Burgerville scattered around us, another reminder of just how close history could be.

  251 DAYS AFTER

  THE REUNION

  After almost three years, my dad finally came back to visit Burgerville.

  I guess my mom called him again, probably told him I could use his fatherly wisdom. Which means she must be really worried about me. Lately I’ve been feeling like a terminally ill patient, but without the Make-A-Wish Foundation. No national headlines, no supporters pouring in donations, no celebrities wishing me well, no towns pretending I’m a superhero for a day. I guess that’s how it is for most of us. Our pain goes unnoticed, we suffer alone, and the best we can hope for is a lightened homework load.

  My mom drives me to O’Reilly’s to meet him. I thought about refusing to go, but like Rich is always saying, I guess I have to try, even it’s only one step at a time. We stop a few buildings away from
the front entrance. “Aren’t you going to come in?” I ask.

  “Not today,” she says.

  “I don’t get it.”

  “Get what?”

  “How you can think you love someone and then not stand to be in the same room as them.”

  “It’s complicated,” she says.

  “That’s what everyone says. But I think a lot of the time we make it complicated.”

  “I’ll pick you up in a couple of hours,” she says.

  I stay in the car, looking at her.

  “What, Ray?” she snaps.

  “You have the child lock on.”

  Her expression softens. “Sometimes I forget you’re an adult.”

  “I feel the same way about you.”

  “I couldn’t ask for a better son.”

  “Okay,” I say, rolling my eyes.

  “I’m serious,” she says. “Someday you’ll understand.”

  The other thing everyone says.

  “One question,” I say, with the door slightly open.

  “Shoot,” she says.

  “Were you ever in love?”

  “Of course,” she says, too quickly for it to be full of shit. “But love doesn’t keep people together.”

  She looks away. I can see her reflection in the window, a somber expression on her face.

  “I’m glad you met Tim,” I say.

  She turns to me, the look of sadness replaced by surprise. “Me too.”

  “But I’m not gonna go fishing with him.”

  She smiles. “I think I’m okay with that.”

  Outside of O’Reilly’s, I take a deep breath and open the door. It’s darker than I remember it. The magic of O’Reilly’s is that it can change based on your mood. This time, I barely notice the statues of dragons and happy Buddhas; instead, I lose myself in the gaze of the green taxidermied cow next to the hostess stand, its insides opened for the world to see. Staring at that cow, I feel the connection that binds all life, even the kind that decides it would be a good idea to put a stuffed cow on display in a restaurant. In its eyes I see a quiet bravery, as it’s forced to stand, day after day, and watch people eat its relatives. It seems to me, on the scale of terrible fates, to be at least in the top three, maybe only behind getting eaten by a shark or being named after the city your parents conceived you in.