Are You There, Karma? It’s Me, Jane.: A laugh out loud romantic comedy

by Zolendz, Christine

  I’m going to vomit.

  My dad walks in at that very moment. His pajama pants sag down across his ass and he farts loudly, blaming it on a dog we don’t have. He smiles up at the both of us, raises up his mug, and pours himself a cup of coffee.

  “See how things just work out?” Mom says with a wink. “To this day, Back to the Future is still my favorite movie.”

  My dad smiles deviously at my mom. “Hey now, lovey. I got that upstairs in the DVD player right now, want to get back up there and press play?”

  Chapter 13

  To: Jane Nash < WriterGirl >@ UPCLOSE. Com

  From: Dex Vanstone < ReadMyVanstone >@ UPCLOSE. Com

  Subject: Get Back Here NOW!

  Maybe you forgot, but we were co-authoring the article on politics and social media.

  Dex

  To: Dex Vanstone < ReadMyVanstone >@ UPCLOSE. Com

  From: Jane Nash < WriterGirl >@ UPCLOSE. Com

  Subject: Really?

  We’re sorry, but the person you are trying to reach has blocked you from their conscious. If you feel you’ve received this message in error please contact a good therapist.

  To: Jane Nash < WriterGirl >@ UPCLOSE. Com

  From: Dex Vanstone < ReadMyVanstone >@ UPCLOSE. Com

  Subject: Yes, really!

  This is exactly what needs to be our article. YOUR HUMOR. Which I never knew existed until the one-night-stand article. Please, I need your help on this.

  Dex

  P.S. I had a nightmare about a woman in a horse head mask.

  To: Dex Vanstone < ReadMyVanstone >@ UPCLOSE. Com

  From: Jane Nash < WriterGirl >@ UPCLOSE. Com

  Subject: I’m sure you’ll be fine on your own

  It pains me physically to acknowledge this, but you’re a phenomenal writer, you don’t need my help.

  P.S. Aren’t you as humiliated as I am?

  It’s upsetting that Dex, the mediocrement Vanstone, is the only person to reach out to me, besides a quick email from Gail responding to my work-from-home for a few weeks proposal. It’s more than upsetting, it’s pissing me the hell off.

  I look down at my phone. It’s two in the afternoon. Day 3, post sex-pocalypse. My traitorous vagina is broken and I never want to use it again. And I’ve spent the last three days worrying my fingers over the hem of my pajama top, hoping to hear about some big blowout between Julia and Nate.

  My phone rings, startling me. Julia’s picture pops up on the screen, one I took while we were at Fashion Week and she was dressed like a runway model.

  Finally. I scramble to slide it open. “Hello?”

  “Janie? Where have you been?”

  “I’m visiting with my parents, I—”

  “What? Why? You hate staying with them! Is everything okay? Was there a family emergency?”

  “Um, no.” I huff, and thump my head against the headboard. “I’m absolutely mortified about what happened in the photo booth.”

  “Oh Jane, you can’t take that seriously. Besides, it looked like you were having a great time.” She laughs into the phone. “I didn’t think you had it in you.”

  “But I didn’t know who it really was!”

  “So what, do you know how many randoms I hook up with on the regular?” She giggles into the phone again. “And seriously, you thought that was Heath? Heath is gay, didn’t you know that?”

  If I knew that then I wouldn’t have tried to seduce him and ended up sleeping with the wrong guy! I don’t yell, instead I say, “No,” quietly. “I didn’t know that at all.” I look down at myself, I’m lying on my bed, still in the same pajamas from three days ago, and there’s tortilla chip crumbs sprinkled all over my chest. I’m pathetic. Maybe it isn’t such a big deal about Dex.

  “Anyway,” she singsongs, “I was wondering if you could look after Luna this weekend.”

  “Who’s Luna?”

  “She’s the adorable new cat Nate adopted for me. We’re driving out to the Hamptons for the weekend. A little romantic getaway, you know? And I just want to make sure she gets enough water and food.”

  He gave her a cat? A little romantic getaway? That’s why she called me?

  “I’m sorry Julia, I can’t. I’m going to be here for a few more days.” Spreading more crumbs across my clothing. “You should knock on Ms. Kinsey’s door and ask her, she loves cats.” She’s also the owner’s grandmother and we’re not allowed to have pets in the building, so there’s always that.

  I hang up with Julia to walk out of my bedroom and overhear my mother tell someone on the phone she thought I was having a mid-life crisis. “Terry, it’s just awful. She hasn’t gotten out of bed since the day she got here.” Terry? Terry Meyers is the neighbor from across the street and my ex-boyfriend Adam’s mother. Why is she telling her any of my business? There are a few soft murmurs and silence like she’s listening to a response. “Yes, yes exactly. What did you do?”

  Sounds like Adam may have had a few problems himself.

  I put my ear up against my door and cup my hands around it. It really doesn’t help much. I still have to strain to hear her words. “…so disappointing…”

  I push away from the door with an ache across my chest. Disappointing? She can’t still be talking about me. I haven’t disappointed anyone. I’m living on my own. I never ask my parents for money. I have a fantastic career. The only thing I’m missing is a partner, and honestly, I don’t need one. I’ve gotten along just fine all these years without being part of a relationship. Why should that matter to anyone? Why should that disappoint her?

  I throw myself back on the bed and stare up at the ceiling.

  My mother always had a specific plan for me. She called it her Little Mouse’s Life Plan and she actually scrapbooked the shit out of it when I graduated college.

  She had worked on the plan for some time when she first showed it to me—a thick book made with bits of material and paper imagery—and the color palette of rose gold, sage green and a color called antique purple. This was somehow an integral part of the plan.

  It involved a whirlwind romance, a grand wedding, a Victorian house with wraparound porch, and three gorgeous babies, each exactly two years apart in age. Two boys first, then a little girl. She even cut out a little scrap of a cat, which she named Mr. Fluff-enough-a-cus.

  I open the closet and there it is, the scrapbook, sandwiched between the nebulizer and a board game. Standing on my tippy toes, I slide it out of its hiding spot, amazed with the absence of dust on its cover. She must take it out often.

  The bedroom door softly creaks open behind me, and her slippers flap noisily over the carpet and into the room. “Maybe that scrapbook was too idealistic on my part.” Her tone is sad and I wonder suddenly if she really is disappointed in me. The springs on the bed move and I know she must be sitting on its edge, waiting for me to talk to her, to tell her I’ll be okay.

  I caress a hand over the pretty exterior of the scrapbook and open it up. “No mom, I just think that you collected all the things that you may have wanted, not the things I did.”

  “But, Janie. Don’t you want to find someone? Don’t you want to get married and build a family?”

  “Mom, come on,” I grumble, folding my arms over my chest. I haven’t bothered to shower since I arrived and even I can smell how ripe I am. “You’re making this harder for me.” I throw myself back on the bed, ungraciously. “I want all that. I just…I just haven’t found anyone who wants that with me.”

  She sighs and pats my feet that I’ve managed to wedge under piles of blankets. “Maybe you need a plan that’s less romantic, something a little more singular.”

  “What kind of crazy are you talking about now?”

  “How about just skipping over the love and marriage part and come back home, and have a baby!” She claps her hands and clasps them in front of her chest as if this is the most brilliant idea in the world.

  “Come back home? And have a baby?” I repeat, just to be clear.

&nbs
p; “Yes, what do you think?” She’s serious. My mother is serious.

  “What do I think about what? Is there a 1-800 number that delivers babies to you on Long Island? That sounds pretty illegal to me.”

  “Oh, now stop teasing me, Janie. Nowadays, women can get pregnant and raise babies all on their own. I know a few of my friends have daughters who are using their eggs before it’s too late and they age.”

  “Jesus, are you really telling me to get knocked up?”

  She smiled wickedly at me.

  “Mom, I’m only thirty-two. My eggs are not rotting away or drying up, or shriveling like little tiny raisins. I still have time, and seriously, having children isn’t the most important thing in my life right now—”

  “I just want you to think about all your options.” She lifts the inside front cover of the scrapbook and pulls out a brochure for CryoBankNY, a sperm bank in Manhattan that was hidden inside one of the decorations.

  For a moment I stare as the gorgeous smiling man on the cover and wonder what our children would look like. I’m sure they would have his beautiful blue eyes and flawless skin. They could have my thick hair and passion and creativity.

  But I can also picture the two little faces I imagined when I thought about having a family with Nate, little Noah and Olivia.

  And I miss them. I kind of hate Nate for never giving me the chance to meet them.

  I peel off the blankets and stand up. “I think I’m going to go out for a little walk.”

  “Like that? You should brush your hair. Take a shower. What if someone sees you? Sweetheart, don’t take this the wrong way but you look like a train wreck.”

  “Okay, thanks Mom.”

  Chapter 14

  It’s Sunday afternoon, and outside the window the sky is pearl gray and inside my mother is yanking the covers off my bed and throwing a pitcher of water at my head.

  “This is ridiculous, Jane. You’re a grown woman. You didn’t even act like this when you were a teenager.” She drags my feet off the bed and I immediately envy her upper-body strength.

  “And stop with the online crap.” She smacks my phone out of my hands and it flies off the bed and thuds on the floor.

  I wipe the water off my face and shake out my wet hands. “But have you noticed that everything I post Nate likes and comments on? What kind of a romantic Hampton weekend is that, when he’s stalking me across all social media outlets? Huh? Giving me little hearts and smiles and flirtatious comments.”

  My mother stares at me like I’ve lost my mind.

  Honestly, I may have. What I just said sounds absolutely insane. Even Dex commented a few dozen times on my posts. I’m pretty funny and creative when I’m spiraling.

  I hang my head in my hands and mumble into my palms. “Okay, don’t look at me like that anymore. I know I’m acting dramatic.”

  “Get up. Get up and get in the shower. Right. Now.”

  We have a legit staredown.

  And she freaking wins.

  “Fine. I will shower,” I say stepping out of the room.

  “I better smell that watermelon lather from downstairs.” She follows me out into the hallway waving her French-tipped nails at me. “And when you get out, do not get back into a pair of pajamas. You will wear real clothes, decent clothes because Jane Valerie Nash, you going out!”

  Her terror tactics escalate until I’m dressed appropriately to her and my father’s approval, fed some sort of health shake that tasted like grass, and ends with me sitting in a salon chair.

  When this is all over, I think I might write a scathing article about her in UPCLOSE. Boot Camp Mother or Mom Gone Mad.

  My mother stands behind my chair with her hands over my shoulders. Both of us stare into the reflection in the large mirror in front of us, in a standoff. “Katherine,” she says to the hairdresser. I suddenly feel like I’m in a mobster movie, about to die at the hands of the head boss.

  “Jane needs the Full Diamond Treatment.” Both of them smile at me with knowing expressions, nodding like crazy Sweeny Todd bobblehead dolls.

  “What’s that code for? What’s the Full Diamond Treatment? Mom? Seriously?” I snap pictures and post them on Instagram and Facebook and caption with: Sweeny Todd, the Demon Barber of Fleet Street is alive and well on Long Island. What flavor pie would I be? #EatMe

  My phone pings madly with comments and reactions.

  “Jane, I will slip you a Valium if you don’t shut up.” Then she takes my phone away and exchanges it for a very full glass of wine.

  “Well, then. Ladies, let the torture begin.” I take a big unladylike gulp and lean back.

  A wash and cut.

  A blowout.

  Eyebrow-lip-chin wax.

  Steam facial.

  Deep moisturizing face mask.

  Some weird-smelling ten-minute mudpack.

  Hot moisturizing manicure.

  Hot moisturizing pedicure.

  Back massage.

  More waxing in areas that made my mother blush.

  My butthole bleached

  Foot massage.

  And at the conclusion of my Full Diamond Treatment, they did my makeup and styled me in a new sexy outfit!

  “There’s the Jane I remember,” my mother says, when she finally sees the results.

  “Ha. Ha. I never looked like this.”

  “Jane, you spend the majority of your time in baggy jeans behind a computer. You never dress up or self care.”

  Oh I self care.

  “And here’s your phone back. Your friend Julia called.” She hands me the phone and squeezes my arm. “I’m going to settle the bill and then we’ll get some dinner.”

  I nod my thanks to her. I don’t know how I will ever be able to thank her for pushing me to do this. I look at myself in the mirror again, amazed. I feel really good right now.

  I open my phone and call Julia. She picks up instantly. “Jane?”

  “Hey, Jules. What’s up?”

  “We had a great weekend. Really, it was very nice.”

  It was very nice? That’s what she says about funerals. I decide to ask, because how can I not, “Very nice? That sounds loaded with secret code, Julia.”

  “No, stop. I didn’t mean it like that. Really.” Her voice gets lower, like she’s trying to make sure she’s not being overheard. “It was simple and easy. You know?”

  “Nothing like a weekend getaway with Pierre Auden Luc, huh?”

  “Not even close. With Pierre Auden Luc, we’d start in the Hamptons and end up in Ibiza. But it was still really nice with Nate.”

  “Is that why you called me?” She wasn’t crazed with jealousy that his phone was practically attached to his eyeballs, reacting and commenting on my every move?

  “Oh no, no. When you get back next week, um, let me see. Thursday night, yeah. Thursday night, dinner at my place.” That’s why she called me? No, how are you? What’s going on in your life? Are you okay? But a demand for dinner at her house. The same person who when she last tried to cook set her microwave on fire because she didn’t realize you couldn’t heat up anything in aluminum foil.

  “Why? Are you looking to poison me?” I laugh.

  “I’m having a small dinner party, that’s all, and I really want you to be here. And fix you up with one of Nate’s friends.”

  “Julia—”

  “I’m not taking no for an answer. You haven’t had a good date in months, maybe even years.”

  “I just don’t want to be set up with a complete stranger right now, I haven’t had the best of luck with men lately.”

  “Maybe I could even invite some other people from work over too. A few people so it doesn’t look like a set-up or anything.”

  “Okay, fine.” It’s a week from now. Hopefully in that time people will forget all about the Dex horror show and I could get over Nate totally.

  “Great!” Julia yips into the phone, excitedly. “We’ll see you then! Nate and I can’t wait!” The call ends abruptly.

&n
bsp; We’ll see you then? Nate and I can’t wait? She’s acting like they’re already married. Maybe I’ll rub against someone who has the flu so I’ll have an excuse to cancel at the last minute. That is actually the perfect plan.

  Mom grabs my arm and gestures down to her watch. “Let’s get dinner now. There’s a new Italian restaurant I’ve been dying for your father to take me to, let’s go there.” She rushes me out of the door and literally shoves me toward the car. We must be late for her reservation because before I can fasten my seatbelt, she’s in drive.

  “Are you trying to skip out on the bill or something? I have money if you need it. I can pay for this all myself—”

  “Don’t be silly.” That’s her favorite saying, ever since I was a kid. “I’m just starving and I drank that wine on an empty stomach.”

  I’m not going to mention the platters of finger food I watched her scarf down while I was getting pampered all day, because my stomach is currently howling right now. “What about Dad? Did you text him?”

  She pulls out of the salon parking lot and waves a hand at me. “Oh, he has a fridge full of food he can eat. He doesn’t need to come with us. It’s a girls’ night.” She looks down at her watch again and sighs.

  She then proceeds to drives ten miles an hour with a line of cars and trucks beeping for mercy behind her.

  “Okay, why are you driving like this?”

  “Like what?” She stares straight ahead through the window, pretending she doesn’t understand what I’m asking. She’s up to something and I don’t know what it is. The rushing out of the salon then the slow driving, oh she is up to something.

  “You pushed me out of the salon and into the car. Drove out of there like you were on fire, then you look at your watch again and now you’re driving—” I leaned over the seat as far as the seatbelt will allow to read the speedometer. “Ten miles an hour! Do you hear all those people beeping at you?”