Jane's Harmony (Jane's Melody #2) (3 page)

“Howdy, Jane!” the familiar voice called.

Jane stopped midway across the parking lot and looked up at Mr. Zigler. He was sitting on a lawn chair set atop one of the
beer delivery trucks, wearing sunglasses and no shirt, the thick hair on his oiled chest glistening in the sun.

“How about this weather?” he asked.

“I do believe I miss the rain,” Jane said, feeling the heat waft up from the blacktop.

“Nonsense,” he said. “This is paradise.”

“Yeah, right,” Jane replied. “If it gets any hotter, maybe this blacktop’ll melt and you can dive off that silly truck and go swimming in it.”

Mr. Zigler laughed. “It’s asphalt.”

“What’s that?” Jane asked.

“You ain’t far from right. Used to be blacktopped, but the trucks kept sinking into it. Asphalt’s better. People think they’re the same, but they’re not.”

Jane smiled and was about to walk on when he pointed to the deli box in her hand.

“That for me?”

“No,” she said. “You know it isn’t.”

“Shit,” he said. “You can’t blame a man for wishin’.” Then he thumbed his glasses up on his nose and sat back in his chair. “If you’re looking for that boyfriend of yours,” he called as Jane walked away, “I fired him for drinkin’ on the job.”

Jane just laughed and kept on walking.

She found Caleb in the warehouse, off-loading cases of beer from a pallet. He didn’t notice her right away, and she stood watching him work. He wore a simple white T-shirt that he had sweat through and it was clinging to his back. She could see his lean muscles working beneath the wet cotton as he hefted the heavy cases onto the stack. She noticed how his jeans hung low on his waist, and she worried that all this laboring in the heat was causing him to lose weight.

When he saw her, he froze and smiled at her over the case
of beer cradled in his arms. “Well, aren’t you a cool drink of something to look at.”

“That’s funny,” she replied, “because I was actually just getting all hot and steamy standing here watching you.”

Caleb set the case down and wiped the sweat from his brow with his forearm. “How’d you get past old Mr. Zigler?”

“I told him I was in love with him, even though I’m marrying you.”

Caleb laughed and stripped off his gloves. “Get over here and let me kiss you.”

He pulled Jane to him, wrapped his arms around her, and laid a passionate kiss on her grinning mouth. The taste of salt on his lips and the sweet smell of his sweat turned her on more than a little.

“I’ve been thinking about you,” he said, resting his forehead against hers.

“You have? In what way?”

They were so close she couldn’t see his face, but she saw the flash of a smile in his green eyes.

“In every possible position and way,” he said.

Jane dropped her jaw, pretending to be shocked. “You dirty, dirty man, you.”

“You wanna hear a confession?” he asked.

Jane nodded. “They’re my favorite things to hear.”

Caleb looked around, then leaned his mouth to her ear and whispered, “The other day I thought about you so much I had to go into the storeroom alone just to get some relief.”

Jane’s jaw really did drop this time. “Caleb, tell me you didn’t.”

He grinned as if he had been caught doing something naughty and was torn between feeling guilty and proud of it at the same time.

“Hey, it’s your fault. You’re up and gone looking for work by the time I wake up. I miss our morning time.”

“It’s hardly been worth the bother,” she said. “Tomorrow I’ll sleep in with you, okay? I promise.”

“I can’t wait that long,” he said, taking her hand and leading her away. “Come with me, sexy girl. Let me show you what I was imagining in the storeroom the other day.”

Jane planted her feet. “Caleb, you’re working.”

“I’m due for a break. And besides, everyone’s gone out on their daily deliveries already.”

Jane hesitated, recognizing the mischievous glint in his eye. She held up the deli box. “But I brought you a box lunch.”

He took the lunch and set it on the stack of beer cases. “It can wait. I’ve got a hunger for a different kind of box lunch right now.”

As he pulled her toward the storeroom, she followed along, pretending to protest, saying, “If you think objectifying me is sexy, then you’ve got another think coming, mister. I’m not some teenager that you can—”

No sooner was the storeroom door closed than he had her pressed up against a rack of boxes and had silenced her with a kiss. She felt him unbuttoning her blouse.

“Caleb, what are you doing? The last thing we need is for you to get fired. Stop it.”

But even as she said it, she was kissing him back and struggling to find the buckle to his belt. It slipped from her grip as he opened her blouse and pulled down her bra. He had one hand on her breast and the other between her legs now, and she could feel herself already soaking through her panties at his touch. His mouth moved down to her neck, and she looked over his shoulder and down his long, lean back, and she knew she would be powerless to stop him, not that she wanted to. She closed her
eyes and heard herself moan. Desperate to feel him, she reached and hooked her fingers in his belt and pulled him toward her. He was bulging against the denim jeans and she needed more than anything to get him out of them and inside her, but for the life of her she couldn’t manage to undo that stupid belt.

Finally, he stepped back and unbuckled the belt himself, then dropped his jeans to the floor. The sight of him standing there in that storeroom wearing just his sweaty T-shirt and a huge hard-on drove Jane mad with desire. She kicked off her shoes and unbuttoned her pants, then bent and stripped them off, along with her panties. Caleb was on her before her last foot was even free while he pressed his naked body against hers and picked her up as if she weighed nothing at all. He rested her against the rack of boxes and lowered her gently until he was inside her. Then he lowered her more until there was nowhere left to go, except maybe heaven.

“Oh, God,” she heard herself say involuntarily.

She had her legs wrapped around his waist as her feet dangled behind him, her full weight upheld by nothing but her arms draped over his strong shoulders and the rock-hard muscles of his inner thighs. He was warm and hard and huge, and she thought maybe she could sit like that forever.

“Right there, right there,” she said, panting. “Don’t move.”

But she felt his impatient hands gripping her ass, and then her back was free from the shelf of boxes and she was spinning in empty space, moving up and down on a carousel of guilty pleasure as his strong arms held her against his wild thrusts. Everything went white. She heard Caleb’s muffled scream of pleasure, coming as if from far away. When the white faded and the room reappeared, they were lying on the cool concrete floor, entwined in each other’s arms and panting.

“That was hot,” Caleb said after he’d caught his breath.

“Yes, it was. But I wasn’t done yet, Mr. Selfish.”

Caleb laughed. “Sorry, babe. I’m on the clock. But I’ll have all the time in the world to attend to your needs tonight.”

Jane brushed the hair away from his green eyes.

“You know something, Caleb,” she said, “I never knew I could be so in love with anyone in all my life.”

“You sure?” he asked. “Because it isn’t too late to take Mr. Zigler out there up on his offer. He’s got a house with air-conditioning. And a pool too.”

Jane pretended to consider this. “Hmm . . . air-conditioning and a pool, you say? Sounds nice. But tell me this—if it’s true, if it really is, then why is he always up sunning himself on that stupid truck in the parking lot when he could be poolside at home?”

“He says he likes to keep an eye on his inventory so it doesn’t walk out the door.”

Jane pressed her finger playfully on his nose. “That’s good advice, fella,” she said. “You should keep an eye on your merchandise too.”

“Oh, I plan to keep more than just my eye on it,” he replied, kissing her with a grin.

A quiet moment passed and Jane looked around at the boxes of booze stacked against the wall. “I guess old Mr. Zigler doesn’t have to worry about you running off with his inventory. Do you ever miss drinking?”

“Not really,” Caleb said. “Why do you ask?”

“I don’t know. Working around it all the time, I guess. Here at the warehouse. In the clubs where everyone’s getting lit. It just seems like it’s all around, you know?”

“Yeah, well, some people get to have all the fun, I guess.”

“But don’t you think it’s bad?”

“What? Drinking? For me, yes. And maybe for you too, after
seeing you that night back in Seattle.” He smiled to let her know he was joking. “But it isn’t anyone else’s fault my folks were drunks. I say, do whatever gets you off as long as it isn’t hurting anyone.”

“I agree,” she replied. “And what gets me off is you.”

“You know what’s really bad for you? Look at that there.”

Jane lifted her head from his chest and followed his gaze. Apparently, they had knocked several boxes off the shelf during their escapade, and one of them had broken open and was leaking a pool of sticky black soda syrup all over the floor.

“Now, that shit will kill you,” Caleb said.

“What? Soda pop? Come on.”

“I’m not kidding. Dave dropped one off the back of his truck last week and didn’t know it. By the next morning, it had eaten a hole right into the blacktop.”

Jane laughed. “Asphalt,” she said, correcting him.

Caleb looked at her. “What?”

“It’s asphalt,” she said. “Some people think they’re the same, but they’re not.”

Caleb shook his head. “What am I going to do with you, Jane?”

“I’ll tell you what,” she said, kissing him. “You just keep on doing what you’re doing with me, and we’ll be just fine.”

“I see no trouble there,” he said, his lips lingering on hers. “But right now I had better get my ass back to work.”

“So you just have your way with me in the storeroom and then send me off, is that it?”

“That’s right. And you had better be cleaning the apartment in lingerie when I get home too.”

“But you haven’t bought me any lingerie yet.”

“Well, I’ll have to fix that, then, won’t I?”

After they had dressed and kissed and said good-bye two or
three more times, Caleb let her out and then stayed behind in the storeroom to clean up the mess they had made.

As Jane left she passed Mr. Zigler, now down from his truck and inside the warehouse. He didn’t say anything. And she didn’t dare say anything either because the knowing smirk on his face made her blush even more than she already was.

Chapter 3

J
ane was in line at the grocery store when the e-mail came in on her phone. She read it quickly, then pumped her fist in the air and shouted, “Yes!”

The checker looked up at her. “Good news to start your morning?”

“The best news,” Jane replied.

She was so excited to tell Caleb that she sped home and nearly clipped another car while parallel parking. She was juggling both bags of groceries in one hand and sliding her credit card into the parking meter with the other when the neighbor appeared on her balcony in her pink robe like some crazy cuckoo-clock figurine marking Jane’s arrival. She lit a cigarette and blew the smoke out her nose.

“Don’t you know it’s Sunday?”

Jane looked up. “What’s that?”

“You have to be stupid to pay the meter on Sunday.”

But Jane was in such a positive mood that she smiled and thanked her before heading inside. She climbed the stairs at a run, fumbling with her keys, and entered the apartment in a rush. She had just set the bags on the counter and was turning for the bedroom to wake Caleb when she saw him sitting on the couch with his hair disheveled, as if he’d just gotten up.

“Oh, hi, babe,” she said. “I’m glad you’re awake because I’ve got—”

“What are these?” he asked, cutting her off.

He pointed at the coffee table in front of him, where Jane had left out her laptop and her morning ritual of paperwork, including her stack of apartment and home guides.

“They’re just my magazines and stuff. Why?”

Caleb picked one up and flipped through its pages. “They’re not just magazines. You’ve got tabs marking your favorite houses in here. Notes about taxes and payments.”

“Boy, someone sure woke up on the wrong side of the bed this morning.”

“This isn’t funny, Jane. What the hell are these for?”

She didn’t like being questioned like this, especially about something so trivial. So she turned her back to him and began putting away the groceries. “They’re just dreams,” she said. She heard him toss the catalog down on the table.

“We talked about this already, Jane. You said you were fine living here as long as we were together.”

She slammed the cupboard closed and turned to face him. “I love you, Caleb. You know that. But I hate it here. I hate it. I don’t have any room to breathe in this tiny apartment, let alone relax. And the fucking noise drives me mad. You sleep like you don’t even hear it, but the stupid music plays all night long, all week long. And don’t even get me started on the heat. By noon, you can’t even go into the bedroom, it’s so hot.”

Caleb looked down and shook his head, mumbling, “The truth comes out at last.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Jane asked.

“It means I had no idea you hated living here with me.”

Jane rested her hands on the counter and sighed. “I don’t hate living with you, Caleb. I just hate this place. Why can’t we look at other apartments? My home sale closed. I have some money now.”

He stood from the couch and stormed off toward the bedroom. Then he stopped and turned and came back to face her. Jane had never seen him look so angry before.

“You know damn well I signed a six-month lease here, Jane. It was all I could afford. And it probably will be for a while.
Don’t forget that I didn’t ask you to sell everything and chase after me. You made that choice yourself.”

Jane was floored by what he was saying. Did he mean he wished she hadn’t come?

“You don’t want me here?” she asked.

“I didn’t say that.”

“Then what are you saying?”

“I’m saying you ran me out of your house and off the island because I was too young. I needed to chase my dreams, remember? Isn’t that what you said? Then you come all this way and tell me you love me just the way I am, but now here you are, trying to change me already.”

“I’m not trying to change you, Caleb.”

“Yes, you are.”

“No, I’m not.”

“Then what’s this?” He reached and smacked the grocery bag with his hand. “We shop at Whole Foods now? Like we’re East Austin yuppies or something? The guys I know don’t call it ‘Whole Paycheck’ for nothing, Jane.”

“Oh, come on,” she said. “Lighten up.”

“And don’t think I didn’t notice that you threw away my dishes and bought new.”

“Now you’re just being silly,” Jane said.

“Silly? Didn’t you think to even ask me before you threw my cups away?”

“They were old and they were plastic, Caleb. And besides, you said you got them from Goodwill. Life’s too short not to drink out of something nice.”

“Damn it, Jane. It isn’t about the cups.”

“Then what’s this about, Caleb?”

He slammed his fist onto the counter so hard that the bag jumped. “It’s about me being a man!”

The expression of anger mixed with pain on his face left Jane lost for a response. Silence fell over the small kitchen and she stood staring into his sad eyes. She heard the neighbor’s dog barking.

Caleb dropped his head. “I’m sorry,” he said. “There’s no excuse for yelling at you.”

Jane came around the counter and wrapped her arms around him, then rested her head against his chest. “I’m sorry too,” she said. “I guess I’m just having a harder time adjusting than I thought I would. And you’re right. I did come down here on my own and it isn’t fair of me to try and change everything.”

Caleb put his finger under her chin and lifted her face so she was looking at him. “I’ll make you a deal,” he said. “When you find work, and when my lease is up here, we’ll go look for a new apartment together, okay? But it’s got to be fifty-fifty or nothing. Rent, utilities, everything. I have to pay my own way.”

Jane smiled at him cutely. “Can it have a bathtub?”

Caleb nodded. “Yes, it can have a bathtub.”

“And a queen bed?”

“You’re impossible,” he said, grinning.

She rose up on her tiptoes and kissed him. “You’re more impossible,” she said. “Now do we get to have makeup sex?”

“Makeup sex?” he asked, gently biting her lip.

“Of course. What’s the point of fighting if you can’t have makeup sex?”

“Well, as much as I hate to reward your bad behavior,” he replied, “maybe just this one time.”

Caleb bent and picked her up and carried her toward the bedroom. No sooner had her feet left the ground than she remembered the e-mail.

“Wait,” she called, “put me down.”

“Too late now,” he replied.

He had turned sideways to pass through the bedroom doorway with her and she reached out and grabbed the doorjamb and brought him to a halt.

“Oh,” he said, looking down at her, “now you want to play like that, huh?”

“No, I mean it. Put me down. I have good news.”

“What good news?” he asked.

“Put me down, and I’ll show you.”

“Fine,” he said, backing from the doorway and setting her down. “But I’m holding you to your offer of makeup sex, just so you know.”

She hurried to her purse and pulled out her phone. Then she scrolled to the message, opened it, and handed the phone to Caleb. She watched as he scanned it, trying to guess his reaction by the expression on his face. He finished reading and handed her back the phone.

“Isn’t it great?” she asked.

“No,” he said. “It’s stupid.”

“What do you mean, stupid?” She held up the phone as if it were some kind of proof that it was anything but stupid. “This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.”

“I can’t believe you did this without talking to me, Jane.”

“You never would have let me, babe.”

“That’s exactly why you should have asked me,” he said. “Is this why you borrowed Mr. Zigler’s video camera? You told me you wanted to document my gig for us, Jane. Not for some bullshit reality TV show singing competition.”

Jane shook the phone at him. “Caleb, this is an amazing break. You know how hard it is to get chosen for a live, on-camera audition? Well, it’s almost impossible. And they picked you.”

“There you go trying to change me again.”

“I’m not trying to change you, Caleb. I’m trying to help you. Isn’t this what you want? To make it. To succeed. To be a real musician.”

“Oh, I’m not a real musician now? Why, Jane? Because I don’t make a lot of money yet?”

“Come on, babe, you know I didn’t mean it like that.”

“And you think the people on those shows are real musicians? They’re frauds, Jane. They’re wannabes. They’re not artists. They don’t have anything real to say. They’re fame chasers. Karaoke kids with good skin and perfect teeth and doting parents who drag them around to these stupid auditions and tell them how great they are. That ain’t me, Jane.”

“But this is a new show, Caleb. This one is different.”

“Why? Just because it has
songwriter
in its name? I saw the flyers too, Jane. It’s called
Singer-Songwriter Superstar
. I’m not interested in being a superstar, and anyone who is doesn’t know the first thing about what it takes to be a real musician.”

“Oh God, Caleb.” Jane sighed, dropping her phone back into her purse. “Get off your high horse.”

He narrowed his eyes at her. “And what’s that supposed to mean?”

She knew she should stop. That she had crossed into territory where sharing her opinions had the potential to do irreparable harm. But she had put so much work into this surprise—learning video editing software so she could send in just the right clip, writing the perfect bio for him—and she had been so excited to see that they had chosen him for an audition, so eager to tell him, that she just couldn’t help but be angry.

Jane tried taking a deep breath. “It means it’s just an opportunity to get some exposure.”

“No, what did you mean, ‘get off my high horse’?”

“Nothing, Caleb. Nothing, okay? But just so you know,
there’s no law of song that says you have to be broke and struggling all the time to be a real musician.”

Caleb walked away from her and stood looking out the window. Several quiet moments passed, and when he spoke again, his voice cracked with emotion. “I see now what this is really about.”

“Come on, Caleb. That’s not fair.”

“No, it’s not fair,” he said. “But it’s true.”

Then he went into the bedroom and came out again a moment later, carrying his guitar.

“Where are you going with your guitar?” Jane asked.

“Out,” he answered, passing her by.

“But what about our makeup sex?”

He paused at the open apartment door with his back to Jane. Her mind raced to find something to say that might erase the damage that she had done. But before she could, he was gone.

Jane just stared at the door. She thought maybe it would open and he would come back in, that they would apologize to each other, then make love. This had been their first major fight, and she was so overwhelmed with emotions that they seemed to all collide in her chest and cancel one another out so that she felt nothing at all. Eventually, she noticed the bag of groceries still on the counter and finished putting them away, almost in a trance, mumbling to herself that there was nothing at all the matter with Whole Foods.

Then, for reasons she didn’t really understand, she began cleaning the apartment. She cleaned the bathroom and the kitchen. She moved the furniture and vacuumed. She washed the windows, even though she knew it was a wasted effort. Hours went by, and still he didn’t come home.

She collected their dirty clothes and went down the hall to start a load of laundry. An hour later she went back to put them
in the dryer, but her wet clothes were piled on top of the washer, and someone else’s load was already spinning in the dryer. When she opened the dryer to see who had bumped her, a familiar pink robe tumbled out and she was hit with the sour odor of warm puppy pee.

“Unbelievable,” she mumbled, taking the robe and storming down the hall.

She pounded on her neighbor’s door for five minutes, but the only answer was the constant barking that already haunted her dreams. When her hand was tired of knocking and the anger had finally subsided, she went back to the laundry room, threw the robe in the trash, and carried her damp laundry into her apartment and draped it over the furniture to dry.

She replayed their argument as she worked. First she was mad at herself. Then she was mad at him. But by the time she had played it out six or seven times in her head, she felt nothing but sad. There wasn’t anything left to clean, so she started again. She made and then remade the bed. Then she finally ran out of steam, sat down on the fluffed comforter, and cried.

They passed without talking like strangers in the night.

Caleb came home late, crawled into bed, and slept with his back to her. Jane rose before the sun and sneaked away with her laptop to do her job hunting from a café. She felt as though they were caught in some kind of childish standoff where the next person to speak would lose the fight.

She walked the town all day, not wanting to go home and face him, not wanting to stop moving and face herself. She had intended to continue her job search, but her confidence was shot, and by late afternoon the count of résumés in her bag hadn’t diminished by even one.

When the sun had dropped behind the buildings and the streets had grown shaded and cool, she came upon a kid in a doorway playing a guitar. She stopped to listen. He reminded her of a younger version of Caleb, cool and calm and lost in his song. She reached into her purse and held out a twenty-dollar bill. The kid just smiled and shook his shaggy head and went on playing. She would have been embarrassed if his simple gesture hadn’t broken her heart. She remembered when she had first met Caleb, playing that lonely song on that lonely Seattle street. He was right. He did make music because he had something to say, not because he wanted to be some kind of pop star. And she had been wrong to meddle in his career and in his art.