Re Jane (13 page)

I decided to let go. I told. About my mother. About what she'd done with my father and what that made me. And how I saw what I was reflected back in the eyes of all of Flushing, as it was in my own grandfather's gaze. Ed listened attentively.

Then he spoke. About his own family. I was struck by the parallels: how his own Brooklyn-bred, Italian mother had fallen for his father, an Irish kid from the Bronx. How her conservative immigrant parents would have kicked her out if she weren't already pregnant with Ed's sister, Frankie. How Frankie and his brother, Enzo—“short for Lorenzo Farley—talk about an identity crisis”—took after their mother. She was a woman with “beautiful dark hair and dark eyes.” But only Ed came out “the fair, freckle-faced freak.”

It was a new sensation to have a man opening up to me. The men back home never talked about their feelings; they spoke in only the briefest, most perfunctory of phrases.

“Jane, you can't let all that stuff define you or you'll end up a cripple,” Ed said. “Believe me, I went through a whole slew of identity crises. Thankfully, there's no photographic evidence.” We laughed. “Finally, I just said, fuck 'em. There comes a time where you just got to be who
you
want
to be.”

He leaned in closer still. “You have no idea, Jane, how much I've struggled this week. How much I've missed you. I feel—” Ed broke from me, a blush blooming over his cheeks. “God help me, Jane! You've reduced me to a blithering schoolboy.”

“Keep it together, Farley,” I ventured tentatively. A year ago—six months ago, even—I never would have attempted a joke like that.

Ed hesitated for a second, then burst into peals of laughter: sonorous, booming, sincere. “See, Jane? You just . . . get it. I haven't felt this way around anyone in . . .” He qualified himself. “In ever, actually.” His hands, trembling, were reaching for me.

There was a sliver of a window—three seconds tops—when I could have stopped it all. I could have shifted, glancing into the rearview mirror to check my reflection, or leaned down to pick off an imaginary ball of lint from my shirt. In those three seconds, I could have salvaged the thin shreds of Ed and Beth's marriage, the thin shreds of my dignity. I could have, I should have—but I did not.

I touched Ed's face. I could feel the rush of blood pulsing beneath.

As his mouth met mine, twin warnings fired off in my head:
Nunchi-do umnya?
And from the recesses of my memory:
Do you want to end up like your mother?

“I can't help what I feel, Jane,” he said. “I love you.”

Loving Ed Farley hadn't been part of my plan either, but I couldn't help it. I repeated the words back to him.

Then, ignoring those nagging voices inside me, I reached in for more. Sometimes you just had to shut off your brain and do what felt right. Reader—it was delicious.

I
've always felt a certain wistfulness wash over me around late summer. It was the time of year when the oppressive early-August heat would taper off and by dusk a pleasing warm breeze would sweep in with the smell of cooling asphalt. The air itself tingled with possibility—a quiet possibility, more mature than the hot passion of early summer. It was the time of year I always associated with romantic love; it was when I ached most from whichever unreciprocated schoolgirl crush I'd harbored.

But this time things were different. It felt like I was finally privy to all that possibility. A giddy energy suffused the atmosphere. That summer I no longer had reason to feel wistful. Ed and I were continuing to spend our nights in the kitchen; after that night on the Promenade, our connection grew all the more deep. (I did not end up going into Lowood's office for my meeting. I ignored the voice inside that wanted me to take this seriously—but why would I do anything that might take me away from him?) I carried myself with my head held a little higher, my shoulders a little straighter. I had the gait of a woman who loved—and was loved back.

I dreaded the approach of fall.

But time ticks on, and soon it was September. The skies were cloudless and blue; the air had a newfound crispness. And Beth was leaving us, though only for a long weekend—she'd gotten a last-minute request to fill in at a conference at Stanford. “I wasn't even Sam's first choice,” she complained over breakfast on the morning of her departure. “I don't know whether to feel flattered or offended.”

“When's your return flight get in again?” Ed asked. I could tell he was trying to make his voice sound casual.

“Next Tuesday night. It's taped up there on the fridge.”

“Sorry, Bethie. Just making sure. I'll be there to pick you up.”

Beth nodded as though she expected nothing less. She reached across the table for the teapot. Over her head Ed caught my eye—her absence would mean more time for us.

Devon was beseeching her mother again about a sleepover at Alla's. “But, Ma, it's her birthday!”

“I already told you, Devon. The answer is no. Monday's a school night. Now, drink your wheatgrass.”

Devon sat back in her chair and crossed her arms. She did not touch her wheatgrass.

Something in Beth's face softened. Not to the point where she was going to give in, but there was still something conciliatory about her expression. “How about one of our stories?”

Devon did not answer.

“There once lived a smart—and beautiful”—her tone was placating—“woman named Mei Lin.”

Devon was getting too old for stories. Once a mainstay of the Mazer-Farley breakfasts, they had petered out over the course of the year. She was getting too old for a lot of things. The other day when Beth had tried to give her a hug and a kiss before leaving for work, Devon said,
“Ma-a-a,”
squirming away from her mother.

Beth smiled nervously at her daughter's failure to engage. She turned to her husband. “Ah, the old women's-studies conference,” she said. “Remember? Where we met all those years back?”

Ed gave a faint nod.

Beth turned to Devon. “Did you know, sweetie, that your father—not to toot my own horn, but . . . he had something of a crush on me. He rushed the podium, blithering like a schoolboy, after I presented a paper on—”

“‘Who Let the Madwoman Out?: Bertha Mason and Nineteenth-Century (Mis)Constructs of Female Hysteria, Madness, and the Vagina Dentata.'”
Ed was dismissive. Beth gave him a steely look and resumed eating her oatmeal.

Yet Beth's anxious energy consumed the room, sucking out all the air. Perhaps if she kept her cool, she would have succeeded in reeling her daughter back in. But Beth was too effortful to be cool.

“So have you decided on a gift for Alla?” she asked Devon. The renewed mention of the birthday made Devon's face pucker. Beth, oblivious, went on. “How about a Backstreet Boys album?”

But Devon, under Alla's influence, had stopped being a fan of the Backstreet Boys more than six months ago. “They're
so
played out,” Devon muttered into her oatmeal. When Beth pressed her about her new favorite band, she said, emphatically, “Evv-R-Blü.”

“Ever Blue?” Beth repeated back. “I never heard of them.”

Devon rolled her eyes.

It felt wrong. We were all rebelling against Beth, but we couldn't help it; her very presence was
tap-tap-hae.
When the taxi honked outside and whisked her away, all of us collectively breathed a sigh of relief. The truth was, we could not wait for Beth to be gone.

* * *

“So what're you going to do now that the cat's away?” Nina asked me during our usual foursome study session at Gino's. Ed had consented to letting Devon sleep over at Alla's, and the two girls were chattering about the upcoming party.

“Oh, you know,” I said, trying to make my voice sound light and buoyant, the way Beth sometimes did. “Eat a bunch of Big Macs. Leave the wrappers conspicuously in the garbage.” That actually wasn't so far from the truth. Devon's first request, immediately after Beth disappeared into her taxi, was, “Daddy, can we get McDonald's for dinner tonight?”

“You guys really know how to live it up,” Nina said.

But there was something else, too, that was likely to happen in Beth's absence. In the kitchen the night before, with my feet hooked on the rungs of his chair, I had asked Ed point-blank, “Do you still love her?” Our conversation at breakfast and the self-assured way Beth had spoken—okay, gloated—about Ed's pursuit of her had disturbed me. It shook my confidence that
I
was Ed's and that I did not have to compete with her for his affections. Of course I was jealous of their history just as I was jealous of all the loves he might have had prior to me.

Ed had paused before answering, a pause that felt like hours, days. Then he said, “Honestly, Jane? I've been wrestling with this question myself for a long time. Beth wasn't like any of the other girls I knew from back home. You could say she was my Other. But I was only twenty-seven when we got married. The hell did I know back then? I think I was only in love with the idea of her. Not Beth herself.”

He was starting to look uncomfortable, so I quipped, “Meanwhile I thought it was a shotgun wedding.”

This time Ed's laugh was tinged with bitterness.

“Jane, Beth and I were never meant for each other. But you, Jane—you! You are my likeness. You're the one I want to be with.” He ran his fingers through his boyish flop of hair; he grew strangely shy. “If that's what
you
want, too.”

Of course that was what I wanted—that was all I wanted. The air between us was pulsing with tension, and it was obvious that at last Ed and I were going to have sex.

* * *

I longed to ask Nina about it—
it.
I knew that she, too, was a virgin, but she'd fooled around with a lot more guys—and had gotten further with them—than I had. But of course I couldn't tell her what was happening between Ed and me, and not just because I didn't want to betray Ed's confidence. I was scared to open up—it felt like saddling the other person with all your emotional baggage.

So I let Nina talk on—about her latest hookup with Joey Cammareri. There had been one drunken kiss, with tongue, in the back of a taxi. Nina was torturing herself with questions about what they were and where they stood. “He hasn't even asked me out on a date yet,” she confided. “In fact, I've only seen him twice since that night at Twine.”

“You think . . . maybe he's just not that into you?”

“You and your tough love, Jane.” Nina sighed. “But I can't help it! He's so fucking hot. Speaking of which—what'd you end up doing about that guy
you
hooked up with that night?”

I looked over at Devon and Alla, who were similarly huddled, speaking in conspiratorial tones. I had told Nina that I'd found a cocktail napkin with a number scribbled on it the morning after. Either Evan or I must have drunkenly stuffed it in my bra.

“Eh, over it,” I told her. “On to bigger and better.”

Nina studied my face. “Okay. Well, enjoy your freedom. Things'll be quieter with your boss gone, that's for sure.”

“That's one way of putting it,” I said.

* * *

“I thought you'd want to wait till tomorrow night. You know, when—” Ed jerked his head, indicating Devon's room downstairs. We were on the fourth floor of the house, Beth's office, the only place in that whole huge brownstone where there'd be no risk of Devon walking in. Ed had spread a blanket and a sheet over the wood floor, with grooves that were filled with dust and grime.

I shook my head and leaned back on the sheet. There seemed no point in waiting. Sang had called me earlier that day, with the news that the whole family—myself included—was being summoned to Korea. “Grandpa dying. Not dead yet. We all flying out tonight.” He did not address our fight on the other side of the Midtown Tunnel. It was as if the counter had started afresh. As my uncle rattled off the flight and hospital info, I listened absently. My uncle could tell.

“Why you not pay attention? This important!” he said.

“So's my work,” I retorted. “I'm not going to pick up and leave just because you order me to.”

Sang had sighed on the other end of the line. “Uncle leave your ticket open, in case you changing the mind.” And with that he had hung up.

I'd already escaped what felt like the unbearable scrutiny of Flushing; what place did I have going back
there
?

“We don't have to do this if you're not ready,” Ed said gently, reclining next to me and brushing his fingers across my cheekbones. He knew it was my first time.

I squeezed my eyes shut. “I'm ready. I want this.”

He told me he loved me. Then, with some awkwardness, Ed peeled away my nightshirt. I shivered. I'd opted to wear a single garment for easier access (
nunchi
). He stripped himself of his soccer shorts and T-shirt and sidled up next to me. His bare chest instantly warmed mine, his fresh, clean smell cutting through the mustiness of Beth's office. His hands were on my hip bones; he squeezed them gently.

After the usual kissing, the usual stroking, Ed began inching down my body. I thought surely he would stop at my breasts, my belly button, but his head moved down farther still. I clamped my legs together. He said gently, “Relax.” With his forehead he eased my legs apart. His bristled cheeks chafed the thin skin of my inner thighs. “I just want to warm you up,” he murmured.

I ignored the tingles of sensation that radiated from below, because my ears were overwhelmed with sound. At first it sounded like Hannah's spoon dipping into a ceramic pot of
dwenjang
bean paste, met with a gelatinous resistance. I swear I caught a whiff of that rising fermented smell. I could hear Ed's tongue shuttling back and forth inside me, his saliva slapping the sides of my vaginal walls.
Chyap-chyap.
Shit, Mary. Now I couldn't help but picture
her
at the dinner table, licking the tip of her chopsticks in her cloyingly cutesy way, before sending her tongue lapping inside her mouth. The entire family threatened to intrude upon this moment of intimacy.

I felt bad for Ed down there. Should I reposition to ease the strain he was inevitably putting on his neck, his shoulders? Was he even enjoying this? Another panicked thought rose inside me: What if my period decided to come early? I pictured Ed's mouth covered in my blood, that faintly rancid, metallic taste. I wrapped my arms around my chest, covering my nipples, which were left out to harden in the cold chill of early September. The moonlight, streaming in through the high windows, laced shadows over Ed's back.

He resurfaced. He reached for the pile of discarded garments and fished a condom out of the pocket of his soccer shorts. Perhaps a more sensuous woman would have coyly offered to help him put it on, but not me. I couldn't bring myself to cast my eyes down there. I couldn't trust my trembling hands.

“Are you sure?” he asked again. I nodded, turning my face away from his—the smell of my vagina was emanating off him.

Ed's chest covered my whole body. I let myself run my fingers over his back, feeling his twitching muscles. He was
so
strong. An uncomfortable pressure—a finger? a penis?—teased the outside of my vagina. My whole body seized up. A certain stray odor wafted in the air. Lavender, onions. “Oh, God!” Ed cried out with pleasure. My bladder, which felt like it was being prodded inside and out, cried to be relieved. I didn't feel pain per se, but I certainly didn't feel what Ed was feeling. All I felt was an uncomfortable sensation—
tap-tap-hae.
I rubbed my chest, but the discomfort did not ease.

Ed, in push-up position on top of me, was gyrating his hips. He was still easing his way in. “You're so beautiful,” he murmured. I heard the rude squelch of rubber. I kept ordering myself to relax. Then he let out another cry: “Oh, God!” This time it was a cry of panic.

Whatever feeling was starting to press inside me suddenly stopped. Ed slid away. He buried his head in the flat of my stomach. “I'm . . . sorry, Jane,” he whispered. His cheek burned against my skin. He lifted his head, and in the dim light his face was red—with exertion? embarrassment? When I tried to caress his face, he brushed me away.

“What . . . happened?” I asked. I must have turned him off. I was overcome with waves of shame.

“I . . . can't,” Ed said. He peeled himself off me. But as he cast a look down at me, still lying naked on the sheet in the middle of Beth's dusty office, he traced a finger down the front of my chest, as if he were marking a line in the sand or gently splitting me in two. It was that touch that would sear itself into my sensual memory, more than any of the other sensations of the night.