See Jane Date (29 page)

“
And
him,” Amanda added.

“Fine,” I said. “I wager my hundred that I get the ‘Can we just be friends?' speech.”

“Easy money,” Eloise said, clinking glasses with Amanda.

This sucked. I was supposed to be celebrating my hard-won promotion with my buds tonight and my boyfriend tomorrow night, not chewing my cuticles to bits and taking bets on my love life.
Let my friends be right,
I prayed up in the direction of the crowded bar.
Let them win my hundred!
After all the
me too
s, after how compatible we seemed to be sexually, could Timothy just want to be friends? Things had been fine, so—

My heart stopped. Timothy Rommely was standing at the bar, waving a fifty at the bartender. I shifted my body so that I was blocked by Eloise, then peeked around her.

“What the hell are you doing?” she asked.

“Timothy! Straight ahead. He's at the bar!”

“Really?” Amanda asked. “I've never seen him in the flesh. Which one is he?”

“He's the one who looks like Greg from
Dharma and Greg,
” I reminded her. “He's the one who—”

Had just slung his arm over the shoulder of a woman who wasn't me.

Amanda sucked in a breath. “The one with the redhead?”

I couldn't speak. I couldn't even nod. Tears stung the backs of my eyes.

“He does look like Greg,” Eloise said. “Too bad he's a two-timing asshole jerk—”

“Hey, wait a minute,” Amanda insisted. “You don't know that. Maybe that chick's a co-worker and they just finished saving someone's life, or maybe she's his cousin or—”

We all watched as Timothy gave the redhead a flirtatious tug toward him and stuck his tongue in her mouth in a short but killer kiss. Now his back was to us. A bunch of people had come in and formed a second layer at the bar. At least they were blocking my view a bit.

“I'm so sorry, Jane,” Amanda said, squeezing my hand.

“Are you okay?” Eloise asked. “Do you wanna get out of here?”

I still couldn't speak. I couldn't move. My heart had dropped to my feet. “I don't want him to see me,” I managed. My mouth felt as though it were stuffed with cotton.

“Maybe you should go confront him,” Amanda suggested. “Embarrass the son of a bitch.”

Problem was, Timothy wouldn't be the embarrassed one. I'd take that honor. I was the spurned one. I'd be the one making the scene. Timothy would be the star of the show and get to go home with the redhead, besides.

I lunged for the pack of Marlboro Lights on the table. “I need a cigarette,” I said, tapping one out.

“No!” Eloise whisper-yelled, grabbing the pack and stuffing them in her waistband. “You're not wrecking all that hard work for some asshole, Jane. He's not worth it.”

Tears pooled in my eyes. I opened my mouth to speak, but nothing came out. I dared a peek. Timothy's back was still to our table. He and the redhead were sitting on stools at the bar, about seventy feet from where we sat. His arm was around her.

It was too much. The tears came and I couldn't stop them. My hands flew up to my eyes with a cocktail napkin. I felt Eloise rubbing my shoulder and Amanda squeezing my hand.

“We could sneak out without him seeing you,” Eloise whispered into my ear. “C'mon, let's get out of here.”

I stole another peek. Timothy and the redhead were now facing each other. Again he kissed her, and then they clinked glasses. He was probably saying, “Me too.” I
couldn't take my eyes off him, off the guy who was supposed to be mine. And because I was now staring at him, he turned in my direction.

Timothy Rommely and I were staring at each other, him with something akin to horror in his eyes. The redhead had swung her green-eyed gaze in my direction, too. I darted my gaze to my lap. “What do I do?” I whispered to Eloise and Amanda.

“You get the hell out of here,” Eloise said. “C'mon, I've got your purse. Let's go.”

And so we stood up and marched past Timothy and the redhead. I kept my eyes on the floor. I could feel him watch us leave. I ran up the steps leading to street level, tears falling down my cheeks.

“Jane, wait,” he called out.

I turned around; Timothy was standing in the doorway, a beseeching look on his face.

Amanda and Eloise were on the top step. “We'll wait for you up here,” Eloise said, a mixture of anger and concern in her expression.

And so I turned around and faced him, wondering what he could possibly want to tell me. It wasn't as though he could say,
Let's get a drink and talk about this;
his date was five feet away. “What's there to say, Timothy?”

“Jane, I know this looks bad.”

What a classic. I didn't think anyone actually said that, even when it
did
look bad.

“It's just that things are really crazy at the hospital right now,” Timothy said for the hundredth time since I'd met him, “and I guess it's easy to get involved with someone who's right there, going through what you're going through.”

“So you've been seeing someone else?” I asked like an idiot. “That's why you haven't made plans with me?”

He nodded and had the decency to look deeply pained. “It's not serious or anything. And it's not like you and I had any conversations about exclusivity, Jane.”

Did he not get it? Or was he just trying to save his butt?

He reached out to brush a strand of hair away from my face, and I stepped back. “I haven't seen you in so long that I forgot how pretty you are.”

Was that a compliment? Was that supposed to make me melt and tell him everything was okay, he was right, we hadn't had that exclusivity conversation, and I couldn't wait till he came over tomorrow night to have sex with the moron who fell for his “Things are so crazy right now” crap?

“Tell me something, Timothy. What was all that
me too
bullshit?” I asked, hands on hips as though I were Aunt Ina. “Why'd you go so far to make me feel like we were headed somewhere, when you were never into it?”

He ran a hand through his hair. “I was into it, Jane. I really was. Our first few dates were great, but then I met…” He stared at his black shoes. “I'm sorry about the timing. I know it probably looked bad.”

Fresh tears pooled in my eyes, and I tried to blink them back. So
that
was what he'd meant before by “knowing this looked bad.” He wasn't trying to make excuses for himself. He was talking about the fact that he'd pulled his disappearing act right after we made love. He was talking about the timing. He'd met someone else and liked her better. I could see half of the redhead's hair at the bar. What was the point of talking to Timothy? He was only going to go back to the bar, win some sympathy from the redhead at “hurting some poor woman,” and they'd both have a gin and tonic and forget all about me.
She'd probably comfort him later by giving him a blow job.

“So you were going to come over tomorrow night and what?” I asked. “Dump me? Or two-time the both of us?” I knew the answer to that. But I needed him to say it.

So, I wouldn't be Jane Greggely, after all. As if any editor worth her pencil didn't know that adverb-making “ly” was extraneous.

Timothy stared at his feet. “I'm really sorry, Jane. I didn't mean to hurt you.”

I gnawed my lower lip, then turned around and ran up the steps. Eloise and Amanda were waiting with stricken expressions. I took one step toward them and burst into tears.

I
'd spent a picture-postcard summer Saturday afternoon (seventy-eight degrees and no humidity) under the blankets on my futon in the dark. Saturday night, Eloise had come up with Jiffy Pop to watch
Breakfast at Tiffany's
with me. When I was beyond depressed, only Audrey Hepburn singing “Moon River” could soothe me. But the moment Holly Golightly had set free her beloved Cat and then realized what she'd done, I'd sobbed so hard that Eloise had been afraid I'd ruptured something in my throat. She'd fast-forwarded to the part where Cat was sunning in someone's window, safe and sound, and I'd stopped crying.

Eloise had slept over. At around one or two in the morning, Opera Man had turned up the volume on
Götterdämmerung
—aka The Goddam Ring—and Eloise had pounded on the wall. All that had done was infuriate Opera Man and make him raise the volume. “You have
to put up with this shit every night?” Eloise asked. My tearstained nod must have looked really pathetic, because Eloise had flung off her half of the blanket, unlocked the door, stomped out into the hall and pounded on Opera Man's door. “Shut that off!” she'd screamed. “It's two in the morning! Have some consideration for your neighbors!” The volume had immediately lowered. Eloise marched back in, locked up and climbed into bed, muttering about the nerve of some people. I wasn't sure if she was aware that she'd managed to make me smile for the first time in twenty-four hours.

In the morning, Eloise had insisted on taking me for breakfast to celebrate my promotion since the whoo-hooing had been cut short Friday night. I wasn't exactly in the mood for celebrating, but Eloise refused to take moping for an answer. Amanda had called to check up on me as we were walking out the door. I'd assured her I was semi-okay, and then Eloise and I had gone to the diner on the corner of 79th and First Avenue, where I'd pushed scrambled eggs and home fries around on my plate. The three cups of awful coffee had helped, though.

And now, Eloise and I were making our way up the wide concrete steps to St. Monica's church. Eloise thought a midmonth candle-lighting for our mothers and my father and any other losses was in order. Mass was just ending as Eloise and I weaved our way through the throng of people exiting the church. The stained-glass windows alone were enough to make me feel better, no matter how down in the dumps I was.

Eloise lit a candle for her mother and for the end of her engagement to Serge, gave me a little smile and sat down in the last pew and hung her head. I lit a candle first for my father, and then my mother, and tried to picture them. I saw my father's face, so young, so handsome,
so full of life and love and laughter. I saw him pointing out the Plaza Hotel and twirling me down Fifth Avenue the day before he died. I tried to picture my mother, but I couldn't. I tried again. And again, nothing. And suddenly, Max's face came to mind, and then Jeremy's, and then Timothy's. They floated past one another's. None of them had wanted me. I'd never been good enough to attract Jeremy, and both Max and Timothy had left me. Tears stung, and I blinked them back. Why hadn't they loved me? What was wrong with me? Why was I so unlovable? My knees started to wobble, and I dropped down beside Eloise and buried my face in my hands. She slid her arm around me. “It's okay, Jane.”

“It's not,” I croaked through a sob. “It's not okay.”

“He didn't deserve you,” Eloise whispered.

“More like I didn't deserve him. Or Max. Or Jeremy. No one ever wants me.”

Eloise squeezed my shoulder. “Jane, that's not true.”

“Oh yeah? So why'd I get dumped?” The tears fell fast down my cheeks. “Why do I always get dumped?” Eloise squeezed me closer, but all it did was make me cry harder. “Why did they leave me?” I whispered between sobs. “Why? Why?”

“Oh, Janey,” Eloise murmured. “You'll meet someone else. Someone who'll love you forever.”

My mother's face floated into my mind. She'd been forty-eight, and her hair had just started to gray. I could see her sparkling dark eyes and her slightly lopsided smile. My dad's face floated past hers. I remembered now. Remembered how I couldn't stop thinking about my parents' deaths those weeks and months after Max had dumped me. And now it was starting again. Their faces, almost like snapshots of times I recalled so vividly,
flashed through my head. My mother. My father. Gone, gone, gone. My parents were dead.

“I lose everyone, Eloise,” I whispered. “You were right. What's the point of caring about anything?”

“Jane, I'm going to throw your own words back at you. Your father and your mother wouldn't want to see you blaming them for leaving you. How do you think they'd feel? They'd want you to be happy. Living and having fun. Think how proud your mother would be about your promotion. Think how proud your dad would be that you gave your all to dating Timothy, a guy you really liked. They're up there rooting for you.”

I stared up at the stained-glass portion of the ceiling and closed my eyes. “I lose everything and everyone. No one's ever gonna love me.”

“
I
love you,” Eloise told me, stroking my hair. “Amanda loves you. Your Aunt Ina loves you. God, Jane, I think even Natasha Nutley loves you.”

“I miss my mom so much,” I said, tears falling down my cheeks. “I want her back so bad. I just want my mother back.”

“I know,” Eloise said, leaning her head on my shoulder. “I know.”

 

“Lay out the dress and the shoes and the jewelry,” Aunt Ina said. I held the telephone at a safe distance from my ear. “Jane, are you listening to me? The wedding is next Sunday. If you don't have everything you need, you're going to be in trouble.”

“I'm listening, I'm listening.” I cradled the phone against my shoulder and tried to type title suggestions for the new memoir I'd been assigned. Remke and Jeremy hadn't been able to sign the Backstreet Boy, so they'd gone after a less well-known teenage singer who'd been
a one-hit wonder in the year 2000. It was a told-to tell-all, which meant I'd be dealing with the hack writer and not the singer herself. I was grateful for all the work I'd been assigned. Concentrating on my job helped me not think about Dr. Did-Me-Wrong.

“Jane, are you typing, or are you listening?” Aunt Ina demanded.

“I'm listening,” I snapped.

“Don't you take that tone with me, young lady,” Aunt Ina said. “Just because you got a fancy promotion at work doesn't mean you have the right to act all superior with me. It's the twenty-second of July. The wedding is in eleven days.
Eleven days.
Do you hear me?”

“I have the dress and the shoes and the evening bag, okay? Can I go back to work now?” It was ten o'clock in the morning on Wednesday, and in ten minutes I had a meeting with my newest author, the told-to writer. I didn't have time to go over the outfit I'd spent way too much time and money on in the first place. And after the four days of pure heartbreak hell that I'd just been through, the last thing I wanted to think about was Dana Dreer's wedding.

Aunt Ina hung up on me. Great. Now I had to call her back to apologize. I punched in her number, but the line was busy. I tried again, but got the machine. “Aunt Ina, I'm sorry, okay? I'm just really busy at work and under a lot of pressure, okay?” Tears welled up in my eyes. I was becoming a regular crybaby.

My computer pinged to let me know I had e-mail. Amanda.
Hey, I have an idea. Remember Driscoll, the blind date you canceled? Why don't you call him and ask him out for the weekend? If it works out, you can invite him to the wedding!—P.S. No, I'm not crazy. Elo
ise and I talked about it last night, and we think you should do it.

Hello? Were they on drugs? Hadn't I been through enough? And what was I supposed to do, tell Driscoll that he had to pretend his name was Timothy at the wedding? I was over dating. For a long, long time. Clearly, I sucked at it. I'd rather become a workaholic. At least it gave something back, like a promotion and a raise.

The phone rang. Good. It was probably Aunt Ina calling me back. Like I needed the added stress of having my aunt mad at me?

“Jane, it's Natasha.”

“Hey, how's everything going? How are you feeling?”

“Pretty good,” she said. “I can't feel the baby kick yet, but my doctor says it's a bit early for that. The book's going well, too. I'm on Chapter Five.”

“If you need me to look at pages, just send 'em. I'd be happy to read them for you.”

“Thanks, Jane, but I think I'll be okay. I like the idea of writing out the entire manuscript and then going back over it to edit and polish before sending it to you. That okay?”

“Sure,” I told her. “Are you still comfortable with the January fifteenth due date? If you need a few more weeks, that'll probably be okay.”

“I think I'll be right on schedule, if not a little early, actually.”

“Great. So, um, just curious, Natasha—have you spoken to your mom?”

“I tried,” she said. I heard the jangle of her bracelets. “But she was her usual cold and clipped self. I'm ready to stop, I think. I'll send her pictures of the baby when he or she is born. Maybe that'll bring my parents
around—or maybe not. I'm not going to let it kill me anymore, Jane. I can't.”

How did you do that? How did you decide not to feel something and then not feel it? Did it work that way? Or was Natasha kidding herself?

“The good news is that I called my aunt Daphne, my dad's sister, and though she was cold at first, she warmed up and told me she and my uncle Henry would love to see me! They live a few neighborhoods away in Kew Gardens. I'm going to spend the afternoon with them next weekend. Aunt Daphne said she'll work on my parents.”

I hoped her aunt would be successful! But at least she now had someone to turn to. I had no idea how worried I'd been for Natasha until now.

“Oh, by the way,” she added. “Dana called me yesterday and invited me to her bachelorette party, isn't that sweet? She said I'm as important a part of her past as anyone in her bridal party. I was so touched.”

Dana had invited Natasha to her bachelorette party? That was weird. Wasn't it? If Natasha had been so important to Dana, she'd
be
in the bridal party. And how big a part of Dana's life could Natasha have been? So she'd babysat her for a few years, so what? That gave her “important” status? I never understood my cousin and I never would.

“So I guess I'll see you next Friday night, then,” I said. “Oh, Natasha, my other line's ringing.” That wasn't even a lie. It really was ringing.

“I'll let you go, then,” Natasha said. “See you next Friday! Wow, just think, two days after that and I'll finally get to meet this wonderful Timothy!”

I hung up and slumped over my desk.
No, actually, you will not get to meet him, Natasha, because he dumped me. First I made him up. Then I found him. Then I had
him. And then, abracadabra, he was gone. Poof.
What the hell was I going to tell everyone about why Timothy wasn't at the wedding?

And why was I so bothered by the news that Natasha was coming to the bachelorette party? What did I care if she'd been invited to watch a bunch of Fabio types rip off their clothes and strut around? I pushed my second line. “Jane Gregg,” I snapped into the receiver, my bad mood about to be taken out on whatever unfortunate person was on the line.

“Hi, Jane, this Driscoll Meyer. My friend Jeff gave me a buzz this morning and suggested I give you a call to see if you'd like to reschedule that blind date we never went on.”

My mouth fell open. I was going to kill Amanda! Had she told Jeff to tell Driscoll to call me? “Um, hi, Driscoll. Can I put you on hold for a sec? Someone's buzzing me on the intercom.”

Deep sigh. I put Driscoll on hold and opened my datebook and checked back to the Tuesday I was supposed to go out with him. June 9:
Driscoll Meyer. Five-eleven, 175, light brown wavy hair, blue eyes, senior accountant. A sweetie. 555-6536.

A living, breathing, male person was on the other end of the phone, and, frankly, that was all I needed in a date for the wedding. I'd simply tell everyone that Timothy had emergency surgery, and that my dear friend Driscoll was attending the wedding with me instead. That way, I'd be doing them a favor. The $225 prime rib plate wouldn't go to waste. And Natasha and Dana would see cute, interesting Driscoll and marvel at how many good-looking, successful men I had in the hopper. They'd whisper among themselves at how successful
I
was, how I knew
so many good-looking men, how lucky Timothy was to have me.

The tears threatened and I blinked them back. I felt like I'd been demoted in the boyfriend department. After all my hard work, I'd ended up with a big fat zero. And while I got nothing, Natasha—pregnant, boyfriend-proposing, bi-coastal, beautiful Natasha—had been invited to my cousin's bachelorette party at my family's wedding.
My family's.
She had her own family, dammit. Well, sort of. But the Dreers were
my
family. Mine. Couldn't I have anything of my own anymore?