See Jane Fall (40 page)

“It’s my clan plaid, Jane, such that I’d
wear to a weddin’ or a christenin’ like tomorrow. But, since I’ll
not be goin’, you wear it for me, aye?”

Jane had tried to convince Maggie to join
her, reminding her how much the Lindstroms would miss seeing her,
but Maggie had declined demurely, sharing it was best, for now, if
she didn’t attend. Jane wanted to press her for details, but Maggie
was entitled to her secrets, so Jane let it go.

Maggie had been kind enough to loan Jane
black patented-leather wedge heels with a peep toe that showed off
two of her red toes, and a string of pearls to wear around her
neck. When she had tried on the outfit for Maggie, her friend had
sighed.

“Ye’re nae Scottish, Jeannie? Och, lass, ye
could be leavin’ fer t’kirk on Sunday mairn, ye’re sae bonnie.”
Jane had widened her eyes at Maggie’s thick accent and Maggie had
giggled softly, which made Jane feel relieved. “Dinna ye ken what
yer Maggie’s sayin’, ye bloody Sassenach?”

Jane had smiled at her friend, at a total
loss.

“I’m sayin’ you look lovely, Jane. Proper
Scottish.”

Jane had washed her hair then run gel
through her curls, using a thin black, plastic headband to keep
them back. Her diamonds glistened in her ears and Jane had put on a
full face of makeup, using supplies she borrowed from Sara’s
cottage yesterday with skills she’d adopted watching Ray a thousand
times.

And the result was amazing. Jane didn’t know
if it was quitting her job with Sara, or a little magic in Maggie’s
tartan, or simply putting some effort into her appearance, but she
didn’t look anything like herself. She was completely transformed
and stared at herself in amazement. Gone was Plain Jane Mays and in
her place was someone new, someone reborn.

She breathed deeply, her heart fluttering as
she remembered waking up in Lars’s bed this morning. He’d been
facing her, still asleep, and she had gazed at his face for half an
hour before he woke up, remembering his tenderness when he made
love to her during the night. Sleeping like spoons, naked and warm,
she had shifted in her sleep, rubbing up against him, stirring them
both into a realm somewhere halfway between wakeful and asleep.
Without a word, he had moved his hands to caress her breasts, and
she had shifted her body to welcome his hardness, needing to feel
him moving inside of her again.

They had peaked at the same time and as Jane
had cried out in release, she felt Lars’s breath, hot and urgent on
her neck, as he whispered something in Swedish.

And then she knew, staring at herself in the
motel mirror. No job, nor dress, nor makeup could have engineered
such a transformation. Jane was looking at a woman in love.
Desperately in love. And it was time that Lars knew.

She stared at her lips in the mirror then
closed her eyes, focusing on his face in her mind, even as her body
trembled with the import of the sacred words that hadn’t passed her
lips in fifteen long years. Finally, finally, finally….

“I love you,” she breathed, almost a whisper
at first, and then stronger, “I love you, Lars.”

She opened her eyes, her smoky eyes with
long, thick, dark, made-up lashes, and said it one more time,
deeper and slower, and strong: “I love you, Lars.”

And then she smiled at the girl in the
mirror who looked a little like the Jane Mays she used to know.

***

With fifteen minutes left until Lars was
picking her up, Jane decided to get a cup of coffee at the kiosk in
the lobby and check out. She looked around the very average motel
room, and knew she would forever remember the moments she spent
with Lars in this room. She felt grateful. She felt happy.

She put her lipstick and phone in the simple
black patented-leather purse she had borrowed from Maggie, put her
camera bag on her shoulder and locked her motel room door behind
her, a packed bag in each hand.

Her phone rang just as she had finished
checking out, and her heart sank like a stone as she saw who was
calling.

Don’t answer!

But she had to. Her heart may not have been
tethered to Sara anymore, but there was one person in the world
from whose affection and regard Jane would never be able to detach
herself. She took a deep breath and pressed Talk.

“Hello?”

“Good morning, Jane.” His familiar voice
made her wince with love, with longing, but her shoulders rolled
forward, suspecting the reason for his call.

“Morning, Uncow.”

Jane had called her uncle “uncow” for as
long as she could remember—long before her parents had passed away,
when the two families spent every summer at a family resort in Cape
Cod. She couldn’t pronounce the L-sound as a child, and everyone
thought her mispronunciation was so adorable, they had encouraged
it long after her tongue stopped twisting. She had never called him
anything else.

“How’s Montana?”

She tightened her jaw as her fingers turned
cold and her stomach flip-flopped uncomfortably.

“Fine. Good.”

“I’m not going to play games with you. What
happened between you and Sara? She said you quit?”

Jane’s unoccupied hand clenched into a fist,
her nails biting into her palm. “Yes. I…I did.”

“Jane! What were you thinking?”

“We’re not…um, getting along that well,
Uncow. It’s been a tough shoot, and I think Sara needs—”

“Jane, Sara needs you. She is your family.
Practically your…your sister. Frankly, I’m shocked by this
selfishness. I’m appalled.”

Jane cringed, her face contorting as she sat
down on a bench outside of the lobby as he continued. The
disappointment in his voice was almost unbearable.

“Family looks after each other. Family takes
care of one another. I can’t believe I have to say this to you, of
all people, Jane! I took you in when my brother died. I honored my
responsibility to him. I cared for you like a daughter and I
haven’t asked much of you in return, because family doesn’t expect
payment. Family helps one another because that’s what families do.
Sorry if you don’t like it, but family doesn’t quit when the going
gets rough. That’s when family has to stick together, Jane.”

Her face felt hot and she knew it was red.
She could feel a bead of sweat break out on her upper lip, despite
the cool morning.

“Jane? Are you listening to me?”

“Y-yes, Uncow,” she whispered, her chest
tight. She imagined the sick sound of metal on metal, manacles
clanking shut on her wrists as he went on.

“Now, I am asking you to go back to New York
with Sara and give her a little time. You are the glue that holds
Sara together, and walking away from her is very cruel, Jane. Need
I remind you that you had no job and no income before Sara took you
on? Conversely, her career was a mess without you. You
need
each other. You cannot just walk away from her when it pleases you.
Go back to New York and see if you two can work things out, or at
least help her find a replacement—”

Jane’s heart dropped and tears bit the backs
of her eyes.
I’m not going. I’m not leaving him.

“Please, Uncow,” she whispered. “Please, I
can’t.”

“
Can’t
? Mayses don’t say
can’t
, Jane.
Can’t
is just the…”

“…opening bid,” she responded, by rote, in a
daze, her heart in anguish.

He paused. “Now, you listen to me, niece…I’m
asking for your help. I’m
asking
you not to say no to me.
I’m insisting on it.”

She straightened up, thinking of Lars. “But,
I’ve…I’ve met someone, and he’s—”

“I heard all about that. Some tour operator
in Montana? Be sensible, Jane. You’ve known him for a week. Sara is
your family. You cannot possibly be choosing him over your blood.
That would be foolish and absurd. And the girl I know—the child I
raised—
is smart and sensible, which are two of the many
things about her which bring great joy to
my
heart, and
would have
brought great joy to my brother. Anyway, if your
feelings for him won’t last through a few months apart, I suppose
you will have learned something of value about the depth of
your…
feelings
.”

They are not all you have…You have me.

“But, I told him I’d stay.”

“Then tell him you’ve changed your mind.
Tell him you are a person of character who loves her family and
doesn’t let them down willy-nilly. Tell him that they took you in
when you had nowhere to go and your
Uncow
is not asking for
very much.”

I want you to stay.

Then I’ll stay.

“I can’t.”

“You
will
, Jane!”

She had never heard her uncle’s voice so
sharp and angry. The tears she’d been holding back slipped from her
eyes.

“You
will
, or we will have
nothing
more to say to one another, you and I. Nothing more.
And I will
not
welcome you back to our family. I will assume
you have turned your back on us and I will take similar measures.”
He paused. “Am I understood? Am I
understood
, Jane
Mays?”

A life without Uncow.
A life never
being able to see her father’s eyes staring back at her again. She
couldn’t lose her uncle. It would be like losing her father all
over again.

“Yes, Uncow,” she whispered, her heart
shattering into painful shards, puncturing her soft insides, making
it difficult to breathe.

“Your aunt and I will come down to the city
on Wednesday night for dinner, and we’ll work this all out. We’ll
speak to Sara and impress your value upon her so she eases up on
you a little. I know she can be a…handful. But, deep, deep down she
cares for you, Janie. She needs you. It’s all going to be okay.
You’re a good girl, Jane. Travel safe. Good-bye, now.”

Jane stared at her phone in shock, in
disbelief, for several seconds after her uncle had hung up. She was
startled by the lobby doors opening and jumped, watching as a
father and his young daughter walked out holding hands, the
daughter clutching a hot-pink fishing pole that leaned up against
her shoulder. The little girl grimaced at Jane and Jane raised her
hands to her tear-stained face. She hurried into the lobby and
bee-lined for the bathroom.

She rested her hands on the cold marble
counter, staring down at the sink before her, trying to catch her
breath, and silent the in-fighting exhausting her brain.

I am not going back to New York. I’m staying
with Lars. I love Lars.

But, if you stay, you lose Uncow.

If I go, I lose Lars.

Maybe not. Maybe he’ll wait for you. If you
stay, losing Uncow is guaranteed.

How long will he wait for me? They’ll try to
trap me into staying there forever.

You don’t know that.

I can’t go. I can’t leave him!

But, you
cannot
lose Uncow. You
already lost your Mom and Dad. You
cannot
lose him too, and
that’s final.

She looked at her face in the mirror. Her
perfect makeup job was a wreck. Luckily she had used waterproof
mascara, but her tears had ruined her eyeliner and the evenness of
her foundation. She took paper towels, wetted them and tried to
even out the tear lines. She opened her loaner purse and freshened
her lipstick.

Her face, which had looked so fresh and
happy only ten minutes ago, was now worried and worn. She smiled at
herself in the mirror, but it quickly faded. It was going to be an
awfully long day if Jane couldn’t smile for more than two seconds,
and Lars was certainly going to pick up on her sadness. He was much
more perceptive than most men, something she loved about him.

Her despair overwhelmed her. How could their
week together hold up over a few months apart? She would be
swallowed up by Sara’s needs, Sara’s schedule, Sara’s life…and Lars
would have girls coming and going from the park. Girls who wanted
to touch his beautiful body. Girls he could look to for comfort as
he got over Jane.

She knew his feelings for her were true.
Hers were too. But, Jane was a realist and such a new love probably
wouldn’t withstand the distance. As Lars had observed last night:
long distance would kill it.

Still, if she wanted to have both her uncle
and Lars in her life, going back with Sara and staying on with her
for a little while longer seemed like the only way. She could try
to talk to her aunt and uncle and explain that she wanted a new
life; she could try to reason with them. Maybe she could train
Laney as more of an assistant for Sara; heck, Laney might even be
better fit for Sara than Jane was. And then when she returned to
Lars, she could have him without losing her uncle.

Even as these desperate thoughts circled in
Jane’s head, they were underscored by the cruel and harsh reality
of the situation: if she left Lars after committing to stay,
feeding into a fear he had already shared with her, she would
almost certainly lose his trust, and eventually, his love.

She heard his voice at the front desk,
asking for them to call her room and she tried to smile at herself
one more time.
You have to believe this right now because there
is no other option, Jane: You will survive the distance and you
will come back to him.

She nodded once at her reflection then
swallowed, smiling her brightest smile as she opened the door and
stepped into the lobby.

***

Lars watched Jane, who was sitting on the
porch swing again, bouncing Erin on her knee as Jenny talked
animatedly beside her.

He couldn’t put his finger on it, but
something didn’t feel right as the day wore on. She looked
beautiful. When she had come out of the lobby bathroom, his mouth
had literally dropped open, she looked so stunning. Her dress, her
shoes, her beautiful face and soft hair. She looked every bit as
lovely as her exotic cousin, in her own fresh-faced way.