The Book of Jane (15 page)

Chapter 18

M
y head
is inside my fireplace as I try to remember how to get the gas turned on. I've only used the fireplace once, at the fancy Christmas party I threw a couple of years ago, and even then it took Ty and me an hour to figure it out. This must be the first gas fireplace ever invented. No switch to flip, no easy instant-lighting mechanism. After another five minutes of hunting around in dusty soot, I spy a faucet in the back and give it a turn. The fireplace begins to fill with gas fumes, and I pull my head out. I grab a match and slowly but surely get a nice little fire going after a minor sneezing fit.

Pulling up a big pillow, I sit in front of the fire with Charlie, whose doggie instincts are telling him to stay far away from the heat. I look out the window and sigh. Thank goodness fall is coming on, otherwise it'd be too hot to do this tonight. And I have to do it tonight, or I'll lose my nerve.

Next to me, on the new couch I bought on credit last week, is my day planner. I wonder if it knows what is about to happen to it? Not that it has feelings or even a life force so, um, that was sort of a silly thought. I pick it up and flip through the pages, watching them fan in front of me. I guess it really did seem to me to have a life force. I read some sample entries.

I find a week where I apparently scheduled and rescheduled a date with Tyson five different times. I shrug. That's the nature of being a publicist. I'm not going to make myself feel bad about it. You can't stop the world, and especially your clients, from having crises. I keep thumbing through. I see that I have church scheduled each Sunday morning. Why did I do that? Did I think I would forget? I never oversleep. I run my fingers over my own precise handwriting and remember the answer. I just liked to fill in the gaps for the week, liked the security of seeing it all written in front of me. No need to worry about the future, Jane. You've got it all scheduled right here. A small laugh escapes from deep within me. How foolish I was.

For another hour I flip through my year, reliving all the things I had scheduled with Raquel, Lee, Tyson, the Brownies, work, my family, everything. And then, I move a little closer to the fire. I take a deep breath. I have to do this. I have to learn to let go. Normal people can use day planners in a healthy way, but mine is a security blanket, a crutch. I slide a little closer and tear out the first page. Charlie wakes up and tilts his head at the noise.

“I know, Charlie. It's hard to believe.” I take another deep breath. “But here goes nothing.” I throw the first piece of paper in the fire. Watching it burn, I feel as though I might have a panic attack, but I force myself to keep going. I continue to tear out the pages in big chunks and throw them into the fire, causing it to blaze up and then calm back down each time. “
Thy word is a lamp unto my feet and a light unto my path,
” I say again and again, until the last curl of paper disappears and the last lick of flame has burned out.

 

All
I can hear at the Chelsea Piers skating rink is high-pitched, little-girl glee. This is a trial event, a chance for the mothers of Troop 192 of Manhattan, New York, to see me with their children before they make a judgment. This is their chance to skewer me, an opportunity disguised as a friendly mother–daughter skating event. Predictably, the turnout is excellent. Everyone except Raquel, who's very pregnant and uncertain on her feet, is here, so Haven is my honorary daughter for the day. Of course Margaret Ann Markelson is in attendance with her darling little Bella, who has spent the last hour chasing a little blond boy around the rink threatening to kiss him. Our cute instructor, Sven, seems a little overwhelmed.

“Twwwweeeeee.” Sven blows the whistle, and we all clutch each other and look at him, trying not to fall down. “Ladies, listen up,” he says, hands on hips. I'm pretty sure he aced his Presidential Fitness Test every year. “Our goal is help you all learn the basics of ice-skating so that no one leaves here today a ‘rail hanger.'” He doesn't have to define the term for me to know what it means, and judging by the nodding heads, everyone else knows too. “Now who can tell me the names of the two edges of the blade on your ice skates?” he asks.

I look around like he's mad. Who would know such a thing? But sure enough, I hear chubby little Abby, wearing her sock tassels even now, say confidently, “The inside edge and the outside edge.” I see Kaitlin snicker, but the other girls look at Abby with envy and respect, even Haven, who is quietly singing Mariah Carey's “Always Be My Baby.”

“That's right,” Sven says. “And today we're going to learn how to make use of both edges so we can get you skating like the pros!” he says, bursting with athletic mania.

“I might accidentally fall down a lot today so that Mr. Peppy will come and pick me up,” says Eleanor Pearson under her breath to Margaret Ann Markelson.

“Did you catch a load of those buns of his? Do you think it was the inside edge or the outside edge that did that?” Margaret laughs.

 

An
hour later, we're skating around the rink drastically improved. Sven beams with pride at everyone. Everyone, that is, except Haven. As it turns out, Haven may be good at social politics, but she can't skate to save her life. Meanwhile, Abby, who I just discovered has been taking lessons since she was three, was allowed to go into the center of the rink because she was so bored with the basics, and Sven periodically drops by to help her perfect her salchow and lutz.

Haven wipes out again in front of me, and I think she might finally be reduced to tears on what must be her hundredth fall. Raquel's going to think Haven got a good paddling today with all the bruises she'll have on her bottom. I skate over slowly to help her up.

“Jane,” she says, poking out her bottom lip. “I hate ice-skating. It's stupid.”

I squat down next to her. “It's not stupid, Haven. It's just hard.”

“How come it's not hard for Abby?” she pouts. Haven looks with awe at Abby, who is spinning like a top in the middle of the rink. Bella and Kaitlin are standing next to her, trying for all they're worth to spin too.

“Abby has worked hard for many years to be able to skate like that,” I say. I put my arms under her armpits and hoist her back up. “If you practice, you can be really good at ice-skating too.”

She crosses her arms across her chest and scowls at me. “I
am
good at ice-skating,” she says. But then she looks around at the other mother–daughter pairs, and I know I don't need to tell her the truth. It's apparent. All over the rink, the women and the girls are skating hand in hand, trying out stopping correctly, slowly turning one wobbly circle. Our eyes travel back to little Abby, spinning as if nothing in the world made her happier.

I lean over and give Haven a hug. She doesn't tear her eyes away from the center of the rink.

“Jane,” she says. “Isn't Abby beautiful right now?”

“Yeah,” I say. “She really is.”

 

I arrive
at the tiny West Village restaurant Le Gigot about ten minutes late, or exactly as I planned. I open the little wooden door to the restaurant, which is pocket-sized and charming in its simplicity. Coates is sitting at the table in the back, and he stands as he sees me. I take a deep breath and try to walk over casually and elegantly. I'm dressed to kill.

When he called last weekend and asked me to join him for dinner, I wasn't quite sure what to say. He didn't use the word
date
, and I had no idea if that was what he meant. But I did something I've never done before. I just said yes. With Tyson, I practically forced the poor guy to ask me out so that by the time he finally did so, I already had it tentatively scheduled in my day planner. But dinner with Coates was foreign territory, and the moment I hung up the phone, I started freaking out. Dinner with Coates? What was I thinking? As I walk toward him now, my heart starts beating a little faster.

“Jane,” he says. He's wearing a suit and tie, and I am struck by how handsome he is. “You clean up just fine.”

He comes around behind my chair and pushes it in as I sit down, defeated.

“I clean up just fine?” I repeat. He goes around the table to sit down again.

He smiles at me and winks. “That is to say, your skin is all better now, isn't it?”

I touch my face. “Um, yeah. It was nothing.” I cough. “But that's not really much of a way to start off the evening.”

He inhales and nods to himself. “I'm afraid you may be right. I don't do this as often as you might have been led to believe.”

I eye him. “I'm beginning to believe you on that.”

“And I'm me,” he says with a shrug, “which can't be helped.” He leans in and pulls my hand across the table. “Tell me what was the right thing to say.”

I pull my hand back immediately. Whoa. “‘You look amazing,'” I say. “That's what I thought you might say.” He smiles at me, and I feel a little silly. “I mean, that's what people have said, um, people say, I've heard sometimes that they say that.” I laugh a little. No. Don't let him win. Be tough, Jane.

He looks me dead in the eyes and says slowly, “You look amazing.” A chill runs down my spine. But I can't help thinking about the
Times
article and the lawsuit against him, and I hate myself for being here at all.

“This place is charming, just like the review said.” He smiles as he looks around. I try to picture him researching restaurants online. “Have you ever been here before?”

“Once,” I say, nodding. “Ty and I came here for our anniversary.”

“It's supposed to have an excellent wine list,” he says smoothly, as if he hasn't heard me. “Would you like to look?” He hands me the drink menu.

The waiter comes and gets our drink order, and Coates gives me a look that seems to say that he is very amused by all of this. I remind myself that he is arrogant and condescending, that I'm not over Ty, that this is not the sort of person Jane Williams dates.

The waiter returns with our drinks and the bread, and we place our food orders, then fall silent. I realize I haven't had French food in a long time because Ty always thought it was too rich. That night we came here together was a concession to me. Coates looks at me silently, seemingly unbothered by the lack of conversation. I clear my throat, trying to think of something to say.

“I have a job interview next week,” I say.

“That's wonderful. What's it for?”

“Do you mean who's it with? I'm going to stick with PR.”

Coates studies me for a moment. “Okay. That's fine. It's funny, though. I just can't see you in PR.”

I laugh. “My West Village mortgage sure can see me in PR.”

Coates shrugs. “Just don't choose your job by the zeros at the end of it. As an actuary, I can tell you that everyone who does regrets it at the end.”

I laugh at him. “A Glassman is lecturing me about how it's not about the money? That's rich,” I say and take a sip of water. I decide to change the topic. I don't really want his unsolicited advice on my career. “And I got rid of my day planner.”

“Do you mean you put it away in a box and next week in a moment of weakness you'll get it back out again?”

“No. I went cold turkey. I burned it in the fireplace.”

Coates gives a deep-bellied laugh. “Jane, you amaze me. And how long has it been since your last entry?”

“Two weeks, three days, and four hours. I really think the worst of it is over now.” I take a piece of bread and put it on my plate.

“Really? I can't believe you know that.”

“No. Not really,” I say. “Wait a minute. I got you!” I point at him. “I got you! You thought that was true but it wasn't.”

“I can be wrong,” he says. He takes a piece of bread and then a tiny piece of butter. “I can't actually see into your life. I just take guesses.”

“And predict when I'm going to die.”

“That's not exactly how I would phrase it.” He smiles mischievously.

“You work for an insurance company, calculating projected life spans, right?” He nods. “You ask all these questions to figure out someone's life, or, actually, death.”

“Basically, yes.”

I take a sip of my wine and study him across the table. “I want to try,” I say, as I watch him buttering his bread with precision. How can anyone take so long to butter one piece of bread?

“Oh, I'm not going to die for a long time, Jane.”

I ignore him. “I'm going to study you for a moment, and then I'll tell you stuff about you I ‘know,'” I say.

“All right,” he says and stops the buttering process. “Study away.”

“Go right back to what you're doing there, mister. I'm not studying you doing nothing. That's not how you learn.”

He raises his eyebrows at me. “My, my. They grow up so quickly.” We lock eyes, then he goes back to the buttering. He spreads it evenly all over the slice of bread, right up to the crust. Then he takes a small bite and chews it for a full minute. “Are you getting all of this?” he asks.

I cross my arms over my chest. “Okay, I'm ready. The doctor is in.”

“Please proceed,” he says and gestures forward.

“First of all, you are a little bit OCD.”

He nods. “Very impressive. Correct. And how did you decide that?”

“You have the second-cleanest apartment I've ever seen, after some woman named Jane Williams. And have you ever thought about your buttering technique there? It's a little neurotic.”

“You see, you're more intuitive than I gave you credit for,” he says. “Anything else?”

I look askance at him. “You dress like Prince William, but actually you find clothes a bore and simply buy what the saleswoman suggests for you.”

“Good. I like to brag that I can get my shopping for the year done without ever showing up. Just send some things over from Saks, and I'm fine.”