A Bridge of Her Own (25 page)

Jane sunk down in the armchair, uneaten donut still in hand. “It says I want children, Lace,” she said dumbstruck.

“Holy shit,” was all Lacey could manage.

“How do I undo this?” Jane asked. “Everyone in town will think we’re still engaged, and with that fake quote from me, they are going to think, if anything, that Wyatt ended it because, come on, he is a
friggin winning lottery ticket."

“Holy shit,” Lacey repeated.

Jane set the donut down and, putting her head between her knees, did her very best to not hyperventilate. Lacey came over and gently patted her on the back. Her phone starting ringing.

Lacey checked it and said, “It’s your mom."

At that, Jane grabbed the phone and answered it, “Mom, have you seen it?” There was a pause as her mother responded. “I know. It is horrible. I never said that. Is that legal?” Another pause then, placing her hand over the phone, she said to Lacey, “My mom says my daddy is going to kill him.” She then uncovered the phone and said, “Tell dad not if I get to him first."

They spoke a bit longer and then hung up.

“What am I going to do?” Jane grumbled. “How can I get everyone to know that we are not engaged and that I broke it off?”

“I’m not sure, babe, but I know we will think of something,” Lacey said sympathetically.

Jane’s phone rang off the hook that day with calls to congratulate her. When she checked in with her parents, she learned it was pretty much the same for them. She finally gave up and turned her ringer off. That evening, flipping through channels, Jane stopped on college basketball since the Rams were playing. It was bittersweet because it reminded her of her bet with Gabe over the game they watched together at the sports bar.

“
Whatcha watching?” Lacey asked, walking in.

“Basketball,” Jane said, pouting.

“Hey the athletic director reached out to the choral department to see if they would sing the fight song at the next home game,” Lacey said.

Jane went to bed early since she was dreading work and people talking about the announcement.

The next day, her desk was crowded with all the females who worked on her floor. They were asking when the date was and if they could see her ring. She said there was no date, and it was a long story about the ring. She smiled politely and tried to discourage any additional discussion on the matter. When her boss came in, he asked her pointedly if she would be resigning anytime soon. She tried to explain the situation as briefly as she could to him but did her very best to assure him that she was not engaged and would not be resigning any time soon.

He seemed very sympathetic to her, assuming that Wyatt had dumped her. She tried to let him know that it was more of a misunderstanding that he had proposed, and she had declined but not in enough time to stop the announcement. What struck her was he clearly did not believe her. It was almost as though he pitied her, like she was concocting this story. It was embarrassing. This was someone who knew her and knew her family. Was this how it was going to feel every time?

Her mother drove out to meet her for lunch. She was trying to cheer her up. She kept the conversation light as she watched Jane push her food around on her plate. She finished lunch, and her mother drove her back to work. When they pulled in, she was surprised to see several media vans crowded around her office building. Her mother looked at her in question, and she shrugged. Her mother went to drop her off in the front of the building when the news people began rushing the car, microphones out asking Jane for a comment.

Her mother put the car into reverse as Jane called her boss to ask what was going on. He told her the news crews had arrived just after she left for lunch and that it was okay for her to lay low while they figured out what was going on. Next, she called her father to see if there was anyone at their house. He had no idea what she was talking about but, at her direction, looked out the window and informed her confusedly that the coast was clear. Her mother quickly drove them to her home as Jane scoured news pages on her cell phone in an attempt to learn what this was all about. When they arrived, she switched to searching for info on her parent’s computer.

“What on earth is going on?” her father asked, confused by all the drama.

Jane gasped when she discovered what prompted all of this. She brought one hand to cover her mouth. She looked at her parents, her other hand pointing to the screen. Her parents both leaned in to read, and her father who didn’t have his glasses asked her mother to read it out loud.

“It is an official press release from Mr. and Mrs. Wyatt Huntington II, saying that they regretfully confirm the engagement of their son to a Miss. Jane Martin has been dissolved due to previously unknown flaws to her character. And they ask that their son’s privacy be respected during this difficult time."

At that her, mother made the sign of the cross, and her father started cursing.

Tears running down her face, Jane turned to her mother and said, “How can they do this?”

Her mother pulled Jane to her and rubbed her back, murmuring that she didn’t know. Her father had left the room to call his attorney to see if this could be subject to libel. Her mother led Jane to the sofa and offered her tissues. Her father, on the cordless, came in and poured all of them a shot of brandy. Jane accepted readily and threw it back, raising her glass to her father for another, which he granted. Then he left the room when his lawyer came on the line.

Jane and her mother waited for him to hang up. He came back into the room frowning. When Jane asked what happened, her father came and sat on the other side of her, and putting a hand on her shoulder, said his lawyer believed the press release and insinuation of a flaw was vague enough that there was no legal action available to dispute it. That a flaw could imply something as simple as a bad credit score to who knows what. Jane buried her head into his shoulder.

They sat like that for some time and listened to the home phone ring off the hook. The machine picked up, and Jane leapt to grab the phone when she heard Lacey’s voice. Lacey was panting and, between breaths, asked why their apartment was covered with reporters looking for her. Jane apologized for not thinking to tell Lacey the news. When she explained the situation, she had to jerk the phone away from her ear as Lace lost it. They spoke for a while, and Jane finally ended the call. She let Lace know that she was spending the night at her parents’ house, admitting that she was so emotionally exhausted that she was ready to pass out. The two shots her father had given her may have helped.

She called out sick from work the next day, figuring her office may be staked out by news crews again. It must have been a very slow news week if a broken engagement garnered this much attention. Part of her just wanted to bury her head in the sand and avoid the whole situation. When she brought this up as a possible solution to her mother, it was made clear to her that one way or another there would be a response to this falsehood. She would not allow Jane's reputation be tarnished in this way.

Jane could not really understand how it would affect her in the long run but knew it pissed her off in the short term. She thought about various options. She even considered trying to stage her own rebuttal press conference but,
by the time her father’s lawyer reached out to one of the news stations, it was considered old news, and they weren’t interested in her side anymore. Only the week before, reporters had stalked her and her family, trying to get a comment. Now no one was interested. The current news dominating the community was how well her university basketball team was doing.

There were expectations that they would qualify for the upcoming playoffs. Wyatt had won, she thought. Even though this time around, she was the one who had broken things off. He had spun it to the world out of spite. That bothered her more than anything. Well, that and how upset her mother was. She thought about taking out a full-page ad in The Dispatch, but it seemed so desperate that she was nervous it would not feel believable.

At least it was safe to go to work and back to her apartment. Ronald had missed her, but Lacey had taken good care of him. She sat with him on her lap and stewed. Lacey, being dramatic, paced from one side of the room to another, coming up with one wild plan after another. She suggested buying a billboard or a plane with a message trailing behind it. They could print flyers and post them on all the electric poles in town.

“Now that is just environmentally cruel,” Jane joked.

She was flipping channels on the TV and stopped when she saw a basketball game and that the Rams were playing. It was almost the end of the game, and it was a close one.

Then, Lacey started jumping up and down. “I’ve got it. Oh man, I’ve got it.
If this would work. Oh, it’s such a good idea.”

“Huh?” Jane replied, confused.

“Okay, so the choral director reached out to the drama director, who I’m still tight with, to see if any of the actors from the musical wanted to participate, and I might help out."

“Okay. I’m lost,” Jane said.

"So the Rams have been crazy good this year, and the next game is a big rivalry game, so it is going to get a ton of coverage,” Lacey said, as if that made sense.

“I still don’t get it,” Jane repeated.

“So I might be able to put you in the halftime show,” Lacey went on. “Just think about the local undivided attention of all of Richmond."

“Um, that sounds like my worst nightmare,” Jane said, shaking her head.

“It might be your only window of opportunity to set the record straight in your own words,” Lacey said.

“We don’t even know if
people thinking I’m flawed is the end of the world. Who doesn't have flaws?” Jane argued.

“Seriously?
the way your phone has been going off?” Lacey asked. “Besides, don’t you want to tell people you never said you wanted to start a family?”

“I don’t want to embarrass him.” Jane said.

“Are you kidding? After what he just did to you?” Lacey asked.

“Lacey, you and I both know that, even if I wanted to do it, there is no way I would be able to speak in front of that many people."

“I think you are braver than you know,” Lacey replied solemnly.

Lacey, who wasn’t much of a sports fan, sat down to watch. They won in the end, and the local news came on right after. The broadcast began with film from local bars and restaurants where fans had gathered to cheer on the Rams.

“This is pretty cool how well they are doing,” Jane said.

“Just think about it, okay?" Lacey said before she went to bed.

As Jane lay in her bed, she replayed the recent events in her mind. So much of her life, she had spent like a pretty doll in an unopened box. She had been taught that it is the unopened toy that has the highest value. She had always done what her parents asked and never even considered rebelling. She went to the right school. She even dated the right guy, even though he was so wrong for her.

That was it, she thought to herself, deciding Lacey's idea might be her only chance to publicly stand up for herself. Maybe there is no happy ending in life. Maybe the guy who you really like will not get past the fact that the
entire city you live in thinks you’re not worthy to be engaged to someone else. No matter what happened with Gabe from this point on, Jane had to take a stand now or she may never.

That was how Jane had found herself, microphone in hand, center court at halftime of the Rams’ George Mason game.

Chapter 31

At Jane's direction, Lacey had pulled some strings with the athletic director of VCU. She booked the VCU choral dramatic troop to sing the school song during halftime while the drill team performed. What they did not know was Jane would be making a public service announcement first. Once all the players were off the court and Lacey had the performers set up, Jane walked out onto the court.

Winking at her, Lacey handed her the mic. The crowd assumed that Jane would be introducing the performers. Instead, after taking a deep breath and cringing at her image on the score board, she began

“Good evening Richmond. My name is Jane Martin. My recent engagement, and now more recently, the end of my engagement to Wyatt Huntington the third has been widely reported. The stated reason for this is a flaw in my character. I have come here today to tell you all that this is true. I have flaws. This specific flaw in my character is that I never stand up for myself. I'm trying to work on that, starting with me being here today. Wyatt was my first real boyfriend, and I liked him so much that I lost sight of who I was before we met. And then, on the day we graduated from this university, when I thought he was going to propose to me, he dumped me instead. It has been over two years since that break up, and I have learned so much during that time about who I am and what makes me happy. When Wyatt recently moved back, he wrongly assumed that we would just pick things up where we left them. But that was impossible because I wasn’t the same girl he dated back then. I want to be very clear and honest about what my character flaw was. I made a mistake in not just flat out telling him that I didn’t love or want to marry him until it was too late to stop the newspaper announcement, and for that I am truly sorry for any embarrassment I may have caused him or his family. Thank you for hearing me out. Go Rams!”