See Jane Fall (45 page)

Sara sighed, checking her watch. “I saw this
coming. My dad is going to be—”

“He made it clear. He probably won’t talk to
me for a while.” Jane shrugged, still staring, glassy-eyed, at her
cousin’s face. “Maybe forever.”

Sara turned and rolled her eyes, standing up
to readjust the unfamiliar weight of her own carry-on bag. She
rolled her eyes again, sighing dramatically. “Not forever, Dummy.
God, you are
so
dramatic. Always the victim, Jane. It was
almost a
relief
to see you push back a little this week,
even if you
were
a pain in the ass.

“Your
Uncow
—that goddamn,
stupid
name that I hate—” She took a deep breath and
refocused. “He’ll cave, Jane. Eventually he’ll miss your boring
chats about world news and books and art and shit…and he’ll break
down, give you a call…”

“No, I don’t think so. He’s going to be very
angry with me for a very long time.”

Sara made a disgusted noise, crossing her
arms and sighing loudly again. She tilted her head to the side,
pursing her lips.

“You’re so fucking annoying, Jane. Look at
you. Look at that miserable face. You know what? You’re useless to
me like this anyway. I can’t have you representing me looking like
this. All sad and depressed and blotchy. Blecccch. Dow-ner.
Bor-ing. You may as
well
just stay here. I don’t want some
useless, mopey assistant following me around.”

Sara picked a nonexistent piece of lint off
her t-shirt. “So, you’re fired. I’m promoting Laney. It’s
my
choice. Not yours.”

Jane searched Sara’s face and Sara tried not
to smile as she took her phone out of her back pocket and dialed,
waiting a moment for someone to answer.

“Hi, Daddy, it’s Sara. Yeah, we’re at the
airport. Yeah, she’s here. Well, thanks for making it happen, but
here’s the thing…I changed my mind. I fired her. Yes, Jane. Who
else? No, I don’t want her to come back with me. Because I don’t
want her to be my assistant anymore. I want Laney.
Laney.
Well, I thank you for trying to help, but it’s not your decision,
Daddy, is it? Jane’s staying here in Minnesota for a while. I don’t
know. I don’t know. Fine! I’ll ask her.” She covered the phone with
her hand and whispered, “Are you coming home for Thanksgiving?”

Tears filled Jane’s eyes as she nodded at
Spectacular Sara. And then something happened that hadn’t happened
in a very, very long time…in almost fifteen years. Sara Mays
relaxed her shoulders and smiled at Jane Mays as if she liked her a
little bit, and Jane smiled back at Sara.

“She said yes, but I imagine she might be
bringing a friend with her.” There was a long pause, then, and Jane
could hear her uncle’s muffled voice on the other end of the line.
She saw Sara smile as her eyes filled with tears, and her voice was
very small when she spoke again. “Just you and me? Yeah. Yeah, of
course. I’d love it. I-I love you too, Daddy. Yep. I’ll call when
I’m home.”

Sara pressed the End button and looked up at
Jane, her violet eyes bright with surprised tears.

“He said he’s taking me out to dinner on
Wednesday night. Just him and me. I can’t remember the last
time…”

“He’s all yours, Sara. The way it was
supposed to be.” Tears spilled out of Jane’s eyes as she smiled at
her cousin. “I think it’s going to be okay now.”

Sara took a deep breath and pushed Jane’s
curls off her forehead. “You were always the smart one, Janie.”

“And you were always the pretty one.” She
smiled at her beautiful cousin and added, “And today you were the
kind
one, Sara, making that phone call for me.”

“I didn’t do that just for you. Look what I
got out of it: dinner with my Daddy!” She chuckled, then cupped
Jane’s cheeks and tilted her head to the side, looking at her
cousin closely like modeling agents were always looking at her.
“You know, I think Minnesota’s been good for you, Janie. Don’t get
a big head or anything. I’m not saying you’re
pretty
,
but…”

It was the closest Samara Amaya would ever
come to letting her cousin Jane be pretty, but Jane, who knew
Samara Amaya better than almost anyone else in the world, said to
herself,

Something is better than nothing.

“See you at Thanksgiving, Cousin Sara,” said
Jane, grinning.

“See you then, Cousin Jane,” smiled
Sara.

As Jane turned to cross back over to the
parking lot and find Mr. Lindstrom, she heard the dulcet tones of
the supermodel known as Samara Amaya bellow “Sebastian! WATER!
NOW!”

And all was right with the world.

***

“Key’s under the mat, Jane,” Mr. Lindstrom
grinned at her as Jane unbuckled her seatbelt. “Wish I could take
you down to Yeller, but I got a mess of work to do back at the
office. Got no idea where he’s at anyhow. No telling when he’ll be
back. He was hurtin’ pretty bad this morning.”

Jane nodded. “I’m sorry for that.”

“I suspect
Midten
’ll be beside
himself when he sees you, girl. Go easy on him.”

“Will do,” she said, hopping down.

“Sunday dinner, Janie,” said Mr. Lindstrom,
staring straight ahead. “Whole family gets together every week.
Expect to see you there.”

“
F-family
dinner? Me?” she asked, her
voice thready with emotion.

“Like I said,” he repeated, smiling at her
gently. “See you there.”

She waved good-bye as he backed out of the
driveway and pulled away.

Jane let herself in Lars’s house and closed
the door behind her, walking back to the bedroom to drop her bags.
She deposited them at the foot of the bed and sighed, thinking
about how they’d left things this morning. He was so angry with
her, so cool. She was desperate to see him again and set things
right between them.

She picked up the picture on the bureau of
Lars with his siblings, looking at the faces of the children
closely. Nils, towering over his brothers and sister, didn’t smile.
His eyes were clear and focused, his jaw square, and he had his arm
around Lars, resting his hand on Erik’s small shoulder. She guessed
Erik to be about seven years old, which would make Lars nine and
Nils twelve…and Jenny five. Jenny smiled with the fresh-faced
exuberance of a happy little girl, her hand clasped in Erik’s, her
blonde braids falling past her shoulders. Erik smiled too, but his
head tilted softly to the side, toward Jenny, and his smile didn’t
quite reach his eyes, as though he was trying to please someone,
but wary. Finally Jane stared at young Lars, so handsome even at
nine years old, and realized he was the easiest of the four, the
most carefree. He didn’t smile, he grinned, and his eyes crinkled.
He didn’t have his arms around anyone or hold anyone’s hand. He was
the only one of the four who held ski poles, and looked ready to
tear down a mountainside as soon as the photo was taken. Happy to
take a picture. Happy to go back to skiing. Happy to be alive.

Jane smiled back at him, placing the
photograph gently back on the bureau. She took a deep breath and
shucked off the covers, then re-made the bed, expertly, accustomed
to making her own and, sometimes—but not anymore—Sara’s.

She took her phone out of her back pocket
and plugged in her charger, placing the phone on the table beside
the reading chair in the corner—the chair Jane had sat in the first
time she’d been in Lars’s room, the first night he’d made love to
her, asking if she preferred the chair or the bed. She swallowed a
grin, remembering how much she had wanted him.

Leaving the bedroom, Jane headed to the
kitchen and turned on the kettle. She found some sort of Swedish
tea in Lars’s cabinet, and took a mug from the cabinet over the
sink. It read “Midsummer isn’t just for Shakespeare” surrounded by
a garland of yellow and blue flowers, no doubt some Swedish
reference that was lost on Jane. She would learn.

While waiting for the water to boil, she
wandered around the small living room. There was a beige sofa (with
that heavenly back) and two brown chairs arranged in a sitting area
in front of a fireplace, and several photos framed on the walls. An
eagle. A bear and cub. A waterfall. Jane looked at each one, taking
her time to admire the light and angles, before jumping at the
sound of the kettle whistle, signaling her to return. She poured
the water and let it steep, enjoying the light fragrance of flowers
and honey rising from the steam.

She threw the tea bag away and repositioned
the kettle where she had found it, hoping that it wouldn’t be too
long before she didn’t feel like a guest anymore. She returned to
the bedroom where she felt the most comfortable, the most at-home,
and opened Lars’s closet to find a woolen blanket folded neatly on
a top shelf. She pulled it down, burying her face in it with closed
eyes, loving that it smelled like Lars.

She kicked off her flip-flops and settled in
her favorite chair, curling up with her tea. And for the first time
in years, in too many years to count, Jane Mays felt safe and free
and wanted. She felt like she belonged somewhere as she never had
with the Mayses or working for Sara. She didn’t regret the years
spent with her guardians, which provided the comfort of her uncle’s
face, or even the years she’d spent travelling the world as an
ungrateful supermodel’s assistant. All of that history led to
today, so none was wasted, and she had little remorse. But, she
would
have regretted leaving Lars.

She knew that as surely as she knew her name
was Jane Mays.

How strange that she should come to a place
as remote as Gardiner, Montana, only to meet Lars, to click with
him so easily, to recognize him so viscerally, to desire him so
desperately, to love him so quickly. If someone had told her two
weeks ago what would happen to her life, she wouldn’t have believed
it. Oh, but she would have hoped. My God, she would have hoped.

Jane took a deep breath, deeply comforted by
the smell of Lars all around her.

“I’m home,” she whispered in the quiet of
Lars Lindstrom’s bedroom, closing her eyes to rest. “I’m finally
home again.”

***

Yellowstone didn’t help. It didn’t comfort
him. For the first time in Lars’s life, it didn’t fill the hole,
bridge the gap, teach a lesson, offer peace. It was beautiful, and
the fresh air felt good and the sun on his skin was soothing, but
his heart stayed heavy and troubled.

Lars stepped onto his porch, surprised, at
first, that he had left the front door unlocked, but then, he’d
been pretty upset leaving with Jane this morning, pretty
distracted. And that upset and distraction had stayed with him all
day, only assuaged by the beginnings of a plan.

Lars had decided that despite what he said
to Jane last night about not going to New York, he was going to go
as soon as possible to see her, which meant the weekend after next,
as long as she wasn’t away on a shoot. And he’d keep going every
two or three weeks until she moved to Montana. He wouldn’t let her
forget him. He would not let her fade as days turned into weeks
turned into months. He loved her more than that—more than her
selfish bastard of an uncle who used her for his own purposes. Lars
had firmly decided that he would do whatever it took to stay in her
life and keep her in his.

He glanced at his watch. 6:00 p.m. Eight
o’clock there. She wouldn’t be home yet, but her plane would be
landing soon. She’d be too busy for a phone call until later, or
even tomorrow, but his could be the first text she saw when she
turned her phone back on.

He headed into the kitchen, throwing his
pack on the kitchen table and pouring himself a glass of water.
Leaning up against his kitchen counter he fished his cell phone out
of his back pocket, and then opened a text box.

Jane, I was an idiot not to drive you to
the airport. Thought the
park would help, but it hurt more
not to take my last shot to get you to stay, or at least kiss you
one last time and say good-bye. It was a mistake. I’m
sorry.

He pressed send then took a deep breath.
From somewhere in his house he heard a slight, soft “ding” and
absently wondered if he’d left on the TV in the bedroom this
morning. Heck, he left the door unlocked. Anything was possible at
this point.

I’m buying a ticket to New York. I’ll
come in two
weeks. On the 21st. Just making sure you’ll be
around and not on an out-of-town shoot. Let me know.

He pressed send again, watching the message
load and send, turning from white to light blue to confirm it had
gone. He sipped his water and heard that soft “ding” sound again
and looked up. Sounded like it was coming from the bedroom or
bathroom. Smoke detector probably needed a new battery. He finished
his water and put the glass in the sink, heading leisurely to the
back hallway to figure out what it was, as he texted one last
message.

We’ll make it work. I lied when I said I
was falling in
love with you. I’m IN love with you. I love
you, Jane. I wish I’d told you before you left. But, you’ll get
this when your plane lands, and I’ll tell you on the phone tomorrow
and to your face in two weeks…

He pressed send and this time the “ding”
wasn’t as faint. He was closer to it now. He pushed open his
bedroom door, and as his eyes adjusted to the dim light, he noticed
the glow of an LCD light in the corner of the room hovering in
mid-air over his reading chair. And there, curled up under a
blanket, her face illuminated by the tiny screen on the phone she
was holding, was Jane.

He gasped in surprise.

She looked up at him and his eyes adjusted
enough to make out her face, though not her expression.

“Heya,” she offered, raspy and low and soft.
Jane’s voice.

“
Jane
!” he half-sobbed,
half-breathed, crossing the room to kneel on the floor beside her.
He reached up to hold her face in his hands. “
I love
you
.”