Plain Jayne (27 page)

Chapter Twenty-Two

“There’s nothing we can do,” she breaks the devastating news
when she ends my hour-long wait for her to call me back after consulting the
agency’s attorneys.

“What do you mean?” I reply disbelievingly. “There has to be
something.
”

“There was a way for you to protect yourself from this,” she
informs me. “And that was to disclose this information when we drafted your
contract with Thornfield. Then we could have specifically written a
non-disclosure clause into it. As things stand now… you’re at their mercy.”

“Oh, fuck me.”

“Yes. Are you sure you don’t want to tell me who let you know
about this? It could help, you know.”

“No! I promised I wouldn’t say. Their job could be at
stake.”

“Alright then. Well, it sounds like your source had the best
advice:  request that Thornfield doesn’t use this knowledge and hope they
respect your wishes,” she concurs with Luke.

“And if they don’t?”

She sighs. “Like I said, we don’t have a non-disclosure
clause, so… they can use historical facts however they choose. Unfortunately.
I’m sorry.”

“It’s not your fault.”

“No, I know. But… anytime something like this—something
unforeseeable, I’d like to add—happens to an author, I regret it. It’s a shame your
experience may be ruined by something as unpleasant as this.”

I hate to break it to her, but my experience was ruined way before
now. As a matter of fact, this is sort of anti-climactic. I always thought the
truth getting out would be the worst thing that could happen to me. It’s not
even close to the worst thing in all this.

*****

If we weren’t speaking on video chat, and I couldn’t see my
only friend, I’d think we’d been disconnected. But he’s merely staring at me.

“You
are
Rose?” he finally asks in the most normal
tone of voice I’ve ever heard him use.

I take a deep breath. “In a way. The things that happen to
her happened to me. But Rose is a lot stronger than I am. She’s the version of
me I wish I could be. She reacts to adversity in ways I could only dream of.”

“And I really am Jack?”

“Well… yeah. But you already knew that.”

“Yeah, he’s too awesome to come from your imagination,” he
says, rubbing his chin. “But Chicka-Chicka-Boom-Boom! Did that really happen to
your family? Did you really have two sisters who died in a fire?” He makes the
last word sound like two syllables.

It’s probably the only possible way someone could ask me
about it that would make me smile. So, I do, albeit sadly. Then I say, “Yes.
And my parents died, too.”

He gasps and covers his mouth. “OMG, Jayne!” he muffles. He
blinks rapidly. “I—I—I—”

“Please, Gus. Please,” I interrupt him. “Don’t say it. I
know you’re sorry. I know it’s awful. I lived it. I wrote it. I whored my story
out—”

“Now, wait just a buh-donk-a-donk minute, Missy May—”

“I didn’t say it so that you’d reassure me it was the
opposite.”

“I know you didn’t! You mean it, which is the most bajiggity
part of it. You actually think that! Good guh-ravy!” He fans his face. “Girl,
you’re gonna make me cry!”

“Why are
you
crying?”

“Well, one of us should be!” he replies defensively. “It’s a
horrible thing you lived through, and you obviously feel guilty for surviving
and for profiting from it, although you should
not
consider this
profiting. You will never, ever, ever even break even, not with a bazillion
dollars, and not by meeting a thousand movie stars—even Nicholas Hoult. Not
even by having someone like Luke-Ass Edwards fall in love with you and sweep
you off your feet in his ever-so-awkward, grumpy way. Oh, girl!” He dabs at the
corners of his eyes with his pinkies.

Having been semi-distracted throughout this entire
conversation by what Luke told me earlier today, and already thinking about
him, it takes me a second to realize how out-of-place Gus’s mention of him is.
When I do, though, I say, “Wait. What? What about Luke? What are you talking
about?”

I never told Gus anything about what happened between Luke
and me. As a matter of fact, I had to make up a bunch of nonsense to explain
having to cancel—yet again—our fun weekend together in Marblehead, when I left
earlier than I’d planned. Gus was none-too-pleased about it, too. My lies kept
getting more and more complicated as I made up increasingly-impossible reasons
we couldn’t stay at that house, even after my manuscript was finished. It was
horrible.

Gus weakly slaps himself in the face. “Oh, shoot! I’ve done
it now!” he says without sounding at all remorseful. “And I promised him I
wouldn’t tell you. Oh, well. What’s done is done.”

“Tell me what?” I demand, feeling breathless and panicky.

Casually, on the verge of sounding extremely bored, he
explains, “After you went back to Indiana, he stopped by my work one day, and
we had a man-to-man. He invited me to stay out at Marblehead the weekend I was
supposed to stay, anyway, and I jumped at it.” When I make an indignant sound,
he says, “Hey! Twice you took back your invitation, which wasn’t fair, so I
figured it was only right that I get to spend a couple of days at a house like
that, even if you weren’t there.”

“You stayed there alone all weekend?”

“Hells to the no, sister! Luke-Ass was there with me.”

This is an even more incredible scenario. “Huh?! You and
Luke spent a weekend together in Marblehead? I don’t believe it.”

He becomes more animated now. “Buh-lieve it, Babushka. Cuz it
happened. And let me tell you, it was awkward at first.”

“I can only imagine.”

“But it got better. I mean, at first, I could tell he wanted
to talk about… stuff… but he didn’t know how to get things started, so I
finally got the ball rolling and told him how you and I met, which led to your
book, which led to him not being able to shut the hell up about you.”

My heart stutter-steps. “R-really?”

“Oh, yes! Finally, by Sunday morning, I was like, ‘I love
Jayne, but can we talk about something else… or not at all?’ My ears were tired!
What did you do to that man, anyway? He’s got it bad!”

“I didn’t do anything to him!” I defend myself too
vehemently. “Why didn’t you tell me any of this before now?”

He thinks about it for a second and then says, “It never
came up in conversation. If you had mentioned him, it would have reminded me,
and I probably would have said something.”

“Probably?”

“Maybe. I dunno. You know how I am sometimes.”

“How about mentioning that you went to Marblehead and stayed
at the beach house? That would have been a start. For one thing, it would have
let me know I was off the hook for canceling on you twice.”

“You didn’t deserve to be off the hook, sister-friend! But like
I said, I just kept forgetting.”

“Liar.”

He sighs. “Okay, fine. He did ask me not to tell you that he
invited me out there. But he kept saying that he’d heard so much about me and
that he was disappointed that your finishing your book ahead of schedule meant
that I didn’t get to spend my weekend at his house.” He laughs. “I mean, he
didn’t say it that eloquently. It was kind of a bumbling, stumbling delivery,
but that was the gist of it. I could tell he was fishing for information about
you, too, but since you hadn’t mentioned his name once since leaving Boston, I
figured you didn’t feel the same way he feels about you, so I kept mum. Not
that it was hard to do, since he hardly let me get a word in edgewise, anyway.
He was so busy talk-talk-talking about how wonderful you are.”

“Stop it. That can’t be true!”

“So he did a good job of hiding it around you.”

“Well, there were
some
indications that he tolerated my
company, but… If you’re wondering if we had sex, the answer is no.”

“I know you didn’t. He told me.”

“What?!”

“Yeah. He said you were freaked out about his crazy wife,
and then
he
had some worries about your professional relationship, but
he figured that as soon as the book was out, you guys wouldn’t have to worry so
much.”

My heart takes a nosedive. “He’d still be married.”

“You know it’s only a matter of time before he kicks that
bitch to the curb, though.”

“I refuse to stand in the background and wait,” I grumble
mulishly.

“Good for you! But he told me that he can’t continue to live
in limbo with that crazy dipshit always interfering in his life.”

He’s known that for a long time, though, and it hasn’t
motivated him enough to divorce her. I stare at my laptop keyboard, replaying
in my head my most recent conversation with Luke, in light of all this
information.

Gus interrupts my woolgathering by trilling, “Woo-hoo!!
Helloo, Ms. Greer? Are you alive there?”

“Barely,” I mumble, too low for him to hear. Then I focus my
eyes and smile shakily at him. “I guess I can’t be mad at you for not telling
me this, all things considered, huh?”

“Damn right. I mean, I had a feeling your parents were no
longer living, but I had no idea their deaths were so… dramatic. And… I dunno…
I never thought to ask. Is that weird?” he asks.

For anyone else, yes. For self-absorbed Gus, no. Instead of
putting it that way, though, I say, “I was glad you never asked. Saved me from
telling lies.”

“You wouldn’t have told me the truth, even if I asked?”

“No.”

“Uh!”

“If the whole world weren’t about to know, I wouldn’t be
telling you now,” I admit. “It’s… too difficult.”

“We don’t ever have to talk about it, Babushka, unless you
want to,” he promises, uncharacteristically gentle.

I tear up. “Really?”

“Absolutely! I won’t ever say anything about it, unless you
bring it up.”

I nod furiously before I can choke out, “Thanks, Gus.”

“You betcha. Now what’re you gonna do about Luke-Ass
Edwards?”

My hand on my forehead, I admit, “I have no idea.”

*****

Before Gus could get too carried away with crazy ideas
(lounging naked next to the pool at the beach house and waiting for Luke to
notice me out there being one of the tamer ones he proposed before I stopped
him), I revealed that I wasn’t sure I was going to do anything about Luke for
the time being. I had my reasons (in addition to the hugest one, his
wife
):
 classes were about to start at Fairfax; things were about to get extremely tense
between several people and me at Thornfield; and I needed to think about why Luke
would be so willing to tell Gus—a practical stranger—all the things he told him
(obviously with the intent that Gus wouldn’t keep it from me) but not tell
me
any of those things directly.

Gus didn’t like my decision, but he seemed content with my
promise to let him know if anything noteworthy happens. I don’t expect to be
giving him a report anytime soon.

Teaching is taking up most of my attention and energy right
now. I have a small class, and I’m sure they’re not representative of the
average American college student (at least they’re not like any of the people I
went to college with), considering they attend a very small, very selective school,
but their enthusiasm astounds me. I guess I was still sleepwalking through life
when I was an undergraduate, because I wasn’t anything like they are. I
expected to spend most of my classroom time lecturing about various styles and
techniques and then giving assignments, but these kids like to talk. And ask
questions. And discuss my answers. That’s great, too. I’m glad. Surprised, but
glad.

Also not what I expected:  my office hours are busy. I
pictured myself grading papers, keeping an eye on the clock, and going home
when my office period was over. The reality is that I haven’t left campus on
time once so far. Students are waiting for me when I arrive at my office; they
queue up along the wall outside. Sometimes they’re looking for clarification on
an assignment; sometimes they want to chat about how to get published;
sometimes they want me to look over something they’ve written in their spare
time; and other times they merely want to shoot the breeze.

As long as we’re not talking about me, I enjoy the conversations.
I only get uncomfortable when they ask me for personal specifics regarding my
thoughts, experiences, and feelings about writing and publishing. That’s when I
find myself very obviously closing up and becoming terse. That’s when I enforce
my fifteen-minute-per-student time limit.

Conversely, things aren’t going so great for me on my
personal publishing journey. I’ve appealed all the way up the Thornfield chain
of command to Arthur Thornfield, himself, regarding my plight about their using
my personal history as a marketing tool. While the people under him put on a fairly
good show of being pleasant and sympathetic to my concerns, Arthur didn’t mince
words.

“Welcome to the Big Leagues, kiddo,” he said
condescendingly. “You’re not going to get your way all the time, especially
when you don’t make your wishes known upfront.”

The more I persuaded (and eventually, pleaded), the harder
he became. He interrupted me two or three times and even mocked me once, after
I said, “This is my
life
your trifling with.” Using the same plaintive
tone of voice, he replied, “This is my
business
you’re trifling with,
Ms. Greer. And you started it, by writing a book about your life, and selling
it to my company.”

“I never wanted anyone to know that’s what it was about,
though,” I explained, foolishly thinking he’d finally understand.

He simply laughed and said, “Well, that didn’t work out
according to plan, now, did it? I’m sorry, Ms. Greer, but I’m afraid that’s going
to have to be the last word. I have a lunch meeting. Please trust us, though…
your biography is going to lend a dimension to your book that will probably
triple your sales. Your book signings will be packed. Readings will be sold
out. And talks with the movie studio are going well, I know firsthand. Try to
relax and enjoy the ride. You deserve it. Bye now.”