Plain Jayne (6 page)

Well, other than Gus’s, but that’s only
temporary, until I find my own place. Or am driven by his interesting lifestyle
to a hotel, whichever comes first. He was so generous to allow me to stay with
him, but he didn’t tell me that he lived in a sardine can with a futon serving
as his bed (and every seat other than the toilet) and a coffee table serving as
every surface. I guess it’s a testament to his generous nature that he felt
obligated to offer me accommodations when he literally doesn’t have an inch to
spare here. I’ve seen bigger walk-in closets. In college dormitories.

But I didn’t want to settle down in this part
of the country without making sure this could be my true home. As a writer (at
least I
think
that’s what I am), I can live wherever I want, so I think
it’s important that I find a place where I feel comfortable and—at the risk of
sounding too arsty-fartsy—inspired. This is the first time I’ve ever been to
this area of the country, but based on what I’ve read and seen so far, I think
it’ll be a good fit for me, especially if I can find a way to live near the
water. I’ve had my fill of land-locked, drought-prone tinderbox states.

Good news:  the couple next door isn’t
fighting anymore. Bad news:  they’re having very loud make-up sex on the other
side of the wall, about ten feet away from where I’m sitting, from the sound
of… things.

That settles it. I have to get out of here if
I’m going to get anything done. Some things are impossible to ignore, and loud
sex is probably number one on the list.

The laptop goes back in its bag. I check to
make sure my wallet’s still tucked in there, too, pocket the apartment key that
Gus left for me on the coffee table/desk/dining table, and vacate the premises
before thinking about where I’m going to go. I’ll figure it out when I get to a
place where I can hear myself think.

******

This is hopeless. Having never tried to write
anywhere but the comfort of my own home, I never realized how particular I am
about the setting in which I work. I don’t have any weird physical rituals that
I perform before each writing session (turn around three times before sitting
in the chair; close eyes while rubbing pencil between palms; take a deep
breath; open eyes; toss pencil; type), but the conditions have to be right. And
some of those conditions aren’t conducive to public venues.

For example, I can’t exactly set out my
favorite sugar-cookie-scented LED flameless candle in the Boston Public
Library. But somehow that smell has become an olfactory muse. As much as I love
the smell of books and polished wood, it’s not as inspirational to me.

If that were the only idiosyncrasy I had, I’d
probably be able to work around it. But I’ve also become dependent on another
crutch:  the large fleece blanket that I usually drape over my lap, legs, and
feet. It seems like an insignificant thing, and, indeed, it started out that
way. One day I was cold, so I grabbed the fleece blanket from the foot of my
bed. And that would be the end of that story, if not for the fact that I had
one of the most productive writing days… ever!

The next day, when I was stuck on a plodding
plot point, I spotted the blanket from the corner of my eye while I was staring
into space. It was exactly where I’d left it, in a heap in the middle of the
floor, where I’d dropped it on my way to bed the night before. On a whim, I snatched
it from the floor, arranged it evenly over my legs, and then tucked it under my
thighs and feet. Immediately, a feeling of security and warmth—both literal and
figurative—came over me. I relaxed, the ideas flowed, and I had another
20,000-word day that stretched way into the late night. Since then, the blanket
has been my constant partner.

And, yet, I brought neither of them with me on
this trip.

I must be getting cocky.

Did I think an
editor
wasn’t going to
require me to do any re-writes? Am I starting to believe too much of the praise
that’s been heaped on me by Tullah and everyone at Thornfield Publishing
besides Lucas Edwards?

No, I think the real issue is that I didn’t
realize how dependent I had become on my candle and my—gulp—blankie. It’s
embarrassing.

And it supports my theory that I’m a hack. I’m
an imposter, and it’s all going to come crashing down around me. They’re all
going to find out that I can’t write. This book is a fluke, and the only reason
I was able write it is that I’ve lived with the pain for so long that it was
clawing to get out. It wrote itself. I was merely the medium. The three-book
deal I signed with Thornfield is going to be my undoing. I’m not going to be
able to fulfill it. And then everyone will know.

That thought triggers my second panic attack
of the day, which attracts quite a bit of attention my way. I haven’t been able
to write anything at the Boston Public Library, anyway, but the anxiety and
curious stares are the deciding factors in my leave-taking. It’s safe to say I
won’t be back to this branch, either. Ever. I don’t think that’s going to break
the heart of the librarian who looked like she didn’t know whether to call 911
or Homeland Security as I was wheezing my way toward the exit.

On the sidewalk, I sweat, trying to avoid the
stream of pedestrians giving me no more notice than water would give to a rock.
Slowly, I edge my way to an unoccupied piece of cement against the side of the
building, where I pause to catch my breath and figure out where to go next. Just
because the library was an epic fail doesn’t mean I’m ready to give up so
easily. I have an editor to trick into thinking I’m complying with his
editorial requests. If I can pull that off, then maybe I can feel like I truly
deserve to be a successful writer.

I have to find a place to write, though.

Chapter Six

I am a nut job. And a hack (but we’ve already
established that). By the time Gus gets home from work, I’m in tears.

“Geez-oh-man! What happened to you?” he asks
as he parks his bike between the futon and the wall, removes the metal bike clips
from his pants, and lifts his messenger bag from his shoulder and over his
head. “This doesn’t look like a good situation.”

Normally, I’d do nearly anything to avoid
having someone see me cry, but after the day I’ve had, I don’t have the
self-control to prevent making a spectacle of myself.

“I can’t do it!” I wail.

“Can’t do what, Sugar-Booger?” Gus asks,
daintily blotting perspiration from his forehead with a linen handkerchief he
produces from the back pocket of his khaki pants.

That’s when I wetly tell him about the loud
neighbors and the library and my inability to write without all my familiar
comforts and surroundings.

“So I went to a coffee shop, because I
thought… you know… that there’d at least be some yummy smells from the coffee
and pastries and stuff.”

When I stop, he urges me on with his crystal
blue eyes, but he doesn’t say anything.

I miserably say, “It was horrible there, too!
Too loud!”

He sighs. “Have you ever heard of earbuds,
Babushka? Criminey Pete! I don’t go anywhere without my earbuds.” He edges past
me and opens the only drawer in the kitchenette. While riffling through takeout
menus, he informs me, “They keep away the crazies. Sometimes I even wear them
without playing any music. As long as the people around me
think
I’m
listening to something, they won’t bother me. Usually. You know, you always get
that rogue weirdo who doesn’t give a damn what’s goin’ on. He’s gonna talk to
you no matter what. But in those cases, I point to my ears, give a helpless
shrug, and mouth, ‘I can’t hear you,’ before movin’ my ass as fast as I
possibly can away from him. Or her. It’s not always a guy. But most of the
time, it is. And in either case, the person generally has more of a beard than
I would after a week of not shaving.”

As soon as he pauses, I jump in and snap, “Are
you finished? I’m having a crisis here!”

He looks up from the menus in his hands. “Oh.
Sorry. Yeah.” Before I can get back to my problems, he holds up two menus for
me to see. “First, though… which one? Mexican or Italian?”

“I can’t eat,” I state firmly.

“Oh my Buddha! I’ve never seen you so
melodramatic before.” Conspiratorially, he mutters, “Between you, me, and the
futon, it’s not very attractive, Jayne. I mean, really.”

Taking me at my word that I’m not going to
help him choose which food to order, he tosses the menu with the walking taco
on it back in the drawer and squints at the phone number on the menu bearing
the Italian flag and a mustachioed man. Or is that a woman?

As he’s dialing, I have a change of
heart—maybe food is what I need, to feed my brain—and blurt, “I’ll have baked
mostaccioli
!”

He rolls his eyes at me and turns his back as
the person on the other end answers, and he begins to give them our order. I move
closer to him and hiss so he can hear me, “With a large iced tea!” He swats in
my direction, like I’m an annoying fly, and manages to swat my shoulder.

“Oh! Sorry!” he immediately apologizes,
whirling and patting me in a conciliatorily. “No, not you, ma’am,” he says into
his phone. “I hit my bestie without meaning to.
Bestie.
As in, best
friend. No, not
crusty!
No! Lady, listen to me!”

I have a feeling half the apartment building is listening at
this point. I cover my mouth to stifle my giggles.

Consternation creates two deep wrinkles between his eyes.
“Oh, my dear word! This is the most bajiggety experience I’ve ever had ordering
some damn dinner,” he says, punctuating it with a huge sigh. “Pardon my
Swahili. Listen, I want two orders of baked mostaccioli, an order of garlic
bread, an iced tea, plain, and a raspberry iced tea, both unsweet. That’s it.…
Thank you. Sorry for the confusion.”

He punches the button on his phone to hang up and turns to
me. When he sees I’m laughing, he immediately relaxes. “There’s a smile! I was
beginning to wonder if it was on vacation.”

I choke back a chortle at the memory of the look on his face
as he was trying to make himself understood on the phone. “You get flustered so
easily,” I say.

He fans himself with the menu. “Yeah. I know. That’s kind of
my thing. But it’s
not
yours, so what’s the dealio with you lately?”

Flopping onto his futon and immediately regretting it when
the wood frame slams into my tailbone, I wince and say, “Ow! I don’t know! This
experience is driving me crazy.”

“You mean, your dream come true?”

Like a petulant child, I cross my arms over my chest. “Yeah.
Well, it’s not how I imagined it was going to be.”

“As in…?”

I feel silly saying it, but I do anyway. “It’s not as fun.
And… well… I thought it’d be easier than this.”

“You mean, you thought everyone would be kissing your ass
more?”

His blunt interpretations are too spot-on to be insulting.
I’m relieved he understands and isn’t going to make me say it myself. “Yeah! I
mean, I didn’t think it was going to be all, ‘Dahling’ this and ‘Dahling’ that,
but… I definitely didn’t imagine myself in a stupid stalemate with an editor.”

“Oh, not him again!” he despairs. “I thought we got all this
figured out last night. Is this going to be like that awful Bill Murray movie,
where he keeps reliving the same day over and over again? Is that what my life
has become? Because, Honey, I don’t know if I can handle that. Two hours of it
on DVD was enough to drive me ape-shit.”

When he starts to dig around in his messenger bag, I do the
same in my laptop bag, and we come up with our wallets at the same time.
Grinning at each other like idiots, we both slap twenties on the coffee table
like we’re playing a card game with cash in place of cards.

“I’ve got this,” I tell him in a non-negotiable tone,
knowing he won’t argue. He replaces the twenty in his wallet and pulls out a
five, which he tosses casually on top of my money.

“For the garlic bread or the tip,” he explains, equally
firm. I also don’t argue with him. It always seems to even out, no matter who
pays, so we don’t worry about it.

Except for that one time when we each assumed the other had
taken care of the ticket and ended up accidentally dining and dashing. It
wasn’t until hours later, when we were having a midnight snack at a frozen
custard stand that we realized, horrified, what had happened.

He said, “Since you were so kind to pay for dinner, I’ll let
you get as many toppings as you want on your custard.” I had laughed at him and
said, “You’re in the early stages of Alzheimer’s, pal.
You
bought
dinner, remember?”

“I most certainly am not, and I most certainly
did
not,”
he insisted, still perusing the custard menu.

“Very funny.”

That’s when we both looked at each other and realized what
must have happened.

“Oh, my gosh!” we gasped together.

He clutched at my hand like someone had told us we had ten
minutes to live.

“Jayne, we have to go back there,” he said earnestly,
turning in impotent circles, as if he wasn’t sure in which direction to start
walking.

After the initial shock of it, I had laughed. “Forget it,” I
told him. “It was an honest mistake.”

His eyes were so wide that I could see white all the way
around his irises. “What?! Of course it was, but it would be
dishonest
not
to rectify it now that we know.”