The Anatomy of Jane (8 page)

“What do we have?” I said as soon as I walked into the meeting before taking my seat at the front table. An intern ran up to place a coffee cup in my hand.

As always, Scarlet de Burgh, my producer, got up first. As she moved to the front of the white conference table, her wavy brunette hair brushed the top of her shoulders. “The Governor MacDowell scandal is a treasure trove; the more we poke, the more we find. There is correspondence with Tyson Pharmaceuticals and an RMH which all have questionable financial ties to him. All are denying. The police aren’t releasing anything—”

“Who do we have outside of the police station? It’s all about timing,” I questioned, taking a sip of the coffee before sliding back and spitting it out. My eyes snapped to the intern I was going to fire. “What the fuck is this?”

“Your coffee?” he replied.

Lifting the lid up, I showed it to him. “I drink my coffee black. Does this look like black to you? I would ask if you’re colorblind, but seeing as even then you should be able to tell the difference between coffee shades, that isn’t an excuse! Which leaves me with the belief that you are an idiot. Are you an idiot, intern’s name who I do not know or care to know? Never mind. You’re fired.”

“What?”

“GET OUT!” I yelled, and he ran tripping over his own feet as he went. Spinning back to the table, all of their eyes were glued to me, terrified with the exception of Scarlet.

“Tonight, we make public that the police and the district attorney are not being transparent. We are going to put pressure on them, and I want a story to be published immediately after I go live doubling down on that. The people of this state have a right to know what the fuck their governor was doing with their tax money. If you meet resistance, call them out for being in someone’s pocket. If they aren’t, they will be vindicated. If they are, well…that’s just another story.”

No one moved. They just stared.

“You can go,” I snapped. They grabbed their tablets and quickly filed out one by one as I leaned back in the chair.

“You know this is why they call you the Maxasaurus Rex, right?” Scarlet asked, coming up beside me and taking a seat on the table. “However, today you are a little more bloodthirsty than usual; what’s wrong?”

I don’t know!

“Nothing,” I lied.

Her bright blue eyes narrowed and she lifted her head up. “Your parents again?”

“Are you my producer or my therapist?”

“For you, I have to be both.”

“I’m fine Scarlet.”

“Mr. Emerson?” My assistant once again popped her head inside. “Your mother is holding on line two—”

“What did I tell you to do when my family calls?”

“Send them to voicemail, but she said it’s important and keeps calling.” No sooner had she said it than my phone rang, proving that my mother had this office wiretapped. I was sure of it.

“Let’s go Lily, before our favorite dinosaur tries eating us whole.” Scarlet patted my shoulder before walking out.

“For the record, if I hear anyone else referring to me as giant a lizard, I’m firing them too!” I called out as she left. She only waved back, obviously not caring.

Reaching for the phone, I prepared myself for the tongue-lashing I was about to get.

“Hello Mother,” I said politely.

“Mother.” Her high voice stabbed into my ears. “Siri Google ‘Mother’.” She must have spoken to her other phone and lifted it for me to hear. “Females who inhabit or perform the role of bearing some relation to their children, who may or may not be their biological offspring.”

“Is this your way of saying I’m adopted?”
If so, it looks like life is finally looking up
.

“You drive me insane, Maxwell, and you know it! Who screens their mother’s calls?”

“Anyone above the age of sixteen.”

She took a deep breath. “Tonight I’m having a very
important
party. You will be there, with a beautiful young woman, preferably someone who will not embarrass you or me and is of marriage material. You will smile, you will laugh, you will pretend you are the only son of the Emerson family, and heir to everything when your father and I die. Which might be soon since you are keen on breaking my heart. It will be a splendid night and then you can go back to your fortress of solitude high above Boston. Do you understand?”

“Where am I supposed to find this
beautiful
young unattached woman?” I asked.

“I don’t know son, but the brunette producer in your office seems like a viable option.”

“Goodbye, Mother.” I hung up, fighting the urge to drop my head on the table. Apparently my phone was cursed.

“I looked pitiful the other night, right?” Irene asked me at the door. She was dressed in an outfit I could not afford, diamond earrings only seen in catalogs, and perfect makeup while I scrubbed her toilet.

If she was what ‘pitiful’ looked like, I’d love to take a stab at it.

“No, you didn’t,” I finally answered while spraying the toilet bowl with bleach.

“I used to be really popular; people lined up to come to my parties.”

I realized she really didn’t give a damn what I thought, she just wanted to vent, but listening to rich people and their sob stories were not in my job description.

“People in this city…they are just so fake. You know? They all love you when you have money and power, but the moment you slip up, they leave you out in the cold.”

Again this was not my business…but again she didn’t give a fuck and I could do nothing about that.

“I killed someone.” My head whipped back to face her and she busted out laughing. “Oh my god! Your face Ha! Ha! HA! You looked ready to piss your pants.”

“That wasn’t funny.”

“Now you know how I felt when you said you didn’t know English.” She crossed her arms.

“Touché.” I nodded before standing up and flushing the toilet. “I’ll keep that in mind.”

“Keep what in mind?”

“That you have a twisted sense of humor,” I blurted out, but she didn’t care and instead smiled brightly at me.

“You know you’re way too pretty to be a maid.”

“I tried being a prostitute, but it didn’t work out.”

Her eyes widened, and this time I laughed.

“Who has the twisted humor now?” She shook her head at me.

“I never said there was anything wrong with dark humor. In fact, I applaud it.” I grabbed the bucket and moved out of her bathroom to go back downstairs.

“Jane, are you done?”

“Yes, why?” Turning to face her, I prayed to god she didn’t have anything else for me to do. I’d already cleaned for five hours.

“I need help.” She pointed to the two dresses on her bed. The first was a beautifully simple emerald sweetheart dress with sleeves that would fall over the shoulder. The other was an elegant champagne chiffon dress with lacy cap sleeves.

“Definitely the champagne one.”

“Great, you can wear the green.”

“I’m sorry, come again?” I stared at her, hoping she’d laugh to prove that it was another dark joke…like
ha ha ha, of course you can wear the thousand-dollar dress—just kidding, you’re a maid
type of joke.

But she took the cleaning bucket from my hand and put it down by the door.

“Ms. Monrova—”

“Everyone who didn’t come to my party is going to be there,” she said on the brink of tears, picking at her nails. “They are going to huddle together and laugh at me.”

“Then don’t go.”

She shook her head. “If I did that, they would know I was hiding. I have no friends here any more. If I go alone, I’ll just sit there with one—”

“You’re beautiful! Don’t you have a guy you can call? Someone…anyone.”

She shook her head. “I’ve burned a lot of bridges. Besides if I brought a guy, they’d either try to steal him away or talk about me until he distanced himself from me.”

What was this? The adult version of
Mean Girls?

“Whoever these people are, they aren’t worth it.”

“Yes, they are!” she snapped. “I’m sorry. I don’t want to come off as offensive because I really do need your help, nor do I want to insult you, but you just don’t get it. Yes, these women are catty bitches. No, I don’t want to be their friends, but they are the daughters of senators, bankers, moguls, and a lot of important people who can make life harder than it needs to be. I would rather be in the room being ignored than out in the cold. It’s just the way it is. I’ll pay you personally for the overtime.”

I wanted to cry, stomp my feet, or do anything to get out of this, but I was weak-willed when it came to people who needed help. Even though this was the dumbest, most annoying and elitist type of ‘help’, I could remember her sobbing at her party.

“Why me?”

“You’re hot—not hotter than me, but if I go there with a beautiful new bestie no one knows and laugh my ass off at our twisted jokes, then they’ll see I don’t care and I can make friends. You wouldn’t happen to know French would you?”

“I do.”

Oh my God! She grabbed on to my shoulders, jumping around. “This is fate!”

If fate was a stripper named Dominique, yeah maybe. I loved learning. It was my way of overcompensating for never getting to go to college. Dominique spoke it all the time and the men poured out their wallets for her. I said a few words and got better tips. ‘A’ plus ‘B’ equaled me learning French; anything to make an extra dollar. Allen then marketed the Bunny Rabbit as the only exotic strip club in the city with a full-on French burlesque night.

That was about my only talent, though.

“Jane?”

“What?”

“You’re going to be my exotic French friend. We need to come up with a name—”

“Jane,” I said.

She frowned. “What?”

“I don’t change my name for anyone. Jane. Besides, are you sure you want to get caught in a lie later?”

“You really are no fun.”

“Great, you can take someone else.” I moved toward the door but she grabbed my arm.

“Fine, but at least speak in French, please?”

How? How in the hell do I get myself into this shit all the time?!

“Okay.”

“You might want to take a shower since you smell like bleach.” She wrinkled her nose and backed away. I could only stare in shock.

So apparently I had two talents: languages and getting myself in the most unpredictable and ridiculous situations known to man.

“How is it possible you look better than me?” she pouted when I stepped into her room. I wasn’t sure how to answer that because I wasn’t sure if she was trying to insult or compliment me…maybe both.

Turning back to my reflection in her mirror, I still could not believe it was me. I wore light makeup like always, but Irene had added some light, smoky eye shadow and it had made a big difference. My auburn hair was curled at the ends and was parted to one side to expose my neck. It stopped at the side of my breasts, the mounds of which you could perfectly see because of the sweetheart of the shape of the dress. Irene had also offered me a diamond bracelet to wear, but I couldn’t bring myself to take it. First because I was scared I’d lose it and have to sell her my soul, and second because it was too much. She instead suggested I wear some diamond earrings, and I gave in only because at least those would be attached firmly to my body and not just dangling off my wrist.

But the damn cherry on top of the ice cream was the heels…her beautiful, stunning, silver shimmering Christian Louboutin pumps that fit my feet like a glove.

Wait.
I had been so swept up that I hadn’t caught it immediately.

“What size shoe do you wear?”

She stood next to me fluffing her hair. “Size eight and a half. Why?”

“I wear a seven.” I stared at her, but she still didn’t get it. “How do these shoes fit me?”

She froze.

I glanced down at the dress again. My breasts were bigger than hers and yet the dress cupped me perfectly.

“You had this planned all along, didn’t you?” I backed away from her. She was much smarter than I’d initially thought. She had called Mary and gotten me there just so she wouldn’t have to go the party alone, and I had fallen right for it.

“If you haven’t noticed, I’m a little desperate,” she replied, a small smile on her lips.