Page 54 of A Certain Appeal
My heart gives a painful squeeze. Jane’s breathing has gone shallow. He shakes his head, not blinking. “What... what did I do?” His voice is tortuously thin.
I hand back the phone. “Jane, no—”
He stands, looking side to side as if disoriented. “I’m going to go.”
“I’m right with you.” I move to grab our things.
“No.”
I pivot back so fast the grippy soles of my climbing shoes cling to the floor. I steady myself with a hand on the bench. “Jane?”
His lower lip trembles. He’s blinking rapidly now. The silent struggle breaks my heart. “Thank you.” He takes in a long breath. “But I need a minute. I’ll be home later.”
“You’re sure—”
“Please.” The word rasps out of him. He presses his fingertips to his lips before holding his hand to his chest. “Please.” His voice is steady, but his eyes plead with me.
I ache to give him a hug, to say something more—Jane’s desperate expression warns me off. I don’t like it, but I understand; with a hurt this fresh, I’d break down if anyone was remotely nice to me. After another moment, I gesture to the cubbies. “I’ll grab your stuff. You... do what you need.”
His lips pull in tight and he nods, then pads to the exit. I watch him slip on his street shoes, then he reaches for the fedora hangingfrom a peg by the door. It’s one of the hats Charles bought for him after the accident.
Jane’s hand hovers for a moment, then drops. Seconds pass, and his shoulders rise and fall with a long breath. He walks out. The hat stays.
At home, I put away our climbing gear and stash the abandoned fedora in my closet. I couldn’t leave it behind. Jane looks great in it; Charles doesn’t get to take that from him.
I lug my Meryton design folder to bed to look through while I prepare to wait up. Turning through the pages, the drawings barely register as I think about Jane. What was that text?Sorry I was too chicken-shit to call? Sure, Charles’s very essence screamed “nonconfrontational,” but dumping someone in a text? That’s not cowardly. That’scruel—
Like what Darcy did to Wickham.
I drop my head against the pillows. To think, Jane fretted about Charles’s being friends with someone who could treat a person so shamefully, and all the while Charles had it in himself to do the same.
My eyes drift over the designs on my lap. What might this mean for the Meryton sale? The thought twists my gut, sending me back to Andrea’s tasteless comments at brunch last month. While I hate to think in those terms, a lot of people’s livelihoods are potentially on the line with that deal. Not to mention what the sale has come to mean for me.
The prospect of sitting across from Charles, sharing my ideas with him, turns my stomach further. Would it be disloyal to Jane? If the sale goes through, will Jane stay at the club with Charles at the helm? We never see the current owner, so there’s no reason to assume Charles would have any kind of presence, but still...
The door grinds with the turning of Jane’s key, followed by the scrape over the doormat. The keys jangle as Jane hangs them on the hook in the hall, and his heavy footsteps make their way toward my room. I sit up against the headboard, closing the folder and putting it aside.
Jane trudges in, toeing off his shoes as he crosses the threshold into my room, not bothering to avoid the squeaky floorboard. I search his face to try to get a read on his feelings. All I see is the deliberate, flat look that greeted me the day I moved in three years ago. The familiar expression is worse than tears.
Without a word, he crosses to my bed and lies beside me, resting his head on my shoulder. I kiss the top of his head, a few inches away from the still-pink scar left by the accident, then rest my cheek against the spot.
I don’t know how this happened, but I’ll be damned if I don’t get to the bottom of it.
CHAPTER
16
I keep track of Jane’s viewing habits on our various streaming accounts from my work computer. In the days that follow Charles’s text, he mainlines Werner Herzog’s entire catalog before consuming the David Attenborough–narrated version ofPlanet Earth. I let that go without comment. When he starts re-viewing the same program with Sigourney Weaver’s voice-over, however, I threaten to change all our passwords and recruit Ming to take him out for coffee.
Over the weekend, I learn more than I’d like about the use of bovine bile to control the spread of coral-eating starfish, but I’m cautiously optimistic. He performs at Meryton and, on Sunday, tears himself away from the Discovery Channel to help research a few ramen places for next week’s visit from my cousin. By the time Monday rolls around, Jane’s entertainment selections still favor the informative variety, but he’s getting out of the apartment for more than just work,has come climbing with me twice, and ventures up to Manhattan to join Ming and me for lunch on Wednesday.
“I’ll forget him,” Jane announces, placing his napkin beside his plate. “Everything will go back to the way it was before.”
I say nothing, but I’m helpless against the incredulous look that draws across my face.
“You doubt me,” he says tightly. “Don’t. I may think of him as the most pleasant man I’ve ever met, but that’s all. I’m not going to be bitter about it. With a little time...”
His voice becomes strained, and he nudges at his side salad with his fork. Ming kicks me under the table. Jane clears his throat, sitting straighter in his chair. “At least I know it was an error of fancy on my side, and it has done no harm to anyone other than myself.”
