Jane Goes Batty (7 page)

She took a moment to calm herself before picking up the phone.

“Hello, Jessica,” she said. “Sorry to keep you waiting.”

“Don’t worry about it,” said a husky voice. “I hear we’re used to waiting for you around here.” Jessica laughed. It sounded like sandpaper rubbing against an obstinate board.

“I’m sorry?” said Jane. “Waiting for me?”

“It’s a joke,” Jessica said. “You know, waiting for your manuscript. Wasn’t it due six months ago?”

“Something like that,” said Jane. “I’m working on it.”

“You might want to think about working faster. We’re already going to miss the holiday shopping season. Now you’re into spring at the earliest and more likely summer. You don’t want to come out in summer. You’ll get buried. Nicholas Sparks has a new one out in June. So does Jodi Picoult. And I heard King has
three
hitting the stores in time for vacation season. You’ll be lost in that bunch.”

“My last book did very well,” Jane reminded her. “It was number one for—”

“Three weeks,” Jessica said. “I know. But the remainder bins
are filled with second books that flopped. You can’t assume anything. Especially if you wait too long between books. People will forget you.”

Jane wondered if Jessica remembered rejecting
Constance
. It certainly sounded as if she wasn’t entirely thrilled about working with Jane on the new book. At the very least she was hardly being encouraging.

“Anyway, I’d like to have it by the end of the month,” Jessica continued.

“I don’t know if—”

“Great,” said Jessica. “We’ll talk then.”

The line went dead. Jane stared at the phone for a moment. She felt shaky and disoriented, as she had as a girl when her brothers would hold her by the wrists and swing her around and around. Then she had enjoyed the giddiness that resulted. Now she merely felt sick.
That didn’t go at all well
, she thought.

The phone rang again. She picked it up with some hesitation, wary that it might be Jessica calling back to tell her that her book had been canceled altogether. But it was Kelly.

“I’m calling from my new office,” he told Jane. “Wait till you see my view.”

“I just spoke with Jessica Abernathy,” said Jane, skipping the pleasantries.

“How did it go?” Kelly asked.

“I’m not sure I know,” Jane said. “She’s rather difficult to read.”

Kelly laughed. “Don’t worry,” he said. “She loves your work.”

“Really?” Jane said. “I’m not so sure I got that from our little talk.”

“When I interviewed her she just
raved
about
Constance,
” Kelly said. “She said she couldn’t wait to get her hands on your new manuscript.”

Yes
, Jane thought.
So that she can toss it in the shredder
.

“You’re just anxious about working with someone new,” Kelly
continued. “But you’ve still got me. I’ll read whatever you have before you give it to Jessica. In fact, why don’t you email me what you’ve got and I’ll take a look.”

“Maybe,” Jane said. She couldn’t bring herself to tell him that there was nothing more for him to read than there’d been the last time he asked.

“I saw Satvari at a publishing party last night,” said Kelly. “She tells me a film crew is invading Brakeston.”

“Yes,” Jane said. “Some of them are already here. Did she tell you they were following me around documenting my thrilling existence?”

“No,” Kelly replied. “Are they really? Are they there now?”

“Lurking just outside the door, I expect,” said Jane.

“It sounds like things are crazy there,” Kelly remarked.

“You have no idea,” said Jane. “Did I tell you Walter’s mother is coming to visit?”

“I sympathize,” Kelly said. “Bryce’s mother was just here for a week. I thought I was going to kill her. She’s pressuring us to get a baby so she can have a grandchild. She says she wants a black one because they’re more exotic than white babies and everyone else has Asian ones. If you’d heard her, you’d swear she was talking about a cat.”

“She sounds intriguing,” Jane said. “And perhaps the tiniest bit racist.”

“She’s a loon,” said Kelly. “Oh, and she wants us to name it after her grandmother. Her name was Parsimony.”

“Do you and Bryce even
want
a baby?” Jane asked.

“Not really,” said Kelly. “But it might be fun. We could dress it up and buy it toys.”

“Now who sounds as if he’s talking about a cat?” Jane teased.

“I know,” said Kelly. “It’s ridiculous. But just think of it. Parsimony Littlejohn-Manx. It’s kind of cute.”

“It’s horrid,” Jane told him.

Kelly sighed. “It really is,” he admitted. “What do you think of Aida Littlejohn-Manx?”

“Only slightly less horrid,” said Jane.

“Does Walter want children?” Kelly asked.

The question took Jane by surprise. “I don’t know,” she said. “We’ve never discussed it. But it really doesn’t matter. I’m far too old for that sort of thing.”

“You aren’t,” Kelly said. “They can do wonderful things with in vitro these days. A friend of ours is pregnant for the first time at forty-seven. With twins. Can you imagine?”

Jane did imagine it. And she was horrified. It had never occurred to her that Walter might want children. She wasn’t even sure she
could
have children.
Of course, the girl in the Twilight books did
, she mused.

“You know I’m joking,” Kelly said after Jane had been silent for some time.

“Of course,” said Jane. “I was just trying to imagine going to my child’s graduation at the age of two hundred and fifty-three.”

Kelly laughed, not knowing that she was serious. “You don’t look a day over a hundred and sixty-two,” he told her.

“Moisturizer,” Jane joked. “And you’re too kind. Anyway, I don’t think children are in our future.”

“His mother may have different ideas,” said Kelly. “Do you have any idea what she’s like?”

“None whatsoever,” Jane said. “I’m sure she’s lovely. After all, look at her son.”

“That’s what I thought about Bryce’s mother,” said Kelly. “Look how well that turned out.” He paused for a moment. “But I’m sure you’re right.”

Jane heard another voice, muffled, on the end of the line. Then Kelly said, “I have a client here, so I have to go. But don’t worry about Jessica. Or the film crew. Or Walter’s mother. It will all be fine.”

Jane hung up. Not wanting to face Ant and his camera quite yet, she remained seated at the desk. She hoped Kelly was right. She had enough to worry about without adding stress about her new editor hating her work to the list.
And I haven’t even told him about Austen A Go-Go
, she reminded herself.

A crash coming from the other room made her jump. She instinctively started to get up to investigate; then she sat down again.

“Let someone else deal with it,” she said. “I quit.”

R
ABBI
B
EN
C
OHEN WAS NOT AT ALL WHAT
J
ANE HAD EXPECTED
. A
S
he rose to shake her hand she found herself taken aback by both his age and his appearance. Much younger than she would have thought possible for a religious leader, he was also much more handsome. She had envisioned someone well into his later years, perhaps with a bushy beard and glasses through which he peered out at the world with sad eyes. But Ben Cohen appeared no more than thirty, had no beard or glasses, and looked as if he’d just walked off a rugby pitch.

“Welcome,” he said. “Please. Have a seat.”

There was a desk in Rabbi Cohen’s office, but he did not sit at it. Instead he settled himself onto one end of a stylish black leather couch while Jane took one of two sleek armchairs opposite it. Looking at the rabbi, she couldn’t help but notice the large painting on the wall behind him.

“Is that a Pollock?” she asked.

The rabbi nodded. “It is,” he said. “A gift from him to my grandmother in 1948. She was quite a beauty,” he added without further explanation.

What with the painting and the furniture, Jane felt as if she were in the living room of a New York socialite instead of the office of a rabbi of a small upstate synagogue. But Ben Cohen’s easy
demeanor was anything but snobbish, and Jane suspected he’d grown up in far different circumstances.

“I prefer outsider art myself,” Ben said. “That painting behind you, for instance.”

Jane turned to look at the canvas hung on the wall opposite the couch. The same size as the Pollock, it was entirely different in mood and appearance. A figure composed of rectangles and circles stood surrounded by odd birdlike creatures breathing fire. The figure was of indeterminate gender and appeared to have several faces, each in its own circle and looking out in all directions. Above the figure what was unmistakably an angel reached down with open arms.

“It was done by a patient of mine,” Ben said. “A woman who suffered from multiple personality disorder. This personality—William—was an artist.”

“Patient?” said Jane.

“I’m a psychologist,” Ben explained. “I interned at Bellevue as part of my postgraduate work.”

“When did you become a rabbi?” Jane asked.

Ben smiled, and his eyes momentarily took on an air of sadness. “Six years ago,” he said. “I decided I wanted to know more about God.”

Jane turned back to him. “And do you?” she asked.

“No,” Ben said, shaking his head. “Not so much.”

Jane couldn’t help smiling. The rabbi’s honesty was charming.

“Do you believe in God, Jane?” he asked.

Jane’s smile faded. “Not so much,” she admitted.

It was Ben’s turn to smile. “May I ask why?”

Jane sighed. “My father was a reverend,” she told him. “An Anglican. Naturally, so was I. It wasn’t until … later that I began to question things.”

“Later,” the rabbi said. “Was there a specific incident?”

When I became one of the living dead
, Jane thought. She wondered what Ben Cohen would say if she told him she was a vampire.
Would he treat her as if she had multiple personalities? Would he recommend hospitalization in a psychiatric facility?

“Not really,” she told him. “More like an accumulation of them.”

“And yet now you want to convert to Judaism,” said Ben. “That’s an interesting decision for someone who isn’t sure she believes in God.”

I might as well tell him the truth
, Jane thought. “My boyfriend’s mother wants me to be Jewish,” she said, her cheeks reddening at the word
boyfriend
. It sounded so juvenile.

“I see,” said Ben. “Well, you wouldn’t be the first person to convert for that reason.”

“It’s all rather silly,” Jane said. “Walter wasn’t even really raised Jewish. His father and stepmother were Episcopalian. But his mother is Jewish, and that makes
him
Jewish.”

“I’ve heard that,” said Ben.

Jane put her hand to her forehead. “Of course you have,” she said. “I’m sorry. It’s just that it’s all a bit much to handle right now on top of everything else.”

“Everything else?” said Ben.

“The new book, my new editor, the film, Beverly Shrop.” Jane looked up. “You don’t need to hear all this.”

“It
is
what I do,” said Ben.

“Yes, but it’s not why I’m here,” Jane replied, composing herself. “Although I imagine you’re going to tell me that I’m a poor candidate for conversion, so I might as well go.”

“Why would I say that?” Ben asked.

Jane wrinkled her brow. “Well, I can’t say with any amount of honesty that I’m terribly sincere about it,” she said.

“Not now,” Ben said. “But maybe we should talk some more. It doesn’t even have to be about conversion.”

Jane, taking his meaning, asked, “You mean like therapy?”

“Yes,” Ben said. “Like therapy.”

Jane found herself laughing. “I don’t think that will be necessary,” she said.

“It’s up to you, of course,” said the rabbi. “But if you ask me—which you didn’t, but I’m going to pretend you did—you’re dealing with a lot of issues. It might help to talk about them.”

Jane considered this for a moment. Ben was watching her.
But he’s not judging
, she thought, looking into his eyes. “Perhaps you’re right,” she heard herself say.

“You have my number,” said Ben, standing up. “I hope you’ll use it.”

Jane stood too, gathering up her purse and preparing to leave.

“Have you met the mother?” Ben inquired.

“This afternoon,” said Jane. “Walter is picking her up as we speak.”

“May I give you some advice?”

Jane nodded. “By all means.”

“There’s one key thing for you to remember when dealing with a Jewish mother.”

“Which is?” asked Jane.

“They’re always right,” said Ben. “Always.”

“But that hardly seems—”

“
Always,
” Ben repeated. “Trust me. I’ve had one for thirty-four years.”

“I’ll keep it in mind,” Jane assured him.

Twenty minutes later she pulled up outside Walter’s house. His car was in the driveway.
So you’ve arrived
, Jane thought as she checked her hair in the rearview mirror. She applied some lipstick, sighed deeply, and got out of the car.