Plain Jayne (17 page)

The sincerity with which he says it makes it
impossible for me to continue to be too bitchy, but I do say, “You know what?
It’s none of my business. And I wish you’d quit trying to make it my business.”

“Fair enough.”

“Thank you.” With that, I trudge up to my room
to get showered and dressed for what I hope is the most productive day of my
writing career, so I can leave my manuscript in his hands as I walk away from
this house—and the private horrors it contains—forever.

*****

“I’m not hungry,” I say without looking up at
the person who’s entered the gazebo as I continue to type as fast as I can to
keep up with the lightning-quick narrator in my head. Plus, I’m trying to beat
the storm that’s blowing in off the ocean and should be arriving any minute, if
those black clouds are any indication. How symbolic. The constant storm inside
that house is why I have to finish this.

The snotty reply, “I’m not offering to serve
you,” makes my head snap up.

Oh. Shit.

“Hi, Caroline,” I say as politely as I can
muster.

She sniffs. “It’s about to rain, you know.”

“Yes, I can see that. That’s why I’m trying to
hurry and finish this chapter,” I hint.

Wrinkling her delicate nose, she asks, “Are
you unable to write indoors, or something?”

“Not ‘unable,’ just… not as well.” I tuck my
hands under my legs and hunch my shoulders toward my ears. “I like it out
here.”

“Yes, well, don’t get too ensconced,” she
simpers. “I believe I heard Lucas on the phone earlier trying to find somewhere
else to send you.”

My heart drops. “R-really?”

The fake sympathy on her face is sickening.
“Yes. Oh… I thought you knew. After he and I discussed it, I assumed he was
coming out here to tell you right away. I don’t mean to cause problems between
the two of you…”

It’s all I can do not to laugh out loud. At
many parts of her claim.

“There’s no ‘two of us,’ for one thing,” I
say, but then I realize I don’t want to say the other thing out loud, so I stop
before telling her that I think she absolutely wants to cause as many problems
as possible.

Inspecting her fingernails, she drawls, “I see
the way he looks at you. And just because I’m his wife doesn’t mean you have to
pretend. Although the separate bedrooms are a nice touch. How very disciplined
of you both!”

When all I do is glare at her, she takes that
as an admission of sorts and continues, “A woman like you should be quite proud
of herself. Lucas is picky. As a matter of fact, I think you’re the first
mistress he’s ever had. And I know that’s not out of some sense of loyalty to
me.” She laughs bitterly. “I have to say, though… I’m surprised at his eventual
choice.” She looks me up and down.

“Our relationship is purely professional,” I
insist calmly. Thunder punctuates my sentence.

“Oh, my. No need to get testy.”

“I’m
not
being testy. Even if I have a
right to be, considering how offensive you’re being.” So much for finishing
this section. I sigh as I make my backup copies and pack up my stuff.

Feigning contrition, she says while watching
me, “Please, don’t be offended. That wasn’t my intention. I simply wanted you
to know that I know what’s going on—Lucas has never offered to have any of his
other authors stay at his precious beach house—and that I’m okay with it.” Now,
ultra-casually she adds, “As long as… Well, I’m going to have to be perfectly
blunt with you now. As long as you don’t get any ideas about marrying him,
because—”

“This is ridiculous!”

She talks over me. “Because O’Shea’s do not
get divorces. And now that we’re expecting a baby, it’s even more out of the
question. I’ll do whatever it takes to make sure he upholds our marriage
contract. ’Til death do us part.”

The thought of my marrying Lucas—of even
wanting
to marry him—makes me laugh out loud. “You’re crazy, lady,” I tell her as I
loop my laptop bag’s strap over my head. “Lucas and I can barely be in the same
room together ten minutes without arguing. He sent me here to get me away from
him and to finish my manuscript as quickly as possible so I’d stop being a pain
in his ass. Period.”

“If you say so…”

“I do. Now, excuse me. I guess I need to go
find him and figure out what’s going on. Thanks for the heads-up.” I edge past
her and down the gazebo stairs.

As I’m crossing the lawn to the back patio,
the lackadaisical raindrops suddenly find a purpose:  drenching me. I’d run,
but flip-flops aren’t good running shoes. As a matter of fact, I’ve sprained my
ankle before trying to run in wet flip-flops, and my laptop is protected by its
bag, so the worst that will happen—if I keep calm—is that I’ll get a little wet
and will have to change my clothes. Big whoop. But there’s something about a
downpour that makes me panic. Maybe it’s the lack of control. Mostly, I think
it’s the wet clothes. I don’t like wet clothes.

When I finally make it inside the doors that
lead to the kitchen, I’m soaked through, and my hair is dripping onto my
shoulders. Paulette looks up from where she’s preparing sandwiches for lunch
and laughs at me.

“I was afraid you’d wait too long to come in.
Best get out of those wet things. Lunch’ll be ready before you are,” she says
in her typical mothering fashion.

To be safe, I slide my laptop out, before the
rain can soak through its bag, and carry it over to the sink, where I grab a
towel, wrap it up, and carry it under my arm toward the kitchen door. “Have you
seen Lucas lately?” I inquire. “I need to talk to him about something.”

“Not before you eat, surely!” she declares
firmly. “Anyway, I’m sure he’ll be down for lunch any minute now. That man doesn’t
skip meals when I’m around.”

I’d rather not talk to him about my situation
in front of anyone else, especially not Caroline. And if I’m leaving, it’d be
nice to know right away, so I can pack before lunch and be ready to go. No
sense lingering longer than necessary. If I’m no longer wanted here, it’ll only
be awkward. More awkward than it already is. Yikes. That’s hard to imagine. Plus,
if he hasn’t already found somewhere else for me to go, he needs to save his
energy. I’m not a shelter dog that he impulsively brought home and now feels
guilty because he’s decided he doesn’t have room in his life for me. He doesn’t
need to find me a new home. I can check into a motel. Or go back to Gus’s.

Yes. As soon as I’m finished talking to Lucas,
I’ll call Gus and tell him I’m on my way back, if he’ll have me. I’ll cook his
favorite dinners every night, like a good non-wife.

I’m deeply strategizing, my head down, as I
stride briskly down the hall to “my” room to change my clothes, when I run into
something—or more accurately, someone—hard and unyielding.

“Oof!” I barely manage to hold onto my laptop
as it slides against the dry towel under my arm and threatens to crash to the
floor.

“Jayne! What the fu—I mean, watch where you’re
going!”

“You bumped into me!”

“I absolutely did not. I stepped from my
bedroom and saw you barreling toward me but had nowhere to go, since I can’t melt
into the wall. If you had been looking up… What happened to you?” He puts a
hand on my upper arm and fingers the drenched cotton of my t-shirt sleeve.

I step away from him. “I got caught out in the
rain.”

“Is it raining?” He cranes his neck to see
around me to the end of the hallway, where there’s a large window that’s being
power-washed by nature. “Oh. I had no idea…”

“Yeah. It’s thundering and everything. What
have you been doing that makes you so oblivious to your surroundings?” I ask
more grouchily than the situation calls for.

He gives me a strange look but answers, “I’ve
been on the phone.”

“About that… I’ll be out of your way right
after lunch.”

“What are you talking about?”

Self-consciously, I run my fingers through my
dripping hair and tuck it behind my ears. “Caroline told me that you and she
agreed she’d be staying and I’d be leaving and that you were trying to find
another place for me to go to finish my manuscript, but that’s silly. I mean,
I’ll go back to Gus’s. Or something. I’ll figure something out. Maybe I’ll even
go home.”

“Home? As in Indiana?”

“Yeah. That’s where I’m most comfortable,
anyway. And since these changes you want are obviously going to take me a
while, it makes sense to go back—”

“Wait. Stop. Jayne.” He steps closer to me. “I
haven’t had a chance to talk to Caroline yet today, so whatever she told you is
a lie.”

“It is?”

“Yes.”

I hate how glad that makes me. Not only because
I get to stay here, but because that means Lucas didn’t agree to anything with Caroline
that involved kicking me out.

He bites his lower lip. “Well, you’re cold.”
Suddenly his eyes widen, and he blushes. “That is… you’re probably cold. I
can’t tell if you are or not. But I assume you are. Because you’re wet… your
clothes
are wet… and you’re standing in an air-conditioned house. So. Um. Yeah.”

“I am a little cold,” I confirm his stumbling
hypothesizing. “I’m going to change.”

“Good idea. And I’m going to find Caroline and
wring her neck.”

I smile at that before turning and walking the
rest of the way to the room where all my stuff is. When I get to the door and
turn into it, I glance up the hall and see he’s still standing there, watching
me. He jerks into motion, when I smile at him uncertainly, and crosses to the
stairs, which he takes at a near-run, shouting, “CAROLINE!” on his way down.

Oh, great. I’ll be eating lunch in the kitchen
with Paulette, for sure.

Chapter Fourteen

“I see how he looks at you.”

With undisguised disgust? Because that’s the
only way I’ve ever seen him look at me. Except in the hallway. But that was a
fluke. And quickly understood when I got into the bedroom and started
undressing. My nipples were standing out like pencil erasers through my t-shirt
and bra. I think even Paulette would have been flustered by that. I wouldn’t
have been able to talk to myself in the mirror with that going on. They were
out
there
. Ka-TOW! He’s lucky he still has both eyes.

I’m going to pretend like that never happened,
though. Because it was obviously embarrassing to him, and it’s definitely
embarrassing to me, so what’s the point in belaboring it? Anyway, what would I
say? “Sorry I almost gave you a permanent disability in the hallway earlier”?
Yeah, there’s no classy way to apologize for my inadvertent indecency, so…
moving on.

I’m decidedly paranoid, thanks to Carolin-a
Liar. What a bitch. I’m beginning to think there’s nothing worth staying here with
her much longer. Sure, I’ve written some inspired stuff lately, and it’s great
to be in such a beautiful place with someone to wait on me and take care of me,
but… when I’m not writing or eating Paulette’s delicious cooking, I can’t get
away from the fact that I’m walking on eggshells around the true owner of the
house, who’s hell bent on staying here and getting rid of me.

At this point, it doesn’t matter what Lucas
wants me to do. It’s time to give Gus an idea of what’s going on and warn him
that I may be about to darken his cramped doorstep again.

The text I send him in the middle of the
afternoon (
Call me as soon as you get a chance
) elicits a nearly
immediate response. Answering his call, I shut myself in the closest unoccupied
room, the dim, fussy library.

“What’s up, Babushka?” he asks right away. “I
only have a couple of minutes before Boss Lady realizes I’m gone.”

I fill him in on the highlights, leaving out
the most salacious parts (there will be time for that later) and say, “So, can
I come back to stay with you for a while? Just ’til I finish these revisions?”

“You know you’re always welcome, girlfriend,
but…”

I hold my breath while I wait to see if his reservation
is a dealbreaker or simply a minor inconvenience that I’d be willing to work
around.

“…some filthy tenant in the building who
recently got evicted had a major roach infestation, and they have to bomb the
whole building. As it is, I was counting on staying out there with
you
this weekend. And then during the week, I’ll be staying at a friend’s until I
can go back to my own apartment.”

My first reaction is, “You have other
friends?”

“Of course, I do! You are so silly sometimes.
But if you can stick it out a week, you’re welcome to come back to my place,
Sugar Booger.”

I sigh. “Hmm. I think I’m going to go back to
Indy.”

“What?! No!”

“Why not? We have the technology. There’s no
reason I have to be geographically close to the publishing company to accomplish
what needs to be done.” I run my fingers along the spines of the books on the
eye-level shelf as I pace back and forth. “This is stupid. If I weren’t writing
like a fiend here, I would have been gone a long time ago.”