Plain Jayne (17 page)

I had to admit that the pieces didn't look half bad.

After a while, Levi checked his watch. “Want to go get the buggy soon?”

“Let me swap out the batteries I'm recharging, then yes.”

I walked past Spencer's desk on the way back to the office. “How's it going, Number One?” I called over my shoulder.

Spencer scowled. “Who told?”

I gave what I hoped looked like a mysterious shrug and kept walking. Just as I'd expected, the first battery was completely charged. I switched batteries and closed the lid again.

“Did you bring a jacket?” Levi asked from the doorway. “I'm an Oregonian,” I said.

“I'm impervious to rain.”

“It might take some work getting the buggy hitched to my truck. You're welcome to borrow one of mine.”

“You have more than one jacket at your workplace?” “I don't like to be wet.”

“And yet you live in the Pacific Northwest?”

“Do you want the jacket or not?”

I squared my shoulders. “I'll take a jacket.”

“Smart.” He tossed me a crispy-feeling parka.

“I wouldn't be smart without Gor-tex?”

“Just put it on.”

“I'm not outside yet.”

“You're exhausting.”

“You invited me.”

Two tarps covered the Burkholder buggy parked on Haight Street.

“Teen boys, you said?” Levi asked as he tugged the tarps to the ground.

“Yup.”

“At least they didn't damage it much.” He ran his hand over the front, examining where the boys had towed it before. “There are a few scuffs, but nothing that can't be fixed or repainted.”

“That's good.”

“Let's get going, then.”

Ten minutes later, Levi had his family's buggy attached securely to his pickup. I climbed in the cab, just short of drenched. The rain was really coming down, and I was truly glad I'd taken Levi up on his offer of water-repellent gear.

“Now the long road home,” Levi said when he joined me in the cab. “I'm going to put my safety lights on. Thanks for coming with me.”

“Thanks for dragging the buggy back to the farm.”

“I help my family out when I can.”

“Why?”

“Why what?”

“They're so awful to you sometimes. Why are you so good to them?”

“It's the right thing to do.”

“That seems so simplistic.”

He shrugged. “Things might not always be the way they are. I don't want to have regrets.”

“Everyone has regrets.”

“I don't.”

“Must be nice to be perfect.”

“I'm not. I've learned from the times when I've messed up. Maybe someday my family will come around. Families are complicated.”

“Believe me, I know.” I shifted in my seat. “I don't want to talk about this any more.”

“That's fine.” He drummed on the steering wheel. “How did you get into journalism?”

“I applied to the University of Oregon School of Journalism.”

“No, I mean what got you interested?”

“I grew up in a very small, very touristy town.”

“Lincoln City?”

“Right. I wanted to learn about other places, other people. I needed to be reassured that the world was bigger than my hometown.”

“You lived on the coast. All you needed to do was look out on the ocean.”

“But that was just one edge. I wanted to know about the other side. I read the
New York Times
, the
Washington Post
, the
San Francisco Chronicle
, the
Wall Street Journal
—everything I could get my hands on. I decided I wanted to work for a big newspaper.”

“You stayed in Oregon?”

“I like the Pacific Northwest, but people in Washington don't know how to drive. That left Oregon, and Portland if I wanted a big city.”

“Very logical.”

“I got an internship at the
Oregonian
—”

“And the rest was history?”

“Pretty much.”

“I get that. Let's see how this goes…” He released the parking brake
and eased on the gas. The buggy creaked and then lurched forward with the truck.

I checked over my shoulder. “Looks good.”

“All right, then. Buckle up. This will be a bumpy ride.”

“Really?”

“No. We won't top twenty-five miles an hour.”

I laughed. “We should probably call and let the police know we've recovered the buggy.”

“Better to have my dad call. That way you have owner verification.”

“I've ridden in that buggy.”

“You're not the owner.”

“What happens if we get pulled over?”

“We make a run for it.”

“What?”

“Kidding. We explain and hope for the best.”

“You're funny.”

Despite the downpour Martha, Sara, Samuel, Leah, and Elizabeth met us outside as we pulled up with the buggy in tow.

Levi slowed the truck. “Do you mind jumping out and herding the kids back?”

“No problem.” I unbuckled my seat belt and swung my door open, despite the fact that the truck wasn't exactly stopped. “Step back, guys,” I said, “you don't want to get run over.”

“You found it!” Elizabeth exclaimed, hanging on my leg. “You found the buggy!”

I started to pick her up and stopped myself. Stupid arm. I hugged her close, bending awkwardly. “We did and brought it back home for you.”

Levi parked the truck and got out. “It's been scratched a bit, but otherwise it's in perfect shape.”

“Where was it?” Martha asked, her voice carefully measured.

“Exactly where Mike said it would be,” I answered.

Martha took Levi's hand. “Thank you.”

He beamed. I wished his father had been there to thank him also.

L
evi and I drove back to the shop in relative silence. He turned to me after he pulled into his parking space. “Okay, Jayne. What's eating you?”

I sighed. “It just kills me.”

“What does?”

“The way your family treats you. It's entirely unfair.”

“Life isn't fair.”

“I know, but…” I frowned. “I just wish things weren't the way they are.”

“And I pray every day that they won't be.”

“It's not right! Families shouldn't behave that way. They shouldn't decide who you should be and then turn around and punish you when it becomes clear that you cannot, will not be that person.”

“Jayne?”

“What?”

“Are we talking about your family or mine?”

“I—” My mouth snapped shut. I paused. I couldn't think of when I'd said much on that subject to Levi. “What do you know about my family?”

“Not much. You hardly talk about them, and when you do, it's rarely pleasant.”

I fixed him with a stare.

He ducked his head. “Grady may have said something.”

“Grady?” My eyes widened in surprise. “What did he say?”

“You guys went to school and church together and knew a lot of the same people. He mentioned something along the lines of you being treated like the black sheep of the family.”

I sat back in my seat, my head resting on the glass of the rear window of the cab. Grady knew. Surprising, considering the importance of image to my family. I tucked a bit of hair behind my ear. “I wasn't completely bad. That's what they'd have everyone think.”

“Grady didn't say you were.”

“I was a good student. I organized all of my scholarship and financial aid for college. I never went to my parents for a cent.”

“I'm not accusing you, Jayne.”

“Just because I listened to rock music and dyed my hair black my junior year, I was the bad daughter.”

“You don't have to explain anything to me.”

I ran a hand over my face. “I don't like talking about this.”

“Have you ever tried to make things better with them? Your family, I mean.”

“I hardly see them. Not since I left home for school.”

“People change.”

“Do they? Have your parents changed?”

“I've changed. I'm people.”

“You're different. My mother has worn the same perfume for the past twenty years—Calvin Klein's Obsession. It doesn't matter what I've accomplished in my life—that I put myself though school, graduated, found gainful employment in a field that's not easy to break into—it doesn't matter. I'm not married. I don't have babies. I don't matter.”

Then, to my embarrassment, I felt tears prick my eyes. I tried taking deep breaths, tried to calm myself, but it wasn't any use. It hurt too much.

Levi put an arm around my shoulders and I leaned into him, sobbing. I think he stroked my hair, but it was hard to tell. All I could think about were the times I'd been hurt by my family.

After a few moments the tears slowed and my breathing regulated. I swiped at the dampness on my face and tried to reclaim my dignity. “I'm sorry.”

“Don't be.”

“But I really am. I don't know why I got so…”

“It happens.”

“But I—”

“Do you want some ice cream?”

I scooted back, aware that his arm was still resting around my shoulders. “Ice cream?”

“You've heard of it?”

“I'm not one of those hysterical women who have to be slapped and then placated with bonbons.”

I'll admit that when I spoke, it came out a little high pitched and, well, hysterical sounding.

“I didn't say you were. I just thought that you had a very busy afternoon and might appreciate a scoop of chocolate brownie ice cream.”

“I'm also not one of those women who has fits until she gets her chocolate fix.”

“Didn't say you were.”

“I'm not really a chocolate brownie ice cream kind of girl.”

“No?”

“No. I think I'm more of a fudge mint.”

We walked from the shop to the ice cream parlor under the gigantic umbrella Levi kept in his truck.

Some people might question the consumption of ice cream in fifty-degree weather, and that's their prerogative. I'm just not one of them.

We ate our ice cream at a corner table, me with fudge mint, Levi with cookies and cream.

“When do you return to work?” he asked.

“A week and a half.” I took another lick around the edge of my cone. “A week and a half, and it's back to business as usual.”

“Are you looking forward to it?”

“I don't know…parts of it. I miss riding my bike around town and being stopped by all the old men who used to ride Triumphs.”

“What?”

“Triumph is one of the oldest motorcycle companies.”

“I knew that.”

“Well, there are a lot of old men with fond memories of Triumph bikes from their past. They like to tell stories.”

“It doesn't hurt that you're cute.”

My cheeks turned pink. “It happens to the owner of the motorcycle shop I buy my gear from, and he's in his sixties. Anyway, I miss that.”