CHAPTER 27
Jane
“I’m already so sick of pumpkin spice and it’s only been out one week,” I lament quietly to Christa as I make a pumpkin spice latte at the espresso machine.
Christa snickers as she wipes down the counter. “I told you… come October 1st, people seem to just go rabid for the stuff. But don’t worry… in another month, you’ll be sick of peppermint mochas.”
I’m sure that’s true.
The morning rush is over, and I look around the small coffee shop where I’ve been working as a barista for the past month. It had been my hope to get a teaching job when I’d moved to Boston, but I’d not had any luck yet. So I was doing what I could to make ends meet, working at this boutique coffeehouse during the day and painting by night. I’d set up an online shop to sell my art, but it’s been tough getting it up and running. I haven’t quite figured out yet how to get visibility.
“Any plans for this weekend?” Christa asks as she leans a hip against the counter. I finish off the pumpkin spice latte and hand it across the counter to the customer, who doesn’t even give a simple “thank you.” I’ve found that people in the big city aren’t nearly as friendly as in Misty Harbor, and I think that’s because everyone is just in too much of a rush to get places. I’ve been completely overwhelmed by this transition from small town to big city life, but it was something I had to do.
There was simply no way I could stay in Misty Harbor after Kyle blew my heart apart. Everything I always equated to happiness in my hometown was stripped away when he left, and I felt completely disconnected. That warm, settled feeling that kept me tied to Misty Harbor was gone, and it was because it was the place where I fell in love and then was left far behind.
Granted, I know I reacted harshly to Kyle that night. I was completely wigged out by being attacked, and I’d felt completely deceived by him. But then the person who is always my voice of reason sat me down and gave me a strong talking to.
Miranda had finally said to me, after another evening of listening to me vilify Kyle, “Jane… get your head out of your ass. The man was a fucking undercover agent who infiltrated a dangerous biker gang and he was in hiding. Don’t you think that’s something he had a right to keep secret from you?”
I’d stammered and tried to argue with her, but she held her hand up and I snapped my mouth shut. Then her eyes softened and her voice was uncharacteristically kind when she said, “I know your heart is broken. Maybe his is too. Ever think of that?”
And well, no… I hadn’t thought of that. I was too mired in my own misery.
So it was all Miranda’s fault that I started to think hard about it. About how unlucky Kyle and I were in our timing, and how things might have been different with just a slight change in circumstances.
Then that got me thinking of a change in circumstances, and I realized that I couldn’t sit back and wait for happiness and love to find me again. I had to go out and make my own way, because one thing was for sure… Kyle wasn’t coming back to Misty Harbor. That was one thing he had been honest with me about from the start.
The move to Boston saddened my parents, because they not only lost me, but also Miranda as well. No way she was letting me go on my own because, in her words, “You need protecting, Janey. You’re too naïve.”
This was true.
Miranda got a good job bartending and makes way better money than I do. After we split rent and utilities fifty-fifty, she has money left over to do fun things with while I have enough to get maybe one cup of pumpkin spice latte if I was so inclined to drink one.
“Hello?” Christa calls out to me, and I blink my eyes rapidly, realizing I’m staring at the empty counter space where the customer had been waiting for his latte. “Earth to Jane. Come in, Jane.”
“Sorry,” I say as I focus in on her. “What were we talking about?”
“I asked if you had any plans for the weekend, Space Cadet?” she says with a grin.
I give a small laugh back. I hit it off amazingly well with Christa, and we’re a lot alike in our humor. “Um, by plans do you mean do I intend to splurge on Velveeta Mac and Cheese over the powdered Kraft?”
“Those were most definitely not the type of plans I’d been asking about,” she says as she wrinkles her nose. “But I’m going to go see a friend of a friend of a friend who plays in a band Saturday night. Want to come?”
If I’d let my conscience answer for me, I’d tell her I most certainly didn’t want to go. I was far more comfortable hiding out in my small apartment when Miranda was gone for the evening bartending. While I had hoped to bust out of my box a little by moving to the big city, I’d become even more introverted due to how overwhelming everything was. My monstrous plan to leave little Misty Harbor behind to find my happiness wasn’t quite panning out for me.
And who was I kidding? I really missed it back home. I mean, I really, really missed it. I missed my mom and my dad, and my students, and my little house that overlooks the lighthouse and ocean. I missed knowing everyone and receiving friendly smiles and being able to walk safely down Main Street at night.
But I had to push past that. That was what I left behind to seek something better for myself. So I square my shoulders and tentatively ask Christa, “Is where they’re playing far from here?”
“About three blocks,” she says with excitement. “So you’ll come?”
“What’s it cost to get in?” I ask, mentally calculating whether I can even afford to do this.
“We’ll get in free since we know the band,” she says confidently.
“You mean the friend of a friend of a friend?” I ask with an eyebrow cocked.
Christa laughs and waves a hand at me dismissively. “Relax. We’ll get in and it will be a blast. Think Miranda will want to come?”
This was an odd invitation as Christa and Miranda don’t get along all that well. I think Miranda is jealous that I’ve developed a friendship with Christa, and Christa is just plain intimidated by Miranda.
“She’s got to work,” I say, knowing that will immediately put her at ease.
And yup… I see her shoulders relax and lines of tension ease from her face as she lies to me, “Well damn… that sucks. I bet she’d be a lot of fun to hang out with.”
I snort. “Only if you want to make sure she doesn’t strip on the stage with the band or throw up on you at the end of the evening.”
“She’s wild, huh?” Christa asks, but I know she’s already suspected this about Miranda, who blatantly and aggressively hits on any single-looking man when she comes to hang out at the coffee shop.
“She’s wild alright,” I say fondly, because I love Miranda just the way she is. With no other customers to attend to, I decide to replenish some stock items, so I turn for the swinging pass-through door that leads to the back storage. “I’m going to organize for a restock. You good out here by yourself?”
“Yup,” she says cheerily. “Got you covered, so you can take a break from the pumpkin smell.”
Chuckling in agreement, I head into the storage room and begin to work. Most of the coffee materials are purchased in bulk, so I line up large bags of coffee beans and jugs of flavored syrup, mentally calculating which bottles and canisters I’ll need to fill up front. I grab some plastic-wrapped tubes of coffee cups and the accompanying lids from another box. I do all of this while letting my mind wander and wondering if I’m really doing the right thing for myself by being here.
This has been an adventure for me, and not one that I’ve enjoyed overly much, but something positive has come from it. I’ve grown over the last few weeks as I’ve learned to exist in a very different atmosphere than what I’m used to. There’s a doubtful part of me, however, that wonders if I truly needed this type of growth. Wasn’t my life damn good back in Misty Harbor?
The answer is clearly “yes” BK.
Before Kyle.
After Kyle, things were complicated, and maybe I’m just running from painful memories.
♦
“Do you want Chinese or subs for dinner?” Miranda asks as soon as I walk in the door.
I’m starved, so the answer is easy. “Chinese.”
“Shrimp lo mein, pot stickers, and hot and sour soup,” she says in confirmation, proof we are the best of friends because she knows my Chinese food preferences.
Still, I can’t afford all of that, so I tell her, “Just lo mein.”
Miranda ignores me. She’ll order everything I like and she’ll pay for it, claiming that she wanted to have some too.
“I’m going to go put on some LuLaRoe and take my bra off,” I tell her, which is unnecessary really since that’s my habit every evening. I get in my comfy clothes, we eat dinner together, and Miranda heads out to her bartending job.
My bedroom is small, but we were extremely fortunate to find a two-bedroom place in a fairly decent part of the city and, best of all, only a few blocks from where both of us worked. I get undressed quickly and change out of my work uniform, then I head into the bathroom to wash my face. I’m bent over the sink, rinsing my face off and fantasizing about pot stickers, when Miranda calls out to me.
“Jane,” she yells from what sounds like the living room, and I jump slightly because her voice startles me.
I grab the small hand towel hanging by the sink and press it briefly over my face to dry it. When I pull it away, I yell back, “What’s up?”
“Need you to come in here,” is all she says.
With a sigh, I hang the towel back up and walk out of the bathroom. The hallway that leads into the living room is short, with a small efficiency kitchen just beyond. I see Miranda standing there, looking at me with an odd look on her face, but I pause only briefly on her. For right beside her is someone I’m not prepared to see.
A ghost.
A figment.
A man who should not be standing here right now.
God, he looks good. Different, but really good. His hair is growing in, and it’s blonder than I had realized. He’s also started a beard, which he has neatly trimmed, and he seems to have filled out a bit or it could be that he’s just wearing tighter shirts.
He looks at me warily from across the room, and I can see him swallow hard before he says, “Hello, Jane.”
I just stand there… completely unable to do a damn thing. I can’t speak. I can’t move. I can’t decide what it is I want.
I never thought I’d see Kyle again in my life, and I went through a mourning process for him. And now I’m inundated with all these different emotions ranging from anger to relief to bitterness to joy to love to hate to…
“What are you doing here?” I manage to whisper as I cross my arms over my chest protectively, not because I’m braless, but to protect my heart from this man who is provoking my world into chaos again.
Kyle’s eyes cut to Miranda, who just stands there looking back at him as if he’s a strange phenomenon, but they slide right back to me, seemingly uncaring that he has an audience. His voice is low and rumbling when he says, “I came to see if I could make things right with you.”
My limbs go weak with confusion and my heart pounds erratically. Miranda’s head snaps my way to see what I’ll do, and I know if I look at her, I’ll buckle. She’s been a rock and an immense support to me over the last several weeks, but she’s also been clearly on Team Kyle, because as she kept reminding me, “There were extenuating circumstances that you have to consider, Janey.”
An irrational fear takes root in the middle of my chest as I remember the pain of him lying and leaving, and I know I can’t go through that again, despite the fact that Miranda seems to see this in a much clearer light.
So I tell the brutal truth in a soft whisper. “There’s nothing to make right. I understand why you couldn’t share things with me, and I’ve accepted that. So honestly, this was probably a wasted trip to come here to see me.”
Kyle winces. I wait a terrifyingly long moment to see if he’ll leave, but he doesn’t. Instead, he says, “There’s still a lot you need to know. That I want you to know if you’ll give me just a little bit of your time.”