CHAPTER 16

When Jane woke up it took a few beats to remember she was in Daniel’s old bedroom in Rhea’s house. There was a slight indentation on the other bed where Daniel had slept. It was ten-thirty; Jane had missed her train. But it was okay. Seth had no idea she was with the Fletchers. His break-in had inadvertently bought her one more day with Daniel.

An exhausted quiet stilled the house as Jane ventured out of the bedroom. Sleeping bodies in various stages of undress littered the living room. Someone had fallen asleep at the piano. Jane stepped over a woman wrapped up in the sailor’s quilt that had hung on the entryway wall.

Spilled potato chips crunched under her feet in the kitchen, the apparent scene of an early morning feeding frenzy. Every surface was crammed with half-eaten snacks and beer bottles. A pan of boxed macn-cheese turned crusty on the stove. Wind whipped the screen door against its frame. Jane stepped out onto the deck. One corner of the hot tub cover snapped in the breeze that blew a thin cold mist in from the ocean. It stretched in a grey seam as far as she could see. The heat wave had finally broken.

“Jane dearie, we’re up here,” called Rhea.

Jane used her hand to shield her eyes from the rain and saw three pairs of feet through the slats of another deck on the floor above—heavy duty men’s sneakers, Rhea’s sandal beside the clubbed bottom of her cast, and two ovals of pink foam—a child’s shoes. Goosebumps surged and covered Jane’s arms and legs. Little girl shoes like those Jane might have purchased on sale at Target or received as hand-me-downs when Leah had reached the right age.

Rhea’s head and shoulders appeared over the edge of the railing, a faded version of the vibrant hostess from the previous night. Her hair hung in greasy clumps. The surgical bandage on her chest was smudged and peeling at the edges. She waved at Jane to join them.

The top deck wasn’t much more than a front porch for the single room on the third floor that rose above the rest of the house like a stunted bell tower. Two lawn chairs took up most of the space.

Daniel stood at the railing looking up the beach through binoculars, a water bottle pinched under one arm. The child, a little girl with blue eyes and sun streaked hair, leaned against his good leg. “Those waves get any higher he’s not going to be able to paddle them,” said Daniel.

“Riley will get him out in time,” said Rhea.

“They drank too much to be pulling shit like this.”

Jane’s eyes followed the line of the binoculars. Half a mile away, a cluster of surfers bobbed in the choppy water.

“I wanna see.” The girl squeezed between Daniel and the railing and climbed up to balance on the rung.

Daniel held the binoculars over her eyes. “Tell me who’s wearing blue and who’s wearing orange.”

Rhea pulled Jane in for a hug. “Nothing like an early surf to cap off a good night.” She waited for Jane’s professional disapproval. When Jane smiled as if surfing on no sleep with alcohol for energy was just fine, Rhea motioned towards the water. “They went out at dawn with perfect conditions. But the storm’s getting the wind up now.”

“Mom’s in blue and Dad’s in orange,” said the girl.

“Good job. Now, down you go before you fall.” Daniel lifted the girl with one arm around her belly. She crouched and swung until he shook her and she dropped her feet for a landing. “Will you run down and grab me a sweatshirt?” he asked.

Jane did a jump-step-shuffle toward the wall to avoid touching the girl as she ran by, a life-sized doll with a jacket over her Tinkerbell nightie. A living ghost.

Daniel passed Rhea the binoculars. “Those waves are draining the water right out of the break. If he falls we can forget Hawaii.”

“Hawaii?” Jane made her voice bright and extra interested, but Daniel didn’t bite.

“He’s in position for a big one.” Rhea sounded awed. “He’s up—beautiful—he’s caught a lump … headfirst wipeout.”

Daniel took back the binoculars. “Fucking—” He cut himself off as the door below them opened and the girl’s little feet sounded on the stairs.

“Give it to your dad’s friend.” Daniel kept his eyes on the water. Jane didn’t realize he was talking about her until the girl turned and shyly held out the sweatshirt. “My name’s Poppy, what’s yours?”

“Jane.” She made sure their fingers didn’t accidently touch as Jane took the sweatshirt. The girl looked up at Jane for only a moment before she bounced over to the opposite side of the deck and climbed up on a chair. But it was a moment Jane stopped breathing.

“Riley’s swimming out,” said Daniel. “Looks like she’s got him.”

“I wanna see!”

“Let Grandma see first.” Reaching over Poppy’s arms, Rhea took the binoculars from Daniel.

“I’m going to drive down and pick them up. I’ll call if we have to go to the ER.”

“If he lets you take him to the ER,” muttered Rhea.

Daniel passed Jane on the way to the stairs without notice. He descended the stairs two at a time, as easily as anyone with two legs.

“I’m going with Uncle Dan.”

“Let Uncle Dan go by himself, sweetie,” said Rhea. “You need to get dressed so you can go home.”

“Why can’t I stay here?”

“Get dressed.”

Jane did more awkward dance steps to get out of the way as Rhea opened the door to the third-floor room, a bedroom that looked like it belonged to a fairy tale princess. Dolls, stuffed animals, and brightly-colored pillows covered with bows and glitter filled window seats along three walls. Gauzy curtains hung from the canopy bed. Jane couldn’t help but lean forward and reach out to test the barrier of the doorframe, the gateway into a dreamscape of childhood, a world filled with frivolous pastimes and colorful decorations and toys intended only for play. When Jane had been a child, any belongings she had considered toys had also been tools of instruction.

When Jane had been four, the neighbor girl showed up uninvited to her birthday party and gave Jane Beach Party Barbie, the only gift Jane ever received that looked like it came from this girl’s room. Jane’s mother had used Beach Party Barbie to teach Jane that bikinis were underwear and the women who wore them didn’t respect themselves or men, and then she’d thrown it away.

Rhea’s hand on Jane’s arm made her jump. “I know you’re supposed to be my guest, but I think Steve will need your help. He had a bad wipeout.” She handed Jane her phone. “Dan will call if they head to the ER. Otherwise the first aid kit is in the cabinet under the kitchen sink. Would you mind?”

Jane started to tell her that it was illegal for her to act as a nurse outside a clinical setting, then she realized it didn’t matter. Jane was suspended for attacking Alma. She was going to Canada. No reason not to help Steve out. Maybe she could stab his overinflated ego in the process.

Jane wriggled herself around in Daniel’s sweatshirt as she navigated the wet stairs. The sweatshirt had been a genius idea. It was warm and soft and so huge it managed to subsume the giant lumps of Jane’s breasts. The events of the previous night had become a fast-fading nightmare. She was with the Fletchers wearing Daniel’s sweatshirt. It hung halfway to her knees like a baggy dress, like armor. As long as she wore it no one could touch her, not even little girl ghosts. Before she left for Canada, Jane was going to find a way to prove to Daniel she was only interested in him. It would be her parting gift to him.

This was what she was thinking as she opened the cabinet under the sink and failed to notice the spider sitting just inside until it flew out. It ricocheted off her knee and came to rest on the kitchen floor. Jane leapt up onto the counter. Chips crunched. Granola rattled into the sink. The spider lurched sideways.

Jane grabbed the long silver neck of the sink faucet; she was shaking so badly she almost shook herself right back onto the floor, which was now killer spider territory. The spider that had just touched her knee could swallow Mr. Fuzzy Black from her condo whole. It was grey brown with a body shaped like a butterfly’s thorax, but twice as thick, and a leg circumference bigger than her hand.

It touched me, it touched me. IT TOUCHED ME. Her skin crawled a mile a minute. Jane closed her eyes so she didn’t have to see it. But she couldn’t not look. She’d be seeing it the rest of her life.

Footsteps began stomping up the steps from the garage. The surfers burst into the living room whooping and laughing, drawing the hung-over groans of those trying to sleep. Steve called out, “I need a nurse. Nurse Jane! I’m in need of fucking medical assistance,” just before Zeik, the Arnold of Austria guy Jane had met the night before, stepped into the kitchen, his bulging muscles bursting out of his wetsuit.

“Don’t come in!” she shouted.

He jumped back. “Fucking Christ, that’s a spider!”

“Step aside, step aside, I’m bleeding here.” Steve pushed into the doorway. Blood pulsed from a gash in his forehead. He pinched his nose closed to stop more bleeding. When he saw the spider, he drew back. His heel came down hard on the toes of a woman with striking turquoise eyes and black hair. Jane had seen Steve’s wife at the party the night before, but they hadn’t been introduced.

“Excuse me, my foot?” She looked at the spider then at Jane on the counter. “That’s the Battery Park girl?”

Despite his grisly appearance, Steve sounded like he was flirting when he told Jane, “You can run faster than that spider.”

“I’m not moving.”

“But I need you. See my face?”

She glared at him.

Daniel’s head appeared over Steve’ shoulder. He quickly assessed the situation. “Everyone, stand back. I’ve got it.” He circled the kitchen, making a wide arc around the spider. Steve’s wife stood at the door, tapping her front teeth together. She kept shooting Jane looks like the situation was her fault. “Can’t you just reach down and get the kit?” she asked. “If you throw it to me, I’ll take care of him.”

Steve reappeared behind her still pinching his nose and now holding a bathroom towel against his forehead. “Don’t. She’ll make me look like Frankenstein.”

Daniel opened a cabinet and pulled out a Tupperware lid and bowl. His eyes never left the spider. He bent over, one, two, three, Tupperware down, spider trapped.

“Careful when you step down,” he said as he offered her his hand.

Jane was afraid of pushing him off balance and setting the spider free, so she got herself down along with a cascade of crushed snacks. The spider thumped against the Tupperware. Jane grabbed the first aid kit and ran into the sun porch adjacent to the kitchen. She shoved herself into a corner and sucked in the ocean’s endless horizon darkening with storm rain. She counted three seconds for every inhale and exhale.

Steve followed her. His wife followed him. Jane felt them at her back shooting silences at each other. The surfers and some of the no-longer-sleeping party guests ventured into the kitchen to get a look at the spider.

“Give it a kiss Zeik,” said one.

“No way, brah,” said Zeik.

“Way cool bug, man.”

“You gonna keep it?”

“I think we should call it Godzilla,” said Zeik.

“Hey Steve-O, come look at this thing.”

Steve didn’t answer. Jane felt the shift of energy at her back, a new tension. She turned. Steve sat on the dining table in a silent discussion with his wife. Intimations rocketed between them so thickly they were like the vortex of a black hole. The surfers, dripping and sandy, clustered at the half wall arch dividing the kitchen and the sun porch, watching.

The wife was clearly winning the silent debate, giving Steve a silent dressing-down as only a wife knew how. Jane imagined the unspoken words rushing out of her completely reasonable anger. The next time you want to surf drunk, I’ ll let you drown. Jane found herself momentarily mesmerized by this new source of power in the family. Jane had assumed Steve was always on top.

Daniel cleared his throat to draw attention away from Steve and his wife. “I’m taking the spider outside. Want to see it run?”

The screen door slammed as the surfers and the party guests herded outside with Daniel. For the first few moments, the stillness of their absence felt more dangerous than their watching eyes. Jane was the only one left as a witness.

Steve wilted into a chair, hands flopping down at his sides in exasperation. “Okay! Fine! It was stupid. But you’d have done the same thing if you’d been in the right position.”

“I’d have been smart about it. You acted like some idiot big wave kahuna.”

“Why is it always me, huh? Why can’t Dan be the idiot? Or Mom? Did you see her lifting the cooler last night?”

“She doesn’t have a dependent child. Don’t think I won’t leave you.”

“Go ahead and try.”

Steve’s wife turned on her heel. She came at Jane. “You’re Jane? I’m Riley. Don’t feel obligated to help him. He deserves that scar.”

Jane clutched the first aid kit and prayed Riley didn’t come any closer. She looked angry enough to drop kick Jane just for being alive. “It’s fine.”

“Lucky for you then.” She shot a pointed look at Steve, “While she’s sticking needles in you, maybe you could try and get the two shits you have for a brain to remember you have a daughter.” She turned back to Jane, slightly less frosty. “I’m going to make coffee. You do coffee?”

Jane nodded.

With Riley removed to the kitchen, Steve perked up. “Okay runaway nurse, I’m ready for you to glue me back together.” He beamed on Jane the full force of his movie star grin. He stripped off the top of his wet-suit to display his perfectly chiseled, hairless chest glistening with water droplets. “Just be careful. This face is worth a lot.”

Jane peeled off Daniel’s sweatshirt so the sleeves wouldn’t get in her way, and took a deep breath. She stood before Steve’s chair, their knees almost touching. “Follow my finger with your eyes. Don’t move your head.”

“Seriously? I’m bleeding here.”

“Follow my finger, please. Any blank spots in your vision?”

“Nope.”

“Nausea?”

“I don’t think I’m a fan of you doing your nurse thing on me. It’s kinda …”

“Illuminating?”

“Impersonal. It’s supposed to be like, sexy.”

Little did he know how difficult it was to concentrate with him shirtless and those muscles dominating Jane’s peripheral vision. Or maybe he did know. But Jane wasn’t going to give him the satisfaction of showing she was affected. She did a cursory check for other injuries and counted Steve’s pulse. “What’s the last thing you remember before hitting your head?”

“I was setting up for this great ride, but I hit a lump going down the face and wiped out.” He shifted the bloody towel from his hand to the table. Those biceps.

“Looks like your nose is broken.”

“No way. I’ve got a photoshoot in like five days, or six days—what day is today?”

Riley returned with coffee for Jane but not for Steve. Jane expected her presence would curb his flirting, but he only puffed out his chest and dared Jane to blush with his eyes. They looked a lot like Daniel’s used to, animated from the inside with playful energy, but darker.

“Hold still,” she whispered.

Jane’s shaken nerves ran haywire. Do the nose first, she thought, it’ ll be easier. But she couldn’t figure out how to position her hands on Steve’s face. She blamed the spider. Fight or flight chemicals took time to wear off. And the weird twilight zone feeling she’d had meeting Steve’s kid was also a valid explanation. But this was more than that. It was like standing too close to a fire or trying not to look at the sun.

Jane felt the cartilage for the correct position. She set her thumbs on either side of the bridge, the right hand a little higher than the left and spread her fingers around Steve’s cheeks and jaw for support. He had the softest skin she’d ever touched on an adult male, perfectly hairless, perfectly smooth, and warm.

His eyes were level with her breasts.

“Don’t jerk back when I push.”

“I’m ready.” He winked.

One, two, three—Jane pushed with her thumbs.

“Fucking hell.” His eyes ran. “Did it work?” He looked to Riley. “Is it straight?”

She rolled her eyes and picked up her phone. She pretended disinterest but Jane felt her attention.

The screen door slapped against the frame announcing the arrival of Poppy followed by Zeik carrying Rhea down from the third floor. Poppy ran into the sun porch and threw herself at Steve. “Does it hurt?”

“Nurse Jane is fixing me up. You wanna watch?” He lifted her onto his lap. It was a position she’d outgrown but with some adjustment they made it work. Poppy watched wide-eyed as Jane unpacked the first aid kit—gauze and alcohol wipes, a sterilized needle, and surgical thread—to stitch the gash in Steve’s forehead.

“She’s going to sew you like clothes?”

“No sewing. It’s like last time when your mom used the glue to stick my skin together, remember?” Steve hadn’t stopped looking at Jane’s breasts. He was staring at them like he was trying to see nothing but Jane’s breasts.

“This cut’s too deep for gluing,” said Jane. “You need stitches.”

“Let’s skip the stitches,” said Steve, like there were options.

“Can’t, sorry.” Jane noticed Steve swallow with difficulty as his jaw tightened, the same unconscious reflex Daniel used, except Steve used it when he was scared; for Daniel it was a reflex of frustration.

Jane detached wet hair from the gash and tilted Steve’s head up to get the best light. His eyes stayed on her breasts, hooded. Jane pressed an alcohol wipe along the gash. Steve bounced his heels against the floor, bobbing Poppy up and down. He dropped his free hand down beside his chair and made a fist, bracing himself. Jane unwrapped the needle. Steve’s eyes followed her movement. The needle was more compelling than her breasts, apparently. For the first time since they’d met, Jane felt she had the upper hand.

“There’s some sand in the wound.” She looked to Poppy and did her best not to sound like one of those adults who didn’t know how to talk to kids. “Could you please bring me a glass of water?”

“Warm or cold?”

“Just a little warm.”

Poppy hopped to the floor and ran into the kitchen.

Jane looked to Riley, but she was typing on her phone, not paying attention. Rhea was in the kitchen dropping paper towels on the wet spots on the floor left by the surfers. It was just Jane and Steve and Steve looked nervous. “You know the thing about nursing?” asked Jane.

“What’s that?”

“Even the most practiced patient never manages a believable performance in an exam room.”

“That’s what I meant by not sexy.”

Jane threaded the needle.

She brought the needle forward, bending over him.

Steve grabbed her hand. “You said there was sand.”

“I lied.”

His eyes flicked up to her face. In that one brief moment, she saw that he was so terrified, he could not hide behind even a single layer of his usual camouflage. The screen door snapped open and Daniel and the surfers trooped in and caught them like this, Steve holding Jane back as she leaned over him with her threatening needle. Jane was doing her job, but she knew from the now familiar stiffening of Daniel’s posture that what he saw confirmed his belief that she was interested in Steve.

“Whoop, looks like Steve’s putting the moves on his nurse,” said one of the surfers. They crowded into the sun porch, bringing with them a wave of stale sweat and beer breath. Riley glanced up, smiled a little maniacal smile, and returned to her phone.

Steve’s grin reappeared for his audience but he continued to hold Jane’s arm so tightly he was beginning to cut off circulation. He focused all his rays of playboy sunshine up at her. The performance had resumed. “I heard you spent the night in Dan’s room.”

Someone let out a low whistle of appreciation.

“You know, it’s been years,” continued Steve. “Was he a little … rusty?”

In her peripheral vision Jane sensed Daniel become a statue at the far end of the table. Steve’s friends smiled with slack jaws and malicious hunger. Nothing would better conclude their night of revelry than to hear how the weakest among them failed where they surely would have succeeded. They were the boys she had known in college, cocky, invincible, living only in the pleasure of a moment.

“Some of my guys aren’t even sure Dan can get it up.”

She saw Daniel train his eyes out the window. In his mother’s house, surrounded by the people who should’ve supported him, he looked trapped. Jane knew that feeling. This was her chance to prove he was wrong about her.

She offered Steve’s audience the secretive smile she used on the old men in the Cardiac ICU to help them feel like they were still men. “Rusty isn’t what I’d call it.” Jane shifted the needle to her other hand. Steve’s eyes followed it, hypnotized. “More like, well-oiled. After the third round I just couldn’t take any more.”

The surfers exchanged grins. Jane looked to Daniel for some sign of encouragement, but his back was a solid wall dividing him from the rest of the room. Jane returned her attention to Steve. He was working hard to find some smart retort that called her out as a liar without making him sound like a sore loser. He was too aware of how it looked, her over him with all the power, him unable to affect an exit because he needed her to fix his head. Even as he kept up his jocular posture for his friends, there was venom in his eyes just for her.

Jane moved the needle back to her right hand. The color drained out of his face as she pinched the edges of the gash together.

“Wait.” His voice came out breathless.

“Waiting increases the chance of a scar.”

His hand came up, feebly trying to fend her off, but then his eyes rolled back in his head. He tilted sideways, crashing onto the plank floor in a dead faint that just missed the cushion of the faded rag rug. Jane could’ve caught him.

“Daddy!” Poppy ran forward, spilling water.

Jane shoved out an arm to stop her. “Don’t wake him. It’s okay.”

“Way harsh,” said Zeik. “Death by nurse.”

“Three rounds,” someone let out a low appreciative whistle, “his dick just couldn’t imagine lasting that long.”

“He’ll need something strong when he wakes up.”

“Too bad we drank all the booze,” muttered Riley. She looked at Jane with new respect.

They all gathered around to watch Jane kneel on the floor and stitch the gash closed. When she’d finished, the surfers carried Steve out to the living room couch. Rhea headed to bed. Riley took Poppy home to her nanny. The other guests found their own reasons to leave Jane alone in the sunroom with Daniel.

The mist had become a rain of surprising substance for California. Jane didn’t notice it until the absence of people drew attention to Daniel’s silence. The steady patter on the tin roof enclosed the sun porch in a cocoon of white noise.

She decided not to push him, even though he looked so lonely over by the window that she wanted to go to him and put her arms around him and tell him she was never going to choose Steve instead. But she couldn’t do that. She couldn’t lead him on knowing there was no chance of a future together.

She slowly packed up the first aid kit.

As he turned to face her, he drew a deep breath that came out like a sigh. “Would you be interested in having breakfast with me?” His voice was so soft and vulnerable, like he still somehow expected her to say no, that she thought her heart would explode.