"He thought he could use weasels to hunt gofers, but the gofers had other ideas. Pop goes the weasel! On the next Sick Sad World."
Tom hit the mute button as the commercials came up. He put the remote down, wrapped his arms around Jane, who had been leaning against him during the show, and squeezed. She gave out a little grunt of annoyance, but he misunderstood and squeezed again. She pushed away from him and sat up on the couch.
"So," she asked, straightening her shirt, "what now?"
"Dunno." Tom ran his fingers through his hair. "Your brother playing tonight?"
"If he was we'd probably be out there helping the band move their equipment."
"Oh," he said. "So, uh, what do you want to do?"
Jane frowned. She really didn't want to do anything with Tom, but here she was. Maybe she could make an excuse and get away, see if Daria was up for pizza or a movie. More likely, though, Tom would want to tag along. She'd probably just end up sitting on her butt listening to the two of them go on and on about foreign films and the minutia as the movies move from reality to fantasy and back again and what the things in the fantasy mean. Jane could only sing "Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star" in her head so many times before she wanted to kill the other two and then herself. Daria was out of the question.
"Got anything to eat?" she asked.
"Let's go see," Tom said, pushing himself off the couch and offering his hand to Jane. She pushed herself up. He shrugged and led the way out of the family room, into the foyer, and toward the dining room, the fastest way to the kitchen.
Even after months of dating Jane was still amazed at the Sloane house. It was huge, compared to the houses she'd been in. At least twice the size of Brittany's house and, up until she visited Tom at home, Brittany's had be the biggest house she'd ever been in. There had to be at least six bedrooms upstairs. Downstairs had the foyer, the family room, the dining room and kitchen, a sitting room, Mr. Sloane's office, an office for Kay Sloane, the laundry room, and probably more. Sometimes she felt like she was in one of her mom's old Richie Rich comics and if she made a wrong turn she'd end up in some wing that people hadn't been in for the last twenty years where she'd find a Sloan uncle who'd been wandering around trying to find his way out. Nothing that interesting had happened, yet.
In the kitchen, Tom pulled open both doors to the gigantic fridge and asked, "What do you want?"
Jane looked around. Lots of fresh looking carrots and celery and other veggies she didn't want to, or couldn't, name. Left-over roast which could have fed her whole family. More cheeses than she thought existed before she came here. At least three different shapes of bread. And all the condiments she could imagine.
"Sandwich," she said, reaching for the roast.
"Good idea," said Tom. He reached to take the roast from the fridge. "I'll get that."
Jane bumped him with her hip, "I got it. How about you get the plates and knives and things."
"Fine," he said, heading off to the cupboards. "Be sure to grab the havarti when you go back for cheese."
As she put the roast on the island in the center of the kitchen, Jane wondered which cheese was the havarti. At home there were three types of cheese -- yellow, white, and American -- but here there were lots of different white and yellow cheeses and none of them wrapped in cellophane. She grabbed several kinds and hoped that one of them was the kind that Tom wanted. Next she went for the condiments and chose mayo, a brownish mustard, and a mustard with what looked like seeds in it. She grabbed all three shapes of bread, figuring that her nose would guide her to the right one. After that came the vegetables which include a gigantic tomato that was red and orange and purple all at once. Finally, sitting in the back of the fridge, she found a jar of pickles that looked like it could have come from anyone's house. It was odd seeing that among the hoity-toity food.
"How thick?" Tom asked as Jane pushed the doors closed.
"What?" She turned and saw him holding a huge knife and fork.
"How thick do you want your flesh? Mwu-ha-ha." He flourished the knife.
"I don't know. Normal?"
He jabbed the fork into the roast and said, "The bread knife's over there. Would you cut me some sour dough?"
That was a job her nose could handle.
"Elsie!" they heard as he carved and she sliced. "Get back here!"
"Uh oh," said Tom, setting his knife down.
Jane just stood, frozen. Even when the whole family randomly showed up at her house there wasn't much yelling. Lots of crying from Wind and frustration from everyone else, but they tended to keep their voices down. She looked over at Tom trying to ask what was going on without actually speaking. Tom shrugged. Jane supposed that he wasn't used to much yelling either.
"No, Mom," they heard Elsie shout, "this cow will not come when she's called."
"I never said you were a cow!"
"No," Elsie shouted, her voice was closer, "but you certainly implied it when you sai--" Her voice broke off as she turned into the kitchen and saw Tom and Jane.
"What'd she say?" asked Tom.
She tried to burn holes in her brother's head with her eyes.
"Elsie, where have you-- Oh, hello Jane," said Kay Sloane, then she nodded at her son, "Tom."
"Mrs. Sloane," said Jane.
"Mom, what's going on?" asked Tom.
"Oh, nothing, dear. Nothing at all."
"Nothing?" asked Elsie, raising an eyebrow.
Kay sighed, "Fine."
"We were picking up my dress for prom tomorrow..."
"Prom?" Jane said to herself, tuning Elsie out. Tom didn't say anything about a prom at Fielding. Why didn't he mention it? Was he embarrassed of her? Did he think she'd make a fool of herself and him in front of the people he went to school with? She wouldn’t do anything to embarrass him, hadn't she proved it? She could dress and act just like all the other girls at his school. The only attention she'd draw would be the kind that's full of envy from the other guys in the room. They'd be so green all the girls would be afraid their dates would vomit long before the binge drinking started. And the other girls? Ha, they wouldn't know what to do when themselves when they saw Jane and Tom dancing.
She felt herself blush. Getting angry over Tom eating her art supplies, that made sense, but feeling insulted because he didn't ask her to a dance? That was stupid. Maybe her time being conventional had left her with more psychic trauma than she'd realized. Maybe she was just being stupid. A stupid, stupid girlie girl. She wasn't a girlie girl. She was Jane Freakin' Lane.
Still, something inside nagged at her. She wanted, just once, to have a Disney ending.
Tom put his hand on her shoulder and she snapped out of her thoughts. "We should go," he said, giving her a little tug away from the brewing fight.
She followed his lead and they backed out of the kitchen to the driveway behind the house where Tom parked his rust heap of a car. They climbed in -- it started on only the second try -- and headed down the drive to the road. Tom turned left to take them back to Lawndale.
They sat in silence for a little while before Jane turned to him and asked, "Prom?"
"Huh," he said.
"Prom's this weekend?"
"At Fielding? Yeah."
"You didn't invite me?" Christ, she was starting to sound like Brittany, ending all of her sentences as questions.
"Yeah."
"Okay," she said, "now this is gonna sound stupid, but why didn't you ask me?"
"Jane," he turned to look at her, "I've known you long enough to know that you don't want to go to prom. That's why I didn't ask you. Well, that and I didn't want to get laughed at, by you, for being an idiot."
She looked away from him. He was right. She would have called him an idiot. And she really didn't want to go to prom, not any prom. Not really. But there was that part of her that did. Sort of.
"You don't want to go, right?" he asked. "I mean, if you want to go to a prom we can go to Lawndale High's. That's not for a couple more weeks, right?"
Jane laughed, "God, no. I don't want to go to Lawndale's prom."
"Then what's up?"
"Well, okay, it's stupid, but I sort of want my moment at a dance, you know?"
"No."
"I mean that... that moment where I come in wearing a swooshy dress and you're in a coat and tie right next to me and we dance. You know, like a real Phillip and Aurora sort of moment."
"Aurora?"
She shook her head, "Don't worry about it."
He looked at her like he wanted to ask more questions. He didn't, though. Instead he turned back to the road.
The rest of the drive into Lawndale was silent. Jane kept trying to figure out a way to explain how she felt about the dance to him. She wasn't quite clear on her feelings, though, and if she couldn't explain them to herself, how could she explain them to him?
She kept stealing glances at him, wondering what he was thinking. She knew that he had been freaked out during that brief time she wore a teddy bear backpack and she could only imagine what he was thinking now. He'd never known a Jane Lane who wanted to go to a dance, who wanted to do something that everyone else does in the same way everyone does it.
Maybe they could go to Lawndale High's prom. Maybe they could even double with Jodie and Mack.
"Pizza?" Tom asked.
Jane jumped, "What?"
"Do you want some pizza?"
She thought about it for a moment. "Nah," she said, "I think I just want to get home."
"'Kay," he said.
A little while later, he stopped in front of her house and set the car in park.
"See you tomorrow?" he asked.
"Tomorrow? I don't think so. I think I'm gonna use tomorrow to just art off."
"Call you then?"
"How 'bout on Sunday? Can you call me then?"
"Sure."
He leaned in to her and she gave him a quick peck on the lips before she hopped out of the car and slammed the door shut. She waved as he pulled away from the curb and he gave two short honks of his horn to say good-bye
The house was as dark as the sky above her. No Trent. Her stomach growled as she opened the door. She was hungry. She didn't think there'd be anything in the kitchen for her. Maybe stale soda crackers and that red smudge in the fridge, but nothing better than that. She didn't want to eat, though. She wanted to shut off her brain and not think about proms and dresses and Tom.
Taking the stairs two at a time she hurried up to her room and threw on her running shirt, shorts, and shoes. On her way down, she grabbed a hoodie and the only known flashlight in the Lane house from Trent's room.
She barely heard the door click shut behind her before she started running. The feel of the concrete under her feet was soothing; the rhythmic thumping of her feet, hypnotic; the measured breaths relaxing. She ran down the block then crossed the street. With no destination in mind, she turned where she wanted to, letting the feel of the pavement tell her where to go.
Eventually, she found herself back on her block approaching her house. Her mind was blank. Her body was exhausted. Her stomach still growled, but she wanted to sleep more than eat.
First, though, a shower. There was only one reason to go to sleep slick with sweat, and running was not that reason.
As she climbed the stairs she pulled the hoodie off. Passing Trent's room she carelessly tossed it and the flashlight onto his floor, he'd never notice they weren't where they'd been before. She stripped off her shirt as she walked down to her room and casually tossed it in the laundry basket sitting in the corner. Sitting on her bed, she pulled off her shoes and socks, leaving them where they landed, then grabbed some clean clothes and headed to the bathroom where she cranked up the hot water before stripping her underwear off and stepping under the scalding stream.
Running had purged thoughts of proms and Disney dreams from Jane's mind. The water flowing down her body swept the thoughts away, down the drain. The towel she used to dry herself with, once the shower was finished, buffed out any stray thoughts that tried to cling to her. She was finally herself.
Absently, she started to hum. She hummed as she dressed and brushed her teeth. She hummed as she left the bathroom and headed to her room. She hummed as she shut the door to her room and tossed her dirty underwear into the basket. She did a little twirl, while humming, before she dropped onto her bed. As she pulled the covers under her chin she sang, "...the way you did once upon a dream."
Saturday morning came and with it the ringing of the phone. Jane ignored it, though; it wasn't time to wake up. Wake up time was when the sun was straight overhead, not when light was trying to stream through her window. She pulled her pillow over her head to muffle the ringing and fell back to sleep.
The phone rang again. She didn't remember moving the pillow off her face, but she must have because she couldn't find it anywhere on the bed. She pulled the covers over her head, but it didn't muffle the ringing of the phone at all. She threw off the covers and sat up.
"I'm up," she said. "You don't have to keep ringing."
She fumbled for the phone, picked it up, and said, "Hello?"
"Jane?"
"Who is this?"
"It's Tom."
"Tom?" She yawned.
"Yeah. Uh, I know you said not to call you today, but I have to see you."
"Tom?" she said again.
"Yeah," he said, "its Tom."
"Is it Sunday already?"
"It's Saturday."
"And why are you calling?" She rubbed her eyes trying to wipe the sleep away.
"I need to see you. Can I come pick you up?"
"Now?"
"No, at five. Ish? That a good time?"
"What time is it now?"
"12:30."
"Okay," she said, feeling less sleepy, but more confused. "Five, five'll be fine.
"Great. See you then."
"'Bye," she said and hung up the phone.
The afternoon moved slowly for Jane. She peed and washed her face and got dressed. She made some coffee and waited forever for it to finish. She found a whole sleeve of Saltines, only slightly stale, to munch on. And she wondered what the hell Tom was doing calling her to see her when she told him not to bother.
Well, she could deal with it, with him. She'd done plenty of things that she didn't want to do or didn't like doing. She'd gone to her family reunion and that renaissance fair where she was stuck next to a sobbing girl for way too long. Two things she hadn't wanted to do, but survived. She could survive whatever inane thing Tom wanted to do, too. At least she'd get a real meal out of it, not just crackers.
A little after five she heard a horn honk and headed out.
"Hey," said Tom, smiling at her as she climbed into his car.
"So," she said, "what's this about?"
"You'll see." His smile got wider.
He popped the car out of park and they were off. After a few turns, Jane knew where they were going. "We're going to your house," she said.
"Yup," he answered.
"Is this so I can do girlie stuff and bond with your sister as I make her beautiful?"
"God, no. Elsie's not there. She's over at some friend's house where there's gonna be a group of girls applying and powdering and glossing and whatever else you do to make yourselves all purdy."
She smiled at that. "Then what's going on?"
"You'll see." He smiled at her again. "I mean, you trust me, right?"
"'Course," she said.
"Then just wait."
As they approached the Sloane manor, Tom pulled into the front drive, which surprised Jane. She'd never seen him park his rust bucket in front of the house. It might leave an unsightly oil stain or a neighbor might have a heart attack at the sight of a Pinto.
Tom parked, stepped out of the car, and ran around to offer Jane his hand as she climbed out. For a second she wanted to smack it away, but she took it and let him give her a little pull. He pushed the car door shut then led her to the door of the house, which he opened for her and said, "After you."
Jane rolled her eyes.
He followed close on her heels then darted ahead of her. He pulled something frilly and white off the coat rack by the door. "Put this on," he said, handing it to her.
She took it, it smelled musty, and held it out to get a good look. "A petticoat? You want me to put on a petticoat?"
"Yeah," he said, snapping a bright red bowtie around his neck. "Just slip it on over you clothes. It should be big enough."
Jane looked at it again. It looked big enough for two of her. Right length, wrong width. She shrugged at herself and carefully stepped into the petticoat then pulled it up around her waist.
"Tom," she said, looking away from the dingy white and at Tom who had just shrugged into a terrible brown plaid coat that was too short for him. The coat was so offensive to her eyes that she immediately thought of three different art projects the material would be perfect for. "It's just a little too big," she said.
"I figured it would be." He reached for another thing hanging on the coat rack, pulled it down, then tossed it to her.
He had tossed black suspenders at her. Old black suspenders. No elastic to be seen. Old black suspenders that had clips on the ends. They were for kids.
"Where did you get this stuff?" she asked as she twisted the petticoat around to clip the suspenders on the back.
"Let me help," he said, holding the petticoat up while she clipped then walking behind her while she held on to the front part of the suspenders. "I got it from the attic. Sorry if the clothes smell funny."
"I don't know," she said, clipping the front of the dress and taking a deep breath. "I kind of like the smell. Smells comfortable."
"Done?" he asked.
"Done," she said, turning to face him. "How do I look?"
"Like a clown in training." He took as step back and asked, "Me?"
She looked at the sleeves of the coat that only came two thirds of the way down his forearms and the bright red bow tie around his neck and said, "Like a guy whose mother won't let him grow up."
"Perfect. Now the picture."
"Picture?"
Next to the coat rack was a tripod with a camera attached to the top of it. Off the top of the camera he grabbed something that was attached to the camera by a cord.
He stood in front of the camera and said, "Come on."
She walked over to him.
"Now, put your hand around my back and hold my other."
She slid her hand around his back and he put his free hand around her waist. She took his other hand in hers.
"Now smile," he said.
She did. The world went white and then black. She blinked her eyes and saw a giant purple smear on the back of her eyelids that didn't go away when she opened them up again.
Tom took something from the camera then turned toward her. "It'll take a minute," he said, handing her the picture.
She took it from him and saw the slowly darkening yellow of the picture under the purple blur. She rubbed her eyes.
"Why don't you put it in your pocket," he said. "We can look at it later."
She said, "Oh. Kay." and slipped her hand through the waist of the petticoat and put the picture in her the pocket of her shorts.
Tom smiled at her with a goofy grin and offered his elbow. "Shall we?" he asked.
She looped her arm through his and gave half a nod. She still didn't understand what was going on.
They walked through the rest of the foyer, the petticoat making a nice swishing sound. At the entry to the family room, Tom pulled a remote from his inside coat pocket and pushed a button. The lights dimmed until Jane could hardly make out the couch and TV. He pushed another button and a light came on in the corner, pointing at a mirrored ball, which started spinning.
"Truly a universal remote," he muttered, pulling Jane farther into the room.
When they reached the center, he hit another button then slipped the control back into his coat. Music started to play; a song Jane recognized, but couldn't quite place. He put his right hand around her waist and took her right with his left. He started to move her as a woman started to sing:
Lying in my bed I hear the clock tick,
And think of you
She put her left hand on his shoulder and followed him.
Caught up in circles confusion --
Is nothing new
They moved slowly and they stumbled, but wasn't that how it was supposed to be?
Flashback -- warm nights --
Almost left behind
Suitcase of memories,
Time after --
Jane snorted.
Sometimes you picture me --
I'm walking too far ahead
"What?" asked Tom, trying to turn them in a circle.
You're calling to me, I can't hear
What you've said -
She looked at him, "I just -- nothing."
"No," He looked at her, "what?"
Then you say -- go slow --
I fall behind --
The second hand unwinds
"Just," she paused for a second before she said, "thanks."
"You're welcome," he said, leaning his face toward hers.
They kissed.
If you're lost you can look -- and you will find me
Time after time
If you fall I will catch you -- I'll be waiting
Time after time
She snorted again, breaking the kiss.
"What?" he asked again, this time incredulous.
"The song," she said, looking away from him. "Could you have chosen a more cheesy song to play?"
"Hey, you’re the one who wanted a prom. What kind of music do you think they play?"
"So, you were going for authenticity?"
"Sure"
"I can tell," she said, fingering his tie, "all the girls want to wear a petticoat with black suspenders."
"Well," he said, "I had to take some liberties. You know, to make it our prom."
After my picture fades and darkness has
Turned to gray
Watching through windows -- you're wondering
If I'm O.K.
She closed her eyes and leaned into him, resting her head on his shoulder.
He dropped her right hand and wrapped his left around her waist.
She pretended that their heartbeats beat together.
Secrets stolen from deep inside
The drum beats out of time --
She wrapped her arms tight around his back.
He rested his cheek against hers. She felt warmth radiate from him.
If you're lost you can look -- and you will find me
Time after time
If you fall I will catch you -- I'll be waiting
Time after time
"I feel a little silly," she whispered.
"And it's just the two of us," he whispered back.
You said go slow --
I fall behind
"Glad it's just us," she said.
The second hand unwinds
"Me, too," he said.
If you're lost you can look -- and you will find me
The warmth of his cheek against hers, the warmth of their bodies pressed together, and the warmth of his hand on her back sent a chill up her spine.
Time after time
She smiled and felt an ache in her chest.
If you fall I will catch you -- I'll be waiting
Jane realized that it had been a long time since they'd had such a wonderful moment together.
Time after time
Better than the dinners.
Better than that horse and buggy ride.
Better than sneaking behind the scenes at the museum.
Time after time
She nuzzled into his neck and took a deep breath, smelling the muskiness of the old coat he wore. Smelling him.
Making a memory.
Time after time
The only times she'd felt this good with him were those late nights they spent together, staring into the other's eyes and talking about nothing and everything.
Time after time
She was so happy they had found that again.
Time after time