Jane Air Read online

  “Can you fit them in your pocket?” Jessica grins.

  Kate laughs, “Well. Normal size, but I guess we’re used to these larger-than-life characters and seeing them in person is sort of…disappointing. They’re just so average.”

  Penelope pouts.

  “Well, if you did see who you saw, then we’re all screwed,” I laugh.

  “What do you mean?” Jessica asks while Penelope gets a dreamy look in her eyes, and I realize she completely misunderstood my statement.

  “Come on,” I shake my head as I spear my lettuce leaves with unnecessary force. “Some big actor moving to Midnight? There goes the neighborhood.”

  “It’ll be good for business,” Dory shrugs. “And I think people would get used to it.”

  Christine pushes her grilled asparagus spears across her plate. “It might be nice for him. If he’s moving all the way out here, it’s probably because he wants a different kind of life. Maybe the town will be good to him.”

  “And if he’s so normal,” Penelope casts a withering look towards Kate who responds with her classic What did I do? face. “Most people won’t even notice him.”

  “He’d be good for Jane,” Christine’s words are soft. All eyebrows at the table shoot up as we turn to her.

  She shrugs. “If any of this is true, then he sounds like a perfect match.”

  “How in the world,” I put down my fork and lean towards her, “are David Jacobs and I a perfect match?”

  “Well,” she smooths her hands on the napkin across her lap. “You love to travel, but want to be based here. You study stories and are used to being on-stage in your lectures, having a hundred people stare at you. You always describe yourself as plain, which strikes me as just another word for normal. So, if this normal, well-traveled story-teller has moved right next door, then it seems like…” she trails off, looking at me.

  Jessica nods, “You know, when you put it that way…”

  Penelope shakes her head, “No. If he’s here, I want him for myself.”

  “You can have him,” I laugh.

  “He’s not good enough for you,” Kate leans forward. “You don’t want to get involved with an actor. They’re all nuts.”

  I refill my iced tea from the pitcher on the table, shaking my head. I do love these women, but they’re crazy. Dory, quiet on her side of the table, looks at me.

  “What do you think, hon?” I smile towards her. “Where do you side on this argument? Is he the one for me?”

  “Or me!” Penelope bursts out.

  “Or for Penelope,” I nod towards her, then towards Kate. “Or is he just not good enough for either of us?”

  Dory looks at me, those slate grey eyes seeing so much more than I want her to. It’s terrifying, this power of hers. To see through all my bullshit.

  She opens her mouth and we all lean forward. When Dory speaks, we always listen. “A better question is why you consider this to be such an impossibility.”

  “Uh…” I’m taken aback by the seriousness of her question. “Because of who he is?”

  “And who is he?” she asks, and she’s doing that thing she does. The thing I do, when I’m trying to get a student to figure out the answer for herself. Dory is so much better at it than I am.

  “Didn’t we just go over this?” I laugh and point to Penelope. “Didn’t she just describe the world-saving robot guy?”

  “Cyborg-human super spy,” Jessica offers. Penelope nods in agreement.

  Dory shrugs. “I mean, who is he? That’s a character he played, as part of a job. You don’t even know the man and you’re already writing him off. Maybe he could be good for you.”

  “Yeah,” I laugh and put my napkin on the table. “I’m sure hot movie stars are super interested in women like me.”

  “Beautiful, brilliant, self-made women? He’s not interested in someone like that?” There are those damn eyes again, Dory’s quiet certainty. She’s wasted at the cafe. Her real skills are interrogation.

  Christine smiles, that gentle smile I’ve seen her give to patients in hospitals and to pet owners in the veterinary clinic, or wherever else she goes to spread her pixie mix of goodness and light. “You never want to see yourself as beautiful or brilliant or interesting. So, it doesn’t matter who the man is. You’d still never believe he’d be interested.”

  Before I can say anything, Jessica interrupts. “It’s true, you know. I don’t say anything, because it’s not my business, but you view yourself as some kind of spinster hobbit and no one else does.”

  “Look,” now Kate, ever the strategist, joins in. “It’s not about the guy. It’s about the attitude. This whole ‘I’m too ugly to date’ vibe you’ve got going on is a buzz kill. And, frankly, none of us knows where it’s coming from.”

  “I do not consider myself ‘too ugly to date!’” I feel cornered and wonder if my back will instinctively arch like a cat’s.

  “Whatever,” Kate waves her hand in the air. “Too ugly. Too boring. Too plain. I don’t know what you’re telling yourself, but you’ve definitely got a story running through that giant brain of yours and no one else agrees with it except you.”

  “You are immensely dateable,” Jessica adds. Everyone at the table nods.

  I open my mouth, a smart remark, maybe a pun, about to spill forth when I see the look in my friends’ eyes. Interest. Seriousness. Even a hint of sadness. The air feels heavy, as if our joking has slipped away from us, leaving something raw and vulnerable in its wake.

  Even though she isn’t here, I hear my mother’s voice.

  Women like us.

  I laugh loudly, the sound a bit forced, and raise both my arms, “You’re right. He won’t be able to help himself. Let’s plan on a June wedding.”

  Christine laughs and raises her glass. Everyone cheers and I saw my asparagus in half, the knife grating against the plate.

  By the time my friends leave, I know I need to think. Hugging them goodbye, reminding Jessica it’s her turn to host next week, I shut the door and close my eyes. Dory’s question, her remark rather, about my assumption that an attractive man could never find me attractive lingers in the air, the way uncomfortable truths often do.

  Why do I find it so hard to believe? Not David Jacobs, obviously. He’s way out of my league. But any man.

  In the past, whenever they showed attention to me I laughed it off.

  He’s just a friend.

  He’s just horny.

  Even when I was dating someone, I always felt like they were with me for my personality, for my brain and my friendship, and just had to accept my body as the package everything else came in.

  God.

  Have I…felt bad for every man who’s ever dated me? Do I actually think that if they want my clever wit then they have to put up with my face?

  It’s a depressing thought.

  But wait a minute. I push myself away from my door and walk across the room to my balcony. Kate and Jessica have cleared the table. Christine brought the plates to the sink. Dory washed them. Penelope folded my dish towel into a swan. There is nothing more for me to do, except stare out over the woods behind my house and brood.

  I’ve had sex. At the ripe old age of 36, I have slept with several men. Enough to know where everything goes. Enough to know what works and what doesn’t.

  And it’s fine.

  It’s fine.

  It’s…ok.

  It could be better.

  Lights off help. Trust helps. Vibrators help. But honestly? I have more fun by myself.

  Nothing against men. They’re great.

  But they can be…distracting.

  Let’s be real. Orgasms are a lot of work. You have to focus! I can’t focus on him and on me and on whether or not the neighbors can hear us and still think about ridiculously sexy movie stars and find my clitoris all while he’s got me bent in half like a pretzel, shifting between porn poses.

  And keeping my stomach sucked in the whole time? Forget it!

  I
like sex. It’s fun.

  But to climax I need to concentrate. Quiet. Alone. With a toy or without. The secret is my own mind. Make believe. Focus on me. I am a cerebral being, an intellectual. It stands to reason that I prefer intellectual, imaginative sex to actual, physical sex.

  Or so I thought.

  But maybe Dory’s right.

  Maybe it has nothing to do with my brainpower. Maybe it’s because I just don’t have the self-esteem to relax with an audience. Maybe I’m so focused on what my thighs look like, I don’t focus on who’s between them. Or what he’s doing.

  God.

  What a thought.

  So much for blaming bad sex on the guys.

  The night is warm, the air heavy and thick on the balcony, and I know what I need. Grabbing my towel off the back of my bathroom door, I head out of the house, locking my door and tucking the key below the mat by the front porch.

  It’s time to blow off some steam.

  2

  David

  I can hear my fucking footsteps. That’s when you know you need furniture. When your own footsteps are so loud, you’re convinced you’ll wake the neighbors.

  If I had neighbors, that is.

  Last year, this was such a good idea. A change of pace. A place to relax. To get a grip. To reassess.

  But Jesus. You’d think I’d buy a couch.

  Then again, if I wanted to find myself, I guess it’s easiest to do that in an empty room.

  Sixteen empty rooms, actually.

  My agent found the house. Last year, when we were in Boston for the Netflix show. Transitioning from film to streaming was a strategic business decision, a weird shift after a decade-long contract in action movies.

  Don’t get me wrong. Playing super spies and super heroes is great. Great money, great fame, great fans.

  But it’s tiring. I had three houses by the time I finished those movies, and I hadn’t been inside any of them in over two years. People saw me on the street and shouted the character’s name. Sleeping in hotels, sleeping with strangers, nights in random bars, mornings in random gyms. Weekends on airplanes, weeknights at press conferences. Getting fitted for a suit, getting prepped for an interview. Answering the same questions. All. The. Time.

  When a new opportunity came along I jumped. Do something different. Play a different role. Historical, even. Nothing to do with aliens or spandex or intergalactic terrorists. Anything to avoid transcontinental flights twice a week. Anything that was a little bit new, a little bit different.

  And maybe something else. Maybe I was looking for…something real. A place to put down roots. To remember my own name. My own interests. To figure out who I am, after I’ve pretended to be someone else in sequel after sequel after sequel.

  Who the fuck am I?

  And what the fuck do I want?

  It’s hard to explain to people. It’s hard to explain to yourself. You spend your life, your childhood planning what you want, where you’ll live, what you’ll do. You spend your teens and twenties working towards that, head down, focused. Audition after audition. Day shift at the restaurant, followed by acting class, followed by more auditions. A few commercials, a pilot, a couple of indie films.

  And then you break. You go from Blonde man in cab or Audition #614 to THE Agent Carson, title character and leading man. Your name is on billboards. Your face is on posters. Magazines line up years in advance to ask you questions about which toothpaste you use. People who couldn’t remember your name now remember your second cousin’s birthday.

  And don’t forget the money. There’s plenty of that.

  For a while, you think you have everything.

  But one day, one random day, when you’re in a club, in the super private section, behind the VIP section, behind the Premier section, one day you wonder if you have anything.

  Once you get all the things you dreamed of, the money, the fame, the sex, the cars, once you have it all, you feel…

  Empty.

  And you don’t know how to feel less empty.

  How do you fill yourself when you’ve already filled yourself with everything? What do you fill yourself with?

  More money. More fame. More sex. More cars.

  Still empty.

  Maybe that’s why you end up here. In an empty house. In a tiny town. Barefoot and staring out of windows.

  One weekend, during the Boston shoot, my agent and I came up here. Driving around, getting out of the city, Angelo, my tough-as-nails representation who has been with me since my first commercial, was scouting real estate with the director and wanted to check out this small town, a few hours north of the city, near a college and a couple of lakes. The director was planning a family drama and wanted a “place in the country.” She was deciding between waterfront and the woods. We had a few places we were going to see, I was just along for the ride. We stopped by this house first.

  It was bigger than she wanted, she said. Too far back from the road. It came with several acres of forest and she’d have trouble getting the crews in and around the house for panorama shots.

  She liked the kitchen, and while she was in it, taking measurements and photos, Angelo and I stood outside. I enjoyed the sound of the birds. He was on his phone. Angelo never threatened anyone, despite knowing where all the bodies in Hollywood are buried. The more softly he spoke, the more dangerous he was. That day, as I recall, he was speaking very softly.

  The director didn’t like the house all that much. She came out at one point and dragged us in, asking our opinions. Exterior shots would work except around the back.

  Because of “that space.”

  “That space” was massive room in the back of the house, open concept and three stories tall. One huge chandelier hanging from the ceiling. Nothing on the walls. Nothing on the floors. A giant fireplace on one end of the room and floor to ceiling windows against the back, overlooking the woods.

  “What the hell do we do with this?” She had asked aloud, clearly wondering what sort of scene would be filmed in here.

  “What kind of room is this?” I had asked, genuinely confused. My colleagues, some even more successful than me, had houses beyond anything you could imagine. Underground pools. Thirty lane bowling alleys. Private islands filled with endangered animals. Showers big enough for the most ambitious orgy. Trust me. I’ve seen some houses.

  But this?

  The real estate agent had shrugged, “It’s an open design. The original owners left before they finished it. You could do anything in here.” She had paused, looking up towards the monstrous chandelier, something straight out of Phantom of the Opera. “It would be great for parties.”

  Angelo had laughed at that, probably imagining what kind of party wanted a 50 foot window for perverts to spy through.

  Neither of them liked the house, but I did.

  So I bought it, without telling anyone. Signed the contract after months of negotiating. Arranged through my team to purchase it under a title company, so my name wouldn’t be attached. I wasn’t sure how to move furniture, since the paparazzi are always camped out in front of my LA estate, and moving vans would tip them off. In my experience, photographers will do just about anything for a shot. If I didn’t want them to follow me across the country, I had to do everything in secret. So I moved with nothing. A few suitcases, like any other trip. But otherwise left the California house untouched. Paparazzi followed me to the airport. Driver dropped me off. No one knows I’m here.

  Jesus. What a ridiculous hassle. Can’t a man just buy a house?

  Angelo was pissed.

  “How will I reach you if you’re not in LA?”

  “How were you planning on reaching me when you weren’t in LA?”

  While he never toasted my departure, he was smart enough to know it was inevitable.

  “I’ll be in touch,” he had said, somewhat ominously.

  And now I’m here.

  Alone.

  One nice surprise, though, there is a lake. Well, a pond. Down from
the lawn, walking across an old dirt road that no one uses anymore, in a forest of trees on the property. Quiet, still. Beautiful spot. You wouldn’t even know it’s there unless you went looking for it. Can’t see the road or the house from it. Only the sound of crickets and the rustling of underbrush. An occasional groundhog.

  I decide to head out. The sun’s going down and the thought of another night on my California King mattress, the one thing I had delivered, makes my skin itch. Slipping on sneakers I head toward the back door.

  The night is warm, more humid than the West Coast. The ground is soft beneath my feet, absorbing the sound of my movement. My steps are so quiet I can hear my own breath.

  It’s nice to be away from the city. The lights and the noise. The constant attention. The honking of cars at red lights when they realize who they’re next to. Phones and cameras in my face. Screaming. I started out as a theater kid. How did I end up head to toe in spandex, battling space aliens, shilling Japanese coffee and Chinese whiskey, and wearing $12,000 suits?

  I can smell the pond before I see it. The damp, mossy smell. There are sounds out here, sounds I am not familiar with. The occasional splash of a frog or hoot of an owl. It’s so different. I feel like I am back to myself. Like I can strip away what everyone thinks of me, expects of me, wants of me, and listen to myself.

  Listen to the earth.

  Listen to…a naked woman.

  Well, that’s unexpected.

  Before I think to swear at the hassle of another restraining order, of people who can’t imagine how disconcerting it might be to have a naked stranger on their property, I can’t help but notice her shape, pale and soft and perfect, skin glowing beneath the moonlight. The curves of her hips make my mouth water as she stretches out a leg, sliding her body toe first off a rock and into the water. Brown hair hangs over her face and suddenly she is submerged, fabulous round ass rising up as her face and back disappear, white thighs following, then just the tips of her toes before she lifts herself, hair flinging back and breasts, god those breasts, up and out of the water.