It was the next day, late morning at Fortnum’s. The store would be closing in an hour so we could all get ready to go to Tex and Nancy’s wedding. But Jet, Indy and I were taking off in thirty minutes to hit the mall to buy dresses (and probably shoes).
So I didn’t have a lot of time.
I found her in the way back room, beyond the middle room with its table filled with crates, crates that were filled with vinyl.
She was shelving books in Women’s Studies.
Tall, extremely thin, dark hair that was graying and she left it at that.
Jane.
“Hey,” I called and she jumped.
Then she turned to me. “Hey, Ally.”
I got close and asked, “You going to Tex’s thing?”
“Yes,” she answered.
“Going to Blanca’s after?” I asked.
“For a little while.”
This meant she’d show her face, leave a present and get the hell out of there.
Let’s just say Jane wasn’t social.
“You write those Rock Chick books?” I went on conversationally, and her eyes went huge.
She took a step back.
Fuck. My gut feeling was right.
She did.
Holy crap.
I followed her. She took another step back and we kept going, but as we did it occurred to me she would think I was on the attack. So I reached out, grabbed her hand and held it just as her shoulder hit a shelf.
“It’s okay,” I whispered.
“It’s… okay?” she asked incredulously.
I nodded. “I’m not mad.”
“You’re… not?”
I shook my head. “I’m not. But, if I’m gonna have your back, I gotta know why you wrote them and why you didn’t tell anyone you did.”
“You’re going to have my back?”
This was going way too slowly. I had to speed things up.
I squeezed her hand. “Yeah, Jane. I’m gonna have your back. But you gotta talk to me. We don’t have a lot of time and we don’t wanna get caught talking.”
“No one ever comes back here,” she spoke mostly the truth.
“Duke does, and he’s here and avoiding me, so that’s a possibility.” I squeezed her hand again. “Chickie, spill.”
She stared at me.
Then she licked her lips and said softly, “You probably know, since I was a little girl, all I ever wanted to do was write.”
When she stopped speaking, I nodded encouragingly and kept hold of her hand.
“Romances,” she went on.
“Okay,” I said.
“I’ve written a lot of books, Ally,” she told me.
“I know, honey,” I replied.
“All romances,” she stated.
“Okay.”
“Well, mostly romances, some mysteries.”
“Right,” I said with waning patience, while struggling with not showing my patience was waning.
Her eyes drifted beyond me and she whispered, “And those romances are the best kind ever.”
I knew what she was seeing in her mind’s eye and I knew she wasn’t wrong about that.
She looked back at me. “Real,” she said quietly.
“Yeah,” I replied.
“But they’re more. They’re about love of all kinds. They’re about family. Family of all kinds.”
She wasn’t wrong about that, either.
I felt a tickle in my throat and repeated, “Yeah.”
“It’s extraordinary. So I had to share it, Ally.” This time her hand squeezed mine and she leaned toward me. “I had to.”
“I feel you,” I whispered.
“But, I did it and the first one is out there and it felt good to do it. To finish one. Then the other. And the next. And let it out there. But putting it out there, something happened.”
“What happened, babe?” I asked.
“People… readers… they say it makes them laugh.” She paused. “Out loud.”
I still hadn’t read it, but we were a pretty wild bunch. I could see that.
I nodded.
“It’s a gift,” she said, her voice funny, deep with emotion. “Watching you all get close, witnessing all that happened making you closer, feeling that love. But it was another gift, maybe even a bigger one, precious, knowing that sharing it makes people I don’t know laugh. It makes them happy. Some of them write to me. They tell me bad things are happening in their lives. But they read my book and it takes them away. It makes them smile. Laugh. Even if for moments, or better yet hours, they can forget the bad, be with us here at Fortnum’s, and laugh.” She tipped her head to the side. “That’s beautiful. So how can it be wrong?”
“It isn’t wrong,” I told her.
“Lee’s angry,” she replied.
He was.
Crap.
“Is that why you didn’t tell anyone you were going to do it? Because you had a feeling they would be angry?”
She nodded.
Jeez. Jane.
I shared space with her nearly every day, I meant something to her, she meant something to me, but I had no idea her well ran this deep.
“The newspapers?” I pressed.
“That was me,” she said quietly. “When stuff was going down with Stella, they called here. I said no comment. Then I sent letters anonymously. The reporter who reported it doesn’t even know it’s me.”
Another mystery solved.
“These readers that write to you. Can that be traced?” I asked and she shook her head.
“They go to somebody else and they send them to me. But I’ve been assured it’s untraceable.”
“Brody’s pretty good, Jane.”
She pressed her lips together.
I studied her. She was worried.
Then I said, “Leave it to me.”
Her brows drew together. “What are you going to do?”
“Nothing, until I have to. Then I’ll take care of it.”
It was her turn to stare at me before she asked, “Why are you helping me?”
I smiled and gave her hand another squeeze before I lifted it up between us and got closer.
“Because, no matter how old we get, we always need to believe in fairytales.”
It was then, Jane smiled back.
Mostly, I knew, because she agreed with me.
* * * * *
“Oh my God, Herb!”
“What?”
“My God!”
“Woman! What?”
“You might wanna leave some for the other guests.”
I took a handful of cashews (Indy’s addition to the party and part of what Herb was gobbling up) and popped a few into my mouth, watching Roxie’s Mom and Dad (and Tex’s sister and brother-in-law), Herb and Trish—in town from Indiana for the big event—fight in Blanca’s backyard.