Early Morning Riser Page 2

  Jane stirred her drink thoughtfully, and they moved on to other subjects.

  This was not the night Jane got drunk enough to ask Freida if it was true she hadn’t ever had sex with anyone, not even a drunk migrant worker, but Jane felt strongly that such a night was in her future. It was as inevitable as sunrise.

  * * *

  —

  People had warned Jane about how hard winters were in Northern Michigan, but she hadn’t paid much attention. (It had been April when she interviewed; the air had smelled fresh and warm and full of promise.) And even now, as the days shortened rapidly and the trees shook their branches free of leaves, she scarcely paid attention. She was too busy.

  Duncan slept at her house every night and drove her to school every morning in his rusty white furniture-delivery van. Jane kissed him good-bye and tumbled out the passenger side, laughing—half the time, her skirt would catch on a wire poking through the upholstery and the schoolyard would get a view of her long legs in black tights—and then she’d be on the sidewalk, waving after him.

  She was getting to know her students. Tad Berman had turned out to be something of a math whiz, although he still didn’t know the months of the year. Scott Stafford, who struggled with reading and writing and spelling—changing his answers so many times there were holes in the paper—lost all his awkwardness at recess and swung through the bars of the climbing structure like a boy made of molten steel. Sierra Sawicki permitted Mariah Visser to sit next to her during lunch, an act akin to Yitzhak Rabin shaking hands with Yasser Arafat. Jenna Leblanc, whose father was a veterinarian, correctly diagnosed Gregory Dorsey’s hand, foot, and mouth disease.

  Jane moved among them, smiling and serene, amazed that no one could see that her lips were slightly swollen from Duncan’s kisses, that she functioned on five hours of sleep, that her sweet and generous nature sprang from her own happiness.

  Afternoon would come, and Duncan would be waiting in his van at the curb. She ran out of her classroom in a hurry, always trailing a scarf or a cardigan sleeve, and climbed in beside him.

  Hard winter? Who could worry about such a thing?

  * * *

  —

  Jane had fallen in love with the thrift store. Of course, it wasn’t perfect—love never is—and you had to close your eyes to the dusty baby bottles and the used Tupperware and the awful paperbacks swollen from someone else’s trip to the beach. But Jane loved the other things—the intricate dessert glasses and chunky cookie jars and patchwork quilts and out-of-date leather jackets and sweatshirts so soft and faded that looking at them made you crave sherbet.

  She took Duncan to the thrift store because it seemed like a place he would like, full of potential. But Duncan spent the whole time sitting on a flea-ridden chair near the front of the store, talking to the man behind the cash register about spin fishing, and paging through a big cardboard box of Playboys dating back at least fifteen years. The Playboys weren’t for sale, they were just there to be looked at—it was another thing you had to close your eyes to.

  “I don’t understand the purpose of all those Playboys,” Jane said when they were back on the street.

  “What’s not to understand?” Duncan asked.

  “Well, isn’t it something you like to look at alone, in your bedroom, with the curtains shut, at midnight?” she asked. “Not out in public at the thrift store?”

  “Oh, either way is pretty nice,” Duncan said, and took her hand.

  * * *

  —

  Now that Jane had a boyfriend, she wanted to have a dinner party. She imagined that she would wear something vintage—velvet lounging pajamas if she could find them—and later everyone would say, That Jane is such a good match for Duncan, so poised and sophisticated. She would serve pot roast with carrots and mashed potatoes, and later everyone would say, Such a simple meal, but Jane made it seem so elegant. She would light dozens of votive candles and drape red scarves over the lamps so the house would have a warm, cozy atmosphere, and later everyone would say, Jane was glowing and has the loveliest home. It did eventually occur to her that the only part of the dinner party she was looking forward to was one that happened after everyone had gone home, and that she wouldn’t, in fact, be around for it, but by then the invitations had gone out.

  In addition to Duncan, she invited Freida, the Marshalls from next door, and her ophthalmologist, Dr. Elgin, and his wife, who lived in Petoskey. She also told Duncan to invite Jimmy Jellico—the man who helped him out at his workshop.

  Duncan was the first person to arrive, having been there since the night before. He put out the chips and dip and a bowl of nuts in the living room while Jane made Bellinis in the kitchen. She wanted to serve her own signature cocktail so that later everyone would say—would say—well, they’d say something Jane could no longer remember wanting them to say as she struggled to puree canned peaches without spattering juice all over her outfit. She had been unable to find lounging pajamas. Instead, she wore a lace blouse and a long patchwork skirt from the thrift store. Duncan had told her she looked like a pretty farmer, which wasn’t quite what she’d had in mind.

  The Marshalls were the first to arrive—Jane actually heard them leave their own house next door a moment before they rang the bell. They were a look-alike couple in their late forties, both with short brown gray-flecked hair and eyeglasses.

  Almost as soon as they were seated, with Bellinis in hand, Mr. Marshall said to Jane, “I see you bought new patio furniture.”

  “Yes,” Jane said, smiling, “I—”

  “And a new coffee table.” His look was easy to read: she was spending too much.

  “I got them both from the thrift store,” Jane said uncomfortably. “I buy basically everything at the thrift store now.”

  Mr. Marshall looked startled. “What? Even underwear?”

  “No,” Jane said. “But I did buy sheets there, so I suppose I’m only one step away from buying underwear.”

  “Me, I buy underwear new.” Mr. Marshall turned to his wife. “Imagine buying used underwear.”

  Mrs. Marshall seemed more interested in talking to Duncan. “Might I inquire as to when you’re planning to refinish my dining room chairs?” she asked him. “You’ve had six of them for four months now.”

  “I’ve had four of them for six months—that would be an accurate statement,” Duncan said, leaning forward from his place on the couch for more onion dip.

  “Well, see, you’ve had them for so long I’ve forgotten how many I even had,” Mrs. Marshall said, and Duncan gave an admiring grunt, the kind of sound he made when someone sank a free throw during a basketball game.

  The doorbell rang again, and Jane leapt from her chair so eagerly that she nearly tripped on the hem of her long skirt.

  It was Freida, her mandolin bag over her shoulder, and she had brought Jimmy Jellico.

  Jimmy was a slight young man with rumpled brown hair and a faintly clumsy gait. He looked to be about twenty, although Jane knew from Duncan that he was in his late thirties. He had been described to Jane by various people as “slow learning,” and she could see immediately what they meant. His expression was slightly vacant, even when he was smiling. She doubted that he was significantly intellectually disabled—more likely he had an IQ below eighty, and growing up in such a small town, he hadn’t received the early intervention that might have helped him compensate. He was fresh-faced and lightly freckled, and the skin between his eyebrows was utterly smooth, as though he’d never had a worried thought in his life. He came close to being handsome, but he lacked the intellectual maturity that would have made him attractively boyish; he had stalled out at sweetly childish instead.

  She shook Jimmy’s hand, and gave Freida a hug, and then Dr. Elgin and his wife arrived. Dr. Elgin was talkative and outgoing—which was why Jane had invited him—but his wife had the politely bewildered air of some
one who has not quite figured out the evening’s agenda. Jane introduced everyone and excused herself to the kitchen to make fresh Bellinis.

  She carried the tray of drinks into the living room just as Dr. Elgin said, “Jane, I believe your lamp is about to catch on fire.”

  Jane had to set down the tray in a hurry and rush over to yank the red silk scarf off the table lamp where it was, indeed, beginning to smolder. She opened the windows so the smoke detector wouldn’t go off and fanned the air with the scarf. “Please go ahead and enjoy your drinks,” she said to her guests, and tried to throw the ruined scarf out the window without anyone noticing.

  She turned back to the room just as Jimmy gave a startled yelp. She had put cute little candy-striped glass cocktail stirrers in everyone’s drinks, and Jimmy had thought they were real candy canes and bitten his in half.

  “Goodness, I feel dreadful,” Jane said to everyone while Jimmy was in the bathroom, spitting out blood and shards of glass. “Should we take him to the ER?”

  “Oh, he’ll be fine,” Duncan assured her. “He didn’t go to the ER that time he accidentally locked himself in the finishing room and inhaled varnish fumes all night.”

  That didn’t seem like the soundest piece of logic to Jane, but Jimmy came back into the room at that moment and said, “I’m okay, really, Jane. I’ll just keep this napkin in there to stop the bleeding.”

  So Jimmy spent the rest of the evening with a white cloth napkin poking out of his mouth, and looked vaguely like a trout.

  The pot roast was delicious, but the platter Jane served the carrots on was slightly too small and every time someone picked it up carrots rolled all over the place. The mashed potatoes were too thick and people had trouble even getting the serving spoon out of the dish. She had made raisin bread rolls but evidently she hadn’t mixed the dough thoroughly enough and some of the rolls had only two raisins, giving them the disturbing appearance of staring mice.

  It had seemed even before dinner that Mrs. Elgin had wanted to say something, and finally she laid down her fork and said to Duncan, “I’m sorry, but how is it possible that you don’t remember having sex with me after a Grateful Dead concert in nineteen ninety-four?”

  Dr. Elgin was struggling to open a bottle of prosecco, and at that moment his thumb slipped and the cork popped off with a surprised-sounding ping.

  Duncan looked up from his plate. “I went to thirteen Grateful Dead concerts in nineteen ninety-four. Can you be more specific?”

  There was a little pause, and then Mr. Marshall commented that you can always tell the economy is bad when people serve pot roast at dinner parties. Mrs. Marshall told Dr. Elgin about her mother’s cataract surgery. Jimmy choked on his napkin.

  By the time Freida drank another two glasses of prosecco and got out her mandolin and made everyone sing “I’m Gonna Eat at the Welcome Table,” Jane was actually grateful.

  * * *

  —

  Jane and Duncan were sitting in Duncan’s van outside Kilwins ice cream store one day the next week when a large woman knocked on the driver’s-side window. Duncan rolled it down, and the woman said, “I believe your left taillight is broken.”

  “I know that,” Duncan replied, unperturbed. “I let Jimmy back the van around the lumberyard.”

  “Oh, for heaven’s sake,” said the woman, as though anyone with any sense would know better than to let Jimmy drive anywhere. (Which was sort of true, Jane supposed.)

  The woman glanced across at Jane, and it seemed her look was disapproving. Jane was eating a chocolate ice cream cone, and she felt like a child who’d knowingly gotten into the van of a pedophile.

  “You could get a ticket driving around like that,” the woman said to Duncan.

  Duncan sighed and rubbed the back of his neck. “I’ll take care of it, Aggie.”

  Aggie! This was Aggie! Jane looked more closely at the woman and saw that it wasn’t accurate to say she was large. She had a wide face, which automatically made you assume she had a wide body, too, but in fact, her figure was exceptional, lush and buxom, and even more distressing, she had a hearty, healthy, milkmaid sexiness about her. Her hair was pale and wavy and pulled back casually, and the neckline of her peasant blouse showed a good deal of creamy-skinned cleavage.

  “Perhaps you could introduce me to your friend, Duncan,” Aggie said pointedly.

  “Aggie, this is Jane,” Duncan said. “Jane, this is Aggie.”

  “Hello,” Jane said.

  “Hello.” Aggie shaded her eyes. “You must be the girl who bought the Kellers’ place.”

  Jane nodded. “Yes—”

  “It’s such a shame they got divorced and moved downstate,” Aggie said.

  “I didn’t actually know them.” Jane fought the urge to sink lower in her seat. “I only bought their house.”

  Aggie made a noncommittal sound. Jane remembered then that Aggie was a real estate agent, and she wondered if that accounted for her piercing, evaluating look—all that assessing of people and their houses.

  “Is there something else we can help you with, Aggie?” Duncan asked.

  Aggie looked away from Jane and said to Duncan, “It seems the motor on our leaf blower has frozen up, and I wondered if you could come take a look at it.”

  “Have you been running it on straight gasoline?” Duncan asked. “Because you’re supposed to use a gas-and-oil mixture. Have Gary check the spark plugs.”

  Aggie frowned. “You know Gary doesn’t hold with leaf blowers.”

  What did that mean? That Gary didn’t approve of leaf blowers, or didn’t believe in them, or somehow didn’t get along with them? Jane wanted to ask, but her ice cream cone was melting, so she had to keep licking it. She felt like a dog drinking from a water bowl while its owners talked over her head.

  “I can stop by your place on Tuesday, I guess,” Duncan said. “Now, you better get back to Gary before he gets any more horizontal over there.”

  They all glanced toward the sidewalk, where a man sitting on a bench was indeed getting more horizontal by the minute—his legs were stretched out before him, and he’d slumped down until his head rested against the back of the bench. He was a thin, balding man with a slightly concave chest. Jane could only stare in disbelief: Aggie had left Duncan for him?

  Aggie made an annoyed sound and marched off toward the bench.

  Jane bit a chunk off her cone. “So that was Aggie.”

  “Yup,” Duncan said. Then he added unnecessarily, “She has some control issues.”

  “I think she’s still in love with you,” Jane said. She could not have explained why she said that, why she half thought it. Except that maybe Aggie wasn’t the only one with sharp instincts.

  Duncan shook his head. “Oh, no. The last time we slept together was at least five or six years ago.”

  “The last time?” Jane stared at him. “You mean you’ve slept with Aggie since she remarried?”

  Duncan looked uncomfortable. “Yes, but it didn’t mean anything.”

  “It always means something,” Jane said. And that was true. It might not mean the same thing to both people, but it always meant something.

  “We don’t do it anymore,” Duncan said. “Now I really do just mow the lawn when I go over there.”

  Jane knew it shouldn’t matter—it was history now. It had all happened before Jane had met Duncan, before she had even moved to town. But still her heart felt like a sponge you find forgotten under the sink: wrinkled and stiff and squeezed dry.

  “Your ice cream cone is melting all over your hand,” Duncan said gently.

  * * *

  —

  In mid-November, Jane had parent-teacher conferences, and even though most of the parents of her students were concerned and loving and valued education, she was still anxious. All parents want to hear good things about their childr
en, but sometimes you had to say bad things. If you said the bad things too subtly, the parents didn’t believe you. If you said the bad things too baldly, the parents got upset. Actually, they often didn’t believe you anyway and then they got upset, too. It was like having an intervention for an alcoholic every twenty minutes for an entire working day.

  Duncan spent the whole of that day at school with Jane. Oh, Jane knew that he talked a little fly-fishing with the assistant principal, and that he tortured Freida by calling and pretending to be someone interested in private mandolin lessons, but mainly he was there for her.

  He came to Jane’s classroom between every conference and massaged her shoulders. For lunch he brought her a sandwich with sliced turkey two inches thick, and a bunch of daisies. He fixed the squeak on her swivel chair, and reattached the whiteboard tray to the wall, and stood on Jane’s desk and used the pointer to retrieve a banana from on top of the fluorescent lights where someone had thrown it.

  Another stressful element of parent-teacher conferences was that sometimes Jane got a little insight into her students’ lives that she’d rather not have.

  Like when Crystal Orr’s father asked what grade this was, and when Jane told him second grade, he said, “Wow, Crystal’s in second already?”

  Or when Seth Dorsey’s mother asked what would happen if, hypothetically, a parent did a student’s math homework. Jane told her that parents who did their children’s homework were preventing their children from learning. “What would happen, though?” Seth’s mother asked. Jane said if it became a regular thing, she would have to involve the principal. “What if you couldn’t prove it, though?” Seth’s mother continued. “What if the child denied it?”