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Authors: April Lindner

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Jane (3 page)

BOOK: Jane
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A recent
People
profile brought the story up to date. Rathburn had reunited the band to record another album — his “big comeback,” the article called it. His story was a bit sad, really, or so it seemed to me. All that success hadn’t kept him from having to woo the public all over again.

The computer lab closed at midnight. I made my way across campus, sticking to the well-lit paths, and slipped into the dorm and past the downstairs lounge, where I could hear laughter and music. I felt exhausted and sorry I had stayed up so late poring over celebrity gossip like an obsessed fan. I had to catch an early train in the morning. But after I brushed my teeth, pulled on my nightgown, and climbed into bed, my eyes refused to shut. I stared at the thin bands of street light playing around the edges of my window shade and tried to silence the voices in my head.

Of all the jobs I could have been chosen for, this one seemed a peculiarly bad fit. Unlike most people, I wasn’t drawn to glamour and excitement; quite the opposite. I just wanted regular work and a steady paycheck. I’d seen what striving after fame and admiration could do to a person. My older sister, Jenna, had acted as a child. She was featured in a few local commercials and had some roles in community theater. After college she went off to New York City to pursue what she loftily referred to as
“my career,”
but after some disappointments — a lot of rejection and then a sizable role in a TV pilot that didn’t get picked up — she had gotten engaged to an investment banker and moved into his condo in Tribeca. Jenna and I hadn’t spoken since our parents’ funeral, but at the lunch afterward, she kept leaving the restaurant to smoke, winced almost imperceptibly whenever her fiancé spoke, and
mentioned — twice — that she was just biding her time until the right opportunity came along. Jenna would have jumped at the chance I was being given to live in a mansion among the rich and famous. She’d be making plans to seduce and marry one of the rock star’s wealthy friends, if not the man himself. If she could see me now, panicking in the dark, she’d roll her eyes and call me anal-retentive and prissy.

The pay is good,
I consoled myself. In fact, the amount Julie Draper had quoted me was much better than I’d hoped for. I’d be able to live very cheaply and save almost all of my earnings. If I could just last a year, I might even be able to go back to school, although probably not to Sarah Lawrence. Still, I would be able to earn my degree. My time in the alternate universe of coke-snorting rock stars and their strung-out wives and girlfriends would be brief.

In the meantime, I’d get by, doing exactly what I’d solemnly promised Julie Draper I would do before I signed a pile of legal documents relinquishing the right to sue her agency or Nico Rathburn if anything should go wrong: I would behave with absolute professionalism no matter what debauchery went on around me. I would stay as anonymous as possible, do my job, and blend in with the furniture. That should be easy. I’d never been the kind of person people notice.

The ride to Penn Station was packed with commuters; I got more than a few glares from men and women stuck behind me as I struggled to hoist my suitcases into the overhead rack. The outbound train to Connecticut was emptier; I chose a window seat so
I could get a good look at the countryside where I would be living. Unlike my classmates, many of whom had spent semesters abroad and backpacked across Europe in the summer, I had never traveled much. My sister’s many auditions and occasional acting jobs had kept us close to our home just outside Philadelphia most summers, and my parents had never cared for traveling anyway. “We have everything we need right here,” my father would say. “We’re two hours from New York, two hours from Baltimore, two hours from the mountains, two hours from the shore. We’re right in the middle of everything.” We never went to any of those places, though.

Of course, there were school field trips to the zoo and to the natural history museum and out to Amish country. And my sister’s auditions often brought us into Center City Philadelphia after school. My mother would drive us in her Volvo, her hands tightly gripping the steering wheel. Once at our destination she would herd us nervously through the parking lot, so quickly that I never got a chance to look around. In the elevator, Jenna would fret about the wrinkles in her dress from sitting so long in the car, while Mom would check Jenna’s makeup and smooth down any flyaways in her curly auburn hair.

After Jenna and Mom were called into the office, I would read in the waiting room, losing myself in that day’s book. Jenna’s appointments usually took a few minutes or half an hour, but whenever she came out was too soon. Sometimes she would be snippy, dissatisfied with her dress or hair. “I’ll never get jobs if I don’t have the right clothes,” she’d complain. Other times, she’d be happy. “I nailed it, Mom, didn’t I? Don’t you think they liked me?”
she’d say, and our mother would spend the whole ride home reassuring Jenna of her beauty, poise, and talent.

“Jenna got the looks and the personality,” I once heard Mom whisper to Dad over a six o’clock cocktail; she must have thought I was in the back room watching cartoons instead of behind the couch, playing spy. “Nature doesn’t play fair.”

“Jane’s good-looking enough,” Dad had responded in a voice meant to be consoling. “She’s shy, but she’ll come out of her shell. She’ll learn to compensate.”

“You think so?” The ice clinked and sizzled in Mom’s glass. “She’s so intense and serious. Not a very appealing personality. You really think she’ll grow out of it?”

I can’t remember my father’s reply or whether or not they caught me eavesdropping, but I do remember looking up
compensate
in the dictionary and being disappointed by the definition. I had hoped it would mean something like “blossom” or “grow up to surprise us with her poise and beauty.” I remember wishing on first stars and stray eyelashes for my wispy brown hair to grow thick and shiny so that Mom might decide I was pretty after all.

While the train halted in the tunnel for a signal, I checked my reflection in the dark glass. In high school, I had taught myself to do my hair so that it was at least neat — straight, parted down the middle, held in place by a French braid. Like Jenna, I was thin; how often had my suitemates marveled at my ability to eat heartily without gaining weight? Unlike Jenna, I’d never grown much in the way of breasts. She got the long legs too and stood a whole head above me. My nose was straight, my teeth okay, my mouth decently shaped but a bit thin in the lips. I’d inherited my father’s
green eyes, not the long-lashed, ice-blue ones nature had given my mother and sister. In my white oxford blouse, I looked perfectly average, the opposite of flashy.

At the sight of my reflection in the train window, I felt a familiar deflation. I didn’t expend a lot of effort on my looks; I liked to think I had better things to do with my time than shop for lip gloss and clothes. In fact, I didn’t think about my appearance much, usually. Still, what girl doesn’t want to be pretty? At the movies, I’d identify with the inevitably gorgeous heroine and walk out believing myself a member of her species — willowy, glossy haired, graceful. Then, hurrying home, I’d catch my reflection in a shopwindow and be brought abruptly back to reality.

The train chugged to a start, daylight mercifully erasing my image. The morning had turned out crisp and nearly cloudless, a good day for a fresh start. I tried to settle back in my seat, to relax and collect myself.
Calm, cool, capable,
I silently repeated to myself.
That’s what I’m going to be. Calm, cool, capable
.

The ride passed too quickly. Before I felt remotely ready, the train was pulling into Old Saybrook station. I hurried to lug my bags out before the doors shut. As the agency had told me, a driver stood waiting, holding up a small cardboard sign with my name on it. Tall and leather-skinned with a full head of white hair, he nodded briskly when I walked up.

“I’m Jane Moore,” I said unnecessarily, holding out my hand, but he had already bent to gather up my bags.

“Nice to meet you, Miss Moore.” Had anyone ever called me that before?

“Oh, please, call me Jane.” He gestured for me to walk ahead of him, though of course I had no idea where we were going.

At the curb stood a black Range Rover; he opened the back door and motioned me in. “I’m Benjamin.”

Though I would have preferred to sit in front with him, I complied. He started up the car, and we made small talk about the landscape and the weather for a while. There were so many questions I wanted to ask: Was my new employer temperamental? Had he really sobered up? And what about Madeline, his daughter? Was she spoiled to death or overlooked by her career-driven father? Or both? Or neither? Was the house furnished in leopard skin? Would there be wild parties? But all of my inquiries would have sounded rude. Besides, I would have my answers soon enough. We rode most of the way in silence.

I suppose I shouldn’t have been surprised when we reached a tall green-painted iron fence next to a guardhouse; the gate swung open as we drove slowly up, and a man in uniform leaned out, waving us in. The mansion loomed at the top of a hill, ornate and Tudor-style, with a massive turret and an imposing arch leading to the front entryway. Around it spread the widest, greenest lawn I had ever seen, and down the hill, a pair of swans bobbed on a small sparkling pond. Benjamin led me to the front door.

“I’ll see to it your bags are put in your room,” he said, and disappeared before I could thank him.

I inhaled as deeply as I could and rang the doorbell. A woman answered it — trim, high cheekboned, fortyish, in a simple royal blue dress. A pair of gold-rimmed glasses hung around her neck. “You must be Jane.” She shook my hand. “Welcome to Thornfield
Park. I’m Lucia Porth; I manage the estate. You must be tired.” I detected a slight German accent.

“Not really.” I stepped into the foyer and glanced around quickly — marble floors, cathedral ceilings, a wrought-iron chandelier like something out of
Masterpiece Theatre.
“But thank you. For your concern, I mean.”

Lucia chuckled. “Of course. Let’s get you set up in your room, and then I’ll give you a tour. How does that sound?” I followed her past a living room that had an enormous fireplace and polished wood floors, then around a bend. The rooms we walked by were furnished in a surprisingly sedate style — leather sofas, heavy wooden tables, Oriental rugs, walls in varying shades of cream and tobacco — all very dark and masculine, with none of the funky zebra stripes and electric reds and purples I had been expecting. As we hurried along, I caught tantalizing glimpses of art — mostly abstract paintings in glowing jewel-like tones — hung almost offhandedly, over fireplaces and in hallway nooks.

“Was that a real Rothko?” I asked Lucia as we zoomed past a formal dining room, its long mahogany table accommodating a startling number of chairs.

She laughed. “Well, yes. Of course.” She led me up a flight of ruby-red carpeted stairs.

The bedroom at which we finally stopped was large and empty but for a four-post bed, a writing desk, a dresser, and a deep velvet armchair. My suitcases stood against the wall; Benjamin must have taken a shortcut. “Not very homey,” Lucia said, opening the shutters to reveal a view of the pool house below. “You can fix it up however you like.” She showed me a bathroom that would be mine to
use and invited me to freshen up and come downstairs to have lunch with her.

“How will I find you?”

“Press that button.” She pointed to a panel on the wall above the desk. “It’s an intercom. Don’t worry; I haven’t lost a nanny yet.”

Though I’d kept to myself much of the time, I had gotten used to dorm life and sharing a suite and a bathroom with three other girls. In my tiny shoebox of a room, I had been surrounded by other people’s stereos, slamming doors, quarrels, late-night conversations, boyfriends sneaked in after hours. At Thornfield Park, I’d be living at the end of a long hallway, with no companionable sounds to ease my loneliness. I unpacked a few days’ worth of blouses and skirts and hung them up so they could uncrease. They looked paltry in the oversized, otherwise empty closet.

I splashed water on my face, brushed my teeth, and grimaced in the mirror.
Quit worrying,
I thought to myself.
You’re living in a mansion. Really, how bad can it be?

Lunch consisted of a salad and crusty French bread. We ate in a sun-drenched breakfast room just off the kitchen. Of the rooms I’d seen that morning, it was the cheeriest, with crisp white curtains and a view of a sparkling swimming pool; between it and the house spread a lush expanse of grass on which a gaggle of Canada geese was encamped. “You can really eat for such a skinny thing,” Lucia told me. She’d barely finished half of the salad on her own plate. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to get personal. I guess you’re used to dorm food.”

I nodded, my mind on all that I still didn’t know about my new
life. “It’s so quiet here. I don’t know what I expected, but…” I poured myself some more mineral water.

“For now, it’s just you, me, Benjamin, the grounds crew, and the housekeepers,” Lucia said. “Maddy has a playdate; she’ll be back this evening. Usually there’s a cook, but he’s on vacation. And Nico has a personal assistant who travels with him.”

“He’s away?” Relief washed over me.

“Off promoting his new album.” She cut a slice of bread and set it down on the edge of her plate. “Doing the
Tonight Show
and radio programs. I don’t know yet when he’ll be back. His manager keeps adding dates to his schedule.”

It occurred to me that Lucia might answer my questions. “What’s it like? Working for… Nico?” I tried the name out; it sounded presumptuous coming from me. “Mr. Rathburn, I mean. What’s he like?”

Lucia smiled cryptically. “Not what you would expect.”

Not used to getting his own way? Not self-centered? Not given to temper tantrums, orgies, trashing hotel rooms, driving sports cars into swimming pools? “I don’t know what I expect.” I fibbed.

“He’s more serious than you would think. Normal, like anyone else. He puts his pants on one leg at a time, believe me.” She smiled again. “But still, more serious than I expected when I first got here. He doesn’t like to be interrupted when he’s composing. He can be short-tempered. His work takes up a lot of his energy, especially lately. He doesn’t have time for foolishness. Not these days. And he can’t tolerate disloyalty. If one of his employees says so much as one word to the press…” Her voice trailed off. “I wouldn’t want to get him angry like that.”

BOOK: Jane
4.59Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

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