A Story about Jane

Two months and three days before your twentieth birthday your life stopped and much to your disbelief, the world kept going. Two months and three days before your twentieth birthday, your alarm never went off, you didn't have to think of an excuse to give your Lit professor for why ten minutes late for class was warranted by the unusually long line at Star Bucks, and you no longer dream about sex. Two months and three days before your twentieth birthday your mom still lies in bed watching Katie Couric and wishing she could pull off a suit that pink while your Dad takes the first shower. Your best friend still insists on wearing flip-flops in the snow. That girl in your 101 business class who always coordinates her socks to the collar she flips up underneath a sweater that's creases always prove it's new still shows up to class ten minutes early and is the only one who actually did the reading.

Death isn't real to you. It is something your grandmother stopped smoking to postpone and the main poetry topic for those angry kids who always hung out in the cafeteria during high school. To you living couldn't have an ending. It was a "to be continued" or a "stay tuned for scenes from the next", but never the final episode. It is a chaos of Amtrak tickets and bus fares to see a boyfriend that made you not want to be selfish anymore. You live in a revolving door, spinning constantly through the every day. You stay up nights talking to this boyfriend on the phone until there's nothing left to say and you fight just to hear each other's voices. You spend a lot less time with your friends from High School when you get to college and the summers that you see them become lazy afternoons of cheap red-wine and what-used-to-be's. Your mom thinks your relationship is sweet but makes sure to remind you that you're still seventeen and have a lot of life ahead of you. Your Dad doesn't care all that much until he finds out the new love of your life likes the Patriots and can remember any season record back to 1987. You cover your room in pictures, your best friend taking her first shot, you and your boyfriend at New Years Eve, half empty champagne bottles clinking together, huddling with your face fitting perfectly into the bend of his neck. "Pretty cliché" you mention the next day while you and your friends shuffle through still-warm film from the one-hour photo, even though inside you can't believe how perfect your hair looks. You look at this picture a lot, it's your favorite, you both look in love. You don't try to explain what love looks like, and you never tell that to anyone else, but you know its what's staring back at you from the picture. You put the frame on your desk because it helps you feel a little less alone. You blame Stanford for giving him a scholarship and you wonder if that women drenched in stale perfume, correcting a letter she wrote in pencil with a tissue under her hand had any idea that throwing his file into the accepted pile resulted in a month of your tears. Your friends get angry that almost all the pictures of them have been replaced by pictures of you and him but you know its only because they're jealous and when they fall in love your face will get dusty too after being shoved to the back of their desk drawer in replacement. You dry the long stemmed, thorn less red roses he gave you for your sixteenth birthday and the Calla Lilies he gave you for your first Valentines Day three years ago. One rainy Wednesday you and your roommate decide to buy Modern Bride Magazine in CVS under the façade of a void in tampons. You both giggle and blush and argue over whose going to make the purchase. It stays under your bed after much admiration among coordinating L.L Bean duffle bags and last semester's charcoal art projects.

You consider your roommate your best friend. You like to believe that High School girl friends as strong as yours stay together forever but after a few years away from them you accept it's not true. It doesn't bother you as much as you would have expected it too and you are grow ok with the fact you had to pretend you were crying at graduation because everyone else was. You're simply excited no one else had the same white J-Crew strapless dress that you did and you remember wishing it wasn't raining so hard because that was going to make sex on the beach a lot less romantic. So your high school safety net still calls you and occasionally you answer your phone, but mostly you look at the caller ID and turn the ringer off. You're usually in the middle of something you consider more important than bull-shitting a past that's long since over. That reminds you how much you want the new Motorola color picture phone because your roommate just got one. Her name is Hannah but you've never referred to her as that, to you she's simply your roommate. She listens to horrible music, and you "accidentally" lost her Dave Matthews CD because you swore one more song and your ears were going to bleed until your collar filled with blood and you lost consciousness from the loss of fluids. Hannah tells you you're too dramatic. You insist its true. But she laughs with you when things are awkward. Like at Christmas when the girl down the hall passed out in the hallways from drinking too much three-dollar Vodka. While everyone else busily calls 911 and kneels on the floor beside her, all you two can do is stand in your door way and stare at the floor. You know you're not bad people but you don't even say hi to drunk-girl in the bathroom when you're getting out of the shower that she's getting into. You laugh when you're nervous, so does Hannah.

You're proud of your parents. While all your friends went through what Reviving Ophelia- saving the selves of adolescent girls called "the rebellious" years, you were coming up with fake weddings and Doctor's appointments to stay home Friday nights to watch Chasing Amy with your mom. You realize you don't tell her you love her often enough, but you try. She frustrates you when she gets angry for the half empty pack of Parliament Lights she found in your room, and you hate to admit to yourself she's allowed to be angry. Sometimes you cry, then she cries, then you're both crying and you let her hug you the same way she did when you were two and being on her lap was the only safe place on earth. She always smiles when you dress up and tells you you're beautiful. You shake your head in humility, letting it remain a compliment even though she's your mom and you're convinced no matter what you would be magnificent to her. You go shopping on the weekends that you come home and you like when she mentions how beautiful those flowers would look outside of wherever you get married. You are her only child, her daughter, her entire existence.

Your Father always wanted a boy, he's always been a Dad, never a Daddy. He woke up in the middle of the night with you when you threw up all over your Alf pajamas and bedspread. He speaks to you softly, and lovingly in a voice that's reserved for just you, at just that moment in the middle of the night. He taught you to throw a football because no daughter of his would be bound by gender an arm is an arm. You know he hated when you hit puberty and somehow woke up yielding breasts and buying Tampax super's with applicator when he drove you to the drug store. You had several boyfriends before the one that matters, and they were all scared to meet him. You liked that but argued with him anyway. He wasn't home all that often, he worked most of your childhood, but he provides you the un-appreciated luxury of staying a child well into your teenage years.

Nobody could reach your parents that morning. For reasons unknown, their cell-phones rang only once and there was only voicemail at the other end, the sounds of their business voices asking for a message and a number to call back. The hospital didn't leave a message. They called them while your Dad was finishing up the dishes instead.

You watched the pole rip the car in half. You were still alive then. You thought about how counterfeit Hannah's face looked when it hit the windshield and the raining glass of red melting into shards of reflecting snow reminded you of lights your neighbors hung outside at Christmas. You couldn't see much of her after that, only her hand was visible through the cavern of Toyota Rav 4 twisted metal. You could see her hand trying to feel what was crushing it. You kept trying to tell her she needed to move it towards the dashboard. You decided maybe she couldn't hear you, or maybe you weren't saying anything at all. Your phone was outside the car in the muddy snow beside your head. You weren't cold. You heard the take me out to the ball game ring that Andrew programmed into your phone when he picked you up from the airport that morning and you played it over and over again until you finally convinced him to lend you and Hannah his car when he left for his photo class after dinner. "It'll play this only when I call. So you can call it your boyfriend-only ring." It rang forever. He must have called three times in a row. You didn't think you were that late getting back. He said his class was over at nine, you didn't believe it could be much passed nine fifteen. There was a lot of creeking outside and you weren't sure who would win the battle, the car or the pole. There was a bulletin talked up on the pole, it was leaning at the perfect angle, it was all you could see when you let your head drift back. It was most likely pink before the weather, but you could still read it.

Yard Sale- Saturday Jan. 08, block party afterwards, kids welcome.

42 Comwood Circle

(Three streets down on your left!)

It was printed in what was supposed to look like kids writing you thought. Maybe they thought that was cute, or maybe that meant they were getting rid of their kids no longer-played-with toys. You began to wonder how old their kids are? What if no one finds you until the yard sale at 42 Comwood circle? What if Hannah's mom glares from now on every time your name is mentioned? You wonder if the sail boat bumper sticker you bought Andrew and just put on the back window tore or kept the glass stuck together? People are asleep right now, or watching reality shows on TV involving some sort of love triangle and as many lies as one hour can hold. The kids at 42 Comwood circle are probably getting ready for bed, or thinking of excuses to get out of the math test they didn't study for with the teacher who was a lot like the wicked witch of the west and the hunter who killed Bambi. You decided you must be cold… your feet are numb.

You like the way the blood feels on your forehead. It makes you think of the way your toes feel when you first step into a bath. You wished you had taken a bath that morning. You'll miss baths. You hope that Andrew doesn't hate you forever for destroying his car. You'd like to believe you would forgive him if the situation were reversed. You're surprised that with luck like yours you at least put on your brand new light green Victoria Secret underwear, especially if the police need to tear your pants a little to get you out. You're wondering who would show up first? A doctor on his way home from a 5 am work day? What if he was too tired to stop? What if he makes a note to call 911 when he gets home but forgets when he smells the pasta primavera his new wife cooked for dinner? Maybe the police? The ambulance? You've never been in an ambulance. You always wondered what it was like to watch the cars part like Moses watching the red sea. You just bought these jeans. You knew you shouldn't have spent one hundred and eighty dollars on jeans. Maybe your mom would buy you a new pair when she finds out it wasn't your fault, it was the cop's that they ripped. Your shirt is falling off your shoulder from the pieces of metal digging into your skin, but you can't feel it. You can only see the way they tear your pale flesh when you try to move. You hate that you don't tan. You wonder how bad the scars will be come summer time. You hope that Andrew keeps stain stick in his closet for laundry, you're pretty sure he doesn't, and you idea how you'll get the blood out of your borrowed sweater. Hannah wasn't saying anything but her fingers were still moving. You pull your arm and surprise yourself with your own strength. You know you had no other choice if you were going to release your wrist from the jail of the steering wheel and gear shifter it had fallen prisoner too. You were pretty sure that snapping sound was your bone but the snow must have kept you from feeling it. You reached down and put Hannah's hand in your own. She squeezes your fingers and doesn't let go. You lay your head back. The boys at 42 Comwood circle are listening to their Dad watch Die Hard in the den below them. While your mom puts the chicken on the counter to de-frost, Peter Jennings is mumbling something about Iraq over the comforting cycle change of the dishwasher behind her. The girl with the flipped up collar is taking color-coded notes for Monday's class. You are so perfectly still.

You are confused at first when you see the car from the outside. You don't remember much after the screaming rush of lights forced your eyes closed from the glare against the snow. You notice Hannah isn't listening to the Paramedics. She keeps squirming under their hands to ask if you are okay. They keep placing her head back against the board and telling her you're in good hands. You're standing beside her and trying to explain to her you're clearly fine, but she's only looking toward the accident. You're right here you keep repeating, but no one's looking. All the attention is still on the car. You're almost fascinated that something made of such solid steel could manipulate itself into something so tragic. You have no shoes on. They must have fallen off in all the chaos. You leave Hannah and make your way towards what the eleven o'clock news will call "a horrifically heartrending scene". You can't believe how bright all the headlights are, even the ones from the remains of the car are shining straight up, lighting the ice covered branches of 42 Comwood Ave. 's yard sale tree. It's beautiful, you think to yourself, the way ice can look like branches dipped in silver, hung on the tree to dry.

Your attention is stolen from the car to a man you've never seen. You hear him tell the cop he's from the local paper and he takes something, which you can only assume to be ID, out of his pocket to show the Officer. You don't know if your parents know. Why would they? You should call them, but you can no longer find your cell phone. They deserve to be here over this mouse faced man, hiding himself behind a camera twice the size of his head under a brown trench coat he flattered himself with by thinking it fit. You watch as he shoots picture after picture, one of which will land on the cover of the New York Times and get delivered to your house as it always had been first thing on a Sunday morning, so your Dad can start the day with a picture of his daughters mangled hand limp in the snow. Supplemented by a photograph of what he assumes to be your blood mixed in no complete pattern among dirt dyed snow and metal scrapings of the crash to assure that the reader turns to page B12 for the rest of the story. He leaves the front door open and calmly walks down to the end of the driveway wearing nothing but a bathrobe adorned with matching blue boxer shorts and drops the paper into the trashcan. He hasn't taken the obtrusive green barrel back to the garage since he found out about your accident. The neighbors don't say anything, they figure they'd forget about the trash too. He turns and walks back into the house, up the stairs and vomits in the bathroom.

The reality of the photograph is still lit up in front of you. You realize that once the commotion dies down, someone will realize you 're barefoot and think you're irresponsible, especially in this weather. You see one of your shoes on the ground by what you could only classify as the drivers door given its relation to the beaming headlights. You sneak past the suffocation of police officers and paramedics and see your other shoe. Someone's trying to wear it. You think that's strange, what an inappropriate thing to do at an accident scene. You can't wait to tell Hannah about it tomorrow.

You don't take your eyes away from the face staring back at you from behind the deflated airbag. Someone had closed your eyes. You always wanted to know what you would look like sleeping. You figure it's like what you're staring at, only peaceful. The blood on your face has taken residence as a dark purple Mask. You touch your forehead as if looking in a mirror but as your fingers brush the creases beneath your hairline, you feel no barrier crusted between you and your skin. What's mangled in the drivers seat before you reminds you of your 8th birthday when your parents took you to Broadway to see The Phantom of the Opera and you stayed up all night positive the half-masked basement man was waiting for you in the bathtub. You don't think your parents will feel the same. You've seen enough movies to know someone will clean off the blood before revealing the simulation of what used to be their daughters face. You thought you would be paler, frowning, something. You feel dizzy, sort of. You want to feel dizzy but you don't feel anything. You notice that the same cop who allowed the Newspaper into your trauma was holding your cell phone and searching through the names. Hannah was being adjusted into the back of the ambulance, serene whiteness piercing the chaos, the spinning, the confusion. She was beeping. Well she wasn't, but her machines were. You start walking over, but they're getting further and further away. It all is. Even newspaper-man was fading to become uncomfortably hazy. You start to feel the way you do in the middle of a perfect dream when you realize your dreaming and your body drips empty struggling to hang on to what is inevitably going away.

Hannah says she is going to throw up. The paramedic puts a plastic bag by her head and tilts her onto her side. The policeman walks over and kneels by her face. He speaks to her in a voice that he never uses on the job, the one that separates the cop and the father. He's picturing his own daughter who is a few years younger than you lying alone and scared in an ambulance, Or worse: where you are. He removes his hat and sets it on the bench beside him. He takes Hannah's hand and lets her know they have reached her parents, and they wanted him to tell her how much they love her. He's prepared for her to cry. She doesn't. She asks if they have called your parents. He doesn't say anything. He's anesthetized thinking about the numbing that would seize his body if he had to hear what your parents would. He stares at the silver floor beneath his newly shined black shoes. He tells her no. But they'll keep trying.