After dinner, Betsy and Jason danced the first dance together. Then they announced the bride and her father would dance, and the groom and his mother. My father took Betsy and led her into a nice dance to some song that I’d never heard about children growing up. We, the bridal party, made our way to the edge of the dance floor, as we were supposed to do the next dance with our partner.
That would be the last call of duty for Ryan, and then he could hang with all the friends of Jason (of which there were many) or try to hook up with Chrissy, one of Betsy’s bridesmaids that he’d been eyeing all night.
Caroline Stratton sat at her table on the edge of the dance floor amongst her friends, and watched her ex-husband dance with their daughter. The table she sat at wasn’t far from me, and I was able to see her quite well. She was wearing a tasteful lilac gown and had her hair swept up. Very mother of the bride.
She smiled brightly as she watched Betsy and my father dance. It was her public smile, the one she wore when she knew everyone was watching her—which of course they were—waiting to see her reaction.
I had practiced that smile in the mirror when I was ten years old. I’d had aPeoplemagazine open next to me on the bathroom counter, opened to the article about my tenth birthday. There was Caroline, walking into the hotel where I was spending the weekend with my father, presents in her arms, her serene smile the only thing she’d give the throng of paparazzi that had camped out in front of the hotel the whole weekend.
Other kids had friends over for their birthdays. Or went to a Chuck E. Cheese’s or some other bullshit place.
I’d spent my tenth birthday in a hotel suite in Baltimore, my mother having to leave the room while my father’s ex-wife came and brought me a present. It was the first year she hadn’t dragged Betsy and Joey with her; they were both in college by then.
“Jaybird Turns Ten!” the headline of the article read. There was a shot of the exterior of the swanky hotel (my father didn’t stay in anything less than swanky), the picture of Caroline and a shot of me leaving after the weekend, holding my mother’s hand.
I could still remember my mother hissing at me just as we left the safety of the hotel lobby, “Smile, Jaybird—show the cameras what a lovely time you had with your mommy and daddy together.”
What the cameras caught, what showed up in the magazines, tabloids and all over the net, was the look of bewilderment and disgust that I shot my mother seconds after she’d said that.
Oh, and I heard about it from her too, after the mags hit the stand. That was why I’d sat in my bathroom for hours on end practicing the smile Caroline Stratton was now pointing toward the happy, dancing couple.
Shortly after that birthday I demanded that everyone call me Jane, not that stupid-ass name my mother gave me, Jaybird. (It had something to do with being free, flying, some New-Agey crap like that.)
I wanted something simple, plain, classic. And I had just read the biography of Miss Jane Pittman, so it had been on my mind. Perfect ten-year-old logic.
I saw flashbulbs going off around me now, and realized that not only was Caroline being studied for her reaction, I was as well. I pretended I didn’t see them as I smiled brightly at Betsy and my father (was this the longest song ever, or what?). I looked at them as if I was thinking how happy they were, and how much I would enjoy it being time to dance with my father when I was a bride. More flashbulbs went off.
See what practicing a fake smile in the mirror for years can do for you?
The wedding photographer was one of those with a camera, but there were also a few with press passes on. I assumed they were scheduled to be there, as I’d practically had to give a DNA swab to even get in here with the security my father hired.
Never one to pass up a positive press spin, my father. The master of good press…right up until my birth.
“What a dog and pony show,” I heard beside me, and turned to see Joey. He watched Betsy and my dad too. He had a smile plastered on his face, but there was definitelytonein his voice.
“Yeah, I guess,” I said, all non-committal. Was it a trap? Joey never spoke directly to me unless his mom was standing behind him urging him to do so. Of course, that was several years ago. He was a man now.
Time to put away childish things? Like hating your half-sister for being born?
“You seem to be enjoying it,” he said. I wasn’t sure if he was commenting on my fabulous acting skills or that he was just surprised that I could possibly be truly enjoying this.
“Yeah. I’d like to thank the Academy…” I said. Out of the corner of my eye I saw him nod. No surprise to him.
“Listen,” he said, turning fully to me now. I was relieved to be able to turn to him—turn away from the dance floor. “I’m hitting the road in a couple of days. Heading to Africa—several places in Africa, actually—for a year. I wasn’t sure if Dad had told you or not.”
I shook my head. My father didn’t say much to me in general, and almost nothing about Joey or Betsy. “No, he didn’t.”
“Figures. Well, I have a great opportunity to work with a relief group in Africa. Given the shit that’s about to go down here, I took it. But if you need to talk or anything. I know I was an ass to you when I was a kid, but if you need anything…”
I nodded, touched, then stopped. “What do you mean? What’s about to go down here?”
He looked to the dance floor, then back to me, disgust on his face. “Are you serious? No one’s told you?” I shook my head. “Dad’s going back into politics. He’s running for governor of Maryland.”
I felt the perfect, normal, out-of-the-spotlight life I’d built for myself being pulled out from under me.
Chapter3
I wasa freshman at Bribury College, a small, elite school between Baltimore and DC. And I loved it there. Loved that I could be just Jane Winters. Loved my roommates Lily and Syd. Loved my classes (as much as you can love college classes).
