Average Jane |Lesbian Story|

Chapter 15

Friday would be Valentine's Day. Jane spent the rest of the week dreading its arrival. In elementary school, Valentine's Day had been no big deal. Everybody gave valentines to everybody else because all the mothers made sure they did. There was a party at school, with pink-frosted cupcakes and red punch. Jane threw away her valentines as soon as she got home, first taking off any candy that was glued to them. Then she ate the candy. End of Valentine's Day.

Jane didn't know what to expect from Valentine's Day now. There wouldn't be a party this year. She knew that much. But this year there would be Lucy. Jane had never before had someone in love with her on Valentine's Day. The day was bound to call forth from her some loveress-like impulses.

And this year there was Grace. Jane had never before been in love on Valentine's Day, either. Should she give her a valentine? It seemed to Jane that it would make a mockery out of her feelings to buy Grace one of those dumb, icky-sweet valentines in the card aisle at the supermarket...as if what she felt for Rapunzel could be captured by a card. But was Emily going to give her something? Maybe Jane could make Grace a valentine. That would have a little more meaning, at least, than buying one.

Thursday night she wandered into the family room. Her father was watching a basketball game on cable with headphones, and her mother was reading a mystery novel.

"Um, Mom? You don't have any construction paper, do you?"

"It's in my crafts closet," she said. "Reams of it. What color do you need?"

"Any color," she lied. "Just want to use it for my project."

In the crafts closet, she found a whole packet of red construction paper and took one sheet, hurrying to her room with it so that Caroline wouldn't see. Then she had to go back downstairs to borrow the kitchen scissors. But just as she was about to cut the paper into a big red heart, she realized that she couldn't go through with it. She put the scissors back in the kitchen drawer and hid the red construction paper in the mess of math papers on her desk. What she felt for Ms. Anderson couldn't be put into a homemade valentine, either.

Friday morning came too soon. "Good morning! Happy Valentine's Day!" Mr. Monroe read over the P.A system at the start of homeroom. The principal's cheery words gave Jane a sensation of nameless dread in the pit of her stomach. If her life were a horror movie, this was where the creepy music would begin to play.

On her way to science class, Jane saw Mary. She was wearing red heart-shaped earrings and a sweater with pink hearts embodied in it. Mary was the kind of girl who welcomes the V-day with open arms every year. She had a sheaf of small white envelopes in her hand, obviously valentines. Jane couldn't tell if they were all for Mary or from her—or all snatched away from somebody else.

"Jane," Mary said when she saw her just outside the science room. She sorted through her pile of envelopes. "I have a valentine for you."

Jane took it. Better a valentine from Mary than a valentine from Lucy.

"Guess what?" Mary said, dropping her voice to a conspiratorial whisper again. "She sent it in. Lucy sent in a poem for the contest. Jonas's cousin called him from Washington last night to tell him that it came in the mail yesterday."

Jane paled. She felt sick like when Ms. Reeds accused her of cheating on the report book.

"What kind of poem?" Jane said.

"It wasn't a love poem. It was about birds. I think it was called, 'Snow Bird'. Not that it matters. It's going to win a first prize anyway." Mary laughed snidely.

But the more Jane thought about Lucy's actually entering the contest, actually putting her poem so hopefully into the mail, the worse she felt about herself. Nobody deserved to be laughed at for having a dream.