Thanks, That Was Fun... Ch. 04

But she did. The week passed in a meticulous blur, seeing her rise to go to the bathroom and answer the door when the Chinese food or pizza came. Her stupor lasted the rest of the week, until she rolled over early Friday morning, turning off the T.V. from where it hung on the wall still flickering the Sci-Fi channel from when she'd last fallen asleep. Jane sat up slowly, a dull ache in her lower back testament to days spent laying on her stomach, head propped in hand, watching the television. Lifting a throw blanket off herself, a fork fell to the hardwood floors with a clatter, obviously having been left there at some point in the preceding days.

Two things came in to focus for Jane – first, it was obscenely obvious, by virtue of lifting the blanket off herself, she'd forgotten to shower since Monday morning.

Second, she had to get the hell out of her apartment.

Jane stood up, her legs a little wobbly from lack of use, and stepped over several boxes of take-out food, chocolate wrappers, an empty bag that at one point contained a loaf of bread, and a plate from the night before, when she'd discovered half a bag of French fries forgotten deep within the freezer. Kicking a now empty bottle of ketchup out of her way, Jane hobbled over to the massive windows in her apartment, ones that looked out over her wide balcony and Charleston below. The sky was lightening; Jane pushed open the sliding glass door that lead out onto the balcony, then walked through the patio furniture and leaned against the railing.

Autumn had arrived in the city, and Jane pulled down the sleeves of her thin shirt over her arms, before wrapping them around herself, warding off the chill. From the fifth floor of her apartment building, she had an expansive view of the skyline of the city as it began moving about, starting the day. Jane glanced behind her at the couch in her living room, a piece of furniture that had been her sanctuary for the past week, and grimaced. She had a strong need to be near other people; and people acting normally, at that, not hibernating as if shrugging off the hours via daytime TV was going to solve her problems. A thought occurred to her to dress and take an outdoor seat at one of the cafés along the block where she could have coffee and read her first newspaper in five days and watch people walk by… it was then dismissed. Maybe tomorrow.

Right now, she needed air. She needed movement, to feel her body doing something she could control and have an immediate response to.

Jane re-entered the apartment, then her neglected bedroom. Pushing past her suits and business outfits, she grabbed her gym bag, pulling out the clothes she would have taken with her to work, where she made liberal use of the treadmills in the basement gym.

As she stepped in to a pair of track pants, Old Dominion t-shirt, zip up hoodie and running shoes, it occurred to her that she'd seen about as much of the world outside her apartment during the last few days as she had during the past few years. She'd been a hundred percent more productive, yes, but aside from outings with her friends, there were a handful of days she could remember actually doing something good and fun out in the city. Drinking excluded.

Locking the apartment door behind her, Jane tucked the key into a jacket pocket and moved to the elevator before quickly changing course, taking the steps two at a time down to the bottom floor and nodding as she held open the wide glass doors of the apartment building for a harried looking teenager carrying a stack of newspapers.

The city sidewalks shone in front of her; it was a if the good decision to get off the couch met the act of breathing fresh air into her lungs on the balcony, then combined itself with getting dressed and deciding to take the stairs, all cumulating in one very good feeling. Jane took several moments to stretch and then took off, loping down the sidewalk. Mentally, she sketched out a path, connecting the city blocks around her apartment together. Three streets passed under her feet before she realized she was breathing too heavily; Jane adjusted, remembering to breathe 'naturally', in through her nose and out through her mouth. It took another street to adjust to the correct method, but soon her rhythm was down pat, the sounds of her feet methodically hitting the pavement and the timing of her breath seeming to hum together as the city began its Friday morning hustle and bustle. Golden leaves were tipping trees lining the streets; in a few weeks, it would be gold all the way down, and weeks after that, they would fall like snow. Jane felt her body ping, both in protest at the sudden action after a week of hardly moving at all and in joy, her muscles opening up and stretching for her as she weaved in and out of people pushing baby strollers and opening up the front of their shops.

Each step seemed to chase the emotion-induced fatigue from her body. When Jane skirted a line in front of a coffee stand and a van of church ladies setting up a pumpkin patch, she felt a part of the morning, instead of someone with no reason to be out and about. And by the time she hopped over the leash of a wandering dog sniffing flower bushes as it's owner yawned against a lamp post, Jane had nothing less than a full on smile on her face. Before she had time to realize it, she found herself panting outside her apartment building, the muscles in her legs burning in a comforting way, one that echoed of purpose and a reason to go about, be outside and with other people. It was as if her legs knew what they'd done for her soul, reminding her she wasn't the only one out there.

Jane sat down on the low wall outside her apartment building, watching her neighbors leave for work, taking kids to school or run errands - some doing all three. As she caught her breath, she felt a million miles away from the slug that spent the better part of a week in a television-induced stupor. When her breath returned to normal, she bounded off the wall and back up the five floors to her apartment.

The harmonious feeling lasted up until the moment she turned the key in her door and flung it open, suddenly coming face to face with the disaster zone that her apartment had become over the last week.

Jane leaned against the doorframe, taking in the mess while at the same time, not really seeing it. It was nearly 9AM – this time last Friday, she'd been sitting in a staff meeting. Paying attention to the drawn-out, superfluous voice of her boss, Rachel Jarrett. Jane'd busted her ass last Friday, like she did everyday; then found her boyfriend horndogging her boss, punched him in front of God and everybody, drank herself into a stupor and…

Jane went very still, the keys in her hand falling still from where she was spinning them around one of her fingers. A second latter, they fell to floor with a clatter that echoed through the apartment.

She'd taken a guy home. Tall, broad-shouldered, strong, black-haired, green-eyed, gorgeous…

And he was coming here tonight. To this, this mess of a woman and her mess of an apartment and her mess of a life.

Jane looked around a moment more, feeling defeated before the battle'd even begun. She stooped to pick up her keys from the floor, and realized she'd been standing in the open doorway for the past ten minutes. Shutting the door behind her, she frowned suddenly. Jane tried to concentrate on capable feeling that coursed through her veins mere moments ago. This 'battle' wasn't with Danny, or Rachel Jarrett, or even Luke.

A brief flicker of thought crossed her mind, an idea to call Danny and cancel.

Get real, she thought, walking over to the bar that separated the living room from the kitchen, and plopping down on a stool. No more hiding.

Pushing cartons of week-old take out and miscellaneous crap aside, she picked up an old receipt from somewhere, then scrounged around for a pen. Taking a deep breath, she toyed with the pen, clicking the end of it over and over again, thinking. She needed a list. Lists were empowering.

Jane ran her fingers through her hair, then tossed the tangled mass of her ponytail over a shoulder and looked down at the blank, crumpled receipt. Smoothing it out with her fingers, she laughed idly - Danny was in for a hell of a evening with a woman who thought that lists were exciting.

She clicked the pen once more, then chewed at her lip. First, obviously, was her apartment. It needed a serious airing out, tidying, probably a daytime TV exorcism. Jotting this down, Jane added groceries – had she really volunteered to cook?! – and at the very least a massive pile of laundry to be done. Then, finally – Danny.

There was a chance that putting him on a 'To Do' list was pushing it a bit, but as Jane returned to clicking the pen in her hand, she decided she could live with being a bit cheeky today.

Jane flipped her TV to a music station, hoisted the volume up as Springsteen came on, and proceeded to open up all the windows and balcony doors, inviting the autumn chill to ward away bad spirits from the carcasses of week old pizza boxes. Next, the trash was cleared, the place vacuumed, her various sheets and blankets and the poor, overused t-shirt she'd worn during her confinement washed. The sign of the cross was made over her couch cushions with Febreeze. Dishes were washed, wine bottles from the balcony and under the couch – Jane felt more than a little mortified at that – were collected. The recycling bin was full, and by 1PM, three bags of trash lined the walkway outside her door, ready to be taken to the dumpster out back. In fact, with the exception of her home office – the door to which was closed, in order to make ignoring it's existence easier – her apartment looked (and smelled, thank God) like home again.

It was with a compounding sense of capability and satisfaction that she crossed the first task off her list, knowing that when the time came for Mr. Wright, her apartment would at the very least be decent. After a quick scouring through her pantry and fridge, Jane concluded that unless she was going to serve her date beef jerky and two old cans of Coors Light – it was unclear at which point in the past week she'd become a 21 year old boy – Jane was going to have to go to the supermarket.

Which she did, quickly and efficiently.

When Jane Cooper cooked, there was really only one stop in the store she needed to make – the pasta isle. One of the greatest lessons she'd learned in college was that pasta was pretty standard; there were a variety of ways it could be fouled up, but after a week or so her freshman year of eating burned, overcooked, boiled over, undercooked, mashed, stuck-together, coated in olive oil, too salty, and/or tough-as-nails spaghetti, Jane felt she had the boiling water + noodles thing down pretty well.

Feeling inspired, she gathered her pasta, several different kinds of seafood from the shiny counters at the back of the store, two large bundles of orange, yellow and maroon flowers and a bottle of wine, a random sampling of cheese, salad makings and a large, crusty loaf of bread – and was back in her apartment by mid-afternoon.

Groceries put away, laundry nearly completed, her apartment clean, then a shower – all her senses were satisfied. Jane popped the cork on a bottle of Riesling and had a glass on the balcony, watching the sun go down and marveling at her day.

Surely, somewhere, someone was noting this day and marking it down into history. Never, she was sure, had so much domestic flare been shown by someone so naturally inept for it. As darkness settled, the chill in the air rose, and she finished her celebratory glass of wine, shutting the windows and balcony door and looking toward her kitchen, ready to take on the construction of seafood pasta.

****

Danny was not, by nature, a creepy person.

Of that much, he was sure.

Still, it made him a little uneasy as he parked his Jeep outside the tall, stone building, knowing that without directions or help, he'd found Jane's apartment building, having been there only once before.

But uneasy was par for the course today – Ella actually accused him of being nervous – and it went hand in hand with looking forward to seeing the blonde woman waiting upstairs for him.

Grabbing two parcels from the front seat, he clicked the doors locked and walked up the apartment building. Stopping, he scanning the array of intercom buttons for a moment before realizing he didn't know her apartment number. Making an annoyed sound in his throat, he scanned the list of names – before realizing, again, that he didn't know her last name, either.

He could call her.

But then he'd have to admit he didn't know her last name.

It may be the stubborn way, but so what…

Danny scanned the list of names again, then pressed a button that proceeded the name J. Makowiz.

A moment later, he was cursed at by a heavily breathing man with a thick accent.

Danny muttered under his breath, then pressed his finger down on J. Benneton's intercom. A fluttery, female voice breathed out of the box on the sidewalk; he was almost sure it wasn't Jane's voice, but was about to ask when a series of loud screeches sounded, noises that could only belong to a very new baby.

After a terse apology, Danny mashed down J. Koppelman – no answer – followed by J. Hammett – a teenage boy doing a startling imitation of both Beevis and Butthead answered and had almost a complete conversation with himself before Danny moved on – and by the time he laid a finger on J. Cooper's, Danny had is cell phone in his hand, ready to surrender.

"Yes?"

Finally. He knew that voice.

Danny cleared his throat. "Hey, Jane," he said.

"Hi there," her voice was decidedly cheerful. Danny felt some of the tension – not nervousness – fade. He had to admit that there was apart of him that thought perhaps she'd regretted asking him over; he'd remembered the far-off look in her eyes as they sat in the café on Monday and wondered if she was really sure she wanted to see him again.

"Come on up," she said, her words followed by a buzz and click as the door released.

Or was it him that wasn't sure he wanted to see her again? Danny pondered this as he noted which apartment she was in and passed through the lobby, avoiding the elevator and walking up the stairs. She was charming. She was beautiful, and confident enough to grin back when her awkwardness made him laugh. Still…

Danny moved to the side as a couple passed him on the stairs, then took the two remaining flights quickly.

Still, he'd gathered as much from her conversation with her friends the first morning that she'd broken up with a boyfriend just recently and, from what he could tell, also quit her job not long ago. He'd be lying if he didn't acknowledge that the confirmed bachelor in him was on high alert, warning him against getting involved with a woman who was probably, if what he'd presumed was true, going about a mile a minute on the crazy train from all the changes her life was taking.

This thought occurred to him about a second after he knocked on her apartment door.

As he heard her walk over the hardwood floors towards the door, his mind skidded over several excuses and scenarios that would get him out of having dinner with her tonight.

And then, the door opened.

The hallway was suddenly lit as she swung it open, the soft light from inside creating a glow that haloed the woman standing before him. She smiled up at him tentatively, leaning against the door, one hand stuck into the front pocket of her dark wash jeans. Jane Cooper had a talent for picking out jeans – he was convinced of this now. They molded against her – not tight enough to make him uncomfortable in his own jeans, but enough to make the sight of her slender thigh and hip cause his breath to hitch in his throat. A satin lavender tank top peeked out through the sheer dark purple of her long sleeve shirt, both of which were also form fitting enough to make the curve of her hip and breasts evident to him, if not cheaply on display. Dark blonde waves curled lazily over one shoulder, and as she turned to lead him into her apartment, he caught a whiff of her jasmine scent. Smells of whatever she was cooking wafted over him at the same time as soft strains of bluesy guitar.

She stopped and looked back, the grey-hazel of her eyes puzzled, then raised an eyebrow slightly at where he stood outside her doorway. Another smile followed and Danny stepped into her apartment, closing the door behind him, doubts gone.

This was exactly where he wanted to be.