I'm having trouble pinning down my feelings on this chapter. Not the writing or story-telling -- that's first rate, as always -- but with how things are unfolding for Jane and Shane.
"It's my fault," she said. "I knew I should have told him. It was just … I never thought a man like Shane would be interested in me. Most people don't even notice I'm there. After … after I left my family, I was comfortable lurking in the background, and I never quite worked out how to leave it … until Shane came to Des Moines. He noticed me. He asked me out. He proposed. When I was with him, I felt just like everyone else. None of that other stuff mattered. I couldn't believe he wanted to be with me, and I just couldn't make myself …" Her words ground to a strangled sob.
And then he confirmed every fear you ever had by betraying you and rejecting you and refusing to rally for you and destroying the wedding you'd spent all this time arranging when it was too late to get any of your deposit money back. Of course you love him, Jane; he sounds like such a keeper!
Can you tell I still want to punch Shane in the nose?
I invited everyone I could remember from college and even high school. You were the only one who accepted."
Ahhh, I feel so sorry for this girl! And I hope Lois feels like dirt for the way she was mocking her all the way up until disaster struck.
A solitary cup of coffee had been placed outside her door. She picked it up, recognising the take-out cup as being the same as the ones Clark had brought to their breakfast picnic.
Oh, Clark! *sob* I want to hug him.
He's so very clever to not let Lois see him doing it, too. Because just as Jane was worried Lois was going to write the story, Clark has reason to be a million times more concerned. So, yes, it's true that he's honoring her insistence that he never contact her again, but he also has "plausible deniability" if it turns out he's wrong about her and she would betray him. She might insist that it's the same coffee, but I have no doubt he'll have an alibi lined up with people who can vouch that he was in Des Moines in the minutes before and after the coffee was delivered.
It was a little after 3am when Lois accepted that sleep was not going to rescue her from the turmoil of a mind in meltdown.
Well, Lois, you did just drink a full cup of coffee immediately before bed. What did you expect?
"Does he know how much he hurt you?"
"Yes," Jane said. "And he's very sorry. I'm just so glad he knows about what happened, and I don't ever need to be scared of him finding out again."
Lois silenced her doubts.
I'm glad that you have Lois "argue" with Jane a bit about the quick turnaround because my thoughts echoed hers. We're only getting the nutshell version, no doubt, since Jane is in a hurry and has a million things to do before Saturday. But my first thought was, "He firebombs your life and you take him back, just like that?" So having Lois voice those doubts -- doubts that might be shared by your readers -- lets Jane give her side of the story.
Not that I still don't want Shane to grovel, mind.
In mulling over why I'm having such a strong reaction to what Shane did, other than the obviously parallels to Clark, I realized that it's because there seems to be a power imbalance between Jane and Shane. She's the meek, scared little girl who never thought anyone could love her because of her past, and even worse, that she didn't deserve to have anyone love her. Shane holds all the cards, has all the power, and he alone gets to decide whether they can be together or not, and she should be grateful he's willing to be with her. He can humiliate her in front of all their friends and his entire family by not only canceling the wedding but by making a huge show in front of everyone that HE IS SO ANGRY AND SHE DESERVES IT without even explaining why until Clark shows up. And even then, it's only his immediate family that gets to hear the story. Everyone else is going to assume that she cheated on him or did something else really terrible to cause him to call things off. And that's not going to change just because he takes her back. People are always going to wonder what Jane did that was so terrible and say, "Wow, that Shane is a saint to marry her after whatever it was she did to him." Bah.
Now, all that said, I have to recognize that we are seeing Jane almost completely through Lois's eyes in this story. It's Lois that tells us early on that Jane is bland, unattractive, boring, meek, forgettable, and should feel lucky that she actually found someone who wants to marry her. Only much later in the story do we hear differently from Clark -- that Jane was the hesitant one and that Shane had to pursue her. But that's really all we know, other that Shane says her real name "with disgust" and that Jane feels that she never deserved him anyway. So I just have to hope, for Jane's sake, that these concerning glimpses are just because we caught Shane in his absolute worst moment and that they really do have a healthy, balanced relationship otherwise.
Sorry ... can you tell I really wanted Shane to have to prove himself to win her back?
Let's hope he ate a lot of crow off-screen to convince her he was sincere and that he isn't going to bolt the next time he finds out some little thing he doesn't like. (Heh, channeling S3 Clark there. ;))
"I'm coming, Clark," she muttered. "I'll be there on Saturday, and then ..."
Yay! Good decision, Lois. And I can't wait to see Clark's reaction when he sees you there.
Kathy
