Jane Goes Batty

“Well, that makes me feel better,” said Jane.

Walter indicated the store with a nod. “Shouldn’t you get back?” he asked. “It sounds as if everybody wants something from you.”

“No,” Jane said. “I asked you to lunch, and that’s where we’re going.”

“Okay,” Walter said. “What would you like?”

Jane thought for a moment. She didn’t want to go anywhere near the store, as it would be too easy for people to find her there. Then she had an idea.

“Come on,” she told Walter. “I know just the place. Oh, but you’ll have to drive. My car is … indisposed.”

With Jane directing him, Walter drove to the restaurant she’d chosen. When they pulled into the parking lot he looked at Jane quizzically. “Here?”

“Absolutely,” Jane said, opening the car door. “You’ll see why.”

The broad front doors of Tiki-Tiki featured the giant, grinning face of some unnamed god carved into the wood. Walter grabbed the handle somewhere in the vicinity of the tiki’s nose and pulled, the enormous face parting neatly down the center to allow him and Jane entry. Inside, the restaurant was a re-creation of someone’s idea of a Polynesian village, complete with burning torches, booths seemingly made from bamboo lashed together with rope, and a smiling hostess wearing a grass skirt and a bikini top printed with garish pink hibiscus.

“Aloha,” the girl said. “Welcome to Tiki-Tiki.” She stepped forward and placed around each of their necks a garish lei made of gathered plastic strips intended to look like flowers.

“More like Tacky-Tacky,” Walter whispered to Jane as the hostess led them to a booth.

“Which is exactly why no one will think to find us here,” Jane said. She removed her lei and dropped it on the table. Walter left his on as he picked up the laminated menu and perused it.

“Aloha,” said a cheerful voice. “Can I start you off with a drink?”

Jane regarded the young man standing next to the booth. He wore a shirt made of the same hideous print out of which the hostess’s top was made, but instead of a grass skirt he wore surfer shorts and flip-flops. The effect was a grotesque parody of Polynesian culture as filtered through the mind of someone who had clearly never experienced the real thing. Jane found it fascinating.

“Something with rum,” she told the waiter. “And an umbrella.”

“I’ll have the same,” said Walter. He looked across the table at Jane. “I have a feeling I’m going to need it.”

The waiter withdrew to get their drinks, and Jane leaned back against the cool vinyl of the booth’s bench. “It’s all too much,” she said. “The movie. The DVD nonsense. The new book I can’t seem to write. Beverly Shrop.”

“My mother,” Walter added. “Me.”

Jane shook her head. “You’re the one thing that isn’t too much,” she said.

Walter cleared his throat. “Except when I proposed,” he said.

Jane fidgeted with her menu, pulling at the corner where the laminate had begun to peel.

“I know it was awkward,” said Walter. “Like I said before, it just popped out. I’d actually planned this really romantic thing. It was a kind of treasure hunt where you followed clues that eventually led you to a box with a key in it and a map to the house. When you got there I was going to be waiting with dinner and champagne and … and … a ring.”

He stopped speaking and scratched his nose—a gesture Jane knew meant he was embarrassed. She took his hand and held it while she spoke.

“That sounds wonderful,” she told him.

“I know,” Walter agreed. “But now it wouldn’t be a surprise, and anyway you already said no, so—”

“I didn’t exactly say no,” said Jane.

“You said you can’t,” Walter reminded her. “That’s more or less a no.”

“I know it sounds that way,” said Jane. “But you must understand—”

“Jane, stop,” Walter said. He withdrew his hand from hers.

Jane looked into his face and saw something there that troubled her. It was a kind of weariness mixed with resignation. Suddenly she was very frightened.

Walter swallowed hard. “Since the first day I met you I knew I loved you,” he said. “I know that sounds ridiculous, but it’s true. And when I asked you out and you said no, I promised myself I would keep trying until you said yes. Then when you finally did say yes, I was terrified I would do something to drive you away.”

“But you haven’t,” said Jane.

Walter shook his head. “No, I haven’t,” he said. “All I’ve done is tell you how I feel, and that’s something I can’t change. Maybe I didn’t do it in exactly the right way, but I think your answer would have been the same no matter how I’d asked. It’s always been ‘I can’t,’ Jane, and I don’t think it will ever be anything different. Am I wrong?”

Before Jane could answer the waiter returned and set two huge hollowed-out pineapples on the table. Tiny umbrellas were stuck into the rims, and straws made to resemble stalks of bamboo protruded from the dark liquid inside.

“Two Pele’s Potions,” the waiter said. “Have you decided on your food yet?”

“Another few minutes,” Walter told him, and the young man went away again.

“These are rather imposing,” Jane said, trying to lighten the mood. “I think Pele is trying to get us drunk.”

“You haven’t answered my question,” Walter reminded her.

“No,” Jane said. “I suppose I haven’t.”

“The answer will never be yes, will it?” asked Walter.

Jane took the umbrella from her drink and twirled it in her fingers. She wanted Walter to stop talking. She wanted him to look at the menu and laugh at the silly names of the dishes. She wanted him to take her hand again, and for everything to be all right. More than anything she wished she could tell him why she couldn’t answer his question.

“I love you, Walter,” she said finally. “It’s just that I …” Her words trailed off. She was tired of making excuses for herself and hoping they would buy her more time. It wasn’t fair to Walter. Yet she couldn’t wait forever. When would be a good time to tell him? she asked herself. After you’re married? After he notices that you don’t age? When he’s on his deathbed?

She knew that there would never be a good time. What she had to tell Walter would come as a horrible shock under the best of circumstances. There was no way to prepare him for learning that she was undead, no gradual working up to it so that the final revelation was not so bad. Her only options were to tell him and hope he would understand, or not tell him and deal with the guilt of deceiving him. Neither option appealed to her.

“I won’t say I understand, because I don’t,” Walter said. “And I’m not even sure you know. But I know I can’t keep doing this.”

“What are you saying?” asked Jane.

Walter sighed. “I’m saying maybe we should go back to just being friends,” he answered.

“Friends,” Jane said, testing the shape of the word on her tongue and finding it uncomfortably sharp.

“I don’t know what else to be to you,” said Walter. “You won’t be my wife, and frankly, both of us are too old to be anyone’s boyfriend or girlfriend. That’s for twenty-year-olds who want to keep their options open. I don’t want options, Jane. I want you.”

Walter’s words made Jane want to tell him right then and there that she would marry him. She even opened her mouth to say as much. But she couldn’t. The words stuck in her throat, choking her, and refused to come out. You can’t do that to him, her own voice commanded her.

The waiter appeared again. “Have you decided?” he asked.

Jane shook her head as she began to cry.

“Yes,” she heard Walter say. “I think she has.”