Average Jane |Lesbian Story|

Chapter 17

"How was school, girls?" Jane's mother asked at dinner.

"Fine," Caroline said.

"Fine," Jane said, but today the lie was too much for her. "Except that, it was Valentine's Day," she added.

Her father looked over at her sympathetically. Jane had never seen her father give her mother a valentine. But it was clear that they loved each other. They showed it in other ways – like looking proud when the other one was dressed up or holding hands when they took a walk.

"Did you both get some valentines from any boy...or girl?" her mother asked, hopefully.

Caroline nodded but didn't volunteer any more information. Jane knew that a couple of guys at school liked Caroline because they called her all the time. As far as she knew, Caroline didn't like any boy yet, except as friends. She and Caroline never talked about things like that.

"What about you, Jane?"

"I got a couple." And she had given one Valentine's Day poem. She wondered if Ms. Anderson had read it yet, and if so, whether she had any idea who had sent it. Jane hoped she wouldn't think it was from Emily Zuckerman. Though Emily didn't look like the type to write poetry. Not that Jane was the type to write poetry, either.  At least, she hadn't been until today.

"I take it that Valentine's Day is not your favorite holiday?" Jane's mother patted her hand. "Well, you should have been at my school this morning. Imagine twenty children, each with nineteen valentines to hand out, in my class alone. That's almost four hundred valentines. None of them can read. Their parents are frantic to get to work. So the teachers are trying to take off jackets, boots, snow pants, hats, and mittens – while stuffing four hundred valentines into the flimsy little paper bag mail pouches that I had the bright idea of making. Then the four hundred valentines have to be opened, and read aloud to their recipients, and counted, and crumpled, and lost, and found again, and stuffed back into the bags, which are now beginning to tear."

"What about Addison Blue?" Jane asked. "Was she there today?"

"Yes." The single syllable had a great deal of misery compressed into it. "She was there. Addison decided she didn't want to give away her valentines. She wanted to keep them all for herself. I wouldn't have made an issue of it, but Addison's mom had obviously spent a lot of time making the valentines and was determined to get them delivered. What a battle that was."

"Who won?" Jane's dad asked.

"Who do you think? That was how most of the mail pouches got torn – with Addison trying to get every last one of her valentines back. Complicated, of course, by the fact that she had only a vague idea of which ones were hers, as one small white envelop looks very much like another. The only good thing I can say about Valentine's Day is that it's only one in a whole year."

Jane's sentiment exactly.

~*~

Jane spent most of Saturday bouncing balls for her science fair project. Lucy was also busy with her own project, so they postponed their private Peer-Teaching session.

Now Jane wondered if Emily was spending the day eating ice cream with Julie and David. Jane tried to ignore her hurt. She needed to stay home and work on her project, anyway, for the fair was only a week and a half away.

Jane planned to drop ten different balls onto five different surfaces: the wooden floor of the living room, the carpeted floor of the family room, the linoleum floor of the kitchen, the concrete floor of the garage, and the old trampoline she and Caroline used to jump on when they were little.

On the wall behind every bouncing zone, she hung a measuring tape. Then Jane dropped each ball in turn, and Caroline measured the height that it bounced.