Surrender Read online

  “Excuse me,” Jane murmured apologetically to one person she bumped. “Sorry!” she whispered when Roberta pulled her through another small group. They finally made it down to the third row and found two seats, sliding down into them and settling in. “This is great!” Roberta gushed as she unwrapped her scarf. “I’m so excited. A play!”

  Jane understood. This was LowPoint, Kentucky and not a whole lot happened around here. More stores were closing down. Main Street looked like a ghost town now that only the grocery store and hardware store were still in business. There was Janice’s diner right off of the highway that had a brisk business, but not a lot of truckers made their way into LowPoint. They got off on that exit, ate at the greasy spoon diner and drove back onto the highway. The residents of LowPoint rarely ventured into Janice’s diner because the food was greasy and the main flavor was “salt”. It didn’t matter if you ordered a burger or a salad, everything was salty. A gallon of water was the side-dish of choice.

  So a high school play was a huge event for everyone in the town. The auditorium was packed with residents, both parents of the students and non-parents. Unfortunately, the high school play was literally the biggest event in town this weekend.

  Of course, one could drive into Louisville for more entertainment options, but that was getting expensive. When one didn’t have a job, one didn’t have the money for gas to travel into the “big city”.

  As the rest of the audience settled down, Jane thought about the envelope that had arrived earlier that day. She hadn’t opened it. As always, they wrote, “Return to Sender” on the outside and slipped it back into the mailbox. At first, those letters arrived frequently. By the writing on the outside, Jane knew that her father had become frustrated. After a while, the letters slowed, eventually stopping other than a colored envelope every other holiday or birthday.

  Jane’s mother was doing relatively well. While the rest of the town slowly fizzled, Jane’s mother had won more contracts from restaurants, providing them all with baked goods ranging from dinner rolls to pies and cakes for dessert. Their mail order cookie business was also steady, and that’s really all that mattered. Her father…didn’t. He didn’t matter to either of them.

  The lights in the auditorium dimmed and the audience hushed. Jane looked around, scooting down lower in her seat. This was exciting, she thought. A play! The high school only did one play each year, not having the funding for additional performances. But that only made this particular weekend more exciting! Three performances – one on Friday night, Saturday night and a Sunday matinee. The trick was to get tickets to the Saturday night show. The Friday night show still had some kinks in it. If you waited until Sunday’s matinee, everyone was already talking about the performance, so there were no surprises. Saturday night was the best performance. It was still fresh, but without the first night’s mistakes.

  Tonight, she and Roberta not only had Saturday tickets, but they’d managed to get close enough to the stage so they wouldn’t miss anything!

  The music started and no one cared that it was taped and not a live band. The school couldn’t afford a band teacher any longer, so the music department had disintegrated.

  The heavy, red velvet drapes swished to the sides of the stage and there was an almost audible gasp of delight as the actors took to the stage.

  Jane watched, enraptured and amazed. The acting was horrendous. The script was…boring. But Jane was entranced by the tall, brown haired guy playing the lead role. He was magnificent! The audience laughed at all of his jokes and he even sang a couple of songs. Jane didn’t care that his voice cracked in the middle of the songs. She just…the man was amazing!

  She vaguely remembered the boy from several years ago. He’d come into the bakery that horrible day she’d discovered the letter from her father. He’d told her a joke. For the life of her, Jane couldn’t remember the boy’s name, but for the entire performance, whenever he was on stage, she couldn’t take her eyes off him.

  Yes, Jane knew that other actors were moving about. But none could compare to the shining star of that boy.

  “I think I’m in love!” Roberta gushed when the curtains fell for intermission.

  Jane and Roberta jumped up and hurried out one of the side doors. They couldn’t afford the candy that the theater department was selling to raise money for future performances, but Jane’s mother had sent them to the performance with her chocolate iced scones. “Here,” Jane pulled one out of the bag and handed it to Roberta.

  “These are so good!” Roberta moaned, taking a huge bite from hers. “Your mother is the best!”

  “I know!”

  Roberta had barely swallowed before she continued with her previous conversation. “Did you see him?” she whispered, although there wasn’t anyone else around to hear them. They were outside of the school, the door propped open so they could get back inside once the intermission was over.

  “Who?” Jane asked, the scone turning to dust in her mouth as fear that her best friend might have fallen in love with the same boy she’d given her heart to during the performance.

  “Mr. Fissler! The theater teacher?”

  “Oh!” Jane replied, sighing with relief. “No. I didn’t see him. Where was he?”

  “He was off to the side, directing the actors to the stage and helping when someone forgot their lines.”

  Jane wrinkled her nose. “Isn’t he like…old?”

  Roberta acted as if she were melting as she thought about the teacher. “Yes! He’s in his thirties at least, so yeah, pretty ancient. But you know what that means!”

  Jane wasn’t sure. “He’s close to retiring?” she offered, not really sure how old one had to be to retire, but thirty seemed pretty old.

  “No!” Roberta replied, giggling as she took another bite of her scone. “He’s experienced!” she whispered dramatically, adding emphasis to that last word as if it were naughty.

  Jane stared at her friend for a long moment. “Uh…experienced at what?” she asked, not wanting to hurt Roberta’s feelings, but her friend was acting a bit…weird at the moment.

  “Experienced at…everything! Don’t you want to know what it is like to be woman?”

  Jane thought about her mother, struggling to keep the bakery going, waking up at four in the morning to bake the breads for the early morning restaurant run, delivering them by five-thirty. Home by seven, cleaning up and making specialty cakes and cookies for mail orders, then starting all over again in the early afternoon to make the dinner biscuits and delivering them to everyone. Her mother arrived home around seven in the evening, cleaned up the bakery, and got everything ready for the following morning to do it all over again.

  “Nope. I don’t want to be a woman,” Jane replied. “I’m fine being a kid. I think I’m going to stay a kid for the rest of my life.”

  Roberta laughed again. “You can’t do that. Eventually, you’ll have to grow up and take on responsibility. But you’re lucky.”

  Jane wasn’t sure about that, not feeling very lucky, but she shrugged. “How am I lucky?”

  “You don’t have to go to college. You’re going to work in your mother’s bakery when you get older.”

  Jane thought about that for a moment. She liked to bake, but the idea that her future was already planned out made her…unhappy? No, that wasn’t really the right word. Restless? Yeah. Probably restless.

  But then the image of the boy on stage came to mind and her restlessness changed. It wasn’t really restlessness she felt now. More of…an aching. Yeah, Jane ached in strange places.

  “Anyway, we’d better get back inside,” Roberta decided. Stuffing their trash into the trash can, they hurried back in, getting to their seats right before someone tried to steal them.

  The curtains opened again and Jane sighed, thinking she would happily watch for the rest of her life, as long as that boy was on stage.

  Jane’s sophomore year of high school…

  “He’s a senior!” Roberta hissed, gla
ncing over her shoulder at the group of boys coming off the track from their early morning practice. The LowPoint track team was dedicated and had a pretty good reputation. They’d won the state championship last year in several categories, mostly because of Caleb Whitwell’s efforts.

  Jane watched as well, trying to appear casual but suspecting that she failed miserably when the boy in question looked in her direction. Jane’s heart skipped a beat when he tilted his head towards her. Ever since she’d seen him in the school play last year, she’d had a special kind of crush on Caleb Whitwell.

  Caleb Whitwell was every girl’s dream, including Jane’s! She watched him as he hurried up the stairs, amazed at the strength in his long legs and the muscles in his arms. And his smile! Good grief, his smile melted her heart every time she saw it, even though it was never directed towards her.

  She didn’t care. Jane came home from school every day and fantasized about the moment Caleb realized that she was his ideal girlfriend and they were destined to be together. She’d created entire conversations with him in her mind, figured out exactly how she would kiss him the first time and where it would be.

  Yep, she had it all figured out.

  The only problem?

  Caleb didn’t know Jane existed. That fact was made worse by how small the school was. There were only three hundred students in all four grades, and Jane was about as non-descript as one could get. Her blond hair curled around her chubby cheeks, made chubbier by the fact that she got to taste everything that came out of the ovens at her mother’s bakery. That also meant she had more than a few extra pounds on her hips and thighs.

  But Jane just knew that Caleb would look at her one day, really look at her, and he wouldn’t care that she was “the chubby girl” or that her face was covered with acne caused by sampling too much of the chocolate desserts.

  Jane and Roberta sighed in dreamy unison as they stared at Caleb walking into the locker rooms where both girls imagined him showering. Naked and soapy and…well, they weren’t exactly sure after that. This was LowPoint, Kentucky, after all. They both knew that men got naked and, technically, they knew all the ins and outs of the sexual act (pun intended). But since they’d never actually seen a naked man, they weren’t really sure what one looked like.

  “He’s gorgeous!” Jane breathed.

  “Yeah. But…” both girls glanced at the clock on the wall a moment before the bell rang. “We have to hurry,” Roberta gasped. They hefted their book bags onto their shoulders and hurried down the hallway, away from Caleb and his interesting, mysterious shower, and on to their first period history class. Somehow, after contemplating Caleb in the showers, Roman history just wasn’t going to grab their attention this morning.

  Eight hours later, and after four more Celeb-Sightings, Roberta and Jane walked slowly out of school. It was located several blocks away from Main Street, but the girls took their time. Jane wasn’t interested in spending her afternoon sifting flour and chocolate and Roberta wasn’t interested in spending time alone. So they didn’t rush anywhere after school, no matter how much Jane’s mother encouraged her to get to the bakery to help out. As a sophomore, her friends were either looking for ways to get out of LowPoint when they graduated from high school, or if they were really lucky, their parents were taking them on trips to tour colleges around the state, or even the country. Many of the teenage residents wanted out of Kentucky completely. The most desired stated to live in at the moment was Colorado, but there were a few who wanted jobs in Atlanta, Georgia, or even Houston, Texas.

  In Jane’s mind, it was all a bunch of halooey.

  Jealousy, she told herself as she stepped into the bakery.

  “Hi there!” her mother called. “How was school?”

  Jane turned at that moment, a movement catching her eye and…there he was! Tall and handsome and…walking into the bakery!

  Oh no! What was he doing here?! Why was he…?

  “Hi there Caleb. How are you?”

  Jane’s mouth fell open as her mother greeted the boy she’d been in love with for…well, forever!

  “Afternoon, Ms. Miller,” he greeted.

  Jane’s astonishment intensified at the realization that her mother knew his name.

  “Ready to start work?” she asked.

  Caleb looked over to where Jane and Roberta were standing, both of them with their mouths still hanging open.

  Jane’s mother realized what was going on and laughed softly. “Caleb is going to be working here a few afternoons a week, Jane. I got another contract with that big restaurant chain over in Dunbarton and I need more hands to help out. You good with that?”

  Jane stared at her mother, then at Caleb.

  “I need money to help pay for school,” he explained.

  Jane snapped out of her shock and closed her mouth. “Yeah. I can imagine it’s expensive,” she replied weakly.

  “Anything helps. Especially since I plan to go on to medical school after my undergraduate work,”

  So hot! Jane blinked, then prayed that she hadn’t actually said that out loud. “Well, that’s a good goal,” she replied. “Roberta, I’ll see you later.”

  Roberta laughed and bounced out of the bakery. “We have that algebra test tomorrow. Don’t forget.”

  Jane managed to stop her groan. Barely.

  Loretta pulled at the ties of her apron, hanging it up on the hook. “Jane, show Caleb what to do. I’m off to deliver these rolls.”

  A moment later, Jane was alone with the man she’d been in love with for the past two years. Okay, maybe not in love with. But infatuated with, she corrected. One couldn’t really be in love with a guy when one hadn’t spoken to said guy. At least, that’s what she was telling herself.

  “What do you need me to do?” he asked.

  Jane swallowed and looked around. What to do. What to do. She supposed going into the back room and kissing her was out of the question.

  “Dishes!” she gasped, remembering the afternoon routine before she made a fool of herself. “Yes. The dishes from earlier today need to be scrubbed and stacked up on the shelves. My mom will use them again tomorrow morning.”

  “Cool,” he replied, and Jane followed him into the back where all of the baking was done.

  “Umm…do you want some hot chocolate first?” she offered, her mouth watering over the sweet treat that her mother prepared for her most afternoons.

  Caleb shook his head. “No thanks. I try to avoid sugar. It slows me down during track practice in the morning.”

  Jane was stunned. She’d always thought that sugar gave one energy. “Right. I don’t drink it either,” she lied. “But my mom’s is the best.”

  He smiled, nodding his head. “When track season is over, I’ll have to give it a try,” he replied.

  A moment later, they were elbows deep in soapy water. He scrubbed, she rinsed and they stacked the metal bowls off to the side to air dry. The miserable chore took a fraction of the normal time, probably because time moved faster with someone to talk with while working back here.

  They discussed their classes and homework, laughing and groaning about the various teachers. Caleb was two years ahead of her in school, so he’d already gone through all of her misery.

  “What’s your test on tomorrow?” he asked.

  “Test?” she asked. Jane wasn’t sure she’d remember her name when he looked at her like he was doing. And he was taller than she’d thought!

  “Yeah. Your friend mentioned that you have an algebra test tomorrow?”

  Jane blanked. Tests. Caleb kissing her. Nope, that wasn’t the test, she told herself firmly. No kissing. He was a senior. Seniors simply did not kiss sophomores. Especially seniors that were trying to get into medical school and sophomores that didn’t have their driver’s licenses yet.

  “Yeah. Math?”

  “Oh! Right. Math. Yes. It’s an algebra test on equations.”

  He grinned. “I love equations. Need help?”

  She shuddered. �
�Equations are a mystery. I generally just guess and hope that I’m right.”

  He laughed. “Your mom said I could work for three hours a few afternoons. Why don’t I finish up here and then I can help you study?”

  Jane smiled, her whole body melting. “That would be great,” she replied, trying to be sophisticated and act like a senior, but that was difficult when one was melting.

  He nodded, discussion over. Looking around, he surveyed the rest of the cooking area of the bakery. “Okay, so what else needs to be done?”

  Jane moved over to her mother’s schedule which usually had a list of things that she wanted Jane to get done before she arrived back from her deliveries each night. “Well, my mom has two specialty cakes and she wants me to pick out the mail order options for the next week. Want me to show you how to bake a cake?” She glanced at the clock. “If we hurry, we can get it into the oven just in time for you to be done with your shift.”

  “Sounds great,” he said. Another smile. More melting. Jane was in heaven!

  An hour later, she pulled the cakes out of the oven and set them onto a cooling rack.

  “Okay, get your books. I’ll show you vectors, equations, and whatever else you’re struggling with.”

  Happily, she pulled out her algebra homework and settled at the counter. For the next hour, he explain the equations homework in a way she truly understood. And if their shoulders brushed accidentally, and Jane’s breath caught in her lungs, it wasn’t such a bad thing, right?

  “Got it?” he asked.

  Jane smiled, nodding her head. “Yeah. I think I do!” she replied. And yeah, there genuinely was a bit of understanding coming through to her now. “Thanks for your help.”

  He stood up and grabbed his book bag. “Thanks for teaching me how to make a cake,” he told her. “See you tomorrow.”

  Jane leaned back in her chair and smiled, feeling happy and excited.

  Then she looked at her math book with a sinking feeling. “Better really figure this out,” she mumbled and leaned forward, determined to ace the test tomorrow. She’d love to be able to tell Caleb that she’d gotten a perfect score on her algebra test, just because he’d helped her. That would be…awesome!