Chapter 45: Old shirts and memories

“I love your mom,” Wes said.

Janet didn’t look at him, but she nodded. “We have that in common then.” She shook her head looking at the food, tons of it covering nearly every surface of the kitchen and she sighed. “Enough here to feed the neighborhood. Good thing we got Troy. He’s practically a garbage disposal.”

Wes laughed.

Janet finally looked at him and raised her eyebrows. “Wes, where’s your shirt?” she said.

“Jasmine took it. You look beautiful,” he said.

Janet rolled her eyes. “Just the same dress only in blue. What did she do with it?”

“She tossed it into the dryer with my jacket,” Wes said. “It’s not the dress that makes you beautiful.”

“Uh-huh, it must be the wet hair in the ponytail,” she quipped, turning to go. “Let’s see how wet they still are.”

“Should be dry by now,” he said following her out of the kitchen.

“Hmm, you don’t know Jassy,” she said ominously, as she led the way to the laundry room. She opened up the dryer and pulled out a shirt which somehow looked more wet then when Wes had removed it.

“What the hell?” Wes said. “Your dryer must be broken.”

“No. Just Jasmine. She knows how to put clothes into the dryer, but hasn’t learned yet how to turn the stupid thing on.”

“You’re kidding,” Wes said, incredulous.

Janet shook her head tossing the shirt back in and setting the dryer to on. “Come on, I’ll get you a shirt.”

Wes followed close behind very much like a love sick puppy. “Janet, can we talk?” he said, tentatively reaching for her hand. She moved it away.

“I think we’re doing that now,” she said, turning into her room. She rummaged in the bottom of a forgotten drawer and pulled out a very rumpled pale blue cambric shirt. She held it to her nose for a long moment, in haled deeply, half smiled and whispered, “Can’t believe it still smells like him.”

“What?” Wes said.

“Nothing. I’ll iron this for you. It should kinda fit,” Janet said holding it up to him.

“You don’t have to iron it. I’m only wearing it til mine is dry,” he said. He took it from her hand and pulled it on. It was a bit snug about the shoulders but passible. 

“How do I look? Crinkled?” he asked, as he buttoned up.

She stared at him frowning. She couldn’t believe the shirt fit him so well. It was stretched so taut the wrinkles diminished considerably once it was buttoned. She thought for sure it would be too large for Wes. She always thought her father was so big.

“Janet, ” Wes said, stepping close to her and slipping his hands around her waist. “Janet, I’m really sorry.”

“Huh?” she said, not listening with her eyes on his chest. She raised her hands to his chest and placed them on the soft fabric she remembered so well. She loved that shirt, the feel of it, the memories associated with it and the scent, that wonderful musky scent which to this day still comforted. Before she knew what she was doing, she laid her head on his shoulder feeling the familiar touch on her cheek, smelling her dad and wishing things were back to normal.

Wes could feel his heart swell as he wrapped his arms tightly around her. “You’re the best, Janet. Any other girl would be pissed off for a week. You’re amazingly forgiving. I just love that about you…I love everything about you,” he said quietly.

Forgiving? Hardly! She snapped out of her reverie and pushed away from him. “I’m supposed to be mad at you,” she said, although with no conviction.

“I know, but I’m so glad you’re not. It’s not that I’m not happy for you. It’s great you singing on stage. You have a beautiful voice. I just…”

“What?” she said.

“Singing on stage requires a lot of practice and a lot of time. You won’t have time for me… and…and your yenta stuff. And you’ll be spending all your time with Luke,” he said through clenched teeth.

Janet blinked stupidly up at him. “I thought you liked him. You were all buddy-buddy with him. Did he step on your blue suede shoes or something?” she asked.

“He’s fine just as long as he’s not putting on the charm with my girl,” he said.

She made a funny face. “But you said you didn’t like Alana like that,” she said.

“Not her. You, Janet,” he said, placing his hands on either side of her face and kissing her softly. Then he pressed his forehead to hers. “You’re a brilliant girl. Put two and two together. I don’t want you falling for Mr. Super Rock Star. Get it yet?”

“Me? Why would I do that? He’s got Alana, for Pete’s sake!”

“That won’t matter. You’ll be alone with him for hours and hours singing stupid love songs and getting all…”

Janet gaped at him, stunned. “Jasmine was right. She was actually right. You are jealous. I just don’t get why,” she said, utterly incredulous. 

"Really, Janet? You don't get it?"

She shook her head. “You say I’m brilliant, Wes, well, aren’t you supposed to be some kinda genius? Not too bright if you missed several very obvious things. Yes, I like Luke. He seems like a nice guy, but you forget. I don’t believe in love, so I’m not about to fall for him. Plus, he’s crazy for Alana. You gotta be a real idiot if you think you can make him forget all about cute little Alana, who he’s madly in love with. And then there’s Alana! I like her, like a lot. I think we can be really good friends. So, you think I would risk a friendship and stab her in the back and try to take her boyfriend? Well, then you don’t know me at all.”

“You’re wrong. I do know you, Janet,” Wes said fiercely. “I know you better than you know yourself. You say you don’t believe in love and then I see you being so nice to my father and my sister and your mother and even shy little Alana who hardly anyone else bothered to talk to at the party. I got news for you. All that’s love.”

She rolled her eyes. “Okay, romantic love then. That’s what isn’t real.”

“You’re wrong about that, too,” he said. “You only think you’re in control, but you’re not. The heart’s in control and it doesn’t care what you think or what you do or don't believe in. You spend enough time with Luke and you’ll fall for him and…and I don’t want you to.”

“That’s ridiculous!  Alana is Luke’s manager, so, she’ll be right there with us all the time and…” she suddenly stopped and stared at him. “Why don’t you want me to?”

Wes hung his head and shook it, exasperated. “You’re being deliberately obtuse, aren’t you? You’re so blinded by your supposed hatred of romance that you can’t even see love when it’s right in front of your eyes, when it’s staring you in the face.”

“What the heck are you talking about?” she said, genuinely baffled.

He didn’t answer. Instead he took her into his arms and kissed her, kissed her until she was kissing him back and she wrapped her arms around his neck and…

“Excuse me,” Wendy said at the door.

They parted breathless and embarrassed. 

“Hi, Mom,” Janet said.

“You look so nice, Ms. Meadows. Very pretty,” Wes said, glancing around nervously.

“Thank you,” she said, looking for one to the other. “Forgive me, Wes, I don’t mean to insult. I know you're a good boy, but you’ll understand I would rather you not be up in Janet’s room while I’m not home. The same applied to Troy, so I’m not…”

“No problem. Janet was just giving me a shirt to borrow… for now,” he said.

She looked at his chest and smiled. “I remember that shirt. I didn’t know you still had that, Janet,” she said.

Janet blushed. “Mom, you should get going. You’ll be late. It’s raining so hard, you should take your time and go slow. You know the crazies come out in the rain,” she said, grabbing her mother’s arm and ushering her down the hall and to the stairs.

“I thought it was the loonies during full moon,” Wendy replied.

“That, too. Everybody come say bye to Mom!” Janet shouted as they made it to the foyer.

Troy and Jasmine came in hand in hand from the living room and Stevie and Cindy emerged from the family room. After many hugs and good luck wishes Wendy stood before them wearing a decidedly frightened expression.

“Mom, you’ll do fine,” Janet said, holding a raincoat out for her mother to slip into.

Wes grabbed an umbrella from the closet and opened the front door. “I’ll walk you to the car so you don’t get too wet,” he said.

“I don’t have my keys,” Wendy said, rummaging through her purse.

Janet lifted them from the half-moon table by the front door and jiggled them in front of her nose.

Wendy giggled nervously. “Yep, that’s them. Guess I gotta go, although, with all this rain, no one will come and Alec will blame me and there goes my career as chef,” she whined.

“You can still cook for us,” Troy said. He got an elbow in the stomach for that from Jasmine.

“Of course they’ll come, Mom. Don’t worry,” Jasmine said.

“We’ll all be there, all of us. Go on and be brilliant,” Janet shouted from the porch as she watched Wes holding the umbrella over their heads, open the car door for her mom and wave to her as she backed out of the driveway and went down the road.

Wes climbed up the stairs and shook the rain off the umbrella before closing it. “I probably should have driven her there. She’s a nervous wreck. I hope she goes slow,” Wes said, looking worried.

“She always does,” Janet said.  The others had dispersed to their various corners leaving them alone. She turned and looked at Wes who in turn stared at her. “So…”

“Can we finish our discussion?” he said, a bit of a smirk on his face.

Janet smiled and shook her head. “Our discussions always get us in trouble. I’ll go get my laptop. We can go in the family room since you’re not allowed in my room. We can finish up the website. That okay?”

Wes beamed and nodded. He watched her climb the stairs and thanked God for getting him out of the dog house. 

What he didn’t know was, there was still time for him to screw up again.