Jane Air

book lovers text thread?” Penelope laughs. Her balance tilts slightly and I gasp as the giant, purple and green glass monstrosity slips an inch in my hand.
“No more book discussion,” Kate barks, “until the Chihuly is safe and sound.”
“I don’t mean to criticize,” Dory says mildly, her voice floating towards us from behind the canvas she is holding in front of her, “but where did you find that…sculpture?”
“Is it a vase?” Christine asks. “Where’s the opening?”
“I think it’s a lamp,” I dare to tilt my head, even as Penelope and I move, slower than sloths, to bring it carefully, daintily to rest on the floor.
“It is not a vase,” Kate huffs. “It is not a lamp.”
“Is it…some kind of animal?” Dory peers out from beside the canvas. “Like, a squid?”
“It is not a squid. It is an original, and it cost me six figures.”
Penelope straightens fully and takes two steps back. “I know a guy who could make something a million times better than that, but he’d never get six figures.”
“Is his name Chihuly?” Kate asks as she approaches the Dr. Seuss-like piece, feather duster in hand.
“No,” Penelope wipes her hands on her denim overalls. “It’s Frank.”
Christine flashes a grin and I laugh.
Dory walks forward with the painting. I look between the sculpture, with its wild tangle of arms and limbs and antennas, all neon and glass, like something created during an acid flashback, and the painting, mad slashes of red and yellow and orange, as if an angry tornado ripped through the paint section of a Home Depot.
Kate has interesting taste. Or, as she likes to say, she has expensive taste.
I can’t help but stare at these two weird things, the pieces as she and Penelope like the call them, the art, and wonder what it’s like to have a mortgage worth of glass and neon hanging above your fireplace.
Christine pulls the ladder forward and steps up, hammer and nails in hand.
“Right in the middle,” Kate is back to instructing, feather duster held like a gun. More grunts and the occasional finger pointing.
As Dory hoists the painting up to Christine, Penelope moves forward with arms overhead, adjusting it slightly and helping to hang it on the nail. “The color schema really works with the light in here.” She nods approvingly and I make a mental note to have her assess the color schema of my simple bungalow the next time everyone’s over.
“Who is texting you about book characters by the way?” Kate asks, eyes never leaving the three of them. She grunts. Dory lifts the left side slightly. “Your colleagues?”
“One of my students.”
“I thought you weren’t teachin-” Dory doesn’t finish her sentence before Penelope whips around, dropping her side of the canvas. Christine and Dory scramble with the massive frame while she sprints past me and into the kitchen.
“Is she ok?” Christine asks while Kate stares after her, looking ready to kill.
“Is this David Jacobs’ number?” Penelope practically shouts at me, waving my phone in front of me as Jessica follows her, drying her hands on a towel.
“Sorry Jane,” she shrugs. “I tried to stop her.”
“Hey,” I move to grab my phone from Penelope’s hand but she holds it over head, far out of reach of my five foot four inch grasp.
“Is this his number?”
“Yes, but-”
“Oh my god,” Penelope brings the phone in front of her, cradling it in both hands, and sinks slowly to her knees, gazing at my outdated iPhone with reverence. “It’s really here.”
“For heaven’s sake,” I try again to swipe it from her but she jerks it away, glaring at me. “You know that is my phone.”
“What do you do with it?”
“Um, call you guys, usually. Sometimes check my email or Google Maps.”
“Don’t toy with me Jane,” Penelope growls. “What do you do with his number?”
“I tell him which book to prepare next.”
“Prepare?”
“Read.”
“You said prepare.”
I shrug. “Yeah. Prepare by reading. So we can discuss it.”
“Where do you discuss it? And when?”
“Are you reading Wuthering Heights?” Christine asks, more interested in the book title than in the student’s name.
“Yes.”
“I love the movement in this piece,” Kate states with a decisive nod, her back to us as she assesses the look of the painting, clearly not interested in David Jacob’s phone number. “It makes me feel alive?”
“You know what would make me feel alive?” Penelope looks longingly at my phone, “If we could-”
“Nope.” This time, I do manage to swipe it, tossing it in the air to Jessica who shoves it down her shirt with a warning glance to Penelope and a smile to me.
“How often do you text?”
“We don’t ‘text,’” I make air quotes with my fingers. “We arrange tutoring sessions.”
“What do you say to each other?”
“I tell him to read Wuthering Heights. He…” I trail off.
I’m tempted to make a joke. To tell them that, in our first and only meeting so far, he hadn’t done the reading. He hadn’t even ordered the book, because he didn’t realize that, outside of a major city with personal assistants and massive studio budgets designed around your every need, you have to actually wait a few days for the mail to arrive.
I don’t tell them that he hasn’t really left his house since moving here.
I don’t tell them that he has no furniture.
I haven’t told them anything, really. Not to Penelope, even though the tiniest detail would get me out of birthday and Christmas gifts for at least a decade. Not to Kate, who would no doubt cackle at his academic unpreparedness. Not to Jessica or Christine, neither of whom would care.
Not even to Dory, who would understand my sympathy for the plight of the filthy rich, stunningly gorgeous, world-famous new guy in town.
Nope.
Haven’t said a thing.
“He tells me when he’s free, and then we make plans for our session,” I finish.
Neutral.
No details.
It’s a weird feeling, this desire to protect someone who needs no protection. Someone whose life is so much bigger and braver and more influential than mine that any efforts on my part, to protect him