Chapter 36 - JANET

Sonny and Jumbo had been showing Janet a good time. They'd driven all the way to the bars in Calais in Sonny's pickup, drinking and smoking and telling lies. The Ford's windows were wide to the warm humid air lying along Route One. Up off the coast the fog wasn't so thick, but where the highway dipped and swerved toward the water they moved through a dreamland. Sonny had steered them crosslots through Meddybemps on the way back, and for a few miles they had actually seen the stars, before plunging back into the murk.

Janet was torn by all sorts of conflicting emotions. This, after all, was the world she'd sworn to escape by going off to professional school in Portland. Good old boys, drinking and driving, "Mothah" home with the kids. But the glittering promise of Portland had soon proven tinsel. She'd expected a place where professional women were the equals of men. She'd read about feminism in the dogeared copies of MS. Magazine circulated among her high school buddies.. those who wanted out before they became fat, dumb, and pregnant. But medicine had shown itself to be a man's world, and the alienation of city life hadn't been the tonic she'd anticipated.

At first Janet had reveled in the freedom of being her own woman in an anonymous town. Nobody knowing a thing about your past, the color of you grandfather's truck, the name of your cousin's dog. You could be anybody you wanted to be, and she'd tried on a couple of new personas, just for fun. Done the club scene, hung out with a blues guitar player.. even tried some exotic drugs. But she'd found them not to her taste, especially when she discovered that Leroy had more than one woman in his life.

Then she'd plunged into academic medicine with all four feet. Janet had even imagined working her way through med school and getting her MD. She was smart enough, she'd found that out early on. What she hadn't realized was she didn't have the cultural attitudes to match. Janet was always expending more of her energy on her colleagues problems, emotional and academic, than she was on the rigors of school, or the politics. She simply couldn't put number one first. Doctoring was supposed to be about caring for others, and it came as a shock to find you had to be ruthlessly selfish to get on the first rungs of the ladder. Or have money and family behind you. Or both.

Then she'd fallen in love with Doug, who had all those things, in spades. It seemed like the perfect match. Two beautiful people, mutually committed to healing the world. She'd coached Doug through his first year at med school, because she was just a bit quicker, and he'd been so grateful. Their loving had been full of gentleness, full disclosure, and mutual understanding. She thought. She hadn't factored in class and ambition. She knew Doug's elitist parents thought she was a hicktown hussy who was bringing their son down, wasn't worthy of their noble blood. She hadn't understood that he shared many of their prejudices, and had his eyes fixed on a higher prize than healing and loving. It was only after she'd helped build up his self-confidence, gotten him over the worst academic hurdles, and given herself completely to him, that he'd begun to wall her out. When she caught him in bed with that classy little first year student from Greenwich she finally understood how deep her self-deception had run. And she'd run, too. All the way back to Smithport.

And here she was, ramming around with the kind of guys she's gone to high school with, and sworn she'd shown a tailfeather to. But there was something nice, and solid, and dependable, and predictable about Jumbo and Sonny. Of course Sonny was a wicked womanizer, and not to be trusted with your heart. But he was the complete gentleman, knowing exactly how to make you feel good about yourself in little ways, how to make you laugh and forget your troubles. It was all a dance with Sonny, and he was a master.

And Jumbo. She had funny feelings about Jumbo. He was such a gigantic hunk, it made her tallness seem ordinary, like she wasn't some oversized misfit. Walking into a bar with him didn't seem awkward. All the male eyes might turn her way, but they'd slide off when they saw Jumbo's arm around her. And the way he touched her was so.. how to describe it.. so worshipful. Like she was a goddess. She'd had boys, and men, treat her with lustful attention, eager to get their paws on her, or with casual tenderness without real engagement, but Jumbo was neither groping her nor self-distracted. He made her feel very special just in the way he held her arm.

She'd surprised herself yesterday, when he came running up after she'd left Sherm's store, asking if he could help carry her bag. It had been such a high school flashback that she'd laughed. But something in Jumbo's eye had touched her heart, and she'd pretended like she was a teen, and he'd caught right on, and they'd acted a little foolish all the way to Honey's house in West Smithport. She hadn't meant for anything to happen, but, to her deep surprise she'd found herself in the shower with this giant of a man, and had the most exciting sex.. maybe of her whole life.

Then he had been very gentle with her. Understanding her need to be alone and digest it all. And the way he'd touched her when he left had completely fogged her mind. She'd called him at his sister's later that evening, after Honey had gone off to the Anchor with Slaughter, and they'd done it all over again. She'd felt all the years of alienated struggle falling away. But Jumbo hadn't acted possessive, or controlling, or strutting as he and Sonny escorted her around tonight. On the contrary, they'd acted like two nobles escorting a queen. They'd even toned down the fishboat profanity which was their common parlance.

Now she didn't know what to think. Was she fated to get trapped in the fishtown melodrama she'd grown up in? Would she have to put away her individual ambitions and her intellectual cravings to let Jumbo into her life? And what did he want from her?
Maybe she didn't want to think too hard about such things right now. Maybe just being with someone as downhome and solid as Jumbo was enough for now. Along with the loving. Janet blushed a little and felt a rising ache. She turned toward Jumbo, and kissed him hungrily on the mouth.

"Hey, woah," Sonny said. "What about the driver?"

"Drive on, Captain," Jumbo said, between kisses.

Sonny had turned off Route One, and they were wending around the curves skirting Perry's Bay, approached the outskirts of Smithport.. It was sometime after 11 o'clock, and Sonny was thinking about a buoy popping to the surface in a foggy cove. As they rounded the bend by Sawyer's, he could see there were lights on in Sum's house. Then he saw a black Lincoln towncar pulled in behind Sidearm's rig, and Sum's car and truck in the dooryard. Sonny and Jumbo glanced across the truck at each other.

Janet felt Jumbo's attention wander. "What is it?" she asked.

"Looks like Sum has visitors," Sonny answered, as Sumner's place was swallowed in the gloom behind them.

Janet rested her head back in the crook of Jumbo's shoulder. "They can't be having as good a time as I am," she mused aloud. And she meant it.

Sonny slowed down as they rolled along Main Street. All the parade decorations looked both festive and sad in the foggy night. "Looks to be a blind race," Sonny remarked.

"Yeh," Jumbo agreed.

"Wanna come out with us?" Sonny asked Janet.

"Thought I had," she quipped.

"In the race, dahlin, in the race," Sonny laughed.

"Showah, deah," she exaggerated the Maineish.

"I been thinkin," Sonny said. "You two seem to have things to talk about, and no place to talk.. and I've got to do some stuff on the boat. Why don't I drop you to my place, and I'll just stay aboard tonight."

Both men looked at Janet. She thought for a moment "I don't want to put you out," she said.

"I'm gonna be out anyway," Sonny replied. Janet was holding Jumbo's hand, and he squeezed it gently. The tenderness of his touch sent warm waves running up her arm.

"Yes," she said softly, "I'd like that."