Janie

Sometimes late at night when even the stars are feeling tired I lie awake and think about old girlfriends and what it would be like to see them one more time. Yet nowhere in my imagination did I think the next time I would be seeing Janie she would be sitting behind a Plexiglas screen, detained at Her Majesties Pleasure awaiting her sentence for the murder of her father.

Janie was my first not my first kiss, that had belonged to Nicola Broughton a long time ago behind the kitchens of The Close. Janie was my childhood sweetheart. You know the one, the girl or boy who always brings a smile to your lips whenever you hear their name. Sometimes I wonder what it would have been like if we’d have stayed together like Wayne and Coleen but then again I know I would never have paid that much and besides her father made sure we would never have made it. No matter what I did or what I would accomplish in life I would never have been good enough for his daughter, in his eyes I was a distraction to Janie nothing more. You see Janie’s dad wanted for her what he could never have, to be famous and who was I to get in the way of his dreams? 

You see Janie could sing, she had the voice of an angel and when her dad realised how good she was he started entering her into singing competitions until finally when Janie was thirteen he got what he had always wanted. His daughter enrolled in stage school. That was when it ended, Janie never had the courage to tell me herself, all I got was a phone call from her dad which broke my heart for the first time. Janie had found somebody else, a fellow thespian from her all singing and all fucking dancing stage school!

“Tom! What are you doing here?” Hearing her voice after so many years snapped me out of my reverie and something skipped inside as I realised that even after twenty years Janie still recognised me. “How did you know I was in here?” 

After all these years I still had to smile at Janie’s naivety, “you shot your dad on national television. me and ten million others know you’re in here.”

“Oh!” The sad smile which crossed her face almost brought a tear to my eye as I watched her fight with her emotions. “I suppose ITV on a Saturday night isn’t the best time for a family argument.”

“Not really,” I replied shaking my head, “why did you do it? What happened?”

I could almost guess from the shrug of her shoulders her reasons and so it came as no surprise when she told me, “he wouldn’t listen to me. Dad never did. I never wanted to be famous he wanted it not me.”

“I know.” Placing my hand on the plastic between us I tried to let Janie know I understood.

“Then I met Alex. He’s wonderful you’d like him he’s a bit like you.” Janie laughed and for a second I was transported back to those moments we’d shared so long ago. “Dad didn’t like him either. So he told Alex I didn’t love him that I’d found somebody else and it was all over between us. I guess he figured it worked on you so why shouldn’t it work on Alex. But Alex never gave up on me. He came around to win me back and that’s when I realised Dad would never live the life that I wanted to and so I shot him! The irony is in death he finally got what he wanted, I’m famous.”

My hand slipped from the glass as the realisation of what I was being told hit me, my Janie and me we might have had a future together. I don’t remember much of the rest of the visit, I think we talked about old times, old friends, whatever.  All I could think about as we talked was what might have been.

I was deep in my own thoughts when he tapped me on the shoulder and when I turned to see that ingratiating smile, you know the one just think of a used car salesman. “Tom isn’t it? I saw you talking to Miss White and she told me all about you. You and her used to be lover’s didn’t you. Her first love she told me.”

“I’m sorry who the fuck are you?”

“My mistake I should have interested myself. I’m Max Janie’s publicist. We should talk, I could make you a lot of money.”

You never know maybe I’ll become as famous as Janie, the man who punched the publicist!