“No, I will. I will,” Claire says. She makes a fist, pressing her nails into her palm. Pressing and pressing until she’s sure she’s made herself bleed again. “I will.”
She will. She’llhaveto.
The record in Jackie’s player ended some time ago. As if she can sense that Claire needs a moment, Jackie gets up and rifles through her cabinet in the living room. Claire can hear her carefully removing the vinyl, putting it back in its case, and replacing it with something new.
The voice that fills the house is ethereal. Claire recognizes it, now—it’s the same female singer that she heard from Jackie’s windows on the day she moved in. Joni Mitchell, if Claire is remembering right. Jackie has shown her lots of new music since they met, but she favors this album. Claire has heard it more than once by now.
For some reason, it strikes her differently now than it ever has before. The simple instrumentation and the deep, haunting tones in the vocals. The lyrics, lamenting over love found and lost. Jackie’s quiet humming to match the song.
It’s poetry. It’s so different from the music Claire is used to, Pete’s old country albums or her own favorite cheerful pop songs. It makes Claire ache for something she didn’t know could exist.
“Jackie?” Claire says, as Jackie slides back into the booth. With some effort, she unclenches her fist and presses her palm against the tabletop. “Have you ever loved like that?”
Jackie takes a sip of her tea. It leaves a strip of moisture on the crest of her upper lip; she wipes it away, yet somehow keeps the perfect line of her lipstick. “Like what?”
“The way this woman sings. Like it’s in your blood,” Claire says. The words just keep coming, an unstoppable flow now that she’s taken the cap off—she’s asking something deeply personal, but it feels as if shehasto. “Like your whole soul belongs to someone. Like you want them more than anything on earth.”
Jackie is silent for a while, tapping the side of her mug. The record plays, spinning and spinning just like Claire’s thoughts.
“I always thought that sort of thing was just for the movies,” Claire continues. She can’t bear to look up from the table, to see how Jackie is looking at her. “Real people don’t feel that way. But she makes it sound so sweet.”
“It can be,” Jackie says. It’s so low that it’s almost a whisper.
Claire exhales. She wants to cry, and yet she doesn’t want Jackie to see her like that. There’s so much going on inside her these days that she can’t even begin to label what she’s feeling. “What’s it like?”
“It’s…all-consuming. When it ends, it feels like you might die. But when you’re in it…” Jackie swallows, so heavily that Claire can hear it. She’s let go of her mug, and now she’s smoothing her thumb over the center of her own palm, like she once did to Claire’s. It’s the only part of Jackie that Claire can look at right now. “It can be wonderful. Transcendent.”
“What happened to make it end, for you?”
“There’s only so long one can be in the middle of a marriage,” Jackie says.
Claire looks up. Jackie is chewing on her upper lip. Her lipstick has faded a bit, now.
“You were amistress?” Claire says. She can hardly believe she’s heard it right. She’s defended Jackie from the ladies at book club, told them a dozen times that Jackie wouldn’t steal anyone’s husband, and now Jackie is telling her that’s exactly what she did.
Jackie makes a noise—like a laugh and a scoff at once. “I suppose you could call it that.”
“But that’s…that’s…”
“I know,” Jackie says. “You’re already looking at me differently.”
Claire tries to school her expression. “I’m not! I swear, I’m only…confused. Why would you do something like that?”
Jackie makes another noise that Claire can’t decipher. “I was in love. I was so in love that it made me nuts, I was…I was obsessed. I couldn’t see it as anything but a star-crossed romance. I kept convincing myself that if I just stuck it out, eventually…I would get what I wanted so badly.”
“Did you?” Claire says. “Get what you wanted, I mean?”
“No. After a few rounds of being assured the marriage was over before everything just went back to status quo, I realized it was never going to happen. I presented an ultimatum,” Jackie says heavily. “You can guess what the end result was.”
Claire looks down at Jackie’s hands again. Jackie won’t quite look at her, so they’re the best place to guess at her mood. “Is that why you moved here? Why you always avoid the subject when I ask?”
“I needed to get away from my life in the city,” Jackie says. There’s a stark white mark on her hand where her thumb was. Her fingernails are bitten, the edges of her nail beds a little ragged. “All of it. Carte blanche. I think part of me wanted a slice of normalcy.” Jackie sighs, shaking her head. “Maybe a bit of self-flagellation, too. I knew I wouldn’t fit in here. I guess I thought I deserved it, after what I did.”
Claire isn’t sure what to say. She tries to imagine Jackie kissing this handsome, shadowy married man of hers. Being touched by him. Held by him. It makes Claire feel a bit ill. But what’s even harder for her to imagine is loving a man so much, wanting himsobadly, that she would step into someone else’s marriage. If Pete had been seeing someone else when they’d met, she wouldn’t have given him a second glance. There was nothing star-crossed about their courtship. No maelstrom of desire. He’d asked her to a school dance, and she’d been flattered enough to say yes.
“I wouldn’t blame you if you judged me for it. I know it was wrong,” Jackie says. There’s a shake in her voice. “I’d understand if you don’t want to associate with me anymore.”
“I don’t think I’ve ever loved,” Claire blurts.
