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“No problem, Jack. I understand.”
Somehow, I manage to keep it together for the rest of the meal although I don’t say much after that. In the end, I barely eat a thing, which probably explains why I feel very drunk by the time we leave. That and the wine.
In the car, Jack takes my hand and says, “I still want to get married, if you do.”
I look down at his hand, pull mine away. He sighs.
On the way home, Jack is surprisingly solicitous. He keeps throwing glances at me. Tells me again that he’s just asking for more time, that’s all, and I wonder for a split second if I got the text wrong, but obviously I didn’t.
I wonder how I could have been such a fool. I mean, I just about begged Summer to seduce Jack. I paid her a hundred bucks plus cab fare to suck his face off at my step-daughter’s birthday party. It’s hard not to conclude I deserve what’s happened next, which is that she did seduce him, and he did like it, and now they’re having an affair. I guess my brilliant strategy paid off. He and Bronwyn are still getting divorced, so there’s that.
I wonder why he doesn’t come right out and say it.It’s over. I don’t love you. I’ve met someone else.Until I think about it for a second. I pay the bills. I take care of Charlie—or I did a lot more pre-Bronwyn—I cook, I clean, I make the beds and wash his socks. What’s not to like? Maybe one day I’ll wake up and they’ll all be gone, Jack to his own wedding to Summer, Bronwyn and Charlie to some new fabulous house somewhere, and there’ll be a for sale sign on the front lawn and all the closets will be empty. Will I go around the house and make sure the baseboards are clean and the light fittings are dust free? Of course I will.
Back home Bronwyn is in the living room, sipping on something the color of honey, in a small glass. She’s got a fashion magazine in her lap, classical music coming through the speakers. I realize with a weird sense of displacement how often I’d find her just like this, back when she lived here with Jack, in this house, and I was only a visitor who came to paint her portrait, and it occurs to me with a sharp twist in my stomach that I’ve never belonged here. I was just playing house.
“Did you two enjoy yourselves?” she asks, as if we were teenagers returning from prom night. Jack goes straight for the bar and I say I have a headache and I’m going to bed.
Half an hour later I’m curled up on my side, sobbing into my pillow. I don’t know whether to hit myself for being so stupid or hit Jack for being such a jerk. I have a kaleidoscope of images in my brain, going round and round, of the past two years. How happy I’ve been, even through the hard times. How hard I’ve tried to make it work, to make them both happy. The sense of belonging I had never felt before. And it’s been shattered in the blink of an eye, and I hate myself because it’s partly my fault. It’s my punishment for pushing Summer onto Jack.
Bronwyn knocks softly and comes in without waiting for an invitation. I sit up quickly, brush my cheeks. She gently closes the door after her and comes to lie on the bed next to me, props herself on her elbow, head in her hand. “Okay, let’s hear it. What happened?”
“Nothing,” I say, cracking a sob.
“Tell me.” She tucks a lock of hair behind my ear, and for a split second, she’s my fourteen-year-old best friend again, before all the drama, lying with me on my bed in my own bedroom at home.Did you hear what Lucy said in History class? She’s such a dill, I swear.
I never think about what it was like when we were friends, only what it was like when we were enemies. But it feels surprisingly nice, and it reminds me how well we used to get on and how much I loved her before all the horrors. I find myself mirroring her position, my cheek in the palm of my hand.
“Where’s Jack?”
“Watching some sports game on TV.”
“Right.”
“What happened?”
“He wants to postpone the wedding,” I say, my mouth distorted with pain, picking at the bed covers. As if that was my main problem.
“Really?” She frowns. “Did he say why?”
“It’s not the right time.”
She makes a face, thinks about it. “I don’t think it’s that big of a deal, Laura, it might be a good thing to wait until he has a job.”
I laugh. Sort of. “Will he ever have a job?”
“Of course he will. You worry too much. You always did.”
I shrug. I consider telling her what really happened. I’m so close, I can feel the words rolling in my mouth.He’s fucking the girl I work with, remember her?
But I don’t. I’ve spent so long maybe nothatingher, but certainly disliking her profoundly, rekindling our friendship feels a little like steering a tanker in the Suez Canal after realizing you’ve missed the exit. It’s going to take some time.
I wipe my face with a corner of the sheet. “How was Charlie tonight? Did she enjoy her dinner?”
“She loved it. We watched Gossip Girl, the reboot, and she went to bed.”
“Oh. Did she like that?”
“What’s not to like?” she says, and I’m thinking it’s so unlike Charlie, I wonder if she’s at the stage where she’ll say anything to her mother to live up to expectations.
