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She mutters to me, “One thing at a time, Shep. Let me get us out of here in one piece.”
“Yeah, but I have questions,” I hiss at her.
“All of which I will answer tonight, when we go home.”
We continue on the path through the woods and come to another clearing, where there is another set of cottages. Jane walks up to one of them and I follow. She knocks on the door.
“Hanley?”
OK, her fiancé—former fiancé, that is—is Hanley. Got it. Definitely the name of a soft, pudgy farm boy I can knock down if I need to.
The door opens and there stands a tall, muscular, attractive blond man about Jane’s age. If I’m honest, he looks like the perfect, matching other half of Jane. If they stood side by side, they would look like a white people’s wedding cake topper.
“Hildie Mae,” he says, looking at her with angry eyes but also a side of fear.
“Can we talk?”
“Not unless you’ve come back to apologize for leaving me at the altar and humiliating me,” he says.
She folds her arms in front of herself. “I’m sorry for humiliating you. Now can we talk?”
“Are you going to marry me?”
“You don’t love me, Hanley. You never did. Do you really want to be married to someone you don’t love?”
He sighs and then steps aside and holds the door open. “Come on in, let’s talk.”
Uncle Merle and the other strange dudes move ahead of me like they’re going to join in on this conversation. I step up to block the entrance, but to my surprise, Jane has got this.
She puts up her hands. “Look. This is none of your business. We are two grown-ass adults and we are going to hash this out. And…my boyfriend is coming with me.”
“You will be shunned for this, Hildie Mae,” says Uncle Merle. “Fraternizing with someone…not of our kind.”
She laughs. “Oh, I’m shunned anyway.” She waves her hands around like she’s suddenly breaking into a sermon, projecting her voice for all who will listen. “Listen to this, everyone! I’m a big-time masturbator! And you know what? You all lied to me. My hands did not burst into flames, nor did I go temporarily blind and see visions of my eternity spent in hell. If you haven’t tried it, you should! It is fantastic! Can I get an Amen?”
My stomach is churning at the fucked-up-edness of all of this.
“Oh dear god. I have an idea. Let’s go inside, Jane,” I say, gently pushing her into Hanley’s cottage and shutting the door on all the shocked and appalled faces.
Once behind closed doors, Hanley doesn’t seem the least bit angry anymore, but he does appear to be scared.
He offers us both tea and we accept, sitting down at his kitchen table.
“Jane, what you saw the other night, I know it gave you a scare. But you have to help me out here. If the elders find out, I’ll be banished Maybe worse.”
Jane sips her tea and cocks her head.
“Hanley. If anything, I’m the one who’s gonna be shunned. And I’m fine with that. As you can see, I’ve moved on. All I know is I saw you in bed with another woman. I was so shocked because…well, I’d never seen anything like that before. I was hurt. Destroyed. Confused. Traumatized. The next thing I know, it’s morning and I’m on the street.”
I have to interrupt.
“Wait a minute. Hold up. She saw you cheating on her? Two days before the wedding?”
Jane turns to me and explains the whole thing.
“I was so nervous about the wedding night that I snuck off into the ba
throom while everyone was asleep. I saw myself in the mirror and I realized for the first time in my life I felt beautiful. So beautiful I wanted to touch myself. Is that conceited?”
