“Janey,” he said. “You’re driving me insane.”
Janey rolled up her lipstick and smiled. “God, Bill. You’re always so dramatic. I think you’ve been writing too many screenplays.”
“Screenplays, fuck it,” he said, taking a step toward her. “I know Redmon’s in love with you, goddammit, but so am I.”
“I thought you hated me,” Janey said.
“I do,” he said. “I hate you because I fell in love with you the minute I saw you. And you’re with Redmon. What the hell are you doing with him anyway?”
Men are so disloyal, Janey thought.
He raked his fingers through his hair. “Jesus Christ, Janey,” he said. “Just tell me what you want. I could get you a part in a movie . . .”
“Oh Bill,” Janey said. “Don’t be ridiculous.”
He came toward her and put his arm around her neck. He kissed her and put his tongue in her mouth. She kissed him back and put her hand on his penis. It wasn’t quite as large as she hoped it would be, but it would do. He tried to put his hand down her pants, but they were too tight.
“Stop it,” she said. “What if someone comes?”
“What if they do?” he said, raising his eyebrows.
“Get out of here,” she said, pushing him out the door.
She reapplied her lipstick and went back to the table. “Everything okay?” Redmon asked.
“Oh yes,” she said. “Everything’s fine.”
Janey began fucking Bill whenever she could. They did it in one of the stalls in his barn. In the bathrooms at restaurants. Even in Redmon’s bed during the day, when Redmon was grocery shopping at the King Kullen. When Redmon returned, swinging white plastic bags, she and Bill would be sitting in the living room, pretending he had just stopped by. It was terrible and she knew it, but dammit, she reasoned. It wasn’t fair. Why did he have to be married? He was the kind of guy she could marry. Why was it that guys like Bill always ended up being caught by insane women like Helen? The world made no sense. And that house. She could be happy in a house like that for a long time.
“Redmon,” she would say innocently, when they were buying lettuce and strawberries at the produce stand up the street, “are you sure Bill will never divorce Helen?”
“I’m sure he wants to,” Redmon would say. “But he can’t.”
“Why not?”
“Because she’s insane. And you can’t divorce an insane woman.” Redmon picked up a peach and squeezed it. “Christ, Janey. Haven’t you ever heard of Zelda Fitzgerald? F. Scott Fitzgerald?” he asked. “Bill and Helen are the same. They have to stay together.”
Redmon found out about it, of course. He probably wouldn’t have, but Bill told him.
It was the middle of August. The weekend. Redmon kept looking at her, watching her. It was the first weekend they didn’t go to the Westacotts’.
“What’s wrong?” Janey asked.
“Why don’t you tell me?” he said.
“Don’t you want to go to the Westacotts’?”
“Do you?”
“I don’t care,” Janey said. “Why should I care?”
And later: “Maybe the Westacotts want to come over here?” she said.
“Do you want them to?”
“It might be fun,” she said, “considering you’re in such a bad mood.”
“I’m not in a bad mood,” he said.
“Could have fooled me,” she said.
“Besides, I don’t think Helen would like to.”
“She’s come over here before,” Janey said.
“That’s not what I mean,” he said.
“Are you going to cook pasta for dinner?” she asked.
On Sunday morning, they got into an argument about the messy kitchen.
“Fuck it!” he screamed.
Janey came running out of the bedroom. “What’s wrong?” she said.
“Look at this mess!” he shouted. He was holding a roll of paper towels in his hand.
“So?” Janey said.
“So don’t you ever clean up?”
“Redmon,” Janey said coolly. “You know what I am. I don’t clean.”
“That’s right,” he screamed. “How could I have been so stupid? You’re a modern woman. You don’t cook, you don’t clean, you don’t take care of a husband and children, and you don’t work. You just expect some rich guy to take care of you because you’re . . . a . . . a . . . woman! And the whole world owes you,” he finished, throwing a damp sponge at her.
“Golly, Redmon,” Janey said calmly. “You sound just like Bill Westacott.”
“Oh yeah?” he said. “Well maybe there’s a reason for that. Since you’ve been fucking him.”
“I have not,” Janey said, injured.
“That’s what he said. He told me.”
“He only told you because he’s jealous. He wanted to fuck me and I wouldn’t.”
“Oh Christ,” Redmon said. “Do I need this?” He put his head down in his arms. “I always knew I should never have gotten involved with a girl who can’t even read a newspaper.”
“I can read a newspaper,” she said. “But I choose not to. They’re boring, okay? Like you and all of your friends.”
Redmon said nothing. Janey drummed her fingernails on the counter. “What else did Bill say?”
“He said you were a whore.” He picked up his head and looked at Janey. “He said you have no money . . . you’re just looking for a rich guy . . . you’d never stick around.”
Janey said nothing for a moment. And then she screamed; “Fuck you! How dare you! You have some nerve, laying this crap on me. You’re not in love with me and I’m not in love with you. So stop being such a baby.”
“But that’s the problem,” he said. “I was in love with you.”
He drove her to the Jitney stop in Bridgehampton. They didn’t speak during the ride. Janey got out of the car with her bag. Redmon drove off. She looked down the street to see if the Jitney was coming. It wasn’t. She sat on a bench in the bright sunshine. A man walked by with a dog and she asked him when the Jitney was coming and he said not for another hour. She went across the street to the Candy Kitchen and bought an ice cream cone. She went back to the bench. She wanted to call Bill Westacott, but she didn’t think it would be a good idea.
She probably shouldn’t have done what she did, but was it really her fault? This was something that men just couldn’t seem to understand. It was okay for them to fuck around and to do it in the name of biology (”I have to spread my seed around”), but when a woman behaved the same way, they were horrified. Didn’t they know that the door swung both ways? There was Redmon, who had some money and was sort of okay when it came to status, with his tiny little shack, and there was Bill, who was rich and successful, with his big house. What did Redmon think was going to happen? That she was going to waste herself on him? Why should she, when she knew she could do better? It was biology.
Halfway back to the city, her cell phone rang. Redmon. “Listen,” he said. “I just want you to know. Helen was here. She was hysterical. Bill told her too. The thing you probably didn’t get about Bill is that he’s a big, big baby. He can’t live without Helen, even if she is insane. She supported him when he started writing screenplays.”
“So?” Janey said.
“So you have basically messed up three people’s lives. For no reason. Not to mention their kids. Bill had to come and get Helen and take her to the hospital.”
“I’m sure Bill’s had lots of affairs,” Janey said. “It’s not my fault if he can’t keep his pecker in his pants.”
“But I’m their friend,” Redmon said. “I was the one who brought you around, and I thought you were my friend too. What did you think was going to happen, Janey? Did you think Bill was going to leave his wife for you?”
“Exactly what are you trying to say, Redmon? That I’m not good enough?”
“That’s exactly what I’m saying.”
“Then I don’t think we need to co
ntinue this conversation,” Janey said.
“Just think about this,” he said. “Where do you think you’re going to end up, Janey? What do you think’s going to happen to you if you keep messing up people’s lives like this?”
“What about my life, Redmon? Why don’t you assholes ever think about how I feel?” she said. She hung up the phone.
There were two weeks left of summer, but Janey didn’t go to the Hamptons again. She sat in her sweltering apartment for the rest of August, taking a couple of hours of refuge a day in the coolness of her air-conditioned gym. As she banged away on the treadmill, she thought over and over again, “I’ll show you. I’ll show you all.”
Next year, she would get her own house for the summer.
V
Janey!” Joel Webb said.
“Hi!” Janey said. She waved and moved toward him, pushing through the crowd. Her martini sloshed out of its glass. She licked the rim.
“I haven’t seen you for ages,” Joel said.
They were at yet another party for an Internet site, held in another smoky, overheated club. It was February, and everyone was sweating. Janey bent over to allow Joel to kiss her on the cheek.
“Whew,” he said. “Who are all these people?”
“I have no idea,” Janey said, and laughed. “It seems like none of the old crowd goes out anymore.”
“But you ought to be able to find a rich guy here,” Joel said. “Aren’t all these Internet guys billionaires?”
“They’re boring,” Janey shouted above the crowd noise. “Besides, I’m getting my own house this summer.”
“Well, this is one of my last nights out,” he said. “I’m having a baby. Or rather, my girlfriend’s having a baby.”
“That’s terrific.”
“No, it isn’t. I was trying to break up with her. I’ve been trying to break up with her for years. And then she got pregnant. I still won’t marry her though. I told her, ‘I’ll live with you, I’ll pay the bills, but it’s your responsibility.’”
“That’s so kind,” Janey said sarcastically.
He didn’t catch the sarcasm. “Yeah, I think it is. Hey,” he said. “Why didn’t you tell me you had a gorgeous little sister?”
“What are you talking about?”
“Your sister. Patty. You could have fixed me up with her and saved me all this trouble.”
“I think she already has a boyfriend,” Janey said. She moved away. Patty! Everywhere she went, it was Patty and her boyfriend, Digger. Janey hadn’t even thought about Patty for years. But Patty had suddenly materialized. She’d actually been living in New York for five years, but Janey never paid any attention to her and saw her only on holidays at home, and even then it was like they lived in separate cities.
But this year was different.
Janey had never thought that Patty, who was the darling of the family but who had ended up not being a beauty (she was prone to being twenty pounds overweight), would amount to anything, but mysteriously she had. Patty, five years younger than Janey, had moved to New York right after college and started working for VH1 as some kind of assistant. Which, Janey figured, was where she would stay.
But suddenly Patty blossomed. She was now some hot-shit TV producer (New York magazine had put her in a story about up-and-coming young talents), she lost weight, and she had a serious boyfriend—a pallid, sickly looking guy named Digger who everyone was convinced was the next Mick Jagger.
And now Patty and Digger were everywhere—or at least at all of the places Janey seemed to go. She’d walk into a club, and some PR girl would say, “Oh, Janey, your sister is here!” and then lead her up a narrow staircase and lift a velvet rope, and there would be her sister with Digger, lounging in a banquette, smoking cigarettes, and as likely as not wearing sunglasses and the latest East Village fashion; like pants made out of silver foil. “Your sister is waaaaay cool,” the PR girl would whisper.
“Hey,” Patty would say, stubbing out her cigarette.
“Hello,” Janey said. The hello always came out with a slightly hostile edge. It wasn’t that she didn’t like Patty, it was simply that she and Patty never had anything to say to each other. They’d sort of sit there, looking away from each other, and then Janey would blurt out, “Um, how’s Mom?”
“Mom’s a pain in my fucking ass,” Patty would say eagerly, relieved to have something to talk about. “She still calls me once a week and asks me when I’m getting married.”
“She’s given up on me,” Janey would say. The truth was her mother rarely called. She didn’t care about her enough to even bug her about marriage.
And now here was her little sister, Patty, the toast of the town. For the first time in her life, Janey felt old. After all, Patty really was twenty-seven. Her skin was better, but it wasn’t just her outside that was younger: Patty had a freshness about her. Her world was new, and she was enthusiastic about everything. “Guess what?” she said to Janey one night, nearly knocking over her drink in excitement. “I’m going to be in a fashion spread in Vogue! And someone’s asked me—me—to star in this movie they’re making about downtown New York. Isn’t that great?”
Janey didn’t have the heart to tell her it was unlikely that any of it would happen, but she found herself involuntarily pursing her lips in disapproval like an old lady. But if it really was all pie in the sky, then why did Janey feel like she and Patty were on two different planets? And everyone was on Patty’s planet, and not hers?
For months, Janey tried to avoid mentioning Patty’s name, as if she didn’t talk about her maybe she would go away. But she didn’t. Janey spilled it all out to Harold.
“I can’t figure out how it . . . happened,” Janey said, in a tone of voice that was much lighter than what she really felt. “I don’t want to be mean, Harold,” she said, intending to be just that, “but no one paid any attention to Patty after she was sixteen. It was like she was just another adolescent lump.”
“Maybe she didn’t want to compete with you,” Harold said. They were at the gala dinner for the opening of the ballet. The theme was Midwinter Night’s Dream and the floor was awash in sparkle and fake snow.
“She couldn’t compete with me,” Janey said. She reached out and lightly touched the centerpiece, a miniature pine tree spray-painted white and studded with pink roses. “And besides,” she said. “Why would she want to?”
“I think you’re suffering from a case of good old garden-variety jealousy,” Harold said. “You feel like she’s doing something with her life and you’re not. If you would just do something . . .”
“But I have, Harold,” Janey said. “I’ve done a lot . . .”
“Real estate,” Harold said. “Become a realtor. That’s the ticket.”
Janey rolled her eyes. In the last six months, she and Harold had become great friends, which was wonderful because he took her to black-tie dinners, gave her money to pay her rent, and didn’t ask for anything in return. Unfortunately, after Janey told him about Zack and Redmon and Bill, he became determined to help Janey find a new career. This might have been tolerable, but his ideas about what Janey should do for a living were so painfully mundane that she could hardly bear to discuss it.
Two weeks ago, he’d been convinced she should become a paralegal (”You’ve got a good mind, Janey, you should use it”), and the week before that, a tutor for underprivileged kids (”It’ll take your mind off your own problems.” “Yes, but then I couldn’t afford to eat”). This week, it was real estate.
“Can we please discuss Patty?” Janey asked. “I feel like she’s secretly trying to be me.”
“Patty isn’t your problem,” Harold said. “You need to find something rewarding to do. Patty will take care of herself.”
“I’m sure she will,” Janey said softly. “But I couldn’t be a real estate agent either.” She sipped her champagne and looked around the room. They were seated at one of the best tables. A real estate agent! She knew girls who had done that. It was pathetic. It
was one thing to be Janey Wilcox, the model, and quite another to be Janey Wilcox, the real estate agent.
“Why not? It’s the perfect profession for you,” Harold said, picking up his fork. “Who wouldn’t buy a house from you? You could do it in the Hamptons. You know every house out there worth knowing anyway.”
“I’ve certainly stayed in them . . .”
“All you’d have to do is apply yourself a bit and—well, I’d pay for the course. My treat.”
The room swirled around them. Someone stopped and said hello; there were pictures taken.
“Oh Harold, how could I be a real estate agent?” she said impatiently, throwing down her napkin. She was wearing her hair in ringlets that she’d swept back from her face; her breasts spilled out of a beaded ivory bustier. Her skin was dazzlingly white, and she knew the whole effect was what she had come to think of as an “Elizabethan fairy princess.” She was certainly one of the most beautiful women in the room, if not the most beautiful.
“Janey,” Harold said patiently. “Look at the facts. You live in a lousy one-bedroom apartment on the East Side. You don’t even have a doorman. You’re broke. You’re not interested in dating anyone who’s remotely sensible for you . . .”
“By sensible, you mean boring,” Janey said.
“I mean a regular guy who stays home and watches football on Sunday. A guy who really loves you.”
“But I could never love a guy like that,” Janey said. “Don’t you understand?”
“Have you ever loved anyone, Janey?” he asked.
“As a matter of fact, I have.”
“Who?” Harold demanded.
“Just some guy,” Janey said. “When I was younger. Twenty-three.”
“You see,” Harold said. “Just some guy. You said it yourself.”
Janey pushed her salad around her plate and said nothing. It was ridiculous to call Charlie “just some guy” because he was anything but, but there was no point in explaining to Harold. She’d met Charlie at a fashion shoot when she was twenty-three and he was twenty-one (he was modeling as a joke, to piss off his father), and they had instantly fallen in love. Charlie was the scion of a wealthy oil family from Denver; it was rumored that he’d inherited sixty million dollars when he turned eighteen. But it wasn’t his money that made him attractive. There was the time he bought Rollerblades and skated down Fifth Avenue in a tux. The Valentine’s Day that he drove her around in the back of a flower van filled with roses. And the birthday when he gave her a pug named Popeye that they dressed up like a baby and snuck into their friends’ apartment buildings. He called her Willie (short for Wilcox, he said) and was the only man who ever thought she was funny.
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