“I hate her,” Jess howled, each word enunciated, each word brimming fury. “I hate him. I hate them both.” She was sobbing and wailing, pacing our dorm room, stabbing thumbtacks one after the other into the bulletin board as if into the contours and crevices of his skin, obliterating him with pinholes. Maybe he wanted to get caught. He was supposed to meet Jess at the movies for the seven o’clock show of Victor/Victoria. She hated missing previews, so she bought the tickets because he was late, and Sydney Moore stood by the movie posters, hand on a hip, wearing a Fiorucci miniskirt that Jess owned except in blue, and the two smiled coldly at each other, did that terse nod thing, but when Tommy walked up and saw them both, he spun and ran. Nothing had been proven, but Sydney Moore whipped around in the opposite direction, her stride stiff and fast, so Jess shoved the tickets free into someone’s hand and headed straight back to find me. She knew.
The worst part is that on that same night—before I knew what had happened earlier at the movie theater—I had been studying in my usual carrel in the library, and Tommy came for me, strolling the bookshelves across the aisle until I looked up, which wasn’t long; I’d drop mind-numbing Ulysses at the whiff of anyone passing. Probably people guessed what was up, anyone sitting near the staff bathroom, anyone catching the two clicks of the door opening and shutting, the snap of the lock, semi-muffled by his fist. We didn’t talk. He liked leaning ass up against the sink for a fast, rough blow job; he liked seeing me on my knees on that dirty mint-green bathroom tile. Jeans down partway. Boxers, usually blue. He grabbed my hair and held on, like it was beautiful, like Rapunzel’s hair, which made me feel sort of pretty.
What was I getting out of it? Good question, though I didn’t ask it.
He would vanish right after, and I’d drench my hands with pink soap, scrubbing each finger individually under cold water (even hot was cold in that bathroom), examining my face in the mirror. I was exactly who I thought I was, a girl from Iowa at a fancy college doing a reckless, awful, evil thing. I wouldn’t leave behind even a used paper towel marking my presence, so I wiped my wet hands on my jeans, telltale dark streaks slashing my thighs.
Jess stuck her left arm straight out, tilted her hand upward at the wrist. She got the big diamond ring last week when Tommy took her to C.D.Peacock on Michigan Avenue. His dad in Louisville told him which store and called in with a credit card number, and after some paperwork, out strolled Jess, wearing the ring. I assumed she expected all the rest of it would be that easy. “I love this ring,” she said now, toning her voice into thoughtful consideration, as if a challenging question had been posed.
“And him,” I added for her.
“Him I hate,” she corrected.
Easy to see how this would end. It was why men blinded women with glittery diamonds. Why I planned never to marry. But I went along: “It’s a gorgeous ring.”
She said, “My parents have rough spots, which I know you don’t believe. But I never told you about when I was fourteen and came home sick from school, and my mother was crying in the bathroom. I asked what was wrong—you know, because you’re supposed to; I mean, really all I wanted was to climb into their bed and have her bring me cocoa with little marshmallows and fall asleep to TV game shows, but there she was, sobbing, so I had to help her. She went, ‘I’ll tell you exactly what’s wrong,’ and then she said my dad had a mistress all set up in an apartment and everything.”
“Wow.”
“So, according to her this one time, which believe me was the only time she ever mentioned any of it, she started a secret bank account and was siphoning money into it.”
I repeated, “Wow,” the best response for something that was surprising and not.
“She said she wasn’t leaving him because of me and my sister, because keeping a family together was everything, but also no way would he get away with it. She said—exact words—‘It’s not that hard to learn to love someone you hate.’”
“True,” I agreed, watching Jess stare at her ring. Two carats, she had told me, an Asscher cut diamond, the most expensive cut in the world. I had never heard of such a thing, but I pretended to know all about it last week when she waved her hand in my face after getting back from downtown. “He insisted it should be the best diamond in the store,” she told me, “and virtually flawless—like me,” and while she talked, I thought about the bathroom tile pressed cold on my knees, that secret thing I clung to, like how praying might be if I still prayed. She said she wanted to let me try on the ring but it was bad luck, and when I said, “That’s okay,” she slid it off, saying, “Screw bad luck.”
The ring was loose on my ring finger and the diamond heavy enough that it spun upside down, dangled in my palm. I twisted the ring the right way, half expecting a genie to appear and grant me a wish. But no, so I tilted my hand to flash the diamond before yanking off the ring, saying, “Too quick for bad luck.”
Now. What about now? That was always a thing when I was with Jess, her snapping her fingers in my face to bring me back to now, to her. She kept me from drifting away, like clutching a string tied to a balloon. We both liked that, thinking I would be lost without her. Now she was saying, “After my mother told me all that I threw up. Like I want to right now.”
I said, “You haven’t even talked to him about it yet.”
“I’m the one who got the ring,” she said. “I’m the one he asked to marry him that day by the lake. Not her.”
I’m the one in the library bathroom, I thought, before saying, “Why does everyone think she’s so pretty? Her nose is too big.”
She curled both arms around her chest, tightened them as if hugging herself. The ring disappeared into the folds of her limbs. I stepped over and squashed my hug on top of hers. She was shaking. She said, “When I asked my mom the next day about what she’d said, she accused me of too much NyQuil, that it was a bad dream, basically that I was insane to think that could be true. I was afraid to bring it up again. But I don’t know. Men really are scummy pigs.”
I thought about her dad, the richest man I knew in person, though not rich the way Tommy’s dad was rich. Jess’s dad was sharp, his body all angles like a wire coat hanger, and he finished your sentence if you weren’t getting to the point fast enough; actually, he preferred making the point for you. Except for Jess; she talked over him when he bulldozed in, until he laughed and shut up. He planned office parks and found people to build them, though Jess told me he started out running vending machines, which I didn’t know was a thing to be run by someone, but he never talked about work out at dinner because Jess’s mom said all that bored her. He was the only man I’d seen in real life with two rings: a wedding band and, on his right pinkie, a knuckled chunk of gold with initials carved on the smooth top. I asked Jess if her mother had given it to him, and she thought that was so hilarious: “No woman would pick that out. He bought it himself.” I imagined him coming home with that ring in a velvet box, not letting anyone try it on because it was bad luck, later saying the same exact words to the mistress. I imagined the mistress at C.D.Peacock, quietly shaking her head no, no, no, then yes. Whatever there was, people—and not only men—wanted more. I did. I wouldn’t say so then, but if there was a mistress in an apartment, I knew there might also be a child, a girl, Jess’s sister, a shadow daughter—a girl growing up to be like Jess’s dad. How funny later, when I realized I was right, to wonder if she’d been named for money: Penny.
I shook straight the rumpled comforter, patted the pillow invitingly. I let Jess crawl into bed in her jeans and polo shirt, but I tugged off her flats. She murmured, “You’re always here to take care of me.” I sat in the dark with her as she slept, listening to her breathe. The next day, when I asked if she ever thought about questioning her dad about the mistress, she daggered me a frozen look and said, “Give me a break. You know my father’s not that way.” She arced one arm in instant dismissal of me and my rudeness, and the Asscher cut diamond flung dazzling sparkles across the morning sunlight. Who’s the one
keeping together the family now? I wanted to say, but didn’t dare.
Jess hadn’t told her parents about her sudden engagement. They hadn’t even met Tommy, which she explained away, saying her parents refused to like anyone who asked her out. Her father didn’t trust boys, and her mother didn’t trust men. “They want me to be a nun,” Jess said, “even though my mother doesn’t trust Catholics.” I reminded her that I was Catholic, sort of, raised to be Catholic anyway. “That doesn’t count,” Jess said, “because they love you, how genuine you are. They’re always telling me how polite and quiet you are, and well-mannered. That’s their favorite word for you, that I should be more ‘well-mannered’ like you.” We snorted at that idea. But now there was this Asscher cut ring, making Tommy real. So when it was time to tell them over dinner—two days after the movie theater and Sydney Moore, after Jess decided that things looked better in the morning, and after Tommy had a mountain of flowers delivered and swore he ran only because he was freaked to see Sydney—Jess insisted that I be there to ease the way. “You’re like an adult compared to me,” she said, “and you know how to handle parents. Like you’re gifted.” I made a few dismissive clucks, but she barreled on: “I want you there so they really get I’m engaged for real, so they’re ready to meet him. One surprise at a time.” And the kicker: “Anyway, they like taking us out.” And I like getting free dinner, I thought, right as Jess, knowing what I was thinking, nudged my ribs.
Getting ready, I picked my nice skirt, the one that closed up the side with a line of shiny black buttons, one or two of which you were supposed to leave open at the bottom, or possibly three. I went with four. Pumps with too-high heels. The periwinkle cotton sweater from Marshall Field’s that I convinced the saleslady was from the half-off table. A new tube of Cover Girl mascara, the brand Jess recommended for me, and she also recommended I switch to black mascara and eyeliner, both more dramatic than boring brown. She had lots of opinions about makeup and loved that I took all her advice, unlike her sister, “always whining that foundation oppresses women. Puh-lease!”
Jess wore a slinky wrap dress with a deep V-neck. We were date-dressing for this dinner with parents. We thought we looked like adults. She decided on no jewelry except for the giant diamond ring.
“Your mom will see it right away,” I said. “You flashing that thing around.”
She said, “Let’s hope. Maybe that will make everything easier.”
“Won’t she be happy for you?” I asked.
“Not about being engaged,” Jess said. “But the ring. At least he has money.”
“He’s cute. And better manners than me,” I said. Please, he liked to moan, please. Though not thank you.
“No one is as well-mannered as you,” she said. “You’re the queen of manners. They love you.”
“Because I’m quiet.”
“Exactly.” She laughed in that way that made sure we both understood that she would never be quiet like me, or like me in any way, and we got in her car and drove to the Keg, Evanston’s only fancy restaurant, and ended up sitting in the lobby, waiting for her parents, who were always late. Even when we knew they would be late, we rushed to be on time, which didn’t make sense until I realized that Jess wanted to complain about how long she had to wait. They usually claimed parking problems, but the Keg had its own lot, so it wouldn’t be that. It was her father pouring down one last drink before heading out, was what it was. Jess’s mother had announced that one night when she and I sat in side-by-side stalls in the ladies’ room, like I’d asked a question. I pretended not to hear. And I didn’t tell Jess, though maybe I was expected to.
Now, as we waited in the paneled lobby in our date clothes with our black-lined eyes, Jess said, “What I need is a ton of luck.”
“I don’t think that’s how luck is measured,” I said. “We’ve gone metric.”
She didn’t crack a smile. Too nervous to listen. Too bad. It was the kind of joke she liked.
The hostess behind the stand—tall, thin, what the bad poets in my writing workshop would describe as “raven-haired” with “alabaster” skin—glared at the space above our heads. She was a hundred times prettier than me, even prettier than Jess, and definitely as pretty as Sydney Moore, but clearly she hated us anyway. We went to the school by the lake and she didn’t. The equation in that town was simple.
I’m not them, I thought, trying to vibe the information. I’m a fraud. I’m more like you than you think.
But she kept up the scowl. And why not: here I was perched on a bench in the lobby, planning to order the fried shrimp, the third most expensive item on the menu she was handing us with a forced, hateful smile because Jess had requested one.
Jess said, “They do this on purpose.”
“Do what?” For a moment, I thought we were talking about the hostess, but I remembered we’d never been talking about her.
“Make me wait,” she said. “Like they know what I’m going to tell them. Like they fucking already know and don’t want to hear it.” She barely said “fricking” back then or “what the f,” so “fucking” was a very big deal. I watched her pick at her cuticle until a skin shred ripped off, which she flicked on the floor toward the hostess.
I checked my watch. Twenty minutes. Maybe her father had needed a second or third drink. Maybe her mother wouldn’t leave the bedroom, because that was another thing she told me once in secret, that lots of days barely seemed worth getting out of bed for.
The hostess said, “I’m only supposed to hold the reservation fifteen minutes.” A mean little simper accompanied her statement. I kind of admired it. She was unimpressed with Jess, that’s for sure. Not that Jess would care what a restaurant hostess thought of her.
“Then seat us,” Jess said.
“Not until your entire party is here,” the hostess said, and Jess’s parents swooped in, flurrying apologies, and we jumped up for hugs and Jess pounced—“You’re twenty minutes late”—and the hostess took in the fuss with a smirk, lasering her smoldering stare at me, which felt unfair because all I was doing was standing quietly in the background. I mean, it wasn’t like my parents would come to campus—from Iowa or even if they lived two minutes away—to buy me and my friend fancy food. Also, I wasn’t stupid like she thought; I understood exactly the cost of a free dinner. I wouldn’t make eye contact with the hostess, though I felt her now wanting to.
Jess’s father immediately got drinks going, pretty much before we sat down, asking what we wanted, though Jess and I were both underage, and I said, “Tab is fine,” and Jess’s mother shrilled, “Raymond!” and arched an eyebrow, and Jess said, “I’ll have a martini, shaken, not stirred, very dry, up, with a twist, and seriously—very, very dry, don’t even think the word ‘vermouth,’ because I mean dry like a desert,” and her father laughed and asked how many martinis she’d drunk in her life, and she laughed right back and said, “Enough to know how I like them,” and her mother complained, “Raymond!” and he laughed again and said, “I’ll have what she’s having,” pointing to Jess. Her mother ordered a half carafe of Chablis, and when the waitress looked at me, I wilted and said, “I’ll have Chablis, too,” so her mother changed to a full carafe, which is what she probably wanted all along, because she patted my hand gratefully.
Then we went through the menu, Jess’s father reading off the specials that were typed up on a small card clipped to the center of the trifold menu, though that same card was clipped to our menus, too, and we listened attentively, then Jess said she wanted a small house salad because she felt fat and her mother said, “You have to eat something, lovey,” and Jess tilted her head my way so I could put to use my alleged gift handling adults, and I remarked, “We had a really huge lunch,” though Jess hadn’t eaten any lunch that I remembered or breakfast. She was very take it or leave it about food.
The drinks came, and Jess’s dad made the same toast he always did, which was a word or two in another language, probably Polish, since his grandmother was from Poland, a
nd we all mumbled our imitation, clinking glasses, and the wine tasted like vinegar from a refrigerator, like sour medicine, sludge to slog through before reaching another, more desirable outcome, and Jess started coughing and choking because, of course, she’d never had a martini before, but once she could breathe, she announced, “I love it,” and her father said, “That’s my girl,” and his swig was long and hard, so clearly he really, truly did love it, and watching him made me want to drink martinis someday, but to order them his way, not how Jess did.
“I like when there’s an olive,” her mother said. “And the gin soaks in.”
Jess said, “Olives are fattening,” and her mother sighed and sipped wine, but she didn’t seem to love it the way Jess’s dad loved that martini.
The waitress returned—she was older, tired looking, conditioned to people like Jess and her family, irritated only at the time lost going through the motions to get her 15 percent tip. “We have some specials tonight,” she said.
“We’re ready to order.” Jess’s father pointed at Jess’s mother, who ordered the baked halibut, after twenty questions about how fishy it would be, and no side dish even though one came free, and no dressing on the salad, just lemon. Jess ordered a house salad with oil and vinegar and opened her mouth to say something else, but her father was pointing at me, and I ordered fried shrimp with French fries as my side and Italian as my dressing, because fried shrimp was my favorite food, which in Iowa I got only on my birthday, and only after enduring my mother announcing to the waitress, “This one with her champagne taste better marry rich, because she won’t get it here.” Jess’s father ordered prime rib with a baked potato and “a mountain of sour cream” and, for his salad, blue cheese dressing, which the menu said was fifty cents extra, and then Jess’s mother said, “I want a baked potato, too,” and then changed altogether to the prime rib and blue cheese, and the waitress wrote it all down, and then Jess’s dad looked at Jess and pointed and said, “She’ll also have the prime rib and blue cheese,” and Jess rolled her eyes and mumbled, “Dad,” but when she saw the waitress’s pen poised, unsure, she nodded and said, “Okay, prime rib. But no sour cream—a mountain of butter,” and I was about to chime in that I changed to prime rib, but the waitress gathered the menus and walked away: clearly I wasn’t one of them.
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