The Darlings in Love

by Melissa Kantor

  In the face of the simple truth of Natalya’s statement, the girls were silent.

  Finally, Jane reached out and took Natalya’s hand. “You’re awesome, Nat. You deserve to be happy. It’s sad that it has to come at someone else’s expense, but there’s nothing you can do about it.”

  Victoria scooched off the couch, squeezed onto the ottoman and slipped her arm around Natalya. “It’s true. You’re a great friend. And maybe…maybe someday you’ll get to show Alison that.”

  Natalya dropped her head onto Victoria’s shoulder. She wanted to believe the Darlings. She wanted to believe that someday she could be both Colin’s girlfriend and Alison’s friend.

  But she had the feeling that that was like wanting to believe in Santa and unicorns—nice to imagine.

  But not real.

  JANE WISHED VICTORIA and Natalya didn’t have to leave. As long as they were there, she was focused on them.

  It was way nicer to assure Natalya that she was a good person, or to think of reasons Victoria shouldn’t break up with Jack, than it was to think about her own romantic life.

  What was the deal with Simon?

  She’d thought about telling Victoria and Natalya what she’d seen. In fact, if Victoria hadn’t come hurtling out of the theater crying about Jack’s text immediately after Simon left, Jane probably would have told her what had just happened with Simon and Todd. But they’d gotten caught up in a discussion of Jack, and then Natalya had arrived with her story about Colin. So there really were a lot of other, more important things to analyze.

  But it wasn’t just that. It was also why she wanted to tell her friends what she’d seen: she wanted them to hear the whole thing and then assure her that she’d misinterpreted it. But each time she’d been about to tell them, she’d had the same thought: What if they didn’t tell her that? What if they heard the story and drew the exact same conclusions she had? What was she supposed to do then?

  Better to wait and see than have to explain a whole misunderstanding that might lead them to misjudge Simon forever.

  Sleep tite. Those had been the last words of his e-mail. Sleep tite. That was definitely the kind of thing a person said to his girlfriend.

  Wasn’t it?

  Sitting at her desk trying to focus on the United States’ entry into World War II, Jane feared she might be losing her mind. She read the column on FDR’s lend-lease program half a dozen times, then read the question at the end of the chapter. What were the pros and cons of the lend-lease program?

  It was like she’d never read the chapter at all. She looked at the words on the page. Lend-lease. Lend-lease. Lendleaselendlease.

  Was she being paranoid? So he’d been talking to another guy. Talking intensely to another guy. Big deal. Wasn’t that just one more way Simon was a modern, open-minded metrosexual guy?

  But what she’d seen, that hadn’t really looked metrosexual. It had just looked…sexual.

  There was a knock on her door. “Come in.”

  Her mom stood outlined by the light from the hallway. She and Richard had slept at his apartment and then spent the day on a hike along some trail north of the city. Jane hadn’t seen her since she had left the apartment to go to Casablanca.

  It seemed like a lifetime ago.

  “Hi, honey. How was your day?”

  The casual, cheerful way her mom asked made Jane acutely aware of just how little her mother knew about what was happening in Jane’s life lately. Normally, Jane told her mom everything—they would have spent hours talking about what was going on with Simon, Jack, and Colin. Maybe because she was a therapist, her mother was a great listener and gave pretty smart advice.

  But suddenly Jane couldn’t remember the last time she’d really talked to her mother. In the fall, she’d kept the whole Mr. Robbins thing from her because she’d known her mom would have been upset by the feelings Jane had for her teacher. Her mom knew she was going out with Simon and that she really liked him, but that was about all Jane had had a chance to tell her in the few times they’d been alone since she and Simon had gotten together.

  Now was the time to tell her mom what was up. She really needed some advice about how to deal with whatever was going on.

  “My day was kind of…” Jane began.

  “Hang on a sec.” Her mom called over her shoulder, “Richard, will you take the brie out of the fridge?” She turned back to Jane. “So it was a nice day?”

  Had Jane said it was a nice day? Had she said anything? And how was she supposed to talk to her mother about whether or not her boyfriend was gay, when Richard was right at this moment standing in the kitchen, waiting for her mother to come back and eat cheese with him?

  “Um, yeah,” Jane muttered. “It was okay.”

  Her mom didn’t press for more details. “Great. I was thinking about ordering in from Ga Ga Noodle. I know you like that place so much. Maybe Natalya and Victoria could join us for an early dinner. Wouldn’t that be fun?”

  Jane just stared at her mother, incredulous. Then she said, “Mom, Victoria and Natalya were here all day. They left, like, five minutes before you got home, and we ordered Ga Ga Noodle for lunch.”

  “Oh,” her mom said. “That’s right. They slept over.” She paused for a moment, and Jane was sure she was going to say something like Wow, I should probably know a little more about how you spent your day, shouldn’t I?

  Instead she gave Jane a big smile. “I guess great minds think alike!”

  “Um, I guess,” answered Jane.

  Her mother completely missed the sarcasm in Jane’s response. “There’s a nice little Italian place that just opened up on Greenwich. Should we try that, since you had Chinese for lunch? Richard and I have been curious about it.”

  “Sure, Mom.” Jane turned back to her history textbook. “Whatever.”

  Just what she was in the mood for: a romantic dinner.

  For three.

  VICTORIA DIDN’T KNOW what she was going to do when she saw Jack.

  Saturday night she’d finally replied to his text asking how the movie was with a single word: good. When her phone had rung Sunday at noon and she’d seen his name on the screen, she almost hadn’t picked up. But Jane and Natalya had told her she had to tell him what Lily had said, that he had a right to explain himself. And she wanted more than anything for there to be an explanation, no matter what that explanation was. Victoria, I didn’t know how to tell you this, but I have a brain tumor. It causes me to say things I don’t mean. Only hurtful things. Nice things like “I love you” are always true.

  She sat down at her desk, picked up her ringing phone, and said, “Hi!” in a firm voice.

  “Hey!” said Jack.

  She heard people talking in the background. Was he still with his friends? Did he never spend a second alone?

  “Where are you?” she asked, wishing she sounded a little less accusatory.

  “I’m at the diner with Rajiv and Sam and those guys,” he said. “Want to join us?”

  Why don’t you want to leave your friends and join me? Ever?

  “I’ve got a lot of homework.” Victoria’s voice sounded pitifully sad to her own ears, but Jack didn’t seem to notice.

  “Bummer,” he said.

  Bummer? Bummer?! She was supposed to spill her guts to a guy who said bummer? His flip response made her so mad she said, “Actually, I should probably go.”

  “Oh.” He sounded startled by how abruptly she was getting off the phone, and Victoria was glad. “Everything okay?” he asked.

  No, actually, everything is not okay. Victoria almost said it. But then in the background she heard Rajiv say, “Could I have another cup of coffee?” She couldn’t just launch into her question about what Jack had told Lily with his friends sitting right there. Maybe even Lily sitting right there.

  “Everything’s fine,” she answered tersely.

  “Okay, then,” he said. “Call me later, ’kay?”

  “Yeah,” she promised automatically. “Sure.”<
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  But she didn’t call him later. And when he texted her at nine, asking if she was still awake, she didn’t respond, just shut her phone and lay there, not sleeping, until way after midnight.

  They didn’t run into each other all Monday morning. It wasn’t until she was walking down the hall on her way to Bio, the only class they had together, that she saw him. He was half leaning, half sitting on the radiator, talking with Lily and Rajiv.

  Were they talking about her? What was he saying this time? Probably something like, You know, after going an entire weekend without spending time with Victoria, I realize how much better my life is without her.

  Jack saw her, hesitated, then said something to Lily and Rajiv and crossed the hallway to Victoria.

  “Hey,” he said. There was something chilly about his voice, like he was mad or at least annoyed with Victoria. Which was hilarious, considering he had absolutely nothing to be mad about.

  Well, two could play at that game.

  “Hey,” answered Victoria, her voice equally cool.

  “You never called me,” Jack said. “Did you get my text?”

  Victoria shrugged. “I got it.” He was wearing the same sweater he’d been wearing the afternoon he’d told her he loved her.

  Jack gave her a funny look.

  “Did you have a nice day?” Victoria’s voice sounded both strange and familiar to her ears, as if she were talking in a way she’d talked before, but not in a long while.

  “Yeah,” answered Jack. “It was all right.” He didn’t add anything about having missed her or ask if she’d had a nice day too.

  “Great,” said Victoria. Now she knew where she’d talked this way before. All during the campaign, whenever she’d had to chat with one of her father’s supporters, she’d used this robotic voice.

  Jack was still looking at her, but he didn’t make even the slightest move to embrace her.

  The late bell rang and Victoria gestured toward the bio lab. “I have class.” She said it like they didn’t both have Bio now, like they didn’t usually walk into Bio side by side, hands in the back pockets of each other’s jeans or arms around one another.

  “Oh.” Jack shrugged. “Then I guess you should go.” And his voice was even chillier and more inflectionless than it had been before.

  Victoria turned abruptly and headed into the lab, blinking frantically to keep herself from crying.

  Jack left Bio without waiting for her. Victoria walked numbly to history and listened to but did not hear Mr. Mazetti analyze European alliances in the post–World War II era. Then English, where Mrs. Lavinsky assigned an essay on Julius Caesar. Had Victoria even read the play? She couldn’t remember. At the end of the period, her friend Chloe turned to her.

  “Are you okay?”

  “What?” The room had emptied out almost completely, but Victoria hadn’t even started to put her stuff in her bag. It was as if she were planning to spend lunch sitting in their English classroom.

  “You seem a little out of it,” Chloe explained.

  When Victoria didn’t respond and didn’t make a move to pack up her books, Chloe said, “Here, why don’t I help you?”

  Victoria still didn’t say anything, just sat silently while Chloe put Victoria’s play, notebook, and pen into her bag. Even when everything was packed up, Victoria still didn’t move. Chloe eased her out of her seat and hoisted Victoria’s bag onto her own shoulder.

  “So, do you want to go to Rick’s?” asked Chloe. The hallways were crowded, and they joined the current of people heading in the direction of the front doors.

  “Sure,” said Victoria, even though she hadn’t really heard the question.

  “I’ve got a serious craving for a Carol Channing,” Chloe told her.

  “Sure,” Victoria repeated.

  She turned the corner into the main lobby and literally banged into Jack.

  He felt the impact and leaped backward. “Sorry,” he said automatically. Only then did he see that it was Victoria he’d bumped into.

  They stared into each other’s eyes for a long beat.

  Victoria felt the now-familiar stinging that signaled tears were about to start. “I’ve got to go,” she muttered. Then she grabbed Chloe by the arm. “Come on.”

  Still holding on to Chloe, Victoria raced from the lobby as if the school were on fire. She was literally panting by the time they got to the front steps of school.

  Chloe turned to her. “Everything isn’t okay, is it?”

  By way of an answer, Victoria burst into tears.

  SUNDAY, AS SHE was getting ready for bed, Natalya wondered if Colin was going to call her. He’d said that Alison was at her country house for the weekend and that he couldn’t reach her until she was back in New York because her cell service was spotty. Natalya found herself wondering why the house didn’t have a landline. Couldn’t he reach Alison that way? As soon as she had the thought, that he should have found a way to break up with Alison as quickly as possible, she felt awful. It was like she was some kind of vulture.

  She checked her phone one last time right before she went to sleep, but there was no message from Colin. Why hadn’t he called her? Did that mean he hadn’t been able to reach Alison? Or had he changed his mind? Had an afternoon with Natalya made him realize she wasn’t as great as he’d imagined, that he was happier with his sort-of girlfriend after all?

  Natalya lay in bed for a long time not sleeping. She wished she could call Victoria or Jane, but she didn’t want to wake them up. Lying in her darkened room, the pale shadows of the streetlamps outside her window playing across the ceiling, Natalya felt full of despair. She remembered how confident she’d been that Dr. Clover was wrong, how life had seemed so totally perfect when Colin had asked her to meet him for a chess game. It had only been a couple of weeks since the lesson about Mendel’s peas, but Natalya felt years older than the girl who’d been so sure that her teacher was wrong for saying life was imperfect and messy.

  When she turned on her phone Monday morning, there was a missed call from Colin. So he had called! Hands shaking, she checked her call log—he’d called right before midnight while she’d been lying in bed trying not to imagine what was happening with him and Alison.

  She dialed her voice mail and heard the familiar sound of Colin’s voice. “Hey, it’s Colin. Sorry to be calling so late, you must be asleep already. Um, I guess, just give me a call, okay? It’s all gotten a little…complicated.”

  Puzzled, she played the message over two more times. It’s all gotten a little complicated. What did that mean? All her fears from the previous night returned. Had he changed his mind? Was he calling to say he liked Alison too much to break up with her?

  Immediately, Natalya began to dial Colin’s number, but then she looked at the clock. It was way too early to call someone who didn’t have to get up at dawn and travel more than an hour to get to school, someone who had obviously gone to bed after midnight. In her mind’s eye she pictured Colin asleep in his bed, maybe with his phone on the floor, where he’d dropped it the night before after calling her. She wished he’d left a more detailed message. Today was going to be hard enough to face without knowing exactly what she was up against.

  Walking to the train, she couldn’t stop thinking about Colin’s message and what he might have meant. Complicated. He said things had gotten complicated. It was like she’d never heard the word before, like it was French or Japanese. What could it possibly mean that things were complicated? As the Q train lumbered over the Manhattan Bridge, Natalya dialed Colin, but the call went right to voice mail. She watched the sunlight glittering on the surface of the East River, then raised her eyes to study the New York City skyline. Colin was there, in the shower or eating or getting dressed or maybe walking to school already. And so was Alison. Natalya wished she knew what either one of them was thinking right at that moment. Anything she learned would have been better than not knowing.

  The Gainsford steps were crowded with uniformed girls, but Nat
alya kept her head down and didn’t pause to say hello to anyone. Instead, she headed into the building and up the stairs, her goal the second-floor girls’ bathroom at the end of the hall. There was never anyone in there first thing in the morning, and she wanted a second to be alone and splash some cold water on her face. She had English first period, which meant she was about to have to face Alison. Which would have been complicated enough without Colin’s message about things being complicated.

  But when she pushed open the heavy wooden door of the second-floor bathroom, she found herself looking at Jordan. Jordan was talking to Alison, who was sitting on the wide marble counter beside the sink, a girl whose face was wet with tears, whose nose was red from blowing, and who, at the exact moment Natalya stepped into the room, was saying in a voice made high-pitched by crying, “It just doesn’t make any sense.”

  Alison did not look up at the sound of the door squeaking open, but Jordan did. When she saw who it was, she did not smile or in any way acknowledge that Natalya was someone she was friends with, someone she’d had over to her house, someone she sat with at lunch. Quickly, almost frantically, she waved her hand to indicate that Natalya should leave.

  Natalya did not have to be told twice. Heart thumping in her chest, she slipped out the door and pressed herself against the wall beside it.

  This was all her fault. Alison crying. Jordan telling her to get out. She was a terrible person. Jane and Victoria had tried to convince her otherwise, but she knew the truth. She was mean and selfish and a sorry excuse for a friend, and now Alison was sitting there crying to Jordan because of what Natalya had done.

  The ringing in her bag jerked her out of her thoughts, and she scrambled to extract her phone. Colin. “Hello? Hello?” her voice sounded slightly hysterical.

  “Hi,” said Colin. “We really need to talk.”

  Truer words had never been spoken. She told Colin to hang on a minute, and made her way downstairs. She wished more than anything she hadn’t seen what she had. It would have made it a whole lot easier for her to be happy if Colin was about to tell her he was free.