“Yeah,” said Alison, her voice calm. “Do you know him?”
Do I know him? I made out with him. He told me he can’t stop thinking about me, that he only likes you as a friend. Do I know him? Yeah, I know him. But you don’t.
But as Natalya opened her mouth to speak, she realized something. She was the one who was an idiot. Colin had said he didn’t like Alison, but he hadn’t broken up with her. It’s complicated. What was so complicated? Alison, I don’t want us to go out anymore. Did he think he was so great Alison was going to kill herself or something just because he dumped her? Or had he just realized he didn’t like Natalya all that much, that while she might be fun to play chess with and fool around with on a boring afternoon when there was nothing else to do, she wasn’t worth giving up beautiful, perfect, rich Alison Jones for.
Everyone at the table was still staring at her.
“Not really,” she said quietly, looking down at her rejected sandwich. “I met him at a party once, but, um, I don’t know him.”
It was true. She didn’t know Colin at all.
“Well, he’s nothing like his sister,” said Jordan quickly. “She’s the worst. And Colin’s a great guy.”
“Totally,” agreed Catherine and Perry.
Natalya forced herself to raise her eyes to meet Alison’s across the table. “I’m sure he is,” she said.
JANE HAD BARELY made it through their dress rehearsal.
As soon as Mark started clapping, Jane abruptly announced, “I’ve gotta go,” then rushed out of the theater carrying her bag so she could go straight home after she changed. She ran to the bathroom and put on her regular clothes, and only after she’d gotten into her jeans, her shirt, and her jacket did she realize she’d left her shoes under the chair her bag had been on.
“This sucks!” she shouted, throwing open the stall door. A girl who had been washing her hands barely raised an eyebrow at Jane’s outburst. Drama in the girls’ bathroom was hardly new at the Academy for the Performing Arts.
Jane waited, shoeless, in the bathroom for almost twenty minutes—long enough, she hoped, for Simon and Mark to have left. Then she crossed the hall and entered the theater. The lights were on, and Jane thought that she was lucky Mark had forgotten to lock the door.
She was just putting on her left sneaker when the door opened. It was Mark.
He stood just inside the doorway, watching her tie her shoe. “I figured you’d come back for those.”
“Yeah,” she said quickly, standing up and grabbing her bag. “Sorry I ran off like that.”
“It’s okay. I’m glad you’re not wandering these mean city streets in your socks.” As he spoke, he walked toward her slowly, like she was a skittish animal that might bolt at any second.
“Me too,” she agreed, though walking around Greenwich Village shoeless seemed like it would have been the least of her problems.
“That was a fantastic performance,” Mark said. He was standing a few chairs away from her, and he made no move to come any closer. “I mean, really great. Your best yet. Jane, you are…a seriously great actress.”
To her utter humiliation, Jane took a deep, halting breath, one that signaled she was about to cry. “Thanks, Mark.” The tears she’d been keeping inside all afternoon finally couldn’t be held back any longer, and she began to sob. “Oh my god, I’m so embarrassed.” She pressed her knuckles to her lips, trying to force herself to stop crying.
Mark crossed the distance between them and put his hands on her shoulder. “Jane, what is it?” His look was so gentle and worried that Jane had the strange sensation that he knew exactly what had happened.
She wanted to ask him, but when she opened her mouth, she found herself blurting out, “Is there something, like, horribly wrong with me?”
“What?!” Mark gave a brief laugh, then sobered. “Are you serious?”
Her silence indicated that she was, and Mark shook his head slowly from side to side. “Jane, there’s nothing wrong with you.” He hesitated, then added, “It’s kind of the opposite, really.”
“There’s something right with me?” Jane asked with a snort.
But Mark’s reply wasn’t the least bit flippant, nor was the look he gave her. “Right.”
It seemed to Jane that Mark was about to say something else, but then the door to the theater opened with a bang, and a janitor pushing an enormous garbage can on wheels came in. “You kids just about through in here?”
The moment—if there had even been a moment—passed. Mark turned toward the man. “Yeah,” he answered. Then he turned back to Jane. “You gonna be okay?”
Jane thought about how she was going to have to tell everyone what had happened with Simon, to explain over and over again how she’d thought Simon was into her but really he wasn’t. She wished there were some magic messenger service that would travel the world informing all your friends and family that your boyfriend had dumped you because he was gay.
All she wanted to do was curl up on the floor of the theater and go to sleep.
Mark seemed to read her thoughts. He gave her shoulder a gentle squeeze. “You’re gonna be okay,” he promised, answering his own question.
The janitor pulled a broom out of his garbage can and started sweeping the floor. “Thanks, Mark,” said Jane. She said it quickly, not looking at him. But when he turned and headed for the door, she called out, “Hey!”
He turned around. “Yeah?”
She gave him a tiny sad smile. “Really. Thank you.”
He gave a small bow. “Any time.”
And then he was gone.
Jane said good-bye to the janitor, stepped out into the hallway, and zipped up her coat. It felt to her as if Mark had been trying to tell her something, something besides you’re gonna be okay.
But she was too tired and sad to think about what that something might be.
BEING IN A fight with Jack felt a lot like being physically ill to Victoria, as if she had a headache or a fever. She would wake up in the middle of the night and find she was unable to go back to sleep because of the thoughts gnawing at her. Over Christmas vacation she’d had the flu, and she’d spent the night throwing up. As bad as it had been, when she’d woken up in the morning, she’d felt better, and the relief of not being nauseated anymore erased the horror of the night of being sick.
But now there wasn’t any relief. She went to bed thinking about how messed up things were between them, and she woke up thinking about how messed up things were between them. Then she went to school and thought about it some more.
Were they even in a fight? It wasn’t like they’d had an actual argument; more like they were just avoiding each other. Victoria had slipped into Bio simultaneously with the late bell on Tuesday, and Jack was gone almost before the bell ending class rang. They didn’t have the same lunch periods, and Jack didn’t come find Victoria at the end of school. He didn’t text or call her during the day like he usually did, either, and Victoria certainly wasn’t going to call him. Why would she? So he could laugh about her with his friends?
When he finally sent her a text, all it said was what’s up?
She stared at his message. What’s up? They’d barely spoken for three days, and all he could think to say was What’s up?
Well, she wasn’t exactly going to bare her soul in response to What’s up.
not much, she typed back, pressing hard on each letter as if it were a message she was particularly anxious to drive home. Then she added, what’s up w/u?
A minute later, he wrote back, not much.
She stared at her phone, openmouthed, then marched over to her computer and logged on to her e-mail.
Jack, she typed, I don’t know what’s going on, but things with us feel very weird. Lily told me you said we have nothing in common. Why would you talk about us behind my back like that? Do you want to break up? Is that why you’re avoiding me? I’m really confused. If you don’t love me anymore, I wish you’d just say so. Love, Victoria.
&n
bsp; When she was finished, she reread the entire e-mail. It sounded so…pathetic. What if he opened it when he was with Lily and Rajiv and he let them read it, and then they all sat around talking about how lame Victoria was? The thought of anyone, even Jack, reading what she’d just written was suddenly terrifying to her, and she canceled the draft and logged off, then logged back on just to make sure the note wasn’t still sitting in her out-box, waiting to be sent.
By Friday she was starting to wonder if she really was getting sick. She woke up tired and confused after a terrible night’s sleep, and she wandered into school in a daze. She didn’t have Bio, so she didn’t even get a glimpse of Jack all day, and by the time she was packing up her stuff to go home, she had decided he must not be in school.
And then, as she was double-checking that she had everything she needed for the weekend, he suddenly appeared next to her.
She looked up at him, and it was as if the past week hadn’t happened. He was wearing a dark blue, soft-looking, flannel button-down shirt, and she knew how good it would feel to press her face against his chest and be engulfed by his Jack-ness. She missed him so much it was like hunger. She felt starved for him.
“Hey,” he said. His voice was chilly.
“Hey.” She couldn’t possibly put her arms around someone who talked to her like that, someone who sounded like such a cold stranger. Instead, she linked her hands through the strap of her bag and stared at the lockers on the opposite wall.
There was a long pause filled by the eager shouts of hundreds of students who had just been liberated for the weekend. Victoria wondered how it was possible for a moment to be so loud yet feel so silent.
When Jack finally spoke, the accusation seemed to burst from him. “Victoria, I came over here to tell you that Rajiv’s parents said I could invite you to his birthday dinner Saturday, but now I feel like…I don’t know, I feel like, why would I even invite you? You’re acting really weird.”
Why would you even invite me?! Victoria couldn’t believe Jack had just said that. It wasn’t enough that he’d told Lily they had zero in common; now he had to make sure he told her he didn’t want her hanging out with him and his friends? In what universe was this the way someone treated the girl he was supposedly in love with?
Victoria was so mad she literally shook with rage. “Well, guess what, Jack? I don’t even want to be invited, okay? And even if I did want to be invited—which I don’t—I couldn’t go because I happen to have plans with my friends that night. Which you might remember because I invited you, but you couldn’t come. Only you don’t remember because all you care about is your friends and your plans.” She turned her back on him, slammed her locker shut, and threw the lock in place.
A girl walking by shouted, “You tell him, sister!” and her friend hooted and whistled.
Jack looked toward the girls as if he wanted to respond to them, but they had passed. Then he took her arm and pulled her around to face him. “Are you seriously saying that you think I don’t care about you?” Jack spoke in a furious hiss.
She crossed her arms and stared at him. “You make time for your friends and your music, Jack. And if I can be a part of those things, great. And if I can’t, well, too bad for me.”
“I make time for you!” Jack snapped.
“And you talk about me behind my back!” Victoria added, pointing at him.
“Okay, that is crazy!” Jack pointed back at her. “I do not talk about you behind your back.”
“Oh, really? So you’re saying Lily lied when she said that you said that we have nothing in common?” Victoria put air quotes around “nothing in common.”
“She told you that?!” Jack nearly shouted. A group of guys wearing the Morningside basketball uniform looked toward them, and Jack lowered his voice. “Okay, that comment was taken totally out of context.”
“What context could it be not awful in?” Victoria’s eyes burned with tears. “How can I trust you if you say things like that about me to your friends?”
Jack gave a bitter laugh. “Fine, you don’t trust me. You think I don’t care about you. Maybe it would be better if we just broke up.”
Victoria had heard Jack say that same sentence so many times in her head it was like waking up to find the nightmare you’d been having was real. “Maybe it would.” Her voice was soft with hurt.
Jack stood staring at her for a long moment. “Well, fine, then.” As soon as he’d said it, he turned and stormed away.
Victoria stood watching him as the tears that had been threatening to fall finally began to roll down her cheeks.
WHEN NATALYA AND Jane got to her apartment on Friday after school, Victoria barely said a word, just let them in and collapsed on the sofa with the roll of toilet paper she’d been using for tissues. After she’d finished telling her friends what had happened, Jane and Natalya curled up next to her on the couch, one on either side of her.
“Love sucks,” Jane observed quietly.
“Why are you saying that?” asked Natalya. “You’re the only one of us with a boyfriend.”
Jane took a deep breath. “Not anymore.” She pulled away from Victoria and turned to face her friends. “Simon broke up with me.”
“What?” cried Victoria, dropping her toilet paper roll in shock.
“When?” demanded Natalya.
“Wednesday,” Jane confessed.
“Wednesday?!” Victoria and Natalya shrieked.
“But it’s Friday,” Natalya pointed out. “How could you not have told us until now?”
“I couldn’t tell you,” Jane cried. “It was too…” She knotted her fingers together. “Humiliating.”
Victoria snorted. “What could possibly be more humiliating than a guy saying he loves you and then talking about you behind your back, telling his friends you have zero in common, and then dumping you in front of the entire school?”
Natalya raised her hand. “Um, how about a guy fooling around with you behind his girlfriend’s back, telling you he’s totally into you, and then saying he regrets it?” She put air quotes around “regrets it.”
Jane put her hand in the air too. “Sorry, guys, but I think I’ve got you both out-humiliated. How about a guy telling someone he’s totally into her, then fooling around with a guy behind his girlfriend’s back, and then saying the whole thing was a big mistake and he’s breaking up with the girl?”
Both Natalya and Victoria were silent as they worked to translate what had happened to Jane.
Finally, Natalya spoke.
“You’re the girlfriend,” she offered.
“Right,” said Jane.
“And Simon’s the guy who fools around with another guy?” asked Victoria gently.
“Bingo!” Jane snapped her fingers and gave a tight smile.
“Oh, Jane,” said Victoria, leaning her shoulder against her friend’s. “I’m so sorry.”
“Thanks.”
Natalya pressed up against Jane’s other side. Nobody said anything for a few minutes.
“You know,” Natalya finally offered, “when you think about it, it’s kind of a compliment.”
“Okay, this is going to be good.” Jane’s voice was bitter.
“Well,” Natalya continued hesitantly, “I mean, here’s Simon and he’s, you know, gay, but he likes you so much that you make him think maybe he’s not gay. I couldn’t even get a straight guy to like me enough to break up with another girl. You practically got a guy to change his sexual orientation for you! Which, I will point out, is a biological impossibility.”
Despite how sad she was feeling, Jane smiled.
It was silent again. Finally, Jane spoke. “We read a poem in English last semester that said it is better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all.”
Victoria stared at the opposite wall, though she didn’t seem to be seeing it. “Whoever said that was an idiot. Or a guy.”
Natalya turned and put her hands on Victoria’s shoulders. “Vicks, I can’t take it if you b
ecome cynical about romance.”
Eyes still on the empty space before her, Victoria said, “You’ll get used to it.”
No one could think of anything to say to that. For a long time they just sat together, pressed tightly against one another and feeling sad.
JANE HATED HER DRESS.
Saturday evening, as she looked at herself in the mirror, she could not for the life of her imagine what she had been thinking buying something so dumb. Feathers? Feathers?!
At the time, the purchase had seemed so clever; she could totally see Nana clapping her hands together at the sight of her in the short blue dress. When she’d tried on the dress with Victoria at Act Two, they’d agreed that the feathers circling the neckline and the hem made her look like an old-time movie star going to an Oscar-night party, like Elizabeth Taylor, or maybe Ava Gardner. At the last second, Jane had even bought a rhinestone comb to hold her hair up in an elegant French twist.
She hadn’t realized the whole look had been contingent on her walking into the party with gorgeous, fabulous Simon. Being with Simon automatically made her look cool. Because if a guy who looked like Simon wanted to go out with you, you had to be pretty awesome.
Only now she wasn’t going out with Simon. She wasn’t going out with anyone. Worse, the guy she had been going out with was gay. She could practically hear her mother’s friends saying, So, I hear you have a boyfriend. Where is he? And she was going to have to say, He’s not here, because he’s gay. That’s the kind of guy who goes out with me—the gay kind.
“Jane?” Her mother pushed open the door at the same time as she said Jane’s name. “Sweetheart, you look lovely!”
Hunched up in her chair, shoulders sagging, hair in a messy lump instead of an elegant chignon, Jane glared at her mother, who was wearing a sleek, canary yellow silk jacket over a plain black sheath. Around her neck was an elaborate necklace of Nana’s, the one from which Jane, Natalya, and Victoria each had a single pearl.
“I don’t look lovely, Mom.” Jane brushed the feathers along the neckline of the dress with annoyance. “I look like I’m molting.”
The Darlings in Love Page 20
