Will stood, his hands slightly raised, as if he were trying to calm a wild animal, and warned Jack not to say anything he’d regret.
“Oh, don’t you worry,” Jack said. “I won’t regret any of this.”
“What do you want, Ross?” Mike asked. “I admitted it. I was sincere. That’s a lot for me.”
Jack smiled bitterly, enraged, and said, “Oh, should I go get you a prize now? A cake, maybe? You think since you admitted it, that makes it OK? I’m not supposed to be pissed off now? You’ve never been able to change, Mike, and you never will. You’re a bum, a loser. You don’t even deserve to be talked to.”
“This was different!” Mike argued.
“Every time you fuck up, it’sdifferent. And then you come to me and call me brother and tell me it’s important to make peace, but you never actually try to improve. And whenever I treat you like an adult in the hope you’ll be responsible for your actions, you go off crying about how no one loves you. Has it ever occurred to you that maybe no one should?”
That was cold, even for Jack. Mike grimaced and looked away. But Jack wasn’t done. He turned to me, unable to speak, and that silence hurt worse than any words. Then he stepped to Will. “Did you know?”
Will nodded. “I’m sorry, man.”
“You’re sorry?” Jack roared. “Screw you, too, Will. Seriously. All of you leave me alone. Every one of you is pathetic.”
He stomped out of the apartment without another word, and none of us knew what to say.
The next morning, Jack still hadn’t shown his face, and I had to get up early for an exam. I hoped I hadn’t bombed, given how little sleep I’d managed to get. I couldn’t stop thinking about whether my relationship was over—all Jack had asked for from me was honesty, and I didn’t know why that was so hard to give him. And so when Naya met me in the hallway and said, “I think my daughter hates me,” I was happy to be able to focus on someone else’s drama.
In her daughter’s defense, if someone tried to put a diaper on me as ineptly as Naya was doing with Jane, I’d probably hate them, too.
“Don’t be ridiculous,” I said, “she’s just uncomfortable.”
“It’s not the diaper, Jenna, it’s everything. I’m not good at being a mom, and Jane knows it. She hates me, I’m absolutely certain of it. Can babies feel hatred? Have you ever read anything about that?”
“Come here,” I said, scooped Jane up, and took her gently back to the changing table.
Naya apologized for being a pain. “I know I complain too much.”
“It’s not that,” I responded, “it’s just that you let any little thing get you down. Like this. It’s not instinct, it’s something you learn, but it’s hard to get any better when you fall apart any time something doesn’t go perfectly. Now watch.”
I put Jane’s favorite rubber duck beside her, then gripped the baby’s ankles softly. She blinked her pretty little eyes. Naya looked as concentrated as a student taking notes. I unstuck the tabs, opened the diaper, and, noticing Jane had a slight rash, rubbed her down with a little ointment. When she was changed and clean again, I picked her up and handed her back to Naya. “See? Good as new.”
“You’re magic,” Naya said.
“I had a lot of practice with my nephew.”
“Can you come watch me the next time I change her? I really do want to get it right.”
“Of course,” I told her. “I’m an expert.”
Naya held Jane to her shoulder and rocked her as she put away her things. The baby grabbed a lock of her blond hair and started sucking it. She only ever did that with Naya, and I couldn’t help laughing at it, because Naya had always been obsessed with her hair. But having kids can make the vainest person less self-centered, and Naya had given up trying to stop her.
“How was your test?” she asked as we walked toward the living room.
“Horrible.”
“How was class?”
“Horrible, too.”
“Man,” Naya said, “it’s a barrel of laughs around this apartment lately.”
Maybe I should have sugarcoated things, but in that moment, I couldn’t. I was drowning, and I was unable to focus because I could barely sleep between the baby and my issues with Jack. After the test that day, I’d walked out of class and overheard everyone saying how easy it had been. I had barely waded through it, and I didn’t want to even consider how ridiculous half of what I’d written was.
I needed to move forward, not backward, though, so I spread out my notes for my other classes on the coffee table and started studying. Will was there with his laptop—he’d been glued to it since his internship started—and Sue was in her easy chair chitchatting with Mike. Naya started complaining that her boobs hurt. I tried to ignore her.
