“You know this isn’t real either, right?” Rose said, tapping the screen. “Like the story Snowy wrote about Tom and Boyd playing hockey.”
“Of course it’s not real. It’s a picture,” Snowy said. “But it’s also a vibe?”
“This is not even the vibe. You’ve been here three weeks. You know there’s nothing going on involving me, Tom, and Boyd,” Rose protested.
The girls gave her twin unimpressed stares.
“Once again,” said Snowy. “Itcouldbe. Do you want it to be?”
Set aside that if Rose had ever wanted to have a threesome, she should have had one when she, her cute bisexual boyfriend, and everyone else in the world had been in their sexual exploration era—college. Set aside that she was a now a respectable thirty-four-year-old endowment manager. Set aside that she wasn’t even sure Boyd was into women. How was she supposed to raise the topic?
Thank you for coming to this meeting! First on the agenda is reviewing bids for the gutter repair. Excellent work, Tom. Second onthe agenda is this picture of the three of us doing it. Can everyone be ready to operationalize that before dinner?
“First off, you must have noticed that Tom barely tolerates Boyd now,” Rose said.
“Which is an absolute tragedy, because we all know they’re perfect for each other,” Puff said. “But, you know, it’s not like he really likes calling contractors on the phone, and he’s doing that all day for you. I’m sure he’d have a threesome if you asked him to.”
“I cannot have a threesome with my ex-husband and Boyd Kellagher,” Rose said.
“What, just because you’re short? I think it’s totally doable if you and Tom get on the bed and Boyd—”
“Pleasestop telling me about it. No, I mean, that’s not me. Under no circumstances is that me.” She tapped the phone for emphasis.
“In the picture?” Puff asked, confused.
“I mean, sure, I’m guessing it’s supposed to be me, but it doesn’t evenlooklike me.”
Puff paused, considering. “They got your hair and your boobs right.”
“Yes, but where’s the rest of me?” Rose asked skeptically. The woman in the picture had the proportions of the porn actress who’d surely served as a reference image for the picture, wasp-waisted and underfed. Which only supported the larger point that nobody, including Rose, could ever imagine her doing anything like that.
Puff took another look at the artwork. “Okay, yes, I can seethat BakugoLuvs has some important lessons on body diversity to learn. I’ll talk to them. But also, like, why are you up here sewing curtains when you’ve got Tom Wilczewski and Boyd Kellagher wandering around and basically willing to doanythingyou ask? This is, like, totally wasted on you.”
Snowy snorted. “Put me in, Coach,” she said, mocking Puff, who elbowed her in the ribs.
Puff had a point, Rose supposed. Stated objectively, who wouldn’t want to sleep with Tom, Boyd, or both of them at the same time? Rose was just unable to imagine herself in that scenario, not least because sex with Boyd would be like a liaison between a Great Dane and a Lhasa apso: theoretically possible on account of them being members of the same species but uncomfortable and undignified for everyone involved.
“It’s just not me,” Rose repeated. It was a core fact she knew about herself. She didn’t have any desire to be intimate with someone she wasn’t in a relationship with. If there was any part of her that was able to imagine herself down on her knees, hands braced over Tom’s bare thighs, it was the same part of herself that had once believed they’d live happily ever after.
Snowy made another grunt of dismay.
“Rose. Can I call you Rosie? We’re calling you Rosie online. So don’t get offended,” she began. This was a thing people said before they said something offensive. “But have you thought about being someone else for a little while? Who cares who you are most days? Today you’re making curtains. Tomorrow you could be Tomboy’s third.”
The isolation out here in Tisbury in winter was getting toRose if the fangirls were starting to make sense. Somehow these were presented as equally valid choices for how she should spend the afternoon. Curtains. Spit-roasting with Meteor Man.
“I’m not sure this is what I bring to the table,” she mumbled. If this was what Tom was interested in, he was probably going to be disappointed. While he’d been out having interesting sex with famous people, Rose had been practicing serial monogamy and building a 401(k). If Tom missed clean sheets and food in the fridge, Rose understood what she had to offer. If he expected her to be the sex goddess in the picture, she wasn’t sure she could keep up. “What if I look ridiculous?”
“Tom and Boyd get to take ridiculous roles,” Snowy said. “I’m his biggest stan, but I think we can all agree Boyd shouldn’t have been cast as young Henry Kissinger if J. J. Abrams really wanted that Oscar. But he still tried!”
This struck Rose as an unexpectedly convincing argument. Tom did get to be other people on a regular basis. He got to be a different person now, while Rose still felt like she was the same person she’d been since she was eight years old, searching anxiously for the thing she could do that would make people love her.
Rose took another look at the picture.Maybe it’s a metaphor for the female gaze, she thought, almost deliriously. Some anonymous artist who was taken with the idea that a famous movie star had fallen in love with the unknown stage actor who saved his life had decided to bestow their fantasy on Rose. Some fantasy version of her was getting exactly what she wanted: a big hand curving over her hip, or one cupping her cheek—okay, good—but there was also the rapt expression on Tom’s face.Someone had imagined him looking at her instead of Boyd, his face suffused with desire. Rose could almost imagine it too.
“You don’t have to stop anyone from posting about it,” Rose told Snowy. Sure, why not let people imagine that Rose, Tom, and Boyd were living in polyamorous bliss. Flattering, really. “It’s just as likely as Tom and the hockey stick.”
18
The dinner dishes were cleared away, and Rosie had delivered final orders to prepare for the next day’s work. Tom, Boyd, and Ximena were sitting around the great oaken table, which had been reserved for grown-ups during Tom’s previous visits to the inn.
