“This is exhausting.” Clara fell into the seat across from her.
“What?”
“I know you’re hurting, and I get it. But this isn’t fair.”
“Because I’m not celebrating you parading your boyfriend past my door?”
“He’s not my boyfriend.” Silence. “And it was hardly a parade.”
The kettle was beginning to whirr.
“It just seems unnecessary, is what I mean,” said Jess. “You bringing him here.”
“Honestly, it’s got nothing to do with you.”
“But it does, because I live here,” said Jess.
“Did everything about you and Clayton relate to me?” asked Clara.
“It’s not the same,” said Jess. “And we included you. We always did.”
She has a short memory, Clara thought, remembering all those nights in her room trying not to listen to the muted noise downstairs. She asked, “Do you want to be included?” She wasn’t sure if she could include Jess in her relations with Ferber in a way that wasn’t mainly pornographic.
“Of course not,” Jess said, as grossed out as Clara would be if Jess had ever proposed a threesome with Clayton. Yuck. “I would just appreciate a little consideration. It’s been four days.”
Clara said, “Jess, I’m here for you. I’ll be here for you. He’s going soon. This is not a big deal.”
“But you don’t even like him,” said Jess. She paused. “The kettle’s boiling.”
Clara got up to turn off the burner. “I do like him.” Which was difficult for her to say, to admit to being soft or tender. Jess was the only person she could do this with, and sometimes even that was hard.
Jess asked, “Why?”
“Why did you like Clayton?”
“I told you, that’s different. I mean, we were together three years. A seventh of my life.”
“Who measures out life in sevenths?” Clara said, filling the teapot.
“But you’re screwing Ferber,” said Jess. “The handyman. Who isn’t even handy!”
Clara got two mugs out of the cupboard and put them on the table. Then she brought the teapot over, holding the spout to balance the weight. “Let it brew.”
The two of them sat across from each other at the table, cross-pyjama-legged. “What the frog foretold came true,” said Jess.
“What?”
“No one ever breaks up in fairy tales,” Jess told her. “Have you noticed that?”
“As fates go, getting dumped isn’t very fateful.”
“In fairy tales,” said Jess, “love isn’t so disposable. People are fated and they stay that way.”
“Do you really think that you and Clayton were fated?” Jess made a face at her. “Life’s not a fairy tale.”
“No shit,” Jess said. She poured her tea, warming her hands on the mug, then took a sip. “And what about Ferber?”
“I never said that wasfate,” said Clara. “I like him, but that’s not fate.”
