“Chris and I would never work,” I say. “I’m an artist and he’s an accountant. Have you ever heard of a more ludicrous match?”
“You balance each other out,” Jenni says. “Like Peter and me. The men are the steady shores, we’re the waves.”
“You do realize how misogyny is baked into that entire statement, don’t you?” I say.
“I disagree,” Jenni says. “Everyone’s trying to say there are no differences between women and men, but there are and those should be celebrated. Our femininity is getting stamped out of us in thename of feminism, which is trying to mold us into little men in the name of equality.”
This is the proof we all didn’t need that Jenni has officially crossed to the dark side. “So you’re not a feminist?” Hal asks.
“Of course I am,” Jenni says. “I just think some strands of feminism have gotten distorted, that’s all.”
“Go easy on her,” Tara says. “She’s pregnant.”
“Pregnancy hormones have nothing to do with this,” Jenni refutes.
The conversation somehow sloshes back to Chris and me. “Like I said, we’re polar opposites,” I say. “A different species, really. And besides, he has a serious girlfriend.”
Jenni raises a laminated eyebrow. “Since when has that stopped you?”
“Since now,” I sling back. “Chris is a good person. He doesn’t deserve the EJ tornado ruining his life.”
“Damn,” Jenni whispers, as Hal and Tara give her an I-told-you-so sort of look. “You do love him.”
I try to laugh at the words, but I’m closer to crying instead.
“It’s okay,” Tara says. “Loving people is a good thing.”
“Not when they don’t love you back,” I mumble.
“But Chrisdoeslove you back,” Hal says, making my stomach lurch with a hopeful sort of fear, or a fearful sort of hope. “You should’ve seen how nervous he looked ringing the doorbell at the Inn the other day. He was completely torn up.”
Jenni asks what happened, so I fill her in on how Chris’s brother died in a car crash a few years ago and he never talks about it, and I pushed too far but he realized he was the one in the wrong after all.
“Men,” Jenni says, as if that single word explains it all. “Sometimes it’s like knocking my head against a brick wall when I’m trying to get Peter to open up. I love him so much, of course, but sometimes I just miss my girls.”
“We’re still here,” Tara says.
“Yeah, you’re the one who left,” I point out. Even when I want to be nice, I can’t help the venom that slips out.
It just makes Jenni laugh, and the others too. “If only you could be this blunt with Chris,” Jenni says. “You’d be the next one breaking the Anti-Marriage Pact.”
“Never,” I say, spine pricking with surprise. “That’s the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard.”
“Don’t take this the wrong way,” Jenni says. “But you’re a pretty ridiculous person.”
I grin at that, and the four of us fall into laughter. It feels like landing on a soft trampoline and springing up together into the air.
“You’re not wrong about that,” I say.
It’s true that I’m not someone who follows patterns, so maybe the most authentic thing I could do is something opposite to what everyone expects. And what I expect. I don’t mean marriage or anything that extreme. Lifelong commitment still feels far too confining. But perhaps I could fall in love with someone who might love me back, not just in the darkness of the night but in the brightness of the day.
My gut gives a nudge, like I’m on the right track. I prefer not to be on a track because I’d rather blaze my own trail, but this feels like a pretty good one, still wild and overgrown and riddled with venomous snakes.
Chapter 24
Fall bursts onto the New York scene a bit late this year. It’s not until October that the humidity drains from the air and the leaves morph from green to amber to maroon, like a time-lapse science experiment on triple speed.
I suggest to Chris that I become a daily dogsitter. No need for him to hustle home to walk Arnie at lunch, like he usually does. I can take Arnie out and give him some company during the workweek. Now that I know the story of Arnie and Luke, it makes me want to work even harder to give the pup a stable homelife. The thought of him being alone for hours at a time yanks at my heartstrings. Chris agrees, and I hope it’s not just because he feels bad about how I’m always scraping by for rent.
