Re Jane (34 page)

Beth glowered. She made a sudden movement, and I flinched. I remembered the way she'd reached for her WNYC tote bag at Food to pay for the fruit. Instead she was reaching for the kitchen door, signaling for me to leave.

“Wait!” I cried. “Can we . . . have a conversation?”

Did she realize I was throwing her own words back at her? She was speechless at first, and then her eyebrows knotted, the way they did when formulating an excuse.

“I'm worried,” I continued, before I lost my nerve, “about Devon. She came to see me.”

“Devon's no longer your concern.” She struggled to maintain her cool. But when she saw I was still frozen beside the kitchen table, she abandoned the door and came toward me. The wooden table bore her weight as she leaned across it. “I don't
ever
want to ‘have a conversation' with you about my daughter. I don't want you in her life,
period.
”
Then Beth's tone erupted. “Do you have any idea how devastated Devon was after you left? And now you're lecturing
me
about how
you're
worried about her? Oh, that is rich, Jane.”

I knew she was right.

Beth was shaking her head. “First my h-husband. Now my daughter. I'll admit, Jane, I'm a bit flummoxed by your”—she chose her words pointedly—“unusually robust interest in our family.”

Once upon a time, up in Beth's stuffy office, I had listened to her endless lectures on womanhood, motherhood,
wife
hood
.
She had burdensomely unloaded her unfiltered thoughts onto me, and I had turned around and made fun of her life behind her back. In so many ways, that was a betrayal worse than sleeping with her husband. And now her daughter had come running to me.

Who the fuck was I?

I traced my finger over the raw surface of the table. It had absorbed everything. I looked up at Beth's face. The same pockmarks—fading acne scars—riddled her cheeks. But now her eyes clouded over with hurt. All of her youth and vitality drained away; in that moment she looked like she'd aged twenty years. She had choked up on the word “husband.”
It was in that moment that I realized: Beth had loved Ed the way I loved Ed. Maybe even more. And now his wife, his “insufferable wife,” sat across from me, looking completely, utterly broken.

“I'm sorry,” I whispered. But sorry was not enough; it would never be enough.

The other unoccupied chairs around the table looked so empty, so
actively
empty, as though mourning some profound loss.

Beth raised her arm, and that was when I caught a wisp of her familiar scent, cutting through the foreign smell of vanilla: onions. In the past my nose had picked up only its fermented stench, but now its sweetness overpowered me. I blinked, furiously.

“You've done enough damage already.” Beth's voice shook with anger. “Now, get the
fuck
out of my house.”

I rushed from the kitchen, feeling my way back to the front door like a blind person. When I reached the safety of the street, I let the floodgates burst open and wept. Beth was right. This woman had welcomed me into her home. And I had taken away everything that was hers.

A
s exquisite as New York can be when summer tapers off, with its pleasant whips of warm breeze suffused with the smell of cooling asphalt, at the season's peak the city is utterly punishing. That summer was no exception. The moment you stepped outside, you were assaulted by a thick, merciless humidity. It coated your body like a sticky second skin. The garbage stewing in black trash bags on the hot pavement mingled with whatever fumes were floating up from the sewer grates. Everywhere air conditioners were set to full blast, but the temporary cool offered little reprieve. It was hard not to take heat like that personally; New York seemed to be offering up one big Fuck You.

Perhaps it was the sweltering heat making us irritable, but that summer Nina and I got into a series of escalating fights. Little, piddling things at first. In general, she had a more profligate regard for resources than I did. She'd let the faucet run freely while doing the dishes, even when she was just sponging them with soap. She tore whole sheets from paper-towel rolls instead of quartering them, the way I did. She'd toss out her Ziploc bags after a single use. It was the kind of behavior I teased her about in the beginning, but when she failed to have the
nunchi
to see there was more than half a truth in my jokes, my words turned into sniping, then full-blown arguments.

And of course—she left the air conditioner on throughout the night instead of rationing it in short spurts and just sucking it up miserably hot for the rest of the time, the way we always did back in Flushing. And our Con Ed bill showed it.

I spread it flat on our sawhorse table. “That's one zero too many,” I said to Nina, pointing to the total. I went over to the air conditioner and switched it off. When I returned to the table, the backs of my bare legs immediately squelched against the seat of the chair.

“It's like ninety degrees out,” she said. “What, you expect me to roast
in this apartment?”

“I'm not even
here
half the time. How much A/C does one person need?”

Nina flipped her hair. Damp strands clung to the back of her neck. “That's right. I just sit around throwing wild parties where we blast up the A/C. I'm thinking of upgrading to eighteen thousand BTUs. You don't mind, right? Since you're
never here
half the time.”

I didn't respond. After Mikhail's party Nina stopped inviting me as her plus-one to things. So I spent more time with Ed, and her social life marched on without me.

“Look,” she said, relenting a little, “the way I figure, we're not spending as much on hot water and gas. I buy fewer groceries. It all comes out in the wash.”

But I couldn't shake the bite of her earlier tone. I billowed the thin cotton of my shirt away from my body, and fanned myself with it. Even the smallest of movements felt effortful in the heat. “Quite a balance system you have going on there,” I said irritably.

“Okay, I get the hint. I'll just pay the whole bill myself. You happy?” Nina went over and switched the A/C back on.

“That's
not
what I'm saying—”

The heat was making it hard to think. I mumbled something about conserving energy—either learning to do without or asking her uncle to invest in double-paned windows. I stopped fanning myself with my shirt. I waited until the cool waves of air washed over me.

“What do you care? It's not like it's your house.” I could just make out her words over the roar of the air conditioner. “Have you decided yet, about moving in with Ed?”

“I'm still thinking it over.”

For everyone's sake, I should just have made a choice already: move in with Ed or stay with Nina. I was inconveniencing everyone with my indecision.

“You better decide soon.” Nina paused. Then, continuing coolly, “'Cause if you are, I'm gonna start looking for a new roommate.”

“Don't worry,” I snapped. “I'll be sure to give at least one month's notice.”

It felt a far cry from our old nights out.

* * *

In the car one day after picking up clothes for the week, Ed said, “All this shuttling back and forth is getting a little ridiculous. Have you had that talk with Nina yet, about moving out?”

“You say it like it's a done deal.”

“Well, is it?”

I took in a deep breath. “I've spent a lot of time thinking about it, Ed. And . . . I'm just not ready to move in with you.”

“So that's your decision?”

“Ed, it doesn't mean things have to
change
for us.”

I hadn't given him the answer he wanted to hear. He said nothing. I don't know whether he was using the silent treatment as a kind of negotiation tactic or what. I fought the urge to break that silence between us.

Ed found a spot across the street from his building. He put the car in park but did not cut the engine. The air conditioner was still on. “Jane,” he said, turning to face me, “I'm ready to make a life with you. And you're essentially telling me you're not. How do you expect me to take it?”

I didn't understand why he had to see it as all or nothing. “Why do we have to rush this?” I was only twenty-five. Sometimes it seemed unfair how Ed had already amassed a fortune of life experiences before he ever met me. “It isn't as if my not moving in means we can't be together.”

“
It isn't as if
,” he repeated, shaking his head with disbelief. “Look, I know this is all new to you. But it's what people
do
in relationships. Right now this life you're leading—you're straddling two worlds. It isn't working for me anymore.”

I thought about all that I was giving up to be with Ed, all the damage I'd already done: With Beth. Devon. Sang. Nina. Changhoon, even. Ed alone stood in the assets column, and the wreck of my other relationships piled up like liabilities in the other. Just as my mother's choosing my father meant sacrificing her family. My whole life people had told me I was like her. But maybe I wasn't.

“Maybe
we're
not working anymore,” I said. At first it was one of those things you repeat back to someone on reflex, like I was Ed's echo. But the words, suspended in the thick, recycled air, began to take on a shape of their own.

“Are we seriously having this fight?” he said. When I didn't immediately answer—now it was my turn to be silent—he muttered, “Now you're just being childish.” The word made everything snap into place.

“You're always ‘been there, done that,' aren't you, Ed? Well, I haven't. Maybe I want to try new things. And I don't want to have to feel guilty or apologize for that either.”

“For Christ's sake, Jane!” Ed said. “Is this about that stupid party? Forget about it. What matters is
us.
”

He'd once said that some friendships—relationships—run their course and the people drift apart. But when were you supposed to stop investing the time and energy—and hope—in something that's no longer working? When were you supposed to walk away?

“Maybe
we're
like The Thing.” After I uttered the words, they felt more true. They felt like relief. “We keep forcing it. But it just doesn't feel right right now. Or maybe . . . maybe not ever.”

Ed's cheek was lifting into that crooked half grin of his, a face he made when he was in disbelief. But when he looked again at my face—I was fighting not to cry—his mouth twisted into a frown. Finally he cried out, “Jane! You don't love me, then?”

That cut me. Slowly I turned my face toward his. “I
do
love you, Ed. It's just . . .” I fought for words.

“Jane, we love each other,” he insisted again, gently. “A person's lucky if he gets one, maybe two shots at love. And I've found you. Why would I ever let you go?”

Ed's blue eyes grew soft with tenderness. He was staring up at me with that look we've been told our whole lives to hope and wish for from a man, and when that happens, you can't help but go slack and give in. Tears started streaming down my face. I smelled his soap smell—the same scent I'd smelled the first time I'd met him. My mouth, searching, found his.

“No one will ever love you more than I do,” Ed murmured, pulling me toward him, kissing my ear.

“What did you just say?” I wiped my eyes with the back of my hand.

“Jane.” He was holding my head firmly. He looked at me with his soft eyes, his unwavering gaze. I could feel only the pressure of his palms pressing down on the back of my head. This was suddenly starting to feel constricting,
tap-tap-hae.
“Trust me. It's a lonely world out there.”

A certain sadness gripped my heart. Maybe Ed was right. But I was coming to learn that much of your perception of a relationship is shaped by everything else that happens to be going on in your life at the time. When I first met Ed Farley, I had been starved for love. He was the first man I'd ever known to show me kindness. He had taken my loneliness away. And for that I knew I would always be grateful. But being grateful was not enough of a reason to stay with someone.

“You're a beautiful girl. But you're also
young.
You think there'll always be people out there who'll love you?” His voice rose with indignation—it was almost too quick to catch. “Jane, I'm telling you,” he said, resuming his earlier gentle tone. “That's not the way the world works.”

“Then I have to find out for myself.” I pulled back from his embrace, breaking away from Ed. And just like that:
hssst.
All the hot, turbulent air that had filled up inside me was flooding out. I felt light, buoyant. Free.

Reader, I left him. I stepped outside, ignoring Ed's cajoling, then shouting, for me to come back. Immediately the thick humidity felt refreshing compared to the air-conditioned confines of Ed's car. And it was with some satisfaction that I slammed the door behind me.

* * *

I might have been the one to end things, but it's not like I was doing cartwheels in the days and weeks that followed our breakup. An inarticulate sadness coated everything, filling the air like particles of dust, burning my lungs, my heart, my inside and outside. In the small hours of the night, I tossed and turned over whether I'd made the right decision. Knowing that Ed was just a phone call or a few miles away made it all the more unbearable. But each time I picked up my phone, I forced myself to stop.

Post-breakup I found my thoughts wandering back to Sang. I remembered Mary's phone call:
He, like, misses you
. But if I reached out to my uncle, what would I say?
You were right, and I was wrong. As usual.
Which would only give him more grounds for thinking how foolish he already thought I was.

Nina, to her credit, was the bigger person when I told her about Ed and me. I felt a little sheepish, in light of all our recent squabbles:
So . . . looks like I'm staying here after all. . . . Hope you haven't found someone to take my place.
She had every reason to lord our breakup over me, but it's a testament to how true a friend she was that she did not. She was the one who went over to Ed's to retrieve my things, and she was the one who forced me out of my room when all I wanted to do when I came home from work was climb into bed and stare up at the ceiling, the way I used to with Ed.

One evening when she set a bowl of pasta in front of me and I picked at it with no appetite, she said, “I know it feels like hell right now, but I think you did the right thing. And when you're ready, you won't be hurting for options. You've got a lot to offer, Jane.”

If I were my normal self, I probably would have thanked her in the form of a quip, setting off one of our usual volleys. But for now just her company, and her friendship, was enough.

But then one morning, something felt different. When I rose, my shoulders did not ache with the weight of sadness and guilt. The air tasted fresher, no longer oppressively
tap-tap-hae.
It was flush with life, with possibility.

Nina noticed immediately. “Look who's back with the program.”

“This sounds really corny,” I said, “but I feel
alive.
”

“Yeah, because I left the A/C on all night. Otherwise you'd feel dead and roasted.”

“As opposed to alive and roasted?”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah. You can thank me when the next Con Ed bill comes around.”

That morning started off like most mornings that August: hot, muggy. Presaging the staggering heat that was to come later that day. That afternoon, at the office, our computer screens suddenly blackened and the lights overhead flicked off. My senses, completely dulled just one night before, were extra-prickly as I blinked in the darkness. My colleagues whispered.
Power outage. Tripped fuse box.
And then what no one had dared utter:
Terrorist attack.
All was quiet panic. The reality of what had happened to our city just two years earlier hung heavily in the thick, humid air.

Back when the fire alarms would go off in school, we always used to ignore them. We took for granted that it was probably just a drill and not an emergency. It felt stupid to be the first one to shoot out of your seat. You didn't want to risk looking like a chump. That was how things used to be. But that was not how things were anymore.

The power did not flicker back on. We checked our cell phones; we could not get through. My colleagues and I reached a quick consensus to evacuate the building. I slipped out of my work shoes and into my commuter sneakers. Led by the light of one colleague's key-chain penlight, we filed down the emergency stairs. It was orderly; no one was jostling to be the first one out. We spilled onto the street, joining the milling crowds. Then I noticed that the traffic lights were out; cars hesitated at the intersections. Under everyone's breath the narrative:
God forbid, God forbid . . .
One car, stalled to the side, had 1010 WINS cranked up at full volume. The news feed streamed out from his rolled-down windows. Citywide power outage. Stretching up the Northeast Corridor into Canada.
Not
an act of terrorism.