Page 14 of I'm Not Done with You Yet

It takes a while for my brain to catch up and process the thing Ted is doing and feed it to the rest of my body so that my limbs stop mid-flail. It’s a hug. A hug. Something you do to someone you like.

I close my eyes and let myself thaw, just a bit, leaning into his embrace. It’s not unpleasant, hugging my husband. He smells familiar—vanilla sugar and something musky, a distinctly male odor. I let my breath out, sagging into him.

“Wow, I’m so happy to hear that,” he murmurs, shifting.

I feel it then, him getting a semi, pushing against my thigh. I want to shove him off me.

“You fully deserve this, Jane,” he says.

I don’t push him away. Instead, I smile at him and nod.

“Didn’t I always tell you to ask Toni for things? She works for you. Remember that, babe.”

“Mm-hmm.”

“I’m coming with you, okay?” It’s not a question. It’s a statement disguised as a question, and if I were to say no, there would be a price to pay later. “We’ll make a trip of it, stay somewhere nice. Go to Lombardi’s.”

A trip of it when just hours ago, there was absolutely no money in the pot to spare for this. I want to rail at him, to push my fingers into his eyes until I can feel the squish of his brains against them, and then yank them out, unravel the curls of his brains so I can read his mind and see just the sort of shit that’s floating through it.

I want him to stop talking, I want me to be able to celebratethis moment of possibility without the weight of his idiotic words clumping down on it, making it sag and strain. I’ve earned this. I’ve outsmarted him and he can’t stand it; that’s why he wants to shove his way into this, to spoil it all somehow.

But it doesn’t matter. He can come. I don’t care. As long as I can see Thalia in the flesh, hear that throaty voice of hers, I will be okay. I will bear it. I will go through anything for her.

7

Nine Years Ago

Oxford, England

The welcome dinner isn’t as bad as I had feared. No, it’s much worse.

I thought it would be bad when Thalia and I walked out of Downing and ran into a clot of students in the Chapel Quad. They all smiled at us, and one of them said, “Off to the reception dinner?” Obviously we are, asshole. As though there were anyplace else we might be going at this time, dressed like this. But Thalia smiled back and then did the unthinkable—she introduced herself, and then me, and before I knew it, we were swallowed by their group.

And so here I stand on what’s apparently one of the most beautiful quads in Oxford, wearing a dress that doesn’t quite fit me, grasping a glass of chardonnay like it’s a lifeline. Oh yes, there are wine and canapés set out at the quad, where we’re doomed to mingle before dinner begins. My first ever cocktailhour. I’ve never attended a cocktail hour before. One does not go to such things on one’s own, and I’ve always been on my own.

The small group of students has swelled into a crowd. An actual crowd of people, all of them mingling, lots of straight-toothed smiles, and the conversation. The conversation!

I catch snatches of “Belize for the summer—” and “undergrad at Yale—” and “Boston Consultant Group—.” Who went to the better school for undergrad? Who’s got the better job? Whose penis is bigger, yours or mine?

I cast a desperate search for Thalia. She’s abandoned me. We’d been standing next to the canapé table when an attractive blond guy had approached her and asked her which course she’s taking. She’d answered for the two of us, which I didn’t mind. In fact, I appreciated it. But then as the conversation stretched unbearably, more and more people had joined in, and I had taken a small step backward because groups of people are dangerous, groups of people are like wolf packs, and yet more people had buzzed toward us, no doubt attracted by Thalia’s presence, and I took another step back and another step back and before I knew it, I had been spat out of the group.

I finish my glass of wine and walk toward the table to discard my glass. I should stop drinking. I don’t do well with alcohol. My inhibitions aren’t there to stop me from doing stupid things, dangerous ones.

“There’s always one,” someone says.

I look up to see a slightly pudgy girl with mouse-brown hair. She’s wearing a black dress that’s probably been marketed as the LBD, but it looks all wrong on her, the capped sleeves highlighting the pallid flab of her arms, the material cheap and shiny so it highlights every roll and bulge. She’s drinking red, and whenshe smiles at me, I see that it’s stained her teeth, making her look monstrous. It’s like looking in a mirror. I have no idea what she’s talking about, and neither am I interested in knowing, so I don’t reply. Instead, I pick up another glass of white.

She takes my silence as invitation to keep talking. “That girl,” she says, nodding at the swarm of Pemberton students with Thalia dead center. “There’s always one, isn’t there?” A long sigh, followed by a deep gulp of wine. “The golden girl.”

I hate the way the words sound rolling out of her sloppy mouth. Dirt-smudged and bored, like Thalia isn’t anything special, like she isn’t one in a million. One in a billion.

The heat of rage caresses me deep in my belly. I snap the wristband.

“What’s that?” she says, watching me from the sides of her bullfrog eyes. “Do you have anxiety?”

I take a long sip of wine so I don’t have to answer, but it doesn’t matter anyway. The charmless girl is still talking. I think she likes that I’m silent. I think she’s used to people ignoring her.

“My sister’s like that,” she’s saying, “except she just flicks her own arm. Not organized enough to always wear a wristband.”

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