But the person I blush around most is David.
And what about that thing David had pointed out? I mean about Jack’s urban rebellion being kind of ... well, bogus? Because it was bogus, now that I thought of it, for him to shoot out the windows of his dad’s medical practice in protest of something that, yeah, might hurt animals, but which helped sick people.
And the time he’d skinny-dipped at the Chevy Chase Country Club? What had he been protesting then? The country club’s restrictive bathing-suit rule? You know, I bet there are a lot of people at the Chevy Chase Country Club you wouldn’t want to see swimming nude. So wasn’t a bathing-suit policy a good thing, then?
So what did it all mean? Was it possible Lucy was right? Was such a thing even remotely likely? That I had somehow fallen out of love with Jack, and into love with David, without even being aware of it myself . . . until now?
And how could I, Samantha Madison, who for so long had thought she’d known everything, have turned out to know so very, very little?
I was still trying to figure it out when, five minutes later, I’d left Lucy (feeling satisfied that she had solved all of my problems) in the living room, and gone into the kitchen for a snack, since the food at the party had hardly been satisfying.
You can imagine my discomfort when, as I was biting into a turkey sandwich I’d just made (with mayo, nothing else, on white bread) Jack came in.
“Oh, hey, Sam,” he said, wandering over to the refrigerator. “I didn’t know you’d gotten home. How was the party?”
I swallowed the hunk of sandwich I’d been jamming into my mouth just as he’d walked in. “Um,” I said. “Fine. Wuthering Heights over?”
“Huh?” He was busy peering into the fridge. “No, not yet. Commercial. Hey, so what’s the deal, Sam?” He took a carrot out of the vegetable crisper and bit into it noisily. “Is my painting going to New York or what?”
I had known I was going to be having this conversation sooner or later. I’d just hoped it would be later.
But I might as well, I figured, get it over with.
“Jack,” I said, putting down my sandwich. “Listen.”
Before I could get the words out of my mouth, however, Jack was going, with a look of total disbelief, “Wait a minute. Wait. Don’t say it. I can tell by the look on your face. I didn’t win, did I?”
I took a deep, steadying breath, preparing myself for the pain I knew was going to come flooding in when I said the word that would hurt him so much.
“No,” I said.
Jack, who had left the refrigerator door hanging wide open, took a single step backwards. Clearly, I had hurt him. And for that, I would be eternally sorry.
But incredibly, no hurt came. Really. I’d been ready for it. I’d been totally prepared for it to come pouring over me, this intense sorrow for having hurt him.
But it didn’t come. Nothing. Nada. Zip. I was sorry to hurt his feelings, but doing so caused me no hurt whatsoever.
Which was weird. Very weird. Because how could I hurt the man I loved—my soulmate, the man I was destined to be with for ever—and not feel his pain throbbing along my every nerve ending?
“I can’t believe it,” Jack said, finding his voice at last. “I cannot freaking believe this. I didn’t win? You’re seriously telling me I didn’t win?”
“Jack,” I said, still stunned by the fact that I didn’t feel even a tremor of his pain. “I’m really sorry. It’s just that there were so many great entries, and—”
“This is unbelievable,” Jack said. He didn’t say it, exactly. He sort of yelled it. Manet, who had come into the kitchen as soon as he’d heard the fridge open, as was his custom, lifted both ears upon hearing Jack’s raised voice. “Un-freaking-believable!”
Jack,“ I said. ”If there’s any way I can make it up to you—”
“Why?” Jack demanded, his bright-blue eyes very wide and very indignant. “Just tell me why, Sam. Can you do that? Can you tell me why my painting didn’t get chosen?”
I said, slowly, “Well, Jack. We got a lot of entries. I mean, a whole lot of them.”
Jack, so far as I could tell, wasn’t even listening. He went, “My painting was too controversial. That’s it. It has to be. Tell the truth, Samantha. The reason it didn’t win was because everyone thought it was too controversial, didn’t they? They don’t want other countries to see how apathetic the youth of America are today, is that it?”
I said, shaking my head, “No, not exactly . . .”
But of course I should have been just like, Yes, that was it. Because that would have been more acceptable to Jack than the real reason, which I lamely revealed a second later, when he demanded, “Well, why, then?”
“It’s just,” I said, wanting to make him feel better, but at the same time wanting him to understand, “that you didn’t paint what you saw.”
Jack didn’t say anything at first. He just stared down at me. It was like he couldn’t quite process what he’d heard.
“What?” he said, finally, in a tone of utter disbelief.
I should have known. I should have gotten the hint. But I didn’t, of course.
“Well,” I said. “I mean, Jack, come on. You have to admit. You didn’t paint what you see. You go around making these paintings of these disenfranchised kids—and they are really great, don’t get me wrong. But they aren’t real, Jack. The people you paint aren’t real. You don’t even know people like that. It’s like . . . well, it’s like me sticking that pineapple in. It’s nice, and everything, but it isn’t honest. It isn’t real. I mean, you can’t see a Seven Eleven parking lot from your bedroom window. I doubt you can even see a garbage can.” I did not, of course, know for a fact what Jack can see from his bedroom window. I was only guessing about the garbage can.
Still, I must have hit pretty close to the truth, since I managed to thoroughly enrage him.
“Didn’t paint what I see?” he bellowed. “Didn’t paint what I see? What are you talking about?”
“W-well,” I stammered, taken aback by his reaction. “You know. What Susan Boone said. About painting what you see, not what you know—”
“Sam!” Jack yelled. “This isn’t a damned art lesson! It’s my chance for my artwork to make it to New York! And you ruled my painting out because I didn’t paint what I see? What is wrong with you?”
“Hey.” A familiar voice broke the tense silence between Jack and me. I looked over and saw Lucy standing in the doorway, looking annoyed.
“What’s going on?” she wanted to know. “I could hear you yelling all the way across the house. What is with you?”
Jack pointed at me. Apparently, he was so upset he couldn’t even find the words to explain to his own girlfriend what I’d done.
“Sh-she . . .” he sputtered. “Sh-she says I d-didn’t paint what I see.”
Lucy looked from Jack to me and then back again. Then she rolled her eyes and went, “Oh, God, Jack, would you get over yourself, please?”
Then she stomped up, took him by the arm and started steering him from the kitchen. He let her, like a man in a daze.
But Jack wasn’t the only one who felt dazed. I did too.
And not because of the way he’d yelled at me. Not even because, soulmates though we might be, I did not, even for a second, feel Jack’s pain as he heard the bad news.
No. The reason I felt dazed was because of what happened when Jack first came sauntering into the kitchen, when I’d been cramming that sandwich into my mouth, totally not expecting to see him. He’d come into the room, filling the doorway with his big shoulders . . .