Janey said nothing for a moment. And then she screamed, "Fuck you! How dare you! You have some nerve, laying this crap on me. You're not in love with me and I'm not in love with you. So stop being such a baby.”
"But that’s the problem," he said. "I was in love with you.”
He drove her to the Jitney stop in Bridgehampton. They didn't speak during the ride. Janey got out of the car with her bag. Redmon drove off. She looked down the street to see if the Jitney was coming. It wasn't. She sat on a bench in the bright sunshine. A man walked by with a dog and she asked him when the Jitney was coming and he said not for another hour. She went across the street to the Candy Kitchen and bought an ice cream cone. She went back to the bench. She wanted to call Bill Westacott, but she didn't think it would be a good idea.
She probably shouldn't have done what she did, but was it really her fault? This was something that men just couldn't seem to understand. It was okay for them to fuck around and to do it in the name of biology ("I have to spread my seed around"), but when a woman behaved the same way, they were horrified. Didn't they know that the door swung both ways? There was Redmon, who had some money and was sort of okay when it came to status, with his tiny little shack, and there was Bill, who was rich and successful, with his big house. What did Redmon think was going to happen? That she was going to waste herself on him? Why should she, when she knew she could do better? It was biology.
Halfway back to the city, her cell phone rang. Redmon. "Listen," he said. "I just want you to know.
Helen was here. She was hysterical. Bill told her too. The thing you probably didn't get about Bill is that he's a big, big baby. He can't live without Helen, even if she is insane. She supported him when he started writing screenplays.”
"So?" Janey said.
"So you have basically messed up three people's lives. For no reason. Not to mention their kids. Bill had to come and get Helen and take her to the hospital.”
"I'm sure Bill's had lots of affairs," Janey said. "If s not my fault if he can't keep his pecker in his pants.”
“But I'm their friend," Redmon said. "I was the one who brought you around, and I thought you were my friend too. What did you think was going to happen, Janey? Did you think Bill was going to leave his wife for you?”
"Exactly what are you trying to say, Redmon? That I'm not good enough?”
"That’s exactly what I'm saying.”
"Then I don't think we need to continue this conversation/' Janey said.
"Just think about this," he said. "Where do you think you're going to end up, Janey? What do you think's going to happen to you if you keep messing up people's lives like this?”
"What about my life, Redmon? Why don't you assholes ever think about how I feel?" she said. She hung up the phone.
There were two weeks left of summer, but Janey didn't go to the Hamptons again. She sat in her sweltering apartment for the rest of August, taking a couple of hours of refuge a day in the coolness of her air-conditioned gym. As she banged away on the treadmill, she thought over and over again, "I'll show you. I'll show you all.”
Next year, she would get her own house for the summer.
V
"Janey!" Joel Webb said.
"Hi!" Janey said. She waved and moved toward him, pushing through the crowd. Her martini sloshed out of its glass. She licked the rim.
"I haven't seen you for ages," Joel said.
They were at yet another party for an Internet site, held in another smoky, overheated club. It was February, and everyone was sweating. Janey bent over to allow Joel to kiss her on the cheek. "Whew," he said. "Who are all these people?”
“I have no idea," Janey said, and laughed. "It seems like none of the old crowd goes out anymore.”
“But you ought to be able to find a rich guy here," Joel said. "Aren't all these Internet guys billionaires?”
“They're boring," Janey shouted above the crowd noise. "Besides, I'm getting my own house this summer.”
"Well, this is one of my last nights out," he said.
"I'm having a baby. Or rather, my girlfriend's having a baby.”
"That’s terrific.”
"No, it isn't. I was trying to break up with her.
I've been trying to break up with her for years. And then she got pregnant. I still won't marry her though. I told her, 'I'll live with you, I'll pay the bills, but if s your responsibility.' “
"That's so kind," Janey said sarcastically.
He didn't catch the sarcasm. "Yeah, I think it is. Hey," he said. "Why didn't you tell me you had a gorgeous little sister?”
"What are you talking about?”
"Your sister. Patty. You could have fixed me up with her and saved me all this trouble.”
"I think she already has a boyfriend," Janey said.
She moved away. Patty! Everywhere she went, it was Patty and her boyfriend, Digger. Janey hadn't even thought about Patty for years. But Patty had suddenly materialized. She'd actually been living in New York for five years, but Janey never paid any attention to her and saw her only on holidays at home, and even then it was like they lived in separate cities. But this year was different.
Janey had never thought that Patty, who was the darling of the family but who had ended up not being a beauty (she was prone to being twenty pounds overweight), would amount to anything, but mysteriously she had. Patty, five years younger than Janey, had moved to New York right after college and started working for VH1 as some kind of assistant. Which, Janey figured, was where she would stay.
But suddenly Patty blossomed. She was now some hot-shit TV producer (New York magazine had put her in a story about up-and-coming young talents), she lost weight, and she had a serious boyfriend—a pallid, sickly looking guy named Digger who everyone was convinced was the next Mick Jagger.
And now Patty and Digger were everywhere—or at least at all of the places Janey seemed to go. She'd walk into a club, and some PR girl would say, "Oh, Janey, your sister is here!" and then lead her up a narrow staircase and lift a velvet rope, and there would be her sister with Digger, lounging in a banquette, smoking cigarettes, and as likely as not wearing sunglasses and the latest East Village fashion; like pants made out of silver foil. "Your sister is waaaaay cool," the PR girl would whisper.
"Hey," Patty would say, stubbing out her cigarette. "Hello," Janey said. The hello always came out with a slightly hostile edge. It wasn't that she didn't like Patty, it was simply that she and Patty never had anything to say to each other. They'd sort of sit there, looking away from each other, and then Janey would blurt out, "Urn, how's Mom?”
"Mom's a pain in my fucking ass," Patty would say eagerly, relieved to have something to talk about. "She still calls me once a week and asks me when I'm getting married.”
"She's given up on me," Janey would say. The truth was her mother rarely called. She didn't care about her enough to even bug her about marriage. And now here was her little sister, Patty, the toast of the town. For the first time in her life, Janey felt old. After all, Patty really was twenty-seven. Her skin was better, but it wasn't just her outside that was younger: Patty had a freshness about her. Her world was new, and she was enthusiastic about everything. "Guess what?" she said to Janey one night, nearly knocking over her drink in excitement. "I'm going to be in a fashion spread in Vogue! And someone's asked me—me—to star in this movie they're making about downtown New York. Isn't that great?”
Janey didn't have the heart to tell her it was unlikely that any of it would happen, but she found herself involuntarily pursing her lips in disapproval like an old lady. But if it really was all pie in the sky, then why did Janey feel like she and Patty were on two different planets? And everyone was on Patty's planet, and not hers?