Another notable difference to our post-breakup sex, as opposed to our pre-break-up sex, is that Jordan gets up almost immediately after we’re finished and starts getting dressed. Back when we’d been dating, he’d just roll over and go to sleep.
When I sit up and stare at him, he says, “I’m sorry, but I gotta go,” like someone who just remembered a real important dental appointment.
Here’s the really embarrassing part: I feel kind of sad. Like there’d been this part of me that had been sure he’d roll over and say he was going to call Tania and break up with her RIGHT NOW because he wants to be with me forever.
Not, you know, that I’d have gone back to him if he had. Probably not.
Okay, definitely not.
But it’s… well, it’s lonely, when you don’t have anyone. I mean, I don’t want to come off sounding like Rachel. I’m not saying that if I had a boyfriend—even Cooper, the man of my dreams—it would cure all my problems.
And I’m not about to start eating salad with no dressing if that’s what I have to do to get one—I’m not that desperate.
But… it would be nice to have someone care.
I don’t mention any of this to Jordan, though. I mean, I have some pride. Instead, when he says he’s leaving, I just go, “Okay.”
“I mean, I would stay,” he says, tugging his shirt over his head, “but I got a real early press junket tomorrow. For the new album, you know.”
“Okay,” I say.
“But I’ll call you tomorrow,” he says, fastening the buttons of his fly. “Maybe we can have dinner, or something.”
“Okay,” I say.
“So, I’ll call you,” Jordan says, from the foyer.
“Sure,” I say. I think we both know he’s lying.
After he leaves, and I’ve locked up behind him, I creep up the stairs to my apartment, where I’m met by an extremely exuberant Lucy, eager for her evening walk. As I look for her leash, I glance through the windows of my kitchen, and see the upper floors of Fischer Hall.
I wonder if Christopher Allington has managed to talk his way into Amber’s pants as easily as Jordan Cartwright talked his way into mine.
Then I remember that said pants are still downstairs, and I hurry down to get them before Cooper comes home and finds the proof of my profound stupidity on the hallway runner.
17
You told me/It’s over
I just didn’t/Believe you
You told me/I’m a pushover
I just want to/Be with you
Then I saw you/You were with her
And all I have to say is/Whatever
Whatever/Whatever
All I have to say is/Whatever
“Whatever”
Performed by Heather Wells
Composed by Valdez/Caputo
From the album Summer
Cartwright Records
I’m right about one thing:
Rachel is totally curious about Jordan, and the nature of my relationship with him.
The minute I walk into the office the next morning—wet hair, mug of steaming coffee from the café in my hand, big scarlet letter on my blouse (just kidding about that last part), Rachel is all “So you and your ex-boyfriend seemed to be getting along pretty well last night.”
She has no idea how true this statement really is.
“Yeah” is all I say, as I sit down and look up the phone number for Amber’s room.
Rachel totally doesn’t take the hint.
“I saw you two outside,” she goes on. “Talking to President Allington’s son.”
“Chris,” I say. “Yeah.” I pick up the phone and dial Amber’s number.
“He seems nice,” Rachel says. “The president’s son.”
“I guess,” I say. For a murderer.
Amber’s phone rings. And rings.
“Cute, too,” Rachel goes on. “And I hear he’s quite wealthy. Trust fund from his grandparents.”
This last is news to me. Oh my God, maybe Christopher Allington’s like Bruce Wayne! Seriously. Only evil. Like maybe he’s had this whole cavern dug out from beneath Fischer Hall, and he takes innocent girls down there, has his way with them, then drugs them and takes them back upstairs and drops them down the elevator shaft…
Except that I’ve spent a lot of time in the bowels of Fischer Hall with the exterminator, and there’s nothing under there but mice and a lot of old mattresses.
Someone picks up the phone in Amber’s room. A girl’s voice says sleepily, “Hello?”
“Hello,” I say. “Is this Amber?”
“Uh-huh,” the sleepy voice says. “This is Amber. Who’s this?”
“No one,” I say. Just wanted to make sure you were still alive. “Go back to sleep.”
“Okay,” Amber says groggily, and hangs up the phone.
Well, Amber’s still alive, anyway. For now.
“So are you and Jordan getting back together?” Rachel wants to know. She doesn’t seem to think my calling students and waking them up for no apparent reason at all strange. Which actually says a lot about the weirdness of the place where we work, and our jobs there. “You make the cutest couple.”
Fortunately I’m saved from having to reply by my phone, which begins ringing right then. I answer it, wondering if Amber has caller ID and wants to know what the hell I’m doing, waking her up at nine in the morning on a school day.
Only it isn’t Amber on the other end. It’s Patty, going, “Okay, tell me everything.”
“About what?”
I’m not actually feeling very good. All I wanted to do when I woke up this morning was pull the covers back over my head and stay in bed forever and ever.
Jordan. I slept with Jordan. Why, God, why?
“Whadduya mean about what?” Patty sounds shocked. “Haven’t you seen the paper today?”
I feel my blood run cold for the second time in twenty-four hours.
“What paper?”
“The Post,” Patty says. “There’s a photo of you two kissing right on the cover. Well, you can’t really see that the woman’s you, but it’s definitely not Tania Trace. And it’s definitely Cooper’s front stoop—”
I say a word that sends Rachel skittling out of her office, asking if everything is all right.
“Everything’s fine,” I say, placing a shaking hand over the receiver. “It’s nothing, really.”
Meanwhile Patty is busy squawking in my ear.
“The headline says Sleazy Street. I guess they mean because Jordan’s scamming on his fiancée. But don’t worry, they call you the ‘unidentified woman.’ God, you’d think they’d be able to figure it out. But it’s obviously an amateur shot, and your head is in shadows. Still, when Tania sees it—”
“I don’t really want to talk about this right now,” I interrupt, feeling queasy.
“Don’t want to?” Patty sounds surprised. “Or can’t?”
“Um. The latter?”
“I gotcha. Lunch?”
“Okay.”
“You are such a dope.” But Patty is chuckling. “I’ll swing by around noon. Haven’t seen Magda in a while. Can’t wait to hear what SHE has to say about this.”
Neither can I.
I hang up. Sarah comes in, full of eager questions about—what else? Jordan. All I want to do is curl up into a ball and cry. Why? WHY? WHY had I been so WEAK?
But since you can’t cry at work without seventy people coming up to you and going, “What’s wrong? Don’t cry. It’ll be okay,” I pull out a bunch of vending machine refund requests and started processing them instead, bending over my calculator and trying to look super busy and responsible.
It isn’t like Rachel doesn’t have plenty to do herself. She found out earlier in the week that she’d been nominated for a Pansy. Pansys are these medals, in the shape of a flower, that the college gives out to staff and administrators every semester when they’ve done something above and beyond the line of duty. For instance, Pete has one for ramming this girl’s door down when she barricaded herself behind it and turned on the gas in her oven. He completely saved her life.
Magda has one, too, because—weird as she is, with the movie star thing—the kids, for the most part, just adore her. She makes them feel at home, especially every December, when, in disregard of all campus regulations, Magda decorates her cash register with a stuffed Santa, a miniature crèche, a menorah, and Kwanzaa candles.