Chapter 25
“I need to talk to you,” Claire says, before Jackie can say another word.
Jackie’s face falls quickly from joy to the same aching sadness Claire heard over the phone.
“I don’t think that’s a good idea,” Jackie says. She’s wringing her hands, now, and her eyes dart around the yard like she’s looking for an exit besides the one Claire is standing in front of.
“Maybe it isn’t,” Claire says. She’s breathing hard, not from exertion but from the fact that her heart is beating a mile a minute. She surges forward, sitting in the chair next to Jackie’s and grabbing gently at her blanket. “But I’m here anyways.”
“It’s almost midnight. You should be with your husband.”
“I know what time it is,” Claire fires back. “I’m exactly where I want to be.”
“Claire…” Jackie whispers. It’s a broken sort of sound, this time, cracking right in the middle of Claire’s name; she looks past Claire through the door, as if she’s expecting someone to call out in protest. As if Pete might be lurking in Claire’s shadow.
The door slides open. The party noise spills back in, and a group of five or six people stumble towards the pool. Jackie protests half-heartedly, but they pay her no mind—they tip into the pool, clothes and all, while more partiers follow in their wake. The cold is apparently not a deterrent.
Claire doesn’t particularly want to have this conversation in front of the entire party, so she takes Jackie’s hand amidst the splashing and laughter, pulling her up.
The blanket falls from Jackie’s shoulder as Claire guides her insistently into the crowd in the living room.
She starts towards the bedrooms, but Jackie pulls her arm taut.
“Where are we going?”
“Ideally somewhere private,” Claire says.
“The bedrooms are all occupied,” Jackie says. She looks utterly exhausted. “They even took over the basement.”
Claire holds fast to her hand. If the bedrooms and darkroom are occupied, what options are there? The bathroom, maybe, or…
Casting around for anything at all that might be her saving grace, Claire’s eyes land on Theo.
He’s watching them with interest, with a drink in one hand and a cigarette in the other.
She doubts that he can hear their conversation, but their body language must be obvious.
He raises an eyebrow, and with his drink in hand he points to an option Claire hadn’t considered.
The walk-in coat closet next to the front door. It’s just big enough for two.
Claire nods at him, and with a wry smile he disappears into the crowd.
Jackie doesn’t protest being dragged there, perhaps because it’s so unexpected.
Claire guides her inside first, closing the door quickly behind them, and it’s a tight fit.
There are coats hanging to the right and left, leaving just a narrow corridor to stand in, and Jackie is mere inches away.
Claire grabs for the cord to turn the single lightbulb on; even lit so harshly, Jackie is still breathtaking.
“Were you ever going to tell me you were moving?” Claire asks bluntly. So close up, she can hear Jackie’s sharp, surprised inhale. “Or were you just going to disappear?”
“I can’t talk about this right now,” Jackie says. She reaches for the door handle, but Claire is in the way.
“Then when? When will you talk to me?”
“We’ve already talked,” Jackie says, crossing her arms tightly over her chest. “I’m a terrible friend, okay? That should be the end of it.”
Jackie’s eyes get wide as saucers when Claire moves closer. Their chests are almost touching, and in the close, stuffy air of the closet Claire can feel her warm breath. “Jackie, please. Just this once, even if you never want to see me again afterwards, can you listen to me?”
Silently, Jackie nods.
“I’ve been so scattered since we met,” Claire says. “I didn’t know which way was up. But I think I know now.”
Jackie makes a tiny sound. A small, nearly inaudible expression of pain.
“You’re just confused. I shouldn’t—I can’t do this,” Jackie says.
There’s such an ache in Claire, one that she’s almost sure is echoed in Jackie, but something is holding Jackie back.
“I’m not confused,” Claire insists, before correcting herself. “I mean, I was. But then I talked to Theo.”
Jackie freezes like a deer caught halfway across the road. “Theo? How? What did he tell you?”
“I figured it out on my own,” Claire says firmly. “I just needed someone to set my head on straight.”
Jackie’s arms un-cross. “Whatever Theo said, Claire, you shouldn’t listen to him. He’s a meddler. I should never have—”
“The person you loved,” Claire interrupts. “The married person. It wasn’t a man, was it?”
Jackie says nothing, stunned into a silence that’s somehow more illustrative than any verbal confirmation. The moment feels still, like the heartbeats before a jump, even with the muffled music and the sounds of the party behind the door.
“It was a woman,” Claire says, in a single terrifying breath. “You loved a married woman.”
Jackie’s hands are fisted in the fabric of her own dress so tightly that her knuckles are white. It’s a deep maroon, under the navy-blue jacket.
Claire is afraid. God, is she afraid, but she can’t stop now. Not when she’s this close.
“And I’ve seen you, with other women. At parties like these,” Claire continues, barely above a whisper. She pries Jackie’s hands from her dress, holding them in her own.
Jackie swallows hard. The tendons in her neck flex, and somehow the sight of it—how it makes Claire want to press her lips there, her teeth, her tongue—makes her feel brave.
“You’re a lesbian,” Claire murmurs. “Aren’t you?”
The question hangs in the air between them, a curtain between their bodies that one word could pull down. Jackie’s jaw is so tense that Claire worries about her teeth.
Slowly, probably aware of how her answer fundamentally shifts everything between them, Jackie nods.
Claire has known it since the moment Martha told her about Jackie and Susan. Her conversations with Theo have made it clear. This isn’t a surprise. But the admittance makes it real, and it’s difficult to get her next words out.
Claire smooths her thumbs over the backs of Jackie’s hands. Just under the fingertip of Claire’s left pointer is Jackie’s tattoo, that branch of acacia flowers; it’s warm and soft, like the rest of her. Smooth. Not raised or textured at all. It’s just a part of Jackie’s skin.
“I think I might be, too,” Claire whispers.
Jackie’s breath all comes out in a whoosh. Instead of the positive reaction Claire was hoping for, she deflates like a popped balloon.
“Claire, we can’t.” Jackie’s voice cracks again. Her eyes are shiny when she pulls her hand from Claire’s, reaching for the doorknob again, but Claire is still in the way.
Jackie’s word choice is so important. Not won’t, not don’t want to.
Can’t.
“But you want to?” Claire says.
“Yes, but…” Jackie cuts herself off, biting her lip, “but it doesn’t matter.”
Claire hardly hears that second part. The first is what’s most important—the yes. Whatever Claire is feeling, whatever she’s embroiled in, Jackie is in it, too.
“Why? Why can’t we do this?” Claire says. She doesn’t bother to mask her desperation. One hand goes to Jackie’s hair, then to her beautiful face, tracing the outline of her jaw as she’s secretly ached to do all these months.
Jackie leans into it, pressing her cheek into Claire’s palm even as she denies her. “You’re married.”
“You slept with Mrs. Wilson,” Claire protests. “And others. Like that woman the night of the moon landing—you went to the bedroom with her.”
“They were different. Their husbands were sleeping with other people in the next room. Everyone was aware of the circumstances. Your husband isn’t a swinger, Claire.
” Jackie’s eyes threaten to spill over, and she bites at her lip so hard that Claire can see the little indents left behind.
“I can’t do it. Not like this. Not again. ”
Though Jackie is denying her, Claire’s heart still soars. Once more, Jackie’s words are telling.
Not again.
Claire is different than those two other women, because Jackie sees her the way she saw Valerie. Someone who will ultimately choose safety over love.
Claire has already made the opposite choice, but Jackie doesn’t know that yet.
“I left him,” Claire says simply.
For a moment, only the music from the party is audible. Jackie’s brow furrows. She shakes her head a little, as if she’s letting the information filter through her brain; when Claire raises her hand, Jackie’s eyes fix on her bare ring finger.
Claire agonized over it for months, but now that she’s here, the choice seems easy.
She feels more just from standing close to Jackie than she ever did for her husband.
He’s harsh where Jackie is soft, thoughtless where Jackie is kind.
He’s a pair of shackles, and Jackie is a car on the open highway.
“That’s…” Jackie whispers, seemingly tongue-tied. “You’re…no. That’s absurd.”
The crease between Jackie’s brows is deep.
Claire wants to press her fingertip against it, and so, for once, she does.
She does what she wants to do. She smooths out the wrinkle, letting her finger drift down the arched bridge of Jackie’s nose.
“You know, that’s what Pete said. And Martha.
But here I am. I think absurd suits me.”
“You told them? You actually…” Jackie’s eyes are still fixed on the spot Claire’s wedding ring used to be, following Claire’s hand. “When?”
“I left on Halloween.”
“That was months ago.”
“I know. I’ve started over,” Claire says.
Jackie’s eyes have finally stopped darting to the doorknob. “You left your whole life?”
“It was barely a life,” Claire says urgently. “I’ve been miserable since before we even got married. I just…I didn’t know there was another option.”
Jackie’s mouth is in an anxious twist, her teeth pulling at her lower lip. When Claire moves her hand to cup Jackie’s face again, Jackie catches her wrist.
“Your palm,” Jackie says. There’s a quiet wonder in her voice.