Chapter 17
seventeen
. . .
Jordana
The next morning, I floated through my classes. Between the jealousy shoot with Gavin, the late-night writing, and extra coffee, I was giddy, buzzed, and high.
The weather was cool and crisp, the best that autumn in New England had to offer. At midday, I picked up a hot apple cider and a sandwich from the student union, and walked to the quad.
The sun shone overhead, with a light breeze stirring the trees into conversation. I sat on a stone bench with my food and the biography of Tennessee Williams.
As I paged through, I got lost in his story.
Tennessee’s life was far from easy, between family problems, tempestuous relationships, dependence on alcohol and drugs, and living as an openly gay man from the 1940s on.
But God, he was fucking brilliant. And he certainly mined his stormy life for material.
Would I have material if I were truly happy? If the storms in my own life died down?
I pushed the thought away. Everything was good right now. I was going to be present and enjoy this moment.
As I read and munched my sandwich, my phone buzzed. I ignored it. A few minutes later, it buzzed again.
The texts were from my parents. One each.
Jorie: have you taken action on the legal internships I sent you? The time is now. They’re going fast. I expect you to apply by the end of the week. I can’t support you forever.
Dad’s last line came like a punch to the gut.
Mom’s text wasn’t much better:
I got the job postings you sent, but you’re wasting your time. No one will hire me. Tell your father I need more money. He’ll listen to you.
I put my half-eaten sandwich back in its cardboard box. The familiar knot of anxiety tightened my stomach as more texts popped up and rolled through.
“Hey, watch it.”
The rough voice startled me. I’d walked blankly across campus to my Text Analysis class, almost bumping into someone by the door.
“Sorry.” I stepped back and saw Corey’s glass-blue eyes.
My radar had always been tuned to his frequency; if he was nearby, I knew it. But this time, he’d caught me unawares.
“Hello?” He waved his hand in front of my face, making me flinch. “Anyone there? You’re in la-la land.”
The hallway was empty; otherwise, he wouldn’t be talking to me. His sandy hair hung limply over his sweat-sheened forehead.
“You look unwell,” I retorted. “Are you sick?”
“Stop talking. There’s seven minutes before class. Come on.” He jerked his head toward a single all-gender restroom across the hall.
“Are you serious?” I hissed. “I told you, we’re done.”
Before I could lose my nerve, I swept into the classroom and took a seat between two girls in the back row.
Corey sat on the other side of one of the girls.
Despite his glazed expression, he managed to charm her, laughing and whispering throughout class.
Girls always flocked to Corey. I wondered if he got any of them off, or if he didn’t bother to be good in bed because he didn’t need to be.
The handsome, magnetic actor; the high school celebrity who’d packed the auditorium.
Give Corey nine years, and when he was thirty, he’d probably still be shit in bed. I doubted he had a clue how to make a woman come.
I snorted, and everyone turned to stare.
“Jorie, do you have any thoughts to contribute?” Dr. Lombard asked. “Is there something about Chekhov’s language in The Cherry Orchard that amuses you?”
“Sorry,” I said quickly. “No, there isn’t.”
“Pity,” Dr. Lombard said. “I’m always hoping to find a joke in the text where I haven’t noticed one before.”
After class, I hurried out. As I headed toward the library, a prickling at my neck made me look back.
Corey was following me.
I zipped into the library and ducked into the ladies’ room. In a stall, I took deep breaths. I tried to call Gavin, but there was no cell service in the restroom.
I was sweating. I was overreacting. Corey would never cause any real trouble.
All the same, I cracked open the bathroom door to make sure the hallway was clear. Corey was nowhere in sight. I found a seat at a busy table in the library and tried to focus on the assigned reading for Text Analysis.
When my phone vibrated, I jumped. My heart sank when I saw his name.
I just want to know one thing, Jorie
What was so funny in class?
I almost told him. Instead, I texted Leave me alone.
Not possible. We’ve got two more dress rehearsals, four shows, and another year and a half at Hawthorne
How long are you going to keep this up?
I ignored that.
Then, thinking better of it, I deleted our entire text thread and blocked Corey’s number.
Already, I felt lighter. Freer. I could focus on my work.
Until another text came in — this time, from Max, the actor who played Mitch.
Hey, so I’m going to work on our dance in Studio C in about an hour. Wanna come practice?
I scrolled up to our previous conversations. There’d been a time I thought Max was a nice guy.
Last fall, when I got sick and missed a class, I’d asked to borrow his notes.
In the spring, when we played the king and queen in Hamlet, we’d messaged about meeting to run lines.
And then the texts stopped in late April when I slept with him.
I hadn’t planned it. I never did. We ran into each other at an off-campus party. Corey was kissing another woman in the corner. I felt lonely and reckless, my usual party mode. I flirted with Max until we ended up in someone’s room upstairs.
He smelled nice. He gave me compliments. He didn’t call me afterward, and I didn’t expect him to.
Leaving the library an hour later, I walked toward Studio C. There was a new fire crackling inside me. I wanted to scorch someone, burn them to ash by speaking the truth. I couldn’t play a role any longer.
Strains of waltz music drifted out. The mirrored wall reflected Max’s tall, broad figure and shaggy dark hair as he danced alone, holding an imaginary Blanche.
He was trying to be clumsy, but he was too used to leading.
Max was a good dancer, a member of the Hawthorne Swing Club.
In this scene, he was supposed to follow as Blanche whirled him around.
He saw me in the mirror and jerked to face me while the waltz continued to play.
“Jorie. Uh, hey. You ready to practice? I think I’ve got it down now.”
I stayed in the doorway. “Actually, I came to talk to you.”
Max stiffened. “Okay.”
His wary gaze moved over me. I was fidgeting with my purse strap, and I shoved my hands in the pockets of my cheetah coat. Usually, I switched up my outerwear, but I’d been wearing this coat all week.
“I’m not going to pretend nothing happened,” I said. “I heard you talking shit about me on Saturday night with Corey and the other guys.”
Max’s face turned red.
“The things you said…” I went on. “They hurt, Max. They hurt lot.”
In the silence that followed, I wanted to dash out of the room. It had been a mistake to come here, to follow my intuition like it was some guiding light. I forced myself to stand my ground for one more moment.
“I’m sorry,” Max muttered. “I thought… Yeah. I’m really sorry.”
Slowly, I came into the studio, closing the door behind me. “Why would you say that I should make a sex tape? Or that I’d be out back sucking someone’s dick? Or that you need five condoms to sleep with me? I don’t talk that way about you. I would never treat you badly.”
Max winced. “Jorie, we shouldn’t have said those things. I just — Never mind.”
“You just what?”
He stared at the floor, scrubbing his hands over his hair. “I didn’t think you liked me. When Corey started talking trash about you, I jumped on board, because — ”
“Why?”
“When we hooked up last spring, I felt like I was on cloud nine.” He blew out a breath.
“I mean, I dreamed, but I never would have imagined I’d have a real chance with you.
You were totally out of my league. At that party, it seemed like all my dreams were coming true.
But when we went upstairs, it was like…it was like I didn’t exist to you.
Like I could have been anyone. It was” — he shoved his hands in his pockets — “embarrassing. Okay? I’m sorry.
I shouldn’t have said those things with Corey and Ty. ”
The music wove around us, a poignant waltz. I saw our reflections in the mirror, and the real Max standing in front of me.
“Can you forgive me?” he asked.
Astonished, I took a step in his direction. “What did you say?”
“Can you forgive me?”
I’d never heard a man say that before, not to me. “Do you need my forgiveness?”
“I don’t know. Do you need my apology?”
Our eyes met. I wasn’t sure how to answer that. I wasn’t sure what I needed or wanted from a boy like Max.
My hands knotted in my pockets, and I pulled them out. “You were practicing when I came in. Do you want to — maybe — practice our dance? Together?”
He smiled. “Definitely.”
I tossed my hair back, stepping into Blanche. All the hope she held, when she met Mitch and thought he might be the one to rescue her.
You depend too much on men, Blanche, I thought, as Max put his hands gingerly on my waist and shoulder. You were always waiting for someone to carry you off, until it ended with doctors carrying you off to the asylum.
Then I forgot about Jordana and slipped on Blanche’s skin, leading Mitch in a giddy waltz. He was perfectly clumsy and starry-eyed. My laughter rang out in the studio as I whirled him through the steps.
When we finished, we stayed in the dance pose. Consciously, I shook off Blanche.
“That was good, Max,” I cheered. “You were good.”
“That was it, huh?” He was laughing too, breathlessly. “I feel like we shouldn’t practice again, ’cause we’d jinx it.”
“Definitely not. We’re going to be great!”
He picked me up and whirled me around. We were both still laughing as he set me down. Through the glass window in the studio door, I saw a pair of blue eyes watching us.
Corey’s eyes.
He stared at me for a beat, then left.
I turned my back on the door. Corey was probably just passing by. I had nothing to be ashamed of.