Chapter 23
Twenty-Three
So it went well,” she says to Jillian the following Friday as Jillian’s getting ready for another date with her husband. “Once the swelling went down.” His entire arm had blown up like a balloon, and Clemence was anxious about it, but Toby wasn’t bothered.
“These days, as long as it’s not anaphylactic,” he’d told her, “I barely even notice.” He’d gone home, though—he didn’t want to make it worse.
Yes, he was allergic to cats, even part-time cats.
He’s also allergic to gerbils and hamsters and rabbits, and probably dogs, but he’s never been close enough to one to find out. Toby hates dogs.
“He hates dogs?” Jillian is aghast. Jillian doesn’t have any pets because she doesn’t have time to clean up after them, but she’s on the board of a group that flies in rescues from South America.
And Clemence has to assure her that Toby likes dogs well enough as long as he doesn’t have to be around them, which seems fair, even though it’s a total lie. Because she doesn’t want Jillian to think Toby is a monster. She wants Jillian to tell her that all this is okay. She needs permission.
“I don’t know,” says Jillian, who’s applying mascara before her vanity mirror.
Jillian’s bedroom is four times the size of Clemence’s entire apartment.
It’s only been renovated twice since they moved in, which means Jillian must be mildly satisfied with it.
And no wonder. Everything is white—the wooden floors, the beams, the slanted ceiling.
Jillian sleeps in an attic, too, like Clemence, but she has the rest of the house to go with it.
Her bed seems bigger than king size. Her bed is an island, and Clemence is perched upon it cross-legged, watching her friend get ready.
Their couples therapist had told them that the ritual is important.
She says Jillian and Jeremy have to make an effort.
An effort for Jillian requires an hour of preparation, however, while Jeremy can appear as is.
He’s downstairs now, feeding the children their dinner, but this gives Jillian and Clemence time to talk.
Everybody wants to talk to Clemence now that they know she’s slept with the guy from the bookshop.
Her first time with anyone since leaving Toad.
“Although the last time wasn’t with Toad,” Clemence clarifies. Everybody forgets the chronology.
“Oh yeah, the neighbours,” recalls Jillian. The most ill-advised escapade of Clemence’s lifetime, but she is free now. She is free to make all the bad decisions in the world, and nobody gets hurt.
“Nobody gets hurt, except maybe you.” Jillian is holding two different earrings up to her face, trying to decide between them.
“Pick the long ones,” says Clemence. They almost sweep her shoulders. If Jillian’s meant to make an effort, she might as well go all in. “And I’m not getting hurt.”
“Not yet.” Jillian picks the other pair.
“Not everything turns out badly, you know,” Clemence tells her friend.
And Jillian says, “I know that. Your situation, however, seems specifically engineered to do so. Isn’t that the point?”
“Well, not right now,” says Clemence. “In the meantime, we’re both happy with the arrangement.”
“And what about when he wants more than that?”
“He won’t, see? That’s the thing. He doesn’t do relationships, all those unnecessary ties.”
“But you said the sex wasn’t even good. And if that’s all there is?”
“It was good!” Clemence protests. “I mean, it wasn’t that good. But I’ve had worse.”
“Not a ringing endorsement.”
“It isn’t about the sex, though.”
“Well, what’s it about, then? If he doesn’t want to have a relationship.”
“But I don’t want a relationship, either,” says Clemence.
“I fear,” says Jillian, applying one more coat of lipstick and standing up in front of her mirror, appearing like perfection incarnate, “that you are selling yourself short, my friend.”
“But I’m not selling anything,” Clemence protests. “Everything is about capitalism with you.”
“It’s a metaphor.”
“All this,” says Clemence, using her hand to sweep the room, to indicate, “it’s so much work. Like you said, you’ve got to make an effort. And that’s so hard. I don’t want everything to be so hard. And with Toby it’s easy. Do you know how refreshing that is?”
“But the thing with effort, you know,” says Jillian, “is that you reap what you sow.”
“I don’t want to sow,” says Clemence, flopping back onto the bed. “I don’t even want to reap. The grasshopper and the ant—forget that. Life is not a parable.”
Jillian walks across the room and closes the door. Comes back and sits down on the bed beside Clemence. “I saw him again. This week. Bob.” Bob. Dr. Bob. What a name to put your whole life on the line for.
She says, “Jillian, no!” What is the point of this? All the effort, the lipstick. Clemence giving up her Friday nights in order for this marriage to be saved. “Please tell me you didn’t sleep with him?”
“Well,” says Jillian, dragging the one word out long. “I didn’t really enjoy it. And surely that’s some kind of progress?”
“Can’t you just delete his number from your phone? Like, cut him out of your life altogether?”
Jillian is shaking her head. “He says I need closure. We’re working through it.”
“So suddenly he’s a therapist again? Jillian, this guy doesn’t have your best interests in mind.”
Jillian shushes her. “I’m just saying I understand what you’re going through. That not everything has to make sense from the outside.”
“What about Jeremy?” What about what she’d said before about feeling free to make bad decisions without the chance of hurting somebody in the process.
“He’s very patient.”
“He knows?”
“Well, not everything. But he knows there’s progress. That’s all he needs to know.”
“And what about your new therapist? What does she think of this plan?”
“Don’t be scolding, Clemence. It doesn’t suit you.” When Jillian is wounded, she turns to steel. “How come you are the only one who gets to make up your own story?”
“Because I am a goddamn mess, that’s why,” says Clemence. “Whereas you are Jillian, and your husband is a saint, and you have two wonderful children who need you not to blow their world apart.”
“And do you know what a heavy load that is to carry?” asks Jillian.
“Don’t you think I might want to put it down once in a while?
” She says, “Bob understands that.” The dramatic flair on his name incongruous with what his name is.
Clemence can’t help wishing his name was something more romantic—Rafe, or Antony.
“Jillian,” she says.
But Jillian stops her. “I’m just saying that progress doesn’t always look like progress. I get that. But I also think you deserve someone who knows how excellent you are. In a way that Todd never did.”
“I guess I ended up justifying his low expectations.”
“I think he never appreciated you for who you are, so what else were you supposed to do?” Jillian puts her arms around her friend.
“Remember,” says Clemence, “when we thought our weddings were the end of the story? That this was what happily ever after would be?”
“When there is no such thing,” says Jillian.
“As happy?” Clemence doesn’t want to believe that.
“As ever after,” says Jillian. “Because the story goes on and on.”
“If you’re lucky.”
“We’re both lucky,” says Jillian.
And Clemence says, “Don’t I know it.”