Chapter 26 #2
“I mean, probably not,” says Clemence. Probably not now if everybody else is going to be.
It’s better if Toby remains theoretical for Clemence’s friends and family.
Toby in actuality might be too much to understand.
They’d think he was rude and petulant, and they wouldn’t be wrong, and also they wouldn’t understand why it didn’t matter.
“He hasn’t come over again?” asks Naomi.
Clemence had told them everything about that night, about the caterpillar, and the meh-standard intimate encounter.
It hadn’t been an experience she was dying to repeat, and Clemence wondered if this was fate’s way of diverting her from a more conventional arrangement.
How easily she could have slipped into it all—the dinners with wine, the sex.
Next thing, she would have been living in a starkly modern townhouse complex, seven years married, not a physical book in sight.
“I just want to know that he’s good enough for you,” says Jillian. “And to make sure that you’re not fooling yourself.”
“But it doesn’t even matter, you know?” says Clemence.
“That’s the point. We’re not committed, so it’s inconsequential.
The pressure’s off. We’re having fun. Maybe the whole thing is a bad idea, but who cares?
” Jillian isn’t buying it. Her judgment is written all over her face. “Come on,” says Clemence. “Dr. Yelp?”
“That’s different,” Jillian insists.
“It always seems different when it’s you,” says Clemence.
“It’s different because my thing is over now,” says Jillian. “Finally. Something I had to get out of my system.”
“You said it was over the last time,” says Clemence. “Who’s fooling who?”
“But I mean it now,” says Jillian, sounding less than sure of herself than she usually did.
“You slept with him again?” asks Naomi, putting the pieces together. Looking at Clemence for confirmation. “Even after we posted our review?”
“Just once,” says Jillian.
“Did he mention the review?” asks Clemence, carefully.
“He didn’t,” says Jillian.
“Maybe he doesn’t monitor his Yelp,” says Naomi. “After all, he’s a very busy man.”
“I think even if he does,” says Jillian.
“He wouldn’t be able to tell who it’s talking about.
Have you seen what’s happened since your review?
” They hadn’t. “There’s been a pile-on. Apparently, I’m not the only one he’s been involved with.
Apparently, this is a standard part of his counselling practice.
Apparently, none of us are special.” And this, after everything, is what cracks Jillian’s heart.
Her eyes are wet, which is the Jillian-equivalent of lying on the floor sobbing. “I feel like a dumb-ass.”
“You’re not a dumb-ass,” Naomi and Clemence say in chorus.
“He told me that this had never happened before. Like the two of us were in on it together, doing this wild, reckless thing. How come even my recklessness turns out to be underwhelmingly ordinary? And how come I didn’t see through him?
What’s the point of being overeducated if you’re not even savvy? ”
“You’re savvy,” says Clemence. “You’re the savviest. This was a one-time lapse in judgment.
And didn’t it feel good, in a way? To throw caution to the wind?
” She imagines caution as a sarong with a jungle print, like the one Lisa was wearing the first time Clemence made her way over to their hot tub, remembering how afterward the fabric lay in a wild pile of itself on their deck, and how Clemence had felt as she noticed it, the fear, the dread, the elation of knowing that now her life was going to have to change.
She says, “There is something interesting sometimes about being the author of bad choices.”
“But that’s the thing,” says Jillian. “That’s what I thought I was doing, but it turns out I was just playing a bit part in somebody else’s script. It’s humiliating.”
“But now it’s done,” says Naomi. “You’ve learned some things.”
“Like to get proper referrals for medical professionals,” says Clemence.
“I liked his photo,” says Jillian. “I thought he looked safe, and he was the only one listed whose profile didn’t have inspirational quotes.”
“I guess he helped you figure out what you wanted though. Using unorthodox means. I still think we should report him,” says Naomi.
“I already did,” says Jillian. “When I saw those posts, the way he’d treated all those other people. Those people were vulnerable and he took advantage of that.”
“He took advantage of you,” pointed out Clemence.
“I like to think that I was exercising free will,” says Jillian, finishing her drink. “But now I’m not so sure. I think that’s why Jeremy has been so forgiving.”
“Well, good,” says Naomi. “Plus, he loves you.”
“He really does,” agrees Jillian. “I don’t know that I fully believed it before, or even that he really did. We’d had no cause to give our love any thought, and I wouldn’t have predicted how far he’d be willing to go for me. I don’t know if I would if the tables were turned.”
“What if he’d been preyed upon by a therapist from Yelp, though?” asks Clemence.
“Even then,” says Jillian. “I’d probably be furious that he’d been so stupid.”
“I bet Jeremy’s actually relieved that you’ve been stupid,” says Clemence. “Your otherwise perfection can be intimidating. It’s a lot to live up to. It’s almost like you’ve done him a favour. Levelling the playing field, you know?”
“That’s certainly one way to spin it,” says Jillian.
“He won’t admit it,” says Clemence, “but deep in his heart he knows it’s true.”
“Plus, after years of all your friends thinking you’re out of his league, Jeremy is finally getting a bit of sympathy,” says Naomi. “The poor guy.”
“I liked it better when you thought I was perfect,” says Jillian.
“Oh, that was never us,” says Clemence. “I mean, we know you. You’re our friend.”
“She’s right,” says Naomi. “If you were perfect, you’d be impossible to stomach. Plus, with the two of you turning into hard-core fuck-ups this year, I get to be the stable one in our friendship. I could get used to that.”