Fourth Comings_ A Jessica Darling Novel - Megan McCafferty [120]
“Well, I’m here,” I said, smiling.
“Of course you are,” she replied.
I took her paint-splotched hand.
seventy-two
We got a cab. As we sped across the Brooklyn Bridge, I couldn’t help but cast a backward glance at Manhattan. I’ve lived in the city now for almost five years, and there’s still a part of me that retains that corny, touristy sense of wonder when I see the peak of the Empire State Building all aglow at a distance. Just give me a pair of white sneakers and a fanny pack.
“Marcus and I have been together for more than four years.”
Hope was hesitant to say anything on this subject, the subject of you.
“That’s the most common time for long-term couples to break up. Four years.”
“Really?”
“Really,” I confirmed. “And this is all over the world, and across every racial, socioeconomic, political, and religious spectrum.”
“Do you even qualify as having been together for four years?”
It was a fair question, considering you and I didn’t speak to each other for two years.
“You and Marcus remind me of that Kahlil Gibran quote,” Hope said. “‘Let there be spaces in your togetherness.’”
“That’s…um…deep,” I replied.
“It’s engraved on every other wedding program in the NYC metro area.”
Just then I remembered something I had read in preparation for my interview with Dr. Kate, about how all relationships fall into predictable patterns if you study them long enough. Ours was so simple, and yet it had never occurred to me until right there, beside Hope in the cab between one borough and the other:
CONNECTION
SEPARATION
CONNECTION
SEPARATION
CONNECTION…
“There’s been too many spaces in our togetherness,” I said, almost in a whisper. “Our relationship is defined by separation. By silences.”
The funny thing is, I could have just as easily been talking about Hope and me. But she knew.
“It seems to me,” Hope said, “that you and Marcus need more togetherness in your spaces.”
For a few seconds the only sound was of the tires heartbeating over the dips in the road.
Ba-dump-dump. Ba-dump-dump. Ba-dump-dump.
“What the hell does that mean?” I asked.
“I have no idea,” she replied. “I was hoping you wouldn’t ask me.”
seventy-three
Hope and I returned to the Cupcake. We climbed into our bunks, turned out the lights, said good night, and pretended to go to sleep. Our eyes were closed and our bodies were still, but I knew we were both wide awake, betrayed by the erratic breathing of those only feigning peace. Hope knew, too.
“I wasn’t hallucinating, was I?” Hope asked suddenly. “That was Shea on her knees, scrubbing our toilet.”
“No, I saw her, too,” I replied. “And as further evidence, the bleach she was using singed my nostril hairs.”
“Mine too!” she said. “So you also heard the part about how we’re the nastiest bunch of squirrel-blowing cuntdrips she has ever met….”
“Yes.”
“And now that she’s made up with Manda and is moving back in, she expects us to pick up a grannyfucking toilet brush every once in a while.”
“Yup.”
“Okay.” Hope sighed. “Just checking.”
I listened to the traffic through the open window before speaking. “I feel sorry for Shea.”
“Why?”
“I think she really loves Manda.”
“And Manda?”
“I think Manda loves Manda, too.”
And then there were a few sheet-shifting moments of nonsleep before Hope swung horizontally and peered over the mattress to look at me. Her red hair hung like a cape behind her.
“What if he fell in love with Ursula?”
I laughed at the idea of you falling for our landlord before I realized she was not kidding.
“I’m totally serious, Jess. Imagine you let him go, and he falls in love with Ursula.” Her eyes lit up with an even better idea. “And she’s pregnant. With Scotty’s baby.”
“Oh, come onnnn.”
“And Marcus wants to be the father of the child, even though the kid isn’t is. That’s how blindly devoted he is to her.”
As she swung back into the top bunk, I imagined Ursula, tumescent with child, blowing a cloud of smoke into your face. What? Dah baby is cooked.