Freedom [217]
It seemed not to occur to her, or, fortunately, to the bartender, that he was under age. Returning with drinks and a lightened wallet, he found Jenna with her earphones in again and her face in her magazine. He wondered if she were somehow mistaking him for Jonathan, so little was she making of his arrival. He took out the novel his own sister had given him for Christmas, Atonement, and struggled to interest himself in its descriptions of rooms and plantings, but his mind was on the text that Jonathan had sent him that afternoon: hope it’s fun looking at a horse’s ass all day. It was the first he’d heard from him since calling him preemptively, three weeks earlier, with word of his travel plans. “So I guess everything’s come up roses for you,” Jonathan had said. “First the insurgency and now my mom’s leg.”
“It’s not like I wanted her to break her leg,” Joey had said.
“No, I’m sure. I’m sure you wanted the Iraqis to welcome us with wreaths of flowers, too. I’m sure you’re very sorry about how fucked up everything’s gotten. Just not quite sorry enough to not cash in.”
“What was I supposed to do? Say no? Make her go by herself? She’s actually pretty depressed. She’s really looking forward to this trip.”
“And I’m sure Connie understands about that. I’m sure you’ve gotten her total seal of approval.”
“If that were any of your business, I might dignify it with an answer.”
“Hey, you know what? It is totally my business if I have to lie to her about it. I already have to lie about my opinion of Kenny Bartles whenever I talk to her, because you took her money and I don’t want her worrying. And now I’m supposed to lie about this, too?”
“How about just not talking to her constantly instead?”
“It’s not constantly, asshole. I’ve talked to her, like, three times in the last three months. She considers me a friend, all right? And apparently entire weeks can go by without her hearing anything from you. So what am I supposed to do? Not pick up when she calls? She calls me for information about you. Which, there’s something a little weird about this picture, right? Since she is still your girlfriend.”
“I’m not going to Argentina to sleep with your sister.”
“Ha. Ha. Ha.”
“I swear to God, I’m going as a friend. The same way you and Connie are friends. Because your sister’s depressed and it’s a nice thing to do. But Connie’s not going to understand that, so if you could just, like, not mention it, if she calls, that would be the kindest thing you could do for all concerned.”
“You’re so full of shit, Joey, I don’t even want to talk to you anymore. Something’s happened to you that makes me literally sick to my stomach. If Connie calls me while you’re gone, I don’t know what I’m going to say. I probably won’t tell her anything. But the only reason she calls me is she doesn’t hear enough from you, and I’m sick of being in the middle like that. So you do whatever the fuck you want, just leave me out of it.”
Having sworn to Jonathan that he wouldn’t have sex with Jenna, Joey felt insured against every contingency in Argentina. If nothing happened, it would prove him honorable. If something did happen, he would not have to be chagrined and disappointed that something hadn’t. It would answer the question, still open in his mind, of whether he was a soft person or a hard person, and what the future might hold for him. He was very curious about this future. Judging from his nasty text message, Jonathan wasn’t looking to be a part of it either way. And the message definitely did sting, but Joey, for his part, was sick of his friend’s relentless moralizing.
On the plane, in the privacy of their vast seats, and under the influence of a second large drink, Jenna deigned to remove her sunglasses and converse. Joey told her about his recent trip to Poland, chasing the mirage of Pladsky A10 parts, and his discovery that all but a very few of the seeming scores of suppliers advertising these parts on the internet were either bogus or sourced from the same single outlet in Lodz, where Joey and his almost worse