Girls in White Dresses - JENNIFER CLOSE [64]
“It’s from the BlackBerry, I think,” Dan said.
“You have a scar from your BlackBerry vibrating against you?” Shannon asked.
“I guess so,” Dan said.
“And that doesn’t strike you as strange? As not right?”
“Not really,” Dan said. He rolled over and turned out his bedside light.
“You’ve been branded,” Shannon said. But Dan was already asleep.
Every time Dan got ready to leave again, they fought.
“When will you be home?” Shannon would ask.
“You know I don’t know that,” he’d say.
“Do you even miss me?” she’d ask.
“Shannon,” he’d say. “Don’t start this now. You know I miss you. Don’t fight with me right before I leave.”
Sometimes she let it drop, but sometimes she didn’t. Sometimes she’d poke and whine until they fought. It felt good to scream at him, to scream at someone. Once she asked him, “Let’s say that you got to have dinner with one person and you had to choose: me or the Candidate. And you hadn’t seen me in a month. Who would you pick?”
“You, of course,” he said. He came over and kissed her good-bye. It was a lie. She knew deep inside that she was his second choice. Always. He’d fallen for someone new. And infatuation was winning.
Once after he left, the dog jumped onto the bed, lifted his leg, and peed. Shannon didn’t even yell at him. “I understand,” she said to the dog as she stripped the sheets. “It’s a shitty situation.”
As months went by, Shannon forgot what it was like to live with Dan. Some nights she convinced herself that he was gone for good. If he did leave, she decided, she would take his TV.
Her friends were worried about her. They took her to brunch and brought over wine. “How are you doing?” they asked.
“Good, good,” Shannon always said. What was she supposed to say? That Dan would rather campaign in Texas than spend time with her? That she’d been abandoned? That the Candidate had stolen her boyfriend? It was easier to just say, “I’m doing great.”
“You’re such a good sport,” they’d say.
Shannon drank the wine and agreed. “Yep, that’s me.” It was better, she thought, than the truth.
At the end of August, Dan got four days off from the campaign. Shannon thought they’d have all sorts of time together, but when he was in the apartment, all he did was e-mail with his campaign friends. He was constantly looking at his BlackBerry. They went to dinner, and Dan remained hunched over, his fingers clicking away. Sometimes he’d laugh at a response he got, or nod in agreement.
“Don’t your fingers hurt?” Shannon asked him. He looked up, surprised.
“No,” he said. “They’re fine.”
“Do you think you could put that away for twenty minutes while we eat, so that I could actually talk to you while we’re in the same city for once?”
He whistled. “Whoa, Shannon. Calm down.” He put his BlackBerry down next to his plate and held up his hands in a fake surrender. “It’s away,” he said. “Okay?”
“No,” she said, holding out her hand. “Away, away. Give it to me. I’ll keep it in my purse.”
“Shannon, come on. Don’t overreact.”
She kept her hand out. “I’m not overreacting. You’re not even e-mailing about work stuff, are you? You just miss your little campaign friends.”
Dan handed over the BlackBerry, but looked at Shannon with narrowed eyes. “You’ve really got to figure out how to deal with your issues,” he said.
“Yeah,” she said. “That’s totally the problem.”
The last night Dan was home, he wanted to go on a double date with his campaign friend Charlotte and her boyfriend, Chet. “Why?” Shannon kept asking. “Why do we have to go out with them?”
“I want you to meet her,” Dan said. “I think you’ll really hit it off.”
“I kind of doubt it,” she said.
“Come on,” Dan said, and finally she agreed.
On the way downtown, Dan told Shannon that Charlotte and Chet were having some problems. “Chet’s not thrilled that Charlotte’s traveling so much,” he said. “He’s not taking the campaign too well.”
“Who is?” she asked.
“Shannon.”
“What?”
He just shook his head.
They went to a tiny Mexican place in the West Village that served mango margaritas that tasted like candy. Dan and Shannon got there first,