Читать книгу Tully - Paullina Simons - Страница 13

September 1978

Sunday morning, Jennifer sat by the phone and waited for Jack to call her. Last night he said he would call her, but here it was, noon already. Jennifer didn’t even go to St Mark’s for the ten o’clock Mass, waiting for him to call.

The last guests had left by about midnight, and Jennifer spent until two in the morning compulsively cleaning her room before she lay down in her bed. How did he get home? Jen had thought. He left around eleven, mumbling something about getting a ride. But he lived nearby, so he might have just stumbled home.

Jennifer slept poorly, waking up at five-thirty in the morning to sneak into the garage. Then she started cleaning up the house, and at six-thirty her mom and dad got up and helped her. Jennifer went back to her room, vacuumed, dusted, polished, shined. Then she came down to breakfast.

Sunday breakfasts! How she loved the mozzarella and onion omelettes her mom made; the whole family, all three of them, did. But this morning, Jennifer looked down into her omelette and thought about his breath, his breath on her shoulders, on her hair, his breath as he leaned over and laughed in her ear while she felt his sweat-soaked blond hair brush against her face.

‘Jenny, did you have a good time?’ Tony Mandolini asked her.

‘Great,’ she said into her food.

‘Did anyone get drunk or embarrass themselves?’

And they danced, oh, they danced together to ‘Wild Wild Horses.’

‘Only Mom,’ replied Jennifer, trying to be jovial, ‘but everyone knew she can’t handle her liquor, so they were real sympathetic.’

‘Jennifer!’ Lynn slapped her daughter’s arm.

Jennifer smiled. ‘No, everything was great, Dad, thanks.’

‘Hey, your mom did most of the work. Thank her.’ Tony reached over and patted Lynn’s thigh.

Tony and Lynn glanced at each other, and then Lynn said, ‘We have another surprise for you, Jenny,’ handing Jennifer a little wrapped box with a white bow.

Jennifer stopped eating, put down her milk, wiped her mouth, looked at her mom and dad, and picked up the little gift. She knew what it was. So when she ripped the wrapping paper, opened the box, and took out a pair of keys, Jennifer summoned all her powers to open her eyes wide and to put on a big surprised smile on her face.

‘Dad! Mom! What’s this? You know, I already have a pair of keys.’

Tony and Lynn were grinning. ‘Yes, darling, it’s what you always wanted,’ Lynn said.

It’s what you always wanted rang in Jennifer’s ears as they went outside and her father opened the garage door and showed her a huge white bow, this time wrapped around a brand-new baby-blue Camaro.

To match my eyes, thought Jennifer wearily.

‘To match your eyes,’ said Tony as his daughter stood and stared. She then effused sufficiently. Hugged and kissed them both. But did not take the car for a ride just then and spent the rest of the morning in her bedroom, sitting on her bed in utter silence, not moving at all.

‘I told you they were gonna get me a car,’ Jennifer said when Julie called at nine-thirty.

Julie squealed. ‘A car! A beautiful car! Your car! You can take us all everywhere in your car!’

‘Hmm. What are you so happy about? You didn’t get a car.’

‘I should’ve been so lucky,’ Julie answered.

‘Well, maybe if your mom and dad didn’t have twenty kids, you might’ve,’ commented Jennifer.

‘Five,’ said Julie. ‘But why were you so sure it was going to be a car?’

Because it’s what I always wanted, Jennifer thought, and wearily said so.

‘Going to St Mark’s, Jen? My grandmother wants me to take communion today.’

‘Not today, Jule, okay? I really gotta help clean up.’

They talked about Tully a little and hung up; afterwards Jennifer sat back down on the bed with hands folded on her lap and waited – until Robin called.

‘Jennifer, I want to take Tully out,’ said Robin.

Jennifer sighed. The only phone calls she had received were from Julie and now from Robin to ask permission to see Tully.

‘Go right ahead,’ said Jennifer. ‘By all means.’

Robin was pacing around his bedroom. He could tell Jennifer was not listening to him, and hated finding himself in a ridiculous position of having to confer with a seventeen – no, eighteen-year-old. But he remembered Tully’s face and sweet lips as she kissed him. He would have been delighted with her lips alone. The rest of their encounter confounded him. Robin felt vaguely that unwittingly and unknowingly, he was being sucked into some bottomless mire. That last night’s encounter with Tully felt like he had been had. With no choice in the matter. Simply sucked in, and had. Tully seemed like a mosquito in the summer that sucked just enough blood to feed itself but not to kill him, and when the mosquito was swollen and bloated with the little it took, it buzzed off, to digest Robin’s blood and then feed off some other poor slob. Still, Robin felt persisting for Tully was the right thing to do. It felt like the right thing to do.

‘Jen, can you help me out a little, please?’

‘What can I do for you, Robin?’

‘I want to take her out.’

There was a short pause.

‘What would you like me to say?’ said Jennifer.

What’s she like? Robin wanted to ask. Is there something about her I should know? Do you think I’m her type? Is there something that’ll scare me off her? But he already knew the answer to that one. She was scary as hell, devouring him as she did, on a whim, unexpectedly, and then patting him on the back, sort of like, good boy, Robin, good doggie, now sit. But all Robin asked was, ‘Well, is she going out with someone?’

‘No,’ said Jennifer. ‘But you are.’

Robin ignored her. Gail was strictly short-term.

‘She said her mother is sick. Is it a chronic thing?’

Another pause, slightly longer. Robin sighed into the phone. Dentist visits were easier than this.

‘Oh, it’s pretty chronic, all right,’ said Jennifer.

Robin was silent.

‘Robin,’ said Jennifer. ‘Tully is not the easiest person to take out, you know.’

‘No,’ he said. ‘I don’t know. I was hoping you’d tell me.’ Pause. ‘She told me to come in the afternoon to her house and take her for a drive,’ he said finally.

‘She did?’ Jennifer seemed to liven up.

‘Yes, uh-huh.’

Jennifer chuckled. ‘She didn’t mean it.’

Robin’s circular pacing around his bedroom speeded up.

‘How’s your dad?’ Jennifer asked him.

‘Fine, fine,’ he said. That was not strictly true, but he really did not want to talk about his dad at the moment. ‘What’s Tully’s dad like?’

‘He’s not,’ said Jennifer, ‘around.’

‘Not at all?’ asked Robin.

‘Not at all.’

‘Is he dead?’

‘I don’t know,’ said Jennifer.

‘How long has he been not around?’

‘Ten years,’ said Jennifer.

‘Jennifer, will you do me a favor?’

He heard Jennifer sigh. ‘Robin, I kinda gotta go. I’m expecting a phone call.’

‘Jennifer,’ said Robin. ‘If he’s going to call, trust me, he’ll call back – now please, would you?’

‘What do you want me to do?’

‘Call Tully, find out if she really wants to see me again, and if she does, please find out the best way I can get to her. Can you do that for me?’

Jennifer quickly agreed, and they hung up. Robin sat quietly for a few moments. He was thinking of Tully, of the way she held on to him last night and of her soft needy moans. Then he inadvertently remembered how upset Gail was with him and how he meant to apologize. Robin thought of calling Gail up but decided against it. He did not want to be talking to Gail while he was thinking of Tully.

Tully was the first girl whose smell and taste and expression affected him enough to humiliate his date at a party for a mutual friend. Robin hoped Tully was worth it.

When Robin was twelve, six months before his confirmation and seven months before his mother’s death, he found out that he and his younger brothers were all adopted by Stephen and Pamela DeMarco from some adoption agency that had managed to palm off all three little male siblings to one set of parents. Sort of like a kitten litter. Robin had been three, Bruce a year and a half, and Stevie three months.

Robin had been looking for his birth certificate because he wanted to open his first savings account for the anticipated earnings from his confirmation. His adoption papers shattered him. Robin ran downstairs to his parents, wildly waving the certificate and crying ‘Why didn’t you ever tell us? Why? Why didn’t you ever tell me?’ The DeMarcos tried in vain to comfort their oldest boy. But for the next six months, young Robin went to school, worked his paper route, came home, ate dinner, did his homework, watched a little TV, and went to sleep. For six months, he hardly spoke to his mother and father. At his confirmation, he coldly kissed Pamela DeMarco and thanked her for going through the trouble of throwing him such a great party, even though he was not her son.

A month later, Robin’s mother died unexpectedly of congestive heart failure. Young Robin quickly forgave himself for not forgiving his mother in time. After graduating from high school, he went to work for his dad and proved himself to be a hardworking and smart manager. The family business prospered under Robin. Then money came his way. Money, good clothes, great cars. Robin worked, played soccer, and took in a great many women. He usually had his pick of most girls he met – and he met a great many girls. He was always courteous to them, but often he was not particularly sensitive. He spoke little of himself and regularly broke up with his girlfriends without letting them know about it; one day he would just start going around with a different girl and that seemed to say it all for him – what more was there to say?

Shying away from girls who were in touch with their feelings and wanting to talk all the time, Robin preferred those similar to his adopted mother: flashy, fair-haired, and private. Gail was nothing like his mother.

The phone rang again as soon as Jennifer put it down. She closed her eyes and let it ring three times before picking it up.

It was Tully. Jennifer sighed.

‘No, no, don’t worry,’ said Tully. ‘I know that you are glad to hear from me deep down.’

‘Very deep,’ said Jennifer. ‘Robin called, asking for you.’

‘He did? Did you tell him he called the wrong house? I don’t live with you.’

‘But wish you did,’ said Jennifer, half kidding.

‘Well, that’s pretty thrilling,’ continued Tully. ‘I didn’t think I’d see him again. What did he want?’

‘He asked if you were going out with anyone.’

‘And you said…’

‘I told him that you weren’t going out with anyone but that he was.’

‘Nice going, Jen.’

‘I told him,’ continued Jennifer, ‘that your mother might be a problem.’

‘Well done!’ exclaimed Tully. ‘Nothing a guy likes more than a problem mom.’

‘Tully, did you tell him he could pick you up at your house?’

‘Yeah,’ said Tully. ‘I say that to everybody. I didn’t mean it. I didn’t think he’d show up.’

Jennifer said, ‘Well, he was definitely going to show up. Good thing I talked some sense into him.’

Tully was silent.

‘Tull, you wanna see him?’

Silence. A grim ‘A little.’

‘He’s going out with Gail, and Gail was very upset with the both of you,’ said Jennifer.

‘Fuck Gail,’ Tully said. ‘Is he in love with her?’

‘Tully, she’s seventeen and I think she kind of loves him.’

‘Yeah, so? I’m seventeen, too. Besides,’ she added, ‘I’m not responsible that he calls me up.’

‘That he calls me up,’ Jennifer corrected her, smiling at the phone.

Jen arranged to pick Tully up in her new Camaro and drive her over to The Village Inn, the popular hamburger place on Topeka Boulevard, where Robin would meet them. Then she called Robin to tell him the plan. Jennifer thought that Robin seemed pleased with that, and this struck her as odd because she always perceived Robin as unemotional. He must like Tully, thought Jennifer.

‘Is there anything I should know about her?’ Robin asked Jennifer.

Well, there are a lot of things you should know about her, thought Jennifer, but right now, I really want to get off the phone.

‘Yeah, she is not much into talking.’

‘She and you both. What’s she into?’

A different kind of communication, Jennifer thought. Tactile communication.

‘Into? Dancing,’ Jen replied. ‘Music. National Geographic. Books.’

No one knew Tully better than Jennifer, no one knew Tully on such personal terms, but even Jennifer was hard-pressed to define what Tully was into, or what was into Tully. When she was twelve, Jennifer overheard her mother and father discussing adopting Tully; she wished she could have heard that conversation better, but the words were big and vague. Something about Wichita, something about foster care. Then Tully more or less dropped out of Jennifer’s and Julie’s life. Oh, Tully came over, ate dinner, did some homework, talked, watched TV.

But it was all pretend. Like the games they used to play when they were children. Pretend. Tully was a Stepford Tully during 1975, 1976, 1977. Jennifer knew only a bare skeleton of Tully’s life during the years Tully was dancing and getting into dance clubs with her fake ID.

In 1977, things got a little better. Tully showed Jennifer the ID. ‘Natalie Anne Makker,’ it read. ‘Female, 5’6”, 105 pounds, gray eyes, blonde hair, b. January 19, 1955.’ Jennifer had been shocked at how Tully looked in the photo, done up so old. Tully made herself to look six years older, but she might as well have made her lie be sixteen years or sixty, so large had been the chasm separating Tully from Jennifer. And even after 1977. They didn’t play softball anymore, Tully and Jen.

‘Yeah, Tully is really not much into all that verbal stuff,’ Jennifer finished.

‘Ahhh, a girl after my own heart,’ said Robin, hanging up.

Afterwards, Jennifer sat back on her bed and did not move for an hour until it was time to go pick up Tully in her new Camaro.

‘Nice car, Jen,’ Tully said, getting in. ‘Now you can drive us all to school.’

‘Makker, Julie and I walk to school. And I’m not driving every morning to pick your ass up from the boondocks of town, that’s for sure.’

‘Oh, yes, you are, Mandolini,’ said Tully. ‘You got nowhere else to go but to pick me up.’

‘I got plenty of places,’ said Jennifer.

‘Yeah? Name one. Admit it, you don’t really need this car.’

‘I admit it,’ said Jennifer. ‘But Makker, whether I need it or not, you are not getting this car, not even for five minutes. Absolutely not.’

‘I don’t want this silly car,’ said Tully, smiling and touching Jennifer’s hair. ‘I just want you to teach me how to drive.’

At The Village Inn, Robin sat down across from Tully. Or rather, Tully sat down across from Robin. Tully looked entirely different from last night, looking more as she did when she first arrived at Jen’s: no makeup. She was wearing old faded jeans and a HAVE FUN! IT’S TOPEKA! sweatshirt. Her eyes were sweet and gray and she had large blue bags under them. Her nose was a little misshapen and her mouth was pale. She had short, kinky hair. She didn’t look like a party girl, she didn’t look scary, she didn’t look much like anything, but as Robin sat and watched her dig into her burger and talk to him, he thought she was the most beautiful girl he had ever met.

‘Why did you tell me I could come to your mother’s house?’ he asked her.

She flashed him a smile. ‘I didn’t think you’d come.’ Beaming at the waiter, Tully ordered black coffee and lemon meringue pie.

‘You really transform yourself for a party, don’t you?’ Robin said.

‘What’s the matter? Regret you came today?’ Tully asked.

He shook his head quickly. Gray is not an especially warm color, he thought, never having seen gray eyes before. ‘No, you look better now, but different.’

They sat and talked for an hour.

‘What do you do, Robin?’ Tully asked him. ‘With yourself? When you’re not accompanying high school seniors to parties?’

‘I work for my dad,’ he told her. ‘DeMarco & Sons. Fine men’s clothing.’

‘In Manhattan?’ Tully seemed surprised. ‘Is there a market for that sort of thing out there?’

Robin shrugged. ‘We have no competition. It’s not bad.’

‘Well, that explains why you’re so well dressed,’ said Tully, smiling lightly.

As Tully talked, she gestured with her hands, which reminded Robin of his profoundly gesticulate family, and he found her hand motions very Italian and very endearing. They were having a good time. She was funny, nonthreatening, and, well, seemed entirely normal to him. They both smoked. He lit her cigarette for her, and she stared into his face as she inhaled.

But while Tully was holding up her hands – thin, white, and thoroughly pleasing – to imitate a friend of hers during a police raid on a dance club, Robin saw her wrists. On both her wrists, very close to her palms, he saw two horizontal scars, jagged and dark pink, scars about an inch long. He inhaled sharply. She stopped talking and looked at him; Robin could only imagine what his expression looked like to her – fear? pity? more fear? How often had she seen these expressions on the faces of men who encountered her and those wrists of hers? All that mixed with lust and tenderness. How often?

Instantly, her demeanor changed. She wasn’t animated anymore, and her eyes were cold.

To sit and say nothing seemed somehow unthinkable, somehow worse than acknowledgment, so Robin steadied himself and acknowledged Tully. Touching her sleeve, he said, ‘Are you okay?’

‘Of course,’ she said. ‘I’m great.’

Robin looked at her wrists, and so did she. ‘Oh, these,’ Tully said. ‘I cut myself shaving.’

‘Oh,’ Robin said, letting go of her sleeve and feeling himself go pale. ‘I hope you don’t…shave them very often.’

‘Not too often, God help me.’ She attempted a smile.

I love her, Robin thought then and there with a spasm of emotional clarity that pulled at his stomach and tugged at his throat. I love her. How is that possible? How? What has she done?

After leaving The Village Inn, they drove to 45th Street and headed east, in the direction of Lake Shawnee and Lawrence. Tully was much quieter than she had been at the restaurant. Basically, she just sat and stared at the road, commenting that the weather was certainly turning chilly.

‘Shawnee County is really beautiful,’ Robin said. ‘Look at this place. Hills and valleys and meadows.’

‘And long grass,’ said Tully impassively. ‘It’s the prairie, Robin.’ She looked out the window.

‘Yeah, but looking at this, you wouldn’t think it was the prairie,’ said Robin.

‘It’s the prairie, nonetheless,’ said Tully.

They parked at Lake Shawnee and had sex again; it was just as brief this time, just as confounding. There was no one around. Tully stroked Robin’s hair, and then gently pushed him off her. He sighed and got dressed. ‘Done with me, are you, Tully?’ he said.

‘I’m not done with you at all,’ said Tully, touching his cheeks. ‘But I have to get back.’

‘What’s the matter? Your mother sick?’

‘Very sick,’ said Tully. ‘If you only knew.’

‘Tell me.’

‘Nothing to tell,’ said Tully.

Robin took a deep breath and told her about his dad’s cancer.

‘I’m sorry, Robin,’ said Tully, cracking her knuckles. ‘My mother is not really sick, nothing like that. She is just…strict, that’s all.’

‘How strict, Tully?’ he wanted to know. ‘Is there a curfew? Does she insist you do your homework all the time and not go out? Does she make you do housework?’

‘If only,’ said Tully. ‘No, nothing like that. Robin, it’s really hard to explain about my mother. She is not very communicative.’

‘From what I understand, neither are you,’ said Robin.

‘Right,’ said Tully. ‘So, me and my Mom, we just don’t talk much.’

Silently, Robin looked at the lake. ‘She is still your mother, Tully,’ he said. ‘She’s the only mother you’ll ever have.’

Tully glanced at him. ‘Robin, that’s not necessarily a good thing,’ she said. ‘Let’s go.’

It was nearly seven in the evening when they hit 45th Street again. The sun was hiding behind the hills. The trees, the barns, and oblong grain silos were dusky silhouettes along the road. Robin and Tully had been driving for about ten minutes on 45th when a car coming the opposite way passed them and all of a sudden something hard and black bounced off the other car, and then the Corvette smashed it with its right fender, and the black thing bounced off and fell with a thump to the ground.

‘Robin!’ exclaimed Tully. Both cars stopped. Two young men in plaid shirts came out of the other car, and all four of them carefully stepped to the middle of the road to see a Doberman, prone on its side still breathing but unable to move any part of itself.

‘Oh, God,’ said Tully.

‘Hey, where did he come from?’ said one of the plaid-shirted men excitedly. ‘I was driving, didn’t see nothing, and then all of a sudden this thing just jumps out in front of my car, poor bastard.’

‘And I hit him,’ said Robin, shaking his head.

‘Nah, he bounced off my car, man, there was nothing you could do. I feel bad, though, he must be a guard dog for one of them barns over there. His owners are gonna be pretty sad when they find him.’

‘My God,’ said Tully. ‘He’s not even dead.’

And it wasn’t. The Doberman was trying in vain to lift its head, but all the while its black eyes were open, staring mutely at Tully and at Robin. They looked at each other, and then at the road. A car was coming. ‘We gotta move him,’ said Tully.

‘Nah, he’ll be better off if a car puts him out. Look at him, he is suffering,’ said the guy.

‘We gotta move him!’ said Tully louder, looking at Robin.

All four of them had to move out of the road. The car slowed down but didn’t stop as it went barreling past them and over the Doberman, flinging the animal a little closer to the shoulder, but not close enough, because seconds later another car went by, and this one didn’t even slow down as it ran over the Doberman. The dog remained in the road, no longer trying to move its head. Amazingly, it was not dead. Its mouth was open as it slowly gulped some air, its black eyes still open, and still watching. The four of them stood motionless. The only sound in the air was the dog’s belabored, difficult breathing. Tully wrung her hands and moved toward the three men. ‘Guys, please! Just move him, move him, don’t let him be hit again, please! Robin!’

Robin stepped over to the dog. ‘I wouldn’t do that if I was you,’ said the plaid-shirted driver. ‘You don’t know how that thing’s gonna react, man. It’s a Doberman, for God’s sake. He may just get crazy right then and there, rip into you or something. I wouldn’t do it. Just let him be. He’ll die soon enough.’

Robin stopped. ‘He is right, Tully,’ he said.

‘God!’ Tully screamed. ‘The dog is in the middle of the road! Hasn’t he been run over by enough cars? Goddamn it,’ she said, walking over towards the animal, ‘you’d move it if it was your mother lying in the road, wouldn’t you?’

Tully grabbed the Doberman’s hind legs, and with great effort dragged it ten feet, all the way into the grass. The three men watched her, and the driver of the other car leaned over to Robin and whispered, ‘She is crazy, man, crazy. That thing goes for her and she’ll be in bad shape. Crazy, I tell you.’

Tully wiped her hands on the grass and said to Robin. ‘Let’s go.’ She did not look back at the dog.

‘Well, it sure is pretty eventful being with you, Tully,’ said Robin, parked in front of Jennifer’s house on Sunset Court.

‘What do you mean, with me? Nothing ever happened to me until I started being with you,’ said Tully.

‘Somehow,’ said Robin, ‘I find that pretty hard to believe.’ And Tully smiled.

‘I’d like to see you again,’ Robin said.

She stared at her feet. ‘It will be a little difficult,’ she said at last.

‘That’s all right.’

‘I can’t get out much.’

‘Still, though.’

‘I can’t stay out.’

‘Well, there you go,’ said Robin.

‘Aren’t you going out with Gail?’ Tully asked him.

‘We’re not serious.’

‘You are not serious,’ she corrected him.

Robin smiled. ‘I’ll talk to her. I really want to see you.’

‘When?’ asked Tully.

Robin breathed out. ‘I work every day,’ he said, and tried not to show his pleasure. ‘Uh, except Sundays. How about next Sunday?’

‘Sunday is okay,’ she answered. ‘Same deal? In the afternoon? ’Cause I usually go to church on Sunday mornings.’

‘You go to church, Tully?’ said Robin with surprise.

‘Well, you know,’ said Tully. ‘Just to keep Jen company.’

‘That’s fine. Next Sunday, I’ll take you to lunch. Somewhere nice.

‘Okay,’ she said, leaning over and kissing him on the lips. It was a long time before Robin stopped seeing her serious gray eyes and smelling the coffee and meringue on her breath.

Jennifer and Julie were waiting for Tully in Jennifer’s kitchen.

‘Well,’ said Julie. ‘Do tell all!’

‘Not much to tell,’ replied Tully, sitting down and taking a sip from Jennifer’s Coke. Jennifer got up and got herself another one.

‘Where did he take you?’ asked Julie.

‘For a drive. Jennifer, you should’ve told me his father has lung cancer.’

Jennifer stared at Tully. ‘I didn’t think it was my place,’ she replied. ‘Did you want me to tell him stuff about you?’

Tully rolled her eyes. ‘Can you tell me if he is nice, Jen?’

‘Of course he is, very nice, but what do you think?’

‘He is very good-looking,’ Julie put in. ‘And drives such a good-looking car! What does he do?’

Tully said, ‘He manages his father’s ritzy-glitzy men’s fine clothing store,’ adding, ‘And he is good-looking. He knows it, too.’

‘This bothers you?’ Julie smiled. ‘But what does a handsome, well-off, grown-up guy like him want from you?’ She poked Tully in the ribs.

Tully was unperturbed. ‘The same thing,’ she said, ‘that an ugly, poor, young guy wants from me.’

The girls drank their Cokes.

‘Are you going to see him again?’ asked Julie.

‘Next Sunday, if Jen’s willing.’ Tully patted Jennifer on the head and turned back to Julie. ‘Are you going to see Tom again?’

‘Tully!’

‘Yes, yes, of course. You looove him!’ Smiling, Tully turned to Jennifer, who sat there, spaced out. ‘Jennifer? Has he called?’

Jennifer looked at Tully and Julie as if she couldn’t be sure which one spoke to her.

‘Jennifer, has he called?’ repeated Tully.

Jennifer got up. ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’

‘He hasn’t called!’ Tully and Julie chimed in unison.

‘You both are so silly and immature,’ said Jennifer.

‘I agree,’ said Tully. ‘But Julie, have you ever seen a guy who wears tighter Levi’s?’

‘Never,’ said Julie. ‘But I hear it’s a sign of maturity –’

‘To lust after someone with tight Levi’s? Absolutely,’ finished Tully.

‘Girls,’ said Jennifer, ‘I really think it’s time for you to be driven home.’

She ran into Jack on Monday.

He walked over to her locker and said, ‘Hi, Jen, great party, thanks for inviting us, hope we didn’t all trash the place, hope you can make it to the Homecoming game in a couple of weeks.’ Hope this hope that thanks for this thanks for that, blah, blah, blah.

And Jennifer smiled and nodded politely and said of course and yes and I’ll see you at practice and I hope you play well at Homecoming, and then he left and she closed her locker, took her books, and went to her American history class, where she had to take a surprise quiz and failed.

Back home, she walked past her mother, went upstairs, closed the door behind her, and lay face down on her bed until her father came home and it was dinnertime.

Jen kept to herself at dinner, slightly amused at the recurring topic of dinner discussion nowadays: Harvard. Harvard and the SATs. Harvard, the SATs and med school. Harvard, the SATs, med school, and isn’t she amazing, Lynn? Isn’t she just amazing? And she, their amazing daughter, sat and concentrated very hard on driving each of her fork tines through four green peas. Sometimes she only managed to get two or three instead of the full four and this made her want to fling the entire plate across the room. But she set her jaw and kept on, while Lynn and Tony continued. So what if the mean SAT score was 1050, while Jen got a combined 1575 on her mock SATs last year, out of a possible 1600? Mock SATs! Even Jack got 1100 on them. And Tully got 1400, except no one knew it because no one cared. Nobody cared what Tully got on her mock SATs, and that was really okay with Tully, Jen thought. At least she didn’t have to hear this during dinner seven days a week for months. Jennifer thought of telling her parents that she had no intention of going to Harvard; Jennifer and Tully had their plans. But she just couldn’t be bothered. She excused herself, went back to her room, and spent the rest of the evening calling his number and hanging up before it rang.

Hundreds of times, many hundreds she must have called his number, and hung up many hundreds of times, dialing it with unseeing eyes, in her master bedroom.