“I don’t want to ruin your good time,” Megan says. “This is not the moment for marital drama. That’s not why we go out.”
“You’re ruining nothing, Megan,” Juliana says. “There’s no censorship here.”
The others chime in with encouragement and support. Everything Jennifer never got when she brought up Tommy to her old friends. Her complaints always led to an awkward silence. Maybe because she wasn’t as sweet as Megan. Wasn’t, isn’t, never has been. Maybe she was disconcertingly angry. Maybe she was uncomfortably raw. Maybe she was plain unlikable. Or maybe everybody just really loved Tommy. It comes over her that of course the right analogy isn’t Jennifer to Megan but Jennifer to Sebastian. She keeps thinking about Sebastian’s voice when he said with the girls. The way it sharpened on those words. That was how she used to sound. Tommy on the phone, the happy rumble in the background, her bitter edge as she said, “Out with the boys?” As she made the same fruitless demand: Come home now. She knows exactly how much Sebastian hates with the girls, that cheerful euphemism. Jennifer to Sebastian. Bad guy to bad guy. The one who wants to leave the party is never the favored one.
“Maybe I should call him back,” Megan says.
“I can take you home if you want,” Jennifer says. “And then come back for everyone else.”
“No,” several of the others say. Erica, drunk and forceful, slaps the palm of her hand on the table. “Fuck him,” she says.
“Y’all, don’t hold this against him,” Megan says. “He’s just looking out for me.”
“Megan, you’re a saint,” Terry says. “I wouldn’t be that nice about it.”
Erica, clearly relishing the freedom of alcoholic truth-telling, says, “He’s a dick.”
Megan bows her head, torn between accepting the compliments and resisting this characterization of the man she’s married to. Jennifer sits in silent struggle against her own dark thoughts, but the rest of them continue to vilify Sebastian and sanctify Megan and in the end Megan gives in to the warm bath of affirmation and announces that she’ll stay. This is greeted by cheering and more pouring of wine. Erica says, “To one more round!” and Amanda adds, “To freedom!” and they laugh and clink glasses and in their triumph it never occurs to them that what they’re toasting is selfish hedonism and the willful disregard of its consequences.
It occurs to Jennifer, of course. But she is toasting, too. Because she doesn’t want to be the person Tommy made, the person Margaret’s spell will make her, wants to will into existence the possibility that she can be different. What the other women do she will do, so that no one looking at the group could tell her apart from the rest of them. So when Erica rounds on her suddenly, points at her vigorously, and says, “Oh my God! I keep forgetting you’re a massage therapist! I should make an appointment with you!” Jennifer points back, matches her tone of drunken epiphany, and says, “You should!” Though of course she isn’t drunk. But where’s the harm in pretending?
“Get out your calendar,” Erica says, with a grand gesture of command. She produces her own phone. “We’ll make an appointment right now.”
“Appointment for what?” Samantha asks.
“For massage!” Erica says. “Remember?”
“That’s right!” Samantha says. “I want an appointment, too!”
Suddenly they all want appointments. Each of them, phone in hand, saying, What about this day, what about that, oh—you took the time I wanted! No, no, that’s okay, I’ll just hold it against you, don’t worry at all. Jennifer schedules them all, with a reckless disregard for times she usually devotes to Margaret. She’ll worry about that later. Or she won’t worry at all. At the thought of slowing the pace of Margaret’s revelations, she feels a lightening of spirit. Maybe she won’t worry at all.
The only person who doesn’t make an appointment is Megan. Megan sits quietly polishing off her wine during the general hilarity. Jennifer feels a sharp awareness of her silence, even as she schedules the others and laughs at their jokes. Why doesn’t Megan want a massage?
“All right,” Amanda says as they all holster their phones. “That was a job of work.”
“A job of work?” Terry repeats. “A job of work?”
“It’s an expression,” Amanda says. “It means that was hard work.”
“I know what it means. I’ve just never heard it outside of an old Southern novel.”
“Is that a Southern expression?” Juliana asks.
“It sounds like it should be,” Amanda says. “But you know, some of the terms we think of as so Southern, like really antiquated-sounding ones that have hung on in Appalachia, are really holdouts from British English. Like reckon, for instance, that was—”
“Jennifer can tell what you’re feeling,” Megan interrupts. “Just from touching you.”
All heads swivel toward Jennifer. “Really?” Juliana says.
“Well, no, not exactly,” Jennifer says. “Not like a psychic.”