“Maybe I don’t care about the consequences.”
“I do. I’m the mayor of Belle River. I have a family, a business to run. I can’t afford a scandal.”
“I have things to protect, too.”
“Okay, but—” Jenny paused, deciding how much to reveal. There was an angry, stubborn set to Aubrey’s jaw. If Jenny didn’t take a risk and tell her what was really at stake here, Aubrey might be crazy enough to go public. She couldn’t allow that.
“Aubrey, listen. There’s more to this than some old college scandal. I never told Tim the truth about what happened that night. If you change your story now, it could mess up my marriage in a big way.”
“You never told Tim the truth?”
“No.”
“How could you keep it from him? Wasn’t Lucas his cousin?”
“Yes. That’s exactly why I never told him.”
Aubrey looked at Jenny with pain in her eyes.
“I’m sorry, Jenny. I really am. But I’m tired of being played for a fool. I simply can’t do it anymore. I need to fight back.”
“Fine, but pick some other way. Don’t destroy my marriage to get your revenge.”
“I don’t mean to sound cold. But if you never told Tim the truth, that’s your problem.”
Jenny looked at Aubrey, dumbfounded. The ingratitude—after all she’d done for Aubrey.
“If Ethan’s sleeping with Kate, isn’t that your problem? He’s been cheating on you for a decade, and she tumbles into bed with half the men she meets. You act like you’re so shocked. It’s been obvious to everybody for a long time that those two together were trouble.”
A look of horror spread across Aubrey’s face. “You knew?”
Jenny saw she’d made a misstep. “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have said that. I didn’t know. Not exactly.”
“Not exactly? My God, Jenny. You knew, and you didn’t tell me.”
“That’s not what I said. I suspected, that’s all. Can you honestly tell me you didn’t suspect yourself?”
“Why didn’t you warn me?”
“I didn’t want to upset you for something that was just a hunch.”
“Kate betrayed me, you knew about it, and you said nothing. The two of you were my best girlfriends. My roommates. I was supposed to be able to trust you.”
“You can. Me, you can trust. Kate—well.”
“No. You and Kate are alike. You think about number one, both of you. All you care about now is not shaking things up for yourself. Anybody else be damned. Stupid Aubrey be damned.”
“I’ve always been a true friend to you, Aubrey. A lot better than Kate was, though you refused to see it.”
“Better than Kate isn’t saying much, is it? I get it now. Aubrey’s a mess, that’s what you always thought. Being friends with me made you feel better about yourself. Well, I’m not a doormat anymore, so look out.”
Aubrey stalked out, leaving Jenny ashen. A few seconds passed in which she couldn’t seem to catch her breath. She turned on the faucet, wet a paper towel with cold water, and pressed it carefully to her face until she calmed down. She had guests to attend to. She would pull herself together and do what was necessary to stop Kate and Aubrey from ruining her carefully laid plans. Just like in college. The two of them could cry and whine and self-destruct all they wanted. Jenny would keep her wits about her, and triumph in the end.
10
Freshman Winter
The winter of their freshman year was the coldest Carlisle had seen in ages. Snowdrifts reached to the windowsills, and giant icicles hung from the copper gutters of Whipple Hall. At night, drafts whistled through the creaky windows of the double, making Aubrey stir in her sleep. She’d turn over and burrow under the covers with a contented sigh. Like everything associated with Carlisle, the weather was magical to her. She had gotten a second job in addition to her work-study, and bought herself a down parka and snow boots with the money. She bundled happily into them each morning for the trek across the frozen Quad. The snow sparkled in the frosty sunlight as her feet crunched on the paths. Inside the overheated lecture halls, a wet-wool smell rose from her classmates’ clothes as she strained to hear the professor over the clanging of the radiators. She wanted to remember this time and place forever, all the things she learned and felt, the people she knew, every sensation.
Aubrey had started spending her weeknights in the basement stacks at Ogden Library studying with Jenny. She adored it there. The sleet pelted against the glass of the high basement windows and reminded Aubrey of the scratching of mice. It was dim in the little corner they’d claimed as their own, and—against regulations—they plugged Jenny’s space heater into an ancient outlet beneath a scarred wooden table. Aubrey warmed her feet and imagined herself sitting by a fire in the time of Dickens, with only a candle for her light. With the musty smell of old books filling her senses, she’d lose herself in their pages.