The cigarette made Jenny’s head hurt, so she stubbed it out in the Carlisle mug that Kate used as an ashtray, and proceeded to explain the situation with Aubrey’s mom.
“She never told me any of that,” Kate said, which gave Jenny some satisfaction.
“She’s worried you won’t like her if you know she’s poor,” Jenny said.
“You can’t really think I’m that shallow. Besides, obviously I know she’s poor. Look at how she dresses. The same four skanky Tshirts in endless rotation.”
“The thing is, she confides in me, and yet she doesn’t always take my advice. I was thinking we should join forces. You know, sit her down and have a heart-to-heart. Sort of like an intervention. She would listen to you.”
“I have a better idea,” Kate said.
It annoyed Jenny that Kate dismissed her proposal so glibly. Just then, the front door opened, and they heard Aubrey bustling around in the living room.
“In here, Aubrey!” Kate called.
Aubrey walked in, bringing a scent of fresh, cold air. Snowflakes melted in her hair and on her eyelashes.
“It’s snowing!” she announced, scooping snow off her thrift-store peacoat and holding her wet fingers out for them to inspect. “Isn’t it wonderful? I’ve never seen snow before.”
“How fabulous,” Jenny said indulgently.
Kate dragged on her cigarette. “Enjoy it tonight, because tomorrow it’ll be covered in dog pee.”
Jenny took a deep breath, thinking about how best to broach this difficult subject with Aubrey.
“Guess what?” Kate said, before Jenny could get a word out.
“What?”
“Jenny and I were just saying how you seem a little blue lately, like maybe you could use a pick-me-up. So both of you are going to come to New York with me over Thanksgiving break!”
Jenny opened her mouth to protest. Aubrey was coming home with her for Thanksgiving. Her mom had already made up the guest room and planned the menu.
“Oh my God, really?” Aubrey shrieked, jumping up and down and throwing her arms around Kate. “That is the best thing I have ever heard! I’m so happy.”
When Kate met Jenny’s eyes over Aubrey’s shoulder, Jenny could’ve sworn she saw a look of triumph there.
5
Jenny fell asleep on the train to New York and dreamed of Lucas. Nothing surreal, just an incredibly vivid experience of being with him, complete with sounds and smells and tastes. It was the worst type of dream she could have had at that moment. The two of them were alone together in the yearbook office late at night, talking and making out. The yearbook office was the one place they could spend time together without raising eyebrows. He was a jock and she was a brain, and in their school, those cliques didn’t mix, so they were keeping their relationship on the down low for the time being. And that’s where it stayed: they never ended up going public. If a tree falls in the forest and nobody hears, was Lucas really her boyfriend?
In the dream, she asked to see the photographs he’d taken that day, and he showed her one of them kissing. (This couldn’t happen in real life. No photograph existed of them kissing, which made her sad to think about.) Jenny laughed and looked up into Lucas’s eyes. You would call his eyes brown like hers, yet the word hardly captured them. They had flecks of gold and hazel that sparkled in the light. In the dream, Lucas wore his old blue Cape Cod T-shirt. She put her hands on his shoulders, feeling the hard muscles underneath the soft fabric, and moved her hands down to caress his bare arms. His skin was smooth and velvety. He took her hands, turning them over and kissing the underside of her wrists, then kissing her palms, and her heart went crazy. She felt the familiar heat in the pit of her stomach as he leaned in to kiss her. And then his kiss—soft and slow, his tongue exploring her mouth, yet hard at the same time, his chin bristly, his mouth aggressive.
The train jerked, and Jenny woke to the awful knowledge that it was only a dream. They weren’t together anymore. Officially, they never had been. She had tried to banish him from her thoughts, but since she’d seen him in Kate’s bed, he’d come back with a vengeance. When she looked out the window, the world seemed ugly. New England in November, viewed from the train tracks in the waning light, was a wasteland of sagging clapboard houses coated in a dirty snow that looked like ash. Some of the houses were three-families like the one her family lived in in Belle River, though her parents’ house was in much better condition—perfectly kept, in fact. Her parents lived on the top floor, where Jenny’s bedroom always awaited her return. Her older brother, Chris, occupied the apartment on the second floor. He’d come back from the army not quite the same, and her parents treated him like a conquering hero even though he’d never seen combat. Jenny suspected a substance abuse problem, but her snooping around his apartment had turned up nothing, so maybe she was wrong about that. Chris played video games and worked at the store, where he handled deliveries and moved boxes. The idea that Chris had the chops to take over the business someday was a fantasy, but it wasn’t her problem, so long as her parents didn’t start looking to her. She planned to get out of Dodge the second she had a diploma in her hand. She’d told them so, many times. Her mother kept saying that Jenny would change her mind. The first-floor apartment, currently rented out, had Jenny’s name on it as far as her mother was concerned, no matter how often or how loudly she said she didn’t want it. That reckoning could wait, however. At present Jenny was busy dealing with the fallout of abandoning her family to go to New York for Thanksgiving. Her mother actually cried when Jenny told her about the change of plans over the phone. Jenny had to make a special trip home before departing, where she sat at the kitchen table for half an hour explaining Aubrey’s problems in gory detail, and how going to New York would cheer her up, before her mother grudgingly consented.
“Oh, you’re awake,” Aubrey said.
Jenny looked around. “Where’s Kate?”
“She saw some girls from Omega Chi, and they said for her to go up to first class and sit with them. They want her to rush in the spring.”
“Can you do that? Sit in first class if you didn’t pay for it?”
Aubrey shrugged and smiled, as if to say, Kate can.
“Isn’t it great?” Aubrey said, gesturing at the cold scene outside the window.
You’re delusional, Jenny thought, but she said nothing, pulling her psychology textbook out of her backpack and pretending to do homework so Aubrey would leave her alone.
On its final approach to Penn Station, the train entered a pitch-dark tunnel and began to buck and wheeze, like it was having second thoughts about the trip to the city. Aubrey looked at Jenny wide-eyed.
“Is this normal?” she asked.