tuna fish. My mom ate it when she was pregnant with me, and I think the mercury gave me brain damage.”
“Oh.” Audrey had never seen a soap opera, except the Spanish ones at the Laundromat on Amsterdam Avenue. Lots of close-ups of lone tears streaming down maudlin cheeks. Out the window, the Parkside Plaza was the only building in the 59th Street row whose top lights were dark. The scaffolding only went to the forty-fifth floor, and not all the debris had been cleared. For months after the bombing, people had found human bones strewn all over the block.
“…I had to give a presentation today,” Audrey said.
Jayne beamed. Her pockmarks were more evident near her smile, where the blood drained and her skin went taut. “You did? What happened?”
“I kind of freaked out at first. I saw something…But then it was okay. Everybody liked it. Even my horrible boss, who was supposed to be the one to give it.”
Jayne clicked her glass against Audrey’s. “Hooray, Audrey! Boo, hiss, bad boss!”
Audrey lifted her glass and took a sip. “Thanks,” she said. She suddenly felt warm, and happy. She’d been very lonely this last month, and because of that she’d acted more squirrelly than usual. Funny, but she only realized that now, after lunch with the boys, and now dinner with Jayne, when she wasn’t lonely anymore. “The thing I saw…Did you say you were having trouble sleep—”
Jayne cut her off. “You know what my problem is? I’m needy. I’ll call, like five times in a day. It’s crazy. I can’t help myself. I know how it looks to a guy. I’m this hyperlunatic with wrinkles and a bad job, but I can’t help it.”
“Oh, you’re all right,” Audrey said.
“I’m skinny at least. That’s important. Not as skinny as you, but skinny.”
Audrey looked at herself. Jayne was right. If she wanted, she could pull her skirt down over her butt without unzipping it. The result wasn’t flattering. In the mirror at work today, her face had seemed gaunt and her eyes sunken unrecognizably deep: she’d looked old. “Have you gone on any dates lately?” Audrey asked. Something told her the answer was yes, and that they’d been a train wreck.
Jayne bit the sides of her cheeks and rolled both eyes. “A few losers. There’s this one guy I like. He’s kind of a senior if you know what I mean. That’s not so terrible is it? Do you think it’s terrible?”
Audrey shrugged. “Depends. Does he wear Depends?”
Jayne clapped her hands together in delight at the very thought of him. “Probably. He’s so old! But he’s good to me. I’m being superstitious this time and not talking about him until I’m sure…Wait! What’s your man problem? Don’t you have one, too?” Jayne asked. She slurped as she drank, even though the wine was in a glass. Not an easy task.
Audrey thought about the fight last night, and her time at the Golden Nugget, and the years she’d known Saraub before that. She summed them up. “I’m a jerk,” she said. “But he’s no saint.”
“Commitment?” Jayne asked.
“How did you know?”
Jayne nodded. “Because in a breakup, somebody’s always the jerk, and somebody else is always needy. I’d rather be on your side than mine.”
“Naw. It sounds like the better side, but it’s not.”
“Yeah, but I’m like the walking wounded over here. My bruises have bruises,” Jayne quipped. The joke fell flat because it was so clearly true.
“Yeah, but people like you will wind up with somebody, because you’re open. You’re out there taking risks,” Audrey said. Then she looked down at her coffee-stained shirt. Her hands were poised over her lap, the exact distance apart. Perfectly even. Next to her, Jayne was slumped in her chair, limbs akimbo, her teeth stained red with wine. It dawned on her that while Jayne would probably break free of this strange, lonely, single-woman existence in New York, she would not, because she was on the wrong side of the fight. She was the jerk.
She reached into her pockets for consolation and was alarmed to find nothing there. The ring! She took it everywhere. Not once since he’d given it to her had she let it out of her sight. So where was it? Still in yesterday’s pants? She tried to sit still, but the compulsion overcame her. She hurried to the double closet, exposed the half-built door, then bent down and pulled yesterday’s trousers free from the towel she’d wrapped them in. A sharp thing inside their damp,