didn’t want Ray to leave.
Something tumbled in the sky. A falling star, for God’s sake. How had Masha managed that? Lars heard everyone exhale with the wonder of it.
He closed his eyes and all of a sudden it came to him exactly how he knew the big guy on his left and he wished Ray was here so he could tell him, I got it, Ray, I got it!
16
Jessica
The author, Frances Welty, who lay on the yoga mat next to Jessica, was fast asleep. She wasn’t snoring but Jessica could tell she was asleep by the way she breathed. Jessica considered giving her a gentle nudge with her foot. She’d just missed seeing a falling star.
On reflection, Jessica decided not to bother her. It was the middle of the night. People her age really needed their sleep. If Jessica’s mother had a bad night’s sleep the bags under her eyes made her literally look like something from a horror movie, though she just laughed when Jessica tried to teach her about concealer. It wasn’t necessary to look that bad. It was stupid. If Jessica’s dad left her for his PA, Jessica’s mother would have no one to blame but herself. Under-eye concealer was invented for a reason.
Jessica rolled her head and looked at Ben on the other side of her. He was staring up at the stars with a glazed expression, as if he were considering those Zen riddles, when really he was probably just counting down the hours until he could get out of here and back behind the wheel of his precious car.
He turned his head and winked at her. It made her heart lift, as if her crush had winked at her in the classroom.
Ben looked back up at the stars and Jessica touched her face with her fingers. She wondered if her skin looked bad without makeup in the moonlight. There had been no time to put on foundation. They were just dragged from their beds. They could have been having sex when that girl came into their bedroom, with just the gentlest knock on their door and without even waiting for them to say, “Come in,” before she marched on in and shone a light in their eyes.
They hadn’t been having sex. Ben had been asleep and Jessica had been lying next to him in the darkness, unable to sleep, missing her phone so badly it felt like she’d had something amputated. When she couldn’t sleep at home she simply picked up her phone and scrolled through Instagram and Pinterest until she got tired.
She looked at her scarlet toenails in the moonlight. If she had her phone with her right now she would have photographed her feet, together with Ben’s feet, and tagged it #starlightmeditation #healthretreat #learningaboutkoans #wejustsawafallingstar #whatisthesoundofonehandclapping.
That last hashtag would have made her look quite intellectual and spiritual, she thought, which was good, because you had to be careful not to come across as superficial on your socials.
She couldn’t shake the feeling that if she didn’t record this moment on her phone then it wasn’t really happening, it didn’t count, it wasn’t real life. She knew that was irrational but she couldn’t help it. She literally felt twitchy without her phone. Obviously she was addicted to it. Still, better than being addicted to heroin, though these days no one was sure about Ben’s sister’s most recent drug of choice. She liked to “mix it up.”
Jessica sometimes wondered if all their problems led back to Ben’s sister. She was always there, a big black cloud in their blue sky. Because, apart from Lucy, honestly, what did they have to worry about? Nothing. They should have been as happy as it was possible to be. Where had they gone wrong?
Jessica had been so careful, right from day one. What was that stupid thing her mother said? “Oh, Jessica, darling—this sort of thing can ruin people.”
She said that, all frowny-faced, on what should have been the most spectacular day of Jessica’s life. The day that split her life in two.
It was two years ago now. A Monday evening.
Jessica had come home from work in a hurry because she was going to try to make the 6:30 P.M. spin class. She rushed into the tiny kitchen with its ugly laminate countertops to fill her water bottle and there was Ben sitting on the floor, his back up against the dishwasher, his legs splayed, phone held limply in his hand. His face was dead white, his eyes glassy.