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“I thought it was South Africa,” Rob murmured.
Joanna stared hard at Charles’s ear, waiting for him to turn back to her and give her some apologetic gesture to explain himself. But Charles took another bite of bread, nodding thoughtfully. By the time he did look over, Joanna’s look had wilted into a grimace, not nearly as potent. “What?” Charles snapped quietly. He took a swallow of his drink.
She looked away. “Nothing,” she mouthed. And then the waiter arrived with their dinners. Joanna wiped her mouth on her napkin, gave the waiter a forced smile, and took her first bite of her baked chicken and haricots verts.
By dessert, Charles had downed five more gin and tonics. His face was flushed, and he was starting to slur his words. Rob was talking about the Craftsman-style house they’d just bought for a steal in Narberth. Nadine told Charles and Joanna that they should check their birth blog for a weekly progress report. After they hugged, Charles kept the smile pasted on his face for exactly one block. Once they were out of sight, he dropped Joanna’s hand and wordlessly passed her the car keys. He staggered to the car, dropping his canvas bag on the sidewalk. “I think there’s a bottle of water on the back seat,” she instructed. Charles grunted and reached for it. His cheeks flared red.
She started the car and backed out of the space. Charles drained the whole water bottle, sloppily screwing the cap back on when he was finished.
“What was that, back there?” he said as she paused at a traffic light. “What was what?”
“You know what. Do you guys haze?”
“I was just curious. ”
“Yeah, well, it’s probably not the right thing to bring up right now. ” She sniffed. “It’s not like they know. They didn’t even ask about Scott! They don’t even care!” They’d talked about Nadine’s brother, Christopher, and Rob’s sister, Camille, and a whole slew of other people who’d gone to that school—and, of course, Sylvie—but not a word about Scott. Joanna couldn’t recall a time they’d ever talked about him. He was a nonissue, just like she was.
Charles rolled the water bottle between his palms. He lowered the window, then changed his mind and rolled it back up. “I know no one knows. ”
“Then what is wrong with you? Why did you get so angry?” “I didn’t get angry. ”
Joanna groaned. “You did. And …” She took a deep breath, considering if she should really say this. “And you think Scott’s guilty. You’ve made that pretty clear. ” She peeked at him, almost positive she should’ve kept her mouth shut.
“Well, yeah. Maybe I do,” Charles murmured after a moment. She waited. They were merging onto I-76 now, the lights watery blurs. “Is it because he’s adopted?” she blurted.
Charles stared at her in horror. “Jesus. No. ”
“I don’t mean you think that. I just mean … is it what other people think? Is that why other people are assuming he’s …”
“I should hope not. ”
She pressed the brake. The rain obscured the windshield. They passed a car that had pulled over to the shoulder, its hazard lights blinking. A shapeless man sat in the passenger seat, seemingly just staring out into the inky night. And swish, he was gone.
“Scott beat me up once,” Charles said in barely more than a whisper. “In the middle of this party we were having. Like he enjoyed it. It just … worries me. ”
She kept her eyes on the road. So here it was. He was going to tell her about the fight after all. “When was this?” she asked, halfheartedly feigning ignorance.
He shrugged. “Years ago. When we were in high school. A lot of my friends were there. Many people saw it. ”
“Why?”
“Why what?”
“Why did he beat you up?”
“I don’t know. ”
“He just started beating you up for no reason?”
Charles didn’t answer. Joanna felt her pulse against her throat. Headlights streaked down the highway, leaving an imprint on her retinas long after they’d passed. “Why didn’t you tell me this before?” she said quietly, trying to control her anger.
“I don’t know. It’s not something I like to think about much. ”
He was turned away from her, so Joanna couldn’t see his face. She slowed at the turnpike gate, waited for the EZ Pass sensor to detect her car.
“I mean, maybe I deserved it,” Charles broke the silence.
“Why would you say that?”
Charles bit his lip, as if considering saying something more. Then he shrugged and slumped down in his seat.
“I wish that headmaster had never called your mom,” Joanna muttered. “It’s just getting everyone worked up. And it’s dredging up things that are irrelevant. I think it’s criminal to start this kind of panic over rumors. Like that thing with that Schuyler girl and your debate coach—it’s just bored people looking for conspiracy theories, making assumptions before actually getting the facts. ”
“Sometimes assumptions are right. ”
“And sometimes they aren’t. ”
Charles went quiet, picking at a loose thread on the seat. Joanna breathed in. Her stomach jumped into her heart for just a moment before she spat it out. “Why don’t you tell me anything, Charles? Why don’t you share anything with me?”
“Huh?”
“Sometimes I feel like I don’t know a thing about you. Your friends know much more about you than I do. Your mother knows way more. Is it because I didn’t go to Swithin?”
“Joanna …” He blew out through his nose. “You’re being ridiculous. ”
But now that she’d started she couldn’t stop. “Tonight, for example. With your friends. They didn’t ask me a thing about myself. They asked about you, they asked about your mom, but they didn’t ask about me. And you didn’t bring me into the conversation. ”
“They asked about you!”
Pressure rose up in her chest, higher and higher. “They didn’t. And you ignored me around them. I got the impression that you would have preferred it if I hadn’t been there at all. It would have been easier that way. Just like old times. ”
He squeezed the empty water bottle so hard that it crinkled. “If you didn’t want to have dinner with them, you should have said something. ”
“And what, look like an asshole? How did you not realize I didn’t want to have dinner with them? It must have been written all over my face. I thought it was just going to be you and me! I was waiting for you to step in!”
He raised his palms in surrender. “How was I supposed to know that? I’m not a mind reader!” He rolled his neck around, cracking a joint. “So, what, you’re pissed off at me for not knowing what you wanted and you bring up the hazing thing in revenge?”
“Is that why you brought up Bronwyn?” she shot back. “Maybe the revenge goes both ways. ”
He let air seep from his nose. The bottle slipped from between his hands to the floor of the car. “I was just curious if Nadine talked to her. I wasn’t trying to hurt you. Not like you deliberately tried to hurt me. ”
“I did no such thing. ”
He turned away from her, pressing his head against the window. “Sometimes I think you want to hurt me. ”
She gaped at him. “How could you say that?”
But he didn’t retract it. She bit down on her lip. Was that what she was doing? But she couldn’t; that would mean she was a heartless, sinister person. A saboteur.
She faced front again, put on her turn signal, and got off at the rest stop. Her tires squealed as she pulled into the parking lot.
“What are you doing?” Charles asked.
She didn’t answer. The mini-mart attached to the gas station gleamed fluorescently; a clerk lingered behind the counter, surrounded by shelves of cigarettes. Joanna pulled into a space and shoved the gearshift into park.
“You do hurt me, Charles,” she said. “You leave me out of things. And it feels deliberate. And then you ask about Bronwyn in this voice, this comple
tely wistful, longing voice, like she’s the one who’s important. Like it’s always been her. What am I supposed to do? How does that make me look, just sitting there?”
“I didn’t use a voice,” he said. “And Bronwyn …” He trailed off.
She stiffened, on alert. “Bronwyn … what?”
Charles shook his head. “Forget it. ”
“What were you going to say?”
“Nothing. ”
Joanna’s mouth trembled. It was clearly not nothing. She glared out at the green highway sign in the distance. A Honda drove into the parking lot. Another Honda was parked next to them. This whole place was full of Hondas, completely unoriginal. This conversation was unoriginal, too; it was probably a conversation every couple had at one point or another, probably even verbatim. A conversation not special in the least.
Joanna gazed at Charles imploringly. Charles winced. “Don’t look at me like that. ”
“Like what?”
“You …” He waved his hands in front of his face. “It’s like you’re so disappointed. ”
“Disappointed in what?”
“How am I supposed to know? I never know what you want. ”
There was a thin line of spittle between his top and bottom lips. The turn signal was still on, making an irksome, repetitive tick-tuhtick-tuh-tick-tuh. She was disappointed. Of course she was. She’d felt it about their wedding in Roderick’s garden, which had been organized long before Joanna came into the picture. She felt it touring old, creaky, dusty Roderick, not nearly as grandiose as in her dreams. She felt it when Sylvie and Charles left Joanna out of family matters, when Charles’s Swithin friends ignored her, even when Charles didn’t cry at his father’s funeral, not one tear, and not even when they went back to their apartment in Philly, instead suggesting that they check out the Jennifer Convertibles store—they were having a sale on sectionals.
She felt it when she assessed what she’d wanted to happen and what had happened instead. Nothing felt right. And then she realized exactly who she sounded like. She realized who she was turning into.
She heaved her door open in one smooth movement and stepped out of the car. It had started to rain again. The night sky was thick with dark clouds, indicating it would probably turn into a deluge.
Charles was out of the car. “Where are you going?”
“Drive yourself home. I’m getting a cab. ”
“Joanna … come on. ”
She walked across the parking lot and flung open the door to the mini-mart. It was bright and freezing inside. Pop music blared so loudly, the floor vibrated with every bass note. A man wearing a work shirt with his name, Stewart, stitched on the breast was checking out the hot dogs. Two teenage boys, both acne-riddled, were staring at the refrigerators, probably waiting to shoplift a few cans of beer. The whole place smelled like a confused mix of coffee and burnt peanuts and bleach.