Chapter 27

As if Jenny needed them, there were suddenly signs everywhere that, in breaking off with Rob, she had been blindly wrong-minded. Her horoscope, for instance, read, “Believe in yourself and the one you love. Step boldly forward and beware of too much thought.”

Then Frankie, speaking to her once more with the ease and friendliness of old times (Why? Because she had given up Rob, proving him “right”? Or because he was happy now with the engagement to Mimi?), Frankie told her that, for Mimi, he would have, without a single moment’s hesitation, given up job, home, family—anything at all she asked.

He didn’t see how it hurt Jenny, how ironic it was that he could say with simple sincerity, “Jenny, when you love someone the way I love Mimi, nothing is more important.”

And in English, reviewing for the final the three Shakespeare plays they’d read that term, Mrs. Tedesco asked the class to consider the theme in Romeo and Juliet. “Think of the swift pace of the play, as well as the sun, moon, and time imagery used throughout.

“It suggests, class, that Shakespeare wanted us to reflect on the importance of cherishing those we love. Treasuring each moment given to us. Each moment,” she repeated, firmly scratching the word THEME across the blackboard, “is unique in time and will never exist again. Consider, class, the brief span of Romeo and Juliet’s love affair. Only four days. And yet think of the extraordinary intensity with which they lived those four days. Every moment of those four days. Their love affair was born, came to a blazing climax”—here, there was some giggling, threatening to spoil the intense effect Mrs. Tedesco’s words were having on Jenny—“and died. The people died. They lived an entire lifetime in four days. Who of us could say the same?”

All this Jenny took in the most personal way, reflecting with a growing misery that Juliet, though only fourteen, had been far tougher, far braver than she. Juliet had had no doubts: she had met Romeo, recognized what he meant to her, loved him generously, and thrown over not only her family for him, but ultimately and without regret, her life.

Miserably dawdling through the day in school, looking for Rob, she advised herself, Just go to him and tell him the truth. Say, I made a mistake, Rob. And then what? They had quarreled in the parking lot only three days ago. Would his blue eyes scan her coldly as he said, You sure did, Jenny, and now it’s too late. But she didn’t see him that day.

The next morning, for courage, she braided her hair, one long braid hanging over her shoulder, and put on moccasins and a red leather belt. Today she would find him, she would be brave, at least half as brave as Juliet, and no matter how coldly he looked at her, she would say her piece. All the way to school she rehearsed her speech, walking slowly and alone so she could go over it in her mind.

Rob, I love you. I should never have broken us up. What we had together was too rare, too beautiful, too sweet. I had no right to do that. It was a terrible thing I did. And then, humbly if necessary, she would ask him to forgive and let them pick up where they had left off.

Her stomach knotted as she imagined their meeting. What would he say? How would he act? By turns she was confident and despairing. Swung from the thrilling thought of his face breaking into a joyful smile to the chilling thought of his eyes blank and uninterested.

Second period there was an assembly, and, as she sat down, she saw him across the aisle. She looked at him, couldn’t stop looking, as if she were seeing him for the first time, freshly, as she had that morning so many weeks ago when she knew she had to know him.

In the half-dim auditorium a movie on skiing was being projected on a screen. Skiing in June? What was going on? Groans pulsed through the room as scenes of snow-covered mountains flashed on the screen and a deep, well-nourished voice said, “We are here in the ‘Alps’ of the United States.” More skiing shots, lean men and women in zingy blue-and-red ski clothes whipping down steep slopes. But Jenny only watched Rob. As yet he hadn’t noticed her. She studied his profile. Seen from the side his nose appeared bigger, more solid. He looked older and somber. Had he changed in these past weeks?

She followed Rob out of the auditorium. There were people ahead of her, people between them. She hurried, keeping his blond head in sight. Down the hall, up the stairs, and then, outside the art room she caught up to him. “Rob!” She reached out. He turned and looked at her, directly at her. A smile—something—went across his face; a flash of teeth, a grimace, as if he were about to embrace her ferociously, or bite her, or choke her. And then he walked away.

She stood in the hall, unmoving, as the bell rang and the classrooms gulped in the students. The hall emptied around her. So it was too late. She had made a mistake, yes, but she had hardly known how final. It was finished. All her brave resolutions meant nothing. She had made mischief with her life and couldn’t unmake it now.

“Pass?” a teacher said, frowning. Jenny shook her head and gestured up the stairs. “Get a move on, then.” Humiliated, sickened, she went up the stairs. Nothing to be done now but accept.

Accept, accept, accept.

Accept that she had lost him.

Halfway up the stairs, she paused and looked back, saw that the teacher, Mr. Glendarren, was still watching her suspiciously.

“Well?” he barked.

What a prison this high school was sometimes! She glared at him, then suddenly she called down, “Mr. Glendarren! Mr. Glendarren, how old are you?”

“What?”

“How old are you? Are you twenty-eight? Are you thirty? Do you remember being seventeen?”

“What?” he said again, his face expressing outrage and confusion. Was this some clever trick to undermine his authority?

“I’m doing an article for the newspaper,” Jenny improvised. “It’s to be called ‘Do You Remember?’ That’s your question: Do you remember being seventeen? I want to know, Mr. Glendarren. I want to know what it was like for you!” But without waiting for an answer she went up the rest of the stairs two at a time.