The hardest task in a girl’s life is to prove to a man that his intentions are serious.
—HELEN ROWLAND
THERESA
Returning home, a moment later
I DON’T know why you’re so disgruntled,” I say to the Boy. My arm is tucked securely inside the corner of his elbow, but I can tell he doesn’t want it there. I can feel his skin recoiling from mine.
“She’s just a girl, Theresa. You’re toying with her, like a cat.”
“I’m not toying with her. I wish her nothing but joy. I’ll do anything to make certain she’s happy with Jay.”
He doesn’t reply. We emerge from the building and into the open air. It’s past eight o’clock, and the streets are settling into quiet, the Manhattan sort of quiet, in which taxis rattle past and people hurry down the sidewalk, but at a lessened pace, a reduced volume. You can breathe a little, even if the air is dank and sour and oily, and smells of rotting garbage.
I stop in my tracks and pull the Boy around to face me. “Listen to me,” I whisper. “Look at me. Do you think I’d wish a marriage like mine on any girl? Do you think I’d wish that kind of heartbreak on her? Grief and divorce and everything in pieces?”
He looks sorrowfully into my face. “No.”
“Of course not.” I place my hands on his cheeks and savor his warmth through the leather. A nearby streetlamp gives off a gaseous yellow glow. “She needs out of that house. She needs a husband to give her a loving freedom, and a friend to guide her through the thickets. I’ll be that friend, Boyo, I swear it. I’ll keep my brother on the straight and narrow, I’ll make sure he’s a good husband. Whatever she needs, I’ll give it to her.”
That’s all. That’s all I can say to him, because I’ve run out of oxygen. I’ve burned it all up in honesty, and the back of my throat is scorched. I suppose you don’t believe me. But I assure you, I’m no villain. I’m well aware that I’ve taken something our sweet Sophie wants, because I happen to need it more, and because a girl like that can’t possibly appreciate a Boy like him. But I want to repay her. Maybe there’s nothing I can give her to make up for the loss of the Boy, no possible gift in my possession, but I’ll try. I’ll give her what I can.
And maybe the Boy, looking down on me like that, in such a terrifying way, doesn’t understand all this. Maybe he does. Either way, he’s not telling.
But he does bend down and place a chaste kiss on my lips, and we continue next door and up the stairs to his apartment, where he lets me in with his key.