“One of the clients from the soup kitchen brought it to me,” he said. “Darva recognized you. She knew all the details. I guess your story was all over the news for a while there. It’s amazing you’ve managed to camouflage yourself so well until now.” He looked at me quizzically. “I’d never have believed you were a rock star’s girlfriend.”
Even if those last words hurt, I didn’t give myself time to register it. “All over the news?” Suddenly I was gripped by the desire to know where Nico was, how he was doing, if he was all right.
“He was looking for you. It was a big story. Prince Charming searching for his Cinderella.” River took a closer look at my face. “Why look so panicked? You know how it all turned out. You evaded his clutches. By now, the story has died down, according to Darva.”
But I was being swept by waves of emotion. The first was joy: Nico had looked for me? The second was fear: Had he stopped looking for me? Had he given up and found someone else to take my place? I didn’t dare ask; the answer might split me in two. “How long ago was that picture published?”
“October, I think. Darva said she was going to throw out a pile of old magazines, and she happened to browse through one and there you were. She could hardly believe it.”
“What if she says something? What if she turns me in?”
“Why would she do that? It’s not like you’ve committed a crime. Darva’s sixty-six years old with a history of mental illness. She can barely pay for her blood pressure medication. I don’t think she’s about to get on the phone with the
National Enquirer
.”
I felt less sanguine. Darva — who I couldn’t recall at all from my soup kitchen days — might expect to get a little fame, even a little money of her own, from her part in my story. Why wouldn’t she call the
Enquirer
or tell twenty of her best friends?
“Besides,” River continued. “What’s this Rathburn character going to do? Throw a net over your head and drag you back to his mansion? He doesn’t own you. You left of your own free will.”
He was right, of course. Still, a picture of Nico had turned me to Jell-O. What if he came to New Haven and tried to convince me to go back to him? Could I resist? And yet the thought of Nico climbing the stairs to the apartment I shared with Maria, Diana, and River was absurd. We might as well be living in completely different worlds.
River watched me carefully. Who knows what emotions he saw cross my face? There was a long silence. “You’re still infatuated with him,” he finally said. “I never would have believed it. Any of it. If I hadn’t seen your picture, if I wasn’t looking right at you…” There was something in his voice that I couldn’t quite identify. He almost sounded hurt. But why would he be? “Don’t you know that the ultrarich are the enemy of everything you’ve been working for these past few months?”
This was the last place I’d expected our conversation to go.
“That Rathburn guy got all his money — millions, possibly
billions, right? — by playing a guitar and singing. Doesn’t that seem frivolous to you? He could live on a tenth of his income and give the rest away without even feeling it.”
I didn’t disagree with everything River was saying, but calling Nico frivolous struck me as absolutely off base. “His music gives a lot of people pleasure, or he wouldn’t be so rich.”
“Pleasure.” River thrust his hand deep into his pockets. “Pleasure’s all some people live for, but you’re not just ‘some people.’ You’re better than that. You know that, right? You’re cut from a different cloth. You’re not thinking about going back to him, are you?”
“I think it’s a bit late for that,” I said. “I’ve missed my chance.” I was too focused on all that I’d just learned about Nico to wonder what River had meant about my being “better than that.”
He changed tack. “What kind of man tries to trick a woman into marriage under false pretenses? And who keeps his first wife hidden in his attic like some kind of animal?”
“He was trying to keep her out of an institution,” I said, but I could hear how weak the argument sounded. After all, it had been more complex than that, selfishness mixed in with selflessness.
“You’re defending him? After what he did?”
“I’m just saying it was more complicated than you know.”
Just then, much to my relief, the downstairs door creaked open, and we could hear footsteps on the stairs. It was Maria, coming home from her job, hugging an overstuffed bag of groceries. “Hey,” she said. “What’s going on?” She took a closer look at her brother. “Is something wrong?” Then she looked at me. “Oh.” Clearly she thought we’d been arguing. She turned and went into
the kitchen, setting her bag on the table; River and I followed. “I’m making corn chowder for dinner. I got some of that bread from the little Italian bakery near campus. What time is Diana due home?”
“I don’t know,” River said. “But when she gets in, Jane has something to tell the two of you.” He handed me the clipping and headed back to the living room. Quickly I slipped it into the pocket of my hoodie.
“You do?” Maria looked deeply concerned. “It isn’t bad news, is it? Everything’s okay, right?”
I nodded, unable to speak. Would Diana and Maria like me less when they knew I’d been lying to them? Wordlessly, I reached into the brown paper bag and pulled out some oranges; side by side, Maria and I put away the groceries. Though she said nothing, I could feel how badly she wanted to ask for an explanation. Such was her admiration for her big brother’s intelligence and idealism that she didn’t feel compelled to press me for more details. And I didn’t want to have to tell my story twice, so I said nothing. As Maria and I peeled potatoes for that night’s dinner, I considered why I was feeling so unsettled. I had enjoyed River’s approval of me, and now I was upset to think that maybe he thought less of me, for withholding my true identity and for consorting with — what had he called them? — the “ultrarich”?
Diana came home just as we were setting the table for dinner. I drew the two sisters into the kitchen and made my confession. Diana and Maria let me tell my story without interruption, their brown eyes growing wider and wider as I spoke. I had expected it
to be painful, reliving the story of falling in love with Nico and then learning the truth about him, but to my surprise it was a relief to share the secrets that had been weighing on me. When I was done, my friends sat in silence for a while. Then Diana finally spoke.
“Whoa,” was all she said.
“Please don’t hate me,” I said. “I never should have lied to you, and I wasn’t trying to deceive you, really. It’s just… I mean…”
Diana threw her arms around me. “Of course we don’t hate you,” she said. “You poor thing. Going through all that.”
Then Maria was hugging me too. “We always said you had some kind of wild secret in your past, but we never guessed how wild.”
Relief flooded me, but then I remembered River’s disapproval. “Your brother’s disappointed in me,” I said. “For lying. Also he seems to think I’m some kind of materialistic groupie.”
“He does not!” Diana exclaimed. “River can be a little demanding of the people he’s close to.”
“He’s so principled,” Maria said. “He’s even harder on himself than he is on everyone else.”
“But he’ll get over it,” Diana concluded. “He’s so strict with himself that sometimes he forgets the rest of us are
normal
.”
I sighed. “I was afraid you were going to tell me to pack my bags — I mean, my bag.”
Diana crinkled her nose at me. “We’d never let that happen. You’re one of us now.”
“Like it or not,” Maria chimed in.
Then Diana laughed. “You almost married
Nico Rathburn?
Even I know who he is. Geesh, Janey. I can hardly believe it.”
I pulled the picture out of my pocket and unfolded it. “Well, here’s physical evidence.”
Maria gasped. “That dress…”
“It’s you, but it’s not you,” Diana said. “It’s freaky to see you like that.”
“It
was
a little freaky,” I said. “The clothes, the paparazzi…”
“I know you must not want to tell us any more about him,” Diana said. “Most girls would be dishing the gossip right and left.”
“Is that why you changed your name?” Maria asked. “To put it all behind you?”
I nodded. “I couldn’t talk about him. The only way I can get by is to build a wall between then and now. I have to keep the division clear. For my mental health.”
“We understand,” Maria said.
“But if you ever do want to talk…” Diana left the rest unsaid.
“If I ever talk to anyone, it will be you.”
They were silent a moment. Then Diana giggled. “You slept with Nico Rathburn?”
I blushed.
“I’m sorry. I won’t say another word.” Diana squeezed my hand. “Let’s go have some dinner. I’m starving.”
Over dinner, River said little but watched me closely as I ate, talked, and laughed with his sisters, as though he was trying to figure me out all over again. He didn’t look angry, exactly, just puzzled, and maybe wounded. His level blue gaze was unnerving; I could finish only half the soup in my bowl. After dinner, as Maria
and Diana cleared the table, and I pulled on rubber gloves and started the dishes, River appeared at my side and finally spoke.
“Can I help?” Usually his sisters and I did the cleaning up so he could return to his homework, so this offer seemed like a truce, maybe even an apology. Grateful, I handed him a dish towel.
After that evening, I detected a slight change in the way River treated me. He was as polite as he had always been, and a casual observer wouldn’t have noticed any difference between us; Maria and Diana certainly didn’t seem to. But whenever we were in the same room, I got the feeling that he was watching me closely, paying careful attention to my words and actions. And sometimes in the evening when we sat together practicing French, I could have sworn there was a tension between us. At first, I thought maybe he was on guard because I wasn’t quite the person he had thought I was. But over time, I began to rethink that impression. Though I would sometimes look up from whatever I happened to be doing — writing a grocery list or drawing in my sketch pad — and catch him watching me, his expression never struck me as suspicious. He seemed curious, as if I were a puzzle he was working to figure out.
Then one night, River surprised me. Maria and Diana had gone off to bed, and we’d been sitting up even later than usual. He’d been telling me of his preparations for moving to Haiti. As always, when he spoke about that country’s brutal poverty, ravaging disease, and injustice, his French took on a fluency it lacked when he was simply making small talk. That night, though, he broke off in the middle of a sentence, rummaged around under the couch, and pulled out a package, clumsily wrapped in festive paper. With no explanation, he handed it to me.
“What’s this?” I asked, disarmed back into English. River had never given me a present before, not even on my birthday, when Maria had baked a cake and Diana had surprised me with a big box of pastel crayons.
“Open it.”
It was a book, an autobiography —
A Rude and Beautiful Awakening: One Woman’s Fight for Social Justice in Haiti.
I looked questioningly at River.
“I wanted to thank you” — his steady gaze met mine — “for staying up late to practice French with me when I know you’d rather be sleeping. Or making your art. I hope this book will give you a sense of the important work you’re contributing to.”
I found my voice. “You didn’t have to.” From anyone else, the gift might have been a small gesture, but from River it seemed as premeditated and significant as everything he said and did. “But thank you.” I was honestly touched that he’d thought of me.
“Diana tells me you’re saving up to go back to school,” he said. “She thinks I should let you have your evenings to yourself.”
“Diana’s better to me than I deserve,” I told him. “And I appre
ciate her Mama Bear routine, but she worries too much on my behalf. I enjoy our practice sessions.” I wasn’t just being polite. Though I hadn’t been particularly enthusiastic about our sessions at first, over time I’d come to look forward to them — the stillness of the house around us, the quiet companionship.
“You do?” River, usually so confident, sounded uncertain.
I nodded. I had thought he might hold my secret past against me; instead it seemed as though we’d broken through our polite formality to something like friendship.
“I’m glad, because I’ve come to count on them,” he said. “To enjoy them.”
Pleased and suddenly bashful, I opened the book and riffled through the pages. River drew a bit closer and looked over my shoulder. “You’ll like this book, I think,” he said. “I’ve heard the author speak, and she’s very eloquent.” Then he took the heavy volume from my lap, turned to a section of black-and-white photos at the center, and gave it back. He pointed to a snapshot of a slender little girl in a school uniform. “Look at the sadness in her face,” he said. The girl had smiled for the camera, but he was right: her eyes were haunting. “We can only imagine the horrors she’s seen.”
“You’ll help her,” I told him. “Or maybe not her, but others like her. As much as any one person can.”
River sighed. “I plan to try.” This was as much uncertainty as I’d ever heard him voice about his life’s calling. Then, abruptly, he changed the subject. “Sometimes I wonder, Jane… are you happy? Because living here must pale in comparison… to your life before us.”
I thought a moment. “I feel like I’ve found a family here. That
might not sound like a big deal, but if you knew what my actual family life was like…”
“You can tell me,” River said. He had remained close to me on the couch, closer than we usually sat. I dared a glance over at him and found him looking back at me with that intense curiosity I had seen so often lately. “I know I must not seem terribly easy to talk to. Sometimes I wish I were a better conversationalist, that I knew how to make jokes and small talk like other people do.”
Coming from River, with all his quiet certitude, this admission surprised me. I struggled for a reply. “Small talk is overrated” was the best I could do.
“I’ve always thought so.” Then River smiled. Had I ever seen him smile before? He’d grinned wryly in my presence, but this was something different, warmer and shyer. “If you want to talk, I’ll try to be a good listener.” Then his bright blue gaze shifted from my eyes to my lips.