You’re looking so well, Evelyn said to him. You really are.
He’s been practically living in the gym, said Melissa.
I took a huge mouthful of white wine and washed it around my teeth. Is that what he tells you, I thought.
Well, it’s working, said Evelyn. You have a look of radiant good health about you.
Thanks, he said. I’m feeling well.
Melissa was watching Nick with a kind of pride, like she had nursed him back to health after a long illness. I wondered what he meant by ‘I’m feeling well’， or what he meant for me to hear in it.
And how about you, Frances? said Evelyn. How are you keeping?
Fine, thanks, I said.
You’re looking a little glum tonight, said Melissa.
Cheerfully Evelyn said: I’d be glum if I were you, spending all your time around ancient people like us. Where’s Bobbi?
Oh, she’s here, I said. I gestured toward the cash register, though I didn’t actually know where she was.
Are you getting tired of ancient people? said Melissa.
No, not at all, I said. If anything I could go more ancient.
Nick stared into his glass.
We’ll have to find you a nice older girlfriend, Melissa said. Someone with a lot of money.
I didn’t have the nerve to look at Nick. Around the stem of my wine glass I sank my thumbnail into the side of my finger to feel it sting.
I’m not sure what my role would be in that relationship, I said.
You could write her love sonnets, said Evelyn.
Melissa grinned. Don’t underestimate the effect of youth and beauty, she said.
That sounds like a recipe for disastrous unhappiness, I said.
You’re twenty-one, said Melissa. You should be disastrously unhappy.
I’m working on it, I said.
Someone else joined the conversation then to talk to Melissa, and I took the opportunity to go and find Bobbi. She was talking to the cashier near the front door. Bobbi had never had a job and she loved to talk to people about what they did at work. Even mundane details interested her, though she often forgot them quickly. The cashier was a lanky young man with acne, who was telling Bobbi enthusiastically about his band. The bookshop manager came over then and started to talk about the book, which none of us had read or bought. I stood beside them, watching Melissa from across the room as she put her arm absently on Nick’s back.
When I saw Nick look over at us, I turned to Bobbi, smiling, and moved her hair aside to whisper something in her ear. She looked at Nick and then suddenly grabbed my wrist, hard, harder than she had ever touched me in my life before. It hurt me, it drew a little gasp from my throat, and then she dropped my arm again. I cradled it against my ribs. In a deathly calm voice, staring directly into my face, Bobbi said: don’t fucking use me. She held my eyes for a second, with a terrifying seriousness, and then she turned back to the cashier.
I went to get my jacket. I knew that no one was watching me, that no one cared what I thought or did, and I seemed to feel myself almost vibrating with the power of this perverse new freedom. I could scream or take my clothes off if I wanted, I could walk in front of a bus on my way home, who would know? Bobbi wouldn’t follow me. Nick wouldn’t even be seen speaking to me in public.
I walked home on my own without telling anyone I was leaving. My feet were throbbing by the time I unlocked the front door. That night in bed I sat up and downloaded a dating app on my phone. I even put up a picture of myself, one of Melissa’s pictures, where my lips were parted and my eyes looked big and spooky. I heard Bobbi come home, I heard her drop her bag in the hall instead of hanging it up. She was singing ‘Green Rocky Road’ to herself, loudly enough that I knew she was drunk. I sat in the dark scrolling through a series of strangers in my area. I tried to think about them, to think about letting them kiss me, but instead I kept thinking of Nick, his face looking up at me from my pillow, reaching to touch my breast like he owned it.
*
I didn’t tell my mother that I’d brought the little leather copy of the New Testament back to Dublin with me. I knew she wouldn’t notice it was gone, and if I tried to explain, she wouldn’t understand why it interested me. My favourite part of the gospels was in Matthew, when Jesus said: love your enemies, bless those who curse you, do good to those who hate you, and pray for those who spitefully use you and persecute you. I shared in this desire for moral superiority over my enemies. Jesus always wanted to be the better person, and so did I. I underlined this passage in red pencil several times, to illustrate that I understood the Christian way of life.