Ted smiled at Unu and all the while felt sorry for Jay for this dressing-down. Ted grabbed Ella’s hand, thinking that she shouldn’t be listening to this kind of speech, and he patted Unu on the arm, motioning for them to leave. Unu agreed, feeling like an intruder. Ella refused to budge from Casey’s side.
Unu peered at the lingering crowd. Using the voice of a college fraternity president—a position he’d once held at Dartmouth—he dismissed the onlookers: “Come on, folks, show’s over. Go on home, now. Go on.” He pulled up the Texas lilt in his voice, aware how a twang could soften a hard word.
Yes, Ella thought. That was kind. She then asked Casey, “Do you want us to go?”
Ella waited for Casey’s word.
“I’ll be okay. You should go to brunch.” Casey wanted everyone to go. She herself wanted to disappear, to vanish.
“You sure?”
“Yes.”
At this, Ella nodded to Ted and Unu, and the three of them walked away. Every few steps, Ella turned to check on Casey. After two blocks, she lost sight of her friend.
They were all gone. Casey stood there on the empty sidewalk with Jay.
The picture of the night with those girls came upon her again; and as before, she felt truncated—no arms, no body. Her quiet sobbing wouldn’t end, no matter how many breaths she took.
Jay held Ella’s tissue against his nose, the bloodstained paper shadowing his long face. He felt terrible, and having seen the rebuke in Casey’s friend’s face, he felt confirmed as a louse.
“If you really want me to go, I’ll go, but I came by to apologize. I’ve been trying to see you for almost two months now. Your sister wouldn’t tell me where you were because you wouldn’t let her. I. . . I’ve been so worried. When you left, you looked—” And Jay stammered, “And I love you, Casey. . . I know—I know I hurt you. I am sorry.”
How was he saying all this? Casey wondered, shaking her head. “I never imagined that you could, that you were even capable, interested in such—”
“I’m not,” he nearly shouted. “It isn’t what you think. I love you, Casey.”
“Your mother broke her promise.” It was too hard to hear Jay talk about love. “She promised not to.” Casey looked at his face, and seeing him with the tissue wadded up his nose, she said, “Jay. You look ridiculous.”
He pinched the bridge of his nose with his thumb and forefinger. “I don’t think it’s broken,” he said, sounding nasal, and they both laughed out loud.
Mary Ellen hadn’t told him where she was. It had been Ted, and that morning when Jay had gone to Ella’s apartment to bring over a four-page letter saying how sorry he was, the doorman had mentioned that it wouldn’t be long before they came back because Miss Shim and her friend Casey had gone to church, pointing to the block-long city college building. The services would let out in ten minutes, the doorman said. So Jay had gone to the church and waited for her to come out.
When they reached Jay’s apartment, he unlocked his dead bolt, and Casey followed him in. She’d been letting him talk while they walked to his place, and she’d said almost nothing. She marched into the kitchen to grab garbage bags that she’d bought and felt entitled to, and as Jay continued to explain himself, she selected her novels and compact discs from the shelves in his black glass entertainment unit. She listened to him tell his whole story without interrupting his flow. He was the English major and she was the econ girl—always, she had admired his beautiful diction, but for the first time, she noticed that he sounded priggish and show-offy. When he was done, she said, “I don’t give a goddamn shit if some sorority girls wanted to bang you. Frankly. I just don’t give a flying fuck. You think I can’t get laid whenever I want? Fuck you. I’m done. You’re done. You can take your Trenton-converted-Princeton ass and shove it.”
Jay raised his eyebrows. It was going to be harder to recover than he’d thought.
Casey went to the linen closet and pulled out two towels of hers, then headed to the bathroom. All of her things in the medicine cabinet were as she’d left them. Jay came and sat on the covered toilet and watched her take away her whitening toothpaste, perfume, and cinnamon floss. The middle glass shelf was now empty.
From the mirrored bathroom wall, he checked his nose. It was no longer bleeding.
Half jokingly, he muttered, “I thought Christians were supposed to forgive and all that.” From her chilled expression, he instantly regretted what he’d just said. “I mean, I know you’re an agnostic and. . . I was just kidding.”