Page 46 of Dirty Diana
By Friday, all that is left to do is to load everything else into my car and drive it to the Goodwill. Driving home I feel light enough to float away; only my seatbelt is holding me in place. When Jasper calls, I tell him I have a surprise for him and ask him to come straight to my place when he gets back to town.
—
Jasper arrives around ten o’clock Saturday evening. “Wow,” he says, looking around my empty apartment. “Going minimal?”
“You’re looking at a woman with no earthly possessions.” I’m sitting on the floor with a beer and a box of crackers I’m calling dinner. Pippi curls up in my lap and waits for her ears to be scratched.
I expect something like a round of applause or at least an admiring whistle. But Jasper looks serious. “What do you mean?”
“I donated it all. I gave my landlord notice. He made me pay for this month, but it’s okay.”
Jasper folds his hands and rests them on top of his head. “You didn’t tell Justine, did you?”
I refuse to acknowledge the look of total panic in Jasper’s eyes.
“Of course I told Justine. I can’t just disappear on her.”
“Oh, Diana.” He says this like I’d left the door open and Pippi has just run out into traffic.
A dead-weighted fear creeps into my belly, the terrible sense that he’s switched channels on me. “I had to tell Justine. We’re moving to Taos, remember?”
“I do remember. It’s just…”
No.
“We didn’t solidify anything…”
No.
“I had no idea you would act this quickly.”
Don’t do this. Please don’t do this.
“Did you quit the catering job too?”
I shut down in that moment. My face goes pale, I can feel it. My world is suddenly underwater. “There was no Taos…”
“No, of course there was. Is. No, I’d love to go to Taos with you. Someday.”
“So, let’s go—”
Jasper sits on the floor beside me. “My manager called. He got an offer for me, from the Hayworth in London. They want to show mywork…You know he always said my stuff wouldn’t travel. And now they’re calling. I can’t say no.”
“You’re going to London?”
Jasper follows me into my empty kitchen where I dump the rest of my beer down the sink. I have never hated living in a studio more. I’m desperate for another room to walk into, a door to close and a place to be alone. My skin flushes, hot and cold at the same time. I think about my conversation with Justine.Waylaid.
“You can get your job back. Justine loves you. She knows she can’t live without you. And Barry will weep with joy. Right?”
I take a deep breath. On the exhale, I force the question I’m scared to ask. “Why did you ask me to move with you to Taos if you didn’t mean it?”
“Ididmean it—when I said it. But I was fantasizing. You know. You’re a romantic, like me—that’s how we think, right? Thinking about what we could do someday. Together. I didn’t expect you to start packing.” He paces around the empty apartment like a trial attorney entering into evidence how crazy this all is.
The flush to my skin is humiliation. The sight of my packed duffel bag, sitting in the empty corner of my apartment, fills me with shame. I clear my throat and lift my chin. “That’s not how I remember the conversation,” I say quietly.
Pippi paws at Jasper’s leg until he picks her up. “My sister is happy to take care of Pippi while I’m in London. Her kids have been begging for a dog. And I just thought, with all your jobs, and now this book you’re putting together…” He looks at his feet. Our little family is dissolving before my eyes.
When I don’t say anything, he adds, “Would you like to stay with me tonight, since, you know, you don’t have any stuff?” I see the room through his eyes, bare and more than a little desperate. The strange sensation I’ve had for the past few months, like I’m running on a hamster wheel, trying to figure him out, melts away. It’s replaced bysomething achingly sad. He will never love me. The clarity of it settles into my bones.
