Tell Me - M. Colette Jane

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Jägermeister?

      There. Friendly, but not eager.

      My pulse has not quickened. My lips are curling into that stupid smile, but that’s what he’s always done to me. But. There’s nothing wrong with smiling.

      Ping. Fucking Facebook. Immediate response. He’s on.

       I vote Jager shots.

      I don’t have to respond. I look up from the phone at the women around me. ‘So there we are, on our first family holiday in two years, we’re about to go to Disneyland, fucking Disneyland! And he’s in the bathroom, sexting with the girlfriend!’ Nicola’s voice rises. ‘Sending her pictures of his erect cock, for fuck’s sake!’

      ‘What a bastard,’ Colleen says and shakes her head. The voices of the others rumble in the background, a continuing Greek chorus of indignation and support.

      I’m perverse. And I’ve heard this story about six times in the last month.

      I text Matt back immediately.

      —Nice. I have almost two weeks to work up some level of resistance to Jager. Where? Are we bringing our significant others, or living dangerously?

       I vote danger.

      I let the lips do as they will. Type a smiley face. Delete it. Disclose the deletion. Type:

      —(I’m looking for the right emoticon)

       I’m looking for the elevated heart rate emoticon.

      Fuck. Matt. No.

      I should stop typing. Engaging. Turn off the fucking phone. Instead:

      —I can’t find the right one. Jesus. How many years has it been? I hope we won’t be disappointed.

       You couldn’t disappoint me if you tried.

      —I won’t try. See you on the 14th.

       I very much look forward to it.

      I wish this was the kind of phone you could snap shut. That’s what I want to do: I want to terminate the conversation with Matt, because where he draws me, where he’s always drawn me, I am reluctant to go. Reluctant sometimes, anyway. Reluctant for the past ten years and still reluctant now, today, in this precise moment.

      I turn off the phone – not nearly as satisfying as the sound made by clicking it shut would be – and turn my attention to the continued crucifixion of Nicola’s rat-fuck bastard of a husband and his clichéd affair, conducted primarily via texts on an un-password-protected phone he’d just leave lying around the house. ‘Who does that? How does a man with a fucking Masters degree from MIT do that?’ Nicola asks, and I’m uncertain if she’s talking about the carelessness or the betrayal.

      ‘At least it was easy to track, and you found out about it as quickly as you did,’ Colleen counsels her. ‘My ex was screwing around on me for years.’

      Marie looks at me and taps her phone. She starts texting.

      Fine. He’ll be gone by now anyway. I turn the phone back on. Marie’s text is short and to the point. ‘OMFG pls tell me you this bores you as much as it does me.’ I look at her and bite my lips.

      Ping.

       Did you find the emoticon that captures your feelings?

      I don’t have to respond. But. I do.

      —No. Maybe there isn’t one. I’ll have to express my emotions live.

       Or we could go old school. Use adjectives. I’ll start.

       Hopeful.

      ‘Jane?’ It’s Nicola. ‘What do you think?’

      I have no fucking clue what she’s talking about. It’s possible my pulse rate is elevated and my breathing jagged. Fuck. And my eyes glassy. Marie jumps in.

      ‘Don’t bother her,’ she says. ‘She’s dealing with some client emergency.’ Nicola feels slighted, but I am saved. And grateful for my bizarre work-from-home job, so esoteric and complicated that no one really understands what I do – and, in this circle of stay-at-home-moms and ladies-who-lunch at least, I’m treated with cautious respect as a result.

      When they’re not thinking I neglect my children and my husband’s career, that is.

      ‘Clients,’ I say. ‘And with these phones, we’re always on call.’

      Fucking liar.

      I type.

      —Nervous.

      Really? Pulse pounding.

      —Not an adjective.

       Hard.

      I have to cover my mouth with my hand. Oh, my fucking God, Matt. Really? From hopeful to hard in two adjectives? Some things never change, I think. And I type:

      —Some things never change.

       Like your effect on me.

      —Things slow at work today, are they?

       Not at all. Give me an adjective.

      —Titillated.

       Hungry.

      —Anticipating. (Is that an adjective?)

       I’ll allow it.

       Throbbing.

       What will you wear?

      —Clothes.

       Not for long.

      —public place

       Good.

      —overselling?

       Ha.

      ‘Jane?’ It’s Marie. ‘Cassandra, waving at you madly.’

      I drop the phone into my purse and leave the cafeteria. Behind me, Nicola is passing around her iPhone, showing screenshots of the rat-fuck bastard’s texts…and naked photos of the girlfriend. I choose not to think about what was involved in transferring these from his phone to hers – oh, fuck, I thought it: did he forward them during their brief ‘we must be open and honest about this if we are to save our marriage’ phase? Did she forward them to herself during the following, and still ongoing, ‘I must gather evidence if I am to skin his hide’ period? Why am I thinking about this? – and go to find out what’s up with my children.

      Nothing much, as it turns out, but the candle-making isn’t as horridly uninteresting as I thought it might be, and the metal-ornamenting is actually really cool, and Henry and Eddie really want me to go with them to see the cows, so I stay with them for the rest of pioneer Christmas. And then back into our minivan. And home, with Marie and her crew of two on our heels.

      Marie’s anxious.

      ‘Are you sure this is OK?’ she asks for the umpteenth time as she follows her kids into the house.

      ‘Jeezus, woman, if it wasn’t, I’d have said so when you asked me,’ I chastise. ‘Besides, four kids, six kids, not much difference. How much louder or messier can they be? I’m going to run them up the hill, get them to sled, and if I decide I want to kill them, I’ll make them watch Minecraft videos on YouTube. It’s all good. Go.’

      ‘Let me just get their lunch things into the kitchen,’ she says. She follows me into the kitchen, puts down the bag on the table.

      Sits down.

      Marie is my first, and sometimes I think only, adult female friend. Those other women – the ones from the school, the neighbourhood, the ones from Alex’s work – I socialise with. Sometimes just endure. Alex

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