It was best to stay on the surface.
She looked back into the den and found that Tom was gone. Two of the three girls had found other groups of students to converse with, but the third, a girl that Birdie had recognized as an undergraduate student, was also gone.
Birdie scanned the room, searching for Tom’s face. She didn’t find it. She walked through the house, stumbling into awkward situations where people had thought they’d be left alone in privacy.
“Sorry,” she muttered as she left the study, finding Nolan with another male student, seconds away from a kiss. She hoped she’d ruined his evening.
She wandered out onto the patio, finding nothing but several groups of people conversing and laughing. Spilled alcohol made her sneakers stick to the tile as she re-entered the house. With a squelching noise, she ventured down the hallway that led to the master bedroom, a knot forming in her stomach.
Voices beat against the door, a male and a female. One of which she recognized as Tom’s. It was cajoling, encouraging. Manipulative, even. The girl spoke back, her tone demure. She wanted to extricate herself from the situation she’d landed in.
Birdie listened as Tom’s tone became more aggressive. The girl pleaded. A piece of furniture moved, scraping its legs against the hardwood floor of the bedroom. A bedroom that Birdie had gone into only to hang up dry cleaning.
She felt a pang of jealousy.
It should have been her in there with Tom.
Tom shouted something. There was a ripping sound. A slap. The door flew open.
The girl, who she had recognized as Morgan Wallace, stormed past her, her sweater hanging from her shoulder, the neck stretched and torn. Her lacy bra peeked out just above her breast. She made eye contact with Birdie for a brief moment as she blew through.
Tom stepped to the doorway.
“I don’t know what her problem is,” he said with a forced laugh. He ran a hand through his hair nervously.
Birdie felt like she’d just caught her dad doing something shameful. The pedestal that she’d placed Tom on crumbled. The otherworldly way that his blue eyes seemed to radiate became ordinary.
But still, she felt for him.
“Don’t worry,” she said.
She knew as soon as she said it what she was going to do. And as the inevitable choice before he revealed itself, she realized that she was in love with Tom Wolsieffer. The momentum of the moment didn’t allow her time to reflect and feel sick about it. That would come much later, when the storm had calmed. But for now, she needed to do damage control. And the first piece of that puzzle was to find Morgan.
And shut her up.
VANESSA
Vanessa stands in the library and watches as Tom storms out. There’s little left of their marriage aside from venomous quarrels and the dramatic exits that punctuate those fights. But this time, Vanessa is more concerned with who and what Tom has left in his thunderous wake rather than her own feelings. If she’s being honest, she gave up that concern a long time ago. She’s cried enough tears over Tom for a lifetime. Her interest now is elsewhere.
She pauses as the door slams behind him. Her senses sharpen with the knowledge that Ione is in the building with her.
The thought clings to her like a second skin that she longs to shed. She’s carried Ione with her, just as she’s sure her husband has, but their burdens are not the same. Tom doesn’t carry the weight like Vanessa does, cumbersome on every contraction of her heart. She’s weary. But the thought that she might come face to face with the girl is enough to quicken her.
She inhales the stagnant air in the warm room. The glue binding the books infiltrates her nostrils, the smell reminding her of college. A time before she’d met Tom. A time when her life might have gone differently. How strange it was that one choice could alter the entire trajectory of a person’s existence.
And had she never met Tom, she’d have never had the displeasure of knowing Ione. The anger she felt towards Birdie paled next to what she felt for the girl who lurked in the stacks of the library. But so much more had been at stake when the affair shook down. She’d had a marriage worth saving then.
That can’t be said now.
Vanessa looks around the room for her adversary. There’s a piece of her that longs to talk to the girl, to absorb the outside world that she’s brought in with her. Another piece wants to slap her again, like she did seven years ago in their home off campus.
And then she spots her.
A form, shoulders and crossed arms seen through the shelves. The girl is standing still, waiting on Vanessa to make the first move. So, she does.
She marches, quickly but not silently to the row that Ione stands in. She turns at the end and spots her. She seems so small standing between the two bookshelves. It’s impossible that she could have inflicted so much pain on Vanessa. She doesn’t seem capable of it. Her features aren’t those of a monster as Vanessa so often likes to remember them. They’re softer. Maybe time has done that.
Maybe time has done that to both of them.
Ione looks at her, surprise registering in her eyes just long enough to give Vanessa a sense of satisfaction. Grim gladness in the fact that she can still elicit that response from the girl.
“Vanessa,” Ione says her name like a protective spell. Like saying it will turn Vanessa’s mind and heart.
“Come with me,” Vanessa’s tone is clipped and short.
Ione walks forward slowly, cautiously. Vanessa turns, annoyed at her paranoia. She walks quickly to
