An American Tune: A Novel

12 “Purple Haze”

122 “Purple Haze” When she woke up, he was already gone. He was still mad at her, Jane knew, because there was no note to say what time to expect him back that night. He always left a note since the time, not long after they moved in together, he had decided to go out for a few beers with a friend on the spur of the moment and returned to find her curled up inthecornerofthecouch,paleandtrembling,certainthatsomething terrible had happened to him. It was never anything elaborate, just wherever he was going, when he thought he’d be back, and always, “Love you. Tom.” But there was no note this morning. “I don’t blame you for not going,” Bridget said when she got up. “Mrs.Gilberthasalwaysbeenashittoyou.She’sneverlikedyou.She actually said that to my mom once.” Janeglancedsharplyather.BridgethadalwaysmadefunofTom’s mother–how uptight she was, what a snob. Jane suspected she got a kick out of the fact that Mrs. Gilbert thought she wasn’t good enough for Tom, that it pleased her to think she’d personally affronted Mrs. Gilbert, having been the one to introduce the two of them. But she’d never told Jane anything that Mrs. Gilbert said before or alluded to thefactthattheirrelationshipwasasourceofgossipamongtheladies in Mrs. Gilbert’s circle of friends. Of course, Jane knew Mrs. Gilbert must talk about her. But hearing Bridget say so made her feel worse 12 123 “Purple Haze” than she already felt, angrier about Tom letting his mother guilt trip him into going home for Christmas Eve. “I never told you before because I didn’t want to hurt your feelings ,” Bridget said. “I knew how you let her get to you. You always have. But you know, Jane, you really ought to think about where all this is going. If Tom won’t say no to her now, what makes you think he ever will? You watch. Ten years, maybe less than that, and he’ll be back in Evansville in a suit and tie. You can be one of those wives sitting around the pool at the country club. Or maybe you’ll have your own pool in the backyard. Is that what you want?” “We won’t be like that,” Jane said. “Yeah,well.Peoplechange.Iftheydon’tthink,iftheydon’tchoose, they just drift into some life they never in a million years would have believed they’d be living. Look at my mom. She’s got a degree from Vassar, for God’s sake. She worked for Time magazine in New York. Then one day, boom, she meets my dad and there she is, marooned in Evansville fucking Indiana, with a boatload of kids and bridge club every Wednesday. And she doesn’t even care. She likes it! Fuck that. HonesttoGod,she’sthesmartestpersonIknow.Itmakesmefurious every time I think about what she could have been. Done.” “What’s so wrong with being happy?” Jane asked. Bridget didn’t even answer. Just launched into an account of the lastblow-upshe’dhadwithherfatheroverherrelationshipwithCam. “FuckingJudge,”shesaid.“Nosingaround,callingupfavors.Like I didn’t know Cam’s politics myself. Like I was going to say, “Oh, thankssomuch,Dad,forcheckingwiththeFBI.Youknowhowmuch I respect the work they do.” She called her sister Colleen once in a while, she told Jane. Fuck the rest of them. Fuck everyone who refused to see what was going on. And the ones who saw and quit trying to do anything about it–fuck them more. That’s me, Jane thought–and at that moment saw herself through Bridget’s eyes. The truth was, she’d been deluding herself about everything .HerrelationshipwithTom,which,whenshethoughtabout it honestly, had been tense for a long time now. He didn’t, couldn’t, understand why she spent nearly every waking moment grading pa- 124 An American Tune pers, making lesson plans, thinking about the children in her class and what she could do to help them. He was growing impatient with her chronic sadness. Jane needed air, she needed Bridget to stop talking for a while, so she suggested treating her to breakfast at the Ashram Bakery, where she usually went with Tom. Bridget argued against going–she wasn’t hungry, it was stupid to waste money in restaurants–and only agreed when Jane said she was going herself, one way or the other. Once there, she headed for a booth at the back and slid into the side where she would be least...