“It’s not really normal to do that,” Molly said. “It’s kind of . . . extreme. Kind of slaps expectation on a relationship before it’s begun.”
“Uh-huh,” was all Jane could muster in response, even to her best friend. This was a raw, pin-poking subject. A couple of years ago, she’d toyed with having a therapist, and though in the end she’d decided she just wasn’t a therapy kind of a gal, she did come out of it understanding one thing about herself: At a very young age, she had learned how to love from Austen. And according to her immature understanding at the time, in Austen’s world there was no such thing as a fling. Every romance was intended to lead to marriage, every flirtation just a means to find that partner to cling to forever. So for Jane, when each romance ended with hope still attached, it felt as brutal as divorce. Intense much, Jane? Oh yes. But what can you do?
“Jane.” Molly rubbed her arm. “You’ve got so much going on! You don’t need this Pembrook Park, and you definitely don’t need Mr. Darcy.”
“I know. I mean, he’s not even real. He’s not, he’s not, I know he’s not, but maybe . . .”
“There’s no maybe. He’s not real.”
Jane groaned. “But I don’t want to have to settle.”
“You always do. Every single guy you ever dated was a settle.”
She sat up. “None of them loved me, did they? Ever. Some of them liked me or I was convenient but . . . Am I truly that pathetic?”
Molly smoothed her hair. “No, of course not,” she said, which meant, Yes, but I love you anyway.
“Argh,” Jane arghed. “I don’t know what to do, I don’t trust myself. I mean, how did you ever know for sure that Phillip was the right guy?”
Molly shrugged. It was the same shrug that had twitched in Molly’s shoulders at summer camp eighteen years ago when Jane had asked, “Did you eat all my marshmallows?” It was the same shrug Molly had given when Jane adopted the New Wave style in sixth grade and asked, “How do I look?” Molly had forsworn her shifty days in college and declared she’d be a forthright, unashamed woman forever—but here was that bad-penny shrug turning up again.
Jane glared. “Don’t you do it, Ms. Molly Andrews-Carrero. What is it? Tell me. How do you know that Phillip is the one?”
Molly picked at some dried spaghetti sauce on her pants. “He . . . he makes me feel like the most beautiful woman in the world, every day of my life.”
She’d never admit it, but those words made Jane’s tear ducts sting. “Wow. You’ve never told me that. Why didn’t you ever tell me that before?!”
Molly started to shrug, then stopped. “It’s not something you tell your single best friend. It’d be like rubbing your nose in the poop of my happiness.”
“If I didn’t love you, I’d slap you.” Jane reconsidered and threw a pillow at Molly’s face. “You need to tell me those things, loser. I’ve got to know what’s possible.”
Or what’s impossible, Jane thought.
“Are you okay?” Molly asked.
“Yes. I am. Because I’ve decided to give up men entirely.”
“Come on, not again. Sweetie—”
“I’m serious this time. I’ve had it. I know in my bones that I’m never going to find my Phillip, and all this hoping and waiting is killing me.” She took a breath. “This is good, Molly. You’ll see. Time to embrace spinsterhood. Time to—”
“Watch out!” Molly said, dropping the brochure and jumping up just as Jack placed a full bowl of milk and cereal onto his head like a marvelous dripping hat.
Hannah picked up the glossy paper and handed it to Jane, backing up onto her lap. The little girl felt so cozy and perfect, like warming her hands on a cup of hot chocolate, and with the familiar bliss that came with holding someone else’s child, Jane felt that weird ache in her gut, that ugly nudge that told her she might never have one of her own.
“My ovaries are screaming at me,” Jane said.
“Sorry, honey!” Molly called from the kitchen.
“Book.” Hannah shook the brochure, so they looked at it together.
“There’s a house,” Jane said. “Where’s the man? That’s right! And where’s the woman? Yep, that’ll be me. Did you know that your aunty Jane is a chump? That she secretly wants to be someone else in another time and be loved like a fictional character in a book? And that she loathes this part of herself? Well, no more!”
“The End,” said Hannah. She shut the brochure, squirmed off Jane’s lap, and set off searching for something more interesting while chanting, “Hippo, hippo.” Jane lay back down, but this time placed the throw pillow under her head. Okay, all right, she would go. It would be her last hurrah. Like her friend Becky, who’d taken an all-you-can-eat dinner cruise the night before going in for a stomach stapling, Jane was going to have one last live-it-up and then quit men entirely. She’d play out her fantasy, have a staggering good time, and then bury it all for good. No more Darcy. No more men—period. When she got home she’d become a perfectly normal woman, content to be single, happy with her own self.
She’d even throw the DVDs away.
3 weeks and 1 day ago