“Halloween party?” That makes Doreen smile a bit. “Not that I’ve ever met the man, but Jonah Marks doesn’t seem like the costume-wearing kind.”
“I know.” I have to grin too. “Still, the natural next step is introducing Jonah to my friends. Well—not introducing, they’ve all met him—but having all of us spend time together. Making sure everyone can get along.”
“And if they can’t?”
“They can.” In all honesty, I’m not sure how Jonah will react to my friends—particularly Geordie—or how they’ll react to him. But Jonah’s default mode is cool courtesy, which means even in the worst-case scenario, everyone will be able to manage. “Hopefully I’ll spend time with Jonah and Rosalind sometime soon. She seems great.”
Doreen is too smart to pursue the conversational detour I just offered. As ever, she sticks to the point. “So everything is going well.”
“Exactly.”
“Then why did you tell me you were feeling uneasy after that last night in Scotland?”
I sigh. “I shouldn’t even have said anything.”
“Vivienne.” Doreen’s voice is soft. “We’ve made a lot of progress these past couple of years because you’ve learned to be truly open with me. Be a shame to lose that now.”
“We aren’t losing it,” I reply—which is maybe not one hundred percent true, if I can’t open up to her about this. “It’s just that so many things about my relationship with Jonah are difficult to put into words.”
“He’s proved himself trustworthy. You enjoy spending time with him even in a nonsexual way. Jonah Marks has turned out to be an interesting, intelligent person.”
I nod.
“But you feel that he reacted badly on that final night, when you expressed your wishes during sex.”
“I think so. I’m not sure.” I am, though. Something about the silence between us has been—too empty. “He wouldn’t freak out about that, though. Not when we’ve acted out that fantasy in so many other ways.”
“Does that feel like the whole truth to you?”
With a sigh, I admit, “No.”
“What else might be bothering him?” Doreen cocks her head. “I think you have an idea.”
She’s right; I do. Really I’ve sensed this all along. “I guess it could be that—when I admitted what I wanted—he realized that I was fantasizing about it every other time we had sex in Scotland. Pretending he was forcing me, even when he wanted us to make love in a more romantic way.”
She says, “Why do you think that would disturb him, when it’s a fantasy he shares?”
Finally I say what I know Doreen’s been getting at the whole time. “Jonah wouldn’t be angry about the fantasy. He’d be angry about the lie, because that’s how he’d see it. As a lie.”
“How do you see it?”
My rationalizations about “lies of omission” seem flimsy now, and I’m embarrassed to even speak them out loud. “. . . I guess it was a lie.”
How do I even start to tell Jonah the truth? How can I find the right parts to tell?
All I know is that I’m never telling him the whole story. No matter what else might come between Jonah and me, I can’t confess the truth about my rape. I hate even saying the name Anthony.
And then I would have to discover how Jonah reacts when the rape isn’t only a fantasy. When he has to confront the fact that this dark, twisted scenario that gets him off is something that—in the real world—scars people for life.
Once he understood that, either Jonah would come to hate his fantasy, or—or he wouldn’t care.
Either way would mean Jonah and I could never play our games again.
And I can’t give them up.
Twenty-five
Why did it have to be Halloween?
As I sit in front of my mirror, braiding my hair, I tell myself that I’d have been nervous about introducing Jonah to my friends at any time. This is the next big get-together. Ergo this is when I take him to hang out with the whole gang.
But Halloween seems so . . . silly. Like the kind of thing Jonah wouldn’t be into at all.
Then again, I am into Halloween. The crazier the theme party, the more I like it: That’s the New Orleans in me. Might as well find out if Jonah can deal.
Just as I finish buckling my Mary Janes, I hear Jonah’s sedan pull up out front. I open the door to greet him, and when I see him step out of his car, I have to grin. “You wore a costume!”
“That’s the whole idea of a costume party, right?” Jonah pauses, glancing down at the scrubs he’s got on. The pale blue, loose-fitting pants and top don’t disguise the phenomenal physique underneath; he looks just like a doctor. A hot doctor. The surgical cap over his dark hair is the finishing touch.
“Yeah, we’re supposed to dress up. I just didn’t think you’d actually do it.”
“Rosalind borrowed these for me from the hospital supply cabinet.” He says this as if it explains everything. Probably it does. I can hear her telling him you can’t go to a costume party in your everyday clothes without coming across as a total killjoy. “Nothing as elaborate as what you’ve got on.”
“Oh, this old thing.” My getup was sold as “Oktoberfest Fräulein”—short poofy skirt, peasant blouse pulled down off the shoulders, high socks, and faux-Teutonic embroidery around the edges. The pigtails aren’t long enough, or blonde, but I left most of my wigs at my parents’ house, so this will have to do.
Jonah laughs. “You wear this often?”
“At least a couple times a year since I bought it my first semester in college.”
“You’re not kidding, are you?”
“If I didn’t already know you’d never lived in New Orleans, this would prove it,” I say as we walk to his car. “Between Halloween, Mardi Gras, and various theme parties, you need a few costumes in case of emergency. A lot of people there have what we call ‘costume closets,’ so you can put together an outfit or help a friend.”
“Do you have a costume closet?”
I shrug. “Just a pith helmet, a couple cloaks, a couple wigs, some go-go boots, and this.”
“New Orleans,” he says, as if it’s another planet. He’s not that far wrong, actually. His eyes drift toward the cleavage revealed by the tugged-down peasant top. “You look sexy as hell, by the way.”
“Thanks. So do you.” It’s all I can do to keep from fondling his ass right here in the driveway. I take pity on my neighbors and restrain myself.
It’s a relief to hear him laugh, and for conversation to flow freely between us. In the days since we got back, Jonah’s coolness has lingered. He only e-mailed twice: once to make sure I had settled in well, and then again to accept my invitation to Arturo and Shay’s party.
He had a lot to do, I remind myself. Remember how you had to bust ass all week to get back up to speed?
True. Still, I can’t shake the feeling that something has changed between us, and maybe not for the better.
Arturo opens the door in his Star Trek redshirt getup. I get a big hug, and Jonah gets a handshake. Not the warm, half-hug, hetero-guy handshake good friends often share—more businesslike—but surely Arturo’s grin makes up for it. “Good to see you again, Jonah. What’s your poison?”
“I’m driving tonight,” he replies.
“Which means I get to have a glass of wine,” I interject.
Arturo laughs. “Not a beer? It would match your costume better.”
“Not unless you’ve got the steins to put it in.” With that, I lead Jonah into the party.
Already a large crowd has gathered. Arturo and Shay can’t entertain quite as extravagantly as Carmen does, but their friends trust them to provide a good time. (Plus, to judge by the umpteen six-packs and bottles lying around, it looks like at least half the people here contributed to the refreshments.) Décor is at a minimum—mostly a couple of white drapes in the windows stained with “bloody” handprints and slash marks. But a few candles burn here and there, and the stereo is thumping with a Latin beat. There’s that creep Mack wearing a neon-green “pimp suit,” complete with zebra-striped lapels. The costume is as repulsive as the guy himself. Carmen, on the other hand, looks radiant—a long skirt, peasant blouse, and embroidered shawl in brilliant colors, her thick black hair braided atop her head and pinned with paper flowers, and for the finishing touch, a penciled-in unibrow to make her a perfect Frida Kahlo. I spy Kip in the corner, one of two guys dressed up as punk rockers. To my delight, the other one turns out to be Ryan the bartender from a few weeks ago. Kip must not have wasted any time after getting Ryan’s number.