Jennifer Close - The Hopefuls

“Nothing?” Matt said. He looked over at me.

“Nothing,” I said. “We just got mixed up.”

“You got mixed up?” I wondered if Matt was going to just keep repeating everything I said.

“Yes,” I said. “It was stupid.” And then I started to cry, big heaving sobs, bent over in the seat, not able to catch my breath. It occurred to me that now I was being overdramatic, acting like I’d been wronged, crying like I could make Matt feel sorry for me. But I couldn’t stop. “I’m sorry,” I said, trying to catch my breath. “I love you, Matt. It was just a stupid mistake, that’s all.”

Then I buried my head in my hands and he let me cry, not saying anything, and eventually I noticed that the car had stopped moving. “Beth,” he said, not in a mean way, exactly, but also with no trace of kindness. “Beth, stop. We’re here.”

—

We talked that night until we had nothing left to say. I just kept apologizing and crying, thinking at some point my tears would run out, but they didn’t. I told him how I’d hugged Jimmy when he was upset, how it led to a confusion of body parts — that’s actually what I said: a confusion of body parts. Honestly, it seemed as good an explanation as anything else.

Matt sat in the desk chair and I was on the bed as we talked, my knees pulled up to my chest. “It was just a kiss,” I said over and over. “Just for a second.”

It felt a little like a business meeting, the way we were positioned across from each other. I don’t know how long we stayed there. Hours, I think.

“Has this been going on for a while?” Matt asked.

“No,” I said. “This was the only time. Just this one thing. One kiss, that’s all.”

I was aware of what I was leaving out, of how I edited the story. But even if I’d wanted to tell him everything — which I didn’t — I wouldn’t have known how to phrase it. (Was there any term more disgusting than getting fingered ? I hadn’t heard anyone say it since high school, since Kelly Klinger told me in homeroom that’s what her boyfriend had done to her the night before, and I felt as confused now as I did then about what had actually occurred.) I also somehow knew that Jimmy would never tell anyone that detail, that I could get away with this one omission. So, no, I would never fully explain, but I would apologize over and over until Matt believed me.

When we were winding down, Matt asked, “Do you like him?” This was the only time he showed any emotion during this conversation, his voice catching on the word like, making him sound young.

“No,” I said. “It’s not — I don’t want anything with Jimmy. I think I’ve felt lonely lately, like you’re ignoring me or like you don’t care. And I know that’s not an excuse. It’s just — it’s what’s been going on.”

Matt nodded in a businesslike way. “Were you trying to get back at me?”

I shook my head at the same time I said, “No. I wasn’t. I know this might not make sense but it was just an accident. A mistake.”

Matt didn’t say anything then, just looked at me, and I rested my head on my knees and continued to cry.

When we’d first started dating, Matt couldn’t stand to see me cry. Any argument we had would be over as soon as there were tears — he’d comfort me, apologize, do anything to get me to stop. Over the years, it had less of an effect on him, and now he seemed completely immune.

I heard a noise then and looked up from my knees to see Matt standing up. “Are you leaving?” I asked.

“I need to take a walk,” he said.

“Matt,” I said, a new sob in my voice. “I’m so sorry. I really am. I love you, you know that.”

He nodded again. “Okay,” he said. He walked out the door casually, as if he were just going down to the lobby to get something.

When he left, I cried some more, and then after a while I began to feel bored by my own tears, and they slowed and then finally stopped. I could feel a headache behind my eyes and reached for the remote, turned on the TV to drown out my thoughts. I was still on top of the covers, fully dressed, but I was too tired to bother changing. I fell asleep and woke up after a fitful dream to find that the TV was still on and Matt was just returning to the room. “Hey,” I said, as he climbed into bed, and he said, “Hi,” before turning off the light and lying down so that his back was facing me.

The next time I opened my eyes, it was 7:00 a.m. and Matt was getting dressed. I sat up and said, “Hi.”

“Hi,” he said back, looking in the mirror as he knotted his tie.

“Are you okay?” I asked.

“Yeah,” he said. “I’m just ready for this to be over.” I sat up and pulled the covers off, and he looked at me. “You don’t have to get up. Stay here and sleep. Just be ready to go around five.”

That was the time we’d have to leave for the election party at the Dillons’, and I was surprised that he still wanted me to go, but I just nodded and said, “Sure.”

—

I spent most of the day in the hotel room, imagining what Matt and Jimmy were saying to each other, if they were saying anything at all. What was Ash doing? She hadn’t called to yell at me, but that didn’t mean she didn’t know. I left once to get a salad, but found it impossible to eat and only managed to choke down a couple of bites of lettuce before abandoning it. My stomach twisted and I thought I might get sick.

By the time Matt came back to get me, I’d been dressed and ready to go for almost three hours. He didn’t bother to come up to the room, just texted that he was downstairs. As I walked out the door, I tried to think if I’d ever dreaded anything as much as I was dreading this party and decided that the answer was definitely no. I would’ve given anything to stay at the hotel, even if it meant I’d have only my paranoid thoughts to keep me company. I didn’t know why Matt even wanted me to go — maybe he thought it would look bad if I didn’t, maybe he wanted me to feel uncomfortable and embarrassed, to pay for what I’d done.

When I got in the car, Matt was typing on his BlackBerry and didn’t say anything for a minute. Then he put it down and said, “Ready to go?” and pulled away before I answered. On the way, I asked him about the day, and he answered me in a tone that was both polite and removed, like I was a reporter that he didn’t particularly care for, but knew he couldn’t ignore. I hesitated, and then asked him if Jimmy told Ash what had happened — I didn’t want to, but I felt like I had to know before we got to the party so I could be prepared.

“I don’t know,” he said, evenly.

“You didn’t ask?” I said.

“We didn’t talk about it,” Matt said. It seemed unbelievable to me that they’d spent the whole day together and never once acknowledged what had happened, but Matt’s jaw was firm and his answer didn’t leave any room for further discussion, so I dropped it.

As we pulled into the driveway, I said, “Matt, I’m so sorry.”

He turned off the ignition and let out a long sigh. “I know,” he said.

—

The actual party wasn’t quite as bad as I’d feared, mostly because by the time we arrived, there were already about twenty people there, which made it crowded enough so I felt like I could sort of blend in. When we walked inside, Jimmy was in the corner by the fireplace, talking to one of his father’s friends who had donated quite a bit to the campaign. “I should go check in,” Matt said, before walking away and leaving me alone by the door.

One of the caterers came up to me with a tray of white wine, and I took a glass, just to have something to do with my hands. Through the doorway, I saw Ash in the other room, standing alone and looking at her phone. I’d already decided that I was going to say something to her right away, to apologize. To wait any longer would just make it worse.