Wickham, Jane said.

“Asshole,” Jason muttered, glaring at Sam as he walked away.

As for me, I sent Sam the evil eye right back before he disappeared down the hall.

Little did I know, as my irrational heart trailed after him, that I’d just embarked on the Odyssey-like saga that would set the course of my romantic journey for the next two decades…

Chapter 1

There is meanness in all the arts which

ladies sometimes condescend to employ for

captivation. Whatever bears affinity to

cunning is despicable.

  — Pride and Prejudice


Almost seven years after Jane first spoke to me, the August late-afternoon sun beat down on my head as I bolted from the Glen Forest Public Library. We’d been short-staffed again, with two people out on vacation and one last-minute sick call. And, while I loved my summer job — well, most of the time — my day hadn’t been the greatest, and I yearned for a calm, relaxing evening.

Dominic, my boyfriend of eight whole weeks, had other plans.

“Can we take your car tonight?” he asked when he came to pick me up. “I’m running kinda low on gas and — ” He glared at his beat-up Pontiac. “I don’t trust the transmission.”

I shrugged. “Fine,” I said, though it wasn’t really fine. We were going into Chicago — again — because he just had to meet with his loud, pseudo-radical friends who liked to think of themselves as “mavericks.”

“We’ll only stay at the bar for an hour,” he promised when I told him I had a massive headache and wanted a quiet night. “Then we’ll grab a couple slices of pizza at the restaurant next door. Just you and me.”

I wanted to believe him, but the reality was he couldn’t get enough of his discussion group. Once they started yakking, one hour had a way of turning into four. I wasn’t in the mood this time.

Not that I wanted to deprive him of his friends and make him cling only to me. He’d explained that this group was his lifeline, particularly during the summer months, since he was away from his nonconformist college buddies and living with his parents a couple of suburbs over. Unlike me, though, he’d get to see his university friends again in the fall. At nearly twenty-two, I’d just graduated. Dominic, already twenty-three, was on the five-or six-year plan.

“But what about the guys at work?” I’d asked him a month before when we were at my sister’s wedding to her punk-rocker/ bank-manager boyfriend Alex Evans (i.e., irrefutable proof that there was a psycho out there for everyone). “I thought you all got along really well, especially since your neighbor and his cousin got you the job. Don’t you ever want to do things with them?”

“Nah. Besides, I quit on Tuesday.”

My eyes flew open at this news. “You quit the deli?” He’d only been working there a few weeks, but his hourly salary had been higher than mine at the library. “I thought you liked it there.”

“The work wasn’t that challenging.” He wrinkled his nose. “I’d rather do something where I can use my mind, not just slice up salami or provolone, you know? I’ll get some other position in a week or two.”

But he hadn’t and, therefore, he claimed he especially needed the outlet of meeting his friends after a stressful day of dealing with his nagging parents and their demands that he “grow up.”

So we went to Chicago.

“Can you spot me a five for a beer?” Dominic asked when we got to The Bitter Tap. “It doesn’t look real sociable if I don’t have one in my hand, too.”

I sighed, but I bought him a beer and got myself a Long Island Iced Tea. Then I sat at the edge of the table, had a private conversation with Jane about the merits of combining multiple liquors in a single mixed drink, and listened to snatches of Dominic’s latest discussion. Something about the ethics of genetic engineering. One of the guys pulled out a pack of cigarettes and offered them to us.

“No, thanks,” I said, but Dominic reached for one and lit it expertly. He waved it as he made each point, his face aglow with that feverish excitement I’d found so intriguing when first I spotted him in my final college semester’s Films & Lit class.

He’d always hop on his soapbox, saying things like: “We’re privileged to be part of society’s free thinkers. We need to help others shape their understanding of our world while keeping it a positive, affirmative kind of activism. And it’s all here, you know. The change.” He’d jab his thumb at his chest. “Here is where we need to make our decisions about the way we organize our culture. Not from pure intellect. Not from our pocketbook. Not from the restricted mores of our narrow-minded predecessors who call us ‘radicals’ — like it’s a bad thing.” He’d roll his eyes at the absurdity. “It’s only through a continuous dialogue about our creative and cultural life that we can achieve the kind of human connection we all seek.”

It was still mesmerizing to watch him get into a debate, like a televangelist preaching the Word of God.

He smoked five more cigarettes and mooched another beer off someone else before the first hour was up. I checked my watch and made polite conversation. An hour and fifteen minutes. An hour and a half. Still no sign of him wrapping things up. Time for a nudge.

“Dominic.” I tapped my wrist.

He nodded at me, held up his index finger in the Just-One-More-Minute position and resumed talking. For another half hour.

Granted, I was tired, I was cranky and, now, I was hungry, too. I may not have been in the cheeriest of moods starting off, but that didn’t mean he could worm out of a promise, so I said, “Dominic, it’s been two hours.”

“Okay, okay. Just five more minutes. Please. Let me finish this thought.”

I picked up my purse, waved goodbye to the guys and walked out the door.

I heard a “Shit!” from inside the bar and, a moment later, Dominic was by my side looking furious.

“Dammit, Ellie, that was so fucking rude!”

“You said one hour. I waited twice that long. I’ve had enough now, and I’m going home. Come. Don’t come.” I shrugged. “It’s your choice.”

“I — ” Dominic looked between me and the door to The Bitter Tap, clearly considering. “Look, sorry. I just…I just really love being in that environment, and I’m…surprised, I guess, that you don’t, too.” He gave me a hurt look. “Those guys are my best friends.”

I nodded. “Well, perhaps one of them can give you a lift home.” I turned and walked toward my car.

“Ellie. Wait.” He ran up behind me and put his hand on my shoulder, caressing it with his fingertips. “Let’s get a slice of pizza for the road. It’s just right here.” He pointed to the Italian carryout joint next door. “I know you’ve gotta be starving.”

Not wanting to make a huge scene on the sidewalk, I agreed and, of course, I knew that also meant I had to spring for the food. It may have taken me almost two months of dating this cretin, but I was starting to see a pattern here.

When I got home I watched the taillights of Dominic’s Pontiac fade away into the distance, and I thought about our deteriorating relationship. Who I was. Who he was. Where we were going. Or not going. I’d almost broken up with him an hour before, but I’d held on. Why, why, why?

Perhaps it is because you feel lonely? Jane suggested.

Yeah.

And because you are about to embark on something unknown next month — your graduate studies at a new university — and you crave the familiar?

Yeah. That, too.

And, additionally, because you will be two-and-twenty next week and wish to celebrate it with someone dear to you?

I didn’t speak, but I nodded. I should’ve known Jane would figure it out. She’d been my constant companion, my most secret friend for years. She knew me as no one else could…or wanted to.

All will turn out right, Ellie, she said softly. Trust in yourself and in your instincts. You have a strong intuition about the honour and character of others. It is stronger, perhaps, than you realize, and it gains further strength with time and experience. Do not despair.

Thanks, Jane, I whispered, fighting back the despair that curled in my stomach nevertheless.


So, a week later, when I found myself sitting at that same Chicago bar, after being promised a romantic birthday dinner we were already thirty minutes late for, I took a good long look around me:

• I was in a place I didn’t want to be, with people who talked about big change but did nothing.

• I was dating a man who, while attractive and reasonably intelligent, didn’t appreciate me, and who was also part leech.

• I was exactly twenty-two (as of 8:28 that morning), unmarried, inhaling secondhand smoke, bored, frustrated and hungry.

The evening couldn’t get any worse.

I grabbed my second white wine at the bar and took a turn about the room — sipping my drink, chitchatting idly with Jane, glancing at the framed autographs hanging crookedly on the walls and contemplating Dominic’s untimely death.

The driving beat of a Def Leppard song came on, competing with the ambient noise, and I felt a gust of hot summer wind next to me as the front door swung open. The woman who walked through it was about my age and height, only really stunning. Her hair was a long, soft auburn that curled at the ends like some L’Oréal hair-color model. She seemed as gleeful walking into The Bitter Tap as I’d be if I could walk out of it. A tall, dark-haired man followed her inside, and I looked away.