Page 102 - What Is Not Yours Is Not Yours

didn’t want him to, but this was her third marriage and his second; she knew

how these things went. She’d met Jacob’s new colleague over dinner and the
colleague, Viviane, was well dressed, husky-voiced, and generally delightful
company, knowledgeable on a number of topics and curious about a variety of
others. Jill had found herself joining Jacob in addressing her as “Vi,” and when
Vi left the table for a few moments to answer a phone call Jill whispered: “You
realize she’s got a crush on you?”
Jacob laughed and leaned toward her with his lips all smoochy, but she

pushed his face away with a breadstick. “Did you hear what I just said?”
He leaned in again. Not close enough for a kiss this time, but close enough for
her reflection to almost completely fill his irises. Portrait of cross forty-two-year-
old with, hey, really nice boobs actually. “Yes, you said you think Vi has a
crush.”

“I’m two hundred percent sure about that.”
“Two hundred percent? Oh. Even if you’re right it’ll pass, J.”
J. Vi. And he still called his first wife Dee.
“Why don’t you just make the most of it, run off with her, and be half of a
beautiful black intellectual couple just like you always wanted?”
Husbands one and two, Max and Sam, were white—Sam was a few years
younger than Jill, but both he and Max tended to look old stood beside her. Well,

not elderly. Just older than her. Whereas side by side she and Jacob looked about
the same age. What age was that? If you didn’t know them you couldn’t even
give a rough estimate. Jacob picked up a breadstick of his own, crunched half of
it, stabbed her in the arm with the other half, and asked: “Do you really think
you can do this here?”
He rarely appeased her. She wasn’t sure what to make of that given his

attitude toward almost all his other friends, loved ones, clients, the efforts he
made to ensure everybody else’s comfort. When he was with Jill he made her
wonder whether he’d been sent to destroy her. Take the time she’d invited him
to sample the first viable batch of tea leaves from the greenhouse she part-
owned. Chun Mei, with its taste of sweet springtime grass. He’d sauntered
downstairs inexplicably wearing a denim shirt over jeans, taken the teacup from
her, and filled his cheeks with tea. “And how is this superior to a nice cup of

Tetley?”
The combination of barbaric taste buds and denim on denim had set Jill’s
teeth so sorely on edge that her jaw locked for a couple of minutes. Enough time
for him to stare her down and walk out unadmonished. He knew what he was