Genuine Fraud(34)

Hey Forrest.

This email is hard to write, but I have to tell you: I’m not coming back. The rent is paid up through the end of September, so as long as you’re out before October 1, all’s fine.

I don’t want to see you again. I’m leaving. Well, ha. I’m already gone.

I deserve someone who doesn’t look down on me. Admit it, you do. Because you’re a man and I’m a woman. Because I’m smaller than you. Because I’m adopted, and you don’t like to say it, but you value bloodlines. You think you’re superior because I left college and you didn’t. And you think writing a novel is more important than anything I like to do, or want to do with my life.

The truth is, Forrest, I’m the one with the power. I had the house. And the car. I paid the bills. I’m an adult, Forrest. You’re nothing but an entitled, dependent little boy.

Anyway, I’m gone. I thought you should know why.

Imogen



Forrest wrote back. He was sad and sorry. Angry. Pleading.

Jule didn’t answer. Instead, she texted Brooke two kitty-cat vines with a short note.

IS: Broke up with Forrest. This stripy sad cat is maybe how he feels.

IS: The fluffy orange cat is how I feel. (So relieved.)



Brooke wrote back.

BL: Have you heard from Vivian?

BL: or anyone else from Vassar?

BL: Immie?

BL: Because I heard from Caitlin (Caitlin Moon not Caitlin Clark) that BL: Vivian is going out with Isaac now.

BL: But I don’t believe any news I ever get from Caitlin Moon.

BL: So maybe it isn’t true.

BL: I just threw up a little in my mouth.

BL: I hope you’re not upset.

BL: I am upset for you.

BL: But bye bye Forrest! Immie, you can do way better.

BL: OMG La Jolla is so boring la la la why don’t you text me back? text me back you witch



Later that same day, email came in from Vivian herself, reporting that she was in love with Isaac Tupperman and she hoped Imogen would understand because there is no controlling the human heart.

—

In the days that followed, Jule set about living mostly as she thought Immie would. One morning she knocked on Maddie Chung’s door, carrying a latte from the café down the block. “I thought you might need a coffee.”

Maddie’s face lit up. Jule was invited in and met the wife, silver-haired and sleekly dressed, heading off to “run a corporation,” said Maddie. Jule asked if she could see the bookstore, and the owner drove her over there in a Volvo.

Maddie’s shop was small and untidy but comfortable. It sold a mix of used and new books. Jule bought two Victorian novels by writers she was not sure Immie had ever read: Gaskell and Hardy. Maddie recommended Heart of Darkness and Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, plus a book by some guy called Goffman titled The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life. Jule bought those as well.

Other days, Jule went to exhibits Maddie suggested. Thinking of Imogen, Jule slowed her pace and let her mind wander.

Immie wouldn’t have paid close attention in any museum. She wouldn’t have tried to learn art history and memorize dates.

No, Immie would have walked lazily through, allowing the space to dictate her mood. She’d have stopped to appreciate beauty, to exist without striving.

So much of Immie was in Jule now. That was consolation.





THIRD WEEK OF SEPTEMBER, 2016

THE ISLAND OF CULEBRA, PUERTO RICO

One week before she moved to San Francisco, Jule was drunk on the island of Culebra. She had never been drunk before.

Culebra is an archipelago off the coast of Puerto Rico. On the main island, wild horses walk the roads. Expensive hotels line the coasts, but the town center doesn’t cater to tourists too much. The island is known for snorkeling, and a small American expat community exists there.

It was ten at night. The bar was a place Jule knew. It was open to the night air on one side. Dirty white fans whirred in the corners. The place was filled with Americans, some of them tourists but many of them expat regulars. The bartender didn’t card Jule. Almost nobody asked for ID in Culebra.

Tonight, Jule had ordered a Kahlúa and cream. A man she’d met before bellied up a couple of seats down the bar. He was a bearded white guy, maybe fifty-five. He wore a Hawaiian shirt, and his forehead was sunburnt. He spoke with a West Coast accent—Portland, he’d told Jule earlier. She didn’t know his name. With him was a woman of the same age. She had hair in messy gray curls. Her pink T-shirt showed cleavage, a little at odds with the print skirt and sandals she wore on her lower half. She started eating pretzel mix from a bowl on the bar.

Jule’s drink arrived. She drained it and asked for another. The couple was arguing.

“That whore with a heart of gold: she was my main problem,” said the woman in a Southern accent. Maybe Tennessee, maybe Alabama. Homey.

“It was just a movie,” the man answered.

“The perfect girlfriend is a whore that does ya for free. Disgusting.”

“I didn’t know it was gonna be that,” said the man. “I didn’t even know it bothered you till we started walking over here. Manuel said it was a good movie. We put it on; not a big deal.”

“It belittles half the population, Kenny.”

“I didn’t make you watch it. Besides, maybe it’s open-minded about whoring.” Kenny chuckled. “Like, we’re not supposed to think less of her because of her job.”