She bought new clothes and excitedly prepared for a whole new life. Riley and Emma parted tearfully and for the first two weeks called each other constantly, missing each other desperately. Then Emma settled in, became busy, got a part-time job. She had awesome roommates, was pledging a sorority, she was overwhelmed by her classes, loved the many social events and the surrounding rush. Also, Emma, being a vivacious young beauty, was getting hit on by the college guys. Even older college guys. She confessed to Riley that she was doing a little harmless hanging out with guys, a little innocent dating that she didn’t want Jock to know about. Of course her secret was safe with Riley.
Getting acclimated to community college wasn’t nearly as exciting. Riley found it to be very much like high school, except they didn’t take attendance. Big whoop. It didn’t take Riley long to begin to feel lonely.
As Emma settled into campus life, making new friends and experimenting with her newfound freedom, she wasn’t in touch as much. She wasn’t picking up when Riley or Jock called; she wasn’t answering texts or returning calls right away and when she did, she didn’t have much time. She was always rushing off somewhere or it sounded like there was a party in the background. All she wanted to talk about was herself and all her cool new experiences. A week, then two, then three went by with hardly any contact and what contact they had was brief—just long enough for Emma to relate all the fun things she was doing. By early October she’d already made plans to spend Thanksgiving with one of her new classmates and her family in Astoria, Oregon, rather than coming home to Santa Rosa. “I saw pictures of her house, Riley,” Emma said excitedly. “I think they’re incredibly rich!”
“We never talk at all anymore,” Riley complained. “It’s like you’re too busy to be bothered with me.”
“No, of course not! Well, maybe we’re growing apart a little bit,” Emma said. “On account of going to different colleges. But we’ll always be best friends.”
Riley, who used to talk to her best friend every day, several times a day, was lost. Jock, not one to go long without a girl, was calling and hanging around Riley a lot. He said it made perfect sense for them to be going out. “You can’t tell me she’s not,” he said to Riley. “I’m not sitting home until Emma decides she has time for me.”
Looking back, Riley remembered she’d felt deserted. Abandoned. Was it too much to expect her best friend to talk to her every couple of days? Twice a week? For more than three minutes? And maybe ask her about herself once in a while?
She and Jock were commiserating a lot. Jock was always around, calling her, taking her out for pizza, inviting her to join him for their high school’s homecoming game and subsequent parties with old classmates. They were pals in their shared loneliness.
“Be careful of him,” Adam had said to Riley. “He’s been known to take advantage of girls.”
“We’re just friends,” she said.
But Riley was growing very fond of Jock. She looked forward to every call, every casual date. They stopped commiserating so much and started laughing and having fun. They met friends at pizza parlors and on the beach. One crisp fall night they drove over to the coast and had a few beers by a beach fire, just the two of them. It was amazing how much they had to talk about—Emma’s name never came up. Riley was astonished to find she was feeling far less abandoned.
She was falling for him.
“I think I might be way into you, too,” he said. “Damn, I never saw this coming! I’m starting to think it probably should’ve been me and you from the start.”
“We have to tell her, Jock. We have to tell Emma exactly how this happened. We couldn’t get her on the phone for five minutes, we started hanging out, we got closer—at first because we were both missing her. But then because we have something. I don’t know...chemistry?”
He laughed. “You think Emma cares? Go ahead—leave her a message. She’ll get back to you in a week or two.”
Then it went too far. Riley never meant for it to happen. At least not until she had thought it through much more carefully. Not until they came clean with Emma. She was telling herself it wasn’t the worst thing in the world to spend so much time with Jock, to kiss and fondle and whisper in the dark of night, but then things got out of control and before she knew it, her shirt was pushed up, her jeans were around her knees and they’d gone all the way. Before they’d been honest with Emma.
“Oh, God, I wanted us to tell Emma before something like that happened.”
“Baby, Emma could care less.”
“But I think I’m falling in love with my best friend’s boyfriend!”
“Whoa, whoa,” he said. “Riley, let’s just slow down here...”
“Aren’t we in love?” she asked. “All those things you were saying, that you couldn’t get through this without me and I’m the best thing that’s happened to you and you probably should’ve hit on me first...”
“Hey, shoot me for being nice, huh? Of course I care about you—who said I didn’t? That was totally up to you. You were totally into it. Just don’t say anything, all right? You don’t have to make an announcement, for God’s sake. I won’t tell her. I just don’t know if I’d call it love. Yet.”
“You have to break up with her. Tell her about us. You’re the one who started things with me, not the other way around. Aren’t you breaking up with her?” Riley asked.
“I don’t think I’m going to have to,” he said. “I think she broke up with me about three months ago. She’s partying her ass off in Seattle.”
“And there’s no grass growing under your ass, now, is there?” she threw back at him.
Four weeks later, right before Emma came home for Christmas break, she told Jock she was pregnant. She’d taken the home test and it was positive.
“You sure it’s mine?” he said. “I used a condom.”
“I haven’t been with anyone else,” she informed him hotly.
“But I don’t know that for sure, do I? Since I wasn’t with you every minute. And like I said, I had protection.”
“What am I supposed to do?”
“I don’t know. I guess what anyone would do. You need a little money?”
She was so filled with shame, disappointment and rage she wanted to die, but she lifted her chin and said, “Go to hell, Jock.”
But really, when it happened, she had thought she loved him. And she struggled with that feeling, on and off, for a few years after that.
* * *
Adam left Riley in her office and got in his car. He thought he’d drive by his mother’s house and ask if there was anything she needed him to do, see what her plans were for the evening. He might tell her about Emma, but he hadn’t decided yet. Those dozen or so times he had gotten in touch with Emma before she got married, when she was in college and then living in New York in the city, well, he never mentioned that to his family. Or to Lyle. And it seemed as though Emma hadn’t talked about it, either. But maybe it hadn’t left that much of an impression on her.
What’s that about? Do you have a thing
