“There’s Only You” — novel excerpt

Wouldn’t you love to read a book like this? You’re welcome!

From Chapter 1

It is a truth universally acknowledged that every young woman must ask herself the following questions at some point in her life: must everything she own, down to her Lady Schick razors and the ballpoint pen with which she signs her first mortgage, be pink; should she give up those razors and wax instead, and if so, how extensively; does “breasts or thighs” refer to cuts of poultry or the choice of body parts a woman can reveal in a single outfit; can she laugh at Louis C.K. or only Sarah Silverman; should she change her name if she gets married; does she have to get married; who owns her uterus; must she preface her ideas with “This is probably stupid”; can she read Lean In and but listen to “Blurred Lines”; admit to pooping; find babies scary; eat heartily; vote for Hillary; look like Beyoncé; and finally, can she fall unexpectedly, stupidly in love with whomever she wants?

“Whomever” — he’s not my love interest, but I can see how he could be somebody’s—lies face-up under his desk, bungling an attempt at tech support, while I study his admirable shoes (shoes to walk in!) and the slim, hairy shanks he’s probably never once thought about waxing.

“Are you getting anywhere?” I ask, nudging a wingtip.

“Does it look like I’m getting anywhere?” He pauses in his maneuvers to glare at me from under the desk. It’s hard to look supercilious in that position, but he manages.

Lightning cracks so close by that I jump. A siren whoops on the street below, and I wonder if we’re on fire.

“Fuck!” Aubrey yells.

That’s his response to stress these days. The coffee pot’s empty, it’s the F word. His red pen runs out of ink: the F-bomb drops. He used to be more easygoing, more in control, but something has gone out of him lately. What happened is this: Vee in marketing, who doesn’t work for Aubrey, doesn’t even work on the same floor, didn’t get the position she wanted because I got it — me, Jane MacEntyre, city college graduate — so she trots to HR with a story about sexual harassment. How do I know it’s a story and not a fact? Because I asked her. She laughed and said, “Who wouldn’t want a piece of this?” and spread her arms so I could view her in all her not-inconsiderable glory. When I told Aubrey, he said, “It doesn’t matter what the truth is.”

From Chapter 6

“Jane?” he calls softly. “Please let me in. I know you’re there; I heard you singing.”

Could I die right now, please? Is that too much to ask? But no, my devious heart keeps on beating; my treacherous lungs keep filling and deflating.

I lean against the door. Three inches of wood separate our faces, our lips. The building is old, the door quarter-sawn oak, tempered with layers and layers of paint. “What?” I whisper.

“I need to know you’re okay.” His voice, an instrument of torture, comes through the wood. He is the bass drum passing by in the parade, and I am the girl on the curb whose heart vibrates with every thump.

“I’m okay.”

“Let me in. I need to see.”

He needs. Always he. “How could you do that to me?”

“I didn’t do it to you,” he answers, sounding as unhappy as I am. “I did it to myself, because I’m a fuckup, in case you haven’t noticed.”

“I have noticed.”

“But I want to stop being a fuckup.”

“That’s all well and good,” I say, trying to get up the steam to lecture.

“Please, Jane.”

God save me.

“Please let me in. Let me see you. Just for a minute. Then I’ll go. I promise.”

Mesmerized, I put my finger on the chain and slide it off. Aubrey turns the knob and I step aside. Then he’s inside. He doesn’t look around — at my tiny apartment, my silly bathrobe, my ugly cat — before I’m in his arms. It happens faster than I can think. He kisses me; I emerge from my pink cocoon. We foxtrot to the bed, one step forward, one step back. I am Ginger Rogers, doing everything that Fred Astaire can do, only backward and in high heels, as the saying goes.

We make it to the bed without much effort; studios are convenient that way. He lays me down like I’m a princess in a fairy tale, except I’m not a princess and I’m not dead. Height notwithstanding, I’m a fully formed woman, and my body knows what to do in these situations. Unfortunately, my brain can’t stop doing what it does best. Didn’t he say something about leaving? About only wanting to make sure I was okay? I’m distinctly sure I didn’t hear anything about making love as being a menu option. That’d have stood out in my mind.

“Um, Aubrey?”

“Mm.” If he were a cat, he’d be purring. I, on the other hand — while enjoying many pleasurable sensations — have begun to wonder if this is not the best decision for me, vis-à-vis long-term prospects, vis-à-vis my mental health.

“Aubrey? I think, maybe,” I begin, falling back into that tentative girl-speak I so dislike. “I’m wondering if maybe we should stop. I mean, I kind of, like, feel like stopping?” The thoughts that have popped into my head, once there, are hard to get rid of. “I’m sorry.”

“Okay,” he says slowly, pulling his hand out from under my shirt. Embarrassed — we never turned the lights off — I readjust my bra. He clears his throat and rolls unostentatiously off me. We lie side by side while, I imagine, the wind goes out of his sails. The clock by my bed ticks off a new minute.

He takes my hand and kisses it. “Sweetheart,” is all he says, enunciating the first “T” rather prettily. Then, incredibly, he falls asleep. Or maybe he’s faking? His breathing is light and even. He’s not a snorer; that’s good. His eyes don’t move under the lids, but that only comes later, in deeper R.E.M. sleep. His lashes curl upward at the ends. There are wrinkles by his eyes, a small scar above his right eyebrow. I wonder what it’s from. My finger hovers over the divot in his chin without touching it; he doesn’t move. I get up and turn off the light, debate for a minute about getting back in bed, but it is my bed and I’m tired. Or so I tell myself. So I lie down and put my head on his chest, and without waking he puts his arm around me and I listen to his heart beat, slow and steady. There’s a lot of nonsense about the heart being the seat of emotion, about how hearing it reminds us of being in the womb, that place of ultimate security. I can’t say I think about anything like that as I lie here, but I do think what a strong engine it is, to keep us moving for so many years and cumulatively through so many eons. And I think about the first girl to come home to her cave, pull the bone from her hair, and wish there was a word for “love.” ~