Free Heart of Glass by Wendy Lawless Page B

one—besides my mother, of course—had ever hit me before.
    He immediately tried to take it back, but I was struck blind with rage.
    â€œYou asshole!” I screamed, throwing the book at his head.
    â€œWendy, stop! I—”
    In a furious rush of adrenaline, I grabbed him and pushed him as hard as I could across the room. “I fucking hate you!”
    He hit the wall with a thump. I dragged him along the wall toward the window and tried to throw him out, mushing his face against the glass. Holding his T-shirt in my clenched fists, I realized that what I actually wanted to do was push him out of my life.
    Letting him go, I grabbed my coat and walked out the door into the December evening. I started walking up Broadway to Jenny’s, stopping at every phone booth to try to let her know I was coming. The line was always busy because her Korean roomie was always on the phone to his girlfriend in Queens. When I made it to the building, I rang the buzzer, and she let me in. I was shaking and crying and fell into her arms when she met me at the elevator. When I raised my eyes to her face, I saw that it was covered in tears.
    â€œWhat is it? What’s wrong?”
    She started to sob and took my hand as we entered the apartment. Her boyfriend, Pete, sat in the dining room with a bottle of Jack Daniel’s and a shot glass on the table in front of him. He looked the saddest I’d ever seen him.
    â€œSome psycho just murdered John Lennon in front of the Dakota.”
    â€¢Â Â Â â€¢Â Â Â â€¢
    I crashed on the couch in the living room for a few days, refusing to talk to Michael each time he called. Jenny had never said that she didn’t like Michael, but ever since he’d called her feet “flippers” once when we were all out to dinner, she had cooled a bit on him. In his defense, she wore a size 11 shoe.
    I had met Jenny in my huge anthropology lecture class at BU two years before when the teacher, who was discussing taboos in society, mentioned the taboo of the student-teacher love affair. A handsome, reedy type, he wore a safari jacket and an ascot, like a faux David Attenborough. He clearly fancied himself quite a bit and suggested that it was almost always the student who was the aggressor in these forbidden relationships.
    A cream-skinned hand shot up about ten rows ahead of me, the nails impeccably painted Jungle Red.
    â€œYes?” the professor called on the girl who belonged to the hand, and she stood up, tossing her butt-length, light blond hair behind her shoulders and sticking the beautiful manicured hand on her hip. She had the pretty, clean good looks of a model you’d see in a fashion magazine or a Sea Breeze commercial and dressed in the quintessential preppy style—clogs, jeans, and a Fair Isle sweater, with a white turtle­neck peeking out at the neck. I noticed her makeup was perfect. She was a typical shiksa goddess type, but with an edge, a snark factor that made her stand out.
    â€œIt takes two to tango,” she declared emphatically, raising her chin defiantly.
    â€œI beg your pardon?”
    She put both her hands on her hips now. “I said, it takes two to tango.” She delivered this line with a flourish, like a prized athlete delivering the final thrust or executing the perfect smash over the net.
    The class erupted in applause. Jenny flashed a winning smile and sat down. Wow, I thought, I want to be friends with her . I followed her out of class and back to her dorm, which was right next to mine in a little row of town houses off Commonwealth Avenue. We sat on the floor in her room, trading life stories, smoking Marlboro Reds, and eating Nestlé Crunch bars. She left for Barnard soon after, but we’d been friends ever since. Whenever we went to a party or even just walked down the street, all the guys looked at her, not me, but that was just the way it was. It never bothered me that she was the beauty and I was