Page 51 of Genuine Fraud
Jule started the engine and pointed toward Culebra, which was visible in the distance.
Immie sat at the front end of the boat, her profile dramatic against the sea. Jule looked at her and felt a surge of affection. Immie was beautiful, and in her beauty you could see that she was kind. Good to animals. The type of friend who brings you coffee made just the way you like it, buys you flowers, gives you books, and bakes you muffins. No one knew how to have fun like Immie. She drew people to her; everyone loved her. She had a kind of power—money, enthusiasm, independence—that glowed around her. And here Jule was, out on the sea, this crazy turquoise sea, with this rare, unique human being.
Nothing of their quarrel mattered. It was fatigue, that was all. People argued in the best friendships. It was part of being real with one another.
Jule cut the engine. The sea was very quiet. There was not another boat anywhere on the horizon.
“Everything okay?” Imogen asked.
“I’m sorry I made us rent this stupid boat.”
“It’s okay. But listen, please. I’m going back to the Vineyard to be with Forrest tomorrow morning.”
Jule felt dizzy. “How come?”
“I told you, I miss him. I feel bad about the way I left. I was upset about…” Immie paused, hesitant to put it into words. “About what happened with the cleaner. And about how Forrest handled it. But I shouldn’t have run away. I run away too much.”
“You shouldn’t go back to the Vineyard because you feel obligated to Forrest, of all people,” said Jule.
“I love Forrest.”
“Then why are you lying to him all the time?” snapped Jule. “Why are you here with me? Why are you still thinking about Isaac Tupperman? That’s not how you act when you’re in love. You don’t leave a person in the middle of the night and expect they’ll be glad when you turn up again. You don’t get to leave them like that.”
“You’re jealous of Forrest. I get that. But I’m not some doll you can play with and not share.” Immie spoke harshly. “I used to think you liked me for myself—without my money, without anything. I thought we were alike and that you understood me. It was easy to tell you things. But more and more, I feel like you have this idea of me,Imogen Sokoloff”—she said her name as if it were in italics—“and it’s not who I am. You have this idea of a person you like. But it’s not me. You just want to wear my clothes and read my books and play pretend with my money. It’s not a real friendship, Jule. It’s not a real friendship when I pay for everything and you borrow everything and it’s still not enough. You want all my secrets, and then you hold them over me. I feel sorry for you, I do. I like you—but you’ve become, like, an imitation of me half the time. I’m sorry beyond sorry to have to say this, but you—”
“What?”
“You don’t add up. You keep changing the details of the stories you tell, and it’s like you don’t even know it. I should never have asked you to come stay with us in the Vineyard house. It was good for a while, but now I feel used, and even lied to, somehow. I need to get away from you. That’s the truth.”
The sense of dizziness increased.
Immie couldn’t be saying what she was saying.
Jule had been doing whatever Imogen wanted for weeks and weeks. She had left Immie alone when she wanted to be alone, had gone shopping when Immie wanted to go shopping. She had tolerated Brooke, tolerated Forrest. Jule had been a listener when required, a storyteller when required. She had adapted to the environment and learned all the codes of behavior for Immie’s world. She had kept her mouth shut. She had read hundreds of pages of Dickens.
“I’m not my clothes,” Imogen said. “I’m not my money. You want me to be this person—”
“I don’t want you to be anything that’s not yourself,” interrupted Jule. “I don’t.”
“But you do,” said Imogen. “You want me to pay attention to you when I don’t feel like it. You want me to be beautiful and effortless, when some days I feel ugly and things come hard. You set me up on a throne and you want me to always make nice food and read great literature and be golden with everyone, but that isn’t me, and it’s exhausting. I don’t want to dress up and perform this idea you have ofme.”
“That isn’t true.”
“The weight of it is enormous, Jule. It smothers me. You’re pushing me tobe somethingto you, and I don’t want to be it.”
“You’re my closest friend.” It was the truth, and it came out of Jule’s chest, loud and plaintive. Jule had always skimmed past people. They weren’t hers; they never made a mark on her, and she would miss no one. Jule had told a hundred lies to make Immie love her. She deserved that love in exchange for them.
Immie shook her head. “After a couple weeks at my place this summer? Your closest friend? Not even possible. I should have asked you to leave after the first weekend.”
Jule stood. Immie was sitting on the edge of the front of the boat.
“What did I do to make you hate me?” Jule asked her. “I don’t understand what I did.”
“You didn’t do anything! I don’t hate you.”
“I want to know what I did wrong.”
“Look. I only asked you to come with me because I wanted you to keep quiet,” said Imogen. “I asked you here to shut you up. There, that’s it.”
