The girl behind the counter gave me a plastic number tent and a cup for my Sprite. While I signed the screen to pay for my lunch, I couldn’t help but think about how Jeremy had bought me pizza last night. When was the last time a man had paid for my meal? Maybe on my last birthday? Harrison paid for me on my birthday, of course. But we both agreed that it didn’t make sense for a modern couple to pay for each other. We each had a good job. It was sexist and outdated for a man to always pay for a woman. Still, it would have been nice for him to offer from time to time.
No, that thinking was wrong and sexist. What the hell? Was my mother creeping into my head again? I took my little plastic tent and my cup and made my way over to the drink machine. I filled my cup with soda and grabbed a handful of napkins and a plastic spoon and fork before turning toward Harrison.
I pressed my lips together to remind myself to be stern. The man hadn’t even called me in the last two nights. All I’d gotten from him was a lousy lunch text. He had a lot to explain.
I marched up to our table in the corner near the window and slid my soda cup onto the top. Then I set my napkins down and the cutlery on top of the napkins before plunking my hands on my hips and glaring down at Harrison.
“Take a seat, Meg,” he said in his most professorial voice.
“Not having lunch with Lacey Lewis today?” I asked in a kinda-purposefully-snotty tone.
“That’s beneath you.”
Damn it. He knew how to get to me. He was right. It was beneath me to be jealous, but at the moment I was only feeling like a girl, not an evolved professional with a Ph.D. Instead of answering, I lowered myself into the chair across from him and did my best to keep the smug look pinned to my face.
Harrison opened his mouth to speak, but one of the employees came up carrying a tray. “Turkey and avocado sandwich and fat-free chicken noodle soup?” the young man asked.
Harrison nodded and the kid slid the tray in front of him while Harrison lifted his water bottle to make way. The kid turned and left and Harrison, ever the gentleman, let his food sit while we waited for mine.
“Go ahead, eat,” I prompted.
He ignored that. “Look, Meg. I’m really sorry about what happened. I—”
I stopped him by putting up a hand. I’d been preparing for this conversation for days. “I only have one question.” I stared him in the eye and paused dramatically. I’d already decided that this moment was perfectly acceptable for drama, whether he liked it or not.
“Yes?” he prompted, the steam from his low-fat chicken noodle soup rising between our faces.
“Whose idea was it to toss me over for Lacey?”
He gave me the impatient look he often gave me when he thought I was being too dramatic. “I’d hardly say I tossed you over. It wasn’t like that, Meg.”
“Whose idea was it?” I asked again, determined to get the answer to this particular question. It had haunted me since Friday night. I’d almost texted to ask him more than once, but decided I’d get the real truth if I could spring it on him and he didn’t have time to carefully prepare an answer. Everything Harrison said seemed carefully prepared, as if even his daily conversation he’d planned like a lecture. But I’d always liked that about him. He was organized. The type of man who had a syllabus for life. Just like I did. Why was it getting on my last nerve today?
“What does it matter whose idea it was?” he answered, the hint of impatience in his voice.
“It was clearly either you, Lacey, or Dr. Holmes, and I don’t think it’s too much to ask. I’d like to know.”
The same kid who’d brought Harrison his food returned with mine. “Loaded baked potato soup with a baguette?” the kid announced, and I winced. It sounded so much worse when it was said aloud like that...in front of my boyfriend, who’d recently dumped me for an actress.
“And salad,” I added loudly, picking up my soda to make room for my meal.
The kid left and Harrison said, “Still on your half-ass diet?”
Ouch. That hurt. “The soup is comfort food.” I shrugged and placed one of the paper napkins in my lap. “I’ve needed some comfort this week. My boyfriend dumped me.”
“I did not dump you, Meg.” This time, he sounded exasperated. “And if you must know, I believe Lacey brought up the idea of participating in the competition, but—”
“I knew it!” I declared, pointing my plastic spoon in the air.
“But,” Harrison said more loudly this time, “Dr. Holmes and I quickly agreed it was a good idea.”
“So, Dr. Holmes was there when you decided to toss me over?”
Harrison lifted his sandwich in both hands. “Frankly, Meg, this isn’t about you. It’s about what’s best for the department.”
That hurt too. But I wasn’t about to let him know it. The psychologist I’d seen in my twenties had also informed me that growing up with two parents who thought only about themselves had caused me to think only about myself because...survival, and it was a sore spot with me.
“Don’t make this into me being selfish, Harrison.” The shrink had also told me that it would be a lifelong struggle for me to recognize when people were treating me poorly vs. me just thinking it was normal treatment. This sure felt like being treated badly to me. See? I hadn’t wasted the money I’d spent on therapy after all, no matter what Tom Cruise said.
“I’m sorry,” Harrison replied, taking a bite of his sandwich. He chewed and swallowed before adding, “I know it must sting. I know you’re disappointed. But Dr. Holmes agreed it would be better for the department if Lacey participates with me instead of you, and I’d be lying if I didn’t say I agree with him.”
Harrison was always logical. It was another one of the things that had attracted me to him. He wasn’t flaky like my dad. My dad couldn’t be counted on to pay his rent. Harrison, on the other hand, could be counted on to eat the same lunch every day, never have a wrinkle in clothing or a hair out of place, and always tell you the truth instead of what you wanted to hear. I’d admired that in him...until today.
But the rational side of my own brain took over then. I’d already worked out the fact that I wasn’t hurt because I disagreed that Lacey and Harrison teaming up for the competition wouldn’t be best for the department. I was hurt because I’d worked so damned hard, but mostly I was hurt because I’d been expecting a frickin’ proposal that night. And Harrison hadn’t even seemed to notice. That’s what hurt. I’d also been through enough therapy to know that I needed to woman-up and say as much. Only, it was going to be awkward. I wasn’t looking forward to it.
“I agree,” I began. “You and Lacey attending the festival together makes sense for the department.”
“See. I knew you’d be reasonable after you had time to think about it.” He smiled benignly and took another bite of his sandwich. “Believe me, if she wanted to partner with you and go as Marianne and Elinor from Sense and Sensibility, I would understand.”
Of course he would. He didn’t have a dramatic bone in his body. Meanwhile, my drama (and imagination) knew few bounds.
“What if I told you that I think Lacey wants you two to be more than friends?” I couldn’t help myself. The words seemed to fly out of my mouth of their own accord.
Harrison gave me a look that clearly indicated that he thought I was being ludicrous again. “Lacey and I are in a business relationship, Meg. We’re both professionals.”
I narrowed my eyes. “So, she hasn’t done anything to make you think she wants you?”
His brows knitted into an immediate frown. “What? No! I thought we already covered this the other night.”
Very well. I’d heard what I needed to hear. It was time to come clean. “I had to make sure because...” Okay, now that the words needed to come out of my mouth, they were even more difficult to say than I’d guessed they would be.
“Because?” Harrison prompted, leaning toward me and studying my face. He’d finished his sandwich and was moving on to his soup. He always ate this mea
l in that order. I didn’t know why. I felt strongly that soup should be eaten first because it loses heat, but I’d never shared my thoughts on the subject with him.
I took a deep, fortifying breath and left my spoon sticking upright in my soup. “Because I thought you were going to propose on Friday night,” I blurted.
Harrison’s face was completely blank. Too blank. And white. Like the kind of white your face might turn when you’ve seen a ghost. Not that I’d ever seen a ghost, but it was a cliché for a reason. “Propose,” he repeated. The word was uttered neither as a question nor a statement. It was more like a vocabulary word, or like he was about to spell it in a spelling bee.
“Yes. Propose,” I echoed, a little perturbed. Fine, I’d misread the situation and he obviously hadn’t been about to propose, but he didn’t need to pronounce it like that.
“Oh, Meg, I...I don’t know what to say.”
“I’ll take that to mean you weren’t about to propose,” I said, before shoving a quarter of a baguette into my craw to comfort myself.
“It’s not as if I haven’t thought about it. Of course I have. We’ve been together over two years now, and...” He trailed off.
I swallowed the lump of bread. “And?” It was obviously my turn to prompt.
“And I have thought about it. More than once.”
Was that supposed to be promising? “And?”
“It’s just that with the Lacey thing happening, and all the hub-bub in the department right now…and trying to get tenure, I...”
I could hear Luke’s voice in my head telling me that I shouldn’t even consider marrying a man who used the word ‘hub-bub’ in a conversation so casually, but there was something else Harrison had said that distracted me more. First of all, we were both trying to get tenure and always had been. That was nothing new. And secondly... “Are you telling me that Lacey Lewis is what’s kept you from proposing?”
“No, of course not.” He pursed his lips and frowned at me again. “Why do you always have to be so dramatic? I’m merely saying that there’s been a lot going on. When I propose to you, I want the time to be right.”
When I propose to you, he’d said, not if. That was something.
“So, you are going to propose?” I asked, eyeing him carefully.
“I’d planned on it.” He blinked at me, smiled, then reached across the table and squeezed my hand. “Because I think we’re pretty perfect for each other, don’t you?”
Thank God. I expelled my breath. The last nearly three years of planning weren’t all for nothing after all. I could still make my self-imposed life deadlines. “Yes,” I said, returning his smile with one of my own. “I do.”
“There, it’s settled. Let me get through this competition with Lacey and somewhere closer to the holidays, perhaps, we’ll discuss our future together. I promise.”
“Fantastic,” I said, taking a big bite of salad and smiling inwardly. Things weren’t so bad. I might not be Harrison’s partner for the competition, but we would be getting married. Besides, Lacey Lewis would soon be off to film her role as Lydia, and we’d be back to normal. Everything would work out okay.
Harrison arched a brow at me and smiled. “You know, it’s not too late for you to reconsider and be our coach.”
We might be back to normal, but I’d already put a big down payment on Jeremy’s Mr. Darcy wardrobe, and I’d already committed to finding out whether I had it in me to pull off the feat of the year: training a construction worker to become Mr. Darcy in two weeks. It was a challenge my competitive little self could not pass up.
“Oh, no, that’s all right,” I said, wiping away a glob of salad dressing near my lip with another brown paper napkin. “I actually found another partner. I’m going to be your competition.”
Chapter 12
Thursday
“All right,” I said the next night, shuffling cards at my small kitchen table, a purposefully catlike grin perched on my face. “The game is called ‘whist.’”
Jeremy sat across from me, my best friend, Ellie, sat to my right, and Luke sat to my left. I had begged/bribed both Ellie and Luke to play. Jeremy was there for his first lesson. Luke and Ellie had never gotten along. Like me, Ellie was a feminist and a semi-nerd. She’d been my best friend since high school. She was less nerdy than me, but that wasn’t saying much.
She was a nurse practitioner at Froedtert Hospital, and scrubs and comfortable clean white tennis shoes were her jam. She was as responsible and dependable as I was and she disliked Luke after years of having to listen to my stories about his flaky exploits with the model-like women he dated. For his part, Luke thought Ellie was uptight, which was pretty much his go-to accusation for anyone who had a mortgage, and say, a regular job.
Ellie had just returned from her work conference in Chicago. She had on skinny jeans and a black, cable-knit, short-sleeved sweater. Her long blonde hair was pulled up in a ponytail and her tilted gray eyes were watching Luke with ill-concealed distaste.
Luke was wearing wrinkled canvas shorts and a Bob Dylan T-shirt. He was shoeless as usual and steadfastly ignoring Ellie’s glare. Meanwhile, Jeremy was wearing dark jeans and a gray pullover, and I had on jeans and my Wellesley sweatshirt. We sat around my cozy four-seater kitchen table where I had placed two decks of cards in the center.
After dropping the I’m-going-to-be-your-competition bomb on Harrison at lunch yesterday, I’d asked him to keep silent about it until I had a chance to tell Dr. Holmes myself. I’d explained to Harrison quite logically and unemotionally (pat on the back for myself) that I was not about to abandon my months and months of preparation and not compete in the contest. Harrison had seemed surprised at first, then resigned, and finally annoyed. “You just can’t stand to see anyone else win at something, can you?” he asked.
I wasn’t certain if that meant he thought I was going to win or lose, but I agreed with him. “May the best person win,” I told him with a smile. He knew I was competitive. I figured he shouldn’t be surprised.
“Dr. Holmes isn’t going to like this,” he replied tersely.
“I know. Let me handle telling him,” I’d said.
I hadn’t heard from Harrison since. He indicated that he would be busy night and day teaching Lacey Lewis how to be Lizzy Bennet, and sort of implied that we shouldn’t see much of each other before the competition if we were going to be competitors. “Fine,” I agreed. “I guess I’ll see you in England, then.”
“Good luck, Meg.”
“Good luck, Harrison.”
That’s the way we’d left things, and while it felt weird being on opposite teams from my own future fiancé, each time I started feeling uneasy about it, I reminded myself that he was the one who’d decided to partner-up with Lacey Lewis, not me. The strange thing was...Harrison hadn’t asked me who my new partner was. He couldn’t possibly already know, could he? It would have been my first question if he’d told me he had a new partner. Why wouldn’t he ask?
I was still trying to decide how I would tell Dr. Holmes that I was going to become a virtual traitor to the department, but Dr. Holmes didn’t own the Jane Austen Festival in Bath. I had as much of a right as anyone to show up and take a shot at it. Now that I knew Jeremy was fully committed, I’d tell Dr. Holmes next week. But first, I needed to teach Jeremy how to play whist.
“Okay,” I began, shuffling the full deck of cards. “So, whist. Jeremy and I are partners and you and Luke are partners,” I said to Ellie.
“Great. I’ve always wanted to be partners with Nurse Ratched,” Luke said dryly.
Ellie gave him a tight smile. “That’s not particularly original. Plus, it’s really out of date. I thought a Stanford grad could do better. At least toss in some reference to Gray’s Anatomy or something.”
“Thanks. I’ll keep your bossy advice in mind next time I’m insulting you,” Luke replied, leaning forward and bracing both of his forearms on the table while watching me handle the cards.
“Oh, so now I’m b
ossy? That’s original too. Plus, it’s super sexist.” Ellie rolled her eyes, lifted her glass, and took a swig of red wine.
“Don’t get me wrong, Clara Barton,” Luke retorted. “Sometimes I like it when a woman takes charge.”
Ellie narrowed her eyes at him, but I could tell she was impressed that he’d made a reference to Clara Barton instead of Florence Nightingale.
“Let’s keep this civil,” I said, clearing my throat. “The first thing you need to know is we use a standard fifty-two card pack. I’ll be the dealer first. The cards are shuffled by the player to the dealer’s left.” I handed the cards to Luke to shuffle. “And cut by the player to the dealer’s right.” I waggled my eyebrows at Ellie.
All the while, Jeremy watched intensely, taking small sips from his beer bottle.
“Ace is high, two is low,” I continued.
Luke set the shuffled cards in the center of the table and eyed Ellie. “Your Highness, if you will.”
Ignoring my brother’s gibe, Ellie swirled her wine glass with one hand and cut the deck with the other. Luke shuffled the cards back together and handed me the pack. I spent the next few minutes dealing them so that each of us got thirteen. I turned up my final card and placed it in the center of the table. It was the five of spades. “Spades are trump,” I explained.
“Great. How do we play?” Jeremy asked.
“The player to the dealer’s left leads.” I nodded at Luke. “We play clockwise. You have to follow suit. That means whatever suit Luke plays, you have to play the same. The player who plays the highest card wins the trick.”
“What if we don’t have a card that matches the suit?” Ellie asked, frowning at her hand.
“Then you can play any card. That’s where your trumps come in handy. A trump beats any other card unless someone plays a higher trump. But you can only play one if you don’t have the suit that’s been led.”
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