She nodded, serious. "I think you had your share of pain, and probably have more reason than I ever had to stay single," she said. "Forget Mr. Goldberg's request and do what you feel like doing."
"Thing is... I don't know what I want anymore, or if I feel at all. I don't think I'll be able to do what he wants."
"You still have some time. You never know. I'll keep my fingers crossed for you." She crossed them on both hands for double luck.
He smiled against his will. He already felt better. He had taken a big weight off his chest.
She checked her watch. "God, it's late!" she exclaimed. "Can you take me home?"
***
"How's the wife hunting going?" Carrie asked, dressing after an enjoyable as usual sex marathon with Chris.
"Badly," he answered, hugging the pillow. "I really appreciate you coming over again."
"You're a good fuck buddy, Chris, I thought we could use each other a little longer before you tie the knot." She smiled fondly at him.
"Thanks. I've been trying really hard with quite a lot of women now, but..." He grunted in frustration, hiding his face in the pillow.
She chuckled, caressing his shoulder. "They didn't work out, did they?"
He groaned. "They weren't even good in bed."
"I thought you were looking for a wife," she teased.
"Geez, Carrie, I don't know what I'm looking for anymore." He snorted, frustrated. "I met a woman that I like a lot, but she's not the marrying type." He rolled on his back and stared at the ceiling.
"So you have a new fuck buddy?" she asked.
"No, she's just a friend," he answered absentmindedly. "I don't know. She's brilliant, interesting and..." How could he describe Helen to Carrie? Well, he couldn't. They were two different kinds of women, no comparison was possible.
"Uh-oh! Chris, you sound in love!" Carrie warned with a wink and a mischievous smile.
"I'm not!" He playfully threw the pillow at her. "I just like her!"
"Well, good luck, then!" She threw back the pillow, hitting his face. "Do you think we can meet again?"
"Sure, whenever."
"I'll call you."
12.
"So, how's the dating business going after the break?" Mike asked during lunch break.
"I've signed up at a matchmaking agency," Chris answered. "I'm trying harder, but there's still no feeling."
"You've become very picky," Mike commented.
"Or maybe I'm just tired of boring, brainless girls."
"How about Helen?"
Chris sighed. "She's different," he had to admit. "Going out with her is definitely a surprise."
"Yeah, she doesn't invite you into her bed," Mike teased.
"I don't mind. We're not really dating. We talk most of the time about her books, but also about ourselves."
"So now you enjoy talking to women again?" Mike grinned.
Chris shrugged. "Why not. I could talk with Lucy, I can talk with Diane or Linda, but it's not love."
"Right, right. So you're not in love with Helen either."
"I doubt it."
Mike smiled but didn't look convinced. "Yeah yeah... tell me more about her. What makes her different?"
"She says men have no life without a wife, but women live happily ever after on their own." Chris chuckled at the memory of that conversation.
"A woman not interested in love?" Mike couldn't believe his ears. "That's definitely new!"
"Well, I don't believe in love either, so we're fine."
"Chris, I never heard you so excited about a woman before," Mike said. "Forget Carrie, Lucy, Sarah and the like, and go for Helen!"
"Are you out of your mind?" Chris protested. "She'll never consider me!"
"How can you tell?" Mike replied. "She chose you as Wise Reader. I know you say you're not dating her, but you actually are."
"I'm not! She doesn't even believe in Prince Charming!"
"Deep inside all women wait for him to sweep them off their feet. Yeah, even the strong warrior women."
"Oh yeah?" Chris turned sarcastic. "You don't know her, Mike! She's not the nurturing kind. I guess she's very selfish."
Mike grinned. "So are you."
Chris glared at him. "What if I ruin everything and she doesn't want to see me again?" he complained. "I enjoy her company!"
"We'll think about plan B when we get there," Mike replied triumphantly. "If we get there."
Chris surrendered with a sigh.
***
Chris took Helen back to the Goldberg Mansion almost in silence. It had been a good evening of talks about books, but now he was wondering if Mike and Carrie were right, and if he should try to change the relationship from friendship to something more. He was terrified Helen would react badly and kick him out of her life, so he was struggling with himself, trying to work out the courage to speak.
He stopped the car in front of the mansion and turned off the engine. Helen looked at him with a puzzled expression.
"You're very quiet tonight," she said.
"I like listening to you when you talk about your creatures," he replied.
"Usually you interact, though. Today you've got something on your mind."
"It's true, I'm afraid." He sighed and stared into the distance, unable to continue.
"Go ahead, we're friends, if you have a problem, we can discuss it," she said.
"It's not really a problem, I mean I've never been happier in my life..." When I'm with you. I'm happy when I'm with you. Oh, God, Helen, I've fallen in love with you! He couldn't look at her and tell her, though.
"You fell in love?" she asked, breaking the silence before it became awkward. "Good for you! So you can get married and have that promotion you worked so hard for." She sounded more thoughtful than enthusiastic, though.
"To get married you must find someone who is also willing to commit," he said.
"True. And she isn't?"
He turned to look at her. "Are you?"
Startled, she stared at him in wonder. "Am I what?"
"Willing to commit."
"To a man? No way! I'm too busy!" She frowned, looking away.
"That's what I thought," he said, depressed, going back to staring in the distance.
He heard her gasp.
"Don't say what I think you're trying to tell me!" Her voice trembled – fear? Anger? He couldn’t tell. But it was the bad reaction he had so feared.
He looked at her again – she had thinned her lips and glared at him.
"I'll tell you what I feel," he blurted out. "I fell in love. I didn't expect it, but it happened."
She averted her eyes. "As I said, good for you," she snapped. "Your wish is fulfilled."
"Not really, because I'm in love with you." There, it was out.
She banged her head on the car's window, cursing under her breath. "Your boss talked you into it, didn't he?"
"He doesn't know I met you, I haven't told him about it," he replied.
She shook her head, panting on the verge of hysteria. This was going really bad. But if he touched her to calm her, it would get worse, and he knew it.
"I knew you'd be just like the others!" she exploded. "Why can't you men just be friends?"
"I didn't want to fall in love either, least of all with you," he retorted.
She glared at him. "Thank you, Chris! Don't call me. Don't write to me. Just forget that I exist!"
She opened the car door.
"Helen, wait, can we talk about it?"
She slammed the door on his face and ran inside the house.
"Shit!" Chris hit the wheel with his fists. Served him right!
I knew it would end up like this! Why couldn't I wait a little longer? The six months over, it might have been different...
Or maybe not, who knew. He had fallen for Helen precisely because she was unpredictable. And now he had lost her.
He went back home feeling as if he had lost a war.
***
Helen sat at the co
mputer, going through Chris's notes on the manuscript with a frown. The Instant Messenger pop up told her Chris was trying to communicate. She stared at the little window then closed it – but she didn't block him. She had enough of chat conversations – Terry, Paul – about relationships with her. She didn't want to talk to Chris about the previous evening.
She didn't want to talk to Chris. She picked up her cell phone and deleted Chris's number. She'd ignore his e-mails, his instant messaging, everything. She didn't want to hear from him again. Another Wise Reader gone. Damn.
Aunt Danielle brought her a cup of tea. "How is it going?"
"Fine," she grumbled.
"You say it as if you were dying," her aunt chided.
"Maybe. Kind of." She pursed her lips. "Another man who failed me."
"How did he fail you?" Aunt Danielle asked, puzzled.
"He says he loves me," she muttered.
"And what's wrong with it? He's untrustworthy or what?"
"He is... I don't know. I liked to consider him a friend."
"Do you like him, as a man, I mean?" Aunt Danielle inquired.
"He's good-looking, a real gentleman and seems very sweet," she admitted as Chris's face and smile flashed inside her. "I guess he kind of had become a sort of Muse, lately."
"That's good news, how long since you used a real person as Muse? I mean, someone you know, not a celebrity as Muse."
"Since high school, so what?" Helen glared at her aunt. "I don't know, I guess it's just me, I can't see myself with a real man."
"Don't you have enough of virtual lovers?"
"Not really, no. At least they don't smell and don't give real kisses."
"What's wrong with kisses?"
"I don't like them."
"You met the wrong guys." Aunt Danielle stopped questioning, but Helen didn't like what she said anyway. "One day, when you'll allow someone to get close enough to you, you might find out how great kissing feels."
"Maybe, but that guy isn't born yet," she grumbled.
"Maybe you haven't met him yet," Aunt Danielle corrected. "Or you just let him go because you were afraid."
Helen opened her mouth to reply, but nothing came out as she pondered her aunt's words. There might be truth in them.
Aunt Danielle smiled, kissed her cheek and left.
Helen sighed. She could still remember the smell of the few men she had allowed closer. She must admit Chris didn't seem to have any body odor. But she didn't like being touched, and kisses gave her nightmares. She genuinely liked Chris and didn't want to lose him because he wanted more. But what if she hated his kisses as much as she had hated his predecessors'? Why couldn't men and women just be friends, without sex or all that useless stuff? Why did it always end like that – with her barricaded and him vanished because he couldn't take "no" for an answer?
***
Chris sat on a bench at the Laundromat, waiting for his load. He held one of Helen's books, depressed, not really eager to open it and continue reading. He stared at the cover, the title (Passion Stories by Helen Turner), and smiled ruefully. He flipped it over and stared at Helen's smiling picture on the back jacket.
"Hi." Lucy's voice startled him, but he barely looked up.
"Hey," he answered as she sat next to him.
"Is that her?" she asked. "I hope it's an old picture."
"No, I mean, I don't know, she does look like this," he answered, remembering all his dinners with Helen.
"You said she was forty-something!" Lucy protested.
"She is. I saw her papers." But she looked younger, that was why he had asked her her age – even if one should never ask a lady's age. Or maybe she had told him – yeah, that's how it went, she told him her age and showed her ID to prove it.
"She looks twenty-something," Lucy complained.
"She says her art keeps her young," he replied, smiling at the memory.
"Her art?" Lucy was puzzled.
"Yeah. Can you believe such a cold, selfish person can write these..." he flipped back to the cover, "Passion Stories," he spat out with contempt. She was not a writer, she was an actress!
"Something happened?" Lucy asked, alarmed.
"I fell in love with her," he muttered, mostly mad at himself. Helen had always made clear where she stood, so blaming her was childish.
"And?"
"She kicked me out of her life when I told her."
"Oh. And what do you miss the most, her or the unpublished manuscripts?"
"Her."
She sighed and took his hand in hers. "I was thinking maybe I should have called you, given you more time, but I guess it's too late now."
He smiled weakly. "I'm afraid so. I'm sorry."
"My fault, I guess." She squeezed his fingers. "I should have insisted when I had the chance."
"It might have not prevented me from falling in love, so maybe we just weren't meant to be."
"You're probably right. Although I was not aware of the competition."
"Why, would you have fought more if you had known?" He stared at her, curious.
She smiled shyly. "Probably yes!" She nodded.
"I wasn't aware of my feelings yet," he told her. "I knew only you weren't the one. Sorry."
She sighed and let go of his hand. She sat back, staring in the distance and allowing him to go back to his musings about Helen.
13.
Chris finished his Sunday jogging and sat on a bench. Useless waste of energy, he hadn't managed to free his mind of the obsessive thoughts.
Again he was startled by a woman's voice stopping by – Amanda Goldberg had recognized him after so many months and having seen him only once.
"Hi. Chris, right?"
"Yes, hello, Amanda," he answered, depressed. Seeing Helen's cousin wasn't going to put Helen out of his mind now.
She sat next to him. "How are you?" she asked. "You never showed up again."
"A few times, actually, but never got in," he answered. "Just came to pick or drop your cousin." And boy, that last time had hurt! He'd never be able to go back at the Goldberg Mansion without thinking about it!
"You know Helen?" Amanda asked, puzzled.
"Yeah, she chose me as her Wise Reader, but decided to keep it secret."
Amanda brightened. "Oh, so you're the mysterious man she trusts so much!"
"She trusts the Wise Reader," he replied sourly. "Not the man."
"Well, Helen always had problems with men," Amanda said. "She never picked the right one. I think she loves the idea she has of them more than the people."
He sighed. He had figured that much. But how he could match Helen's concept of him, he had no idea.
Amanda stared at him intently. "Chris, why don't you tell me everything from the beginning?" she asked, serious.
Why would he confide something to a twenty-year-old was anyone's guess. Well, Amanda was Helen's cousin, so she knew Helen. Maybe her age didn't count at that point. Maybe Amanda could really help him figuring out Helen. Slim chances, but worth trying. Couldn't hurt.
***
Mr. Goldberg sat with his wife and Helen in the living room. All were having a drink and reading, either newspaper, magazine or book.
Amanda came in with her bright smile. "Hi, everybody!"
She kissed her parents, then sat by her cousin, hugging her affectionately. Helen stiffened, in spite of being used to Amanda's outgoing manners.
"You look radiant today, what happened?" Mr. Goldberg asked, pleasantly surprised.
"Oh, Dad, I met this guy, he's so sweet!" Amanda enthused. "I want to marry him!"
Helen glared at her cousin who ignored her. Another one bites the dust.
Mr. Goldberg exchanged a puzzled glance with his wife.
"Well, that's excellent news!" he said. "Can you tell us more about him?"
"No, Dad, I want it to be a huge surprise." Amanda stared defiantly at Helen who shrugged, averting her eyes with a frown.
Mr. Goldberg sighed. "Okay, a mystery man. How about
you, Helen?"
"Forget it, the right man isn't born yet," Helen snapped.
"Honey, when are we going to meet this marvel?" Aunt Danielle asked Amanda, obviously curious about Mystery Man.
"How about tomorrow, lunch?"
***
The phone rang as she was typing a revised scene, so Helen picked up without checking the number.
"Hi, it's Chris." The voice made her heart jump. "How come you picked up?"
"I didn't see the number," she answered bluntly. "I'm busy."
"A new creation?" he asked. He sounded cheerful, damn him. So much for his undying love or whatever he had meant that night.
"Yeah. What do you want?"
"Can we talk? When you get out of creative frenzy, I mean?"
"I don't think so," she replied sternly. "I'm busy, Chris, I told you not to call me again."
"Can I see you tomorrow? How about lunch?"
Man, he was relentless! She loved his voice, though. That was probably why she couldn't hang up on him yet. She had missed his husky voice – another Terry, damn him.
"No, Amanda is introducing us to her new boyfriend," she grumbled.
"How about I show up in the afternoon?"
"No, Chris, I don't want to see you!"
"But I want to! See you tomorrow, then! Bye."
He hung up with a chuckle. He. Hung. Up. With a chuckle. Bastard!
"Chris, no!" She slammed down the phone. He. Had. Hung. Up. When she was supposed to hang up on him. "Damn!" she muttered. Why did he call in the first place? To tell her what?
Stubborn man. What else did he want? He sounded so cheerful, he could only have found someone else. Good for him. Another one bites the dust. She gritted her teeth.
Why the sudden lump in her throat, then?
And why did her heart stop when he entered the living room holding Amanda's hand? And why did it keep beating, accelerated, as she took in his casual looks and his mischievous smile? Why was he staring at her like that, and why did Amanda look so pleased?
I don't give a shit if they found each other, she thought during lunch. She noticed Amanda's parents didn't look too happy with her choice – of course, Chris was her age, Mr. Goldberg wanted him to marry her, not his much younger, precious daughter! Served him right, trying to play matchmaker at his age!
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