“What?” I asked, startled and offended. How dare he? What was he even talking about? He didn’t know me. He didn’t know my life. And now he was telling me that I was the problem?
“Let me ask you something,” he continued, clearly choosing to ignore the fact that my entire body had gone rigid with anger. “When’s the last time you went on a date with someone who wasn’t a lawyer? Or a doctor? Or another job that people consider important or successful?”
I opened and closed my mouth then opened it again and just gaped at him. Who did he think he was? I didn’t have to listen to this.
“What’s your point?” I asked coldly.
“You haven’t, have you?” he asked. My silence was all the answer he needed. “You only date guys you perceive as being just as successful as you are.”
“That’s not true,” I protested, realizing as I said it that perhaps there was just the tiniest bit of truth to his words. “Besides, even if I did do that, it’s not like I’m being elitist or something. It’s because I have to. I can’t date someone who doesn’t have a good job. He’ll only wind up hating me for being successful, just like my ex-boyfriend did.”
“Ah,” Sean said, nodding wisely, which just infuriated me more. “So that’s what this is all about.”
I stiffened. I felt like I was being psychoanalyzed, and I didn’t like it one bit. “Don’t act like you know me,” I snapped.
“I don’t know you,” Sean said. “But I do know one thing. You’re assuming that every guy is going to be like this ex-boyfriend of yours.”
“They all are,” I said sourly. “I think three years of testing out that theory has been enough to prove that to me, at least. Every guy I go out with eventually leaves because he feels threatened.”
“Did you ever consider,” Sean asked slowly, “that some guys out there might not care how much money you make? Or how successful you are? That maybe they value other things? That maybe all men aren’t so intent on climbing some kind of corporate ladder? That maybe they haven’t all lost sight of what’s really important?”
“Yeah, right,” I scoffed. “And where are these guys hiding? I sure haven’t met any of them.”
“Maybe you’re not looking in the right places,” Sean said slowly. He reached for his Newcastle and took another long sip, draining the bottle. Then he stood up and waggled the empty bottle in my general direction. “I’m pretty sure I’ve overstayed my welcome,” he said a bit sheepishly. “If you can just tell me where to throw this out, I’ll be on my way.”
I silently stood up, yanked the bottle away from him, and walked into the kitchen, where I tossed it into the recycling bin under the sink. Then I returned to the living room and glowered at him.
“I’m sorry you had to come all the way back here for the towels,” I said stiffly. I paused, and although it pained me to do so after he’d been so rude, I added, “And I’m sorry if I offended you by reacting with surprise when you said you had dated a doctor. That was very impolite of me.”
Sean shrugged, then bent to pick up the towels that he’d come for.
“?’Tis all right,” he said. “I’m sorry, too. I shouldn’t have said so much to you. You’re right. I don’t know you.”
“No, you don’t,” I said as we walked toward the door. “It’s not as simple as you’re making it out to be.”
“But it is,” Sean said after a pause, turning to face me as I opened the door for him. “It is that simple. You’re not dating the right guys.”
“Yeah, well, you’re wrong,” I snapped. “You don’t know me. And you don’t know what it’s like to be a lawyer and try to date.”
“Okay then,” Sean said with finality, clearly choosing to ignore my last comment. He forced a smile and nodded at me. “Anyhow, thanks for the towels. And for the beer. I’ll be seeing you around, I guess.”
“Yeah,” I muttered. “See you around.”
Then, without any additional commentary or pretense of politeness, I slammed the door behind him.
How dare he? My blood was boiling as I stalked back to the living room and threw myself down on the couch, glaring at the mound of towels that Sean had left behind. Even though they were mine, I had the illogical desire to open my window and toss them all out, just to rid myself of all things related to the irritating, know-it-all handyman. Who did he think he was? Sure, in an ideal world, his words made sense. But this was no ideal world. This was reality. And in my reality, guys were universally intimidated by me. What, I should be trying to date handymen or something because there might be one diamond in the rough who wasn’t intimidated that my salary was ten times what he brought home every year? Yeah, that was really likely. Gee, great thinking, Sean. Clearly, that’s the answer to my prayers.
Besides, he was just supposed to come fix my toilet. Not offer unsought commentary on my life and my dating situation. That was the last time I’d call a handyman service.
Anyhow, it was all moot. I had Matt now. What did it matter how intimidating I had been to men in the past? I had finally found one who respected and liked the fact that I was an attorney. For once, my success was a turn-on, not a turnoff. And I wasn’t going to let the words of a rude handyman—or anything else—get in the way of my newfound happiness.
I took a shower and settled into the tedious process of drafting two new patent applications, knowing that Matt would call at any moment and make me feel better about everything.
Chapter Nineteen
By Tuesday morning, I was fuming. Fuming. Matt hadn’t called again. And all that had shown up on my caller ID from his Sunday-night call was unavailable. I didn’t know his number. I didn’t know where he lived. I was reduced to a pathetic girl waiting by the phone all weekend, waiting for some guy to call. I had never been that girl, and yet there I was, biting my nails, eating ice cream, and feeling my eyes glaze over as I went through enough legal paperwork to make my head explode, all in an effort to distract myself from what I was really doing, which was waiting by the phone for a call from a guy who apparently hadn’t thought twice about me.
What bothered me most was that it made no sense. He had really liked me. I knew he did. He was the first person who had seen me for me and hadn’t run screaming in the other direction. How could I have lost him already? Through no fault of my own?
“How sad,” Emmie said drily when I called her cell phone on Tuesday morning to complain. “He must have died over the weekend.”
I couldn’t help but laugh. That had been Emmie’s answer every time a guy had dropped off the face of the earth following a date with one of us (although it seemed to happen to me a lot more than it did to her). “How sad. He must have died,” she would always say, entirely straight-faced. “He was so young to go. Too bad.”
But today, even though her words made me laugh, they didn’t lighten the mood as they usually did. I felt terrible; I couldn’t shake the feeling that perhaps I had done something to offend him on his way out the door, although I couldn’t imagine what.
“Honestly, Harper, he’s probably just busy,” Emmie said after realizing that even her proclamations of certain death weren’t helping me this morning. “Guys don’t think about things the same way we do. You know that. It probably hasn’t even occurred to him that he owes you a call.”
“I don’t want him to feel like he owes me,” I mumbled. “I thought he would want to call me.”
Emmie offered again to say something to Matt at work that day, but again, I turned her down. This wasn’t junior high, where she could hand him a note that asked him to “check yes” if he liked me. Although I had to admit, I was behaving suspiciously like an insecure preteen. Maybe I would have to resort to a note, folded into those fancy triangles I remembered from my own middle- school days.
At nine thirty, an hour and a half before my first appointment of the day, Molly buzzed me to say that I had a visitor. I sighed. Somehow in the last week, everyone in my life had apparently unanimously decided to veto the calling-ahead rule i
n favor of the random drop-in. What, like I didn’t have an important schedule at work?
My first thought, though, was that it might be Matt. Annoyed as I was at him for basically ignoring me for the last five days, I figured that a random drop-in would make it up to me, at least a little bit. I mean, in the time we had been together, Peter had never cared enough to go out of his way to drop in on me at all, even though his firm was a mere three blocks away. I’d always resented that he couldn’t make a romantic gesture that minuscule. If Matt was able to swing by within a week of getting together with me, it would go a long way toward absolving him of his conspicuous absence over the last five days.
“Who is it?” I finally asked Molly after debating the possibilities in my mind.
“It’s your friend Jill,” she whispered into the phone. “And she looks upset.”
“Oh my God,” I said, my heart catching in my throat. “Thanks, Molly. Please show her in right away.”
I was already crossing my office when the door opened seconds later to reveal a worried Molly, her eyes wide behind her thick glasses, and a red-eyed Jill, whose clothing and hair were disheveled like I’d never seen before.
“Thanks, Molly,” I murmured, shooting her an appreciative glance as I wrapped Jill in a tight hug. Molly nodded, mouthed Good luck, and backed out, shutting the door behind her.
“Are you okay?” I asked, rubbing Jill’s back as I continued to embrace her. I could feel her shoulders shake as she started to sob into my shoulder. “Did Alec do something else to you? Jill, I swear, I’ll kill him.”
In that moment, I think I really meant it. I was sick of men hurting me and the people I loved. I might as well take all my annoyance at the male gender out on Alec in particular. After all, he seemed to be the slimiest example of a man that I’d ever seen—worse, even, than Peter. At least Peter hadn’t married me before revealing himself as a weak, sniveling jerk.
“No,” Jill said, finally pulling away and looking at me with eyes so bloodshot I knew immediately she’d been sleeping little and crying a lot for the past few days. “He didn’t do anything else. I’ve just been doing a lot of thinking. Can we sit down?”
I nodded quickly and led Jill over to one of the leather chairs facing my desk. She sank into it slowly, and gratefully took the tissue I handed her from the box on my desk. I sat down in the chair beside her and stroked her arm. She was silent for a moment as she wiped away her tears and then softly blew her nose in a far more feminine manner than I could have managed. I always sounded like a foghorn. It figured that even her nose blowing would be dainty.
Finally, between sniffles, she mumbled something unintelligible, her voice muffled by the tissue she was holding up to her face.
“What?” I asked gently.
“I have to leave him,” she repeated. She sniffed and blinked a few times. “Don’t I?” She spoke the last two words with finality, more a statement of resignation than a question. I didn’t know what to say. She looked up at me, her face a storm of emotions, as if she were struggling to understand something. “Don’t I?” she repeated, her voice a bit stronger this time.
I hesitated, then nodded. “Yes,” I said simply. “You do.”
I didn’t know what else to say. I don’t think that Jill wanted me to say anything else. She just nodded in acceptance and dabbed at her eyes with a tissue again. Her tears had slowed now, and she was looking down at her lap intently. It seemed to be difficult for her to look at me. I continued rubbing her arm comfortingly, waiting for her to say more.
“I need your help,” she said finally, still not meeting my gaze. “I know you’re not a divorce attorney. But you can still help me file papers, right?”
“Yes, of course, of course,” I said quickly. “I’ll do anything I can to help. One of my friends from law school, David Ahern, is one of the best divorce lawyers in the city. I’ll get him involved, too. Okay?”
“Okay,” Jill agreed softly with a tiny nod.
“You’re doing the right thing,” I said after a long silence. Jill, still looking at her lap and not at me, nodded.
“I know,” she whispered. “It’s just so hard.”
Her tears began again, and I scooted my chair closer to hers so that I could wrap my arms around her and hold her while she cried. Her sobs racked her body in a way that shook me to the core.
“You were right, you know,” Jill said, finally pulling back from me after several minutes of sobbing. She sat back in her chair and looked me in the eye, almost reluctantly.
“About Alec?” I asked.
Jill hesitated. “No,” she said softly. “About me. About how I can’t make something perfect just because I want it to be.”
I stared at her. I couldn’t remember ever having said that to her, although I’d thought it a thousand times, especially when she was about to marry Alec.
“But I didn’t—” I started to protest.
Jill cut me off with a small, tear-stained smile. “I know,” she said. “You didn’t have to. I knew what you were thinking.”
“Oh,” I said, feeling tremendously guilty that my friend had felt so judged by me. I hadn’t meant to make her feel that way. “I’m sorry,” I said.
“Don’t be,” she said with a soft smile. “You were right.”
I nodded slowly, and we sat there for several moments in silence.
“What made you change your mind?” I asked finally. After all, just days earlier, Jill had been insisting that things were okay, that Alec hadn’t really cheated on her, that they were working on their marriage and that things would be perfect again.
She gave me a crooked half smile. “You did.”
“Me?” I couldn’t imagine what she meant. I’d been no different to her last week than Meg and Emmie had been. In fact, if anything, I’d been worse, by turning off my ringer while I went to bed with Matt and missing her call. Matt. My heart temporarily ached at the thought of him. Where is he? But that didn’t matter now. What mattered was Jill coming to the realization that she needed to leave the man she had once thought was the embodiment of her dream of perfection.
“You and that dumb Blonde Theory,” she said with another sad-looking half smile.
“I don’t understand,” I said.
“You had the courage to try it out, even though it went against everything you believed,” she said. “And you learned that at the end of the day, even if things seem easier if you’re pretending, you can’t make things perfect by being anyone other than you.”
“I did?” I asked without even thinking about it. I hadn’t exactly put into words what I’d learned yet, but Jill’s vocalization was surprisingly on target.
“Didn’t you?” she asked.
“I guess I did,” I said thoughtfully. I thought about Matt. I had been myself with him. And things still didn’t seem to be perfect, although they had been five days ago when he’d shown up at my door and convinced me that he liked me for who I was. But if that was true, where was he now?
Jill’s tears began falling again, and I reached out to give her a hug.
“I’m so sorry, Jill,” I said, really meaning it. Even though she had grated on me over the years by acting like she was superior because she knew how to “land a man,” as she put it, I never wanted her to hurt. I never wanted this for her. She was my friend. I wished she could have had that happily-ever-after she’d wanted so desperately.
“I’ll be fine,” she said, forcing a smile and drying her tear-stained cheeks with a fresh tissue. Her eyes filled again. “I’ll just need your help. And Meg’s. And Emmie’s.”
“Of course, of course,” I said instantly. “We’re all here for you.”
She smiled again, a real smile this time.
“I know,” she said softly, reaching out to squeeze my hand.
JILL STAYED FOR another hour, and my mind was still on her when my eleven o’clock appointment arrived. After I had talked to the head of research and development for BakersGrain, a new cereal manufa
cturer, about a potential patent for a cereal he had overseen the development of, I shut the door to my office, ordered Chinese delivery, and asked Molly to hold my calls. I just needed to catch my breath and get ahold of my thoughts.
But five minutes later, just as I was closing my eyes and leaning back in my chair, Molly buzzed me. I looked at my intercom in confusion; it was too soon for the Chinese food.
“What is it, Molly?” I asked, trying not to sound annoyed. Usually, she was great at leaving me undisturbed if I asked her for a few minutes of peace and quiet.
“Um, I’m sorry to bother you,” she said guiltily. “It’s just that there’s someone here to see you.” She lowered her voice, then whispered, “Matt James.”
My heart skipped a beat and I sat straight up in my chair.
“Give me a second, then send him in,” I said. “Thanks,” I added as an afterthought.
My heart thudding in anticipation, I dug through my purse until I found some concealer, my Tarte blotting papers, some lipstick, and my powder compact. I quickly made repairs to my face as well as I could, ran a brush through my hair, then sat back in my chair, trying to look as calm, cool, and casual as possible. After all, I didn’t want Matt to know that I’d been waiting by the phone for his call. How pathetic was that? I was far too busy to worry about him. Or at least that’s what I wanted him to believe.
“Hey, Harper,” Matt said a moment later as he entered my office. My breath caught in my throat. He looked as gorgeous as ever. He had had a haircut in the five days since I had last seen him, so his thick, dark shock of hair was noticeably shorter. His tanned, chiseled face was clean-shaven, and his green eyes looked gloriously bright against his olive-green T-shirt. His distressed jeans hugged him in all the right places, I noticed with near-physical pain as he turned to shut my door behind him.
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