I’d said some nasty things about Mr. Carlson to Richard, and Richard had made a point of telling me not once, but twice, that he didn’t know the man. For a couple of guys who didn’t know each other, they sure looked chummy. After everything I’d told Richard, he should be beating Carlson with a stick, not giving him the two-handed shake as he was now. And why wasn’t Richard wearing his back brace?
I slid a look toward the security guard in case he was still watching me, but he was carrying the tube to the tellers. I sneaked down the little hallway until I was a couple of feet from the office door.
“I’ve cost her well over a grand just with the hospital bill and the exterminator,” Richard was saying in a smug voice, “and in a couple of hours I just might get injured on her property again.”
I sucked in air. I could not believe what I’d just heard and then instantly I could. I’d squashed that little voice, the one that told me when something was wrong, and this was what I got for it. I reminded myself that I’d decided to trust that little voice, and from now on I would. Well, starting in a few minutes. I wasn’t planning to start trusting it right now because right now my little voice was saying the smart thing would be to sneak back down the hall and out the door without giving my presence away.
But I really wanted to knock the crap out of Richard, so that was what I did.
Chapter 23
The small blessing was that my mother stayed in the car and missed the whole thing. The big blessing was that I’d been smart enough to slap Richard rather than punch him. For some reason you can get away with slapping a guy, especially if you simultaneously shout that the wedding is off because you found out the sleazeball’s already married.
Although Richard threatened to have me arrested for assault, we both knew he’d do no such thing since I had the better case. When he had grabbed my hand to keep me from planting slap number two, I screamed that he was breaking my arm. Anyone who hadn’t been on my side after hearing Richard was a deceitful bigamist was on my side then. Except Mr. Carlson, of course. Mr. Carlson’s face had turned dark red, and he was sputtering like a volcano before eruption, so I finally paid attention to my little voice and got out.
Mom gave me the twice-over but in spite of my face being flushed and my hair a mess, she didn’t say a word. I think she was emotionally drained from the fiasco at the drive-through because she stared straight ahead like a mannequin the entire way home.
After I dropped her off, I swung by the hardware store and purchased a No Trespassing sign, the kind that comes on a stake, and I hammered it into my yard right in the front where it couldn’t be missed. There was still the possibility that Richard would come over and injure himself on purpose. I didn’t know the law but it seemed to me that if he wasn’t supposed to be on my property, he couldn’t sue me for getting hurt.
What I really needed to do was figure out how to beat them at their game. My first inclination was to go straight to the police. If Carlson and Richard were in cahoots to drive me out of my house, there must be proof somewhere.
But where? Had they been stupid enough to send emails or text messages? Even if they had—and I had no way of knowing either way—would the police take me seriously enough to get warrants against a sterling member of the community such as Carlson to try and find out?
I was thinking no.
As for the homeowners’ association board, Carlson had relationships with the other members; I did not. I’d annoyed everyone by ignoring my crappy-looking lawn.
If the police didn’t uncover evidence, my accusation would have nothing to back it up. It would be my word against Richard’s and Carlson’s, and after all the weird articles circulating about me, no one would believe me over the president of a bank.
I couldn’t even prove that Carlson had run the ad, which I assumed he must have done so that Richard could answer it and cause me trouble. I had played right into Carlson’s hands, and that irked me most of all. I’d known I wouldn’t marry Richard when all was said and done, but I had dishonestly agreed to take his help. Whichever rule of lying I’d hidden behind had backfired on me.
The fact that Richard had no intention of marrying me either, which meant he’d been dishonest when offering his help, didn’t make me feel any better. The only part of the fiasco that did make me feel good was getting to sock Richard in the face.
I was basking in the glow of getting the better of Richard, albeit after he’d gotten the better of my wallet, when Mark showed up on my doorstep. His face was drawn, his eyes were bleak, and his hair was rumpled as though he’d run his fingers through it a couple dozen times. I’d never seen him upset before. Something was very wrong.
“What?” I asked him as I led him into the living room where we took seats on the sofa. If we’d been at Sue’s condo, we could have sprawled on a comfortably squishy—though quite expensive—couch, which might have helped soothe Mark’s troubled nerves, but since we were at my house, we had to perch on my firm, traditional-style sofa like a couple of anxious birds.
“What is it?” I asked.
He glanced over at me and my heart sank. His entire face drooped; his demeanor was as far from Mark-like as I’d ever seen. Whatever was wrong, it was bad. Very bad. His remaining kidney was in failure. Or maybe he had cancer. Something terrible was going on, and I’d been so wrapped up in my own stupid problems, things that weren’t even problems when compared to Mark’s imminent death, that I hadn’t noticed.
“I’m moving away,” he said.
I felt a rush of relief and then confusion. “What do you mean away? To where? What’s wrong? You can tell me the truth; I can take it.” I wasn’t sure I could take it, but at the same time I knew I couldn’t take not knowing.
He ran his fingers through his thick blond hair. He shook his head and shot a wry smile at me, a smile that looked more like a grimace. “I’m in love with someone who is never going to love me back, and I can’t go on living like this.”
“Huh?” Oh no. I’d been worried about this since the day I asked him why he’d never married. “Is there something you want to tell me?” I asked, even though I didn’t want to know.
He pushed up from his seat and moved to the window, staring out for a moment, fiddling with the blinds. His shoulders slumped, and he turned to face me. “You know, don’t you?” he asked.
“I didn’t, really. I wondered, yes. But I didn’t really know until now. I don’t know what to say, Mark.” I wished the earth could just swallow me up. How did you tell someone who was crazy about you that you loved him like a brother?
“I know it’s never going to happen,” Mark said. “She loves me like a brother.”
Huh? Did he say she?
“Oh God,” he said, staring at my frozen expression. “Don’t tell me she doesn’t even love me like a brother. I can’t bear to think that all this time she’s hated me or thought I was a pathetic idiot and I didn’t even know. I mean, I know she likes to party, and I know she likes to date around, but still … I thought she loved me as a friend. She’s always asking me to take the two of you places—like to the fair. She wouldn’t do that if she hated me, would she?”
Oh my God. He was talking about Sue. Mark was in love with Sue.
Mark was in love with Sue? I suddenly felt sick. Why did I feel sick? Oh God. I felt sick because he was in love with Sue and not me. I didn’t even love him that way, so why did his proclamation make me feel as though I’d been rejected by the man I wanted to marry and live with happily ever after? What was wrong with me?
And then I realized it wasn’t jealousy I felt. I was upset because he’d kept his feelings from me. I thought I was his friend, someone he respected. I felt as though he’d just punched me in the gut.
“Well, does she?”
“Does she what?”
“Hate me? Or think I’m a pathetic idiot?”
He was really in pain, so I needed to get over myself. I’d have to think about this later, but for now …
“No,
Mark, she doesn’t hate you, and she doesn’t think you’re pathetic. She likes you. A lot. I mean, I never asked her about her feelings for you. I figured they were the same as mine. I didn’t know how you felt about her, so I never asked her anything. I could have asked her and I’m sure if I had asked her, she would have told me the truth.”
Unlike some people.
He sank back onto the sofa and dropped his head into his hands. “I’ve tried to get over her,” he said, his voice coming out muffled, “but I just can’t do it. I always had a crush on her, even in high school, but I hardly ever saw her after I went away to college. But when you came back and we started working on your house and she kept coming over to help …”
“Do you want me to talk to her?” I didn’t want to talk to her, but I didn’t know what else to say.
“No! I mean no. It’s pointless. I’ve already accepted the job in North Carolina. It’s a great job, even though it’s only for a year. I’ll be the chief scientist, making fifty grand more, and I’ll have all-expenses-paid diving trips all over the world. Yet, as clichéd as it sounds, I’d give it all up for Sue.”
My whole body felt wooden, but I dragged my arms up, wrapped them around Mark, and gave him a little squeeze. Poor Mark. The psychic had been wrong. Mark had gotten the great job she’d told him about, yeah, but she’d gotten him all wrong, because just like Sue, maybe just like everyone, what Mark really wanted was true love.
*****
The next day I was standing outside Sue’s condo, rooted to the spot, unable to knock on the door. I wanted to tell her about my conversation with Mark, but I wasn’t sure what she’d say. She didn’t have those feelings for Mark. That is, she’d never mentioned any, and I think she would have. Yeah, she definitely would have. We’d talked about men a zillion times. She often said she didn’t know what she was looking for in a man but would know when she saw it. Well, she’d seen Mark plenty, so what she wanted obviously wasn’t him.
But I didn’t want Mark to move away, at least not for a reason like this. Maybe if I told Sue, she’d talk him into staying. Would that be best for Mark? I didn’t know.
The door swung open. I felt like a deer caught in headlights, which was ridiculous. Sue was my best friend.
“I heard you,” Sue said. “When you first came up. And then you didn’t knock.”
She looked awful. Sort of. I mean, her eyes were swollen, as if she’d been crying, but there was a certain kind of energy reflected in them too. An excitement I wasn’t used to seeing in Sue.
“Come in, come in,” she said. She led me to her taupe-colored microfiber couch where she plopped down. I joined her, but I didn’t feel like plopping.
“I guess you know all about it. I’m going to North Carolina. I can’t believe it.”
“What?” I stared at her, shocked senseless. Not senseless enough to keep my mouth shut, but … “What do you mean you’re going to North Carolina?”
“Mark told you, didn’t he? Told you he’s in love with me?”
“Well, yeah, but you’re not in love with him.”
“But that’s just it. I am in love with him. I just never realized it until last night. When he left, I was still in shock. Then I started to think about him leaving, and I couldn’t bear for him to go away.”
“I don’t want him to go away either, but—”
“But you probably didn’t wish you were dead, did you? That’s the way I felt, and that’s when I realized how I truly felt about him. I ran after him and he came back and we talked. I just can’t believe I never knew how I felt until last night!”
I was getting a bad feeling, one I didn’t want to have, but I couldn’t seem to do anything about it. “Are you sure you never knew it until last night?” I sounded suspicious, even to myself.
“What do you mean?”
“Well, Mark knew how he felt all this time yet kept those feelings a secret. Are you sure you weren’t keeping your own little secret?”
“What are you accusing me of?” Sue’s face was scrunched up now. It didn’t help the awful look.
“I’m accusing you of keeping secrets. You and Mark both. I can’t believe you’ve been in love with each other all this time and you never told me. All the times we spent together, and I was the odd man out instead of your best friend.”
I didn’t know what was wrong with me. I was furious all of a sudden. I was acting like a child, yet I couldn’t stop myself.
“I just told you I didn’t know I was in love with Mark until he confessed his love for me. How could I have been keeping a secret if I didn’t even know it?”
I was silent. Glaring, but silent.
“So you don’t believe that I didn’t know?”
All the joy had gone out of Sue’s face. I suddenly felt like a louse. When tears burned the back of my eyes, I wasn’t sure if they were for Sue or for me.
I took a deep breath and blew it out slowly. Deep breathing usually helped. This time it didn't.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “I’m not mad, not really. I don’t know why I’m acting like this. It’s just so hard to believe that you could be in love with him and not know it, but I do believe you. I guess I’m angry that Mark kept it a secret all this time.”
“He said he was embarrassed. He said he was sure I didn’t feel the same way because we’d been alone so many times and I never came on to him. It’s funny because there was this one time, when he took me home after I brought the tequila over, when I actually toyed with the idea of grabbing him and kissing him goodnight, but I chastised myself the next day for almost ruining a great friendship. If I’d known then …” She pushed her hair behind her ears and leaned forward to peer into my face. “Are you sure you’re not mad?”
“Mad isn’t the right word. I’m upset. This changes everything between us.”
“But it doesn’t! We’ve always been best friends and we always will be.”
“And you’re moving away—both of you.” My two best friends were leaving me. I tried to swallow my tears, but they settled in my throat like a big, fat lump. And there it was, the real problem. Life was hard enough, but I always knew I had Sue and Mark around. Now I wouldn’t.
“I said I was going to North Carolina, I didn’t say I was moving. He’ll only be gone a year and he has to leave in a month. I’m going to help him apartment-hunt, but I can’t commit further than that right now. I have a job here, one I can’t just leave. We haven’t even dated, not really. Unless you count last night.”
She blushed, and I shot a look at the closed bedroom door. “Is he … ?”
“No, he left early, but, Jane, it was so romantic.” She grabbed up one of the pillows from the couch and hugged it to herself. Her expression went from embarrassed to dreamy.
“I don’t think I’ve ever been so cherished by a lover before, you know? I’ve had sweet sex and fun sex and gorilla sex and make-up sex, but it was so different with Mark. I felt as though he had waited his entire life to cherish me. His touch made me feel I was the most desirable, the most beautiful woman in the world. I felt so safe. So alive.” She shook her head and laughed. “Everything I’m saying sounds stupid, so clichéd, but I just can’t put it into better words.”
She was doing a pretty good job of it, relating exactly the kind of passion and wonder that made women hungry to read romance novels. I was a romance writer, yet I’d never experienced what Sue was gushing over. Romance, sure. Lust, absolutely. But being cherished was not something I could relate to. What could be sadder than that?
Chapter 24
Only two weeks remained before the homeowners’ association would levy a fine that would eventually put me out on the street—or force me into the home of one of my sisters. The latter thought was so horrifying that I threw on all my yard work gear and ran outside.
I figured I could get an extension since the city was giving extensions on everything, thanks to the hurricanes, so the homeowners’ association would have to do the same. But it might mean hiring
an attorney, which I couldn’t afford to do.
It wasn’t as if I’d done nothing all this time. I’d done plenty, and I was about dead from it. But it wasn’t enough. I still had two lots that needed serious work.
The problem was, I couldn’t stop thinking about Mark and Sue. I’d gotten over the anger, but it had come back, unsettling me. There was no cause to be angry, so along with the anger had come guilt. Now I was wavering between the two emotions, and neither felt good.
Since I believed Sue when she said she hadn’t realized she loved Mark and I understood that Mark wouldn’t want to admit to loving Sue when he thought she couldn’t love him back, why was I angry? Maybe something was just messed up inside me. Maybe it wasn’t even anger, but simply fear. Fear that something would go wrong between the two of them and our best-friend threesome would be no more.
The rat-a-tat-tat of a woodpecker broke into my thoughts, and I dropped my cutting shears to the ground and sought him out. There he was, not the red-bellied type I often saw, but one I didn’t know. His back was similar to the red-bellied, but black streaks ran down the sides of his chest. His head was different too. Another woodpecker was beside him, holding something in its mouth, and I figured the two woodpeckers were mates. Male birds usually had more color than the females, but these looked the same.
I grabbed my shears and went back to cutting the weeds around the trees, but my thoughts lingered on nature.
Drab female birds got to pick the mate they fancied after checking out plumage, ability to nest, and whatever else female birds found important in a mate. That was what God had intended. A woman should be able to sit back and let the show begin, then pick out the guy who struck her fancy. But somewhere, way back when, a woman decided to get all dolled up and strut her own stuff, which made all the other women have to do the same. Once the women were putting on the shows, it was the men who sat back, taking it easy.
I’d be willing to stop wearing make-up and figure-flattering clothes and all the other stuff we women wore to give us an edge over each other, but there would always be that ten percent who would agree to forgo those things and then use them behind our backs. That ten percent would get ninety percent of the men, leaving slim pickings for the rest of us.
Rules of Lying (Jane Dough Series) Page 21