by Hannah Ford
Edward turned to Nicole. “Nicole?”
She looked down at her hands, which were shaking but in her lap so nobody would notice but her. “They’re going well. It’s going well, sir.”
Sir. Uh-oh. That was their private language, and she’d fallen back to it without thinking. Red didn’t appear to care at all. “Details?” he said, leaning forward.
She launched into a very elaborate and dull description of how she was changing the way every project and account was set up on the network, and although at first it would be confusing for those who were used to the old ways, it was going to be much more efficient in the long run.
“Sounds wonderful,” Red said, after thinking for a bit. “Great. That will be all.”
Edward smiled and stood up. He made some small talk about a client who had only just recently agreed to give Jameson International a big chunk of business for the upcoming year. Red said that it was a great win for the whole company, thanked Edward for all of his hard work.
“We’ll chat later today or tomorrow about Germany,” Red told him pointedly, and Edward nodded as he made for the door.
Nicole couldn’t believe it was over so quickly. She’d expected something more—some kind of overture towards her. But he’d virtually ignored her, treated her like nothing more than a stranger. It was worse than she’d expected, the pain she felt. She could hardly breathe.
As they were about to get on the elevator again, she told Edward she needed to go back and ask Red something.
“Are you sure?” Edward said, as the doors prepared to close.
“Yes, I need to—check on a thing…” she rambled.
His eyes narrowed. “I’m not so certain it’s a good idea, Nicole.”
“Sorry, I need to just…take care…of one little…” She didn’t even finish her thought before jumping out and walking briskly back to the office as the elevator doors shut and Edward went back downstairs.
She got to Red’s office door and opened it without even knocking, and when she did, Red was almost right at the door himself. He was putting on a light trench coat, and when he saw her, his brows knit with fury. “What are you doing?”
“I need to talk to you.”
“I’m busy,” he said.
“Please, Red.”
His eyes focused on her intently, but she saw no love there—just impatience. “What?”
“I think we should talk about what happened at your house.”
“My house,” he smirked. “How quickly the pronouns change around here.”
“It was never our house,” she told him.
“Obviously.” He began buttoning his coat. “Look, this has been really pleasant, but I have a lunch meeting and I don’t want to be late for it.”
“I know I hurt you,” she said. “And I’m sorry about that. But you frightened me, Red. I didn’t understand—I still don’t understand why you acted like you did the other night.”
He flipped up his collar with a brisk, hostile motion. “What do you want from me now, Nicole? I gave you my heart and that clearly wasn’t enough. So what’s next?”
She gulped. “I—I—just want to talk. I miss talking to you.”
His eyes were thunderous. “You left.”
“I had to go. It was too much. When I heard you breaking all of those dishes and glasses, I thought we were being robbed. I thought you’d been hurt or killed.”
For the first time, she saw a flicker of uncertainty in his eyes as he contemplated what she was telling him. “Robbed?”
“Yes. I’d been asleep in the movie room. And I woke up to the sound of breaking glass and screaming. Do you know what that was like for me?”
His shoulders slumped a little, his face sagged just enough to make him appear older than he usually did. For the first time, she saw wrinkles on his forehead. “I didn’t realize you thought you were in danger.”
“And then, when I got to the dining room, you looked completely insane. You were half-naked, glass and broken dishes everywhere, your feet were cut and bleeding. I thought maybe you were going to hurt me.”
Red’s head drooped as she said the words. He put a hand over his face and turned toward the window. “Christ, Nicole. I had no damn idea that you thought those things.”
“Why would it surprise you?” she said. “I don’t know you all that well, and the first night at your house you behave like a crazy person.”
“I was a crazy person.” He laughed and put his hands in his pockets. “I was in the study for hours and then I went looking for you, couldn’t find you anywhere. I thought you’d left and I just went berserk.”
“But you wanted me to leave—you pushed me to go be by myself!” She said, coming further into the room. “Why’d you do it? Why did you treat me that way?”
The tears were in her eyes again as she asked.
He turned around and looked at her and now she saw his eyes were red-rimmed also. “Fuck.” His nostrils flared and his breathing grew shallow. He bit his lip as if to stop himself from breaking down. “I—I don’t think I can do this. I don’t think…” he shook his head and waved her away.
She watched him, believing at any moment he’d start to talk again. But he didn’t. Instead, he merely shook his head over and over and waved her towards the door.
“Red,” she said. “Please, can we talk about it?”
He ushered her to the door, not able to look at her or say anything, but he made it clear he wanted her to go.
She stepped out of his office and he shut the door.
Nicole stood with her cheek close to the door, wondering if he was doing the same from the other side. She knew that Red wanted her still, just as she wanted him.
But for some reason she couldn’t fathom, he was unable to truly be with her. He couldn’t even talk about why, about the demons that seemed to haunt him.
***
Weeks passed.
Somehow time went by. Nicole couldn’t grasp the way minutes became hours became days, but it happened and the next thing she knew, it had been nearly a month since she had seen or spoken to Red Jameson.
Life had regained some sort of normalcy. Work was fine, and she had returned to assisting Remi for the most part, although Edward appreciated her so much that he still forced Remi to let Nicole do tasks for him now and again.
She was collecting a steady paycheck for the first time, which was lovely, although each one reminded her of Red—he signed all of them. The first time she’d looked at his signature she’d almost burst into tears, which would have been very awkward for her coworkers.
Occasionally she checked The Rag and googled Red’s name to see if there’d been any stories about their broken engagement, but nobody had picked up on it as of yet.
Finally, enough time had gone by and she knew it had to be done.
“I’m going to tell my parents,” Nicole said to Danielle one Sunday morning over bagels and coffee, sitting at a little table outside their favorite café. The umbrella overhead cast them in shadow as they sat together and talked.
Danielle’s eyes widened. “Are you really going to tell them about breaking it off with Red?”
“Yeah.” Nicole took a bite of her everything bagel. It was tasty and good, and when she had a sip of coffee to wash it down, she could almost convince herself she felt okay about what she had to do.
“I don’t know, Nicole,” her roommate said uncertainly, ripping off a piece of her chocolate croissant and chewing it slowly. “What if you and Red get back together?”
“It’s been a month and we haven’t even spoken.”
“True.” Danielle stared at her plate.
“I’d have thought you’d be pushing me to tell them,” Nicole said.
“Because I called your parents?”
“Ummm…yeah.” Nicole grinned at her.
Danielle sighed. “I guess I just see how sad you are since the two of you split up.”
Nicole was surprised. “Really?” She fiddled with her
coffee cup absentmindedly. “I didn’t think I was giving off a super gloomy vibe or anything.”
“You’re not that obvious about it, but I can tell. You’re not the same.” Danielle ripped another piece from her croissant and thought about it. “I think you’re really unhappy.”
Now it was Nicole’s turn to stop and consider what Danielle was telling her. She’d been keeping busy and trying her best not to really think about her life or her deeper emotions. But when she did occasionally stop and take stock of things, there was an instant lump in her stomach, a rush of sadness, grief really, that took hold and didn’t want to let go.
“Okay, so maybe I am sad. But it’s natural to be sad when you break up with someone, isn’t it?”
Danielle nodded. “Yeah, of course it is.” She squinted a little as the sun moved into view. “I just wonder if maybe the two of you have unfinished business.”
Nicole shook her head definitively. “We don’t.”
“Okay, if you say so.”
“Danielle!” Nicole flipped her hair in frustration. “You’re supposed to be the friend who keeps telling me to forget about my ex and move on.”
“I know, I know.”
“Anyway, I am moving on. I need closure and telling my folks is part of it.”
Danielle just raised her eyebrows and stuffed another piece of croissant in her mouth without further comment.
After breakfast, Nicole called home and told her parents she wanted to visit them. She’d take the train to Syracuse from Penn Station and return back to New York the next day. Her father sounded surprised.
“What’s the occasion?” he asked.
“Oh, just missing you guys.”
She decided it was important to do this in person, not over the phone. It would be difficult but then she could really start to pick up the pieces and get back to her life. Right now she felt stuck in place, as if the cord between her and Red hadn’t truly been severed yet.
She would need to miss work on Monday, but she hadn’t ever called in sick or anything. Tomorrow she would call and tell Remi she’d had to go home in order to deal with a family issue, and that she’d be back on Tuesday.
A little later that morning she took the subway out to Penn Station, then the Amtrak train all the way to Syracuse, where her father was waiting in his blue pickup truck. Getting inside his truck, she smelled the familiar scents of grease and motor oil, rusty metal. As a mechanic, her dad’s hands were rough and usually had black stains around his fingernails.
He lit a cigarette and rolled down his window as they drove.
“I thought you quit,” she said, as he waved smoke toward the window.
“I did.”
“And then what happened?” she asked.
“Quit for almost eight months and then I watched the Mets blow an eight run lead in the ninth inning against the Orioles.” He made a face as if it still hurt him to this day. “After that I felt like I was owed a cigarette.”
“Oh, dad.” Nicole hated that he smoked. He’d been going though two or three packs a day for as long as she could remember, but just the last few years he’d really cut back and then even quit once or twice.
“It’s a horrible addiction.” He looked over and smiled at her. “Enough about me. How are you doing?”
She shrugged.
“Uh-oh,” was all he said. There was a long pause as they drove through familiar areas of town. The Costco that she’d been to a million times growing up. The restaurant that kept changing owners and names every couple of years, and nobody seemed to be able to stay in business there. Right now it was called Fiore’s.
“How’s mom?” Nicole asked, trying for casual.
Her dad took a drag on his cigarette as they slowed at the light. An old, old man walked a dog that looked as old as him, slowly across the street.
“Your mom,” her father said, “is antsy to hear news about the upcoming nuptials.”
His words hit her like a punch in the stomach. Like a wave hitting her, she was blasted by the impact of how everything had ended. It was really over between them. It didn’t seem possible—it had happened too fast.
“Well, we need to talk about that,” Nicole said, watching for his reaction.
He didn’t particularly have one. The cigarette dangled from his lip and smoke trailed out the window. “That old geezer needs someone to walk him and his dog,” he said, as the old man and his old pooch finally got to the other side of the road. By then the light had gone to green and back to red again.
A few minutes later, they arrived home.
“Your mother’s in a state,” he warned as they came in through the front door.
“Oh no. What kind of state?” Nicole asked him, but he didn’t bother answering.
Her mother’s voice called from what sounded like Nicole’s old bedroom down the hallway. “Hellooooo?”
“Hey mom,” Nicole called back.
They found her mother in Nicole’s old bedroom. There were things everywhere-clothes, magazines, books, notebooks, shoes, all of it in piles. Her mother was on her knees sorting things. She was wearing a red kerchief on her head, t-shirt and jeans. It was her typical “spring cleaning” outfit.
“Nicole, did you want these shoes?” her mother asked, holding up a pair of battered green and white Nikes.
“Those are from junior year of high school. I think I ran in them until the soles pretty much fell off.”
“So, do you?”
“No. Thanks.” She walked to her desk and looked at the various stickers and glittery, sparkly pens and pencils that were collected next to her old notebooks.
“I’ve been wanting to turn this room into an office,” her mother said. “And now that you’re an adult and getting married, I thought it was about time.”
Nicole tried to smile past the awkwardness she knew was coming. “That sounds like a fantastic idea.”
“What about these sweatpants?” her mother asked, holding the ugly blue pants high in the air for her to see.
“No. Definitely not.”
Her mother made a face. “So much good clothing going to waste. And at the time you probably cried to me and complained how cool it all was and how badly you needed it.”
“About that whole getting married thing,” Nicole started.
Her father looked at her, waiting for what came next.
Meanwhile her mother was busy sorting and folding. “We don’t even need to go through this again,” she said. “You know how we feel, but we support you completely. Now we just want to know what date and where.” She looked up at Nicole. “And if possible, I’d like to have some input on invitations and seating.”
Nicole turned her gaze to the floor. “I don’t think that’s going to be necessary.”
“Well, why not? Are you so sick of me that you won’t even let me make a suggestion or two?”
“It’s not that.” She tried to think of how to phrase it, but she was suddenly afraid to say it aloud.
“Well then…” her mother pressed her lips together and looked at the piles on the floor. “Oh, I know what I meant to show you.” She leaned over and grabbed Nicole’s high school yearbook. “What about this?”
Nicole accepted it, paging through and smiling a little at the memories. She’d been a quiet kid, so there weren’t tons of pictures of her all over the place. But people had written some sweet and funny comments in the front and back pages. “I don’t know…maybe I’ll keep it,” Nicole said softly, closing the yearbook.
“You’ll want to show your children someday,” her mother said confidently.
“So, I need to explain about the wedding.”
Instantly, her mother made a face. “You don’t have to explain for my sake.”
“There’s not going to be one.”
“One what?”
“A wedding. We broke up.” She felt her jaw tremble and instantly told herself to knock it off.
Don’t cry in front of your mother—anything but that.
Her mother tried not to show her relief, but Nicole could see it written on her face, plain as day. “That’s too bad,” she said, trying to sound supportive. “What happened? Did you have a falling out?”
“It just didn’t work out,” Nicole said.
Her father hugged her and she put her face into his chest. He smelled like cigarettes, just as he always did, and it comforted her some.
“I think it’s for the best, honey,” her mother said.
She didn’t respond.
After they spent some more time cleaning her old room and putting clothes and things into plastic bags, they went to the kitchen and she helped her mom cook chicken breast and rice for dinner. This was like going back in time—the same patterns, habits and routines they’d always had.
The familiar patter between them was comfortable, if a little depressing at times. Her mother making comments and “suggestions” that Nicole invariably ignored. But there was one piece of advice that she couldn’t just ignore.
“What about the ring?” her mother asked, as she rubbed garlic powder into the chicken breast with her fingers.
“My engagement ring?”
“You returned it, I assume.”
“No. Not yet.”
Her mother stopped kneading the meat and turned to her. “Why not?”
“I don’t know.” Nicole was chopping veggies for the salad, but her knife was paused momentarily. “I suppose the right opportunity hasn’t presented itself.”
“There’s no right opportunity to return an engagement ring, Nicole.”
“True.”
“You need to send it back to him as soon as you get home. Stick it in the mail and be done with it.”
Nicole hated to admit it, but her mom had a point. Keeping that ring stuffed away in her shoe was just holding on to the past. A few tears rolled down her cheek now, as she thought about the act of putting her engagement ring in an envelope.
She was crying as she chopped the veggies, but it was okay. There were enough raw onions to have an excuse.
***
She got back to the city the next afternoon and rushed home, wanting—needing—to get the ring out in the mail that day before the last pickup.