True Love (and Other Lies)

by Whitney Gaskell

  But this is what actually came out of mouth:

  “Are you doing anything now?”

  Chapter 6

  Guilt. Guilt. Guilt.

  It blared like an out-of-control car alarm in my head, and as I huddled miserably in my pitifully small airline seat, I looked around furtively to see if any of my fellow travelers on the New York–bound flight could sense the sins that I’d committed. If they could, I was sure they would all be glaring at me and pelting me with the remains of their pitiful box lunches (and how is it possible that the airlines could make a ham-and-Swiss on rye taste like something that doesn’t even remotely resemble ham, Swiss cheese, or rye bread?).

  I am a bad person, I thought. A horrible, terrible, bad person who deserves every awful thing that will ever happen to me in the future.

  Jack had indeed come over the night before, and had taken me out to dinner again—this time to a swank French restaurant. Over dinner we talked quietly, uncovering a little more of our lives for the other to peek at. I talked about my parents’ divorce, and how they’d conducted it in the manner of a Mafia-style blood vendetta, bickering over every last measly possession they’d acquired over the course of their twenty-five-year marriage, right down to the worn, otherwise worthless table linens. It was a battle their attorneys happily suited up for, considering each charged three hundred dollars per hour.

  “So those crap place mats, which cost all of ten dollars in 1984, and which no one ever really liked in the first place, ended up costing about twelve hundred dollars in legal fees,” I said, shaking my head, still amazed by this a decade later. “No offense, but your profession is the pits.”

  Jack smiled. “So who won?”

  “What?”

  “Who got the place mats?”

  “Dad. And the napkins. Mom got the pots and pans, and the everyday dishes. She turned around and sold all of it at a garage sale,” I replied.

  “You’re still angry about it?” Jack asked.

  I shrugged and then shook my head. “No. I was, but you know, I got over it. I was in college at the time, and wasn’t around for the worst of the fighting. My little sister didn’t get off so easily—she was still at home, in high school.”

  “Are you close? You and your sister, I mean.”

  I shook my head again. “Not really. She ended up going to UCLA for college, just to put as much distance between her and our parents as possible. And I think—although she’d never admit it to me—that she’s anorexic or bulimic or both. She started to get really weird about food at about the same time our parents separated. How about you? Any brothers or sisters?”

  “A half sister on my mom’s side, and a half brother and two half sisters on my dad’s, all younger,” Jack said. “My parents cashed in their chips when I was a baby, so I don’t have any memory of them being together.”

  “Was it a bad split?”

  “I’m not really sure. It might have been at first, but they both moved on, and both remarried. Still, it isn’t the same,” he said, looking wistful. “Even though we all get along, we don’t see one another all that frequently. My dad and I keep in touch, and my mom occasionally, but everyone has pretty much gone their own separate ways. It hasn’t been a real family for a long time.”

  We didn’t speak of Maddy or of Jack’s relationship with her, or any of the women Jack had dated. He implied that there hadn’t been anyone all that serious, which did raise a flag of caution, since most guys in their late thirties who seem to have everything going for them usually have at least one ex-wife or live-in girlfriend or fiancée in their past. But I couldn’t press him too much without being forced to cough up the same information on myself, and I didn’t want to do that. I was afraid that if he heard about my bleak romantic history, it would cause him to rear up and gallop away, like a horse running from a burning stable.

  After dinner, I fully intended to break out my speech about how I couldn’t see him again—I was sure it wouldn’t come as too much of a shock, since I was leaving the country the next day. But I couldn’t seem to find a good time to broach the subject—not as he placed his hand on my lower back as we walked out of the restaurant, nor as I fell against him when I tripped over the last step on the way out and he caught me against him, nor as he held my hand to help me into the car. And then, on the ride back to the hotel, Jack lightly touched the back of my neck, an entirely innocent caress that had the not-so-innocent effect of melting my entire body. The next thing I knew, we were kissing, and pulling at each other’s clothing, all the while generally oblivious to the driver sitting two feet away. When we arrived at the hotel, we tumbled out of the car, my makeup smeared and Jack’s shirt untucked from his pants, and sprinted for the elevator. As soon as the doors closed—we were, thankfully, alone—Jack pulled me to him again, his thumb grazing my nipple through the thin cotton of my sweater, and had I known how to stop the elevator, we would have had sex right then and there, just like Michael Douglas and Glenn Close in Fatal Attraction (minus the psychotic bunny boiling, obviously). We finally got back to the blessed privacy of my room and fell on each other like a couple of horny teenagers.

  Jack spent the night, cuddling me in his arms while I slept. It had never been that way, not that I could remember. Everyone always talks about how crappy monogamy is, and that it goes against human nature to expect anyone to be with just one person for the rest of her life. But in my experience, quality trumps quantity, and developing a routine with one partner, who knows without being told just where to touch, and how much pressure to use, is vastly more pleasurable than the novelty of a new, and usually fumbling, partner. But not so with Jack. He apparently came preprogrammed with the knowledge of all of my erogenous zones, and intuitively knew how and where to touch me so that my insides would rise and explode and rise again.

  My reverie was broken by a sharp hacking noise, followed by a throat-clearing slurp and then some more hacking. In karmic retribution for my sins, instead of sitting next to another Jack on the flight back, this time I was stuck next to a repulsive man who smelled as though he hadn’t taken a shower in the past calendar year. His hair was greasy, his ears were waxy, and he kept coughing something up into his handkerchief. I prayed that it was just a disgusting habit, and that he wasn’t infecting me with the Norwalk virus.

  Since it was impossible to daydream about making love while being interrupted by this disgusting display of phlegm removal, I allowed my guilt over Maddy to seep back in. She had called me shortly before Jack arrived to pick me up for dinner, and with fresh tears, had told me that it was truly over between them. He’d made it clear to her that he didn’t want to get back together, and—being a complete shit of a would-be friend—I actually breathed a sigh of relief when I heard about how final he’d been on the subject. Despite what Jack had told me, I’d been harboring a worry that they might have reconciled, and sealed their reunion by copulating on her fuzzy white sheepdog rug.

  “I tried everything. I tried talking things out with him, I tried asking for a second chance. But he was very firm, and just kept saying that this was for the best,” Maddy said fretfully, her voice jagged with sorrow.

  “Was he rude about it?” I asked.

  “No, not at all. He was very nice . . . he is very nice, nicer than any man I’ve ever been out with. So why does he have to be such an asshole?” Maddy sobbed. “Why can’t he feel about me the way I do about him?”

  We went through a few more versions of this, during which I did my best to soothe Maddy and tell her all of the usual crap you feed friends in these situations: that it was Jack’s loss, that there were plenty more men out there, better men, nicer men, and (once again) good riddance to him.

  But as I comforted her, I felt like a fraud. No, it was worse than that. I was duplicitous, dishonest, and selfish, the lowest of the low. Because even though I’m sure I sounded like the same old reliable, loyal Claire to Maddy, that mean little part of me—the same ugly voice that had warned me about inviting Maddy to
join Jack and me for dinner—was now whispering with vindictive glee over Jack having chosen me.

  There was one thing about this mess that was certainly clear—I was going straight to hell.

  And if it wasn’t bad enough that I had betrayed my best friend (and therefore the entire institution of girlfriendhood), I’d been so caught up in all of the goings on, I’d completely forgotten to finish my restaurant and hotel investigations. I’d spent three days in London, and during that time I’d managed to find only three hotels, a sandwich shop, and a pizzeria to recommend to my readers. I had no choice—I was going to have to include the pricey Indian and French restaurants where Jack and I had eaten, but doing so was just asking for the wrath of my editor. Even if I flat-out lied about the prices of the entrées, they were the entirely wrong sort of restaurant—too voguish and swank and ethnic, not traditional places that served staid favorites like roast beef and potatoes. I didn’t even have a good fish-and-chips shop to recommend. Robert was going to kill me, and unless I found a travel guide to do some major cribbing out of, he’d probably fire me, too.

  The thought of losing my job, and the devastating free fall that would result—humiliation, bankruptcy, ruination—caused my anxiety to spike. Panic seized me—my heart began pounding, my chest tightened, my breath came in shallow uneven puffs. I gripped the two hand rests, unintentionally knocking Phlegm Man’s arm off of the one we shared.

  “Sorry,” I muttered, trying not to hyperventilate.

  “A nervous flyer, are you? Don’t worry, we’re as safe as can be. Except for that Pan Am explosion over Lockerbie a few years back, there’s been very few mishaps on the London–to–New York flight,” he said unhelpfully, and then hocked up another hunk of spit.

  Ugh! I hadn’t even been thinking about plane crashes or terrorist attacks, but now, thanks to Mr. Disgusting, that too was playing on my nerves.

  I tried to focus back on Jack again, as he seemed to be the only subject I could think about without falling into a shame spiral or having a panic attack. Although that wasn’t quite true . . . there was something about Jack that was bothering me, too.

  In the short time I’d spent with Jack, it hadn’t occurred to me that he and Harrison were the same person. But then, I really didn’t know much about Maddy’s Harrison. She had told me that he was an attorney, but there are zillions of lawyers in London. Besides, I’d never seen a photo of him, and for some reason, Maddy hadn’t told me that he was American—so I’d just assumed he was British (he lived in London, after all)—or that his first name was Jack. I knew she had a tendency to be a flibbertigibbet, and that she had a habit of glossing over the details, but come on. If you really want to keep your friends from falling into bed with your boyfriend—ex-boyfriend—then you shouldn’t omit such crucial details.

  But—and here was the part that worried me—how did Jack not recognize me? Surely Maddy had talked about me, told him about her old friend Claire who worked as a travel writer for a senior citizens’ magazine. My job was just unusual enough that someone who’d been told about it was certain to remember. And on top of that, Maddy had a photo of us posted on her stainless-steel refrigerator door. It was the only thing on the fridge, so if Jack had spent any time at her place at all, he must have seen it.

  The night before, while we were lying in bed, both of us propped up on our sides so that we were facing each other, I couldn’t help but bring it up. Well, actually, that’s not true. Jack had been tracing his finger first down and then up the side of my body, and although his movements were slow and lazy, it was having much the opposite effect on my body. It was taking all of my willpower not to throw myself at him, like a quarterback tackling a goalie (or whatever it is that happens in football—it’s not like I ever watch the stupid game), much less find a tactful yet direct way to ask Jack if he’d been lying about not knowing that Maddy and I were friends. I had no reason to think that he was lying, but I still found it strange that he hadn’t heard of me. I forced myself to ignore (for the moment) the way his fingertips were meandering over the mound of my hip, into the hollow of my waist, and then—oh God—over the soft, tender flesh of the side of my breast. I could feel my self-control slipping—if I didn’t speak now, in about ten seconds it would be too late.

  “I need to ask you something,” I said, my voice sounding hoarser than usual.

  “Okay,” Jack said, smiling.

  I grabbed his hand, which had tired of the side of my breast and was heading downward again. “I can’t talk to you when you’re doing that,” I said.

  “Oh, no?” The grin grew wider, lazier.

  “Come on,” I said.

  Jack lifted his hand off of my side and used it to brush a stray piece of hair out of my face, and said, “Talk.”

  “I was wondering . . . I mean, I just wanted to know,” I said, and then took a deep breath. Was there a way to ask this without sounding like I was accusing him of lying? He was still smiling, still looking at me as though he couldn’t wait to hear what I was about to say.

  “Just say it,” Jack said. And then a wicked glint appeared in his eyes. “Or, if you’d rather, we could get back to what we were doing.”

  I swear, I was turning into Pavlov’s dog. Only instead of a bell, at the smallest hint of a suggestion from Jack, and bing, every last millimeter of my skin was on high alert waiting for his touch. I’ve never even been all that interested in sex. Sure, it can be okay, but when all was said and done, I’d just as soon spend the time taking a hot bath while drinking a glass of red wine and reading a magazine. Plus, I’ve never been all that big a fan of the sweaty, sticky, soreness-afterward part of it. But after the past two nights I’d spent with Jack, I was starting to figure out what all of the fuss was about. Bad sex is horrible, okay sex is usually not worth the effort of undressing before and showering after . . . but great sex, the kind Jack and I were having, was an entirely different story. I wanted to completely immerse myself in touching and exploring and tasting him, never to reemerge. To discover every spot on his body that caused him to . . .

  Stop that. You need to focus, I told myself sternly.

  “How did you not know who I am?” I blurted out.

  Jack looked puzzled, his eyebrows knit. “What do you mean? Are you famous?”

  “No,” I said, laughing, and smacked him lightly on the arm. “I mean, didn’t Maddy ever talk about me?”

  “Sure. She mentioned your name a few times, and may have even told me that you were a writer. But there must be a lot of writers out there named Claire, so it wouldn’t have occurred to me that you were one and the same,” he said, sounding very plausible.

  “She didn’t tell you I was a travel writer?” I asked, surprised when he shook his head. After all, I often mentioned Maddy in the everyday course of my life. I told people where she was living and what she did (mainly because no one can ever believe that anyone could make a living by writing reports on the favored footwear of high school girls), and I’d assumed she’d also tell the people in her life about me.

  “But you must have seen my picture. Maddy had one on her refrigerator, one of the two of us in Cancún,” I protested.

  Jack was shaking his head again. “She never had anything up on her refrigerator, not that I saw. In fact, I don’t think I ever saw any pictures in her apartment—she has that cold, sterile, minimalist thing going,” he said.

  I stared at him. He was right—Maddy didn’t have anything in her apartment that wasn’t part of the decor plan. She’d always been like that, had always hated knickknackery of any kind. She was the only girl at college who didn’t have unframed posters tacked to her walls, and two dozen photos of high school friends and boyfriends in cheap plastic frames scattered about. It was one of the reasons we were a near-disaster as roommates—I was a pack rat, and my habit of keeping my living space more like a bird’s nest, with all of my favorite bits out around me, had driven her crazy. Part of why I’d been so touched to see the photo of us up on her fridge w
as because it was so unlike her, her one small homage to sentimentality in an otherwise style-smoothed world, thus proving how truly fond of me she still was. So if Jack was telling the truth—and really, why wouldn’t he be?—then Maddy must have put that picture up only because she knew I was coming over, probably to humor me. What was she afraid of, that if she didn’t placate me like a small child, offering tangible proof that we were still friends, I’d stamp my feet and cry? The thought irritated me beyond all reason.

  “Why are you scowling like that?” Jack asked, laughing as he touched my pouting lips.

  “Nothing,” I muttered. Despite my annoyance with Maddy, I couldn’t very well start complaining about her to Jack. Although, I thought with another twinge of guilt, perhaps it was just a wee bit hypocritical of me to worry about bitching behind my friend’s back to her ex while I was lying naked next to him in bed.

  But then Jack replaced the finger with his lips, and we were kissing again, and pretty soon I wasn’t thinking of anything at all.

  “Hack, hack, hack,” coughed the Phlegm Man, again interrupting me from my reverie.

  I twisted miserably in my seat and looked out at the blue nothingness of the sky. I had come to London hoping for some fun sightseeing and quality time with my oldest friend. I left with my job and friendship in jeopardy, and a painfully unreasonable crush.

  This isn’t going to end well, I thought, and felt a shiver of unease.