“I called Maddy’s apartment, looking for you,” he said. “She told me you’d just left.”
“Looking for me? Or finding out how your little scheme played out?” I asked, and walked past him and into the house. I didn’t wait to hear his reply, and instead stormed up the stairs to the second floor of his town house, the entire floor of which was taken up by an enormous room that doubled as his bedroom and study, to collect my luggage. Although unmistakably masculine, it was my favorite room in the house—two of the walls were lined with bookshelves, stuffed with books on every topic from history to science to the law to an impressive fiction collection, including the complete works of Robert B. Parker. When I first saw his library, it had been one more thing I’d found attractive about Jack; the only thing Sawyer ever read was the Wall Street Journal.
The room also contained an enormous old desk stacked with paperwork, an armoire, a short dresser, and a huge leather sleigh bed piled with pillows and a white down comforter. It was exactly the kind of bed that beckoned you to dive in and stay submerged in it for days.
Not that I’d ever spend a night there, I thought, and despite my best intentions to get out of his house before I had a complete breakdown, a knot formed in my throat.
“I’m not going to pretend I don’t know what you’re talking about. Maddy filled me in on her insane little theory when I called. I didn’t think there was any way you’d actually believe it—it’s ridiculous,” Jack said.
I turned around, and saw him standing in the doorway, his long figure leaning against the doorjamb, arms crossed in front of his chest. He was still wearing the navy blue cashmere sweater that brought out the green flecks in his eyes and tan corduroy trousers he’d had on earlier, and I could tell from his rumpled hair that he’d been running his hands through it again.
He does that when he’s nervous or anxious about something, I thought, and strangely felt the urge to reach out and smooth it for him. But I didn’t, remembering that his face, which only a few hours earlier had been so precious to me, was simply the mask of a very bad, very screwed-up man.
“Ridiculous? Except the part where you lied to me, of course,” I said instead, raising my chin and crossing my own arms.
I half expected Jack to deny it all. But instead, he simply said, “Yes.”
“Yes?”
“I did lie, but it wasn’t what you think,” he said, as if this were any kind of an explanation for anything.
“Not what I think?”
I was suddenly aware that I kept parroting the last thing that he said, my voice dripping with condescension and outrage, making me sound like a shoulder-pad-wearing, teased-hair diva from a bad eighties television drama.
“What I think is that you set up our ‘chance’ meeting on the airplane, and that you lied to me about why you and Maddy broke up, and then you’ve continued to pursue me as part of some sort of twisted little revenge plot. That’s what I think,” I continued.
Jack shook his head, looking tired and incredulous at the same time. “Well, you’re partly right . . . I did know who you were when we first met. In fact, I was originally booked on a later flight, but Maddy told me you were coming to visit her, and I saw the e-mail you sent her that contained your itinerary. It was just a coincidence that I was in New York attending a conference, and traveling back here on the same day, but I decided to take advantage of it. I switched flights, and told the ticketing agent that you and I were together so that he would assign me a seat near you. And I lied about it later when I said I didn’t know who you were. But I didn’t do that to hurt you, or as part of this insane story that Maddy’s cooked up. I did it because I wanted to meet you, and I figured that it was going to be my only chance,” he said.
“You wanted to meet me? But that doesn’t make any sense. We’d never even spoken,” I pointed out.
“We had, in a way. I know it sounds odd, but Maddy shared a bunch of your e-mails with me, and I thought you were hysterically funny . . . I couldn’t stop laughing after I read that e-mail you sent her about how you toured through Disney World, trying to see the happiest place on earth through the cranky eyes of someone who had a bad back and arthritis. And when I saw your picture, saw how beautiful you are, I just couldn’t let the chance of meeting you pass me by,” he said.
I snorted at the “beautiful” comment. This ridiculous insistence that he found me just as attractive as all of the models that he’d dated in the past was the main reason I knew he was lying about the rest of it. It reminded me of the time in college when I was out at a nightclub, and some drunken frat boy had slobbered into my ear, “Did anyone ever tell you that you look just like Elle Macpherson? You wanna come home with me?” I was no more gullible to that sort of insincere flattery now than I was then.
“And if I had told you who I was, that I was dating one of your friends, you would never have agreed to see me after that,” Jack continued.
“You’re right. I wouldn’t have,” I agreed. “Which is why you had to get me into bed, get me emotionally involved with you, before I learned the truth, right? Because otherwise, I’d never have gone along with it.”
“No! God! What the hell is wrong with you, Claire? Do you really think I’d travel all the way to New York just to piss off Maddy? Or go through all of the trouble of talking you into coming out here? Why would I do that? It doesn’t make any sense,” he said, flapping his hands apart with exasperation.
“It does if you were in love with her, and found out she was cheating on you,” I said quietly.
“Yes, I found out that she was sleeping with her boss. But even before that, I already knew that it wasn’t going to work out between us. For one thing, I wasn’t in love with her, nor did I ever tell her that I was—I don’t suppose she mentioned that to you, did she? When I first met Maddy, I was at a point in my life where I didn’t want to spend any more time with party girls, and she came across as smart, and goal-oriented, and successful, and nice, but I didn’t fall in love with her. I tried, but I couldn’t. Learning that she was sleeping around just clarified how wrong the relationship was. I didn’t appreciate it, but I also wasn’t so destroyed by it that I felt the need to take my revenge against her,” Jack said.
I wavered. Jack’s explanation for breaking up with Maddy made some sense, but at the same time, he’d lied to me. Who was I supposed to believe? Maddy, who I’d known for years to be honest, or Jack, who I’d known for a short time, and who had spent almost that entire time lying to me? Okay, so Maddy had been more than a little harsh toward me, but who could blame her after what I’d done? And hadn’t she known Jack far longer than I had, hadn’t she spent more time with him? My relationship with him pretty much boiled down to three long weekends, chats on the phone, and some flirtatious e-mailing.
“None of that explains why you’ve been pursuing me, nor why you kept pressuring me to tell Maddy about our relationship,” I pointed out.
Jack shook his head with irritation. He strode through the room and pulled a metal magazine box off one of bookshelves and then held it out to me.
“What’s that?” I asked suspiciously.
He yanked the magazines out and held them up so I could see—a dozen or so back issues of Sassy Seniors.
“I read everything you’ve ever written, even before we met,” Jack said.
I began shaking my head from side to side. “I don’t understand,” I said stupidly.
Jack put the box down on his desk and sat down heavily on his bed.
“I’ve been pursuing you because I’ve . . . because I care about you, Claire. Not that you’ve made it easy, equivocating about coming out here, and then acting all jumpy every time we start to get close. I’ve never dated anyone like you—you’re stubborn, and difficult, and suspicious . . .” he began.
As Jack began ticking off this list of not-so-flattering traits, I raised a hand to stop him. “Yeah, I can see why you’d be so into me,” I said sarcastically.
“I am! God, that’s my e
ntire point, and if you weren’t being so deliberately thick, maybe you’d actually hear me! All I’ve wanted to do since even before I met you was to be with you, to spend time with you, to get to know you better. Why can’t you see that? And the only reason I wanted you to tell Maddy about us was that I thought that once you did, and once everything was out in the open, that you’d relax and stop playing so hard-to-get,” Jack said. He’d raised his voice to an almost shout and was glowering at me from his vantage point on the bed.
I didn’t want to hear any more. I wanted to believe him, but how could I? In my experience, all men were liars—my father, Sawyer for telling me that he loved me, and now Jack. Even Max had lied to me in a sense, since the entire time we were friends he was apparently hiding his true feelings for me. I just couldn’t do it, I couldn’t believe Jack, because if I did . . . if I did, it would just end up with me being hurt again, even more so than I was now.
In fact, if I was going to protect myself from him, I needed to get out of his home. Immediately. I began to pace around the room, peering under the bed, next to the armoire, behind his desk.
“What are you looking for?” Jack asked.
“My suitcase! Where’s my suitcase?” I cried.
“It’s right here,” Jack said, getting up and opening the enormous armoire doors. My still-unpacked, scuffed-up, emerald green bag—the hideous color chosen so that it would stand out at baggage claim—looked like an ugly stepchild nestled up next to Jack’s collection of gorgeous, buttery-soft leather bags. I reached out to grab it, but Jack put up a hand.
“I’ll carry it down for you. And I’ll call you a cab, if that’s what you want me to do. But I wish you would stay, even if it’s just for a few hours, so we can talk. I’m not saying that I haven’t screwed up, or that you don’t have a right to be angry. But . . . I love you,” Jack said. “Please at least hear me out.”
“Don’t,” I croaked. “Please. Don’t say that.”
And then I grabbed my bag and practically ran out of his house, not looking back to see if Jack had followed me.
I went straight to the airport. I was really early—my flight didn’t leave for another four days—but I was hoping that maybe I could cash my ticket in on an earlier flight. I’d ride on the wing if I had to . . . I wanted out of jolly old England and back to the relative sanity of Manhattan. I’d been hoping it would be a slow travel day, and was amazed at how crowded Heathrow turned out to be—the line at the ticket counter seemed to stretch on for a mile—and although they had a dozen people manning the counter, it took me nearly an hour to get to the front of the line.
When it was finally my turn, and I explained to the airline employee that I wanted to cash in my ticket for an earlier flight, the woman—a chilly brunette with a clipped British accent—said, “Sorry. You can only fly standby on the same day for which your ticket was issued.” Without another word, she handed the ticket back over and looked past me at the next traveler in line, and said, “Next!”
“No! Wait a minute, please. I need to get on a flight to New York, and today if possible. Can’t I pay some kind of a changing fee?” I said.
The woman sighed with exasperation and looked me up and down. Since I’d been soaked through by the earlier rain and left to air-dry, I could only imagine how awful I probably looked—between my frizzed-out hair, streaked mascara, and rumpled clothing, I’m sure I did not impress.
“Could I see your ticket again, please,” she said, and then began typing into her terminal, her nails making exaggerated tapping sounds against the keys. Finally she said, “No, sorry, the business-class cabin is booked on our one remaining flight out tonight.”
“Do you have anything in coach?” I asked quickly.
Another sigh. Some more tip-tapping. “Yes, we do have a few seats . . . that will be, let’s see . . . a three-hundred-dollar fee to change your ticket,” she said.
“It costs three hundred dollars to change a business-class ticket in for a coach ticket?” I asked.
The woman’s thinly plucked eyebrows arched up. “That’s the standard charge, madam. If you’d rather not make the change, then . . .”
“No! Wait, here, I’ll give you my credit card,” I said, fumbling through my bag for my wallet. As I slid the plastic across the counter, I said a silent prayer that the card would work. I’d been dangerously close to my limit, and although I’d mailed off a check to the credit card company before I left for London, they never seemed in all that much of a hurry to process my payment. But for the first time that day, I actually caught a break—after some more typing, and the computer spitting out a ludicrous number of printouts, and my bag being abused as it was tossed on the conveyer belt, the snippy brunette handed over a boarding pass.
“The gate is circled in red ink; boarding will begin in forty minutes. Thank you. Next!”
“No, thank you for all of your help,” I said sarcastically, although it seemed to be lost on her.
I wandered in the general direction of my gate, and as I did, a great exhaustion settled over me. All of the conflict and confrontation had left me feeling wrung out. I was sure that after I’d had a chance to reflect on all that had happened, my lethargy would turn to sorrow and anger and worry. But right now it seemed to be taking all of my energy just to put one foot in front of the other on the long walk to my gate.
I bought a Diet Coke from a food vendor and popped off the plastic lid to make it easier to gulp down. But just as I was lifting the cup to my mouth, something that felt roughly the size and weight of a Hummer knocked into me from behind. The cup went flying out of my hands, but not before Diet Coke poured all over me. I looked down at the dark brown stain that now covered the front of what had been a brand-new Banana Republic cream lettuce-hemmed sweater, and then looked up, trying to figure out just how it had happened. A family of four American tourists—a set of obese parents and their two piggy children—were pushing past me, their hands stretched out in front of them in order to shove aside anyone who happened to be in their path.
“Hey!” I yelled out, grabbing at the flabby arm of the father. “Look what you just did to me, you asshole!”
One of the children, a boy who bore an uncanny resemblance to Augustus Gloop from the movie Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, looked at the cola dripping down my front and laughed, a disgusting snorting sound. The father gave me a dirty look, and said, “You should watch where you’re going,” and then without another word continued onward, still shoving aside any unwary traveler who happened to be in front of them, while the porcine mother screeched, “Hurry up, we’re going to be late!”
I stared after them, for the first time truly understanding where the “ugly American” stereotype came from, and then looked down again at my now-ruined sweater. I saw some schoolgirls looking at me and tittering, so I stalked off to the bathroom, in the futile hope that I could somehow rinse out the stain. Once in the ladies’ room, I lost all sense of modesty and peeled off my top, rinsing it under the faucet while I stood there in my pants and sheer bra. Some of the women tutted under their breath, as if the sight of another woman in her underclothes was somehow unbearably offensive, but I just ignored them and continued to dab at the shirt with a brown paper hand towel that didn’t seem to be helping much at all.
I finally realized with a sigh that the shirt was a complete loss, and I stared at it glumly. I’d made a major miscalculation—the shirt was now not only stained with the soda, it was completely soaked through, and I had absolutely nothing to wear out into the airport. I didn’t even have my wool overcoat, which I’d stuffed into the outer pocket of the suitcase before checking it in. So it looked like in order to get to a gift shop, where I could purchase a touristy T-shirt to wear home on the flight, I’d either have to walk there in my bra . . . or put on my wet and now completely transparent top. Either way, I would surely be arrested for nipple overexposure.
And then I remembered . . . the light-up reindeer sweatshirt. It was still buried at the b
ottom of my carry-on bag where I’d stuffed it on the last day of work. It was ugly and synthetic, but at least it would keep me from being a walking peep show. I quickly pulled it on, managing to avoid my reflection in the mirror—I just didn’t have the stomach for it—and tossed the balled-up ruined sweater in the trash. I checked my watch to see if I had enough time to run to a gift shop—even a cotton T-shirt emblazoned with Big Ben would be an improvement—and swore under my breath when I realized that my flight would begin boarding momentarily, and I wasn’t even on the right concourse. In fact, the only way I’d make the flight at all was if I ran for it—not a pleasing thought, considering I was wearing my three-inch chunky-heeled boots, which were more hip than they were practical.
I sprinted wildly for the gate, spurred on when I heard the final call for my flight. I made it just in time, arriving at the gate with aching feet and a red face. The polyester sweatshirt was sticking to my back, and I plucked it out, trying to let in some air. An airline employee grabbed my boarding pass and shooed me onto the plane, and a minute later I was squeezing past the flight attendants, looking for my seat, which was . . . oh shit. It was the very middle seat in a row of five. Things became even bleaker when I pushed forward, moving toward the back of the plane—which, past experience had taught me, was always the stinkiest place to sit due to the constant traffic in and out of the tiny back bathroom stalls—and I saw that the only empty seat on the plane, my seat apparently, was smack-dab in the middle of the same obnoxious family who had caused me to spill soda down my front. And there they were—the Gloop parents stuffed like sausages into their seats on one side, the two churlish kids fighting on the other side.
True Love (and Other Lies) Page 25