True Love (and Other Lies)

by Whitney Gaskell

  “And what exactly was her response to this extraordinary offer?” Jack demanded.

  “Um . . . she said no,” I said. “She said she’d rather we didn’t date.”

  “What a shock! And I would have thought a woman who’d proven herself to be as selfish and malicious as Maddy would jump at the chance to make two people she claims to love happy,” Jack said sarcastically.

  “That’s not fair,” I protested. “We hurt her.”

  “How exactly did I hurt her? By breaking up with her when I realized that I wasn’t in love with her? And after I found out that the entire time I was seeing her she was sleeping with her boss?”

  “Okay, maybe between you and Maddy you’re relatively blameless, but I certainly screwed up. If I’d been honest with her from the beginning . . .” I began.

  “Then she would have insisted that we stop seeing each other then,” Jack finished.

  “Yes, probably. But at least . . . at least this wouldn’t have become so complicated,” I said.

  “Complicated? Is that what you call this? Let me ask you a question, Claire—do you love me?” It sounded more like a demand than a question, but either way, it took me aback.

  I had no idea how I should respond. After Sawyer, I’d pretty much flushed the entire idea of falling in love, and assumed that either it never really happened in real life, or at least, it would never happen to me. I was meant for more-casual flings, or if I was very lucky, one of those we-don’t-have-sex-but-we’re-best-friends compromise marriages.

  But then Jack came along. He was everything I’d ever wanted in a man—he was headstrong and smart and funny and sexy as hell. He saw through my defenses, and still wanted to get to know me better. And when I fought the feelings I was having, he fought back, and forced me to be honest with him. So despite myself, I did love him—and in the purest, most unconditional way possible. I supposed that the least I owed him was honesty.

  “Yes, I love you,” I said quietly.

  He paused, and I heard him suck in his breath.

  “And I love you,” Jack said softly. “And that’s all that should matter.”

  “I know, in a perfect world, it would. But if we continued with this relationship, after all of the dishonesty, and all of the pain, then it would always have a taint to it. Neither one of us deserves that. And Maddy doesn’t deserve that . . . she deserves to have her dignity,” I said, using Dr. Blum’s word, hoping that it would make the same sense to Jack that it had to me.

  “You couldn’t be more wrong. Maybe it’s a little messy, and maybe we ended up hurting someone in the process, but that’s not a good enough reason to throw us away,” Jack argued.

  “I’m trying to do the right thing,” I said, feeling like I was reciting dialogue from an after-school television special. I knew that the fact that the conversation was breaking down into platitudes was a sign that it was time to end it and get off the phone, but I couldn’t seem to bring myself to do it. It might be the last chance I had to talk to Jack, and as unpleasant as the conversation was turning, I was still savoring the connection while it lasted.

  “You know, Claire, I’ve had it. I’ve spent the last two months chasing after you, trying to spend time with you to see if this relationship would fulfill its potential, and now you’ve finally admitted that you have feelings for me, that you love me, and then you announce that you won’t continue seeing me unless you have the permission of my ex-girlfriend, a woman who has gone flying off the deep end. How do you expect me to respond to that?” Jack asked. His voice had started off with a jaw-clenched, vein-throbbing growl and escalated to a near shout that had me wincing.

  “I don’t expect anything. . . . I was just trying to talk to you about it, tell you what I decided,” I said.

  “And what gave you the right to decide this for the both of us? What kind of a game are you playing? Did you read about playing hard-to-get in one of those stupid dating books, and think that it would be some sort of a huge turn-on? Because let me tell you, I’m not going to keep chasing after you, Claire, only to have you kick me every time I catch up,” Jack said. I’d never heard him so angry—it was incongruous with the laid-back Jack with the lazy grin and crinkled-up eyes.

  “I’m not playing games, and I’m not asking you to chase after me. I’m sorry about this, about everything,” I croaked. The tears, which had been threatening to erupt ever since I first heard Jack’s voice on the other end of the line, began burning my eyes, and my chest felt like it had been filled with concrete.

  “I’m sorry, too. But if you’re serious about ending it, then this is good-bye, because I’m not going to go through this again,” he said.

  I wanted more than anything to somehow reach through the phone line and grab hold of him, to pull him tightly to me and never let him go. The tears began streaming down my cheeks, the salt water burning tracks as they fell. I knew that I had—for the briefest moment—a chance to undo everything I had just said, and hold on to him. It was right there in front of me, the brass ring winking and glinting in order to get my attention, and yet I couldn’t make myself grab onto it.

  “I love you,” I said, wavering, my voice hoarse and jagged with tears. “I’m sorry that it all had to end this way.”

  “That’s the worst part about this—it didn’t have to,” Jack said sadly. “Good-bye, Claire.”

  Again, an electronic click signaled that the conversation was over, but I continued to hold the receiver up to my ear until an electronic female voice told me again and again that if I’d like to make a call, I should hang up and dial again.

  Chapter 22

  After getting off the phone with Jack, I cried for the rest of the evening and through most of the night, and although I felt like I could spend another month crying, I discovered by the next morning that I had run out of tears. I’d feel my chest well up, and my throat would tighten, and my breath turn shallow and uneven, everything in place for a good, cathartic sob fest, but the tears were a no-show. It was a severe punishment; crying brought me some small relief, and to be stripped of even that seemed cruel. Still, my nightlong crying jag hadn’t done wonders for my looks—I was left with splotchy skin, red eyes, and a swollen nose. My mother took one look at me and made me drink an enormous glass of ice water before fixing me a full, cholesterol-laden breakfast of freshly squeezed orange juice, scrambled eggs, crisp bacon, and a toasted bagel loaded up with cream cheese. I knew how awful I must have looked for my mother to actually be pushing food on me. Breakfast at her house normally consisted of bran flakes and skim milk—if I made a move for the full-fat cream cheese kept in the fridge for Howard, my mother would run interference, body-blocking me while she expounded on the benefits of the fat-free, carb-free, fun-free diet.

  After breakfast, I jumped in the pool. Something about dunking yourself in cold water on a hot day has a remarkably restorative effect. I sliced through the water, arms swinging, legs kicking, heart pumping, and for at least a few minutes I felt weightless and free. Submerged two feet underwater and gliding along the pool like a stingray, nothing could touch me, and I reemerged feeling somewhat human.

  But there’s only so much healing one can accomplish overnight, even with a sympathetic mother, fattening breakfast, and refreshing swim, and by the time I took a shower, washing away the smell of chlorine with sudsy raspberry shower gel, my heart began to prick with sadness again. Then I remembered that Jack had said he’d left messages on my answering machine, and before I could stop myself, I was back in the guest room, wrapped in a fluffy blue towel, punching my phone number into the cordless phone. Once my machine picked up—I cringed when I heard my voice on the outgoing message, I sounded so stuffy and officious—I entered in my code, and a minute later, an electronic voice was telling me I had ten messages. Almost immediately, Jack’s voice, rich and warm and strained with anxiety, was playing in my ear.

  “Hi, Claire, it’s me. Please pick up if you’re there, we need to talk. Okay . . . please call me when you
get in. I know you’re angry, and I don’t blame you, but give me a chance to explain. Okay? I’ll talk to you soon, I hope.”

  Jack had left six additional messages like the first one, the last recorded only an hour before I’d called him the day before. Hearing the worry in his voice, the concern for how I was doing, the anxiety at not hearing back from me . . . it took all of my strength not to pick up the phone and call him again, to take back everything I’d said the night before. I might still have a chance if I pled insanity or intoxication.

  But I knew that I couldn’t. I hoped that at some point the knowledge that I’d done the right thing would make me feel better, but for the time being it was cold comfort. Maybe I’d given Maddy her dignity back—and that was a big maybe—but I had nothing to show for it. Our friendship was over and I’d lost my one shot at the happily-ever-after everyone’s always yammering on about.

  The next two messages were from my office—one was from the day before from horrible Peggy letting me know that I was out of both sick days and vacation days, the other, left that morning, was from Robert, sounding brisk with annoyance, and asking me to call in to work immediately. I erased them both, and wondered—without really caring—whether I still had a job. I supposed it was something I needed to know eventually, but right now this whole Floridian retiree lifestyle was starting to grow on me. All that my mom, Howard, and their friends seemed to do was play golf and take turns throwing cocktail parties—it was like a never-ending college spring break (minus the wet T-shirt contests and random hook-ups). Maybe I could use my extensive knowledge of the issues facing senior citizens to worm my way into their crowd, and then pull an Anna Nicole Smith by marrying one of the older, richer men, pull a few years of wife duty (taking care to hide his supply of Viagra), and be left a wealthy widow by the time I was forty. Sure, it was a little mercenary, but at least that way I’d never again have to return to my depressing gray-walled cubicle and listen to Doris, a copy editor, drone on endlessly about her arthritic knees and fourteen cats.

  But the tenth message wiped away all thoughts of gold digging. It was Kit Holiday, a message left that very morning:

  “Hi, Claire, this is Kit Holiday from Retreat magazine. We’d love to have you come work with us, so please give me a call as soon as you can and I’ll give you all of the details of our offer. I’m looking forward to hearing from you and, hopefully, to working with you.”

  I flew back to Manhattan the next day, a Saturday. My mom seemed truly sad to see me go, and tried to talk me into staying through the weekend, but since I’d accepted the job at Retreat—at a significant increase in salary from what I was making at Sassy Seniors!—and was set to start work there on February 1, I had far too many things to do to stay away any longer. I needed to give notice at work, finish up all of the assignments I had outstanding—including taking a three-day trip to Denver that I’d managed to put off for a month—and pack up my apartment, not to mention finding a new place to live in Chicago. I was stunned that they’d hired me after that awful interview, but when I called Kit back, she’d gushed about how impressed they’d been with me. Huh.

  But when I hugged my mom good-bye at the airport, and told her I’d miss her, I was being completely honest. I felt closer to her than I had in years. I’d once heard that you spend your twenties hating your parents for all of the mistakes they made raising you, and then in your thirties you start to forgive them. Maybe my mother and I had finally reached a truce, and from now on could concentrate more on getting to know each other as adults, and less on each other’s faults. Still, I was ready to get back home. The new job was just what I needed—and not only because I’d been one step away from cruising for seventy-year-old men. It would be a relief to focus on something other than my personal problems.

  When I gave my notice to Robert on Monday, he didn’t react the way I thought he would. I’d expected him to break out the champagne and perform a Russian kicking dance on top of his desk; instead, he actually looked a little misty eyed and said that he was sorry to see me go.

  “You’ve been spunky, but when you stopped fighting me and decided to take a little editorial advice, your writing was superb. In fact, your London article was the best you’ve ever turned in,” Robert said.

  “Er, thanks,” I said, not sure which was more annoying—that he’d called me “spunky” or that he continued to view the bland, colorless articles that I’d hated writing (the London piece being the worst of the lot) as my finest work.

  Unlike Robert, Peggy was thrilled to learn of my imminent departure. About five minutes after I gave my notice—proof that Barbara does eavesdrop on everything that goes on in Robert’s office, and then spreads the gossip as fast as her orthopedic shoes will carry her—Peggy appeared at the entrance to my cubicle, Germanic blue eyes sparkling, face flushed with excitement.

  “Is it true? Are you really leaving? When?” she asked with ill-concealed delight.

  “Yes. The twenty-fourth will be my last day,” I said dryly. The level of her glee was a little insulting, but at least Peggy wasn’t a hypocrite. And for the next three weeks, whenever I did see her, she was almost always humming. At least I’d managed to make someone’s New Year’s wishes come true.

  The weeks before I left for Chicago began to pick up speed, like in one of those cartoons where the passage of time is illustrated by each sheet of a page-a-day calendar ripping off faster and faster in a blustery wind. I worked long days training Enid, my replacement, and trying to finish up two features I was writing—my final travel column, focusing on Denver, and a general article on cruise deals—and when I got home at night, I packed boxes, arranged for my mail to be forwarded and services to be cut off, and generally tried to get organized for my move.

  Kit Holiday had turned out to be my saving grace—she hooked me up to sublet an apartment from a professor friend of hers who was spending a year teaching at Oxford. The professor was a gruff woman with a condescending way of speaking—she used lots of large words as she spoke, and then felt it necessary to define them for me—but the rent she was charging was reasonable, and the apartment was fully furnished, so I could put my own meager assortment of furniture into storage until I found a more permanent place to live.

  I tried not to think about Jack more than every five minutes or so. Sometimes I’d manage to go an entire half hour without dwelling on the lost relationship, or missing his happy-go-lucky grin, or the soapy clean way he smelled, or the way his lips felt when they lingered on mine. Other times, like on the interminably long plane ride to Denver, I could think of nothing else. I couldn’t even bring myself to erase the seven messages he’d left on my answering machine, so that in my more desperate moments I could listen to his voice.

  I had hoped that once Maddy thought about everything I’d said, she’d reconsider her scorched-earth policy toward our friendship. I was wrong. She didn’t call, not once, nor did I try to contact her. She’d made it clear that she didn’t want me to contact her, and I had to respect her wishes. If I’d thought that it would all end like an episode of Friends, and in the final moments of the half hour, she’d appear out of nowhere, hug me, and tell me that no matter what I’d done, our friendship was too special to let go, I would have been disappointed. And I was disappointed . . . both in myself for not being brave enough to be truthful with her earlier, but also in Maddy for not being able to forgive me.

  At least my friendship with Max was still intact, if a little awkward. A few days after I’d returned from Florida, there’d been a quiet knock at my door, and I opened it to Max, wearing his Duran Duran Seven and the Ragged Tiger tour T-shirt and looking sheepish.

  “You interested in Chinese take-out and Terminator 2? I promise I won’t try to stick my tongue down your throat,” he said, and after that, things more or less returned to normal between us.

  I thought Max and I should talk things out and wanted to make sure that he was okay, but since I couldn’t think of a way to bring up what had happened without
embarrassing him, I let it go. I didn’t even feel comfortable asking him about his split with Daphne (since the catalyst for the breakup was—according to Max—his feelings for me). Every once in a while, Max would make a joke about the Jekyll-and-Hyde effect rum had on him, but I always just laughed it off, as I knew he wanted me to.

  On that first night we hung out together over Chinese take-out, I filled him in on everything that had happened during my trips to London and Florida. For Max’s benefit, I was careful to play down how heartbroken I was over Jack, but I didn’t leave anything major out.

  “So what do you think? Do you agree with Dr. Blum and my mom?” I asked him.

  Max shrugged. “I think you did the right thing for you. You know I never liked Maddy—and I like her even less now. I can’t believe she was so harsh to you,” he began.

  “She was angry and lashing out,” I interjected.

  “Yeah, but it was still shitty of her to talk to you like that, and it was even shittier for her not to accept your multiple apologies. I think she’s gone way overboard on the scorned-woman act. If that’s the kind of person she is, then maybe you’re better off without her,” Max continued.

  “Maybe,” I said, unconvinced. Lately, I’d been missing Maddy more than ever. Girlfriends are a necessity for nursing you through a broken heart.

  “But like I told you before you left, I don’t think you’re the kind of person who could have continued to have a relationship with someone, knowing how much it would hurt a close friend, whether or not the friend deserved your loyalty in the first place. So, for your sake, you did the right thing. I don’t know if you gave Maddy back her dignity, but at least you acted in a way that preserved your own,” Max continued wisely.

  Normally at this point he’d have hugged me, but the awkwardness around our last physical contact still hung between us, so instead we exchanged shy smiles and watched Arnold Schwarzenegger blow things up.