“It’s very important that I talk to him, today if possible. Is there a good time for me to call back?” I asked politely, after giving her my name and telephone number.
“I’ll give him the message that you called,” the gatekeeper said, neither promising that he’d return my phone call nor giving away when he’d be available.
I thanked her and hung up the phone, and tried to distract myself from waiting for the phone to ring by wrapping every cheap, plain Ikea plate I owned in two layers of bubble wrap. When he hadn’t called back by two p.m.—which made it seven p.m. in London—I tried him at work again, only to hear a recorded message that the office was closed. I hoped that Jack just hadn’t gotten my message—and tried not to think about the alternative, that he had and decided to blow me off—and called him at his town house. The phone rang four times before an answering machine clicked on, and Jack’s slow, warm voice was telling me to leave a message after the tone.
“Hi, it’s me . . . Claire, I mean. There’s something I need to tell you, to, um, talk to you about, and it’s important. Really important. Please call me as soon as you can, tonight if possible. Thanks,” I finished rather lamely before hanging up. I’d thought about adding on an “I’ve missed you,” or even an “I love you,” but then had a flash of fear that there might be a new girlfriend on the scene—who in my worst nightmares would end up being lithe and beautiful and intelligent, maybe the British über-model Sophie Dahl—and that they would be listening to the message while entwined around each other.
“Who was that, darling?” she’d ask with a posh British accent.
“No one important,” he’d reply, hitting the delete button to erase my message, before dragging her over to the couch—our couch—to make love to her in front of the fire. The thought made me sick to my stomach.
The hours dragged by, and the phone did keep ringing—each time causing my heart to jump into my throat—but it was only telemarketers, or once Max saying he was running late. I tried Jack again at five p.m., and then at six p.m., each time hanging up without leaving a message when the machine picked up, and feeling more and more disheartened with each passing hour. By the time Max showed up with our pizza and movie—a compromise, Turner and Hooch—it was after midnight in London, and I was starting to give up hope. During the time when Jack and I were phone dating, he was never out this late. The only explanation I could think of was that there was a new girlfriend on the scene . . . and he was staying over at her apartment.
“What’s wrong?” Max asked, wiping the tears out of his eyes and pausing the movie at the point where Hooch was chewing up Tom Hanks’ police car. “We’re watching the funniest movie of all time, and you’re not laughing at all.”
“I’m just a little distracted,” I sighed.
“What’s up?” Max asked.
I hesitated. Things had normalized between Max and me, mainly because we were both pretending that his drunken declaration of love and poorly received kiss had never happened. He knew that things hadn’t worked out between Jack and me, and he’d been warm and understanding when I told him about it, but I didn’t know how he’d receive the news that Maddy had given us the nod to get back together . . . or that I’d been calling Jack all afternoon without any success.
“I’m guessing from your silence, and from the fact that you’ve been staring more at the phone than you have at the movie, that it has something to do with a certain British guy. Am I right?” Max asked. “And I know, I know, he’s not really British, that was a joke.”
I nodded, biting my lip. “Maddy called me today, and she and I patched things up. She also told me that . . . um, well, that I have her blessing to pursue things with Jack. I tried calling him earlier, but haven’t heard back from him yet. I’m sorry, I was going to tell you earlier, but . . .” I said, my voice trailing off.
Max nodded. “So what are you going to do?” he asked carefully.
“I’m going to tell Jack what Maddy said, and see if we still have a chance together,” I said. I paused for a moment, before adding, “What do you think?”
Max smiled ruefully and pulled my ponytail. “I hope that this guy is smart enough to call you back,” he said. “Because if he doesn’t, I will personally kick his limey ass for you.”
I laughed. “Promise?”
“Promise.”
“Well, that’s good to know,” I said. I hesitated for a minute, and then asked, “Have you heard from Daphne?”
Max shook his head. “I called her a few weeks ago, and apologized for being such an ass about everything—hell, I groveled—but she didn’t want to hear it.”
“And that’s it? You just called once?” I asked.
“God, no, that was just the first time. I called her so often, I’m surprised she didn’t slap me with a restraining order. For a while she screened all of my calls, but then two weeks ago she finally picked up. Now we talk at least once a day, although she still says she just wants to be friends. She told me she’s dating some guy she met through PETA,” Max said gloomily. “I’m not even a vegetarian. I don’t have a chance in hell of getting her back.”
I punched him lightly on the arm. “Of course you do. Daphne adores you. She’s just hurt right now, but she’ll come around.”
“And what if she doesn’t, what then? And you’re not even going to be here to help me. I can’t believe you’re moving to Chicago,” he said.
“I know, it feels strange,” I agreed. “But we’ll talk lots.”
“It won’t be the same,” Max said simply. And I knew he was right. It wouldn’t.
Max left at eleven, and I curled up on the couch, phone in hand, hoping that Jack had just gotten in too late the night before and was planning to call me before he left for work in the morning. I closed my eyes for just a minute, and when I next opened them the sun was streaming through the windows and filling my tiny apartment with light. I looked over at my wall clock and saw it was nine a.m. I stretched and tried to sit up, although sleeping in a semireclined position all night had wrenched my neck. I rubbed at it, and tried to remember how I’d come to spending the night on my couch instead of in my nice, comfy bed.
Then I remembered. Jack. I grabbed for my answering machine, hoping that I’d somehow slept through his return call and that he’d left a message for me. But a mocking red zero just stared back at me. There were no messages.
I flipped on the coffeepot, and while it brewed, I stood under a hot shower, letting the water run against my sore neck while I kneaded it, trying to get the muscle spasms to unclench. By the time I was rinsing conditioner out of my hair, I was finally starting to feel human. Once out of the shower, I wrapped myself in my enormous, carnation-pink terry cloth robe, brushed the snarls out of my wet hair, and returned to the kitchenette for the freshly brewed coffee. I retrieved a frozen bagel from the freezer, toasted it, and ate my breakfast while perched on my kitchen counter, the way I used to when I was a teenager.
What was I going to do now? Should I assume from his silence that Jack was not interested? I’d left him two messages, after all, and it was unlikely that matters would have conspired so that he didn’t get either one. Even if his secretary forgot to tell him I called—which was unlikely, the woman sounded like a paragon of brutal efficiency—it was doubtful that some sort of a freak electric storm in London would have caused his answering machine to short out and erase the message I left there. But I couldn’t give up now. It went along with my new policy of lowering my defenses; yes, the result might be that I ended up getting kicked in the teeth, but that was a risk I was going to have to take.
I hopped down from my kitchen counter and searched through the pile of throw cushions on my couch until I located the phone. I carefully dialed Jack’s office number, and hoped that he would pick up his own extension, as he had in the past.
“Jack Harrison’s office.”
Crap. It was the secretary again, sounding like her girdle was cinched about an inch too tight.
�
��Hi, this is Claire Spencer calling for Mr. Harrison,” I said, feeling ridiculous for being so formal.
“I’m afraid Mr. Harrison is traveling on business and will be out of the office for several days. Would you care to leave a message?” the secretary asked.
At hearing this, my sagging spirits perked back up. Jack was out of town—so that was why he hadn’t answered his phone last night! And that was why he hadn’t returned my messages! I knew that he wouldn’t just blow me off that way, it was so unlike him.
Feeling like I still had a chance, I forged ahead. “I don’t know if you remember me, but I called yesterday,” I began.
“Yes, I gave Mr. Harrison your telephone message,” she said.
“Oh . . . you did. Because he didn’t call me back,” I said, deflating again. I was also starting to feel like a complete fool. The secretary’s disapproving tone was making me feel like a stalker.
“I’m certain he was otherwise engaged. He left London this morning,” the secretary said. I could tell that she was a nanosecond away from hanging up on me, so I jumped in quickly, eager to pump her for as much information as possible.
“He left this morning? So he was in London all day yesterday? Are you sure?” I asked.
“Quite certain. I personally arranged for the car service. But I will tell him that you called again. Good-bye,” the secretary said quickly, and hung up before I could ask another question.
So that was it. Jack had gotten my messages, and he hadn’t called me back. The silence wasn’t hard to read . . . he’d meant it when he said that there were no second chances. Knowing him as I did, I was surprised that he wouldn’t even hear me out, but then again, he’d just dealt with an ex-girlfriend going a little wacko on him, so maybe he had a new policy of good-bye really meaning good-bye.
And the really crappy thing about it was that there was nothing I could do. If he wouldn’t pick up the phone when I called—last night, if he wasn’t out with Sophie Dahl, he must have been screening my calls, and at this point I didn’t know which scenario was worse—then I couldn’t tell him that Maddy had stepped aside, and he and I were free to see each other, or that being estranged from him was so painful that sometimes I’d found it hard to breathe, or that I was willing to let down my defenses, ready to lower the bridge over the alligator-infested moat and invite him into my fortress. I was in New York, he was in London, so it was hardly as though I could stand outside his house, tossing pebbles at his window and calling for him until he either agreed to speak to me or called the police. I managed a wry smile at the image of my chasing Jack down, banging on his windows and screaming his name, like Dustin Hoffman breaking up the wedding at the end of The Graduate, as if that would ever happen. It was all so ridiculous.
Or was it? A random idea blew across my mind, like a cloud puffing lazily over a summer sky, the kind of thought that should have drifted away never to be considered again, had I not reached out and grabbed onto it out of sheer desperation. It was a completely implausible scheme . . . and yet, it might be the only chance I had to win back the man I loved. If I couldn’t get Jack to talk to me over the phone, then I needed to confront him face-to-face, to knock on his door or even throw rocks at his window until he agreed to talk to me. I needed to go to London.
I looked around my apartment, taking in the two dozen cardboard boxes already packed full of my personal belongings. In five days, the movers were coming to put my furniture in storage, the shippers were picking up my boxes, and I had a one-way plane ticket to Chicago to start my new life. How on earth was I going to fit in an overseas trip in the middle of all of that? What if I didn’t get back in time? Jack’s secretary had said that he was out of town on business—what if he was away longer than a few days? What if I got all the way out there, and I ended up having to wait for a week or even longer before I even got to see him? What if I did manage to corner him, and he still refused to talk to me? Or what if I waited outside his town house, and when he finally returned he had some giggling, twig-thin blonde on his arm? It was a crazy idea to even consider doing such a thing, to set myself up for hurt and ridicule while at the same time risking all of the plans I’d made for my future in Chicago . . . wasn’t it? Of course it was.
A half an hour later I was booked on a British Airlines flight to London, leaving in a scant few hours—and at a fare so large it was doubtful I’d ever be able to afford to eat again. I was so frantic, I couldn’t figure out what to bring with me, so I just threw every halfway decent item of clothing I owned, clean and dirty, into a suitcase, not stopping to question whether I would really need my red tankini or black linen sundress for a January trip to London. Max—who answered my frantic phone call and promised to meet the movers and shippers for me if I wasn’t back in time to do it myself—appeared in the middle of this packing mania, and watched me for a few minutes with a mix of concern and admiration while I tore open box after box, emptying out the contents onto the floor while I searched for the various items I needed for this last-minute trip.
“Do you think I’m crazy?” I asked him suddenly, stopping my wild search for my missing passport.
Max shook his head, and gave me a big hug, like the kind he used to give me before things became awkward between us. “I think you’re brave,” he whispered in my ear. Then he looked past me, into the box I’d been ransacking. “There’s your passport, right there on top of that pile of Pottery Barn catalogues. Wait . . . you packed your old Pottery Barn catalogues? Claire, this one is from four years ago.”
“Oh, my passport!” I crowed. “Thank you, thank you, thank you! Now, where the hell did I put my toiletry bag?”
“I’m getting out of here before I’m buried in the rubble. Have a good trip, and call me to let me know what happens, okay? It’s the least I deserve, since I know I’m going to get stuck repacking this mess,” Max said, before disappearing and leaving me alone.
When I’d finally squashed in everything I could possibly need for any situation that could arise, from a long hospitalization to a sudden detour to the Bahamas, I zipped my suitcase shut and heaved it up. If I could get out of my apartment and catch a taxi in the next five minutes, then I should be able to make my flight. I didn’t want to think what would happen if I missed it; I didn’t have any room on my Visa card to purchase another ticket.
I pulled the suitcase down the four flights of stairs out of my building, the weight of the upright wheeled bag threatening to crush me with every step, and then, out of breath and completely frantic with anxiety, I raced out of my building, spotting a cab with its light on pulling away from the curb.
“Wait! Taxi!” I screamed, running down the stone steps that led up to my building, dragging my suitcase behind me, trying to flag down the cab before it drove away. But at that moment, in what could only be described as a cosmic turn of fate—or my comeuppance for having bought a cheap-ass suitcase at a discount store for twenty dollars—the main zipper on the bag broke, causing the overstuffed bag to split open. My personal belongings exploded onto the dirty, icy sidewalk like candy spilling out of a piñata.
“No!” I wailed, looking first at the damaged suitcase and then at the taxi that was speeding off down the street.
I leaned over the hemorrhaging bag, futilely picking at the zipper to see if it could be repaired with a few safety pins or some duct tape. My heart sank when I saw that it could not. This suitcase would not be flying to London today, and neither would I. It was over. I’d lost. There was simply no way I could track down another, better suitcase, repack, and make it to the airport in time to make my flight. And the ridiculously expensive plane ticket I’d purchased? It was, of course, of the nonrefundable, nonchangeable, don’t-miss-your-flight-or-you’re-fucked variety.
It can’t end this way, I thought miserably. In the movies, the plucky heroine would make the flight and get the guy just by cutely wrinkling her nose at him. She would not end up defeated and alone, and with every last pair of underwear she owned spread around on a gr
ungy New York sidewalk. Shivering miserably, I knelt in front of my bag, shoving clothes back into it and trying to figure out how the hell I was going to carry this thing back up to my apartment. There was no way I could leave it out here on the sidewalk unattended while I went upstairs to fetch a garbage bag to put everything in; if I did, by the time I came back down, the neighborhood’s assortment of vagrants and drifters would have helped themselves to the contents, and would each be decked out in my beach sarong or silk Victoria’s Secret underwear.
What in the hell am I going to do now? I wondered desolately, tears of frustration pricking at my eyes. But then I steeled myself, and shook my head.
No, I thought. This is not how it’s going to end. I’ll just have to leave my stupid suitcase here and go without it. So what if it means losing all of my clothes? It’s just stuff, easily replaceable.
I began to rummage through my things, trying to pull out enough clean underwear for my trip, along with my favorite flannel pajamas and two prized TSE cashmere sweaters I couldn’t bear to lose, to stuff into my carry-on bag.
But then, before I had the chance to stand back up, I sensed that someone had appeared behind me. A familiar and amused voice said, “I’ll help you with your bag if you promise not to shock me again with your stun gun.”
Chapter 24
I twisted around and gaped up, wondering if I’d actually had some kind of an emotional breakdown caused by the extreme distress I’d been under since Christmas—the suitcase explosion being the proverbial last straw—and as a result was now delusional. Because I could swear that standing in front of me was Jack, looking handsome, if a little rumpled and travel-worn, in faded Levi’s and a navy blue pea coat. It looked like Jack, and sounded like him, and he was so close to me that if I reached out, I thought I might even be able to touch one denim-covered knee. But it couldn’t possibly be Jack . . . could it? My hallucination suddenly knelt down beside me, inspecting my damaged suitcase.
True Love (and Other Lies) Page 31