The Perfect Letter

by Chris Harrison

  “It is. You’ll have to show me the ropes. Help me blend in with the locals.” He picked up his menu again.

  “First thing you’ll have to ditch is that pole up your ass,” Chloe said, and winked at Leigh.

  Joseph looked up from the menu. “What was that?”

  “Ignore her,” Leigh said. “Who wants another margarita?” She flagged the waitress.

  “Could I have a glass of Pinot Noir?” Joseph asked the waitress.

  Chloe groaned, “This isn’t the Ritz, Joseph. Unclench, okay?”

  “Chloe,” said Leigh.

  “What? A little ribbing between friends isn’t allowed? He’s practically family, aren’t you, Joseph?”

  “It’s okay, Leigh, I know she’s kidding,” he said.

  She felt like a mom refereeing between two irritable kids in the backseat after soccer practice, but Leigh could hardly keep her attention on her boyfriend and her best friend bickering when all she could think about was Jake coming back to the cottage to look for her, Jake knocking on the door of her room and wondering where she was. He didn’t have a key to the room or Leigh’s cell-phone number, but maybe he would wait outside the door of her cottage until she came back, not realizing she now had Joseph in tow. Maybe he would sit on top of the hill to watch for her, and see her coming back arm in arm after dinner with Joseph. The scene that would follow would be awful for everyone involved, to say the least.

  Or—and this was the thought that really scared her, that made her really want to weep—maybe he wouldn’t come back at all.

  The neon lights blurred; the music playing in the background suddenly seemed too loud. She couldn’t quite focus on what Joseph was saying to her at the moment, the looks that Chloe was shooting in her direction. She kept picturing Jake showing up at the darkened cottage, Jake leaving her a note under the door. There was no way she could get up and head back to the vineyard alone so she could talk to him, ask him for a way to get in touch with him later, but Joseph would surely notice if she was in the bathroom for an hour.

  No—she was stuck. Only Chloe would be able to leave without attracting suspicion. She had to get Chloe alone to ask her to go back to the cottage, to run interference with Jake. She was just about to excuse herself to the bathroom when the waitress came with their drinks and took their food orders.

  “You okay?” Joseph asked when the waitress had gone. “You’re so quiet.”

  “Just tired,” she said. “It’s been a long couple of days.”

  “We’ll eat and go back to your room. Then you can rest.”

  Chloe looked at her and mouthed the word rest? That’s hot! But Leigh shook her head, not now. Chloe rubbed her hand over her hair, the telltale sign that she was doing her best to hold her tongue.

  “You okay?” Joseph asked Leigh. “You look flushed.”

  She stood up, waving for Chloe to come with her. “I just need to use the ladies’ room. Chloe, come with me?” Chloe gave her a look, but stood up. “Be right back,” Leigh said, and squeezed Joseph’s hand.

  In the bathroom Chloe looked like she was going to burst from the hundred questions she’d been holding back. “All right,” she said. “Talk.”

  “You’re never going to believe this,” said Leigh, and told her friend about the letters Jake had left in her cottage, about searching for him all over Burnside, about how, when she’d just about given up, she’d finally found him waiting for her at the end of the boat dock jutting out into the river. “There he was, as if he knew that’s where I’d be,” Leigh said. “I couldn’t believe it. He looked so different—he’s grown up, like you said.”

  “And?” asked Chloe. “What happened next? Don’t tell me you shook hands and said good night.”

  Leigh’s face burned. “Not exactly.”

  “Dirty details, please. The man’s been in jail ten years; he had to be all pent up. I hope you made it a nice homecoming for him.”

  “I did. I mean, we did. Very nice.”

  “How many times?”

  Leigh had to think. “Three. No—four, including this morning. After that we had a big argument, and he took off.”

  “This morning? And then Joseph shows up out of the blue, and now—”

  Leigh started waving her hands around. “I know, it’s all a complete mess. But, Chloe, seriously, I need you right now. I don’t have any way of getting ahold of Jake, and if he comes back to the cottage looking for me, and Joseph’s there—”

  “What on earth did you have to argue about? It should have been all sex and cuddling.”

  Leigh didn’t want to explain about Russell Benoit and the blackmail, not yet, so she said, “I know, I know. He asked me if I was still going to marry Joseph, and I told him I needed time to think about it.”

  “You sure know how to make a guy feel welcome.”

  “He was making me angry. He just assumed I was going back to him, didn’t even ask whether that was what I wanted. I don’t like having other people make up my mind for me,” Leigh said, her eyes flashing. “But that doesn’t matter now. I need you to go back to the vineyard and find Jake. Take my key. If he’s there waiting for me, get his number and address and tell him to go home and that I’ll come see him tomorrow morning at eight. Then text me to let me know when he’s gone so I’ll know it’s safe to come back.”

  “What if he’s not there? What if he won’t leave?”

  Leigh sighed. She wished she hadn’t had so much to drink. “Then text me that, too,” she said. “At least then I’ll know what I’m up against.”

  “What are you going to tell Joseph?”

  “I don’t know. I still haven’t figured anything out. If I leave Joseph I will be basically torpedoing my whole career. But with Jake . . .” She groaned and leaned against the wall, rubbing her temples. “The only thing I’m sure of is that I’m not ready for the two of them to bump into each other in my room. My plan is to keep them apart until I can figure out what to do.”

  “That’s a great plan, by the way.”

  “Here’s my key. I’ll wait for your text.”

  Chloe took the key out of Leigh’s hand and looked at it like it might bite. “I hope you know what you’re doing.”

  “Of course I don’t, but that’s never stopped me before, has it?”

  When Leigh came back from the bathroom and sat down, Joseph looked up from his phone and asked, “Now where did Chloe run off to?”

  “Oh, you know Chloe. Got a message from some guy she’s been seeing about meeting up. She said she’d text me later.” And now I will burn in hell, thought Leigh, for once again lying to the man who loves me.

  But that was just the problem, wasn’t it? There were two men who loved her. And she loved both of them, she was realizing now as she sipped her margarita—loved them in completely and totally different ways, for the completely and totally different men they were, and the completely and totally different women she was when she was with them. With Joseph she was calm and competent and smart and successful. With Jake she was young again—unbridled, innocent, passionate. Very passionate.

  Saying good-bye to one of them would mean saying good-bye to part of herself. But which part?

  It was an impossible decision. Jake was her past. Joseph was her present. And the future could include either one, or neither. Or both.

  Dear God, she thought, putting her head in her hands, I don’t even know what I want. I don’t know what’s right anymore.

  Joseph took one of her hands in his own. “Let me see your face,” he said. “I love to look at you. You’re so beautiful.”

  “No, Joseph. I wish you wouldn’t say that.”

  “Why not? It’s the truth.” He coughed and looked at his lap. “What were we talking about? Before Chloe came. There was something I wanted to talk with you about.”

  “My imprint. Your promotion,” she said wearily.

  “No, that wasn’t it. It was something else. Something about us promising to love each other the rest of our lives.�
��

  Joseph was rummaging around in his pockets for something, finding it in the inner pocket of his coat. In the light of the restaurant she saw him pull the ring out once again, watched mutely as he knelt beside the table, took her hand (oh God, everyone’s watching!), and said the words again that he’d said in that restaurant in Manhattan, what seemed a lifetime ago. “Everybody said I shouldn’t do it, that you’d come to me when you were ready, but I can’t wait that long.”

  Joseph Middlebury, you have the worst timing of any man I’ve ever known.

  “Leigh Merrill,” he asked again, “will you marry me?”

  He didn’t wait for her to answer but slid the ring on her finger to a sudden eruption of applause around them, all the people at Guero’s thinking they were witnessing the happiest of occasions. The waitress was there, popping the cork on a complimentary bottle of champagne, and Leigh felt the weight of the ring on her hand, the weight of her future crashing down around her. She had not said yes—she had only hinted on the phone, two days before, that she was thinking of doing so—and Joseph had taken that for agreement, Joseph whom no sane woman would ever reject.

  Leigh felt sucked under by an enormous wave of exhaustion. She didn’t have to say yes or no. She didn’t have to say anything at all, and twenty or thirty years could go by while she sat at the table with her burrito going cold in front of her, accepting the congratulations of a hundred perfect strangers.

  It was in that moment that she looked up and saw, in the light of the red and yellow neon, the man with the gray ponytail. Russell Benoit—that was the name Jake had given him. He was sitting at the bar with a beer in his hand, his eyes narrow and mean, staring at her. When he noticed her noticing him, he waved a smug little wave, mouthing the words talk to you soon, and turned to the bartender to order another beer. Leigh looked away quickly. She couldn’t let Joseph see her watching him, couldn’t explain who he was and what he was doing there.

  What is he doing here?

  The elderly couple at the next table were beaming at Leigh, offering both her and Joseph their best wishes. “I proposed to my wife in a restaurant, too,” the old gentleman was saying, and the wife said, “He hid the ring in a glass of champagne, and I swallowed it by accident.”

  Leigh gave the couple her best smile. She would ignore Russell Benoit, forget he existed. “Is that so?” she said. “What happened next?”

  The old couple chuckled. “We spent the night in the hospital!” said the man. “I was getting that ring back come hell or high water.”

  The four of them were still laughing when someone else joined their conversation. “Wonderful, wonderful,” said a man’s voice, and Leigh felt her hand being pumped vigorously up and down as she looked up into Russell’s face. “You two are just the cutest couple,” he was saying. “Congratulations. Let me buy the happy couple a drink.”

  He pulled out the chair that Chloe had been sitting in and plopped down in it. Leigh froze. What was he doing? What did he think he was going to accomplish, ambushing her like this?

  Leigh found her voice, nodding at the bottle of champagne the waitress had just cracked, and said, “We’re all set, thanks. Bye, now.”

  Joseph said, “Don’t be rude, Leigh. He’s just offering his congratulations.”

  “I’m not being rude, I would just like to celebrate alone with you. I don’t see why everyone else has to get involved.”

  Russell sat back in his chair, a wide Cheshire-cat grin on his face as he said, “Oh, I’ll let you two alone in just a second, but you have to let an old bachelor like me bask in your glow for a minute. It’s a lucky man who lands a beautiful woman like you, Miss . . . ?”

  Leigh didn’t speak. He knew damn well what her name was—she wouldn’t play his game.

  Russell turned instead to Joseph. “Where you two from?” he asked.

  “New York,” Joseph said. “Just visiting.”

  “You don’t say? I was just talking to some people from New York earlier today,” he said. “Newspaper people. Lots of great newspapers and magazines in New York. Publishing capital of the world.”

  “I guess you could say that,” said Joseph. Leigh stayed very still, like an animal that had been scented by a predator.

  “I was thinking about taking a trip up there. Where do you think I should stay when I get to town? What should I do there?”

  Joseph looked somewhere between amused and irritated that the guy was still talking. “There are a lot of great museums to visit, shows to see. I’m particularly fond of the Guggenheim.”

  “Oh, you are, are you?” said Russell, affecting a mocking touch of Joseph’s East Coast accent. “What about real estate? I was thinking of investing in some nice condos. Maybe something on West Sixty-fifth.”

  Joseph gave a slight frown. “That’s where we—” he started, but Leigh cut him off.

  “The Times real-estate section is the best place to start looking, if you’re seriously looking. Will you excuse us, please?”

  “Oh, I’m always seriously looking,” Russell said, glancing from Joseph to Leigh and back. She could see him making mental calculations, trying to decide if now was his moment or if he should wait. She felt like a hostage strapped to the train tracks, hearing the whistle of the oncoming locomotive. Go ahead and say it, she was thinking. See if I care.

  But she did care. She cared too much—that was the whole problem.

  Finally he picked up his beer and said, “Well, then. Good luck to you two kids. Hope your life together is just perfect!” He raised his glass to them and walked away, his gray ponytail flicking across his back. Leigh watched him go, but the relief she felt was, she knew, entirely temporary.

  “Hmm,” said Joseph, taking a drink of his Pinot Noir and watching Russell leave, “I always feel sorry for weird old guys like that. How lonely their lives must be. No wife, no kids. He’s in here drinking alone on a Wednesday night.”

  “I don’t feel sorry for him,” Leigh said. “Not at all. We didn’t ask for his company. I wish he’d just leave us alone.”

  “Don’t be such a grouch. He just wanted to congratulate us. No harm done.”

  No harm done. Well, Joseph didn’t know what was really going on, and Leigh didn’t bother correcting him. She watched Russell until he went out the front door, back into the Austin night, but she knew she wasn’t seeing the last of him. She was sure he’d show up again and again, until she gave him what he wanted. But would it be enough?

  Leigh’s phone was buzzing. JAKE’S NOT HERE, Chloe wrote. SHOULD I WAIT?

  NO. LEAVE THE KEY UNDER THE DOORMAT, Leigh wrote. I JUST HOPE JAKE DOESN’T COME BACK TONIGHT.

  YOU OWE ME ONE DINNER AT GUERO’S, Chloe wrote. AFTER THE CONFERENCE IS OVER.

  DEAL, Leigh wrote. LOVE YOU. THANKS.

  LOVE YOU, TOO, HUSSY, Chloe wrote. CALL ME TOMORROW. I STILL WANT DIRTY DETAILS.

  At least there was one thing in her life Leigh could still count on. Chloe was family, always there when she needed her, no questions asked. The thought of leaving her behind again in a few days—of having to face the wreckage of her life without Chloe—gave her an actual physical pain.

  You can go home again, Leigh thought, but no one said it would be easy.

  Arriving back at the conference, Leigh felt hyperaware of every person she saw, every man and woman she and Joseph passed on their way up to the cottage. She was conscious of the weight of the diamond on her third finger and kept fiddling with it, twisting it around and around and catching the twinkling fairy lights strung in all the oak trees glittering in it.

  Jake still wasn’t anywhere to be found, but Leigh worried, every moment, that he might pop out from behind a tree or come around a corner of the path. Even at the cottage, when she unlocked the door to her room and peeked inside, she worried that Chloe might have missed him in the half hour it took Leigh and Joseph to get back to the vineyard from the city.

  She flipped on the light and looked around the room: no sign of Jake, nothing
but her own mess, and Joseph’s carry-on propped up on the luggage rack.

  She took a breath, but she didn’t get any relief. Jake could still come back at any time.

  As soon as the door shut Joseph was catching her in his arms, kissing her deeply. After the events of the day Leigh was utterly exhausted, spent physically and emotionally, and she was realizing she had nothing left, not right now.

  “Wait,” she said. “I don’t think I can. I’m completely worn out.”

  Joseph frowned. “But I thought—”

  “I know. I’m so sorry, but I barely slept last night, and I worked all day, and—”

  “If this is about the other night,” he said, stepping closer to her, “about me stopping you—well, I told you I wanted to try again. I promise to be a little more open-minded this time.”

  “It’s not that, really. I’m just really, really tired. These conferences take so much out of me.”

  He slid his hands down to her hips, kissed her neck, pushed her ever so gently back toward the bed, more aggressive than Leigh had ever known him to be. “Are you sure I can’t tempt you?” he murmured, pinning her hands behind her back. “I promise to be very convincing.”

  “Joseph, I—”

  His mouth was on her neck. He bit her, gently, on one earlobe. “You taste so good,” he said.

  “Stop. I don’t—” She twisted from side to side, trying to get away from him.

  He made a noise of frustration and let her go suddenly. “Don’t what, Leigh? I don’t understand you. I thought this was what you wanted. I thought you wanted me to be a little more aggressive, a little more passionate.”

  “It was,” she said. “Last weekend it was what I wanted. Tonight I said I was tired.”

  “I flew all the way here to see you . . . I thought that’s what you wanted, too. On the phone, you said you wanted to marry me.”

  I didn’t, she thought, I only said I was sorry and that I would make it up to you. But it didn’t matter what she’d actually said, what Joseph had heard was I’ve totally reconsidered, and when I come home I’ll tell you I want to marry you. He’d taken that for a yes, when all she’d meant was maybe.