His, Unexpectedly

by Susan Fox

  I sighed. He couldn’t be. My special man would love me for who I was. Mark had said he was falling for me, but then made it clear he’d only let himself fall the rest of the way if I turned into a different person.

  After the last hour of conversation, nothing had really changed in the end. I heaved another sigh.

  Mom’s lips curved sympathetically. “That doesn’t sound encouraging. Have we helped at all, dear?”

  I reached for her hand and squeezed it, then forced a smile for her and my sisters. “Yeah, because you showed me you care, and you all shared things. Personal things.” Even if I never saw Mark again, I felt so much happier about my family.

  And chances were that I wouldn’t see him. The way we’d left things last night, he wasn’t likely to get in touch with me. And I had no reason in the world for tracking him down. Besides, he’d soon be off to Indonesia.

  Cute female scientists and local women would flirt with him and he’d be oblivious, but eventually one of them would break through. They’d become lovers. And yes, damn it, I was jealous.

  Movement caught my attention. Merilee was toying with an uneaten cookie, turning it end over end. She’d stayed quiet for most of the conversation, big blue eyes looking from face to face, expression sober. Here we were, discussing my pathetic love life, when she was getting married on Saturday. Time to stop wallowing in self-pity and think about someone else.

  I got up and wrapped an arm around her shoulders. “Hey, sis, enough of me hogging the conversation. Rumor has it there’s a wedding coming up, and about a million things left to do. You have an army of workers here, and I know General Tree has a plan. Tree, pull it out and give us our marching orders.”

  Tuesday afternoon at the end of the closing remarks, Adrienne said to Mark, “We’re going for a drink.”

  “We are?” Much as he liked Adrienne, he was depressed and pissed off and not in the mood to socialize. “My grandparents are expecting me for dinner.”

  “They eat at seven thirty. It’s only five o’clock. Something’s wrong and you need to talk.”

  “I do?” He felt more like licking his wounds in private. For the first time in his life, he’d laid his heart on the line and what had Jenna done? Drop-kicked it back.

  “You do.” Adrienne took him by the arm and pulled him along. They exchanged goodbyes with a few colleagues as she tugged him past the hotel bar where others from the symposium were finding tables. Then she took him out the front door, down the street a couple of blocks, and into another hotel. Its bar was quiet, and she chose a table at the back. When a waitress appeared promptly, she ordered a cranberry and soda. “Mark?”

  Though he wasn’t much of a drinker, today he’d have gone for a double Scotch. But he was driving, so instead said, “A beer.”

  The waitress began to list off choices and he broke in. “The first one.” Who cared what it was?

  As soon as she left, Adrienne said, “You’ve been upset all day. What happened?”

  He sighed. “We broke up.”

  “Why? I thought everything was going so well.” Her jade eyes narrowed in concern behind the lenses of her glasses, and her brow creased below the fringe of short, spiky red hair.

  “So did I.” He took a nut from the bowl on the table and ate it without tasting it.

  “Come on, what did you say? What did she say?”

  “I wanted her to go to Indonesia and work on the coral reef project.” He shook his head, remembering his own idiocy. “Damn, Adrienne, I told her I was falling for her. I talked about the future. And at first she seemed keen, then she got all pissed off.” In the end, he was just another guy—like the Greek sailor, the French chef. He’d only been with her three days. It shouldn’t hurt this much.

  He took the beer glass the waitress handed him, and had a long swallow.

  “Pissed off at what?” Adrienne asked.

  “Hell if I know.”

  “What did you say right before she got mad?”

  He drank again, thinking back. “She’s been unfocused, working on a lot of different projects. Environment, kids, abused women. I pointed out how much more effective she’d be once she focused on one thing, got the relevant education, and so on.”

  “Hmm.” Her eyes were still narrowed. “Is that what she wants to do?”

  “I thought it was what we’d been talking about, but apparently not. You know my communication skills suck,” he said bitterly. “She’s all about freedom and variety. She doesn’t want to focus, doesn’t want to be tied down. Doesn’t want to make the most of her potential.” What it came down to was that she didn’t want to be with him.

  She winced. “Your words or hers?”

  “Both, I guess. We were kind of, uh, slinging words back and forth.” His mouth twisted. “It wasn’t pretty.”

  “You were being judgmental.”

  “Yeah, I guess. So was she, though,” he said defensively. “About my way of life. Anyhow, bottom line, she doesn’t want to change.”

  “And you want her to change.” She lifted her glass and sipped. “Which you told her.”

  “I was being honest. And,” he leaned forward, “damn it, Adrienne, I wanted to be with her. Right from the beginning, she was special. It was like she bewitched me and—” He snorted. “Yeah, and I lost my brain. The chemistry, the love-making, the sheer fun of being with her—”

  “Fun?” she interrupted. “I’m not sure I’ve ever heard you use that word.”

  “My grandparents tried to drum it out of my vocabulary.” Then, when she opened her mouth, he held up a hand. “I know. Judgmental again. Sorry. Anyhow, yeah, I was bewitched. I began to see her as a partner I could make a life with. Work, love, kids. She’s the only woman I’ve ever met that I imagined a future with, and it was pure fucking fantasy.”

  He reached out automatically toward the bowl of nuts, and Adrienne slapped his hand lightly. “Stop it, you’ll spoil your appetite for dinner.”

  “Huh?” He glanced down and realized the bowl was almost empty. “Did I eat those?” He hadn’t tasted a single one.

  “Yeah.” Keeping her hand over the bowl, she said, “You thought you were falling in love with her, and that maybe she felt the same way?”

  He sighed. “Yeah. What an idiot. Obviously, she didn’t.”

  She sipped again, her furrowed brow telling him she was thinking. Then she put the glass down and leaned forward. “Mark, you want her to change. How about you? Do you see yourself making any changes?”

  “Yeah. Being more flexible and spontaneous, more open to creative input. Trying to be more attuned to people, like she is. Enjoying the moment more.” He gave a ragged laugh. “Enjoying life more. At least that was the plan, when I imagined sharing life with her.” Now … if he lived that way, it’d only remind him of Jenna and a broken heart. Shit, he was screwed.

  “Those are good things. Did she tell you you had to do them?”

  “No. Teased me, though. And got me doing things I wouldn’t have.”

  “Hmm.” She drummed her fingers on the table for a minute. “How would you have reacted if she said she didn’t want you to present your paper yesterday, she wanted the two of you to go on a picnic?”

  “What?” What was Adrienne talking about? “She’d never do that.”

  “Going on a picnic would be being flexible and spontaneous and living in the moment. Why wouldn’t she ask you to do that?”

  “Because she knows how important my work is to me.”

  “Everyone who knows you realizes that. What you’re saying is, she respects who you are.”

  “I guess.”

  Her brows rose.

  Was she saying he didn’t …? “Oh.”

  “So the question is,” she said, “do you respect who Jenna is? Do you love her for who she is, or will you only love her if she changes? Who’s the woman who made you fall in love?”

  A good question, and one he’d have to think about. One thing was clear, though. “If she doesn’t change,
we can’t be together.”

  “Maybe not in the way you envisioned it. But every relationship’s different. Remember when you dated that woman who wanted you to work at a university, buy a house, settle down? That was her image of the future, but it didn’t work for you. Now you have an image of the future, and it doesn’t work for Jenna. You can break up. Or you can consider different images.”

  “You mean, be partners but she wouldn’t always work on projects with me? She’d be doing something else, somewhere else?” Being a butterfly. Insecurity reared its head. “How could I … hold onto her if I wasn’t with her? She’s never been into monogamy. She’s beautiful and fun and smart and she’ll always have lots of guys after her.”

  She gave a snort of disgust. “You want to hold onto her by chaining her to the bed? Or maybe locking her into a chastity belt? Get a grip, Mark.”

  “No, of course not, but …” Jenna had accused him of wanting to clip her wings. He picked up his glass, tilted it, and realized it was empty. When had he drunk his beer?

  “It’s always about trust. Whether you live in the same house or on opposite sides of the world. I’m here in a bar with you. Instead, I could be with some gorgeous woman who’s fascinating and brilliant and is totally coming onto me. Maybe I’d feel attracted, even aroused. But if she says, ‘Let’s go get a room,’ am I going with her?”

  He shook his head.

  “Why not?” She held up her left hand and wiggled her wedding ring. “Because of this?”

  “No. Because you love Laura.”

  Her face crinkled into a smile. “You’re not so dumb after all.”

  He sure as hell didn’t feel very smart. “Now I’m really mixed up. What do I do?”

  The smile faded to sympathy. “I wish the two of you had more time, like Laura and I did when we got together. If love and trust develop over time, you can be more sure they’ll stand the tests. Distance, sexy come-ons from other people, quarrels, whatever.”

  “In two days I’ll be on a plane to Bali.”

  “You either need time, or you have to take a leap of faith.” She sighed. “And I know you’re not the type to leap. I can relate to that because I’m not either.” She rose, a little awkward with her pregnant belly, and came around the table to hug his shoulders. “Maybe she isn’t the right woman, Mark.”

  He rested his head on her arm, feeling hollow and achy inside. A leap of faith? No, he couldn’t do that. And time had run out for him and Jenna. “I guess she’s not.”

  She squeezed his shoulders, then released him. “I need to get going. Laura and I are having dinner with friends.”

  “And I need to get back to my grandparents.” All he wanted was to be alone. Maybe he’d plead a headache and retreat to his room.

  “What would they think of Jenna?”

  “They wouldn’t approve.”

  “That’s what I figured. But don’t let them make your decisions for you. And remember, you’re not them. I like the idea of you being more spontaneous and flexible. For what it’s worth, I think Jenna’s been good for you.”

  He shook his head. He felt as battered and achy as if he’d been hit by a bus. No, Jenna had not been good for him.

  Chapter 14

  Wednesday night, I again sat a table with my family—or at least Mom, Tree, and Kat—as well as Matt’s mom Adele. It was M’s combination bridal shower and stagette, hosted by a friend of M’s who’d convinced her parents to close down their cozy Italian bistro for the night.

  As we drank fruity martinis and Merilee tore into the pile of gifts, I tried not to let the others see how tired and depressed I was.

  Thank God for Tree’s project plan because it had kept me busy for the past two days. I’d tried to be upbeat for Mer-ilee’s sake, joking to my family that I was busy with that pro and con list. In fact, I had even gone so far as to pull out a piece of paper, draw a line down the middle, and write “Pro” on one side and “Con” on the other.

  Then, after staring at it for ten minutes, I’d ripped it up. Though I hadn’t written a word, big black letters filled my brain: He doesn’t really love me. At least with my family, it had always been I love you, but. With Mark, it was I’ll love you if. If I became the person he thought I should be.

  God, I felt shitty. I’d been right on Monday night. I needed to banish him from my thoughts, stop dreaming childish dreams, and get on with the amazing life I’d been living before he entered it. For once, the universe had screwed up royally when it sent me that man.

  Merilee was laughing and blushing as she opened gifts like edible massage oil and his and her leopard print thongs.

  “Damien hates thongs,” Tree said, “but he’d look hot in leopard print briefs. Maybe I’ll do some shopping, for when he gets back.”

  Merilee’s next gift was vaginal balls. “Ooh,” Kat exclaimed, “I wonder how those would combine with tantric sex?”

  I forced a smile, genuinely happy that my sisters all had wonderful men who loved them, men they could play fun sex games with and make passionate love with.

  I’d thought Mark and I were heading that way. Until I realized he didn’t think I was good enough for him.

  As I watched Kat, I remembered something she’d said about her and Nav. How they’d argued about things like her choices in men and the importance of appearance. They’d disagreed and they’d pushed and challenged each other. She said they’d both confronted some tough issues. But neither had said they’d only love the other if they changed.

  That was how I’d interpreted what Mark had said. But now I wondered if I was being fair. Had he been saying I wasn’t good enough or telling me he saw something in me, some deeper potential, that I’d never let myself see? Though I’d called myself a free spirit—a person who didn’t do long term—had I subconsciously bought into my family’s assessment of me as a flake?

  I ran my fingers over my upper arm and shoulder, lingering on the first butterfly, the one I’d gotten when I was fifteen. My proud statement to the world of just who Jenna Fallon was, and how different from the rest of my family. I’d added one after Travis—a statement that a butterfly wouldn’t be tied to one man. And more over the years, as the whim struck me, affirming that I was free, independent. I’d always figured I was following my own path, not competing with my near-perfect sisters.

  Not competing on their turf. Not Tree’s, of academic brilliance and devotion to improving the situation for aboriginal peoples. Not Kat’s, of social skill and all-around smarts. Not Merilee’s, of love-bonding with one guy. But really, I’d been competing by asserting how different I was.

  Except, I was smart and good with people like Kat. And, like Tree, I wanted to make the world a better place. And maybe at heart I was like M in wanting one man, one love.

  Of course I was different, too. I loved to travel, loved variety, and didn’t want to settle in one spot. In those ways, I was like Mark. But he thought in terms of long term, and I never had.

  Because I was afraid I couldn’t stick the course?

  Matt’s mom Adele, sitting beside me, said, “Thank heavens that’s over. No mother wants to think of her boy in a thong.”

  I realized I’d missed the last few gifts, and the cute waiters were bringing out round serving trays of pizza. “Right,” I murmured. Hadn’t I sworn to stop agonizing over Mark?

  And yet, I couldn’t. My feelings for him were too deep. I couldn’t give up on us—give up on my dreams again—until I was absolutely sure.

  Picking up my almost-full martini glass, I took a sip. All this angst and analysis wasn’t like me, but I could do it.

  What would happen if I took the path Mark had offered and did think long term? Maybe, just maybe, love and children. A stimulating, unconventional life. I could combine my special connection with the environment and my love of people, and I could travel to places I’d dreamed of. I could study, learn, become more and more knowledgeable and skilled. Make a substantial contribution to the world rather than just touch down h
ere and there.

  I remembered something I’d been thinking back in Marianne’s Diner. You got to decide for yourself who you wanted to be. Had Mark really told me I had to change, or had he meant that it was time to take a close look at myself and decide who I wanted to be? I was turning thirty. Did I still want to be the same girl I’d been at twenty?

  Slowly, I put my glass back on the table. I’d thought Mark didn’t respect me, but maybe he did. Maybe he respected me more than I respected myself. Deep inside, maybe I was the one who thought I wasn’t good enough, who never stuck at anything long enough to really have to prove myself—or to risk failing.

  Fear of failing, of not being good enough. Fear of loving and not being loved back. And here I’d thought myself so gutsy, heading out on the open road, alive to all the possibilities. Really, I’d been slamming doors shut, out of fear.

  It was time to have the guts to commit myself. To risk failure and loss, but to try my damndest to make things work. To follow dreams that no longer seemed childish, but very adult.

  I sprang up. “I have to go.”

  My family and Adele stared at me, then Kat beamed and said, “Mark. You’ve decided.”

  “Mark?” Adele echoed in a puzzled tone.

  “She met a guy,” Kat explained. “And now she’s going after him. Right, Jenna?”

  “Yeah.” Hope and anxiety skittered through me. Would Mark give me another chance? If he really cared, surely he would. “Will you tell Merilee? Apologize for me?”

  “Of course.” Kat rose and hugged me. “Good luck, sis.”

  Mom and Tree startled me by rising too, circling around the end of the table, and also hugging me. “Go get him,” Tree said, and Mom said, “I’m proud of you, Jenna.”

  Proud? My mother was proud of me?

  “Take the car,” she said, whipping around the table again to grab her purse. She took out her key ring and pulled a fancy black key off it. “We’ll get a taxi.” She was offering me her precious Mercedes?