The Misconception

by Gardner, Darlene

  “You two are going to lunch, right?” He crossed the room to Marietta, pulled her into his arms again and made her forget that Tracy was sick of seeing them kiss. He drew back before the kiss got out of hand. “I’ll catch up with you later then.”

  “Just don’t show up at the restaurant,” Tracy groused. “I don’t think the rest of the world is up for all the kissing you do.”

  An hour later, seated on the outdoor patio of the Grill and Go, Marietta sipped an after-lunch glass of decaf cappuccino as she regarded her sister across the table. The summer breeze was strong enough that the afternoon sun felt agreeable instead of uncomfortable. Marietta thought the day would have been close to perfect had her sister just smiled.

  Tracy never responded well to pressure so Marietta had talked of inconsequential things during lunch. She’d avoided the subject of her sister’s foul mood entirely while she waited for Tracy to bring up the reason for it. She only had to wait long enough for the waiter to clear the last of their dishes.

  “I want to apologize for before, for the things I said to you and Jax. I don’t know what got into me.” Tracy grimaced. “Actually, yes, I do, but that doesn’t excuse it.”

  Marietta didn’t reply but waited for Tracy to continue. After a short pause, she did.

  “My attorney called this morning to say she got the signed divorce papers from Ryan. All I have to do is show up in her office Monday for the deposition, and I’ll be divorced.” She swallowed, held up her left hand and wiggled her ring finger. “If I can’t even bring myself to take off my wedding ring, how am I going to manage to get through that?”

  Marietta’s heart constricted at the pain on her sister’s face. She reached across the table and covered Tracy’s hand. “I’m sorry, honey. I’ll come with you if you want. You know I’d do anything to make it easier for you.”

  “I’m sorry, too.” Tracy swiped at a tear. “But I wasn’t telling you so you’d feel sorry for me. I want you to understand why it’s been so difficult for me to be around two people in love.”

  “Love?” Marietta repeated, her eyes wide. The thought that she was in love with Jax was laugh-out-loud ludicrous. “You’re forgetting that I don’t believe in romantic love, little sister. What Jax and I are having is a mutually satisfying affair.”

  “That’s what Jax thinks, too?”

  “Well. . .” Marietta ran her tongue over the outside of her teeth while she thought how best to dismiss her sister’s question. “I’m not a mind reader. I can’t vouch for what he thinks.”

  “He hasn’t told you how he feels? He hasn’t said he loves you?”

  Marietta’s eyes slid away from Tracy’s, because that was something she didn’t want to think about. She preferred imagining he’d never said the dreaded three words at all. Jax, thank the stars, hadn’t repeated his faux pas. He hadn’t mentioned love in weeks.

  “He has, hasn’t he?” Tracy pressed.

  “Maybe he has. You know the things people say in the heat of passion.” Marietta tried to disregard that Jax had talked about love before and after they had sex, but not during the act itself. “It’s a good thing I understand the dynamics of what’s going on between us.”

  “Which is?”

  “A sexual attraction based on deep-rooted evolutionary desires to perpetuate the species.”

  “Oh, really.” Tracy swirled the liquid in her glass with her straw. “Have you told Jax this?”

  “Of course I have.”

  “Aaaah. But have you told him lately?”

  Marietta wrinkled her nose. Tracy, it seemed, wasn’t going to let the subject drop. “No,” she said crossly. “I haven’t.”

  “Why’s that?”

  “He doesn’t like to hear the truth.”

  “The truth?” Tracy laughed. “So you’re saying the truth is this relationship you have with Jax is based purely on sex, right? That you don’t have any affection, any liking, for him?”

  “Of course I like him. He’s really quite likable. He’s funny, too.” Marietta paused a beat. “When he’s not telling jokes, that is.”

  “How about respect? Do you respect him?”

  Marietta squirmed in her chair. “What’s not to respect about a man who’s supporting his mother and putting both of his brothers through college?”

  “So let me get this straight. You’re having an incredibly satisfying sexual relationship with a man you like, respect and who happens to be the father of your unborn child. Does that about sum it up?”

  Marietta thought it was probably a trick question, but she couldn’t find the landmine. “I guess you could say that.”

  Tracy raised her still-dark brows. “That sounds like love to me, kiddo.”

  Marietta banged her hand on the table, surprising herself so much she very deliberately folded it into her lap. She tried to speak calmly. “No, it’s not. How many times do I have to tell you I don’t believe in romantic love?”

  “Whatever.” Tracy waved a hand with such obvious disbelief that Marietta’s blood pressure rose. Didn’t Tracy understand who she was talking to? Didn’t she realize somebody as educated in the ways of evolutionary biology as Marietta knew enough to avoid the messy emotional pitfalls of the nebulous thing some people called love?

  Marietta didn’t get a chance to ask the questions, because Tracy abruptly changed the subject. “You never told me why Dean Pringle called this morning. That’s unusual, isn’t it? For him to call professors at home?”

  “Oh, that,” Marietta said. She hadn’t told her, because Jax had walked through the door seconds after she’d hung up, making her forget the call. Which most definitely didn’t mean she loved him. She frowned. All it meant was that, with Jax around, she hadn’t wanted to think about the ramifications of the call. “The dean got a call from somebody at Morning Glory, Live. They want me on the show next week.”

  “You mean the talk show starring Glory Green?”

  Marietta nodded, and Tracy reached across the table to grasp her hand. “But that’s big, Mari. Really big. I can’t believe you didn’t say anything about it. Glory’s almost as big as Oprah. Appearing on her show will give your ideas the kind of national exposure you’ve been dreaming about.”

  “I know,” Marietta said.

  “So what’s the problem?” Tracy peered at her. “Oh, I get it. You’re afraid they’ll want you to talk about Motherhood Without Males, aren’t you?”

  Marietta nodded.

  “And you’re not sure how strong an advocate you can be for it when you’re days away from marrying Jax.”

  “I am not days away from marrying Jax.”

  “Okay. Weeks, then.”

  “Not weeks, either. Just because I’m having an affair with him doesn’t mean I’m going to marry him.”

  “And this is because you don’t love him?”

  “Yes,” Marietta said, nodding.

  “Whatever.” Tracy gave another disbelieving flick of her hand. Marietta frowned. She was a woman who prided herself on telling the truth. Why didn’t Tracy believe her?

  “Imagining yourself in love is like committing emotional suicide,” Marietta said. “The minute — no, the second — you give somebody that kind of power over you, your life is no longer your own. You open yourself to all kinds of pain.”

  “You’re talking about Mom and Dad, aren’t you? You’re thinking about how she stuck by him despite all the lies and all the cheating. That’s why you don’t want to believe in love.”

  “I’m thinking about you and Ryan, too,” Marietta said softly.

  At the mention of Ryan, Tracy’s heart clenched. She wondered if she’d ever be able to think of him without this stabbing pain. Then again, the lows wouldn’t be so low if the highs hadn’t been so lofty. “Did it ever occur to you that maybe it was worth it?”

  “If what was worth it?” Marietta was obviously puzzled.

  “Being in love.” Tracy smiled. “Remember when Ryan and I first got married? He’d sunk all his money int
o starting the business, and we didn’t have anything but our little house and each other. I made curtains out of old bed sheets, learned a dozen recipes featuring the hot dog and kept the heat down so low in the winter I walked around the house dressed like a snowman.

  “Do you know I was never happier than I was then? Colors were brighter. Birds sang louder. Flowers smelled sweeter. All because I was in love.”

  Marietta didn’t reply, but she was shaking her head, as though she could choose to disregard Tracy’s message. What would it take, Tracy wondered, for her sister to realize that love doesn’t give you a choice? That, when it strikes, it chooses you?

  The noisy foursome at the table adjacent to them got up and left, providing Tracy with a clear view of the door leading to the air-conditioned part of the restaurant. Tracy’s breath caught in her throat as a tall, dark-haired man stepped out of the dining room into the daylight, holding the door open for his companion.

  Ryan. For just an instant, Tracy thought she’d conjured him up. But then the sun glinted off the blue-black highlights of the head of hair she knew so well and a corner of his mouth lifted in that sexy grin she couldn’t resist.

  Of course it was Ryan. Hadn’t she chosen this particular restaurant because it was his favorite? Hadn’t she waited until Saturday to ask Marietta to lunch because it was Ryan’s favorite meal to eat out? Hadn’t she rejoiced when they got one of the coveted outdoor tables, because that was where she and Ryan used to sit?

  The breeze blew a lock of hair over his forehead. She waited for him to swipe it back with the careless gesture that was second nature to him, but delicate fingers did it for him. Tracy stared, disbelieving, as Anna Morosco laughed up at him and stroked his cheek.

  “Tracy, what’s wrong?” Marietta’s voice was sharp.

  Anna linked her arm through Ryan’s, plastering herself against his side the way Tracy knew she’d been wanting to for years. For a moment, Tracy couldn’t speak.

  “What are you looking at?” Marietta turned as Anna puckered up her plump red lips and kissed Ryan on the side of the cheek. Considering the way Anna had always panted over him, Tracy was surprised the kiss hadn’t landed on his lips.

  Marietta instantly turned away. “Oh, honey, I’m sorry you had to see that.”

  Tracy continued staring at the man she’d always loved with the woman she’d long mistrusted, and it felt as though a film covering her eyes lifted so she could see clearly. “I’m not sorry.”

  “You’re right,” Marietta said. “Maybe it’s best that you saw him with someone else so you can get on with your life.”

  “No, Marietta,” Tracy said firmly. Suddenly, the picture was so clear she didn’t understand why she hadn’t been able to see it before. “You don’t understand. Ryan’s not with Anna. Not the way you mean, anyway.”

  “What do you mean?” Marietta’s head whipped around at the exact instant that Ryan firmly disengaged Anna from him and shook her hand. Without a backward glance, Ryan left the restaurant. Alone. Anna stared after him, a pout on her poufy lips, her hands on her cinched waist. Then she left, too, traveling in the opposite direction from Ryan.

  “I mean that they were having lunch together, as friends. Ryan wouldn’t cheat on me,” Tracy said.

  She thought back to their last conversation when Ryan pointed out she’d never asked him what happened that day she’d seen the blonde with the big hair and hourglass figure kissing him at the elevator. She’d claimed she didn’t want to know. Now, quite suddenly, she did know. Big Hair Barbie had been kissing Ryan. He hadn’t been kissing B.H. Barbie.

  “Oh, my God. What have I done?” Tracy covered her face with her hands. Tears dampened her fingertips. “I broke up our marriage, Marietta. I did, not Ryan. I did, because I didn’t trust him. I knew he loved me. How could I not trust him?”

  “How could you not trust him?” Marietta blurted out the words, incredulity written on her face. “Mom trusted Dad, and look what happened to her! She spent a lifetime pretending she believed his lies. And six months after she was free of him, she died. She died, Tracy. Died before she had a chance to live.”

  “But it was her choice, Mari,” Tracy said as the tears flowed freely down her face. Instead of blinding her, they cleared her vision. “Mom wasn’t a victim. She could have left him, but she chose to stay. That’s what she wanted.”

  “That’s not what I want for you.” Marietta’s fierce mask dissolved, and tears pooled in her eyes. She reached across the table and squeezed Tracy’s hands. “I don’t want Ryan to hurt you, honey. I don’t want you to let yourself be hurt.”

  Marietta’s teary eyes fastened on hers, and Tracy saw in them what she always did: Fierce, unwavering love. For as long as she remembered, Marietta had rushed to her defense. In grade school, she’d pushed Jimmy Lee in the mud after he’d ripped the strap on Tracy’s backpack. In high school, she’d gone to the principal to argue her sister’s case after she’d been suspended for having ibuprofen in her locker. And ten months ago, she’d advised Tracy to leave Ryan before she opened herself up to a world of hurt.

  “This isn’t about what you want. It’s about what I want,” Tracy said, swallowing. “I can’t keep letting you protect me. I have to make my own decisions. Even if they’re wrong. I have to live my own life.”

  “You do live your own life.”

  “No, I don’t. I’m living the life you think I should live. If I had followed my heart, I never would have taken those anthropology courses. And I never would have left Ryan.”

  “But you had to leave him, honey. Biological evidence supports the fact that a man can’t be faithful to one woman. It’s not in their nature.”

  “That’s what you believe. It’s not what I believe,” Tracy said, shaking her head. The tears came again. “Oh, Mari, I’ve been so miserable. I love him so much I can’t bear to face the rest of my life without him. To think that I had that happiness in my hands, and I threw it away.”

  Marietta’s lips parted and trembled, and Tracy braced herself to hear biology-supported evidence about how females can survive, and even thrive, without males. She remembered Marietta telling her once that flatworms could reproduce asexually and that whole-body regeneration occurs in starfish.

  “I don’t think you did throw it away,” Marietta said instead.

  “What do you mean?”

  Marietta pressed her lips together as though the next words were difficult for her to say. “I think if you went to him,” she said softly, “you’d find that out for yourself.”

  TRACY STOOD ON THE doorstep of the adorable little house she’d once shared with Ryan, worrying that she’d made a mistake in coming here. What if Marietta were wrong about Ryan? What if he couldn’t forgive her for believing the worst of him? What if her distrust had killed whatever love he’d once had for her?

  She lifted her hand and paused in the act of knocking, running her fingers instead over the heart-shaped wooden door knocker that Ryan had installed when she’d said she didn’t like the sound of doorbells.

  Other men wore their heart on a sleeve, he’d joked. He put his on a door.

  She banged the heart, figuring she’d done pretty much the same thing to Ryan’s flesh-and-blood organ when she hadn’t trusted him all those months ago. How would he ever forgive her? Could she even forgive herself?

  A full minute later, when Ryan still hadn’t come to the door, Tracy blinked back tears. He wasn’t home. She’d drummed up the courage to bare her soul, and he wasn’t home. Life, Tracy thought, was a bitch.

  She was turning from the door when it opened. Ryan filled the frame, his hair wet from the shower, the snap of his jeans undone, his shirt hanging open and unbuttoned to reveal a damp, masculine chest sprinkled with the dark hair she so loved to run her fingers through. Her lips parted, and her heart fluttered. Then her eyes went to his, which were guarded and unfriendly.

  “What are you doing here, Tracy? I sent the papers to your lawyer. Don’t tell me she didn’t get th
em.”

  Tracy cleared her throat at the coldness in his voice. She wet her lips. “No, she got them.”

  “Do you want more money? Is that why you’re here?”

  The frostiness in his eyes nearly froze her vocal chords. She winced. How could he ask that when he knew money had never been a driving influence in her life? His love was worth far more than money ever could be.

  “The settlement’s more than generous,” Tracy said. “It’s enough for me to open my own shop, even.”

  “Then what’s the problem?”

  She closed her eyes briefly and bit her lip until it hurt. This was even harder than she’d imagined. “Can I come in?”

  He sighed heavily, but made room for her to pass. “Look, if you want something from the house, just take it, okay? I don’t care. You always liked that lamp of my mother’s. It’s yours.”

  Miserable, Tracy shifted her weight from one foot to the other. “That’s not what I want.”

  “You want my dad’s old rocking chair? That’s yours, too. Just take it and leave. I’ve got things to do. You can let yourself out when you’re done.”

  He turned away from her, and snippets of their past appeared before Tracy’s eyes the way that life’s most glorious moments flashed before the eyes of a dying person.

  Ryan asking her to marry him amid the furor of a rock concert. Ryan’s beautiful dark eyes never wavering from hers when he promised to love and cherish her until death parted them. Her bare-chested husband beckoning her to bed with a smile that reached all the way to his soul.

  “Ryan, wait.” The words were as strangled as the invisible vise squeezing her chest. She couldn’t let their marriage die. If she did, everything vital inside her would also die. He stopped, but didn’t turn, and she had to say something to keep him from going. “I don’t want anything from the house.”