by Mara Jacobs
√ Get lemons for Clea
√ Call Sybil
“Lizzie, honey, we’re concerned for you. We think it’s great that your confidence has returned, that you’re having great sex, but having great sex for this long without emotions entering into it just isn’t possible. Not for someone like you, anyway,” Katie said with warmth and concern.
Before Lizzie could ask for clarification on the “someone like you” comment, Alison piped in with her two cents. “You’re in over your head, Lizard.”
Lizzie put on a smile and laughed her friends’ concern off, a habit she had honed to perfection over the years, “That’s it from the psychologist? No deep analysis? No ‘this stems from your childhood’ crap?”
“Nope. Just...you’re pretty much fucked, Lizard. And I think you know it.”
She gave a half hearted chuckle, “Wasn’t that the whole point? Getting fucked?”
Katie jumped back in, taking Lizzie’s hand in her own, “Oh, Lizzie, don’t. Don’t joke this away, not this time. This is too important.”
Lizzie’s eyes darted around the picnic table looking for...what? She didn’t know. Maybe a big vat of chocolate to duck her head into? Finding no such vat or any other treat, and knowing she’d find no solace there anymore anyway, she braced herself to face the music.
“Okay, I admit, I’m feeling more with Finn than I thought I would. But maybe that’s good, maybe its just an indication that I’m ready to handle a romantic relationship.”
“Or maybe that’s just a huge rationalization,” Alison said.
“What am I trying to rationalize? I knew that I was going to have sex with Finn before I came here, why do I need to rationalize it now?”
“Not the having sex part. The only having sex part.” At Lizzie’s questioning look, Alison continued. “You are not the type of person to have casual sex, so you’ve created a relationship with Finn to warrant the sex. It’s okay. You just need to realize what you’re doing so you can put a stop to it before you get hurt.”
“Put a stop to the sex?” It was almost a whimper, the thought of ending those blissful nights in Finn’s arms unbearable.
“No, put a stop to forcing a relationship that isn’t meant to be, that could never happen, just to rationalize having sex with someone you’re going to leave in a few weeks.”
“Why could it never happen?” she asked.
Katie and Alison exchanged glances. Katie gently said, “Lizzie, you don’t really think you and Finn have any kind of future together, do you? You see, this is what I was afraid of.” She looked over at Alison with an accusing glance. “This is what I told you would happen that first night we went to the theater to hunt down Finn.”
Alison raised her hands in surrender. “Hey, I’m not the one with the asinine find, fuck and forget plan.”
Lizzie ignored them both, saying more to herself than to her friends, “There could never be any future with Finn.” It was a statement, but there was just the slightest lilting of her voice at the end, creating a question.
“No, of course not, he’s got those kids,” Katie said.
“And you don’t even like kids, not to mention how snotty Annie is to you,” Alison added.
Lizzie thought of the progress she and Annie had made since the day of the exercise bike, but kept the information to herself, only numbly nodding with her friends as they continued their tag team.
“Obviously he can’t leave the area, not with the farm,” Katie said.
“And your business is in Detroit, you can’t leave there,” Alison added.
Just yesterday Lizzie had reread the proposal her account executives had given her about taking on partners. If that happened, she’d be able to work from any location. Flying to meet potential clients, which would be what she’d concentrate on, could be done from anywhere. With the Internet, email, texts and faxes, she could set up shop in her old bedroom and not miss a beat. Not that she would, but still...she was not nearly as tied to Detroit, as her friends seemed to think.
And, God, how she loved this place. It wasn’t fair to be here in the summer, when the Copper Country was at its best. Of course, it was pretty spectacular in the fall, too. If only she was visiting in January, she’d be chomping at the bit to get back to Detroit.
Wouldn’t she?
“And, I know this sounds snobby, but could you really see yourself with a man who never even went to college?” Katie asked.
“It does sound snobby, but unfortunately, it’s accurate,” Alison added.
Lizzie thought about the life lessons that Finn had learned at the hands of his mother, from Dana, even Annie’s illness. She wondered if you could ever buy that much education? Sure, she’d read more books this past year than Finn probably had in his whole life, but he was hardly stupid. He had made the farm work, had become a businessman with no training.
Lizzie had looked through his books and financial statements when setting up the foundation for Annie. Something she felt kind of uncomfortable doing, but Finn didn’t seem to mind. He had a long-term business plan to improve the farm with new equipment. He also had a very well thought out and researched business plan for a horse boarding and training operation. The plans had been put on hold when Annie was diagnosed, but still seemed doable. If not for Dana’s extortion, the farm would be turning a good profit and Finn’s horse boarding/training business might be flourishing. They’d never know.
“Plus, of course, all you ever were to Finn was a conquest,” Katie said.
“And you could never settle for anything less than full commitment,” Alison added.
Ah, they had her on that one. Or did they? She couldn’t be sure, but she thought that Finn was experiencing the same draw that she was. She’d purposely tried to stay away from the farm, to give him time away from her, time with his kids, time for the farmwork, and he would always call by late afternoon, wondering where she was, when she would be coming by?
After they had sex, he would pull her close and hold her, just breathing her in, content to lie together until he needed to leave.
Since that first night, they hadn’t been able to spend the entire night together, and he had been the one to lament that fact on more than one occasion. Not her, him. He was feeling it too. They were both careful to still refer to what they were doing as a fling, but they hadn’t mentioned her leaving in quite some time. Of course it was understood, but still, it wasn’t something either of them brought up.
But a summer fling, good as it may be, was all it could ever be, right?
Why?
Because of all the reasons Katie and Alison just brought up!
Oh yeah, those reasons.
Still, she had valid responses to each of their points, even if she voiced them only to herself.
“Well, now that we’ve got that settled,” Katie said and started to pack up her things.
“Yes. We feel better about the whole situation now, Lizzie,” Alison added.
Lizzie was dazed. Had they really settled anything? She seemed more muddled than when she’d arrived. She knew a dismissal when she saw one, so she gathered up her things and hurried off, thinking she still had time to get to the farm to help Clea with dinner.
As Lizzie drove off, Katie purposely lingered.
“Honestly, Al, as a psychologist, I would have thought you’d come up with something better than plain, old-fashioned, reverse psychology.”
“It worked didn’t it? She was definitely thinking of objections to each of our points, even if she wasn’t saying anything.”
“I know, but we were so obvious, I expected her to see right through us.”
“She can’t see anything through that haze of love she’s in,” Alison chuckled.
Katie smiled. “It is pretty obvious, isn’t it?”
“To us, anyway. Okay, now that we’ve got her thinking about it, let’s pray to God Finn doesn’t break her heart again and we’ve got a replay of eighteen years ago on our hands,” Alison’s pragmatic strea
k shone.
“You don’t think he would, would he? She’s obviously the best thing that ever happened to him.”
“He did it once, who’s to say anything’s different,” Alison said.
“You’re right, maybe we should have just kept our mouths shut.”
“No. She needs to realize she’s in love with Finn. But she needs to realize it by herself. And if he does break her heart, she needs to know that she can survive,” she thought on that for a minute, then added, “without the help of Ronald.”
“Ronald?” Katie asked.
“Ronald McDonald.”
A strand of hay dropped from Lizzie’s hair. She snatched it from the dinner table and placed it under her napkin before anyone could notice. She looked around the table to see if her embarrassment had been witnessed. Stevie shoveled mashed potatoes into his mouth with a continuing rhythm, taking no time to swallow before the next forkful hit, his eyes intent upon his plate. Annie was rattling on about some show she had seen on the Disney Channel that afternoon. Clea’s eyes darted to her plate as Lizzie’s met them, an all-knowing smile playing on her mouth at seeing the hay, but pretending not to notice for which Lizzie silently thanked the older woman.
Then she looked at Finn. His eyes were on her hand that was still holding the napkin in place over the damning piece of hay. His gaze moved up her arm, pausing at her breasts, over her mouth, still swollen from his kisses, and rested on her dazed eyes.
His look said volumes. It said he knew what she was hiding under her napkin. It said he knew how that hay had gotten in her hair in the first place. And it said he wouldn’t mind repeating the act again - their literal roll in the hay - as soon as possible.
She gave him a scathing look but he only laughed and returned to his meal.
It had been three weeks since the first night they’d had sex. Three weeks from the night they had both thought to quench their thirst for each other, then put some distance between them.
They’d made love every day.
It hadn’t been easy. Sometimes Finn would come over to her parents’ house after Stevie and Annie were asleep, asking Clea to turn her monitor on, or even to sleep in the farmhouse for the night. A few times Clea took the kids somewhere for the evening and Finn and Lizzie would hurriedly come together in his bed. He was down to only one night a week at the Mine Shaft because of the berries being in prime season, but hey’d made use of that one night, doing it in the projection room after closing.
Just tonight, he’d cornered her in the barn while everyone else was inside getting dinner ready. While stretched out on a bed of hay, the sweet scent of strawberries lingering in the air, he’d given her the most satisfying orgasm she’d ever had.
That was the funny thing. It got better every time. Lizzie hadn’t seen that one coming. She knew she was becoming more comfortable with her body around Finn, though she still never allowed him to see her in the daylight or to have the lights on while they had sex. He understood her hesitancy and never pushed her. She knew that with her comfort level with her body rising, it would only make sense that her comfort level with sex would rise as well. But it was rising at a much faster rate.
She was good in bed! Well, maybe not good, but better than she ever thought she’d be. It was a shocking revelation for her.
But that was what she’d set out to do, so she really shouldn’t be surprised. Her plan had worked like a charm. She now felt able to begin an intimate relationship with a man suitable to her future.
Problem was, she didn’t really want to anymore.
Clea’s voice drew Lizzie from her thoughts. “I’m sorry, Clea, what did you say?” They were just finishing up the dishes, the kids had gone into the living room to watch TV and Finn was at the desk going over the newest figures Lizzie had put together on the fundraiser.
“Would you come out to the trailer with me for a minute, I’d like to show you something,” Clea repeated.
“Of course,” Lizzie followed Finn’s grandmother from the farmhouse and across the lawn to the trailer.
“Make yourself comfortable, dear, I’ll just go get what I wanted to show you,” she said and disappeared into what Lizzie assumed was Clea’s bedroom. Lizzie followed the woman’s directions and made herself at home on the couch.
Clea returned after only a short while holding a shoebox, joining Lizzie on the couch. She held the box on her lap, fingering the lid. “I’ve thought about showing you this for some time now, and I’ve gone back and forth on whether or not to do it.” She paused, saw she had Lizzie’s attention, and continued. “Mind you, I’m not giving these to you - they’re not mine to give - and I ask that you don’t open them.” Again she waited, still running her hands, aged and withered from life and hard work, along the corners of the box. “But, I do think you should know that these exist, and you can do with that information as you please.” She handed the box to Lizzie.
“I found them in the back of the closet when Finn moved out of here and back into the farmhouse after he and Dana were married. I think he completely forgot about them. He’s certainly never mentioned them to me.” She nodded for Lizzie to open the box, sensing her trepidation.
As Lizzie lifted the lid off the box she was assaulted with the scent of cedar, probably from the closet where the box had resided all these years. Inside were sealed letters. More than twenty of them, none had postage marks or even stamps on them. They had never been sent.
Every single one of them was addressed to her at Michigan State.
She flipped through them, crushed that they were sealed and knowing she couldn’t break Clea’s request not to open them. But oh, how she wanted to know what they said. She noticed that ten of the letters were addressed to her dorm room her freshman year, seven to the dorm she lived in her sophomore year, and five to the apartment she lived in her junior year. None were addressed to her senior year apartment.
“I don’t understand? How...how did he know where I lived?” her voice was soft, and she cleared her throat to repeat herself, but it wasn’t necessary.
“I’m not sure about the other addresses, but I do know that he called your mother shortly after you left to go to college for your freshman year to get your address,” she said.
Lizzie pawed through the envelopes again, as if not believing what she saw the first time. “My mom? She never told me he called.”
“I happened to overhear that call, that’s how I know. He asked your mother not to tell you he called. He said he wasn’t sure if he’d write, wasn’t sure you’d be happy to hear from him, so it would be better all around if your mother didn’t mention it.”
Lizzie silently sat on the couch, stunned. He had written to her. He just didn’t send the letters.
“How he got the other addresses, I’m not sure. Probably the same way.”
“I...I don’t know what to say. I don’t really know what this means,” Lizzie said. Her hands were still funneling through the envelopes, the feel of the paper cool against her skin.
Finn had written to her at college. Lizzie couldn’t wrap her mind around it. Had she meant more to him than she’d realized? It certainly appeared that way. “Why didn’t he send them?” she didn’t even realize she’d voiced the question out loud until Clea answered.
“Pride, I expect,” she quietly said.
Lizzie’s head shot up from the box, startled, “Pride? What do you mean, pride? He was the one who broke things off with me.”
“Something I believe he regretted soon after if the way he moped around here that summer is any indication. Steven, Finn’s father, my son, died when Finn was only ten. Linda tried to make a go of it, but she’d just had Phoebe, and…” her voice trailed off.
Lizzie knew that Finn’s mother was an alcoholic and that Finn’s father was dead. She didn’t know, until now, how young Finn had been when his father had died.
“That’s when they moved in here with you?” she asked.
“Yes. I sometimes wonder if Linda might have bee
n better off on her own. If maybe having me close by to help didn’t allow her to…indulge more than she would have if she’d had sole responsibility of those kids.” It was obvious to Lizzie that Clea had replayed the scenario in her memory many times, looking for a different outcome.
“Or maybe something tragic may have happened if you hadn’t been around, Clea. You were a Godsend for Finn and Phoebe. I know Finn thinks so.”
Clea smiled faintly. “Maybe, dear, maybe. We’ll never know, will we? We play the cards we’re dealt.
“Anyway, by the time Finn was fifteen, Linda was out of control and Finn took over with Phoebe. I know it was awful for him. There were times he’d come home after being out with friends and they would have seen Linda in town, falling down drunk, going off with some man or another. It gave Finn a very jaded perception of women, I’m afraid. One that didn’t die when Linda did several years ago, and one that was certainly reinforced by that ex-wife of his.”
Lizzie only nodded, having had a similar reaction to the woman the one time she’d met Finn’s mother.
“When he met you, I thought he’d finally be able to let that all go. But, for whatever reason, he let you go instead. I always thought he didn’t want to bring you down to what he thought his level was.”
Finn had said something similar to her and she hadn’t believed him, thought it was just a line to get her to forgive him for past sins and join him in a summer fling.
Clea took Lizzie’s hand in her own. “You do know Finn always thought he wasn’t good enough for you, don’t you?”
Did she? Yes, she guessed she did. She knew he’d always harbored a wrong-side-of-the-tracks mentality when it came to her, and that his prideful streak was a mile long. But she never expected it was of this magnitude. Enough that he wouldn’t ask her back after he’d let her go?
The memory of his blow up after she bought him that shirt confirmed to her that yes, Finn Robbins would have a hard time swallowing his pride and asking her to come back to him. Throw in that he never really thought he deserved her. It all added up to a box full of letters sitting in a closet for eighteen years.