by Nancy Warren
For some weird reason this seemed worse.
“I guess I’ve got two obvious questions.”
She nodded as though already answering them. “I know. I should have told you.”
“Yep. There’s that. And also, you’re paying to have some stranger, some med student’s seed stuffed up you while you’ve got a living guy right here that you’re sleeping with. Did it occur to you to even ask me?”
“Of course it did.” She pushed her barely touched plate to the counter too. “But, I hardly know you.”
He laughed derisively. “You know me a hell of a lot better than the guy in vial B-4678.”
“But that guy got paid to donate his seed. It’s a business transaction, pure and simple. With you, it’s so much more complicated.”
“You could have asked me!”
“You are a married man.”
“Technically.”
“Legally!”
“I’m getting a divorce.”
“But don’t you see? You’re not even free from your last woman. You’re in no position to be thinking of anything permanent. So if you volunteered to father my child, I’d always know you were out there. And when you moved to another school or moved on from me and found another woman, you’d be the parent that baby always wondered about.”
Chapter Sixteen
He took a step back, leaned against the kitchen counter. He tried to do the distancing thing he’d learned as a teacher. He couldn’t get involved in his students’ problems. His job was to listen and try to help the kids find solutions.
He was having a hell of a time trying to find a similar distance here, tonight. In fact, it couldn’t be done. He was involved with this crazy stubborn woman. Involved up to his armpits.
He tried the oldest distancing trick in the book. Counted to ten.
If he didn’t feel this rage of emotion it would be easier. He might be able to fish out one or two pertinent issues and hang onto them like conversational life preservers.
“You turned thirty-three a few weeks ago. What’s the big rush?”
“I’ve got endometriosis. It’s not a big deal except that it can interfere with fertility. My doctor said sooner rather than later.”
“And we were going to go along having this relationship, this all condom all the time relationship, while you took your temperature and dashed off to some clinic to be artificially inseminated once a month.”
“No.”
He cocked an eyebrow at her.
“I hadn’t thought it through, obviously.”
She took a step closer to him. ”This really has nothing to do with you.”
He held a hand up to stop her from coming closer. “Oh, it does have something to do with me. It really, really does. What happens when you wind up pregnant and everyone in Hidden Falls thinks I’m the father?”
“We tell the truth.”
“That you were cheating on me with a turkey baster?”
“Oh, come on. This thing we have is great. It’s amazing, actually, but obviously it’s a temporary thing.”
“Why do you always say that?”
“Because you’re still—you’re not divorced yet. I’m a transition person. It will be a while before you’re ready to settle down again.”
“And you’ve decided this. Unilaterally.”
“Everybody knows you don’t end up with the first person you sleep with after you split up from a marriage.”
“I don’t believe this. Our future is being determined by some online quiz? Everybody knows? That’s your authority?” His voice was rising, getting louder and it felt good. “Did you even think about asking me what I feel?”
He saw her looking confused and guilty and lost. “I—I guess I made some assumptions.”
He shook his head. “I didn’t think I’d be happy again. Not for a long time.” He picked up his keys. Headed for the door. “And I was. Thank you for that.”
“So that’s it?” It was her turn to yell now. She followed him to the door. “You’re leaving because I didn’t tell you I was making a decision about my own body and my own future without consulting you?”
He turned. Tried to formulate a true answer. “That’s part of it. But frankly, I don’t have a lot of respect for what you’re doing. It’s selfish. It’s messed up and, if you ask me, you don’t want a relationship with an adult. You love to fix wounded children.”
She folded her arms across her chest and glared at him. “Are you putting yourself in that category?”
“Oh, I was. I was one lost and wounded little boy when I first got my ass handed to me. But I’m not any more. You did help me heal. You made me realize that – and believe me it hurts me to say this – that my marriage wasn’t as happy as I’d always pretended.”
“What are you--?”
“I’m saying you made me happy. No. That’s not true and I think it’s what really scares you. You didn’t make me happy any more than I made you happy. We were happy together.”
“I—”
“Yeah. It’s a risk. I’m a risky prospect, I can see that. The everybody knowses of the world would see a guy of thirty-five who’s already failed at marriage once. They’d tell you to run a mile. Or to use me for sex and get yourself a designer kid that won’t come with any baggage or anyone else in the world wanting a say in its life or its future.”
“That is unfair on so many levels.”
He ignored her interruption, continuing his theme. “But what if I am over my wife?”
“You couldn’t be. You never talk about her.”
A flicker of humor laced its way through the ice inside him. “Then let me talk about her now. Let me tell you something. She’s moved in with my good buddy the lawyer.”
She blinked at the sudden change of subject but soon caught up. “Already?”
One of the things he’d come to like, maybe even love, about Iris was how quickly she grasped the meaning behind people’s words. Her eyes widened and she shook her head slowly. “Oh my gosh. You don’t move in with someone you just started seeing. This must have been going on while you were married. I wonder how long?”
“Oh, my gosh isn’t exactly how I phrased it but you got the gist of it. For who knows how long in my marriage, my best friend was banging my wife. Or I should say, ex best friend and ex-wife.”
“I don’t even know what to say. You must be devastated.”
He looked at the keys in his hand. Silver keys to the car he’d driven away from LA in and the brand new apartment keys to his new living arrangement. “You know what’s funny? I’m more devastated about losing you.”
“But, wait, this isn’t finished. You can’t just—“
He opened the door. “Goodnight,” he said, and shut it carefully behind him.
The door opened while he was walking toward his car. “Wait,” she called. “Are you breaking up with me?”
He turned back. She was so pretty standing there, backlit, her eyes appearing huge in her shadowed face. “According to you, we were never together.”
And he turned and kept walking. After a few moments he heard the snap as her door shut behind him like the sound of a fatal gunshot.
Chapter Seventeen
Geoff got through every day. He had places he needed to be, classes to teach, papers to grade, meetings to attend.
When Friday arrived, Tara Barnes sought him out. “Hey stranger,” she said giving him her big friendly smile. “You coming for a drink tonight?”
He was about to refuse automatically but she put a hand on his arm. “Don’t say no. It’s my birthday. Help me celebrate?”
And he thought, what the hell? So he forced enthusiasm into his tone. “Yeah, why not?”
“Great. Ellen is driving us all in her van so we can have a couple of drinks if we want.” She nudged her shoulder against him. “I plan to have a lot of fun tonight,” she said, looking up at him in a way that could only be termed flirtatious.
“Great,” he said again.
&nb
sp; He bumped into Ellen in the teacher’s lounge later that day while she was eating her lunch, a magazine open on her knee. “Hear you’re driving the party bus,” he said to her.
She glanced around to make sure no one was in earshot. The school nurse was talking with the Spanish teacher at a table on the other side of the room. She motioned him to come and sit beside her. “What’s going on with you?”
“Nothing.”
“I haven’t taught high school for twenty years not to know when somebody’s suffering.”
He thought he’d been putting on such a good façade. Hell it fooled Tara enough that she was hitting on him. “What do you mean?”
She sighed. “Are you really going to make me do this? You look like hell, like you’re not sleeping. Your socks don’t match and you haven’t shaved.”
He felt like a teenager with a heartache. He glanced down and damn it, she was right. He had on one brown sock and one black sock. Hadn’t even noticed. “I’m going to Tara’s birthday party, aren’t I?”
She settled a teacher’s gaze on him, the kind that made you squirm even if you hadn’t done anything wrong. “You’re not planning to do something really stupid are you?”
“Define stupid,” he said, thinking maybe he was.
She dropped her voice and leaned closer. “Tara Barnes makes no secret of the fact that she’d like to jump your very fine bones.”
“You said I look like hell.”
“Everything’s relative,” she said with a sardonic look. “Around here, you’re still the best looking guy we’ve seen in a long time. And she has her eye on you.”
“So?”
“So I don’t think you’re interested and if you two get involved and it doesn’t work out, the last thing we need is drama among the teaching staff.” She shuddered and he suspected she was speaking from experience. “So I’m telling you as a friend and a fellow teacher that you should think very carefully before getting involved with a colleague.”
Sometimes he was more clueless than the most naïve freshman. “You’re right. I’ve always steered clear of getting involved with other teachers.”
“I know it can be hard to resist. We see each other every day. And she is very attractive.”
He considered the issue of attraction for a moment and knew that for him there was only one woman in Hidden Falls. “She’s hot all right. But I’m not interested.”
She nodded, looking a lot more sympathetic now he’d told her he wouldn’t be causing inter-staff drama. “Still hurting over your wife?”
Irritation stabbed at him. “Why does everyone assume that?”
“Because you’re in the middle of a divorce. Seems like a reasonable assumption.”
“Well, my ex-wife is not the reason I’m not interested in Tara.” A second of silence passed and he felt the disbelief coming off Ellen. He said, “I’m in love with somebody else.” He felt the shock go through him as he said the words, said them so fluidly and easily that he realized he’d known on some level for a while now that he was crazy in love with Iris.
“In love with someone else?”
“I know it sounds crazy, but it’s true.”
“Then why are you so miserable?”
“Because she, like everyone else, thinks I’m not ready for a relationship. But I am.”
“You’re sure? Have you considered that this might be a rebound relationship?”
“Yes. Of course I’ve considered that. But this isn’t a rebound. I love her in a way I’ve never loved a woman before. And she doesn't believe me.”
“You can’t exactly blame the woman.”
“How do I let her know that I’m not rebounding? That I love her?” This was the question that haunted him at night and messed with his concentration during the day.
“I don’t know.”
He wanted to kick something. He knew he had to act a little more mature than his students even though he didn’t feel it. He scowled instead. “Iris Chance is one stubborn woman who only hears what she wants to hear.”
Ellen was in the act of resealing the plastic container her lunch had come in but her hands stilled and she glanced up at him. “Iris Chance? You’re in love with Iris?”
“Yeah.” He’d forgotten once again that in a town this size most everyone knew everyone. Of course Ellen knew Iris. “You know her.”
“She owns the best coffee shop in town. In fact, I’m probably the reason you two met. I sent you to Sunflower when you first moved here. Remember?”
“Yeah. I do. And I should thank you for that except that she kicked my ass out of her life.”
The other English teacher stared at him but almost through him, like she was looking at something else. “She came to a couple of parent teacher interviews. You get to see another side of a person when they come to parent teacher interviews.”
“What?” He wondered if they were talking about the same person. “Iris doesn’t have kids.”
“No. But the man she was dating at the time did. Rob Granger. His son was doing some foolish things. Mostly, I think, because he was upset about his parents’ break-up.”
He’d heard about Rob. The last guy Iris had dated. She’d never mentioned he’d had kids or that it had been serious enough that she attended parent teacher conferences. “What happened?”
“Rob went back to his wife. Back to his family. They moved away after that. I think they’re in Seattle now.”
If a thunderbolt had streaked down from the sky shouting out a message, it couldn’t have been clearer. “Iris’s last boyfriend went back to his ex-wife?” So many things started to make sense. “Oh, that’s perfect.”
She made a sympathetic face. “Bad luck for you I’m afraid.”
“No wonder she can’t believe I’m truly free.” And how on earth did he show her he was?
At Ellen’s raised eyebrows he said, “Okay, not truly free. Not all the way free, but emotionally free which is the important thing.”
“If there’s anything I can do to help, ask.”
“Wow. That’s so nice of you. You must believe in me and Iris as a couple.”
She picked up her reusable sandwich bag, slipped in the plastic tub and the fork she’d brought from home and tucked it tidily away. “I believe in you and anyone who doesn’t work at this school.”
As she walked away, he thought, this is a woman who’s been married a long time. He said, “Hey, what makes a woman really believe a man loves her?” The nurse and the Spanish teacher stopped their conversation to stare at him. He didn’t even care that he was baring his soul to strangers.
Ellen paused, turned back. “The grand gesture. Every woman secretly yearns for a man to slay a dragon, swim through a river or crocodiles to get to her, to prove his love.”
“Si,” the Spanish teacher agreed.
“Not a lot of dragons or crocodiles in Hidden Falls,” he said. “But thanks.”
“Don’t be so literal,” Ellen chided like he was a remedial student in her English class.
He thought rapidly, assessed and discarded a dozen foolish ideas. Then he had it. The answer was so simple. “Could a grand gesture be a signature on a piece of paper?”
“You’re writing her a letter?” She did not look impressed with his heroic possibilities. The school nurse shook her head.
“No. I was thinking a judge’s signature on a divorce decree.”
Ellen smiled at him. “Now you’re getting somewhere.”
He was so relieved he walked right over, grabbed her and kissed her cheek.
Ellen laughed, but she blushed a little too. She patted him on the shoulder. “Plus you’re gorgeous which will definitely help.”
He put in the call to his lawyer immediately, since he had no secrets from the two other women who had resumed their conversation. But his lawyer was in a meeting and he had to leave a message. Then, since he couldn’t break the rules he imposed on his students, he turned off his cell phone and went to class.
He’d plann
ed to skip the after work drink but it was soon clear that nearly all the teachers were going since it was Tara’s birthday. Her thirtieth, it turned out. He made a point of sitting across the table and down a few from the birthday girl and making conversation with one of the biology teachers, a guy a little older than him who was happy to talk sports.
He was sipping a beer, wondering how soon he could get away, when the lawyer called back. He excused himself from the crowded, noisy table and stepped outside. Rain drizzled down and he huddled under the awning.
“What can I do for you?” his lawyer asked. She was a no-nonsense type who had told him up front she wasn’t interested in drama or blame. “Keep that for the therapist’s office. I am a negotiator. I will get you the best deal I can within the law. How does that sound?” He’d thought it sounded fine. Signed up with her, sent her all the documentation and listings of every cent of assets he and his wife owned together and those that he owned separately. Then months had dribbled by with little contact.
“I need my divorce now,” Geoff said to his lawyer, watching water drip off the awning and into a puddle.
“These things take time, Geoff.”
“I don’t have time. The law says we can get divorced in California if we’ve lived apart for six months. It’s been six and a half months.”
“Right. But you’ve got assets to divide and –“
“Get hold of her lawyer. Find out what she wants. Let’s meet and get this thing done.”
“You don’t want to come across as too eager. If they sense weakness—“
“I don’t care. I am eager. If we’re both willing to be reasonable we can settle this thing in an afternoon.”
She argued a little longer and he heard her out, then he said, “I’ve got no classes next Friday. I’ll drive down Thursday night. I can meet anytime Friday. I want an agreement by the end of the day. Let’s do this.”
“I’ll do my best to set something up. I’ll get back to you.”
He began to feel better. If he could prove to Iris that there was no possibility he was going back to his wife then maybe she’d give this thing with them a chance. Maybe he wasn’t ready for kids right this second, but he thought he’d be a good father.