by J. D. Robb
Could it be any worse if he walked over to her and asked to talk for a minute? He could try to explain, though what he could possibly say at this moment eluded him. He could at least request another time to talk—surely bizarro would let him out if he had a bona fide date, even if it wasn’t through iLove. Then again, it would be more of an appointment than a date. And making an appointment with her and not showing would be the death knell for his chances of winning her back.
No, he had to talk to her now. He tried to take a step in her direction, but when he picked up his foot it got yanked to the side. He looked down, expecting to see himself caught on something, maybe someone’s coat that had fallen off their chair. But there was nothing, and in another instant his other foot was jerked in the same direction. Then as if someone were pushing on his back he was propelled straight toward the door. He tried to resist but it was futile, and as he pushed through the door, tilting and flailing, he felt that weird suction and instead of finding himself outside on the sidewalk his feet felt the industrial-grade carpeting beneath them and he stumbled into the corridor just across from his cubicle.
Despair hit him like an anvil from a high window. He wanted to scream, but was afraid he would scare himself with the lunacy of it.
Then it got worse. The floor trembled and a loud voice called out, “Where is he? Where’s my boy Jeremy? A little birdie told me he hasn’t been paying attention! And you know what happens when we don’t pay attention?” Queenie Hartz turned the corner at the end of the hallway and lumbered toward him, her eyes gleaming red like a dog’s in a flash photo.
Nothing, he wanted to say, but the dread in his gut turned into outright fear, and he launched himself into his cubicle, locking his eyes on his screens.
A second later she loomed in the doorway.
“We get your type in here allll the time,” she said in a voice low and silky. “Trying to buck the system. Thinking they can outsmart the game. And you know what happens to them?”
Jeremy gritted his teeth. “They get dragged back here against their will?”
“Time and again.”
He could see her grinning from the corner of his eye.
“Have you learned anything today, young man?”
He frowned, staring sightlessly at his email inbox. “Actually, no.” He turned toward her, and looked up, up, up to her broad, maniacal face. The tiara twinkled in the fluorescent lighting.
“And why not?” Her tone gained a harder edge.
“Because, here’s the thing. We’re supposed to find a real relationship, right? That’s the point of iLove? Well, that’s what I was doing.”
“Is. That. Right.”
“Yeah, it was. Not with Gina, of course, but Macy. You know, the one whose phone I get to wander around in upstairs? So I must be here to get back together with her, right? Or else why would one entire floor of this building be dedicated to my accessing her cell phone?”
“Upstairs?” she scoffed. “There is no upstairs. Whatever you think is up there is in your very own head, young man. And I guess it doesn’t surprise me any that what you got up there is nothing but another cellular phone.”
Could he be so crazy that he was crazy even here? Or was the place just built to make him think so? “Okay, sure. But listen, if there’s one thing I know, it’s that Macy is the girl for me. I’m not going to find anyone on iLove unless it’s her. So if you let me out of here I will build a relationship with her, a real relationship.”
“Just let you out, huh?”
“Look, you took away all of my tools to make this right. I can’t see her, I can’t talk to her, even on the phone. I can’t even find her on iLove, at least not the way things are set up here. So I had to resort to . . . something else.”
“We didn’t take away your tools. You have all of your tools.” She swept a hand toward his array of screens. “You have everything you thought you needed when you were out before. What’s different now?”
“What’s different? I could see people before, touch them, have face-to-face relationships.”
“Honey,” she said, leaning an elbow on the top of his cubicle wall, “that is exactly the point. You saw people, touched people, had face-to-face relationships, but all you were facing was your smartphone.”
“I get that now,” he said eagerly. “I do. I swear I do. Look, if you let me email her, let me get out of here for a date with her, I know I can make everything right.”
“You want special rules, just for you?”
He exhaled in frustration. “All right, then, just tell me how to find her on iLove. If I make a date that way can I get out and see her?”
“Sure, you know the rules. So that’s what you want? Me to tell you how to find her on iLove?” she asked sweetly.
“Yes!”
“And you’ll do everything else the right way?”
“Yes. Absolutely. I promise.” He gave her his sincerest smile, then held up three fingers. “Scout’s honor.”
“What a load of BS, mister. Here you are asking me out of one side of your mouth to break the rules, while out of the other side you’re promising to do everything the right way. You’ve got to get your head on straight, that’s what you’ve got to do. And start paying attention!”
CHAPTER SEVEN
Macy picked up her phone for the dozenth time and looked for the little red 1 that would tell her she had a text or an email or a voice mail. She even checked her Facebook page to see if Jeremy might have messaged her there, but there was nothing.
Two days ago, right after she’d seen him at the restaurant, she’d called him. His voice mail had picked up immediately and she hadn’t wanted to leave a message. Then she’d tried again the next day. Same thing. She tried once more yesterday but she figured by then he must have seen her in his missed call list and was simply not calling back. The many possible reasons for this made her want to cry, but that didn’t stop her from hoping he’d get in touch.
“Jeez, I’m really starting to see what you mean about Jeremy,” April said, pushing through a rack of spandex yoga pants and eyeing her skeptically.
Macy looked up, her heart leaping at the possibility that April had spotted him. “About Jeremy? What do you mean?”
“About how annoying it is to be with someone constantly looking at their phone. You’ve barely taken your eyes off that thing the last few days. Not since you saw him at that restaurant. You’re not still thinking you’ll hear from him, are you? He was on a date, for pity’s sake.”
Macy smarted at the words. “You don’t have to be so blunt about it.”
“I’m sorry. But you’ve been mooning around for weeks now, and it’s time to move on. I’m worried about you.” April sighed and pushed away from the clothing rack. “Come on, let’s get out of here. They never put the good stuff on sale and I’m just not the type to do yoga in leopard-print tights.”
Macy shot her a look. “Yes you are.”
“Well, yeah, but only if they really look like a leopard, not some cheesy pattern in green and orange.”
“What, like made of fur?” Macy said absently, thinking all of life was pointless when you couldn’t reach the one you loved. She felt as if she were the one who’d been dumped, and frankly, spending time in the faux-friendly world of her cell phone was a lot more comfortable than walking around like a dead extra in somebody else’s movie.
The inanity of her conversation with April was making her tired. She wished she hadn’t agreed to go out after work—she’d rather be home in bed—but April was right. She’d done nothing the last few weeks but angst about Jeremy. It was time to get out. But even that wasn’t working.
She’d been holed up in her head so long she could barely make conversation. It was so bad she’d been afraid to see her life coach for fear of being outed as one of the fools done in by love. He’d already pointed out how her relationship
was not adding value to her life; if he discovered that the relationship was over and she had descended into life immobility because of it he’d probably drop her as a client. She’d been pretty lax at work too. Where was this going to end? How was she supposed to get over him? Things had only gotten worse as time had passed.
They zipped up their coats and pulled on their gloves and headed for the exit. In a heavy-handed bit of symbolism, winter had descended suddenly and without mercy that week. She pulled her collar up, anticipating the icy wind.
“Why don’t you just call him, then?” April said, turning to her once they were outside. “You want to talk to him, so take the bull by the horns. What the hell, right? If it takes that to get him out of your system then just do it!”
“I have called him. Several times. He doesn’t pick up.”
April’s face went from frustration to comprehension. “Oh, honey,” she said, putting an arm around Macy’s shoulders. “I get it now. Come on, let’s go get a drink somewhere.”
Macy held the phone in the palm of her hand and gazed at it helplessly. “Do you think my phone could be broken?”
As if on cue, the thing chimed.
April laughed. “I guess not.”
“That’s not my ring tone. What is that?” She unlocked the phone, and Jeremy’s face popped up on her screen.
“Oh my god, he’s FaceTiming you!” April leapt away from Macy’s side so she wouldn’t be visible in the screen. “Take it take it take it,” she hissed.
Macy flushed, and her finger trembled as she tapped the phone to take the call. “Hey,” she said, with a shaking voice.
In her peripheral vision April seemed to be gesturing something to her, moving her hands emphatically up and down.
“Macy!” His face could not have looked more delighted to see her. “Is that really you?”
She laughed, confused. “Of course it’s me.” Then she frowned. “Did you mean to call someone else?”
“No!” He looked stricken. “It’s just—I haven’t been able to get through on the regular phone. The phone part of my phone doesn’t work, see, but then I remembered FaceTime. It’s not actually the phone so it works. I’m sure there’s some metaphor in there somewhere,” he muttered, rolling his eyes. “But then I wasn’t sure it was allowed—well, anyway, never mind. It’s a long story. Have you got a minute to talk?”
She had no idea what he was talking about, but her heart began to soar anyway. “Yes! Yes, I’m just—I just got out of work. What’s up?” She tried to sound casual and glanced at April, who was still doing that movement.
“Macy . . .” He looked at her a long moment.
She caught sight of herself in the little box in the corner, the one that showed how she looked to him, and realized why April was gesturing. She looked awful. She jerked the phone up to face level and farther away, so it wasn’t looking at her from below, and she instantly looked less ghoulish. April popped herself theatrically on the forehead as if to say, Finally.
“Hey, can I call you right back?” she asked, thinking she should also get into some better lighting. “I’m out on the street and—”
“No!” he shouted. “No, no, don’t hang up. Please don’t hang up. Can you hear me?”
She looked around at the people looking at her and turned the phone down a notch, but she didn’t want to miss anything he said so she turned it back up. “Yes, but so can a lot of other people.”
“I don’t care. I don’t want to risk not being able to call back. Listen, I’ve come to a realization. What you were trying to say the other night, that you thought I was done? What did you mean by that?”
She looked around again. Several people at a bus stop were looking at her curiously. She dropped her voice. “Oh, you know. That you . . . you obviously didn’t feel the same way about me that I felt about you.”
“What?” he said loudly, as if by increasing his volume he could increase hers. “I didn’t catch that.”
“I said, that I know you wanted out of the relationship,” she nearly shouted, “that you didn’t love me anymore.”
“That’s what I thought you meant!” He looked happy about this. “But Macy, here’s the thing. I mean, I know I was a jerk about the phone. I get that now. Believe me, I really understand now. But I’ve been thinking all this time that it was about me, my problem, my . . . addiction, I guess you could call it. So I’ve been frustrated about what to do. How to get out of here—of the mess I made, that is. It’s hard to explain.”
“No, but Jeremy, it wasn’t about that at all. It was me. I was so intolerant. And I’m so sorry I made you feel like it was you. The problem is that I’m spoiled and impulsive—”
“Stop it. No, you’re not. But I did realize that the problem was about you.”
“I know! I was the problem. I have no patience! I could have given you another chance. Heck, I could have just gotten over it.”
“That’s not what I’m saying. I thought the problem was mine, that it was something that I needed to change but hadn’t gotten around to working on yet. What I didn’t realize was not that I had become a jerk, or an idiot, or a guy who was a lousy boyfriend—all of those things were true, but they were still all about me. I finally realized that I wasn’t truly paying attention to anybody but me. The phone was just a symptom. And all the rest of this stuff happened because of what that was doing to you!” He paused, shaking his head. “Did you honestly think I didn’t love you?”
Macy gripped the phone in both hands, looking deeply into his eyes, drinking in his full-blown and distraught attention. “Well . . . yes. I mean, I don’t blame you. If I wasn’t interesting, why wouldn’t you tune out? But you know, now that you say all of that I think I was doing the same thing. I was only thinking about me and what I wanted.”
He ran a hand through his hair in a gesture so dear to her that her breath caught. “Macy, oh, Macy. That is so far from the truth. You were right there with me and I was always somewhere else. I can’t believe I did that to you. The number one thing in a relationship has to be emotional security, and I gave you none of that. I was such an idiot, Mace.”
She swallowed hard over the lump in her throat and gave a light laugh. “The number one thing in a relationship? Did you Google that?”
He looked sheepish and laughed. “Actually I did. I’ve been . . . uh . . . working on things. On myself. Or rather, not myself. Trying to figure out what went wrong.”
“You were? Then . . . are you saying . . . ?” She couldn’t get the words out. She could not ask him if he still loved her, because even after all of this, she was scared to death he might say no.
“Macy, I’ve never loved anyone like I love you. And it wasn’t about the phone, or the iPad or whatever, it was about me not knowing how to love. Not knowing how to nurture love, and build it, and take care of it the way it should be taken care of.”
A tear slipped down her face and she smiled. “Google again?”
He gave her a look she hadn’t seen since one of their earliest moments in bed. “Just the vocabulary, Mace. The feelings are all mine. And I’m so, so sorry. I ruined everything.”
She swiped at her cheeks to dry them with her gloves and gave him a watery smile. “But I did the same thing. I made snap judgments and then—then I bailed on you. And in the cruelest way!”
His lips were pressed together, and his eyes looked as if they might be wet too. She gripped the phone harder, brought it closer to try to see if he was tearing up, then realized that her face was getting huge on his screen. She yanked it back.
“I miss you, Macy,” he said. “God, I miss you so much. I wish . . . I wish I could go back in time, back to when I was lucky enough to have your love.”
“Jeremy, I still love you! You don’t know how much I wish I could undo it all, the misunderstanding, the breakup—” As she said the words the screen went blank. Th
en her phone vibrated and the app closed itself down. “No!” she wailed, shaking the phone in her hands. She took the finger of one glove in her teeth and pulled it off, then started poking the app with her finger. But instead of opening back up, the entire phone shut itself off. “No!”
“Macy,” April said, coming closer.
Macy looked up and saw a crowd of people near the bus stop watching her, their faces looking as devastated as she felt, like they were watching the sad ending of her life’s movie.
“Macy, turn around,” April said.
Macy caught the smile on April’s face and spun to look behind her. Weaving through the crowd on the sidewalk, Jeremy was moving toward her, his eyes scanning the people all around until his gaze landed on hers.
Her mouth dropped open, the glove fell to the ground and he stopped.
“You were right here?” she asked, not knowing what else to say. “All along? Why didn’t you just—?”
But instead of speaking he moved swiftly toward her. Before she could get another word out his arms were around her and he was kissing her.
She didn’t hear the applause from the group of tired commuters waiting for the bus. And she missed it when April said that she’d call her later. She didn’t even hear her cell phone dropping to the ground.
The only things she was aware of were Jeremy’s arms tight around her and his lips on hers. When the kiss broke he pulled her closer, one hand on the back of her head. “I’m not letting you go again. I’m never going to be that fool again, Macy, I promise. Doubtless I’ll be some other kind of fool somewhere along the line, but don’t you ever doubt that I love you.”
She pulled back, her eyes capturing his. “I was the fool. And I’ve learned my lesson.”
He smiled, and his eyes were wet this time, she was sure.
“Marry me,” he said.
She gasped.
“I know. It’s crazy. It hasn’t even been a year, so it’s probably too soon, but I know what I want. Just tell me I have a shot, that you’ll think about it, that we can move in that direction. And when the time comes I promise I’ll do it right,” he continued. “I’ll get a ring, get down on one knee, all that stuff, but please tell me now, so I can breathe, that you still love me. Tell me I have a shot at making you mine forever, my wonderful, patient, loving girl.”