Textual Encounters (The Christine + Jake Affair)
Page 9
10:56pm:
So I’m wondering what it will take to get you back to New York. I am prepared to call in some pretty big favors. I know plenty of accountants, Christine. I have no problem asking them to find work for you or to create roles that will get you back to NYC.
10:57pm:
Let me know if you are on-side with this.
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11:32pm:
I’m sore, Jake. You’re an amazing lover, and not only because you can please me physically. The way you whisper my name in my ear, the way you kiss my neck while you’re on top of me and my legs are wrapped around your waist, the way you smile and trace your finger from the inside of my knee down to my butt (I love that!), and then seeing you when I wake up…!!! I’m smiling just thinking about it!!!
11:35pm:
I will figure a way to repay you for my share of this weekend’s excursions, whether you like it or not. And if that means moving back to NYC and letting you wake up next to me every morning for the rest of your life, then it’s worth interviewing with some of the people who owe you favors.
11:38pm:
I can’t believe you would do that for me. Jake, where have you been all my life?
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11:39pm:
I’m here now.
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11:40pm:
Let’s do this. Let’s figure a way to make this work and get me a career in NYC again.
11:41pm:
I really believe it when I say you’re my soulmate, by the way. Nobody except my soulmate could make me feel the way you do.
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11:43pm:
I believe the same thing.
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11:44pm:
I know you do. I can tell by the way you touch me, kiss me and love me. There’s never any doubt in my mind that we were built for each other.
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11:45pm:
I miss you already.
11:52pm:
Are you still there?
11:54pm:
Okay, I’m going to get some rest. Early morning tomorrow.
11:55pm:
Good night, Christine.
11:56pm:
Dream about me... I will be dreaming about you, so maybe we can meet in my dreams tonight.
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11:57pm:
I dream about you every night.
11:57pm:
See you in Stage 4.
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Monday January 28, 2013
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7:35am:
Where were you? I thought we were going to meet...
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7:39am:
Huh?
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7:40am:
The dreams? We were supposed to meet in Stage 4 sleep???
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7:41am:
Oh, right. I would have preferred that! Last night, I dreamt that I was left alone in a hotel room. We had just come back from dinner or something and we were starting to get into it on the bed when you decided you needed to go to the bathroom.
7:43am:
While you were gone - the bathroom was down the hall or something, it was *not* in our room, weird? - I took off all of my clothes and got under the sheets. But you never came back. I wanted to go after you, but I couldn’t find my clothes and the police were in the hall arresting people if they were naked in the hotel!
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7:45am:
LOL, that’s quite the dream.
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7:46am:
Tell me about yours. I’m curious who showed up instead of me.
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7:48am:
OK, sure. We start off together on the subway heading home, but the subway morphs into a streetcar somehow and then suddenly you aren’t there. But we’re heading home so I figure I’ll catch up with you there. Somehow, I know what’s the right stop and I get off the empty streetcar. It’s in a nice neighborhood, people in suits walking dogs, riding bikes and playing frisbee in the park in the middle of winter.
7:52am:
Anyway, I walk through the park and come to your house, a decent place with a white Audi parked next to a Range Rover in the driveway. I call out to you, but you don’t hear me or see me. I watch you from the sidewalk as you get a dinner table ready. And then I realize I’m in a suit, too, and when I look down at my bike, it turns into a dog and tells me that it’s time to go.
7:54am:
Crazy, isn’t it? I’m allergic to dogs.
7:54am:
I think I would have preferred outrunning the anti-naked police!
7:57am:
Are you still there?
8:00am:
OK, I have to get to work too. Chat later.
2:03pm:
Well, it’s official. That portfolio I presented last week was approved by our Senior Investment Committee. Interestingly enough, one of the independent committee members used to work at a large accounting firm. Long boring story for another time. Bottom line is that he’s going to make some calls to his old friends at the firm.
2:06pm:
You were right, apparently these big firms have a need for tax specialists. I’ll keep you posted.
2:07pm:
How’s your day going?
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3:17pm:
OMG!! Are you serious? You’ve already found someone who will look at interviewing me?
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3:18pm:
Actually I felt a little guilty that it took me this long to approach some of my contacts.
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3:19pm:
We were just talking about it *last night* Jake! I can’t tell you how much this cheers me up!
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3:20pm:
I think rent’s a little more expensive in NYC than Toronto.
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3:21pm:
I think so, too. I’ve been living rent-free since coming back.
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3:22pm:
Really?
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3:24pm:
The timing couldn’t be more perfect, Jake. My boss is being a super-size asshole since last week’s fall out with the New York office. Except today he is worse than usual.
3:25pm:
I need out.
3:28pm:
I need to be out of here and in with you.
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3:32pm:
I concur (it’s a word they used a lot in the committee meeting this morning).
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3:33pm:
LOL. Accountants like that word, too.
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3:34pm:
Gotta run. Catch up later, ok?
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3:35pm:
Promise?
3:37pm:
I’ll assume you would have said *yes* to my last comment. And you know how hard I take it when you break your petty promises to me, Jake. So don’t ignore me tonight...
3:39pm:
Love you.
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7:15pm:
Just getting home now.
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7:18pm:
Long day?
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7:19pm:
I ran into your friend Melissa from JP Morgan on my way home tonight.
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7:20pm:
Did you tell her I am moving back to NYC?
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7:21pm:
Who is Peter?
7:32pm:
That’s what I thought.
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7:33pm:
Oh, she told you a Peter…
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7:34pm:
You don’t want to talk about him, do you?
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7:35pm:
No, it’s not that I don’t want to chat about him.
7:37pm:
It’s complicated.
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7:37pm:
Is Peter the reason you moved to Toronto?
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7:38pm:
No.
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7:39pm:
Melissa suggested otherwise.
7:40pm:
I was surprised to hear about him from Melissa.
7:41pm:
I don’t understand how he never came up. You had plenty of opportunity to tell me about him. I rambled about Rachel for how long?
7:48pm:
Okay, so you’re going to avoid me now…?
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8:03pm:
Did Melissa tell you that Peter was abusive?
8:04pm:
Of course she didn’t, because she never knew that part of him.
8:05pm:
I bet she didn’t tell you that he doesn’t even know that I live in the same city as he does. Of course she didn’t, because she never asked me about Peter when I texted her two weeks ago.
11:38pm:
I’m curious, Jake. How did Peter come up in your conversation with Melissa? Were you asking, or did she volunteer. Because if you were asking, then I have to wonder why you never asked *me*.
11:40pm:
Because if you had asked me, this is what I would have told you:
11:43pm:
Peter and I met in high school. He was the greatest guy I’d ever met. Smart, handsome, extremely charming. He was a year younger than me and all of the girls in the school wanted to be with him. So to have him to myself, to have “won” him, I felt pretty special.
11:45pm:
Anyway, Peter and I were together eight years. We tolerated each other through my last year in high school and my four years of college. By the time I finished my CPA, he hit me five times. He threatened to kill me six *thousand* times. I guess it depends on who you ask, but that is either five times too many, or six thousand times too many, but for me it was both.
11:48pm:
I moved to New York with him for two reasons. The first is that he proposed to me once he was offered a job at Arthur Andersen and I was afraid to say no, and the second is because I saw New York as my last and only opportunity for a fresh start. In Chicago, I didn’t think I could break free the same way. He had so many friends to keep an eye on me, he knew where to find me, etc.. So I tagged along.
11:52pm:
Our first week in NYC, I had six interviews, three in one day, two the next and the last one on Friday. I didn’t make the Friday interview because I was in the hospital. When I showed up for the second round of interviews the following week, I never heard back from two of them. I’m sure you can figure out why.
11:55pm:
When I met Melissa, I was still with Peter. It was optics by then, Jake. Of course we were high school sweethearts. Of course I *loved* him more than anything. Of course we were planning a huge wedding on Long Island, my dream wedding that was *fit for a princess.* Of course we were trying to have children. And of course Melissa saw two people madly in love with each other.
11:57pm:
That’s how these kinds of relationships work – all about what it *looked* like. I didn’t want to make another trip to the hospital!
11:59pm:
When Andersen promoted Peter to Toronto, I promised him I would follow. Would you have told him anything different?
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Tuesday January 29, 2013
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12:01am:
I packed all of our stuff and shipped it out with him. Even my stuff because I was allegedly on the verge of getting transferred myself. It was easier to have it there waiting for me because then he knew I was serious about making the move, right? And if he knew I was serious, he would give me the space I needed to find my next job without telling him anything about it.
12:03am:
I had to take these kinds of steps because if Peter ever returned to NYC to hunt me down, I couldn’t risk him walking down whatever street I decided to move to and recognizing an old lampshade or anything else that I might put out for the trash. Call me paranoid, but would you have taken that chance?
12:05am:
So to address your comment about following him to Toronto, are you smoking fucking crack? Moving here is not *following him*, it’s either being dragged or tiptoeing delicately around a sleeping bear.
12:06am:
I love you Jake, I really do, but next time it might make better sense to ask me directly.
12:07am:
Fucking jerk.
12:08am:
I meant soulmate.
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7:35am:
Guess who feels like a complete, undeserving moron. Yes, that would be me.
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7:38am:
You can ask me anything, Jake. I’m an open book.
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7:39am:
I’m sorry. I guess I’m a little tentative because what we have just seems too good to be true.
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7:41am:
It is. What we have is different than anything else we have known because we were introduced by a power neither of us understands. It wasn’t coincidence, I’m convinced of that now. It was Fate. That’s the higher purpose that brought us together.
7:42am:
Everything happens for a reason, Jake. Even erroneous text messages. It’s not up to us to understand it. It’s up to us to have faith in those things.
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7:42am:
You’re right.
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7:43am:
I know : )
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7:43am:
Chat later?
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7:44am:
OK.
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7:45am:
BTW you should hear from someone named John Lawson from Lawson, Gregor, Postmann and Associates. John’s the son of a founding partner, he takes care of professional staffing for the firm.
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7:46am:
He’ll text me?
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7:47am:
Is that OK? Just to set up a time to chat...
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7:48am:
Yes, that’s perfect. I’m looking forward to his text.
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7:49am:
OK, I have to run. Let me know how it goes with Lawson.
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7:50am:
Thanks, I will.
2:15pm:
You’re my hero X2, Jake.
2:15pm:
2:16pm:
But also unnecessary.
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2:18pm:
Now that I didn’t have to send a bouquet to three other Christine’s, I could splurge a little more on yours.
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