The Tragedy of Loving Jamie Clarke

by Cohen, Rebecca R.

  I feel like the Wicked Witch of the West because I am basically melting on the stairs right now.

  “Why do you have to be so damn perfect, Jamie?”

  “It’s a gift,” Jamie says matter-of-factly.

  “Well, well someone is cocky tonight.”

  “Not tonight, remember?” Jamie says and winks.

  I slap his arm and shove him lightly. “I love you, Jamie.”

  “I love you too, April.”

  I take his hand and lead him upstairs where the only undressing Jamie will be doing will be of the wrapping paper.

  -14-

  Every time Jamie is in my room it looks smaller, but not in the walls-closing-in kind of way. It’s the intimate; wish it could be smaller, kind of feeling. I remember the first time he was in my room when I finally had the guts to tell him about my obsession with the Backstreet Boys. I figured he handled the whole my girlfriend could pass for a robot thing perfectly; he must be ready for my crazier quality. He was obviously overwhelmed by all of the posters but he never made fun of me. He doesn’t like their music but he also doesn’t fault me for liking them the way Charlie used to or the way Amber sometimes does. At first I was embarrassed about all the eyes gawking at us but now none of it bothers me. Jamie plops on the desk chair and spins around placing his hands behind his head.

  “So how’s your book coming along?” Jamie asks.

  “Surprisingly well actually,” I reply gleefully. “I think once I am done with the next two chapters I’ll be ready for my first round of editing.”

  Ever since I found the jacket something has opened in me and my muse has been holding on tight. I have been writing vigorously whenever I get the chance and if I’m not near a computer I’ll jot a few notes down on a receipt or gum wrapper, or whatever else I can find in my purse.

  When I am home I spend two to three hours writing but I’ve been able to write nearly the entire manuscript with the exception of the last two chapters. It’s nowhere near ready to be submitted and there’s no way I’m letting anyone read it yet but hey, at least I’m writing.

  “See, I knew you had it in you,” Jamie says leaping off the chair and wrapping his arms around my waist.

  “Yeah, well you’ve inspired me.”

  Kissing him is like flying. I’m so lost in his touch that I have almost forgotten about the present.

  “So, this gift of yours, how important is it that you give it to me first?” Jamie asks, as he pulls back but keeps his arms around my waist.

  “No. I mean, I guess not. Why?” I reply.

  “Well,” he says pulling a small box out from the front pockets of his trousers. “I have something I have been dying to give you all night.”

  The box is a petite black velvet ring box with a golden trim. I’m feeling equal parts excitement and fear that he is about to propose. Is he really about to pull out an engagement ring? Why isn’t he on one knee? Is he going to give me a long speech and then drop? As much as I love him and know we are going to spend the rest of our lives together if we got engaged now my parents, laid back as they are, would flip out. And I can hear Amber’s comments now, “You are a hopeless romantic,” and “Come back to the real world, April. Marriage only has a 50/50 chance of lasting.” She’s not cynical nor does she think all marriage ends in divorce but she, like everyone else, believes that people who get married before they’re at least 25-years-old will likely end up divorced within a year. People like her sister, Mary.

  Mary married her high school sweetheart, Albert, right after graduation. After a few years of marriage Albert left her for another woman and Mary was forced to move back home for a while until she moved out to Los Angeles. Things at home became stressful for Amber and her family and I think since then she’s had a hard time believing that young marriages have any hope of lasting.

  I want to push pause on this moment so I can run like the Flash and open the box and see what’s inside. If he asks I’ll say yes because there is no one else in the world I would rather spend my life with than Jamie Still, I feel the sweat on my neck as Jamie walks toward me with the box settled in the palm of his hand. I picture all of the ways the rest of tonight can go after this and all of the screaming that is going to take place when I tell my parents that I’m engaged. But I’m not afraid. In fact, I know that this is right that everything in my life has been leading me to this moment. This is what is supposed to happen so screw all the doubters and naysayers!

  “I thought long and hard about what to get you. Something I knew you would truly like. It had to be something with meaning. I looked for weeks but nothing was ever good enough and then I found the perfect gift. It was something I knew you would love and it would also prove to you that despite what has been said about men, some of us do actually listen,” Jamie explains and begins to peel back the lid of the box.

  I see something folded inside which he lifts out and hands to me. Only when it’s in my hand do I realize what it is, a Concert ticket! But not just a regular concert ticket, an impossible-to-get front row ticket to The Backstreet Boys concert at the Portland Arena for this summer! Tickets that sold out nearly 30 seconds after they went on sale! It is the first time the boys will be in the Maine area in years. I slide the ticket through my fingers and realize there are actually two tickets here. This time I hope I am not wrong about what it means.

  “Just in case you’re wondering the second ticket is for me,” Jamie says and digs in his pockets. “That is, if you want me there.”

  I wrap my arms around his neck and swing myself into his arms. I kiss him on the lips and then plant smaller but forceful ones on the rest of his face and neck. He is laughing at every one of them. He really did listen to me. After we had been dating for a while Jamie asked me about my Backstreet Boys obsession and I had explained that I found their music at a time when I needed them most, shortly after my Grandmother passed away. They were my saving grace and the only reason I was able to get past her death. Later when I was diagnosed with scoliosis they were the only things that kept me from falling into a depression. I believe that they have saved me and Jamie seemed to understand it too. I had told him about the concert in Portland and how depressed I was about not being able to get tickets to their show. Actually I know I said, “I would give anything to go to that concert.” Still, he heard me. He knew exactly what these tickets would mean to me and it truly meant everything.

  “April,” Jamie says pushing my shoulders in an attempt to get me to stop kissing him. “As much as I love feeling your lips all over me I do have one more thing to give to you.”

  There’s more? How could there be more?

  With angels singing in the background, (okay maybe not real angels but in my head I hear them), Jamie pulls two laminated white and blue badges out of his pocket. He doesn’t have to finish unveiling them for me to know what they are. I squeal with delight and nearly knock us both over as I lunge into him, and I’m kissing him so hard that we along with the badges with the red lettering reading, All Access, fall to the ground. I relent on the kissing fiasco and straddle him so he can’t move.

  “How did you get these?” I scream.

  “I have my ways,” Jamie replies vaguely. He smirks and I know there is more to the story.

  “Seriously, Jamie, how did you get the tickets let alone the passes?”

  “I am super cool.”

  “NO! I don’t think you’re super cool!”

  Jamie quickly turns on his side and I topple over onto my back beside him. We’re both laughing hysterically.

  “Fine. You really want to know?” Jamie asks resting his head on his arm. I nod. “Okay you remember a few weeks ago when I said I was going to visit my Aunt Lucy in the hospital because she slipped and fell on dog shit?”

  “Yes. How is she by the way?”

  Jamie lets out a wicked laugh and I realize the whole story was a ruse. I should have known.

  “Well, there was no dog shit. I was actually in Portland at the Portland Arena Box
Office standing in line with hundreds of teenage girls and their mothers, all whom would not stop singing Backstreet Boys songs, waiting for the tickets to go on sale. Now I am not exaggerating when I say that I was the only person there with a penis. It took me a few rounds of testosterone to feel like a man again but I did make friends with this lovely sixty-year-old woman and her thirteen-year-old Granddaughter. Turns out they were there because the Grandmother was a fan of the boys and wanted to show her Granddaughter who they were,” Jamie explains. “Anyway I waited with practically every girl in Portland on that line from 4 o’clock in the morning until 10 o’clock a.m. when the tickets went on sale. But they sold out before I even got up to the box office door!

  “Like everyone else snubbed by your wonderful boys and their ridiculously quick sell out, I could have just gone home and given up. However, luckily for you, your boyfriend is not like every other teenage girl and their mother in Portland. I waited until the crowd cleared out and marched up to the box office and demanded to speak with the manager. Michael, the manager, agreed to speak with me and we had a long chat and after a lot of soul searching, Michael told me to grow up and go home. But when your face popped into my head I realized that there was no way I could go home without those tickets. So I marched back into Michael’s office and told him I was not going to leave until he got someone on the phone that could get me the tickets. An hour later I had in my possession two front row tickets and two all access passes.”

  Jamie finishes his story with a wide and suspicious grin; there is no way this Michael guy gave him front row tickets and all access passes because he begged the guy into submission.

  “Oh my God, Jamie Clarke, you bribed him didn’t you?” I whisper, because clearly bribery warrants whispering. Jamie winks and jumps to his feet but neither confirms nor denies my accusation. I know the truth. “Ha, ha! Jamie Clarke you little sneak, you really bribed the manager of the Portland Arena for me?”

  “You’ll never get me to confess,” Jamie says pulling me to my feet and wrapping his arms around the small of my back, the only space the brace isn’t covering. “Now, will you give me my present already? I’m dying over here.”

  I almost forgot about his present. I shuffle to the bed where I flung the present right before I attacked Jamie and learned that, despite his insistence that he would never use his family’s money to get ahead in life, he had used his wealth to get me the ultimate gift. Well, the ultimate gift for a Backstreet Boys fan that is.

  “Like you,” I start, “I did a lot of searching and panicking over what to get you. I had no clue what you might want or need since you have a tendency to not like to share in that way.”

  “I am mysterious in that way, aren’t I?” Jamie brags.

  “Anyway. Even though you gave me nothing to go on, I didn’t have to bribe anyone to get this for you. I remembered that story you told me about that jacket your Grandfather had and how important it was to you and well…here,” I say handing him the present.

  My insides churn and everything seems to be moving in slow motion. He rips the wrapping paper slowly. I want him to hurry up and just rip the thing open already the anticipation is killing me. I have never been one for taking my time. Even when I was younger and I would eat those Tootsie pops I always bit right into them so I could get to the center as quickly as possible. I hold the record in my family for the fastest present opener and can shred through three gifts in under a minute. My parents always used to tease me about how proud I made them as if it were some great skillset or something. I guess I could always become one of the girls who sit in an elf costume wrapping presents at the mall for $9.50 an hour during the holidays. Clearly Jamie is not cut out for such a career. Finally he slides the jacket out of the box and his face goes white, stark white like he’s seen a ghost. He claps his hand over his mouth and tears begin to well in his eyes.

  “Jamie?” I ask gently. He’s so silent and so still I’m not even sure he’s breathing. I can’t tell if he’s happy with the gift or if I’ve overstepped my boundaries as his girlfriend. “Did I? I mean, is this okay?”

  He won’t look at me or at anything except for the jacket. I have a million thoughts racing through my mind like maybe I should have stuck with the material things like a CD or a gift card. Maybe I was being too optimistic in thinking I was giving him something truly meaningful with this jacket. Maybe the memory of the jacket and his Grandfather is still too painful and all I’ve done with my gift is raise those feelings of loss and trauma over losing Grandpa James. This silence is killing me. I go over to my bed and sit on the edge of it facing Jamie. My legs won’t stop shaking and my hands remain clammy no matter how many times I wipe them on my dress. I prefer the nervousness I was feeling earlier to the nerves running through me right now. Why can’t I be that girlfriend who after a few weeks just slides into the relationship like she would a pair of jeans? Why do I have to over-analyze everything? Why do I have to let my fears and insecurities get the best of me, especially when it comes to Jamie? He has proven time and time again that he is in this relationship 100% and yet I can’t seem to shake the sinking feeling that something is going to go wrong. That somehow I am going to end up losing him.

  “Jamie?” I try again. “Are you angry with me?”

  Folding the jacket and placing it under his arm he places himself beside me on the bed. He takes my hand and places it in his lap. With his thumb he rubs the space between my ring and middle fingers and half smiles. His legs tremble and his hands, although not clammy, are hot and I can feel how rapid his pulse is.

  “April, this gift…” Jamie starts but his voice trails off and cracks. “Thank you.”

  He leans in and kisses me softly on the forehead but keeps my hands contained within his. His face flushes and his eyes are watery. “You like it?” I ask shyly.

  “Are you kidding me,” Jamie replies as his lips part and turn up into a wide grin. “I love it. I mean it is exactly like the one my Grandfather had. I didn’t think I would ever see this jacket again. Thank you so much, April, you really are everything to me.”

  -16-

  “April, we’re home!” my father calls from downstairs.

  My parents have always had the worst timing in the world. Somehow they always know just when to interrupt something that I don’t want interrupted.

  “Looks like they went to the Martin’s a little early this year,” I say. I jump off the bed and store the tickets and passes in my desk drawer for safekeeping.

  Jamie slides off the bed and wraps the jacket around his shoulders. He looks so handsome in it; I start for the door but notice that Jamie isn’t following me.

  “You coming?” I ask as I turn to face him.

  “April,” Jamie says, as his voice takes a tone I’ve never heard. It’s low and serious. “When I pulled out the box with your tickets, did you think I was going to propose?”

  I don’t know what to say. Maybe if I stand perfectly still and remain quiet he’ll forget about it. It’s mortifying to think your boyfriend of only a few months is going to propose only to find out that you were completely delusional, as usual. I really don’t want to answer him. But instead...

  “No, of course not,” I lie.

  “Oh okay,” Jamie says and I swear I hear a hint of disappointment. “That’s good, I guess.”

  “Jamie?” I ask. “What is it?”

  “Nothing. I thought maybe you thought there was an engagement ring in the box and I didn’t want you to get the wrong idea.” He was stammering, “Umm we’d better get downstairs we wouldn’t want your parents thinking something was going on up here. I’d hate to get on their bad side.”

  Like that could ever happen. We head downstairs in silence with this awkward elephant between us.

  Jamie can hardly look at me and I want to rewind that moment Jamie asked me about the box and I want to suck it up and tell him the truth. I’ll pull him aside before he leaves and explain to him why I lied and that I did think he was going to p
ropose. The worst he can do is say that he isn’t ready for that step and that is okay because I’m not either. Sometimes I am too insecure for my own good. If I could wake up a different person tomorrow I would and I’d make sure I was someone who didn’t always second-guess herself.

  “So, tell us,” my mother starts, “what he give you?”

  “Wha...what? Nothing!” I shout, because clearly my mother is asking if Jamie and I had sex while they were gone.

  “For Christmas. I assume you guys exchanged gifts already,” mom clarifies.

  “Oh, right. Of course, I knew that,” I stammer.

  “Sure you did,” my father says flatly.

  I look at Jamie and smile but he gives me a half smile in return. I want to be excited about the tickets and the passes but seeing the broken look on my boyfriend’s face it is hard to be excited about anything. I have to fix this.

  “Jamie, can I speak with you for a minute?” I ask and begin to head for the foyer. Jamie nods and heads out of the room behind me. “We’ll be right back,” I say to my parents.

  “Is everything okay?” mom asks.

  I shrug and head into the foyer to speak with Jamie.

  “Hey, you okay?” I ask, as I tug at the sleeve on his shirt.

  “I’m fine,” he replies flatly. “But we’re being rude to your parents so we should probably head back in.”

  He starts for the living room but I grab his wrist and tug at him until he stops. “Jamie, please talk to me. You’re obviously angry with me for something and I deserve to know why”

  “It’s nothing. I’m not mad,” Jamie sighs and faces me. “If you want the truth, I’m hurt.”

  “Hurt? Why?”

  “Look, I know we’ve only been together for a few months but I thought we were on the same page, you know with you being everything to me and all.”