Arranged

by Catherine McKenzie

  Another birthday comes and goes. I’m thirty-four, one year away from the dreaded thirty-five. Sarah and Mike throw a dinner party for me, and no one asks me anything about Jack.

  Every day I scan the mail for an envelope from Blythe & Company, hoping for a refund, but it never comes. I decide in the end to let it go. The important thing was having the courage to ask.

  I go on a couple of dates when someone asks. But though the guys are nice enough and interested in me and cute enough, I don’t feel a connection, and there’s never a second date.

  “What was wrong with him?” Sarah asks over a beer at the bar a few days after my first and last date with Gary, the nice new guy from her office.

  “Would you like to see my list?”

  Sarah perks up. “You made a list? Really?”

  I pull over a napkin and take out my pen. I write a word on it and hand it to her.

  “What does this mean?”

  The word I wrote is “me.”

  “It’s what was wrong with him. I can’t judge if he’s good or not. I can’t even make a pro-con list. I think I’m done with dating.”

  “You can’t give up on dating at thirty-four.”

  “Who says?”

  “I do.”

  “You’re not the boss of me.”

  “I am, though, you will remember, the boss of your dating life.”

  I agreed to this a month ago, after a few too many beers. “I’m not sure that’s an enforceable agreement.”

  “Oh, it’s legally binding, I assure you. I’ve got it in writing.”

  “All right, then. If you’re the boss, what are you going to do to get me out of this predicament?”

  “I’m going to use my powers and magically find the perfect man for you.” She waves her hand as if she’s holding a wand. She swoops it over me one, two, three times.

  “If only it were that simple.”

  “Ah, but it is. I don’t know why you continue to doubt my powers.”

  I finish my drink and change the topic. “So, all ready for the wedding?”

  “Yeah. I can’t believe it’s here already,” she says with an anxious gulp.

  “You’ve only been planning it for a year.”

  “I know. I just want everything to go as planned. And for everyone to have a good time.”

  “Everything’s going to go as planned, and it will be fantastic. You’re in charge, after all.”

  She pulls a face. “Seriously, I’m nervous.”

  “About Mike?”

  “No, just all the stupid things that can go wrong. Which reminds me, did you go for your final fitting?”

  “Yes, Sarah.”

  “Great.”

  “It will be great. You’re marrying a great guy, and you’ll live happily ever after.”

  “I thought you didn’t believe in that anymore.”

  “I don’t. But I’m making an exception for you.”

  She smiles. Then she gets a look in her eyes as if she’s remembered something she didn’t want to remember.

  “What is it?” I ask.

  “What? Nothing.”

  I put my hand on her arm. “Come on. What is it? Is your mom sick again?”

  “No, she’s fine.”

  “Then what?”

  She sighs. “I saw Jack yesterday.”

  “What? Where? Did you speak to him? What did he say? How come you waited this long to tell me?” My heart is beating so loudly, I can hear it.

  Sarah pushes her drink toward me. “Here, drink some of this.”

  I take a sip of her beer and try to calm down, but I can still feel my heart boom, boom, booming away.

  “Thanks. Now spill.”

  “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you sooner, Anne, but I wanted to do it face-to-face. Then you launched into the story about your date with Gary, and we were having such a normal evening, you know, a pre-Jack, pre-Blythe-and-Company evening. I didn’t want to ruin it.”

  “It’s okay, I understand. Now tell me everything.”

  “I was in the Starbucks in my building, getting coffee. At least that was my excuse for leaving this ridiculous meeting I was in—”

  “Sarah! Focus, please.”

  “God, sorry, Anne, it’s been a long day. Anyway, I turned around and basically slammed into Jack. I almost spilled my steaming coffee all over him.”

  “And?”

  “He didn’t seem surprised to see me. I had the feeling he knew I’d be there somehow. Anyway, he asked if I’d talk to him for a minute, and I was trying to figure out what you’d want me to do: tell him to go fuck himself and throw my coffee in his face, or hear what he had to say.”

  “Both, clearly.”

  “Right, I know, that’s what I was thinking. I figured if I listened to him, I could tell him afterward to go to hell.”

  “Good thinking. So?”

  “We sat down, and he told me that he had been hoping to run into me. I guess he goes to that Starbucks a lot—it’s near his editor’s office or something—and he’d seen me there a couple of times before.”

  I feel a flash of anger. “So he’s stalking you now?”

  She shakes her head. “No, I don’t think so. It didn’t come across like that.”

  “It wouldn’t, would it? He’s an Oscar-worthy actor when he wants to be, you know.”

  “Anne, I know.”

  “Why did he want to run into you? Was it because of the annulment?”

  We sent the papers to Jack months ago, and he still hasn’t signed them.

  “No.” She measures her words. “He wants to see you.”

  “He wants to see me?” My voice is barely above a whisper.

  “Yes.”

  “And he sought you out to what? Get your permission? To get you to convince me?”

  “I’m not sure why, exactly.”

  “What did he say?”

  “That he felt awful and that he completely understood why you kicked him out . . . Oh, and something about how he tried to respect your wishes and stay away, but he was miserable.” She rolls her eyes at this last part.

  Miserable. I like the sound of that word in connection with Jack.

  “Did he look miserable?”

  “Kind of.”

  “Good. But I don’t understand. Why would he talk to you about this?”

  “I don’t know, Anne. I only gave him about three minutes.”

  “But what did you say? Did you tell him you thought I’d see him? Are you supposed to be convincing me to see him?”

  “No, no. I didn’t say anything. Really. I just listened. I didn’t even say I’d tell you I’d spoken with him. Anne, are you okay?”

  I breathe in and out slowly, trying to stop what feels like the beginning of a panic attack. “I think so.”

  “So, what do you want to do?”

  “About Jack?”

  She nods.

  “I don’t know,” I tell her. “I’m not sure I want to see him again. I mean, what could he tell me? That he’s sorry? That he loves me? He’s already told me these things. And how can I believe anything he has to say?”

  She frowns. “I don’t know, Anne. I don’t have any answers.”

  “You always have all the answers.”

  “Not this time.”

  “What would you do?”

  “I never would’ve married him in the first place.”

  “Hey!”

  “Sorry. What I meant was that you need to figure it out yourself. I’ll support you, whatever you do. If you want to see him, I understand. If you don’t, I understand that too.”

  I consider what she’s saying. “What if I want to do both?”

  “Then why don’t you see him and tell him you don’t want to see him anymore.” She reaches into her purse and takes out a business card. “He gave me this.”

  She hands it to me. His name stares back at me in bold black type. I hold it in my hands, feeling its edges like I felt the edges of his file so many months ago in Ms. Cooper
’s office.

  “Thanks, Sarah.”

  “What for?”

  “Too many things to list.”

  She smiles. “You can always make a list.”

  “Not this time.”

  I spend the next several days trying to decide what to do. I barely sleep. I can hardly write.

  All I can think is: What could he have to say? How would he look saying it?

  His business card haunts me, its presence a ghost in my apartment. In the end, my curiosity gets the better of me. I email him and set up a meeting.

  I agree to meet him at a bar. Not my bar; I choose a neutral Irish pub downtown that I haven’t been to in years and don’t care if I ever go to again. I have no memories there, and after tonight it will just be the bar I met Jack in the last time I saw him. I have the same attitude toward what I wear. I pick a pair of jeans and a cream T-shirt out of a pile of clothes I’m giving to charity. Tomorrow they’ll belong to someone else.

  Jack arrives before me. I find him sitting at a table for two, his face half lit by a small candle in a glass ball covered in a red beaded net. He’s made an effort with his appearance, put on a pressed striped shirt and what look like new plain-front chinos. His beard has been trimmed, and his hair looks freshly cut. He stands up as I approach the table. I think he wants to kiss me, but he sits down without making a move when I slip into the seat opposite him and fold my arms across my chest.

  “So, what do you want?” I say in the most businesslike tone I can muster.

  “I needed to see you,” Jack says. He sounds nervous and . . . scared. He’s scared.

  I look him briefly in the eye, but I can’t hold his gaze. I do notice that he’s dropped a few pounds. The petty part of me feels happy about this.

  “Do you think I give a shit about what you need?” My throat feels tight.

  Breathe, Anne. Breathe.

  Jack flinches. “I know, Anne. I’m a selfish bastard. And I don’t deserve anything from you. I’m really grateful you decided to see me.”

  My stomach flips and tosses around. “What do you want?”

  “Are you all right?”

  I was before I decided to see you.

  “What do you want to say to me, Jack? Why am I here?”

  He looks down at his hands. He’s still wearing the wedding band I put on his finger all those months ago in Mexico.

  “Did you read my letter?” he asks.

  “Yes.”

  “And?”

  “And what?”

  “Do you think you can forgive me?”

  “Uh, no.”

  “Uh, no. That’s all I get?”

  “That’s right.”

  “Is that a definitive answer?”

  “What the fuck, Jack? We’re not playing Who Wants to Be a Millionaire. This is our life you’re talking about. My life.”

  “I know, Anne. I want to be in your life.”

  He puts his hand on my arm. I let it sit for a second, feeling his skin on mine. Then I realize it’s Jack who’s touching me, and I shrug it off.

  “I can’t have you in my life, Jack. I can’t.”

  “But we’re married, Anne. Don’t you think we should try to work this out?”

  “No, we aren’t, Jack. I mean, we shouldn’t be. You really need to sign those papers Sarah sent you.”

  “Are you sure you want me to sign them?” he asks in a monotone.

  “Yes.”

  “Oh.” He sighs deeply. His breath extinguishes the candle. A trace of smoke wafts between us.

  “Can I ask you something?” I say.

  “Of course.”

  “Did you give any thought to the woman in all this before you agreed to do it?”

  His face reddens. “Not as much as I should have, but yes, I did.”

  “And what? You still thought it was okay?”

  “I wouldn’t say okay, exactly, but . . . I don’t know . . . it wasn’t going to be a real marriage for either of us, so I kind of told myself it wasn’t that big a deal.”

  “And what did you think was going to happen when your book was published?”

  “You mean if you hadn’t found out?”

  “Yes.”

  “I tried not to think too much about that.”

  “C’mon, Jack.”

  “It’s true. I was kind of living two lives. The life I had in real time with you, and this person I became when I wrote the book.”

  “Did you think you were going to be able to keep me?”

  “No. The way the book was written, I knew that wasn’t possible. Look, I know you didn’t believe me when I told you this before, but I did tell Ted that night that we were going to have to push back publication because I had to rewrite the book.”

  “Why?”

  “While you were away, I read it through from start to finish, and I realized how . . . how awful it was. I saw the way I was writing about us, about you, and I knew I couldn’t do it anymore. I knew if I left it the way it was, I’d lose you forever.” His lips twist in self-mockery. “But I did that anyway, didn’t I?”

  Forever. It sounds so final.

  “I think so, yes.”

  “Is there any way we could start over?”

  “No.”

  His shoulders slump. “I was afraid of that.”

  I bite my lip and wait for him to say something more, but he doesn’t.

  “Was that all you wanted to say?”

  Jack’s eyes find mine. “No . . . I need to tell you something else. Something you should hear from me first.”

  My heart starts pounding again. “What?”

  “My book is coming out in a few weeks.”

  I can’t speak. I can barely breathe.

  He puts his hand on my arm again. “Anne, are you okay?”

  God, I am so sick of people asking me that. I shake him off and try to find some breath. “How could you?”

  He looks grim. “I had to. I received an advance, which I’d already spent. Plus, they paid for Blythe and Company’s services. My publisher insisted. If I refused, they were going to sue me.”

  “So this is just about money?”

  “No, Anne. Not in the way you mean. But this is how I make my living. If I don’t publish this book, I’ll never publish anything again. And what am I supposed to do with myself if I can’t write anymore? It’s the only thing I know. It’s the only thing I’m good at.”

  I feel a twinge of sympathy. I’m not sure what I would do if I were faced with that possibility. Thankfully, that’s not the mistake I made.

  “Maybe that’ll just have to be the consequence.”

  “I thought about that. But I also feel like I had to finish writing the book. For me. For you. For us. I changed it, Anne. I changed it.”

  “You changed it?”

  “Yes. I got them to agree to let me change it. It’s different, I swear—”

  I cut him off. My anger is back, and it’s stomping on that twinge of sympathy. “Is this still a book about you having an arranged marriage with me?”

  “Yes, but—”

  I give him the hand. “And you’re still you, and I’m still me, and everything that happened in the book is what happened to us?”

  “Yes, but—”

  “You don’t get it at all, Jack, do you? I asked you to do one thing for me. I asked you not to publish the book. And here you are, looking all sad-eyed and regretful, but you’re still publishing it, and you don’t have any regrets at all, do you?”

  He looks hurt. Really hurt. “How can you say that? Look at me. I’m a mess. Of course I have regrets. I love you, Anne. I love you.”

  My heart flutters at these words, but I try to ignore it. What good has my heart ever done me?

  “But you’re not doing anything differently. Take tonight. You didn’t tell me you were publishing your book before you asked if we could get back together. You played that card first. You’re still keeping things from me.”

  “It’s not like that. The reaso
n I wanted to see you was to tell you my book was coming out. The other stuff just slipped out because, well, because I can’t help myself around you. I can’t.”

  “You only came here to tell me about the book?”

  “Yes, but—”

  “Then I think we’re done.”

  I stand up and nearly trip over my feet. Though Jack reaches out to catch me, I avoid his touch and almost sprint for the door. Outside, I take in big lungfuls of air, trying to catch my breath, trying to keep from throwing up on the sidewalk, trying to keep from going back into the bar and beating Jack to a pulp.

  “Anne.”

  “Please leave me alone, Jack. Please.”

  I don’t want to look at him. I don’t want him to see me crying. I don’t want to see him anymore.

  “Anne.” He takes me in his arms and holds me against his chest.

  “Please, Jack, no,” I mumble into the front of his shirt.

  He holds me closer, and I stop struggling. I breathe in the smell of him: soap and woods, that little-boy smell. I feel his hands move up my back and into my hair, his rough hands catching in its smoothness. He starts to kiss the side of my face, the space near my ear, and he’s mumbling words I can’t hear, although I’m not sure I want to. A shiver runs down my jaw as his lips brush across my cheek. And then his lips touch mine, and we’re kissing.

  For a moment we are kissing.

  I put my hands on his chest and push him away. “Jack, no. I can’t.”

  I turn away. Tears are streaming down my face, and I can’t stop them. I see a cab and walk into the street to flag it. I can sense Jack standing behind me; I don’t turn toward him. The cab pulls over, and I open the door and slide into the seat.

  I hear a tap on the glass. I look up. Jack has his hand, palm open, flat over his heart. There are tears on his face. He speaks, and I can hear the timbre of his voice and read the words on his lips.

  “I’m sorry,” he says. “I’m sorry.”

  Chapter 25