At the appointed time, she straightened her clothes, refastened her hair, and stood at her door in preparation.
But that’s as far as she got.
Shyness had always been Jo’s worst enemy. In fifth grade, she was supposed to be Little Red Riding Hood in a school production, had even practiced for weeks both at school and with her father at home. But the night of the production, she froze and couldn’t remember a single line. The entire student body had referred to her as Little Red Chicken for months.
In junior high, a teacher talked her into running for class treasurer, but when it came time to give speeches at a school assembly, she threw up on stage. She was barf bag, class vomitus, and Chicken Little, as well as a great many more imaginative monikers, the rest of her school career.
Then in college she took a speech class and for the final she was required to give a speech about her favorite author. Jo had chosen Sylvia Plath and had filled the speech with a great many quotes from Plath’s own poems. On the morning of the speech, she couldn’t get out of bed she was so frozen with fear. She would have almost preferred Plath’s fate to the one that awaited her that day. Lucky for her, the professor liked her and agreed to let her present her speech alone with him in his office, instead of in front of the entire fifty-student class.
Not to mention the fiasco of the toast at Emily’s engagement party.
Making speeches was simply something Jo did not feel comfortable doing.
Giving up after a half hour of internal debate, Jo wrote her speech out in an email and sent it to Kathleen before rushing off to meet Mark in the parking lot.
Mark was leaning against an older model Ford F150 Supercrew pickup truck. With his blue jeans, white button down shirt, and black boots, he looked like a cowboy who had gotten lost in the big city. He straightened when he spotted her walking toward him and a slow smile touched his lips, as though he was pleased to see her. Jo couldn’t help but return the smile despite the emotional roller coaster going on inside of her. It just seemed contagious somehow.
“Ready?”
“Yeah. And thanks again, I can’t tell you how much I appreciate this.”
“Anytime,” Mark said as he led her around the passenger side of the truck and helped her inside. He even pulled out the seatbelt and handed it to her with a boyish grin. “Habit,” he muttered as he closed the door and retraced his steps to the driver’s side.
Jo glanced in the back seat of the extended cab and was somewhat amused to see among the car seats a collection of children’s toys that clearly announced Mark’s role as a father.
“Sorry about the mess,” Mark said as he started the truck. “I always mean to get out here and clean things up, but there never seems to be enough time in the day.”
“No, it’s nice,” Jo said. “It’s says a lot about you as a father.”
“What? That I encourage chaos?”
“That you’re not bothered by it.”
Mark nodded, stealing a glance at her as he pulled into traffic. “That’s a pretty good description of my life, I think.”
Then we’re even, Jo thought. He seemed to see her so clearly, it was nice to see she was beginning to do the same with him.
“So, where are we going?” he asked after a moment.
“Oh, I guess that would help.” Jo dug a card out of her leather satchel. “Manny’s Auto Shop,” she said, holding it up so he could see the address.
“I know where that is,” he said, signaling to change lanes. “I drive past there all the time. It’s near this great park where the kids like to go on the weekends.”
“Trinity-Sherwood?”
“Yeah, I think that’s it.”
Jo nodded. “We used to play softball games there.”
Mark glanced at her as he navigated a busy intersection. “So you grew up here?”
“No. I was born in a little town outside of Springfield, Illinois. But we moved here when I was only twelve, so it seems like it.”
“Have you ever thought of leaving?”
“Every day.” Jo studied the passing scenery for a minute before continuing. “My dad died just after I graduated college. I intended to stay in Houston, but I came home to help take care of my mom and sister. My mom never held a job in her life and dad didn’t leave much behind for her to live on.”
“That’s a lot of responsibility for a young woman.”
“I suppose,” Jo said. “But they’re my family, all I have.”
“I can understand that,” Mark said, wistfully glancing into the back seat.
Mark guided the truck onto the highway and navigated the traffic for a few minutes before he settled back in his seat. “Are you close? You and your mother?”
A bark of laughter slipped from Jo’s lips before she could stop it. “I wouldn’t say that.”
Mark glanced at her. “But you take care of her?”
“It’s…complicated.”
Mark nodded slowly. “And your sister?”
“We’re pretty close.”
“Is it true, what people in the office say about her? About her fiancé?”
Jo rubbed her hands over her skirt, wiping away a sudden burst of moisture. “It’s complicated.”
“Family tends to be.”
“It’s not like she did it intentionally. It was just something—”
Mark reached over and touched her arm lightly. “You don’t have to explain.”
Jo glanced at him and thought she saw understanding in his eyes. But then the setting sun glinted off his window and she couldn’t be sure of what she saw.
Their exit came a minute later. Mark guided the truck off the highway and they drove through a short set of side roads before he pulled to a stop on the shoulder of the road in front of the mechanic’s shop.
“I’ll wait,” he said, “in case your car isn’t ready yet.”
Jo looked at the shop, which was clearly busy despite the late hour. “Thank you.”
It turned out they weren’t quite ready with her car, but the mechanic working on it assured her he would have it done in twenty minutes or less. Jo indicated Mark’s truck and told him she would wait there.
“You must be psychic,” Jo said as she climbed back into the cab of the truck. “They said it would be a little longer.”
“I’ve dealt with places like this before.”
Jo looked down at her hands, her mind spinning in a dozen different directions. She wished her car would take all night to get done, so she could sit here with Mark. And she wished it were done already so he wouldn’t feel obligated to keep her company. And she wished for once that she took more care with her fingernails, that they weren’t so short and clearly the victims of her nervous habit of chewing on them. She thought of Emily’s perfect, French manicure, how the length of the nails and the pale polish made Emily’s short fingers look longer, more elegant. If only her hands—
Then Mark’s hand was lying on hers.
“What are you thinking about?” he asked quietly.
“That I’m putting you out, making you wait with me.”
“You aren’t putting me out.”
Jo looked at him. “Why are you so nice to me?”
He moved his shoulder slightly, turning more toward her. “I don’t know.” He slid his other hand under hers and picked them up, cradling them gently between his. “I think maybe it’s what that guy did, hooking up with your sister while dating you. It’s like I’ve found someone who might understand what the last few years of my marriage were like.”
“She cheated on you.”
“Over and over.” Mark squeezed her hands lightly between his. “But that’s not what I want to talk about now.”
“What do you want to talk about?”
His eyes moved up to her face and for the first time she noticed that they weren’t just brown, not just a sweet caramel color that seemed to compliment the light dusting of freckles across his cheeks. They had hints of green and blue in them too, with a little blac
k and chocolate brown mixed in for good measure. And the emotion in them spun like a tornado, moving from hope to desire to fear to regret.
How desperately she wanted to understand what made him feel each of those emotions.
“I want.” He moaned faintly. “I can’t remember the last time anyone ever asked me what I wanted.”
“I want to know,” Jo whispered.
Mark raised his hand to her face, cupping the whole right side of her face in his palm. “I want to feel normal again,” he whispered as he moved closer to her. “I want to trust, to be trusted. I want to feel like a man again.”
“Mark.” She said his name as she slowly lifted her hand and pressed it against his throat, moving it slowly over the roughness of his jaw. He moaned again, moving so close to her that their foreheads touched.
“I so want to kiss you,” he said on a sigh. “But I shouldn’t.”
“Then let me,” she said.
There was no time to think, no time to realize how bold her actions were. Jo only knew that she wanted this kiss more than she had wanted anything in a very long time. It was more than physical attraction, more than a desire to be close to another person. This was about something Jo had always wanted, but never really believed would exist for her.
And, if she had let herself think about it, it would have scared her into a lifetime of loneliness.
Instead, acting in a way she had never done before, Jo pressed her lips against Mark’s.
His lips were surprisingly soft. He tasted of sweet cream, of the humid Texas air, of the softest hint of the sweat of a long working day. At first it seemed he wouldn’t respond, wouldn’t open himself to her lips’ caress. Jo pressed her lips tighter against his, her chest aching with the fear that was quickly building there. But then the muscles of his jaw flexed and his hands suddenly came around her waist. He pulled her closer to him across the long seat, cradling her in the curve of his arms as he opened to her, deepening the kiss.
A sigh of relief, of joy, of desire jumped from her lips even as he released a groan that vibrated from his body to hers. Then there was no thought, no comprehension. There was only his lips on hers, his hands on her back. There was only sensation and an ache that grew more intense with each passing second. There was just his heartbeat pounding against her chest, his breath on her face, his heat enveloping her body like a warm winter blanket.
Jo didn’t want it to end. She didn’t want him stop. She didn’t want to taste anything but the coffee he’d had sometime recently, never wanted to feel anything on her skin but the rough, calloused skin of his fingers, the baby softness of his palms.
But, as they say, all good things must come to an end.
A tap on the window alerted them to the fact that they were no longer alone. Mark pulled away slowly, like a child waking from a dream. But when he saw the mechanic at the window, Mark must have realized where they were, what they were doing. Jo found herself suddenly released. She fell against the seat in an undignified lump, something about the scene making the mechanic more than just casually interested in what he was witnessing.
Jo straightened and rolled down the window, telling the mechanic she would be with him in a moment. As the man walked away, Jo began straightening her clothes.
“That was embarrassing.”
Mark only cleared his throat. Jo looked at him, but he wouldn’t look at her. She reached over and touched his arm, but he jerked it away.
“You should go,” he said in a low, controlled voice.
“Mark, we didn’t do anything wrong.”
He turned the key in the ignition and gripped the steering wheel tight in his hands. “Please, go, Jo.”
“Will I see you tomorrow?” Jo asked.
Mark just stared forward, again not looking at her and not speaking.
Jo didn’t have to be a rocket scientist to figure out what that meant.
Jo slipped out of the truck and had barely moved a step when he pulled out and disappeared in a puff of dust.
Chapter 13
Word came down the following day. Becca had been given the promotion. Jo did not have to wait for Kathleen to tell her. She heard from the water cooler gossip crowd as she walked to her office first thing that morning.
“Too bad, Jo,” a clerk named Beth had said. “Maybe a promotion would have made up for the fact that you can’t even keep your sister from stealing your man.”
The others had laughed.
Kathleen called Jo to her office an hour later. “I hope you understand,” she had said. “Becca just seemed more interested in the position. If I had known you wanted it, I might have reconsidered. But what is done is done.”
Not that it mattered to Jo. The only thing she could think about was Mark.
All night Jo had lain in bed, tracing her hands over some of the same places Mark had touched just a few hours before. The pain of his abrupt departure still ached deep in her chest, stealing her breath from time to time as the memory popped vividly into her head. She couldn’t imagine what had caused him to rush off as he did. She replayed the whole episode over and over in her mind. He had said he couldn’t kiss her. Maybe Jo should have listened.
Despite everything, Jo waited breathlessly at lunchtime for Mark’s knock on the door. She even released her hair from its ponytail, brushed it out in front of a mirror in the ladies room. She found herself imagining what it would be like to feel his fingers in her hair, to feel him cradle her head in anticipation of a kiss. But anticipation was all there was. His knock never came.
As the day passed, so did Jo’s confidence. Doubts and supposition began to drift across her thoughts. Was it possible Mark still loved his wife? Or maybe he really was having a relationship with Kathleen? Then why did he kiss Jo, why did he seem so desperate for her touch? He could fake his compassion, his friendship, but no man can fake the passion Jo felt boiling in him just below the surface. He wanted her; she knew that without a doubt. But was it a need based in something other than affection? Was he using her? Was it all just a joke that had gotten out of control?
Jo could not believe that Mark was that heartless. Maybe he was as lonely as she was, maybe being close to a warm body, any body, had been the source of his need. But with clarity came the realization that Jo, while a willing participant, was not the woman he really wanted. Maybe he was simply trying to be a gentleman by not taking from her something he could not give back. It was simple. A kindness.
But why did it hurt so much?
Jo wished she could just talk to Mark for a minute. She wanted to explain to him what had happened, wanted to apologize for whatever it was that had made him turn from her. So she did something that was maybe a little childish. She called IT, pretending her computer had crashed.
Each of the IT techs had a specific floor that was their responsibility. Human Resources was Mark’s, so she knew it would be him that they would send. She sat behind her desk with her hair perfectly arranged around her face with the new curls curving around her jaw. She lay her hands on the desk in front of her, then moved them to her lap, wondering how she might look best. She kept fidgeting as she waited, unsure how to present the best image of herself. Would she look better in profile? Or would straight on be better? Should she wait behind the desk? Or maybe she would look better sitting on the couch? It turned out that it none of it really mattered.
When the knock came on her door and Jo called out in her best, feminine voice, it was another tech who stuck his head in the office.
“Your computer crashed?”
“Where’s Mark?”
The tech moved further into the room, gesturing over his shoulder with an awkward smile. “He said he had something he needed to do on the second floor. He sent me to help you out.”
Jo knew what that meant. Mark would rather lie and make excuses than be forced to be alone with her again.
The next morning, Jo walked into a meeting that was already in progress and unobtrusively slipped into a chair at the back of the room
. Kathleen nodded in her direction before turning her attention to a presentation Becca was giving. Jo looked down at her notepad, doodling stick figures absently as she listened to the discussion of budget cuts the CFO had recently announced. Everyone was tightening their belts these days. It brought to mind another request for more funds Jo’s mother had made just the night before. How she was going to pay her own rent and her mother’s expenses this month Jo had no way of knowing. As if she didn’t have enough on her mind at the moment.
Jo glanced up as the meeting came to an end. Becca was looking in her direction before she turned to Kathleen, laughing at something the director said. Then, as though stepping straight out of her thoughts, Mark came into the room. He walked straight to Kathleen and Becca’s little group. Jo tried to catch his eye, even lifted her hand in the beginnings of a wave when his eyes landed briefly on her face. His expression darkened and he turned away, moving closer to Kathleen.
Jo’s stomach dropped to her feet. Clearly nothing had changed. In fact, she had the sense that things had only gotten worse. She regretted trying to force him to talk to her the day before. He must think she was stalking him, or something. Poor pathetic Jo, can’t seem to get the message even when his actions make it loud and clear.
Jo stood. She could feel eyes on her, but she couldn’t see anything but Mark’s hand on the small of Kathleen’s back as he guided her out of the room.
“Have dinner with me.”
Jo sighed into her cell phone. It was three days later, and Jo still couldn’t get Mark out of her mind. She had not seen him again, but somehow she didn’t really expect to. She wanted to talk to him, but what could she say? It seemed there was nothing adequate to say.
“I’m really not in the mood,” Jo said.
“Come on, Jo. I haven’t seen you since we set the date. I really need to talk to my big sister.”
It was the “Please, please, pretty please,” that finally got to Jo.
They met at Sfuzzi. Neither had ever been there before, but all Emily had to do was flirt with the middle-aged maître‘d and they got a prime table in the middle of the dining room, perfect for Emily to see and be seen. For the first fifteen minutes they were there Jo found herself studying the menu alone while Emily held court.
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