by Brea Brown
“Don’t you even talk to me,” I dictate. “Not here.”
I’ll give him credit; he has the balls to scoff at me. “That’s what I love about America; it’s a free bloody country.”
“Not for you,” I retort. “You’re just a big-mouthed… redcoat.”
So I’ll have the last word, I make my exit right then, but behind me I hear him mutter, “Gormless twit Marvin.”
I storm back to my desk, where I begin to annihilate my candy bar.
A couple of minutes later, Jude stops by my cubicle. To my back, he says, “At least let me take you to dinner, so we can talk.”
“No,” I answer succinctly. Crunch, crunch.
He whispers, “This is ridiculous. How am I supposed to apologize if you won’t even give me an audience?”
“We have the technology,” I reply cryptically. “Figure it out. Now, go away. I’m very busy and important.” I return to openly surfing the Internet.
“Son of a—” he grumbles. But he leaves.
When I’m sure he’s gone, I peek over my shoulder and see him stalking to his desk and sitting down at his computer. Pretty soon, an instant message pops up on my screen.
Jude.Weatherington:
is this wht you meant? you wnt me to aplogize to you in an instnt msg?
Libby.Foster:
You’re right. That’s stupid
Your typing is horrible. I understand it even less than your dumb colloquialisms
Jude.Weatherington:
Pardon, yr highness. I’m not a secretary
Libby.Foster:
Neither am I, a-hole
Then I block him from sending me any more messages.
“Come off it!” I hear him yell from his office.
Several people look up from their work and over at him, but I continue to appear busy.
Lisa pokes her head over the wall. “What’s the deal with Jude today? You been withholding sex?” She takes in the Kit Kat on my desk next to my keyboard. “Oh… that time of the month?”
“For Jude? Maybe. For me? No.”
She laughs. “Oooh. Are the office king and queen having a row?” she asks in an English accent.
This is exactly what I didn’t want to happen. But he had to make a scene.
I blink innocently up at her. “No. I don’t know what his problem is. Why don’t you go ask him? I’m sure he’ll tell you.”
“Never mind,” she says, sighing. “I swear, sometimes I don’t know why I even bother with you.” She disappears, and I hear her typing at her desk, no doubt IMing Zoe to complain about me.
Yes, why does anyone bother with me? It seems like I’m just a high-maintenance, secret-keeping, brother-nagging, gravestone-chatting, sex-starved, back-biting, shrink-seeing waste of space. At that self-pitying thought, I grab my purse from my desk drawer and slink down to Wanda’s office, where I tell her I feel sick and that I’m going to take the rest of the day off.
It took him a while, but once Jude realized I was gone for the day, he drove to my apartment and banged on my door, trying very unsuccessfully to get me to let him in. That is, until he said the magic words:
“Libby, please! I love you. And I’m sorry.”
I yanked him into the apartment so fast he left skid marks out in the hallway.
I have to say, I don’t agree with all the hype about make-up sex. I mean, it was nice, but I would have much rather skipped the fight and had regular sex without the drama. Post-“I-love-you” sex is much better.
Now we’re lying peacefully tangled together, playing with each other’s hands. I nudge the arch of his foot with my toe, and his leg pops off the bed. “Grrr,” he growls, as I giggle at how ticklish the bottoms of his feet are. Since I’ve discovered that trait, it’s never ceased to amuse me.
After a languorous quarter hour, I tilt my head up so I can see his face. He angles his head to better look into my eyes.
“Yes?” he asks expectantly.
“Nothing. I was just making sure you’re still awake,” I reply.
He brushes his thumb against my hip. “Quite. Actually, I was just wondering for about the hundredth time what this is from.” He circles the long, faded scar on my hip with his index finger.
“A freak accident,” I say honestly, but don’t offer any other information. When he purses his lips, and his eyes darken, I hurry on. “I will tell you someday. Everything. I promise.”
“When is ‘someday’? You know, just a—what do you Americans call it?—ballpark figure?”
“Soon,” I answer non-committally.
“Right,” he agrees uncertainly.
“But you can go through my mail anytime,” I offer.
He smiles. “Thanks. And you promise you’re not seeing Marvin on the side?”
I crack up. “I think I speak for all women when I say, ‘I’m not seeing Marvin on the side.’”
“Well, I think we’re good here, then,” he utters, his voice filled with satisfaction.
“Jude.” I twist and support my weight on my arms, kissing his chest.
“Hmm?”
“I’m sorry about how I acted when my brother dropped in.”
He nods. “Forgiven. Of course.”
“Really?”
“Yes. Really. That’s how this love thing works, you see. You’re not allowed to stay mad at the person you love for long.”
I beam at his use of the “L” word again. “Ah. I see. That’s how it works?”
“Indeed.”
My heart pounds with the knowledge of what I’m about to say, but I try to be as casual about it as possible. After kissing him again, I drop, “Well, then, I guess that explains why I can’t stay mad at you.” I run my hand under the covers and up his leg. “Because I’m pretty sure… I mean…” Now I’m sweating. So much for playing it cool. “I think I love you, too.”
Fortunately, he looks more amused at my uncertain declaration than disappointed. “You think so, eh?”
“No, I know it. I love you.” I feel a physical lightening at having said it.
He feigns relief. “Whew. You had me going for a moment there.” Suddenly serious, he shifts so that he’s on his side. He wraps his arm around me. “You don’t have to say it, though. That’s not why I said it.”
“I know! I mean it!” I insist.
“I know,” he echoes. “I’ve known for a long time.”
I roll onto my back, gazing up at him, wishing I had one tenth of his confidence, wishing I knew what was going on in my own head as much as he seems to know. “You have?”
Now he looms over me. “Yes. I have.”
“Since when?” I want to know if he’s right. And if he really can read my mind, as I’ve suspected all along.
He delays answering by kissing me slowly, almost making me forget my question. Almost. But he’s not avoiding answering. As soon as the kiss is over, he says, “There wasn’t a specific, single moment, if that’s what you’re asking. But it was close to the same time I knew I loved you.”
“And when was that?” I keep digging, my voice nearly a whisper.
“The day of the baseball game.”
The jaw on the little Libby in my brain drops. “You knew that long ago?!” I can’t help crying.
“Shhh,” he requests, brushing his lips against my collarbone. “Yes. I did.”
“Before we ever…” I trail off, more because I’m suddenly distracted by what he’s doing to me than because I’m embarrassed to say it.
He nods, his forehead brushing against me. “Oh, yes. Much before. Otherwise…”
When he doesn’t seem in any hurry to finish, I prompt, “Otherwise?”
Lifting his head, he looks me in the eyes. “Otherwise, it never would have happened.” He pauses, then verifies with me, “Right?”
After wondering if I’ll ever find my voice again, I respond, “Right.”
He grins. “See? I knew it.”
Then he makes love to me as if to prove it.
19
“So that’s where we are,” I tell Dr. Marsh, after getting him up-to-date on what’s been going on.
Dr. Marsh taps his lips with his pen and consults his notes. “Okay. Let me get this straight, then: you haven’t told him about your parents, which means you still haven’t explained your career choice, but he’s met Hank, and he knows you have some issues with your past, just not what those exact issues are. You’ve been intimate, you’ve exchanged ‘I love you’s,’ and you’re basically happy. And you’ve promised him you’ll give him the full story at some point, but you haven’t committed to when that’ll be?”
I nod. “Yep. I think that’s it.”
“So… he probably has no idea you come to see me, right?”
“Definitely not!”
Sighing, he sets down his pen. “Why not?”
“I see you because my parents were killed in a horrific accident that I managed to survive. I can’t tell him about you without telling him the other part, which I’m not ready to tell him yet.” I pluck each part of the sequence from the air and place it into its own little imaginary compartment in front of me. “Get it?”
“Lots of people see mental health professionals, and very few of them because of an incident as traumatic as the one you experienced.” He leans forward and puts his elbows on his knees. “Do you see how much you’re backing yourself into a corner with all these lies of omission? Where does he think you are right now?”
I brush my hair out of my eyes. “We don’t keep tabs on each other.”
“Do you know where he is right now?”
“At work, of course,” I answer flippantly.
“Where did you tell him you would be at this time?” he persists.
After licking my lips, I answer, “The doctor. It’s not a lie.”
“For what?”
“Routine check-up. Still not a lie.”
“What’re you gonna tell him next time you have an appointment to see me?”
I shrug. “I’ll come up with something. Or maybe I’ll have told him everything by then, and I won’t have to…”
He raises his eyebrows, waiting for me to finish my sentence. When I don’t, he does for me. “Lie?”
Defensively, I respond, “Be as vague.”
“Ah.” He straightens and folds his hands over his belly. “You’re being vague, not lying?”
“Exactly.”
“Okay. Let’s turn it around so you can see what a double-edged sword ambiguity can be.” He points to himself. “What am I, in my most basic form?”
A douche, I want to answer, just to lighten the mood. Instead, I answer, “A man.”
“Yes. And what do you do when you have an appointment with me? You come to…”
“See you?”
He points at his nose. “Yes!” He thinks for a second. “Okay, and when you come to see me, a man, do you do it openly or in secret?”
“Secret,” I whisper.
Biting his lips, he looks away from me while he gives me a minute to process that.
I see a man secretly, behind Jude’s back.
Dr. Marsh is my guy on the side.
When I leave Dr. Marsh’s office that day, I sit out in my car for a long time, staring at a vacant lot next to his office building. The cracked pavement has sprouted weeds, some three or four feet tall. Even though we’ve already had a couple of nights in which the temperature has dipped below freezing, they’re hanging on. Winter’s on its way, though. I’d know it even if I never went outside or looked at a calendar. I can feel it in the dread that slowly builds all year long and reaches its undeniable crescendo every twelve months.
But in addition to the usual sinister note always sounding in the back of my mind, there are other notes pealing, and they’re actually starting to drown out the original one. It’s not a pretty song. I know I’m running out of time and Jude’s patience. I also know that some of what I have to tell him might send him running, no matter how soon I get up the nerve to tell him.
So I choose a date, a deadline if you will, right here and now in this parking lot. I promise myself—and Jude, silently—that I’ll tell him everything, risking “the face,” risking his wrath, risking just about everything I’ve come to care about, on The Anniversary. It’ll arrive sooner than I’ll be ready, I know that. But I also know I’ll never be ready, no matter how long I give myself. The Anniversary will be just as good a day as any to do it.
20
I’m sick. For real. Not in the head this time, but in the body. I’m pretty sure it was something I ate at that Indian place last night. I didn’t even want to go there, but Jude kept going on and on about not having had “a good curry in yonks,” so like a good girlfriend, I let him pick the restaurant, and he picked that one. It looked like one of those places that often appears on the health violations list in the newspaper. But I’ve been accused of being a snob, so I didn’t say anything. I picked at my chicken curry and focused more on the conversation than the food.
It doesn’t matter that I ate like a bird (who was eating a bird, which is wrong); the vomit seems to have the same type of source as the sweat under Marvin’s arms: infinite. The first time I thought that, I puked so hard, I pulled a muscle in my ribs.
I called Jude between sessions with my toilet. He offered to come over, but I could tell it wasn’t an offer he was relishing. (Oh, relish! Gotta run!)
And I don’t want him to see me like this. I’ve been holding back my own hair for years; I’m cool with continuing that job without an assistant. Or an audience.
Back in bed. Shivering from chills. Skin hurting. Rib throbbing. Head booming.
And, joy of joys, I have nothing better to do than think about my looming deadline. As predicted, the weeks have flown by, and I’ve almost arrived at The Day. It’s so much more than The Anniversary now. It has the potential to redeem the date forever or confirm its status as cursed.
Though the date has remained the same, I’ve changed my plan a hundred times. It always starts out the same. I’m going to take the day off, like I always do, but then things get fuzzy. Do I invite him over for dinner? I won’t want to eat, that’s for sure. I suspect I’ll never want to eat again after today, anyway. Do I tell him in a public place so he won’t react too badly? Well, he’s proven that he’s not shy about making scenes, so that’s not a foolproof plan. Do I take him some place that has personal significance to us? To me? To my family before the accident? I don’t know. It’s getting to the point that I’m paralyzed by indecision. I have too many options. The only thing that’s a given is that I have to tell him everything. The setting is up in the air. I try to envision where we are when I tell him, but I can’t picture us having the conversation at all.
Maybe that’s because I won’t tell him.
Yes, I will.
I wish I could tell him on the phone. At least then I wouldn’t have to see “the face.” But it’s not really an over-the-phone conversation. If only it were that easy. I’m actually thinking of “the face” as my just due for waiting so long to tell him.
I finally fall into a fever-soaked sleep, and when I wake up I can tell by the light that it’s late afternoon. I’ve missed three calls on my cell phone, all from Jude. After forcing myself to slowly drink a full glass of water, I call him back. And get his voicemail.
“Hey. Returning your calls. I’m still alive, barely. And you never get to pick where we eat again. Love you. Bye.”
Bed again. I’m dozing in front of an infomercial about a compilation of footage of the British Royal Family, since the dawn of moving pictures (the only thing I could find that I could be reasonably assured wouldn’t make any mention of food) when my phone buzzes on the pillow next to my head.
“I was in a meeting,” he says, surprisingly tersely.
“Oh. I’m… sorry?” I’m not sure why I’m apologizing, but his tone tells me I should be.
“No, no,” he catches himself. “I’m sorry. I… that is, I’m a bit distracted.”
“Everything okay?”
“I think so,” he answers vaguely. “How are you doing? You think it was the food? I’m fine today.”
“We didn’t have the same thing.”
“Still chicken. I dunno. It’s bizarre.”
I can tell he’s not completely focused on our conversation, so I say, “Listen, I was just returning your calls so you didn’t picture me dried up like a raisin on my bathroom floor. I’ll let you get back to work.”
“Right. Sounds good. Cheers.”
Speaking of bizarre… I stare at the phone for a second but then shrug the whole thing off. He’s juggling more projects than anyone else there right now; he’s entitled to be a little scattered. I wouldn’t be holding up under the pressure as well as he is, that’s for sure.
Now, how can I order these videos?
I’m barely at my desk two minutes, trying to catch my breath and holding onto my chair while the stars dance in front of my eyes, before Lisa hops into my cubicle. “Thank God you’re back.”
Touched by her concern, I sit down and say, “Aw, thanks! Yeah, I’m okay. A little weak, but—”
“Yeah, yeah. Good.” She waves her hand in front of her face. “No, what I really mean is that I’ve been dying to know what all the meetings were about yesterday. I thought if I had to wait another day to get the scoop, I’d lose my mind.”
“What?”
“Don’t tell me you’re sworn to secrecy. If you say that, we’re not friends anymore,” she says seriously.
I open my email to see if there are any hints in there as to what she’s talking about. Nothing. Just the usual “Can you help me with this?” “Can you update this in our address book?” “Can you order lunch for ten?” Oops. I hope they found someone else for that.
I finally have to turn to her and admit, “I have no clue what you’re talking about. Why don’t you give me a hint?”
