Beautiful Mistakes

by Sam Mariano

  “I aim to please," he said with a playful wink.

  For some reason, that made her blush.

  "Nana!" Anna said from her high chair, happily reaching out to Julie.

  "Hey, beautiful," Julie said cheerfully, bending automatically to give Anna a kiss on the forehead. "Are you eating your daddy's ravioli?"

  Anna shook her head no, squealing a little and holding up a fist full of cereal for Julie to see.

  Julie looked down to see the toddler had opted to eat her Cheerios, although she did have one cut up ravioli on her plate. "Oh, Cheerios,"' Julie said, patting Anna lightly on the head.

  While they ate, Julie talked about her paper, the obscene amount of studying college students were expected to do, and she mixed in just a bit of complaining about Jack, who was completely unconcerned with her education.

  "I know he doesn't understand, and he isn't intentionally insulting me or annoying me, but I feel like his blatant disregard for what I'm doing is sort of a blatant disregard of me, too." She shook her head. "I don't know, maybe I'm just crazy. Maybe I'm anal. He does tell me sometimes that I'm too anal."

  Matt smiled, shaking his head. "I don't think you're anal, I think you value the education that you're spending your time and money on, and I think that's completely respectable. I have more respect for you than someone who spends all that money on college and then neglects to put in any effort."

  "Thank you," she said sincerely. "Nobody understands that. I was beginning to think I was alone in the world."

  "Well, if you are, I guess we're alone together. I always took my studies seriously—maybe not quite as seriously as you, but still."

  "I want to make the Dean's List," she confided, then smiled, blushing slightly. "That probably sounds dorky. Jack tells me I'm a dork, but I do."

  Shaking his head, Matt said, "I'm sorry, but your boyfriend sounds like a real jerk to me."

  She thought it was probably disloyal, but she couldn't make herself defend Jack. "He's… very self-involved, but most people are. He’s a little narcissistic. He has no patience for topics that he doesn't care about or personally believe in, and pretty much a general disregard for anything that doesn't concern him. My college experience, for example. If he went to my school and had my classes, he might care a little bit, but since he doesn't, he doesn't want to hear about it."

  "As I said," he responded, using his fork to cut his last ravioli in half.

  As if sensing that he was being talked about, Julie's cell phone started ringing and she picked it up to see Jack's cell number. Sighing unintentionally she started to answer the phone, but hesitated with it halfway to her ear.

  "I'll call back after dinner," she decided, pushing ‘ignore’ on her phone and slipping it back into her pocket.

  Anna was rubbing her eyes, making them all red, and she was starting to get fussy.

  Julie automatically stood, walking over and lifting Anna out of her high chair. "Let's get you changed for bed, then we'll read a story. You want to pick out a story?"

  Anna didn't answer, just rested her little head on Julie's shoulder.

  "Do you want me to take her up?" Matt asked, getting to his feet. "You're not even on duty, you don't have to do that."

  "I don't mind," Julie said. Even though she wasn’t technically on the clock and Anna was his daughter, she always felt awkward letting Matt do the things that were part of her job description when she was there. She felt like he would think she wasn’t doing her job or something—he might wonder what he paid her for.

  "Well, okay. I can just clear the table. Did you want seconds?" he asked.

  "Oh no, I'm full. Thank you."

  "No problem," he said, leaning in and kissing Anna on the cheek. "Sweet dreams, baby."

  She smiled sleepily at him before closing her eyes.

  "I'll be back soon," Julie said with a smile.

  Anna was asleep by the third page of her bedtime story, so Julie tucked her into bed and listened to her voice mail from Jack before going back downstairs.

  "I'm home," he stated without greeting. "You're not, of course. Obviously you know that, since I called your cell phone. Uh, if you're going to be home soon, give me a call. If not… call me anyway. If you don't call soon, I'm probably just going to leave, so maybe you can get me on my cell. I didn't realize you were working so late," he added. "Well, call me. Later."

  She flipped her phone shut, a little annoyed, and decided not to rush and call him back. She slipped the phone back in her pocket and went downstairs, figuring she should probably gather up her stuff and get going. Since she had accomplished so much on her paper, she didn't feel a bit guilty about no more studying for the night. She should probably try to catch Jack before he left so he didn't go out and do something stupid.

  Not that she should have to babysit him, she thought with irritation. He wasn’t a one year old; he should be able to be trusted to look after himself.

  "Whoa, what did that book do to you?" asked Matt.

  Julie looked up in surprise, not even realizing he had followed her down the hall. He was standing framed in the doorway, a half smile on his face.

  She attempted to get the annoyed look off her face and handle her books with a little less violence. "The book didn't do anything."

  "Then whose face are you picturing on the cover?" he returned with a grin.

  She had a mental image of Jack's face on the cover of her book, and in her daydream it was pinned up on the wall and she was throwing darts at it.

  The thought made her smile. "Jack's. I'm such a terrible person. Sometimes I just really hate him," she blurted. Realizing that she had let the thought out of her head, her eyes widened a bit and she looked. "I didn't mean…”

  But he merely shook his head. "Trust me, Julie, I know exactly what you mean. I don't think you're a bad person. I’m sure you have your reasons."

  Arianna's text flashed through her mind, but she forced it out and shook her head as if to clear it. "Oh well, I made the choices that brought me here. I have no one to blame but myself. We all make mistakes, I suppose. No big deal." She slung her bag over her shoulder and changed the subject. “Thank you very much for dinner."

  Matt didn't say anything, just nodded, arms crossed over his chest as he watched her.

  She said her farewell and went to leave. As she turned, her backpack gaped open and a book fell out; they both bent down to pick it up, but Julie lost her hold on the backpack and it fell right off, hitting Matt in the shoulder.

  "Oh!" she said, instinctively grabbing his shoulder as if to assess his injury. "I'm so sorry, that thing weighs like 500 pounds."

  He laughed a little, picking it up. "It's fine, but how do you carry this thing on your back?"

  "Lots of will power and a major backache," she returned with an easy smile.

  Matt nodded, and it wasn't until he cleared his throat a little that she realized she was still hanging onto his shoulder.

  "Oh, God," she said, clumsily standing, her face flushing. "I'm… sorry."

  "Don't be," he said, still smiling that damnable smile.

  She wanted to apologize, because she felt terribly embarrassed. "I didn't mean to…grope you like that, I just—the bag—"

  "Julie, it's fine," he said. "You were hardly groping me. I think I would have noticed that."

  "Well, I just… You're married." She was flustered and she wasn’t even sure why she pointed that out; she touched his shoulder, for God’s sake, not his penis.

  "Oh, is that what this ring means? Thank you for reminding me,” he teased.

  “I don't want you to think I'm coming onto you or anything!" she blurted gracelessly.

  His eyebrows raised just a fraction of an inch. "I didn't think that."

  "Okay, good," she said, nodding. "Because I wasn't, I don't want you to think…"

  "Please, before you say anymore," he said, chuckling slightly, holding up his hand. "Don't. My fragile ego can handle no more abuse. You are not attracted to me and
you weren't coming onto me when you hit me with your backpack. I completely understand."

  Her eyes widened again. "Oh, no, I wasn't trying to insult—It's not that. I do find you very attractive, it's just—” She stopped, slapping her hand over her mouth. "Oh God, I should not have the privilege of speaking."

  That time his eyebrows rose higher and he smirked. "Oh really?"

  "I have to go," she said, feeling deeply mortified as she slung her bag on her back and practically ran away from him.

  "Wait," he said, grabbing her by the strap of her backpack and bringing her right back to him. "Please don't be embarrassed."

  "I'm not embarrassed, I'm humiliated," she corrected.

  "Don't be humiliated."

  "Fine, then I'm mortified."

  Matt chuckled. "Julie, are you running out of synonyms yet?"

  She didn’t see the humor in it. "Horrified—I'm horrified. That was so inappropriate; I cannot believe that I just said that to you."

  "It's okay—honest," he said. "No biggie. I was just making sure you're not so mortified that you won’t come back."

  "Of course I'm going to come back," she muttered. "I'll just bring a rock to crawl under."

  "You come, but leave the rock at home. There's nothing embarrassing about what you said. You think I'm attractive? That's awesome. Most people think I look goofy, so it's an uncommon compliment, and I appreciate it."

  Julie gave him a dry look. "Yes, I'm sure you're often described as goofy," she said sarcastically.

  He nodded. "No joke. All of my teeth are crooked, I walk kind of funny, and have you seen my ears?" he asked, tugging on them. "Dumbo makes fun of me; they're enormous."

  She couldn't help it, she laughed at him. "They are not."

  "Emma used to call me Dumbo when she wasn't calling me Snagglepuss."

  Julie's jaw actually dropped. "You're lying."

  He shook his head. "Cross my heart. I bounce when I walk, too. You should watch sometime, it's amusing."

  She shook her head. "I have watched you walk, you don't… bounce. You definitely don't walk funny." Privately, she liked his walk quite a bit, and often found herself wondering why her boyfriend couldn't walk like that. While she would never say so to him, she thought he had a sexy walk—in a strictly platonic kind of way, of course.

  But then she thought of Emma –his wife—calling him names…

  "Wait, you let her call you that? It doesn’t sound very nice."

  He shrugged. "It started out as a kind of… cutesy nickname, I guess. Then she quit liking me," he said lightly, "and I kind of started taking it in a different way."

  "I'm sure she likes you. You're her husband; she has to like you."

  "Not really," he disagreed.

  Julie just stood there for a moment. It seemed like the kind of comment one should disagree with just to be polite, but not the way he said it. It was more of a casual thing that he knew to be true, like remarking that the mail doesn't get delivered on Sundays. There seemed to be no point in arguing; it was a rhetorical statement.

  "Well, I think I’ve sufficiently mortified myself for today, so… I think I'm going to leave for real this time," she said with a little smile, her cheeks still pink with embarrassment.

  "Aw, you're not going to grope me again?" he joked.

  "Maybe tomorrow," she teased with a nod, swinging her bag back onto her back once more.

  Matt chuckled. "Good night, Julie."

  "Good night, Matt," she said, waving as she opened the door and stepped out into the night air.

  Chapter Four-

  Julie tried to call Jack three times that night, but she was sent straight to his voice mail each time—meaning he had turned his phone off.

  Jack didn't turn his cell phone off very often. He left it on vibrate pretty often, but he usually only turned it off when he was having sex with somebody.

  He sure as hell wasn't having sex with Julie, since she was sitting at home in their bed all by herself, wondering where he might be and who he might be with.

  Refusing to wait up for him, Julie went to sleep, and when she heard him tiptoeing through the apartment at 5:58 a.m. she pretended to be asleep. She heard the shower turn on, and about five minutes later he crept quietly into the bedroom, trying to make as little movement as possible as he lowered himself onto the bed and slowly pulled the covers up around him, squirming to get comfortable.

  She remained as still as could be, lying awake in bed for a full hour, her mind wandering all over the place. Where had he been? Had he slept with someone else? He surely hadn't slept in their bed, so whose bed had he been in?

  Then she got mad. Who the hell did he think he was?

  She ended up giving up on the idea of sleeping. Crawling slowly out of the bed so as not to disturb him, she picked up his phone and slipped into the bathroom, locking the door and leaning against it, staring at the phone.

  Should she do it? Should she really stoop to that level? Snooping seemed terribly below her, and it certainly wasn't the act of a trusting girlfriend… but who was she kidding? She knew Jack couldn't be trusted. He had cheated on two different girlfriends with her, and she didn't even want to know how many before her.

  So she finally gave in and went snooping through his phone. Of course his text inbox was completely empty except for one text message she had sent him the day before, and his outbox was completely empty. Next she looked through his call log, but according to his phone he had never called anyone or been called in his life. Jack was no beginner; he knew to clear his phone out before leaving it unattended.

  Sighing, she unlocked the bathroom door and snuck his cell phone back into their room, sitting it on the bedside table and wandering out to the kitchen, knowing she definitely wasn't going back to sleep.

  ---

  Julie sometimes thought about her relationship with Jack, and sometimes she would think she wasn't a very good girlfriend. It was because she didn't love him. It made her less attentive, and sometimes she would feel guilty for it.

  Those were usually the nights she would foolishly give in and go to hang out with Jack and his obnoxious friends.

  Without fail she would always wish she could have stayed home with a book, but she didn't always have as miserable of a time as that particular Wednesday night.

  They never discussed what had happened that night, where Jack had been and who he had been with. It vaguely irritated Julie, both with Jack and with herself. But when Jack asked her if she would come hang out at Morgan's with "a bunch of people" she agreed, thinking maybe she needed to exert just a little bit of effort.

  Big mistake.

  The only thing she ended up exerting was restraint—not to kick her boyfriend in the head or slap Morgan in the face.

  Even Jacob seemed uncomfortable with the way Morgan kept walking over and touching Jack, resting her hand securely on his shoulder and smiling at him, giving him these telling looks. Once in a while Julie would catch Morgan's gaze and she could swear Morgan was almost telling her with her eyes, "I fucked your boyfriend."

  But Julie merely smiled.

  She sure as hell wasn't going to show any other sort of reaction.

  At 2:33 a.m. she had been there for three and a half hours, and her cool composure was beginning to crack. She found herself making cutting comebacks to every little thing Jack said, something she frequently did when he offended her.

  At 2:34 she got a text message. Wondering who could possibly be texting her so late, she flipped open her phone and saw that it said, "Matt Cell."

  Her eyes widened and she opened the message.

  "Hey, do you have any idea where Anna's puppy is? I can't find it and she won't stop crying."

  The puppy. She had seen the puppy somewhere. Where?

  Julie jumped up off the couch, still looking at the text, trying to remember where she had last seen Anna's toy puppy, the one she slept with every night.

  Jack had been sitting on the couch with Morgan, laughing and joking
with her as she giggled and playfully slapped his arm, telling him, "Stop! You're so bad. Isn't he bad?"

  "Where are you going?" Jack asked Julie as she walked toward the door.

  "I'm making a phone call," she said.

  "Who are you calling at three in the morning?" he asked with a frown.

  She flashed him the sweetest smile she could muster. "Don't you worry about it, sweetie." With that she left the room, making it seem like she needed privacy for her phone call.

  In fact she didn't call Matt, she texted him, telling him she knew she had seen the puppy, but she couldn't think of where. Did Emma happen to know where it was?

  "She's not here, and I can't find it," was the response.

  She thought about it for a second, then she texted, "Do you want me to come help you? I'm sure I can find it."

  A few seconds later her phone chimed. "No, you don't have to do that. It's late. I'll just try to get her to sleep with something else."

  "Are you sure? I'm wide awake and I'm actually pretty close to your house right now, I could be there in a few minutes…"

  A minute passed before he responded, "If you want to."

  Julie smiled unconsciously and texted him back that she'd be there in a few minutes, then she walked back into Morgan's apartment to retrieve her purse.

  "I'm going to get out of here," Julie said, slipping her cell phone into her purse. "It was nice seeing you guys," she lied. "Jack, I'll see you later."

  But he was up off the couch, causing Miss Morgan to frown in annoyance. "Where are you going? Who did you call?"

  She toyed with the idea of being coy, not telling him, but she decided just to be honest. "Matt needs me to come over, he needs help with Anna," he said vaguely.

  "Matt," he repeated blankly.

  "Yep. I'll see you later," she said, quickly pecking him on cheek.

  "At three in the morning?" he asked, giving her a hard look.

  She smiled back coldly. "Don't worry, baby. I'll try to be home before six."

  With that she walked out, feeling immensely better about life.

  ---

  Julie walked into the Turner home to be greeted by the sight of Matt on all fours in the floor, searching under the couch as Anna made a face at the green frog puppet she was holding.