Mystery.
Less…
History.
Not in a bad way. It’s just…different.
Buckley and I have already been through so much together. We know each other’s favorite foods and favorite authors, biggest fears and worst pet peeves, our quirks and faults and goals. In fact, sometimes it seems that the only thing I don’t know about Buckley is what he’s like in bed.
Not that I haven’t imagined it.
And not that I don’t want to find out….
At least, I might want to.
But not yet. Certainly not tonight. And with my track record…
“I think we should both go home,” I tell Buckley.
His grin fades. “Oh.”
“Not because you kissed me, or anything—”
“Um, Trace? You kissed me.”
“Oh, right. Whatever. The kiss isn’t why. It’s just…I’m tired and it’s late and we both have to work tomorrow morning. And if we stay here for another game of pool and another beer—”
“And another kiss—”
“Exactly—who knows what will happen? It might be something we’ll both regret in the morning.”
“And it might not be.”
“Right. But, Buckley, I’m just too exhausted to find out tonight. Okay?”
“Sure. It’s fine.”
“Really?”
“Really. No big deal.”
I can tell he means it.
There’s something really nice about being with somebody you know so well.
Outside, we walk two blocks over to Broadway. My feet are killing me in these shoes. I’d give anything for Band-Aids for my heels.
Band-Aids make me think of Jack. He wanted to give me a Band-Aid for my sore knee after I fell the other morning in his hallway.
You know, it’s definitely better if Jack and I stop seeing each other, if only because that way, I won’t have to worry about glimpsing Mike in his underpants again. Maybe, in time, I’ll even get the hideous image out of my head.
“Are you okay, Tracey?” Buckley asks.
“I’m fine,” I say quickly. “I’m really glad about the kiss. Really.”
“I didn’t mean that. I mean…you’re limping.”
Oops. “I’m fine,” I say again. “My shoes just hurt.”
He puts his arm around my shoulders. Which doesn’t help me walk at all, and doesn’t lessen the pain or anything, but still, it’s a sweet gesture.
The sidewalk and street are shiny from the rain, but it’s stopped at last. The temperature feels a little warmer than it was earlier, and mist hangs heavy in the glow of passing headlights and the streetlights across the way in Madison Square Park.
There are twinkly white Christmas lights and poinsettias in store windows.
Oh, yeah. It’s Christmastime.
Again, I think of Jack. I think of kissing him by the Rockefeller Center tree in the falling snow.
Buckley hails a cab for me and opens the door for me to get in. He’s always been a gentleman, but now it strikes me as a romantic gesture, like the arm around my shoulder and the hand-holding in the bar.
He would be an attentive boyfriend.
“Night, Trace,” he says, and bends to kiss me on the forehead before closing the door.
I smile and wave.
Then the cab lurches and I’m careening down the avenue toward home.
I reach for the seat belt. The buckle feels sticky.
Why is everything in New York so filthy? I fasten it anyway and wipe my hand on my jeans.
By the time I turn to take one last look at Buckley through the rear window, I can’t spot him anywhere.
Oh, well.
I settle back against the seat and smile contentedly.
Buckley kissed me at last.
Wow.
Okay, I kissed him.
Still wow.
And I get the feeling that if I’d wanted it to happen again, it could have.
And it still can, considering that we have a date—a real date—on Friday.
Talk about complicated.
And exhausting.
I lean my head back against the seat, too weary to stress about the many grimy heads that may have touched it before mine.
I close my eyes and remember how Buckley’s lips felt against mine.
Then I stifle a huge yawn and rub my aching neck muscles, longing to crawl into bed.
Five more minutes, and I’ll be there. Alone—and grateful for that, for a change.
I’ve spent the last six months nursing a secret crush on Buckley, wondering what it would be like if he were my boyfriend.
Now that it’s not such a far-fetched possibility, I’m starting to think it’s not such a good idea to rush into things.
After all, Buckley has been there for me since June.
He’s not going anywhere, and neither am I.
Except home for Christmas, which just might give me the rest—if not the perspective—that I need.
Jack called.
Oh my God.
He left me a message.
Oh my God!
“Hi, Tracey. It’s me, Jack. I hope you’re feeling better. Give me a call if you feel like it. I’m home. It’s Sunday. Maybe you’re out, or just…sick? I hope you’re not still sick. Feel better. Okay, ’bye.”
Standing there, staring at the answering machine as the tape whirs and rewinds, automatically erasing, I am stunned.
He sounded so…normal. Sincere.
Not at all like somebody skittishly trying to avoid a desperate woman who apparently considers him her boyfriend.
Is it possible that I didn’t screw things up with him after all?
Is it possible that we’re still…seeing each other?
But what about Buckley?
Talk about lousy timing. Why did he have to choose tonight to kiss me?
Um, hello? You kissed him, remember?
Shut up with that already, I scold my inner self. Buckley was the one who brought it up. And he was about to do it. I just took the bull by the…
What is it that you take the bull by?
The balls?
Or is it the horns?
Do bulls even have horns?
They definitely have balls.
So, apparently, do I. I mean, I grabbed Buckley and kissed him. So it’s as much my fault as it is his.
Thanks to me and my balls, Buckley and I have a date Friday night to see the Rockettes.
But what if Jack wasn’t traumatized from seeing that picture of himself in my apartment?
What if he’ll be back from Atlanta on time and he wants to see the Rockettes, too?
Too bad there isn’t a way to go with both of them.
If I were a zany sitcom heroine, I’d buy another set of tickets and I’d take both Jack and Buckley to the show. But I wouldn’t tell them, because zany sitcom heroines are big on secret capers.
I’d meet both guys there and I’d spend the night running back and forth between the two of them, pretending to be going to the ladies’ room and back to the usher for another program and outside for a cigarette….
For a moment, I wonder if it could actually work.
Then I remind myself that I am not a zany sitcom heroine.
I am a real-life chick with a knack for sabotaging her own love life.
Why did I have to ask Buckley to the show?
Why did I have to ask Jack?
It’s all my Secret Snowflake’s fault for giving me the tickets in the first place, I think grimly. My Secret Snowflake’s fault, and of course Will’s fault, because everything wrong in my life is Will’s fault.
I look again at the phone.
Should I call Jack back?
Probably.
But I don’t.
I’m too tired to think clearly, let alone carry on a rational conversation.
I crawl into bed.
My last thought, as I drift into a deep sleep, is that I’ll probably dream about Jack. O
r Buckley. Or maybe Jack and Buckley in a ménage à trois.
But I don’t.
I dream that I’m starring in an all-nude version of A Chorus Line on Broadway. The drunks from the bar are playing the other dancers, and Will is playing one, too. It’s opening night and the audience is packed and I’m all pumped up to go on.
Only, when I make my entrance—you guessed it.
The other dancers—Will and the drunks—are all fully costumed.
And there I am, wearing only a top hat, wondering why I didn’t learn my lesson in Hello, Dolly!
Wondering why I never learn my lesson, ever.
14
Monday morning, I wake up convinced that I dreamed the answering machine message from Jack.
I try to check the machine, but of course the message has been erased.
Why didn’t I keep it as evidence?
Now I can’t call him back, because if I do and he didn’t really call, I’ll look like even more of an idiot than I already do to him, if that’s even possible.
But if he didn’t really call me and I don’t call him back, it’ll seem like I’m blowing him off.
Well, maybe he’ll call again.
Or maybe he never will.
Maybe we’ll meet some day as senior citizens, and we’ll put it all together and rekindle the flame.
You know, like those people you read about in Dear Abby—the World War II vets and the girls they left behind. The ones who never got together because one of them never got a letter the other sent, so their hearts were broken and they went off and married other people….
You’ve never heard about those people?
Well, it happens all the time. Trust me.
And it could happen to me and Jack, all because I might have imagined his phone call….
But then again, I might not have.
When I limp to my desk—my heels are now oozing blisters beneath the Band-Aids that keep peeling off—I half expect to find a Secret Snowflake gift waiting.
Mercifully, there’s nothing.
The poinsettia is still there, drooping a little. Guess I need to water it. Or maybe it needs light or something. Maybe I should bring it home with me, since there aren’t any windows anywhere near my cube.
I lift it off the desk, and several of the pink-and-white leaves promptly drop off, drifting to the floor.
Oops.
I quickly plunk it back onto the desk.
More leaves fall off.
It seems to be dying a slow death. How depressing.
I check my voice mail, hoping Jack might have left me a message.
Nothing.
I check my e-mail.
Nothing there, either.
Talk about depressing.
I bet I imagined that answering machine message.
I scroll through a long, boring e-mail from Kate about her long, boring weekend with Billy. She wants to know if I want to meet her for lunch today since she has to return something to Saks and it’s in the neighborhood. I write back that I’ll meet her at Sephora, which is also in the neighborhood. I might as well spend my Secret Snowflake gift certificate.
Then I scroll through one of those chain-letter prayer things from my sister-in-law, Sara, who’s too superstitious not to forward every single one she receives.
This one says that if you send it to everyone you know, something fabulous will happen within seven days. If you don’t, something tragic will happen. It goes on to talk about all the people who won the lottery or were miraculously cured of cancer after forwarding the chain letter, and all the ones who were hit by a bus when they didn’t.
I almost delete it.
I usually do.
But then my superstitious Sicilian gene takes hold, and I decide not to tempt fate. So I forward the chain e-mail. Not to everyone I know—just to Kate, Raphael and Buckley. Just to be safe.
I’m about to stand up when I notice that I’ve got mail again.
I click on the inbox…
Lo and behold, there’s an e-mail from Jack!
Okay, that’s freaky.
It’s not like I really believed the chain-letter thing, but…
I close my eyes, count to three, open them again.
The e-mail is still there. Definitely not my imagination. And definitely from Jcandell, in-house, Blaire Barnett.
I check the date and time. It was sent one minute ago.
Hi, Tracey. Hope you’re feeling better. If you’re here and reading this, you must be. Talk to you soon. Jack.
“Hi, Chief. What’s so funny?”
I look up from the screen to see Mike standing there, watching me. I realize I’m wearing a huge grin.
“Nothing,” I tell him, too thrilled about the e-mail to remember to be embarrassed about falling down naked in front of him last week. “It’s just some joke my sister-in-law sent me.”
“What is it?” he asks, like he’s all geared up for a good laugh.
“Oops, sorry, I just deleted it,” I lie. “How was your weekend?”
“Busy. Dianne and I went skiing up in Vermont. Sorry to hear you were sick. Jack was disappointed about Saturday night. He had everything all set.”
“He did?” I wonder what that means.
“Yeah, and he didn’t want to waste all those groceries….”
Groceries?
“So he made the stuff anyway, last night. It was great.”
“Stuff?”
“Yeah, the stuff he was going to cook for you. Something French—I can’t pronounce it.”
“He was going to cook for me?”
“You didn’t know?”
“No.”
That was the surprise. Oh my God. How freaking sweet.
No guy has ever cooked for me.
Well, except Will, who thinks he’s a good cook but who only used low-fat ingredients in whatever he made me, which I took as an insulting hint.
I bet Jack uses real butter and cream. French recipes always call for butter and cream.
“I didn’t even know that he knew how to cook,” I tell Mike.
“You didn’t? I thought—”
“He said he had a surprise for me.”
“Uh-oh. Then I just ruined it. Don’t tell him, okay?”
“I won’t,” I promise. “I just can’t believe he knows how to cook.”
“Yeah, he told me he wanted to be a chef, but his father talked him out of it. Said he’d make more money in advertising, like he did.”
“Jack’s father?”
“Yeah.”
“He’s rich?”
“Yeah. He was a big creative director twenty or thirty years ago. He made a fortune, and then there was a big buyout in the eighties and he sold his share and retired young. He’s a real bastard.”
“Why?”
“He pushed Jack into advertising. He said he wouldn’t pay for culinary school, only for an MBA. Then, when Jack graduated, he said he was through supporting him, and he wouldn’t even help him get an interview. He said he did it on his own and he expected Jack to do it without his help. He wasn’t thrilled when Jack landed in the media department.”
“Why?” I ask. “Because it’s low-paying and not the ‘glam’ part of the business?”
Mike shakes his head. “Don’t tell Jack I told you his father’s a bastard. You’ll see for yourself when you meet him. And his mother’s a snob, too.”
I can’t help feeling a little jolt of excitement at Mike’s assumption that I’ll be meeting Jack’s parents.
“Wow. I had no idea he came from money,” I tell Mike.
Not that it matters. I mean, I was into Jack when I thought he was a poor, starving media planner with a dumpy apartment.
In fact, he is a poor, starving media planner with a dumpy apartment.
“Yeah,” Mike says, “you wouldn’t think somebody from his background would be living in Brooklyn with me, would you? Maybe I shouldn’t have said anything to you. Maybe he didn’t want you to know.”
&n
bsp; “It’s okay,” I say quickly. “I won’t tell him. Anyway, he did mention that his parents live up in Bedford and he has cousins in Scarsdale. He said they were stuffy.”
He just failed to tell me that his parents apparently are, too.
Oh, well, who cares about that?
I can deal with stuffy in-laws as long as they’re up in the suburbs and Jack and I are—
Hold it right there, missy. What the hell are you thinking?
Oops.
Even if Jack has forgiven me for framing us together, and even if he still wants to go out with me…
That doesn’t change the fact that I’m not anywhere near ready for a relationship. I mean, if I were, I wouldn’t be going around kissing Buckley.
Going around? Come on, Tracey, it was one kiss.
On long, luscious, lip-smacker of a kiss.
Mental Note: One errant kiss does not a floozy make.
And anyway, I only kissed Buckley because I thought I’d lost Jack.
Okay, and also because I’ve always been attracted to Buckley.
If I were ready for a real relationship, I’d be able to focus on one person.
Plus, I wouldn’t still be hung up on Will.
Not hung up in the sense that I want him back, but hung up in the sense that I still think about him a lot, and I care about what he thinks of me.
And even though I mostly hate him, there’s a tiny part of me that might still love him. Just a little. Just the nice part of him…which he keeps so well hidden that it’s usually pretty easy to forget that part of him even exists.
My sister Mary Beth told me last summer that you don’t just get over somebody you used to love by turning off your feelings for him. It’s not that easy. No matter how badly somebody treats you, you have to fall out of love, just like you fell into it. And you have to want to fall out of love.
Mary Beth didn’t want to. She couldn’t let go.
Watching her take her cheating husband back was enough to make me swear I’d never give Will another chance.
Not that he even wanted one.
Anyway, I know in my heart—and definitely in my head—that it’s truly over between us.
It’s just that he keeps popping up in my life, damn him, and every time he does, it’s not just a reminder of the good times I had with him, but also of how hard it is to be alone.
I want to be in love again, dammit.
Not with Will.
Slightly Settled Page 17
