The One Real Regret

by Janet Nissenson

  Jill had given her roommate a fierce hug. “You bet we’re going to keep in close touch. And have all of those reunions as often as possible. You and Casey are like sisters to me, you know, even if you couldn’t find three people less like each other than we are. I’m going to miss you like crazy, Sho. Especially after you and Case got me through these last few months. I don’t know how I would have managed without you two.”

  Shoshana had patted her on the back reassuringly. “You would have found a way,” she’d insisted. “You’re way stronger than you think you are, Jill. And as unhappy and depressed as you’ve been since that asshole walked out on you, you’re going to be okay. I promise.”

  There had been many days and nights, however, after Max had rather cold-heartedly walked out of the hotel suite without a backwards glance when Jill hadn’t been quite so confident in her ability to fully heal from the pain. Reluctantly, she thought back to that awful Friday evening now, letting all of the hurt that his departure had caused to rush back over her like a tidal wave. For several minutes after he had left, she’d simply stood there in the middle of the living room, staring in disbelief at the spot he had last occupied. It was only when she had felt her legs begin to shake uncontrollably that she had forced herself to sink down onto the sofa, pulling her knees into her chest and wrapping her arms around her shins.

  The sobs had arrived in earnest then - big, noisy, wracking sobs that had caused her whole body to shake. Jill couldn’t remember how long she had sat there weeping brokenheartedly, only that by the time she lifted her face it had already grown dark outside.

  Brushing her tears away impatiently, she had managed to pack up all of her belongings - clothes, toiletries, books, laptop - in an astonishingly brief amount of time. She had never for a second considered Max’s offer to remain in the suite through the weekend, knowing that she wouldn’t be able to spend a scant hour here without him.

  Not wanting to face the hotel staff members who had been so kind to her over the past two and a half weeks looking like a wreak, she’d splashed her face with cold water, brushed her hair, and forced herself to smile politely at the bellman who arrived to assist with her bags. The doorman gave her a sympathetic look as he summoned a taxi for her, no doubt already having witnessed Max’s departure a short while before and guessing that Jill had just been dumped.

  She had managed to hold it together just long enough for the taxi to drop her off at the house, but the moment she’d opened the door and dropped her bags inside the tears had started up again. Casey and Shoshana had been at her side instantly, offering hugs and consolation, as she had blurted out what had happened in between sobs.

  And then her roommates took over. Shoshana poured her an extra large glass of wine, while Casey ordered an extra large chicken pesto pizza - Jill’s favorite. The two girls had alternately cursed Max’s name to hell and back and then comforted Jill when the tears started up again. By the evening’s end, Jill had belted back three glasses of wine, but had only managed a single slice of pizza, She hadn’t been the least surprised to wake up the next morning, after a restless night’s sleep, with a splitting headache and rumbling tummy. She hadn’t touched a sip of alcohol since that night, despite Casey’s coaxing and Shoshana’s insistence that she’d drunk her way through more than one lousy break-up.

  Returning to work on Monday hadn’t been easy, despite knowing that her tormentor Allison was no longer employed there. The office, after all, was where she had first met Max, where their eyes had met and their hands had touched and the attraction between them had flared to life. Fortunately, she’d had a decent amount of work to process, as well as the all-hands meeting to attend that the CEO had held that afternoon. She had been grateful for any distraction whatsoever to keep her mind off of her sorrow, and had vowed to stay far away from the now-empty office that Max had occupied during his stay.

  Jill hadn’t been at all surprised by any of the announcements made at the meeting, having already expected news of layoffs, store closings, and the immediate scaling back of benefits and perks. The layoffs had been done in stages, with approximately a month in between each wave. Roslyn had been let go during the first stage, while Trina had held onto her job until late May, leaving right around the same time Jill had handed in her own notice. Fortunately for Jill’s friends, Pour Elle had offered a decent severance package, and both Roslyn and Trina had been able to find new jobs relatively quickly.

  But as busy as Jill tried to keep herself between classes, studying, homework, and her job, she had found it impossible to stop thinking about Max, and had stubbornly refused to give up on the man she loved so deeply. She’d hesitated at first about contacting him, still recalling all too clearly her grandmother’s admonitions about nice girls letting boys do all the chasing. The last thing she had wanted was for Max to think of her as a pest, or that annoying girl who just wouldn’t take a hint.

  It had been largely at the urging of her roommates that she had impulsively taken the plunge and sent him the first of a series of texts, emails, and voicemails. Casey had been indignant that Max had just walked out the way he’d done, and had threatened to contact him herself if Jill didn’t have the guts to do it. Shoshana’s reasoning had been a little more on the sympathetic side, gently telling Jill that she had to find some closure with everything that happened, and that even if Max never replied to a single message then at least Jill would have had her turn to speak her peace.

  She hadn’t expected an answer at first, but after several days in a row of having her messages ignored, Jill’s heart had sunk a little deeper each day. And when Max had blocked her, it had felt like having a knife plunged into her chest. That had been the cruelest blow, the deepest hurt, and she’d become withdrawn and depressed for weeks afterwards, having giving up all hope. Shoshana and Casey had been beside themselves trying to cheer her up, coaxing her into movie nights with her favorite films, bringing home all sorts of treats to tempt her into eating, even throwing her a festive party for her twenty-second birthday and inviting a bunch of their neighbors and friends from school to help celebrate. But all that had done was make Jill feel even guiltier for being such a downer when her friends were doing everything they could think of to make her happy.

  It had taken her a long time to gradually return to some semblance of normal, though she feared she would never again feel completely whole. Loving Max had been both the best and worst things to have ever happened to her, but every time she found herself wishing she’d never met him in the first place, in the next minute she regretted thinking that way.

  Starting a new job in a brand new environment had helped bring her out of her funk, since there were no reminders of Max in her current office. She was also far too busy on most days to think about him - at least not for more than a few minutes. And knowing that Casey and Shoshana would be leaving town at the end of July, Jill had resolved to spend as much time with her best friends as possible in the remaining weeks.

  The other girls had more or less strong-armed her into going out with them a few times, dragging her reluctantly into a bar or club, even though she still refused to drink any alcohol, her nasty hangover still fresh on the mind. Jill had spent the majority of the time in those places counting the minutes until she could escape again. And one of the very, very few times in her entire twenty-two years that she had lost her temper was when Casey had tugged her out onto the dance floor and into the waiting arms of a guy who’d made his interest in Jill very obvious. Jill had finished the dance, then promptly marched over to her friends, told Casey to mind her own damned business in the future, and then stormed out of the bar, catching a taxi back to the house.

  Casey had meekly apologized when she and Shoshana returned home, promising never to try something like that again.

  “I just figured it was like that old expression - when you fall off the horse get right back on,” she’d admitted sheepishly. “I should have realized you weren’t ready to get involved with another
bloke this soon, even if it was just a dance. And even if he was super cute.”

  Jill had given the other girl a hug, her anger forgotten. “I know you meant well. And I’m sorry I was so mean about it. It’s just - well, you’re right. Dating someone else, much less sleeping with them, is the farthest thing from my mind right now. Every guy I see I wind up comparing to Max and find them lacking in just about every way.”

  Shoshana had patted her reassuringly on the shoulder. “It’ll get better. Eventually. Just give it some time, hmm? And don’t be in a rush. You’ll know when you’re ready to date again. After all, you waited twenty-two years to lose your virginity, so it’s a given that you’d feel an emotional attachment to the guy you gave it up to. Even if he wound up being the biggest douchebag on the planet for the way he ended things.”

  And as the weeks and months had passed, Jill had made a few feeble attempts at dating again - having coffee or lunch with fellow students, going to another club with the girls and willingly dancing with a couple of different guys, and even going out to dinner and a movie just last week with a young man who worked in the same building as she did. But the passage of time hadn’t seemed to make even a tiny dent in the way she still felt about Max, hadn’t dimmed her love for him. She still thought about him far too often, still thought about contacting him to see if maybe his feelings had changed after their months-long separation. He’d blocked her from reaching him at his personal email and phone number, but she still had one of the cards with his business contact information listed.

  But each time she had considered doing so she’d stopped herself, unwilling to suffer another humiliating rejection at his hands. It was a matter of pride, too, she supposed, not wanting to seem like the pathetic loser who didn’t know how to let go gracefully. For all she knew, Max had moved on months ago, dating some sophisticated woman of the world who neither wanted nor expected a commitment or silly talk about love and feelings, one would know the rules and abide by them without question.

  And little by little, week by week, she began to believe that she would be all right. That eventually she’d forget about a man named Max Wainwright, or at least be able to think of him without wanting to cry or wish for something that could never be. In the meanwhile, she would focus on her career, on furnishing her charming apartment, and maybe starting to do some of the traveling she’d always dreamed of. She was making a very good salary, after all, and aside from her college expenses had barely touched the money she’d inherited from her grandmother.

  There were other things she wanted to do as well, other experiences she wanted to have. She had just signed up for a membership at a gym near her apartment, one that offered a wide variety of fitness classes she resolved to try - spinning, yoga, Pilates, boot camp. She thought she might be able to squeeze a small piano into her apartment and was looking for a place to take lessons. And she had already signed up for a French class starting in the fall at the local community college, thinking that perhaps Paris or Montreal should be among her first places to take a vacation.

  For now, though, she was simply going to enjoy these last two days with her best friends, and not allow herself to feel sad about their impending departure.

  ‘Shoshana’s right,’ Jill told herself firmly as she picked up another box to carry out to the moving truck. ‘You are a lot stronger than you think. You moved all the way across the country after Grandma died all on your own without knowing a single person out here. You got your degree and a great job and now you’ll be living on your own. You’ll miss Sho and Case a whole bunch, but you’ll make new friends. And one day, hard as it might be to believe right now, you’ll be able to think about Max without your heart still breaking a little bit more each time.’

  Chapter Eighteen

  Present Day – San Francisco

  From where he sat inside the quiet, discreetly lit wine bar, Max saw Jill arrive outside of the place, his mouth tilting up at the corners as she hesitated for long seconds before walking inside. She looked, he thought wryly, as though she wanted to be anywhere but here at this moment, and he could almost see the wheels starting to spin in her head as she tried in vain to come up with a good reason for standing him up. Not, of course, that he blamed her in the least, since he wasn’t exactly looking forward to the conversation they were about to have himself.

  He chuckled as he watched her square her shoulders resolutely, as though she was about to march into a den of lions, and then walked inside the wine bar. The hostess, who had flashed Max her winningest, most flirtatious smile when he’d first arrived - a smile he had pointedly ignored - looked more than a little dismayed when Jill told her who she was meeting. Rather than escort Jill over to his table, she merely nodded in his direction, the displeasure evident on her overly made-up face. Max, who knew the owner of this place casually, made a mental note to alert the man that his hostess needed some major lessons in customer service.

  He rose to his feet as Jill approached, holding out a chair for her. “Can I take your coat for you, since the hostess evidently didn’t offer?”

  She nodded as she unbuttoned her pale gray wool coat. “Thanks. Yeah, Ms. Hostess With The Mostest back there wasn’t exactly welcoming. I’m going to assume that you received a much warmer greeting than I just did.”

  Max shrugged, sliding her coat off her shoulders and draping it carefully over one of the empty chairs at their table. “I didn’t really pay her much attention, frankly.”

  Jill grinned mischievously as he slid her chair in. “Well, that explains it then. Ms. Frosty is peeved because you didn’t fawn all over her. Betcha her type isn’t used to being ignored.”

  “Her job is to greet customers and show them to their tables, not to flirt or be flirted with,” retorted Max. “Apparently it’s a job she isn’t very good at. Now, what would you like to drink? I can recommend one of the Chardonnays, or they serve an excellent Pinot Grigio if you’d prefer.”

  She glanced briefly at the list of wines served by the glass before setting it aside. “I’ll have the Spring Mountain Zinfandel, actually. And, yes, I realize I used to always prefer white wines, but my tastes have - let’s call it expanded, shall we? I’ve actually been to that particular winery, too. Last fall Jacob arranged an outing to the Napa Valley for about ten of us, lunch and tastings at a few different wineries. One of the little perks of the job.”

  “Perks that I’m certain all of you work very, very hard for,” replied Max easily. “And knowing you, Jill, I’m guessing you work longer hours than almost anyone else in the office.”

  “I like my job,” she said candidly. “And my boss. He asks a lot of us, but gives a lot in return. I couldn’t ask for anything more. And, yes, we’re expected to put in long hours, but to me at least it’s worth it.”

  Max frowned slightly. “You’re not dating Jacob, are you? You did tell me earlier that there was someone you were serious about, and now you just said you liked him.”

  Jill chuckled in amusement. “As a person, yes, and as a boss. Maybe even as a friend. But there’s no way I’m ever going to date my employer, Max. I’ve already heard little snippets of gossip here and there about why Jacob hired me for such a high profile job, given my age and my gender. So I’m not about to add fuel to the fire and give anyone cause to speculate that the reason I’m the CFO is because I’m shagging the CEO.”

  He kept his expression neutral so as not to betray the immense relief he felt at her words. “I would never have made those sort of assumptions,” he assured her. “And it’s appalling that any of your co-workers would even hint at something along those lines. If they’re saying those sorts of nasty things, Jill, it’s simply due to professional jealousy.”

  Their waiter appeared just then, and the young man was thankfully far more pleasant and solicitous than the snobby hostess. He took their drink orders - Max also opting for a glass of the same Zinfandel - and nodded in approval when Max also requested a platter of assorted cheeses, charcuterie,
breads, olives, and seasoned almonds.

  “If that sounds good to you, that is,” he asked Jill.

  “I think anything would sound good right about now,” she admitted. “I might have forgotten to eat lunch, come to think of it.”

  “You should have told me,” he scolded lightly. “I would have ordered something more substantial. Or suggested a restaurant that offered a full menu and not just a few tapas.”

  “It’s okay, Max,” she assured. “I’m sure what you just ordered will be more than enough, probably more than I normally eat for dinner.”

  He scowled. “And I’m going to assume by how thin you look that skipping meals is the norm for you.”

  “I’m not that thin,” she argued. “Maybe a few pounds lighter than the - the last time we saw each other. But I assure you I’m hardly starving myself, and I usually eat three meals a day. It’s just that somedays it gets so busy at the office I lose track of time. Plus, I was probably a little heavier in college because of my roommates. They loved nothing better than to cook up a big pot of pasta or have a barbeque or bake a few dozen cookies.”

  Max hesitated before rather tentatively asking his next question. “You, ah, live alone now? No roommates or - or someone else, perhaps?”

  She looked rather gleeful at his discomfort in asking such a questions. “If this is your very polite way of asking if my boyfriend and I are living in sin, then the answer is no. I like my own space, and Tyler shares a flat with his brother and one of their friends. Not, of course, that he hasn’t suggested we think about changing our - well, living arrangements.”

  He was saved from having to think up an appropriate response by the arrival of the waiter with their wine and food. Briefly, Max considered proposing a toast, but thought better of it, especially since he wasn’t at all sure what exactly it was they ought to be toasting to. Instead, he permitted himself to enjoy the sight and sounds of Jill as she savored the admittedly fine wine, and ate hungrily from the platter of food. He hadn’t forgotten the little mmm’s and ahh’s of pleasure she made while enjoying a meal, and he felt his pulse quicken in a way it hadn’t done in more than four years. She might be several years older now, certainly more mature and confident, but there was still much that remained of the charming, delightful girl he’d met in Seattle. And she both intrigued and aroused him now every bit as much as she had back then. A circumstance, unfortunately, that could very quickly become complicated and awkward, given the facts that they would be working together in a fashion for at least a week or two, and that Jill was apparently involved with another man. Not to mention the fact that she was still furious at him for the way he’d ended things between them four years ago. If she were to realize how much he still cared for her, how often he had thought of her over the years and agonized over the choices he’d made, how even now his body ached and throbbed to hold her close and re-claim her as his own - well, he had little doubt she’d toss that glass of wine in his face, tell him to go to hell, and run out the door.