True Love (and Other Lies)

by Whitney Gaskell

  “Where is he?” Daphne asked me.

  I tipped my head toward the bedroom. “Hold on, I’ll get him.”

  “A guy?” I heard Max asking Daphne. He still sounded confused, and insultingly so. Granted, before Jack came along, I hadn’t dated anyone in a while. But still. The idea that I could be involved with someone wasn’t that far-fetched, for God’s sake.

  I poked my head through the bedroom door and saw that Jack was beginning to stir from his nap.

  “Hey, you. There’re some people here I want you to meet,” I said softly. Jack opened one eye and peered at me. His hair was mussed, and his smile was sleepy.

  “Okay,” he said, and yawned, before stretching and standing up.

  “Don’t forget to put some clothes on,” I teased him, before closing the door.

  “Who is it?” Max asked.

  “Jack came to visit for the weekend,” I said with smug pride.

  “Jack who?”

  I gave Max a look. “You know. Jack. From London,” I said.

  “Here I am. Jack from London,” Jack said, appearing before us. He’d pulled on his Levi’s and a charcoal gray sweater, and despite being a little rumpled, he looked sexy as hell.

  Max stood to shake Jack’s hand. “I’m Max from New York,” he said.

  Max’s voice sounded strange—a little sharp, a tad artificial—and when I looked at him, I could see that although he was smiling, his eyes were wary and not very friendly.

  “Hi, I’m Daphne,” Daphne said, grinning like the Cheshire cat. “You don’t sound British.”

  “I’m not, I just live there,” Jack explained.

  “Wow, that’s amazing. I’ve always wanted to live overseas. Hey, Claire, don’t you have a friend that lives in London? Maddy, right?” Daphne turned her attention back to Jack. “Do you know Maddy?”

  There was an uncomfortable, leaden pause that lasted several beats too long. I jumped in to fill the silence.

  “Max and Daphne were talking about getting a bite to eat,” I told Jack. “How does that sound to you?”

  “Actually, I think we’d better make it another night,” Max interjected quickly. “I forgot I have to go over some proofs from Monday’s shoot.”

  Although I’d flopped back onto the sofa, thinking we’d all hang out together, Jack and Max were still standing on either side of my cocktail table—Max looking a little hostile, Jack vaguely amused. I suddenly felt like a referee in a boxing match. Daphne was staring at Max, a little frown on her face.

  “What are you talking about? You don’t have to do it tonight, surely. Can’t it wait?” Daphne asked Max.

  “No, it can’t,” Max said sharply.

  Daphne opened her mouth, looking like she had more to say, but then she seemed to change her mind, and closed it again. She shrugged a silent apology to me.

  “We’ll do it another time,” Max said. He leaned over and kissed me on the cheek. His lips still felt cold from the brisk November wind that had been wailing outside all day. “I’ve gotta run. Jack, nice to meet you.”

  “You too,” Jack said.

  “You just got here,” I protested, getting up and following Max to the door. As Daphne said good-bye to Jack, I grabbed Max’s sleeve and hissed into his ear, “What’s wrong?”

  “Nothing. No worries. I’ve just got to take care of some business. TCB, as Elvis would say.”

  “Max, what’s going on?”

  “Nothing. I’ll talk to you later, ’kay?”

  “Bye, Claire,” Daphne said. She hugged me and then followed Max out.

  I stared at the door as it closed behind them, confused at Max’s behavior and embarrassed for how he’d acted in front of Jack. I know that friends and romantic interests don’t always get along, but you hope for at least a semblance of accord between them. And I honestly couldn’t understand what it was about Jack that had ruffled Max’s feathers. All Jack had done was say hello, and shake his hand . . . had he done so in some kind of obnoxious, poser, superficial way that I was too blinded by my infatuation to see? No, that couldn’t be it. Jack was anything but obnoxious, poser-ish, or superficial.

  “I don’t know what got into him,” I said, turning back to Jack.

  “Don’t you? I think I might have some competition,” Jack said mildly.

  “What do you mean?” I asked, and then, realizing what he was implying, I shook my head vehemently. “Oh, no. There’s nothing going on between Max and me. He and Daphne are practically engaged, and I know he doesn’t think of me that way.”

  “How can you be so sure?”

  “Well, you can tell when someone has a crush on you, can’t you? Max has never made googly eyes at me, or ever done anything to suggest that he had feelings for me,” I protested.

  “Other than being hostile to someone you’re dating, you mean,” Jack said. He didn’t seem too put out; if anything, Max’s behavior seemed to amuse him.

  “He wasn’t being hostile, just a little . . . pointy,” I said. “He’s like that sometimes. But really, he’s like a brother to me, and I know for a fact that he feels the same way about me.”

  “If you say so,” Jack said, and then he pulled me close and began nuzzling my neck.

  And we didn’t see Max and Daphne again for the rest of the weekend, even though I left a couple of messages on Max’s machine and knocked on his door a few times. But he never answered, even when I could have sworn he was home.

  Sunday, after we’d spent the morning lounging around, and then fooling around, and then lounging around some more, we were lying together on the couch, our heads on opposite ends, our legs tangled together. I was feeling happy and content, if a little insecure since while perusing the New York Times Sunday Magazine, Jack had suddenly announced, “Oh my God, I know her! We went out a few times,” and then proceeded to show me an advertisement for a pair of panty hose. The model featured in the advertisement was sitting seductively, her endless legs bent provocatively in front of her to hide her bare breasts. She had perfectly chiseled features that suggested Swedish ancestry, long icy-blonde hair that curled around her milky white shoulders, and her glossy red lips were pouting with a come-hither look.

  “The naked woman?” I croaked, praying that he was really talking about the somewhat dumpy looking architect who was the subject of the article on the opposite page, although since she looked to be about sixty years old, I somehow doubted it.

  “Yeah. Her name’s Katrinka,” Jack said, looking thoughtful.

  “Katrinka?” I repeated, not able to keep the scorn out of my voice. Why is it that models always have bullshit names like Katrinka, for Christ’s sake? How come you never hear of a model named Denise or Susan, or something normal? No, they always have names like Lexie or Gigi or Katrinka. Gag.

  However, since Jack obviously didn’t share my hatred for all things model-centered, I tried to curb the acid in my tongue. “When did you date, um, Katrinka?”

  “Hmmmm?” Jack seemed distracted by the picture of his flawlessly beautiful, naked ex. Since he had just seen me naked only minutes earlier and comparisons were inevitable, I wanted to put a sack over my head and withdraw from the human race. I nudged him with my foot, and he glanced up at me. “What did you say? Katrinka? Oh, we went out a few years ago. When I was living here in the city. But it wasn’t anything serious, really.”

  Okay, now I wanted to know—no, needed to know—everything.

  “Oh?” I said, hoping that such a noncommittal show of interest would persuade him to continue talking without catching on to the fact that I was practically writhing with jealousy.

  Jack smiled lazily, as if the whole dating-a-model thing was no big deal. “We dated for a few months, but I was pretty caught up in my job at the time. Law firm associates have to bill out twenty-five hundred hours a year, so I didn’t have time for a serious girlfriend,” he explained.

  “Oh, so . . . she wanted something more serious, and you . . . didn’t,” I said, trying to fathom a world in whic
h any man would turn down a Katrinka. Suddenly I had a hopeful thought. “Was she not very smart? I mean, you must not have had much in common with her, since your careers are so, erm, different.”

  “No, she was actually very bright. More so than most of the models I’ve dated. In fact, as I remember, she was taking classes at NYU—a master’s in art history, I think,” he said.

  Ugh. Smart women never want to hear that the beautiful women, the Katrinkas of the world, are even capable of sounding out three-syllable words, much less to learn that they’re actual scholars. It’s not fair. That’s our expertise, being sharp and witty and interesting to be around. They’re just supposed to lounge against cars and sofas and carpets in advertisements, decorating whatever it was with their unnaturally shiny hair and gleaming lips. We don’t infringe on their world, so it’s not fair when they horn in on ours. And then suddenly the rest of what he’d said hit me.

  “Did you say that you’ve dated other models?” I asked.

  Jack laughed. “Why are you looking at me like that?”

  “Like what?”

  “Like I just announced that I spend my weekends cruising the malls to pick up underage girls,” Jack said.

  “I wasn’t, I just . . . I didn’t know that you were the kind of guy who’s into models, that’s all,” I muttered, suddenly wishing that I’d insisted on a lights-off policy while we were making love. Although I had no proof of the matter, I highly suspected that models did not have traces of cellulite bubbling along the back of their thighs. Unlike me.

  “I don’t anymore. Katrinka was nice. A little clingy and insecure, but nice. But most of the models I’ve met are not known for their scintillating conversation,” Jack said, and he sat up and snuggled me closer to him. He smelled wonderfully clean and fresh, a combination of soap and freshly laundered clothes.

  “Then why did you go out with them?” I asked. For some unfathomable reason, I was intent on holding my hand over this flame.

  “Because I was young and stupid, and I wanted to impress the other guys at my law firm by having a pretty woman on my arm. Sounds pretty dumb, huh?” Jack said, and he smiled at me wryly, amused by the impetus of his youth. “I got over that a long time ago.”

  “Obviously,” I said more tartly than I meant to.

  “Oh God, no, I didn’t mean . . . Claire, you’re gorgeous and stunning and sexy. I just meant that I don’t choose the women I date only to impress the assholes I work with. Now I date people I want to spend time with,” he said, and looked down at me with such a warm, wide smile that I couldn’t help but thaw out a little. And then he pulled me toward him, and kissed me, and Katrinka fell to the ground, crumpled up next to the rest of the discarded newspaper.

  After some time passed, I could feel Jack start to stir, and as he did, my heart sank. He was flying back to London that afternoon, and I knew that if he was going to take a shower before his flight, he’d have to get moving. But I didn’t want him to leave. I wanted him to stay, with such an intensity it frightened me. I was overcome with a sudden desire to do whatever it took to keep him there—even if that meant sitting on him or locking him in my apartment. And I’m normally not even that comfortable being around another person for so long—I was the kind of kid who liked going over to a friend’s house to play, but then wanted to come home afterward and read quietly by myself. I hated those sleepovers that little girls are so fond of, the ones that last all weekend, until everyone is exhausted and over-sugared and generally sick of one another. But Jack was different. Having him here was different. Everything was different. I shut my eyes, squeezing them tightly together, in the childish hope that this would somehow prevent him from leaving.

  “Hey, you,” Jack said, nudging me gently with his sock-covered foot. “I can tell you’re awake from the way you’re breathing.”

  I opened one eye and looked at him. “You know my sleeping sounds?”

  “Well, I do have some experience with them. You also make this cute little snoring sound when you sleep,” he teased me.

  This time I opened both eyes, and stared at him, absolutely horrified. “I snore? No, I don’t. Do I? No one has ever told me that before,” I protested, having a sudden and vivid picture of myself snorting and grunting like a wild boar.

  Jack laughed. “It’s hardly a snore, more like a sigh. It’s actually very sweet, and very feminine,” he said as he struggled up to a sitting position. He rested his hand on my leg. “I have to get going if I’m going to make my flight.”

  “I know,” I said sadly.

  “I wish I could stay longer. This weekend has been . . .” His voice trailed off, and he looked at me, to see if I understood.

  I certainly did. “I know, for me too,” I said, nodding.

  We’d spent four days together, talking about everything from American foreign policy to whether Madonna was completely overrated (Jack voted a definite yes, I thought no, if only because of her better, earlier work), but we’d somehow managed to avoid the conversation about us. I hate that conversation. It always comes at the point in a relationship where I’m just starting to feel comfortable, and thus completely vulnerable to the inevitable sucker punch when the guy announces that he’s not ready for a “serious” relationship, or that he needs to focus on his career. Or, in the case of Sawyer, that he’s fleeing the country. So I didn’t really want to have the “us” talk with Jack. I wanted to freeze everything where it was right now, so we could remain forever stuck at the lazy, contented, Sunday-postcoital-nap moment.

  “Have you told Maddy yet that we’re seeing each other?” Jack asked.

  “Um, no,” I said.

  “Don’t you think you should?” Jack asked.

  I shrugged, and closed my eyes. When all else fails, try passive-aggression.

  “Claire, I think we should talk about this,” Jack said.

  God, why was he such an adult? I thought women were supposed to chase men down for these talks, not the other way around. Couldn’t we forget the heavy-duty, where-are-we-going, what-does-it-all-mean part of the conversation and just spend the few remaining minutes we had making out?

  “Claire,” Jack insisted, and he jostled my leg.

  I opened my eyes and looked at him.

  “I think you should tell her,” he said. “I want us to be open about what we’re doing.”

  “What are we doing?” I asked, before I could stop myself. Damn, I thought. He’d reeled me in, and like it or not, we were now having The Talk.

  Jack looked at me for a long minute. “I think that we’re involved. Which is what I want,” he said. “Don’t you?”

  I nodded, feeling a burst of happiness that this wasn’t building up to the “I like you, but . . .” speech I’d been fearing.

  “But there are a lot of other . . . considerations,” I said cautiously.

  “Like Maddy,” Jack said.

  I nodded again.

  “Well, you can tell her about us, or if you’d rather, I can. But I think it would be better coming from you,” Jack said. He hesitated for a minute. “I didn’t know if I should tell you this, but she’s been calling me. A lot. I’m trying to be kind but firm with her, but still . . . I think if I called her to talk about this, about us, it might give her the wrong idea.”

  I shivered. I really, really didn’t want to tell Maddy about Jack and me. What I wanted was not to feel how I was feeling about Jack. Or actually, what I wanted was to have his entire history with Maddy somehow erased, so that there wouldn’t be any obstacles to our dating. And, as long as I was having unrealistic fantasies, I also wanted a new, better job, to be ten pounds thinner, and to have a lot more money.

  “Claire,” Jack persisted, making it clear he was not going to let me off the hook on this one.

  “Okay, okay, I’ll tell her,” I sighed. “But I don’t think it’s going to go over very well.”

  “Maybe she’ll surprise you,” Jack said.

  “Maybe she will. Or, maybe she’ll send me a letter bom
b,” I said doubtfully.

  “She’s just one issue. There’s also the long-distance problem,” he said.

  “Yes, there’s that.”

  “I guess for now we’ll just keep trying to get together on weekends? And see where it goes?” Jack asked.

  This startled me. I hadn’t really thought beyond this weekend. I guess I’d fantasized a little—or maybe a lot—about the two of us in a house in Connecticut, the very picture of domestic bliss, with a couple of Baby Gap–outfitted kids and a Volvo in the garage. But the logistics of a long-distance relationship, of schlepping back and forth on long and costly international flights, of not seeing each other for weeks at a time . . . that was going to be hard. But the alternative—not seeing Jack anymore, not having his nightly phone calls to look forward to, not feeling the way I felt when I was with him—was a far worse prospect.

  And as I gazed at him—his eyes, kind and gentle as they met mine, the sharp yet handsome angles of his face, the shock of blond hair that was always falling down over his forehead—it hit me. This wasn’t just a flirtation. It wasn’t just a passing interest. It had reached the point where I couldn’t just forget about him if I tried hard enough, couldn’t brush our relationship off as a vacation fling. The baby-duck-imprinting process was complete—I was involved.

  “What do you think about that plan?” he asked.

  All I could do was nod. Because I was afraid that if I opened my mouth, the panic that was gripping me, the anxiety that was starting to spin out of control, would come spewing out, and I had no idea what form it would take. The one thing I didn’t want to ever happen again, that I swore I couldn’t live through again, was happening. I was falling in love with Jack. The thought scared the hell out of me.

  Chapter 11

  By the time Jack left for the airport, leaving me behind with a kiss and his pleasantly clean masculine scent lingering in my apartment, I was in full-out panic mode. Jack had sensed something was a little off, and as he hustled around to shower, dress, and get his things together, he kept stopping to ask me if everything was all right. My response was always to chirp “No, I’m fine, really” in an overly bright, plastic tone of voice that probably made him think I was losing my mind.