ThisTimeNextDoor

by Gretchen Galway

  “Big deal? You didn’t even thank me for my birthday present.”

  A case of duct tape. In assorted colors and prints, including pink zebra stripe. “Thank you. It was really nice.”

  “That’s why you thanked me on behalf of your mother? As though it had been a gift for her?”

  Flinching, he rubbed his hands over his thighs. “I’m so sorry. I saw the way she was looking at me and—believe me, the last thing you want is my mother gunning for you to… be with me. If Blair weren’t actually living with another man, she’d be at her door every day, nagging, leaving gifts, teasing, hinting…”

  “So you like the way things are, is that it?”

  He looked at her. Didn’t she? “There’s more,” he said. “I didn’t know if you’d want to keep seeing me when I told you.”

  A humorless laugh escaped her. “How ironic.”

  “It’s Sylly. He told me if I ever touch you again”—he stopped, swallowed down the cotton in his throat—“I’m fired. And so are you.”

  She braked so hard he almost hit his head on the dashboard. “What?”

  The seat belt, as alarmed as he was, locked itself and sliced into his neck. He popped open the buckle to readjust it, reminding himself not to talk to her while she was driving. “At work,” he said. “At work.”

  With a loud exhale, she drove on. They exited the park, joined the main road west. “Oh.”

  He had to tell her everything. “And at his house.”

  Her mouth fell open another inch. “God.”

  “He’s paranoid about sexual harassment claims, doesn’t want to be connected in any way.” He hoped that would be the end of it.

  She sped through the curves winding under the canopy of trees. Another minute went by. “But… how does he know… you said if you ever touched me again at work, which means he knows you did…”

  Mark drummed his fingers on his thigh, said nothing.

  Her face showed it was sinking in. “Does that mean… Nobody saw… He didn’t…”

  “Yes, it does mean,” Mark said softly. “Somebody did.”

  “Oh, oh, oh. God.” Her hands nervously patted the steering wheel. “Who?”

  “Him.”

  She gaped at him, then turned back to the road.

  He watched her carefully, alarmed how quickly her angry flush had drained out of her face. Now she was almost as pale as her hair. “I have to pull over,” she said quietly. At the next turnout, a semicircle of gravel in the forest, she swerved to the edge, put the car in park before dropping her face into her hands.

  “It’s okay,” Mark said, reaching out to lightly touch her shoulder. He should’ve waited until they go to the house, but he was afraid she’d find some way to eject him out of the car before he could explain. “I’m sure he was exaggerating. He was just upset.”

  “Upset.” She brushed his hand off her shoulder.

  “At least he’s got plenty of incentive to keep it to himself. Unlike an HR person or somebody.”

  She closed her eyes.

  “I almost didn’t tell you,” he admitted.

  “You almost didn’t tell me,” she repeated.

  “I can’t make any decisions for you. Or for us, whatever it is.” He looked down at his hands, back up into her face.

  “So if Sylly finds out we’re—whatever it is—I’m fired.”

  “Both of us,” he said.

  She rolled her eyes. “He’s not going to fire you. You’d have to kill puppies on YouTube before he fired you, and even then he’d suggest therapy first.”

  “He’d fire me. Believe it. Nobody’s indispensable, nobody.”

  “Damn,” she said, shaking her head, lost in her own thoughts. “Damn.”

  “I’m sorry. I never should’ve—I’ve put you in this position.”

  Finally she turned to face him. “You’re giving yourself too much credit. I didn’t do a thing to slow it down.” She shook her head slowly. “Neither time.”

  He’d expected her to be upset, but not this much. “Whatever you want to do, I understand,” he said.

  “You’d love it if we kept sneaking around, wouldn’t you?”

  He suspected “yes” was the wrong answer to that question. “I don’t want to do anything you don’t want to do.”

  “Oh, sure. Well, newsflash. I don’t sneak around with anybody.”

  His stomach sank so deep it was practically touching the gravel under the car. “I can understand that,” he managed to say.

  “Not at work,” she said, narrowing her eyes, “and not around your family.”

  For a moment he drifted out of his body and looked down at himself—helpless, fumbling, speechless in the passenger seat, wanting to say the perfect thing that would bring the warmth back into her eyes. But all he said was, “Right.”

  “You didn’t tell your family about me,” she continued, “but it had nothing to do with Sylly or work, did it? You still wouldn’t want to tell them about me.”

  He closed his eyes. Shook his head.

  “That’s what I thought.” Pivoting away from him, she twisted the steering wheel back towards the road, looked over her shoulder, and hit the gas, sending gravel spinning back behind them into the redwoods.

  * * *

  He called that night. Rose stared at his name on her screen. She let it go to voice mail, then waited for the message to show up.

  “Hi,” his recorded voice said. Then a long pause. “It’s me. I was kind of hoping you would talk to me.” Another pause. “But you aren’t. Unless you’re talking to me in your mind and I just can’t hear you. God, that sounds stupid. If this were an email I’d delete that part. Actually, I’d cancel it and start over. Which is one more reason why email is a technological improvement over phone mail.” He sighed. “I’m really doomed now, aren’t I? Right. Well. Call me or answer my next call. Of course you could be in the bathroom or something and you— forget I said that. Delete delete delete. In case you don’t recognize my voice, this is John.” Then he hung up.

  I liked this guy, dammit, she thought, staring at the phone. She bit her lip, fought back tears. Why couldn’t he be just a little bit… more?

  The house was quiet, dark, empty. She’d always dreamed about living alone. Growing up without any privacy, always living with family and classmates and friends, she’d thought it would be delicious. But now—

  It had been two weeks since Blair lost the baby. She said she was fine, that she didn’t need Rose to keep her company anymore. But there was no harm in checking in.

  Blair picked up on the second ring. “I was calling to see how you’re feeling,” Rose said.

  “You’ve been listening to me for weeks. It’s your turn,” Blair replied. “How was the birthday party? I was hoping you might call tomorrow, if you know what I mean. Because you’d be too busy tonight.”

  Rose swallowed, determined not to lose her grip. “It didn’t really work out.”

  “Oh,” Blair said. “Look, he’s shy. You might have to make the first move.”

  “That’s not it. As long as other people aren’t around, he’s all over me.”

  Blair knew all about how John had treated her. “Oh,” she said again.

  “Yeah. I’ve got alarm bells going off.”

  “You’ve always got alarm bells going off—usually around the third date,” Blair said.

  “I do not.”

  Blair was quiet.

  “I do not,” Rose repeated.

  She still didn’t say anything.

  “Fine,” Rose said. “I have high standards.”

  “Unlike me?” Blair asked.

  Rose went into the bathroom, looked at herself in the mirror. Pretty eyes, pretty lips, pretty hair, blah blah blah. She’d heard a lot about her pretty face growing up, not so much about the rest of her, even from men she slept with. John had been one of the few to appear satisfyingly worshipful.

  Was that what she needed? Worship?

  “I’ve watched my mother
put herself down my whole life, settling for losers, never thinking she deserved better,” Rose said. “I refuse to make the same mistake.”

  The line was silent for a moment. “I think you’re overthinking this,” Blair said. “He’s not a loser and you’re not marrying him or anything. Just give him a chance. See where it goes.”

  Rose bent over the vintage pedestal sink until her forehead bumped the mirror. Her ego was still recovering from the damage John had done, and she actually liked Mark as a person a lot more than she’d liked John. Way too much. “He wants to keep everything a secret. We have to be sneaky at work—that’s another story—but in private, too. Everywhere.” She paused. “He lets his mother think he’s in love with you.”

  “Jeez,” Blair said, finally sounding indignant. “That’s bad. Do you think he just needs a little time?”

  “That’s what his mother says about you.”

  “Oh, Jesus.”

  What if he was thinking the same thing? Rose closed her eyes. “I refuse to waste another minute on a man who only loves me when the lights are out,” she said quietly, her breath fogging the mirror.

  “Oh, Rose.”

  “I thought I was beyond all this. I’m twenty-six, not sixteen. I accept myself. I love myself. All of me.” She stepped back, scanned her figure in the mirror. “So why do I feel so scared all of a sudden?”

  “Maybe because this is a man who could actually mean something to you.”

  Rose stared into her own eyes, not sure she liked the sound of that.

  A long silence ensued. “What are you going to do?” Blair asked.

  Rose had been asking herself that for hours. “I’ve been underemployed for a really long time. I can’t tell you how nice it is to be proud of my job. Having a job at all. Good health insurance, bonus programs, stock options.” She ran her hand through her hair. “My tenth high school reunion is coming up. I might actually be able to go. I was this smart chick who graduated at sixteen, voted most likely to succeed… but then I went nowhere.”

  “It’s not just you, it’s everybody. The economy has been terrible.”

  “But can I throw my first real opportunity away on a guy who hasn’t even had the guts to smile at me in front his mother?”

  Blair’s silence was answer enough.

  Chapter 21

  FOR THE NEXT WEEK AND a half, until Thanksgiving break forced her to stay away, Rose arrived at the WellyNelly offices before eight in the morning and went home after seven in the evening.

  She discovered she wasn’t the only ambitious employee at WellyNelly; although most of the staff worked more modest hours, there were a few young men and women who seemed to have nothing except their workstations, the software, the forums, the online community, and vast quantities of imbibed stimulants, most of them legal.

  Rose joined their ranks with a psychic sigh of relief, anything to stop herself from thinking and feeling too much about her personal life.

  She’d worried about seeing Mark around the office, but shouldn’t have. He hadn’t been into the office since his birthday.

  “Back to working from home,” Jared, one of the programmers, told her as they refilled their coffee mugs in the break room. “He gets more done there. In November his productivity totally tanked. What used to take him a day was taking him forever. Now he’s back, true to form, saving my ass.”

  “Yours?” Mark and Jared, so far as she knew, were in totally different departments. “How does he do that?”

  “I have no idea,” Jared said, misunderstanding her. “But some people are just fucking brilliant, you know? And he doesn’t care at all if I pass off his work as my own. He encourages it, actually.” Smiling, he sipped his coffee and walked away.

  Rose heard similar tales from others around the office, even from Bridget at the front desk.

  “He set up a camera for me so I can snap a quick picture of everyone who comes through the door, label it with their name, study it later. That’s how I learned everyone’s name so fast.” She grinned. “Sylly’s promoting me next month because he says that’s what management needs, more people people. Instead of just geeks.”

  Rose forced a smile, her heart squeezing. “You’ll do great, Bridget. Really great. Congratulations.”

  Just because he was Mr. Wonderful with everyone else didn’t mean he was wonderful for her.

  So she went back to her desk, threw herself into her work. Most of her extra hours were spent studying the revenue stream, a creatively unobtrusive array of advertising.

  The numbers—and the opportunity for growth—fascinated her. Her group, the Women’s Forum, had the same kinds of ads as the rest of the site, which she felt was a major problem. Not that she wanted flashing tampon ads all over it, but WellyNelly was neglecting a lot to keep the site strictly non-gendered and medical. Vitamins were great, but why not put in a little fun? Moisturizers, aromatherapy, yoga-themed spa vacations… she began creating a spreadsheet of hundreds of companies and services she thought would be excellent sponsors of their vibrant, growing network.

  One evening, as she was eating a sandwich for dinner at her desk, she scrolled over the open positions within the company, curious to see what other people, who didn’t have Mark recommend them, had on their résumés. She enjoyed the planning work on her team, but she felt like she was missing out on a lot, had so much to learn.

  The list of qualifications for existing openings at the company made her put down her sandwich.

  MBA. MA. PhD. Ten years experience. Computer Science. Economics. Marketing. Electrical Engineering.

  Stanford, Berkeley, Harvard, Yale, MIT.

  She’d expected at least one position similar to her own, some entry-level biology graduate type thing, but no.

  Mr. Wonderful had pulled more than strings, he’d pulled ropes. Massive cabling. Enough to suspend the Golden Gate Bridge.

  She scanned the jobs again, swallowing the food in her mouth that had turned into a hard, dry lump, then logged off her computer.

  Maybe she was just tired from the long hours and the sleepless nights, but at that moment, Rose felt as if she’d been fooling herself. Just as if she’d tried to pass herself off as a web developer or pediatric cardiologist.

  Except this time, she’d lied to herself.

  * * *

  The Johnsons always had Thanksgiving dinner at their house. Every year, even if Liam was competing around the world, or Mark was on the other side of the country, or even if April was backpacking with another dopey boyfriend in Central America, everyone made the journey home to gorge on roasted oversized poultry and hug their mother. This year was no different.

  Well, it was a little different. Liam had Bev at his side, and she wasn’t at all thankful for the Johnson Family traditional low-carb, protein-powder pie crust—so she baked three pies of her own. Each of them, she declared, placing them on the kitchen table, was half butter and half sugar.

  Nobody complained, not even Liam.

  And April was alone—no sulky, body-pierced lover in tow; another first. She’d been inviting boyfriends to their Thanksgiving dinner since eighth trade, but this year she showed up in her own car, sober, not wearing her usual black eyeliner, and set about making a salad without insulting anyone.

  Mark assumed he looked the same as he always did: alone, quiet, slightly miserable. He snuck pieces of Bev’s pie crust into his mouth while he stringed green beans next to the sink, lost in thoughts of soft, creamy skin, smiling blue eyes, and deep feminine laughter.

  Liam poked him in the ribs. “What’s the matter with you?” He held two glasses of wine, one extended outward.

  “What do you mean?”

  Liam rolled his eyes. “You’re sighing so loud I could hear you over April’s shitty music.”

  “She dumped him,” April said, reaching across Mark’s chest, claiming the glass for herself.

  “Ah,” Liam said knowingly.

  Mark flung a green bean into the bowl. “What’s that supposed to
mean?”

  “I didn’t say anything,” Liam said.

  “Ah,” Mark mimicked. “Like you’ve got me all figured out.”

  Liam shifted his gaze to April. They stared at each other.

  “Forget it.” Mark dropped a handful of beans and strode out of the kitchen to the back porch. The winter rains had started, making a satisfying march out into the peace and quiet of the great outdoors unavailable, so he paced back and forth between the doggie beds.

  Zeus joined him a few minutes later, looking as miserable as Mark felt. Some sadist had put the dog in a miniature reindeer suit, complete with antlers and sleigh bells. Never had Mark seen such disgust on the loving, patient animal’s face. The bug eyes and lolling tongue suddenly captured the indignant rage poor Zeus was unable to express verbally. Look at this shit, he was saying. Can you believe what I have to put up with?

  Mark squatted down. Unfastening the antlers, he gently rubbed Zeus’s tiny, bony skull. “Who did this to you, dude?”

  Grateful, Zeus applied his tongue to the side of Mark’s face like the shammy in a touchless car wash.

  Liam stepped out onto the porch and closed the door to the kitchen. “Looks like this is where the men hang out.”

  Not interested in conversation, Mark lowered himself all the way to the floor, legs crossed, and captured Zeus in his arms without a word.

  His brother joined him on the floor. “I told her the antlers were too much.”

  “Who?”

  “Kate. Bev’s sister. She’s designing the Fite Dog line. I was just showing everyone how hideous it is.”

  “I knew I didn’t like that woman.”

  Liam stifled a snort.

  “Shut up,” Mark said. Kate was just one more of the women Mark had the misfortune to dream about. Very briefly in her case, thank God; Bev was a lot nicer than her sister.

  “Sorry.” Liam held out another goblet. “I got you a fresh glass.”

  Shaking his head, Mark nuzzled Zeus, remembering the look on Rose’s face when the dog climbed up her chest.

  God, he missed her.

  “You might as well tell me. I’ll keep harassing you until you do,” Liam said.