Mixed Signals

by Diane Barnes

  “Oh, Jillian,” Rachel says. She slides the bags of dresses to the end of the bench and sits next to me. “Are you okay?”

  “He has a goatee. God, did it look bad.”

  We sit quietly. The smell of pretzels floats in the air. Rachel stares at the stand across the way. “She was beautiful,” I say. “Scarlett Freaking Johansson beautiful.”

  Rachel stands and walks away. A few minutes later she brings back two pretzels with caramel dipping sauce. “He’s getting on with his life, Jill. You should too.”

  “I’m trying.”

  Rachel drags a piece of her pretzel around the plastic container of caramel. “You’re not. You need to start dating again.”

  I watch the crowd rushing by us. Couples, friends, families. No one is alone. “Who am I supposed to date?”

  “You need to take a chance,” Rachel says. “Do online dating. Make something happen instead of waiting for something to happen.”

  * * *

  Sunday is the kind of late-winter day that is a coming attraction for summer. The temperature soars to sixty-four degrees, which feels more like a hundred after suffering through single digits for the past three months. Dressed in shorts and a T-shirt, I lace up my sneakers and head outside for my first outdoor run of the year.

  Mr. O’Brien stands at the top of a ladder, raking the remaining snow off the roof. Zachary waits on the ground below him, looking up with his hand tented across his forehead.

  “Is it safe for him to be up there?” I ask, looking up at Mr. O’Brien. I have to shield my eyes from the bright rays of sunshine reflecting off the ladder.

  “It’s fine,” Zac says.

  “It’s more dangerous for you to be standing there,” Mr. O’Brien calls down. A moment later a pile of slush falls from above and lands next to me. “Move before you get hurt,” he yells.

  I wave goodbye and jog down the driveway, out onto the wet street. After being cooped up all winter, it feels great to be outside with the wind at my back. Clearly I’m not the only one who thinks so, because when I turn onto Commonwealth Avenue, there’s a large group of runners on the other side of the street, a club getting ready for the Boston Marathon, which is less than a month away. Nico and I often talked about training for it, but neither one of us was willing to commit—the story of us, I guess.

  A feeling of malaise has settled over me since bumping into him yesterday. I’m hoping running will shake it off, but I can’t stop thinking about him as my sneakers pound the pavement. I wonder if seeing me has made him regret leaving, or after I walked away, did he wipe the sweat from his brow, kiss Bonnie, and laugh, saying, Dodged a bullet there!

  This thought causes me to quicken my pace. Sweat drips down my face. The sound of my heavy breathing drowns out the music on my iPod, so I crank the volume. The song is about a woman who has just gone through a break up and is fighting to take back her life. I sing along. The lyrics make me think about Rachel’s lecture. She’s right. I just can’t hide away in my apartment. I need to get out and meet people. I’m going to do it, starting with going to Renee’s party with Ben and then activating my profile on the online dating site.

  Three miles later, exhausted and sweaty, I turn back into my driveway. The ladder is gone, the icicles have all been knocked off the house, and the roof is snow-free. Old man winter might finally be releasing his grip on us.

  Inside my apartment, I head straight to my phone to text Ben: Do you still need a date for Renee’s party?

  His response is immediate: No, I’m taking you.

  * * *

  Before I go to bed that night, my phone rings and Nico’s name flashes across the screen. I blink hard and read it again, just to be sure I’m not imagining it. I’m not. He’s really calling. Maybe seeing me made him realize how much he misses me. God, Jill. I should never have let you go, I imagine him saying. Can we go to dinner, talk?

  You had your chance. You blew it, I’ll say, and I’ll laugh.

  You won’t! says my know-it-all voice. You’ll welcome him back with open arms.

  I swipe my screen horizontally to answer the call.

  “It’s me,” Nico begins.

  Me who? I want to ask to show him he’s not first in my thoughts anymore.

  “It was weird seeing you yesterday.” The way his voice breaks catches me off guard.

  “You too.” I sit on my bed. The image of the Victoria’s Secret bag in his hand flashes through my mind. “So Bonnie is pretty, but boy that laugh must be tough to take.”

  “When did you get so nasty, Jill?”

  The day I came home to find the back of your pickup truck loaded with all your belongings. “What are you talking about?”

  “Hacking the website and writing horrible things about me, replacing Bonnie’s picture with Miss Piggy, calling her the contest winner, making fun of her laugh. That’s not you, Jillian.”

  “I had nothing to do with the hack, and you have to admit, she sounds like she has a bad case of the hiccups when she laughs.”

  He sighs. “I don’t want to fight.”

  “Why did you call?”

  “Sean told me he hasn’t seen you at the tennis club for a while.”

  Was he asking Branigan about me? “Yeah, well, I’m public enemy number one around there after the mixed doubles tournament.”

  “That’s what I wanted to talk to you about.”

  “You want to talk about the tennis club?”

  “Sort of.” He pauses. “I want you to come on the air and apologize for your bad call in the tournament.”

  His request leaves me speechless.

  “Branigan will leave you alone if you do,” Nico says.

  “You want me to apologize to him?”

  “It’s the only way all this will end.”

  “I have to go.”

  “I’m trying to help you, Jillian,” Nico says.

  “Why?”

  “Why? Just because we’re not together doesn’t mean I don’t still care for you.”

  “Yeah, I can tell how much you care by all the stuff they’ve been saying about me on your show.”

  He sighs again. “Branigan is unreasonable. We both know that. You’re going to have to be the bigger person to end this.”

  “I’m not apologizing to him. He hit the ball out.”

  “Did he really?” Nico asks.

  I see the ball bouncing, just catching the line. If I had to do it all again, I wouldn’t, but there’s no going back now. “Even if he didn’t, it’s no excuse for what he’s said about me.”

  “Jill, I’m giving you a way to end this. Don’t you want to put it all behind you?”

  “Not if it means I have to apologize.”

  “Will you at least think about it?” Nico asks.

  “He should apologize to me,” I say before hitting the end button.

  Chapter 21

  Monday morning I’m stopped at a malfunctioning traffic light that stays red for three minutes but remains green for only fifteen seconds. I know this because I’ve been stuck here for six cycles and timed it on the fourth. The song I was singing along to ends. I change the station back to BS Morning Sports Talk. For the entire commute, I’ve been punching the radio’s buttons, alternating between music and the sports station. Talking to Nico yesterday has put me on edge. Branigan is up to something. Otherwise, Nico wouldn’t have called. So far, though, they have been talking about nothing but baseball on the show.

  “We’re going to switch gears for the third hour of the program,” Branigan announces. “Nico’s ex-fiancée hasn’t returned the ring to Nico.” My grip on the steering wheel tightens. “We want to hear from you. Does she have the right to keep it, or should she give it back?”

  The first caller is Kevin from Ayer. “Hell yeah, she should return it,” he says. “If she won’t give it back willingly, take it forcefully, man. Finger and all.”

  The driver in the car next to mine laughs. I hope he’s listening to something else.

&nbs
p; The light turns green. I accelerate through the intersection, barely making it through before the signal goes back to red. Smyth takes another call: Susan from Somerville. “Hasn’t the poor girl had enough heartache?” she asks. “Let her keep the ring.”

  Thank you, Susan.

  A long line of slow-moving vehicles coming from the opposite direction prevents me from turning left. I edge out, hoping someone will stop. A woman in a CR-V blasts her horn, almost clipping my front bumper as she creeps by. Like it would have killed her to stop? Honestly. A man in a pickup motions for me to go. I wave as I cross in front of him.

  Natasha, an attorney from Framingham, is next on the show. She has this to offer: “The engagement ring is a conditional gift—the condition being that a marriage will take place. If it doesn’t, the agreement is null and void.”

  As I pull into the parking garage at work, Branigan takes a call from Frank from South Boston, but it’s definitely my landlord’s voice that comes over the airwaves. I sit in my car listening to what he has to say. “When did this show turn into a soap opera?” Mr. O’Brien asks. “Aren’t you fools supposed to be talking about sports?”

  “Okay, Frank,” Branigan says. “We’ll talk about sports right after the break. For you callers we didn’t get to, cast a vote on our website.”

  Cast a vote on the website? I walk into the building outraged by how far Branigan is taking his revenge. In my aisle, Ben and Renee are sitting in his cube drinking coffee. “There’s my date to your party,” Ben says as I join them.

  “I’m glad you’re coming, sweetie,” Renee says as she stands to return to her desk.

  “What made you change your mind?” Ben asks.

  “I need to get out and have fun.”

  He cocks his head. “I’ll be sure you have fun,” he says in flirty voice. “I’ll make it a night you can’t forget.”

  “That’s what I’m counting on.” I wink at him.

  * * *

  It’s like picking a scab, causing it to bleed again, the way I keep visiting the radio station’s website to check on the survey results, feeling more disappointed each time I do. More than 95 percent of respondents think I should return the ring, 2 percent say I should keep it, and the rest don’t care.

  “How many times are you going to look at that?” Ben asks. It’s the fourth time he’s caught me on the site today. He places the printout of the new brochure he’s designing on the desk beside me. “All the text doesn’t fit. Can you cut some out?”

  I look through the copy while he leans over my shoulder reading my computer screen. After going through the brochure a few times, I strike out a paragraph. As I’m reviewing the copy again to ensure everything still makes sense, Ben asks, “Why don’t you return the ring to Nico?”

  I add two new sentences before responding. “He’s never asked for it.”

  Ben rolls his eyes and points toward my monitor. “This is his passive-aggressive way of asking.”

  “Yeah, well, he’s going to have to man up.”

  Ben shrugs. “If you want to show him that you’re over him and have moved on, you should give it back.”

  I hand the brochure to him without saying anything.

  “Maybe you’re not over him,” Ben says before leaving.

  After he leaves, I look at the survey results again. The percentage of respondents saying I should return the ring has jumped to 97. I tell myself that I’m keeping it because after everything Nico’s done, he doesn’t deserve it back. In the back of my mind though, the tiny voice that doesn’t let me get away with anything whispers, You’re keeping it because you think you’ll wear it again someday.

  * * *

  All twenty-seven members of sales and marketing are sitting around the conference room table waiting for Brian from IT to connect Stacy’s laptop to a projector. She’s previewing our new website to the team today. A bright light shines on the ceiling as the IT guy fiddles with the projector. He adjusts its height and the light moves off the ceiling down the wall. After he presses a few buttons on Stacy’s computer, the image of the new home page fills the white screen.

  The conversations around the table end. A few people gasp. “Wow.”

  “This is the beta version of our new website,” Stacy announces. She highlights the company’s name, Cyber Security Consultants, and points to the logo, a lock with the acronym CSC written out in what looks like a string of binary numbers. She toggles to another screen to compare the new image with the old CyberCrimeBusters logo, a cartoon of a burglar typing on a keyboard. “Much more professional, wouldn’t you say?”

  She previews the site page by page, starting with the About Us section. She clicks on an employee profile that focuses on Lucas and enlarges his picture. No one recognizes him because he’s wearing a dress shirt and tie instead of his usual flannel shirt and skull cap. “Highlighting a staff member is a great new feature,” Stacy says.

  Everyone around the table nods in agreement.

  As Stacy shares the site, she occasionally looks at Renee, Ben, or me and smiles. Each time she does, Ben nudges my foot with his while Renee elbows me.

  “What did you think?” Stacy asks after showing the last page. “Did you see anything that you’d change?”

  Ryan raises his hand, which isn’t at all surprising. He has to talk during every meeting to show how smart he is. Usually, he proves the opposite. “The graphics in the banner should have more variety.”

  Ben folds his arms across his chest. “They need consistency to tie the site together.”

  “It’s all the same. It’s boring,” Ryan says.

  “There are subtle differences,” Ben counters.

  “Give me an example of a site you like,” Stacy says to Ryan.

  The room is quiet while Ryan tries to think of one. Of course he didn’t have anything in mind. He just spoke to hear himself talk.

  Renee sneezes. We all say “Bless you.” The silence returns.

  “You can’t give us an example?” Stacy asks.

  “One,” Ryan finally says. He glances at me. “www.wspr.com.”

  My muscles stiffen as Stacy types the URL into the browser. The radio station’s home page appears. The banner displaying logos of all Boston’s sports teams comes up first. Then the menu listing each of the station’s shows across the top of the screen appears. “Click on any of those,” Ryan instructs. “You’ll see the pages that come up are different.”

  Stacy moves her cursor to the first link, which of course is the one for the morning show. She clicks her mouse. BS Morning Sports Talk’s page fills the screen. In big bold letters, the headline across the top of the page screams: SHOULD JILLIAN RETURN THE RING? There are two radio buttons, one labeled Yes, the other with No. The survey’s up-to-the-minute results appear below, showing that 97.8 percent of listeners think I should give the diamond back.

  I push my chair away from the table. I eye the door, thinking about running out of the room. Would that make me look more or less pathetic? More. Definitely more.

  Stacy frowns as her mouse moves across the copy. My coworkers stare at me. I look down at the table, refusing to make eye contact with anyone.

  Stacy removes her glasses and taps them against the edge of the table while she studies me.

  For the love of God, click off the page.

  She turns her attention to Ryan. “I like our treatment of the images better.” She looks at me with what I think is a smile and drags her mouse to the No radio button and clicks on it. Renee and some of the other woman in the room clap. Stacy shuts down her laptop and the screen on the wall goes blank. Thank God! “We’ll do some minor modifications and be ready to go live in three weeks,” she says.

  The meeting ends. Ben quickly stands. “If you would just return the ring, you could end all this,” he says. He rushes out of the room without waiting for Renee or me.

  Chapter 22

  Ben, Renee, and I are at Donovan’s, a restaurant down the street from the office. Stacy let us go earl
y after demo-ing the website. It was Renee’s idea to come here. I hate this place. There are banks of televisions tuned to sports channels on each wall and above the bar. Whenever Nico and I came here, he’d spend more time paying attention to the games than to me.

  “Did I tell you Lenny hired the band that played at our wedding for the party next week?” Renee asks.

  “Will you have to check them out of the nursing home for the night?” Ben asks.

  Renee swallows the last of her wine. “They’re only in their fifties, wise guy.”

  “Only,” Ben says, reaching for a nacho. “By the way, what do I wear to this shindig?”

  “The suit you wore to the holiday party,” Renee answers. “With a different shirt and tie.”

  An image of Ben in his charcoal gray suit and red shirt, the night of the Christmas party, flashes through my mind. He’s holding me tight during the last dance of the night, our bodies practically melded together. This is dangerous, Jill. I wish I were the one going upstairs with you. I push my empty glass to the side and cast a sideways glance at him, wondering if we’ll pick up where we left off that night.

  The waitress arrives at our table. “Another round,” Ben says.

  Renee shakes her head. “Not for me. Gotta get to Joel’s hockey game.”

  “Jill, you’ll have one more with me?” Ben asks.

  Renee and the waitress walk away from the booth together, leaving Ben and me alone.

  “What are you wearing to the party?” he asks. “I’ll coordinate my shirt to your dress color.”

  Leave it to a graphic artist to worry about that detail. I think of Nico with the one suit, white dress shirt, and tie he owns. In a million years, he would never have thought to match his shirt to my dress.

  I shrug. “Haven’t thought about it yet.”

  “How about that blue strapless number you wore to your father’s retirement party.” He whistles.

  My hand freezes over the plate of nachos. My father retired over four years ago. If Ben hadn’t reminded me, I might not have remembered what I wore to the party. “How do you know what I wore?”

  “You showed us pictures.”