Personal Jurisdiction

by Minot, Diana

  Whitney raised an eyebrow at Alex. “I had no idea you knew so much about skydiving.”

  Alex shrugged. “I wasn’t kidding when I said I wanted to do it someday.”

  Whitney admired the primitive artwork. “Alex, this is amazing. I mean, wow. Really thoughtful. And it reminds me of so many happy moments from this year.”

  Alex beamed. “I’m glad you like it.”

  Ben showed up, then, with Whitney’s drink. “Here you go,” he said, handing her a cocktail.

  “Thanks!” she said. “Ben, look, Alex drew me this wine label because of how I like to choose my wine bottles based on their labels.”

  “Huh,” Ben said. “Cool. Although, I thought you were more of a beer person.”

  Alex raised an eyebrow, although he said nothing.

  Whitney just laughed. “Oh, come on, Ben. We’ve talked about this before! I love wine.”

  Ben shrugged and looked at the label. He did not seem to understand the significance of the artwork.

  “Well, Alex, it’s awesome. I love it. Thank you,” Whitney said.

  “You’re welcome. Happy Birthday, Whit,” Alex said. He reached over to give Whitney a big hug, then left the party without another word.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  The Sunday after Whitney’s surprise birthday party, the girls met for brunch. Elise and Jamie would be leaving for Saint Thomas the next Friday, and Elise insisted that they needed to get together before Spring Break. Late Sunday morning, Whitney joined her friends at the pancake house that was becoming their favorite brunch spot. Usually, Elise was the one who immediately demanded to know the latest gossip from her friends, but Whitney beat her to the punch this morning.

  “So, what’s going on with you and Evan?” Whitney asked as soon as she sat down.

  Elise broke into a huge smile. “Oh my word, isn’t he perfect? I told you girls, if you look outside of the law school, Chicago really does have a lot to offer in the hot men department!”

  “Are you guys officially a couple or what?” Jamie asked.

  “We’re official!” Elise said. “We had the talk at Whitney’s birthday party, the night before he left for South America. Ugh, I wish he wasn’t out of town for the next ten days. By the time he gets back, I’m going to be in St Thomas. It’s going to be forever before I see him!” Elise dramatically dropped her head into her hands on the table. She was only down for a moment, though, before she popped back up. “Speaking of your birthday party, Whitney, how are things with you and Ben?”

  “Ugh, I don’t know guys. I was hopeful after that party. I mean, it was an awesome night, and that party was amazing. I can’t believe he planned it all for me! But he drove me home afterwards and dropped me off at the door like we were just buddies or something.”

  “What?” Elise said. “He spent all that time and money planning that party for you, and then he didn’t even kiss you?”

  “No kiss,” Whitney confirmed. “And what’s weirder is that he hasn’t really talked to me all weekend. I mean, I texted him yesterday to thank him again for the party, and he texted back saying it was his pleasure. Then this morning he texted me asking if I was sure that I did not want to go to Greece with him. I told him that I wished I could but that it’s way too late to buy plane tickets now. And that was it. Nothing else.”

  Elise frowned. “I think you should move on.”

  “Oh come on, Elise! Seriously? You always waffle on this. Friday night you said he was a keeper!”

  “I know. But I mean it this time. I don’t know what that boy’s deal is, but I don’t think you should waste your time on him anymore. He plans this extravagant party for you and yet he can’t come up with a more thoughtful birthday gift than chocolate.”

  “The party was a pretty big gift,” Whitney countered.

  Elise ignored her and continued. “And then he barely talks to you all weekend. He’s been dragging you along since the beginning of school last August. It’s time to cut him loose. At the very least, give him an ultimatum. Look at all the other options you have. What about Jake? He’s gorgeous and fun. And he has a stable job already.”

  “Jake’s a great guy. But I’m in love with Ben.”

  “You’ve been saying that since last year,” Jamie said, piping in. “But why? Honestly all he has done is cause you heartache and confusion.”

  “When things are good with him, they are so good. We can go out for dinner and talk for hours. And I’m so attracted to him.”

  “Look, I know you like him,” Elise said. “But I think you should give him some sort of deadline. He’s always pulling you back and forth. You get so happy when he pays attention to you, and then so sad when he doesn’t. It isn’t healthy. I know you think he’s a great catch, but you are a great catch, too. I hate seeing your happiness so tied up in one fickle man. It shouldn’t be that way.”

  Whitney sighed. “I’ll think about it.”

  “You better,” Elise said. “I’m going to be asking you about this when we get back from spring break.”

  Whitney knew Elise would keep that promise. And it was true that Ben’s mixed signals were getting old. Maybe a week away from him for spring break would give her some clarity.

  * * *

  The rest of the week flew by, and Whitney barely saw Ben. He texted her frequently, but said he was busy getting ready for his trip. Whitney told him that was fine since she had to get ready for her trip, too. In reality, she did not have much preparing to do. She packed one small suitcase with several pairs of jeans, long-sleeved tees, and hoodies. She did not feel like trying to figure out cute outfits. There was not going to be anyone around to impress, anyways. It was just Alex.

  Since they were driving, Alex wanted to leave Friday afternoon as soon as their last class was over. Whitney had made no effort to influence the travel itinerary. She was literally just along for the ride, and had no idea where they were stopping. The only input Whitney had given on the travel plans was to tell Alex what her budget was for her half of gas and hotels. He insisted that she only needed to cover her food since he was spending the money on gas and hotels anyways, but she insisted on paying her half. They never reached a definitive conclusion to that argument, which meant that Alex had won.

  When Whitney climbed into Alex’s car on Friday, he asked her if she had her passport.

  “I do, actually. I like to have backup I.D. when I go on a trip. Why?”

  “We’re stopping in Buffalo tonight, and we might hop over to Canada for a bit tomorrow. Have you ever seen Niagara Falls?”

  “No. In fact, I’ve never even been to Canada,” Whitney said.

  “You can’t be serious,” Alex said.

  “Why would I have been? I’ve spent most of my time way down south in Texas.”

  “True. Well, this should be fun. It’s somewhere between an eight and nine hour drive to Buffalo, so we’re going to get in pretty late. I’m going to try to power through and make good time the best I can.”

  Whitney glanced at her watch. It was 3 p.m. It would be almost midnight by the time they got there. But at least they were not wasting their available Friday afternoon driving time. “It would be awesome to see Niagara Falls! What else are we doing?”

  “Well, I thought a lot about the trip, and decided that, with just a week, it made more sense to pick one spot to explore rather than bouncing all over.”

  “Okay.”

  “So, after Niagara Falls, we’re going to drive to Portland, Maine and spend the week there. I’ve always wanted to go to Maine, and it’s still pretty cold there, so hopefully it won’t be too overrun with tourists. Does that sound okay?”

  “Sounds good to me,” Whitney said.

  “Are you sure? I mean, I know I told you we were going to see several places. I don’t want you to be disappointed.”

  “Really, Alex, it’s fine. I’m happy to not spend the entire week driving. Speaking of driving, how long is the drive from Niagara Falls to Portland?”

  �
��It’s going to take about nine hours.”

  Whitney groaned. “Ugh so we have two days of basically driving all day.”

  “I know,” Alex said. “But we’ll get to Portland tomorrow night, and then we’re there until next Saturday morning. We’ll have almost an entire week to hang out and explore. There are some companies that do guided brewery tours there, so I might want to look into that. But otherwise, we can just decompress from school and relax.”

  “I’m looking forward to it,” Whitney said. “My best friend Rachel back in Texas tried to convince me not to come to law school by making me read all these horror stories of life as a law student. Some days I wish I had listened to her.”

  Alex laughed. “I hear you. It’s a different lifestyle, that’s for sure.”

  Alex picked up speed as they headed out of the city, and Whitney started fiddling with the radio settings.

  “Are you seriously going to make me listen to country music the whole ride?” Alex asked.

  Whitney shot him a winning smile. “Guilty as charged!” She found a country music station and then leaned back and fell asleep.

  * * *

  After a long drive, several hours of which Whitney slept through, the pair arrived at their hotel in Buffalo. Whitney dragged herself and her suitcase into the room, and then sprawled out and fell asleep across one of the double beds. She had not realized how tired the last few weeks had made her, but having a week ahead of her with nothing to worry about except relaxing made it easy to slip off into a peaceful sleep. Alex stood for a few moments watching Whitney’s back rise and fall with the rhythm of her breathing, and then he put a blanket over her and got ready for bed himself.

  The next day, they drove across the border into Canada to see Niagara Falls. Although you could see the falls from the American side, Alex had heard that the view was better in Canada. They crossed Rainbow Bridge and drove around in circles until they found a parking lot near the falls. Whitney could have wandered around the viewpoints for hours. She stood looking out over the railings, getting soaked by the spray coming from the falls. The view was impressive.

  “I should have brought a rain jacket,” she said to Alex. He just shrugged and smiled. He looked younger and happier today than he had in a while. It reminded Whitney of the way he had looked at the bar the first night she met him. Law school had been taking its toll on all of them.

  Alex eventually pulled Whitney back to the car. He wanted to get going so that they would make it to Portland at a decent hour. They switched into dry clothes and grabbed an early lunch, managing to be on the road by noon. Whitney started scrolling through the playlists on Alex’s iPod, which he had hooked up to his car’s stereo.

  “You have no country music on here!” Whitney complained.

  “Why would I? You know I hate it.”

  “But, aren’t you from Houston? How can you not have any?”

  “I was so young when I left Houston.”

  “This is sad. I need to dig my iPod out of my suitcase next time we stop.” Whitney settled on a soft rock playlist. Then she reclined her seat and put her feet up on the dashboard. Her socks were striped pink and purple.

  “You can’t be serious,” Alex said, pointing to her socks.

  “Why not? We’re on vacation,” Whitney said brightly.

  Alex shook his head in amusement. “You are something else.”

  They fell silent for a few minutes, listening to the sounds of The Eagles and Phil Collins. Then Alex suddenly glanced over at Whitney and asked, “So, what’s up with you and Ben?”

  “Why does everyone keep asking me that?”

  “I don’t know, maybe because he throws you an extravagant birthday party and then you two hardly speak for the rest of the week. It’s seriously weird.”

  “Are you keeping tabs on how often we speak? Because that’s seriously weird.”

  “I’m his roommate, Whitney. I see him all the time. All he does is go to class, then come home and play video games for hours. I’m kind of worried about him. I’m not sure he’s even doing the assigned reading for class anymore.”

  Whitney frowned. This was not the first time Alex had mentioned Ben’s video game obsession. She hated video games, and she was not thrilled to hear that she was taking a backseat to them.

  “I don’t know, Alex,” Whitney said. “He said he wasn’t ready to be in an exclusive relationship, and that he wants to take things slowly. That was at the beginning of February. There are days that he texts me nonstop, and every now and then he’ll take me out to dinner. And, yes, the birthday party was a big deal. But then there are these random periods of time where he acts like I don’t exist. I don’t know if he’s just scared, or confused, or what the deal is.”

  “Has he kissed you again?”

  “Alex!”

  “Well, has he?”

  “No.” Whitney looked out the window sullenly.

  Alex did not say anything for a few moments. Finally, he spoke, “Look, Whitney, I know that Ben has a lot of things going on with his family back home right now, and he’s distracted by that. But you can’t keep letting yourself be strung along because he’s indecisive. I think if he was really into you, he would have made more of an effort by now. I mean, something’s wrong if he hasn’t even kissed you. How can he look at you and not freaking kiss you?”

  Whitney looked over at Alex, surprised at his earnest tone. But Alex was staring straight ahead, his jaw set in a grim line.

  “I don’t know,” Whitney said, and then the pair fell silent again. But Whitney’s uneasy feeling about Ben continued to grow. Whitney sighed in frustration. It was spring break. She was not going to see Ben for several days, so there was no need to make any decisions right now. She would worry about it next week, when she was back to school and back to Ben. Right now, she was going to forget about it and enjoy the road trip. Whitney turned up the volume on the radio, then leaned back into her seat and closed her eyes.

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  By the time Whitney and Alex pulled into Portland at 9 p.m., Whitney was regretting ever agreeing to a road trip. After spending two days in the car, she was ready for something different. As she lugged her suitcase into their hotel room, she said a silent prayer of thanks that Alex had decided to limit their trip to one destination. Her legs felt stiff, like they had forgotten how to move.

  “So, what are we doing tomorrow?” Whitney asked.

  “What do you want to do tomorrow? It’s your birthday, isn’t it?”

  “Well, yes, but I already had a big party and you already gave me a gift. We don’t have to do something special just because tomorrow is the actual day.”

  Alex gave her a look that said she was not getting away with skipping her birthday.

  Whitney sighed. “I don’t know. We could just go to dinner somewhere nice or something like that.”

  “You are so uncreative,” Alex said.

  “Well, it’s my birthday. I don’t have to be creative if I don’t want to be,” Whitney said, and started rummaging through her suitcase for pajamas.

  The next morning, Whitney woke up to Alex shaking her. “Hey, Whit, get up!”

  Whitney opened her eyes, squinting at the lamplight. “What time is it?”

  “5:30. Get up!”

  Whitney sat up. “5:30 in the morning? Are you out of your mind?”

  “No, I’m not. Get up! We’re going on an adventure! Dress warmly.”

  Whitney groaned as she rolled out of bed. “This had better be good!” She put on jeans, thick socks and her fake UGGs. Then she chose a long sleeve shirt and her thickest fleece hoodie.

  “How is this?” Whitney said, modeling her outfit for Alex.

  “Perfect,” he said. He handed her a travel mug of coffee and a carton of blueberry muffins. “Happy Birthday! Real Maine blueberries. They better be good!”

  “I’ll tell you what better be good—this adventure. I don’t like being woken up at the asscrack of dawn.”

  �
�It’ll be good, I promise.”

  After driving fifteen minutes, they pulled up to a large grassy area where a large white pickup truck was parked. Nearby was a huge piece of colorful fabric. Whitney looked around confused and then realized the fabric was connected to a large basket.

  “Alex, is that a hot air balloon?”

  “Yup! I’m taking you on a birthday balloon ride.” He handed her some gloves. “You’ll probably want these, too.”

  Whitney got out of the car and looked at the balloon in awe. She had never seen a hot air balloon up close before, and it looked huge. Whitney had always wanted to go on a hot air balloon ride, but had never wanted to spend the money on it. She knew it was several hundred dollars a person, and wondered how much Alex had spent on this. “Alex, this is so cool. I can’t believe you set this up!”

  Alex beamed. “Well, I was going to try to set up skydives for us, but I know you are freaked out about that. I thought this might be a nice way to ease into that.”

  Whitney rolled her eyes at him. “I’m never going to skydive.”

  “Never say never.”

  The crew setting up the balloon called them over and had them assist with holding the balloon open while the burner inflated it. Whitney was in awe. “This is terrifying,” she yelled over at Alex. “It’s like a giant flamethrower is there just a few feet away from you.”

  Alex just grinned. Before long, Whitney and Alex were in the basket and the balloon was lifting off the ground.

  “Ahhhhh I can’t watch,” Whitney said. She squealed and instinctively buried her head in Alex’s chest. Alex wrapped his arms around her and laughed.

  “You should watch. It’s part of the fun. Come on,” he said, and pushed her toward the basket’s edge.

  Whitney squealed again but allowed herself to be positioned near the edge and look over.

  “Oh my god, oh my god, oh my god!”

  “Oh, be serious, Whit. We’re not even that high yet!”

  “It’s scary!”