by Viva Fox
I tossed on the bed and remembered how much I had loved what we had. It felt good to be with him, and it felt like I had found a lifelong partner. I guess it was just a misconception that if he would have stuck around we would have made a real go of things. I was such a fool to sacrifice so much for his benefit. I was such a fool to pretend for so long that I was happy with how things were. The hurt of that stung my eyes and I cursed myself for being so stupid.
And now, in the aftermath, I had to carry on. I had been doing a good job of leading a new, semi-fulfilling life without him, creating all kinds of ideas of being a great martyr. Now I had to face the idea that maybe he was just another man who liked sleeping with a woman who liked letting him be in control.
I snuggled deeper into the bed, willing myself to fall asleep so I wouldn’t have to think about Jack Lawson anymore.
******
Morning came, despite sleep eluding me. At some point during the night, just before the sun dusted my room in light, my disappointment and guilt turned to anger making it impossible to get my thoughts to settle down. I may have made a mistake sleeping with Jack and not telling him about Will, but Jack had no right to make me feel bad about my decisions and my life. Will was my life and I had learned to be happy, and he had no right to take that away from me.
I hit the alarm, rolled out of bed, and got ready for work in a dull haze. I dropped Will off at daycare a few minutes early, giving me some time to walk to the coffee shop down the street from work. The coffee we made at Vinny’s only looked like coffee, but it tasted like dirty dish water. That wasn’t going to cut it today.
I sipped the strong hot coffee as I walked at a slow pace down the block. It was quiet and a little cool this morning. I used that to gain a bit of clarity when everything seemed a little murky at the moment. Arriving at the front door of the restaurant I paused outside to finish my drink, not quite ready to face the noise and chaos within.
When I could no longer put it off, I walked through the door to the sound of the bell jingling. Grabbing my apron from a hook in the back I passed by the kitchen. From beyond, Vinny yelled out,
“You’re five minutes late. And you got a customer waiting.”
I rolled my eyes, knowing that to Vinny, being five minutes early is the equivalent of being five minutes late. I finished tying the apron strings and grabbed a couple of menus. Looking over to my section of the floor I spotted the lone customer sitting with his back to me in a booth. Jack. My heart raced in my chest and adrenalin pumped through me. I didn’t expect to see him any time soon. If ever I was to experience a fight or flight response it was now.
My head was telling me to run, that nothing good would come from a confrontation. But my body, fueled by my renewed anger, was drawn down the aisle towards him. Each step felt heavy, like I was walking towards disaster. By the time I reached his table I was already too nervous and angry and damn near ready to explode. I slammed the menu down on the table, satisfied when Jack startled. He looked up at me, eyes rimmed red. If his face was showing that much stress I didn’t want to know what mine showed.
“What do you need, Jack?” I bit out.
“You left yesterday before we had a chance to talk.” His voice was irritatingly calm.
“I’m working. And I already said everything I needed to yesterday.”
“Don’t you think you owe me more than that?”
“That’s just the point. I don’t owe you anything and vice versa. I simply came to your hotel to give you some information I thought you needed, which I did. Besides, if you wanted to discuss anything further you could have done it then, instead of standing there like a zombie.”
“Can you blame me?” He looked at my through sad eyes. The unwavering politician in him was nowhere to be found.
I didn’t answer. I couldn’t let him hear the guilt that was sure to come through. My pride was far too wounded to give any more of myself away.
“Can’t you take a break or something?” His voice pleaded. “I would really like to talk to you. I need to.”
His voice was still quiet, so reasonable and calm, making it hard for me to be angry.
“I just came on shift, I can’t take a break now.” I looked around the restaurant. There was no one else in my section, and only an elderly couple in the section on the other side. I conceded.
“It’s slow. I can probably sit for a minute.” I sat and he gave me a wary smile. It was sad, and it made that guilt eat at me all the more. My anger was fading fast. “What do you want to know?”
“Did you know you were pregnant before I left?” His question was immediate, rapid fire, like it had been on his lips the whole time.
“No. I found out a couple of weeks after.”
“But you didn’t you tell me?”
“No.”
“Why?”
“Because I didn’t think you would have wanted to know.”
He screwed up his face. “How could you think that? I made him too. He’s part of me too. More importantly, he’s part of us.”
“But there was no ‘us’. I didn’t want to become your responsibility. I thought we would hold you back.”
“You don’t get to choose that for me. Maybe I wanted to be there. Maybe I wanted there to be an ‘us’.”
I searched his eyes and I saw the hurt. The hurt I had put there.
“But you left.” I said softly.
Jack rested his elbows on the table and ran his hand through his hair. He let a moment pass, considering the scarred up tabletop. When he looked back to me his eyes were full of regret.
“Leaving you was hard, Marie. But when the opportunity to move up came along I took it without thinking you wouldn’t want to come with me. Then when I couldn’t convince you to come I realized I had no right to ask. I had no claim to you.”
“And I didn’t have one to you. We weren’t even dating, not really anyways. We had to hide our relationship from everyone. How was I supposed to justify moving for you when for all I knew I was just a fling. I would have been a fool.”
His mouth smiled, but his eyes didn’t. “Life has a way of kicking you in the ass, doesn’t it? Maybe if I would have stuck around a little while longer one of us would have worked up the courage to admit what we felt. Things could have been a lot different for us. But as it turned out, I didn’t and then you cut off all contact with me. I guess now I know why.”
“I didn’t want to force you into my life, so I guess I forced you out instead.”
“When you came to my room yesterday I was excited that you wanted to see me again. That I was going to have a chance to get to know you again. Then when I put the pieces together that you had a baby, my baby, I panicked. You have to know that my reaction was only because I was surprised. I can’t even tell you everything that ran through may head.”
“Dread?”
“Yeah, a little of that. But a lot more than that too.” He studied me for a minute before asking, “Was it just your obligation to tell me because I was back? Would you have ever told me even if I hadn’t?”
I picked at the worn edges of the menu sitting between us. The emotions he was dredging up were raw and I wasn’t sure if I was ready to expose them, but I owed it to him to try. My voice came out in barely a whisper. “I don’t think so. I didn’t tell you because I had loved you. That hadn’t changed. But when I was faced with the idea of being close to you again, it wasn’t just an obligation to tell you. I didn’t feel right to keep him from you anymore. I realized how unfair that was to you.”
Jack just nodded and turned his head away to look out the window. His expression was blank, his eyes unseeing. I wasn’t sure if he would ever be able to forgive me for that decision, but even if he held it against me for the rest of my life I couldn’t blame him.
The restaurant was starting to fill up, the breakfast crowd bustling noisily around us, but I couldn’t bring myself to leave this table. Finally, Jack turned back to me.
“Who does he look like?”
“You.” I smiled. “He looks just like you.” I pulled out my phone and found a good picture. I held it out to him and Jack took it from me, hesitant. When he looked at the screen, though, the corner of his lips pulled up into a small smile.
“Does he know about me?” He asked, still looking at the picture.
“No.”
Jack glanced up at me, pain in his eyes. But then he nodded and looked back to the phone, thumbing through more of them. After a moment he sat back against the red vinyl booth and looked at me.
“So what now? Can I meet him?”
“Of course. You’re his dad, you can see him whenever you want.”
“I’m his dad.” Jack repeated with a shake of his head. “That’s going to take some getting used to. And us?”
“What about us?”
“Let’s not beat around the bush. We already established that we wanted more from our relationship before it ended. I think we proved yesterday that things still work between us. Plus you’ve already admitted that you love me.”
“For the record I said I had loved you. Past tense.”
“Same thing.” He waved his hand dismissively in the air. “And furthermore, I can’t see you every day and think only pure thoughts. It’ll drive me mad. If we’re in each other’s lives it’s going to have to be full time.”
“Don’t you think that’s a little extreme? We haven’t seen each other in three years. You can’t just storm around and make a decision like that.”
“Well I’m sure as hell not going to leave any more of our decisions up to you. This time I get to decide for the three of us, and my decision stands.”
I smiled at Jack. No use arguing with a politician.
THE END
A Senator’s Secret
“I just can’t sit here anymore!” I exclaimed to myself as the walls of my apartment started to close in. Today was The Big Day. Today I found out if I had landed a prestigious internship with the Senator James Fuller Chilton aka the thirty two year old Kid Wonder aka Mr. Future President aka Sexiest New Freshman Senator.
I had just graduated from Thomas College with a degree in politics and I was keen to cut my teeth on some real action. I saw myself as a future Chief of Staff and/or Mrs. President to a handsome Mr. President, which given recent developments in politics had often proved to be one and the same role.
I grabbed a parka and headed for Henlow Park to work off my nerves as I waited for the call. Walking through the falling leaves of the park I was so lost in thought daydreaming about my blazing success of a Washington Future I didn’t hear my phone ring until it was on its fourth ring.
Fumbling, I grabbed for the call and gave a breathless, “Hi” into the receiver then cringed at my casualness.
“Sasha Jones?” queried a confident male tone.
I straightened up, “this is she,” I replied as professionally as possible.
“Wonderful,” the voice enthused down the line, “Sasha, terrific. Sasha this is James Chilton, Senator. You applied for an intern role in my office?”
I nearly dropped the phone. Senator Chilton himself was calling? I pictured the Senator from his recent Time cover. Thick dark blonde hair, square jaw, straight brown-eyed gaze and reassuring smile. He looked like a stock image photo for the American Dream. But would you expect less from the scion of one of America’s major political families?
I recovered my poise, “Senator Chilton, thank you for the honor of your call.”
Senator Chilton chuckled down the line, “Oh Sasha no need for formalities, especially if we may be working together. And reading your impressive C.V. I would say the honor is mine, and your fetching picture that came with it. Now how are you placed for an interview?”
I struggled to respond to make arrangements for an interview in a few days’ time. Senator Chilton had seen my picture? And described it as fetching? At 5’6, slim, slightly busty and with long brunette hair and a bright smile I was often described as no slouch in the looks department but someone like James Chilton dates models before settling down with a society beauty. I blushed; glad the Senator couldn’t see me.
Arrangements for an interview were made and Senator Chilton tied things off with a cheerful, “I can’t wait to meet the picture standing before me, Sasha,” and hung up before I could even respond.
I stood in the park looking down at my phone. I had struggled to hold my own just on the phone with the handsome Senator, I had better bring my A game to the interview…
******
I strode confidently into the offices of Senator Chilton. I had spent the last few days preparing hard for my interview, from reading James’s memoir of his political youth to getting a haircut and a discreet French manicure. In a neat skirt, blouse and blazer I looked the part, I hoped.
The receptionist welcomed me with a friendly smile and mentioned I was among the Senator’s last appointments for the day and she was on the way out. She gestured to me to sit in the comfortable waiting area, along with one other young person, a guy dressed in an expensive suit whose haircut looked like it cost four times what mine did.
I took a seat on a couch that came with a plate attached saying it had sat in a Presidential library before. This was no ordinary freshman Senator’s office. The waiting room alone screaming power in the making. I had my first bout of nerves, the Chilton’s stood for the everyman in politics but as for actually having one as intern…. as the daughter of a welder and a nurse I was feeling a little out of place.
The young guy reached out a hand to me from his equally luxurious seat, “Fletcher John Winslow, of the Pennsylvania Winslow’s, Harvard, you?” he barked at me with a cocky smile.
I sat back in my couch, taken by surprise. Surely people like this didn’t really exist? Apparently so, as Fletcher John Winslow looked back at me expectantly.
Taking his cue I responded with charm and confidence of my own, “Sasha Anne Jones, of the Michigan Jones, Thomas College.”
Fletcher’s smile faded slightly then returned to a beam as he replied patronizingly, “Ah lovely, Sasha. It’s so great of James to be…. diverse…. in his interviewing, to give everyone some practice in interviewing on the hill.”
My smile remained equally false and bright, “Practice? Well I didn’t expect to come here today just for practice…may the best man or woman win hey?”
Fletcher dropped my hand and his smile, straightening his suit, “Well of course, but you must know an office like Chilton’s requires a certain….type.”
I raised an eyebrow and let Fletcher go on, feeling annoyed a man I admired was even interviewing such a guy as this. Maybe I had read Chilton wrong when I saw him as a blue blood but one who was hard working and really cared about all his constituents.
“Of course,” continued Fletcher, “our fathers were in a society together…. you know how it is,” Fletcher finished with a shrug.
As I was contemplating my response the tall frame of Senator Chilton strode into the room. I let out a slow breath. James was even better in person than on the cover of a magazine. In person he brought sheer presence, he changed the energy of the room just by walking into it. My stomach did somersaults and a fire began in places it really, really shouldn’t when you are about to be interviewed by your potential new boss…and major political figure.
“Fletcher! Sasha!” boomed James with a charming smile, “thank you for coming. Fletcher, good to see you, how is your father? Wonderful!”
I frowned and looked at my shoes at James engaged Fletcher in mutual acquaintances banter. James announced apologetically to me he would interview Fletcher first and he ushered Fletcher on ahead down a wide hallway decorated with framed photos. I sat on my comfortable historic couch feeling both filled with desire and confusion. I wanted this job and I wanted this man, I shouldn’t want him…. and it seemed like I might just be a token glancing presence in his life after all.
As all these thoughts tumbled through my head I looked up to see Fletcher striding conf
idently ahead of James and James’s broad back turning to me to deliver a slow, confiding and mocking wink in Fletcher’s direction.
Maybe I would be more than a token interview after all….
An age seemed to pass before James and Fletcher emerged back into the room, all jokey boys-together smiles. James gave a smiley farewell to Fletcher and then turned to me with a relieved smile, “Well, Sasha, this is just between us but that was just a painful obligation interview I had to do, family friend, you know how it is.”
