Marrying Up

by Jackie Rose

  I kicked him beneath the covers. “I don’t think so!”

  “Well, maybe we could work something out in exchange for letting you sleep in a bit…”

  “Isn’t that sexual harassment?”

  “If you’re lucky!” He rolled over to grab the glass of water beside the bed. “You gonna report me?”

  Over Remy’s heart, in the pale light coming in from the hallway, I noticed the outline of something very small, maybe the size of a quarter. A birthmark? A rash? A third nipple?

  “What’s that on your chest?” I asked, just as I realized what it was.

  He froze.

  It was a tattoo—a tattoo of a beach ball. With a single name written beneath it.

  Sylvia

  The crush of disappointment descended on me like a pall, squeezing every trace of joy from my newly opening heart in a fraction of an instant.

  It wasn’t me that he loved. It was her.

  It would always be her. And so she would be with us always, existing as a part of him. In ink, least of all.

  This would never work.

  During sleepless nights, I try to figure out exactly what happened, what Remy’s motivations were, and whether or not he was even aware of them. What I came up with was pretty simple.

  Sex. He wanted sex.

  At one point, I half wonder whether one of my brothers had got wind that I liked Remy, called him up and bet him how long it would take him to get my knickers off. Maybe they even had a little pool going back home. Fortunately, though, Mike and Bradley didn’t even know he existed, so it couldn’t possibly be their fault.

  For a few days, I just chalk it up to the heat. In the city, the heat can make people crazy. Especially lonely people. It had made me crazy enough to believe that Remy really liked me, and almost crazy enough to think I could compete with a ghost.

  Yes, the simple fact is that Remy, like all guys, probably just wanted to get laid. He saw me as an easy target—tragically and recently single, living far away from friends and family—and he went for it. He could be forgiven for that. On the other hand, his flattery seemed so sincere. The oldest trick in the book. He hadn’t had a girl up there since we’d moved in, or at least none that I knew of.

  He was horny. I was easy. Case closed.

  Not that he was a jerk about it or anything like that. He called me the next day, and the day after that. He even came downstairs a few times, but I made sure to keep the door locked and just pretended I wasn’t home.

  The last thing I wanted was for him to have to lie and give me some lame excuse about why it—we—could never happen again, why it was probably best that we leave it as a one-time thing. It would be humiliating. Having him think I expected more from him than a one-night stand would be far worse than pining away privately. For now, I still love him; that much is out of my hands. What I can control is the way I deal with it. Hopefully, in time, my feelings for Remy will melt away into harmless memories, of a kind pleasant enough to look back on and smile, without the rankle of regret and hurt and shame that still tortures me when I think about Jim. I should have seen the signs then, but I didn’t. I should have seen the signs with Vale, but I didn’t. This time, with Remy, I would. No excuses.

  So until I can figure out what to say to him and gather up the courage to face him, I have to make sure I don’t completely lose my mind. More than anything, I need a distraction…a way to let the immediacy of the hurt dissipate a little so that I’ll be able to vanquish it completely once I’m ready to revisit it….

  I’ll focus my attention on my work! And I mean my real work, not the encyclopedia stuff (turns out researching acorns and the Acropolis isn’t as cathartic as I’d hoped). I’m a writer; of that much I’m certain. I just need to self-actualize a little. So rejections be damned! The idea of marrying for money is so totally behind me that I honestly couldn’t care less if not a single publisher was interested. Besides, the prospect of faking my way through an entire book about something so false is beyond unappealing.

  Instead, I will rework the entire thing, start anew! Reopening myself to the idea of having a true soul mate—one who hasn’t already found and lost his—will coincide with my new writing project: the process of finding one. It will be unironic, nonsatirical, nonfiction. It will be truthful. It will be therapeutic. And I will be proud to let any prospective life partner know exactly what I’m writing about. If it scares him off, then he isn’t the one for me, anyway.

  chapter 22

  Attempted Love Suicide

  In one of those cruel twists of fate, a letter comes just as I’m putting the finishing touches on my new book proposal. Not expecting much, I drop my purse and keys on the kitchen table and sit down to tear open the last of the envelopes I had stamped and addressed myself with so much optimism nearly three months earlier.

  Dear Ms. Hastings,

  Thank you for your recent submission to MacLaughlin Binch. We would be very interested in seeing a full manuscript for How to Marry a Millionaire (And Still Love Yourself in the Morning!) Please contact us at your earliest convenience so that we can discuss this project with you in greater detail.

  Sincerely,

  Grace Lee

  Senior Acquisitions Editor

  Nonfiction Division

  MacLaughlin Binch, New York

  Shit.

  Seventeen rejection letters and now this. I’m in desperate need of a cash influx, and therefore in no mood to be putting my money where my mouth is, since my mouth has in fact very recently been boasting far and wide how I wouldn’t write that book now if they paid me.

  I am weary to the bone. Is a little mental peace and quiet too much to ask for? After a quick slice of leftover pizza, I run a bubble bath, peel off my work clothes, and slip into the tub. A good long soak will help me figure out what to do, or at the very least, help me forget myself for a while.

  Only once my toes and fingertips are good and wrinkly do I get out. The air in my apartment is mercifully cool (I’d finally splurged on an air conditioner—buy now, pay later!). I flip on the TV, grab one of the giant chocolate bars I’d hidden in the back of the pantry for just such an occasion, and install myself on the couch. Inspired by back-to-back episodes of Extreme Makeover, I paint my toes bright pink and give myself a facial. I drink half a bottle of wine, too….

  The muffled shouts of someone pounding at the back door interrupts my dozing.

  “Holly, I know you’re in there! This is ridiculous, already!”

  No sense in putting it off any longer.

  I stretch, lower the volume on the TV and go over to let him in.

  “Remy,” I say as coolly as I can. “What a pleasant surprise. I just got home a little while ago. Would you like to come—”

  He raises an eyebrow at me, then pushes past me into the living room.

  “It’s been two weeks! Why the hell are you avoiding me?”

  I feign innocence. “Why, I haven’t the faintest idea what you’re talking about! I’m sorry if I haven’t had a chance to return your calls yet, but I’ve just been so busy. You know how it is. So…how have you been?” I shut the door and follow him.

  “You really are an idiot,” he says, grabbing me by the arm as I walk by. “It’s almost frightening. What’s the matter with you?”

  My ice-princess act melts away the second he touches me. “I didn’t want this to get all weird, and now look….”

  “You’re the one who’s made it weird! What’s your problem?”

  I struggle to twist out of his grasp. “Remy…just leave me alone. Please just leave me alone.”

  He lets go and steps back. “I don’t understand.”

  My pulse quickens. I glance at the clock hanging in the kitchen—it has been fifteen days, seven hours and twenty-two…make that twenty-three minutes since I last looked into his twinkling gray eyes. I guess I’m not quite over him yet.

  “I don’t want to be mean, but has it occurred to you that maybe I’m trying not to lead you on? Tha
t I don’t want to give you the wrong idea about us?”

  The hint of a smile crossed his lips. “Wait a sec…” He shakes his head and folds his arms across his chest. “Are you going to stand here in front of me and try and convince me that…that you used me?”

  What an ego! I bet the guy has never been on the receiving end of a breakup in his entire life. “Why? Is that so hard to believe?”

  “Uh…yeah. It is.”

  There’s obviously something seriously wrong with my wiring, because the egotistical jackass thing makes me like him even more. Steady, Holly, steady…

  “Look, Remy. What we had was…wonderful. But let’s be honest with ourselves and each other before we say things we don’t mean….”

  Let him down easy before he could let me down easy—that’s the plan. Because even if he’s up for a fling, I know my heart would never survive when we crashed and burned, as we surely would. Having a ghost as the other woman…how could I compete?

  “What things?”

  “What I’m saying is, let’s just be smart and not go somewhere with this that neither of us really wants to be.”

  “Yeah right.” He stifles a laugh. “If you think I believe that…”

  “Well, aren’t we cocky today!”

  “Holly, there isn’t a single thing about me that you don’t like. And I know it, okay? So you can drop the act. You know, I preferred it when you told me how you really felt, like before we—”

  “Fine, Remy! You’re right! As usual, you’re right! I just wanted to make this easier for the both of us, but what the hell—I’m going to be completely honest, okay? I was trying to give you a way to save face! But if you’d rather come down here and make it harder on me with some line about us being better as friends, or how things got a little out of control, or how maybe once in a while we can do the C.S.B.F. thing, or how you’re gay, or involved with someone else, or just an asshole, or afraid of commitment, or shipping out in the morning, or…or…”

  “Okay, okay! I’d say that covers just about every excuse I could possibly have…at least I think it does. What’s C.S.B.F?”

  “Casual sex between…oh, never mind. Would you please just listen to me? I’m trying to do the right thing here and give you an out. I’d take it if I were you. Then we might be able to salvage our friendship. Because you’re right—I do like you, Remy. A lot.”

  I stare at the floor and try not to cry.

  “So why won’t you even give me a chance to say what I want to say?”

  “Because I don’t want to hear it.”

  “Are you sure?”

  I nod.

  “Fine. See if I care,” he says and stomps out, slamming the door behind him.

  “Oh yeah?!” I shout as loudly as I can. “Well, guess what? There is something I don’t like about you—your cat! I hate cats. Especially Fleabiscuit!”

  I run back into my room and collapse in tears.

  It takes about five minutes for me to rue every single word that has come out of my mouth. No matter how many times I replay it in my mind, the outcome is always the same: I am the fool. Sure, I’ve accomplished my goal—Remy no longer has any say in what happens between us, and I haven’t allowed myself to become one of those silly, needy women who wear their hearts on their sleeve. Women like that are the ones who end up alone or, worse still, in really bad relationships, aren’t they? Sure they are. And I’m not about to let that happen to me. I’m the one in control here….

  But then why do I feel like such crap?

  No matter how hard I fight against opening my mind to the truth, a new awareness slowly asserts itself. Remy Wakefield isn’t an asshole or a jerk; he isn’t a Jim or a Vale. He’s an honest, decent man who never gave me any reason not to trust him. Maybe the reason I feel so bad is because once again, I’ve let my head win out over my heart. Do I really want to be one of those people? Not on your life. Not anymore. And besides, who am I to usurp the natural order of things? Relationships are like living beings, with lifespans of their own. To let this one simply play itself out without me cutting it off at the knees was probably the wiser choice. I’m sure I hadn’t done a very good job of hiding how I felt anyway, and Remy isn’t an idiot. The proverbial shark was circling the lifeboat and my blood was in the water, only instead of trying to stay alive as long as possible, I’d jumped in feet-first.

  It’s love suicide.

  “Having your heart broken by someone else can’t be worse than doing it to yourself.”

  I sit up. The blue glow from the TV backlights a perfect silhouette in the doorway. “Remy?”

  How long he’s been standing there, watching me sob into my pillow in the dark, I have no idea. But I’m thankful that he is.

  “Are you done?”

  “Yeah,” I sniff.

  He walks over to the bed and sits down beside me. “I’m not a game-player, Holly. What you see is what you get with me. So I’ve decided not to let you pull this crap, which I’m chalking up to the fact that the only two relationships you’ve ever had ended like a plane crash.”

  I nod.

  “I was going to come back down here and tell you what’s been on my mind, but since it seems like you’ve already decided that for me, I thought I’d let you go first. Tell me the truth. And you better get it right this time, because this is it. So, go ahead—I’m listening.”

  “The truth?” I sigh. “The truth about how I feel? I’ve been trying to figure that out for two weeks…actually, a lot longer than that. The truth is, I have no idea what the truth is anymore. I don’t think I ever did! I’m so confused about everything these days…how about I just tell you what I’m thinking right now, okay?”

  “Okay.”

  I wipe my nose and sit up. “Okay… So, um, first of all, I’m sorry that I ignored you. I shouldn’t have done that. But the more I thought about that night, you know, what happened between us…the more I was afraid that it was just…just too good to be true, I guess. I didn’t know what to say to you.”

  “How about ‘Hi, Remy, you’re the best I ever had. Thanks a million!’”

  I smile weakly. “No…it’s more complicated than that and you know it. I’m just going to say this as plainly as I can, even at the risk of supersizing your already inflated ego….”

  “What?” He grins, like he already knows what I’m going to say.

  “We can dance around the issue as much as you want, but you know it and I know it—you’re out of my league.”

  “Am I?”

  “Yes. Or rather, I’m out of yours. That’s part of why it could never work.”

  “What could never work?”

  “God, why do you have to make me say it? Us! You and me—we could never work. Couples that are equally attractive have the best shot at happiness. It’s a fact… Not that you’re even thinking we could be a couple, I know, but—”

  “Exactly where do you get this shit, Holly?”

  “It’s basic social psychology.”

  “Well, I took plenty of psych classes and I wasn’t aware of that particular law being written in stone. Wait…is this some sort of weird girly trick to get me to say you’re beautiful? Because that’s really pathetic….”

  I shrug. If there’s any hope of me letting my guard down with Remy for good, then I’m going to need to hear him convince me over and over again how wrong I am about everything. “You can say what you want. But I know the truth. You could never be attracted to me.”

  “Hold on… I’m confused. Did you think I was faking it or something?”

  “I know how the male body works, Remy. I mean you could, technically, be attracted to me for brief periods of time, I suppose, to suit your physical needs, just like Vale could, but in the long run? I doubt it…and I don’t want to spend any more time feeling like crap about myself, or being self-conscious or any of that because, frankly, I’m over it. I’m looking for a soul mate now and I’m not ashamed to admit it!”

  “What happened to hunting millionair
es and…how did you put it? Oh, yeah—‘actualizing financial freedom’?”

  “That? I told you from the beginning—it was all just for the book.” I wink, just to throw him off a little. “I never actually planned to marry one and throw my entire life away, along with any chance at happiness or love. God. As if!”

  He scratches his head. “Okay, Holly. Fine. You’ve been, uh, sort-of honest, and I appreciate it. So now I’m going to do the same.”

  “Okay.”

  I steel myself for the worst.

  “First of all…you have a killer body.”

  “What? What’s that supposed to mean? You could learn to live with me as long as I put a bag over my head?”

  He laughs. “Sorry! It was the first thing that came to mind because, in case you forget yourself, you’re sitting here in your bra and underwear. And with all that stuff on your face…”

  My hand darts up to my cheek and I pull it away—my fingertips glow green.

  “Oh my God!” I laugh, amazed that I’d forgotten. “I am such an idiot! It’s a mud mask—I was giving myself a facial to feel better, and I was eating all this chocolate and wine and—”

  “A mud mask, huh? Well, I’ve seen what’s underneath it, and it ain’t too bad, either. Love those freckles, by the way. Did I ever tell you that my brother thinks you look a bit like whatsername?…that actress, you know, the one who shop-lifted…”

  I grab some Kleenex from the box beside the bed and begin wiping off what I can. “My sheets! What a mess. Do you think it’ll come out?… Wait a sec… What did you say? About your brother?”

  “I, uh, e-mailed him a picture of you. From when we were trying out my new digital camera, remember?”

  How could I forget? My eyes were red in all of them. Remy said I looked like the devil in coveralls. But why would he send his brother a picture of me?

  I open my mouth to ask…

  “Because I wanted him to see the girl I like.”

  “Oh.”

  He reaches for my hand, even though it’s covered in mud. “I’m not emotionally unavailable, Holly. I don’t have a girlfriend. I’m not moving away. I’m not gay or bisexual or crazy or deceitful or any of the other things you seem to enjoy imagining. What I am is here…and it’s not too late.”