by Lauren Wood
“Hey, Mom.”
“Hey, honey. How is your day going?”
“It was actually pretty good. I think that the company is about to do something drastic, and they are bringing in all kinds of people to smooth over the ripples that are coming. Makes me think I might have a position there for a while, as long as I can prove some worth to them.”
“Well, if you were ever good with anything, it was making people see things your way. You were always the mediator. You had a way of wording things that made it hard to punish you sometimes. You were just so sure of yourself and you always made it seem the simplest answer, your way of seeing things.”
I chuckled and told her that it was just a nice way of saying that I was hardheaded.
“Oh, Madeline, you will get no argument here. Raising you was like living on the debate team. You were into making deals and getting people on your side. You really did find the right job, and I am glad that you were able to find something that suits you so well.”
I felt the same way about it, yet I was a bit slower on the uptake of being sure in my position. It was just the first day after all. There was still the question of what I was supposed to do with the whole Chris thing, but I was trying hard not to think about it. It certainly wasn’t going to help anything. Not that I could see anyway.
At the same time, I was bursting to tell someone about Chris.
“So, what about your boss? Is he nice?”
“I have several and they all seem alright.”
“What is it that you’re not telling me?”
She always knew and I decided that I didn’t want to bare my soul at the moment. I wasn’t ready to talk about it, because then I would have to figure out what I was even feeling about it, and I can’t say that I was close. I don’t know how I felt. It was just that simple.
“Let me talk to Emily before she goes down to bed.”
“Okay, but she’s already getting sleepy. I don’t know if she is going to make it to seven.”
“If you let her go to sleep early, you’ll be up at five every time.”
I was a bit stressed about all of the routines and systems that I’d put in place. She liked to have things a certain way and that was something I worried about. Mom was never good with routines, or at least she hadn't been when I was little. I remember that her only consistency was inconsistency, and I didn't want Emily to have lost all of those schedules by the time I got us all back together.
“Okay, dear. Here she is.”
“Hey, baby. Mommy misses you.”
“Love you.”
It was one of the first things that Emily had said when she first started talking. I blamed it on the fact that I probably told her I loved her fifty times a day. I was still amazed by how much a tiny little human being could change everything about my life. Now the emotions felt even rawer than it did before. I knew that I was going to have to raise her alone and even though it had been a hard prospect to even fathom, I had done it. I was getting better, and now Chris was back in my life again. I didn't know what to say or what to do about it.
The conversation didn't last very long because she was tired. I could hear it in her voice and after the phone was set down, it wasn’t long before mom was back on it.
“Sorry, baby. I know you want to talk to her, but she's just so little. Maybe next time we could try a video call.”
“Yeah, that's a great idea. I will put the app on my phone for tomorrow. Is there anything else I can do from here? Is there anything that you need?”
“No, Madeline, we're fine. Emily is fine. You're doing so good. This is what you needed, and you finally got it. I'm so proud of you.”
I got off the phone with her and tried not to feel awkward about it. My mom had changed a lot since losing dad and she was a lot more touchy-feely about everything. It wasn't bad of course, but it still made me feel weird. I wasn't used to her talking like that.
After getting off the phone with her, I was finally able to deal with all of the feelings that were going through me.
I was just feeling devastated by what all had happened today. Being around Chris and pretending like I didn't even know who he was, even though he was probably one of the single biggest changes in my life, was harder than I had anticipated. I did need the job, really bad, but how was I supposed to deal with working with him on a daily basis and keeping my mouth shut? I had never been good at secrets, and I can't even imagine how he would react. Emily was well over a year old, and he didn't even know she existed.
It did hurt my pride a little bit that he didn't even recognize me. It must have meant that things had changed on my body since I got pregnant. My boobs were bigger, and my hips were wider. My curves were probably more pronounced, but even that was going back to the old way. My hair was a darker blonde now, but not much had changed. How could he not remember me at all?
I went to bed that night and tried not to think about it. I didn't do a very good job, though; it was almost two o'clock in the morning before I finally got any sleep. I was so tired that by the time my alarm clock went off a few hours later, I missed it.
When I did finally wake up it was about twenty minutes after I was supposed to already be at the office. Fear ran through me. I couldn't be late for the second day of work. That was not going to look good and if I wanted to keep this job, which I desperately did, the only thing I should be focused on was getting there on time every day. It wasn't that complicated but somehow, I was now scrambling around the tiny studio apartment, getting myself together just before I left out the door.
Ten minutes later I was at work and trying to blend in. There wasn't a clock-in sort of situation at Keaton Enterprises, but it still felt pretty clear to me that everybody knew I was late. Nobody said anything to me, but I just knew they knew. Observation was another form of breathing since I'd been here.
“Good morning, Madeline.”
I jumped at the sound of Chris’ voice. He wasn't that close to me, but I wasn't expecting it, and I spilled a little bit of the coffee that was in the cup in my hand.
Chris rushed over and apologized profusely. He had napkins in his hands, pressing them against the front of me before he realized what he was doing.
Then our eyes met for a moment and I was sure that then he could feel the same thing that I did. It was not something new. We had been here before. How could he not remember?
I took the napkins out of his hands and thanked him. The longer we stayed so close and he still didn’t know who I was, somehow made it worse.
“It's no big deal really. I learned a while back to always bring an extra shirt with me. I'll just go get it out of the car.”
I went to walk away from him, and he stopped me with a touch on my arm.
“Tell me where we know each other, Madeline. It’s really starting to drive me crazy. I know that I've seen you before.”
“I've only been in the city for a couple of months, so there must be somebody running around that looks like me.”
Besides, it’s wasn’t that he’d seen me before. He’d done so much more than look at me. So much more…
“It's not just the way you look, Madeline. It's something else. I feel something when I'm around you, like we are connected in some way. I know that probably sounds ridiculous.”
I pulled my hand away and snickered like he was just joking around. I wanted to believe that he wasn’t, and he did feel something deep inside like I did, but the mere fact that he didn't even know who I was, probably told me everything that I needed to know. Obviously, he was not as affected by me as I was to him. He didn't even know that we had a daughter out of those few hours in the haunted house back in Hartville.
“I don't know what to tell you, sir, but I really need to go change my shirt.”
“It's Chris, remember? Chris.”
I agreed, but I didn't look back. I didn't think that it was safe to. Every time I got around Chris, I did things that I wasn't supposed to do. I was finally back on track, and I could
n't let an experience that he didn't even remember change anything. Finally, I was starting to get everything that I wanted and the last time I was in this position, it all went to hell. I wasn't going to let that happen again. If that meant staying away from Chris, that was exactly what I was going to do.
It was probably for the best anyway. I knew back then that he was out of my league and even now, now that I knew who he was and what he really did, it was no less true than before. If anything else, I could finally see how impossible it all was. Any sort of fantasy that I had of Chris and me being together was now gone.
8
Chris
The more I was around Madeline, the more I was convinced that there was a reason I felt the way I did about her. I wasn't even sure what it was that I felt, just that it was a whole lot of confusion.
The next day at work, I was going to ask her if she wanted to go out for lunch, but I got a pop-up visit from my fiancé instead. The worst part of it all was that it was done in front of half of the PR team. I didn't like to bring my romantic life into the office, but in this situation, Cynthia was a little bit of both. I could recognize the fact that I was so perturbed about it. It was because it was done in front of Madeline. Why I was so bothered by that, I can't really say.
Cynthia was in full form. She had a neon pink dress and some kind of bows and ribbons in her hair that matched. The shoes matched, as well as a little purse that she slung on her forearm. Wherever her arm moved, the tiny little bag moved with it. It was almost comical, but I wasn't stupid enough to laugh.
“What's up, baby?”
“I am at work, Cynthia. Did you need something?”
She frowned at me and told me that she didn't need a reason to come see me.
“I just wanted to come see my fiancé, silly. I missed you and you haven't answered any of your calls. Now that I'm here, though, it looks like you're out of your office for lunch, so let's go get something.”
I noted the way that Madeline looked when Cynthia said the word fiancé. It was stupid to be upset with the situation. It wasn't like I could hide the fact that I was about to marry Cynthia. The whole reason that I hired Madeline and the other three people for the PR team was because I knew that we were going to need public relations for the fall out. And it was because of my wedding and subsequent divorce to the very woman standing in front of us.
“Sounds like a plan.”
I grabbed her arm and walked with her to the elevator. My steps were quick, and she had to walk a little faster to keep up. I just wanted out of the situation and out of everyone's view. I felt like everyone was watching us, especially Madeline, the one person I didn't want to know that I was engaged. It was all a farce after all. Now that it was known, though, I knew that it was going to kill any chance I had with her, something I desperately wanted.
“What is going on with you, Chris? Why are you acting so strange?”
Cynthia could not understand it. She had never had a job in her whole life and just short of saying that directly, I told her that this is how work was. I couldn't just have her dropping in whenever she wanted to. I didn’t want her popping up.
“My father always liked when my mother stopped by to see him.”
I really doubted that, but I didn't say it out loud. It was becoming increasingly harder for me to keep my mouth shut when it came to Cynthia. I knew what I should and shouldn't say, but sometimes she made me want to pop off with other things that I knew I shouldn't. It was hard for me to fight the desire to do so.
“I am sure that he did. I am just having a really busy day today and I don't want to take it out on you.”
“So, you're telling me you can't go to lunch?”
I knew that I had a meeting that I had to go to. My assistant Steven would call me soon enough and tell me that I had places to go and people to see. It wouldn't take much and then I wouldn't have to worry about her thinking that I was trying to get away from her. It would be out of my power to control.
“No, I can go with you. Let me just take care of a few things, and I'll meet you at any restaurant you want to go to.”
“You don’t want to drive in together?”
Again, with the bottom lip quivering. I couldn't believe that it actually worked for anyone. As much as Cynthia used it, it must have worked for her in the past. It was her go-to from what I’d seen.
“I will meet you wherever you want to go. Do you want to go get some sushi over at the place down the block?”
Her nose wrinkled again. Every time she didn't like something, her face took on a characteristic of somebody who smelled a skunk. I wanted to laugh at it, but I knew that she would not see the humor in it. My fiancée did not find humor in most things.
“Not that place. They had a health violation last month for improper food storage.”
I just sighed and told her that I would go wherever she wanted. She was the one that kept up with the cleanliness of every single restaurant in the city. I did not. I had definitely eaten at some questionable places and never thought twice about it. I hadn't always had money after all, and food was food.
There was a summer before college that I wanted to go see the world and backpack Europe like so many other kids did in my class. My father didn't want me to go and by then he couldn't force me to do anything, or so I thought. He turned off all of my credit cards and didn't say anything to me until after I was gone. I got to Europe and I didn’t have a dime to my name. I learned then to struggle a little bit, because I did not want to go back home to my father. I stuck out the whole summer without any help from him, working and making money as I made my way through Europe, a lot slower than I first anticipated. It was a great summer and I will always remember it as one of the times I got one over on my father. In reality, though, it taught me a lot.
Once she finally considered her options, Cynthia came up with a restaurant that she wanted to go to. Coincidently perhaps, it was one of my least favorite restaurants in the city, and I'm pretty sure that she knew it. It was her little passive aggressive way of getting back at me, I suppose. It didn't hurt my feelings any. If anything else, it just made me realize how childish she was.
“Sounds great. I’ll see you in a little bit.”
I kissed her on the cheek and walked away before I let my true emotions show. How much longer did I have to put up with her? The deal with her father's company was quickly upon us and it couldn't come soon enough. I was starting to think that maybe I should really push for it to all go down before the wedding. If I was lucky, then maybe there wouldn't have to be a wedding at all.
When I got back to the PR room, everyone had pretty much left for lunch. I noticed immediately that Madeline was still there, straightening out some paperwork that was on her desk.
“I was going to see if you wanted to have lunch together. Although, I see that you already have someone to go with. She's really pretty.”
There was a sadness in her voice, and it didn't make much sense to me. I felt sad because I had lost the chance with Madeline. Knowing that I was engaged and going to be married soon, was pretty much a deal breaker for most girls. I had a feeling that it was for her as well.
“Thank you, I guess. Not really sure what I am supposed to say to that. It is sort of an arranged marriage.”
Her blue eyes met mine for a moment. “I didn't think that we did that sort of thing here. I mean, it’s modern times in America, and they still do that?”
“In my world they do. Finding someone to marry is one of the most important parts of being an adult. It's supposedly the most important decision that you'll ever make, and my family really believes that. Marriage should always be advantageous.”
As I was saying it, I knew that it was ridiculous because it was a pretty damn important decision, and I never would have picked Cynthia. She was not my type in so many ways. I didn't really have a choice though. The only thing that kept me from completely losing my shit was knowing that it was only temporary. I didn't have to stay married to her
forever. Just for a little while and then I would be free to live and do what I wanted. That was the only thing that kept me going along with the plan to begin with. If it was forever, there was no way that I could have promised such a thing.
“Well, I have to get going. I hope you have a good lunch.”
Madeline didn't mean it and I knew that I wouldn't. How could I, when the person I was eating lunch with was so different than me. It wouldn’t have been so bad if Cynthia could at least try to see things a different way, instead of only her way. But, she couldn’t be bothered. No other way of seeing life mattered to Cynthia.
I wanted to kick myself for the whole damn situation. Cynthia popping up like she had ruined what I thought could be a very nice… what, affair? I don't know what I thought would happen with Madeline, but now, it felt like I was going to miss out on something great. Because of my fiancée, Madeline was never going to look at me the same again.
9
Madeline
I don't know why I was so upset when I found out that he was engaged. Obviously, he knew nothing about me or Emily. So, there was no reason for him to do things any differently than he was already doing them. I knew this, of course, but that didn't change the fact of how I felt when I heard him say it. It broke me a little inside to know that he was about to be married to someone else.
I shouldn't have cared, I know that. But I did. It just meant that any fantasy that I had of the two of us getting together was never going to happen. He was about to marry a beautiful redhead with perfect porcelain skin. She was so much like him that they belonged together. What had happened between us those few moments of bliss in a haunted house in the middle of nowhere wasn’t something that he even remembered. He didn't remember me, and I told myself then that I needed to forget about him.
