Authors: Eileen Cook
“Listen, I have to go. Can you just tell everyone that I won’t be in the rest of today? I’ll be ready to go by tomorrow for the live feed from the trail. I just need the day, okay?”
“Okay. I’m sorry I didn’t say anything.”
“I’m sorry I didn’t listen to anything so I guess we’re even.”
I put the phone down quietly and stood up. Diana looked up as she came into the room, clearly surprised to see me.
“I came to walk Rooster. I didn’t think you would be home,” she said.
“Where the hell have you been?”
“Out.”
“Do not play the surly teenager with me.” I swallowed down the urge to add “young lady” in case I started channeling my dad.
“You don’t need to worry about me.”
“Somebody has to be worried.” I crossed my arms over my chest.
“I’ll let you know if I’m taking applications for the role.”
“Your mom reported you missing. The Positive Partnership people called me wondering if I knew where you were.”
“You didn’t tell her I was staying here, did you?”
“No, but I should. You can’t hide out here. She has to know that you’re okay.”
“Why? She doesn’t really care how I’m doing.”
“You don’t know that,” I said, even though both of us had our suspicions. How I ended up defending her mother was a mystery.
“Look, I’m sorry if I’m in your way. I can move out as soon as I find a place to take Rooster.”
“I didn’t ask you to move out.” We stood there standing nose to nose, both of us with our hands on our hips. It was a female stand off. “We need a plan.”
“I’ll call my mom and tell her to call off the search dogs, okay?”
“Sit down for a second.” I sat and tapped the cushion next to me. Diana watched me, looking a bit wary as though I might bite. “Come on, just sit. I want to talk.”
Diana sat on my leather club chair across from me. Rooster stood in front of her like a guard dog.
“I haven’t been so good at this mentor thing.”
“You haven’t been so bad. Besides, you were pretty clear you weren’t looking to do any mentoring.”
“Yeah, about that. Someone said something to me and I wanted to check it out with you. You don’t feel like you have to mentor me, do you?”
“You could use the help,” Diana said.
“That wasn’t the question. I mean why do you do the whole Princess Di thing?”
“It isn’t a thing.”
“Wrong word choice. Why do you want to be connected to Princess Di?”
“Why not?”
I cannot fathom that I was ever this annoying when I was a teenager. Not even when I was trying to irritate my family.
“Diana was pretty messed up,” I pointed out.
“Most people are pretty messed up actually. She just did it in front of a camera. Besides, I have it on good authority that a lot of the stories about her were manufactured by the palace. Not the queen, mind you, but her henchmen, in an effort to discredit her.”
“Henchmen?”
Diana nodded solemnly.
“Diana never struck me as a happy person,” I countered, dropping the issue of shadowy evil henchmen.
“What makes you think people are happy? I think more people become unhappy from trying too hard to be happy. Everyone thinks everyone else has it better so instead of being content they are always watching out for the next big thing.”
“Don’t you think people are happy?”
“I don’t worry about them. I just worry about me.”
“Are you happy?”
“For right now? Yes, I am.” She stood, clipping the leash onto Rooster’s collar. “I’m going to take Rooster out for a walk. Then I’m going to go home.”
“You don’t have to. You can stay.”
“You don’t have to be nice to me.”
“I want to be nice to you.”
“You should be nice to yourself once in a while.”
“I’m working on that.”
“Can Rooster still stay once in a while? My mom isn’t too crazy about him. If I could leave him here sometimes it would help.”
“Sure he can. What about you?”
“If I go home and talk to my mom, can I still stay sometimes too?”
“You’ve got a key. Let yourself in.”
Diana slipped out the door with Rooster. I didn’t tell her I already gave him a walk. I had the feeling she needed the fresh air as much as I had. Besides, the dog would sleep well.
And I had another phone call I needed to make.
* * *
I knew Jonathon would have an explanation. Tackling him with accusations the moment he walked in the door wasn’t going to work. Before we had a big conversation I wanted us to have some time together, to remind ourselves how good it had been when we first met.
He brought a bottle of wine to help smooth over our truce. We watched a movie on my sofa. He had his arm around me and had pulled me close so that I was leaning on his chest. My neck was at an unnatural angle and I was pretty sure I was developing some kind of cramp. Blood flow to my brain was likely being impeded. When the credits finally rolled I started to sit up.
“Where you running off to?” He pulled me back down. I draped my hand over his chest in an effort to get comfortable. He’d unbuttoned his shirt part way. He had a hairy chest. It was like suddenly finding myself with David Hasselhoff, and nothing against the Germans who are supposedly mad about him, but he always struck me as having that hypertrichosis wolf-man disease. I felt the prongs on my ring catch in his chest hair and fought off the urge to shudder. I pictured the hairs jutting out of the ring like amputated spider legs.
“What do you think of Princess Diana?” I asked.
“You mean the dead one?”
“I’m pretty sure there was just the one.”
“She was a nut job for sure. She had it made, money, looks… and she spent half her time boo-hooing. ’Course then there was her husband, who was fooling around on her with that Camilla broad. Now she’s a barker.”
“A barker?”
“You know—woof, woof.” He caught my eye. “Don’t get upset. I shouldn’t have said that, it was just a joke. I’m just pointing out that Charles was as crazy as she was.”
“Why do you think she was crazy? Maybe she just believed in true love and when it didn’t work out, it broke her heart.”
“What is it with women and Princess Di?”
“I think she’s the kind of woman we all wanted to be and we hated her at the same time for making it look like it wouldn’t work. That there were no fairy tales.”
“Now you’re getting too deep for me.” He looked over at my clock radio. “Whoa, it’s getting late. I need to get going.”
“Yeah, sure.” I pulled the throw blanket up over my shoulder. I’d invited Jonathon over trying to remind myself why I liked him, but all I’d managed to do is highlight the fact that he really wasn’t who I thought he was, who I wanted him to be. I thought he had it in him to be a better person, but I never wondered if he was actually interested in being a better person.
“How much longer is the girl going to be here?” he asked as he pulled his shoes on.
“Not sure. She might stay sort of off and on. I think it’s important for her to have a safe place to go. I’m trying to figure something out for the long-term.” I fought the urge to remind him of Diana’s name. He kept calling her “the girl” which was starting to grate on my nerves.
“Once you get that settled, I was thinking of Wednesdays.”
“Wednesdays?”
“I thought I would tell Brenda that I joined a basketball league. One of my buddies belongs and it meets every Wednesday. If she calls him he’ll vouch for me.”
“Oh, okay.” This is exactly what I wanted. A relationship I could count on. Somehow I thought it would be more. “So are you saying we’ll just see each other on Wednesdays?”
Jonathon gave me a look. “I know what you’re thinking.”
“Bet you don’t,” I countered.
Jonathon crossed over and sat down on the sofa, pulling me close so that he was spooned behind me. He nuzzled my neck. “You know there’s no reason for us not to sleep together. You know I want you and I know you want me too.”
The last thing on my mind was lust-filled thoughts for him. “I told you I wasn’t comfortable sleeping with you until things were settled with Brenda.”
“You know I’m going to leave Brenda, but it’s going to take time. There’s no reason for us to deny what we want.”
“Uh-huh.”
“You’re worried that I’m going to pick my wife over you and you don’t have to worry. I love you. I want us to be together, but when we are together, I want it to be perfect.”
“I’m less worried about your wife and more wondering about the sales team receptionist.”
“Carrie?” He pulled back slightly so that a cool pocket of air slipped between us. “Your friend told you about her, didn’t she? The Indian girl from work. The whole place is a bunch of gossiping cows.”
“Her name is Avita. Did you ever notice that you have this tendency to label people instead of using their names? Besides, my friend, the gossiping cow, didn’t say a thing.”
“Look, you have nothing to worry about with Carrie.”
“I’m not
worried
about Carrie. I’m worried about why you didn’t tell me about her.”
Jonathon gave a laugh.
“I didn’t think we wanted to get into each other’s past history. You didn’t strike me as a kiss-and-tell kind of girl. You didn’t offer up a spreadsheet of who and when either.”
“This isn’t about my past, and for the record, I hardly need a spreadsheet. You didn’t think I would be interested to know you had an affair with someone else?”
“No, I honestly didn’t think about it.”
I stood and walked toward the door. Diana could be back soon. I had no desire to hear what she would think of this discussion. Looked like there were way more than three people in this relationship. At least Charles had managed to keep his affair to one woman that he actually really loved. He didn’t mess around with the receptionist.
“You can see why it upsets me though, can’t you? I thought we had something special and then I find out you’ve done this before,” I explained.
“I’ve never done ‘this’ with someone else. Did I have an affair before? Yes, I did. I didn’t think to tell you because it wasn’t anywhere near the same as what I have with you. Carrie was a fling. A distraction.” Jonathon gave a sigh. “To tell you the truth, she was a mistake.”
“
She
was a mistake.”
“Sorry. I made a mistake. Mea culpa. It’s all my fault.” He stood and tipped my chin up so that I was looking into his eyes. “What I have with you has never been a mistake. I love you. Maybe I should have told you about Carrie, but I want you to see me as a good man. As the kind of man I know I could be with you.”