That’s it. I look at the dates and times of the emails. Jack sent the first one at 5:42 a.m. yesterday. Mia replied after school yesterday at 4:15 p.m. Their back and forth finally wrapped up at 5:24 p.m. yesterday.
And Mia never let on. I was in and out of the office yesterday as she sat at her desk organizing the day’s email, but she never said a word.
I look to the top of the screen. The attachment. It’s an MP3. A heartfelt apology from Jack? A snippet about us from some radio show? I can’t imagine.
I get up and close the door to my office. Then I make sure the volume on my computer is low enough that only I’ll be able to hear it. I open the attachment.
With the first riff of guitar strings, I catch my breath. “Joey,” by Concrete Blonde.
The heart-wrenching lyrics rip into me with their desperate struggle to salvage messed-up love.
But we got lucky once before
And I don't wanna close the door
I can scarcely breathe. Is Jack asking me to come back? Again? Is he trying to confess something? Explain something? Or did he just send me a song he thought I’d like? And if so, why? Why why why why why?
The song ends, making it easier to hear my heart pounding.
The silence of the computer makes my skin prickle. Jack sent me a song. Jack sent me a song? Are we in middle school? I slap my hand hard onto the top of my desk, making my palm sting.
I suck on my throbbing flesh. Is he sending me a message in a language he knows I’d appreciate? Does he get points for choosing THE BEST SONG EVER?
I don’t know I don’t know I don’t know I don’t know.
* * * * *
Two days later and I still don’t know. But I want to know. Ever since Jack sent the first song, I’ve been trolling my inbox like a hungry shark looking for stranded divers. True, getting “Joey” was weird, but somewhat mysterious and powerfully appealing. The next day Jack sent “Only You” by Yaz.
Then “Don't Stop Believin'” by Journey.
Don't stop believing? Don't stop believing what, Jack? What are you trying to say?
I need another song. I open my inbox for the fourth time in the past sixty minutes. And here it is. I breathe for what feels like the first time all day.
FROM: [email protected]
SUBJECT: Something else for Lisa
And it has an attachment. I open the file. No text, just the attachment. And not an MP3 this time.
A video file.
I click it open.
Dah nah nah nah nuh nuh nah na na na na
…
The opening notes trill through the room as the black and white sketch work of the music video unfolds on screen. “Take On Me,” by Ah-ha.
How did Jack
know
?
I had an Ah-ha poster hanging by my bed all through junior high. Well, all the way up until I went away to college.
Okay, I took it to college but was too embarrassed to hang it up when I saw that all my roommate’s posters were prints of classic art. Cezanne, for cryin’ out loud.
I haven’t seen this video in ages.
I watch it twice through. Okay. Jack is throwing down the gauntlet. He’s asking me again to take him on, to take him back.
I think.
How dare he? He already asked me to take him back in person, and I said NO. Does he think I’m just going to forget the I-said-I-wanted-to-be-your-boyfriend-then-abandoned-you part?
Because of some stupid video?
What kind of life would that be?
Would we date in shameful secret, but he’d take me to a Bruce Springsteen concert to make up for it?
As if!
With Hulk-like rage coursing through my blood, I surf the net, find the song, download it, send it. “Dirty Little Secret” by The All-American Rejects. Take that, Jack!
Wait. What have I done?
I sent Jack a song. We are arguing through songs. Still, pre-teen mating rituals aside, I stare at the monitor, my heart pounding. What will he do? Actually write me an e-mail this time?
Ten minutes and nothing. Good. By the time he sends me something back, if he even bothers, I won’t care anymore. I am a very busy and important person, so tomorrow, this won’t even matter.
I rake through my email again, looking for a message from Jack I might have missed. I scour every folder available.
Nothing.
Nothing.
Nothing.
Noth—
“I knew it!”
I jump out of my chair, my heart lodged in my neck. “Jesus, Mia!”
She puts a cup of Starbucks on my desk and sits across from me. “Any more emails from Jack?” Her eyes positively dance.
“Aren’t you supposed to be in school?” I take the lid off my coffee cup and blow on the foam.
“That’s what you’re doing, right? Looking for email from Jack? What’s he been sending you? You never talk about it.”
I take a sip. “Then why are you asking me about it?”
“Because I caught you red-handed, so you can’t deny that you care.”
“Is that why you’ve been bringing me coffee before school? So you could catch me reading email?”
“What does he say?” She’s leaning so far over my desk she’s practically horizontal. “They’re songs, right? From the eighties, I bet.”
I put the cup down and stare at her.
“That’s what I would send if you were mad at me.” Then she just looks at me, still all smiles and bright eyes, and I think she’s actually vibrating.
“So?” she demands.
“So, what?”
“So… has he apologized for being such a jerk?”
“No.”
“Oh.” She dims forty watts. “Does it matter?” Back up a few volts. “If you guys really like each other? Love each other?”
“I...I'm pretty sure it does.” I look right at her. “Honestly, I think he just gets in these moods where he wants a girlfriend. Not just sex, but maybe some affection, too. But he doesn’t want it to last. He doesn’t want it to be part of his real life.”
“You’re wrong about him,” Mia hefts her backpack onto her shoulder. “You have to be.”
“Or what?” I call to Mia’s back as she heads off to school. But I can hardly blame her for having romantic delusions about me and Jack. Not when I watch Tina and Derek as if they’re characters in a Thursday night sitcom.
I look back to my inbox and the phone rings.
I look at the caller ID. HEYA. I haven’t talked to any of them since the day they kicked me out. “Hello?”
“Lisa? Good. It’s Lupe.” She stops talking.
“It’s okay, Lupe. Everything going good at the center? That’s all that matters.”
“Yeah, it is. I just called to see if…I know you said on Garry Minor that there was nothing between you and Jack, but, well, it was so weird that day. When Jack stormed in here and took the book. Then, Edna Hawkins saving our butts. Now this. It has us all worried. I know we shouldn’t be, but what if… I don’t know. None of us do. We just thought you might know something.”
“Know something about what? Lupe, what are you talking about?”
“The press conference. It doesn’t have anything to do with us, does it?”
“Press conference?” I look up to see Dolly coming into the office. “Dolly, do I have a press conference today?”
“Nooo!” Lupe yells through the phone.
“What?” I say to Lupe.
“Not
your
press conference. Jack’s. The press conference he’s having with his mom and the shoe company this morning. They’re kicking off the Southern California Conference of Business Leaders.”
My pulse kicks up a notch. “Lupe, what the hell are you talking about?”
“Into the Wild is joining up with Hawkins United. They’re planning some big merger with a sneaker company and we were just wondering if it had anything to do with us.”
My blood starts pounding faster than the spin cycle of a Whirlpool, making my speech stilted, jerky, demanding.
“Who’s doing the merger?”
“Into the Wild.”
“But who are they doing it with? What sneaker company?”
“I don’t know. Sampson, or something like that.”
“Sawyer?”
“That’s it.”
Noooo!!!!
“What time is the press conference?” I ask.
“Nine o’clock.”
“What?” I screech. “Where?”
“The Sheraton downtown. In the Macy’s Plaza.”
I pocket the phone and run to the front door. It’s 8:36. I have 24 minutes to make it downtown in morning rush hour traffic. I grab my keys, and I’m off.
What
is Jack about to do? Is it all my fault? Why else would he merge with Sawyer and join Hawkins United? He must have sold his soul to his mother in order to save HEYA.
I tear out of the driveway, zipping around cars like I’m playing Atari with a joystick. I want to call Jack’s cell, but I cannot take my hands and eyes away from driving for even a second. I get to the metro station, park illegally, and tear down the giant escalators. I don’t even stop to buy a ticket as I head for a train just pulling in.
Goddamnit! Evil, hateful Edna! Leave it to that BITCH to blackmail Jack just because he wanted to fix a mistake that was totally her doing in the first place!
I try to use my cell. No signal on the subway.
This must have been Jack’s plan all along, but he didn’t tell me.
Jesus, Jack.
Why?
Whywhywhywhywhywhy?
I would have figured out something else to save HEYA. I would have used all my own money and started from scratch to help others if I’d had to.
I never, NEVER would have sacrificed Jack for anything. Especially not for money.
Oh, God! That must have been why he was sending me those songs. He wanted me back so he would have someone beside him as every hope and dream he ever had disintegrated before his eyes.
And I ignored him. I’m making him go through his worst nightmare all alone.
The train slows, pulling into the 7
th
Street station. As soon as the doors swish open, I’m off, heedless of all the commuters. I race up the sliding escalator stairs two at a time, emerging directly across from The Macy’s Plaza. I dodge across the street, making cars stop for me.
In seconds, I’m in the Plaza, skidding down the stairs to the mezzanine level. The twinkling white lights strung throughout the corridor sparkle off the speckled tile, paving the way to the entrance of the hotel.
I’m here. I made it.
Hotel personnel stand at the door checking press identification. But I look so totally un-press-like in my beat up jeans and long sleeved T-shirt that I squeak by.
I’m in.
I scan the lobby. A fancy placard on an easel announces that the SCCBL Press Conference is in the banquet room to my left. I veer towards it.
Oh, man. The doorway is clogged with people focused on the front of the room. My gut seizes up. It must have started. I race to join the throng and start working my way through. I can’t see anything.
My eyes dart around frantically until I spot a garbage can just inside the door. It’s polished and expensive looking with a sloped lid that discourages miscreants from climbing up onto it. But up I climb anyway, balancing precariously so that I can see everything.
The vast hall is set up with round banquet tables at which various business-attired men and women sit with pastries and coffee in front of them. Reporters and photographers stand wherever they can at the back of the room, and some even sneak in to stand between tables.
At the front of the room on an impromptu stage sits a long rectangular table skirted with white linen. A peachy-mauve curtain is somehow erected behind the stage.
Jack is going to sacrifice everything in front of a peachy-mauve curtain?
Edna and Frank sit in two chairs to the left of an empty chair at the center of the table, and some guy I don’t recognize—must be the Sawyer dude—sits to the right of the empty chair. Then Jack steps up onto the stage.
Jack.
Jack in a dark suit and green tie takes the empty chair. There they all are: Frank, Edna, Jack, Sawyer Guy. Flashes go off as the room hums with the buzz of anticipation.
I don’t know what to do.
Should I shout? Make a scene?
I check my cell again. Still no signal. So that’s out as a way of letting Jack know I’m here.
I slide carefully off the trash can, press myself against the back wall. I’ll work my way around the room by staying plastered to the wall but inching forward. I’ll be inconspicuous as I sidle toward the stage. I start my slide but halt when Edna clears her throat.
“We will each read a brief statement,” she announces in her expertly modulated, cosmopolitan voice. “Then we will take any questions that either our fellow business leaders or the representatives of the press may have.” I can positively hear the ingratiating smile.
The room falls silent, flashes still wink.
“Today,” Edna begins, “Jack Hawkins, CEO and founder of Into the Wild, will announce his company’s merger with the Sawyer Sport Shoe Company. They will sign papers to that effect. Then Hawkins United will absorb the newly formed powerhouse. Jack?”
She turns toward Jack. It’s his turn. He’s on. Oh, God. Whatever he is about to say, I know it will rip him apart. Big, fat tears roll down my face.
Jack puts his elbows on the table, moving toward the microphone in front of him. “I will not sign those papers and Into the Wild will not merge with anyone.”
What
?
Shocked gasps.
And then I feel it. The hope, the power. I don’t know what Jack has up his sleeve, but I know that voice. He is in complete control.
“What?” The guy from Sawyer and Frank echo each other’s budding outrage.
“Excuse me, Jack?” Edna, of course.
Jack looks at her, then turns back to address the room.
“The only reason I’m here is to tell the world that I’m in love with Lisa Flyte.”
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
“What?!” All three of them this time. The outrage blossoming into full bloom.
“I love her,” Jack says into a thousand flashing cameras. “Totally. Completely. And definitely madly.”
“Jack, you mean—” Frank, sounding almost scared.
“You can’t do this!” The guy from Sawyer, looking disgusted.
Jack turns to him. “
You
outsource to poverty-stricken children in Thailand for three cents an hour, so you can just shut up.”
“Jack,” Frank begins, “there are serious repercussions. Our business—”
Jack turns to him. “Your business will recover. My life won’t. Not if I can’t get Lisa back.”
Edna focuses icy fury on him. “You—”
“I’ve used every trick I’ve ever learned from you to get what I want. Thanks, Mom.”
Edna pulls back, considers this for a second. Then, with the barest hint of a nod, she appears to decide it’s all right.
“This is just an asinine attempt to manipulate the market and increase the value of your stock!” calls a voice from the crowd.
Really
?
I look around, spotting the short, dark-haired reporter with a chip on his shoulder. I hate him.
“My company isn’t publicly traded, Sherlock.”
Jack is so damn kick-ass.
“Increase your market share, then!”
Jack almost visibly brushes off this comment.
“Irrelevant. None of our so-called competitors come close to doing what we do. We have our own market.”
Calm. Confident. Damn sexy.
“So you set up this whole thing just to get us here to report that you love Lisa Flyte?” A different reporter, this one with a sallow complexion and beer gut.
Jack tips his head in the guy’s direction. “Look at it as the chance to get the story right this time.”
“Or an opportunity to cash in on her fame and up your own profile. Isn’t this just a ploy to market Into the Wild?” This time, the reporter wears purple high heels that match her nail polish. I definitely hate her.
“By admitting what an awful boyfriend I turned out to be?”
“This makes no sense,” another reporter calls.
“I knew there was a chance you wouldn’t believe me,” Jack concedes. “Why should you? You’ve gotten everything about her wrong so far. But I don’t care. I need only one person to believe me.”
“Now that’s an interesting question, Jack.” This time it’s Alan Stewart, emerging from a crowd against the back wall. “Why should we believe you? Why? You had your chance to confess your love weeks ago, but you hung Lisa out to dry, instead. Now, you haven’t got a penny to your name, not since buying up every share you could of your company once we all jumped ship. And we’re supposed to believe that suddenly you love a famous rich girl? I think we need some convincing. You set up this press conference to let the world know you love Lisa. So, why Jack? What’s so special about Lisa? Convince us she’s the one for you.”
Silence.
Uh-oh.
A few call from the room, “Yeah, Jack. Why do you suddenly love her?”
“Why?”
“Yeah, why?”
Oh, God.
Then Jack laughs, a smile breaking across his face.
Oh, no! What’s he going to say?
You got me
.
I don’t really love her
.
“I love her,” he says, “because she wants to see a flea flicker on third and inches.”
Huh
?
“What?” the first reporter squawks. “Nobody in their right mind would do a flea flicker on third and inches.”
“I know!” Jack laughs. “Nobody ever does something like that. Though it would be a pretty smart play. But that’s the point. Lisa wants to see it just because it’s so unexpected. It wouldn’t be boring. And that’s what she loves. Finding the excitement in every possible second.”
I start moving more toward the center of the room, more toward Jack.
“How many inches?” lilts a sassy reporter with dark roots.
I stop moving. Jesus. My love story is going to end up in
Playgirl
.
Jack looks at her, giving her his full attention. “A flea flicker is a trick football play that nobody ever calls when you only need a few inches to get a first down.”
“So,” the woman asks, “what are you saying? That Lisa doesn’t understand football and that’s why you love her?”
“She definitely knows football,” Jack says, “and she likes to watch it naked. I love that, too.”
My mouth drops open.
“And I love that she loves to eat.”
Jack. Jack, Jack, Jack, Jack.
“And I love that every time we see an animal in the woods, she’s sure it’s lost its mother and she wants to help.” He laughs. “I love the way she dances, like she wants to use her body to touch every inch of space around her. I love that she gets all teary when she’s describing the first episode of
Murphy Brown
that stars Colleen Dewhurst. I love that she took the smallest bedroom in her house. I love that it was never about the money. I love that she can’t help loving her family. I love that she can back up any point she’s making with a quote from
Quantum Leap
. I love that she never kowtows to anyone, not even to my mother.”