Three Girls And A Leading Man (20 page)

“Wow,” I said. “Congratulations,
Jenner. That’s a huge accomplishment.”

He smiled at me from across the
desk. “Annie, we think you’ve done a wonderful job in this show. We really
couldn’t be more pleased. We’d be very happy if you came to Chicago with us to
reprise the role.”

I stared at him for a minute,
trying to form words.

Tabitha laughed next to me, the
most human thing I had ever heard her do. “I think you’ve shocked her,” she
said, smiling at me.

“Oh my God,” I finally whispered.
“This is for real?”

“It is,” Jenner said. “We’ll all be
off for the holidays then get started in Chicago the first week of the New
Year. I hope you’ll be with us.”

“Of course I will,” I said quickly.
“Of course. Thank you so much. This is amazing. Thank you.”

“You’re quite welcome,” Jenner
said, standing up and holding out his hand to shake mine. Tabitha followed his
lead and did the same. “We’ll see you next Friday for the closing weekend.
Enjoy this, Annie, but remember that we still have work to do.”

“Of course,” I said. “I won’t
forget that.”

I left the office, feeling like my
feet weren’t touching the ground. This was amazing. I was going to Chicago!

I didn’t stick around the theater
long enough to see if anyone else had been offered a spot. I had to get home to
talk to the girls.

***

I made the drive from the city to
our house in record time. I was relieved to see Jen’s car in the driveway. I
thought of calling Ginny and asking her to meet us, but she generally worked at
the bookstore on Sunday. I would have to wait.

“Jen?” I called as I opened the
front door.

“Up here!” she called from the second
floor. I ran up the stairs as quickly as I could.

“Oh my God, Jen, you’ll
never—”

I stopped in the doorway to the
upstairs bedroom. Jen and Matt were sitting on the carpet, pieces of metal
spread out in front of them. They appeared to be building something. “What’re
you doing?” I asked.

“Matt bought a new bed at Ikea,”
Jen said. She didn’t look quite like herself, and it took a minute for me to
realize that she was actually disheveled. She had her hair up under a bandana,
and was wearing paint-splattered clothes. I could count on one hand the number
of times I had seen Jen Campbell look anything but perfectly put-together, and
the sight threw me.

“Then he lost the directions,” Jen
continued, laughing. He grinned at her sheepishly. “So yeah, we’re trying to
figure out how to put this thing together.”

My brain, on complete overdrive
from Jenner’s news, took a moment to process what she was saying. In all of my
excitement I had completely forgotten what was happening at the house
today—Matt was moving in. Looking around the room, I saw boxes stacked
against the walls. Jen and Matt were going to live up here, in Ginny’s old
room, which was much larger than Jen’s current room downstairs.

“Oh,” I said, feeling off-balance.
“Of course.”

But Matt and Jen were barely
listening to me. Their attention had returned to the project in front of them.
“Seriously, Matt?” Jen said, laughing. “You really think you should just start
hammering when these two pieces clearly don’t fit together?”

“I don’t see you with any better solution,”
he said. But he didn’t sound annoyed. They both looked totally pleased with
themselves, with each other. Normally Jen would be going nuts over anything
this disorganized. Instead, I had the feeling she was having the time of her
life, here with Matt trying to build a bed in their new room together.

Something about the way they looked
at each other, the happiness that exuded from the pair of them, made my heart
clench. They were moving in together. Taking the next step. They were in love
and they were starting a life together.

I
want that.

The realization, which seemed to
come from nowhere, hit me like a punch to the gut. I literally took a step
backwards in surprise.

“Annie, what’s wrong?” Jen asked,
finally noticing that one person in the room wasn’t involved in their little
love-fest.

“Nothing, sorry,” I said, barely
hearing my own voice over the rushing that had started in my ears. “A little
dizzy.”

“Sit down,” Jen demanded, moving to
stand up.

“No, I’m just gonna go down to my
room,” I said quickly. “I’m fine.”

Before she could respond, I was
fleeing back down the stairs, suddenly feeling like I might throw up.

What had just happened? How could
one moment suddenly change the way I saw everything in my life? If there was
anything I had ever been sure of, it was this: love is a waste of time and
energy. While it might make a select few happy (a very select few), it was most
definitely not for me. Never had been, never would be.

I sat down on the edge of my bed,
trying to gather my thoughts, to make sense of what I had just experienced, but
my brain felt jumbled. One thing was clear to me: in that moment of watching
Jen and Matt, I finally figured it out. I wanted what they had—I wanted
it with Nate.

I wanted it so bad the thought of
going to Chicago made me feel panicky.

“What the hell am I doing?” I
whispered. “What’s wrong with me?”

“Annie?” Jen’s voice called from
outside my door. “Can I come in?”

“Sure,” I said, surprised at how
calm my voice sounded.

She opened my door and peered into
the room. “Are you okay?”

“Yeah,” I said, managing a smile.
“I didn’t eat much before the show this morning. I think it finally hit me. But
I’m fine.”

I wasn’t quite sure why I was lying
to her. All I knew was that I didn’t want to have this conversation with Matt in
the house.

“Let me make you something to eat,”
she said, still sounding worried. “You look really pale.”

“I’ll grab a sandwich,” I told her.
“Don’t worry.”

“Okay,” she said, looking
uncertain. “If you’re sure.”

“Jen, you ready?” Matt called from
the living room.

“We need to run to the hardware
store,” she told me. “In addition to the directions, we also appear to be
missing several essential screws.” She laughed, but stopped when she saw my
face. “You really do look pale. How about I send Matt and stay here with you?”

“I’m fine,” I told her. “Seriously.
God knows he’ll come home with the wrong stuff if you aren’t there to
supervise.”

She smiled. “That’s probably true.
Are you sure you’re—”

“I’m fine. Go.”

She smiled at me one more time
before closing the door. A moment later, I heard soft giggling from the living
room, then the sound of the front door shutting.

The sound made me feel very lonely
somehow, and I instantly regretted sending her away. I should have just asked
her if Matt could take off for a while so we could talk. I needed her to talk
me down, help me figure out what was happening in my head. I felt like the
world had readjusted itself around me, leaving me off-balance and terrified.

Ginny
,
I thought. I needed to call Ginny.

No sooner had I picked up the phone
than it began ringing. I looked down at the display, my thoughts immediately
going to Nate.

It was my mother.

Suddenly I was desperate to talk to
her, desperate to tell her how scared I was. For the first time since I had
been a very small child, I felt a yearning for my mother, for her to tell me
that everything would be okay.

“Hi, Mom,” I said into the phone,
trying to regulate the rapid beating of my heart.

“Hi, honey!” she said, excitement
clear in her voice. “How are you?”

“I’m pretty good,” I said, taking a
deep breath. “I’m really glad you called. I wanted to—”

“Oh, sweetie, I just have the best
news,” she interrupted, not really listening. “You’ll never believe who I had
lunch with today!”

I groaned inwardly. It figured.
Just when I actually needed her, she was going to go on and on about some old
biddy from her sewing group. “Who, Mom?” I asked, figuring I might as well let
her get her story over with.

“Your father!”

If I thought my revelation upstairs
had thrown me for a loop, it was nothing compared to this. My heart, which a
moment ago had been beating alarmingly fast, now seemed to stop altogether.

“What?” I whispered.

“Your daddy! He called me up
yesterday, can you believe it? And asked me if I wanted to have lunch today. So
of course, I said yes. I mean, like I would refuse!” She laughed a little, a
twinkly girlish laugh that made me feel nauseous. “It was so sweet, honey, he
picked me up and took me that restaurant we all used to like, you know—”

“Mom!” I exclaimed, unable to take
it anymore. Was she seriously telling me this?

“What?” my mother asked,
bewildered.

“I don’t care where he took you,” I
said, struggling to keep my voice even. My hands were shaking so hard I thought
I might drop my phone. “I don’t care how sweet he was or what he said. He’s an
adulterous bastard who abandoned us, remember?”

“Annie Duncan, I don’t want to hear
that kind of talk,” she said, her voice hardening. “He may have made mistakes,
but I’m sure he’s sorry.”

“I don’t care if he’s sorry,” I
spat. “I don’t want to hear
anything
about him.”

“I don’t know what’s gotten into
you,” she said. “I thought you’d be pleased. It’s been so long since you’ve
seen him.”

“Because he left us!” I bellowed.
“God, what the hell is wrong with you?”

“I will not be spoken to like
that,” she said, her voice tight. “I am your mother.”

“I can’t have this conversation
with you,” I said. My anger at her, at my father, was so great it actually
scared me. “I’ll talk to you later.”

Before she could respond, I hung
up. I stared down at the phone for a minute, trying to wrap my mind around what
she had just said. My mother had seen my dad. She had let him—what, take
her out on a date? I felt rage boiling up in me until I couldn’t take it
anymore.

“Damn it!” I yelled, throwing my phone
at the wall.

I heard the clatter as the case
fell off and the battery came loose. I had probably ruined it. I couldn’t care
less.

I buried my head in my hands,
trying to quell the overwhelming anger and fear that was coursing through me.

“Annie?”

I looked up and saw Nate standing
there in my doorway, concern written all over his face.

“What’s the matter?”

He looked so solid, standing there
in my doorway. All I wanted in that moment was to go to him. To wrap my arms
around him and tell him everything. To let him comfort me and promise me that
he would stay with me, that he wouldn’t leave.

But I couldn’t.

“What are you doing here?” I
whispered.

“I thought we were going shopping,”
he said, taking a step into the room. I had a vague recollection of making
those plans this morning, before I left his apartment. “What’s the matter?”

“I just…” I breathed heavily,
trying to get myself under control. Between what had happened in Jen’s room and
my reaction to my mom, I knew I was acting like a crazy person.

“Sorry,” I told him. “I just had a
fight with my mom. No big deal.”

“Are you sure?” he asked, coming to
sit next to me.

The urge to throw myself into his
arms was so overwhelming I had to stand to get away from him. He looked at me
in confusion.

“Annie?”

“It’s been a crazy day,” I said,
going over to stand next to my dresser, as far from him as I could get.

“Did the matinee go okay?”

“Yeah, it was fine,” I said. “When
it was over they…” I looked over at him, his face expectant and more than a
little concerned. It would be so easy. So easy to forget about my mom, to tell
him how I felt. To beg him to wait for me while I was in Chicago, or better
yet, not go at all.

Not go at all.

That one errant thought had the
effect, finally, of pulling me out of this craziness. Was I seriously
considering not going to Chicago because of a guy? Giving up my dream so I
could stay home and be in love? For some girls, it would be a no brainer.
Romantic, silly girls. Girls who weren’t like me.

It’s what my mother would do. She would
sacrifice anything for the man she loved, even her own happiness. Even the
happiness of her child.

 
But I sure as hell wouldn’t.

“Annie, will you please tell me
what’s going on?” he said, sounding almost scared.

“I’m moving to Chicago,” I said.
“And after that, hopefully New York. The play is moving on and I’m going with
it.”

I tried not to notice how excited
he looked, how pleased he seemed to be for me. There was still worry in his
face, sure, but the predominant emotion was clearly happiness. Like he wanted
only what was good for me.

“Listen,” I said, holding up my
hand as he appeared about to get up. I was pleased to hear how steady my voice
sounded. I was doing the right thing.

 
“I’ve been thinking about this a lot. I really don’t want to do the whole
long distance thing. It’s not my style.”

His expression clouded over and I
turned my head slightly so I wouldn’t have to see his face.

“I had a good time with you, Nate,
I really did. But I think this has run its course.”

He was silent for so long I finally
had to chance a glance in his direction. He was staring at me, steely-eyed.

“What happened today?” he asked,
his voice low.

“What do you mean?” I stammered.

“You weren’t in this place when you
left my bed this morning,” he said.

I had a sudden memory of him
handing me a coffee and kissing me at his door when I left for the theater, his
hair tousled and his face rough with stubble. Was that only this morning? I
pushed the image from my mind.