Time of My Life_ A Novel - Allison Winn Scotch [41]
“Jack, don’t be silly. I want to come. Keep you company. It’s what girlfriends do.”
“Really, baby, don’t worry about it. I’m fine on my own. I’m just trying to get out of here as fast as possible so I’m there when she wakes up this morning.” He moves over to kiss me, as if that will blunt the fact that my company isn’t warranted for a family emergency, his family emergency. “My dad said that she was asking for me last night. My sisters have their hands full with their kids, so, I’m the only one who can come.”
“But, Jack . . .” I start, then pause, biting back any shards of offense that I might have taken in my old life with him, blunting them instead with openhearted, concerned girlfriend overtones. “I’d really like to go—”
“Jill, please, really, I appreciate it,” he interrupts. “But my dad and I can handle this.”
“Of course you can handle it,” I say mutedly. “I didn’t want to come to handle it, I wanted to come to show my support.”
“Oh, well, that’s very sweet,” he says, too distracted to put any meaning behind it. “But I’m good.” He pecks me again on the lips and runs his fingertips over my cheeks and down my collarbone, then grabs his overnight bag and bolts out the door. “I’ll call you this afternoon,” he says, just before I hear the thud of his footsteps plodding down the stairs, and then the slam of the front door.
I ease my way back into bed and flip off the light, clamping a lid on any disappointment, the way that my mother might have jarred up jam fresh from her garden, sealing it tightly so it could last the winter through.
Well, you weren’t there last time, either, I remind myself. So really, nothing to worry about. Nothing’s changed.
Slowly, I slip into sleep, dreaming of neither Henry nor Jack, not realizing that I seem to have missed the point entirely.
Chapter Twelve
On Labor Day, my office is quiet. Everyone else has fled the city and their desks for literal greener pastures. Meg and Tyler asked me to stay on at their beach house, but after Jack’s departure, I couldn’t muster the spirit for the sandy walks or the margarita mixes or anything that would come along with what was supposed to be the quintessential weekend with my rehabilitated relationship. So instead, I begged off their offers of homemade pancakes and sank into the rental car that reeked of stale cigarettes and floral air freshener, and headed back to the deadened enclave of my office. Storyboards, print layouts, copyedits I could do. I’d already done, in fact, half a decade back. There were no worries that, despite my best efforts, I’d still be spurned.
It was like it always was at work, both before and now, and today, I meditated over my loupe and the sketches and tried to forget that even though I was a chameleon with Jack, changing tiny parts of myself until I blended in completely with his environment, somehow it might not be enough. And I tried not to consider that even though I’ve been in my new life for nearly two months, still, at times, it feels like I’m shoving puzzle pieces into slots that are too narrow or too jagged for a proper fit. It should be seamless this time, I stop to think before flushing my mind clear. That’s the whole point. You have the game plan already, you know the moves. You simply have to follow them. It should be seamless, I reiterate to no one but myself. And yet in so many ways, it is not.
I am huddled over my desk, peering at a “woman on the street” frame, when I hear my cell phone buzzing from the depths of my bag. A nerve in my neck flares ruefully as I hurl my torso over the arm of my chair to reach the phone in time.
“Hello?” I tuck the phone underneath my ear and stand to stretch. I’ve been cocked over the images for two hours, and my shoulders are palpably pulsing.
“Jillian? Er. Hi, it’s Leigh.” She pauses. “Jack’s sister.”
“Oh, hi!” My voice molds into some sort of squeal, and I try to ratchet it back, hoping I don’t sound desperate both for the interruption and for the fact that she, Jack’s sister, is calling. She never called me in my old life.