Time of My Life_ A Novel - Allison Winn Scotch [57]
Halfway through dinner, Jack reaches around into his messenger bag and pulls out two envelopes.
“For you,” he says, sliding one across the table.
With a furrowed brow, I engineer it around my plate, then flip it open.
“Oh, I didn’t realize that you really intended to do this!” I say. I eye my plane ticket to Miami, which is tucked on top of Jack’s handwritten list of suggested activities: Jet Skiing, South Beach, new restaurant openings.
“Of course,” he answers and reaches over to weave his fingers into mine. “I’ve planned out every detail of the trip—all you have to do is pack and show up at the airport on time.”
“You did this all this weekend?” I cock my head. “I thought you were taking care of your mom.” I pause, unsure of whether I should be amazed at what Jack can actually pull off when he aspires to it or upset that he wasn’t aspiring to something greater. “And writing.”
Indeed, I’d envisioned him either hovered above her sickbed or crouched over his laptop through all waking hours. Not sweet-talking airline representatives into upgrades to business class or booking nearly impossible reservations at celeb-packed Asian-fusion joints.
“The writing’s going a little slower than I expected.” He shrugs.
“What’s the problem? Maybe I can help.” I nudge some tab-bouleh around a green pepper and swoop my fork in to grab it.
“There isn’t a problem,” he says. “It’s just, you know, my mom is a distraction, and I wanted to be sure that I gave her my full attention.”
With a mouthful, I nod my head in what I hope is support—even though I suspect that, mother or not, Jack might always find an excuse for the writing to go a little slower than expected.
“Anyway,” he continues. “This isn’t about my writing. This is about Miami!”
“Are you sure,” I ask, “that you wouldn’t rather spend that time at that writers’ workshop we talked about? So that you hit the Thanksgiving goal you were aiming for?”
“Jillian! Seriously. You’re killing me here.”
“I’m just trying to be helpful,” I say. But I don’t add, because when we split seven years ago, you ruefully and regretfully told me that you’d orphaned your manuscript to spend more time with me, and that had you not devoted so much effort to what was now a torpedoed relationship, you might now have finally fulfilled your dream. And that I spat back that you never had any intention of fulfilling said dream because it was nothing more than a mirage, a mythical goal that you and your mother conjured up like an illusory end zone, that you had no intention of ever running toward. And that you crumbled in—I’m not sure what—rage, defeat, true pain—when I said such hateful things. Such that part of me always wondered if maybe you were right: that I hadn’t been encouraging enough, nurturing enough, though I’d been plenty of both, and that when you slipped into the living room late at night to bang out a few pages, and I’d call you back, needy and hating to sleep alone, maybe I unconsciously didn’t want you to get away from me, to take off on a new trajectory and potentially leave me behind. I’d been through that enough already.
“I know,” Jack says kindly. “Don’t worry about me. I’ll write when I write.” He raises his glass. “To Miami.”
“To Miami,” I echo, clinking my chardonnay against his.
I look down, and it’s only then that I notice the date on the ticket. October 3. Three weeks away. The mere glance at it sends a jolt through my core, as if my chi were getting tangled all over again. This, after all, was the date that I was supposed to tearfully trudge into an East Village bar, order a cosmo to nurse my bruises after Jack and I were nearly ready to dissolve ourselves from each other, and then sidle up on a bar stool next to the man who would heal me. The man who would turn out to be my future. Henry.
I double-back at the date, then grab the ticket and stuff it into my purse. October 3. Now that dates and times have lost all meaning, so, too,