Authors: Catherine McKenzie
“Yes.”
“Oh.” He sighs deeply. His breath extinguishes the candle. A trace of smoke wafts between us.
“Can I ask you something?” I say.
“Of course.”
“Did you give any thought to the woman in all this before you agreed to do it?”
His face reddens. “Not as much as I should have, but yes, I did.”
“And what? You still thought it was okay?”
“I wouldn’t say okay, exactly, but . . . I don’t know . . . it wasn’t going to be a real marriage for either of us, so I kind of told myself it wasn’t that big a deal.”
“And what did you think was going to happen when your book was published?”
“You mean if you hadn’t found out?”
“Yes.”
“I tried not to think too much about that.”
“C’mon, Jack.”
“It’s true. I was kind of living two lives. The life I had in real time with you, and this person I became when I wrote the book.”
“Did you think you were going to be able to keep me?”
“No. The way the book was written, I knew that wasn’t possible. Look, I know you didn’t believe me when I told you this before, but I did tell Ted that night that we were going to have to push back publication because I had to rewrite the book.”
“Why?”
“While you were away, I read it through from start to finish, and I realized how . . . how
awful
it was. I saw the way I was writing about us, about you, and I knew I couldn’t do it anymore. I knew if I left it the way it was, I’d lose you forever.” His lips twist in self-mockery. “But I did that anyway, didn’t I?”
Forever.
It sounds so final.
“I think so, yes.”
“Is there any way we could start over?”
“No.”
His shoulders slump. “I was afraid of that.”
I bite my lip and wait for him to say something more, but he doesn’t.
“Was that all you wanted to say?”
Jack’s eyes find mine. “No . . . I need to tell you something else. Something you should hear from me first.”
My heart starts pounding again. “What?”
“My book is coming out in a few weeks.”
I can’t speak. I can barely breathe.
He puts his hand on my arm again. “Anne, are you okay?”
God, I am so sick of people asking me that. I shake him off and try to find some breath. “How could you?”
He looks grim. “I had to. I received an advance, which I’d already spent. Plus, they paid for Blythe and Company’s services. My publisher insisted. If I refused, they were going to sue me.”
“So this is just about money?”
“No, Anne. Not in the way you mean. But this is how I make my living. If I don’t publish this book, I’ll never publish anything again. And what am I supposed to do with myself if I can’t write anymore? It’s the only thing I know. It’s the only thing I’m good at.”
I feel a twinge of sympathy. I’m not sure what I would do if I were faced with that possibility. Thankfully, that’s not the mistake I made.
“Maybe that’ll just have to be the consequence.”
“I thought about that. But I also feel like I had to finish writing the book. For me. For you. For us. I changed it, Anne. I changed it.”
“You changed it?”
“Yes. I got them to agree to let me change it. It’s different, I swear—”
I cut him off. My anger is back, and it’s stomping on that twinge of sympathy. “Is this still a book about you having an arranged marriage with me?”
“Yes, but—”
I give him the hand. “And you’re still you, and I’m still me, and everything that happened in the book is what happened to us?”
“Yes, but—”
“You don’t get it at all, Jack, do you? I asked you to do one thing for me. I asked you not to publish the book. And here you are, looking all sad-eyed and regretful, but you’re still publishing it, and you don’t have any regrets at all, do you?”
He looks hurt. Really hurt. “How can you say that? Look at me. I’m a mess. Of course I have regrets. I love you, Anne. I love you.”
My heart flutters at these words, but I try to ignore it. What good has my heart ever done me?
“But you’re not doing anything differently. Take tonight. You didn’t tell me you were publishing your book before you asked if we could get back together. You played that card first. You’re still keeping things from me.”
“It’s not like that. The reason I wanted to see you was to tell you my book was coming out. The other stuff just slipped out because, well, because I can’t help myself around you. I can’t.”
“You only came here to tell me about the book?”
“Yes, but—”
“Then I think we’re done.”
I stand up and nearly trip over my feet. Though Jack reaches out to catch me, I avoid his touch and almost sprint for the door. Outside, I take in big lungfuls of air, trying to catch my breath, trying to keep from throwing up on the sidewalk, trying to keep from going back into the bar and beating Jack to a pulp.
“Anne.”
“Please leave me alone, Jack. Please.”
I don’t want to look at him. I don’t want him to see me crying. I don’t want to see him anymore.
“Anne.” He takes me in his arms and holds me against his chest.
“Please, Jack, no,” I mumble into the front of his shirt.
He holds me closer, and I stop struggling. I breathe in the smell of him: soap and woods, that little-boy smell. I feel his hands move up my back and into my hair, his rough hands catching in its smoothness. He starts to kiss the side of my face, the space near my ear, and he’s mumbling words I can’t hear, although I’m not sure I want to. A shiver runs down my jaw as his lips brush across my cheek. And then his lips touch mine, and we’re kissing.
For a moment we are kissing.
I put my hands on his chest and push him away. “Jack, no. I can’t.”
I turn away. Tears are streaming down my face, and I can’t stop them. I see a cab and walk into the street to flag it. I can sense Jack standing behind me; I don’t turn toward him. The cab pulls over, and I open the door and slide into the seat.
I hear a tap on the glass. I look up. Jack has his hand, palm open, flat over his heart. There are tears on his face. He speaks, and I can hear the timbre of his voice and read the words on his lips.
“I’m sorry,” he says. “I’m sorry.”
The Clanging Gong
T
he meeting with Jack puts me back where I was when I first asked him to leave. I spend my days trying not to think about him, and at night, in the moments when I sleep, I dream about him kissing me outside the bar. I find myself wondering too often whether we could start over, if I could ever bring myself to forgive his betrayal. I don’t even get any satisfaction from telling Sarah about our conversation or from her shock that he’s publishing his book. Because unfortunately, the cease-and-desist letter was an idle threat: A lawsuit is public, which meant everyone—not just my friends—would know who the female lead was.
After a third nearly sleepless night, I realize I need to talk to someone after all. And though I’m not sure I can face him again, I know that Dr. Szwick is the person I should see. Dr. Szwick, with his odd ways and sharp insights, and his knowledge of both of us, might be the only person who can help me figure out what I want to do.
When I call to make an appointment, the receptionist hesitates and asks me to hold. I smile to myself, imagining the surprise my call is creating, even for the prescient Dr. Szwick. It occurs to me while I wait that he might refuse to see me, particularly after my scene in Ms. Cooper’s office, but his receptionist comes back on the line and gives me an appointment in my old Friday time slot.
So in the early afternoon on a late-fall day, with the first snowflakes wisping toward the ground, I settle into the familiar armchair across from Dr. Szwick and his black notebook. The ballad of Jack and Anne.
“Are you surprised I’m here?”
“Somewhat.”
“I assume you heard about Jack?”
“I did.”
“And my meeting with Ms. Cooper?”
He smiles. “It was the talk of the company.”
“Why did you agree to see me?”
“I believed I owed it to you, Anne. If you thought you needed my help, I wanted to give it to you.”
“Thank you.”
“Not at all. Do you want to tell me why you’re here?”
“All right.” I fill him in on how I found out about Jack and about our meeting last week. When I’m finished, he lays his pen down and closes the book on me and Jack.
“How have you been coping with all of this?”
“Some days are worse than others, especially these days.”
“You sound surprised.”
I raise the edge of my turtleneck over my chin. “I guess I thought I was over him.”
“And when you saw him, you realized you weren’t?”
“Yes.”
“What made you realize that?”
I feel a flash of Jack’s lips against mine. “Just everything about the meeting. How sad he looked. How easy it was, on some level, to talk to him. The feel of his hand on my skin. I can’t point to one thing. It’s all bound up together.”
“It sounds like you’re still in love with him.”
“I know. But I’m not sure I want to be.”
“Because you can’t forgive him?”
“Should I?”
“You’ll have to decide that for yourself, Anne.”
I try to smile. “I was hoping you’d do that for me.”
“You know me better than that.”
“I know. But . . . can we do that chair thing? Being off-balance somehow makes things clearer for me.”
“We can do that if you like, but the purpose of that exercise is to start you on the path of living consciously. I think you know what you want to do, and you don’t need me or an oversize chair to show you what it is.”
“You’re wrong. I do need help.”
He looks firm. “No, you don’t. You just need to be honest with yourself about what kind of life you want. And once you do that, you’ll know what you want and how to get it.”
E
arly on the morning of Sarah’s wedding day, a package arrives at my apartment. It has Jack’s handwriting on it, my name spelled out in messy block letters. I put the package on my kitchen table. Huddled in my bathrobe, I look at it while I drink my morning coffee. I have a feeling I know what’s in it, and I’m not sure I have the strength to face it.
In the end, I take my kitchen scissors and cut away the wrapping. There are several smaller packages inside: a stack of photographs, a folded set of papers, a small box, and a copy of Jack’s book.
I start with the papers. It’s the annulment application Sarah prepared, the one Jack hasn’t signed. Only he has. The name Jack Harmer is written in triplicate just above mine. And so that’s it. We’re not married anymore. We never were.
I pick up the photographs and flip through them slowly. They’re the pictures Jack took in Mexico. The hotel we stayed at. The ocean at high noon, the ocean at sunset. There’s a great night shot of the palm tree on the beach with lights wound around its trunk. There are pictures from our trip off the compound—the shots we took from the top of the pyramid in the jungle. A shot of Jack and me taken by another tourist, standing on the edge of the stairs, his arm around my neck, my hair blowing in the wind. A picture I took of Jack reading by the pool, another of him scribbling in his notebook. His goddamn notebook. He was probably scribbling about me.
The last picture is of us lying in a hammock together. I’m asleep on my back, my face flushed from sleep and the sun. Jack is curled next to me, his body around mine like he’s protecting me. I don’t know who took the picture. Someone must’ve thought we looked cute and picked up the camera lying next to us.
I’m staring at this picture when my doorbell rings. I realize I’ve been crying. I wipe my face hastily and open the door to let William in. He takes one look at me and, without speaking, wraps me in his arms, holds my head to his chest, and lets me cry. He leads me over to the couch and waits until I can speak again.
“What’s the matter?” he says gently.
I hand him the picture clasped in my hand. “Jack sent me this.”
“Ah.”
“He sent me his book too. And something in a box. I’m not sure what.”
“The rat bastard,” he says flatly.
“He
is
a rat bastard.”
“I know, I just said so.”
I untangle myself from his arms. “What’s with the tone? You sound like you’re defending him.”
“I’m not defending him, Anne. I just don’t think he’s a bad guy for sending you this picture, or his book, or trying to get you back.”
“You don’t?”
“No. Think about it, A.B. If he hadn’t tried to do those things, you’d probably be even madder.”
“Yeah, okay, smartass. But that doesn’t mean that fundamentally, he isn’t a rat bastard.”
“I hear you. But these are his good parts showing.”
“That’s not helping. I don’t want to think about Jack’s good parts.”
“Sorry.”
“Why did you come over, anyway?”
“We had plans, remember? We were going to go for a run . . .” He gestures toward his body, and I notice for the first time that William is in running pants and a long-sleeved Gore-Tex shirt. “You forgot?”
“I got distracted.”
He looks resigned. “You want to show me the book?”
I go to the kitchen to get it, grabbing the little box that came with it. The book cover is white with a bouquet of flowers on it. Looking at it, I realize the bouquet looks remarkably like the one Jack gave me on our wedding day, and I don’t know whether to scream or cry.
God, I’m sick of crying.
I hand it to William. He starts flipping through it. “You going to read this?”
“Don’t think so.”
“How can you resist?”
“I already read it, remember?”
“Didn’t he say he changed it?”
“So?”
“Aren’t you curious?”
Yes. No. Maybe.
“Not really.”
He looks skeptical.
“Not enough to read it,” I tell him.
“Maybe he’ll surprise you.”
“There you go, defending him again!”
He puts his hands up in front of him. “Relax, Anne. I swear, I’m not.”
“You want to read it?”
“What, and tell you what it says?”
“Yeah, maybe.”
“Nuh-uh. No way.”
“Why not?”
“I don’t want to suffer a messenger’s fate.”
“Fucker.”
He eyes the box in my hand. “You going to open that?”
“I don’t know. Do you think it’s going to make me happy or sad?”
“I have no idea, A.B.”
“Very helpful, as always.” I bite my lip. “All right, I’ll open it.”
I slide the cover off the little silver box. Inside is a pink enamel heart on a threaded gold chain. The ends of my fingers start to tingle.
“What’s that all about?” William asks.
“It means he’s still trying to manipulate me.”
“How do you figure?”
“I thought you said you read my book.”
His eyes shift guiltily. “Did I say that?”
“Uh, yeah. And lots of other stuff about how good it was, and how funny . . .”
“Well, I started reading it, but it’s really not my thing.”
“What page did you get to?”
“Twenty-nine?”
“Jeez. Thanks for giving it a real chance. Anyway, if you
had
read my book, you’d know that Ben sends Lauren a necklace like this when they aren’t speaking, and it’s what makes her start to realize that maybe they should be together again. I kind of lifted the idea from one of the
Anne
books, actually.”
“So you think that’s why Jack sent you the necklace? To try to change your mind?”
“Pretty sure.”
“What’s the matter? Are you afraid it’s going to work?”
Yes. No. Maybe.
“No need to be so insightful,” I say.
“I’ll take that as a compliment.”
“So, are we running or what?”
“You running in that?”
“Give me a minute to change.”
I set the book and the necklace on my bed and change into my running clothes: old sweats I’ve had since I was a teenager. I look at the book. Part of me wants to pitch it in the garbage. Part of me wants to read it. I’m not sure which part is going to win. I walk back to the living room. William starts laughing.
“What?”
“That’s what you’re wearing?”
I look down at myself. I look kind of like Ally Sheedy in
WarGames.
“What’s wrong with this?”
“Oh, it’s fine, Anne, if you’re running in 1984. Do you have a Walkman too, or is that technology too advanced for you?”
“You’d better run fast, little man.”
W
illiam and I get back in half an hour from our pathetic attempt at a run. I grab a quick shower and take a cab to the hair salon to meet Sarah.
The salon is one of those old-fashioned ones where women my grandmother’s age come to get their weekly permanents. It even has those hairdryers in baby-blue enamel—the kind with the cone that comes down over your head—lined up in a row at the back. The air smells like burned hair and peroxide. I wonder how Sarah ended up in this place.
Sarah is sitting in a chair, looking tense. I give her a kiss on the cheek. “What’s up?”
She points to her head. “This is take two.”
The hairdresser is wearing a look of extreme concentration as she sweeps up small pieces of Sarah’s hair and pins them into place.
“It looks pretty,” I say.
“Would you tell me if it didn’t?”
“Not sure.”
“Anne!”
“Of course I would, silly. It looks amazing.”
It really does. It’s all soft and flowing curls falling from her head. She looks . . . like a bride.
I get my hair washed and sit in the chair next to hers, a bright pink towel draped over my shoulders.
“You looked wiped,” Sarah says.
“I went running with William this morning.”
She smiles. “Did you wear that horrible eighties outfit again?”
“Hey, I look cute in that.”
“You think you look like Ally Sheedy.”
“So?”
“You don’t.”
“Sarah, if it weren’t your wedding day, I’d make you pay for that.”
“But it
is
my wedding day.”
I smile at her in the mirror. “That it is.”
“Freaky.”
“I know.”
She frowns. “I feel bad, being so happy when—”
“Oh God, don’t worry. It’s normal to be nervous on your wedding day. I was.” I smile at her to show I’m okay.
“It is, right? It’s normal to be nervous. It’s normal to be nervous, it’s normal . . .”
I put my hand on her arm. “It’s going to be fine, you’ll see.”