Missing You(72)

“Right.”

“You can’t start the next chapter of your life if you keep rereading the last one.”

Sandi meant well with all her little life aphorisms. She posted them on her Facebook wall every Friday, often accompanied with a picture of flowers or perfect sunsets, stuff like that. She called them Sandi’s Sayings, though, of course, she had written none of them.

A black limousine pulled up in front of the house. Martha felt something catch in her throat.

“Oh, Martha, that car is beautiful!” Sandi squealed.

Martha couldn’t move. She stood there as the chauffeur got out and started toward her door. A month ago, after much prodding from Sandi, Martha had signed up for an Internet dating service. To her surprise, she almost immediately began an online flirtation with a wonderful man named Michael Craig. It was crazy when she thought about it—so unlike her—and she had scoffed at the whole idea, how juvenile it was, how the kids today wouldn’t know what a real relationship was if it bit them on the ass because they spend all their time on screens and never see the person face-to-face and blah blah blah.

So how did she fall into this?

The truth was, there were advantages to starting online. It didn’t matter what you looked like (other than in photographs). Your hair could be messed up, your makeup all wrong, something stuck in your teeth—it didn’t matter. You could relax and not try so hard. You never saw disappointment on your suitor’s face and always assumed he was smiling at what you said and did. If it didn’t work out, you wouldn’t have to worry about seeing him at the grocery store or local strip mall. It gave it enough distance so you could be yourself and let your guard down.

It felt safe.

How serious could it get, after all?

She suppressed a smile. The relationship had heated up—no reason to go into details—and moving into more and more intense areas, until finally, Michael Craig wrote in an IM: Let’s chuck it all and meet!

Martha Paquet remembered sitting at the computer in full blush mode. Oh, how she longed for real contact, for the kind of physical intimacy with a man she had always imagined. She had been lonely and afraid for so long, and now she had met someone—but did she dare take the next step? Martha expressed her reluctance to Michael. She didn’t want to risk losing what they had—but then again, as he himself finally said in his own understanding way, what did they have?

Nothing when you thought about it. Smoke and mirrors. But if they met in person, if the chemistry was anything like it was online . . .

But suppose it wasn’t? Suppose—and this must happen more times than not—suppose it all fizzled away when they finally met face-to-face. Suppose she ended up being, as she expected she would, a complete disappointment.

Martha wanted to postpone. She asked him to be patient. He said he would be, but relationships don’t work like that. Relations can’t remain stagnant. They are either getting better or getting worse. She could feel Michael starting to pull back ever so slowly. He was a man, she knew. He had needs and wants, just as she did.

Then, odd as this may now seem, Martha had visited her sister’s Facebook page and seen the following aphorism posted against a photo of waves crashing on the shore: “I don’t regret the things I’ve done. I regret the things I didn’t do when I had the chance.”

No one was credited with the quote, but it hit Martha right where she lived. She had been right in the first place: An online relationship isn’t real. It could work as an introduction maybe. It could be intense. It could bring pleasure and pain, but you can live in a fake reality only for so long. In the end, it was role-playing.

There seemed little to lose and so much to gain.

So yes, as Martha stood by the door watching the chauffeur make his approach, she was both terrified and excited. There was also another damn quote on Sandi’s wall, something about taking risks and doing one thing every day that scares you. If that was in any way the meaning of life, Martha had managed to never live even a single moment.

She had never been so scared. She had never felt so alive.

Sandi threw her arms around her. Martha hugged her back.

“I love you,” Sandi said.

“I love you too.”

“I want you to have the best time in the whole world, you hear me?”

Martha nodded, afraid that she’d cry. The chauffeur knocked on the door. Martha opened it. He introduced himself as Miles and took her suitcase.

“This way, madame.”

Martha followed him out to the car. Sandi came too. The chauffeur put her suitcase in the trunk and opened the door for her. Sandi hugged her again.

“Call me for anything,” Sandi said.

“I will.”

“If it doesn’t feel right or you want to go home . . .”

“I’ll call you, Sandi. I promise.”

“No, you won’t because you’ll be having too much fun.” There were tears in Sandi’s eyes. “You deserve this. You deserve happiness.”

Martha tried very hard not to cry. “I’ll see you in two days.”

She slipped into the back. The driver closed the door. He got into the front seat and drove her toward her new life.





Chapter 27


Chaz drove a Ferrari 458 Italia in a color he insisted on calling fly yellow.

Kat frowned. “Label me unsurprised.”