The Night Before(22)

I find words.

“So what happened?”

He shakes his head and clasps his hands together.

“She wouldn’t stop texting, calling. I responded for about a week, but then I told her I was going to stop and I did. She still sends angry texts every day. I saw her after you walked in, and I knew we had to get the hell out of there.”

I consider all of this information. I don’t like it, but this actually makes me feel good. Maybe it’s pathetic, but I feel happy that with all the things I’ve done chasing after love, I have never been a stalker—texts, calls, emails—nothing.

I smile and he catches me.

“What?” he asks.

I start laughing because I actually believe him and now feel relieved. My heart crawls out of the sinkhole.

“Is it terrible that I’m wondering what happened on that third date, in your apartment, that made you realize it wasn’t a ‘good fit’?” I make quotation marks in the air with my fingers. My mood has taken another drastic turn.

Now he laughs as well.

“Sometimes there’s just no chemistry. You must have walked away from men for similar reasons.”

Again, he turns the light on my past. But we are not going down that road.

“It’s a giant candy store, isn’t it?” I say instead. “Only, you get to try everything before you have to buy it. Take a bite. Good but not perfect. Pick up another, take a bite. Better, maybe. Or worse. Maybe the first was better.”

He nods. “Exactly like that. And when it’s the second time around, there’s fear.”

“Because you know there’s a chance you’ll be wrong? That what tastes good in the store won’t be as good when you take it home?” I ask.

“And,” he says, holding up a finger like Sherlock Holmes, “there’s even more fear that you’re the candy.”

“Ah!” I say. “True.” I look at him and try to think this. He’s the candy. I’m the one choosing the flavor. But, no. They are just words. He knows it. Somehow men are never the candy. Never, never, never.

We start to walk again. He leads me back to the street where he’s parked the car. The car that’s all wrong, that’s on my list of concerns. But at least I’ve crossed the woman from the bar off the list, because his story has convinced me.

“So, how did your sister meet her husband?” he asks now.

I’m the candy, so I try to be sweet and give him an answer.

“We all grew up together,” I begin. I go on and on then, about Rosie and Joe and Gabe Wallace and the tree I used to climb and the skunk cabbage and the frog eggs. It gushes out of me, the words, the stories—no longer to please him but because they live inside me, flowing on a river of joy and sorrow. Hot lava and cold water. Wet, dirty clothes. Sunbaked skin. Laughter. Freedom. Bloody fists and tears and clear lines. Black and white. There were no shades of gray when we were young. Before we learned that everything is gray.

I stop, though. I don’t tell him about my first boyfriend. And how he ended up dead.

“So your sister and her husband were friends from birth? That’s a great story.” He says. “I have to admit. It makes me sad, though.”

“Why?” I ask.

“It reminds me of me and my wife, friends from college. There is something about meeting when you’re young like that. Before you learn to hide.”

We get to his car and he clicks open the locks.

He stands beside me and opens my door.

“What is it you’re hiding?” I ask him. I can’t help it. He opened that door as well.

Then he answers. “I could ask you the same thing.”

And there is something in his voice that stops me again. He wants to know about my past. Why?

I’ve been fading in and out of dreams and nightmares.

I look at him, and neither of us speaks. I wonder which is real. Which is the truth. Is this a dream or a nightmare?

How long does it take, I also wonder, to know? Our mother didn’t know what was in her husband’s heart or mind, even after eighteen years. Sharing a bed. Sharing a bathroom. Sharing meals and vacations and births of children. I can’t see behind the eyes of a man I just met, but I’m not at all sure time is the reason.

I should fear the possibility that this is a nightmare. And I should not get back in this car. This car that’s all wrong.

But I can’t bear to let go of the hope that this is a dream and the knowledge that no amount of time will give me the answer. We might still be strangers even after we become lovers.

“Come on,” he says. “Let’s head back to town.”

There is a faint whisper in my brain as I get in the car.

What is it you’re hiding?

He never answered.

Still, I let Jonathan Fields close the door.





TWELVE


Rosie. Present Day. Friday, 12 p.m. Branston, CT.

Back at Rosie’s house, Gabe created a new account on findlove.com. The screen name was here4you2. The photo was the screenshot of Jonathan Fields—the man the bartender identified. The profile was live by noon.

They selected women like Laura. Mid-twenties to early thirties. Never been married. No children. Living within ten miles of Branston. And pretty. They sent emails to over sixty profiles. The subject line read: DO YOU KNOW THIS MAN?