Shine Not Burn(50)

Maeve’s hand moved in slow circles, round and round the bottom of the pot. “You’re getting married.”

“Yes. Back east. In just over a week.”

“Have you been together long?” She tipped the pot over to scrub the sides and bottom.

“Not quite two years. Long enough.”

She looked at me briefly, a small smile on her lips. “Not that a person can have a timetable for something like that.”

“Oh, I do.” Now I was on firm ground. We’d moved away from talking about the MacKenzie clan and on to my lifeplan. Maeve seemed like a pretty down-to-earth person. I was sure she’d get where I was coming from.

She stopped scrubbing again and turned to face me. “Really? You have a timetable for love?”

“Well … sure. Kind of. I mean, I don’t have it on a calendar. Okay, maybe I do have it on a calendar but not in that way.” I was getting flustered trying to explain.

“I’m not judging, Andie, I’m just trying to understand.”

“No, I know that. It’s just hard to explain I guess. See, ever since I was young, I’ve had this plan.”

“Mmm-hmmm…” She nodded, rinsing off the pot.

“And in the plan I decided that I had to reach certain goals by the time I was twenty one and then twenty-seven and then twenty-nine and finally thirty-five.” I took the pot she’d rinsed and put it on the counter, using its support to dry the inside.

She chuckled. “You stopped the plan at thirty-five. Is that when you retire?”

“No,” I smiled back, glad she wasn’t mocking me too hard. “It’s when I’ll be done having children.”

“So what happens if you don’t meet one of your goals?”

“I don’t know. It hasn’t happened yet.” I grinned at her with a little personal pride shining through. “I don’t know why I’m so goal-oriented. Meeting goals makes me feel like a success. Like everything is going to be fine in my life.”

She soaped up several forks at the same time. “Was there a time in your life when things weren’t so fine?”

A loud ringing started in my ears. The pounding of my heart got so loud I worried she’d hear it. “Maybe when I was young things were a little crazy. But that was a long time ago.” I cleared my throat to get the frog out of it. I never thought or talked about my childhood with anyone. Ever.

She remained silent for a while. When she spoke it was with a gentle tone that made me want to cry. “Sometimes when our lives are out of control, the only thing that makes us feel secure is to swing in the opposite direction. To control every last detail.”

“Maybe,” I said, not sure that I agreed with her assessment. My lifeplan was a result of several years of wasted time, the result of a series of poor choices. Once I had a lifeplan in place, I started making smart decisions - decisions that amounted to investments in my future. A drunken marriage in Elvis’s chapel of love notwithstanding, my lifeplan had served me well. I was totally on track to be married by my deadline.

“So tell me about your fiancé,” she said, thankfully moving past the discussion of my goals.

“Well, his name is Bradley. He’s two years older than me and we’re very compatible.”

She smiled again. “Compatible. That sounds romantic.”

I nudged her good-naturedly. “It is. Seriously. We work in the same office, we’re both lawyers. He’s very driven and goal-oriented. He has the same ideas about success that I do. He wants to have two children, a boy and a girl, just like I do. He went to Yale, and his parents are attorneys too. We’re a perfect match.”

“Do you love him?”

I accidentally dropped the handful of forks I’d just picked up to dry. Her question made me instantly cranky. “Of course I love him.”

“I was just wondering because you didn’t mention that part.”

“I do love him. I do.” It felt like I was trying to convince myself, but that wasn’t necessary. Of course I love Bradley. He and I are a perfect couple.

“What do your friends think of him?” she asked.

I stopped in the middle of gathering the forks back up and turned partway to look at her.

She finished washing out the sink and turned off the water to look at me. “Did I say something wrong? Am I prying too much?” Her face fell. “I’m sorry. Angus tells me all the time I pry too much.”

I put my hand on her arm and squeezed gently. “No, it’s okay. It’s just a sore spot, actually.” I sighed, my vision drifting off to scenes of my friends’ reactions to Bradley’s behavior. “Truth is, none of my friends like him. Even my secretary at work hates him.”

“Why do you think that is?” she asked, putting her rag down and taking the towel from me to finish drying the silverware.

I shrugged, leaning back against the counter. “I guess he can be pushy. I used to really dislike him myself. Two years ago I used to mock him behind his back.” I frowned. “That’s really terrible, isn’t it?”

“How did you go from dislike to love and marriage? Seems like a pretty big leap.”

I really didn’t have a good answer for her. Even hearing the path to loving Bradley in my head made me kind of cringe. After two years of putting everything I had into love, I’d gotten dumped by Luke in a cold and casual way. I’d gone to Las Vegas and had a wild fling with a hot stranger. Then I’d returned home on a mission to get my life back on track. Bradley just seemed to fit the mold so perfectly, and he’d asked me out when I was feeling lonely and lost. The timing was perfect, or so I’d thought at the time. Why hadn’t I examined this more closely before? Had I been so focused on my lifeplan that I’d missed something? “I don’t know. It sounds silly, but I guess … I guess it started when I got back from Las Vegas.”