Arranged (24 page)

“Sleep tight, little sister.”

Don’t let the bedbugs bite.

Chapter 23

Refund Policy

I
wake up the next morning with a crick in my neck and my hair standing out sideways. And in the newness of the morning, I realize I’ve spent enough time mourning Jack. Enough time crying, talking, or thinking about him. I’ve known the guy only a few months, for Chrissake! I’m better than this. I’ve survived worse. I will not let it become my whole life.

I throw back the blanket and sit up, full of energy, ready to face the day. This lasts about thirty seconds before the bottles of wine I consumed last night start attacking me. I have an instant, blinding headache, and I feel like I’ve got about two, maybe three seconds to get to the bathroom before any food or drink left in my body exits.

I take several deep breaths and concentrate on calming my stomach, and after a few minutes it starts to work. The nausea and the pain recede. I stand up and walk to the kitchen, following the waft of coffee. It smells good, despite the wine doing trampoline tricks in my stomach.

Cathy is standing at the stove, making eggs and
French toast. Mary is cooing softly in her playpen in the corner.

“Are you a real person or a robot?” I ask.

Cathy looks at me and laughs. “You look a lot more Pippi Longstocking than Anne of Green Gables this morning.”

I put my hand to the side of my head, trying to smooth down my hair, but it won’t budge. “I’m voting for robot.”

“There’s coffee.” She motions toward the pot.

“Thanks. I’m trying to decide if it’s going to make me feel better or worse.” I sit on one of the stools and rest my head on my arms, trying to get the world to stop spinning.

“That bad, huh?” Gil puts his hand on my shoulder and gives me a squeeze as he walks into the kitchen.

“Why, why did you let me drink like that?”

“Pretty sure I
didn’t.”

I sigh loudly and lift my head. Gil is standing behind Cathy. He has his arms around her, and he’s rubbing her big round belly.

“Okay, okay, enough with the PDA! You’re making me jealous of my own brother.”

“Sorry, Anne.”

Gil walks over to the coffeepot and pours us each a cup. I wrap my hands around the mug, feeling the heat seep into my hands. I take a few tentative sips and let the caffeine work into my bloodstream. I feel infinitesimally better than I did a few minutes before. I can sense briefly what it will be like when I feel wholly better again.

“So, what’s on the agenda today?” Gil asks, eating a piece of French toast with his hands.

“I’m supposed to be at work.”

“ ‘Supposed to’ being the operative words in that sentence?”

“Yeah.”

“Calling in sick?”

“I think that’s a given.”

Cathy puts a plate of French toast in front of me, and I take a few cautious bites. A bite, a deep breath, a sip of coffee, repeat. I pause after three or four repetitions to make sure it’ll all stay down. It does, for now.

Jane and Elizabeth come barreling into the room in matching footie pajamas, full of morning glee. They scamper around, eat their breakfasts loudly, and fight with their mother about what they want to wear. Jane crawls into my lap and gives me a big hug.

“What’s that for?” I ask.

“So you feel better. Jeesh.” She drops to the ground and runs from the room, her feet going
pat, pat, pat
on the floor, her red hair flying behind her.

I thank Cathy for breakfast and the night before, kiss the girls, and take the train back to the city with Gil. I call in sick on the way. I can tell from the receptionist’s tone that she’s heard about Jack and me and knows my pathetic attempts at coughing and sneezing are a sham. I make a mental note to kick William in the ass for being such a bigmouth.

I hesitate at my front door, not sure I can handle the sight of my deserted apartment. As at breakfast, after a couple of deep breaths, I’m able to do it. I walk in and go directly to bed. My bed. Our bed. My bed again now, I guess. I can still smell Jack on the sheets as I snuggle into his pillow, breathing him in and out, in and out, until I fall asleep.

I
sleep for several hours full of fractured dreams about Jack. When I wake up, I’m wrapped around the pillow that smells like him. I lie there for a few minutes, breathing him in until I can’t stand it anymore. I don’t know who I’m angrier at: Jack or myself for clinging to something that reminds me of him.

My anger fills me with the same feeling I had at Gil and Cathy’s, that “I can move past this, this will not take me down” feeling. I’m ready to do something, whatever it takes, to pull myself together. This time, when I sit up and fling off the covers, I’m not stopped by a hangover.

I strip the sheets off the bed and put them in the laundry hamper. Then I take a shower. As I soap and lather, I formulate a plan. I change into my grubbiest clothes and set to work.

I start with the biggest obstacle: Jack’s shelf project. It sits half built in my living room, taking up way too much space. I borrow a sledgehammer from the super and smash down the shelves without doing too much damage to the walls. Each time I lift the sledgehammer and smash it through the boards, I feel stronger. When the noise has subsided and it’s all rubble, I gather up the debris in several heavy-duty garbage bags and drag them out to the curb. Then I move my own bookshelves over to that wall to cover up the damage, glad after all that we didn’t merge our book collections.

Next, I rearrange the rest of the furniture in the living room, putting it back where it was before Jack set up his workspace, the corner he wrote that awful book in. I buy a colorful indoor fruit tree to put in that space. I don’t know much about feng shui, but I can feel the energy shift in the room, like it does when you open your windows for the first time after a hard winter.

When it’s all done, I look around. I want to make sure all signs of Jack have been erased. But for a few marks on the wall, it’s as if he was never even here.

That night I take the card tucked into the frame of the mirror on my bathroom wall, rip it into as many pieces as I can, and dump them in the trash. My good-luck card: that was what I thought.

Maybe now my luck will change.

T
he next day, over morning coffee, I sort through the mail that accumulated while I was away on my book tour and hiding at Sarah’s. Bill, bill, junk, junk. And there it is, in the middle of the pile: an envelope from Blythe & Company. I rip it open. It’s an invoice for last month’s therapy appointments with Dr. Szwick.

I can’t believe their nerve! We didn’t even go to our last appointment, and I won’t be going to the next. I’m furious with them, with Jack, but mostly with myself, because I gave them so much money, because I was taken in. And even though they don’t know any of the Jack part or the book part, this bill is the final straw.

I need to do something, get something from them, get back at them somehow. How, how, how can I get some measure of vengeance?

I consider my options. I can write an article about them, but then I’d be exposing myself. Everyone who knows about my quick marriage will put two and two together and come up with
Anne is a complete freak.
Besides, it might hurt the other couples who used the service, and I don’t want to do that.

Then it hits me. I know what to do. If only I have the nerve to do it.

M
s. Cooper will see you now.”

My head pops up from the magazine I’ve been staring at. As I stand, the magazine drops to the floor with a slippery thud. I put it back on the table and follow the receptionist along the familiar path to Ms. Cooper’s office.

“How are you, Ms. Blythe? Or should I say Mrs. Harmer?” she says, smiling her tight smile.

Her use of Jack’s last name, particularly in connection with me, sends a shiver down my spine. “Ms. Blythe will do.”

I sit down, folding my fists in my lap. She follows suit.

“What can I do for you?”

“I’m here to . . . get a refund.”

“Excuse me?”

I say it louder. “I’m here to get a refund.”

“As I believe I explained to you, we don’t issue refunds.”

“The man you found me is no bloody good, and I want a refund.”

She looks at me in her bland way. “Is this some kind of joke? Should I be laughing?”

“I assure you, I’m quite serious. I was duped, and I want my money back.”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“I’m talking about the fact that you were supposed to find me a husband. A
real
husband. You weren’t supposed to take my money and match me with a man writing an exposé about your moneymaking so-called service.”

I did it. I finally said something Ms. Cooper wasn’t expecting. She blinks at me several times and seems at a loss for words. She gives a small cough. “Whatever do you mean?”

“I mean that Jack Harmer wasn’t looking for a wife, he was writing a book about having an arranged marriage. An undercover, behind-the-scenes, reality-TV kind of book about this agency and our marriage and me. And so I . . . want . . . a . . . fucking . . . refund.”

I slap my hand on her desk with each word. Ms. Cooper flinches at every smack. Then she picks up the phone on her desk, presses a button, and speaks. “Please send security in here immediately.”

“Right,” I say. “Kick me out, pretend what I said isn’t true. But it is true. And I’m going to get my refund.”

I reach into my purse and take out a copy of Jack’s manuscript. I plunk it down on the desk as two men in black suits and thin ties appear in the doorway.

“Bit dramatic, don’t you think?” I say to them. “I only weigh a hundred and twenty-five pounds.” I point to the manuscript. “Read that, Ms. Cooper. Read that and think about what it’s going to do to this place, what it’s going to do to your job, if it gets published. Then let me know whether you want to maintain your no-refund policy. You know where you can reach me.”

I stride past the black-suited men, my head held high. They follow me to the reception area, where a pale pretty woman in her mid-forties is waiting nervously. I walk to the front door, open it, then turn back and say loudly to the waiting woman, “Trust your instincts. Don’t do it.”

She looks startled. “I’m sorry, what?”

“Don’t do it. Get up, walk away, leave. They have nothing for you here.” The men walk toward me, shoulders set to menace. “All right, all right, don’t worry, I’m going.”

I stride to the elevator and punch the down button. The elevator pings, and I step in. The doors close behind me and I start shaking. I’m shaking, but I feel better. I feel stronger.

It’s in the better, stronger moment that I realize I can survive this. I can.

Chapter 24

Kicking It

A
nd I do. I survive that first week without Jack. I survive a second and a third, and then a month goes by, and then two, and I’m not thinking about him all the time or wondering if I’m going to run into him. More time passes, until more time has passed than the time I knew him, than the time I knew about him, than the time I was contemplating finding him. Our time together starts to seem distant, like a memory from childhood, like a tiny star at the edge of the universe.

I work a lot and hang out with Sarah and Mike and sometimes with William. I’m there when Cathy gives birth to her fourth daughter. I hold her when she’s a few minutes old. As I cradle her tiny body against mine, her whole chest moves up and down to the rhythm of her beating heart. She smells clean and new, and when her eyes crack open, they’re seeing everything for the first time. A world to discover. My tears drop onto her sleeper, onto this child who looks like she could be mine, like she could’ve been mine and Jack’s. But then I push that thought away, and she’s just my darling fourth niece. I pass her back to her mother.

I do a few book signings, though my book isn’t setting the publishing world on fire. Still, I have a two-book deal and a deadline, so my nights and weekends are spent furiously writing and trying not to hate every word I put down on paper. My second book is about a woman whose life gets turned upside down when she takes a trip to Africa that doesn’t turn out as she planned. Halfway in, I’m cursing myself for not taking the easy way out and writing a sequel to
Home.
But one thing’s for sure—the heroine of
this
book is not going to be saved by a man.

Another birthday comes and goes. I’m thirty-four, one year away from the dreaded thirty-five. Sarah and Mike throw a dinner party for me, and no one asks me anything about Jack.

Every day I scan the mail for an envelope from Blythe & Company, hoping for a refund, but it never comes. I decide in the end to let it go. The important thing was having the courage to ask.

I go on a couple of dates when someone asks. But though the guys are nice enough and interested in me and cute enough, I don’t feel a connection, and there’s never a second date.

“What was wrong with him?” Sarah asks over a beer at the bar a few days after my first and last date with Gary, the nice new guy from her office.

“Would you like to see my list?”

Sarah perks up. “You made a list? Really?”

I pull over a napkin and take out my pen. I write a word on it and hand it to her.

“What does this mean?”

The word I wrote is “me.”

“It’s what was wrong with him. I can’t judge if he’s good or not. I can’t even make a pro-con list. I think I’m done with dating.”

“You can’t give up on dating at thirty-four.”

“Who says?”

“I do.”

“You’re not the boss of me.”

“I am, though, you will remember, the boss of your dating life.”

I agreed to this a month ago, after a few too many beers. “I’m not sure that’s an enforceable agreement.”

“Oh, it’s legally binding, I assure you. I’ve got it in writing.”

“All right, then. If you’re the boss, what are you going to do to get me out of this predicament?”

“I’m going to use my powers and magically find the perfect man for you.” She waves her hand as if she’s holding a wand. She swoops it over me one, two, three times.

“If only it were that simple.”

“Ah, but it is. I don’t know why you continue to doubt my powers.”

I finish my drink and change the topic. “So, all ready for the wedding?”

“Yeah. I can’t believe it’s here already,” she says with an anxious gulp.

“You’ve only been planning it for a year.”

“I know. I just want everything to go as planned. And for everyone to have a good time.”

“Everything’s going to go as planned, and it will be fantastic. You’re in charge, after all.”

She pulls a face. “Seriously, I’m nervous.”

“About Mike?”

“No, just all the stupid things that can go wrong. Which reminds me, did you go for your final fitting?”

“Yes, Sarah.”

“Great.”

“It
will
be great. You’re marrying a great guy, and you’ll live happily ever after.”

“I thought you didn’t believe in that anymore.”

“I don’t. But I’m making an exception for you.”

She smiles. Then she gets a look in her eyes as if she’s remembered something she didn’t want to remember.

“What is it?” I ask.

“What? Nothing.”

I put my hand on her arm. “Come on. What is it? Is your mom sick again?”

“No, she’s fine.”

“Then what?”

She sighs. “I saw Jack yesterday.”

“What? Where? Did you speak to him? What did he say? How come you waited this long to tell me?” My heart is beating so loudly, I can hear it.

Sarah pushes her drink toward me. “Here, drink some of this.”

I take a sip of her beer and try to calm down, but I can still feel my heart
boom, boom, boom
ing away.

“Thanks. Now spill.”

“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you sooner, Anne, but I wanted to do it face-to-face. Then you launched into the story about your date with Gary, and we were having such a normal evening, you know, a pre-Jack, pre-Blythe-and-Company evening. I didn’t want to ruin it.”

“It’s okay, I understand. Now tell me everything.”

“I was in the Starbucks in my building, getting coffee. At least that was my excuse for leaving this ridiculous meeting I was in—”

“Sarah! Focus, please.”

“God, sorry, Anne, it’s been a long day. Anyway, I turned around and basically slammed into Jack. I almost spilled my steaming coffee all over him.”

“And?”

“He didn’t seem surprised to see me. I had the feeling he knew I’d be there somehow. Anyway, he asked if I’d talk to him for a minute, and I was trying to figure out what you’d want me to do: tell him to go fuck himself and throw my coffee in his face, or hear what he had to say.”

“Both, clearly.”

“Right, I know, that’s what I was thinking. I figured if I listened to him, I could tell him afterward to go to hell.”

“Good thinking. So?”

“We sat down, and he told me that he
had
been hoping to run into me. I guess he goes to that Starbucks a lot—it’s near his editor’s office or something—and he’d seen me there a couple of times before.”

I feel a flash of anger. “So he’s stalking you now?”

She shakes her head. “No, I don’t think so. It didn’t come across like that.”

“It wouldn’t, would it? He’s an Oscar-worthy actor when he wants to be, you know.”

“Anne, I know.”

“Why did he want to run into you? Was it because of the annulment?”

We sent the papers to Jack months ago, and he still hasn’t signed them.

“No.” She measures her words. “He wants to see you.”

“He wants to see me?” My voice is barely above a whisper.

“Yes.”

“And he sought you out to what? Get your permission? To get you to convince me?”

“I’m not sure why, exactly.”

“What
did
he say?”

“That he felt awful and that he completely understood why you kicked him out . . . Oh, and something about how he tried to respect your wishes and stay away, but he was miserable.” She rolls her eyes at this last part.

Miserable. I like the sound of that word in connection with Jack.

“Did he look miserable?”

“Kind of.”

“Good. But I don’t understand. Why would he talk to you about this?”

“I don’t know, Anne. I only gave him about three minutes.”

“But what did you say? Did you tell him you thought I’d see him? Are you supposed to be convincing me to see him?”

“No, no. I didn’t say anything. Really. I just listened. I didn’t even say I’d tell you I’d spoken with him. Anne, are you okay?”

I breathe in and out slowly, trying to stop what feels like the beginning of a panic attack. “I think so.”

“So, what do you want to do?”

“About Jack?”

She nods.

“I don’t know,” I tell her. “I’m not sure I want to see him again. I mean, what could he tell me? That he’s sorry? That he loves me? He’s already told me these things. And how can I believe anything he has to say?”

She frowns. “I don’t know, Anne. I don’t have any answers.”

“You always have all the answers.”

“Not this time.”

“What would you do?”

“I never would’ve married him in the first place.”

“Hey!”

“Sorry. What I meant was that you need to figure it out yourself. I’ll support you, whatever you do. If you want to see him, I understand. If you don’t, I understand that too.”

I consider what she’s saying. “What if I want to do both?”

“Then why don’t you see him and tell him you don’t want to see him anymore.” She reaches into her purse and takes out a business card. “He gave me this.”

She hands it to me. His name stares back at me in bold black type. I hold it in my hands, feeling its edges like I felt the edges of his file so many months ago in Ms. Cooper’s office.

“Thanks, Sarah.”

“What for?”

“Too many things to list.”

She smiles. “You can
always
make a list.”

“Not this time.”

I
spend the next several days trying to decide what to do. I barely sleep. I can hardly write.

All I can think is: What could he have to say? How would he look saying it?

His business card haunts me, its presence a ghost in my apartment. In the end, my curiosity gets the better of me. I email him and set up a meeting.

I agree to meet him at a bar. Not my bar; I choose a neutral Irish pub downtown that I haven’t been to in years and don’t care if I ever go to again. I have no memories there, and after tonight it will just be the bar I met Jack in the last time I saw him. I have the same attitude toward what I wear. I pick a pair of jeans and a cream T-shirt out of a pile of clothes I’m giving to charity. Tomorrow they’ll belong to someone else.

Jack arrives before me. I find him sitting at a table for two, his face half lit by a small candle in a glass ball covered in a red beaded net. He’s made an effort with his appearance, put on a pressed striped shirt and what look like new plain-front chinos. His beard has been trimmed, and his hair looks freshly cut. He stands up as I approach the table. I think he wants to kiss me, but he sits down without making a move when I slip into the seat opposite him and fold my arms across my chest.

“So, what do you want?” I say in the most businesslike tone I can muster.

“I needed to see you,” Jack says. He sounds nervous and . . . scared. He’s scared.

I look him briefly in the eye, but I can’t hold his gaze. I do notice that he’s dropped a few pounds. The petty part of me feels happy about this.

“Do you think I give a shit about what you
need?” My throat feels tight.

Breathe, Anne. Breathe.

Jack flinches. “I know, Anne. I’m a selfish bastard. And I don’t deserve anything from you. I’m really grateful you decided to see me.”

My stomach flips and tosses around. “What do you want?”

“Are you all right?”

I was before I decided to see you.

“What do you want to say to me, Jack? Why am I here?”

He looks down at his hands. He’s still wearing the wedding band I put on his finger all those months ago in Mexico.

“Did you read my letter?” he asks.

“Yes.”

“And?”

“And what?”

“Do you think you can forgive me?”

“Uh, no.”

“Uh, no. That’s all I get?”

“That’s right.”

“Is that a definitive answer?”

“What the fuck, Jack? We’re not playing
Who Wants to Be a Millionaire.
This is our life you’re talking about. My life.”

“I know, Anne. I want to be in your life.”

He puts his hand on my arm. I let it sit for a second, feeling his skin on mine. Then I realize it’s Jack who’s touching me, and I shrug it off.

“I can’t have you in my life, Jack. I can’t.”

“But we’re married, Anne. Don’t you think we should try to work this out?”

“No, we aren’t, Jack. I mean, we shouldn’t be. You really need to sign those papers Sarah sent you.”

“Are you sure you want me to sign them?” he asks in a monotone.