Insipid (26 page)

THOSE DARN BIRDS
and their chirping in the wee hours of the morning. By the time I open my eyes, Chris has left for Vegas. I stamp my hand around the night table until my fingers come across my phone. I press the dial button and smile as I hear his voice through the receiver.

“Hi,” I croak, “Good morning.”

“Hey, Jae.”

“Just making sure you got there safe. I miss you already.”

“I miss you too, baby. I’ve been here for an hour. I’m hoping to get done tonight but not counting on it. I’ll fly back first thing in the morning.”

“Okay. Do what you have to do. Don’t worry about me.”

“Jae, call him today. Do it while I’m away so I don’t get jealous,” he teases. His tone is light, which is a great relief to me.

“I will. I’m sorry about last night. I’ll turn my phone off next time.”

“There’ll be no next time once you tell him.”

“Good point,” I say, going along. “I love you, Chris. See you tomorrow.”

“Love you, Jae.”

As soon as I hang up the phone, I get up to start my day. Concha has left coffee on the patio by the pool. The fresh air seeping in through the open doors feels good. I delay the inevitable, choosing instead to delve back into the boxes to gradually unpack my things. My mind goes back to the item I found in the yesterday’s pile so I decide to fish it out before sitting down for some coffee. I hold it up and then I hold myself up from the rush of emotions that overcome me. It’s a picture of us, taken by the Buckingham fountain at Grant Park. I’m sitting on his lap with my legs up in the air, laughing ridiculously at the fact that I was trying to avoid a group of pigeons by my feet. I could have sworn that he secretly threw them some bread crumbs on purpose. As I lay the picture on the table, Concha sneaks up from behind to pour me a cup of coffee.

“That’s him, the man who was here a few weeks ago. Whatever happened to him?”

“Nothing, really. We were just friends.”

“That’s not what it looked like to me.” She snickers. “Jadey. How long have I known you?”

“Concha! Why should we remind ourselves about our age?”

Her hearty laugh has always lifted me out of my dark moods. “That’s the thing. You were acting just like you were in high school when you were with that man. I haven’t seen you like that since… well, since you were in high school!” We both giggle at her last statement before I decide to rein this conversation in.

“That’s the past, Concha. Feelings like that only happen once. I had it with Chris. And I’m so lucky that he’s back in my life. Things will be fine from here on.”

“I hope so, Jade. I hope so.” She clears the empty plate of fruit from the table and traipses away.

I CAN’T DELAY
it any longer. I have to return Lucas’ call. It’s only fair to both him and Chris for me to lay out the future terms of our friendship. I’m nervous and uneasy. In honor of him, I rush to the gas station and buy a pack of cigarettes. I pop open a bottle of red wine and gulp down a glass before sitting outside by the pool to call him. The nicotine rush feels unfamiliar; I stub out the cigarette even before I dial his number.

“Jade?”

“Hi, Lucas.”

“Oh, Jade. It’s really you. Where are you calling from?”

“I moved into my parents’ pool house temporarily.”

“Who’s with you? Let me call you back now on Skype. I need to see you.”

“Lucas, there’s no need to—”

“Turn fucking Skype on, Jade! Now!” he yells. “I need to see you.”

I hang up the phone and rush back into the house to log on to my computer. The green icon rings even before I’m able to pull a seat up to the table. His face comes up on the screen. He looks tired and sad. His eyes are staring right into the monitor as he lets out a sigh. “You look well, Jade. Still as bewitching as ever. God. I’ve missed you,” he says in a feeble voice.

“We need to talk,” I start. “Do you have time now? Where are you?”

“At the office. I know everything. I finally know all about you. Of course, I wished you would have told me yourself, but now I understand what all that mystery was about. You’re still married, Jade. Why did you think I wouldn’t find out eventually?”

“I never thought that. We never got a chance to talk about these things.”

“This is a fucking joke. What the hell is going on?”

“Nothing, I—”

“Explain to me why you never told me you were married. And your daughter—” He reaches out as someone hands him a folder and he waves his hands to dismiss whoever it is who walked into his office. He frantically leafs through the pages of the stack of papers. “I just had them run a file on you. Do you want me read through this or are you going to tell me what’s really going on with you?” His face suddenly fills with horror as he focuses on a page in front of him. “Oh my God. Oh my God, Jade. I am so sorry.”

“What are you looking at?”

“A-A police report,” he stammers out in shock. His face registers a look of dismay. “Your daughter. Your hospital stay. Your injuries. Oh my God, Jade.” Tears fill his eyes as he looks directly into the screen. “Baby.” He hurriedly shuts the folder and pushes it away from him.
He acts like he can’t bear to read any more of it; he’s lucky he didn’t have to live it.

I say nothing. I force a weak smile as I wait for him to digest everything. “Now you know.”

“This just happened. In the past two years. Oh, baby. I’m so sorry.”

I shrug my shoulders, at a loss for words. “I’m not your baby,” I fume under my breath.

He ignores my comment. “I’m here,” he whispers. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

“I didn’t want you to feel sorry for me. I’m in the process of getting an annulment. I never lead you to believe anything other than the truth.”

“I feel everything for you but sorry. This doesn’t make me love you more—I don’t think I can feel any more for you than the way I’ve always felt.”

“Love? Who said anything about love?” I jeer sarcastically.

“Jade, I love you. I always have. I’m sorry it took so long for me to tell you.”

“It’s too late for that now, Luke. I’m with Chris.”

He shakes his head dubiously. “You’re with Chris? What does that mean? Do you let him inside you, Jade? Is that what you’re getting at?”

“Oh, Luke, why are you doing this to yourself?”

“This doesn’t change a thing between us. Leave him. For me.”

“There you go again,” I accuse, irked by his spunk but entranced by his troubled eyes.

“There I what?” he snaps.

Now it’s my turn to look at him disbelievingly. “There you go again telling me what to do. How dare you make any demands of me? You have no right.”

He takes a deep breath to calm himself down. “I’m sorry, baby. I didn’t mean it that way. I just want another chance, Jade. Please, will you give me another chance?”

“Stop calling me baby. It’s too late for that. I’m happy with the way my life is now. I’m sorry about what happened between us. I’ve just now gotten my dignity back; please don’t make me fall into that again.”

“Into what? What are you talking about?”

I throw my head back incensed by his astonishment. “Don’t pretend to be so dense. I had sunk to such a low level, I was waiting for every piece of scrap you threw my way. I lived for those texts, and I would have died for them too. How ridiculous was that? And then I figured it out. It was timing. You arrived right when my world was turning upside down. When my heart was just blown open and rendered empty. You filled it. In your own assholey way and in my need to be loved, you quenched my thirst. For the worst reasons; for the wrong reasons. I’m not going through that again, Lucas. Those days are over.” My eyes start to fill with tears. Tears of shame, of humiliation, of loss.

“Assholey? Is that even a word?” He ought to win an award for his ability to turn from remorseful to snide in the blink of an eye.

“Yes, coined just for you. You’re an ass. The way that you fully expect me to drop everything for you.” I let him have it. I’m angry and upset because it’s too late for us. “It’s a real asshole move.”

“Please, Jade. I have so much to explain to you, if you let me, I can tell you—”

“No, Lucas. It’s over between us. I can’t do this anymore. I have Chris now. He’s good to me. He’s the father of my daughter and I love him. Please understand.”

“Your daughter is gone,” he says sadly.

His words squeeze the life out of me.

“Fuck you.”

“Jade, no, please I didn’t mean this in a bad way. What I’m trying to say is… Oh, fuck. This language barrier is going to kill us. Listen, what I meant to say was that you don’t have to stay with Chris for anything.”

“I want to be with Chris. Chris,” I chant repeatedly.

“That’s it, then? It’s over between us?”

“It never began, Luke. It was all in my head.”

“Then it was in mine too,” he says, finally yielding to the truth about the past seven months.

“This is goodbye, Lucas. Please respect me enough to grasp what I’m telling you. I’m saying goodbye. For good.” I turn my head away so that he doesn’t see me cry. For a few seconds, he’s stuck looking at the back of my head.

“I can’t. I can’t say goodbye. There’s so much for me to tell you. I’ll fly over there so we can talk. Can I do that? Can we at least see each other one last time?”

“No. Please move on with your life. Marry Cristina. Have a family with her. Live your life and always remember what’s important. Immerse yourself in the love of those around you instead of trying too hard to gain it from those that aren’t. Thank you for everything, Lucas. I will always remember you and I hope that we can be friends one day when this is all in the distant past.”

I force out a smile before taking a deep breath and moving my cursor over to log out of this phase of my life. Permanently.

“WELL, THAT WORKED
out, huh? Are you glad you made that trip out to Vegas?” I ask as I pass Chris a salad plate at dinner the following night.

“Yeah. We signed the deal right there and then. My biggest one yet.” He puts the plate down, takes my hand, and brings it up to his lips. “Now we can move out of here and into our own house—Pacific Heights, Telegraph Hill—you name it, baby. Anywhere you want to live.”

I smile warmly at him but don’t say a word, afraid that he’ll be able to read into my vocal expression. I’m choked up. The conversation with Lucas hasn’t left me for a single second.
The last time I felt like this was when I walked out on you twenty years ago, I want to say to him.
Most people don’t go through two heartbreaks in a lifetime. And here I am with fragments of my heart splintered further into tiny little pieces.

“Jae? Are you okay?” He tugs at my hand to get my attention.

“Oh, yes. Sorry, babe. I didn’t hear you.”

“Did you speak to him?”

“I did.”

“How’d it go?”

“Uneventful. He said he understood. It was a three minute conversation,” I assure him.

He nods his head in acknowledgment and continues on with telling me about his business deal. I try to listen intently, but I don’t hear a word he says. We go to bed early, each exhausted from our respective eventful days. I move around the bed restlessly, praying for sleep to take over, to sweep me up into a state of apathy. While Chris lies fast asleep, I get out of bed and walk out through the French doors, desperately searching for relief out in the open air.

“Always look for signs, Cia,” I used to tell her. “Be intuitive. Signs are God’s way of speaking to you. If you keep an open heart, you will see them.”

Slowly, I lift my head up and try to find anything to tell me that things will be okay. “Give me a sign, Lord,” I pray, searching for a single light in the absolute darkness. “If I find a star, I’ll know what I need to do.”

My heart takes a leap when I see a tiny light streaking across the clouds, only to realize it’s an airplane. And as in the past two years of my life, once again I find myself lost and alone, blanketed only by the forlorn, empty sky.