Winter Jacket (23 page)

Nearly a year into the relationship, and I had grown restless with the status quo.
And that was when the emails from Ruby had started. It began innocuously enough, two colleagues from grad school comparing notes about their first academic jobs. I'm not sure now who had started flirting with whom first, but once that door had been reopened it was just a matter of time before I was texting suggestive messages and she was reciprocating.

I thought it was okay if I limited myself to an online affair, fooled myself into believing it wasn't really cheating if we didn't meet face to face, but the more explicit I became with
Ruby, the less attentive I became to Cady. I was living a double life and egotistical enough to think I could get away with it.

When summer break had arrived, I'd recommitted myself to my relationship with
Cady. We had even taken our first vacation together. But when the academic year rolled around again and my inbox started filling up with Ruby's emails, I was at a crossroads – end things with Cady or cut off communication from Ruby. I had decided to do both.

"How did you find me?” I tried to keep my anger in check. “I never gave you my home address."

Ruby inspected the parts of my home that were in view. "I sent an email to your Departmental Secretary explaining how I was an old friend from grad school looking to reconnect. She was more than helpful.”

Damn it.
  I made a mental note to remind Tricia first thing on Monday morning not to give out personal information.

“I like your house, Elle,” she commented. “It's a far cry from that shithole studio you had in school." She turned her face to
ward me. "Where's the bedroom?"

“Hey, Elle?” I heard
Hunter’s voice call from upstairs and I froze.  “Are you interested in Mexican tonight?  I’ve got a craving.”

Ruby
leaned forward and one hand slid along the banister. I flinched, thinking she was about to bound up the stairs, two at a time. "Is that Cady up there?" she asked with a far too eager look on her face. "I can't believe you two are still together after all this time."

I should have let her believe whatever she had in her head about my life.
I don't know why I felt compelled to correct her. "No. Cady and I broke up."

Her smile broadened. "Who's your company?"

“My, uh, my girlfriend,” I stammered out.  Hunter and I hadn’t exactly had a conversation about labels or being mutually exclusive, but Ruby didn’t need to know that.

How do
I get rid of this woman?
I wondered in a panic. Why wouldn't she take a hint? It wasn't like I'd invited her to sit down and had made her a sandwich.

“Elle?”  Hunter
’s steps were light on the wood stairs.  I heard her stop short, however, when she realized I wasn’t alone. “Sorry.  I, uh, didn’t know, anyone else was here,” she sputtered about halfway down the staircase.  She self-consciously tugged the white towel wrapped around her body just a little tighter even though it covered her well.

“Good thing you thought to put on a towel,”
Ruby purred.

I snapped a warning glance in
Ruby’s direction.

Hunter
looked justifiably uncomfortable and her blue-grey eyes moved from my face to Ruby and back to me again.  “I’ll just…get a little less comfortable,” she mumbled.  She silently crept back up the stairs and out of sight.

As soon as
Hunter was out of earshot, I glared at Ruby. “You need to leave.”

Her lips pursed and she stood up on her tiptoes, gazing in the direction from which
Hunter had just come. “Call me crazy, but isn’t she a little
young
for your tastes?”

“Her age
isn’t your concern,” I barked. “There’s nothing illegal about any of this.”

Ruby
made a humming noise, but didn’t comment.

Sooner than I had expected,
Hunter was back. Her courageousness amazed me sometimes.  Put in her situation, I would have just hid out in the bedroom until I was sure the stranger on the first floor was gone.

“Hi.  I’m Ruby,” my unwanted visitor
greeted, sticking out her hand. “I’m an old friend of Elle’s.”

Hunter accepted
Ruby’s hand and shook it cordially.  “Hunter,” she returned.  “It’s nice to meet you,” she said in a mildly pleasant tone.  I could tell she still felt a little uncomfortable since she’d just recently been in nothing but a towel; her trained politeness curled at the edges.

“I was just in town and thought I’d drop by and invite your girl to dinner.” 
Ruby flashed a winning, but calculating grin in Hunter’s direction. “You’re more than welcome to come along.”

“And I was just about to decline the offer,” I  spoke up.
My voice sounded too loud in my head. “We have other plans tonight.”

“Elle, we could always reschedule,”
Hunter said, her critical eyes not leaving Ruby. “You should make time for your friends.”

I wanted to snap that
Ruby and I weren’t friends, but then I’d be forced to rehash how exactly Ruby and I knew each other.  It would dig up too many skeletons that I wasn’t ready to tell Hunter about just yet.  She was already self-conscious enough without hearing about my past infidelities. Instead, I pushed a pained smile to my lips. “Fine.”

Ruby
clapped gleefully. “Then it’s settled.  We’ll all go out for dinner tonight, my treat.”

I knew nothing good would come from this, but I didn’t know what else I could do.

+++++

Soon after Ruby thankfully left, Hunter disappeared back upstairs.  I didn’t know if she was upset by Ruby’s visit and was trying to get away from me, but I wanted to give her any space she might need.   Because of Ruby’s visit, we hadn’t had that breakfast I’d been planning, so I returned to the bagels and coffee. 
I stopped when I heard a strange sound coming from upstairs. I paused, eyeballs shifting in my head as I tried to figure out what I was hearing upstairs.

"Hunter?" I called out.  I stood still, but heard no reply. I left the kitchen and walked to the foot of the stairs. "Hunter?" I tried again.

When she still didn't respond, but the unidentifiable noise continued, I cautiously crept up the stairs. The noise got louder as I got closer. When I reached the door to my bedroom, I recognized the noise – Hunter was blow-drying her hair.

I silently padded to the master bathroom and found her standing in front of the large vanity mirror that hung over the double sinks. Her face was impassive, her expressive mouth forming a hard, straight line.  I’d never seen someone look so serious while doing such a mundane task.

When she finally turned off the hairdryer, I saw my window of opportunity. "You know you don't have to primp for me."

She visibly jumped at the sound of my voice, unaware that I'd
been watching her, but she quickly recovered her composure. "I like looking good for you."

"You always look good,
" I countered.

She picked up her flatiron and began attacking her hair, one chunk of hair at a time.
"You've only ever seen me done up."

I narrowed my ey
es a little, examining her. "Do you wake up before me and get ready while I sleep so I don't see you with bed-head?"

"No.
 But I may have thought about it," she revealed.

I folded my arms across my chest. I might have been projecting my own uneasiness, but whatever was going on right now didn’t feel right. 
"I'm not just dating you because you're beautiful, you know."

"Why
are
you dating me?"

I felt a frown curling at the edges of my mouth. "Is that a real question?"

She set her flatiron down on the vanity top. “Maybe I’m a little curious.”

“I’m sure this is a conversation to be had when you’re not busy curling your hair.”

“I’m flat-ironing it,” she corrected me.  “There’s a difference.”

I bit my bottom lip.
“You really don’t have to come to dinner tonight.”

She
looked at me via her reflection in the mirror. “Why not?”

“It’s just that,
Ruby and I…” I trailed off.  I didn’t know how to voice my misgivings without giving myself away.

Hunter
tilted her head. “How
do
you know her? Is she a professor, too?”

“We went to graduate
school together,” I said. “She teaches in California though.”

“Did you date her?” she asked me pointedly.

“Not exactly.”

Hunter was a very smart woman.
“But you had sex.”

“Yeah.”

She made a little noise of displeasure and returned to the mirror. “Do I have anything to be worried about?”

“Absolutely not.”
I wanted to wrap her up in a tight hug, but I worried she might brand me with her flatiron, so I continued to keep my distance instead.

Her eyes gazed on her own reflection.  She pursed her lips.
“Are you sure you don’t want me to come tonight because you’re embarrassed of me?”

“If I stop my han
g-ups about my age,” I frowned, “you’ve got to promise to give up this self-doubting thing.”

“We just haven’t
gone out a lot, that’s all,” she shrugged.  “There was the aquarium and then dinner with Nikole and Troian, but really nothing else.  I thought maybe you were embarrassed to be seen with me in public.”

“You’re absolutely wrong,” I said, shaking my head. I tightened my arms across my chest. “
I
want
to show you off.  You’ve seen yourself, right?”

Hunter turned once again to face me. 
“I’d still really like to come out to dinner tonight,” she said in a quiet, even voice.  “Meet other people in your life.”

“She’s not really in my life,
” I argued.

“But she’s from your past,
” she pointed out.

I pushed out a deep breath. “Yeah.  And I wish she would have stayed there.”

+++++

Hunter
and I met up with Ruby at an Italian restaurant out in the suburbs later that evening. I had never been to this specific place before as I rarely ventured out into exurbia. Everything I needed was near campus, and it was generally better than anything the suburbs had to offer. But Ruby had read about this place and their stuffed gnocchi, and Hunter, herself born and raised in the suburbs, was able to vouch for the positive reviews. Normally I'd be excited to try a new restaurant, but tonight I felt more apprehension than anything.

“
Why don't you choose the wine, Elle," Ruby suggested as she folded her menu closed. "You've always had good taste."

I knew for a fact that
Ruby and I had never split a bottle of wine before. I didn't know what her game was, but that feeling of foreboding deepened the longer the three of us sat together at the table.

She trained her calculating gaze on
Hunter next. "Do you like Reds, Hunter?"

Hunter
's brow furrowed and she didn't look up from her menu. "I don't drink." She wasn't 21 yet. I'd started planning a party for her with Nikole's help.

"Oh, is that like a religious thing?"
Ruby asked.

Hunter
turned the menu page. Her face was impassive. "No. I just don't drink." I tried catching her eye to give her a reassuring smile, but she looked too focused on her menu to notice me.

"Wow. That's unexpected what with Ell
e loving microbrews so much." Ruby laughed. "But I suppose opposites attract." How Ruby knew anything about me beyond the strawberry birthmark on my left shoulder blade was a mystery.

"We manage somehow," I said sardonically. I stared down at my menu, itching for this dinner to be over.
I hoped no one wanted an appetizer or dessert.

The awkwardness was momentarily broken up when our waiter came by to take our drink and food order.
Ruby looked amused when I, like Hunter, stuck with water.

"So,
Hunter," Ruby asked, folding her hands on her lap when the waiter had taken our orders and collected the menus, “are you an athlete? A body like that, you must work out."

I glared at
Ruby. If her goal tonight was to make Hunter feel uncomfortable, she was well on her way.

"I, uh, I run."

"Marathons?"

"No.
Nothing serious like that."

"She's just being modest," I jumped in. "She runs half marathons. That's over 13 miles, which is 12 miles longer than I've ever run."

"Oh, if memory serves me right, Elle," Ruby smirked, “you never had a hard time keeping up." She ran her fingertips along the top of her water glass.