About That Night (4 page)

Well, she
could
. Lord knows it's been done before. But it's not the right way to handle it. It's the coward's way, the way of the dog, the loser, the asshole. And whatever else she is, Jordie Cross is
not
an asshole. At least, she hopes she isn't. There are enough of those in the world; there's no crying need for any more.

No, this isn't something you should do over the phone. This is something you have to do in person. Derek is not going to take it well, especially not after last night. He's going to be angry. He's going to accuse her of all kinds of things, probably starting by asking what the conversation with Ronan was
really
about and what he was
really
doing there. There's no way he's going to believe it was about what she told him it was about.

Maybe she should never have agreed to go out with Derek. He's
okay
. That's the best she can say, and she's surprised she's only just realized that now. Derek Maugham is okay. True, after Ronan he seemed more than okay. She'd been so grateful to be with a guy who actually talked. She's never had to guess what Derek is thinking or feeling. She's never had to walk on eggshells around him the way she sometimes did with Ronan. Derek is like a computer program—WYSIWYG. But okay isn't enough, obviously, because look what it's driving her to do. That's what's happening, isn't it? There isn't any other reason her heart is telling her Derek isn't the one, is there? She's not crazy, is she? Or, worse, she's not that cliché, is she? The good girl who is like a moth drawn to a flame, going for the wrong guy because he's more exciting or more challenging or, God forbid, because she thinks he will change for her? Maybe she is. Why else would she be in such a hurry to dump a guy who appreciates her and lets her know it in favour of a guy who is emotionally constipated?

Why?

Because the heart wants what the heart wants.

Because you can't build a relationship on one person appreciating, practically worshipping, the other person, not if it works just the one way, she as the object of adoration, he as the one on his knees. She wishes it was enough. She thought that it was, until last night. Now it's so obvious. Now she sees that she isn't giving what he's giving. There has to be some reciprocity. There just has to be.

Was there reciprocity with Ronan?

Be honest, Jordie. You know there wasn't.

Or was there?

That's the thing with Ronan. With silence. With not saying whatever it is you're thinking. You keep the other person off-balance. You make them wonder. Did Ronan love her? Does he love her now the way she's afraid she might love him? Or can you describe the whole thing in its simplest terms like this: Jordie is to Ronan as Derek is to Jordie? Because in truth, the one thing she wants more than anything else is to make Ronan happy. And this in spite of knowing, from experience, that making Ronan happy is like winning an Olympic gold medal. It takes gargantuan effort, more than can or ever should be demanded of one human being. But it's worth every second when you succeed.

What do you know, Jordie? I know that Derek isn't working for me. I know—I'm so sorry, Derek—I know I don't love him. I know that I feel selfish and guilty when he gives his heart to me the way he does and I can't give him mine. And I know that I miss Ronan. Seeing him up close like that, hearing his voice, catching the barest scent of him—I miss him. I want him back.

She pulls on her boots and coat. She winds her scarf around her neck and plunks a hat onto her head. She pulls on gloves. She sets out—and stops after a few blocks for coffee and to think, to work through in her head what she is going to say to Derek. One thing she is determined to do: be kind to him. He deserves that much.

She sets off again down the snow-covered sidewalk, turns right and heads north. But by the time she reaches the end of the block, her resolve wobbles. Not the resolve to do the deed, but the resolve to do it in person, the way, she tells herself, she would like it to be done to her. The right way. But is it? Is there a right way to break a person's heart if the end result is the same, if you leave the person in shambles? By email, by text, by phone, Jesus, by telegram, if that were still an option—is there really any difference? Will Derek be any less stunned by the news hearing it directly from her mouth while staring into her eyes than if she, say, texts it to him? Will he feel any better getting the personal touch? Even if he tells himself later that he should have seen it coming—and he probably will, he'll probably put it all down to Ronan's stopping by last night—there's no doubt that he'll be angry and devastated and bitter. Worse—is this what she's avoiding?—she won't be surprised if he cries. Derek tries to be a guy's guy. Occasionally, he tries to hide his feelings. But he's lousy at it. It's another of the things she found so alluring at first—his willingness to strip down to emotional nakedness in front of her.

But wait a minute. She's doing it again—putting things in the best possible light. She's possessed of enough self-awareness to know what that's all about. She's rationalizing: Derek has so many fine qualities; she can't deny it, so maybe she shouldn't do what she's planning to do. She's rationalizing
and
dissembling. It's not that he's willing to strip himself naked—the truth of the matter is, he's incapable of doing anything else. He couldn't hide his true feelings or hold in his tears if his life depended on it. And sure, a lot of girls might find that attractive, but she doesn't. Not anymore. Not now that she's seen Ronan again up close and felt the flutter in her heart that has been missing these past two months.

There, she's admitted it: guys who hide everything drive her crazy, but so, it turns out, do guys who hide nothing. Or, to put it the way another guy would put it, who can't keep their emotions in check. Who can't control themselves. It turns out, much to her astonishment, that she is not attracted to this type of guy after all.

By now the sky has grown overcast, a combination of gathering clouds and the steady, inexorable, late-winter-afternoon descent of the sun. If she doesn't hustle, she'll find herself stumbling home again in the dark, because there is no way Derek will offer her a ride after she says her piece. Or maybe he will. In fact, wouldn't that be just like him—
you've broken my heart, but the gentleman in me can't let you walk home alone in the dark and the cold
. He will insist that she accept a lift home. But there is no way she can allow herself to say yes, not if what she plans to say is going to stick. So better to get there fast, before the thought can even occur to him, while there is still some brightness, however cloud-muted, in the sky.

She picks up her pace. Within minutes she has reached the end of town and is cutting across the park to the hiking trail that runs most of the way up the hill. It's quicker than taking the road.

She makes it all the way up, up to the spot in the trail where a small path, buried today under the snow, leads to a flight of stairs, also buried, that leads up to the back of his house. This is the way Derek usually goes, although there is no trace of his passing today, not with all the snow they've had.

She circles around his house to the front door and rings the bell. His mother answers and smiles warmly at her as if she's welcoming a future daughter-in-law, which has always made Jordie squirm—as it does now, confirming for her that she is doing the right thing; if she wasn't, she would be grinning as idiotically as his mother is.

“Is Derek here?”

Mrs. Maugham's smile wavers. She peeks over Jordie's shoulder.

“Isn't he with you?”

It turns out Derek hasn't been home. Or if he has, he isn't there now. Jordie politely refuses an invitation to come inside and have a cup of tea while she waits for him. Instead, she goes back the way she came, pausing on her way down the hill to call home to see if Derek is there.

He isn't.

Seven

F
ive hours later, after Marsha Maugham calls Jordie Cross, her son Derek's girlfriend, only to find that Jordie
still
hasn't heard from him—“I would have called you if I had, Mrs. Maugham. I
will
call you”—she feels tears run down both cheeks and asks her husband if he thinks they should call the police.

“And tell them what?” Richard Maugham says from behind his newspaper. “That our seventeen-year-old son, who is plenty old enough to stay home alone when we leave town and who is probably screwing that girl regularly—”

“Richard!” His wife is aghast.

“That our seventeen-year-old son is a couple of hours late for supper?”

“He's not answering his phone.”

“This is new?”

It is not new. In fact, Derek's use of call display as a parental-screening-out device is a constant source of frustration, irritation, anger and, occasionally, tears. The whole point of the cell phone, bought and paid for by Marsha herself, was that she wouldn't have to worry about where he was or what he was doing. But Derek seems to use that phone exclusively to make calls to nonfamily members—unless, of course, he runs short of cash or needs a lift somewhere.

“He'll be home when he's hungry,” Richard says. “Unless that girl is a good cook.”

“She says she'll call if she hears from him.”

“Well, then,” Richard says. “That takes care of that, don't you think?”

But it doesn't. Especially as the night wears on and the numbers on the clock flip to 12:00 midnight. Especially not after Marsha has left at least a dozen messages on her son's phone, five of them in the last hour. Especially when Jordie hasn't called yet and isn't responding to voicemail messages either. And especially not when Richard is snoring beside her.

She takes the cordless phone from the cradle and carries it out into the upstairs hall. This isn't, strictly speaking, an emergency—at least, she's pretty sure the police wouldn't consider it one—so she has to call directory assistance to get the police nonemergency number. When an automated voice prompts her to press the number sign if she wants to be connected to a living, breathing body, she does so. Then ensues a ten-minute conversation with a police officer whose name she can't remember, and she is too intimidated to ask him to repeat it. The police officer tells her the same thing Richard has told her with increasing impatience: maybe he's with friends, maybe he's partying, maybe he's with a girl, he's almost eighteen, isn't he, do you have any reason to suspect foul play, does he have a medical condition you're concerned about? No? Well then, I suggest you wait it out, and if he doesn't turn up by morning, call his friends. If he still doesn't turn up, get back to us, and we'll take a missing-person report.

Marsha is in tears when she finally hangs up. Missing person? Her son? That can't be. It can't. Then she wonders how many other mothers have thought the same thing, only to later see their child's face on the side of a milk carton.

» » »

“Still nothing?” Jordie's mother asks the next morning when Jordie drops the phone handset back onto its base. Mrs. Cross is at the stove making oatmeal, the best way to start the day—hot, hearty and extremely low on the glycemic index.

“She's freaking out,” Jordie says. At first, Mrs. Maugham's voice was just shaky. But it quickly devolved into something more liquid. It sounded to Jordie as if Mrs. Maugham was crying. “She thinks he's been in an accident or something. He's not answering her calls or her texts.”

“If it was you or Carly, I'd be freaking out.” Mrs. Cross shudders at the thought. “Have they called the police?”

“First thing this morning. He's officially a missing person.” She can't quite believe it. Where is he? She can understand if he's angry with her for what she said—and with Ronan for showing up at the house and starting everything—and, because of that, doesn't feel like responding to her texts. But what does he have against his mom? Why is he acting like that to her?

“I still don't understand why he left the house,” Mrs. Cross says. “He didn't say anything to you about where he was going?”

Jordie shakes her head but feels guilty, even though the gesture represents the truth. Derek took off sometime after Jordie more or less accused him of lying and theft. He didn't say anything about leaving. But she can't shake the idea that she's the reason he's gone. She's been thinking about it all night and has now concluded it's unlikely that Derek took the bracelet, despite what Ronan says he saw. Derek is an open guy—too open—and the look on his face was one of pure innocence. He can't hide anything—his feelings, what he did, what he didn't do—and people who can't hide anything can't lie. At least, they can't lie and get away with it. Can they?

No, they can't.

She is sure of it now. Derek isn't someone who can lie without setting off alarm bells. But now she's worried that after what she said, he decided to go home and get the bracelet he says he bought her for their anniversary (which isn't even an anniversary; how can anything be an anniversary after only one-sixth of an
annum
?), the one he said he was planning to give her on New Year's Eve, so that he can prove to her that whatever Ronan thought he saw, it wasn't the bracelet in question.

It had snowed the night before. Heavily. And it was cold. She'd felt the bite in the air in those few minutes outside with Ronan. What if something happened to Derek on the way home? What if he fell or was hit by a car? Or what if someone had mugged him or tried to rob him and he put up a fight? She finds it hard to imagine something like that happening in her neighborhood or his, but their neighborhoods aren't the whole town, and bad things happen everywhere. You just have to read the local paper to see what some citizens get up to in their spare time. It's a stereotype to think that muggings or worse happen only in LA or New York or Detroit.