Jane Austen Made Me Do It (48 page)

I moved next to her to ask if she needed anything else. I wanted to offer to dig a proper trench, but I couldn't. Something inside me wouldn't allow it. I swallowed a spiky ball of resentment. Even then, after all those years.

She crammed the ancient shovel into the ground and yanked it back with every bit of her strength. The handle snapped at the tongue and she fell back. On instinct and reflex, I grabbed her before she fell.

Her shock prevented her from crying out. I held her for a moment too long while registering my own shock. She felt so much lighter in my arms than she once had.

What the hell had she been doing out in LaLa Land? Starving herself?

I straightened and helped her stand. Her hair brushed past my face. I caught a whiff of her familiar scent—flowers and mint. My body responded on instinct, flooding with heat. She still used the same shampoo. Memories flashed through my thoughts: holding her in my arms, tasting her lips, pressing my body to hers.

The heat turned to anger at my own subconscious reaction. I released her as if she had burned me. Preparing to retreat across the street, I moved to the tilling machine and locked the blade.

“Heya, Jus, whatcha doin'?”

We both turned. A gorgeous blonde was peeking over the fence from the neighboring yard. She was young, in her early twenties, and had enough hair and enough chest for two women.

“The usual. Working on the garden. I got a huge help thanks to Mark here,” she said coolly, as if the past moments hadn't happened.

The young woman's eyes assessed me and I nodded, sporting
my best charming-guy smile. Her shirt was cut low and it was hard to take my eyes off the stretch of fabric across her breasts. When I finally looked at her face again, she had a knowing smile. My grin widened.

“Mark, this is our neighbor, Chloë,” Justine said quickly, darting looks from one of us to the other. She cleared her throat and uttered the rest of the introduction as if from a great distance. “Chloë, this is Kathy's brother.”

“The doctor?” Chloë immediately perked up. I got that a lot.

After making sure there was nothing further that Justine wanted for the garden, I moved over to the fence and began to chat with Chloë. To my relief, Justine faded into the background.

That was when, standing at the edge of Justine's brother's lawn, I asked Chloë out to dinner. I could hear Justine putting away the shovels and cleaning up, jobs with which I had not offered to help. I was sure she was listening to every word. I told myself that I didn't care.
She
probably didn't care either. Hadn't she once treated me the same way? And had she not just brushed me off as if there had never been a past between us at all?

So Justine was unhappy with her life. That was unfortunate, but it was the life
she
had chosen. By
her
choice, deep love had been crushed to please others and her own ambition.

No, I hadn't forgiven her. I couldn't. It hurt too much to even consider.

He had not forgiven Anne Elliot. She had used him ill, deserted and disappointed him; and worse, she had shown a feebleness of character in doing so, which his own decided, confident temper could not endure
.

By my second date with Chloë, I knew we could never amount to anything serious. For one thing, I had less than a week left before
I had to return to Colorado to finish my residency. The other reasons? I couldn't really name them. Though I promised myself that they had nothing to do with Justine.

But as I brewed myself a pot of coffee after that sleepless night, I realized with surprising clarity that all of my relationships since Justine had been similarly haunted by our past.

He had been most warmly attached to her, and had never seen a woman since whom he thought her equal
.

I finished the novel on the plane the next day. Then I fell against the window and slept the remaining hours. I dreamt of Justine. Of the smell of her hair. Of the first time I'd kissed her, pressed up against the stacks in the back of the library. Of the first time we made love, with fierce kisses and shaking hands. In my agitation, I awoke, shifted positions, willed my restless mind to find something different to dwell on. It didn't. I dreamt of the plans we'd made for our life after graduation. She'd applied to the law school at the University of Colorado. We'd be there, together, in the mountains. We'd start our life there, together, as husband and wife.

I dreamt of the night I'd proposed to her. The happiest night of my life. She cried when I slipped the ring on her finger.

I cried the night she gave it back. “I can't do this,” she said. “I'm sorry. I've been accepted at UCLA. I'm going to live there and work in my dad's firm.”

My world froze. All of our hopes, plans, our future together breaking to pieces before my eyes.

“I'm sorry,” she said over and over again between sobs.

The following day, Thanksgiving dinner at my sister's was a trial. Throughout the meal, I couldn't keep my mind off the house
across the street. Was Justine still living there or had she moved on? Was she still unattached? I didn't dare ask the questions hovering on my lips. What the hell had that book done to me?

Then Kathy announced that she had invited Justine and her brother's family over for dessert. A warm sense of hope washed over me. The sentiments of the novel were still fresh in my mind. I was now determined to let her know, somehow, that I still thought of her. That she was still in my heart.

When she entered the room, I was struck by her glowing skin, her hair—now honey-colored once again. She had gained weight. The wan smile had new life and now reached her eyes.

Her face lit up when she saw me and my heart missed a beat. “Mark! I'm glad you made it home.” Even her voice sounded stronger. She came close to me. My throat closed and the words I wanted to say went unspoken.

What had brought about this change in me? Why,
now
, could I look past all that had happened before? I could feel the hurt and resentment fading, dissolving a barrier between us.

All that mattered was that the girl of my dreams was before me again. Damaged a little, but still there, underneath the pain and failure of the years that had separated two hearts and minds as connected as ours once were.

Before I could do anything besides ask her about her garden, Kathy hauled me into the kitchen to help her serve pie.

“She's seeing someone.”

I said nothing, slicing the pies into eighths with surgical precision.

“I said—”

“I heard you.” My heart was in my shoes. I swallowed. “Does her therapist approve? So soon?”

“Ah, sweetie. I think the therapist encouraged it.”

I couldn't look at her as I wiped pumpkin filling off my fingers.

As dessert wound to a close, I only had one quick chance to speak with Justine again. Tomorrow, she'd be leaving on a shopping holiday with friends for the remainder of the weekend.

After informing me of this, we looked at each other in awkward silence, and then she touched me gently on the sleeve. “Mark, I was wondering … I'm going to Aspen in December to meet my dad for a short ski trip. I'll be passing through Denver on the sixteenth and … would you like to, maybe, catch up over lunch or something?”

The sixteenth
. “That's the last day of my medical boards. I'll be testing all day.”

The visible hope on her delicate features melted away.

“Oh. Oh, yes, of course. I'll—well, some other time then. Can I give you my cell number? In case you finish early or something?”
Not likely
.

We exchanged cards. I nodded goodbye to her, unasked questions about her new boyfriend still hanging between us. I wouldn't be jealous. I didn't have the right.

How does the story end? In
Persuasion
, of course, Anne finds the love letter that Wentworth has left for her. In it, he tells her that, in spite of his resentment, in spite of his flirting with other women right under her nose, in spite of the fact that she had crushed his heart, he still loves her. After all this time.

They exchanged again those feelings and those promises which had once before seemed to secure everything, but which had been followed by so many, many years of division and estrangement
.

But my story?
Our
story, mine and Justine's? What was my persuasion? To forgive. To let go. To move forward. To never forget.

On December 16, my world swam before me. The last test of the boards—an essay test—was here. Lost in a high-vaulted, echoing
testing chamber, I stared at the open blue test booklet, unable to focus on the task at hand.

An hour of stretching, clicking my pen up and down, and cracking open my water bottle had produced little beyond a page of my illegible scribble. Seven different beginnings of love letters I had written and then crossed out. Abandoned.

She was in Denver, somewhere. And I was here. And as noon grew into afternoon, my agitation increased. Where was she now?

The choice was clear. I had to see her. Before I realized what I was doing, my feet were on the floor, my legs were carrying me from the silence of the test room.

I didn't start breathing again until I was in the foyer. Leaning against the heavy wooden door, my cell phone in my hand, I pulled out the card she'd given me. She'd be on the way to the airport by now, I figured.

I typed:
Justine, I don't know if you'll get this, but I have to tell you. I need you. Always have. I've been stubborn, resentful & full of pride. But my heart never changed. I've never loved anyone else but you
.

I hit send.

I waited for a minute, heart thudding. Two. Nothing. Cold fear numbed the pulse at my throat.

My thumb hovered over the send button, unable to type the next message.
Can you? Will you?

No answer. Maybe she had missed it? My head thudded against the brick walls of the university hall. Test-takers were now spilling out of the chamber, milling about the hallway, putting on their coats, pulling out their cell phones. It hurt to breathe. Had I walked away from my medical boards for nothing?

The entire way home, I checked my phone every two minutes. Maybe, she was in the air by now. Maybe, maybe she hadn't
received my text. Or her phone was turned off. Or she was waiting, trying to figure out her answer. Or. Or.

Hours passed. No reply. I checked to see how many bars I had on my reception. I checked to see if the network was cooperating. There were no problems. There was nothing. And inevitably my mind strayed to the most believable explanation: that she hadn't meant what she had said about wanting to see me again. Or that she had changed her mind. Maybe she felt, like I once had, that the past was too painful to revisit.

Back in my apartment, I grabbed a beer and twisted the cap so viciously that it cut my palm.

My cell phone rang and I nearly dropped the bottle. I raced to answer it, my voice breathless.

“Mark! How'd you do on your test?”

My breath hitched and a pain radiated through my chest. Kathy.

“Hey, sis.” I fought to keep the disappointment from my voice.

“Hey, I've been meaning to call you since Thanksgiving. I—well, I have a confession to make.”

“Let me guess. You defaced one of your own books to send me a page in the mail anonymously.”

Silence for two beats.

“How'd you know?”

“When I was there for Thanksgiving I saw the book in the den. Your copy is missing page 308. You pinched one of my SASEs from my job applications to send it.”

She sighed. “Well, I've never been good at being sneaky, have I?”

“Not really,” I said, hoping my curt reply would put her off becoming chatty. The last thing I wanted to do right now was discuss this with Kathy.

“I'm sorry, Mark. I just—I—I know how much you loved her once. That kind of love is a rare gift, you know. And the resentment over losing it was tearing you up inside. You two were so …”

“Sis, could we talk about this another time? I can't—can't really talk at the moment. Can I call you back later?” I was still hoping against all reason for a call from Justine. Or a text. Or a smoke signal. Or some other sign of acknowledgment whatsoever. Please don't let it be silence. I could take anything but that, though it might be what I deserved.

“I just wish … wish that it had all been for something.”

So did I. After we said goodbye, I closed my eyes and put down the phone. I chugged the entire bottle of beer and snatched up another. I was on my third when the doorbell rang.

I suddenly remembered that I'd invited Eric over to celebrate the end of exams. I snapped open the door without looking in the peephole.

It wasn't Eric.

Justine.

Tears in her eyes, on her cheeks. Her cell phone in her hand. My heart stopped beating until she spoke.

“Mark.” It was a hoarse whisper. A plea. An exultation.

I would later learn that she had gone to the airport early and checked her baggage. It had taken her time to retrieve her belongings, to fill out papers and speak with an airline official about pulling out of her flight.

I said nothing as I watched her from the doorway. Then, I took her into my arms, held her close. Her tight sobs in my ear struck arrows to the core of me.

“I always loved you,” I said.

“I never stopped. But why? Why now? After everything …”

I backed into my apartment with her still in my arms. We kissed. She tasted the same, and different—a trace of coffee and
that cinnamon gum she loved. She tasted
better
. Our lips met in quiet understanding, mutual forgiveness, passionate reunion.

When we finished, I rested my forehead against hers, her question still hanging between us:
Why now?

I took a breath to finally respond. I hoped that she would understand my answer. “Jane Austen made me do it.”