Knowing Is Not Enough (24 page)

“I think the bigger issue is probably not so much Taylor—although she is an issue—it’s what she represented. I’ve never in my life been hurt the way you hurt me.” I sighed. “Look, I’ve had a long day already and it’s not even eleven o’clock—you’ve moved on and I’ve moved on.”

“You keep saying I’ve moved on—”

“No, I don’t—”

“Yes, you have—you really didn’t give me much of a choice.”

I rolled my eyes and said, “Oh, God, here we go.”

“No, no—you brought it up,” he said.

I paused. “I didn’t mean for it to go someplace—I was just talking.”

“That’s just it—you’re talking—you decide.”

“Has everybody lost their minds today? You’re acting as if someone told me you were cheating—I saw you.” I snapped. “With these eyes.”

Karen, being a proactive trusted assistant, heard the conversation heading off a cliff, and immediately got up from her desk and closed my door. This conversation made my neck and shoulders ache. I rotated my head in a circular motion to ease the tension—but only putting Jake out of my office would remedy that. Everything about his body was at attention now. He moved from the couch to a chair directly in front of my desk. Pandora’s box officially opened.

“Why are we talking about this? You didn’t love me. It was always this woman or that woman in my face and you put them there. Taylor was the icing on the proverbial cake.”

“You wanted the divorce, not me. I asked you to work it out and what did you say?”

“I said no.”

He nodded. “Not me. At the end of the day you walked away.”

“Correction, I didn’t walk away. You left me mentally, spiritually and emotionally then you moved out, so don’t even try it. And who cares—you know how long ago that
was—I’m over it.”

“No your not, because you always bring up Taylor but our issues weren’t all my fault. Taylor, yes, but not everything.”

“No, but they were compounded by your bringing a third party into our marriage. I could’ve gotten over anything—anything but cheating. How would you have felt if I was getting it on with another man?”

“I would have felt the same way you did. I feel that way now just thinking about you moving on with somebody else.”

I didn’t know what to say to that comment.

“What do you want, Jake? It’s too late to stay married.”

“I don’t know what I’m saying, but I know this . . . if I had to do all over again, I would have stayed and tried to work it out.”

I shook my head. “See, that was always the problem. If you could do it all over again, why not start with
not
cheating in the first place.”

“Come on, give me a break . . . you know what I mean.”

“You can’t work it out by yourself. There have to be two willing parties,” I said.

“I think you would have tried.”

I shook my head. “I don’t know about that one, Jake.”

“Okay, I get that, but what if I told you I wanted to try now?”

“Try what?”

“Try working on our relationship.”

“What relationship?” I was confused. “What are you
talking about?”

“Would you be open to working on being friends?”

“What does that mean exactly?”

“I know you said you would support me with Mom. I appreciate that more than you will ever know, but what if I wanted you to do more—like work on your relationship with me. Would you be willing to do that?”

“I need to think about it. What would be the purpose in that?”

“To strengthen our relationship, work through the pain so we could possibly get to some resolution and forgiveness. I want us to be friends. We started off as friends.”

“No, we weren’t.”

He didn’t seem to be listening. “You don’t have to answer today. The other reason I stopped by is because Mom wanted to see you, so this Friday, if you’re not busy, maybe you can stop by for dinner, just the three us.”

“I don’t have any plans so far, but that could change. As long as you’re okay with that—I guess I can come.”

“I don’t want to tell Mom you’re coming, and you don’t.”

I caved. “I’ll come.”

“Good, I’m happy. This could be a new beginning for us.”

“Jake look—I’m not sure I understand what you’re expecting, but—”

He raised his hands. “Forget I said it. I’m happy you’re coming, let’s leave it at that.”

We stood up. Jake leaned in, brushing his cheek against mine and whispered, “I’m glad you’re coming,” then kissed my cheek. He pulled his head back to face me
so close that I could feel the warmth from his breathing.

I thought he was going to kiss me when Karen opened the office door and walked in. She handed me a sticky note. It read
‘You have a visitor’—
another unexpected visitor. I’m never going to get any work done today.

“Jake’s leaving,” I said as I guided him toward the door.

“Yes—I guess I am.”

Karen continued to stand behind me. “I’ll see you Friday, just text me what time and I’ll be there.”

“I’ll tell Mom.”

Jake cleared the door as I turned to Karen to ask who is in the lobby then I heard a voice say, “What’s up, man?” Karen and I froze.
Please, God, you are not doing this to me
. The second voice was unmistakable . . . it was Easton. Karen and I quietly tiptoed closer to the door to hear what they were saying.

“What you doing here? Trying to get some help?”

They laughed like old friends.
How could Jake know Easton and I’d never heard of him? Well, there was a lot Jake was doing that I didn’t know
.

Jake’s voice. “I’m here to see Alex.”

I overhead Easton say, “Oh, I didn’t know you two knew each other.”

“Yeah, that’s my ex. You remember I told you I was married.”

“No, I didn’t recall that. So you were married to Alex?”

“About five years—she’s helping me out with my Mom.”

“Oh, all right,” I overheard Easton say.

Karen and I continued listening at the door. I heard Jake ask Easton, “So, what are you doing here?” I whispered to myself, but loud enough to get Karen’s attention, “please don’t tell him the truth.” Considering I just gave a mini-lecture on the virtues of marriage, having Easton disclose that I’m seeing him won’t go over well—not at all.
Tobey’s right—the sooner I get this back into perspective the better
.

“Oh, Alex referred a case to me. I was in the neighborhood, thought I would come by and let her know how everything’s going.”

“Yeah, okay, that’s what’s up. How did you meet Alex?” Jake asked.

“Oh, one of my boys introduced us. She needed an attorney−”

“Not for her—”

“No, no—for somebody else. I had time available. It just worked out.”

Then I heard Jake ask, “How’s your wife and kids doing?”

Easton responded, “Everybody’s good.”

I missed a few things they said. I inched closer and heard Jake say, “All right, man, I got to run, it was good seeing you.”

Easton said, “All right, good seeing you, too. We’ll have to hook up sometime and have a drink.”

“Yeah, I’ll holler at you.”

Overhearing what seemed like the end of their conversation, Karen walked back into the lobby. I rushed to my chair behind the desk. By the time Easton walked to my office I appeared to be working hard—not ear hustling. Easton, dressed in a twill grey suit, checkered
blue shirt, and striped tie looked as if he stepped out from the pages of a magazine. What Jake was to Ralph Lauren, Easton was to Brooks Brothers.

“Hello, gorgeous,” he said.

“Hello to you. This is a surprise.”

“Can I borrow you for lunch?”

“We just left each other. I haven’t gotten a lot done today, fooling around with you.”

“A
quick
lunch?”

“All right—but it has to be real quick.” Clearing my throat I asked him, “Did I hear you make a friend in the lobby?”

“Not a new friend. I’ve known Jake about ten years.”

I leaned back in my chair. “You don’t say?”

“Yes.” He smiled. “I do say—now grab your stuff and let’s get out of here.”

I looked at the clock on my computer screen. “It’s kind of early for lunch, isn’t it?”

“Not for where we’re going.”

“Where are you taking me?”

“It’s a surprise. Come on, get your purse—let’s go.”

I gave in and called out to Karen through the open door. “I’m going to an early lunch.” Easton walked around my oversized desk and held my jacket for me.

“Are you going to tell me where we’re going?” I asked.

“Nope.”

“If I guess will you tell me?”

“You’ll never guess.”

I grabbed my purse as we headed out the front door. “You driving or me?”

“Ah, you think you slick. I’m driving.”

“Okay.” I smiled. “Keep your secret.”

Easton parked right outside my office building main entrance. He opened my door, ensured I was firmly seated, then got in on his side. I leaned closer to him resting my arm on the leather console with my hand dangling. Easton reached over and grabbed it interlocking our fingers.

We drove up a main artery away from my office toward the freeway. I watched the passersby out the window. I still had no clue as to where we were going, but he drove toward the university.

Dark clouds moved in from the east and mist filled the windshield. We exited off the freeway heading toward another main street in the city. I still had no inkling of where we were going until we reached the Art Institute. Easton pulled into the shipping and receiving area. Silent, I glanced over and smiled. He was right, the Institute wasn’t open, and I would have never guessed this. Easton released my hand, pulling me in kissing me softly on my forehead.

“I’ve been a faithful supporter of the Art Institute for over ten years,” he said.

“A faithful supporter?” I echoed.

“Yes, faithful.”

I laughed. “Is that what it says on the website for members? Faithful supporter?”

“Actually, it does, but that’s not relevant.”

“Okay, you got to stop saying that,” I said.

“What’s wrong? I
am
faithful.”

“Okay, go on—because you’re a faithful supporter—”

“Well, there’s perks and one of them is we’re going to see the Institutes latest exhibit before it opens.”

“Oh, okay—are you serious?”

“Yes, I’m very serious—let’s get out of the car.”

“Okay, never done anything like this before.”

“I knew you would like this. I asked one of the curators to give us a quick tour—we’ll have lunch after.”

“Okay.”

I couldn’t stop smiling. Lunch at the Institute was beyond cool. Who knew Easton had this in him? I’d never done anything remotely close to this before. The curator at the loading dock greeted and escorted us to the exhibition. He described each piece—and there were about thirty of them—in great detail. One painting in particular blew me away. It was magnificent, and I was thankful to have the opportunity to share this experience with Easton.

The curator asked if I knew anything about the picture and of course my only knowledge about the artist came from a movie. The movie, it turned out, was based upon a novel, because there is little known about the artist or his paintings. Most of the artist works was at The Hague, and of course I didn’t know that, either.

After our viewing the curator told Easton we could take a strolling tour of the other exhibits. We walked through the entire first floor and a little bit of the second—or what I thought was the majority of the second, since the museum was bigger than what I’d remembered.

Our final stop was Rose Court, my favorite part of the museum. I went through the entrance and in the middle of the court was a round table dressed in white linens with two chairs, adorned with candles and pink roses for two.

“This is—” I stuttered to get the words out. “—is this for us?”

“For
you
,” he said.

I felt that I couldn’t breathe. The private showing is one thing—but this, this was more than I’d ever expected. I don’t know what came over me. I was overcome with emotion from viewing the surroundings and him—such a beautiful gift came from someone I barely know. Obviously his connection to the Institute enabled him to pull this off, but his desire to even want to plan this out left me speechless. It became difficult to continue to capture the moment through my tears.

“Baby, don’t cry.”

I buried my head in his chest to stop him from looking at me. I didn’t want to mess up his beautiful suit, but emotions prevailed. Easton rubbed my back until I came back up for air. “I just felt so overwhelmed. This is one of the nicest things anyone has ever done for me. Thank you for this.”

“I’m glad I could.”

Regaining my composure, Easton reached for my hand and walked me over to our table. We both were seated. Catching my breath, I wanted to absorb everything I set eyes on everything to capture detail of this moment. Beautifully decorated, with candelabras in three different sizes and shapes, silver tablemats and chargers, full place settings of white china with silver trim, cake dishes with red velvet cake. My favorite. The centerpiece was made of white tree bark covered with white and pale pink roses, large pink hydrangea, blush pink peonies, and sweet peas. How Easton pulled this off was remarkable. When did he have the time?

I touched the flowers to see if they were real. They were. “I am speechless. This is amazing!”

“I hoped you would like it. It took some scheming on my part to keep this a secret.”

“How did you know this stuff? My favorite flower, the Rose Court—who helped you? I know it wasn’t Linda.”

“No, it wasn’t Linda, and the person only helped with your favorite flower. I guessed the rest.”

“What rest? Is there more to the surprise?”

He smiled. “This isn’t enough?”

“Yes, more than enough. I don’t think my heart can take much more.”

“Karen helped with your schedule and flowers. We were scheming to keep your schedule free.”

“Oh, so she knew you were coming today.”

He nodded. “Yeah, she knew. She didn’t tell you, did she?”

“No, she didn’t tell me anything.”

“I thought she might’ve blabbed a little. But you’re not a good actress.”