My Life as a Doormat (in Three Acts) (33 page)

“Speaking of that,” I said, laughing, “I have a funny story to tell you.”

“Yeah?”

“Last week I was at dinner with a . . . friend, at Mangalos actually, and I looked up and saw Dillan.”

“Really?”

“Yeah. But I was pretty ticked, because he was with this blonde girl, and they were laughing it up and having a good ol' time. When I left I was really bothered by it, because I thought Dillan was cheating on you.” I kept chuckling.

“So what's the funny part?” Kate looked concerned.

I waved my hand. “Turns out the guy was Dillan's twin! I'd forgotten he'd mentioned having a twin until dinner the other night. I was fretting about how to tell you, you know? It was awful. But then Dillan mentioned his twin, thank goodness.” I laughed. But Kate didn't even smile. She stared at her tea. “What's wrong?” I asked. “It was his twin. What's his twin's name?”

But Kate didn't answer. She looked angry.

“Kate?”

She looked up at me.

“What? Dillan does have a twin, does he not?”

“Yes. But he's blond and about a foot shorter. They don't even look like brothers.”

Any words I was about to say screeched to a stop inside my mouth. Kate looked exactly like I felt.

“You say a blonde woman?” she asked.

I nodded.

She cursed and flew to her feet, pounding her fist into the air. “Brandi!”

“Brandi?”

“She works with him. I've seen her at a couple of dinner parties. They went out a few times, but Dillan told me it was totally over between them.”

I stood and said, “Maybe it was innocent. I mean, I didn't see them kiss or anything.”

“No.” Her eyes had the fierceness of an athlete in the final seconds of a tied game. “No. No!”

I reached out to her. “Kate, I'm so sorry. I honestly didn't mean to . . . I didn't know. I thought I was telling a funny story. I had no idea Dillan was really . . .”

“He's the first man I've loved in a really long time. But you already knew that, didn't you?” Her eyes cut to me momentarily, and she sat back down.

“Maybe you can work it out.”

“He's not who I thought he was. It's not the first red flag, actually. I noticed that at dinner one night he was giving the impression to others in our group that he was a devout churchgoer. That is how we met. But he was at church for the first time, following an ex to see who she was dating.” Staring at the carpet, Kate added, “And it wasn't love at first sight, like he presented it. He wasn't really that interested in me until he found out who Dad was. How else would a girl like me get a guy like him?”

Kate, who'd always been a picture of confidence, had used Dad to get a date? I couldn't believe it. Maybe I wasn't the only person in the world whose confidence had been compromised a time or ten thousand.

“What are you going to do?” I asked. But before she could answer, there was a knock at my door. It was after eleven. Who would come by at that time?

Maybe it was Cinco. I prayed it was Cinco. I also prayed once again that the security system downstairs would be fixed. I was tired of people making it all the way to my door before I knew who was coming.

I stepped up to the door, peered through the hole, and gasped. “It's Edward!” What was Edward doing here? I stumbled backward as another persistent knock rattled the door. Kate grabbed her purse.

“Wait, Kate. You don't have to leave. I don't know why Edward's here, but—”

She held up a hand. “I have to go. I've got to think through some things.”

The insistent knock came a third time.

Kate passed by me and opened the door. Edward looked like the wreck I'd been for most of the day. My heart melted with pity. Seeing Kate startled him. His gaze wandered until it found me.

“I'm sorry. I thought you would be alone.”

“I was just leaving,” Kate said, brushing by Edward.

“Kate . . . ” I reached out for a hug, but she was gone. I prayed she wouldn't take this out on me, but that steely look in her eyes made me unsure.

Edward came in, and I closed the door behind him. He didn't even make it to a couch. He turned and looked at me with such intensity that I stood very still at the door, my back flat against it, and held my breath. I couldn't imagine what he was getting ready to say. I braced myself for a tongue-lashing.

But instead, as quietly as a shy boy, he said, “Come back to me.” He stepped closer, his hands nervously playing with each other, tears at the corner of each eye. “Leah, please. Marry me. Please marry me. You're the only thing that I want. Everything else can leave.” He looked down, searching for words when I offered only silence in response. “I'll change, Leah. I'll be more—what do you call it—spontaneous. I'll let you wear pink. I didn't know,” he said, each new word choking with emotion. “I didn't know it meant so much to you. I thought you were trying to be someone you weren't. But I'm realizing now I never gave you a chance to be who you really are. I grew comfortable . . . I like predictability, Leah. It's what my whole life revolves around. But I can change. I will change. If you will please, please come back to me. Don't do this. Don't leave me. Please.”

I'd never once heard desperation in Edward's voice. He'd always taken a great deal of pride in his poise: straight shoulders, a confident expression, verbiage dripping with intellect. Now, his hair was disheveled, his shoulders slumped, and his body language oozed neediness. I couldn't help but feel regret, because I'd always wanted to see this side of Edward that I hadn't thought existed.

“Say something,” Edward finally said, his pleading eyes locked onto mine.

But I could hardly look at him any longer. “I don't know what to say,” I admitted, and without much emotion, I noticed. Maybe I'd had my fill of crying.

“You've got to say something. I need you to say something. Don't you understand how this came out of left field? We were picking out wedding cakes, and now you don't want to marry me.”

I prayed for the right words. “Edward, everything wasn't all right. You just couldn't see it. I've been trying ever since the pink dress incident to tell you something wasn't right. But you didn't have the time or the patience to listen to me. You didn't want to deal with it.”

He sighed. “That's true. I thought it was a passing phase. I realize that was a mistake.” He took three steps toward me. With my back still against the door, he took my hands as tenderly as he ever had and looked into my eyes with more passion than I ever thought he was capable of. “Leah, please, will you reconsider your position in this matter?”

It was such a simple, small word, but so heavy on the tongue, so difficult to push out. It was one word, but it had so many implications.

“No.”

He let go of my hands, his brow falling over his narrowing eyes. He stepped back and studied me. Dull disappointment washed over his bright eyes. “What am I supposed to tell my family?” he blurted. He gestured toward me. “And what about your family? I cannot see your family being okay with this. Have you told them?”

“Yes.”

He shook his head. “This is unbelievable. Maybe I never really knew you, Leah. Maybe that's the problem. Because the Leah I knew was not capable of doing this.”

There was never a truer statement.

“I'm sorry, Edward. This isn't meant to hurt you. But I know it does.”

“I don't even know you!” He backed away from me like I had some disease.

“You do know me,” I said calmly. “It's just who I've never had the courage to be.”

“I liked the old Leah better.” He pointed to the door. “Do you mind? I'd like to leave now.”

I wanted to hold out my hands, talk this through, try to make Edward not hate me so much. But even though I knew I was completely breaking his heart, I also knew this was exactly what I wanted. I didn't love Edward enough to marry him.

I stepped aside and opened the door for him. He stared at me as though even that simple gesture was beyond his comprehension. He hesitated, obviously expecting me to say something. I didn't, and with a swift stride he was out the door, which I closed without looking after him.

I went to my bathroom, washed my face, put on my favorite cozy pajamas, crawled into bed, and slept as if my world were not falling to pieces.

Chapter 28

[She aims her gun.]

M
illions of stories have been told through the centuries, but stories, no matter how they're told or why, seem to have the same basic structure. There is the beginning, where the protagonist's life is in a state of
equilibria
. Life is balanced, for the time being. Of course, it cannot stay that way. Every good story has built into it the rising action—the
desis
. This is where the protagonist's life becomes unbalanced, where complication is introduced, which leads ultimately to the moment of crisis, the climax—
peripeteia
. The way the protagonist deals with peripeteia is what brings sympathy to the character. He must deal with it. The climax is the point of no return. But then, when the heat is turned up as hot as it can go, the
denouement
arrives. The falling action, the unraveling of it all, where the consequences of the character's decisions must be dealt with, good or bad.

Then, resolution.

That was the part, two weeks later, that had not arrived for me. I'd always referred to resolution as the story's “deep breath.” But in my own life, during more conflict than I would've dared put my own characters through, I still had no resolution.

I had not spoken to Cinco, nor had I returned to the conflict resolution class. I figured if I hadn't learned how to resolve conflict by now, there was no hope for me. But not seeing Cinco was difficult. I had to take his absence as a sign that he was never really that interested in me, or that our fight had undone an already fragile beginning.

Dad was still at home recovering. Mother had suggested I not come see him for a while. She told me she didn't want him stressed. I talked to him twice over the phone, but we never mentioned the abandoned wedding plans, only his improving health.

Kate broke up with Dillan, but she was refusing to talk with anyone about it. Mother's snippy words, which tiptoed around the subject about as delicately as a gorilla, reminded me that she blamed me for that too.

I heard the rumor through the few friends I had in the theater industry that J. R. was telling everyone I'd gone mental. To have that particular rumor spread wasn't as bad as it might seem, for an artist anyway. Just such a thing could make a playwright's work very popular, and themes inferred but never implied could become a touchstone for the artist's every play. For all I knew, J. R. was still trying to resurrect my career.

And as if those things weren't enough, I missed Jodie too. I was never sure how much of her identity was really me. But nevertheless, she provided a lot of entertaining thoughts, which I could've used during the long and lonely days. She wasn't the most optimistic presence in my life, but at least she was something.

I sat in solitary confinement in my apartment on this Saturday, as I had for many days. Today would've been the wedding. I hadn't cried once about Edward. I knew beyond a shadow of a doubt I'd made the right decision.

But I couldn't resist imagining myself walking down the aisle. In my daydream, there was nobody at the end waiting for me. It didn't matter. I could still see myself in a white dress, the titanic version of a veil hanging off the back of my perfectly coifed hair, and guests smiling widely as I passed.

I sat in my quiet living room at three o'clock in the afternoon flipping through a Pottery Barn catalog. Each picture reminded me of how discombobulated my life was. I stared at each engaging page, with the matching comforters; crisp, colored window treatments; expensive-looking furniture; storage space beyond your dreams—all arranged to look as enticing as possible.

In contrast, my life looked like a garage sale.

And then there was a knock. I raced to the door, hoping they wouldn't leave in the half second it took me to get there. I didn't care who it was; I just wanted some company. I didn't even bother looking through the peephole.

“Hi!” I shouted with glee.

Cinco laughed. “Hi. You look . . . happy.”

I pulled it in a notch. “I am. I'm fine. Surprised to see you. But glad to see you. Come in.”

“Thanks.” He stuck his hands casually in his pockets as he walked in. He surveyed the room, probably for any surprise guests.

“How about something to drink?” I asked. I was trying to play the perfect hostess, but my efforts were really an attempt to direct my energy away from the urge to jump up and down and shout.

“Sure. It's starting to get hot outside.”

I poured him iced tea that, thankfully, I'd made up the night before. I perched a lemon slice on the rim and carried it into the living room, where he'd sat down on the leather ottoman.

“Thanks.” He watched me as I sat across from him. “You look really good.”

I looked away. “Anything's an improvement from the last time you saw me.”

“True,” he said. “But you still look really good.”

“I feel good,” I said. “A lot has happened in my life lately. More than I could even explain. But I feel good.”

His gaze found my hand. I kept it steady on my knee so he could take all the time he wanted. “So it's over?”

I nodded.

“How do you feel about that?”

“Like it was the best thing I've ever done for myself.”

His finger traced lines in the sweat of the glass. “I wanted to give you some space. You needed time to work through some things.”

“Was it that obvious?” I laughed.

“It meant a lot that you came to me to talk about it.”