The Cinderella Project (A Comedy of Love, #1) (15 page)

CHAPTER TWELVE

“When did you stop loving me, Jim?”

“Why do women ask stupid questions like that? I just don’t get it.”

“Why are men so emotionally deaf that they don’t get it?”

“We’re not emotionally deaf. We’re just plugging our emotional ears to drown out the nagging.”

The Monday after my all-nighter with Moiré, I woke with a start and to a troubling realization: Despite good general progress, my research still hadn’t gotten me closer to solving my specific dilemma with Ella. That thought was immediately followed a startling comprehension: I had finally allowed myself to recognize that there
was
a serious problem with my relationship. Slowly, painfully, I began to admit to myself that deep down I was frightened beyond logic. If Ella was the best thing I would ever find, then did that mean it was Ella or nothing? Even more, I was frightened to think that that nothing might actually be
preferable
to Ella. I knew better in my head, but not in my heart.

Images of myself as an eighty-year old bachelor flashed through my mind. All around me, my friends were telling stories about their grandkids and great-grandkids. They were sitting there with their spouses of fifty, sixty years, reminiscing about good times and bad, holding hands as they grew old together in bonds of undying love.

Meanwhile, I was all alone. Forever.

My thoughts switched to the other option. There I was, losing sleep again, wondering where Ella was and who she was with this time. I saw my kids asking, “Daddy? Where’s Mommy?” and I pictured myself fabricating another flimsy cover story for her.

In the end, despite my kids, I was still alone.

Moiré
, said a voice in my head.
Ella will wander. Choose Moiré.

I shook my head until I was so dizzy I was sure the thought would have been flung clean of my brain. Moiré was a nice, sweet, charming, attractive, intelligent… I killed my thoughts. Moiré was a pleasant girl to be around. She was… very helpful in my research. She was just a friend. She would probably make an excellent wife.
For someone else
, I forced myself to think.

I had to find an answer. I had to find it
now
.

Noticing the time, I leaped out of bed and into the bathroom of my apartment. I rushed through the morning routine and was catching my breath in the lab just eight minutes later. I dropped into the seat at my desk and called up all the notes I had made. I did a search for any topic I thought relevant to turning a relationship around and ate up the data eagerly. By the time other people started showing up at the lab, I’d reached two sobering conclusions: I could either confront Ella directly—and do all I could to demonstrate my endless love for her, in hopes that she’d recognize the error of her ways—or I could break off the engagement and start all over again.

Oddly enough, I couldn’t help but think of Moiré’s story about Ember and her man. Both of us guys were trapped between a rock and a sharper rock.

A headache was coming on. I would need time to think about this. This camel already had some pretty big straws on its back. I needed out. I rose to leave, but staggered a few steps, my vision blurry.

“Well, look at that,” a voice teased, “the dead really
do
walk.” It was Moiré.

“Har, har,” I said, but I couldn’t help but smile. Suddenly I felt better. “You’re early.”

“Yeah. Something told me I should skip class and come in.” She sized me up. “Rough night again?”

I grimaced. Was it that obvious?

“Hey,” she said, coming to me, glancing around to ensure no one was paying attention to us, “I’m sorry about the other night. I’ve been meaning to apologize for keeping you out all night, but you’ve seemed… distracted ever since.”

She was right. My morning epiphany had actually been building for quite some time now.
My mental dam against it was finally cracking under the stress.

“Moiré?” I said quietly, “I know it’s barely lunch time, but can we get out of here? I need fresh air.”

She nodded, a knowing and sympathetic look in her eyes. I eventually stopped staring into them when she blinked.

We left the lab, headed for anywhere. Before I knew it, we were in Tipper Canyon, a nice little bundle of hiking trails just northeast of campus.
As usual, the parking lot was full and people were both coming and going from the trailhead. I’d taken Ella there as often as she’d let me; those excursions stopped after just three weeks. But there I was again. I wasn’t sure if I was following Moiré, or if she were following me, but it hardly mattered to either of us, so we just kept walking even once we left the pavement and started onto the dirt of the first trailhead we came to. For five or ten minutes we traveled in companionable silence. The air was clean, the scenery of the canyon beautiful and I gave in to the deep sense of peace, of rightness, dumping my worries trailside with every step. Silly me to remember my worries. Suddenly, I realized what I was getting myself into.

“I shouldn’t be doing this,” I muttered to myself.

“Excuse me?” Moiré returned.

“Nothing,” I said, looking pointedly at a distant pine on the peak to my left.

“Ah,” she said and I detected a note of a hidden giggle in her voice.

We continued wordlessly, while my train of thought chugged slowly along the track of logic. I was engaged to be married, but I faced chaining myself to almost certain marital failure. The sensible action was to abort before tying the knot, but that flew in the face of everything I felt about commitment and about working things out. Ella
could
be reasonable. She had shown signs of being “her better self,” even beyond the first few weeks of dating. I should stick with that and make the best of it; the fundamental changes (the ones necessary to ensure that Ella and I remain happily married) would take time. Then again, the work I’d done for my dissertation leaned toward the “get out while you can” answer. I still found that unacceptable. But who to ask? I needed a woman’s perspective, but I didn’t want to worry Mom. My sisters were too busy with real life to feel comfortable bugging them. Ella, of course, wasn’t an option at all. Wait—Moiré. She was a woman. I took the chance.

“Hey, um, Moiré?”

“Yeah?”

“I’m not one to gossip, but I’ve been… helping a friend with some, you know… relationship issues, recently. You know, me, the Love Doctor? Everyone just sort of figures that I know everything about relationships and all.”

She smiled more knowingly than I felt comfortable with, but she played along anyway. “A friend, huh? What’s his issue?”

“Well,” I began carefully, “he’s… feeling confused.”

“About?”

“Well, there’s this girl he’s dating, but he’s not sure about a few things. On the one hand, he loves her and would marry her tomorrow if it were practical. On the other hand, she seems to have… how to put this nicely… personality quirks that give him room to doubt. Yeah. Personality quirks.”

Moiré cocked an eyebrow but said nothing.

“I guess long story short, he’s confused about whether he actually
should
marry her or not and he’s been bugging me for answers quite a bit, recently. I figure, ‘Hey, Moiré’s a woman. Maybe she could give me a woman’s perspective,’ if you know what I mean.”

She nodded and smiled. “So you want me to hand you a definitive answer as to whether your friend ought to marry the girl.”

I winced at her directness. It only took a moment to realize that, yes, I had placed myself in such a clichéd situation that I was only deluding myself to think otherwise. Combine that with that look of knowing suspicion she’d flashed me and I was suddenly almost certain she’d know who my “friend” really was. I continued pretending anyway.

“Yeah. Sure. Anything you could give him would be great.”

“Well,” she began, “does
she
love
him
?”

I didn’t mean to hesitate, but it took me a moment to spit out “Of course.”

“Does she want to marry him?

I blushed. “Well, actually they
are
engaged.”

“Ah,” she said again, “that changes the game some. Now it’s a ‘how do I break this off without disappointing other people and in the face of the arrangements that have been made.’ That is more complicated. Have they bought the wedding announcements?”

I caught myself before I could speak. “Actually,” I said truthfully, an unnerving realization settling on me, “I’m not certain.”

“Right. How long before the wedding?”

“It seems to be on a flexible schedule,” I murmured.

“Moving back?” she asked.

“Moving
up
,” I replied. “Unexpectedly and considerably.”

“Ah. Who’s changing the date?”

“She is,” I said, trying not to give myself away with a sigh.

“Well,” Moiré said with a smile, “it sounds as though she wants to marry the guy.”

I was surprised I hadn’t seen it in that light before. Could it be that Ella loved me more than I knew, so much so that she couldn’t stand delaying our marriage? It was a nice thought, but it didn’t fit the data.

“So,” Moiré went on, “if she loves him enough to speed things up, then what are these personality quirks of hers that your friend is getting hung up on?”

I suddenly regretted having brought this topic up. I felt, at once, childish and selfish. Moiré had a point: why
was
I getting hung up on personality quirks? Everyone had them. It would be something I’d have to deal with no matter who I married, just as my wife would have to deal with my little oddities. So that was it, then? I was just being stupid? Before I could go any further with those thoughts, Moiré interrupted them with something unexpected.

“Nick, do you remember those personality tests they made us take, freshman year?”

“Which one of the five hundred?”

She laughed. “That animal one.”

“The one where we figured out which animals best suited our personalities?” I had no idea where this was going.

“That’s the one. Have you had your friend and his girl take that one yet?”

I blinked. “No. Why?”

“Well,” she said, “Maybe it would help him find out which ‘personality quirks’ of his fiancé were rubbing him the wrong way. I figured that the animal one is a good choice because it’s kind of funny, so it’s less likely to make your friend’s fiancée feel like she’s being probed, you know?”

I nodded thoughtfully.

“So why don’t we test it on you?”

I blinked. “Say what?”

“You. We’re testing this on you, to refresh your memory. Then you can use it on your friend and his girl.” She pointed to a fallen tree off to the side of the trail. “Go. Sit there.”

I sat wrong and slid off the tree, slightly ripping the back of my pants. Recovering quickly, I sat again, barked and panted. She concealed her laugh behind a faux-professional face.

“What?” I asked. “You’re not going to conclude that I’m a puppy dog?”

“You’re faking it. I’m positive you could never catch a Frisbee with your teeth.”

I just stuck out my tongue.

“Bad Nick,” she scolded. “No processed swine intestines for
you
!”

I shuddered at the thought. “Geez… don’t punish me
too
hard, eh?”

She smiled smugly and said, “Let’s begin.” With that, she ran through the standard battery of questions for the test. In just under two minutes, she had her prognosis for me.

“You, sir, are… a chinchilla.”

I just stared at her.

“You’re a social animal who loves night life, is excellent at escaping cages and who can be cute and cuddly and very affectionate if properly cared for.”

I continued to stare; only now, I dropped my jaw slightly for added effect.

“I suggest that you find someone with a similar personality with whom you can mate and breed a whole herd of really cute baby chinchillas.”

My jaw dropped further.

“Okay,” she said, ignoring my look, “I want you to climb up on that rock, over there and yell, ‘I am the chinchilla!’ as loud as you can, to show off the party animal that you are.”

I was either starting to really enjoy this, or to wonder about her sanity. I remained motionless.

“That rock. Scream. Now.”

I’m not sure what it was in her voice, but for some reason I couldn’t help but obey. I scrambled up the designated pulpit of shame, flung my arms wide and bellowed, “I AM THE CHINCHILLA!”

Of course, no humiliating scene would have been complete without half-dozen underclassmen girls rounding a bend in the trail, to get a good, full view of my display. I groaned and covered my face, ignoring the giggling and comments, glad that I wasn’t still on the hunt. When the giggling faded away with their passing, I shot a sharp glance at Moiré.