The Frenchman's Slow Seduction (14 page)

“And what did your
mother mean by that statement?”

“She said that she was
really nervous when she was pregnant with Bryan, until the day she
heard on the radio that there were about a quarter of a million
births a day in the world and about half as many deaths. Realizing
that two hundred and fifty thousand other women would be giving
birth at the same time as she would be giving birth took the
pressure off. Suddenly, she wasn’t so focused on herself anymore
and she didn’t feel like she was the only one. She said that she
felt a kinship with all those other women, and that she could
better understand her part in the cycle of life.”

Leaning against a
counter, I say, “So, what you’re trying to tell me is that at any
given time there may be a quarter of a million people going through
the exact same thing as I’m going through?”

She shrugs. “Give or
take a few thousand.”

Strangely, I do find
the thought comforting.

As my eyes start to
focus better, I notice that Michelle isn’t looking very well.

“Are those the same clothes you had on last night?” I
ask her. Then I notice her reddened eyes and the dark circles under
her eyes. “You haven’t been to bed. Michelle, what’s going on?”

Without saying a word,
she starts to cry.

Rushing over to her, I
say, “Michelle, whatever’s the matter?”

“It’s something Bryan
said last night.”

“What did he say?”

“The truth. I told him
to cool down last night, and I hammered a few points home. I told
him that you were vulnerable, that you’d been drinking, and that
he’d just have to wait. He just kept looking at the floor. Then he
said, ‘I’m really sorry, Michelle. You’re right. I’ve just been
thinking about myself. Tell Rachel I’m sorry.’ As he was leaving, I
asked him if he loved you. He turned around, gave me that
half-smile of his, and said, ‘You know, Mich, ten years ago, you
wouldn’t have had to ask me that.’” Then she starts sobbing. For
minutes, she cries so hard that she can’t speak. All I can do is
hold her.

“It’s all been a waste,
Rach. Nothing means anything.”

With my arm around her,
I bring her to the living room sofa, and we sit down.

“What did Bryan mean,
Michelle?”

“I never told you about
Grant. Things ended with him a few months before I met you.”

“Who’s Grant?”

“He was my guy. We went
to the same summer camp when we were sixteen. We made love all
summer: in the barn, under the stars, on the beach, and just about
anywhere else interesting. People thought we were too young to be
so crazy about each other, but they backed off when they saw how
serious we were. For three years, we went out together. We had our
whole lives planned out. But after we’d been living together for a
year, I got a call from the hospital telling me that Grant had
crashed on his motorcycle.”

“Oh, Michelle.”

“Grant survived but he
was paralyzed from the waist down. Every day, I went to the
hospital. After a month, Grant started to come out of the blur he
was in. Then all hell broke out. One night, when I went to visit,
he was sitting up in bed waiting for me. ‘I don’t want you to come
anymore, Michelle,’ he said. ‘Get out and don’t ever come back.’ I
didn’t know what was going on. I told him that I loved him and that
I couldn’t live without him, but he went wild. He started throwing
everything he could lay his hands on. I went to get a nurse. She
sedated him and told me that it would be better if I left. She said
that he was just going through an angry phase because of his
disability. I went home stunned. I honestly thought I’d die. When I
went back the next day, Grant gave me more of the same. After that,
I went once a week for two months to see if he had calmed down, but
the same thing happened. It took everything I had to go see him. I
wrote him letters, but he sent them back. Then it was time to leave
for vet school, and I never saw him again.” She looks at me. “I
couldn’t stand being alone, Rachel, not after having been with him.
The nights were unbearable. I just couldn’t bear being alone at
night. So, as much as possible, I’ve tried not to. When Bryan said
what he did, I realized what a shadow of a life I’ve been living.
I’ve forgotten about love.”

“Go see Grant,
Michelle.”

She shakes her head.
“It’s too late.”

I squeeze her hand.
“You can’t believe that. Don’t ever believe that. Let Grant redeem
himself for how he treated you. At least give him a chance to
apologize. You can’t leave things the way they are forever. It
doesn’t matter where he is or what he’s doing, go see him. He must
feel wretched for what he did. Knowing the type of guy you’d
choose, I know he’d love the chance to say he’s sorry.”

“I can’t, Rachel.”

“You can, and you will.
And sometime soon.”

Wiping away her tears,
she takes a deep breath. “So, what happened at Mike’s last
night?”

I tell her the gruesome
details.

“The rotten spoiled
sods,” she says. “Mike shouldn’t have sent you away, he should have
sent them away.”

“I know. It’s over. I’m
going to tell him today.”

“How do you feel?”

“Relieved, but my brain
feels numb. I’m going to take a shower; then I’m going over to the
clinic. I can’t stand the thought of putting it off. Will you be
okay?”

“Don’t worry about me.
I’m going to crash for a while. Come back later though. I’d like to
hear what happened.” She walks over to a bookshelf, picks up a
couple of keys, and hands them to me. “Take my spare apartment
keys, in case I’m in the shower or sleeping or something.”

At the clinic, Tim,
Lucy, and Mike are having a few quiet moments going about their
business as they wait for the next client. Since Mike is alone in
his office, I walk straight over to him, glancing only briefly in
Tim and Lucy’s direction. Neither of them says a word. When I close
the door, Mike gets up from his desk.

“
Rach!”

With determination, I
say, “It’s over, Mike. It’s been over for a while now, but I’m here
to officially put an end to things.”

With a shocked look, he
says, “Rachel, I’m selling the house. I told the kids I’m starting
a new life and that they’ll have to lump it. I’m sorry for
everything that’s happened, but you know I’m crazy about you. I’d
do anything for you. Anything.”

But there’s no changing
my mind. “I think you deserve a new life, Mike, but don’t do those
things for me. I think you’re one of the kindest people I’ve ever
met, but it’s over. I don’t know what happened, but I don’t feel
the same way about you as I did before. I know you’ve noticed.”

He reaches out to me,
but I step away. “We’ve just had a lot of miserable things happen,
that’s all,” he says. “We’ll work on everything. Things will get
better. I love you, Rachel.”

I shake my head. “We
should have gotten closer when things got tough, Mike, not farther
apart. We just weren’t meant to be together. It’s no one’s fault.
It just didn’t work out.”

“Look,” he says,
“you’re going to Texas for a week. It’ll give you a break and
you’ll feel better about things. Why don’t we talk about things
when you get back?”

“No, Mike. I will go to
Texas, but I won’t change my mind. I don’t think I should come back
to work here. It just wouldn’t work out. I’m sorry.” On my way out
the door, I turn around. “I did like being with you, Mike.”

Anxious to leave, I
only nod and smile at Tim and Lucy on my way out.

On my way home, I
decide to drop in on Bryan.

Looking a bit ragged,
he says, “Come in, Rach.”

I find his quietness
disconcerting.

When we’re settled on
his sofa, I say, “I talked to Mike today. I’ve ended things, and
I’ve decided not to work at the clinic when I come back from
Texas.”

“That’s great,” he
says, but his lack of emotion puts me in mind of something Liz
said: “Beware of the man whose emotions flow like a tap, sometimes
hot and sometimes cold. It means he doesn’t love you enough.”

“What’s wrong,
Bryan?”

“Rachel, I find it
really hard to be with you right now. You’ve had such a rough few
months. I don’t think it’s fair to ask you to be with me until you
get a chance to get over all this other stuff. Who knows how you’ll
feel when you get a chance to relax and have a stress-free time.
Maybe you’ll discover things about yourself you hadn’t realized. I
was thinking you should take some time for yourself. I’ll still be
here when you’re ready.”

When I stand up, he
does too, but he seems afraid to get too close to me.

“What are you
thinking?” he asks.

“I’m thinking I’d
better go,” I tell him, and turn to leave.

“Rachel,” he says,
“it’s not what I want; it’s what I think you need.”

I face him. “Maybe you
should have asked me what I wanted, Bryan.”

When I get to my
apartment and open my door, the phone is ringing. I go to the
living room to answer it.

“I’m sorry, Rachel,”
Bryan says. “You’re right. I should have asked. I just haven’t been
feeling like myself since last night. Can I come over?”

“No, Bryan, don’t come
over. There’s no reason to be sorry. You pulled away for a reason,
and that’s alright. It probably wouldn’t have worked out, and that
would have killed one of us. I don’t think what you did last night
had anything to do with me. I think it was just something that had
to do with you.”

After a pause, he says,
“I’m not like that, Rach. I know a lot of guys are like that, but
I’m not into casual sex.”

Taken aback, I say,
“That’s not what I meant, Bryan. I mean you’re so full of love and
so ready to share your life with someone that you could just about
burst. Looking around, you see me, someone who could fit the bill,
someone you could give all that love to.” After a moment, I say,
“Why did you think you wanted to be with me, Bryan?”

“I looked into your
soul, and I fell in love with what I saw there.”

Releasing a slow
breath, I say, “Maybe we’re just meant to be really good
friends.”

“I’m sorry,
Rachel.”

“I’m not. I’ve had a
heck of a lot of fun, and I wouldn’t change that for the
world.”

When dinner time rolls
around, I decide to go to Northcliff to see Liz and Verna. It’ll be
the last time I get to see them before my trip. I find them both in
the dining hall.

“Am I too late?” I
ask.

“Not at all,” Verna
answers. “But something tells me you’re not here for the food.”

Smiling, I sit down
next to them. “I made another mistake. When Cupid’s arrow struck
again, I didn’t fight it. But it didn’t work out.”

Verna takes my hand.
“Oh, Rachel, I’m sorry.”

“Oh well, I guess
things could be worse,” I tell her.

She frowns. “Rachel,
you should never say things could be worse. You should say things
could be better. It makes a big difference in life to think the
right thing.”

I slump into my chair.
“Why can’t I get this love thing right?”

“You will,” Liz says.
“And when you find the right one, it’ll be so obvious that you
won’t be able to believe you thought of the other ones. It’s a
blessing it didn’t work out for you, really, even though it may be
hard for you to believe that right now.” Her Scottish brogue acts
like a tonic.

I look at her. “What’s
it like when you find the right one?”

Liz’s smile is radiant.
“When I found my Colin, everything was easier. That’s the thing I
remember most.”

Since Liz and Verna
have both travelled to Texas, they tell me about the good times
they had there.

When I get up to leave,
Verna walks with me to the lobby. At the door, she says, “Rachel,
what do you want out of life?”

“I don’t know.”

She waits for me to
think it over.

“I think I’ve had it
beaten out of me,” I tell her.

“Well, dear, it’s like
this. Sometimes in life, you have to walk to the precipice, feel
the fear, and then jump over. With wild abandon, jump over.”

It’s a relief when
Sunday finally rolls around and Michelle drives me to the airport.
As I’m waiting for my turn at the security gate, she hugs me and
says, “Take a mental health holiday, Rach. Try to focus on Texas
and the conference and nothing else. I’ll be here to pick you up
when you get back.” She hands me a small gift-wrapped package.
“Happy birthday, Rach.”

“Good grief,” I say,
laughing. “I’d forgotten. Thanks, Michelle. I’ll see you in a
week.”

When I’m on the plane,
I open the package: it’s a book of poetry by Robert Burns.

Twenty minutes into the
flight, I drift off to sleep and have a dream. I’m walking in the
woods with Nathaniel. I’m six years old again. Holding my hand, he
takes me to a beach, and we kneel down. Facing me, he turns over
three small buckets, each containing different colors of sand.
Removing the buckets, he reveals a mound of red sand, a mound of
white sand, and a mound of white and black sand mixed together;
then he makes a motion for me to choose one of the mounds. I look
at him, confused because I don’t know which one to choose. He nods
his head to tell me that I have to make the choice, that he can’t
help me, that it has to come from me. Without thinking, I pick the
red one. His eyes tell me, “It’s not the choice, it’s that it’s
your choice.” I wake up suddenly. I didn’t choose Bryan.

Chapter 19

Petit papillon, d’où
viens-tu? (Little butterfly, from where do you come?)

Sometimes, there are
butterflies so beautiful that to look at them isn’t enough; you
have to hold them for a while; only then can you bear to set them
free. That’s what happened with Mike and me.