Twitterpated (23 page)

“I’m glad I met you,” she said. “I’ve always wanted a chance to apologize for how everything happened with Jason. I was madly in love with him for months on my mission before I admitted it to myself. I had no idea you were waiting for him until he told me when I got back. I’m so sorry it went down like that.”

I studied her for a minute, taking in the apology and the sincerity in her voice.

“Thank you,” I said.

She hesitated then nodded and followed her husband down the hall.

“Stacie?” I called when she reached the closing doors.

She turned.

“It’s okay,” I said.

She smiled and slipped inside before they clicked shut.

And I thought that maybe I meant it.

Chapter 37

“
S
ORRY!”
I
SAID AS SOON
as Sandy stepped out of the cultural hall.

“For what?” she asked.

“For bailing and leaving you in Gospel Doctrine. I am a bad friend.”

She looked at me strangely but said only, “Don’t worry about it. It’s Relief Society now, right?”

“Yes. Although I can run you back to my parents’ house if you’re churched out,” I offered.

“It’s fine. I’ll stay. Where’d you disappear to?”

I didn’t answer for a moment, instead leading her down the hall to the right room.

“Um, I was chatting with Jason and his wife,” I said.

She stopped, and I had to backtrack a few steps. “What?” she asked.

“You heard me.”

“
Jason
Jason? And his
wife
? Should I be getting you water or a fainting couch or something? How do you feel?”

“Fine-ish.”

She continued to study me.

“Seriously,” I said. “I don’t think I’m going to lose it. They were both pretty cool about it.”

“Realllly.” She drew the word out. “Cool, huh?”

I nodded.

“Good. Can I see them? Let’s peek through the doors.”

“No, crazy. We’re going to Relief Society.”

“Party pooper!” she accused.

“If the ruins of my life are your party, that’s a sad commentary on you.”

“You said you were fine,” she reminded me.

“I said fine-ish. In the neighborhood, but not quite the same thing. Let’s hurry, or we’re going to be stuck on the front row.”

“Don’t act like you’re not a front-row sitter,” Sandy said. “You’re a nerd from way back.”

“Yeah, in calculus or chemistry or something. I like the back row in Relief Society.”

We slipped in for the opening hymn, “Where Can I Turn for Peace?,” and that tickle swept up the back of my neck, the tickle that tells you to pay special attention to the lesson. The tickle that says, “Today, this lesson is about you.”

After the announcements, my mom stood to give the opening prayer, and then a young woman began the lesson. She looked my age, and a simple gold band circled her ring finger.

She’d been assigned a general conference talk about forgiveness for her lesson, and she solicited stories and experiences from class members who were eager to share. At the end, she bore a simple testimony about forgiveness. “Forgiveness brings us peace,” she said.

Oh man. I didn’t know whether I loved or hated Sundays when the message burrowed right into my heart.

* * *

“How did you like church today?” my mom asked us over a lunch of roast beef sandwiches.

I waited for Sandy’s response.

“I thought it was pretty great. It’s a lot different than I remember,” she said.

Well, that was a surprise.

“How so?” my mom asked. Good. I could eavesdrop on the answers.

“It seems like all the activities are different. I remember it being more old ladies teaching lessons and the activities being about canning stuff or sewing aprons. Not that there’s anything wrong with that.”

I could tell this amused my mom. “Believe me, we do plenty of that too, but we try to branch out and attempt new things.”

“Yeah. The whole organic cooking sounded interesting. And the volunteer thing where you go read. That’s kind of cool,” Sandy said.

“Maybe you could find something similar to do in Seattle,” my mom suggested.

“Good idea,” I added. “It could be part of the life makeover. I bet you can’t throw a rock in Seattle without finding someone to teach you organic cooking.”

“Throwing rocks at people got phased out in the makeover,” Sandy said. “But replacing that with the volunteer reading thing sounds like a possibility.”

“You would be marvelous at something like that,” my mom declared. “You’re so personable. The kids would really respond to you.”

“I don’t know. I haven’t been around them much.” Sandy mulled the idea over briefly. “I can’t believe I’d be the only one into doing it. I wonder if I could set up some kind of corporate outreach program through our department to coordinate volunteer stuff in the downtown area.”

“That’s fantastic!” my mother exclaimed. She and Sandy were off and running in a brainstorming session before I could blink.

I checked out of the conversation within seconds and jumped onto the train of thought I’d been riding all day since my out-of-body experience with Jason and his family. I still didn’t know what to think.

I guess in the hundreds of times I’d imagined it, running into Jason had gone much differently. I’d pictured him with a growing paunch and thinning hair, his bedraggled and lumpy wife trailing him and eying me in jealousy. I would be dressed to kill, and I would greet him all calm, cool, and collected. His eyes would fill with regret, and I would give him a smile that said, “Too late.”

Instead, I’d barely avoided stammering when he’d caught me off guard in the hallway, and I had stood there, dim-witted from lack of sleep, incapable of soaking up the moment. I wished I could claim that my mental filter kept me from saying anything truly stupid, but the reality was that my brain had worked too slowly to open my mouth and incriminate me. I’d walked away feeling confused, not triumphant. Or I had until the lesson in Relief Society.

I dug into my purse and pulled out the rumpled quote the teacher had handed out at the end of the lesson, a reminder about how focusing on old wounds couldn’t offer any peace.

But until Ben showed up, I’d had peace, hadn’t I? I had a nice home, good job, pleasant ward, and no drama. Peace oozed out of my ears. So why did I feel like the quote spoke to me?

I must have looked like a space cadet when my dad walked through the door almost twenty minutes later. I shook myself to alert status and tuned back in to my mom’s conversation with Sandy. Somehow, it had veered from volunteer opportunities to a conversation about needlepoint. I didn’t even try to retrace those steps.

“Hi, sweetheart,” my dad said, giving my mom a squeeze.

“Hi, sweetheart,” he said, turning and giving me the same treatment.

Sandy watched with a small smile.

“Hi, Daddy.”

“Uh oh,” he said.

“What uh oh?” I asked.

“I know that tone of voice. You only call me ‘Daddy’ when you need something. Will this cost me money?” he asked, his eyes twinkling.

“No. I need advice, I guess.”

Sandy listened to the exchange with interest until her cell phone rang faintly upstairs. “I’d better go get that.”

My mom got up too and murmured something about finding an embroidery book for Sandy.

Dad watched in amusement as they left and then eyed my half-eaten sandwich. “What are the chances of you finishing that?” he asked.

“Slim to none. How about you finish it off, and I’ll make you another one all for yourself?”

“Deal,” he said.

I waved him into my seat and rummaged through the fridge for more sandwich fixings. We chatted about my sisters while I crafted a meat-and-cheese masterpiece for him, and a few minutes later, I plunked the double-decker beauty down and pulled out the chair opposite him. Settling into the worn wooden seat, I glanced around and smiled, recalling the countless times my dad had counseled one of us girls at the table. Usually, it was because we asked his opinion, but I had been invited to take a seat a time or two when he had something on his mind. In my case, he wanted me to dial back on the stress in my life and take it easier.

“What’s on your mind, stinkpot?”

The goofy term of endearment dated from early childhood, but it comforted me. “I ran into Jason today,” I blurted.

He finished his bite before answering. “Your mother warned you that might happen. How did it go?”

I shrugged. “I met his family. Cute kids. His wife seems nice.”

He waited. When I made no other comment, he picked at his sandwich and asked, “How are you feeling?” He took two more bites while I struggled with an answer.

Finally, I came up with one. “Confused?”

“What confuses you?” he asked.

“I don’t know. Because I’m confused. Get it?”

He laughed. “Yes, I get it. Are you confused about your feelings for him?”

I thought for a minute. “Yes.” Hmm. “No.”

He laughed again. “That’s about as clear as mud.”

I slumped in defeat.

“It’s not that bad, Jessie,” he consoled me. “Why don’t you tell me what you felt when you saw him?”

“Shock. And a little nausea.”

“Of course,” he said, his tone understanding. “You didn’t expect to see him right then. What did you feel when the shock wore off?”

“I’m not sure it has yet,” I said.

“Do you feel happy that you saw him?”

“No . . .”

“Do you feel sad?”

“That’s not it, exactly,” I said, frustrated with myself.

“Do you maybe feel confused because when you saw him, you felt neither happy nor sad? That you felt nothing at all?”

I let that sink in. “Yes, that’s more what it is. After I got over the surprise, it was kind of . . . I mean, I was embarrassed but not . . .” I trailed off, clueless about how to explain my state of mind.

“Hurt? You weren’t hurt?”

“No,” I said, shaking my head. “That wasn’t it. It’s like you said. I felt nothing. Not mad or anything. Maybe conspicuous, but that’s it.”

“Ah.” He fell silent, eating his sandwich and letting me think. After a while, he asked, “Was this the kind of nothing that feels like being numb?”

I poked around inside and tugged at my unraveling confusion. “No, not numbness,” I pronounced. “It’s just . . . nothing.”

The realization stunned me. It was so simple and so obvious. My inevitable confrontation with Jason in my imagination had always been fraught with emotion; in my other favorite version, I would stand there triumphant while he groveled and confessed his idiocy. I would say something cutting like, “Too bad I outgrew you years ago,” and walk away, leaving him crushed in my wake.

In reality, I hadn’t felt triumph or humiliation or anger. Or anything. It wasn’t numbness. It was indifference. I remember reading once that indifference, not hate, was the true opposite of love. Somewhere along the way, any real emotion for Jason had sort of . . . faded. And with that realization, a couple of things snapped into perfect focus.

I poked around inside my brain again, testing my new theory.

Yeah, that’s what I thought.

Dang.

Chapter 38

S
EVEN HOURS LATER
I sat squished between my mom and Sandy on the couch, fighting to keep the blanket we shared from slipping over my head again. My dad reclined in his favorite armchair with a tattered copy of
Don Quixote
in his hands. We pursued the less refined entertainment of watching a Lifetime disease-of-the-week movie. Tonight’s special starred Denise Richards as a terminally ill mother whose house burns down, car blows up, and kids get kidnapped, and when it can’t get any worse, she attracts a psycho stalker. But a handsome doctor, played by Lorenzo Llamas, discovers a cure for her illness, rescues her kids, fights the stalker, and proposes, and everyone goes to live in his McMansion with a convenient extra Mercedes in the driveway to replace her exploded car.

At least, I assumed it ended that way. I only got as far as the doctor showing up before I caught myself in a yawn. Guessing the ending, I slid off the sofa.

“Are you going to bed already?” Sandy asked. “It’s not even nine o’clock.”

“I got almost no sleep last night, and I want to wake up super early tomorrow.”

Her face was suddenly guarded. “You do? Why?”

“I want to be at the beach.”

“Oh.” She thought that over. “Is it pretty close?”

“Kinda, I guess. It’s about five miles.”

“Are you going to drive?” she asked.

“What’s with the twenty questions? Yes, I’m going to drive.”

“I wanted to borrow your car.”

Even my dad put
Don Quixote
down to stare at her this time.

“At six in the morning?” I asked.

“Um, yes. There’s a yoga place I looked up online. They do daybreak yoga, and I thought I’d try it, that’s all.” She flushed.

“Oh. Well, I’m not sure how long I’m going to be at the beach, so why don’t you drop me off, and I’ll call you when I’m done,” I offered.

“Sure.” She sank back into the couch and turned her attention to Denise Richards and her poorly done pancake makeup intended to mimic grave illness. Lorenzo Llamas in a doctor’s coat soon snagged my mom’s attention.

I headed upstairs and changed into sweats with my high school’s logo across the chest and down the leg. I’d found them sitting in the bottom drawer of my old dresser, overlooked in my move to BYU and grad school. My mom had stuck a sachet in there, and the sweatshirt smelled vaguely of lilacs. Taking a few minutes to give credit where credit was due for today’s realizations, I said a prayer of thanks and set the alarm on my cell phone before tumbling into bed, exhausted.

It went off about five minutes later, or it seemed that way when I cracked my eye open to check the display. But it said 5:50 a.m., which meant I had gotten a full night’s sleep. Stifling a groan, I rolled out of bed and dragged my feet down the hall to knock on Sandy’s door. I had barely lifted my hand when she opened it, already dressed in turquoise yoga pants and a crisp white hoodie.

“I hate you,” I said. “Let’s go.”

“I can wait while you get dressed.”

I looked down at my San Luis Obispo High sweats. “I’m dressed.”

“Right. You look . . . warm,” she said. “But I have a cute sweater you can borrow instead if you want.”

I glared at her.

She sighed. “Okay, no sweater. Let’s go.”

When we slid into my car, I took the passenger’s seat. I figured she’d remember the route better if she drove it herself, so I gave her the directions to the beach. “Are you sure you don’t want me to wait in the car until you’re done with . . . whatever?” she asked, eyeing the gray dawn as we pulled into the parking lot.

“Yep. Only beachcombers come out this time of year in the morning, and they’re harmless,” I said. “Go do your yoga.”

She looked relieved and didn’t argue when I shut the door and headed for the trail winding down to the tide line. I didn’t look back when I heard her pull away.

At the water’s edge, I found a spot out of the reach of the receding tide and sat down. I wished I had remembered to bring a blanket for the chilly sand, but again, early morning? Not my thing. Reaching into the pouch on the front of my sweatshirt, I pulled out the rock I had lugged all the way from my fireplace mantel in Seattle. I rubbed my finger over the marker on the front, feeling the heft of its solid weight in the cup of my hand. I had intended to give it back to the Pacific ever since we’d embarked on this crazy road trip, but my motive for why had changed since my epiphany in the kitchen yesterday afternoon.

At first, tossing the rock back into the water was supposed to be a defiant thing, a big “In your face!” to Jason and Ben and every other guy who had strung a girl along. But seeing Jason had changed his part in it. I couldn’t stay angry at a guy who was so clearly with the right person for him. It even reassured me that two people could find their perfect fit so well, the way he and Stacie had.

By the time my dad had eaten his Sunday sandwich, Ben’s role had changed too. When I’d sat there with my dad yesterday, thinking about how love and indifference are opposites, I also had to acknowledge my anger at Ben. And my hurt. And someone you’re indifferent toward can’t hurt and anger you like that. But someone you . . . love . . .

Well, someone you love can.

And in that moment, I had to accept that Ben had breached my defenses in record time; he had wiggled under and through all my most creative relationship repellents and insinuated himself somewhere in my heart, inside the walls. So I had run a thousand miles and found myself face to face with the guy I used to love and now felt nothing for before I finally figured out that the guy I loved now was probably not going to speak to me again since I’d kicked him out of my house and ignored almost two dozen phone calls.

I had intended to chuck my rock as far as I could, feeling vindicated about the emotional lockdown I’d maintained for four years. But if Jason felt for Stacie even half of what I did for Ben, I couldn’t begrudge him one molecule of his happiness or the choice that day on the beach that had led him to it.

I examined the rock and thought about what Jason had said so long ago, about feeling like he was being worn down and letting life happen around him. I understood now. I knew as I fingered its smooth curves that if I stayed in the emotional hidey-hole I’d created for myself, eventually I would wear away too. Into a lifeless lump without any interesting planes or angles or texture.

Lurching to my feet, I stood and flung the rock as far as I could, watching it sail through the air and land with a plop in the trough of a wave. I sat back down and considered what to do next. Call Ben? Jump in the car and race a thousand miles back to his house? Sandy might kill me if I tried to drag her back so soon. But I didn’t want to wait. I didn’t want to think through a careful plan. I wanted to make things right, to make Ben see that Carie was crazy for letting him go, and that I’d staked my claim in her absence. And that I would tolerate absolutely
no
claim jumping.

I jerked my phone out of the hoodie pocket to see if it was too early to call Ben. I wasn’t sure what I would say, but I wanted to hear his voice, to find some way to apologize. The sky had lightened enough for me to see, even without the screen light, that it was at least an hour too early to wake him up. In fifteen more minutes, the sun would be above the horizon, and normal people would begin to stir. But I should wait.

I dialed my voicemail, picking up Ben’s messages for the first time. The first few dated from Friday night. Ben sounded stressed as he offered several variations of, “Hey, Jessie. I need to talk to you. That was Carie, but it’s not what it looks like. Call me back, please.” The time signatures on the voicemail switched to Saturday morning.

“Jessie, call me,” Ben’s voice pleaded. “I hate that you’re upset. I hate that you’re mad at me. I can make this better. Call me.” Five of those came in a three-hour period.

There were several from Saturday afternoon, tapering off toward the evening. The messages picked up again yesterday, cajoling, pleading. “Jessie, call me. Carie’s gone, and she’s not coming back. I’m not getting back together with her, and I never was. She wanted to talk, and I owed her that much, but I needed her to see my face when I told her we were completely through. She’s already gone, Jessie. Call me.”

Several more like that followed, laced throughout the day.

Dumb, dumb, dumb, dumb me. But the anxiety in his voice gave me hope that maybe all was not lost; maybe he wouldn’t kick me to the curb when he saw me again. I dropped my head onto my folded arms, holding onto my bent knees. I checked the time again. I would wait until 7:30 to call him but not a second longer.

I listened to the last few voicemails, each getting shorter and sounding more terse. “Jess, call me. I am not going away. We need to talk,” and “Jessie, I will sic Sandy on you and disrupt your ice cream supply if you don’t call me back soon.” I smiled at that one, but the smile faded when I got to the last voicemail. He said only, “I’m done calling, Jess.”

A tear slipped down my nose and formed a perfect circle when it plopped to the sand below. I sat with the phone pressed against my ear, hitting replay again and again on that last message when the chirp of a text message startled me. I lifted my head to look at the screen.

Jess, I love you
, I read. It was Ben’s number.

My heart stopped for a moment.
Okay, breathe,
I ordered my lungs. I sat frozen, trying to decide what to do. The lap of the waves thrummed in rhythm with my heartbeats echoing loudly in my ears as blood rushed through my veins, trying to keep up with my pulse.

Breathe,
I ordered again then jumped to my feet. I would call Sandy, get my car back, and pack it for an immediate return trip to Seattle. I whirled around toward the parking lot, ready to pace its length while I waited for her, when I saw my Accord already sitting there.

Ben leaned against the hood.