Just Rules (8 page)

I’m lying. I can’t keep denying it.

I’ve always been very attracted to Susana. But Tim saw her first, and I still remember how he smiled the day he met her.

It had been a long time since I had seen him so optimistic and so willing to find a woman that would make him forget about Amanda, so I stepped aside. I remember the strange pressure I felt in my chest when I heard Tim asking Susana if she wanted to have dinner with him that same night, how I strongly closed my fist when she told him yes in the middle of the hallway of the television station.

What would have happened if I had been the first one out that door? If I had been the one who bumped into Susana? What’s funny is that I was the first one out the door, but I was so awestruck just looking at her that Tim went past me and got in front of me…and bumped into Susana.

After the brief conversation Tim and Susana had, during which just the sight of her killed me, Tim and I headed towards the set where they were going to interview us, and my friend hardly stopped talking about the good impression she had made on him.

He told me that he had the feeling that they could be friends, and that he found her to be a very attractive woman.

I don’t know what the hell Tim saw in my face that day, but one thing is for sure, and that is that he asked me if I liked Susana and if wanted to go out with her instead.

I let out a laugh and told him not to be an idiot, that for all I cared he could marry her right then and there and have a dozen kids with her.

Idiot.

I couldn’t sleep that night, although I really didn’t know why, and I went to spend the following weekend in Aspen with Kassandra, a spectacular Russian model.

When I got back, Tim couldn’t stop talking about Susan this, Susan that.

I barely escaped that one, I thought to myself, as Susan seemed like a cold and manipulative woman. Distant. Stuck-up. Snobby. Surely any psychologist listening to me would love to get their hands on me, but I did what I had to do.

I turned Susana into Susan, into a dull woman incapable of affecting me, into the woman who had restored hope in my best friend.

However, it didn’t work at all. Sure, it distracted me for a while, but that’s it. Every time I was around Susan I fought with her.

Her insults make me furious…That’s why after seeing her I have the best fucks of my life with the first woman who crosses my path.

I can’t believe I’ve been acting like this for a year. It’s completely absurd. Yet it’s the only thing that makes sense.

The best thing to do is to just forget about everything. Even though Tim and Susana aren’t going to get married anymore, it’s obvious she hates me. She won’t even give me the chance to be her friend, and I’m not sure if I even want to be anyway.

My phone rings and I see Mike’s name on the screen.

“Where are you?” Is the first thing that the coach asks me when I pick up.

“Walking down the street. What about you?”

“Pacing back and forth in my yard in order to restrain myself from wanting to strangle you,
captain.
Why the hell did your agent insinuate that you’re willing to not renew your contract for another season? ”

“I’m thirty-five, Mike.”

“And I’m fifty-seven.”

“I don’t want the club to transfer me to a lower division or to sit me on the bench for the whole season. Maybe it’s time to retire.”

Between you and Tinman, I don’t know who to kill first. Look, Mac, you don’t have many years left, that’s true. I know that you’re too smart for your own good. Surely when you retire you’ll create an empire, but it’s not going to be next year. The Patriots need their captain this next season.

“Mike…”

“I need you, Mac.”

“That’s not true.”

“Yes it is.” Mike sighs. “Look, Mac, I know that these past few months have been very difficult for you with the wedding of Tim and…” He fell silent. What the hell does Mike know? It doesn’t matter anymore, right?

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Take advantage of your vacation to clear your mind. Relax. Get out of town. Do what you want,” he grumbles. “But call your damn agent and tell him that you’re not going to retire this year.”

“I’ll think about it.”

“Do it.”

He hangs up on me before I can say anything else. Mike is the strangest coach I’ve ever met in my life. He’s a very clever man and famous for his bad temper.

“Why would he say that about Tim’s wedding? Was he trying to say that I was having a hard time with the fact that Susan and Tim were going to get married? Have I been having a hard time with it? Is it really that obvious?

I arrive to where I parked my car and I unlock it. I throw my gym bag on the passenger seat and get behind the wheel.

Driving relaxes me, and the ride home allows me to think about what has happened these past few days.

We lost the Super Bowl.

Susana was worried about me in L’Escalier.

Tim and Susan aren’t getting married anymore.

Susan has a freckle on one of her cheek bones and another on her back. How many more does she have? I step on the pedal in order to get to the freeway and get away from the city. In my SUV I drive past the restaurant where Tim made me have dinner with him and Susana almost a year ago. It was the day that Susana began to hate me and the day we started our personal war against each other.

And the only relationship I could see myself having with her without going crazy.

Meatpack Bistro one year earlier
.

I don’t know why Susana insists on wearing those plain and boring suits. Of course Tim seems to like them, a lot, actually, judging by the way he holds her by the waist.

But she maintains her distance. Why can’t she relax?

I have to quit looking at her. She just frowned. Surely she’s going to insult me at any moment.

Thank goodness.

I can talk to her when she argues with me..

Tim has been asking me for weeks to have dinner with the two of them because he says he wants to introduce her to me. Apparently, he forgot that I have already met her, that I was with him the day he asked her out for the first time. I would have said no if I had found a good excuse.

“If you’ll excuse me, I’m going to say hello to that couple over there,” Susana says to us. “She is one of the makeup artists at the station.”

“Of course,” agrees Tim, very formally.

Susana smiles at him and ignores me.

Why does she ignore me? I gave up, and I didn’t say anything to Tim or to her about them since they are together. I’ve been willing to go sit in a corner, but I’m not about to put up with people pretending I don’t exist.

Never.

“I like this girl, Mac,” says Tim, holding a beer in one hand. “And we get along really well.”

“I’m glad,” I tell him, because what else can I say?

“She’s nothing like Amanda,” he keeps going. “I always fought with her.”

“You were crazy about Amanda,” I remind him. “You wanted to spend the rest of your life with her.”

“Yeah, I know.” He shrugs his shoulders and takes a drink. “Maybe I’ll spend the rest of my life with Susan. Don’t you think I’d be better off with her instead of Amanda?”

Just when I’m about to tell him yes, to blurt out what he wants to hear, like he’s matured and that he’s ready for a serious relationship, I see Susan’s reflection in a mirror hanging at the back of the restaurant.

She’s coming near us, and she’s looking at me. She is so concentrated on looking at the back of my neck and my back, that she doesn’t even realize I caught her.

She looks at me when she thinks nobody else is looking? Who does she think she is? If she wants to look at me, she can look me in the eye.

The back of my neck is sweating and I can feel her eyes looking me up and down, fixating on my shoulders. I tilt my head a little to try to make that feeling go away. It’s strange, and I don’t like how it makes me feel.

She’s almost to the table. I’m sure that if I raise my voice a bit she would be able to hear me easily.

“No, I don’t think so,” I answer Tim, and I immediately raise my voice a little. “Susan is fake and stuck-up and seems more frigid than an iceberg.” Done. She has heard me. She stops dead in her tracks and stares at the back of my neck, although this time with hate. I can feel her eyes staring at me. Let’s see if she is capable of ignoring me now. I grip the glass of water I’m holding, and I keep going: “a woman who tries so hard to be what she is not, isn’t right in the head, Tim.”

Susan’s jaw trembles for a second. It is so quick that it is almost as if I had imagined it, yet at the same time, it lasts long enough for me to feel guilty and to feel like standing up and apologizing to her. However, just then Susan walks back to the table.

Now she is going to insult me or yell at me. And she’s going to demand that Tim take her side.

And she’ll have to look at me.

She does nothing.

Absolutely nothing.

She walks up to Tim, kisses him on the cheek and immediately sits down and grabs the menu.

“What do you guys recommend?”

The lights on the freeway flash and I’m forced to concentrate on driving again. I’d better not forget that moment. The way she effortless dismissed me.

I can’t forget that I don’t affect Susana in the least bit. It’s best if I just do what Tim asked me to do, to make sure that she is OK, and to carry on with life as usual.

Sixth rule of American football:

Time-out:
each team has three chances to stop the clock per half.

Two weeks later, when Mac had already been lying down alone on his bed for two hours, feeling regretful —again— for having gone out with Kelly, the phone rang. The date turned out to be a complete disaster. Kelly was gorgeous, and she spent the entire night talking about her or flattering him; two topics of conversation he found horribly boring. Despite the fact that she was young, ambitious, confident, and completely selfish, she had always made it very clear that she wanted to sleep with him. At the beginning of the evening, Mac had no intention of ending up with her at the end of the night. Despite the days that had passed, he still couldn’t get the image of Susana with her wet hair and that sad tear rolling down her face out of his mind.

Why the hell couldn’t he stop thinking about that? Why couldn’t he remember the color of the dress that he took off of Kelly but could remember, like the back of his hand, what Susana looked like that morning in her apartment?

Mac had perfected the art of forgetting Susana seconds after seeing her. Shit, there were even times when they happened to be at the same place and he was able to forget that his best friend’s fiance was even there.

They weren’t getting married anymore.

And now he couldn’t stop thinking about that tear. And because of that tear, Mac decided that the best thing to do was to sleep with Kelly.

It was one of the worst ideas he had had in his life.

He was able to maintain his dignity, as his teammates would say, but only because when Kelly turned the lights off in his bedroom her blonde hair turned brown, her white skin became tan, her blue eyes changed to brown, and Mac didn’t let her kiss him. He covered her mouth so that he couldn’t hear her breathe.

To Kelly it seemed very erotic.

To him it seemed sad and pathetic. And it was something that he was not proud of at all.

Since when did he like Susana? Never.

Always.

During the fateful hours that Mac had spent with Kelly, his imagination preferred for him to kiss the girl with the sad eyes who had slammed the door in his face, instead of kissing the beautiful blonde that was in his arms. And since Susana wasn’t there, he didn’t kiss Kelly, and he left her fabulous apartment as soon as he could.

Before, when Susana was his best friend’s fiance, Mac was able to contain those impulses, those butterflies in his stomach, the pressure weighing down on his chest. But since Tim called off the wedding and had gone to Paris to get Amanda back, Mac’s mind, and other parts of his body, refused to play along.

He didn’t even believe his own excuses such as, what had happened with Susana was temporary or was just a strange moment.

The phone kept ringing and Mac thought about not answering it, but then he saw that it was Tim so he picked up. Maybe by hearing Tim’s voice he would feel bad for thinking about Susan and he would stop doing it.

“It’s about time!” he scolded his friend, and his hands started to sweat like they do when he feels guilty.

“I know. I should have called before,” answered Tim in a tired voice.

“How are things going? Have you seen Amanda?”

“Yeah, I’ve seen her, he said strangely.”

“And have you seen Jeremy?”

“I’ve see him, too.”

“And?”

“Let’s just say that Amanda wasn’t all too excited to see me. And Jeremy…” He paused. “Jeremy doesn’t even know that I exist. Amanda put my name on the birth certificate, but he doesn’t even know that I’m his father.”

“So who does he think you are?”

“Some guy that his mother hates.”

“Sorry, man.”

“It’s not your fault. Anyway, I was calling to ask if you’ve seen Susan.”

“Yes.” Shit. Simply answering that question made him think of her.

“I called her, but she didn’t answer” Tim explained ,“I suppose that can be expected, but I worry about her and I wanted to make sure that she’s OK.”

“She’s OK. She’s a strong woman,” answered Mac, surprising even himself.”

“Not as strong as everyone thinks.”

“If you love her as much as it seems —Mac said, without thinking too much about why he was suddenly so angry— why don’t you come back?”

“I care about Susan very much, I really do,” he added, upon sensing his friend’s anger. “But we would have never been happy together. I barely spoke to Amanda for five minutes and the only thing she did was insult me, but when I saw her I realized that I had never gotten over her. I was naive to think that I could…and Susan deserves a man who will think only about her.”

Mac gripped the phone upon feeling his throat was closing up.