Long Summer Nights (13 page)

“Do you think I’m doing that?”

“No,” he told her, punctuating his answer with a kiss on her hair.

“Don’t you want anything more than this? You don’t want money or fame or recognition or happiness or love?” Perhaps there was a subliminal suggestion in that last one, but he didn’t seem to notice.

“Money isn’t anything. You can have security and be poor. Fame is for the man whose ego needs inflating. Recognition? If I recognize what I am, if Didi recognizes what I am, what does it matter if a French nutter in bow tie and spectacles writes that I’m talented?”

She rose up on his chest and frowned. “It’s vindication.”

“Vindication is for people who don’t believe in themselves.”

With a frustrated sigh, she rolled back into the pillows. “What about happiness or love?”

“I’m happy.”

She shot him her darkest look. “This is happy? Here?”

“Do you think I’d be happier in the city?”

“I think you’d be happier around people,” she stated firmly.

He stayed stubbornly silent, not agreeing with or denying her statement.

She rolled on top of him, feeling his heart, feeling his cock, and knowing he wasn’t nearly as unmoved as he pretended. “Don’t you miss the world? Don’t you miss conversation? Don’t you miss laughing?”

“I make myself laugh. You make me laugh.”

“Don’t you miss being touched?” she asked, kissing his neck. “You’re here.”

“I won’t always be here,” she reminded him.

“No. You won’t,” he agreed, and his voice was terribly flat.

“Won’t you miss me? Won’t you miss this?”

“Yes.”

“But not enough to leave this place, not enough to leave your tower?”

“No.”

“I’m going home.”

He sat upright, and for once, his voice was not so flat. “To New York?” he asked, panicked. Slightly. It wasn’t enough.

Jenn picked up her clothes, because every night she gave him a little more of her heart, and every night his heart
stayed unmoved. Tonight she had no more heart left to give. “I’m going home to my cabin. If you need me, you’ll know where to look. It’s not that far.”

By the time the sun rose, her tears were dry, her mind was clear, but her heart still wasn’t her own.

T
HERE WERE TIMES WHEN
Aaron knew he was a difficult person. He had lived his life with difficult people, and it wasn’t until he was midway through his twenties that he realized that difficult people weren’t the norm. According to his calculations, which he knew were accurate, Jennifer had exactly three days left in Harmony Springs.

He knew he should have said something to her last night, but for the first time in his life, he had no words. He hunched over his typewriter, trying to battle his way through the scene, but his fingers felt clumsy, and he ended up staring into space.

What was she doing? Was she in town, had she packed up and left? That thought chilled him so much that he stopped frowning at the blank page, and pulled on his shoes and stalked down to her cabin.

There, tucked safely in her bed, was Goldilocks. Her clothes were thrown over her chair, her phone was vibrating, and there were tear stains on her cheeks. Bastard.

Aaron nearly backed away, because he knew he would never go to the city, he knew what Jennifer wanted and he knew that he couldn’t give her that. He didn’t want her world, he didn’t want her life. All he wanted was her, and it was a treacherous need inside him. An emotional need that terrified him because he had needed his father, he had needed the soft burn of alcohol, and both had ripped up his soul.

But Jennifer wouldn’t do that,
he protested to himself.

No, he couldn’t give her everything that she wanted, but he could give her some peace, and not bothering to undress, he climbed under the sheet, and pulled her into his arms. She breathed out a sigh, and curved into him, as if she belonged. Work forgotten, he stayed with her, holding her close, letting her sleep.

The sex was the easy part. It was the humanity that damned him.

T
HERE WAS A STOPWATCH
on her phone. A little timer that flashed in the corner showed Jennifer exactly how many hours she had remaining. She didn’t like to look at it because when she did, a great ache rolled in her stomach.

That night, Aaron was slaving over the typewriter, not exactly writing, but making a good show of it, and Jennifer chose to pretend that it didn’t matter. To make it clear that he didn’t matter, she put in her headphones and stared at the display on her phone, noticing with satisfaction the way he kept turning around and looking at her, and then returning to his work.

Eventually he came to bed and sat down beside her, looking at her phone.

“What are you doing?” he asked, and she pointed at her earbuds.

Apparently unhappy with her answer, he jerked them out of her ears.

“What?” she said with a scowl.

“What are you doing?”

“Watching a movie.”

He looked at the tiny display, and squinted. “That’s a phone. You use a television to watch a movie, or a theater screen.”

And yes, perhaps her arms gestured a tad overdramatically. “Do I see a television screen here? No. Do I see a
theater screen here? Nay. I am forced to improvise, heroically retrofitting whatever is at my disposal. Namely the phone.”

And yes, perhaps he sensed that Jennifer was in a pissy mood, but did he choose a topic that was designed to ease her out of her pissiness?

“What are you watching?” he asked, choosing instead to talk about her phone.

It was tempting to put the headphones back in her ears. She refused.
“Princess Bride.”

“Mawkish pabulum.”

“How long have you been waiting to spit that one out? I’ll have you know that before
Princess Bride
was a movie, it was a book. A great book.”

“It was all right. They really made a movie?” he asked, now choosing to talk about crass commercialization of media entertainment, and she knew in her heart that this was a peace offering. A more ambitious woman would have demanded more.

“Oh, you are such a greenhorn,” Jennifer muttered, trying to sound like the more ambitious woman she wasn’t. Instead it came out like a moonstruck declaration of love, which perhaps it might have been.

He smiled and sat down next to her on the bed, and because it was a night for miracles, he started watching.

“The dialogue isn’t that good,” he commented, a token critique designed to show his disdain for crass commercialization and the lemmings who were a slave to it. Sometimes he was far too transparent.

She shot him a sideways look that said she wasn’t buying it. “It’s meant to be satirical. Yet still have heart. You might have trouble with that concept. Mawkish. Pabulumish.”

“You don’t need to make fun.”

“I have learned from the master.”

“Did I teach you that?”

“No, my seventh grade English teacher did, but I picked up some great pointers from you. Shh. This is the good part.”

T
HE DAY BEFORE SHE
was scheduled to leave, Jenn had most of her story written. Nothing earth-shattering, but it was respectable and fun. It was the history of Harmony Springs. The people, the stories, the lives that this town had touched.

It wasn’t hard to write about because she hadn’t escaped unscathed, either. It wasn’t the cute little town that had touched her. Not its colorful characters or the cheerful music or the small-town charm. No, it was Aaron.

She didn’t want to name what was between them. It was ironic to think that she’d finally found the one man who she wanted to be with, and sure, he loved having sex with her, he loved talking to her, he gave her thoughtful little presents and displayed an odd sort of desire. But in the end, when she left this place, he was going to say goodbye and that’d be all. The End.

She wanted to scream. She wanted to hit him. She wanted to kiss him and love him and ride him until he begged for mercy. These emotional wrestling matches were only eased with a daily trip to Frank’s for ice cream, or a nightly lovemaking session with Aaron. Sometimes both.

It was early on her last morning, and she was in that half-awake time found somewhere after sex and after dreams, but before caffeine could shock her awake. She rubbed her palms over her face. As always, he was in his chair, far far away, but he was watching her with his writer’s eyes.

“My name is Aaron Barksdale.”

It took a second for the name to register, and Jenn sucked in a breath.

And she called herself a journalist?

Yes, she’d imagined a lot, but she’d never imagined that. The Booker Prize, the Pulitzer, a literary wunderkind at the young age of twenty-two. Authors like Aaron Barksdale didn’t hide away in the woods. They went to book parties, they dined with their agents, and they didn’t fall in love with ordinary people like her.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” she asked him, sounding surprisingly calm and composed. Maybe she’d learned that from him. Maybe she’d learned how to brick that wall inside herself, slowly suffocating the cask of her heart.

“It’s not something I tell people,” he explained, which was, frankly, a stupid explanation. He’d danced with her, he’d had sex with her, he’d shown her his work. He should have trusted her.

And now he was trusting her? Right as she was about to leave? Oh, yeah, so why didn’t she believe that? “Why are you telling me now?”

“It’s a test.”

Oh, goody.
Jenn hated tests. “What sort of test?”

“You’re a reporter. You need a story. I just gave you a story. So, are you going to use it?”

Slowly her blood began to simmer, to stew and finally, to boil. Oh, he was so clever. So sure of her. So absolutely positive that she was going to stab him in the back. As if she could. “If I write this up, you’ll never forgive me, will you? If I don’t write this up, I lose my job. You think I’ll write it, don’t you?”

His nod was instant. The bastard didn’t even have to think about his answer. “Your job is important. This is your chance.”

“And you want me to write about you? You want me to expose your dirty little secret?”

“Technically there is no dirty little secret.”

“Do you want me to write the story, Aaron?” she repeated, tired of trying to guess the right answer.

“No.” His face was so clinical, so cold. She rubbed her arms in spite of the warm summer air.

“So what’s the test?”

He stayed silent, waiting for her to figure it out, waiting for her to comprehend the crooked complexities of his mind. And eventually she did. Because she’d learned that from him, as well.

“You think I will, don’t you? You think, oh, yeah, she’s going to screw me over. You’re longing for me to screw you over on this one because then you’ll be right. All your little distrusting obsessions with people. Everybody is out to get you, and oh, look. There’s No-Ethics Jennifer, she was out to get me, too. And if I write it, then you’d be right.”

She stalked around the room, but he didn’t move, didn’t flinch. “Is it worth that much to you to be right, Aaron? Is it worth giving up all this little sanctuary that you’ve built just to know that humanity is always in it for the bad?”

“Does that mean you’re going to write the article?”

He looked so sure of himself, so sure of her. His mind had mapped this all out because he wanted to hate her. Oh, he needed to hate her. God forbid the man should actually care.

Jenn picked up the nearest object, conveniently a dictionary, and chucked it in his direction. He dodged it easily, not angry, not afraid, as immovable as stone, which only infuriated her more.

She wasn’t a thrower. She wasn’t a violent person. She wasn’t a screamer. And most important of all, she wasn’t a woman who stabbed the man she loved in the back.

“Screw you, Aaron. Screw you and your Pulitzer. Screw you and your artistic temperament.”

“You’re mad.”

“Yes, I’m mad.”

“Why?” he asked, steepling his fingers, watching her as if she was a stranger.

To prove her anger, she threw another book at him, and even Two moved out of her way. The cat knew human nature much better than the man. “What is this?” she raged. “Fodder for the book, Aaron? Playing the puppet master, pulling the strings. Plunging the depths of the human condition to see how far they will sink?”

“No.”

She stared at him, with his cool blue eyes and his granite heart and his talented hands.

No.
He wasn’t worth it. He wasn’t worth this pain, but the pain wouldn’t leave, so she would.

“I’m going back to the city. I’m going home. To men who don’t treat me like a lab rat. To a place where I can have showers and towels and walk four blocks to four different coffee shops, and men will whistle when I walk by. Because there is nothing for me here. Nothing? Do you understand? You are nothing to me. Goodbye.”

With a great show of force, she slammed the door behind her, hoping she’d disturbed him, hoping she’d unsettled his omnipotent existence. Hoping she’d hurt him as brutally as he’d just gutted her.

T
HE FIRST NIGHT
she was gone, Aaron wrote himself into a frenzy. Pages and pages of rambling tripe that was hokey and contrived. He was trying for the best sort of Joyce, a meandering stream of consciousness to fully show confusion and frustration, but ended up with the bad merging of a schoolgirl’s diary and
Penthouse Letters.
He told himself that he was better off without her, better without the distraction, but then he wrote the words
surging passion
and nearly slit his wrists.

His father would have laughed. His father would have been right to laugh at him.

By the time the sun rose, the lantern had flickered down to the stub of a wick, and the wooden floor had disappeared beneath the mounds of garbage that he’d written the night before.

Two was having a field day, flicking the pages with his paw and staring up at Aaron with his you-poor-ignorant-human look that in the past had made Aaron smile.

Now he thought the stupid cat was right.

He should never have told Jenn the truth. He shouldn’t have dangled the bait. He should have stayed silent, said goodbye and went on as before. As soon as Frank’s was
open, he walked over and bought a copy of the paper, obsessively checking each page, because he knew he was right.

Of course she’d write the story—it was too good. Her job was on the line. Why, in his own perverse way, he’d saved her job for her. She would be grateful.

He’d double-checked each page twice, but didn’t see anything, and decided that Jenn would do fact-checking first. She’d do research. Hell, she’d probably interview his father. That thought brought a tight smile to his face. Too bad he was going to miss that one. Being thorough, she’d dig through all the rumors and all the innuendo and find the ugly truth. No, there would be nothing in print until she’d held up his life for the public’s consumption.

The next day he checked and the day after. And the day after that. And every night his floor disappeared under the great mounds of meaningless words. For nothing.

It was two weeks before he realized that she wasn’t going to write the article about him. And why not? It was a lot edgier than the stories about Lillian’s literary salons. A bunch of misdirected elitists who sat around, spinning their tales and sharpening the blade of their wit and not giving a damn about who got in the way.

“Where is the girl?” Didi asked.

“She went back to the city.”

“I see.”

“No you don’t.”

“Did you chase her off?”

“No. It was an assignment. Two weeks. The end.”

“Sounds very predictable. You look more fatigued than usual. I’m assuming you’re not sleeping, judging by the great moons under your eyes.”

“Leave it alone, Didi.”

“Would you, Aaron? Would you leave me alone if I was in pain?”

“No,” he admitted, hating that she was right.

“Do not be more stupid than you must.”

“She knows who I am.”

“She figured it out? Very clever.”

“I told her,” he admitted, not very clever.

Behind the giant lenses, her eyes saw more than he wanted. “I could have predicted it. She has that eager lapdog way that encourages such foolish things.”

“She was supposed to write an article.”

“An article? About you? Imagine. I would expect my phone to be buzzing, people asking about your return from the dead, but
mein Gott,
it has been silent. What would that mean, I wonder? Is there no article or are you not news? Which would be worse?”

From above him, Two hissed in male solidarity.

“You are stewing. Do not stew. Go talk to the girl. Squander the remainder of your self-respect and give her flowers and jewelry and write odes to her hair. She will enjoy that, it’s very
People
magazine.”

“She writes for the
Times.
Or she did. I don’t think she’ll talk to me.”

Didi smelled the blood in the water, and her smile grew wide. “It must have been a nasty fight. I would have loved to have been a fly on the wall. I need the excitement, although it’s probably bad on the heart.”

“I can’t do this, Didi.”

She muttered something foreign and rude. “What? Be human? Sometimes when you try very hard, you manage a passable imitation. It is regrettable, but you are so much softer than you want to be. Don’t be your father, Aaron. He isn’t worth it. He wanted to believe he was God, but
you were the only one who ever bought into his myth. You will surprise yourself with what you can do. Go.”

Didi had always believed in the fiction he wrote, and was a little more tenderhearted than she wanted to appear, but today he needed to hear this. He needed to believe in his fiction, as well. “I could hug you.”

“Please restrain these wild impulses. You would muss the hair and ruin my professional disposition. I must leave before this turns sentimental and mawkish.”

The door slammed with excessive force, but as she walked down the path, there was a spry kick in her step. A momentary recognition of the impossible achieved. However, the movement was so slight that only an astute observer of human nature could notice.

Aaron didn’t notice it at all.

T
HE WEEK FROM HELL
continued when the pink slip came, swift and impersonal, in the form of an e-mail. Not that Jenn was surprised, and she actually enjoyed Quinn the Sleazebag’s positive comments on her performance and his assurances that he would be happy to provide her with a letter of recommendation. He sounded almost sincere. Not that her performance could ever match Lizette’s.

Jenn felt the haze of cynicism momentarily cloud her normally rosy-eyed vision. Yeah, if only she’d gotten a little drunker at the office holiday party, then the ending might have been different. Of if she’d written about Aaron, sure, she’d be the office hero. It was a sad day in Mudville when a reporter needed a slimeball bag of tricks to get ahead. It almost made her reconsider her ethical high-ground position. Almost.

Of course, if Jenn didn’t like the taste of ramen noodles and peanut butter, she might have been a little less firm.
The plus side of unemployment was that the bad foods she craved were also the cheapest.

Sorry, Mom. Gotta eat Twinkies because broccoli costs too much.

It was easy to joke and smile because if she didn’t, she’d spend all her days in tears.

She still couldn’t believe that Aaron had expected her to write about him, expected her to cheapen everything they shared; that was a gazillion times more painful than layoffs. That insult almost made her forget about him, forget about the time together, forget about the nights on the rock, forget about the nights in his arms.

Who was she kidding?

After she had packed up her desk, her diploma and her favorite coffee mug, her roommate took her out for dinner. Natalie was paying, but the day didn’t get any brighter. There were some roommates that were like ghosts. Impersonal, nonintrusive and understanding of the basic Roommate Code of Conduct: We Don’t Have to Be Friends. Unfortunately Natalie was one of those special people who thought she was friends with everyone, and as such could speak with absolute candor and honesty and a beauty-pageant smile.

The restaurant was a favorite of Jenn’s, heavy on dessert. A little out of her price range, but tonight, that was Natalie’s problem, not Jenn’s. It actually felt nice to unload some of her burden on her roommate with her six-figure income and her banker boyfriend. Jenn’s mother loved Natalie. ’Nuff said.

“Look, I don’t mean to be harsh or anything,” Natalie started as soon as the menus were down. “I know you’ve got a lot on your mind, but is this going to cause a problem with the rent?”

Jenn wavered between the cheesecake and the
cheeseburger, thinking the cheeseburger had more nutrients, but the cheesecake would make her happy. Happy was good. Jenn liked happy. She put down the menu and met Natalie’s eyes with confidence that no sane woman would ever feel. “It won’t be a problem. I had some interviews yesterday. I can work two, maybe three jobs at minimum wage. We’ll be fine.”

Sarcasm was routinely lost on Natalie, and she nodded with relief. “Good to hear it. What are you thinking? The cobb salad looks good.”

Jenn glanced down the entrées and reaffirmed her commitment to culinary happiness. Vegetables be damned. “I’m thinking the cheesecake and a glass of pinot grigio.”

Natalie leaned in close in that confidential I’m-your-therapist sort of way. “You know, this is a great teachable moment for you. Whenever bad things happen to me, I always binge. Mallomars are my drug of choice. And the next day, I look at the mirror and see that little pooch in my tummy and I tell myself it isn’t worth it. Do you really want to look in the mirror tomorrow and have the thousand-calorie regrets? Just saying.”

When the waiter appeared, Jenn ordered first, choosing to be firm and decisive. “I’ll take a cheeseburger, the cheesecake, and keep the pinot coming.” After he left, she looked at Natalie and shrugged. “I wish I had your will-power, Natalie, I really do. Maybe someday I’ll be strong. I can only hope.”

And somewhere in hell, the devil and Jenn were dining on their cheesecake, and giggling might have been involved. Just saying.

I
T WAS THREE WEEKS
later when the first peace offering arrived. A bag of coffee from Guatemala. Buried deep within
the beans was a typewritten note that she didn’t discover until she poured them into an airtight container.

“From Coban. They’re light, slightly acidic, and can leave a bitter aftertaste if not brewed properly. I knew you’d enjoy them.”

She didn’t want to smile. She didn’t want to admit that she could be swayed with such cheap tactics like coffee bribery. She was.

The next box was a tin of beans from Yemen. And did he say, “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have thought that you were capable of such black-hearted villainy, even if it meant your job”? Oh, no. Instead, she got little messages like: Earthy and complex. Handpicked under fair-trade standards. Dean and Deluca say it’s the best.

Any other woman would have been dancing a jig to be freed from the clutches of a Pulitzer Prize–winning writer who didn’t know beans about emotional connections. Not Jenn.

She was no other woman, and she was defending her position on that very subject over a pitcher of margaritas with Martina.

“I hate him.”

“Yes, I can see the hate oozing from your pores. Oh, no. That must be the tequila.”

“What am I supposed to do?”

“Whatever you do, don’t call him.”

“I don’t think he has a phone.”

“That’s very convenient. If you get really desperate and want to go see him, you’d have to actually take a ninety-minute train ride to humiliate yourself. It’s like a reinforced sanity check. Not all women are so lucky.” She noticed Jenn’s sheepish expression. “I’m assuming that you talked yourself out of it.”

“It was peak train fares, and I can’t afford to pay for it. Off-peak, I’d spring for it, but he’s not worth peak.”

“No. None of them are. Have another margarita. You’ll feel better until the hangover hits.”

No, she wouldn’t. A hangover was preferable to this misery. “Do you think he’ll ever talk to me or see me, or will he continue to torment me with thoughtful gifts that rate zero on the Dr. Marian Dade scale of man-worthiness?”

“Eventually he’ll be back for the sex. They always come back for the sex.”

Jenn buried her head in her hands. She didn’t want to think about sex, but here she was, drinking margaritas and thinking about sex. “It was good sex. I miss it. I miss him. He’s worth a peak ticket.”

“Be strong, Jenn.”

“You know that my life would be much better if strong was my middle name.”

“What is your middle name?”

Jenn lifted her glass, eyeing the frozen green concoction and its tangy rim of salt. “Tequila.”

T
HERE WERE A LOT OF
advantages to working at Starbucks. Good benefits, free coffee and a certain flexibility to her schedule. The days passed, and each morning there was a package of coffee at her door, but no phone calls, no visit, nothing to indicate that Jennifer was more to Aaron Barksdale than a coffee cup in need of filling.

There were other needs to be filled, and she might have been a little punchier, a little more stressed and sadly, a little poochier around the middle. Jenn really hated when Natalie was right.

It was a warm Tuesday morning when he came in her store. Jenn nearly poured coffee over the elderly gentleman
who was probably a personal injury lawyer, but she stopped herself in time.

She wasn’t sure if this was business or pleasure, so she opted for the worst.

“What can I get for you today, sir?”

Aaron looked tired and skinny and hurt, and perhaps it was cruel to be glad he was in pain, but Jenn had a low tolerance for sympathy these days, and Aaron wasn’t getting any from her. Sympathy, that is.

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

Upon first seeing her after six weeks, there were many things that he could have said. Things that would endear him to her. The assignment of blame, the wounded Bambi look and the anger in his voice were not the best choices.

Jenn flashed him her most nonendearing smile.

“We sell coffee here, sir, not personal therapy. What’s it going to be? Frappachino or straight coffee. You don’t look like a frou-frou frappachino type. I bet you’re not.”

He wasn’t amused, stuffing his hands into his pockets. “When’s your break?”

“Approximately fifteen years. Do you want to wait that long?”

He nodded once, taking the shot with grace. “How long are you going to be mad at me?”

“Approximately fifteen years. You want to wait that long?”

His eyes met hers squarely, never wavering once. “I would.”

Oh, God. It was a low blow. Two succinct syllables precisely picked to deflate her anger and turn her into a quivering mass of hope and dreams and all those pesky things that made her mother worry.

Without further ado, Jenn looked at her watch, packed up her apron and announced to her coworkers she was
going on break. “You have fifteen minutes,” she instructed him as they headed out the door. He had fifteen minutes to make this right. Fifteen minutes to convince her that he was worth forty-two sleepless nights.