Some Like It Perfect (A Temporary Engagement) (25 page)

Delia said, “I don’t know anything about Jack being president. I’ll have to ask him about it sometime. I don’t know anything about you, Diane. Except that you’re a bitch and we hate you. I’ll let Jack know you stopped by.”

Diane’s smile never changed. She stood and said, “Goodbye, Delia,” as if all she wanted was someone to remind Jack about his future.

Delia watched her walk away, watched heads turn in her direction, even Rick’s.

Delia waited until Diane was good and gone, and then made her way slowly to Jack’s office. Thinking about who he was, who she was.

Thinking about who he could be. Thinking about who she would never be.

When she got to the office, he wasn’t there. In a meeting, of course, since she hadn’t seen him getting coffee.

She walked to his desk and stared at nothing, since there was nothing to look at. His kitchen at home was the same. Nothing on the counters, everything put away and in its place.

She turned, resting against his desk and looking at her painting of him.

He’d hung it across from his desk, away from the windows, away from sunlight. She’d made fun of him for it because who wants to stare at themself all day long.

But he’d said, “I don’t see me when I look at it. I see you looking at me.”

It was him in this chair, leaning back and looking up. Her view of him these last few months and she wished she was thoroughly sick of it because no one should look like that.

She wasn’t sick of it, though. Not even close. Just the painting of him made her burn, made her want to track him down and finally try out that shower of his.

Delia looked at her Jack and knew Diane hadn’t said anything that wasn’t true. Delia couldn’t keep him. She wanted to.

She’d thought that the fire was the enemy. That it was what they had to conquer.

She hadn’t realized that even if they’d made it through that trial there would be something else.

Her and Jack together? They didn’t make sense. They didn’t want the same things, come from the same place, weren’t even headed the same direction.

The president of the United States?

She laughed hopelessly, closing her eyes to the truth of him, the truth of her. Closed her eyes to what she saw in that painting.

She’d thought she’d painted the 
Master of the Universe
. But it was a lock of her hair twined around his finger. Her reflection in his eyes.

No wonder Jack didn’t mind looking at himself. He was looking at love.

Not just fire, but love.

Reluctant adoration.

She should have called it 
Master of her Universe
.

He was the sun her tiny moon yearned to orbit, knowing all the while that she just wasn’t enough.

He was Important. Goddammit, he was perfect.

She would never be enough.

She loved him. And it didn’t change anything.

You didn’t marry the help. Although the help wasn’t all that interested in marriage.

You didn’t commit to the help. You didn’t share your life with the help. You didn’t wake up next to the help every morning and give her your children.

You kept the help on the side and married someone like Diane Evans.

And that just made her feel bad for Jack.

If that had been the future staring her in the face, she would have grabbed the first redhead she came to as well. Would have bought a little red convertible and hid in Maine until the world forgot all about her.

That’s what Jack had tried to do.

If only they’d gone to Maine.

But she knew that one day Jack would remember what he had to do. And then he’d do it. And she would be left spinning out in the dark void. Not ash this time. Steel.

One half of steel. Cold, lonely steel with not even the comfort of nothingness to help heal her. It wouldn’t be like with Pierre. Nothing but a tattoo to remind her.

This time all there would be was loneliness.

Delia Woodson got rip-roaring drunk. The rip-roaringest drunk she’d ever been.

She didn’t go to the bar. This wasn’t a social drink. This was medicinal. This was self-medicating.

She got a case of beer and locked herself in her empty apartment.

And it wasn’t light beer, either.

Because drunk was what you got when you’d found the one. When your half finally became whole.

Drunk was what you got when you couldn’t keep him.

Four hours later, Jack banged on the door.

“Delia? Are you in there?”

She shouted, “No.”

She pushed herself off the living room floor and plastered herself against the door. She said, “Oh, Jack. I had a good plan. And then you came along and you just wouldn’t leave me alone, and now I want you. I want more of you than I can ever have. I won’t ever have enough of you.”

His voice was strong and clear, as if he was pressed up on the other side of the door. “You already have me, Delia. You can have as much as you want.”

“I can’t keep you.” Her heart squeezed tight because that was what she wanted. “You’ll want to go into politics. It’s what men like you do.”

“Men like me?”

“It’s in your blood.”

There was a long pause. “My blood?”

“You’re a Lowell and a Cabot, and okay, I don’t really know who those people are, but I know they don’t get involved with women who grew up in communes. Everyone knows that, Jack.”

“Then everyone’s wrong. I’m right; about us, I’m right.”

“You’re always right, Jack. That’s what I’m trying to tell you.” He’d always do what was right. And he would eventually have to settle down with someone proper.

Delia had never been described as proper. She wasn’t even sure she would recognize it when she saw it.

“Delia, we’re right. So wrong it’s right. Open the door.”

She shook her head even though he couldn’t see it. “I ran into Diane Evans this morning.”

His voice went flat. “You’re kidding me. She’s what this is about? Open this door, Delia. Right now.”

Delia turned the lock, stepping back when he pushed the door in. His hair was standing straight up, his tie crooked.

She said, “What happened to you?”

“What happened to me? I’ve been searching for you for hours. When you didn’t show up at work at your usual late hour, I called home. I checked the coffee shop. I drove home just in case you’d slipped in the shower and couldn’t get to the phone. Ms. Charles is right now calling around to hospitals trying to find your broken, lifeless body.” He cursed, pulling out his phone and sending a quick text.

Delia stared at his hair, distracted by the proof of his agitation.

He ran his eyes down her body, checking that it was indeed unbroken, then glanced at the beer cans littering the floor. He said, “And you were here. Getting drunk.”

“I had a rough morning.”

“
You
had a rough morning?”

“I was a couple hours late, Jack. You think maybe you overreacted?”

He folded his arms, glowering down at her, and her heart pitter-pattered. She stopped herself from wrapping herself around him, from apologizing, from dragging him down to the floor and pretending he was everything she needed in this world.

And then she wrapped her arms around him as best she could with his arms still folded and whispered, “I’m sorry.”

“I was worried.”

“What if I’d just gone shopping?”

“Without me?”

She smiled, shaking her head. “You’re right. How silly of me. I should have called.”

He unfolded his arms and pulled her tight against him. And she’d been right, she didn’t need anything else. Didn’t need air to breathe when she was with him.

Jack said, “Diane Evans is a viper. A slick-tongued snake and you shouldn’t listen to anything she says.”

“But she didn’t say anything that wasn’t true.”

“Nothing she said was true.”

“You’re not a Cabot? You’re not going to go into politics?”

“I’m Jack, that’s all I am. And I have no interest, plans, or desire to go into politics.”

“You don’t want to be president?”

He laughed. “Is that what she said?”

Delia pulled back to look in his face, and to get a good deep breath. She might need a little air after all. “I’d vote for you.”

“Thank you, Delia. But I don’t want to be president.”

“You don’t need to run the world, your corner of it is enough?”

“Yes.”

“But what if you decide you do want that?”

He took a deep breath, closing the front door with his foot. “I don’t. I won’t. And even if I did, what does that have to do with us?”

“You can’t be president with a woman like me. You’d need someone with connections, with money.”

“Do me a favor, Delia. Don’t quote Diane Evans at me. It makes my skin crawl.”

“Tell me what she said wasn’t true.”

“We’ve had a first lady who held séances and another who was an actress. The country would survive a hippie artist who didn’t care who anyone’s parents were.”

“And you think you could even get close to the presidency with a hippie girlfriend? I’ve been married once before. I’m not sure I’d want to do it again.”

“You weren’t sure you wanted the fire to burn you up again and you were wrong.”

She didn’t know if she’d been wrong. She was still waiting for it to burn out.

Jack didn’t wait for her to agree with him, he already knew he was right. “And, again, I don’t want to be president. You can take it as truth that anything Diane Evans says is a lie and meant to get her something she wants.”

Diane had got her claws in Jack, once. They’d slept together, when he’d been tired and stressed and in need of someone. He knew it had been a mistake right away. He’d apologized and said it wouldn’t ever happen again.

Two weeks later, she’d shown up telling him she was pregnant.

He’d looked in her beautiful face and hadn’t believed her. Hadn’t believed that even if she was telling the truth that the child would be his.

He’d bought a pregnancy test, showing up unannounced and herding her into her bathroom.

She’d cried, perfect fake tears, and said she couldn’t do it in front of him. He’d just folded his arms and waited. Prayed that he hadn’t created a child with a woman he couldn’t trust to pee on a stick without him watching.

And when she’d finally given in, when the test finally came back negative, he hadn’t said a word.

Simply left.

The next time they’d seen each other, she had been how she always was. Like nothing had ever happened.

Delia said, “Oh, Jack. All it takes is one look at you and anyone can see that you would make a perfect president. That hadn’t been a lie even if it was only said to get her something she wants.”

He would admit that politics was a path many of his peers took once they’d made their fortune. It had never interested him. He didn’t like to be distracted and to him, that’s what politics was. One never-ending distraction.

“I’ve learned recently, Delia, that I don’t care what anyone else wants for me. I want what I want. And I want to take you into the bedroom, take off all your clothes, and make sure that nothing is wrong with you.”

“There’s lots wrong with me.”

He whispered, “There’s nothing wrong with you. You’re perfect. Perfect for me.”

And he could see perfectly well that she didn’t believe him.

He said, “It really irritates me that you won’t believe me when I say something beautiful and from the heart and yet Diane Evans says one thing dripping with poison and you take it as truth.”

“Diane Evans doesn’t say things that don’t make any sense.”

“Diane Evans doesn’t say things that scare you. She says things you want to believe.”

She blinked and he walked her backwards toward the bedroom. He said, “I’ve found what makes me happy. It’s you, Delia.”

“It’s just fire, Jack. It burns out.”

He said, “It’s the fire of the sun, Delia. When it burns out, life will be over.”

She melted against him and he lifted her so their faces were even, her feet dangling in the air. She whispered, “A poet.”

“Don’t tell my mother.”

“I won’t. It will be my secret. Everyone will think you’re straight-laced and perfect. But I’ll know. You’re not; you’re a poet.”

“Still think I would make a good president?”