Why I Love Singlehood: (38 page)

“Yep. Last final was two days ago. Finished the marathon of term papers, too.” He twirled his ring of keys around his index finger.

“And?”

“And I’m impressed with how much these kids’ writing skills have improved.”

I nodded and let the silence hang in the air for a second, wondering who was going to speak first. Just as he took in a breath and started to speak, I tried to jump in first.

“Listen, Shaun…”

He put his hand up to block my words. “Hey, can we go somewhere and talk?”

His request took me off guard for a moment.

“You don’t wanna talk here? I can close the door.”

“Nah, it’s too academic in here. Let’s go for a walk or something. It’s a beautiful day today.”

“OK,” I said. I closed and locked Jenna’s door behind me, put on my coat and sunglasses, and we left the building to step out and into the spectacular December day. Not a trace of cold, not a cloud in the sky, and some trees still refused to shed their fall foliage, even with Christmas right around the corner. As if on automatic pilot, I found myself accompanying him across the courtyard and stopping at the bench swing by the pond—one of our favorite places to relax and enjoy the campus. We used to go even on Saturdays and spend hours feeding the ducks and talking until our throats hurt.

As we simultaneously sat on the bench, our body weight pushed the swing back, gravity forcing our feet off the ground. Across the pond, a swan picked at a blade of grass, sending tiny ripples toward us.

“Shaun, I just wanted to say I’m sorry for the meltdown at the shop,” I said, breaking the silence. “I was mixed up back then, and I had no right to behave that way.”

He shook his head. “I’m the one who’s sorry.

“For what?”

“I took you for granted,” he said and gave a short sigh. “Being with you was always so easy. I was just expecting something else, I think. I was expecting it to be harder, to be more work. I was expecting to have to do more to win you over. You know, like chase you. Drama. Excitement. A challenge or something.”

The chains of the swing squeaked conspicuously as I tried to construct a response. “Sorry to disappoint you,” was about all I could muster. “You did ask me out and get my number first, if that’s any consolation.”

“I don’t think it hit me until the Halloween party.”

“What hit you?” I asked, confused. “When I saw you with that guy…”

“What guy?”

“You know, the one dressed as the tin man reject, or whatever he was.”

“Bender,” I said, shuddering yet again at the image of Scott’s disastrous costume.

“He was supposed to be
Bender
?” he said, baffled. “Oh well…anyway, when he kissed you…I mean, I knew you were seeing someone because you had mentioned it on your blog. And I didn’t expect it to, but it kind of upset me.”

My mind raced:
He still read my blog. Seeing me with Scott upset him. He was
envious.
Should I tell him that Scott and I broke up?

“Look, Shaun, I—”

He interrupted me again. “I figured if you ever got involved with anyone I’d be fine with it. But, Eva, I haven’t been able to stop thinking about it since then, or you. And then, the night of the fire, when we kissed…”

“I’m really sorry about that,” I said. “That never should’ve happened.”

“I’m not sorry. In fact, I’m not even sure I can marry Jeanette.”

“Whoa, Shaun…” I pulled away from him and put my hand up as if he’d made a move on me at that moment.

Wow. It had happened.

That thing I’d wanted all along, my very reason for putting myself through all those Lovematch.com dates and the speed dating and posing as Wilmington’s own Carrie Bradshaw, had finally manifested. And irony of all ironies, it had happened when I wasn’t trying so hard. At some point I’d stopped wanting Shaun, stopped waiting for him deliver himself to my doorstep. And yet, there he was.

And of course, irony of all ironies, I didn’t want it anymore. Didn’t want
him
anymore. Didn’t need him. Didn’t need a reason why it didn’t work out, why he preferred Jeanette to me, why I wasn’t good enough. Because suddenly, the answer was crystal clear. I
was
good enough. And it didn’t matter. The problem was exactly what Shaun said—it had been too easy. I mistook safety for contentment. Shaun must have needed that safety, too. I was never going to leave him, and he knew it. He was never going to have to work that hard. I’d just assumed that he was as content as I thought I was, and for the very same reasons. I guess that the thing that brought him so much ease was the also the very thing that made him finally opt out: I was predictable.
We
were predictable. And we were never going to be otherwise.

And at that moment it was crystal clear to me that I was no longer afraid of the unpredictable, of what I couldn’t control. I knew exactly what—and who—I wanted, and what I needed.

I was about to tell him all of this when I spotted a gangly figure wearing a heather grey hoodie and maroon baseball cap heading in our direction, slowing down as he recognized me. The blood rushed from my face.

“Oh no,” I said in almost a whisper.

“What?” said Shaun, and he saw me watch the figure, now in full focus, stop and take in the view of my ex-boyfriend and me, our bodies angled on the bench swing to face each other. I jumped off the swing, leaving Shaun swaying and jiggling, trying to steady himself.

“Kenny, wait!” I called as he shoved his hands in his pocket and turned to storm off in the opposite direction. I ran and caught up to him, tugging at his arm. “Kenny!”

He turned to face me, and the look on his face was so full of hurt that I thought my heart was going to break.

“Don’t tell me,” he said, his voice full of sour sarcasm, “it’s not what I think.”

“It’s not,” I said, knowing how shallow and empty the words sounded.

“Really, Eva? Really? Because I’m thinking a lot right now, and none of it is good.”

“What are you doing here?” I asked, realizing that that further incriminated me, as if I were blaming him for catching me in the act.

“I came to see you, actually,” he said. “Stupid me, wanting to do something sweet and spontaneous like see the woman I’m crazy about. So how long has this been going on?”

“Nothing’s going on, Kenny. I haven’t seen him since the night of the fire. We were just talking.”

“Right. Talking. At the pond. About what?”

“That’s none of your business.”

Oh, you are
so
not helping yourself,
a voice inside me said.

Shaun approached us.

“Who are you?” he asked Kenny, exerting a macho, what-are-you-doing-with-my-girl voice. I hung my head and covered my eyes in embarrassment.

“I’m her
friend
,” Kenny said, matching Shaun’s machismo. “Or so I thought.”

“Well, you’re upsetting her,” said Shaun.

That did it.

“Will both of you apes just shut up?” I yelled. “Geezus, you think you own me? First of all,” I said as I turned to Shaun, “he is not upsetting me. Second of all, you and I are no longer involved, and we’re never going to be involved again. You have no right getting all Superman on me, acting like you’re my bodyguard or something. And
you
,” I said to Kenny, “how dare you stand there and judge me as if you just caught me in the sack. You and I are no more committed to each other than Shaun and I are.”

“That’s not my doing, is it.”

“Oh, get off your high horse! Why’d it take you so long to ask me out? If you were really my friend, then why’d you disappear the moment I started seeing Scott rather than talk to me about it? Didn’t it occur to you that I’d miss you, that you’d hurt my feelings by disappearing without a trace? And why’d you call my best friend and ask for her advice like we were in junior high school instead of coming straight to me and taking the risk yourself?”

I raged on, barely pausing for breath. “You sit there lecturing to me about commitment and being brave and ‘all or nothing,’ but I don’t see your courage. I see someone who’s afraid to fail, to be vulnerable like everyone else.”

My accusations hung in the air as the three of us stood silent, painfully aware that we each wanted to be somewhere, anywhere else, far from the others’ presence.

“Well, I guess I got my answer,” Shaun said quietly, looking at the grass. “Take care of yourself, Eva.”

He slipped away, neither acknowledging Kenny nor giving me the chance to say good-bye to him. A gust of wind blew at that moment, and Kenny dug his hands even deeper into his pockets as tufts of his hair were pushed to one side. I brushed my tangled hair out of my face and folded my arms. We stood close, facing each other yet taking turns shifting our focus from the ground to some other campus building.

“You’re right,” he finally spoke. “I’m scared to death.”

“Of what?” I asked.

“That you don’t want what I want.”

I couldn’t help but laugh. It was like hearing a tape recorder of myself.

“Well, if you can’t trust my feelings for you, then no amount of attention I give you is going to satisfy you. And I’m crazy about you, Kenny. You have no idea how much.”

“Then what’s taking you so long?” He sounded like an impatient child.

“Don’t you get it? This is something I really want, and I don’t wanna screw it up by going in half-baked. Don’t you want me to be good and ready?”

The sunlight soaked my skin and warmed me from the inside out. I reached up and cupped his cheek with my hand, looked into his eyes—those gorgeous, hazel eyes—and smiled.

Kenny moved his head away from my hand. “What happens now?” he asked.

“What do you mean?”

He looked defeated, frustrated, scared. I, however, had never felt so sure or fearless in all my life. “I’m tired of waiting, Eva.”

“So don’t.”

He looked at me like I was absurd and shook his head, exasperated, before turning away. “Whatever,” I heard him mutter.

“Trust me,” I called out, filled with confidence.
You have nothing to lose. And neither do I.

37

Grounds for Merriment

“HEY, NORM-O,”
I called from The Grounds’s kitchen, “did you post the sign on the door?”

“What sign?” he called back.

“I made a sign.”

“What, ‘Closed Early for Drunken Mischief-making’?”

“Yeah, right.” I emerged from the kitchen, rummaged through a box, and handed Norman the sign I’d made earlier that day:
Closed early on account of Grounds for Merriment.
“Go put it up! And let me know when Minerva and Jay get here.”

Norman did as instructed, and I put out trays of Christmas cookies followed by a platter of cold cuts and sandwich condiments with Kaiser rolls. Next, I returned to the box and fetched a headband topped with felt antlers. Crouching in front of the display case to capture my reflection, I adjusted the antlers atop my head and went back to setting up the food, finishing with an assortment of wine. I balanced the bottles in one hand while trapping the box between my opposite arm and hip and made my way to the café counter just as Minerva entered.

“We brought the eggnog,” said Jay, carrying a punch bowl after Norman unlocked the door and locked it behind them, “and I warn you, it’s not for those with weak constitutions.”

“Hey, Eva, I brought…” Minerva stopped in her tracks, then started again: “…What. The. Hell. Is. On. Your. Head?”

“You can’t very well have a Christmas party without the proper attire.”

“You didn’t wear that
thing
last year,” said Minerva as she pointed to the antlers.

“Right, and what kind of party was it?”

“I can’t remember.”

“Exactly.” I rummaged through the box a third time, pulling out several elf hats, a red nose, and sleigh bells. “Norman, if you’d do the honors,” I said as I handed him Vince Guaraldi’s
A Charlie Brown Christmas
. Before he turned for the CD player, I grabbed his arm. “Wait!” I dangled a red nose. “You have to get dressed.”

He glared at me. “I’m already wearing a very humiliating Santa tie. What more do you want?” Before he had the chance to duck, I slid the elastic band around his head, resisting the urge to snap the nose into place.

“I sometimes think about having you killed,” he said plainly, quiet enough that only I could hear. “You do know that, don’t you.”

“Yes, but then you’d never get your Christmas present.”

He put his hand to his chin and stroked it in consideration, as if to say,
Good point…
“By the way, I forgot to tell you that Car Talk Kenny is here.”

I perked up. “He is?”

“Yeah. Said he wanted to talk to you about something.”

“Oh,” I said, feeling the flutter in my chest. “Well of course he’s here. He’s part of the Secret Santa Club.” I hadn’t told anyone besides Minerva about the incident at the pond, and I’d assumed he wasn’t going to show up. We hadn’t seen or spoken to each other since, and for all I knew, he wanted to tell me that we were over before we’d even started; that he met someone else in the campus parking lot that same afternoon and they were running off to Fiji together; that he was considering becoming a Buddhist monk, et cetera. I tentatively peeked into the reading room and saw him in conversation with Beulah and Spencer and Tracy. He caught me spying on him and raised his head in acknowledgment before returning his attention to Tracy’s story. Somewhat relieved, I looked around at the rest of the Originals and Regulars.

“Where’s Scott?” I asked Norman.

“He had to go to some company Christmas thing,” he replied.

“It’s not…I don’t mean to be narcissistic, but it’s not because of me, is it?”

“Nah, he’s OK with all that. Really, it was business. I think he would rather be here, though. Lord knows I would if I were him,” he said.

I laughed and grabbed a small stack of napkins along with a band of sleigh bells, which I rang to call everyone to attention. “Let the Grounds for Merriment party begin!”

The sea of elves, reindeer, and Santa hats cheered and raised their cups.