Rebecca hated him. Hated him, hated him, hated him so much that at that moment, she thought she might really, genuinely, HATE him. How could someone be so charming and so in tune with her while at the same time be a gargantuan dick? And the thing that made it hurt the worst? That deep down, she knew Matt was right. He was so damn right. Campaign issues bored her. She had no idea what Tom’s record in the senate was, or what he hoped to achieve. All the times she’d sat in meetings with Angie and Gilbert and Pat (and yes, with HIM), while they talked about platforms, issues, a new superhighway and pipeline, she had been somewhere else in her head—usually doing self-visualization exercises, or wondering what Grayson was doing. She’d been so eager to sign up and prove something that she’d forgotten the basics, like, who is this candidate? The bottom line was, in spite of all the effort she’d put into improving herself, she had gone into this deal doing the one thing she was trying not to do—look fabulous and put on a killer party. And she’d gotten so caught up in trying to prove something to herself that she hadn’t even realized she hadn’t changed.
It occurred to her that Tom was more like Bud than she had even realized. They both cared more about appearances above all else, and that was exactly why Tom always wanted her to come along. A pretty face to bring in the contributions. Why could she have not seen it before Matt had to point it out to her?
But he was wrong about one thing. She wasn’t empty. No, no. She was a million pieces. How could he not see the difference?
Rebecca pulled the Range Rover up into the drive, slammed the thing into park. Grayson, still upset, was out in a flash, running around to the back and to the comfort of his dogs before she could say anything to him. That was just as well, she supposed, because at the moment, she really didn’t have the energy to talk about what had happened. Where was Lucy when she needed her? Matt was right about that, too—she was a rotten mother.
Rebecca got out of the truck and went into the house. She tossed her purse onto an antique bench in the entry, then proceeded into the great room, where she paused, hands on hips, and looked around. Everything was so neatly arranged; books on shelves according to height and thickness. Her lap rugs were artfully arranged on the backs of couches and chairs, each one perfectly color-coordinated with the piece of furniture it graced. Her selection of candles, likewise color-coordinated, were arranged with short ones in front of tall ones, fat ones in back, skinny ones in front. Fruit fragrances on one end of the room, flower fragrances on the other.
Yep. Everything perfect.
Disgusted, she walked to the kitchen, where her spices were alphabetically arranged, her dish towels ironed and stacked by color, and her glasses arranged by purpose in sparkling glass cabinets. Juice glasses on the bottom, wineglasses on top, and tumblers in the middle. Not to be confused with iced tea glasses, which had their own separate shelf. Even the apples in her fruit bowl were arranged so that no two reds or two greens were together.
He was right—perfect on the outside, miserably incomplete on the inside. How had she managed, in the course of her life, to order and sort and arrange everything about her so that it was all pleasing to the eye and masking all the imperfection underneath? All this time, she had been trying to break the bonds of being Rebecca while at the very same time she had been working just as hard to maintain her perfect little world. And in that perfect little world, she had held Matt at arm’s length, treating him like a puppet, toying with his affection.
Rebecca walked into the great room, wearily collapsed onto a couch, not caring that she still had her shoes on.
That night, after putting Grayson to bed (No, honey, Matt’s not mad at you, he’s mad at me), Rebecca scarfed her dinner (Ben & Jerry’s Making Whoopie Pie ice cream), and went to bed, too. But she lay there, wide-awake for what seemed like forever, staring into darkness as a storm tossed the world outside her window. Her mind was blank. Empty.
The next morning, she felt as if she’d been on a bender the night before, but she was up at sunrise nonetheless and on the back porch, a steaming cup of coffee in one hand, her journal on her lap, and pen in hand. She had come to several conclusions in the wee hours of the morning that were still holding with the light of day, and Rebecca wrote:
Positive Affirmations of My Life:
1.Gray is so young he can’t be too warped yet. If there is still hope for his mother—and God please say there is—then there is still hope for Grayson.
2.The next time I allow my life to be guided by appearances, pigs will fly.
3.I promise myself to rise every morning and recite the only unqualified applicant mandate worth remembering: Rule 1: Believe in yourself. And starting today, I believe in myself!
Now that she’d hit rock bottom, she thought she might as well confess one more truth—when Rachel had asked if she ever wanted to fall in love again, she had been less than honest. The truth was that she dreamed not of the falling, but of being in love, of feeling true love once more before she died; the kind of love that felt all warm and prickly on her neck. And she had thought, once or twice in the small hours of the morning when she was alone and there was no risk of just thinking it, that maybe, just maybe . . . maybe Matt could have been the someone to make her feel that warmth again. That Matt could have been worth the emotional capital. That she could have loved him.
Maybe she already did.
Well, there you had it. Now the real Rebecca could kick her own ass, because it was never going to happen now. He thought she was callous and empty. It was perhaps the cruelest thing anyone had ever said to her. It hurt far worse than anything Bud had ever said, because Bud always lied to get his way. Matt, on the other hand, was telling the truth. He had looked inside her and seen for himself, and the hurt was so deep, she feared she could drown in it.
Yes, well. No point in mourning her pipe dream any longer.