A Lady Under Siege

48

Derek left a message on Meghan’s phone, but she didn’t return it. The next day he left another, and again she didn’t respond. He saw Betsy across the fence and asked her what was up—she told him her mom was super busy with work and kind of depressed. On day three with still no contact he wanted answers, and was about to walk next door to take matters in hand when Meghan showed up on his doorstep.

He decided to keep it light. “Hey neighbour,” he welcomed her. “I’ve been worried about you, not to mention dying to hear the latest—how’d the wedding go?”

“I don’t know,” she answered.

“What do you mean you don’t know?”

“I’m taking sleeping pills to stop me dreaming.”

“Uh-oh.”

“Yep. Thomas asked me to. Because three’s a crowd. He didn’t want me there on the wedding night. He wants me to go away and leave them alone.”

“Wow. First impression, though, he’s probably right.”

“I know he’s probably right,” she said. “They need to get on with their lives, and have a healthy, normal, loving marriage, a happily-ever-after. He’s the grown-up who saw it and called it. It still hurts, though. Remember I told you it felt like I’d been dumped? Now I really feel like I’ve been dumped.”

“Half dumped,” Derek said. “I didn’t dump you. Though I was beginning to think you’d dumped me.”

“No, I didn’t. I haven’t. I just needed time. I got very angry, for a bit. I was mad at both of you—you and him. For conspiring against me.”

“Not against you. For Sylvanne.”

“I know that. I’ve calmed down. I’m on her side too. But I still need time.”

“Of course you do. Your heart is half broken,” he said. “Which is better than fully broken. It’s like the glass half full—we can fill it back up. We can mend the heart.”

“You’re very sweet,” she said. “I missed you.”

“What would you like to do?” he asked gently.

“I’d like to lie down with you on your couch, just lie on your chest, and kind of be held, and comforted. No hanky panky, just tenderness. I’m feeling tender.”

Derek led her by the hand and they lay down. It soothed her to curl herself against the contours of his body. He played with a few stray strands of her hair at her temple, and noted that she was making no effort to look into his eyes.

“Here’s the deal,” he said. “You taking those pills means he’s got his privacy now, but it doesn’t mean we do. He’s still in me, taking this all in, right?”

“Yep,” she replied. “It’s unfair.”

“So what should our strategy be? How do we proceed, knowing he’s there?”

“I want to start pretending he’s not. If I’m not dreaming him anymore it means I won’t see him, and he’ll become like an ex-lover, or ex-friend, or some guy I once had a crush on—he’ll fade from my mind. He’ll diminish, and then maybe, when I look in your eyes, I won’t distinguish what’s him and what’s you—maybe I’ll just start thinking it’s all you.”

“A lot of maybes,” Derek said. “You know what I think? I think we should just relax. Thomas or no Thomas, in the end we’re like any other couple trying to figure out if it’s worth it—it’s going to come down to how compatible we are, how lovable we find each other, and whether our neuroses clash or mesh. Right now it feels very good to lie here with your head on my chest. I wish we could just stay like this forever, but before too long we’ll need to get up and carry on. When we do, let’s just hold hands and keep walking forward. As long as we’re holding hands we’ll be fine.”

She didn’t say anything for a long time. He felt her breathing get slower, and synchronize to his own. With her head on his chest he couldn’t see her eyes, and he thought she might be falling asleep. He liked the idea of them curling up and napping together—it would bring on a sense of warmth, of trust and healing. But suddenly she sat up and said, “You know what? If we’re really talking about a future together, just aimlessly wandering into it holding hands isn’t going to cut it.”

“The plan is to get to know each other.”

Meghan chose her words carefully. “Some things I know about you make it difficult to really imagine it could work out.”

“Like what?”

“Like the way you drink, and smoke. You know what I’m going to do? I’m going to take a page from Sylvanne. I was so impressed with the way she just laid out her conditions. I’m going to lay down mine. First and foremost, no substance abuse.”

“Well of course no substance abuse. No one likes abuse,” Derek answered. “But there’s also substance use—substances in small doses can actually be good. A glass of wine with dinner, an occasional puff of weed after a stressful day—that’s substance use. It’s moderate, and medicinal.”

“Don’t try to weasel out of it.”

“I’m not weaseling, I’m negotiating.”

“Okay, I’ll be more specific. No drinking to get drunk, and no drugging just to get stoned. No partying your face off, in other words. No drugs harder than pot—”

“I don’t do anything harder than pot anyway.”

“—and no pot around Betsy, or me for that matter. It’s the smoke I hate. I’d love it if you quit smoking.”

“You drive a hard bargain, Miss Meghan.”

“Not really. I’m already compromising on the pot. You can still sneak off and do it sometimes. Medicinally. Although what you have to be stressed about, I don’t know. You don’t even have a job.”

“I don’t need a job. I own this place, and I have money making money, not a lot, but enough to keep me out of the rat race.”

“Must be nice,” she said.

He brought his legs up to give her more space on the couch. She leaned back and rested her chin between his knees, looking at the playful smile on his broad face.

“I feel like quitting smoking, just to show you I can,” he said.

“It’s more the booze, really.”

“No no, if I’m going to do it, do it right. Do it big. Booze, drugs, cigarettes—I’ll tackle the whole shebang. Besides which, if we’re going to hold hands and walk into the future, then Betsy will be there too, and she might want to hold my hand sometimes, and you’ll have my other hand, and then, how would I smoke?”

“Exactly,” she laughed. “It’s not possible.”

“So it’s necessary I quit smoking, whether you want me to or not.”

She kissed his knee happily, then made a face. “Your jeans don’t taste very good,” she said. “They’re quite dirty, now that I look at them.”

“I’ll wash them more often. You see? I’m agreeing to conditions before you even express them. I must really like you.”