“I guess it’s beneath him. You know how these stuffed shirts are.” She cackles a familiar cackle, the same one she always lets out when the story of me being left in the store is told. She’s uncomfortable and quickly shifts topics. “How are things with you?”
I open my mouth to tell her about my project but then press my lips together. She doesn’t care how I am. She wants to escape, so I offer her an escape. “Actually, covering for my boss, so I’m super busy. Have a safe flight, and tell Dad I’ll be by tomorrow night.”
“You’re a good daughter,” she says, relief in her voice. “I’ll tell him. Talk to you soon.” She disconnects, escaping into the oblivion of a dead phone line.
I’m a good daughter? My brows dip. When has she ever, in all my life, said those words to me? What is going on? I sit there with each silent second ticking with heavy thuds as an uncomfortable thought lights up my mind and then crashes hard in my gut, where it screams to remain alive.
I quickly google “Dirk Michaels” and “Rochel Pharmaceuticals” before clicking on images. A photo of a man I guess to be in his midforties, with dark hair, a goatee, and chiseled facial features, appears on my screen. Oh Lord, my mom’s new boss is good looking. Surely she’s not—I mean—she would never have an affair. Would she?
Chapter Eight
By my estimate, I’m still more than an hour from finishing the proposal when the library closes. Jack pokes his head into my little workroom and says, “I hate leaving you, but tonight is Paige’s dinner.”
Paige would be his older, and only, sister. They aren’t close, but since their parents are both passed now, they try to stay in touch. They lost their mother two years ago to cancer. Their father, before I ever knew Jack, to a work accident. He was a firefighter. They were divorced, a bitter divorce from what Jack has shared. Paige is a family law attorney, ironically married twice and divorced, and it seems she is always seeing a new man.
“Try to enjoy it,” I urge, knowing all too well the way Paige pushes him to date more, calling him one step from being the guy’s version of a cat lady, since he has three cats. She might be right, but Daisy, Doodle, and Donna are adorable.
“Don’t say yes to a date with anyone I don’t approve of,” he counters.
“You don’t approve of anyone.”
“True,” he says. “Because I may have to tell my sister we’re dating. It would shut her up, and she already knows you.”
“Dating I can fake, but I’m not marrying you to please Paige.”
“Maybe we should make one of those pacts that if we’re both not married at forty, we marry each other.”
“That would be a great idea if I wasn’t pretty sure we’ll both be single at forty. And how does that affect us now? I’m too sober and busy to even think about screwing us up right now. Plus, your sister will never let us be fake engaged for that many years.”
He grimaces. “My sister will be twice more divorced by then.”
“Then maybe you should stop letting her pressure you to be her.”
“If only you were as confident as your advice, Mia.”
He’s not wrong. If only.
He glances at his watch. “You leaving soon?”
“About an hour. You know I love this place when it’s just me and the books.”
“A little too much sometimes,” he murmurs, but I don’t even try to read between those blurry lines. I’ve been single too long to kid myself I would like his meaning.
Once he’s gone, which is shortly thereafter, I dive back into my work, but Jack’s words nag at me, insinuating themselves into the sentences on my computer screen. If only you were as confident as your advice. It reminds me of something I’ve heard, or perhaps read, somewhere, but I can’t seem to figure out what or where. It bothers me. I don’t forget things that feel important, and this oddly does.
I shake off the silly nagging thought that leads me nowhere but late to finish my work.
So much so that my stomach rumbles, and I’m forced to grab my leftovers from the break room fridge. I down what’s left of my enchiladas with a diet soda. That doesn’t mean I diet. I don’t. I like my french fries and pizza. I simply dislike syrupy-sweet drinks. As for my eating habits, my mother didn’t have high cholesterol until she was forty. I have some time to enjoy what I eat.
Once I’ve finally sent the presentation to Kara’s inbox, I gather my things, and while I’d normally linger to enjoy the sounds the books whisper in my ears, I blink and I’m already on the escalator, thinking about the illusion of eating badly not affecting my health later in life, not because I’m worried about that illusion or my french fries. What I’m worried about is the larger illusion that might be in my life—one where my rock-solid parents are more brittle glass with a broken future.
I’m reminded of a book I read once. The main protagonist was a woman who was convinced she was blessed to be in the perfect marriage. Her life was a fairy tale until it wasn’t, until every truth she knew unraveled and became nothing but lies. Perfect was an illusion. I believe everyone’s story is riddled with illusion, and a big portion of that illusion is of our own making. Some might say that fiction allows you to hide from reality, to live inside a world of perfection rather than face your own illusions. Perhaps my father is also hiding from the illusion of a perfect marriage, too absorbed in self-hate to see anything but it, including my mother.
I blink and, without ever remembering the decision to do so, end up on floor two in the self-help section, specifically the relationship categories. Titles here range from Who’s Cheating on Who and The Wrong Bedroom to Broken Marriage. I grab a book called Open Your Eyes that seems to be more about healing relationships than placing blame. I could easily blame my mother, but a lot of that is my own dirty history with her.
My father survived humiliation of a professional nature. To survive betrayal on the most personal level is another beast—and a brutal one at that. I’m not sure how he’ll survive her cheating. I mean, what would it feel like to trust someone, to feel you know them, and know them well, and later discover they are leading a double life? I can’t imagine trusting someone completely and finding out they are not the person you believed them to be at all.
I stop at the top of the escalator leading to floor one, where the hectic beats of a busy lobby have become absolute calm. I wait, watching below, expecting something to happen when I don’t remember ever expecting anything but the joy of peace and quiet. I step on the escalator, that feeling expanding inside me for no good reason. Logically, I tell myself it’s because I’m unsettled, but as my eyes fall on the seat where the dark-haired man had sat and watched me, my mind conjures a different take on that experience. Why wasn’t I invisible to him? Maybe my mother’s potential affair simply has my mind far removed from floor three and the romance section, but, rethinking the experience, it now feels a bit creepy.
Suddenly the silence inside the library is stifling, and I can’t travel quickly enough to the exit.
Chapter Nine