Finding Jack, page 11
“Should we have a deep discussion about that? Relativism?”
“I mean, sure. Is this because we’ve veered into boring cocktail party talk?” It bothered me a little that he wanted to shift the conversation so quickly, but I couldn’t figure out why. It had definitely been small talk. People always say “small talk” like it was a bad thing, but at the same time, those things added together gave a true picture of a person, not walks through London and Rome.
“It is,” he said. “But it’s a me thing, not a you thing. I’d love to know all of this stuff about you, but it’s not fair to ask you to share all that stuff when I’m not willing to.”
For a minute, I wanted to blurt, “Let’s play Scrabble!” because here we were, three minutes into this conversation and already I had the perfect opening to bring up the most premature and awkward define-the-relationship talk EVER. And I didn’t want to do it. I’d rather just goof off, but Ranée’s words were sticking with me. Stupid Ranée.
“Why is that uncomfortable for you?” I asked instead of taking the easy road. I waited for some internal glow of satisfaction at having done the “grown-up” thing. It didn’t come, unless it felt like my stomach clenching while I waited for his answer. This whole situation was suddenly a thousand percent less fun than the clever DMs and texts we’d been exchanging.
“Shady past? Problems with emotional intimacy? Desperate need to project an air of mystery to hide how boring I am? Which one of those answers is good enough to get me off the hook and keep this conversation going?” He gave me a tight smile, the kind that said he knew none of the answers were good enough.
I rested my chin in my palm and studied him. After a few seconds, he imitated me, only he crossed his eyes, and I laughed.
“This is a weird situation,” I said, deciding to stick with the grown-up thing. “We’re not dating, but—”
“Wait, isn’t that exactly what we’re doing right now? We’re on a date, and unless I’m way off, we’re about to have a talk about definitions.” His expression and tone were mellow, maybe slightly amused.
“It sounds dumb when you say it like that,” I said.
“What? No.” Now he looked as if I’d told him we needed to speak only in Swahili. “It’s good. Why not talk about it? If we lived in the same town and went on these dates in person, we probably wouldn’t need to discuss any of this stuff for a while. But we’re not, and so it makes sense that we have this conversation in a different order too.”
“I guess I just want to be sure we’re…” I stopped.
“We’re what?” He leaned toward the camera slightly, as if it would put us closer.
“This is fun. The texts and DMs and now this.” I pointed back and forth between us to indicate the video call. “And it could be this forever and ever and I’d be happy with it.”
“Forever and ever?” He held up his hands in a “settle down” gesture. “I don’t know you well enough for forever and ever.”
It made me laugh again. “I mean that I’m fine with us just having a virtual friendship.”
“Friendship? Come on, this is at least a flirtation.”
“All right, flirtation. I’m fine with a virtual flirtation indefinitely.” It was true. Going back and forth with him in any medium had become a bright spot in each day, but I wasn’t into the idea of a long-distance relationship with a person I hadn’t met, would never meet, and even if I did meet…what was the point? I wasn’t moving. I didn’t expect him to, either.
“Indefinitely.” He scratched his nose. It was adorable. “All right. I accept your terms. An indefinite virtual flirtation.”
I nodded. I wasn’t sure what else to do. It was so official sounding that it seemed like we should shake hands.
I held up my hand to the camera. “High five to seal it?”
He held up his hand too and we high-fived.
Okay. So we were in agreement. It was exactly what I wanted.
So how come I felt disappointed?
I pulled myself together and tried to figure out where to go next after opening the date with basically, “I know we’ve never met, but let’s define this thing.” I glanced around the room, trying to find something I could seize on for conversation. There was nothing. Unless I wanted to talk about throw pillows or indoor lighting. Which I didn’t.
“I’d like to destroy you in Scrabble now,” Jack said.
It was pretty effective as changes of subject went. “You wish. You should probably tell me now if you’re one of those types who hates losing to a woman.”
“What if I am?”
“It’ll make beating you even more fun.”
He grinned, and I had a full-blown pitter-patter of the heart. Man, he was gorgeous.
“It’s on,” he said as a link for an online match pinged in my DMs.
I opened the game and examined my tiles. I got first play and I made it bloody. As in I literally spelled out the word “bloody” and scored 24 points.
“I see how it’s going to be,” he said.
“From start to finish.” I flashed a return grin at him.
“That looks less a smile and more like what a shark looks like before it eats you. People are friends, not food, Em.”
I liked the way he used my nickname instinctively, like he’d said it that way forever. But all I said was, “Chomp, chomp.”
It was a bruising game, and even though I led the whole time, he always stayed within twenty points, not something a lot of people could do when I played. And for sure no one had ever made me laugh as much during a match. At least, not until he wiped the smile off my face by playing “zambuck” on a triple word score for his final play and destroying me.
“Zambuck?” I said.
“You want to challenge it?”
“Obviously not.” The program didn’t let you make up words. If it was on the board, it was a real word.
“That’s one of the downsides to the online games.”
“That it keeps you honest?”
He laughed. “No. That I can’t lure you into challenging a word that ends up backfiring on you.”
“So ruthless, Jack.”
“Only because I’ve discovered you really are a shark.”
“Sharks don’t go from winning the entire game to losing by thirty in one play.”
“You know how it is. Sometimes letters just line up exactly right.”
“It’s not luck that lets you come up with a word like zambuck.”
“Could be. Maybe I put letters on the board until I guessed a real word that the game let me play.”
“I doubt that’s what you did.” He didn’t seem the type, and I liked that.
“You’re right. A zambuck is a slang term for a paramedic in Australia.”
My jaw dropped, and he laughed.
“You didn’t even have to Google that, did you?”
“Nope.”
I almost wanted to give him another fifty Scrabble points for that answer. “Why would you know that?”
He shrugged. It drew attention to the many favors his soft cotton thermal did for his broad shoulders, so much so that I almost missed his explanation.
“I knew a guy.”
“You knew a zambuck?”
“I did. Play again?”
“Wait, I feel like this requires more investigation. How did you meet a zambuck? Did you go on vacation to Australia and stumble across one?”
He shifted and rubbed his eyes. “Not exactly. It was kind of a work thing.”
I wanted to ask what kind of work thing requires you to cross paths with a zambuck, but he didn’t look like he wanted to get into it any further, so I let it go. Instead, I clicked to start a new game. “Play again.”
I beat him by ten points that I had to work really hard for. Somehow, at the end of two hours, we were tied at one win each, but he was about a hundred points ahead in the making-me-laugh category.
“You’re really funny,” he said. “I like that.”
“I was literally just thinking the same thing about you,” I admitted. “You’re even funnier than you are on Twitter.”
“Thanks,” he said. His focus shifted for a second, blinking at something on his screen that wasn’t on the camera. “I should probably call it a night. But I’ve never had so much fun being a loser before.”
I gave him a mock frown. “If we’re talking total points, this is a murder scene and I’m dead.”
“Dark. I like it.”
I liked how often he said he liked things about me. It was a nice change from Paul’s earnest but constant suggestions for improvements I could make. “That’s me. Pitch black soul.”
“On that note…”
I smiled at him. “I’ll ‘see’ you around.”
“Definitely.”
We cut the connection, and I stood up and stretched, enjoying the prickle of every nerve ending coming alive.
Wait.
I sat back down as the adrenaline washed over me. How could I feel this tingly and alive after playing Scrabble for two hours?
I almost wished Ranée were here to help me work through that. Because this wasn’t as simple as, “You feel tingly because you like him.” There was something else at play, but I wasn’t sure I could explain it to her. Besides, she would most likely be out for hours still. It was only ten at night.
For a second, I paused to wonder why Jack had needed to go. It looked like he’d gotten a call or text while we were talking. But I refused to jump to fretting that maybe he had another virtual flirtation going on. So what if he did? It was none of my business. I wasn’t the jealous type, and I wasn’t going to become so now.
I was a whole ball of things at once. Energized, worried, slightly smitten, a little stressed. All of it made my insides itchy, like when I was a kid and I’d watched too much TV, and I’d suddenly need to be outside doing pretty much anything as long as it got me moving.
I headed back to my room to do my FEMA work. Imposing order on chaos always cleared my head, but as I plucked some workout clothes from the floor to fold, I realized what I really wanted was to be OUT. Out of my house, out of my head.
I changed into the workout clothes instead of putting them away, grabbed my keys and phone, and headed out the door to the gym. There was nothing like several miles on a punishing treadmill course to burn off the restlessness. It hummed in my chest and over my scalp, like I could flick my fingers and strike a spark with the excess energy buzzing through me.
If that didn’t work out the strangeness cresting inside me…
Well, I needed the run to work. That was all. I just did.
Chapter 19
The gym was deserted. That was no surprise late on a Friday night. I was glad for the empty line of treadmills and jumped on the middle one, setting the course for hills.
I raced up them, digging hard, trying to outrun the unsettled feeling. It began to work, and my muscles loosened into the easy rhythm they usually found around the three-mile mark. But I forgot what also happened around the three-mile mark: mental clarity.
As I turned the situation with Jack over in my head, one truth bubbled up, even when I tried to flip the problem and look at it another way: I liked Jack. Really liked him. Liked him in the way that made me care whether he’d ended our date to talk to another woman. That made me care about why he’d invested so little of himself in a place he’d been living in for two years. That made me care about why he held so much of himself back from our conversations.
Yes, he was funny, creative in our dates, generous in the way he sent me treats tailored to make me smile. And he’d resisted the idea of classifying us as “Just friends.” But there were little details I didn’t know about his life, and even though I’d pressed only very lightly, he’d thrown up fortress-like defenses when I tried to ask about the simple things.
Something wasn’t right here. Something wasn’t right at all.
Ranée said he was a good guy. My instincts told me the same thing. But they were also telling me that he was hiding something. What could he be working so hard to avoid talking about?
Did it matter? There was nothing I could do about it. I couldn’t make him tell me a thing. My choices were to quit talking to him, or to let this stay what it was—a “virtual flirtation”—or to press him until he quit talking to me.
I didn’t want to quit talking to him.
I started mile five and reset the course to stay flat so I could think. Why was it important to me to keep talking to him? I’d gone from being furious with him two months before for his ninja photoshopping to dumping Paul when I realized I wanted someone more like…Jack.
But Jack wasn’t possible. Jack was hundreds of miles away. Jack was funny and handsome and thoughtful. But he was also secretive and elusive.
So what was the draw?
The mystery?
That was part of it. No one could resist a good mystery. But it wasn’t like me to become wrapped up in it to the exclusion of everything else, to pause during my work day to check in on his Twitter feed, or wait impatiently for his next IM. I’d never been that girl. And yet here I was.
By mile six, I was chasing down a new realization. I was thirty-one, excelling in my career, and some part of me was ready for a relationship. But Ranée was right: there was a part of my brain somewhere that kept choosing guys I knew I wouldn’t really commit to.
I hadn’t been willing to be “distracted” while I established myself professionally. But now I was firmly on the path up to the executive suite. I was good at what I did, and there would only be more promotions in my future. And now that I had what I’d worked toward, I felt a hole somewhere. Obviously I’d sensed that even when I was with Paul, or we’d still be dating.
Was my subconscious trying to tell me that JACK was the answer?
No. That made no sense. I had spent my whole adult life avoiding a relationship like my parents’, where my dad’s focus and my mom’s free-spiritedness had been oil and water. I was an urban-dwelling corporate ladder climber. Jack was a flannel-loving rural Oregon tree dweller.
I finished mile seven and slowed the treadmill, walking to cool down and crystallize my next step in my own mind.
By the time I headed to the locker room, I knew what I had to do: this pull I felt toward Jack was trying to tell me that it was time to find The One, a real relationship, one I could commit to as I entered the next phase of growing up: finding and keeping true love.
I already had the glimmer of a plan I couldn’t wait to put into action.
Chapter 20
Ranée rolled in a little after midnight and grinned when she saw me on the couch with my phone. “Date is going that well, huh? Tell Jack I said hi.”
“It’s not Jack.”
She stopped in the process of pulling off a boot. They were tall and black and definitely not for riding horses. “You’re cheating on him already?”
“It’s not cheating.”
“How could you?” she demanded. But she’d been standing on one leg, half-crouched, and now she toppled over.
“That’s what happens to people who get on their high horse,” I said.
She grunted and pulled her boot off the rest of the way. “You’re a cold woman.”
“Am not. And you were totally right about me being commitment-phobic. But not anymore. I’m ready for a relationship.”
“Yay, Jack!”
“Not with Jack.”
The boot sailed toward me and landed near my feet.
“What do you mean not with Jack? Of course with Jack.”
“No. Don’t get me wrong, he’s awesome. But also far away. So.” I waved my phone at her. “I’m on Flash Match. I already have a coffee date and a lunch date set up for next week.”
“Flash Match? What? No. Don’t swipe right. Don’t even swipe left. Here, just let me swipe that right out of your hand.” She climbed to her feet and hobbled over in her single boot to grab for my cell.
I held it out of her reach. “Bad Ranée. No-no.”
She plopped on the carpet in front of me and worked at her other boot. “Why are you going on other dates?”
“I made real choices. I picked profiles for guys I could really go for. I’m going to start putting the same effort into these dates that I’ve put into hanging out with Jack. He’s great, but he’s made me realize that I want the real thing, not someone I can keep at an emotional distance because he’s at a physical distance.”
She dropped her head to her knees and groaned. “Why are you getting this so wrong?”
“I feel good about this.” I stood and stepped over her. “Night-night.”
“You can’t sleep with a guilty conscience.”
“Good thing I don’t have one.” I laughed as her other boot thumped behind me in the hall.
Nothing made me feel better than having a goal to work toward, and I went to sleep with the next phase of my plan running through my head.
Tuesday morning I threw my new black heels into my gym bag before I headed into the office. I’d wear them to my coffee date with a programmer named Jeff. I’d dressed in a conservative top and slacks, but the shoes would keep things interesting.
Mid-morning I slid them on and sent a picture of my feet propped on my desk to Ranée captioned, “Good choice?”
Really good.
I’ll tell you how it goes, I typed.
I got back a puke emoji. I hope it sucks.
I laughed and grabbed my handbag, then let Hailey know I’d be out for a while.
It turned out to be a short while. Because Jeff turned out to be short. Really short. Even shorter when I had on four-inch heels. He’d opened with, “You lied about your height.” Well, one of us had, or my heels wouldn’t have mattered. The conversation hadn’t improved, and when Ranée texted ten minutes in to demand, “WELL?” I said it was a work emergency and bailed.
I texted her on the way back to the office. Fail. I don’t care if you’re short. I care if you lie about being short.
Her reply was succinct:
That about covered it.
Jack and I had still been texting every day, but he hadn’t mentioned another date. I wasn’t sure what to think about that. It was good, probably. Better to spend that time on real dates. But I wondered if he hadn’t asked because he was waiting for me to make the next move. Or maybe I’d said something during our Scrabble date that made him want to step back.
