Finding Jack, page 4
He reached over to play with my hair, one of my favorite of his habits. “I’m not sure. I think it’s because we were both getting so busy at work and then all of a sudden you’re showing up in pictures with another guy. I felt…threatened.”
I pulled away. “That had nothing to do with me, and I’m not going to apologize for it again.”
“I know,” he said. “I’m sorry, that came out wrong. I’ll rephrase. I got insecure, but I think it’s because I’ve felt disconnected from you. So I have an idea. Let’s go to Napa next weekend and reset. I’ll work like a maniac to clear all my work so I can leave it behind, and we’ll forget the rest of the world for a while.”
Napa was a magic word right on par with bibbity-bobbity-boo. But this time, it didn’t cast a spell over me.
And that…that was a problem. A big one.
“Paul,” I said, gently pulling his hand away from my hair so the section he’d been winding slipped through his fingers. “A trip to Napa sounds so good, but work is crazy for me right now too. It isn’t a good time for me to leave for a whole weekend. Even if I could make the time—which I can’t—I don’t think my mind would be on Napa. Or you.”
His face fell, and he rearranged it to hide his disappointment, but the visible effort made me smile. “Stop. You look like I just told you that you can never have a puppy.”
“I feel about that disappointed,” he said, sighing.
“Don’t. It’s helping me see your point about trying to carve out big chunks of time instead of lots of little ones. Don’t worry about it.” I slid my hand around his neck, tickling the hair perfectly trimmed along his nape. He loved when I did that, and it won a reluctant smile from him. “We’ll be fine. I just have to find the groove with this promotion, and we’ll be back to usual.”
A tiny shadow flitted through his eyes, but finally his smile widened. “Fine. A long weekend is out of the plan, but can you give me Saturday?”
I was going to protest, but he swept in for a kiss and stole the words. I gave up with a laugh. “Yes, I can give you Saturday.”
“Thanks for the sacrifice.” He smiled, but I could sense ragged edges that he wasn’t quite letting me see.
“Stop,” I said, softening the order with another kiss. “It’s not a sacrifice. I want to spend next Saturday with you. No subtext.”
“I’m going to make it so worth it.” He was already on his phone, probably pulling up a spreadsheet to plan it.
I laughed again and took his phone from his hand and set it on the table. “Be present. I’m here right now, you’re here right now, so what should we do?”
I didn’t expect him to say, “Window shop,” but that’s what he did.
“Window shop?” I repeated like it was a German word I was learning to pronounce.
“Yeah. Let’s run over to that new pedestrian market and see what they have. I’ve been looking for interesting pieces to put in my office to give it a cooler vibe.”
Well. It wasn’t as fun as any of the things I’d imagined, all of which involved staying inside (cough cough kissing) but sure, okay. We could go look for office knick-knacks to give him some street cred. Or whatever kind of cred cool art gave to an upwardly mobile type like Paul. Fun.
I mean, not really. But making out was also not fun if you had to suggest it, so instead I grabbed my sneakers and we set off for the market. It ended up being fun for real, mostly because Paul grew more exasperated with every recommendation I made. He finally gave up altogether when I insisted he needed some blown glass grapes that looked more like stylized crystal poop emojis.
“Come on, you should totally get these grapes since we can’t go to Napa for the real thing,” I’d said.
And he’d pried them from my hands, hauled me from the gallery, and herded me into an ice cream shop to shut me up. Smart man.
Chapter 6
The week went fast even though each day felt sooooooo long. But work kept me busy non-stop, especially since I was trying to clear my desk for Saturday so Paul could sweep me off for whatever adventure he had in mind. He wouldn’t tell me what it was, but knowing him, he’d plan it down to the tiniest detail, and each one would be perfect.
It actually made the long days more bearable as I sat through staff meetings or worked through the eighteen million emails that came in hourly from my team. Whenever I wanted to just bag it and go home and crash, I would think about having a full day of being spoiled, and I’d buckle down again. And when that didn’t work…I found a second form of stress relief.
Jack’s social media accounts.
I was slightly ashamed of my low-grade stalking, even though I knew I didn’t have any reason to be. But I’d gotten in the habit of waiting until I hit what I was sure would be the most frustrating part of my day. Then, once I handled it, I’d check his Twitter to see what new absurdity he’d gotten up to.
Monday: Bryce in purchasing put a hold on my invoice because of a snafu in the system that didn’t show I was authorized to order new tech for my team.
I checked Twitter to distract from the need to throttle Bryce in purchasing. I told myself I was looking for tech-related hashtags, but soon I found myself clicking on Jack’s feed. He’d posted a picture of a frat-looking boy running across a city street, his face full of fear. The request read, “Can you make my friend look like he’s running from something scary?” Jack had Photoshopped the weird, beady-eyed Dutch puppets from the Disneyland Small World ride behind him. It saved Bryce in purchasing’s life.
Tuesday: the IT guy couldn’t upgrade my status in the system without a help ticket request from Human Resources.
I checked Twitter to keep from winging my stapler at the wall. The request showed a twenty-something hipster alone on a stool and asked, “Can you put a bunch of people in so I look like I have a social life?” Jack had Photoshopped in a bunch of preschoolers with cake-smeared faces and made the hipster look like a balloon artist. It saved my stapler.
Wednesday: the Human Resources manager said she couldn’t send a help ticket until my boss gave her a form she’d been nagging him for.
I checked Twitter to keep from flipping my desk over. Someone sent a photo of herself staring out at a beach sunset but there was a restaurant at the end of the pier in the background. “Take out the restaurant, ok,” was all it said. Jack had replaced the restaurant with a pile of sardines.
Thursday: Everything went fine. My boss turned in the paperwork, and I got my system upgrade, which meant Bryce in purchasing approved my requisition.
Checking Twitter at the peak of my daily frustration had become a quick form of therapy. Well, checking Jack’s clever posts had.
Once or twice it crossed my mind that Paul wouldn’t be too happy if he knew about it, but there was zero contact between me and Jack. I pushed those nagging worries out of my head. I had an overdeveloped conscience that always tried to make me feel guilty for stuff I didn’t need to feel guilty about. Like if I got home to discover that a cashier had accidentally given me an extra coupon, I’d have to talk myself out of making a forty minute trip to return it. Or when I smack-talked my brother’s favorite NFL quarterback, I’d feel guilty for criticizing someone I didn’t know. It got kind of ridiculous sometimes.
So I kept checking Twitter. Following a public humor account that I didn’t interact with at all wasn’t cheating. So even though Friday at work went well and nothing frustrated me at all, I checked Jack’s account anyway—with a clear conscience. It was my reward for making it through my first full week as a boss.
A man had sent in a picture with his girlfriend flashing some serious red-eye and asked Jack to restore her “baby blues.” So Jack Photoshopped some Mr. Magoo-style blue eyes onto her, all wild and bulgy behind thick glasses. It was disturbing. I laughed until I got the hiccups.
I arrived home in a good mood that only improved when Paul called to give me the time for our Saturday shenanigans.
Well, not shenanigans. He wasn’t really a shenanigans kind of guy. He used the word “outing.” And even though it meant setting the alarm for a time even a rooster would disavow, I was ready in “sailing clothes” when he knocked on the door Saturday morning.
“Sailing clothes” were some layered J. Crew-style shirts and white capris that I settled on after googling images of “sailing clothes.” It was either that, a jaunty nautical blazer and a captain’s hat, or a string bikini. So I J. Crew-ed it.
Paul smiled when I answered the door. “You look perfect.”
“Ah, thanks. I’ve always wanted to learn to sail.”
“We’re not learning. Sorry.” A touch of anxiety dimmed his smile. “I hired a guy with a boat, and he’s going to do the work. I thought it might be less stressful. I was watching YouTube tutorials to see if lessons made sense, but I kind of worried we’d spend more time being frustrated than relaxed.”
I kept any disappointment out of my expression. I liked doing hands-on stuff. It was a good outlet for me to work out stress, but I could see how it would only increase Paul’s. “That makes sense. Who wouldn’t want someone else sailing them around for hours? We’ll just lie back and enjoy it.”
An hour and a half later we were out on the water with a grizzled old dude name Andrew piloting us around the bay. He didn’t talk much, but I tried anyway.
“What kind of sailboat is this?”
“Sloop.”
“You’re kidding.”
Grizzled Andrew stared at me and blinked.
“That’s the best thing ever.” I broke into a corny nineties dance move. I didn’t trust the boat enough to stand yet, so it was mostly seated chest pumps. “Sloop, sloopy-doop, you make me want to sloop.”
“Um, what?” Paul asked. He looked embarrassed for me.
“You know that nineties song, Shoop? Salt-n-Pepa, I think?”
This time it was Paul who blinked at me.
I stopped my choreography. “You’re saying your mom never blasted this song in your house and danced like she was back in her college bar crawl days to torture you into cleaning faster?”
Blink. Blink. “My mother is a bookkeeper.”
Like that somehow explained it…? My mother was a successful real estate agent, but it didn’t stop her from Shoop-ing at my brother’s wedding like she had no dignity. I used to hate it when she did that, and the madder I got, the more she did it. But now, watching how it made Paul squirm, I understood her devilish impulse.
Grizzled Andrew said, “This is why I hate telling people what kind of sailboat this is.”
“You’re saying I’m not even the first person to make that joke?” That bothered me even more than the fact that it had fallen flat.
“I make people want to sloop at least once a month.”
“It was funnier when I said it.”
Grizzled Andrew only lifted his eyebrows.
“I don’t think he likes it,” Paul said. He kept his voice low, as if Grizzled Andrew couldn’t hear us from eight feet away.
“He loves it.” But I didn’t sing anymore. I looked out over the water instead. “This is beautiful.” I leaned against Paul as we sat in the bow. The whole bay looked as if it had been sprinkled with crystals.
“Yeah?”
“Yeah.” And it was. The warmth of being snuggled into Paul’s side as the chilly breeze washed over us, the perfect blue sky, the skim of the sloop over water.
Sloop. Haha. But I resisted the urge to sing again.
It was nice for about an hour. But something wasn’t right. I kept wanting to scoot away from Paul because he felt too warm despite the breeze. And I kept wanting to make sloop jokes even though no one else found them funny. And I kept wondering if this was…all?
Shouldn’t it be enough to be sailing on a postcard-worthy day? Who got fidgety on a sailboat beneath a perfect sky?
Why was I so restless?
I wondered if I could convince Grizzled Andrew to take a picture of Paul and me doing the Titanic pose on the boat. Except I’d have to convince Paul first before I could even take a crack at Grizzled Andrew. Oooh, maybe I could convince ANDREW to do the Titanic pose with me. Yessss.
He wouldn’t go for it. But maybe…I sat up and pulled my phone from my beach bag and snapped a few pictures of the bay, then the boat, then subtly worked it around to point it at Grizzled Andrew. If I could get a good shot of him, maybe Jack could do something—
Oh. Wait. Jack? Jack had no business on the boat with us. I deleted the picture of Grizzled Andrew and put my phone away.
For the next hour I did my best to be the poster girl for Most Relaxed Slooper Ever. I tried. But all I could think about was that Paul was crowding me and the shore was too far away and...
I recognized the feeling. It was the same feeling I had when Josh Greeley invited me to his fifth grade birthday party, and it turned out I was the only guest because he wanted to proclaim his love for me.
Trapped.
I felt trapped.
As soon as I put a name to the feeling, a giant metaphor rose out of the bay in the near distance. We weren’t far from one of the most famous islands on the West coast. “Hey, look,” I said, straightening and pointing to it as an excuse to create some space between me and Paul. “That’s Alcatraz.”
Paul blinked back to the present and smiled. “That’s where we’re going next.”
“Cool,” I said, meaning it. Anything to get off this boat right now. “It’s one of those things I’ve meant to get around to but just haven’t yet.”
Grizzled Andrew guided us into the dock and gave us simple instructions to help him tie up the boat. I stared at the prison where it squatted atop the highest point of the island, and a little buzz of energy hummed in my chest. It was the signal of an adventure to come, and I grinned. I loved poking around in history, and I couldn’t believe I’d gone this long without poking around the history in my own backy—er, bay.
Paul helped me climb onto the dock then hefted out the picnic hamper he’d lugged onboard from his car, and we started up the main trail. It forked here and there, but the primary path to the empty prison was wide and paved with clearly marked signs, so when Paul took one of the forks, I stopped and pointed to the sign ahead.
“The prison’s up that way.”
“I know, but we’re not going there.”
“We’re not?”
“No. I thought it was weird enough to bring you to a prison island. It’d be going a little far to drag you through it.”
“I mean, sure, but only if you actually dragged me through it. I’m going willingly, and I’m sure there are tours.”
“Yeah, but then we’d have to figure out what to do with the food. And I didn’t book Andrew long enough for lunch and a tour. We’ll come back and do the tour sometime, but I think you’ll like this.” Paul pointed further up the hillside toward a side trail. “A conservancy society restored the gardens the old wardens’ wives planted over the years, and I heard it’s a great photo op.”
Photo op. You know what would make a great photo op? A prison. I could just imagine what Jack would do with a—
Ugh.
Dear self: you are not currently responsible for finding stuff for Jack to Photoshop. The whole internet does that for him already. You are on a date with Paul. Your boyfriend. Pay attention.
And I did. Paul had brought some of our favorite foods, and the botanical society had created an oasis of native plants and heirloom flowers on a bluff with a gorgeous view, and we took it all in as Paul looked up the different flowers.
A light cloud cover drifted over the sun, muting the colors of each blossom he named, but I felt it even more keenly in my mood. Little wisps of cloud collected in my chest and filled in a growing hollow in my stomach, and no matter how many words Paul said or flowers he told me about or times he asked me if I wanted more hummus, I couldn’t clear the fog inside me.
Dang it.
No. Dang it wasn’t a strong enough word for the disappointment that crept up the base of my neck on the way to forming a full-blown headache. All the while, I smiled at Paul as he gave me word after word about flowers and shrubs and Alcatraz.
And as I wondered how to find the words I would have to say to him next, I finally recognized the feeling, and what it meant.
I had to break up with Paul.
Chapter 7
“Hey, you okay? You’re awfully quiet.”
I glanced at Paul, softening at the concern that touched his question. Grizzled Andrew had maneuvered us out of the slip and sent us back across the bay.
Paul’s question was an opportunity. Now was the time to say, “I’m just thinking,” and when he asked me about what, I’d say, “Us,” and he’d ask, “What about us?” and I’d tell him. I’d tell him we didn’t fit anymore.
But when I opened my mouth and glanced over at him with the wind riffling his hair, his color up from the day of sun, the lines around his eyes relaxed, and his posture slouched in the way it only did when he’d left his worries behind…
I couldn’t do it. Who could? Who could dump a perfectly nice guy in the middle of a sailboat ride because he wasn’t…
Wasn’t…
I didn’t know. I wasn’t even sure of my reasons, but he deserved one, and I couldn’t break up with him without explaining it.
Also, who breaks up with someone halfway across a bay when neither of you can leave?
So instead of telling him the truth, I smiled at him and gestured at the water. “I’m taking it all in, that’s all.”
His eyes drifted half-shut again.
A small wave of seasickness washed over me.
No. Not seasickness. My conscience was talking to me, trying to warn me. You’re going to go from stressed to miserable if you don’t find a way to say what you need to say.
I stared into the slowly—so slowly—approaching dock. How was it possible for a boat to move so slowly? I stared up at the sail to make sure it had wind, but it billowed, full and happy, so I gave Grizzled Andrew a squint-eyed examination to make sure he wasn’t putting the brakes on. Or something. Did boats have brakes?
