Confessions of an Ex-Girlfriend (12 page)

I swallowed. “I'm okay. Keeping busy with work and all.”

“Alyssa tells me you're up for a big promotion.”

“Oh, that. Yeah, well, I did just speak to the editor-in-chief about it and she was very encouraging, so…”

“Great.” He smiled so sweetly and innocently I wanted to gather
him close and warn him of the dangers of letting Alyssa go out in the world unattended. But then Alyssa was suddenly by my side, Lulu smiling up happily at us now that her leash had been snapped on. Even Lulu was oblivious to the fact that this was no joyful little walk she was going on, but a dreaded trip to Dr. Jason Carruthers—a man who would only probe her with cold metal tools while he gazed with longing at Alyssa.

“You guys all ready to go?” Richard said, hopping up from the couch and going over to scratch Lulu playfully behind the ears, all the while muttering endearments that caused Lulu's tail to wag furiously. My heart sank.

Richard walked us to the door and kissed Alyssa on the forehead, much in the way my father used to kiss me when I was six.

“Take care of yourself, Em,” he said, turning to me. “And don't be a stranger. In fact, if you and Henry hit it off, maybe we can double date. You did tell her about Henry, right, Lys?”

Gulp. Now we were double dating. I wondered if Henry would even talk to me, much less date me, if he ever found out I had stood by while some womanizing veterinarian made off with his best buddy's girl.

“Yeah, I told her,” Alyssa said as she led Lulu to the door. “Remind me, Em, to give you Henry's number.”

“He's a great guy,” Rich said, encouragingly.

So are you,
I thought sadly, following Alyssa and Lulu out the door to meet their fate.

Once we hit the pavement, I found myself racing to keep up with Alyssa, who seemed to be in too much of a hurry for my taste. “I don't know if this is such a good idea,” I said when I had finally matched my pace to hers.

“I need to know if this is an irritable bowel or something more serious,” Alyssa replied, glancing down at Lulu with concern.

“No, no,” I said, annoyed at her denseness. “I mean this Dr. Carruthers character. You and Richard have been together a long time. You have a
dog
together, for chrissakes.”

“Lulu is
my
dog, Em. I've had her since I was sixteen.”

“Yeah, and why did your mother give her to you, huh?”

Alyssa marched on, her face a mask. “I was a good kid?”

“No, because your father had died a month earlier. She was trying to get you to move on, enjoy life again. You told me that yourself.”

She stopped now, stood looking at me while Lulu sat expectantly at her feet. Then she gazed down at the dog, who cocked her head questioningly before cracking a doggy smile. “What does that have to do with anything?”

She started walking again, and I followed suit. “Maybe you're afraid of losing Lulu. Or even Richard, on some level. I mean, you only lost your mother a couple of years ago. Maybe this thing with Dr. Carruthers is just your way of controlling the marbles. You know, if you keep moving on yourself, you can't get hurt.”

“That's ridiculous,” she said, then stopped again, this time before the large wooden doorway of a brownstone. A shiny brass plaque affixed just above the intercom read, “Dr. Jason Carruthers, D.V.M.” She pressed the button on the intercom, and at the sound of an answering buzz, she pushed the heavy door open with renewed determination, barely glancing back at me as she held the door open for me to follow. After we passed through a small foyer, we found ourselves in a cozy waiting area that was decorated with paintings of dogs and cats in various poses, as well as pillows embroidered with sayings like
Bark If You're A Dog Lover.
Behind the reception desk, a woman with a cloud of gray hair and the softest voice I have ever heard greeted Lulu, then raised her eyes to Alyssa as we approached.

While Alyssa checked in, I made myself comfortable on a cushion that proclaimed
Cat Love Is Purr-fect Love
, and contemplated an empty pet carrier that stood waiting in the middle of the room to be filled with some ideal companion. As I sat there imagining the kind of muumuu-wearing cat-lover who might be the owner of such a garishly colored carrier, the door to the inner office opened, and out stepped a tall blonde in a skirt the size of a postage stamp, carrying the tiniest dog I had ever seen. I immediately eyed the blonde's long legs with suspicion. What kind of woman wears panty hose on a Saturday—and to the vet, no less? As the woman stooped to put the dog in the ostentatious carrier, all the while murmuring words of comfort through brightly painted lips, I began
to wonder what kind of operation this Dr. Jason Carruthers was running.

“He's ready for us,” Alyssa said, having finished whatever paper-work she had to fill out and gesturing for me to get up.

“I'll just bet he is,” I muttered, following her and Lulu through the office door.

As I stepped inside a gleaming white room that smelled like a mixture of antiseptic and kitty litter, I fell into a stunned silence.

There, dressed in a white lab coat and a blue button-down shirt that brought out the stunning color of his eyes, stood Dr. Jason Carruthers: six-foot-two, broad-shouldered, lean-hipped and one hundred and seventy-five pounds worth of the most incredible male I had ever seen.

I swallowed hard, studying his beautiful features as he stood behind the examining table, his hands folded comfortably behind his back, a brilliant smile on his—dare I say sensual?—mouth.

“Jason,” Alyssa breathed next to me, and I suddenly remembered why I was here.

“Alyssa, how are you?” he said, then kneeled down to Lulu. Weirdly enough even Alyssa's dog seemed deliriously happy to see the man who would soon be the instrument of her torture. He scratched her behind her ears with his big tan hands, before scooping her effortlessly into his arms and rising to his full height once more. “I see you brought a friend this time,” he said, nodding to me in greeting.

“Oh, yes,” Alyssa said, as if suddenly remembering I was in the room. “Jason, meet my good friend, Emma Carter.”

As his hands were full of Lulu, I merely smiled my greeting at him. I don't think I could have spoken anyway, judging by the way I was salivating.

“Emma was concerned,” Alyssa continued, glancing at me. “About Lulu, that is.”

He nodded, as if this answer made perfect sense to him. “You mentioned on the phone that she wasn't responding to the medication,” he said, placing Lulu gently on the examining table, all the while caressing her with those broad, tanned fingers.

I was mesmerized. And quite frankly, I was shocked, because
suddenly it was very clear to me that this man could be Alyssa's next Mr. Right. He was kind to animals, gorgeous beyond compare—and those hands, I thought, watching as he pulled a stethoscope from around his neck and placed it carefully on Lulu's chest. The dog's tongue lolled out of her mouth as if she were receiving a full body massage.

He didn't even look like a vet, I realized suddenly. Well, maybe a vet on TV.

“We're going to need to run some tests,” he was saying now, his beautiful gaze fixed on Alyssa's face. “Some of them will be pretty extensive and may require an overnight stay.” He paused, as if he were about to suggest an overnight stay for Alyssa as well. Then, as if remembering something, he pulled himself from Alyssa's gaze and began moving about the office, collecting instruments, then pausing to flip through a chart on the counter. Facing Alyssa once more, he continued, “Today I'll just take some blood, but make an appointment to bring her back in the next two weeks so we can run the next battery of tests. By then I'll have her blood work done, so that if we need to take, um,” he paused, as if caught again by Alyssa's gaze, “if we need to take any further steps, we'll be ready to go.”

“Further steps?” Alyssa replied.

He studied her for a moment, looking as if he were about to pull her into his arms at any moment to comfort her with caresses. “Well, surgery for one thing. But I want to eliminate a few other options first. Lulu's a bit older, and surgery would be the final option, if it is, in fact, a viable or necessary one.” Then he smiled gently. “In the meantime, you keep up the TLC with her, and everything will be just fine. Trust me.”

Looking into those baby blues, I knew I would have trusted him with
my
life.

When Alyssa snapped Lulu's leash on once more and gently took her off the examining table, I realized that we were leaving and hated myself for the ping of disappointment I felt.

Jason shook my hand. “It was nice meeting you,” he said.

The strength in that hand moved through me, and suddenly I was contemplating stopping off at the pet store on my way home to
pick up the miniature schnauzer I had been eyeballing ever since Derrick made his departure. Hell, I'd take on a pet python if I thought it might bring me back into this man's life.

Then I remembered myself, and more important, Alyssa.

“I'll probably see you after Memorial Day,” Alyssa said. “I'm, um, going out of town.”

“Big plans for the holiday weekend?” he asked with what seemed like sincere interest.

“Oh, nothing special,” Alyssa replied, “just some family stuff.”

Yeah,
Richard's
family, I thought to myself, remembering where my loyalties lay.

Still, as we said our final goodbyes and headed for the door, I couldn't help but turn expectantly along with Alyssa when Dr. Dreamboat called us back. “Oh, I almost forgot.”

“Yes?” Alyssa said, her eyes wide with anticipation.

He smiled. “Next time you come, don't forget to bring a stool sample.”

Ah, the romance of it all, I thought, giddiness bubbling up inside me as Dr. Carruthers showed us out.

Though I had almost lost my head at the sight of the good doctor, now that we were safely outside his office, I was relieved we had made it through with no major flirtation. No matter how gorgeous Dr. Jason Carruthers was, I couldn't—wouldn't—allow myself to see him as a part of Alyssa's life.

We walked in silence on the way back to Alyssa's apartment, each lost in our own thoughts. And when Lys stopped suddenly, two doors away from the brownstone where she lived, I was surprised to discover her eyes were glassy with unshed tears. “What am I going to do?”

I blinked. “Lys, don't get upset. Whatever happens, you'll make the right choice. You always do.” I sighed. “If it makes you feel any better, I thought he was gorgeous. I can see why you would consider—”

“No, I'm talking about Lulu. Oh, Em, if she needs surgery, she'll never make it at her age.” The tears sprang forth now as she looked
down at Lulu, who pressed herself against Alyssa's leg and whined at the sight of her beloved owner's distress.

“Oh, Lys,” I said, hugging her close. It was all I could do, really, because I had nothing to say. No answers at all. And no way to stop whatever sadness was bound to come her way.

Confession: I could more easily submit to bodily torture than wear a seafoam silk dress.

 

M
aybe I was hiding from my emotional distress, or maybe I had been spurred on by Patricia's encouragement, but the following week at work, I made a bonafide attempt to become the one thing I never dreamed I'd be: a career woman. I organized my files, answered all the e-mails I hadn't got around to responding to and even handed in my copy ahead of schedule. I began to feel like management material, capable of sending some editorial assistant scurrying over to a photocopier or fax machine to do my bidding.

That is, until Rebecca showed at my cubicle on Wednesday afternoon in the kind of navy suit that commanded others to cower before her and a thousand-watt smile on her face.

“I think it's finally going to happen,” she said, her pretty blue eyes alight with excitement as she sat, uninvited, in my guest chair.

Alarm shot through me as I attempted to hide my pièce de résistance from her prying eyes—a memo to Patricia, with ideas for our next subscription contest. “What's going to happen?” I asked, panicked.

“Nash is going to propose. Memorial Day weekend. I'm
sure
of it,” she said, studying my reaction.

Of course, I thought to myself. Not only was Rebecca probably the best woman for the senior features editor position in the eyes of my superiors, she was apparently the prime candidate for Wife
Number One—and maybe even Wife Number One and Only—in the eyes of her boyfriend. Bitch.

“That's wonderful,” I said, hoping my smile didn't look too pasted on. “How…um, how do you know?”

“Well, we've been planning to go away for Memorial Day for some time now. As far as I understood it, we were going to his family's cabin in the Berkshires. Then, last night, he tells me he has a surprise—he got us a reservation for a bed-and-breakfast out in East Hampton!”

I nodded, not getting how East Hampton equaled Big Proposal Scene. According to Jade, it was more of a Big Blow-Job Scene for the rich and disillusioned.

As if reading the confusion in my face, she continued, “It's not just any B-and-B—it's the exact same bed-and-breakfast we went to on our very first weekend away.”

Ah. Nash was going for real romance. I could just picture him with his chiseled features and wire-rim glasses—though a bit too strait-laced, Nash was just the type of Bespectacled Babe I lusted after—gazing up at Rebecca on a moonlit beach, a monstrously large diamond in hand. “Wow,” I replied. I thought of my own holiday weekend plans, which would more than likely entail basking in the glow of my mother and Clark's love while listening raptly to my brother, Shaun, and his wife, Tiffany, detail their plans to make their new house bigger and their lives richer.

“I could hardly keep the smile off my face last night as I packed my lingerie,” Rebecca was saying now. “I even brought along the underwear I wore the first night we made love,” she continued with a blush.

“You remember what underwear you wore?”

“Of course I do!” she said.

Now
that
was special. “Wow,” I replied again, seeming to have lost the capacity for any type of prolonged speech.

“I know.” Then she gazed down at her hands folded in her lap before she lifted her eyes to meet mine once more. “I wanted to tell you first, because you're one of my closest friends.”

I am?
“That's, um, sweet of you, Bec,” I somehow managed to mumble.

“And I want you to know that when Nash and I do get married, I'm going to ask you to be part of my wedding party.”

What?
“Uh, that's really, um— Don't you think it's a little premature to be planning the, uh, wedding?” Then I laughed uneasily, hoping to lighten the mood. “You don't want to jinx yourself by jumping the gun.”

She smiled. “Are you kidding? I've already decided on my colors! How do you feel about seafoam for your dress?”

Oh, God.

She sighed, and went on as if my feelings about seafoam were irrelevant. “I can't believe it's finally going to happen. I've been thinking about this wedding ever since I was a kid!” Then she laughed.

Huh?
“I thought you met Nash in college?”

“I did.” She looked puzzled. “What does that have to do with anything?”

“Well, you just said you've been thinking of this wedding since you were a kid—”

“Oh, you know what I mean. Every girl dreams of getting married someday. When I met Nash, I just knew he was the one who'd be part of that dream.”

I better start dreaming, I thought now, realizing that maybe I hadn't put any real strategy in place for the sort of thing every girl wants. It seemed so simple the way Rebecca put things. Maybe I made everything too damned complicated.

“Don't say anything to anyone,” she said then, getting up to leave. “Not even Derrick. I mean, you're right. I shouldn't tell
everyone
until I have the ring. Though I don't know how I'm going to get through the next couple of days without bursting.”

No problem-o, I thought as she skipped away, realizing that if I ever did talk to Derrick again, I had a few things I wanted to say to him, none of which had to do with Rebecca's sudden windfall of happiness.

One thing was sure: I knew there was
no way
I could ever tell Rebecca now that Derrick was irretrievably out of my life. But how to hide this fact while I was busy showering her with gifts and lavishing her with all sorts of bridesmaidlike camaraderie? I would
have to do something to get out of this wedding when it happened. Like fake my own death.

 

Confession: Dating might just be my only resort.

 

By the time I stomped up the stairs to my apartment that night, I found myself with a head full of steam over Rebecca's presumption that I wanted to participate in her personal bridal hell. I even considered defrosting the Hostess cakes I'd stashed in the freezer for safekeeping, until the soreness of my abdominal muscles reminded me of my last blistering workout and kept me from indulging in the sort of angry binge I was by now certainly entitled to.

How dare Rebecca ask me to be in her wedding party? Me—a mere co-worker and now all-out
competitor!
Leave it to Rebecca to be the bigger person and keep office grudges out of the way of the grand friendship she saw between us.

Needing some perspective, I called Jade. “Rebecca asked me to be in her wedding party.”

“You're kidding. I didn't even know she was engaged.”

“She's not—yet. According to her, Nash is going to pop the old question this weekend.”

“Oh? And how did she figure that out?”

“Who knows? Everyone at
Bridal Best
seems to have some kind of radar when it comes to imminent proposals.”

She was silent for a moment, and I heard her inhale on a cigarette. “I didn't even know you guys were that close.”

“We aren't. At least not in my mind. I've been picking apart this situation all afternoon, and I think I have it figured out. Rebecca is an only child. Nash has two brothers, plus he's still pretty close with many of the guys from his old fraternity. As far as I know, Rebecca has only a few close friends outside the office and very little close family. It basically boils down to a numbers game. She's got a load of groomsmen and no bridesmaids for them to escort. And you know how unbalanced that makes the photos look.”

Jade laughed. “That's pretty shallow, if that's her reason.”

“I wouldn't put this kind of bridesmaid-recruitment maneuver
past anyone at
Bridal Best.
I sometimes think Patricia—our editor-in-chief—picked her groom out of a catalog and just had him show up once she put together her lavish little affair.”

Jade chuckled gleefully.

“Now all I want to do is cram down a coffee cake or five and feel sorry for myself, except I'm in deadly fear of getting any fatter than I currently am.” I sighed. “It would serve Rebecca right if I started stuffing my face every night so I'll be good and round by the time I have to squeeze into whatever taffeta nightmare she selects for me to trail down the aisle in.”

“You mean you're actually going to go through with this bridesmaid thing?”

“How can I get out of it? Then Rebecca will know how much I've grown to despise her. I mean, I don't want to hurt her feelings.”

“That is the most
ridiculous
thing I have ever heard.”

“You're right,” I admitted. “I can't exactly pack on the pounds when I'm about to embark on the cruelest journey known to woman-kind—dating in NYC.”

“So you've decided to join the living once again?”

“Alyssa's already got some lawyer guy from Richard's office lined up for me.”

“You're kidding?”

“No, I'm not. She gave me his number after our little trip to the vet over the weekend. I haven't called yet, but there's no turning back now. He's waiting to hear from me, though I'm not quite sure he knows what he's in for. You know how kind Alyssa can be when giving descriptions of people. Although I have to say, she didn't quite prepare me for that hunk of a veterinarian she and Lulu have been spending time with.”

“Oh, yeah?”

“He's the George Clooney of the four-legged set. Except he's got blue eyes. Sparkling blue eyes, I might add, with thick, dark lashes.”

“Hmm. Maybe I should get that pet chinchilla I've been thinking about. Where did you say this vet was located?”

“Jade!” I said, about to reprimand her for moving in on Alyssa's
turf. What was I thinking? Alyssa's turf was Richard.
Richard, Richard, Richard,
I repeated silently, though my inner voice sounded like a mere whisper at this point.

“Don't tell me that since having made his acquaintance, you haven't contemplated picking up, say, a guinea pig, at Petland?

Thank God Jade couldn't see my face. I think I blushed as I remembered the minischnauzer that had beckoned from the moment I laid eyes on Dr. Jason Carruthers. I decided to change the subject. “So whatever happened to your little Italian import? Enrico, wasn't it?”

“Oh, man.”

“This sounds promising already.”

“Emma, he's amazing.”

“You slept with him already? Where have I been? Details, please.”

“No, no. We just went out dancing last night. He is the hottest thing. We could not keep our hands off of each other on the dance floor.”

“And then?”

“Then nothing. I wasn't going to take him home and waste all this presex sizzle. Besides, there's something I'm worried about.”

“Just use a condom.”

“No, it's not that. It's just that he's very young.”

Uh-oh. “How young?” I asked, worried Jade was about to incriminate herself in some sort of sex scandal.

“Twenty-two.”

Whew. No jail bait there. “So what's the problem? You've never taken issue with the young ones. What about that acting student you took on for a while? Mark? Wasn't he just over the legal limit, too?”

“Yeah, but Mark was different. He had that tough veneer that NYC ingrains in the young, struggling types. I mean, he was only twenty-four, but he'd been around the block a few times. Enrico seems…almost innocent.”

“Jade, I saw him myself. There was nothing innocent about the way he was eyeballing you while he took our drink orders.”

“I don't mean sexually. It was clear to me from the way he was
moving on the dance floor last night that he would know his way around a woman's body.”

“So what's the problem?”

“He just seems so vulnerable somehow. Especially at the end of the night, when he walked me home. He started talking about how much he missed his family back in Italy. Then he gave me this gooey look and made some joke about bringing me back to Italy with him.”

“Uh-oh. Preejaculatory emotion,” I said, using the phrase Jade and I had developed for the wealth of emotion some men seemed to have just before you slept with them.

“He just seems like he's looking for a girlfriend or something. And you know how I feel about the whole relationship thing.”

Yeah, I knew. And I still wondered if Jade's attitude was good for her, or whether she was still fending off all those feelings she'd wasted on Michael. “Why don't you just take one step at a time, and see what happens.”

“I guess I'll have to. Because there's no way I'm letting this one get away without getting him in my bed. Did I mention how
promising
he felt when he pressed up against me on the dance floor?”

“So you're going to have him even at great risk of breaking his boyish heart?”

“Yeah, well. That's life in the big city.” Then she sighed. “Maybe I shouldn't worry so much about his heart anyway. It's not as if I have any hard-and-fast evidence that he even
has
one. And you know as well as I do, Emma, though you're loath to admit it: Most men don't have any deep feelings for anyone but themselves.”

I was powerless to argue with her, I realized. And when I found myself staring at my silent telephone after we hung up, I even started to believe her. Apparently Derrick was so wrapped up in his new life as Big Screenwriter, he couldn't be bothered calling me. I didn't even exist in his mind anymore. With a sigh, I dug through my pocketbook and pulled out Henry Burke's phone number, then carefully tucked it into my wallet. I would call him to
morrow. To hell with waiting for the love of my life to realize I was still alive and aching for him. I was moving on.

 

Confession: I discover you can't go home again (at least, not without marriage prospects).