Curing the Uncommon Man-Cold (27 page)

“You mean besides the broken water heater gambit.” Amanda tried to taste the soup but it was obviously still too hot, so she just stared into her bowl.

Margaret recognized a stalemate: neither one of the ex-lovebirds wanted to make the first move. She was only about 70 per cent sure Jason was still interested in salvaging the relationship. But she was now certain Amanda really wanted things to mend, so Margaret would nudge a bit. “Something else is bothering you.” Not a question.

Amanda’s eyes clouded. “I’m afraid Jason won’t… won’t ever come back. That I’ve really wrecked things and I’ll never see him again.”

Margaret took the already-opened sleeve of saltine crackers, partly stale, from the table and crumpled half a dozen into her soup. “Now, settle down. Men are prideful and can’t stand people laughing at them. With Christine’s blog, Jason’s heard a lot of laughter. That hurts, sure.”

“I know. They were ridiculing me, too.”

Margaret nodded. “Look, Jason’s a stubborn man. Nearly as mule-headed as his daddy. But I was always able to smooth Henry’s feathers. Because he had just a tad more love for me than he had stubborn pride for himself. So he always came around, eventually.” Margaret gingerly tasted her soup. “If Jason loves you as much as I think he does, he’ll come to his senses. You might need to gild the lily, so to speak, to help patch things up. But he’ll come back.”

“Gild what lily?”

“You know, cook his favorite meal, bake him some brownies…”

“I don’t bake.” Amanda blurted it out quickly. “And his favorite meal is the entire steakhouse buffet. I’ll have to gild something else.”

“You didn’t let me finish. I was starting to explain that you can smooth over about ten times as many ruffled feathers on a man if you just give him special attention.”

“Attention? Like holding the lug thingies while he changes a tire? Watching him play golf? What?” Amanda must have been so distraught that her mind was on a completely different track.

Margaret eyed her closely. Surely Jason’s girlfriend wasn’t that dense. “In the bedroom, for Heaven’s sake!” Margaret sighed heavily. “Good grief. Do I have to write it down?”

“Oh, that kind of special attention.” Amanda rolled her eyes. “Well, I can think of several possibilities.”

“Thank goodness. For a minute, I thought I was dealing with an idiot.” Margaret resumed eating her soup.

Amanda only fiddled with her spoon and then sighed with a lot of shoulder movement. “It’s probably just as well that we’re broken up right now, because of all my work stuff. But I don’t want to lose Jason forever. I’d like to get him back after September 1st.”

Margaret started to speak, but took another breath and waited a moment. “Amanda, a good relationship has to be able to survive the bad weeks as well as the rest of the year. You can’t just put a husband, or boyfriend, on hold for two weeks when work is at crunch time. If the relationship has any substance, it doesn’t go on hiatus when external pressures are high. You can establish temporary boundaries, of course, but real love continues through the crisis phases.” Margaret went on to clarify that everything she said also applied to the male involved.

———

Amanda felt distinctly rotten. Those were things she already knew, but she’d allowed herself to forget them. It made her seem shallow and self-absorbed. “I don’t know what’s next, Margaret.”

“You succeeded in running him out, though it wasn’t the way you’d envisioned. The blog magnified everything. He responded to the public ridicule by breaking up with you. So, the ball’s in your court.” Margaret watched the patient’s face briefly and then looked toward the window. “I need to leave soon… don’t like to drive after dusk.” She finished her soup quickly, rinsed the bowl and spoon, and put them inside the dishwasher. “Amanda, loving partners can’t completely avoid critical periods, but you can’t suspend the relationship during a crisis. If you and Jason had anything more than a fling, it needs to harness enough steam to get
through
the crunch times.”

Margaret left before Amanda could formulate a reply. She’d still only consumed a third of her soup.

Later, after she finished eating, Amanda picked up her phone. Jason was on speed dial number two. She pressed it. The phone rang six times and went to voicemail.

“Hi, Jason. It’s Amanda. It’s seven-something on Thursday night. I’d like to talk… about everything. Give me a call back if you’d like to talk, too.”

It wasn’t exactly the apology opportunity she’d envisioned if she had reached him
live
. But hopefully he’d be interested enough to call her back.

When Amanda last checked her phone around 11:00 p.m., there were still no return calls from Jason.
Maybe his battery’s too low.

On the borrowed laptop, Amanda logged on to e-mail. Perhaps a different medium would get through to him. Her text was succinct:

.

Lots of mistakes in the last
10
days or so.

I’d like to talk it over.

Please acknowledge.

.

She sent it with a
read receipt
requested. If Jason opened it but didn’t respond, at least she’d know he’d seen her message.

Chapter 19

August 21 (Friday)

Since Jason had already told Ms. Grunion he wouldn’t be at work that day, there was no need to rise early and phone in. This was the final day of his two-week sick leave
vacation
. A very strange time — absolutely nothing had gone as he’d hoped.

Now, his entire balance of paid sick days had been wasted and his relationship with Amanda was busted.
Destroyed… wrecked…
whatever
. Whose fault? Mostly Amanda’s. Sure, Jason sent the e-mail formalizing their breakup, but she was the one who’d trashed their
whatever
.

They’d been steady lovers for nearly ten months — a very odd time, as Jason looked back on it. Amanda had always been the one setting parameters and he’d agreeably let her do so. She’d seemed to need an analysis of their togetherness. Jason had just wanted to share in their time together. He hadn’t wanted to think so much — just to enjoy it.

And he had enjoyed those ten months
…
mostly. There had been that awkward experience around the beginning of June, another example of Christine’s explosively meddlesome involvement. But once that confusion had settled down, Jason had resumed his normal default setting: hang out together, make love with Amanda, and chase off the other guys who’d be only too happy to take her away from him.
Well, they can have her now.

Since he’d listened to Amanda’s voicemail yesterday afternoon, Jason knew she’d received his break-up e-mail from Tuesday evening. But he had no intention of responding to her call. He would have already taken Amanda’s number off his speed dial if he knew how to program his phone.

Jason surfed his 98 cable channels for about an hour. Though he’d never stopped to figure the exact percentage, he only liked about a third of them. Of course, he had to click through all the others to get to the ones he liked. So, two-thirds of his brief stops were on channels he didn’t want and the rest of that hour was distributed among the 30-plus channels he appreciated enough to pause upon. His time on each varied with the content: if a commercial was on, he zipped away immediately. But if it was regular programming on those
good
channels, he might spend as much as a full minute assessing each before moving on to the greener pastures up or down the numbering sequence.

Amanda had acted like his television M.O. was irritating. What about her watching pattern? Park on one of three channels for hours and watch chick flick after chick flick with no variety? What a waste of thirty other good channels.

Jason put down the remote and logged on to e-mail. Kevin had sent another conquest story from a recent happy hour — an adventurous school teacher from Missouri. True to that state’s motto, she had insisted that Kevin “show me”… so he did.
Ha!
Kevin was hopeless, but he surely had a lot of female enjoyment without all the confusing hassles.

The other e-mails were not nearly as inspiring. Three spams: delete, delete, delete. L.L.Bean wanted Jason to buy a jacket.
Nice, but too pricey.
Something from his middle brother:
blah, blah.

E-mail from Amanda!
What else does
she have to say?
He opened it. More of the same from her previous phone message… she wanted to talk
.
They’d had plenty of potential time to talk during his ten days of neglect, deprivation, and Internet ridicule. But on those awful days, Amanda had spent considerably more time with Christine than she had with him.

Now
she wanted to talk.
Fat chance
. Delete. That e-mail was history, their relationship was history, and now… so was Amanda.

A very strange history indeed.

* * * *

Christine intuitively realized she and Jason’s mom needed to get their heads together, but Margaret beat her to it.

Earlier that morning, Margaret had phoned and instructed Christine to meet her at the new coffee shop on the I-40 frontage road, north side. Normally, Christine was more accustomed to giving instruction than following, but she deferred to Margaret, one of the few women Christine allowed that tribute.

Each arrived within three minutes of 10:30 a.m. They were seated quickly since the breakfast rush had already cleared out.

“Jason’s pants are out in my car. He left word with Amanda to get them to you. His keys are in one of the pockets.”

“I’ll get them as we leave.” Margaret smiled slightly. “Sometimes it’s useful to have a man’s trousers.”

When the waitress ambled over, they ordered.

Christine was accustomed to being in the driver’s seat. Since she was not certain of Margaret’s specific reason for this called meeting, she was intensely curious for it to begin. So Christine broke the ice. “You know, I feel so responsible for this breakup.”

“I agree, you are.”

Christine had hoped for sympathetic reassurance that she wasn’t really at fault. But clearly, Margaret didn’t play such games. “You shoot pretty straight, don’t you, Margaret?”

She nodded. “Helps me reach the target more often.”

Their coffees arrived. The smallish shop was a perfect marriage of coffee, tea, and fresh-baked croissants. It smelled heavenly.

“Amanda’s life is a mess right now.” Christine sprinkled sweetener, about half of a pink packet. “I’d like to do what I can to make it right.”

“It’s really between them.” Margaret took only cream. “And should’ve been to begin with.” She sipped her coffee reflectively. “However, I think there’s still hope for salvage. I have a strong hunch Amanda’s injuries have set the stage for this relationship to come back together, eventually.” Margaret dabbed a napkin to her lips. “Wounded pride is the biggest barrier. But a good outcome partly depends on how perceptive Jason is.”

“Not so much, from what I’ve seen.” Christine shrugged very slightly. “Since we’re talking straight and plain here.”

Margaret nodded agreement. “I used to think Jason’s crayon box didn’t have a built-in sharpener. But later, I concluded he was just too lazy to use it.”

“Too spoiled, maybe?” Christine continued stirring and didn’t meet Margaret’s eyes.

Most likely Margaret felt the barb but did not appear offended. “Perhaps… he was my youngest.” She took another sip. “So that’s an obstacle. Plus, whether Amanda’s love is stronger than her pride.”

“Another big factor might be whether she still has a job, come Monday.” Christine finally tasted her coffee and paused before continuing. “Is there anything I can do to help patch things up?”

Margaret traced her ring finger around the edge of the cup. “I’m pretty sure Jason doesn’t yet know about the wreck. Amanda said she hasn’t told him and doesn’t intend to. So, up ’til the time Jason finds out, it’s important for you to continue helping her. Especially for things like transportation.”

“What about after Jason finds out?”

“Once he learns about Amanda’s injuries, you need to exit the scene — back away, disappear completely. Let the two lovebirds reconnect without an audience. Couples need space to work out their problems. They don’t need friends or relatives — or bloggers — butting in and trying to sway them.”

“Uh, aren’t we butting in? I mean, we sit here plotting what to do about their relationship. And we’re trying to influence the outcome.”

“They’re young; they need a nudge. Besides, this is different. You’re Amanda’s best friend and I’m Jason’s mother. We both have an interest to protect.” Margaret’s smile was so tiny it seemed like most of it remained inside. “But we’ve both got to vanish as soon as Jason finds out about the wreck and Amanda’s injuries.”

Christine closed her eyes while thinking. “So we do the advance work — set the stage. Then we’re invisible.”

“Stage play is a good analogy. You know when the crew in black outfits changes the sets between acts? Think of us as the women in black outfits. They need us to move around the furniture and maybe even adjust a few walls.”

Christine remembered looking very good in tight black outfits, so she smiled slyly. “But Jason and Amanda won’t know the walls have moved until they bump into a few.”

“And stumble over the chair we moved from here to there.” Margaret pointed vaguely to the adjacent table.

“Pretty devious.” Christine grinned. “Wish I’d thought of it.”

Margaret sipped more coffee. “You went straight to high-tech with your previous involvement. To get them back together, my approach is low-tech. From talking with Amanda last evening, I’m pretty sure she’s since tried to reach Jason to reopen dialog. Right now I believe it’s up to him.”

“You think he’ll take the cue?”

“He might need a little direct prompting.”

Christine leaned a bit closer. “What have you got in mind?”

“I’m leaving here with his trousers, so I’ll summon him. When Jason comes over for his pants, I’m going to help him make up his mind that he and Amanda need each other.”