Enchanted Again (28 page)

Later, she wished she hadn’t added that last part. It made her offer sound more casual than she meant it. But overall she was happy Joe was moving in. And she was even more convinced that it was the right thing to do when he insisted on contributing to their new household by giving her money every week, further impressing her with the generosity and cheerfulness with which he gave. She could hardly believe the joy she felt to have Joe living in the same house with her, effectively wiping away the loneliness of her former existence and enhancing the quality of her life in one fell swoop. She found herself wanting to please Joe more than ever, and now, having the means to enhance her efforts, she lavished extravagant details at him from all directions, spending every extra cent that she gained from his moving in on making his stay more comfortable. She was certain that if she could make Joe see how wonderful life with her could be he would stay forever.

But here again was a part of Joe and Sandra’s history that would need a bit of tweaking. So Sandra transformed Joe’s need for a place to live into a need for Sandra herself, and she expanded upon his generosity so that it truly appeared that Joe was extravagant and indulgent with Sandra, rather than that he was merely paying his own way.

Sandra never thought to explain—or even mention—these little alterations she sometimes made to their history to Joe. There wasn’t any reason to do so. There was little to no chance that either Joe or her friends would discover any of the discrepancies these alterations created, because there was little to no chance that the parties involved would have the opportunity to compare notes. Sandra couldn’t imagine Joe even meeting her friends, let alone his having a conversation about their life together with them. As their relationship progressed it became hard enough to squeeze out any significant amount of Joe’s time for herself; Sandra never considered sharing any of that time with her friends. But even more to the point, Sandra recognized that Joe had no interest in spending time with her friends. It was one of the growing number of things that she instinctively knew not to ask for. And even if these circumstances changed—she supposed it was inevitable that Joe would eventually meet her friends if they were to stay together—it was so unlikely at the present time, and appeared to be so far off into the future, that there seemed ample time for her embellishments to have been softened significantly, or even perhaps, to have been forgotten altogether.

The new housing arrangement was working out splendidly. Many of the issues that bothered Sandra before she and Joe moved in together suddenly seemed to dissolve into nothingness. Their lack of time spent doing things together, for example, now seemed irrelevant because, after all, their living together brought about a dramatic increase in the amount of time they were actually together. Around the house, they ended up doing innumerable things together, if only to save time and make things easier. It now seemed logical to do outside activities apart, if only to have the opportunity to miss one another. Inevitably though, they began doing more and more things outside their home together, too, for it was often more convenient to do so. And Sandra loved every moment spent with Joe. She was convinced that she was slowly winning him over. Her own happiness gave her a sense of security and confidence that she could not fail. Besides, thanks to Elaine taking possession of the home he once lived in, Joe was now on Sandra’s turf, and she felt she most certainly had the home-court advantage. In addition, she gained strength with each and every kindness she offered Joe, and it never failed to satisfy her to impress him with the depths of her devotion. Each little acknowledgment from Joe—whether it appeared as a mere light of surprise in his eyes or in one of his beautiful smiles of genuine delight—was for Sandra like a golden coin of affirmation that she could add to her store of self-worth, offering her the assurance that she was, in fact, in control, and that her efforts could earn her love and help her achieve a true sense of belonging.

With each little advance that she achieved in her relationship with Joe, Sandra always felt gratitude and joy, but these sentiments eventually faded into the same strange longing she felt on the first night she met him. It took several months after Joe moved in, but ultimately Sandra once again found herself wondering where she stood with Joe, why they never made plans for the future, and what exactly had happened with Elaine.

One night she cautiously broached the subject with him as they sat side by side, amicably watching television together on the couch. She took the practical approach.

“What is happening with your house?” she asked him casually.

Joe looked at her in surprise, but then gave her one of his playful smiles. “Are you tired of me already?” he teased.

“No!” She tried to match his teasing tone. “I was just wondering. Jeez! You’d think you were in the witness protection program or something.”

He laughed. “Come on now. It hasn’t been as bad as that.” She realized suddenly that Joe had mellowed dramatically in the three or four months that he had been living with her. He was considerably less defensive and much more cheerful.

“Hasn’t it, Joe?” she continued, but still in the same teasing tone. “Is
Joe
even your real name?” They were both laughing now. But behind her humor she was determined. “Are you?” she asked him, and to his questioning look she elaborated, “In the witness protection program?”

“Come on, Sandra,” he said, still amused but now withdrawing from her a little.

“And yet,” she continued, “for some reason you can’t talk about your past life.”

“What do you want to know about it?” he asked. His tone was agreeable, but he was still steadily withdrawing. Sandra knew that it was only a matter of time before he closed up completely. It caused her to become rash.

“Why is Elaine living in your house?” she asked him point-blank.

“Because it’s her house, too,” he replied. “We bought it together and both our names are on the mortgage and the deed.”

“Do you still make mortgage payments?” she wondered.

“Yep.”

“Oh.” This stumped her for a moment. “So how long were you with her?”

“Six years.”

“You never got married?”

“Nope.”

“Why not?”

“She didn’t want to.”

Sandra could feel that she was running out of time and that at any moment Joe would tire of her questions, but ironically, now that he was submitting to her inquiries, she couldn’t think of what it was she most wanted to ask.

“Why did you two break up?” she ventured.

But her time was up. Joe had remained sitting next to her on the couch throughout this brief discussion, and suddenly he got up. Sandra impulsively grabbed his arm. “Look, Sandra,” he said. “That is all water under the bridge.”

“Then what can it hurt to tell me about it?” she asked him.

“Why do you want to know about it?”

Sandra sighed. It was just like him to turn this around on her.

“Because I do.”

“This is about you being insecure,” he said.

“No,” she disagreed. “This is about me wanting to know more about the man I’m living with.”

“I don’t ask you all kinds of questions about your past,” he reminded her.

“Yeah, I noticed that, Joe,” she said sarcastically, succumbing to another sore spot for her. “And why is that?”

“Because it has nothing to do with
us,
” he told her.

“And what about our future, Joe?” she asked him. “Huh? That’s another thing you can’t talk about. Does that have nothing to do with us either?”

“Why can’t we just take this one day at a time?” he wondered. “Why do I have to go through the third degree about things I don’t even have any control over?” He looked at Sandra pleadingly. “I had very little say in what happened in my past as it turned out, and I have no idea what’s going to happen in the future. I don’t have a crystal ball.”

“That’s just an excuse!” she said, giving in to her anger. “Men
know
when they want to spend their life with a woman.”

Joe was silent.

“If you can’t bring yourself to talk about the future you could at least give me some idea of what happened in the past. Give me
something!
”

“It. Has. Nothing. To. Do. With. You!” he yelled, pausing significantly between each and every word for added emphasis. Then he turned and walked away from Sandra, retreating to the bedroom.

Against her better judgment Sandra followed him. She felt the urge to cry but the tears wouldn’t come. She realized then that she was crying already, and she had been for a long time, on the inside. She wondered what she should say. How did a person get in? Why didn’t
Cosmo
ever give advice for moments like these?

“If you cared about me at all you would communicate with me about yourself,” she said. This sounded desperate, even to her ears, but she couldn’t seem to stop herself now, and so she continued in the same vein. “I’m not asking you for a kidney here. I hardly ever ask you for anything, as a matter of fact.”

“Let’s not do this now,” he said in a tired tone, continuing his retreat from her. He began to undress for bed.

“When then?” she asked in a shrill voice. “When would be a good time to bring this up, Joe, because I seem to be hitting all the bad times? Can I make an appointment for a better time so I’ll know when that is?”

Joe moved around the room as he changed, still trying to get away from Sandra. His attempts to evade her enraged her even more, and before she knew it she had followed him into the bathroom. She stared at him, determined to force some kind of response out of him. He pretended not to see her. When he finished in the bathroom, he returned to the bedroom and pulled down the covers of the bed. But when he reached for the remote, Sandra, who had been trailing him and watching his every move, snatched it up before he could get his hands on it. Now Joe was forced to deal with her. She smiled in bitter satisfaction when he turned tiredly to face her. He seemed incapable of finding the right words and merely sighed as he looked at her.

“Are you still in love with her?” she asked him miserably. When he only just kept stubbornly staring at her she continued, with every word adding fuel to her anger and egging her on, so that she kept going on and on for much longer than she intended. “Is that it, Joe? Is that why you can’t talk about her? Is it so painful that you can’t even stand to hear the mention of her name? Because if you were really over her you would be able to talk about it. And what am I supposed to do in the meantime?” As she continued to talk, it began to seem as if she was really talking to herself, letting off steam and in the process drawing conclusions that were the culminations of all of her fears. “I suppose I’m expected to just sit here in limbo while you pine away after her. I’m probably just the rebound. I’m just supposed to fix all the problems, right? Even if you do get over Elaine it will be the next woman you meet who gets a shot at your heart.” As she voiced these fears she waited for him to contradict her. She desperately wanted him to convince her that all her conclusions were wrong.

“You’re pathetic,” he murmured, turning his back on her. But she caught the hint of a self-satisfied smile curving his lips just as he was turning away from her and in the next instant she saw red. The sight of that smug little smirk on Joe’s handsome features unleashed all the fury that had been building up in her throughout their relationship, a fury that came out of months of hard work performed on credit—credit extended on the flimsiest promises of payment, it’s true—but even so it was extremely disappointing to discover that payment would not be forthcoming. And even worse was the realization that she had only herself to blame for granting the credit in the first place. Sandra was livid.

Joe slipped into bed as if nothing was amiss, just as Sandra suddenly flew at him, snatching the covers from his grasp and hurling them off the bed and onto the floor. Then, before Joe had time to register what was happening, she yanked the pillow from under his head and began to pummel him with it, not in the least seeing the absurdity of the situation as she did so, and only vaguely aware that if she had grabbed anything more solid than the pillow she might have actually bludgeoned him to death. Joe, on the other hand, was suddenly struck by the hilarity of the situation and he burst out in loud laughter, trying to dodge her blows during the first debilitating round of hilarity, but then grasping her arms with the pillow still in her hands and flipping her onto the bed on her back in one smooth maneuver. He quickly and easily positioned himself over her so that she was completely immobilized beneath him. She fought with all her might but her efforts brought almost no effect. His physical strength gradually subdued her. He was still laughing as he effortlessly plucked the pillow from her fingers like he was dealing with nothing more formidable than an amusing child.

Much of Sandra’s steam had left her by this time, and the actual source of her anger—which was her fear and pain—now surfaced. Large tears formed in her eyes as she stared up at Joe in stunned surprise. When Joe saw the tears his smile faded.

“Hey there,” he said softly, dropping the pillow and taking her face in his hands. “What’s this?”

To her horror she started to cry in earnest. Her sobs sounded contrived to her ears and she hated herself even as she reveled in the comfort Joe was offering. He kissed her lips and cheeks and eyelids as he gently shushed her. As always, she acquiesced, pushing her hurt aside and recklessly grasping the gratification of the moment instead of following through with what she had started. She suddenly felt too tired to care where their relationship was heading. It suddenly seemed inopportune to worry about tomorrow when today held such pleasure. Without even realizing it, she was earnestly kissing Joe back. And why not? she asked herself. Why not just focus on how much she loved him?

And then it was like their first time together all over again, with Joe tearing at Sandra’s clothing in a sudden frenzy to have her. Both gave in completely to the heady feeling of succumbing to an exquisite pleasure in spite of the pitfalls surrounding it. The pleasure was made all the more intense by the pitfalls in fact. Neither thought about, or even fully realized this. Sandra didn’t consider that she was simply relieved to have been temporarily distracted from the terrible pain and worry that Joe didn’t love her, any more than Joe was aware that much of his pleasure was derived from the simple fact that he had subdued her for the moment.