Fairy Tale Fail (7 page)

What? I wasn't crazy. Shouldn't
everyone do a background check on romantic prospects first? He was
just too far off from my normal. Although being with him, right
there, was fun.

"What's the big deal about tonight?" I
asked, serious for once. "Or are you just the type who hangs out
all night with girls you barely know?"

"You're not a stranger," Lucas said.
"We work together."

"You know what I mean." I half
expected him to say some smartass remark, or deflect it by changing
the subject, or say something about Don to get me
talking.

Maybe he was tired, or the chocolate
got to him, but he stopped fighting it. "My ex was waiting for me
at my parents' house. She's been trying to talk to me again, but
I've been avoiding her. She found out somehow that I was staying
there this week. Today I got a call that she just showed up and
said she would wait until I got back."

"Oh." I didn't know what to say, but
didn't want him to stop talking. "I'm sorry, I don't know who she
is."

"Her name is Patty. Anyway, she… at
least tonight I had a reason not to be there."

It started coming back to me: hearing
about her getting knocked up, and how they broke up six months
later, and how he didn't even show up for the birth, and that he
hadn't seen the child since then.

But that was the story I heard from
the grapevine. My heart sank a little.

"Yeah, I heard it didn't end well," I
said.

"What did people say?"

"That she was pregnant and you broke
up after you found out."

He shrugged. "Well, that part's sort
of true. The short story is, she slept with another guy while we
were still together."

That
I didn't know. "No, the gossip girls didn't pick that up," I
said. Maybe I shouldn't have mentioned it.

Lucas looked more amused than mad
though. "So the people at the office think I abandoned my own
illegitimate child?"

Okay, now I wasn't sure which was
worse. "Yeah, I guess. It's not fair to you though."

He thought about it and popped another
truffle in his mouth. "It doesn't matter. Don't tell them anything
– I think the story going around is better for her. No one needs to
know about the cheating."

He's not a good
guy,
I repeated his own phrase in my
head.
He has no reputation to
protect.
But it was big of him to protect
Patty's, even after what she did to him. Allegedly.

"Are you sure the baby's not
yours?"

His story was a few months older than
mine, but I recognized myself in the way he told it. My own breakup
wasn't fresh; I could tell that story without getting sad, or
angry, but that didn't mean all had been healed. In any case, he
knew the kid wasn't his because they hadn't been intimate for a
while before the "bump" started to show. Looking back, he felt he
should have been more suspicious about her behavior.

"She was my friend for a long time
before that," he said. "I thought I would know if she didn't love
me anymore."

"Maybe she still does," I said. "I
mean, all this effort to see you. People make mistakes."

He tried to have relationships after
Patty, but the trust radar was all screwed up. Whenever he went out
with anyone after that, they didn't stay very long, and he wondered
if something had changed in him.

"Some people are just better as
friends," Lucas said. "Maybe that's the lesson you have to learn
too."

"Hey my therapy time is over. This is
your time now."

"What I'm saying," Lucas said,
clearing his throat, "is that being friends with someone doesn't
mean they'll always be loyal to you. Or that they'll always be the
kind of person you knew."

"I don't mind the challenge," I said.
"I like to think that all of this is just – do you know the
morphology of the folk tale? – that I'm a hero on a journey, and
that these are all just challenges I have to go through to prove
that we belong together."

"The monomyth," Lucas confirmed.
"Hero's journey. Like fairy tales. Or Star Wars."

"Exactly," I said, pleased that he
knew. "Fairy tales are set up this way. I can't expect the happy
ending without proving myself first. Did you study
literature?"

"No, but I was majorly into Star Wars.
Took film as an elective and wrote about it as my final paper." And
then he looked at me skeptically. "So this… this belief is what
makes you think you're meant for him? Because you've been kept
apart?"

"It's a test," I insisted. "Maybe the
only things worth having are the ones you fight for."

"Or maybe," Lucas said, "The person
who tests you three times isn't Prince Charming, but the Evil Queen
in disguise."

It sounded like a challenge, and even
as I opened my mouth to protest and tell him he was wrong, I
couldn't. Or maybe I became aware all of a sudden how close he was,
and how seeing him all scrubbed from a shower made me want to run
my fingers through his hair, and how we were alone, and how if he
or I started something no one in this labyrinth of a house would
hear.

Focus, Ellie.
I hit him with a throw pillow. "You are
not
a good
guy."

Chapter 10

"Ellie Manuel!" Charisse yelled,
grabbing me by the arm as soon as I got out of the elevator at the
lobby.

I knew what she meant, but
didn't expect that she would be this...
excited
. It wasn't like anything
major happened anyway. But as soon as word got around that Lucas
and I had been stranded together during the storm, Charisse invited
me to lunch and demanded that I give her every detail.

So, tucked away in a corner
table at the Italian restaurant four buildings away, I told her all
that would fit in a lunch hour. At least, I told her about
the
bulalo
restaurant, that I told him about Don, that he told me about
Patty, and that I spent the night on his Tita Claire's family room
floor after he gave me love life counseling. The next morning he
found me a cab home, and I showered and dressed, and was back at
work before lunch.

"That's it," I said, in
conclusion.

"That is not
it
. I've
seen
you two at lunch
already. Like, a few days ago. What's up?"

Well yeah, we had lunch together since
then. The day after the storm, Lucas stopped by my desk as he went
to get his coffee and asked if I was sleepy. I said kind of, yes,
and on his way back he left a Styrofoam cup of black coffee beside
my keyboard.

The next few days I barely saw him,
until three days ago, when he just casually invited me to lunch,
without drama or pretense. And when we talked, it was like there
had been no gap between conversations.

I found out that he was a Business
Economics guy in college, who collected anything and everything
Star Wars (episodes four to six only, he made sure to emphasize),
and that he had been working for financial firms since stumbling
onto one right out of school, but never really thought about where
it would take him. I told him about college, about experimenting
with various fields of Comm, and also ending up in Marketing
because it offered the path of least resistance.

"In other words, you were just as lazy
as I was," he teased.

"Work does not define us," I retorted.
"Those were your words, and I prefer them."

The next day, I didn't see him at all.
Like, the whole day. And then yesterday, he suddenly showed up at
shutdown time with two tickets to a movie premiere – some
adaptation of a video game that I had never heard of.

Now, if I were crazy into
him, I would have been freaked out by this erratic sked. I would
have expected a call the next day, and wondered hourly if he was
really interested. But for some reason I felt no rush to do
anything
. I was just
enjoying it.

"We're
friends
now," I said,
giggling.

Well, sort of. It was a bit
hard to explain, but Lucas and I weren't on the same
page
like Don and I were.
Don and I had the same opinions about a lot of things, but not
exactly the same interests. Like, he wouldn't feel like going to a
movie with me initially, but if he did, we usually had the same
opinion of it after.

Lucas and I, on the other
hand, seemed to have the same interests, but our opinions could be
radically different. Like, he
loved
that video game movie, while I squirmed over the
bad acting and overdone action. We liked to talk about our
traveling, but I wanted international trips, and he was intent on
seeing as much of the country before he used his passport again. We
were not on the same page, but on opposite pages of the same
spread. Did that even make sense?

And why was I comparing?

"You've become like those girls we
have code names for!" Charisse gasped. "The girls we see him
with."

"Is there gossip about me? What are
people saying?"

Charisse paused. "Well,
nothing bad. I think it's the residual sympathy from the
whole
Visita Iglesia
thing. Normally anyone they see with Lucas gets the nasty
judgment, but with you they're actually kind."

I rolled my eyes. "Great. At least
that trauma was useful for something."

"So what's up? Are you dating or
what?"

"I don't think so," I said.
"I mean, we've gone out, but I don't think those are
dates
. He's cool, but the
reasons why he's not right for me haven't changed."
Except him having a lovechild. And
smoking.
"Well, some have changed, but most
of them are still there."

"Are you kidding me?"
Charisse said, her voice going up to a higher pitch. "He's
Rock Star
. You are
this close to dating Rock Star.
And you're holding yourself back because he
doesn't fit some Prince Charming template you designed way before
you met him?"

What was wrong with my
template? Even after my failed relationship I still wanted one that
started as friendship. I still wanted a good guy, someone
responsible. It was an important decision in my life, and I wasn't
going to just
wing it
.

I mean, if I obsessively planned my
trips months or years before I even set a foot on the city, how
could I make a decision about the guy I would love based just on
gut feel? That didn't make sense to me.

So yes, Lucas was damn sexy, and
surprisingly easy to talk to, and seemed to want to continue
talking to me even after I shared how pathetic I was. I was having
fun, and my confidence in being around guys was coming
back.

But that was
not
the basis for a
relationship, no matter what my friend said.

Chapter 11

My boss' name was Herman, and he kind
of reminded me of Chow Yun Fat, but with graying hair, a fatherly
gut, and a less lethal kick. Since he discovered my skill at
planning travel, though, I saw nothing but appreciation from
him.

Still, getting promoted was a
shock.

"What? Why?" I couldn't help but
say.

Herman laughed. "Now is not the time
to be questioning my decisions, Eleanor."

"Um, yes sir. I mean, thank
you."

My boss proceeded to
explain to me just what happened – I was now assistant manager
(
same rank as Don,
my brain reminded me), and it included a modest increase. This
all meant more work too, but when I looked at the printout of the
new job description, he seemed to have added just more travel
coordination. Nothing I couldn't handle.

It wasn't like I thought I didn't
deserve it, by the way. I just didn't realize that I'd hear the
happy news so soon.

***

The office announced the news, along
with the other promotions for the year, in an email to all
employees. I forgot how memo-happy my office was. They didn't just
mention the company-wide merit increase, but there was also a roll
call of promotions, complete with a short "message" from the Comm
department for each of us.

Eleanor Manuel, promoted
to Assistant Manager – Client Services Coordination, mere weeks
after her first anniversary with the team. Congratulations, and
watch out for this up-and-comer.

Whoa, those Comm department
people should be careful who they called an "up-and-comer." The
people around me might expect
ambition
or something.

It didn't matter though, because
within minutes my inbox was filled with congratulations. A little
after ten AM, an email from the ex came in.