Faithful (33 page)

“Because you’re the dumb broad that is fighting with her boyfriend in the middle of a party. You couldn’t wait until it was over?”

“Do you ever give any advice that’s helpful?”

“If I have to be responsible for giving advice, I want four hundred dollars per hour and a good bottle of Scotch.”

“Perfect.”

“Imogene, you have two options: love the person you love and live with the compromise, or you can find someone else to love. The options aren’t complicated.”

“It sounds very difficult to me.”

“Imogene.”

I look up to meet the familiar voice.

Jeremy.

“Oh, sweet Jesus H. Christ,” Lois says. “That’s my cue. Ben, let’s dance! Everyone, let’s hit that dance floor!”

“You’re leaving me?” I ask pleadingly.

“I’ve helped you enough. I need to go live my life.”

And, just like that, the whole table of seniors evacuates and leaves me alone with Jeremy.

“Would you like to dance?” he asks me.

“Not really.”

He looks different—better, healthier, thinner—as if he’s been exercising in the Southern California sun. His hair is cut shorter, the curls completely gone, and his face looks more defined.

“Can I sit with you?”

“Sure.” I’m not making this easy for him, and why should I?

He unbuttons his suit coat and sits down. He even dresses better than when he was with me. “You look really nice,” he says shyly. “Beautiful as always.”

“Huh. You look good, too. Guess the new job worked out really well for you.”

He nods and looks uncomfortable. “Imogene, I’m really sorry.”

“That’s nice, but you’re a year too late.”

“I still have to say it. I owe you a huge apology.”

“Save it, Jeremy. We’ve both moved on.”

“But that’s just it. I didn’t want to leave you. I thought I’d get settled and come back and …”

“No. No, you don’t. I spent a lot of time being angry at you. I think I hated you for at least six months after you moved away.”

Jeremy nods. “It was my fault, and I want to fix it.”

I look at him like he’s crazy. “What?”

“I was getting a new job and thought I could convince you to come out once I was doing well.”

“You hurt me. You never called. We’re over and done with forever. You get that, right? We haven’t spoken in over a year, and since you weren’t away fighting a war or imprisoned in some undisclosed location, that means we have been over for a very long time.”

“How do I explain this?” Jeremy mutters to himself and then gives me a wounded look. “I didn’t break up with you, Imogene. I was just hitting the pause button.”

“I’m not a kcuffing DVD player, you wanker!” I stand up and the chair falls back. I really want to slap him, but he already looks confused and scared, so I bolt from the table and run right into Cooper’s chest, my lipstick making a perfect imprint on his white dress shirt.

He looks down at the mouth-print I branded him with and then regards me with a weary smile. “How is it going with the ex-boyfriends?”

His tie is gone and his shirt collar is open, revealing one of my favorite parts of his body. Who am I kidding? I love every part of him, and he seems to be oblivious that his little toast gave me a huge sucker punch.

“It’s a nightmare. I’m having the worst time. I’m going to ask someone to give me a lift home.”

“Ah, no you’re not. You’re coming to my place tonight, remember? We need to talk.”

I push by him and keep walking, but in a split second, he’s by my side with his arm around my waist. In the next instant, there’s hollering from the dance floor as Lauren launches her bridal bouquet over the heads of a crowd of jumping women. The bouquet flies right over everyone’s head and smacks Cooper in the face.

“Damn!” He palms his injured head with one hand and catches the bouquet in the other.

There’s an audible gasp in the ballroom as the eager, single women realize a man caught their coveted flowers. Cooper looks at me helplessly and then at the bouquet in his hands.

“Oh, how ironic!” I bellow angrily, loud enough for everyone to hear. “Give me that!”

I grab the bouquet from his hand and lob it back across the room to the women who scream, jump, and tackle one another for the prize. Kimberly, our cute librarian, jumps up from a mound of women on the floor, holding up the bouquet with a triumphant smile.

I make it to the grand lobby of the hotel and see Cody and his friends hanging out by the fountain. He has a bottle of champagne and stands up from where he is perched on the fountain edge when he sees me.

“Hey, Imogene.” He smiles and holds up the bottle.

“Sorry, Corey. You’ll have to find another woman,” Cooper says as he places his hand protectively on the back of my neck.

“It’s Cody.” Cody looks Cooper up and down as if he’s judging whether to take him on and turn this into a genuine replay of a pathetic high school prom with a drunken fistfight.

I scowl at Cooper and then Cody and keep walking until I’m outside the hotel. Cooper remains glued to my side, silent yet ever so present. We cross through the valet parking zone and head into the large gazebo of the hotel garden. Usually, the gazebo would be booked with another party or a musical group, but the light drizzle of rain has moved all parties to the inside ballrooms.

I wriggle out from underneath his grip and walk away from him to lean against the wood railing, pulling the tux jacket around me. I suddenly feeling naked in my dress that has the consistency of cotton candy.

“This is all because of my toast?” he asks. “Because I was trying to say something nice about Lauren and Leo?”

“It was enough to make me consider that this isn’t as good as I thought.”

“Us? Are you kidding?” He walks angrily towards me. “This is the best I’ve ever been. Being with you, it’s the best.”

“We want different things. I had no idea you were someone who shunned marriage … and family. God, this all makes perfect sense. This is why you’ve been so vague about your family.”

“I didn’t know you were thinking about marriage.” He stands closer and glares at me.

“I wasn’t until you took it off the table. Then it became perfectly clear to me that I want to be with someone who is keeping all options open. I don’t want to think I’m falling in love with someone who can’t commit.”

“Wait. Do you
think
you’re falling in love with me, or
are
you in love with me?”

“That’s not the point.”

“It’s a really big point.”

“No, the point is you can’t commit. By saying you’ll never get married, you’re telling me and the world that I’ll never be anything more than a girlfriend. I’m the side dish, not the entrée. I’m the coleslaw you get with your steak, and sometimes you want the slaw and sometimes you don’t.”

“That is the stupidest analogy,” he says with an angry laugh. “And, for the record, I can commit. Marriage isn’t the only way to show commitment. I want to be with you, and I thought you could move in with me. That shows commitment.”

“That shows you want a live-in booty call.”

“Do you really believe that? Have I treated you in a way that makes you feel less important? Because you are the most important person to me.”

“Then we have different ways of showing it. I can’t settle for being a live-in girlfriend. I’m not ready for marriage, but I know I do not want to be the eternal girlfriend. I want my future to hold the possibility of more, but you’re shutting the door on all of that.”

“Let’s have one of the limo drivers take us back to my place. We’ll talk there.”

“I don’t want to go to your house where I’m the houseguest. I’m going to my place tonight.”

“You actually think I’m the wrong guy for you because I don’t give a shit about a marriage certificate?”

“I do. It says a lot about who we are and what we want. Someday, I want a man to put himself out there for me, no matter how embarrassing it may feel or look to others. I want him to love me enough that he’s willing to propose to me in the middle of the street. I want him to drop to his knee and stop traffic. That’s not the same man that asks me to move in with him because it’s convenient.”

Cooper shakes his head in disbelief. “You just made that up. That’s not the Imogene I’ve been with over these past weeks and months.”

“Then I thank you for helping me see the light of day.”

“Christ, if you really saw my family and saw what I grew up with, you’d understand why marriage doesn’t work with a MacKenzie. Every single marriage in our family has ended in divorce. My mother has been married three times! My father twice! Even my sister and brothers are divorced. I’ve got a boatload of stepbrothers and sisters and nieces and nephews and no one has married parents. Marriage and MacKenzies don’t mix. They cheat on each other, they divorce, and the cycle continues.”

As much as I’m shocked by his revelation, I keep my poker face on. “You know divorce and infidelity are not genetic, right?”

“I think there’s an exception with my family.”

“You believe marriage would make you cheat?” I stare in disbelief at him.

“No. I wouldn’t …” He looks down and is quiet for a moment before it dawns on me what he’s saying.

“Oh, you believe
I
couldn’t be faithful,” I say in a measured tone.

“I didn’t say that.”

“It sounds like you are implying that, Cooper.”

“I think people who marry a MacKenzie are bound to end up divorced. We drive people away. I don’t know how or why, but it happens every single time.”

“That is a horrible outlook on life and relationships, and I can’t be with someone who feels that way.” I push away from the railing and walk briskly to exit the gazebo as I fight back tears.

“Imogene!” Cooper tries to block me from approaching one of the dozens of limo drivers parked in front of the hotel.

One of the drivers sees me charging towards his car. When he gets out and opens the back door for me, I get in without moving over to let Cooper in.

“We’re not breaking up over this,” he says furiously, holding the door open.

“We just did.” I yank the door from his hand and slam it closed.

Twenty-Five

Avoidance is easy. Humans invented it. I excel at it.

I listen to Aimee Mann’s “That’s Just What You Are” at least two hundred times to justify my anger and refusal to answer Cooper’s calls and texts. Yes, as the song goes, we could talk to each other until we’re blue in the face, but we would end up in the same place because I will not settle for less than what my parents have.

Lauren and Emma both lived with their husbands before marrying them. It worked for them because each couple knew they would eventually get married. Even Jess and Carson lived together during their engagement, but it was only thirty days! I’m no longer the dumbass that fell for Jeremy’s insincere innocence. I’m pretty sure, if I try really hard, I can talk myself out of all those feelings I built up for Cooper. All those vivid, overpowering emotions that made me feel happy and beautiful inside and out.

With Lauren and Leo off on a weeklong honeymoon at a nearby spa resort, I wander around the house in my ratty, old football jersey some guy gave me in college and cry myself stupid until my face cracks with dried tears and my head feels like it has a bullet lodged in it. My self-therapy is going like gangbusters.

Monday morning, I have to open the workshop without Lauren. On the early drive over, I plot how I’ll get through the day without running into Cooper. I arrive to the parking lot before six in the morning to find his Harley is already there. I drive slowly over the gravel, hoping he doesn’t hear my car, and park on the grass to get as close as possible to the front door. In the early light, the area is very quiet.

Just as I get out of my car, I hear fast, loud, crunching steps on the gravel. I turn to see Cooper, angry as all hell, walking my way like a man who has been wronged and is out for justice.
Kcuf
this small town life!

“I pounded on your door for a good ten minutes last night! I was ready to break in, but then you only approve of me breaking and entering into churches.”

I have never seen him so pissed off.

“I was sleeping. Resting,” I say, thinking about the headphones I never took off.

“At seven o’clock at night? And what about all my messages? You couldn’t bother to return a single call?”

“I needed to rest, and I wanted to take advantage of the day since I didn’t have to work and had the house to myself.”

He slams my car door closed and follows me inside the workshop where I proceed to calmly flick on the lights and walk around, pretending to check on miscellaneous objects around the room.

“Imogene, knock it off.” He stands at the door and crosses his arms.

“Cooper, if you think I haven’t given this a lot of thought, you’re nuts. All I’ve done for the last two days is rack my brain over how we got to this shitty point. I’m so miserable over this.”

“Then you can stop being miserable,” he says, closing the distance between us quickly. He wraps his arms around me and pulls me in for an urgent kiss, his hands holding my head and back as his mouth takes over mine.

As our tongues fight for control, I reach up and hold his face, caressing the stubble that has returned. This is the kiss I wanted when I first saw him shaved, polished, and decked out in a tux at the church.

The kiss ends slowly, and my gut reminds me that nothing has changed, nothing has been resolved.

He cups my face. “I want to be with you all the time. I’m fucking crazy about you, and you’re crazy about me. I see it in your eyes every time you look at me, Imogene.”

Of course he’s right. I look at him with crazy, lust-filled eyes every time. I feel it, too, but he’s also not amending his earlier arguments. Like Jeremy, Cooper is waiting for me to change for him, to go along with his plan, follow his will.

I believe in compromise, but I will not drop everything to be with a man if it means giving up a part of myself. There’s a big part of me that is a traditional-thinking woman who occasionally imagines herself as one day getting married, maybe having a child, and maybe even having a bunny rabbit because, if we’re going to dream big, why can’t I have that damn bunny my parents refused to get me when I was seven? However, conceding and giving up on an actual marriage contract isn’t something I can do. I can laugh about my loose convictions when it comes to premarital sex, yet it doesn’t change how I respect and desire the union of marriage.