Just Like a Man (29 page)

"You heard all about my boring childhood over dinner," he said as she sat down. "Now I want to hear about yours."

That was when Hannah remembered why it had been so important for her to leave. So she wouldn't have to be like Foley over there, lying like a big dog.

"Oh, you don't want to hear about my childhood," she hedged.

He turned on the sofa to face her, bracing his elbow on the back and cradling his head in his hand. "Yeah, I do, actually. I want to hear all about your past. You said you've only been in Indianapolis for a couple of years now. Where were you before that?"

She breathed a silent sigh of relief that they had returned to safer subject matter, and that she could speak truthfully about her experiences. "Chicago," she told him. "After I graduated from college with a bachelor's and a master's in education, I took a job as a teacher for a small private school in Naperville that focused on the creative arts. When a position in administration opened up, I became the lower school liaison. That eventually led to the assistant directorship. And when I read about the opening here, I thought it would be perfect. I'd have my own school, and Indiana just seemed like a nice place to live. Very earthy. Very middle-America."

"And that's important to you," he said. "The middle-America thing, I mean."

"It is," she assured him.

"Because that's how you grew up?"

Oh, dear. They were back to that again. "Not just that," she evaded. "It just seemed like a good place to put down roots, that's all."

"New roots, you mean."

"Right. New roots."

"Because your old roots would be… where was it again you said you grew up?"

Why did he keep circling back to her childhood? Hannah wondered. "Kansas," she told him. "I grew up Kansas." That was what she always said when people asked her where she was from. Because Kansas was far enough removed from her actual childhood that she was comfortable with it.

He nodded slowly, as if remembering. "That's right. I remember you told me that at your house that night. What city?"

"Kansas City," she said. That, too, was a stock reply. She'd gone there once for a teacher's convention, and she remembered liking it very much. It had been very stable. Very secure. Very normal. Very different from what she'd known as a child.

"And you spent your
entire
childhood in Kansas City?" he asked.

Why did he sound doubtful? she wondered. "Well, most of it," she told him, suddenly worried that maybe the past she'd fabricated for herself really was too good to be true. There
were
people in the world who grew up in one city alone, after all. Weren't there? There had to be. Just in case, though, she said, "We moved there when I was seven. Before that, we lived in… um…" And just like that, her normally fertile imagination deserted her, and Hannah drew a complete blank. Panicking, she snatched something from her real past to fill it. "The South," she finished. "I was actually born in the South and spent the first several years of my life there."

Michael looked very interested in that. "Oh, I love the South. What part are you from?"

"Um, Georgia," she said. Because she'd probably spent as much time there as anywhere else. She'd need a calculator to know for sure.

He eyed her thoughtfully. "Georgia's wonderful. But you don't have a trace of the accent they have down there."

"It was a, um, a long time ago," she said. And she hoped she didn't sound rattled when she said it. "Besides, we, ah… we mostly stuck to… to urban areas."

Now he looked surprised. "'Stuck to urban areas'?" he echoed. "That's kind of a funny way to put it. What did your parents do for a living?"

Hannah set her brandy on the coffee table, since it was obviously playing havoc with her concentration. Otherwise, she never would have said something like
we mostly stuck to urban areas,
since, as Michael pointed out, that was a funny way to put it. Unless your father was a man who made a living out of conning people, she meant. Then she glanced up at him again, at his dark eyes fixed relentlessly on her face, and his full mouth quirked in just a hint of a smile. And she realized it wasn't the brandy playing havoc with her.

"My father was self-employed," she said. "And he traveled a lot for his work. That's what I meant by stuck to urban areas. Sometimes my mother and I went with him."

"Because you were such a close family," Michael guessed.

"Right."

"So did you get to see much of your Nana Frost and Aunt Esmeralda and Cousin Chloe, with them living in other places?"

Wow. He really did remember that conversation at her house, she thought. She was going to have to either continue to mislead him about all that, or admit that she'd been lying to him. Because she was as deep in it as she was—and also since there was no harm that could come of telling him this, since they had no future together anyway—she decided to just go with it for now. "Well, as I said, I spent my summers with Auntie in Minnesota."

"And whereabouts in Minnesota is Auntie?" he asked, pronouncing it "A/in-tie," the way Hannah did.

"In Minneapolis," she replied.

"And what did you do during those summers?" he asked.

"All kinds of things," she told him. "Auntie took me to movies and the zoo and to plays and concerts. Sometimes we'd go to lunch together. That was always fun. She had a bridge club that met every Friday, and I'd help serve tea and refreshments." She shrugged as she concluded, feeling guilty for the first time she ever had when telling someone about her imaginary visits with her pretend great-aunt.

"Sounds like you guys had a close relationship," Michael said.

Very, very softly, Hannah told him, "We still do."

She waited for him to ask her about her Nana Frost or her Cousin Chloe, or even Patsy, started rehearsing again all their stories and histories in her head to prepare herself. But he didn't ask about any of them. He asked about all of them.

"Do you miss not seeing them?"

And Hannah told him, quite truthfully this time, "Always."

"So how do you spend your summers now?" he asked. "Do you still go up to visit Auntie in Minneapolis?"

Hannah dropped her head to stare at her lap, unable to meet Michael's gaze any longer. "Not like I used to," she said quietly. "I'm so busy these days."

"Well, at least you have some wonderful memories to keep you company," she heard him say.

"Yeah," she agreed, her voice even quieter now. "At least I have those." And because she couldn't stand talking about those falsified memories and those fabricated people with Michael any longer, Hannah stood and told him, "I really need to go."

He stood, too, but looked surprised. "Why? It's still early."

"No, it's actually very late," she said.

Truer words had never been spoken. Because it was indeed very late. Too late, really. Too late for Hannah to undo so many things she had done. Too late for her to unsay so many things she had said. So instead of doing even more damage, it would be better if she just left. Left Michael's beautiful house. Left Michael's delightful family. Left Michael's wonderful life. Left Michael, period.

Because if there was one thing she had learned this evening, it was that what Michael had created for himself was exactly what she had always hoped to find for herself, but which had eluded her in spite of her efforts. Unfortunately, thanks to his jot)—and her own fears—he wasn't the man who could give it to her now. So with a hasty good-bye and one last look, Hannah left it all behind.

And she told herself that if she was smart, she would never, ever, look back again.

As Selby sat again in the diner across the street from her apartment, watching Thomas Brown sip his coffee, a part of her hoped this wasn't going to become a habit. But another part of her—a bigger part, she had to admit—was more than a little happy to think maybe it would. Because that part of her was beginning to suspect that Thomas Brown, motorcycle thug, was only a facade, one that camouflaged a much more complex, much more interesting man.

And like most facades, it was pretty flimsy. Because even having known him a short time, she sensed that the come-ons and the put-ons she'd thought made him a smartass were in fact weapons he used to keep people at a safe distance. Why he'd want to keep people at a distance, she couldn't begin to guess. Mostly because she could think of too many reasons herself why someone would want to do that. At this point, she was intrigued by him enough to want to spend a little more time with him, to maybe try and figure him out. Not just because of her intense curiosity about people in general, but because she was starting to like Thomas Brown in particular.

She hadn't missed her bus tonight, the way she had before. No, this time, as the rest of the class was filing out,

Thomas hadn't dropped his books, or had questions or comments, or voiced any trouble with any of the lessons. He had flat-out offered her a ride home, and after only a moment's hesitation, Selby had told him yes. That would be great. Thanks. She wished she could convince herself it was because she was saving more money, even if it was only bus fare. But really, she knew money had nothing to do with it. She'd just wanted to be with Thomas.

Her head had been filled with thoughts of him since the other night—memories of the way he had smiled at her, at the way he had watched her when she talked, even the way he had raked his thumb over the handle of his coffee cup, as if he hadn't realized he was doing it, but just needed to be touching something. She'd recalled the feel of his hard torso under her palms as she'd ridden on the motorcycle behind him. She'd remembered the feel of his broad, solid back vibrating against her softer front as she'd pressed her body close to his in an effort to quell her fears at riding out in the open like that, so dangerously.

And she'd replayed the look of embarrassment on his face when she'd caught him in his lie, when he'd thrown the coins on the table for the tip. He'd looked like a little boy just then, one who felt guilty for having not done his homework when he knew he should have, because he'd wanted to partake of some frivolous, more enjoyable pursuit instead. There had just been something in that expression, something utterly at odds with Thomas's usual aplomb. Something that had revealed a small chink in the impertinent armor he wore. That was when Selby had realized that, deep down, he might not be the sort of man he pretended to be. Deep down, he might not be confident or arrogant or impudent. Deep down, he might be just like her. Full of doubt and self-consciousness and hesitation. Full of dreams and hopes and wishes that things could be different.

And that was why she had said yes to his offer of a ride tonight. Because she wanted to see if she had only imagined that something in his expression, or if he really was, deep down, like her.

Tonight, he wore his standard rebel outfit of black leather jacket, T-shirt, and jeans, but the T-shirt in question wasn't quite as ratty as usual, nor were the jeans as torn. She tugged on her bulky turtleneck sweater, a thick, oatmeal-colored one she'd pulled on over a brown corduroy skirt that morning, and reached for the metal creamer the waitress had dropped off on her last trip by the table.