Just Rules (7 page)

“I killed her and I chopped him into pieces, and months later I met your father,” she joked.

Susan finally realized that she was still capable of smiling.

“Lisa…” she breathed, trying to hold back the tears that were welling up.

“If you truly love someone you don’t just let them go like that.”

“I suppose that’s the problem, Mom.” A tear rolled down Susan’s cheek and the other woman could sense it, despite the fact that she couldn’t see her. “Tim doesn’t love me, and I don’t love him either.”

Oh, Susan, sweetie. I’m sorry.

Furious, Susan wiped away another tear.

“Anyway,” she sighed and pretended that she had stopped crying. “I just called to tell you that the wedding was off and that it wasn’t necessary for you guys to come to Boston.”

“We already have our tickets, so Dad and I are going to go anyway.”

“It’s not necessary. I’m OK,” she affirmed, using the voice she used on her television program.

“We’re going, Susan. Do you want to talk to Dad? He’s outside, but I can go get him.” Susan smiled, imagining her tough father out there pruning rose bushes.

“No, that’s alright. You tell him. Is that OK? I’ll call him in two days.”

“Wednesday morning,” joked Lisa. “I know.”

“I might go crazy and call before then.”

“Call whenever you want, honey. Do you want me to call your
siblings,
too?”

“Yes, Mom, thank you.”

“You’re welcome. Are you sure you don’t want me come? I can catch a flight out today.”

“No,” she sighed and convinced herself that it wasn’t necessary. “It’s not worth it for you to spend all that money.”

“Don’t be silly, Susan. If you want me to go, I’ll go.” Lisa heard her hesitate for a moment and just like the tenacious woman she was, she insisted again. End of story.

“It’s not necessary, Mom. Really. Tim said he would issue an official statement to the press. That’s why I’m calling you, because I wanted to let you know.”

“What if Tim comes back?”

“He’s not coming back,” she said, and she realized that was convinced of it, though not even knowing how. Tim wasn’t coming back, at least not to be with her.

“Alright, honey, as you wish. Call me on Wednesday, but you better start getting used to the idea that we’re going to be there in a few months. Your father and I miss you, you know?”

“Me too, Mom,” she swallowed. “I have to go. I still have to shower, and…I have to hang up.” Before she started to cry.

“Of course, honey. Take care of yourself. Bye.”

Susan hung up and ran to the bathroom to jump in the shower so that she could tell herself that what was on her face was water and not tears.

Once again.

After the shower and feeling much more relaxed, Susan was able to justify what had happened —the uncontrollable sobbing in the shower— saying that lately she had been under a lot of pressure, and the fact that she needed to let it all out was completely normal. It wouldn’t happen again. She was back to her old self, she confirmed with certainty, after looking in the bathroom mirror for the last time and before heading to her room in her bathrobe. She finished drying herself off in her room, and she put on a pair of black, cotton pants, a t-shirt with hedgehogs on it, and a black wool jacket in order to be comfortable while she was writing. She left her hair down and made herself a coffee and some toast with butter.

She was going to sort out her day, and her entire life, and eating something sweet was a good way to start. She started making plans, and just when she was about to take a bite out of the second piece of toast, someone knocked on the door.

Who could it be? She lived on the seventh floor of a chic apartment complex with views of all of Boston, and she almost never had visitors.

When she moved to the city it was difficult for her to find a place that she liked, but the moment she stepped foot into that apartment, she knew right away that she wanted to make it her home. Very few people knew where she lived, not to mention the fact that the doorman in her building wouldn’t let anybody in she didn’t know without calling her first. That meant that it had to be either Pamela or Tim, but Tim had a key.
No, actually he didn´t. He gave it back to me in the car.
Maybe something had happened at the T.V. station. She stood up, walked toward the door and made the mistake of opening it without looking through the peephole first.

Had she looked first to see who it was, she would have saved herself the trouble, and he wouldn’t have had time to put his arm in the door so that she couldn’t close it. She would have slammed the door in his face.

“What the hell are you doing here?” she asked furiously, glaring at him.

“I know what happened between you and Tim,” said MacMurray, holding the door with one hand.

“Of course you know!” exclaimed Susan, with a sarcastic laugh. “And you’ve come to rub it in.”

“No.”

“No?”

“No,” he shook his head seriously, looking her straight in the eye. “I haven’t come to rub it in, Susana.”

“It’s Susan,” she reminded him.

“Alright, Susan,” he agreed, and that gesture, as ridiculous and stupid as it seemed, made Susan’s eyes fill with tears. If MacMurray was willing to tell her she was right, it was a sign that she looked worse off than she thought.

“Get out of here,” she muttered, trying to close the door again. “At least now we don’t have to see each other anymore since your friend has escaped from my grip,” she added sarcastically, wiping away a single tear that rolled down her cheek.

He followed the teardrop with his gaze. Actually, he looked so confused that in any other circumstance Susan would have laughed.

“Susana,” whispered Mac, almost without even realizing it.

“What?” she challenged. Out of all of the people in the world that she didn’t want to see her cry, Kev MacMurray was first on the list. “Perhaps you thought I was so frigid I wasn’t capable of crying?”

She had never forgotten that conversation she overheard, or forgotten that Mac had called her frigid.

Mac kept staring at her as if he was seeing her for the first time in his life, maybe that’s exactly what was happening. Susan had her hair down, it was slightly wet, and she had butter on her face, right on the corner of her mouth. Judging by her puffy eyes, it was obvious she had been crying. She was wearing black yoga pants and worn-out t-shirt with hedgehogs on it. She was a disaster. She didn’t look at all like the Susan he was used to seeing on T.V. (although he would like to deny it sometimes, OK almost always, he watched her program) or the Susan who went to social events with Tim.

The Susana that was in front of him was the same Susana that had waited for him outside the bathroom at L’Escalier. She was a real woman who had just had her heart broken, and she was holding it all in so that she didn’t break down in front of him. Mac was perplexed when realizing that in that precise moment, and with that simple gesture, Susan had just earned his respect. The impact it had on him really shook him, and he moved his hand slightly away from the door. He didn’t know what to do.

“So are you happy now?” she said to him. “You’ve seen me cry. Mission accomplished. Steel Pants, the ice queen, the most frigid woman in the world, or however you refer to me lately, isn’t going to marry your best friend anymore. We won’t have to see each other ever again, MacMurray. I hope that someday you feel as humiliated as I do right now. Until then, enjoy and…—she gulped and grasped the door handle tightly— and take care of Tim.”

Mac finally reacted, lifting his hand. It was trembling, and he slowly moved it towards her face. He could have touched her cheek to wipe away a few tears, but he moved his thumb towards Susana’s lip and wiped off the butter.

It left her breathless. He noticed the exact moment when she started to breathe again, because he felt the air caress his fingertips. But besides that, Susana remained completely still.

“You really do love Tim,” he affirmed, surprised as if it had never really occurred to him before. Perhaps he thought that they didn’t make a good couple or that Tim wasn’t in love with her like he was with Amanda, but he had never even dreamed of asking how Susan felt.

Until that very moment.

Was she in love with Tim? Had he broken her heart so badly that it couldn’t be mended?

The horrific pressure that was closing in on his chest intensified, and he moved the hand that had touched the corner of her mouth. He felt like his skin was burning and he closed his fist to try to contain the sensation a little more.

He had never felt anything like it.

“Of course I love him. I was going to marry him.” She gulped and saw that Mac remained silent. “But don’t worry; I’m not going to go chasing after him.”

“I’m sorry, Susana.” He looked in her eyes and took his hand off the door.
She was going to marry him. She’s not going to go after him.

He couldn’t make sense of any of the thoughts that were going through his mind. He still found it difficult to breathe, and he couldn’t stop looking at her.

“What?”

The way she uttered her question made him react. What was he sorry about? That Tim had abandoned her?

No. If he was honest with himself, he wasn’t sorry, although if Tim was in front of him right now he would probably punch him for having left her.

I’m going crazy.

“I’m sorry that Tim hurt you,” he finally said.

She looked at him perplexed, and he couldn’t stop looking at her. Another tear fell down Susana’s cheek, and when she went to wipe it away, her fingers met with Mac’s. He was just about to do the same.

They both felt a jolt run through their bodies and they opened their eyes in shock to look at one another.

They both reacted instantly.

Susan slammed the door on Mac, and he stayed where he was for several minutes.

Tim was his best friend and he had never been able to stand Susan. She had always seemed conceited, cold, standoffish, too serious, boring, frigid, and dull. But the girl who had opened the door for him was anything but dull, and what he felt when their fingers touched could have melted the
North Pole.
Nothing made sense. He felt like calling Tim and telling him off for having hurt her so much, and at the same time he felt like kicking the door down and hugging her. He spread his fingers out and put his hands on the door. He wanted to catch Susan’s tears, wipe them with his thumbs, and whisper in her ear to stop crying.

God, it was worse than he thought. Mac shook his head and made himself retrace his steps and push the button to the elevator. He got inside, went down to the lobby, and said goodbye to the doorman (who had let him go up because he had recognized him and because Mac gave him his autograph) and went to the gym.

Fifth rule of American football:

When a player loses possession of the ball it is called a fumble.

KEV MACMURRAY

Going to the gym was stupid. Fortunately, I was smart enough to leave before injuring myself. I don’t know how the old horses that dad or grandpa had in the stables felt, but surely the young colts didn’t look at them as terribly as those good-for-nothing guys at the gym trying to win athlete of the year looked at me.

That’s why I always workout at home or at the stadium.

Of course it was a stupid thing. I’ve been doing a lot of stupid things lately. And to be honest, much of the stupidity has nothing to do with the fact that this was my last year on the team or as a professional football player. When I started out, I knew that I wasn’t going to be able to play football forever, and I’ve never stopped thinking about when that time would come. In fact, there had been times when I wished it would just come already. But of course I always thought that when I left football I would have a life waiting for me, and the truth is that I don’t have anything, or should I say, anybody.

I lean my head back and let the water from the shower hit me in the face.

I’ve been lucky to have been able to play until the age of thirty-five. Very lucky.

And I’ve been preparing for this moment for years, I repeated to myself, since the beginning really. I’ve never wanted this sport to be my entire life.

I’ve always wanted more. I turn the shower off and grab a towel. The problem is that until now, nobody has made me think seriously about what
more
actually consists of.

I can’t stop thinking about Susana.

The strangest thing is that I’m starting to realize that I’ve had this problem for about a year, if I can define Susana as a
problem.
When I see a bad film I think about how the next time I see Susana I’m going to tell her that I liked it just to get a reaction out of her. When I bring a model to a football club dinner, I imagine the sarcastic comment that will come out of the mouth of…my best friend’s fiance.

I get out of the shower, practically without drying off. I get dressed frantically and pick up my bag abruptly. How is it possible that I just took a shower and my back is already drenched in sweat?

I can’t stop thinking about that ridiculous butter stain and about how much I had to contain myself so that I didn’t clean it with a kiss, or with my tongue.

Shit.

Susana is Tim’s fiance.

No, actually she isn’t.

It doesn’t matter because Susana has never made me react like that.

You’re lying.

Yep, I’m lying. And apparently, I argue with my conscience.

I go down stairs and when I get to the street I put on a hat of a different team and a pair of sunglasses. With this simple disguise I usually go unnoticed. I suppose that Patriots fans wouldn’t think that the captain of their team would go around wearing a Denver Broncos hat.

Susana would probably get it.

Shit. I can’t stop thinking about her. I start walking faster and I adjust my hat, something I only do when I’m nervous. What’s happening with me in regards to Susana is temporary. It has to be temporary.

Damn it. The image of Susana smiling at that waiter when he returned her stained jacket at the dinner at L’Escalier; the freckle next to her sixth vertebra; the butter on the corner of her mouth.