Ruin Me (12 page)

“Maybe he can fuck you from behind while you suck my cock.”

I don’t have a chance to decide if this idea is brilliance or sadism because Patrick suddenly stands, zipping his jeans over his erection and buckling his belt, looking ten feet tall.

“I can’t do this,” he announces. That’s all he says. He turns and leaves the room, heavy footsteps thumping down the stairs. I stare wide-eyed at Jay and he nods to the door to say I should go after him.

With my bra still flapping around my shoulders I grab my bathrobe from the hook by the dresser and nearly break my neck, yanking it on and stumbling down into the den. The front door’s open and Patrick’s tugging his second boot on. I rush to him but realize I have no clue what to say.

He straightens up. “I’m sorry, Robin. I can’t do this.” He walks to his truck and I follow.

“No, I’m sorry,” I say. “I didn’t know this was what he had in mind. If I’d had time to think about it, I might’ve realized it’s insane.”

He looks down and shakes his head. “You have no clue how bad I want you… But I can’t share you. Not like that. You guys’ll have to work this out without me. I’ll see you around.”

I think I’ve earned a far harsher ear-bashing than this, considering how massively Patrick’s been getting dicked around for the supposed benefit of my relationship. I hug my robe closed as he climbs into his driver’s seat and slams his door. He rolls his window down and leans out on his elbow, eyes trained on my bare feet in the snow. “Go inside, Robin. Go back up to your man.”

His engine starts and his lights flick on, making the white numbers on my license plate flare before he swings his truck out onto the street. I watch him drive away then I watch the empty road, snowflakes passing under the streetlights. After a minute or two Jay comes out and leads me inside on my prickling feet.

I tie my robe closed and wander into the kitchen and clear the table. Jay stands in the threshold, quiet for a long time.

“Robin.”

I dole the leftover lasagna into a Tupperware, thinking Jay better finish it because there’s no way I’ll be able to.

“Robin?”

I look over my shoulder and I don’t recognize the man standing there, dressed in my boyfriend’s clothes. Whatever person Jay became tonight…well, I’m largely to blame for the change. But I hate him for letting it happen. He’s supposed to be the rational one.

“I’m sorry,” he says.

I turn on the tap and fill the casserole dish to soak. I want to grab the open bottle of wine by its neck and whip it against the tiles at Jay’s feet, but I recork it instead and set it beside the toaster, turning it neatly label-side-out.

“Robin—”

“I don’t want to talk about it.” I toss all the utensils into the casserole dish and dry my hands on a rag. I walk past Jay to head upstairs but he grabs my arm and turns me around.

“Let go of me.”

“I’m sorry.” He doesn’t let go, but he’s not hurting me.

I feel a big ball of something thick in my throat just before the tears come. When I cry Jay’s hand loosens and I yank my arm away and go upstairs to try to shower off the creepy awfulness I’m feeling. His pillow’s gone when I go to change into my pajamas and I know he’s exiled himself to the couch. I wish I’d beat him to it because I want him to be the one lying in the dark, surrounded by the memories of everything royally fucked that just happened in here. I lie awake so long I end up going to the bathroom and swallowing a nighttime cold medicine capsule. It gives me restless, disturbing dreams, but it sure as hell beats consciousness.

Chapter Six

A week isn’t remotely long enough to mourn someone you’ve been with for four years.

Actually, I think I’m mourning us both, collectively, Jay-and-Robin, and how we were up until last Thursday. We made sense before then. I miss making sense. And I miss Jay too, more than I’m pissed at him. Strange how he managed to be the one who took things too far.

He left on Friday while I was at the shop. He propped a note on the dining room table, right where the parmesan cheese had been sitting the evening before.

Robin, I’m going away for a couple weeks to give us both time to think about what we want. Let’s not call each other until next weekend unless there’s an emergency. Love, Jay.

“Away” means Michigan, I assume. Jay’s got plenty of old college friends there he could crash with. Someone must have given him a lift to the bus station or the airport, as there were fresh tire treads in the snowy driveway when I got home that night. I wonder what he told them. His stuff is still in the house, minus his laptop and some clothes. I guess you might say we’re having a separation. I smile grimly to myself, thinking about explaining that to my dad.

“Dad, I have some sad news. Jay and I are separating.”

“Separating? You’re not even married. You modern kids. You make everything into a goddamn hippie drum-banging therapy retreat.”

I miss my dad. Today’s Thursday. Maybe I’ll drive up to Maine and visit him this weekend and cook him a belated, mini-Thanksgiving dinner and pick his brain about how to know who you’re supposed to be with…though he’s probably not the one to ask. I think he only ever loved my mom, and after she died he never tried dating anybody new, as far as I know.

It’s been deadly cold this week. Dog walkers pass in front of the shop windows and they yank the leashes with a new impatience, more interested in getting back indoors than indulging their pets’ olfactory curiosities.

I slit a shipping box open on the floor of the stationery section and unload stacks of colorful cover stock, and Carrie helps me price and deposit them in the appropriate cubbies. She acclimated to my emotional vacancy by Tuesday and has stopped asking if everything’s okay. She must know Jay and I are on the outs, since he usually calls once or twice a day to say hello or ask a favor. He hasn’t called since requesting the olive oil. Which I still haven’t picked up. I’ve been using an old bottle of canola oil instead and it’s foul.

Carrie’s a nice girl and I know she cares that I’m upset. I also know she’s got a bit of a crush on Jay, and how could she not—he’s easily the hippest guy in Dereham. She’s bright and she was raised in the gossip-centric atmosphere of a small town with long, boring winters. She’s hardwired to not miss the fact that Jay and I split up within a stone’s throw of Patrick visiting me at work. Her sympathy is like a cupcake with a rusty nail in it, a big old biteful of tetanus lurking beneath cheerful pink icing.

The end of the day comes after an eternity of anticipation. I want to see Patrick tonight. I’ve waited so I can tell myself I’m not running into his arms too soon after Jay left me, and now I need desperately to talk to him. About what, I don’t know, but logic hasn’t ever gotten itself much of a foothold in my dealings with Patrick.

I go home and heat up some soup for dinner then head to his house just after eight. His driveway’s empty and as I drive to the Tap I worry maybe he’s gone nuts and skipped town in the last week. But there’s his old truck. I park beside him and my jitters kick in as I slam my door. I run to the entrance, just as I used to run from the neighbors’ house back to mine after dark when I was a kid, breakneck speed in case goblins tried to grab my ankles as I flew past the hedges.

I see Patrick the second I push the door in. He’s at the bar talking to old Hank Grenier, who owns the hardware store. I watch them for a minute, guessing at their conversation. Probably something manly about lathes or table saws or contemptible, modern women. I gulp a deep breath and round the bar to where they’re sitting, taking a seat next to Patrick. He’s still talking and doesn’t see me.

“But the manufacturing’s all gone overseas,” he’s saying to Hank.

Hank smiles past Patrick at me. His big ears are weighed down by his even bigger bifocals. “Ahoy there, Robin. How’s business your side of Main?”

Patrick’s eyes are round as he swivels to face me. “Hey, Robin.”

I address them both but look only at Patrick. “Hey, guys. Business is fine, thanks, Hank. How about you?”

There are two ways the men in Dereham handle gossip. Typically they ignore it, figuring it’s too frivolous to bother with. Hank, however, is a seasoned practitioner of the second approach—innocent, tactless, male nosiness. “Heard you and Jay Fleury split up.”

“Sort of,” I say. “We’re taking a break.” My eyes jog to Patrick’s face for an instant, which is all it takes to catch his mouth fall open.

“Always thought he was a decent guy,” Hank says, shaking his head.

“Yes, he’s lovely,” I say. “But you know how relationships can be. We were at that juncture. You know, get married or call it quits.”

Hank laughs and I can see in his hugely magnified eyes that he’s a bit drunk. “This new crop of kids with their internet lifestyle—these young bucks don’t know how to commit anymore,” he says, bundling himself in the earned wisdom of his roughly seventy years. “Probably doesn’t know how good he has it with you.”

I let Hank get it all wrong, not to protect my own reputation but because telling him I’m the gun-shy one would prompt a conversation I’m not willing to have. It would start out fatherly in timbre and wind up with an awkward, generationally disturbing flirtation. Pass.

“Hey, Patrick,” I say. “How’s lumber?”

“’Bout the same as always. How’s paper?”

“Bit pulpier than lumber.”

I order a beer and Patrick and I begin a long and mind-numbingly dull conversation. By the fifth minute, still on the topic of paper, we inspire Hank to slide off his stool to go in search of more thrilling company.

“How are you?” Patrick asks, voice low.

“I’m sort of a wreck and sort of relieved.”

“So, are you two…” His eyes dart away and he trails off, just as John Mellencamp starts crooning from the speakers.

“He left, but he hasn’t gotten his stuff out or talked to me about the mortgage or anything. We’re separated, I guess. It’s up in the air.”

“I’m real sorry I was a part of it,” he says.

I laugh. “I’ll bet.”

“No, sorry for you guys—”

“I know, I’m just teasing you. And I’m the one who should be sorry. Sorry for you.”

He shrugs and takes a sip of his beer. “I could’ve said no.”

“And you did…just a couple weeks later than maybe you should have.” I smile at him, apologetic.

Our heads are close, scandalously close by Dereham’s low standards. “It’s like Jay said, though—if he and I are supposed to survive this situation, we will. Maybe we’re not. I don’t know yet.” I suspect I do, though, if only I’d let my intuition get a word in edgewise.

Patrick nods.

“I’ll understand if you want me to leave you alone,” I go on. “Last week was royally fucked up. I totally get if you want me to back off—”

Patrick gets to his feet and I don’t know how it happens but somehow, suddenly, he’s kissing me. Right here in the bright, ugly light of the too-many beer signs. He’s standing, I’m sitting, and he’s bent over, lips on mine, hands on the back of my head. The music fades to a dull hum as Patrick eclipses my world. A long, low whistle from the bartender cuts through the dark then I’m lost again.

Patrick lets me come up for air after ten seconds or ten minutes—I couldn’t tell you which. I hear
Jack and Diane
just ending so I guess it was somewhere in the middle.

I glance around and about twenty pairs of eyes are on us. A couple townies laugh and a couple more make teasing, flirtatious noises. Someone claps. I feel my face color and take a deep drink of my beer.

Patrick’s still standing. He empties his glass and makes a throaty noise after he swallows, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand.

“You wanna come home with me?” There’s more to this question than just its boldness. Patrick’s eyes are loaded with fear and hope and held breath, their jumpiness telling me that he really, truly likes me. A lot.

I nod. Patrick pulls a ten from his wallet and tosses it on the bar for the both of us. I swing my legs to the side and slide off my stool, tighten my dangling scarf around my neck as we walk to the door. Patrick’s hand envelops mine under the keno monitor. The door eases shut to cut off another lascivious whistle from the peanut gallery and he leads me across the crunchy, salted asphalt to his truck.

“You want to follow me?” he asks, letting my hand go to find his keys.

“Yeah. That’s probably easiest. For tomorrow.”

He nods and I watch his Adam’s apple jump. He gives me a last look and climbs into his truck. I get in my car and we flip our lights on together and I follow him out of the lot and onto the dark road. The world looks crisp, as if it’s under the influence of some drug I’ve never tried. Everything’s sharp and clear and I watch the occasional red bursts of Patrick’s brake lights as I tail him to the edge of town. I bet I don’t blink once before I pull into his driveway and flip my engine off. We slam our doors nearly simultaneously and his outside lights come on, leaving me blind for a few seconds as we walk to the front steps.

I hear the key in the lock, the creak of a hinge, the flip of a switch as he illuminates the kitchen. I close the door behind me and look up at him, blinking away the blobs in my vision. He seems very real. I don’t know how else to say it.