The One Who Got Away: A Novel (20 page)

The storm was beginning to clear
now, and patches of blue peeked from heavy, gray clouds. Olivine drove fast,
and the Jeep left the road at times, around corners, over hills. As she neared
her neighborhood, she slowed, but her mind kept racing. She would just decide.
Had decided. And then she would live with it. No man was ever perfect anyway. She
was tired of going back and forth, with her entire future hanging in the
balance
.
She just needed to commit. And not look back. In truth, she was
glad Henry had come back. It had helped her realize what was right in front of
her. Helped her to see that the guy she had been pining for all these years had
flaws. Fatal ones. And commitments. He was no longer available. Not in the way
she needed him to be. And that was that. She would move on. She would prove to
herself, just as she had done before, that she didn’t need him.

She looked at her engagement ring
in the full light of day. It caught the sun just then and sent a brilliant spray
of tiny white lights all over the interior of the Jeep. Radiance. A sign. A
horn blared. Damn. She hadn’t even seen that stop sign. She waved sheepishly. “Sorry,
my fault,” she mouthed. Get it together, she told herself. She rolled to a stop
at the next intersection. She had the perfect man, just within her reach, and
she was going to find him, get him back, let him know how much she adored him.
Before it was too late.

She had just been trying to
sabotage herself, like Paul told her she was doing when she resisted the idea
of nursing school, at first. “You get wishy-washy sometimes,” he had said, “but
that’s only because you’re insecure. You just have to make a decision and stick
with it. And if you’re ever in doubt, make the decision that’s harder. Make the
decision that would require more of you. This is the right decision in the end.
Always.” While Paul’s attempts to mentor her could be annoying at times, she
knew that he did it only because he wanted what was best for her.

She would be committed. She would
move forward. She would be sure of herself. Precise. Just like Paul. He would
help her become that way. More like him. Yarrow was right. He was a good, good
man.

Olivine neared the house and
screeched the tires to a stop on the road in front of the driveway where Paul
had parked his car, on the diagonal.  He emerged, just then, from the front of
the house, rolling his carry-on bag.

She popped the Jeep into park and
leapt out the door. She shouted his name, but Paul shook his head and continued
on. Without a glance at her, he unlatched the trunk of his car, and, with one
arm, hurled in the suitcase. Then he closed it with a thud. “I think we’re done
here, Olivine.”

“No, no, no, no, no,” Olivine
urged. She pushed his chest with her hand. “Listen to me. Just listen to me.” She
bobbed her head to meet his eyes. “Henry is a married man. With a son. Nothing
happened. We were talking. About family. About life. About
you
. The only
thing that talking with him made me realize is how much I love you. You. Only
you. It’s always only been you.” She crashed the top of her head into his
sternum. “Please believe me.”

He squared his shoulders, and she
pulled back to meet his eyes.

“Why so back and forth, Olivine?
Why all the drama? I never signed on for all the drama. We said we wanted to
get married, so let’s get married. Let’s not play games. I don’t have time for
your games or for you to go running off where I can’t find you when your sister
calls me and tells me that your dad is lying lifeless on the ground.”

The image made her wince. “Now
who is being dramatic?” she asked.

“It’s true, Olivine. Flip the
tables and see how you would feel. Say I went off, with, say, Coco, from the
O.R.”

“Coco? Who is Coco?”

“Aha! Exactly!” 

“No, really, who is Coco?”

“She’s my Operating Room nurse.
For the past twenty months.”

“I didn’t know that.”

“I know.”

“Because you never told me about
her.”

“Because you never asked.”

“You don’t like to talk about
certain things. How am I supposed to know what those things are,  and what they
aren’t?”

Paul looked up at the quiet
houses on the street. Olivine lowered her voice. “Okay, okay. No, I wouldn’t
like it if I came along and you were curled up with…with Coco.”

“You really were
curled up
with him?”

“No, no, bad choice of words.”

“Oh, Olivine.”

“Okay, just listen, Paul. What
I’m telling you is that I am committed to you. I have been with you for three years.
Faithful. Loyal. I haven’t so much as disagreed with anything you’ve said. I’ve
gone along with everything. I’ve changed my life plan for your future.”

“For
our
future,” he
corrected.

“For
our
future. All I did
was…I reconnected with a friend last night. It meant nothing. He’s married. He
has a son. In fact, his son is here. Working with him. Right now.”

“Really?”

“Really.”

Paul ran his hands through his
hair, making it stand straight up in front for a moment before he smoothed it
back down. “Oh Olivine. You’ve had me on the ropes. When I saw you, there, on
the porch, with someone else…it all just collapsed. And all night I couldn’t think
of anything. Anything….except all the plans that we had together and how they
might not happen. I think I kicked a hole in the wall, just now.

“You think?”

“I’ve just never felt this kind
of anger. This rage. I don’t know what to do. And all this time, I kept
thinking, even if you come back right now and you tell me you love me and
everything is just as it was, would I ever be able to fully trust this is true?
Do you really want to get married. To me? Can I trust you?”

“Of course you can.  I’ll prove
it to you. I’ll do anything you want. Anything.”

“You don’t have to prove
anything. Let’s just…”

“No, really. I want to. Let me
just think for a minute.”

“No one is asking you to prove
anything.”

“I’ve got it. Let’s go somewhere,
together.” She was feeling edgy on the inside. Panicky.”Let’s go to Vegas!”

He rolled his eyes. “You hate Las
Vegas.”

“I do?”

“Aren’t you more of a national park
kind of girl. Isn’t that what you’ve said every single time I’ve asked you to
come to Vegas with me?”

“Okay, okay, sure, but
you
love it. And this isn’t really about me right now. So let’s go.”

“Seriously?”

“Most seriously.”

“Well, I already have a bag
packed.” 

“You were going to leave me?” Her
voice sounded small and whiny. She forced her shoulders back.

“Nope,” he answered. “I was going
to go to Mitch’s for the weekend. I was just going to give you your space,
Olivine. And I was going to figure some things out. It’s not every weekend that
I’m not on call, and Mitch is in Europe this month.” Paul’s medical school
friend had invented a medical device and lived on a golf course in the city,
when he wasn’t traveling the world.

“So you have the whole weekend,”
Olivine said. “Let’s get the earliest flight that we still can today and the
last flight home Sunday.” She ran around to the passenger side of the Audi,
slid into the car and slammed the door, grinning at him. Her limbs felt
restless, just like when she was with Henry.

This was just the kind of thing
that she and Henry would do. Go somewhere, on a moment’s notice. Olivine
realized with a thump that maybe it wasn’t the man that was wrong; maybe it was
the kind of person she was when she was with him. She would simply bring
this
Olivine to Paul. This Olivine, who was alive, vibrant. Fun. Happy. That’s all
she needed to do.

Paul came around to open her car
door. “Don’t you want to pack a bag?” he asked, but he was laughing. This was
going to work, Olivine thought.

“Nope,” she said, “You can buy me
a new dress or two. You love to buy me new dresses.”

“Well, that is true,” he conceded.

“New lingerie, too. Okay?” She
grinned.

Olivine knew that, more than
anything else, Paul wanted to take care of her. He wanted to tell her what to
do. He wanted to tell her what to wear. This weekend, she would be his doll. She
would do his bidding. Whatever he wanted. It would be good practice for their
life together.

He ran around the other side of
the car and slid in.

“The best part?” she said, “By
the time we get back, What’s-His-Name’s work will be done. And he’ll be gone.
Back to his family in Wherever-He-Lives.”

“What’s-His-Name?” Paul asked.

“I’m sorry, who?” said Olivine.
“See, I’ve forgotten him already. Please. You forget, too.”

“You have put me on a roller coaster,
Miss Ollie.” It was a name he hadn’t called her in years.

“Oh, my feet were just feeling a
little coldish. Just the tiniest bit cold-ish. But they’re warming up. All
weekend, I’ll warm them up against you. It happens to everyone. Cold Feet. Or
so says my sister. And look at her.”

“Yeah, look at her.” He laughed
and started the car. “Um, Ollie, You’re going to have to move your Jeep,” he
said. “Or do you just want to leave it there all weekend, idling in the middle
of the road?”

“See how impetuous you have made
me? How I had to just race out of my car to snatch you back?”

“I see. Yes, you’ve made your
point. Now go move your car.” He was smiling, laughing.

She hung her head. “Oh, alright.
But I’m not packing a bag.”

When she returned to the car, he
said, “I think I like you like this. You’re….feisty.”

Her relief was stunning. Things
were going to be fine with Paul. Just fine. She was so tired of over-thinking
things. Of thinking about Henry. And then about Paul. And then about Henry. This
was why she was thirty-two years old and still single while her sister, just
two years older, had a husband and  four kids. She had to seize what was there.
She had to seize the sure thing, and she had to move forward.

“We should do this kind of thing
more often,” she said, ejecting Paul’s Jazz CD and tuning instead to the radio.
She turned the volume dial a full turn to the right.  

He looked at her sideways,
gripped the steering wheel and then grinned. “Yes, well, I suppose, what’s the
good of earning so much money if I can’t use it. If I don’t spend it.”

“Indeed.” She laughed, wriggled
out of her jacket, and raised her arms in the air, crossing them at the wrists
and feeling the stretch all the way down her back. “Do you want to make love on
the way?” she asked.

“What?”

“Let’s just pull over on a side
road. On the way to the airport. You can have your way with me.”

“This car is too small.” 

“Oh it is
not.
And if it
is, we can make our way outside.”

“We can wait until we get to the
hotel, Olivine.” He shook his head. “What has come over you?”

“I’m just being…feisty.”

“Yes, you are.” He pushed the jazz
CD back into the stereo and turned the volume back down.  

*****

Before they landed in Vegas, Paul
had arranged a town car to drive them to his favorite hotel. When they arrived,
the driver took Olivine’s hand to help her from the car and extended a shallow
curtsy. Then Paul placed his hand on the small of her back and led her though a
towering set of revolving glass doors.  

Just inside, hundreds of live
trees stretched toward sheets of skylights above. Each tree brimmed with
brilliantly colored flowers that had been folded from paper and lit from
within, and each trunk and branch glowed with thousands of tiny white twinkle
lights. A series of brooks and streams coursed through the forest and led
finally to a pool at the base of a wall, blazing with shimmering lights. Beyond
that, Olivine could just see the casino floor, everything here draped in
crimson red and gold with pearl accents. The air smelled of McIntosh apples and
cigarette smoke, and it was cool on her skin.

After a brief stop at reception,
they made their way to the bank of elevators and soared to the thirty-second
floor, then padded on thick carpet down labyrinthine hallways to their room,
which was blanketed with white: white marble floors, wispy white curtains,
piles of white linens and pillows. Reflecting all of this was a series of
mirrors, extending floor to ceiling from the bathroom to either side of the French
balcony doors.

Olivine sank now onto the bed, crossed
her legs, and stroked her fingers along the comforter. 

“Would you like to try out the
room?” she asked.

“Not much to try out. I think it
meets my approval.” He nodded and turned to look at his reflection. He combed
his hair downward with his fingers.

“Of course. Yes. The room is
beautiful.”

“Was that your way of asking if…”
He turned back to her and offered her a lopsided grin.