War (38 page)

So sorry, my dear cousin, we all are a romantic lot. It's a Blair family curse.”

Damn. He’s right. I close my eyes again and take a deep breath. I suffer from a romanticized view of the past. Of my life. Of Jasmine. But I already knew that. It’s a curse. I open my eyes.

“Can the curse be broken?” I ask, sounding like I’m in a Disney fairytale. Cadence smiles.

“Instead of trying to break the curse of romance, how about trying to shift your perception of reality?” He nods at me. “Think, Jacob. What is the reality of your life?”

“The reality of my life,” I say to myself. “When it comes to Winnie?”

“Yes.”

“I met a woman. I saw myself in her. I liked to have her around. I married her so that could happen.”

“And Jasmine?”

“I met a girl. She was nothing like me. Opposites attracted. We liked to dream together. But that’s all we had. Dreams.”

Cadence nods and stands up. “Go gargle.” He points to the Listerine on the counter. “And then go see Winnie.”

WINNIE

              “Hi, ugly.”

              “Winnie, it’s me.”

D. West. He’s calling from my brother’s cell phone. I plop down on the couch. I know I should be pissed at him but something in me won’t let me be. I met D. when we were kids on the base in Italy. His family and mine traveled the world together. We went from kiddie crushes to high school sweethearts to full-blown college boyfriend and girlfriend. We even moved to Boston together: he went to Harvard, I went to Boston College. The guy and I have history, a history that ended once I told him, in our freshman year, that it was a struggle for me to remain faithful. A struggle that seemed to end once I laid eyes on Jacob Blair, a twenty-three year old second year law student at Yale, two years later. After Jake, I’ve never wanted another man.

              “Why are you calling me from my brother’s phone?”

              “The obvious reasons. Are the kids asleep?”

“They’re at Pammy’s house for the night. They have a big Disney trip planned for Easter Break.”

“That sounds like fun.”

“D., what the hell do you want? We aren’t friends anymore.”

“So, I have an entire speech prepared. How would you like me to render it to you? Line by line or with footnotes?”

              “I really don’t care to-”

              “Dear Winnie,” he says over me. “Let me be clear about this. First: I had no intention of coming up to Boston and seducing you away from your husband…yet again.”

              “Oh
,
please. You give yourself too much credit.”

              “As you know, I have a woman of my own now. A fine woman. A feminist. Need I say more? I do believe that she’ll cut my balls off and feed them to me, one by one by one.”

              “How many balls do you have now?”

              “Samantha makes Danielle Rouge look like Princess Di. Trust me, I don’t want any problems with her.”

              “Danielle would destroy your entire career if she heard you say that.”

“Winnie, Jacob is exactly the man today that he was the day you met him. He, this life and the struggles that come along with it, was your choice.”

“Listen D., it wasn’t my choice to marry a man who would sleep with other women. Okay? It’s not my choice to wonder why a man who is so loved by his wife and his children would choose to chase the ghost and memories of another woman, looking for love. And this shit is wearing me down. I just don’t get it. I don’t get why a man who is so good at the everyday expectations of home life, a man who said that he wants to be a husband and a father, would do this to his family. It was never my choice to marry a man like that.”

“But this was Jacob Blair, Winnie. He had a rep before you met him. And from what I hear, it’s hard to domesticate a wild animal. Truthfully, you were the only woman who could housetrain him. Which, I’m sure, was no easy feat. But unfortunately for you, you haven’t quite tamed him yet.”

“I don’t want a docile man, D.” If humans were defined by their driving skills, then I married a stunt driver. And though I complain about being in the passenger seat, stomping on my imaginary breaks, I, in no way, want to be married to a Sunday driver. I’d rather say ‘Watch out for that intersection!’ than say, ‘Yeah, we’ve made a complete stop and looked both ways. I think it’s safe to go now.’ Hell no. That’s not the kind of guy I wanted to marry.

“Of course not. You don’t want a docile man; you want him feral. Feral animals are considered domesticated but they
aren’t
considered tame. And that’s exactly what you want: a housetrained animal who comes home at night, enjoys a home life with you, but is still wild at heart. You like them rowdy, Winnie. It’s one of the reasons why you and I didn’t work out. It’s one of the reasons you chose Jacob. So you can’t get mad when your lion, whom you thought was domesticated, goes and bites your head off. That’s what they’re born to do. Isn’t that what happened to that circus guy in Vegas a few years back?”

“You do know this is why I dumped you, right? You’re too fucking sensible.”

“Exactly.”

“Do I hear advice coming soon?”

“Of course. I don’t think you want Jacob to act disciplined, I think you want him to act housetrained. And from what I hear, that’s what he wants to be.”

“Huh?”

“Since you’ve moved out of your home, he’s been looking like garbage…again. Have you noticed that every time you leave him, he starts looking like a pile of shit? Seems to me, your wild animal
has been domesticated for so long that he has no survival skills to live alone in the jungle anymore.”

“How do you know?”

“I have my sources. Anyway, I feel rather guilty for this last altercation. Like I said when I wrote you, Jacob was actually innocent of infidelity this time.”

“Apparently your sources aren’t that good.”

“Trust me, Winnie. He didn’t touch Jasmine. She was the pursuer;
the
c
hief told us about
the video and the text messages. Therefore, I’ve called to ask you a question.”

              “And that is?”

              “Would you like to go back to being Gwyneth Yates?”

              “Hell no.” I’m a Blair, to the bone.

              “Then you should do what’s best for you.”

              “Return to a husband that keeps cheating on me?”

              “No. In the grand scheme of life, Jacob is not a husband. He’s simply a human. A human who happened to say some words that declared you two would be boyfriend and girlfriend for life. You took the same vow. Shit’s been rocky. He’s been cheating. And you’ve been threatening to put him on the front page of
The Globe
and ruin his business with one more drunken bar scene of yours. I heard that his sisters are in jail right now and that luckily you were in DC this weekend.”

              “My brother has such a big mouth.”

              “He does. But the point is that you two are both flawed. And so is everyone else. You’ll divorce Jake, find another man, and he won’t cheat on you, but he’ll have his own shit going on.”

              “I don’t believe it. I mean, look at you. You aren’t perfect but, hell, you’re damn near close. What could you possibly have going on?”

              “Well, Winnie Blair, I’m still in love with a woman who no longer exists. I’m still searching for Gwyneth Yates. I’m human. First loves are hard to get over. Just look at me. I have a woman and two kids and yet I came all the way up to Boston, not to seduce you out of your marriage, but to scare Jacob into treating you right. I love Samantha, I love our kids, I’d die for them, I’d kill for them…but I also love Gwyneth Yates. I don’t have to sleep with you—it’s not an erotic love. I don’t have to talk to you on the phone. I don’t have to send you flowers and candy. But I will always be invested in your wellbeing. I love you.” I lean back on the couch, drop my head on the backrest and close my eyes.

              “What do I do, D.? About Jacob. What do I do?”

              A soft knock sounds on my door. Jacob. I know it is. My heart starts thumping, blood rushes to my ears, my temples begin to throb. Jacob.

              “Shit! I think he’s at the door now.”

              “Go talk to him. And if you need to talk to me again, I’ll be with your brother for another hour.”

              “Okay. I’ll probably call back.”

              “Alright, baby.” I end the call, take a deep breath, get up, smooth over my jeans and walk to the door. I look through the peephole and see Jacob leaning against the wall, one hand in his pocket, one hand holding a white folder, his head down, his shoulders slumped. Tee, sweats, watch and cheeks that look a little red, like he’s sunburnt. Damn, he looks horrible. My heart pounds. Is he okay? I swing the door open and he eases his head up.

              “What the hell is wrong with you?” I ask as I take him in. Jacob is always clean cut and smells of cologne and aftershave, even when he’s dressed down. This man in front of me looks sick. He tries to give me a smile as he points to his stomach. “Are you sick?”

              “Cadence diagnosed me as having bad nerves.”

“Hmm. I guess being in such tight quarters with both your estranged wife and your mistress can do that to a man.” He drops his head and nods. He’s willing to take all the blows, all the fight I have in me.

“The kids sleep?” He whispers.

“They are. Jacob, I need to ask you a question.” He looks up and nods. “Every time you go out with another woman, every time you leave our bed and go rent another, what are you trying to find? What are you looking for? Why the craving to escape from your life here with me?” He nods his head again and then casts his eyes down.

“In addition to having a case of bad nerves, Cadence has also diagnosed me as being a
Nostalgic
.”

“What?”

“Some shit he learned during his classical studies. Apparently, I look at the past and see it in a whole new light and the light is always brighter.” He looks up at me. “Listen, Winnie, when I met you, I liked you. Immediately. There was something there. Something I hadn’t found in anyone else. That I know for sure. That’s the reason why I stuck around for so long. When I was seeing Jasmine, I cheated on her all the time. And then eventually, I left her. Now I know why. You were different.

“But I had already built this dream world with Jasmine, and it was a nice place to live in. But the reality is that it was impossible to maintain because I was never the man Jasmine thought I was. And I would never be the man she wanted me to be. With her, I was always pretending. Pretending to be good or pretending to
want
to be good. You are the only woman I’ve never had to pretend with. We never had to have dreams.” He takes a deep breath. “We never had to make-believe.”

“You’re right,” I whisper to him. “We didn’t.” He nods and locks eyes with me. Damn, I love this man.

“It’s funny, now that I’ve ruined my entire marriage over Jasmine, once more, and probably for good this time, she’s the farthest thing from my mind.”

“You mean, she’s out of your system.” He stares at me but says nothing. “You’re like one of those Weight Watcher people.” He looks at me, confused, while breaking into a small smile. “You go to Weight Watchers because you’re sick of sugar. You’re good at denying yourself for a while, but then it seems like everywhere you go people are enjoying sugar. People are walking around you looking like sugar. People are walking past you smelling like sugar. Suddenly you want sugar and you want it
now
. You sit down and eat a whole bag of it and then afterwards, want to kill yourself.”

“Sounds about right.”

“So, once again, you’re sick of sugar. But what happens one day when you start craving it again?”

He looks down at the floor as if he’s thinking again. “Remember last year, last Christmas, you and I had this big fight about first love?” He looks up at me.

              “Yeah.”

              “And I told you that Jasmine was my first love?”

              “Yeah.”

He shakes his head and looks down at the ground. “What does that even mean?
First love
. How is that supposed to feel?”

              “It feels like love, Jacob. It just happens to be your first shot at it.”

He looks at me. “If I’m supposed to say that I felt the same way about Jasmine that I feel about you, then I can’t. I
love
you. I’ve never felt this way about any other woman. I’m making myself sick over you. I’m depressed over you. I’m on medication because of you. I can barely work because of you. I wake up all night long because of you. I keep thinking about us to the point where I’ll be in my truck, sitting outside of the office and I won’t even remember turning the corners to get there.

“I have never, ever, felt this way about Jasmine. And she’s dumped me before. Plenty of times. One time for an entire summer and still, I didn’t…worry. I missed her after a while. I tried to call her and patch things up, but in the end, I knew that there was probably someone else out there, anyway. That’s not how I feel with you. I’m sick because I know that there is
no one
else out there like you. I’m sick because if I lose you, my life will be changed
forever
. I feel like I can’t lose you. I feel like if I lose you, then I’m done. If that’s what love feels like, then you’re the only woman I’ve ever loved. And if God let me go through all of this to see that, then so be it.” He smiles and drops his head. “I’ve been talking to a priest.” I smile and let out a light laugh.