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“Really? So young?” Jessica watched him out of the corner of her eye like a lioness ready to pounce on dinner. “She’s pretty, don’t you think?”
“Yes.”
He saw the sign for the Fort Walton Beach Area airport. Ten more miles and he’d be putting Jessica on a plane back to Miami.
“Yes you think she’s pretty, or yes she’s really divorced?”
“Yes to both questions.”
“Well, I don’t think she’s that attractive. I mean, I guess she’s pretty in a quirky kind of way. She’s more sexy than pretty, really, but then any woman would be if they had their boobs practically hanging out. I mean, that dress! C’mon. It’s obvious she likes attention.”
“I thought her dress was nice.”
Jessica seemed dumbfounded. “Of course you did! You’re a man, aren’t you? What, were you staring at her boobs all night?”
“No, if you recall, I was too busy asking you to marry me.”
That shut her up for a couple of minutes. Nate catalogued it in the back of his brain to use again if necessary.
“What was she like in high school?”
He wasn’t going to pretend he didn’t know who “she” was. “She was a cheerleader and very popular.”
“Oh, that type, huh?”
“If you’re asking if she was a snob, then I’d say no. She was smart and…artistic.” They’d been in the same art class their senior year. Nate would had preferred another class to fulfill his last elective credit but it was the only class that didn’t interfere with AP physics. He’d barely passed art with a C, the only one he’d ever gotten in his entire school career. Lauren, on the other hand, had been a natural. She wielded a charcoal pencil the way most surgeons hope to wield a knife. Her class portfolio had been full of pictures of dresses and hats and purses. High fashion kind of stuff. He remembered being impressed by her talent.
At the end of the semester there had been an art show and she’d won first place. But instead of clapping, her mother had upbraided her for not standing up straight enough at the podium. “Lauren, don’t slouch!” she’d cried. Everyone had heard it. She hadn’t been mean about it. It was more like a perfunctory kind of thing. Like when your mother told you to eat all your vegetables or to drive slower. But Lauren had instantly turned red. She’d also straightened back her shoulders like a good little soldier. Nate had felt sorry for her that night. Which had been absurd. The class nerd feeling sorry for the beautiful blonde cheerleader.
He shrugged. “Like Lauren told you last night, we didn’t know each other that well.”
“I bet she’s sorry now,” Jessica said. “If she knew then that you’d become this hot doctor, I bet she would have been nicer to you.”
“She was nice enough. Can we talk about something else now?” Or better yet, can we not talk at all?
“I was thinking…maybe this whole weekend was a test,” Jessica said. She reached over and placed her palm on the inside of his thigh.
“What are you doing?”
She giggled. “If you have to ask then I guess I’m not doing it right.” She ran her hand down to cup him. Normally, he would have gotten an instant hard on. But all he felt was a strange feeling in the pit of his stomach, like he was a kid who’d eaten too much cotton candy at the fair.
“Do you want me to get in an accident?” he said, before calmly taking her hand and removing it from his balls.
Her face crumpled. “Didn’t last night mean anything to you?”
“Which part? The part when you turned down my proposal? Or the part when you said it was best if we didn’t see each other anymore?”
“The part when we made love! God, Nate, I don’t know about you, but last night was pretty fantastic as far as I’m concerned.”
After they’d gotten home from the restaurant, Jessica had made a big production of going into the guest room to sleep. She said that their relationship was over, and he accepted that, because, what other recourse did he have? He’d fallen asleep, only to be awakened by a naked Jessica sucking on his dick. She said she wanted one more memory of them together. So he’d given in, because at the time it had been physically impossible not to. But now he was beginning to think he should have manned up and tossed her out of his bed.
He turned into the airport and pulled his car into the lane for departing flights. He got out and retrieved her weekend bag from the back seat then handed it to her. “I really have no clue what you want from me, Jessica.”
“And therein lies the problem.” She shook her head sadly. “One day you’re going to wake up and realize that I’m the best thing that’s ever happened to you. I just hope for both our sakes, that it won’t be too late.” She stood on tiptoe and kissed him on the cheek, then turned and walked inside the airport.
Maybe he should feel sad. It seemed like the appropriate response to having one’s girlfriend break up with you. But curiously, what he felt was…relief.
Lauren finished packing Henry’s lunch, turned off the coffee pot, and stuffed her art pad into her work tote. “Henry!” she cried. “We have less than five minutes to get to school.”
