Untrue Love Page 10

  Ellie’s eyes widened in dismay. “Oh no, I wouldn’t say that. I was only referring to the perception of the school. The external perception. By other people, who don’t work here, and who don’t realize how special it is.”

  Philip chuckled. “I was just giving you a hard time. Between you and me, I agree: the school is a problem. It’s been sitting here for well over a century, not aspiring to much and as a result not achieving much. When I accepted a position on the board, it wasn’t because I wanted my name associated with a second-rate institution. I intend to build this university into something great, and I’m beginning to believe that you, Ellie, are someone who can help me do that.”

  Ellie felt a rush of adrenaline. She was just beginning to see the first signs of her plans and dreams coming true. “I think if we all do what’s right, working from where we are, we can meet in a place that’s good for everyone,” she said, choosing her words carefully.

  “Eloquently put. And now I’m late for a meeting, but I hope to hear from you soon, Ellie. We have much to talk about, and many plans to make.”

  “Yes we do, Philip. Thank you, and you’ll be hearing from me soon.” She hung up and stood silently, marveling at a phone call that had gone better than she ever could have imagined. In this moment it no longer bothered her that her winter coat was nowhere near warm enough for even a midwest November, let alone what she would need in January or February. It also didn’t bother her that she needed to pick up dog poop in her hand, until the smell hit her. Then it started to bother her.

  “Uggh,” she muttered, kneeling beside Usher and picking up an unpleasantly warm and squishy load. She had been prepared for the dog hair in her apartment, and the barking didn’t bother her as much as it used to. Dog poop, though, was something that she was sure she would not, and could not, ever get used to.

  Just then a squirrel darted between trees and Usher lunged after it, nearly pulling her off her feet. “Dammit!” she yelled, and jerked back on the leash in anger. “I’m sick of you not knowing how to walk on a leash,” she growled, putting her face close to the dog’s. “It’s not complicated! Get better at it!”

  She felt a little foolish for trying to reprimand a dog, but in response he whined and dipped his head. Ellie looked at him dubiously. She had tried everything to get Usher to behave better on their walks, even giving him little treats when he did something good. Nothing seemed to work for long, but she hadn’t thought to try growling at him.

  She shrugged. If being a little bitchy was the key to dog obedience, that was something she knew how to do.

  33

  ELLIE TOOK A moment outside the office door. She closed her eyes, took a deep breath, and then let it out in a whoosh. “It’s showtime,” she murmured.

  She hit the door at full speed. “Excuse me,” said a startled secretary as she steamed past.

  “Don’t get up, I only need a moment of his time,” Ellie announced, speeding up.

  “You can’t—” the secretary protested, but Ellie was already through the oak-paneled door and into the office on the other side.

  Paul Kingston was seated at his desk, thumbing through some papers. His blonde hair hovered somewhere in the zone between tidy and unkempt, in the style that Ellie was beginning to understand was how he wore it every day. The expression on his face was a mix of surprise and vague amusement as he watched her approach.

  “I’m sorry to burst in, but I didn’t want to schedule an appointment when all I really need is to ask you a question,” Ellie began.

  He raised an eyebrow. “And that question is?” he asked.

  “Are you free this Thursday evening?”

  He considered her. “I might be. What’s the occasion?”

  “I’d like to have dinner with you. There’s an Italian restaurant downtown that doesn’t suck. Let’s go.”

  His mouth quirked in the beginning of a smile. “Are you asking me out on a date, Miss Stanton?”

  Ellie flashed her most winning smile. “No! Of course not, that would be improper. It’s just that I feel we got off on the wrong foot before. I know that, sooner or later, we’ll need to work together on something, and I don’t want the memory of our first disagreement to color our future relationship. So I thought we could sit down, have a regular conversation, and get to know each other. Maybe we can paint over that bad first impression with something better.”

  He quirked his head, as if he was working out the solution to a puzzle. “So this isn’t a date, and you don’t want to talk about your academic conference.”

  “Nope! I want to wipe the slate clean. In fact, let’s agree not to talk about work at all. Let’s just sit down like two adults and talk about regular things.”

  “Regular things,” he repeated.

  “Yes. Things like sports, politics, or the weather.”

  “That sounds terribly boring, Miss Stanton.”

  Ellie laughed. “Then we’ll find something more interesting. We’ll talk about whatever you like to talk about.”

  “I like to talk about work.”

  “We’ll figure something out,” she said, and deliberately placed a slip of paper on his desk. “That’s the name of the place. Let’s say 7:00, I’ll make a reservation. The food is on me, and you can pay for wine and the dessert. By the time the evening is over, you will be calling me by my first name: Ellie.”

  He watched her leave with a bemused expression on his face. “Ellie?” he asked just as she reached the door.

  She turned back to him, her hand on the knob. “Yes, Paul?”

  “You’re used to getting what you want, aren’t you?”

  “Most of the time, yes.”

  He smirked and returned his attention to his papers. “In this case you should prepare to be disappointed, Ellie. But I will order a nice bottle of wine.”

  She smiled triumphantly and exited past the glowering secretary. Paul Kingston didn’t know it yet, but disappointment was not on the menu.

  34

  ALL DAY LONG the paper had laid on Karen’s desk, just on the periphery of her vision. It called for her attention in a low voice that she found impossible to ignore.

  Three times already it had ended up in the wastepaper basket underneath her desk. Three times she picked it up and, with an air of finality, tossed it into the trash. Three times she had later gone back to fish it out and return it to its place.

  The paper was carefully folded, and wrinkled from the time it spent in her jeans pocket. She knew without checking what the paper showed in the confident loops and sweeps of a man’s hand. It was the key to a doorway that she was not sure she wanted to pass through. She was also afraid that, if she didn’t, it might close forever.

  Karen sighed and pushed her glasses up her nose. She reached out and took the paper, unfolding it to read what was written there.

  Her phone was just to the right, well within reach. There was a phone number on the paper. She dialed it and very nearly hung up on the first ring. She knew, though, that her Caller-ID was already showing up on his phone’s screen. If she hung up, he would only call her back. The cat was out of the bag.

  He answered on the third ring. “Hello?” he asked, and she nearly hung up again.

  “Uh, hello. This is Karen. The woman from the coffee shop?”

  “Of course it is!” he proclaimed, in the sort of voice that made her feel like they were already old and dear friends. “It’s wonderful to hear from you.”

  Despite herself, Karen nearly blushed. “Ummm, thank you,” she mumbled. “I was thinking that maybe I would take you up on your invitation.”

  “That’s marvelous! Terrific news. Karen, we’ve only been speaking for a few moments and you’ve already made my day. When and where should we meet?”

  “I thought that you’d have already planned that out. Isn’t that what men do?”

  “Men might do that when they have a busy schedule to plan around, but I have nothing but free time right now. You’re the one with a busy schedul
e. You also know this town a lot better than I do. So tell me, when would be a good time, and where do you suggest that we meet?”

  Karen scanned her mind. She embraced the opportunity to manage the details of their soiree. She didn’t want to meet on a Friday or a Saturday, because that felt too much like a date. She also didn’t want to meet early in the week, in case it went so well that it actually became a date and staying out late interfered with her class schedule. She picked something in the middle.

  “How about Thursday night, around seven? There’s a place called Joe’s, just off campus. We can get a drink there. It’s a good place for talking.”

  “Joe’s at seven on Thursday. I can’t wait.”

  “OK,” Karen replied, vaguely surprised that everything was going so easily. She had expected some sort of struggle, either internal or external. She had come mentally armed for battle but found no resistance. “I guess I’ll see you there.”

  “You will, and Karen?”

  “Yes?”

  “I’ll be paying. Because I am a man, and that’s what men do.”

  She gave him a smile that was invisible over the phone, but which warmed her voice when she replied. “And I’m a woman, so I’ll let you.”

  “Goodbye, Karen. See you Thursday.”

  “Goodbye,” she said, and hung up. Only then did she take a moment to contemplate a reality that was as shocking as it was true: she was going out with a man.

  35

  “TELL ME AGAIN how this is not a terrible idea.”

  Ellie rolled her eyes at her older sister’s disapproving tone. “It’s just dinner.”

  “What about Jackson?”

  “What about him? I told you, this isn’t a date.”

  “You may know that, but does the trustee guy know that?”

  “I told him that it wasn’t a date.”

  “You asked him out to dinner. He may not believe you when you say it’s not a date. Especially after all of the flirting that we both know you intend to do.”

  Ellie rolled her eyes and looked into the bathroom mirror for signs of the black dog hairs that had insinuated themselves into every article of clothing in her closet. Tonight she was wearing a white silk blouse, which was both a blessing and a curse: the dog hairs stood out like a sore thumb, but that also made them easy to find.

  “It’s not flirting,” she said. “It’s charm.”

  “Oh, really? Funny that this ‘charm’ of yours only works on straight men.”

  Ellie sniffed and carefully applied an imperceptible trace of eye liner beneath her eyelash. “Men like me. I’m not going to apologize for that.”

  “So what’s the plan? You’re going to flirt—“

  “Charm.”

  “You’re going to flirtatiously charm him, and then he’ll decide that you were right all along and that he should definitely support you in putting on your conference.”

  “We will talk, and we will get to know each other better, and when he decides that he likes me maybe he’ll take the time to listen instead of rejecting my idea without even considering it. That’s the plan.” She moistened her fingers under the bathroom faucet and used them to collect the last of the pet fur from her blouse. “I’m not going to hit on him, Sarah. How bad do you think I am? Do you really believe I’d do something like that just to get my way?”

  “All I’m saying is that you may be opening the door to trouble. Does the trustee guy know that you’re in a relationship?”

  Ellie felt a little guilty, despite herself. “It hasn’t come up yet.”

  “Well, bring it up. Be honest with him. Because if you get a promise out of him by stringing him along, it will only be worse for you when he finally figures out the truth.”

  “Yes, Mom.”

  “I’m serious.”

  “I am too,” Ellie said, walking out of the bathroom and switching the light off. It was almost time to leave. “This is really important. My life went south for a while there, and I spent months feeling like a victim. I hate that. I’m done feeling that way. Now I’m going to take charge of my life and make it better. If that means smiling and making small talk with some guy who’s a bit of a jerk, I can do that. And I will do that, because he has something I need.”

  There was a pause on the other end, long enough that Ellie glanced at her phone to make sure that they hadn’t been disconnected. “Fine,” Sarah said at last. “Just don’t do anything that you’d have trouble explaining to Jackson tomorrow.”

  “Jackson is an adult, and so am I,” Ellie answered, “but I promise to be good.”

  “Do you really think it will work?” her sister asked.

  Ellie smirked confidently. “What do you think?” she asked rhetorically.

  “I think he’ll end up eating out of your hand, and that you’ll get everything you want. But I’m still not sure that it will be what you need.”

  “That sounds like a song.”

  “Rolling Stones?”

  “Something like that, yeah.”

  “I’ll say goodnight, then, Mr. Jagger, and good luck.”

  36

  ELLIE NAVIGATED THE dinner as if she were an admiral in command of a full-scale invasion. No detail was too small to escape her notice. She had picked an Italian restaurant in the hopes that Paul would get sauce on his shirt, and they could share a joke about it; for herself, Ellie ordered soup and salad. She had a glass of wine but only took a few sips from it. Meanwhile she closely monitored the way Paul sat in his chair, and made a point to mirror the position of his hands and his legs without being obvious about it. Ellie considered herself a student of the psychology of influence, and she was using all her best techniques tonight.

  “Let’s play a game,” she said with a mischievous smile.

  Paul glanced around the restaurant. “Here? What do you want to play?”

  “Two truths and a lie. Tell me three things about yourself, only two of which are true. Then I’ll guess which is which.”

  Paul gave her a searching look. “How will you know that I’m telling the truth about what’s true? You don’t know anything about me.”

  “I’ll be able to tell if you’re lying.”

  “Oh, really,” Paul said. He looked amused. “I’d better be careful, then.” He took a deep breath. “OK. I went to college on a lacrosse scholarship. My middle name is Evelyn. And I’m allergic to peanuts.”

  Ellie squinted at him, searching for the lie. “Tricky. Your second statement is obviously true, since it sounds so much like a lie. Your third statement is also probably true, since I was here when you ordered the food, you did not ask the waitress about peanut oil, and you would expect me to remember that. You wouldn’t make it that easy.”

  Paul smirked. “Do you own the DVD of ‘The Princess Bride,’ by any chance?”

  “I have based my life on that movie’s teachings, but no. All right,” she said, reaching her conclusion. “The first statement is a lie. I believe that you went to school on a scholarship, but I suspect that it was for baseball, not lacrosse.”

  Paul regarded her for a long time over the rim of his wine glass. “Impressive. Basketball, actually. I was thinking about trying out for lacrosse that spring, but then I broke my leg during a pick-up game. It was a bad break that took a very long time to heal completely, and that was the end of my athletic career.”

  Ellie was skeptical. “Basketball? You don’t seem tall enough.”

  Paul snorted. “I’m not, but I attended a Division II school. There were a couple guys on the team shorter than me. In any case, I played point guard, which is one of the last remaining refuges for short, skinny men in competitive athletics. Though if I were playing today, I’d probably focus on soccer.”

  Ellie had already lost interest. Despite all the years she spent on the sideline as a cheerleader in high school and college, she never managed to figure out what people found so interesting about sports. “So tell me about this Evelyn thing.”

  Paul winced. “I was hopi
ng you’d let that go. It was my mother’s fault. She was Evelyn Waugh’s biggest fan.”

  Ellie searched her memory. “Brideshead Revisited?” she asked at last.

  He nodded. “Among other, more obscure works. I admit that he was a great writer, but I find it hard to forgive my mother. Saddling a boy with that name was a terrible thing to do.”

  Ellie smirked. “For a man with a woman’s name, you seem to have turned out all right.”

  “Considering I had to prove my manhood every time anyone discovered what my middle name was, I got a lot of practice at it.”

  “And yet you reveal this deep and dark secret to me, a near stranger.”

  He leaned towards her. “Perhaps I look forward to proving my manhood to you.”

  Ellie could feel a blush coming on, and quickly looked away. She was disconcerted by what was happening to her. She was not the sort of woman who blushed! “Are you close to your mother?” she asked, looking for a way to regain control of the conversation.

  “Sure, if you don’t count the simmering rage. Your turn.”

  She blinked at him, not comprehending. “My turn for what?”

  “Two truths and a lie.” He gazed at her, silently and expectantly.

  “Oh. Let me think.” She scanned her mind for truths that were safe to share, and a lie that didn’t come too close to the truth. “I have a dog and a cat. My father is homeless. And I went to college on an academic scholarship.”

  Paul glowered at her. “I can tell already that I’m being played. If your father was actually homeless, there’s no way that you’d casually mention that fact in a silly game like this. So that’s obviously the lie, but it’s so obvious that it can’t be the lie. Your third statement is obviously true—you’re a professor, of course you were on scholarship—but it’s so obvious that it can’t be true. So that one is the lie.”

  Ellie stared at him in astonishment. “That was impressive. You’re right. I didn’t pay much attention to my studies when I was in high school. I got on the academic train my senior year in college, and it’s been full speed ahead ever since.”