Untrue Love Page 19

  Ellie looked at her sideways. “This is my father.”

  “Oh. Your father. Imagine that! So I have to go, see you later,” Karen muttered, making a quick getaway.

  Ellie looked at her father suspiciously. “What was that about?”

  Her father was clearly uncomfortable. “I met Karen a few weeks ago, and we’ve talked a few times since. She’s an interesting woman.”

  Ellie didn’t know what to think, but she was certain that she didn’t want to think about it—whatever “it” was—too closely. “Yes, very interesting,” she said and began leading the way to a nearby sandwich shop.

  65

  THE CAT’S PURRING was a low, steady drawl, and Ellie’s fingers absently drifted through the soft, warm fur as she talked on the phone.

  “Is it creepy to stare at a guy through the window?”

  “Yes,” her sister answered. “Of course it is.”

  “What if you think he might be lying to you? Is there an exception for that situation?”

  “It’s still creepy, but maybe it’s understandably creepy. Who are we talking about, anyway?”

  Ellie sighed. “There’s a guy I’ve sort of been seeing.”

  “Wow. Wow! You’re dating again?”

  “Not really. It’s been mostly physical so far, which is exactly what I needed when Jackson took a dump on my life. But then just when I started thinking that maybe it was a little more than that, I heard something.”

  “What?”

  The cat stood up in her lap, searched for a more comfortable position, and then flopped down again. Ellie had discovered that petting Madeline had a soothing effect on her emotions, and she was beginning to suspect that it might even have addictive qualities. “Oh, I heard from someone that he was in town on a night when he told me that he was away on business. So now I’m wondering if he’s been lying to me.”

  “So what are you planning to do about it?”

  Ellie shrugged. “Spy on him? I don’t know. I want to see if I can catch him in a lie.”

  “Are you sure that’s a good idea?”

  “No,” she answered truthfully. “But the only alternative is to break up with him, and I think I like this one better.”

  “You could just ask him.”

  “And then he would come up with some explanation that would probably sound plausible, but I still wouldn’t know if it’s the truth. I’m not going to let another guy lie to me, Sarah. I need to know.”

  There was a pause on the other end. “So it sounds like you’re really into this guy.”

  “What makes you think that?”

  “If you didn’t care about him, you’d kick him to the curb at the first sign of trouble. So tell me about him. What does he do? What is he like?”

  Ellie paused, gathering her thoughts. In her mind she conjured an image of Paul, and she could feel her heart pick up the pace in immediate response. “He’s tall, and slim, and not at all my type. But his eyes can just bore a hole through you. I feel vulnerable when he’s looking at me.”

  “And that’s a good thing?” Sarah sounded dubious.

  “You wouldn’t think so,” Ellie said, “but when I’m there, and he’s staring at me like that, mmmm.”

  Sarah laughed. “OK, I think I’m getting it now. What else do you like about him?”

  “There’s a depth to him. Jackson, when he wasn’t busy being a lying piece of crap, could be kind and sweet and loving and some other good things. But everything was always right there on the surface. He always seemed like an actor on television playing a part. Change the channel and you’d get a different version of Jackson. Paul seems a lot more real, but everything you hear from him sounds like there’s something else to it, some part that you can’t quite figure out. He draws you in. He’s a puzzle. I want to solve him.”

  “And what happens when you solve him? You might find that he’s been lying to you. Or that he’s been telling you the truth, but he’s not so interesting once you’ve figured him out.”

  Ellie sighed. “All true. And even so, I have to know.”

  Sarah sounded a little sad. “I know. Just be careful, OK?”

  “I will,” Ellie said, but she wondered if it was true. Something about Paul felt dangerous, and she was beginning to enjoy the sensation. How long would she walk down this road before she called a stop to it? And would she be able to stop when the time came?

  66

  THEY MET. THEY kissed lightly. They took a seat at their table and ordered food and drinks. Then they stared at one another, at a loss for words.

  “So,” Karen began. “You’re Ellie’s father.”

  Duane chuckled wearily and rubbed his eyes. “Yeah. She’s my little girl.”

  Karen shook her head. “What are the odds?”

  “Astronomical? Probably not. But still the odds were long.”

  Karen looked at him dubiously. “I’m having trouble with your description of Ellie as a little girl. I can’t connect that with the woman who’s been such a pain in my ass this year.”

  A cloud crossed over Duane’s face. “You’re not going to make me choose between you, I hope.”

  She shook her head. “No, of course not. You’re her father, of course you love her. But it does put me in a difficult position.”

  “How so?”

  She gestured expansively. “Because your daughter and I have not exactly seen things eye-to-eye since she came here, and I was already comfortable with the judgment I’d reached of her. I had filed her away into a tidy little box in my head, but now that I know she’s your daughter, I need to figure out what to do with that.”

  He smiled, amused. “You’re wondering if the fact that you like me means that you are required to like her, too?”

  She shrugged. “Maybe. Does it?”

  “Did your parents stay together?”

  “No, they split when I was ten.”

  “And did either of them remarry?”

  “My father did.”

  “Did you like the woman he married?”

  She snorted. “God, no. I hated her, and the feeling was mutual. We didn’t speak to each other for years. She mellowed a bit at the end, but basically we had our hands full simply tolerating each other.”

  He nodded. “So it doesn’t sound like she felt obligated to get along with you, just because she was in love with your father.”

  “I wish she had. We had some terrible times together. Eating dinner at her house was a nightmare. A little bit of kindness would have gone a long way.”

  “So maybe that’s all it takes. A little kindness.”

  She eyed him warily. “You realize what we’re doing here, right?”

  He looked confused. “What? Maybe not. What are we doing?”

  “We’re talking about the future. Our future.”

  It was a few moments before the words fully landed on him, then his eyes widened slightly. “Oh. Wow. You’re right. I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to just assume that—”

  She waved off his concerns. “No, it’s fine. That is what we’re talking about, after all. If what we have together is no more than a casual fling, we can agree to disagree about your daughter.”

  “Do you really hate her that much?”

  Karen shook her head. “I don’t hate her. I thought that maybe I did at one point, but I don’t think so anymore. I do resent her, though. You raised that girl to be pushy as hell.”

  Duane smiled proudly. “I wish I could take credit for that, but I can’t. I have another daughter, you know, and Sarah couldn’t be more different from her sister. What they both are is scary smart, and beautiful, and strong. All those things they got from their mother.”

  Something in Karen’s world shifted as she began to understand how deeply Duane loved his daughters, and how greatly the way that he saw them differed from her own perceptions. He saw Ellie through the lens of love, while Karen knew her own viewpoint had been colored by jealousy and disappointment.

  She nodded. “I wish that
I’d met your wife. She sounds like a wonderful woman. But I don’t really want to talk about her, or Ellie, right now.”

  He took her hands between his. “Neither do I.”

  She looked at him closely. “I don’t know what we have. I don’t know what I want it to be. But I do know that you make me smile more than anything else in my life right now. And I’d like to keep feeling that way.”

  He squeezed her hands and gave her a smile that melted most of the ice that remained in her heart. “Me too,” he said, and she could hear a thousand words of meaning within those two, simple syllables.

  67

  SHE WAS STANDING outside his office, across the street and under the shade of a tree, when he answered her call. Looking up through the bare branches she could see his office window. It was dark. If there was anyone up there, he must be sleeping.

  “Ellie. It’s such a pleasure to hear from you.”

  A little part of herself melted at the sound of his words, but she forged on with the deception she was beginning to weave. “I’ve been thinking of you all day.” That part was true enough. With all the scheming she’d been doing lately, it was becoming a challenge just to prepare for her classes. “Can we get together tonight?”

  Regret was thick in his voice. “There is nothing I would rather do. Unfortunately I’ve been buried under an avalanche of work, and I won’t be out from under it any earlier than tomorrow. Can I see you then?”

  “Sure,” Ellie said, and then carefully she tightened the noose. “You’re going to be at the office all night, then?”

  He stepped right into it. “Yes, I’ll be here until I can’t keep my eyes open anymore.”

  “Poor baby. I had no idea being rich, powerful, and handsome was such a difficult burden to bear.”

  He chuckled. “It does have its downsides.”

  “I’ll see if I can cheer you up. Tomorrow night.”

  “Tomorrow night,” he answered by way of confirmation. “I can’t wait.”

  She hung up the call, her eyes still holding steady on his dark office window. Clearly he was not working late there. It was still possible that he meant he’d be working somewhere else, though. The cold, dark pit in her stomach bore testimony to how close she now had come to laying bare his lies, but she still wasn’t quite there yet.

  She had one more thing to find, and she knew just the place to look for it.

  The walk along ice-clad sidewalks to the restaurant afforded Ellie plenty of time to think about her life. There were the existential details of walking at night during the coldest winter she had ever imagined. The chill seeped up through the pavement and into her booted feet. Her fingers were nearly numb, even though she was wearing mittens and her hands were in her pockets. Her ears ached in the frigid wind, to the point where a headache was growing and taking up residence behind her eyes.

  She would have been completely miserable if she wasn’t warmed by her anger.

  It was a preliminary kind of anger. It burned like kindling, a small flame waiting for bigger chunks of fuel. Ahead of her in the darkness she could see the lights of the Italian restaurant that Donna had described. Somehow she already knew that the answer she was looking for was waiting for her there.

  And then, in the next moment, her life became a little colder and more bleak. Through the window, beneath the soft glow of Christmas lights strung along the ceiling, she could see Paul seated at one of the booths with a beautiful blonde across from him. They were leaning in close, deep in serious conversation, and to all appearances they were oblivious to everything except each other.

  Ellie stood in the cold and the dark for the space of two deep breaths, and then she turned and walked quickly away. She promised herself she would not cry. She would not cry! She would not give him the satisfaction.

  Some day, she would need to learn the reason why. She would need to understand why it was that men kept doing this to her and kept treating her with such disrespect. When she learned about Jackson she had been able to tell herself that it was a one-time thing. There was a problem in their relationship, without a doubt, and most definitely there was also a problem concealed inside the character of a man who could lie to her so easily. But it was just one of those things that happened sometimes, nothing that she needed to worry about once it was over. She could move on, pick up the pieces, and get started living the rest of her life with a sense of optimism and purpose.

  Now, though, Ellie had a new fear lurking in the back of her mind. For the first time, she wondered what she would do, what she could do, if it wasn’t just Jackson who lied to her. What if it was something she should expect? What if feeling this way and being hurt this bad was actually normal, and everything else—love and mutual support—were the exception to the rule?

  She was so disgusted at the thought that she nearly spat on the pavement. What stopped her was the thought that her spittle would land on her boot and freeze there, and cleaning it later would be a disgusting and humiliating chore.

  Instead she took what solace she could from giving herself a pep talk.

  “No way. No way am I letting that happen. Because I deserve so much better than him.”

  Her voice sounded thin in the nighttime air, but it was better than the silence. Her heart still ached, but at least it continued to beat. She was alive, she was in control of the decisions she made, and tomorrow would be a better day than this one. She promised herself that much.

  Behind her lay a disappointment named Paul. She wondered how long it would be before she was ready to trust again.

  68

  “ELLIE, WE NEED to talk.”

  She looked at her father warily. She wondered if there was ever a time when that phrase kicked off a conversation that was not at best awkward, and at worst something that would end in tears and recriminations.

  “OK,” she said. “Pull up a chair.”

  Instead he squeezed in next to her on the couch. He rested his head on his hand and gave her a deep, searching look.

  “You’re making me nervous,” she said.

  He chuckled. “I’m sorry. I’m just not sure how to tell you the things that I need to tell you.”

  Ellie was joking before, but now she really did start feeling nervous. “What? Did you cheat on Mom? Am I not actually your daughter? Did you lose all of my savings at the horse track?”

  “There’s a horse track here?”

  “No! Quit stalling! What is it?”

  He sighed. “So you know that I’ve been seeing someone.”

  She nodded slowly. “Yes.”

  “And it turns out that you know her!”

  She quirked her head, trying without success to imagine who it possibly could be. Finally she was struck with a horrible possibility. “You’re not dating one of my students, are you?”

  This time it was his turn to look aggrieved. “Ellie, give me some credit! I’d be old enough to be their grandfather.”

  “So who is it?”

  He gave her another look. “Karen,” he said, in the sort of voice that a member of the bomb squad might say, “Cut the green wire,” when he suspected that maybe the yellow wire was actually the better choice.

  It took a few moments for her mind to process the information, sifting through the list of women she knew until she found one named Karen. When she arrived at that destination, her eyes grew wide. “Karen? Karen Jefferson? The evil bitch idiot woman who’s been tormenting me from the day I got here?!”

  He held up his hands to placate her. “Now, baby, don’t get upset.”

  “I’m not upset! I’m confused. You’re a grown man. You don’t have a history of terrible decisions. And yet this happened. How did this happen?”

  He shrugged. “We met in a coffee shop. I didn’t know who she was then. She just seemed to me like an attractive woman who didn’t have a ring on her finger.”

  Ellie was having a hard time seeing what in Karen would seem “attractive” to her father—not that there was anything wrong with her fa
ce or figure, but the scowl she wore 24/7 wasn’t doing her any favors—but she let it go. Her mind was still reeling from the implications of what she’d learned. “Is it serious?” She wasn’t sure she wanted to know the answer.

  Her father shrugged. “It’s never serious until it is. Right now we’re just two people who enjoy each other’s company.”

  Ellie ventured into her next question as if she were stepping out gingerly onto the surface of a frozen lake. “Are you sleeping together?”

  “There hasn’t been much sleep involved,” he smirked.

  “Dad! Ewww!”

  “Well, you’re the one who asked. And even though I don’t see any reason to give you an answer, you’re my daughter and I know you’re asking from a place of love, so: Yes, we have had physical relations.”

  Ellie held up her hands in a plea for silence. She had already heard more than enough on this topic. “I’ll just assume that you’re using protection. And on that note, I’m going to bed.”

  He seemed surprised. “Really? You don’t want to talk about it?”

  “This is really uncomfortable for me, Dad. You just told me that you’re sleeping with a woman I work with. And, as it happens, this particular woman has been really mean to me. I’m going to need some time to process that information before I know how I feel about it.”

  Her father looked relieved. “OK, sweetheart. I understand. I just didn’t want to put off telling you any longer. There’s a point when avoiding the truth becomes a lie, and I didn’t want to let it go that far.”

  After a moment’s hesitation, she stepped back to the couch and gave him a one-armed hug. “I’m glad you told me, Dad,” she whispered, and then departed in the direction of her bedroom. She wondered if what she’d said was the truth. If her father and Karen kept seeing each other, then it was better now that she knew what was going on. But if they broke up soon, maybe it would have been better if she never knew. Would a nasty breakup just give her one more reason to hate a woman she’d probably be working with for the next several years?

  When she was a few steps short of her bedroom door, her phone buzzed in her pocket. She took it out to look at the screen, but she didn’t recognize the number of the person calling. She nearly decided to ignore the call, but then answered it.