Untrue Love Page 9

  When she paused the silence stretched so long that she started to grow uncomfortable. She had just opened her mouth, ready to add some other meaningless phrase onto what she had already said, when the man finally spoke.

  “No.”

  Ellie blinked, her mind not completely processing what she had heard. “No?” she repeated at last.

  “No.”

  Ellie took a deep breath, fighting for calm. “Why not?”

  “I don’t believe it’s in the university’s best interest,” the man said, his eyes flicking to the papers on his desk.

  Ellie refused to be dismissed so easily. “I respectfully disagree.”

  “And I respectfully don’t care. You have my answer.”

  Ellie gave up on her search for calm and embraced the anger that was already surging through her chest. “Why would you do that?” she demanded.

  “Do what?” the man said, seeming honestly surprised.

  “Why would you dismiss the idea out of hand, without even considering it?”

  “I did consider it.”

  “You did not consider it. You didn’t even come close. ‘Considering it’ would mean asking questions, exploring it, raising your objections and seeing whether I could answer them. At the very least it would mean pretending that you’re taking me seriously. You did none of those things.”

  The man considered her in silence for the space of two breaths, his head crooked to the side and his eyes boring into her with what Ellie found to be a truly disconcerting intensity. “I do not mean to be discourteous,” he said at last, choosing his words carefully. “Truly, I do not. And in the right place, at the right time, a conference like the one you describe might be just the thing that this school needs. But this is neither the right time nor the right place. And so I must beg your forgiveness, for I have pressing matters to attend to.”

  Ellie stared at him angrily, sparks veritably flashing from her eyes, but he gazed back at her impassively. Finally she stood and marched to the door. Desperately her mind was searching for something devastating to say to him before she slipped through the door, but all her mind could locate was rage and frustration. Without glancing behind her she swung the door open and stormed through.

  29

  KAREN JEFFERSON STOOD in line and prayed for patience. She was fifth in line at her favorite coffee shop, and the people in front of her seemed determined to make the wait interminable with endless questions about the varieties of teas available, the size of the various drinks, and whether the pastries were fresh. Karen did what she could to tune them out and focus on more pleasant matters, such as the burst of vitality she would feel when the first sip of her latte finally hit the back of her throat.

  “I never knew coffee could be so complicated,” said a man’s deep voice behind her, and Karen glanced at the speaker. He was about her age, though maybe a little older, and his belt was fighting valiantly to hold in a beer gut. Still, his eyes were kind and he was favoring Karen with the sort of smile that she hadn’t seen in a very long time.

  Still, she had a rule: don’t speak to strangers. “I always order the same thing,” she muttered by way of response. “I’m in and out, no time at all.”

  “Not like those jokers, eh?” he asked conspiratorially. “My favorite was the guy who’s allergic to wheat, nuts, and eggs, yet still insisted on asking about every one of the baked goods. You’re allergic to the world, buddy. No pastry for you.”

  A smile almost reached Karen’s lips, but not quite. The part of her that wanted a sympathetic ear was outweighed by the part that was irritated with this man for flirting with her.

  “Food allergies are not a joke,” she said, and immediately regretted it. She wanted to discourage her would-be conversation partner, but not at the cost of sounding humorless and pedantic.

  “Not a joke, I agree, if you actually have them,” the man said, undaunted. “But have you noticed how everyone is allergic to everything, all of a sudden? I lived most of my life without ever hearing about gluten, but now it’s practically a felony to order white toast with your breakfast.”

  Karen resisted the urge to mention genetically-modified wheat. The pleasure of contradicting him would run at cross-purposes to the larger goal of convincing him to stop talking to her.

  She was now second in line, and mentally began rehearsing her drink order. She always ordered the same thing, but somehow she had never managed to rid herself of the irrational fear that she would fumble her order in front of a barista’s shaming gaze.

  “I can remember when a good cup of coffee was black liquid in a white cup. You’d get it at a diner to wash down whatever you were eating for lunch. Those were simpler days.”

  “Simpler, and with worse coffee,” Karen said despite her best intentions to freeze him out. “In the old days, coffee was pretty bad. We didn’t even know that it was supposed to be good.”

  He chuckled. “True enough. Does it have to cost so much, though? Three dollars for a cup of coffee? How is that even possible? Are they giving individual massages to the coffee beans before they grind them?”

  At last it was Karen’s turn, and she put in her order. For a time she enjoyed some peace while the man behind her placed his own order, but then he joined her at the counter where customers waited for their orders.

  “The worst of it is the choice. Before, you had two choices: regular and decaf. Once you made that decision, the only other thing to decide was how much of it to drink, and whether you wanted cream and sugar. Now, with all these beans from different parts of the world, and the different styles that they make the coffee, and then maybe you’d like it as an iced drink, or do you want whipped cream on top? It’s too much. How do I know that I’m ordering the best thing? The only way I could possibly know for sure would be to try everything on the menu, and that would take years and leave me so hyper-caffeinated that my heart would explode.”

  Karen simply watched him talk, with a bemused look on her face. Clearly this was a man who enjoyed speaking and was fully invested in his hobby. She could no more stop him than she could convince the rain to fall upwards into the sky.

  Finally her latte was ready, and she gave the man a parting smile as she snagged the paper cup and headed to the door. Outside on the sidewalk, she savored the silence until it was broken again.

  “Do you mind if I walk with you?” the man asked, smiling over the brim of his coffee. “It’s such a nice day, and I enjoy your company. Let me walk you to wherever you’re going, and then I promise I’ll let you go.”

  Karen heaved a sigh and set off down the sidewalk, her new admirer in her wake.

  30

  IT SEEMED LIKE forever before Jackson picked up.

  “Hello?” He sounded tired.

  “Idiots! They’re all goddamned idiots!” Ellie was standing on the tree-lined street that stood outside her nemesis’ office. A man in a business suit gave her a started glance but she ignored him.

  She heard Jackson sigh. “What is it now, Ellie?”

  She was on the brink of tears. She fought the emotion down until she could be confident that her voice would not waver or crack. “I had it all worked out, Jackson. I had a way to make everything better. And all I needed was for one person to say yes, and because he’s a miserable son of a bitch he wouldn’t do it.”

  “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

  Ellie rolled her eyes. “That’s because there’s a lot I haven’t told you yet, because I didn’t want to say anything until it was all final. But now everything sucks.”

  She waited for a response but got only silence. “Jackson? Are you even listening to me?”

  “Of course I am,” he said, sounding impatient. “And I’m sorry that you didn’t get what you wanted, but I don’t see what you expect me to do about it.”

  Ellie shrugged expansively. “I don’t know. I expect you to care, maybe.”

  “I do care. I really do,” Jackson said, his voice softening. “I’m sorry that you’
re having a hard time, baby, and it kills me that you’re all the way over there. I wish I could be there for you. I wish I could hold you right now.”

  “Oh, Jackson,” Ellie sighed, and the tears were close again. “How many days until you’ll be here? How many days until you’re getting on a plane?”

  There was an uncomfortable pause. “Dammit,” Jackson muttered. “I didn’t want to tell you this way.”

  “Tell me what?” Ellie asked, a hollow feeling in her gut.

  “I’m not going to be able to come for Thanksgiving.”

  “Jackson, no!”

  “I really wanted to. I had it all planned. But then I heard from my publisher. They need changes to the galleys by the first of December. So if I did come I’d just spend the whole time working anyway.”

  “I don’t care! Come and work in my place. I love watching you work. You get the cutest little furrowed brow when you’re thinking about big problems.”

  “I think it would be better if I don’t.”

  “But you have to come! Jackson, I’ve been waiting for this for so long. I was really looking forward to seeing you.”

  He sighed loudly. “Me too, baby. And I hate that it’s been so long since we’ve seen each other. But if I can just get these last few revisions out the door, when I’m there for Christmas I’ll be able to give you my full attention. Won’t that be better?”

  Ellie’s mind searched for a counter-argument that wasn’t there. “This time you promise, right? No excuses. You’ll be here for Christmas.”

  “I’ll be there. We’ll cuddle beneath the blankets for warmth against the midwestern cold. I’ll make vin chaud, just like we had in Paris.”

  Ellie smiled at the memory. She and Jackson had spent a perfect few weeks in Paris a few years before. She could still taste the spices they mixed into the hot wine that was sold in Christmas Village stalls near the Champs-Elysées. “That sounds nice,” she murmured. The cold wind blowing leaves down the street even reminded her of Paris a little bit.

  “It’s a date. And now I’ve gotta go. I miss you, babe.”

  “I love you,” Ellie said, hoping the words didn’t sound petulant and needy. She hated sounding needy even when she felt that way.

  “I love you too,” he said in the husky murmur that always went straight to her heart. And then he was gone.

  For several breaths Ellie stood silently, staring at the red and orange leaves on the trees without really seeing them. Her mind was a confusing jumble of emotions. She still felt the anger and frustration from that infuriating meeting with the trustee. And then there was disappointment, sharp and acute, that Jackson would not be visiting as soon as she had expected. But underneath that, small but growing stronger every moment, was a new note of determination.

  She set off at a brisk walk down the sidewalk, pulling her thin coat tight against the chill. If one trustee didn’t like her plan, there were others who might like it more. Paul Kingston was just one man, and Philip Baptiste was another. If there was one thing that she had learned, it was that two men could be set against each other in ways that could get her exactly what she wanted.

  First, though, she needed to find out what was going on with a third man in her life.

  31

  WHEN SHE GOT home, she found her father camped out on the gray sofa in her living room. Ellie chose not to say anything about the fact that his feet were propped up on the arm of the sofa, and tried not to think about what might be encrusted on the bottom of his battered jogging shoes.

  She pulled a chair up in front of him and took away the Sports Illustrated he was reading. “Dad, we’re going to talk now.”

  “OK,” he said, casting her a wary look. “What do you want to talk about?”

  “Well, for starters, why are you here?”

  “I told you. I wanted to see my little girl.”

  “And now you’ve seen her! Mission accomplished. So why are you still here?”

  He scowled unconvincingly. “Is it so wrong for a father to want to spend time with his daughter? Particularly when she’s all on her own in a new city?”

  “Oh no,” she said, shaking her heard firmly. “You are not going to make this about me. We are going to talk about why you, after years and years of being little more than a voice on the other end of the phone, have now apparently decided to live on my couch indefinitely. What’s up, Dad?”

  He sighed. “I suppose I have overstayed my welcome.”

  “You are always welcome, Dad, but the price of admission is honesty. So tell me why you’re here.”

  “Sue Ellen,” he said simply.

  It took a while for Ellie to place the name. “Your girlfriend?”

  Her father winced at the term. “She’s not my girlfriend. We had an arrangement.”

  Ellie snorted. “How romantic. So what happened to this ‘arrangement’ of yours?”

  Her father looked like he had a bad taste in his mouth. “I was happy with the way things were going. Sue Ellen was not. She wanted to get married.”

  “And you didn’t.”

  “I don’t love her! And I’m pretty sure she doesn’t love me, either. She’s just afraid of being alone, and I can understand that. But it still doesn’t seem to me like a very good reason to get married.”

  Ellie nodded in agreement, but she still didn’t have her explanation. “So what does this have to do with you sleeping on my couch?”

  “Well, I was staying at Sue Ellen’s place at the time.”

  “Why weren’t you at the cabin?”

  “Bugs. Termites, to be precise, and apparently some sort of beetle. I don’t remember what the exterminator called it. I’m getting the place fumigated, and they were supposed to be done with the job weeks ago, but something went wrong that delayed the fumigation process, which means I can’t go back there yet. In the meantime, with Sue Ellen angry at me, I don’t have any place to stay.”

  Ellie sighed. “Which is how you showed up at my door.”

  Her father nodded guiltily. “It is, and I’m sorry that I didn’t level with you, honey. I was just embarrassed about it. I was living in sin with a woman who kicked me out when I refused to marry her. That didn’t make me feel very good about myself when I stopped to think about it, and I didn’t very much like the idea of telling you what a louse I’ve been. I didn’t want to see how disappointed you are in me.”

  Ellie rolled her eyes. “Dad, I’m not disappointed in you. So you lived with a person of the opposite sex to whom you weren’t married! Guess what I was doing as recently as four months ago.”

  “Yes, but—”

  “But nothing. We’re not talking about that anymore. Thank you for the explanation, although I guess you never considered staying with Sarah?”

  “She’s got a good thing going with Brad, and I didn’t want to be a third wheel.”

  Ellie chuckled ruefully. “And I’m all alone, so there’s no risk that you might mess up my social life. You can’t destroy something that doesn’t exist in the first place.” Her father looked so guilty that she had to smile. She waved at him dismissively. “You’re not wrong, Dad. But Jackson is going to be here for Christmas, and if you’re still sleeping on my couch in December I will personally throw your stuff out the window.”

  He sat up and leaned forward to hug her. “That’s fair, sweetie,” he said into her hair. “I’ll be out of here in no time. Another couple weeks, tops.”

  Ellie hugged him back, relieved that he couldn’t see the dismay that crossed her face when she thought about the weeks to come.

  32

  FOR MOST OF her life, Ellie had been content not to care which direction the wind was blowing. Now that she was walking a big dog twice a day, she had learned to stay upwind of him when he was sniffing for a place to poop. She didn’t know what was going on inside that dog’s digestive tract, but the stuff that came out smelled like something that had been dead and rotting for days.

  “This is a quality institution,” she was sayi
ng into the iPhone in her left hand while her right hand clung to the leash. “But no one knows about it! If we can get some attention focused on this campus, there’s no telling what the outcome might be. Better students enrolling, better candidates applying for openings, maybe even a higher success rate with grant applications. Reputation is everything.”

  “You don’t need to convince me of that,” said the warm, smooth voice on the other end. Ellie didn’t know Philip Baptiste very well, but she already knew that the trustee gave good phone. “My business has depended on reputation since day one.”

  “So you can appreciate the opportunity we have,” Ellie pressed, hoping that she didn’t sound too eager. “It won’t take much to dramatically raise the profile of this school.”

  “Not much besides money, I imagine,” Philip said, sounding amused.

  Ellie was careful to keep her voice level. “It’s an investment, Philip. Can I call you Philip?”

  “I won’t be happy until you do. And yes, I understand the value of an investment, though there is some due diligence we need to perform before committing to anything.”

  The first feelings of excitement began to kindle in Ellie’s chest. Reflexively her hand tightened on the leather leash. “But you’ll consider it?”

  “I’ll consider it carefully, you have my word on it. I’m looking forward to working with you on this, actually. You’ve already proven yourself a remarkable addition to the faculty, and I can see that even better days lie ahead.”

  Ellie smiled happily. She knew flattery when she heard it, but that didn’t mean that she couldn’t enjoy it. After several moments of sniffing, Usher had finally chosen the right place to relieve himself and was squatting carefully over a patch of grass. Ellie held the phone beneath her chin and shoulder while she fished a plastic bag out of her pocket. “That’s what I do. When I see a problem, I look for a way to fix it,” she said.

  “I thought we were talking about an opportunity. Now you say the university is a problem that needs solving?”