And what was worse, she hadn’t heard from Jack all week! Not a call, not a text and definitely no special delivery of a plane ticket. She contemplated buying her own ticket and heading up there. She was still trying to find Emerson Watson, after all. So she could go up there, try to track down the man just like she had that first weekend. But in the end, she didn’t do any of it. Nor did she call Jack or text him in any way. She was feeling strange, as if he didn’t want to have anything to do with her. She was trying to respect that, but it still hurt. A lot.
So when her door buzzed Friday evening, she was standing in her kitchen, holding a quart sized container of cherry vanilla ice cream and a spoon, trying to drown her sorrows with the creamy confection. She’d even found a six pack of Alagash White beer at a specialty store, but tonight was a merlot night.
The only two people that would show up at her apartment door unannounced were Nikki and Brianna. As she carried the ice cream over to the doorway, she tried to feel better, knowing that her friends would know how to cheer her up.
“I’m sorry I haven’t…” she stopped mid-sentence when her eyes took in the enormous, magnificent form of Jack standing in her doorway. His eyes went from her head down her body and stopped on the ice cream in her hands.
“Miss me?” he asked with a growing smile.
He didn’t wait for an answer. Instead, he simply stepped into her apartment and took her into his arms. “You smell incredible,” he told her, taking the ice cream and spoon out of her hands and setting it on the counter.
By the time she remembered to put it back in the freezer several hours later, it was a melted mess. But she dumped it into the garbage with a smile on her face.
They spent the weekend touring around the Washington, D.C. area and Rachel couldn’t believe how happy she was to just be in his company. When she stopped to think about it, that reality worried her but she couldn’t stop this bubble of happiness just being around him.
She took him to her favorite place, the zoo, and introduced him to the various animals. She loved the seals and walruses the most, loved the rock “theatre” they’d built so the guests could sit down and watch the antics of the fascinating animals. But she showed him all the wonderful animals. They ate popcorn and laughed at the monkeys and gorillas, and enjoyed ice cream while observing the lions and tigers. Then they went back to her apartment and spent the rest of the afternoon and evening in bed, making love until Sunday morning arrived.
“I have to leave early today,” he told her as his hand smoothed up and down her arm.
She didn’t like the sound of that. “Why can’t you stay through this afternoon?” she asked, leaning back so she could see his face.
“I have to meet some people.”
“New jobs?” she asked, excited for him. She knew from experience that the construction business was slow at times; a construction worker always had to be on the lookout for another job.
“In a way,” he said. He thought about admitting who he was, but he’d been enjoying her company too much. And she accepted him as just Jack. Talked to him, laughed with him and made love to him as Jack. Not as someone who could further her career.
“Come back with me. I saw the look on your face when you answered the door Friday night and you hated the idea of going back to work last Monday. Admit it, Rachel,” he coaxed gently. “You’re not happy.”
She pulled out of his arms, biting her lip to keep herself from agreeing with him. He was right. The idea of going back to the office tomorrow morning actually made her stomach feel a little sick. But she’d come this far. She could make it all the way. She just had to work harder, be smarter. “I can’t,” she told him firmly.
He watched her step into the shower, feeling frustrated that she was being so obstinate. Following right behind her, he stepped into the water with her, taking the shampoo out of her hands to wash her hair for her. “Could you at least explain why you’re wasting your life doing something you hate?”
“Can’t we just leave it alone?” she begged, fighting back the tears? His hands felt so good and she loved being in his company. Probably too much, she thought. This relationship couldn’t go anywhere. Why was she prolonging her time with him when she should be focusing on her goals?
She rinsed her hair quickly, stepping out of the shower. She needed space to discuss this. Being close to Jack only made her mind turn to mush. Stepping out of the shower, she dried off while he finished showering, looking at herself in the mirror. So what if she looked miserable? It wasn’t because she hated her job. It was because….well, it was because….
She slipped her arms into her robe, spinning around to glare at him. “What do you know about what I need in life?”
He grabbed one of her fluffy towels, drying off as well, before following her out of the bathroom. Pulling on his jeans that had been laying over the chair of her dressing table, he wouldn’t relent on his argument. “I know that you’re miserable. And if you keep this up, you’re going to die a slow, cheerless death. I know that you’d be much better off with me!”
She was shaking with the effort to keep herself from screaming at him. “You don’t know what I need!” she said furiously.
“So explain it to me!” he shot right back at her, not letting her get away with these vague innuendoes about her life any longer.
“You want me to simply quit my job and come up to Maine, be a carpenter’s wife?” She snorted with derision. “I won’t do that! I won’t put my family through that!”
“You mean you don’t trust me to have enough money to take care of us, is that it?” he asked, stunned by her perception of him.
She realized how insulting she sounded, but she couldn’t help it. She’d lived through that life once before and she couldn’t do it again. “I know you’re very popular around Cape Elizabeth, and people probably beg you to work for them. But I’m sorry, Jack. I simply can’t live paycheck to paycheck. I won’t. I did it growing up so I know how wretched that kind of a life can be. There were too many weeks when there wasn’t a paycheck.” She turned her back on him, too embarrassed by her past to let him see how much it all bothered her. “There were nights when we didn’t have dinner because there wasn’t any money to buy food. Then there were the nights when we might have had dinner if we’d been able to get into town to reach one of the church centers that gave out free meals, but there wasn’t any money to put gas into the car to drive there or the car was broken down without any funds to buy parts to fix it.” She shook her head, her shoulders drooping as she remembered the hardship she’d gone through as a child. “I can’t do that. I think I’m….” she started to say that she was in love with him, but stopped herself just in time. “I care for you very deeply,” she finally said. “But I can’t just drop everything I have here and move to Maine with you. I want a family. I want children.”