She couldn’t figure it out. What was she supposed to do? People were going to ask. They already were. Polite questions. How is your young man, Abigail? I understand they’re recording again. That had been made public a while ago, so Abby didn’t feel guilty about her mother dropping the information into the Art Institute Luncheon.
But that was the kind of thing she needed to know. She understood that she was the pretend-girlfriend, but she wanted to be the informed pretend-girlfriend, so that she wouldn’t look foolish telling someone that Nick was in California if he was really in Atlanta or England or who-knew-where. He didn’t need to know anything about her daily routine or whereabouts. No one was going to be asking him about her. And if they did, he could lie to his heart’s content. Nothing she did made the newspapers or the Internet.
The little seed of doubt irritated her all day like a grain of sand in an oyster and by five o’clock she had a big, whopping pearl of anger and resentment.
Dear Nick,
I hope this finds you well and you haven’t really dropped off the face of the earth, as it appears
No, don’t start out like that. You don’t really have the right to be angry, remember.
Dear Nick,
I hope this finds you well. I am fine, which you would know if you bothered to write and ask, you heartless beast!!
Backspace, backspace, backspace. Abby laughed as she deleted the comment and all her anger with it.
Dear Nick,
I hope this finds you well. I was wondering if you would mind giving me some idea of what your plans are…for traveling and such…for when people ask. Maybe there is a website where I could get the information. So far I’ve said that you are in California. I don’t need a lot of details. General location will do.
Abby
Abby was tempted to ‘break up’ with him. Dear Nick, this isn’t working. It’s going to blow up in both our faces. Goodbye.
But she didn’t. She found that she enjoyed being known as Nick’s girlfriend in the small world of her mother’s friends. And Nick was right. The pressure was off. No one was trying to fix her up with dates anymore. She was taken. Men could now acknowledge her presence in a room without fear that her mother would swoop down with a veil and a wedding ring. She noticed a difference in people’s general attitudes too. It had been the same with Philip. She was treated with more respect. She felt like less of a loser. And even though this was just pretend, she liked not being quite so much of a loser.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~Tuesday’s workout was even harder than Monday’s. Nick was stiff and sore from the day before. He growled and whined his way through every exercise. Luke wanted to laugh out loud, but he didn’t. He maintained his tough demeanor and demanded to know what Nick had eaten the day before. Nick informed him and meekly confessed to having a beer.
“One beer won’t kill you,” said Luke. “And you gotta live. That’s how most people gain weight. They go on a diet that’s so restrictive that they hate it and then they say ‘to hell with this’ and they pig out. You just have to watch what you eat. Eat smaller portions. Leave that last pizza slice in the box.” He noticed Nick blushing. He had no idea how much he had hit the nail on the head. “I know we were taught by our mothers to clean our plate. Starving children in Africa and all that.”
Nick nodded sheepishly. He’d had that exact speech from his mother more than once.
“Change your habits,” lectured Luke, “but change them slowly. If you’re used to eating junk food four times a week, cut it down to two, then one. Stay away from the bread basket in restaurants. Most people eat that bread out of boredom or nervousness if they’re with someone they don’t know, like on a first date or something. They don’t eat it out of hunger, but because it’s there.”
Nick nodded. He knew all this. “As long as I have someone there to watch me, I behave,” he admitted. “It’s when I’m on my own that I have no self-control. I guess I need to have someone with me at all times just to tell me to stop eating.”
“I guess a guy with your money could buy anything but that seems a little extravagant to me,” laughed Luke. “Okay, enough talk, here, take this skipping rope.”
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~Nick dragged himself into the house. Jeez, these workouts were going to kill him. He had to admit, though, to a sense of satisfaction that he had survived them. He felt good. He wanted someone to notice, to pat him on the head.
On the way home, he’d sort of figured it out. He needed a cook or something. Mrs. Marchesa had always said she would make meals. That’s what he needed. Meals that were already made. Here you go, Nick. Just heat and eat. Don’t have to defrost and bake and wait for 70 damn minutes for a frozen lasagna. Here’s a fresh one, made today. And salad. Lots of salad. That was something he’d never make on his own. The closest he’d ever come to doing something like that was munching on a carrot while he stood looking into the open refrigerator. Then he’d closed the door and ordered a pizza.
“Miz Marchesa,” he called out. He wanted to let her know he was home. He didn’t want to sneak up on her and frighten her. He had done that once, inadvertently, and had scared the poor woman half to death.
“I’m in the kitchen, Senor Nick,” came the reply.
Nick went into the kitchen where Mrs. Marchesa stood at the counter eating a sandwich. She offered to make him one and he accepted. Then he put forth his proposal.
“If you don’t mind me saying so, Senor Nick, it’s about time. You need to start taking care of yourself. You need to eat right and get in shape and find a good girl for yourself.” Mrs. Marchesa’s opinion of Ronni didn’t vary much from Mary’s.
Nick remembered that he had found a good girl. “Mrs. Marchesa, when you unpacked my luggage, did you find a computer?”
“Si, si, I put it in the cabinet, with all the video games. I figured you’d find it very soon.”
Nick laughed. He couldn’t believe that he’d been home almost a whole week and he hadn’t gone near his video games. He’d been too busy being a grown-up. “Thanks, Mrs. M.”
They talked about meals and what he would want. Nick said that if this was going to be a lot of extra work, he would give her a raise, but the housekeeper demurred. She’d like to think she was doing something to earn the generous salary he was already paying her.
Nick finished his sandwich and thanked his housekeeper again. He wandered into the living room and found the computer. He flipped it open and turned it on. A blinking icon told him that his battery was low. Nick fished around in the carrying case and came up with the power cord. He’d have to recharge it. Now where would be the best spot? Where would he mostly be using it? He didn’t have any room that remotely resembled an office.
Nick thought back to the weekend that he had ‘visited’ Chicago, how much fun he had had sitting in the middle of the bed with his notes and his computer, hanging out with Abby. Yeah, maybe the bedroom. He carried the computer upstairs and plugged in the power cord. The outlet wasn’t close enough to the bed that he could use the computer when it was plugged in, so he decided to let the thing really recharge before he started. He set the computer on the edge of his dresser and went back downstairs.
Nick grabbed the yellow pad and finished the inventory of the living room. While going through the video games, he discovered a couple of old favorites that he hadn’t played for awhile. So he lowered his long body onto the black leather sofa and gave his thumbs the same kind of workout that Luke had given the rest of his body earlier. When he finally took a pause, he realized that it was after five o’clock. The computer should be charged by now.
He wandered into the kitchen to get a beer. On the counter was a detailed note telling him how to heat up the meal that Mrs. Marchesa had prepared for him. God knows where she got the ingredients, Nick mused. He heated up the dinner and ate it all. It was delicious. The trick now, he said to himself, is to get up and walk away. You’ve eaten. You’re done. Never mind foraging for cookies or whatever. Walk away.
Nick grabbed a beer. He’d had water with his dinner and was feeling like he’d earned this beer. He climbed the stairs to his bedroom. It wasn’t even seven o’clock. What was he doing? Was this what it meant to be a grown-up?
He unplugged the computer and settled on the bed. Abby was two hours ahead of him now, instead of one behind. So it was…nine o’clock in Chicago. He wondered if she would be online. She wasn’t. But she had sent him an email. Today. He pondered that for a moment before he opened it.
He had gone a whole week without contacting her. He had thought about it in passing, but it hadn’t seemed urgent. He wondered if she felt the same way. Had she spent the last week waiting to hear from him? Was she upset or angry? Had she finally broken down after waiting in vain for him to contact her?
Could you just get over yourself? he wondered. Man, what an ego I’ve got. Abby isn’t any more interested in me than I am in her. Having said that to himself, he clicked open the email. But he turned off the Instant Messenger first.
He read the email carefully, searching for nuances. She didn’t seem angry. It was very businesslike. And she had a point. There was stuff she needed to know. Like the house. She needed to know about the house.
Hey, Abby!
It was good to hear from you. How’s it going? I’ve been busy. I went out on my boat for a few days, just to unwind and get my head together again. I went with Troy. We go way back.
I’m not doing much of anything for the next couple of weeks. I’m having daily training sessions with this guy. The Terminator! Remember how I said I whined through workouts? He doesn’t like that. I think I’m going to stop. LOL!
I’m thinking of selling my house. Maybe you need to know that. That’s the kind of thing that gets out there. Man, when AJ sold his, it was a zoo. So I thought I’d let you know. If anyone asks, I’m selling it because it’s too big. I don’t know if I’m going to get another place here or not. If we’re going on tour, it doesn’t make much sense. Maybe I’ll just do the rent thing until I decide. Or I could move to Chicago. LOL!!
Take care, and maybe you’d better tell me what you’re doing,
Nick
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~Abby was writing. Princess Penelope had gotten herself into a terrible scrape and Abby was trying to get her out of it. She was loving every minute of this, even though the second story didn’t come as easily as the first. The first one had flowed out of her after the initial shift from melodrama to comedy. The second one was taking longer. There was more focus on plot, and less on establishing the character. Abby figured that anyone reading the second one would already have read the first and would know who Princess Penelope was.
Oh, for God’s sakes, listen to yourself, she laughed quietly. As if anyone is going to read these. They are just for the children. She fished her notebook out of her bag. She had purchased a stenographer’s notepad, one of those small ruled pads with a wire coil along the top. She wondered if there really were stenographers any more.
Throughout the day, whenever a thought struck her for her story, Abby would grab the notepad and write it down. She had actually excused herself in the middle of her tennis match the day before and walked over to her gym bag. She rubbed her leg and bent and stretched and then reached into the bag. Abby turned her back on her opponent so that he couldn’t see what she was doing. She scrawled, “behind the tapestry” on her notepad and dumped it back into the bag. Then she walked back out on the court, apologizing for the delay. Her opponent’s hope that maybe she had lost a little of her edge was dashed as the evil Archduke Bunion came blazing over the net.
Ping! You’ve got mail!
Abby lifted her fingers from the keyboard and sat back in her chair. She had left her email program open in the background…just in case. And now she was afraid to go there. She typed another half sentence and then stopped. Aw, hell! She minimized Princess Penelope and opened the email. She read it carefully. Hmmm…out on the boat…she’d been right about that… still keeping up with the training…good for him. Without even realizing it, Abby reached up and tucked her hair behind her ears. Selling his house…yes, that was the kind of thing she did need to know. The words ‘move to Chicago’ sent a thrill through her that she did not like and she shook her head angrily at herself.
Maybe you’d better tell me what you’re doing. She looked at that sentence for a long time. It meant that he wanted to continue the charade. It also meant that he didn’t care what she was doing and that disappointed her a little. He didn’t say,’ So what have you been up to?’ or ‘I want to know what’s going on in your world’. It was complete indifference with a need-to-know. Maybe you’d better tell me…
Dear Nick,
Thank you for your email.
Screw that! She wasn’t going to thank him for waiting a week to write and then only doing it because she’d done it first.
Dear Nick,
It was good to hear from you.
She reached for the backspace button and then stopped. It was good to hear from him.
Dear Nick,
It was good to hear from you. I was afraid your trainer had killed you.
No, no, no.
Dear Nick,
I’m glad to hear that you got some time on your boat with your friend. It’s nice you got to relax before you met The Terminator. And that whining thing was a pretty bad habit anyway. It’s good that you’re letting that go. LOL!
You selling your house is exactly the kind of information that I need. You’d be surprised (or maybe not!) how much people know about you. I’m going to have to open a file and make notes. LOL!!
As for me, I’ve started back to school. LOL! I volunteer two mornings a week in a class for hearing-impaired children. (It’s Mondays and Wednesdays, but I don’t think you need to know that.) Tuesday and Thursday afternoons I’m at the Children’s Hospital. In between all that, I play tennis and attend committee meetings for various charity functions, which will all be getting going again now that summer is over.
And I’ve started to write. I wrote a story.
Abby stopped. Then she carefully deleted the last two sentences. Her writing wasn’t important. He didn’t need to know about that. And she wasn’t ready to tell him. She re-read the message and realized that she hadn’t included a question to make him write back. While she was trying to think of one, Princess Penelope figured out a way to get out of the throne room without being seen, and demanded that Abby write it down. So she simply signed off the message with her name and hit Send. He could write back or not. Up to him.
