Operation Mail-Order Bride (5 page)

“I don’t believe it!” He slammed the phone down. “Janine and Ed can’t make it tonight.”

“What’s wrong?” I asked from the hallway, where I was running the carpet sweeper. We were expecting them for an evening of bridge.

“That was Ed,” he explained. “Amy’s being a bitch, so they’ve cancelled the sitter and won’t be coming.”

I frowned at his use of the epithet. “Don’t you think you’re expecting a lot? Amy’s only four.”

“Don’t
you
understand? She’s being a bitch about something she should have gotten over by now, and ruining our evening!”

I continued sweeping the carpet as I thought this over. Could he actually be this demanding of a young child? If we married and had a family, would I have to act as a buffer between my children and their father? I was positive I wouldn’t like that a bit.

I reviewed these incidents and others as I plodded along the dusty roadside. The problem was that Blair quickly formed firm notions about the people who came into his life. His opinions were usually favorable, but as soon as the person deviated from that ideal, he or she toppled off the pedestal. I was sure that, if I hadn’t fallen already, my position was growing more and more shaky.

I looked up. With relief, I saw the convenience store, shaded by a windbreak of willows and cottonwoods.
A few commuters were in the lot, topping up their cars’ tanks or idling over cold soft drinks. They watched as I approached. I strode to a group in the shade and addressed them.

“Do any of you know a good mechanic?”

“There’s a fella inside,” one of them answered, gesturing toward the building with his Seven-Up. “I take it you’re broke down.”

“I am.”

“Come on. I’ll introduce you.”

A short time later I was making a business arrangement with a young man whose not-quite-clean fingernails proclaimed his profession. I had tried the pay phone but it was out of order, and the clerk inside apologetically told me she wasn’t allowed to let customers use the business phone. An hour and a half and a new fan belt later, I resumed my trip to Blair’s.

I tapped on his door for more than five minutes when the door behind me opened.

“Cassie?” It was Cheri, Don’s wife. I turned to her with relief, but when I took in her strained, almost frightened expression, I was filled with dismay. “Blair’s not home,” she told me. “He left about an hour ago, slamming the door and talking to himself. He left some of his tire tread on the street when he peeled out.”

“Talking to himself? Could you hear what he was saying?”

She looked pained. “Something about how he wasn’t going to put up with it anymore.” Her eyes wandered over me, taking in the dried sweat on my face and the dust on my jeans legs and shoes. “Your car broke down, didn’t it?”

“Yes.” I was grateful that she understood. “I had a long walk and the phone was out when I reached it. I got here as soon as I could.”

“He ought to understand that,” Cheri agreed. “He’s pretty mad right now, though.”

“There’s no telling how long he’ll stay that way. I guess our date’s been cancelled.”

I rummaged in my purse until I found a piece of paper and a pen. I scribbled a note of apology with a promise to call later, squatted, and slid the note under Blair’s door. Standing up, I wished Cheri goodnight and told her I would probably see her later.

“I’m sure this will blow over, Cassie,” she reassured me. “Have a good weekend.”

After I got home and changed, I fixed an omelette and turned on the radio. The rock oldies station was starting a weekend marathon of hits from my high school days and I reflected that I could have picked a worse weekend to quarrel with my boyfriend. At least I’d have decent music to listen to as I waited between attempts to phone Blair.

That’s exactly what I did, that evening and the next. When I wasn’t holding the receiver, listening to it ring on his end, I puttered about in my small house, tidying and cleaning. I realized that Blair was punishing me by making himself unavailable, but when he didn’t turn up at church Sunday morning, I began to worry.

“Where’s Blair?” several people asked me after the service. I had to admit that I did not know.

When the service was over, I headed for Blair’s apartment, praying he was all right.

His car was not there. I ascended the stairs with dread. Had he wrecked his car after he left Friday night, fuming at my tardiness? The thought of him lying in a hospital bed, with no one aware of his plight, upset me. Even if he was behaving childishly he didn’t deserve that.

When Blair didn’t answer my knocks, I turned to Don and Cheri’s. I heard footsteps, then Don opened the door.

“Don, has Blair been home at all this weekend?”

“Yes, Cassie,” he said, nodding, “and he left for church a little while ago.”

I started to protest that he had never arrived there, then stopped. He must have decided to attend services at a different church in order to avoid seeing me.

I returned to my car and drove home. I wasn’t going to leave Blair any more messages, either written or verbal. I didn’t want to force Don and Cheri to be middlemen in our dispute. I decided to stop trying to call as well. Blair would get in touch with me when he was ready.

Days passed. I put in long hours at the magazine trying to get caught up, and went home to solitary meals, followed by marathons of long-postponed letter-writing. I began to see that by talking myself into believing I was in love with
Blair, I had given up some parts of my life that I enjoyed. He strove to fill every hour of every weekend with social activities. While I enjoyed getting to know him and his friends, I had done so at the expense of staying in touch with my distant friends and my family. I was usually too tired to write them on weeknights after work. I sensed early that Blair resented any time I spent on private matters on the weekends, when he knew I was free to spend my time with him.

Talked myself into believing I was in love with him.
Yes, that was an accurate description of what I had done, and I had pursued the illusion by quitting a good job, leaving all my friends and family and moving halfway across the country. Now that the fairy tale was ending, I regretted placing so little value on all that was good about my life.

Two weeks after my car broke down and Blair made himself scarce, he called.

“We need to talk, Cassie.” His voice sounded cold. “Would you meet me at Kelly’s for coffee?”

An hour later, I entered the venerable old bar and grill that had become one of our haunts and got a table in one of the bow windows.

I sipped coffee as I waited. The usual Friday night activities in the midwestern college town went on around me as dusk fell and the street lights brightened, casting yellow pools on the street and sidewalk. After about forty-five minutes, I saw Blair’s car pass. He parked and hurried toward the door. I waved him over when he entered. His flustered look and beads of sweat on his brow told me that his plans had gone wrong, and I felt relieved. My mental picture of him sitting in his easy chair with his feet propped on the ottoman, looking at his watch and chortling vengefully because it was
my
turn to wait, faded.

“I’m sorry, Cassie,” he said. “Just as I was climbing into the car, there was a wreck down the street. It blocked the intersection and I couldn’t get out until ten minutes ago!” Blair’s street was a cul-de-sac.

“Was anyone hurt?”

“One of the passengers was bleeding from a cut on her head. She didn’t want anyone to call the paramedics; said she would go to the emergency room.”

The waitress came and filled the coffee cup she placed for Blair earlier and freshened mine. When she left, I began, “I am sorry I stood you up two weeks ago, Blair. I would never have done that to you on purpose.”

“I know.” He was looking down at his hands, idle on the tablecloth. I watched him through the steam from my cup and waited. “I found out tonight how easily it can happen.”

I frowned. “Blair, tell me something. Before this evening, have your plans ever gone wrong, because of circumstances you couldn’t control, so that other people were inconvenienced?”

He thought for a moment. “No. I may have forgotten, but I think tonight is the first time this has ever happened to me.”

“Not even when you were a kid?”

“No, I truly don’t remember this ever happening before.”

“You seem to have led a very simple life.” Or maybe, I thought, he hadn’t done enough in his life for many things to go wrong. Or maybe—and this thought chilled me—he controlled all the aspects of his life so firmly that things rarely had a chance to go wrong. “Anyway,” I went on, “you said you wanted to talk.”

“Yes.” He finally tasted his coffee, then put the cup down. He appeared to be thinking very hard. “I was really angry when you didn’t show up or call that evening, Cassie, so angry I could barely think. I know—
” he raised a hand as if to delay my protest, but I wasn’t protesting. I waited to hear him out. “I know you would have called if it had been possible. I talked to Don and Cheri, and I read your note.

“My anger was out of all proportion to what happened, and that started me thinking. I’m not sure we belong together, Cassie. In fact, if I’m honest with myself and with you, I’m sure we don’t.”

My foreboding that Blair was working up to a breakup appeared to be accurate. “Is it something I’m doing that I can stop?” I asked. “Or, something I’m neglecting to do that I can start? All you have to do is tell me, you know.”

He met my eyes then for the first time since sitting. My breath stopped. I had never seen him look so sorrowful. He shook his head.

“No, nothing like that. You’re a good person, Cassie, a wonderful woman. Compared to you, my last girlfriend was a selfish bitch, totally absorbed in her own needs. Still, I loved her and I was devastated when she left me. I guess I still love her, after all this time.” He paused and took a deep breath. “I don’t love you. I don’t think I ever will. It’s not the sort of thing you can learn.”

I stared at him from what felt like the center of a dark, silent void. All the other sounds in the bar—the laughter and music, the talk from nearby tables—faded. All I could hear was Blair’s voice saying “I don’t love you,” echoing in my mind.

I forced myself to breathe and clutched the edge of my chair with shaking hands, grateful for the tablecloth that hid them. I didn’t trust them to pick up the coffee cup. I was afraid I would drop it.

You swine,
I chided silently.
You cowardly swine. You arranged this meeting in a public place on one of the most crowded nights of the week so I’d be less likely to make a scene.
Aloud, I said, “It sounds as if our affair was nothing more than a way for you to find out if your love for this other woman was for real.”

He flinched. “It isn’t that I don’t think you’re bright enough to be a good match for me.” He seemed determined to flounder on and I decided not to stop him. “In fact, there have been times when I thought you were too bright.” He laughed briefly and without humor. “A lot of it is that I never got the feeling you respected me, Cassie, and I think I deserved at least that much from you.”

I reminded myself that tossing the rest of my coffee at his face would only reduce me to his level. I reached between my feet and found my purse strap. Then I stood.

“You have to earn respect, you insufferable snob!”

I left the table and the bar without another word, stepping into the cool relief of the autumn evening. As I passed the bow window, I glimpsed Blair, still at the table, staring at me in openmouthed shock.

My cottage was about six blocks away and I settled into the walk gratefully. I moved through the small business district, past couples out for the evening, chatting and window-browsing. It occurred to me as I turned the corner onto my street that I had unintentionally stuck Blair with the check.

“He
does
deserve that,” I muttered as I fished out my keys. I let myself in the kitchen door and switched on the light. The cottage, which I had considered a temporary perching spot until Blair and I either married or moved in together, was now my home, with no prospect of my leaving anytime soon. Seen in the light of my new situation, my kitchen appeared to need a good cleaning. I changed and went to work.

As I dusted, swept and scrubbed, I thought. After all the wishing and hoping, all the effort of packing and moving and job-hunting, my life had come full circle. I was alone on a Friday night, doing
housework. The only difference was that I was more than a thousand miles from anyone I considered a close friend, and the climate was warmer. I might as well have stayed where I was. If I had, I wouldn’t have to deal with being dumped by Blair Hutchinson.