Never Trust A Lady

But I can’t cry, she thought. It will make it so much worse. I won’t cry. She said nothing, and watched the anger and frustration in his face turn to bewilderment.

“But the thing is, ever since I met you, it seems like I keep being reminded of Jenny. Not… you, exactly-I mean, it’s not that you remind me of Jen. You’re nothing like her. Just…things. Little things. It’s like…you’ve brought her back to me, or something.” His red-rimmed eyes stabbed her accusingly. “Now every time I turn around, seems like I bump into a memory of Jen.”

“And is that such a bad thing?” Jane asked, her tongue thick with unshed tears.

“It’s hell.” Again he ground the words out through tightly clenched teeth. “Do you know how hard I’ve tried to forget? For seven years?”

“Maybe,” she ventured, hugging herself now, hoping he wouldn’t see or notice that she was shaking, “you aren’t supposed to forget. Maybe it’s time to remember…and then-” she caught a quick breath and whispered it “- say goodbye.”

There were moments of suspenseful silence. Then he uttered a surprised-sounding “Huh!” and unexpectedly smiled. It was the same little lopsided smile that had always struck her as being so poignant; now, at least, she thought she understood why.

“Funny,” he muttered as he stubbed out his cigarette in the ashtray, “someone else just said the same thing to me a couple of days ago…”

When he looked back at her, his eyes had softened and the smile was slipping. “Look, all I know is, I wanted to see you again. Needed to see you, actually. So-” he gave an offhand shrug she knew was only meant to hide his terrible vulnerability “-I guess that’s the answer to your question, why I’m here.”

But not the second question, thought Jane. What do you want with me?

Because we both know exactly what you can’t ever bring yourself to admit. Simply put: You need me.

She didn’t know which she wanted to do more-laugh or cry. If she’d thought David a master when it came to knowing how to push her buttons, then Tom Hawkins must be in a class by himself. He’d known her only a few days, and already he knew the one way to short-circuit her resolve, the one button she could never resist. He needs me.

But, her heart protested, what about me? I need too. I want. I deserve. Someone who loves…me.

Before she knew she was going to, she heard herself speaking softly, almost musingly. Leaning against the countertop with her arms folded across, and pressed hard against, the quivering ball of nerves that had taken the place of her stomach, she began to tell him about herself. And about David.

“I met my husband when I was just seventeen, Tom. I was in high school, a straight-A student, and I had so many dreams. David was very jealous, possessive and controlling, which I, of course, thought meant that he loved me. Because I was young, and didn’t know then that loving someone doesn’t mean putting them in a cage. It means giving them room to fly.”

Her voice cracked on the last word, and she had to look away quickly and wait until she was sure she had both her voice and her face under control again before she dared go on. All the while, Tom said nothing, but simply watched her, quietly smoking. He seemed to be waiting for her to continue, and after a while, in a low, husky murmur, she did.

“When I was nineteen, I found that I was pregnant. I’d just started college, but I dropped out, and we got married-familiar story, right? Especially in those days.” She smiled wryly, not quite meeting his eyes. “I must tell you that I didn’t look for ward to my wedding day and future life with joy and optimism. It was more like… resignation. I knew life with David would never be easy, but I believed I was doing the right thing.

“Anyway. Two weeks after the wedding, I had a miscarriage.” Tom exhaled audibly. “It was early in the pregnancy. The child wasn’t real to me,” she said gently. “I didn’t grieve for it. What I grieved for were my dreams, my…possibilities.” She took a deep breath. “But only for a little while. I told myself David was a good man, a hard worker, that he would love and provide for me, and I told myself that I loved him and it was up to me to make him a good wife and a happy home.

“And I did, dammit.” There was anger now, and she didn’t even try to hide it, to keep her voice from grating or one hand from curling into a fist. “For so many years I followed him dutifully from place to place, pouring all my energy into trying to be the perfect wife, the perfect mom, spending all my creativity to make our home lovely and serene. And David, well, to give him credit, he was indeed a good man, a hard worker, a good provider, and after Lynn and Tracy were born, a very good dad. What he never learned how to be was a partner, a friend, a mate…a husband.”

She paused, knowing she was getting more carried away than she’d planned, meaning to apologize to Tom for boring him with her life story when he was so obviously more in need of a listener than a lecture. But he’d pulled out a chair and seated himself at the table, and was gazing at her intently, listening to her, it seemed, with every cell in his body. So she gave him the apology in a shrug and a smile and continued.

“As the years went by, I realized that David not only didn’t love me, that in fact he probably isn’t capable of loving anyone. He only possesses people. He loves the girls, because to him they are extensions of himself. Me he cared about only in terms of what I provided for him-his home, his children, his meals. Sex. I was expected to do my job, like any good employee, while his function, like that of any good boss, was to delegate as much work and responsibility to me as possible, and in return provide me with a living wage. Period.”

“God,” said Tom under his breath, almost involuntarily.

Jane glanced at him and found that this time it was impossible to look away again. She said softly, “Little by little, I came to understand that I was very much alone. And that I was lonely. I decided that I had to do something, because if I didn’t, I was going to die of loneliness. I believe it, you know-that you can die of loneliness. You die inside, the part of you that really matters, a little at a time.”

“And so,” he murmured, not disagreeing, “you got a divorce.”

“No,” she said. “I took up dancing.” And she had to laugh at the look on his face. “It’s true. I signed up for dancing lessons. I meant it as a way for David and I to share something, to actually do something together for once. But he thought it was silly, said he was too busy and refused to go, and because I’d already spent the money, I went ahead anyway. It was pretty awful, at first. I hated the group lessons-as one of several unattached women, I always seemed to wind up dancing the man’s position-but the instructor was very good. So I signed up for private lessons.

“I know what you’re thinking,” she said when Tom restlessly stirred, frowned and reached for his cigarettes. “It’s what David thought, too-that I was having an affair with my dance teacher. How trite, huh? And actually, I did adore Hans-”

“Hans?”

“He was Dutch, I think-maybe German. Probably gay, but so what? He was young and lithe and graceful and charming, but more to the point, he made me feel all those things. When I was on that dance floor with Hans, I felt…as if I could fly. As if I were a bird, just released from a cage, and I was soaring… and that there was no limit to the sky.”

She stopped on a high note that was too dangerously close to being a sob, and after a few restorative moments, gave a low chuckle and murmured, “Oh, boy, David was furious. He demanded that I quit. But…” She paused then, remembering, reliving the terrible sense of panic and futility she’d felt as she’d tried to make David understand. She felt it again now as she wondered how she could ever expect Tom, a man, to know what it felt like to be a woman and trapped by other people’s expectations.

Passion filled her chest with pain; once more she doubled her fingers into a fist and used it to press against the ache. “He might just as well have asked me to give up light. I mean, I felt as if I’d been living in the dark for so long, you know? And now someone had come along and turned on the light. And here was this man who supposedly loved me, and he was asking-telling-me I had to go back to the dark! I couldn’t. I just couldn’t. He didn’t understand. He kept saying, ‘How could you put a dance class above your marriage, for God’s sake?’ He didn’t know it wasn’t a dance class he was asking me to give up, it was life.”

“And so,” said Tom in a rough, quiet voice, exhaling smoke, “you got a divorce. Hell, I don’t blame you.”

“Not even then,” Jane said, relaxing slightly, but not quite believing he really understood. “Believe it or not. It