“I’m not asking for an answer right now. I just wanted you to know.” She pulled on her coat, fingers fumbling slightly with the buttons, that camel wool thing with the shoulder pads that made her look like she was ready to take on the world.
“I’m not running this time, Jack. For once in my life, I’m done running.”
And then she was gone, the bell over the door jangling as it swung shut behind her, cold air rushing in to fill the space where she’d been.
I sat there for a long time, watching Doris refill coffee cups down the counter, listening to the radio shift from Bon Jovi to The Cure, my turkey club growing cold on its plate.
I woke up.
What the hell did that mean?
For three months, I’d been certain. Certain that she was never going to let me in, certain that I deserved better than someone who treated love like a threat.
Now I wasn’t certain of anything.
I still loved her. That was the thing I couldn’t get around, no matter how many times I told myself otherwise. I’d never stopped, even when I’d convinced myself I had. Even when I’d started seeing Rebecca, even when I’d written that damn goodbye letter, some stubborn part of me had been waiting. Hoping. Hating myself for hoping.
But love wasn’t enough. I’d learned that from my parents, from watching them tear each other apart for thirty years in the name of passion. I didn’t want someone who’d push me away every time things got too close, too real, too frightening. Didn’t want to spend my life chasing someone who was always halfway out the door.
Except Maggie had just said she wasn’t running. Had looked me in the eye and admitted she’d been scared and asked for a chance.
And for the first time since I’d decided I was done with her, I believed she might actually mean it.
Doris appeared with the coffee pot. “Refill, hon?”
“Sure.” I pushed my cup toward her. “Thanks.”
She filled it without comment, then shuffled away to the next table. I wrapped my hands around the warm ceramic and staredout the window at the street where Maggie had disappeared into the crowd.
6
Jack
Usually the newsroom was a good distraction. The Globe’s city desk was chaos on a good day with phones ringing, typewriters clattering, reporters shouting across the room about sources and deadlines and whether anyone had seen the file on the zoning board corruption. The noise and energy had always been a refuge for me, a place where I could lose myself in someone else’s story and forget about my own.
Not today.
I sat at my desk, the housing authority documents spread in front of me, and couldn’t focus on a single word. My notes blurred together. The numbers stopped making sense. Every time I tried to concentrate, my mind drifted back to lunch, to Maggie sitting across from me in that booth, saying words I’d never expected to hear.
I’m not running this time, Jack.
Ed appeared at my elbow, a cup of coffee in each hand. He set one on my desk and settled into the chair across from me, studying my face with the attention he usually reserved for sources who were about to crack.
“You look like hell,” he said.
“Thanks.”
“Thompson’s getting cold feet again. Called twice this afternoon. I told him you’d reach out tomorrow.”
“Fine.”
Ed sipped his coffee, watching me over the rim.
“You want to tell me what’s going on, or should I keep pretending I don’t notice you’ve been staring at the same page for forty-five minutes?”
I rubbed my eyes with the heel of my hand. The fluorescent lights hummed overhead, that constant low buzz that you stopped hearing after a while until suddenly you couldn’t hear anything else. Cigarette smoke drifted from somewhere behind me—probably Harrison at the sports desk, who went through two packs a day and had the cough to prove it.
“I had lunch with Maggie,” I said.
