“What?” I asked, all cheeky innocence. “I’m charming, I can’t help it. What should we make for Ethel, Agnes, Ella, Prudence, and Rose when they come to the house for dinner this week?” I gave her a grin that showed all of my teeth. “See, I even remembered their names.”
“You’re impossible,” she told me, and there was affection in it.
I soaked it up.
“Look who’s talking,” I told her. “And are you saying you don’t want to have dinner with those sweet old ladies?”
“No, I’m saying you don’t really want to. This is some sort of a plot, isn’t it?”
“Just you watch, cupcake.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
STEP TWO: SINCERITY
Another week passed.
We had the delightful old ladies over for dinner, and I charmed them all into a mess Ro had to scrape off the floor.
I went to a church dance with her and turned every lady over sixty around the room twice.
I buttered her up shamelessly before I finally cornered her in her office to have it out.
“I’d like you to consider a reconciliation between us,” I began, my tone almost professional. “I haven’t been with anyone else since the second day after I met you. And I don’t miss it. Well, I do miss sex. Of course I do. But I don’t miss the other women. I only miss you. Doesn’t that count for something?
“It counts for something. I’m just not sure it’s enough for what you’re asking of me.
What do you think I’m asking of you?”
“To get wrapped up in you again. When I’m wrapped up in you, you’re all I can think about.”
I was smiling without realizing it at first. I really liked the sound of that. “What’s wrong with that?” I asked, an honest question.
“It’s not the sort of thing someone should go through alone. That’s no good.”
“Who says you’re alone? That you ever were with me? You want me to tell you I’m wrapped up too? I’m fucking wrapped. What else do you need from me? I’ve got more than that.”
As a start to my profession of love, it was lacking, but in my defense, she wasn’t being at all cooperative.
“Give me something, then,” she told me stiffly, like she thought I wouldn’t have a real response, like she thought that one sentence was checkmate.
I’d show her checkmate. I had so many responses to that I didn’t even know where to start.
What I said, though, was, “Like what? You want some jewelry? . . . how about a ring?”
She rolled her eyes, the termagant.
“I mean it. I’m not joking. I’ll really do it. I would like to get married. To you.”
She stared, finally, at last, realizing that I was being sincere.
I was painfully formal and as serious as I’d ever been as I began my practiced speech, “I take full responsibility for not communicating correctly, for not telling you how I felt, and what I thought we were, in a timely or appropriate manner.
“We both know I have commitment issues, but what I don’t think you seem to realize is that you have some issues yourself. I’d have loved to know how you felt, but you weren’t telling me. Not even close.
“You’ve put me through the fucking ringer because I didn’t tell you how I felt when it was time, when it was right, but you know you didn’t either. And that’s not fair. You can’t tell me you developed feelings only after you got over them.”
She was breaking her record on staying quiet, but her soul sucking eyes were telling me plenty.
I continued, “You should have told me your feelings,” I spoke to her, more gently now. “I would have been… more sensitive. We could have… committed and all that stuff.” For my part, I’d almost broken my own record of putting my foot in my mouth, so it’d only been a matter of time before I fumbled my words.
She was there to pounce the moment I did, of course. “Committed and all that stuff?” She looked at me like I was absolutely hopeless. “Because of my feelings?
“Of course,” I said, not at first understanding what she was getting at and trying, above all, to reassure her. “Your feelings are very important to me. I’d never hurt you.”
“You’re so twisted. I don’t want you to commit because of my feelings. For this to have been something other than what it turned out being, your feelings had to be involved too.”
“Why aren’t you hearing me? They were. They are. I care about you. I really care about you. And it’s not fair that you only ever hinted at how you felt as you were telling me it was too late. Perhaps, if you cared, you should have said something, as well.”
She wasn’t talking now, and I wasn’t finished.
“And you,” I paused and collected myself, “I’m sorry, but you need to take some responsibility too. You were just as much of a coward as I was. More.” I paused. “Coward.” I tasted the word. “You are the real coward here.”
“This… love stuff is complicated for me,” I continued. The look on her face was gratifying. She’d gone from pissed to shocked in under a second. Her eyes were wide, mouth slack, and I thought I should probably make her sit down before she fell over.
I guided her into a seat and continued, just unloading on her. I needed her to understand. More than anything, even my pride, I needed that.
“It’s not that I’ve never given my heart to anyone before,” I explained to her. “As a child, I gave it away to everyone. Anyone that I could have hoped would accept it after my mother died. By everyone I mean my father and a revolving door of girlfriends. I counted it up, and he averaged one every two months in a ten year period. He always brought them around and told me to call them mom. I did.” I swallowed hard. “When I was fourteen, one of them slipped into bed with me. That’s why I lost my virginity so young. It wasn’t all that fun. I was terrified, and it made me sick afterward, to do that to my dad.”
I took a deep breath, appreciating her ability to let me get all this out without stopping me. “You’re the first person I’ve ever told that to,” I stated quietly. “But back to my point, that’s around the time I stopped believing in love. Quit giving me that look. I’m not telling you this so you’ll feel sorry for me. I’m explaining because I had my reasons, and I wanted you to know them, to understand why it took me so long to realize my feelings on love had changed, that you had changed them.”
And then I did it, the thing I was most incapable of. I cracked my chest open wide and handed her my heart.
“I believe in love again. I believe in you.” I smiled. “Now marry me.”
She was still speechless. It wasn’t the worst response she could have had, I supposed.
“I know this was a lot to take in,” I told her gently. “That I’m a lot to take in. I’ll give you some time to think about it.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
I SNIFFED, GRIMACED, then sniffed again. I was working in my office, and the most awful smell was drifting my way from God knew where.