Mary Robb - Down the Rabbit Hole

Bill stepped up and shook his hand. “Good to meet you.” His eyes shifted to Macy. “Uh, I’ll just meet you back out there. I wanted to be sure you were okay, is all.” He nodded at her, waiting.

“Okay,” she said. “Sure. I’ll be right back.”

But Bill lingered another minute, so she turned a falsely bright look on him and said, “Jeremy, great to see you. Hope you have a nice evening.” Then she disappeared into the ladies’ room.

Jeremy leaned back against the hall wall, then noticed Bill still standing there, hands in his pockets, head cocked like a spaniel awaiting a treat.

“Are you the ex-boyfriend?” he asked.

Jeremy spent a moment adjusting to the title. “Yeah, I guess I am.”

“She mentioned she was getting over someone.”

“Did she?” Getting over . Not over. Was this some kind of test? Was Mrs. Hartz watching even now?

“Yeah.” The guy smiled and looked down, thinking. “To be honest I don’t think she’s let go yet. Hope I’m not out of line telling you that.”

Jeremy straightened. “No. No, not at all.” He gave a short laugh. “Really?”

Bill raised his hands and eyebrows, then turned back to the dining room.

Jeremy looked to the ladies’ room door. How weird would it be if he were still out here when she came back?

Macy had trouble catching her breath. What had she said? She couldn’t even remember. There were so many things she’d wanted to say but couldn’t. And they’d been standing outside the bathrooms. And he was there with another woman! She was pretty sure she’d been inappropriate.

She hadn’t even let him say anything. And he’d been about to say something, hadn’t he? She wished it were a tape she could rewind. Oh, if only Bill hadn’t shown up when he did!

She pulled her purse up and pawed through it for her phone.

“Carolyn?” she said, grateful that her sister-in-law had answered and not her brother.

“Macy, hi! I’ve been meaning to call you. Lute and I were just talking about it. There’s a guy in my office—”

“Wait. I need to ask you something,” she said, lowering her voice at the sound of someone entering the restroom.

“Where are you?” Carolyn asked, her voice taking on the same hushed tone as Macy’s.

“I’m on a date.”

“Great!” Her voice bounced through the phone.

“No, it’s not like that. I’m in the restroom. I just ran into Jeremy.”

“Oohhhh.”

“Yeah. And oh god, Carolyn, I made the biggest mistake. You were so right about me. I judged him too fast, too harshly, I shouldn’t have judged him at all! I loved him. Why did I give up on him?”

“’Cause that’s what you do, hon,” she said, not without sympathy. “I’ve been thinking about this, and I actually think you’re the one who’s afraid of commitment. All that talk about planning for kids and houses and career tracks, all that stuff I said would chase a guy off in half a second? I think it backfired. You freaked yourself out, Macy. You chased yourself off.”

Macy paused, the ring of truth echoing through the phone. “Oh my god,” she said, mostly to herself. She had freaked herself out. She’d looked at Jeremy’s phone use and she hadn’t seen a temporary problem, she’d seen a lifetime of neglect. She had loved him, that was for sure, but not as much as she’d feared for herself in light of him.

“I know,” Carolyn said. “But here’s the thing, Mace. You can change that. You don’t have to have everything planned out and all the little boxes checked the moment you fall in love, or even when you get married. A relationship’s a path, not a room. Let it wind around the forest for a little while.”

Tears clogged Macy’s throat. “That’s really beautiful,” she said, unrolling some toilet paper and pressing it to her eyes.

“Then, when you get to a clearing, you decide what comes next, which new path to take. Maybe it’s one that’s been well traveled, maybe one the deer have made. Maybe it’s not even a path yet and you have to hack your way through, like Michael Douglas in, shoot, what was that movie?”

“ Romancing the Stone ,” Macy said, pulling bits of toilet paper off her eyelashes.

“Right. Well, sometimes that’s what relationships take, a little hacking through the underbrush—”

“Uh, Care? I think you’ve taken that analogy about as far it’ll go,” Macy said, choking back a laugh.

“Fine, okay. But my point stands.”

“You’re right, you’re absolutely right. But my question is, what do I do now ? Do I go back out there and try to talk to him?”

“No no no. You’re on a date, right? Where is he?”

“I don’t know. At the table, I guess. I’m in the ladies’ room.” On cue, the woman in the other stall flushed the toilet.

“Right. So you go out, finish your date, then you call Jeremy tomorrow. Arrange a place to talk, because you shouldn’t have important conversations like that on the phone if you can help it.”

“But he’s right here now. I feel like if I let him go I . . . I don’t know, I might not be able to find him again.”

“Why?”

“I don’t know. Just a feeling.” She shook her head. She was thinking superstitious and talking crazy. “I’m sorry, you’re right. I’ll wait and talk to him tomorrow.”

“Good girl.” She heard the smile in Carolyn’s voice. “I’m glad you ran into him. I always thought it was a mistake to break up.”

Macy heard the other woman finish washing her hands and leave the restroom.

“I know. Okay,” Macy said, unlocking the stall door to move to the mirror. “I’m good now. Thank you.”

“And call me after you’ve talked to him.”

“I will.” She smiled, hung up, then caught sight of herself. Her mascara was all over her face and strands of her hair were stuck to her cheeks. Yeah, she thought, it’ll be better to call . . .

* * *

Jeremy was still standing near the restroom when he saw Gina coming toward him.

“Is everything all right?” she asked, her tone somewhere between concern and suspicion.

“Fine,” Jeremy said brightly, trying to act as if he’d been heading back to the table. “I ran into an old friend, that’s all. I’m thinking of having another drink. How about you? Maybe move to the bar for a Bailey’s or something?”

Gina looked surprised. “Sure, I guess so. I mean, there’s always the chance of overdoing a good thing on a first date, but . . .” She looked at him, eyebrows raised.

He squelched a grimace. He was using her, there were no two ways about it. But if the date ended he’d end up back in bizarro, and without being able to actually talk to Macy, he wasn’t sure he’d be able to straighten things out with her.

“A quick one. If we see evidence of damage we’ll leave immediately.” He gave her his most charming smile and she giggled and acquiesced, then continued on to the restroom.

He settled up with the waiter at the table, then picked two seats at the end of the bar closest to the restrooms, figuring Macy would probably be out before Gina. But minutes later it was Gina who emerged, and the look on her face was dark and wooden. She spotted him immediately and moved toward him, eyes steady on his face.

He became aware of a deep feeling of dread, like what he imagined animals must feel when faced with a gun, despite not knowing exactly what damage a gun could do.

“What can I get for you?” he asked in his most oblivious-guy way.

“Nothing,” she said. “And I don’t appreciate being used .”