Page 40 of Separate Lives
It took Jess some time to answer him. She was reorganizing her thoughts.
“I made myself scarce, Reece, because after having taken care of my wounded ego, after having made sweet, considerate love to me, I didn’t appreciate you saying that had I not let my stubborn pride interfere, we would’ve reached that stage ages ago, and still be married. After I deluded myself into thinking you were finally starting to see me as your peer, that you recognized I have a brain, that you cared for and respected me, you went and crashed my illusions, showing me nothing had changed, and it never will. You’ll always see me as a stubborn bitch, never like an individual with a mind and feelings of her own.”
“I don’t think you’re stupid, but you sure are stubborn. You’re like a rebellious kid always doing the opposite of what people expect of you, just to piss them off.”
“No Reece Hilton. I do the opposite to whatyouimposeon me, because you never give me the option to do differently if I wish. Take the wedding for example. You waited until I was so drunk I could hardly remember my name before you proposed. My senses were so dull that try as I might, I can’t remember ever having had that conversation with you –or anything else that happened after that. All I know is that the next morning I woke up in my bed with a hangover.”
“Yeah.” He smiled self-consciously at the memory, inadvertently making her heart skip a beat. She had to be strong and avoid thinking about how appealing that boyish smile of his was, or she was bound to lose track of what she meant to say. Striving, Jess focused her attention exclusively on his words, gradually forgetting all about the way he looked.
“I woke up the next morning with my head spinning too,” Reece was saying more to himself than to her.
“Can you remember what words you used when you proposed to me, and how I reacted?” Jess enquired needing to fill in the blanks inside her head. Somehow she doubted he’d gone down on his knees.
“Like I already explained, after I heard you speak with LeeHanne, telling her you loved me, I decided to surprise you with a wedding. I called a former client working at City Hall, and asked him how to go about securing a marriage license cutting through the red tape. When LeeHanne invited us to her afternoon birthday party, I booked a time slot with a county judge for later in the day. Throughout the party, I remember I kept thinking ‘That sexy, beautiful woman is in love with me’, then drank a bourbon considering how lucky I felt. And when the glass was empty, I refilled it. In my next memory I was facing you, you were smiling at me, making me feel the greatest of heroes. I took your hand, walked you outside to the garden, and under the sycamore tree I proposed. You instantly said yes, throwing your arms around my neck. That’s when we said our goodbyes to Johnny and LeeHanne, took a cab to City Hall, signed our license, and married. Later, another cab drove us back to your apartment where I carried you in through the threshold and walked you straight to bed, where we both collapsed.”
Silence followed his admission. The noise from the people around them, the clicking of cutlery and glasses, the shrill voice of kids, kept going on with the same loud and happy clatter characteristic of all public spaces where people went to have fun. It contrasted with her listlessness as Jess took her time to process and digest all Reece had revealed. All she could think was what a bare, insipid, shabby, laughable farce their wedding had been, and only because Reece, fearing rejection, hadn’t had the guts to ask her to marry him while they both were fully in possession of their brain faculties.
God, how she hated the insensitive, sneaky dirt-bag. In that moment, she would’ve gladly garroted him.
Reece could see she was furious, but her reaction only added fuel to his own frustrations. The ungrateful bitch. Did she have any idea what it had cost him to propose to her? How heady her words had made him? How lucky he’d felt to be loved by such an amazing woman? Did she realize how stupid she’d made him feel when later, she’d stubbornly pursued a divorce?
“But drunk or sober,” he reminded her, “I fulfilled your heart's desire. Unless you were lying to LeeHanne about your feelings for me.”
This was a nightmare she could not wake up from. Curbing her instinct to cause a scene and send him straight to hell before leaving the table, Jess breathed in a mouthful of air, expelling it slowly to the count of ten. If there was something she’d learned in the short period she’d known Reece, it was that getting angry at him was a waste of time, and the best thing she could do was explain her point of view, appealing to his common sense –even though he scarcely had any.
“Reece, we already had this discussion. I told you everything there was to tell that morning, when you informed me we were married. Why do you insist on rehashing this conversation?”
“Because, like you, I can be stubborn.”
“Suit yourself,” Jess conceded. Taking a deep breath, she went on. “Me saying to LeeHanne that I would’ve loved to spend the rest of my life with you was not something you should’ve overheard. It simply was a confidence between two friends.”
“Are you saying you didn’t mean a word?”
“No. I meant every single syllable.”
“Then I don’t understand what got you so worked up.”
Jess sighed, dispirited. “Don’t you think that marriage was an issue worth discussingtogether,and possibly sober? Normally, that’s what two partners do.” She gave him some time to rebuke. He didn’t.
“You see Reece, what got me so mad and drove me to divorce you, were your arrogant assumptions. You just assumed that by telling LeeHanne I would’ve loved to spend the rest of my life with you, I had marriage in mind. Well, I didn’t, at least not with someone I had met a scant three weeks before. But you thought, ‘She’s a woman, and everybody knows that what women want in life is to meet Prince Charming, marry and have a couple of kids,’ right?” Without waiting for his answer she pressed on.
“Wrong. Not this broad here. Not I. I am a woman alright, but my name is Jessica Wright, not All-the-Women-in-the-World. Had you considered asking me, I would’ve gladly told you I am among those individuals that nowadays prefer to live with their partnerbeforegetting married to make sure we are compatible in and out of bed. For all you knew, I could’ve been among those who don’t see the need to marry at all to feel they belonged to each other.”
“You are not. That much I know.”
“That’sallyou know. What I’m trying to say is that you never spoke to me about your intentions while I was sober, treating me like I’m mentally impaired. You didn’t consider that I would object to some sort of shotgun wedding, because I needed more time to get used to the idea of us. And this makes me think that either the thought never crossed your mind, or maybe it did and it scared the daylights out of you.”
“I would’ve loved my wedding to be a big affair, with my parents and all my friends in attendance. A big cake, lots of champagne, flowers, gifts wrapped in fancy paper, laughter and joy. Did you know that? No, you didn’t, because you never thought of asking and transformed a happy occasion into a travesty.”
Jess saw that Reece was about to speak and quickly went on. “You didn’t even bother to propose,” she accused.
“Ididpropose, or were you not listening to what I just said?” he rebuked through lips that hardly moved from the restraint as he tried to rein in his temper.
“But I don’t remember it,” Jess fired back. “And where was my ring? When I woke up, I wore none. Doesn’t a man usually propose to a woman with a ring?”
“I planned on buying you one as soon as possible.”
“And what did the Cook County judge use to marry us?”