Jack lives in a Victorian brownstone in Dupont Circle. Property in this city is cruelly expensive, and it's one of those homes that I'll pass on the street and glance in the windows, wondering what kind of magical people can afford to live there. We drive up an alleyway behind his house and park in a detached, single-car garage. We haven't spoken since I first climbed into his SUV, and although it's only ten minutes from the Hay-Adams Hotel, it feels like I've boarded an international flight to a foreign land. One where I neither speak the language nor know the local customs.
A small, immaculately landscaped garden separates the garage from the house, and I follow Jack along a flagstone path to the brick staircase that goes up to the backdoor. My anticipation is dialed up to eleven. He lets us into a bright, cheerful kitchen and asks me to wait here. It's phrased as a question but doesn't sound exactly optional.
I watch him pass through the dining room and into a living room where a suitcase stands at the bottom of a flight of stairs. He takes the suitcase and disappears from sight. If he lied about being out of the country, he is really going all out to sell his story. Through the ceiling, I hear him moving around above me. I'm alone. On the kitchen island, a week's worth of mail is neatly stacked in two piles. I've been dying to know if Jack is really his name, but the top letter in both piles is face down. I want to peek but don't dare disturb them. It feels like a test of some kind, and he'll know if I do. Of that, I'm sure.
Instead, I look around his kitchen and try to get a sense of the man. The fixtures and appliances are expensive and stylish, but not obnoxiously so. This is a cozy, comfortable home not a pristine showroom that you'd be afraid to touch anything. There's a part of me that's always assumed Jack is married - especially since he's never made an overture to meet - but this isn't the kitchen of a family man. There's no kid's artwork on the refrigerator or any indication of anyone living here but him. Then again, he could be separated or divorced. For all I know, he keeps his family in a padded cell in the basement. What do I actually know about his life? Jack is a mystery to me, so maybe that's why subconsciously I imagined something more austere, more Swedish minimalist like the man himself.
Until ten days ago, he's only been words on my phone and our conversations have been almost entirely about me. Whenever I do ask a direct question, he always answers but rarely volunteers anything about himself. Most people are dying to talk about themselves, but Jack is very adept at steering the conversation back to the topic at hand: me. Maybe I like it that way - his attention on me; his gentle, insightful questions and knack for understanding me better than I do myself. He has this gift for coaxing the truth out of me where before I've always lied and deflected. Without ever meeting, he knows more about me, the real me, than people I've known all my life.
I can't help myself. His interest is incredibly flattering, especially after meeting him in the flesh ten days ago. After months of texting, it had felt momentous in a way that usually you don't recognize until years later with the benefit of hindsight. But I sensed the significance even as it was happening - one chapter of my life ending and another beginning. That's how profound meeting Jack was for me. And then he was just gone. Disappeared to Europe on his business trip or so he claims, before I got to find out what the new chapter would be.
Fair to say, I haven't taken it well. My fear of abandonment is well documented and notoriously toxic. I always respond angrily and self-destructively. Who else deserves to be punished but the foolish girl who let someone hurt her again? How else am I ever going to learn? To make sure the lesson sticks, I've spent the past ten days fucking my way through the city. And what do I have to show for it other than an aching body and a battered spirit? Nothing. Because the moment Jack reappeared, I jumped into his car like a dog. I'm pathetic. Why can't I be like every other sad girl in America and just binge watch British period dramas and order Grubhub?
When Jack comes back downstairs, I realize I haven't moved. Not an inch. I'm exactly where he left me as if my feet took him literally. He strides through the house towards me, and I stand stricken, a deer in headlights, my anger forgotten. This is it, my brain screams. It's finally going to happen. He's going to bend me over his kitchen counter and fuck me senseless. I don't care if he never talks to me again as long as he touches me now. It's all I want.
Instead, Jack politely skirts me and goes around the kitchen island to open the refrigerator. "Sorry about that. Had to take a quick shower and wash the plane off me."
I don't know where my anger went, but it is back now, and it's brought friends. He's just fucking with me. Why don't I have the self-respect to just leave?
Without looking up from the refrigerator, he asks, "Have you eaten? Are you hungry?"
"Why? Are you going to cook for me again? Is that your thing?" I say it as a joke, but with just enough acid in my voice to let him know I'm pissed.
He stops what he is doing and fixes me with a look, steady and unblinking. I swallow involuntarily and then to my own surprise, apologize. Not something I am known for.
"No, I'm not hungry." It's not true, and my stomach rumbles at me irritably. I didn't eat this morning before meeting the Frenchman at his hotel. When I get out of control like this, I don't always do so well with food. It's the first lie I've told him, and I feel guilty. That freaks me out. Lying has always been my armor, and I don't know how I'll survive Jack without it.
"Well have a seat. I'll be quick," he says.
I sit on a barstool at the island and watch him. He's not a master chef but knows his way around a kitchen. All I have to do is ask, and he'll make me something. I know he will, but I'm too stubborn to do it. Every so often while he's cooking, he glances up at me as if he knows something. I smile and say nothing. My dad always said that in a negotiation, it never pays to speak first and that's what this feels like - a negotiation. But over what?
He pulls a barstool up beside me and sits down with a plate of eggs, sausage, and toast. It smells really, really good. And I know I'm being ridiculous, but the way he eats is ridiculously manly. It actually makes me wet to watch him with a fork in his hand. Or maybe it's his scent. The way certain men smell has always fucked with my wiring, and his is just unfair. Plus, he's showered, and his hair has only been toweled dry. I just want to run my fingers through it. That or pull it all out.
When he's almost finished eating, he asks me if I'm sure I don't want a bite. I shake my head like the stubborn, mulish girl my mother always accuses me of being. He cleans his plate. Pushing it away, he studies me.
"So tell me what's going on," he says.
"What do you mean?" Playing dumb, very on brand.
"You don't look much like you want to be here."
"I'm fine." Now I just sound petulant.
"Do you want to go home?" he asks and when I don't answer, says. "So, you don't want to stay, but you don't want to go. Do I have that about right?"
"Yeah."
"Then I think you should probably go. I'm happy to drop-"
I cut him off sharply. "Were you really in Europe?" I know how ridiculous it sounds, but if I don't ask, I'm going to explode.
"Was I really in Europe?" His brow creases as he repeats my question. "I just got home this morning."
Right...the suitcase, the unopened mail, it's all very convincing. "And they don't have cell reception there?"
His expression relaxes as if he's just worked out the solution to a complex equation. "Oh, is that what this is about?"
"You left me!" It comes out like a gunshot, angry and hurt. The second the words leave my mouth, I'm wondering what the hell I'm talking about. Jack didn't leave me. We aren't together. We've met once. I'm being ridiculous not that that changes the way it feels. I shrink away from him and brace myself. This is the part where Jack realizes just how crazy Mackenzie is and throws her out on her ass. I won't blame him either. I'd do the same thing if someone said anything this unhinged to me.
Instead, he says, "I was in Moscow."
"Moscow?" I say confusedly like he'd named a galaxy far, far away.
"And yes, before you ask, obviously Russia does have cell service, but my team was advised not to take personal devices on the trip. Apparently, the amount of spyware that gets loaded onto foreign nationals' devices is terrifying. We only used the firm's laptops and phones, which will all get shredded now."
"You can shred a laptop?" I did not have a lesson in cybersecurity on my bingo card today.
"The point is, I couldn't text while I was there, but I should have explained before I left."
It might be the most embarrassed I've ever felt in my entire life (and trust me there is some stiff competition for that honor). Of course there's a perfectly reasonable explanation for Jack's disappearance. He's a real live grownup who flies to Moscow on business and lives in a multi-million-dollar home in Dupont Circle. Meanwhile, I'm a twitchy, neurotic infant drowning in student debt and take things personally that have nothing to do with me at all. No wonder Jack never asked to meet - I'm just some fucked-up curiosity he found on the internet. He probably clicked on my profile thinking it would be hot to sleep with a twenty-three-year-old but realized I was more trouble than I'm worth.
"I should go," I say and stand up from the chair.
"Mackenzie, what is it you want?"
I retreat another step. "Nothing."
"Then why get in my car?"
My temper, fueled by embarrassment, begins to unfurl. "I don't know."
"Yes, you do," he says patiently.
"No, I don't," I snap, my voice rising.
"Just tell me what you want."
