Accidentally in Love, page 25
“It’s not a crazy idea, it’s a brilliant idea, devised by a brilliant mind,” he replied smugly.
“Over my dead body. And if you don’t want your… denial of access period extended, you’d better stop talking about living together.”
“I honestly don’t get you…”
“Yeah, well luckily, I get you ,” Sara replied.
“What do you mean?”
“I know you’re terrified that being free means you’ll be back on the slippery slope. It’s obvious. I’ve been here for months telling you off, and in some weird way, you actually enjoy it. God alone knows why… But only because it doesn’t give you the opportunity to make screw-ups. Well, it’s time for you to take back your autonomy and start making the right choices. It’s not easy, I’ve never said it was, but that’s your test of character.”
“And you think I want to carry on living with you because you’re the only guardian who’s managed to keep me on the straight and narrow?”
“Of course – why else?” she said, staring at him .
“You’re wrong!” Ethan exploded. “You’re totally wrong! In part, I mean, but that’s no reason to…”
Sara laughed. “Sure, I know that you just love Brooklyn,” she teased him.
“Please, I’m begging you, can we go and live in Manhattan once all this is over? I hate not being able to order decent takeaway food. Where you live, most of the restaurants worthy of the name refuse to deliver, and given the area, I understand why… Or at least, let’s pick a nice residential part of Brooklyn.”
“Ethan, we’re not going to carry on living together,” she said bluntly, repeating again what she had been saying for several hours.
“Why not?” He didn’t seem to want to give in.
Sara snorted with annoyance. “For the first time, you have to actually learn to live with yourself. And then, if you’re still convinced about it, we’ll consider the possibility of living together. After we’ve spent some time together, in a normal situation where there aren’t any judges or operational limits,” she said, trying to make him understand. “And maybe if we actually start dating, you’ll realize that you can’t stand me.”
“I already can’t stand you,” he said.
“And you still want to live with me anyway?” she laughed.
Ethan shrugged. “I have these weird masochistic impulses that I can’t seem to help… ”
“We’ll see about that. You’ve done so many things you said would never even have considered doing. You’re a new man, or at least well on your way to being one. So take this amazing opportunity by the horns.”
Ethan snorted. He knew he would never be able to make her change her mind. Sara was right, and he knew it, but it irked him that she was always so rational, with her feet firmly planted on the ground.
“At the moment I just feel exhausted…” he complained.
Sara kept repeating he had to grow up for once and for all and learn to take responsibility for his actions. Not only that, she also said he had to do it for his own sake, and not just for her. Well, Sara didn’t know what he felt about her. Or she did, and was using it against him brilliantly – which, now that he thought about it, must be the case. He might be a brilliant strategist, but smarter men than he had fallen into the same trap: Marc Antony had lost his head after meeting Cleopatra, Paris had started a war after he’d met Helen of Troy, Lancelot had betrayed his king out of love for Guinevere. So, if he was honest, he was neither the first nor the last to decide to be led down the garden path because he’d fallen in love with a woman.
And at the end of the day, it could have been much worse. What was an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting next to a war or a betrayal? He’d definitely been born under a good star.
“You’re going to wait for me outside, at the exit, right?” he asked her dejectedly.
“Sure, if you want me to,” she assured him.
“I don’t want you to. I need you to.”
Sara smiled at him. “I’ll be there. I promise.” And with a fleeting kiss on the cheek, she left him there to face his demons. They’d had a good run and lived in the utmost comfort, but now it was really time to send them an eviction notice.
*
Eva walked into the bar, quickly found their table and sat down next to Rebecca. “Girl’s night out?” she asked, scrutinizing her sister carefully.
“Not exactly,” admitted Sara.
“Your sister is waiting for Ethan to finish his first Alcoholics Anonymous meeting, and she’s anxious. Very anxious,” explained Rebecca, her tone not hiding the fact that she didn’t like this situation at all. “That’s why we’re here – to keep her company.”
“I know you don’t approve,” Sara said. She wasn’t offended by Rebecca’s diffidence – not many people cared enough about her to tell her the things she didn’t want to hear .
Rebecca bit her lip. “No, I don’t. I think you’re making a big mistake.”
“That’s because you haven’t seen them together,” cut in Eva as she took a handful of peanuts, concluding, “There’s something… magical about them.”
Sara was astonished at her sister’s words. Not that they had ever actually spoken about Ethan, but she would never have expected her to come out with something similar. Eva had never been much of a romantic.
“Oh, come on…” muttered Rebecca. “There’s stuff you don’t know about him.”
“Okay, agreed – anyone who needs to be looked after when they’re thirty or however old he is must have problems. Serious problems. But my sister’s a tough nut, so if she thinks she can do it, who am I to try and stop her?”
“I never thought you’d end up cheering on a lost cause, Sara. Really,” Rebecca said to her.
“The truth is I’ve always had that side to me. Oh sure, I keep it pretty well hidden, obviously, because nowadays, God forbid you let anyone see that you’re a sensitive girl – they’ll walk all over you right away.”
“I just don’t get what you see in him,” insisted her friend. “I mean, appearance aside.”
Sara smiled, looking almost embarrassed. “He’s sweet. And you don’t even have to dig too deep to see it. He’s a good guy. A good guy who’s spent most of his life trying to play the bad boy to protect himself. I even understand his reasons – the way we live nowadays, the way most of our relationships are, we all need a suit of armor. Some of us are lucky enough to be born wearing one, and some of us just have to pretend.”
Rebecca raised her eyes to the ceiling in despair and Eva laughed. “Hey, come on – you know that women in love tend to get a bit schmaltzy.”
“You’ve always got a boyfriend, but I’ve never seen you succumbing to the presumptuous temptation to save them…”
“If you put all my exes together you’d barely get half of a decent one,” said Eva grimly. “And anyway, my big sister isn’t dumb: she knows she can’t change Ethan. But she can help give him the push he needs to make him decide to change by himself.”
Sara gave her an admiring look. “Wow – I thought I was the only one who thought like that.”
“Being nuts must run in the Di Giovanni blood,” said Rebecca. “Listen, I don’t want to have to play bad cop here, but someone has to open your eyes to try and stop you from getting hurt. In a few weeks, when you finish your mandate as stipulated and Ethan goes back to managing his own estate and money, I’m just worried you’re going to be very disappointed. A leopard can’t change its spots. ”
Sara couldn’t help hoping that her friend was right, at least in part, because her master plan was based precisely on that last assumption. She was hoping that good guys wouldn’t forget their real nature, no matter how much they’d camouflaged themselves as the big bad wolf. “Well, if that does happen, it’s no big deal,” she said. “We’ll give him Aunt Lydia to chew on. Little Red Riding Hood comes to Brooklyn, right, Evie?”
Her sister laughed. “Babe, nobody’s going to chew on Aunt Lydia – though I can see her getting the big bad wolf on a spit over the fire!”
Sara snapped her fingers. “Damn it, I hate it when you’re right…”
Chapter 15
Ethan had woken up with a strange feeling. He would have expected to feel buoyant, but instead it was as if he had the weight of the world on his shoulders. And given that he’d been preparing for the big day for months, it wasn’t exactly the nicest feeling.
He would never have admitted it to a living soul – not even to Sara, who certainly suspected it – but the idea that he was once again fully legally responsible for himself and his finances hadn’t given him the burst of happiness he would have expected back when he was still scaring off court appointed guardians.
Quite the contrary – it made him feel rather anxious. At times, almost frightened.
Over the past four weeks, Sara had accompanied Ethan on a journey that at times had seemed practically impossible: Alcoholics Anonymous, family therapy – or as he called it, ‘marriage guidance’ – with James, and increasing responsibilities at work. Anybody else would have been grateful for the simple fact he continued to turn up at the office and would never have insisted that his brother actually load him up with a growing amount of pain-in-the-ass work to do, but that was just the way Sara was: a hardass. Moreover, she was genuinely convinced he would be able to manage it all.
Quite where this conviction of hers came from, Ethan couldn’t really have said. Perhaps there was a history of madness in her family. And after having met her Aunt Lydia, that was certainly a possibility.
And now the journey was almost over, or at least the hardest part of it was: he would still have had to spend plenty of evenings in the company of Alcoholics Anonymous and the therapist would certainly insist on seeing him and James from time to time, but the toughest bit seemed to be behind him now. The temptation to turn to the booze in moments of difficulty hadn’t disappeared and, judging by what the other recovering alcoholics had taught him, it never would. Still, he seemed to have learned to live with it, and day by day its presence became less and less cumbersome.
So why did he feel so sad?
“Ethan, when are the removals guys coming to take away your funeral decorations?” asked Sara mockingly from the doorway of his room. She clearly wasn’t planning to drop this stupid issue of his moving out.
“This afternoon. I arranged it all with your sister. Eva’s offered to come and oversee everything. But you’re still in time to change your mind. Just one word…” He had been saying the same thing repeatedly for days now, but didn’t seem to produce particularly great results.
“Forget about it! From now on, I am no longer your guardian, so there is no more reason for you to be staying in my house. And also because, as far as I’m aware, the workmen have finished redecorating your apartment and for the last few days it’s been just sitting there empty…”
“Who betrayed me?”
Sara laughed. “Hey, I have my sources?”
“But aren’t you worried about letting me leave? I don’t know, I might start drinking again, or quit going to work. Or I might meet a woman who would be a bit nicer to me than you . Which, if you don’t mind me saying so, really wouldn’t take much. I mean, come on, aren’t you even a little bit worried?” he asked, trying to provoke some reaction in her.
Sara looked him straight in the eye. “Like I told you: indulging you gets us nowhere. You have to be free to live your life. And if that freedom takes you away from me, that’ll just mean that there was nothing so extraordinary between us after all.”
He walked over to her and grabbed her face in his hands. “Bullshit…” he whispered, staring into her eyes. “You’re scared alright – you’re just good at hiding it. ”
“You’re only moving back to Manhattan, for God’s sake, you’re not moving to Mars! It doesn’t mean you’re never going to see me again once you’re back in your own place,” said Sara. “You’re always welcome to come over for dinner.”
He raised his eyebrows, looking somewhat alarmed. “With your culinary skills? You must be kidding. At best, I might come over after dinner…”
Sara laughed. “You idiot! I’m a perfectly average American woman: I can cook well enough to keep myself alive, and the rest is optional, as far as I’m concerned.”
“I wouldn’t class potato chips as keeping anyone alive. Do I really need to remind you salt causes hypertension and saturated fat blocks your arteries?”
“What are you, a health freak now?” she teased.
“Of course I am, take a look at me – my troubles are all in the distant past.”
“Oh, listen to him – ‘the distant past’! You’ve only been out of trouble for a few weeks, and like all recent converts you’re well on your way to becoming an extremist.”
“And that’s the real reason you’re kicking me out. So you can keep eating junk food without me hassling you…” he concluded seriously.
Sara began laughing so hard that tears streaked down her cheeks. “My God , you’re a born comedian! Of course, that’s exactly it – that’s the reason I’m asking you to go back to Manhattan… Anyway, weren’t you the one who said a few months ago that my house was horrible? That there was nothing to do around here at night and that you needed downtown the way you need oxygen?”
His face grew dark. “Yeah, and I still think that. But I’m willing to overlook those obstacles so I can live with you.”
“Nothing doing, sweetheart.”
At that point, Ethan decided to go for broke. “Okay, if you don’t want to consider living together, maybe getting married would change your mind.”
He hadn’t thought about it before the words came out, but once they had, he was surprised how right they sounded. Putting a ring on the finger of the woman he was in love with was a very tempting prospect.
Unfortunately, Sara didn’t see it that way.
“Have you lost your mind?” she shouted.
Yep, that was very much not the reaction he’d have expected.
“I tell you that we can’t live together, so what do you do? You go and propose to me?!”
“And where’s the harm in asking? Okay, we’ve only known each other a few months, but they’ve been pretty intense months! You already know everything about me, there’s hardly anything else left to discover! ”
She looked at him while he tried to calm himself. “You don’t want to marry me,” she said, threateningly.
“Oh, yes I do.”
“Oh, no you don’t! You’re just scared at the idea of being alone with yourself!”
“Don’t people get married so they can always have company?” he asked her, with a disarming smile.
She threw up her hands in frustration, annoyed by the fact that for once he was actually right.
“Ethan, that’s an absolutely ridiculous idea. Borderline insane. Until yesterday, I was your guardian. Today I’m nothing, not even your girlfriend.”
He opened his mouth to protest, but Sara cut him off. “Look, the good part starts right now. Just think, you can actually invite me out on a date. And I can accept. You can invite me to your house. And I can accept. We have a whole world of opportunities in front of us, but it’s not a race against time, so let’s take all the time we need.”
Ethan had to face it: he would never manage to convince her to change her mind. Never. When she had decided on something, that was all there was to it – she kept going straight on, even at the risk of running over the people on the pedestrian crossing. And in this specific case, the pedestrian was him .
He decided to give it up and laugh the whole thing off. “What the hell has happened to all those women who couldn’t wait to accept a proposal of marriage from some reasonable looking guy with a decent checking account?”
“They’re extinct,” said Sara categorically. “Just like the dinosaurs.”
“I guess I must have missed the last meteorite, then,” muttered Ethan.
“You have a completely messed up idea of marriage. It’s not just an easy way to get yourself a guardian who’s going to protect you from your excesses. It’s a shared aim, a long term life project, and behind it there needs to be the kind of love that presumably lasts forever.”
“That’s the least of my problems…” mumbled Ethan, without realising how much of himself he had revealed with that seemingly throwaway phrase. But once its meaning had sunk into his brain, he was surprised to learn it wasn’t as terrible as he’d have imagined. There were much worse things. “And anyway, don’t try telling me wives don’t have the divinely ordained task of keeping their husbands on a leash…” he said, trying to lighten the serious mood.
“At a guess, women today are sick to the back teeth of that thankless job and would much rather have a husband with enough self-control to control themselves . I mean, why make more work for yourself? Like I said, there’s a time for everything, and I can’t see the point in rushing things now.”
“Of course you can’t, you’ve never even mentioned feelings. Not seriously, I mean. For all I know, you can’t wait to throw me out of your house and out of your life.”
Sara leaned far enough back from him to allow her to cross her arms angrily. “Ethan, until today I couldn’t talk about my feelings. You know I don’t like not living up to commitments I’ve made. And even though you might be able to treat life as a game, or at least pretend to, I have always tried to take my job – being your guardian – absolutely seriously.”
“I know, I know…” he mumbled. “But it’s different today. You’re not my guardian anymore. So speak , woman.” He realized he was being very impatient, but as far as he was concerned, not knocking on her bedroom door at one minute past midnight was already a remarkable bit of self-control. It was almost eight o’clock in the morning – he had been patient for eight hours .
“I have to be in court for ten, and I need to go to the office before that. There isn’t time to talk about this right now.”
Since when had it taken more than three seconds to say ‘I love you’? Ethan wasn’t the type of person who liked beating about the bush. He hadn’t asked Sara to give an hour long speech, so she might as well cut to the chase.
