Page 104 of Ten Years and Then…
Just as easy as it would be for him to get hers, and he hadn’t contacted her, either.
When he walked into his apartment, the phone was ringing.
Could it be? If she was ever going to call him, this would be the time. He let it ring once more, twice more, before picking it up.
“Hey, Danny.” He collapsed on the couch when he heard his cousin’s voice. He’d never hung up on Bianca before, but he almost did now. It took all his strength to answer her.
“Hi, Bee.”
“Don’t sound so thrilled.” Then there was silence for a moment. “Oh, crap. I’m sorry. You must have thought …”
She knew. Bee always knew. “Yeah. I got the magazine just now, and I guess I got my hopes up when the phone rang.”
“Of course you did. But you know, you could call her, too. Except you two are both too—whatever you are. I’d say neurotic, but I don’t think that really covers it.”
She was right. They both were. If he knew her at all, Nora hadn’t called because she knew there was no way anything could work between them now, and it would hurt too much to keep in touch knowing what they both wanted so badly and couldn’t have.
“What am I supposed to do, Bee? I still love her. I don’t think I can ever not love her. But she’s there and I’m here, and we’re both—if you read inside, you saw the little sidebar about my company—we’re doing great. I’m doing great, and you know I never talk about myself like that. And obviously she’s doing fantastic. This just isn’t—it can’t work now. No matter how much we want it to.”
She was silent for a while. “I don’t know what to tell you, Danny. I think you’re wrong, but it’s easy for me to say that. I’m not in your shoes. I just—I love you, and I want everything for you. You deserve it.”
“I love you too, Bee. Maybe—do you think it would be okay if I thought of it this way? Like it was a reminder, just so we wouldn’t forget what we had, so when the time is right someday, we really will be ready?” That was wildly optimistic, but maybe he could make himself believe it, if he kept saying it to himself enough times.
She sighed. “Does it hurt any less when you tell yourself that?”
“No.”
“Didn’t think so. But maybe—maybe you’re right anyway. Just know I’m thinking of you, and you can call me anytime you need to, Danny.”
He was pretty sure he’d be taking her up on that.
Nora, the same day
Nora sat on her couch, just staring at the cover of this month’s Modern Computing. Would it be too obnoxious to have it framed and hang it in her living room?
What a stupid question. She never had anybody up to her apartment; there wouldn’t be anybody to call her obnoxious.
Well, except her parents. But Dad would never call her obnoxious—he never had, even though she’d given him a million reasons to back in high school; and the only thing Mom would say about it was that she should have had it enlarged to poster size before she hung it up.
She wondered if Daniel had seen it yet.
Of course he had. He’d been reading the magazine cover to cover every month since college. Even when they were dating, and he was only a sophomore. She could still see it on his dorm room desk—always opened to an article, a pen jammed between the pages.
“It’s really interesting,” he’d said. “And I need to keep up, if I want to work in the field.”
He probably subscribed to it. He might be reading her story right now.
But if he was, why wasn’t her phone ringing? It wouldn’t be hard for him to get her phone number.
No harder than it would be for her to get his. And his phone wasn’t ringing with her on the other end of the line right now, was it?
Maybe he’d never gotten her messages; cell phones could be very flaky. Maybe it was only today when he saw her cover story that he finally knew where she’d gone. And maybe he’d made up his mind about her by the time he flew home from Kansas City; that there was no future, no hope. No reason to risk his heart any more than he already had at the karaoke bar or in his hotel room.
Or, maybe, just maybe, there was a reason they’d been given one night together. Maybe it was just a reminder of their promise on his graduation day. Just enough to make sure they didn’t forget how much they meant to each other, so that, come 2001, they’d both be ready, for real and for good.
And maybe, if she kept telling herself that often enough, it would only take ten or fifteen minutes for her to cry herself to sleep, instead of an hour.
Chapter 33
