I want you to know what happened between your father and me. I met him at a high-school dance my sophomore year and he swept me off my feet. He didn’t go to my school. I didn’t find out ’til much later, but he was a dropout. He was a good liar and very handsome and charming. He had hair just like yours. Dark and wavy and kind of out of control and beautiful. As a matter of fact, he was kind of out of control and beautiful himself, and I think that’s why I fell for him. He was just so different.
When I got pregnant with you, I was afraid to tell him. I was almost three months along before I got up the nerve. I had this fantasy that when I told him, he’d ask me to marry him and then he’d take care of me. I went over to his house—he lived with his parents—and we were hanging around in the rec room playing Ping-Pong while I tried to figure out what to say. He was in the bathroom when the phone rang. No one else was home, so I answered it. It was a girl asking to speak with him. Her name was Willa, and I knew she was pretty just by her voice. When he came out of the bathroom, I told him about the call and his face lit up. He didn’t even try to hide it. We started playing Ping-Pong again, but I knew his mind was on Willa, because he was hitting the ball any old way. We finished the game and he said he didn’t feel well so maybe I’d better go home. I left, and I knew I’d never hear from him again. I was right.
Once she told Tim and Marty that she would help them, she felt as if she were on a roller coaster. The ride started out nice and easy, as the brothers perfected their plan with little involvement from her, but she knew it was going to speed up quickly and she would have no way to get off.
Her role now was to set the stage for her breakup with Tim, so she began fabricating problems to discuss with Ronnie.
“He got a phone call from another girl while I was there last night,” she confided to Ronnie as they dressed for work one morning. It was very early. Still dark outside.
“How do you know?” Ronnie pulled on her jeans, then peered over her shoulder to check them in the mirror, making sure they were flattering to her backside.
“I answered the phone,” CeeCee said. She tugged a wide-toothed comb through her hair. “There was this pause. Then a girl’s voice asked for Tim. He sounded happy to hear from her and went in another room to talk.”
Ronnie turned to look at her, hands on her hips. “Did you ask him who it was?”
“No.” CeeCee set down her comb. “I don’t want to be clingy.”
“You have a right to know.” Ronnie was indignant. “You’re in a serious relationship, not some fling. You should know everything.”
CeeCee flopped down on her bed. “He seems…kind of distant all of a sudden,” she said.
“CeeCee.” Ronnie sat next to her. “You’ve given him the idea you’re his, no matter what. It’s really time you act like other guys are interested in you. And that you’re interested in them. You’ve got to let him know he can’t take you for granted.”
“I don’t want to pretend I’m interested in someone else,” she said. “I just want Tim.”
She was surprised when tears filled her eyes. It was easy to imagine how she would feel if she lost him, because that was currently her biggest worry. How were they going to continue their relationship with him in hiding? She’d raised the issue a few times since their meeting with Marty, and each time he would hold her close, reassuring her that they would work it out.
“It’s too good between us to just throw it away,” he’d say. If she pressured him for details, he’d get annoyed. “I don’t know the specifics, CeeCee. I don’t even know where I’m going to end up yet. You’ll just have to trust me on this.” She did trust him, but she’d never been comfortable with uncertainty.
He told her that the breakup had to be public. “Did you take drama in high school?” he asked one night as he drove her home after a movie.
She shook her head. “Did you?”
“Yes,” he said. “So I figure, I’ll pretend I’m really pissed at you for something.” He glanced at her with his full-lipped smile. “I can’t imagine what you could do to piss me off, though.”
“I told Ronnie I thought you were interested in someone else.”
“Brilliant!” He nodded appreciatively. “Except it makes me look like a shithead. I want the breakup to be your fault.”
“Uh-uh,” she said with a smile. “It’s got to be yours.”
“Okay,” he said. “I’ve already asked enough of you, so I’ll take the heat. We’ll make it my fault. An old girlfriend’s come back into my life and being a typical male asshole, I’m leaving you for her.”
“What’s she like?”
“She looks kind of like Telly Savalas, but she has some kind of hold on me,” he said.
“What?” CeeCee laughed.
“She can be moody, too,” Tim continued. “And she’s hard to get, so I’ve always been intrigued with her. So, now that she wants me, I just can’t help myself.”
He seemed so absorbed with the fantasy that CeeCee felt uncomfortable. “This is all made up, right?”
“Oh, babe, do you think I could ever leave you?” Was there a trace of annoyance in the question? She was afraid she was starting to sound as insecure as she felt. “No other woman compares to you,” he said. “You’ve got the world’s most amazing hair and you’re smart and you’ve organized my entire house and won my brother over. Plus, you’re dynamite in bed.”
She blushed at that. She was not dynamite in bed; she’d still not had an orgasm with him inside her. Maybe she didn’t move enough or something. His fictional girlfriend was probably multiorgasmic. No wonder he wanted to go back to her. In her imagination, she named her Willa.
As planned, Tim came to the coffee shop two weeks before Thanksgiving. Instead of sitting in his booth, he asked CeeCee to walk outside with him. He looked appropriately troubled.
Ronnie was headed for the kitchen, and CeeCee caught her arm. “Tim wants to talk to me in private,” she whispered. “Could you cover my tables for a few minutes?”
Ronnie glanced at Tim. “What’s going on?” she asked.
“I don’t know.” CeeCee shrugged. “Nothing, I hope.”
“Go ahead,” Ronnie said. “I’ll cover.”
She and Tim walked outside and stood on the sidewalk by the coffee-shop windows. Students walked past them in either direction, crowding them, brushing up against them, but they held their ground. This was to be a show, primarily for Ronnie’s sake.
“Just remember I love you,” he began.
She nodded. The sunlight gave him a halo of golden curls. She wanted to touch him but kept her arms folded rigidly across her chest.
“My old girlfriend’s come back,” he said. “And she made me realize that I was never really in love with you. I’m sorry. I need to break up with you.”
“I knew it!” She stomped her foot on the sidewalk. “I knew there was someone else.”
Tim started to smile at her false anger, but caught himself. “It only just happened,” he said. “It’s not like I’ve been with her all along or anything.”
“How can you do this to me?” she shouted, louder than she’d intended to. A guy walking past her told her to “settle down.”
“I never wanted to hurt you,” Tim said. He hadn’t shaved that morning; she could see the pale stubble on his cheeks.
“Well, you’re doing a good job of it,” she said. “What does she have that I don’t have?”
“It’s not you, CeeCee. It’s me,” he said. “You’re wonderful and I just…it’s completely my fault.”
“Damn straight,” she said.
“I’m really, really sorry.” He put his hands on her shoulders, but she raised her arms quickly to cast him off. “Can you cry?” he asked.
She put her hands to her face and let her shoulders heave.
“That’s better,” Tim said. “I’d like to think that losing me would tear you apart. Like losing you would do to me.” He pulled her toward him. “Okay, now I’ll comfort you tenderly for one last time.”
She buried her head on his shoulder. “Oh, Tim, I don’t like this,” she said.
“I know, babe.” He patted her back in the halfhearted manner of a lover who’s already moved on. “Me, neither. But you and I know what’s really still between us. Come over tomorrow night, okay? Just be sure to show up after dark so no one sees you. And come around to the back door.”
“Okay,” she said.
He pulled away from her. “Now look pissed off before you go back in,” he said.
“Pissed off isn’t good enough.” She wiped her dry eyes with the back of her hand. “I’m going for complete devastation.”
“Don’t forget who loves you.” He winked at her.
“Ditto,” she said, and without thinking, she drew back her hand and let it fly, her palm connecting with his stubbled cheek in a slap that turned every head on the street.
He looked at her, wide-eyed with shock as he raised his own hand to his crimson cheek.
“Oh, my God, Tim, I’m sorry.” She tried to reach for him, but he backed away.
“That’s it,” he said. “I’ll put your things out on the curb for you.”
She watched him walk up Franklin Street, losing him quickly in the crowd of students. She looked down at her palm. What had gotten into her? And why had hitting him felt so good?
She was stoic once inside the restaurant, as she pretended to tamp down the raw emotions of a woman scorned. Ronnie was solicitous and comforting, and CeeCee knew that she and their manager, George, were talking about her behind her back. She hated being the object of their pity and she hated that they now viewed Tim as a selfish womanizer. But she knew this was only the beginning of her necessary lies.