Casanova Cowboy (A Morgan Mallory Story) (30 page)

When I came
back into our room, he was gone from the bedroom. I dressed, jeans and a white button-down shirt, one of his favorites. I wasn’t certain what I should do, and mechanically I put my work clothes into a bag. I didn’t have to be to work until four thirty, but
I couldn’t stay at the condo, especially if he wasn’t going to address my question. I thought about going to see Mom, but I knew she couldn’t help. When I came into the living room, Ryan was having coffee and finishing with the paper. He looked at me and then the clock.

             
“You don’t work till tonight,” he said puzzled, noticing my bag.

             
“I know. I’m going shopping, then to work. I’ll see you later tonight,” I said stiffly, taking my keys from the hook.

             
I left quickly, no kiss goodbye.

Chapter 36

Ryan didn’t try to stop me, and the hurt sank deeper into my heart. I drove to the Von’s parking lot by our house and shut off the engine, reclined the seat, and tried to think.
What should I do? Where should I go?
I wanted to talk to Mom, but I couldn’t expect her to console me.
It would be the other way around
I thought
with her needing to be consoled.
I decided to go to a movie, dark, alone,
that would be good.
I drove to the large theater close to The Chart House and bought a ticket to
Rocky II
because it was the one playing. I cried the whole way through, watching Rocky and Adrian struggle with life and their relationship. I understood I was really crying for me. Even the luscious smell of popcorn didn’t help.

I left the theater with red eyes and drove to Shelter Islan
d, out to the point. I walked along the path by the ocean, and I thought about Blake. I wondered what he was doing, what dock that big yacht was in now. I wondered if I had let things move forward with him, if anything good would have come out of it.
Probably not
. I thought about Ryan. Almost two years had slipped by since the camping trip when I made him make a decision, and now I regretted it. I’d pressed, and he gave in. I had failed to look at the big picture.

I wondered if I had always been such a bad judge of character in men.
Was I so blind, did I see only what I wanted too, ignoring the rest? Was love meant to be so hard?
Mathew I could almost contribute to young and dumb, but Ryan, I should have known better. Shouldn’t have pushed, instead walked away.

The breeze was light, the scent of
the salty ocean floating on it. I pictured myself, or maybe that other person I could be, in Luke’s sail feeling the freedom, looking at the world through different eyes. In a daze, I sat down on a bench and watched a fisherman down in the rocks. Boats sailed or motored out of the harbor. I had thought Ryan loved me, but his response this morning disturbed me—“I like it the way it is”. I knew what that meant; he liked no commitment. I read somewhere once that if a man didn’t want to get married, it meant he didn’t want to marry
you
.

I looked at my watch.
I still had another hour. I walked back to my car, got in, and reclined the seat. I closed my eyes and saw so many images of me and the men who had traveled through my life. And I wondered why none of them had ever fallen totally for me.
Where was the knight on the white horse waiting to whisk me away, tell me he was madly in love with me?

I felt the tears leak out of the corners of my eyes.

“Hey
, Luke,” I said, putting my time card in the machine bolted to the wall.

It
made a loud sound hammering out the exact time and I removed it putting it back in the holder.

             
“Howdy,” he said, giving me a hug.

             
I could feel the tears come forward again, and I turned from him, wiping them away. He put his hand on my shoulder, turning me to face him.

             
“What’s wrong?” he asked troubled, looking down into my face.

             
“Nothing a shot of tequila won’t cure,” I said, trying to toughen up, to look away.

             
“You and Ryan have a fight?” he questioned.

             
“I wouldn’t call it that. Maybe…a very frank discussion,” I said, putting my purse away. “Now about that shot…”

             
We went to the bar and started to set up. He slipped me a tequila shot in one of the blue coffee mugs, and I put it on the shelf underneath my station. I had been at The Chart House for almost four years now, and this wasn’t new, sneaking shots during a shift. I felt like getting drunk, but I knew that wouldn’t solve anything, and in the end, I would have to go home and face Ryan one way or another.

“Luke
, why is it so hard for men to love me?” I asked with a feeling of detachment as I cut up limes.

He was behind the wooden bar first pulling out garnish trays for set up and then polishing glasses.

              “All the men love you, what are you talking about,” he teased.

             
Luke held the glass he’d just finished up to the light and not happy with it continued to polish.
Um, hold it up, inspect it, not so perfect…I like it the way it is.

“I’m serious
,” I said. “Like really love me?”

             
“Ryan really loves you,” he said.

             
He inspected the glass again and this time put it on the back bar mat.

             
“No, he doesn’t. He likes the idea of it, but he doesn’t love me enough to commit, to say he wants only me, to get married,” I said.

             
“He say that?” Luke questioned.

             
“It’s what he doesn’t say that tells me that,” I answered. “He likes it the way it is.”

             
He stopped and slapped his palms on the bar making a sharp clap.

             
“Quit being a fucking girl, and get it out on the table. You have a question, ask him. We can’t read women’s minds. We don’t know what you want. You say one thing and mean another. You want an answer; ask the question. Man up, Morgan,” Luke ordered.

             
“I thought I did ask the question,” I said. “He didn’t answer it.”

             
The whole shift I thought about what Luke said. He was right; it wasn’t fair to jump to conclusions. I needed to confront Ryan and understand his feelings, understand what his words meant. When I got home at one thirty in the morning, Ryan was asleep. I looked at his face and pushed his hair back gently.
I love you so much.
He moved his head slightly, but didn’t wake. I got ready for bed quietly in the bathroom. I thought again about my conversation with Luke. I had to man up and get my feelings out.

I slept
hard and had a mishmash of dreams, in full color; people and places from all different parts of my life, falling and drifting together, like confetti falling from the sky. I woke up confused and alone in our bed. My body went rigid as panic washed over me.

“
Ryan,” I called out.

             
“Yes,” he answered from the living room.

             
A gasp escaped my lips and I realized I’d been holding my breath. I heard him rustle the newspaper then make his way down the hall.

             
“Morning,” he said, sitting on the edge of the bed. “You were sleeping like a baby when I got up. Late night?”

             
“Oneish, not too bad. I have so much studying to do for finals today, though, argh,” I whined as I thought about all I needed to get done.

I sat up to pull
my hair back bringing the sheet with me to cover my chest. Since I’d left the house yesterday all I had thought about was
us
. I’d spent years pussyfooting around the topic of feelings with Mathew; I couldn’t do it again. I couldn’t pretend anymore, wouldn’t wait for a potential change of heart; for more than “try”, more than “I like it the way it is”.

“
Ryan, I know my timing sucks, but I have to know. I need to know about us. I absolutely want to get married, to you, to have kids someday. The whole thing. And you tell me ‘you like it the way it is’. Explain what that means. I need to know if we’re moving forward or standing still,” I asked feeling every nerve in my body tense.

He sighed
and dropped his head to one side and looked away from me. His expression told me everything; I knew I didn’t want to hear the answer.

             
“I love you, Morgan, but I’m not sure I’m in love with you—” he started.

             
I gasped, and he stopped talking, looking up at me. My body was twisting and turning inside, going into a dark black hole inside itself. My pulse beat in my throat as I felt the butterflies one by one vanish into nothingness. I could see his face, but I didn’t want to see his face. I closed my eyes tight thinking it was a dream and then reopened them. I took a deep breath in and let it out slowly. I rubbed my eyes, pressing hard on the lids.
No, it wasn’t a dream.

             
“Morgan, are you all right?” he finally asked with alarm.

             
I focused on breathing and thought about the things Luke and I had talked about. I thought about what I should do, what I should say. “Ask the question” Luke had told me. We had never discussed what to do if the answer wasn’t the one I wanted. I dug deep and tried to find the right response.

“No
, Ryan, I’m not all right,” I said sadly.

Ask the question
reverberated in my head,
ask the question
.

I opened my eyes.
His blue eyes stared at me; I could see his concern. I couldn’t believe this was happening, and in my heart I already new the answer to my question.

“Ryan, i
s there someone else?” I asked.

The words came out of my mouth robotically and my voice sounded strange to me.
He looked away again, and in that second my heart shattered, like the glass from the windshield the night of my accident, into millions of little pieces, ripping me apart. The sound of glass breaking and metal crunching filled my head.

“I met a girl.
I don’t know,” he said shyly. “There are some feelings there.”

Like the car wreck, then it was over, the words were out. I stared at him numbly as he
explained that he met her initially through a friend on his flying team, before we got together as a couple. He’d recently run into her again on the guys’ flying trip and apparently still felt a connection. Now I understood what the difference was since he’d returned; he had another girl on his mind.

I thought abou
t how sad Mom would be. I’d taken a chance at love and lost again. I had told him long ago I thought it was worth the risk. But I couldn’t hold onto
us
with unreasonable hope. I couldn’t hold onto someone who wasn’t sure whether he was in love with me. I wondered what we had been doing the last two years. I expected tears, but they didn’t come, the black hole closed and with it came a renewed sense clarity.
Feel nothing.

“You need to go
, Ryan. If you aren’t in love with me, you need to go. If you don’t know by now, you never will,” I said alarmingly calm.

Chapter 37

It took Ryan almost three weeks to move out. It was like he was struggling with whether to go or not. It sure wasn’t like he had a lot of stuff. I stopped sleeping in our, my bed, right after that conversation. I spent a lot of time at my parents, and when I came home to find him still there, I thought he might change his mind, realize he was in love with me, didn’t want another girl. The day I came home, and his stuff was gone, I crumpled to the floor. I rolled into a ball and sobbed; big, silent sobs that made me tremble. It seemed inconceivable that the hurt could go deeper than it had already, but it did. It was over.

“Mom
,” I said, when she answered the phone, “Ryan, he’s gone.”

I said
it so faintly that I didn’t even recognize my own voice.

             
“Baby, I’m so sorry,” she said, hurt evident in her tone. “Can I come over? I can spend the night?”

             
“No, I need to be alone. I need to face it. He made his decision. He made it clear we were not enough. I need to start getting over him.”

             
The last few weeks of school were brutal. I took it moment by moment and hoped I could pass and graduate. Luke became my savior. He knew my heart was broken, and he tried to make me laugh, kept me occupied, took me sailing. He tried to drag back the girl he knew, the one who could be fun and impulsive. As much as I tried to move on, I couldn’t. The opportunities that presented themselves, I couldn’t take. My heart was too broken. It was like I was stuck between past and future; I was functioning in nowhere land, in the black hole.

My parents and grandparents came to my
graduation. It was a perfect day in San Diego: blue sky, sun, and not too hot. I had accomplished something big, and yet it was overshadowed by my sadness. I was turning twenty-eight the following week, and Liz planned a big party with my mom. All I wanted was out, out far and away. I went through graduation and my birthday party on autopilot; I was dazed. Once again I decided what I needed was a drastic change to jumpstart me. A change of scenery, get out of town for a while. Make me remember there was a whole world out there.

“Go to
Ginny’s,” Mom said. “That’s what you need.”

             
Ginny had gone to college with Mom, and they were close like sisters. It had been years though since we had visited her in Lake Tahoe. Since we’d last seen her she had divorced and moved into a large home on the golf course.

             
“She has that beautiful home with lots of space, I’m sure she would love to have you visit.”

             
“Call her, Mom. I’m ready. I need to get out of here.”

             
I felt so relieved when Ginny called back to say she was happy to have me stay with her. That two of her boys were back living with her, but she still had a room for me. I decided I would go for a month, spend time at the lake, try to heal myself, force myself forward. I knew Ginny’s kids would include me in whatever summer activities they were doing. Mom decided she would drive up with me and then fly home. She was clearly worried about my mental state.

“Let’s go up the coast
, Mom, a girls’ trip. We can stop at Hearst Castle and Monterey, do the wharf, then up to San Francisco, then Tahoe,” I suggested.

“That sounds like a great idea
,” she said with a sadness that pained me.

             
“Mom, I know you are still talking to Ryan,” I said, as tears sprang to my eyes. “It’s okay, Mom, you were his friend too, but I’m asking you, as your daughter, do not tell him where I am or what I’m doing. Do not tell me what he is doing. I have to move on, push myself to move on.”

The
tears were rolling down my face now and she reached for a Kleenex handing it to me. I thought she might cry too. She waited while I tried to pull my self together.

“Do you understand me?”

My last words came out slowly and cross. I wanted her to understand I got it, and she needed to as well. As much as she wanted to fix it, she couldn’t, and I didn’t want her to try. I got my shifts covered at my various jobs, and we left on a Tuesday headed north.

             
Our first overnight was in San Simeon, getting to the hotel about four. We poured ourselves scotch on the rocks from a bottle that Mom had brought, and we sat on the porch of our hotel room. The ocean was across the street, and in silence, we watched the waves crash in then retreat while the seals played in the surf or basked on the rocks. She lit a cigarette and moved her chair a little farther from me so I wouldn’t smell the smoke.

“There’s so much sadness in love
, Mom. I wonder if anyone ever really finds it and keeps it,” I pondered.

             
“Some people do. It’s illusive to most, though. Then some find it and let it go. Others think they found it, but keep searching. For a lot of people, Morgan, it just always looks better in someone else’s backyard.”

She took a drag and let the smoke out slowly
and I watched it float into the air.

“
With Ryan, I don’t know, he’s moved around a lot. Maybe he’s running from himself. Sometimes it’s easier to move on than commit to anything, a place, a person, whatever. Ryan might not have the ability to commit to anything,” she said forlornly.

In her
words, I could hear some of the feelings he’d shared with her. I wondered if he’d shared with her feelings about the other girl.

             
“I thought I would be different, Mom, different from the other girls. That he wouldn’t want to move on.”

Her lips twitched at the sides.

“
If I ever let another man in my life, he is going to love me from the start, or I’m not having him. No more of this friend off-and-on bullshit ever again,” I said and took a sip of my drink.

The scotch felt smooth going down my throat.
I swore to myself I would do it differently from here on out.

“He will have to be damn certain from the start, and so will I.”

We
went out to a fabulous dinner at a restaurant with great atmosphere and views—Ryan would have loved it. I could see us having martinis at Jake’s and felt a stab of pain in my heart.

             
When we got back to the room, we were both tired and went to bed early. We toured Hearst Castle the next day and then drove up to Monterey. We stayed in a hotel close to the wharf and spent the rest of the day walking, shopping, and talking. I noticed couples strolling, holding hands, and it made me wonder why I couldn’t have that. Wondered what it would actually feel like to believe it could last.

             
In San Francisco, we walked along the wharf, eating crab and sourdough bread. The smells and the sounds brought back memories. For Mom too as she had spent some of her childhood years in the City, and we both loved it. I remembered when I came here with Ryan and Karen. I found it ironic that I was trying to get over a different love at that point in my life: Mathew.

             
It felt easy to be with Mom, and I was touched by her ability to only talk about the situation when I brought it up. No lamenting the
whys
. Otherwise she tried to keep our conversations on other subjects. She stayed at Ginny’s for a couple of days when we got to Tahoe, helping me “settle in”. I could tell that she was nervous about leaving me, leaving me hurt and broken.

             
“Are you sure, you’re going to be all right?”

             
She’d asked the question so many times I felt like she thought I might implode. I hoped more than anything I wasn’t wearing the hurt so blatantly on the outside.

“
I’ll be fine, Mom. Ginny’s going to mother me just like you, whether I want it or not.”

We were sitting alone out on Ginny’s back deck. I leaned forward and took her hands in mine and she looked into my eyes.

“
Mom, understand me, Ryan made it clear that he doesn’t love me.”

Her body recoiled almost as if she’d been hit.

“Do you get it?”

She slowly nod
ded her head. I let her hands drop and leaned back in my chair. Sun bathed the deck in warmth, and I breathed in the pine tree smell in the mountain air. The magpies darted in and out of the trees, squawking at each other. It felt peaceful, something I could use.

“I know you want it to be differen
t, but it’s not. I’m taking this time to try and move on, and hopefully, with enough distraction and in different surroundings, I can do that,” I said.

She let out
a sigh. It made me angry with Ryan for her hurt too. Staying mad was the best emotion I could have.
Stay mad, don’t let the memories in.
The phone rang in the house, and I heard Doug answer it.

“What do you want for dinner
? Mom wants to know,” he called out through the screen door. “She’s bringing stuff home from the restaurant. You need a menu? I’ve got one here.”

I looked at Mom. We’d been to Stanley’s numerous times over the years,
their family run restaurant in Incline Village, a nice upscale steak house.              

“You need it Mom?”

“No,” she said waving her hand. “I’ve seen it plenty I remember what’s on it.”

“I’ll take chicken
, blue cheese on the salad,” I called.

“Me too
,” Mom answered.

“They’ll both have chicken
,” I heard Doug say into the phone. “I’ll take a steak. Brad’s out.”

“So what do yo
u think you’ll do up here?” Mom asked.

“I’ll run every
day, then go to the lake, read books, relax—and party like a rock star when anyone asks,” I said, trying to smile. “I practically grew up with Ginny’s kids, and between the four of them, I should be able to find something to do most of the time.”

She gave me a half
-hearted smile in return.

When Ginny got home, the three of us ate dinner on the deck; Doug took his meal to his room. As the sun set behind the pines and it cooled down, we moved indoors where Ginny and Mom started catching up on what old college buddies were doing. Not real interesting for me, so I decided to find Doug. I walked down the hall towards his room to find his door was open and Heart’s “Crazy on You” playing loudly.

“Can I come in
?” I asked over the music from the doorway.

He turned around from his desk to look at me.

“Yeah, you can come in,” he said, turning the stereo down.

I
sat down on his bed. All of Ginny’s boys were good-looking. Even though we had only seen each other once or twice a year growing up, we seemed to always pick up where we’d left off. He had gotten taller since our last visit and his blond hair lighter with the summer sun. His green eyes shined as a smile spread across his lips.

“I like the new house,” I said.

“Not too bad, right?”

I looked around his room at the snow skiing posters, and pictures of him water skiing, several pictures of boats on the lake. He had an athletic build and obviously kept himself in shape with lots of activity.

“A month, huh, I would love to be able to take a month off,” he said. “Mom would never let me.”

“I know
it’s extravagant, but I need it for my sanity,” I said.

He rocked back in his desk chair and cocked his head.

“So what’s up with the guy? Mom said you needed to get away from him, or be away, I don’t remember which,” Doug asked.

I scooted farther onto his bed and brought my legs up,
tucking them under me.

“
His name is Ryan. After two years together, he told me he didn’t know if he was in love with me. I told him he had to go, and he went. That’s the abbreviated version of it anyway,” I said.

“No fun,” he
said with a frown.

“So much
, you can’t believe.”

He stood suddenly and
I watched as the mobiles hanging from his ceiling gently moved around. He walked to a shelf with cassette tapes and starting looking through them.

“
Weren’t you two living together?” Doug asked, his back to me.

“We were
; he moved out. I never have understood a lot of things men do when it comes to love. Let’s not talk about him. I came here to focus on other things. I want to party like crazy. I want to meet new guys. I want to go on dates. Between you and Eric and that wild child, Brad, I’m counting on there being some guy friends,” I said.

He
pulled out a tape and went back to his desk chair rotating it side to side as he pushed the button on the cassette player and took out Heart and popped the new selection in.

“Oh
, no doubt we can keep you partying. And the guy thing we can work on too. Sal is good at matchmaking too,” he said, referring to his sister Sally.

“
I’m feeling better already,” I said with a grin.