Love at First Flight (41 page)

“Come on, son, let's get you out of
here,” Gary said, reaching for Jeremy's arm.

He shook off his stepfather and
tightened his grip on Juliana.

Juliana pushed him as hard as she could,
and he stum-bled backward into David. She worked the engagement ring off her
finger and threw it at him. “We're done. Don't call me, don't write to me, and
don't come back to me begging. I'm through with you. I was a fool to think you
deserved another chance.” She turned to walk away. If she allowed herself to
think for even
one second
about what
she had given up for him...

“Did
you fuck him?”
Jeremy
screamed at her back.

The others gasped.

Juliana stopped short and spun around to
face him. “What did you say to me?”

He took a lurching step toward her. “
Did. You. Fuck. Him?
It's a simple yes
or no question.”

“Jeremy, I'm telling you to stop this
immediately,” his mother said, wiping tears from her cheeks.

“Not until she answers the question.”

Juliana leaned into his face. “You want
me to answer the question? Fine, here you go: No, Jer, I didn't fuck him.”
Gratified by the expression of relief that flashed across his face, she added, “But
I
did
make love with him—over and
over and over again. And you know what? Not once, in
all
the nights I spent in his arms, did he ever make me feel like I
wasn't enough for him. Happy now?”

“Jule,” he whispered, the magnitude
seeming to register all at once.

“Go to hell, Jeremy.” She turned and
left the bar where not a pin drop could be heard except for the sobs Jeremy
dissolved into the moment she walked away from him.

“Juliana!” Pam called from behind her. “Wait.”
Pam ran to catch up with her. “I'm so sorry. I'm going to
kill
David for this.”

“Don't. He did me a favor.”

“Will you be all right?”

“I'm going to be just fine.” Juliana
embraced her friend in a quick hug. “Tell Barbara I'll call her when I can. Go
on back there with him. He's going to need his friends when he sobers up and
realizes what he's done.”

“Are you leaving?”

“As fast as I can.”

“Call me?”

Juliana nodded, and with a last squeeze
of Pam's hand she ran for the lobby to hail a taxi. There was nothing in her
room but clothes she bought for a wedding that wasn't going to happen.

CHAPTER 35

JULIANA CAUGHT THE DAY'S LAST FLIGHT OFF
ST. Thomas. She didn't take a deep breath until the plane took off, when she
was certain Jeremy hadn't come after her. If she never saw him again it would
be too soon. More than anything, she was mortified that Barbara and Gary had
been forced to witness the horrific scene in the bar.

As the plane made its way to Miami, the
shock wore off, and Juliana began to shake. Her thin sundress offered scant
protection against the air-conditioned cabin, so she asked the stewardess for a
blanket and wrapped it around her shoulders. Once the trembling subsided, she
wept quietly into the blanket.

What a mess she had made of things, and
what a stupid fool she'd been to give him a second chance. She should have
ended it with him that day on the beach when he said he wanted to see other
women. Instead she'd walked away from the best guy she had ever known for
someone who wasn't worth it.

In Miami, she learned she had just
missed the last flight to Baltimore, so she booked a flight at six the next
morning. Tapping into the wad of cash Jeremy had gotten for their trip, Juliana
bought an overpriced sweat suit and sneakers in one of the fancy airport
boutiques as well as a toothbrush and hairbrush in the newsstand. With her
purchases in hand, she went outside into the warm night to take a taxi to a
hotel near the airport.

The room was small and inexpensive, but
it was clean. After requesting a four thirty wake-up call, she took a long, hot
shower and changed into the sweat suit. She would have ordered some food, but
the thought of eating made her sick, so she lay down on the bed and stared up
at the ceiling.

The wake-up call turned out to be
unnecessary because Juliana never fell asleep during that long night. But she
did make some decisions. Before she did anything else, she was going to find
out if Mrs. Romanello was right when she said Juliana could stand on her own
two feet in any situation. One year was ending and another was beginning, and
she would spend this year alone.

For the first time in her life, she
would live by herself. She would take the time she needed to recover from
everything that had happened in the last few months and to figure out what she
wanted next. She couldn't go running back to Michael after what she had done to
him. Maybe during this year she would discover that it was over with him, too.
Or maybe she would find out that he was what she wanted more than anything. If
that was the case and he loved her as much as he said he did, he would still
love her in a year.

She got up in the morning satisfied she
had a plan to put her life back together, to find some self-respect amid the
ruins, and to put her love for Michael to the test of a lifetime.

***

The skimpy sweat suit was no match for
the frigid cold in Baltimore. Shivering her way home in a taxi, she wished for
the winter coat she left in Jeremy's car in the long-term parking lot.

At the Collington Street house, she
spent the last day of the year, what was supposed to have been her wedding day,
packing four years of her life into three suitcases and six of the boxes Jeremy
brought home from Florida. She took only the things that mattered most to her,
leaving behind all reminders of their ten years together.

By five o'clock she had loaded the last
of the boxes into her car. Climbing the front steps one final time, she peeled
the key off her ring and left it on the kitchen counter. She took a last look
at the room full of memories that only a few days ago had seemed strong enough
to build a lifetime on. Then she set the alarm, pushed in the lock, and closed
the door to that life forever.

It was only when she got into her car
that she realized she had nowhere to go. She laughed so hard she cried as it
settled in on her that she had no idea what to do. Remembering that Michael was
right around the comer and would want her to come to him, she wavered in her
resolve to be on her own.

But only for a moment.

Wiping her tears, she started the car
and drove to the only place in the world she had left to go—home to her mother.

***

The new and improved Paullina welcomed
her daughter with open arms and a closed mouth. She never said “I told you so,”
didn't ask any questions, and, if anything, seemed to appreciate the
opportunity to mother her wounded child.

On New Year's Day they read the notice
in the Baltimore Sun about the wedding in St. John that hadn't happened. Jeremy
sent it in before they left, and Juliana had forgotten about it until she saw
it in the paper. She hurt when she thought of Michael seeing the article and
thinking she had actually gone through with it.

Receiving love from a mother Juliana had
long ago given up on was an unexpected gift in the midst of disaster. It was
tempting to settle in, put her feet up, and let her mother take care of her for
a change. But that went against the promise she made to herself in the Miami
hotel room. So within a week, Juliana signed a one-year lease on a furnished
studio apartment in Fell's Point. Even with the rent she could still swing the
cost of Allison, the home health aide who had brought about such a miraculous
change in Paullina.

Juliana moved her meager belongings into
her new apartment and spent the first night wide awake, thinking about Michael
and wondering if he'd seen the announce-ment in the paper. By the time the sun
came up in the morning, she knew she had to do something about that. Picturing
him in his bedroom getting ready for work, she reached for her cell phone and
dialed his number from memory.

“Juliana,” he said, his voice flat with
shock.

She closed her eyes tight against the
instant rush of tears.

“Baby, what is it? Are you all right?”

“I didn't marry him,” she said softly. “But
the paper... I saw it...”

She winced. “I'm sorry you had to see
that. He sent it in before we left, and it was a holiday weekend...”

“What happened?”

“The blowup you predicted occurred about
twenty-four hours before the I dos.”

“Are you okay?”

“I'm better than I was.”

“God, Juliana, you can't imagine what's
been going through my mind. The thought of you... in bed with him... It's been
making me
insane.
”

“I never slept with him after we got
back together. I was making him wait for a wedding that never happened.”

Michael released a tortured groan. “So
where've you been for the last week?”

She swallowed hard. “I've made a few
decisions.”

“What kind of decisions?”

“I signed a one-year lease on an
apartment in Fell's Point.”

“
Why,
Juliana? You could've come here! You know that!”

“I need some time to figure things out.
To decide how I feel...”

“About me?”

She hated the despair she heard in his
voice—again. “No,” she whispered. “About me. I need to be by myself, Michael. I
have some things I need to prove to myself.”

“Baby,
please
... Don't do this. I love you. No matter what's happened,
that'll never change. You don't have to prove anything to anyone. The biggest
mistake you made was being loyal to someone who didn't deserve it. Don't punish
yourself—and me—for that.”

That he still could be so forgiving
astounded her. “I need to do this for me. I know it's hard for you to
understand, and I don't expect you to wait for me. I just didn't want you to
think I'd married him.”

“I appreciate that—more than you'll ever
know—but don't tell me not to wait for you. Did you hear
anything
I said to you the last time we were together?”

The lump lodged in her throat made it
difficult to speak. “I heard every word,” she said softly.

“You promised me, Juliana.”

“I haven't forgotten.”

“You're really going to do this? You're
going to put us both through this?”

“I'm sorry.”

Sounding resigned, he said, “Can I call
you?”

“It would be better if you didn't.”

“Better for whom?” When she didn't
answer him, he said, “What happens at the end of the year?”

“I don't know.”

“Come find me, Juliana,” he said
urgently. “You know where to look.”

“I'm so sorry for all the pain I've
caused you.”

“You've caused me more happiness than
anything in my life. I'd wait forever for you.”

“Bye, Michael.” Her heart aching, she
ended the call while wondering—and not for the first time—if she was taking too
big a risk with the most precious thing anyone had ever given her.

***

She ate alone, slept alone, shopped
alone, watched television alone. It took a while to get used to the quiet, but
after a month she had grown accustomed to it. By then she had also managed to
set the record straight with just about everyone in her life—she hadn't married
Jeremy despite what the paper said. The salon had been abuzz about it for three
or four days until someone else's drama took center stage and Juliana's was
mercifully forgotten.

In the second month, she decided to try
something else she had always wondered if she could do—she signed up for a
class at Johns Hopkins University. The introduction to architecture class met
twice a week for three hours, and Juliana loved it. Between work, school, and
visiting with her mother and Mrs. R, she began to feel human again as February
inched toward March.

She received a heartfelt letter from
Jeremy's mother in April, apologizing for the horrific way her son had behaved
and expressing her undying love and affection for Juliana, who wrote back to
say the same things. Barbara had always been lovely to Juliana, and it wasn't
her fault that her son had acted like such an ass.

Her class ended in May, and Juliana was
delighted to receive an A. She danced around the small apartment when she
received her grade in the mail, and it took all her willpower not to pick up
the phone to share the news with Michael. She knew he would be so proud of her.

In June, he made news of his own when he
resigned from his job. The Baltimore Sun ran a front-page article that recapped
his role in the Benedetti trial and contained glowing quotes from Tom Houlihan,
Judge Stein, and others in the criminal justice system who worked with him
during his five-year tenure. Juliana read and re-read the article, looking for
any clue to his plans, but he said only that he was moving into the private
sector. She cut out the article and the large photo that ran next to it. As she
hung the photo on the wall next to her bed, she was startled to realize it was
the only picture of him she had.