Mixed Signals (21 page)

M
y eyes take a moment to adjust to the interior of the dimly lit pub where I'm meeting Nico. Even though smoking hasn't been allowed here for more than ten years, the place still reeks of cigarettes. I'm not sure if the stench is ingrained in the old red vinyl booths or if it's coming off the patrons, most of whom have a hand wrapped around a short glass filled with hard alcohol and their eyes glued to the computer screen showing the winning Keno numbers.

Nico is sitting at a table facing the door, but he's turned sideways so that he can see the baseball game on the television in the bar. He doesn't notice me until I arrive at the booth. “Jill.” He sounds surprised, like he forgot I was coming. I can tell, though, that he's made an effort for tonight, because he's wearing a button-down shirt instead of one of his many Boston sports teams' jerseys, and shoes, not sneakers. “I wasn't sure you were going to show.”

“Neither was I,” I admit. From the street I saw his truck in the parking lot and drove past the restaurant, intending to go home. At the light a mile up the road, I changed my mind again, made an illegal U-turn, and circled back.

Nico stands and steps toward me like he's going to hug me. I move sideways, evading his outstretched arms. He drops his hands back to his sides. “Thanks for coming,” he mutters.

He waits for me to slide into the booth before sitting again. We stare across the table at each other for a few seconds without speaking. I can feel my heart beating. I'm not sure why I'm so nervous. I only came here so that I can understand why he left and get closure.

“You look good.” I think he says it to end the awkward silence, because it comes out sounding like a prerecorded message.
Thank you for calling our hotline for people who have nothing to say to each other. Press one for insincere compliments, two for humorless jokes, and three for meaningless small talk.

A hefty waitress in a short-sleeved shirt arrives with menus. Her arms are covered in tattoos. I can't stop staring at them. I spot a snake and a monkey below her right elbow, and a dragon above it.

“Are you here for drinks or food?” she asks.

“Both,” Nico answers.

“Drinks,” I say and ask for a rum and Coke because they don't serve good wine at a place like this.

“Give us a minute,” Nico says after ordering his beer.

“I think I saw Waldo's red-and-white striped hat on her arm,” I say after she leaves.

He narrows his eyes. “What are you talking about?”

“Her tattoos.”

He looks at me blankly.

How could he not notice them? “Never mind.” Ben would have understood. When the waitress returns, he would stealthily touch a spot on his own arm.
Snake
, he would mouth.

Rabbit
, I would counter, pretending to scratch an itch. The entire time we were here, we'd play a secret game of I Spy.

Nico glances toward the television. “No hits through four.”

He opens his menu. “Did you already eat?”

“I'm not hungry.” I haven't had an appetite since I woke up alone on Saturday.

“You love the chicken teriyaki sandwich and onion rings here. It's why I picked this place.”

“I love the filet at the Capital Grille too, and the ambiance is much better.”

“Can't watch the Sox there,” he says, glancing toward the television.

“Yes, because we came here to talk about the game and not us.”

He makes the clicking sound with his tongue. “Sorry.”

The waitress returns with our drinks. This time, I study the artwork on her left arm, noticing a spider and what I think are Chinese letters. “What did you decide about food?” she asks.

“None for me.”

“Chicken teriyaki sandwich and the onion rings,” Nico says. “We'll split them.”

Onion rings. I would never eat them on a date now. I'd be too worried about my breath, not to mention what the fried batter would do to my weight. Did I just not care when I was with Nico? Did I eat them in front of him when we first started dating, or sometime in our six years together did I become complacent? “I'm not going to have any.”

“You might change your mind.”

“You're the one famous for that.”

He winces, making me feel a tiny bit bad. “What happened with Bonnie?”

He exhales loudly. “Look, Jill. The radio station. The ratings were lousy. We were trying to attract female listeners. Branigan suggested the contest. I told him I'd think about it. The next thing I know, he's moving ahead with the idea. I'm sorry.”

“Why did you leave?”

He fiddles with his silverware. “Once I gave you the ring, everything felt different. I couldn't stop thinking of the notion of forever. It scared me.”

“Why didn't you talk to me about it?”

He sighs. “Look, Jill, I made a mistake.” He makes a point of looking in my eyes. “I want to correct it. Give me another chance. Please.”

I wait to feel elated. Isn't this what I have been dreaming about since the day he left? All I feel is sad. I slump against the backrest and study his face. The dark, slanted eyes, his straight nose with the narrow nostrils and pointed tip, the five o'clock shadow that I used to find sexy. Renee's right. He does look dirty.

“I know I hurt you,” he says. “Give me another chance. I'll make it up to you.”

“How can we go back to what we used to be when I can't trust you?”

“I don't want to be what we were. I want to be better.” He reaches across the table for my hand. I let him take it, wishing I could find a way to forgive him and forget the last four months ever happened. Get back to planning our wedding instead of to online dating.

I hear an all-too-familiar clearing of the throat and look up. Mr. O'Brien is walking up the aisle toward us; his eyes zero in on my and Nico's entwined hands in the center of the table. As he gets closer, his gaze meets mine. He doesn't say a word, but the disappointed look on his face shames me. I pull my hand out of Nico's as Mr. O'Brien turns to the right to pick up another Keno card.

Nico glances over his shoulder to see what I'm looking at. “Oh man,” he whines.

I think of how Mr. O'Brien took an immediate liking to Ben, but never warmed up to Nico. “What's your problem with him?” I ask.

“I didn't like that he was all up in our business all the time. And that BS about raising your rent when I moved in. Did he decrease it after I left?”

“As a matter of fact, he did.” Nico doesn't have to know the decrease was about one-tenth of the increase.

The waitress drops off Nico's meal. He cuts the sandwich in half and transfers it and a handful of onion rings onto a smaller plate, which he slides across to me. He's sharing them with me to be nice, but his gesture annoys me. Even though the food looks and smells delicious, I resist the temptation to reach for it because I don't want Nico thinking he knows better than I do.

“We can't live at your place. You'll have to move in with me,” he says.

I push the food back at him. “I'm not moving in with you.”

“We'll find a new place then.”

“You don't get it. I'm not living with you anywhere.” It's just like him to assume I'd take him back, no questions asked. He might be more arrogant than Branigan.

“Okay, we'll take it slow,” Nico says. “See what happens.” He bites into his sandwich like everything's been settled.

“Why didn't you try to stop Branigan?”

“I tried, but you brought that on yourself. All you had to do was apologize to him.”

I fold my arms across my chest.

“Sorry. Look, Jill, I want to focus on moving on and not replaying everything that happened.”

“Funny, you're usually a big fan of replay.”

He smirks. “I'll let you get away with these jabs for a little while, but eventually you have to forgive me.”

I feel a weird sensation under the skin on my arms and imagine my blood is boiling. “I have to forgive you? I don't think so.”

He reaches for my hand again, but I jerk it away. “Jillian, we went through a rough patch. All couples do.”

“A rough patch? Is that what you call it? You made my life a living hell. Humiliated me on air. I was the laughing stock of my office.”

“Things got out of hand because you picked a fight with Branigan.”

“And you did nothing to stop him!”

“I tried.” He stuffs an onion ring into his mouth.

“Well, you didn't try hard enough.”

He looks down at his lap.

“Why do you want to get back together?”

“Because I miss you.”

“What exactly do you miss about me?”

He sighs. “Why are you making this so hard, Jillian?”

“What did you think would happen? You'd say sorry and everything would be fine?”

He pushes his mostly uneaten sandwich to the side of the table. “I was hoping you'd want to work things out and not just throw away the six years we spent together.”

“You're the one who did that.” I stand.

He grabs me by my wrist. “So that's it? You're not going to give me another chance?”

I shake my arm free. “You don't deserve another chance. You don't deserve me.” I take a deep breath, straighten my shoulders, and head for the door.

“Jill. Jillian,” Nico calls out.

I keep walking and don't look back.

T
uesday morning when I wake up, I decide that Ben owes me an explanation so I will send him a text. I type
Why did you leave on Saturday?
I delete it because the tone is combative. I lighten it up.
Hey, where did you run off to Saturday morning?
Yes, that sounds friendly and doesn't make me seem like a crazy stalker. I fire it off.

His response is fast, brief, and cold.
Had someplace to be.

Bastard! Now I wish I had never sent the text because not knowing why he left was actually better than knowing. Damn.

My phone pings again.
How was your date with Nico last night?

Screw you, Ben.
Perfect!

I flip on the radio, hoping Nico isn't talking about what happened. Fortunately, Branigan and Smyth are talking about baseball. I keep the radio tuned to their show and get ready for work. As I'm drying my hair, a commercial for Kaufman Jewelers comes on, making me wonder what Nico will do with the ring. Someday down the road, will he present it to a woman he's dating and try to pass it off as something he picked out especially for her? She'll believe him because she won't have a reason not to. She'll love it until Branigan sees it on her finger.
You're wearing a recycled ring
, I imagine him telling her, and she'll demand a different one.

The jewelry advertisement ends. “How was your date with Jill last night? Did you give her back the ring?” Branigan asks. I'll say this for the guy, he's smooth with his transitions from commercial breaks back to the show.

There's a long silence before Nico answers. “Not yet.”

“But you think you will?”

“We agreed to take things slow. When I earn her trust again, she'll slide the ring back on, and we'll get back to planning our wedding.”

He is such a liar. I have a white-knuckle grip on my hairbrush. I place it down on the vanity and stretch my hand. On the bright side, his lie backs up what I said to Ben.
Had someplace to be.
What a big jerk.

“Frankly, I'm surprised she's giving you another chance,” Branigan says. “We put her through the ringer these past months.”

“You did that,” Nico says. “Last night was a good start for us. And that's all I want to say. From now on, we're not going to talk about my personal life or mention Jill again. Agreed?”

“I don't know about that,” Branigan says. “I'm still waiting for my apology.”

After another commercial break, Branigan goes to the phones, where everyone who calls in lambastes me for giving Nico another chance. “Does she have no self-respect?” Eric from Burlington asks.

I snap off my radio and finish getting ready for work. As usual, Mr. O'Brien pulls in as I'm leaving my apartment, and he's listening to the radio. He climbs out of his car as I stomp across the driveway to mine. He gives me the same disappointed look he did last night.

“It's not true,” I blurt out.

“What's not true?”

“What Nico said on the radio, about us working it out. We're not.” I open my car door.

He sips his coffee. “There are a lot of listeners who think it is.”

“Well, there's nothing I can do about that.”

“Why can't you?” he asks. “Don't you have a phone?”

I slam the door shut. I could go on the radio and call out Nico on air. Sure, if Ben's listening, he'll find out I misled him about my meeting with Nico, but the rest of the listeners won't think I'm a doormat. “I need the number for the caller line.”

He waves at me to follow him and leads me through his front door to his kitchen. I'm surprised to see he has a state-of-the-art pod coffeemaker.

He catches me staring at it. “Do you want a cup?”

“No. I'm just wondering why you go to Dunkin' Donuts every day if you have that?”

He sighs. “Gives me a place to be every morning. Provides structure to my day.”

A cup of coffee is the highlight of his day? Now I feel bad that I haven't made more of an effort to get to know him through the years. I should have invited him over for dinner from time to time. I will, from now on. I hope he likes Rice Krispies.

On the counter next to his coffeemaker, there's an old black transistor radio complete with the dial for tuning and the strap for carrying. He turns it on.

“We have a few open lines, so give us a call,” Smyth says before the station breaks for a commercial.

Mr. O'Brien searches his bulletin board for the phone number.

Nervous about talking on air, I sway in my seat at his table. “Can you offer any advice about keeping my cool on the radio?” I ask.

“How would I know? I've never called in to the show.”

I laugh because as he says it, he hands me a scrap piece of paper with the ten-digit number scribbled across it. “You just happen to have this handy and have no idea who uses the alias Frank from South Boston?”

He clears his throat. “Pretend you're talking to a friend.”

“Why don't you ever give your real name?”

He smiles. “Carol didn't like me calling in. Said I got too worked up.”

“She didn't recognize your voice?”

“Oh, she did, but she pretended not to. She'd bring up something Frank said on air and ask me what I thought about it. It was our little game.” He smiles at the memory. It reminds me of something Ben and I would do. “Go ahead. Make your call.”

I punch the numbers into my phone. I get a busy signal, which I haven't heard in years.

“Keep trying,” Mr. O'Brien says. “It takes a while.”

On the sixth attempt I make it through to a call screener. I give him my name and tell him I want to talk to Branigan on air. “He's been waiting for my call,” I explain.

He puts me on hold. Mr. O'Brien carries the radio to the table and sits across from me.

Branigan's voice comes out of the speakers and fills the kitchen. “Well, you'll never believe this,” he says. “On line two, we have a special guest. Jillian, Nico's ex, err, current girlfriend, is finally calling us. Welcome to the show, Jill.”

He sounds so friendly that you'd never guess he spent the last few months ripping me apart. My hand shakes so much I can barely hold on to the phone. I can feel my cheeks burning up. I can't go through with this. I need to hang up. Right now!

“We've been trying to get you to call in for weeks,” Branigan says. “What made you do it today?”

I glance at Mr. O'Brien. He nods. I can do this. I take a deep breath. “Because I want to—” There's a horrible echo.

“Jillian, hold on a minute,” Branigan says. “You need to turn your radio down. Do that for me right now.”

Mr. O'Brien carries his portable radio into the living room.

“So we're glad you've decided to give Nico another chance. I guess it's only fair, seeing how I got another shot at the mixed doubles title, and look how that turned out. I am the club's mixed doubles champion for the tenth consecutive year.”

I should have known he'd get that in. “I wanted to set the record straight,” I say.

“About the incorrect call you made in the first tournament?”

“No! About me and Nico. We're not trying again. I don't want the ring back, ever.”

“That's not what Nico just told us.”

“I know. That's why I'm calling.”

Branigan pauses. “Nico's lying? Is that what you're telling us?”

“He's not being truthful,” I say.

“Nico, what do you have to say about this?” Branigan asks.

Dead silence.

“You have to say something,” Branigan persists. “She's calling you a liar.”

“It will take some time, but eventually Jillian will take me back,” Nico says. “I'm going to work hard until she does.”

“Jill?” Branigan says.

“It's never going to happen. I want him and you to leave me alone.”

Mr. O'Brien peeks into the kitchen and nods.

“You're not enjoying your five minutes of fame?”

“It's been five months,” I exaggerate. “You've been trying to ruin my life all because of a stupid tennis tournament.”

“It's not stupid to me,” Branigan says. “Did you purposely make an incorrect call?”

“It's possible.”

“Possible?”

“Yes, I was angry with you so I called the ball out. It was on the line. I'm sorry.”

Someone at the radio station turns on victory music, Branigan talks over it. “Jillian, our little game has officially ended,” he says. “Since you're not with Nico, how about we host a contest to give our listeners a chance to win a date with you?”

Mr. O'Brien shakes his head. I don't need his encouragement for this decision though. “Thanks, but no.”

After I hang up, Mr. O'Brien offers to make me a cup of coffee in his pod maker. I can tell he has never used the machine before, so I show him how it works. The radio is still on. Listeners are calling to talk about Nico and how delusional he is if he thinks I would forgive him after what his show put me through the past few months.

The last caller to comment on the situation is Ben from the car. “If Jill changes her mind about the win-a-date contest, I want to be the first person to enter,” he says.

“I like Ben in the black Dodge Charger,” Mr. O'Brien says.

“Me too.”

When I leave my landlord's, I text Ben before driving off to work.
If we went on a date, would you disappear in the morning again?

He immediately calls. First, he tells me the reason for his curt text earlier was because he thought I had reconciled with Nico. He then explains why he left on Saturday. “I got up to make breakfast, but you had no food so I ran out to the grocery store. When I got back, your parents were at your door. I thought if I showed up so early in the morning looking disheveled, with breakfast, they'd figure out I spent the night. I didn't think it would be a good first impression.”

A chill runs down my spine as I imagine the icy glare my parents would have given Ben. Just as quickly though, a warmth spreads across my chest: Ben was concerned about making a good first impression on my parents! If our sleeping together was a one-night stand, he wouldn't care what they think. He plans on sticking around! Ben and I are going to be a couple! “So maybe you can meet them another time?”

“I'm hoping to,” he says. “But in the meantime, when can I see you again? I still owe you dinner.”

“How about tonight?”