Ashleigh's Dilemma Read online

  There was an attempt by Patrick to mend the situation. He sent Ashleigh emails to express his shock and dismay, saying how he hoped they might reconcile – all of which remained unanswered. He sent her a letter, asking her about her silence; it didn't matter, there was still no response. He called her at home; he knew she'd be there later in the evening, but recognizing his number she wouldn't answer. Finally, he called her at work.

  “Hi, it's Patrick.”

  “Hi...”

  He could feel the tension through the lines. “I realize you have nothing you want to say, or even need to say,” he said.

  Ashleigh immediately jumped in with, “I'm not avoiding you! I've simply been too busy. Work's crazy!” Her words sounded flat, forced, and he didn't believe her. He waited but she didn't add anything more.

  “...I think we should get together to settle things, Ashleigh. We need to talk.”

  She agreed. But where? Her tone turned and now she sounded strained, barely controlled, as if she wanted to yell out. He suggested Subway. She nervously injected, “Not Subway, not with you!” “Somewhere neutral with no echo of the past, then?” Patrick suggested. “Fine.” “The library?” “Fine.” The situation was eating at her. He didn't want that. He almost called it off. “Come alone and come unarmed,” Patrick joked hoping she'd see some humor in the situation. She didn't and there was none. She suggested meeting in one hour and hung up quickly.

  The first thing Patrick noticed when they met was how visibly upset Ashleigh was. As much as she was obviously trying to hide that fact, she could not do so. She held her hands tightly in front of her, and when she released them to sit across from him, he could see they were shaking. She hid them beneath the table. She was otherwise prepared, and stern, he thought.

  “It's a simple thing,” Patrick began when she looked up. “I was falling in love with you.”

  Ashleigh's self-control almost broke, but she took a deep breath and held on. She didn't speak for a long moment but when she finally did, she avoided the subject. “I don't know why I'm like I am,” she sighed as she momentarily closed her eyes. When she looked up her eyes were glassy and cold.

  “If you want me to disappear from your life, I will. I won't like it, but I will,” he offered as he wondered about the changing expressions on her face. “I will give you your life back,” he added.

  Ashleigh nodded and shook her head all in one motion. “Yes, I want my life back,” she said. “I liked my life the way it was.” She again briefly closed her eyes and sighed. He waited and speaking as if Patrick was not in the room, she quietly whispered, “I'm sorry... I just can't handle this…” She shook her head and gathered herself, settled, and then said, raising her head and looking at him directly, “Perhaps we can still get together occasionally. I enjoy our conversations. I don't get too many opportunities to talk with anyone like that.”

  It was so simply stated, so matter of fact, that Patrick might have laughed aloud if the moment had not been so serious. Instead, his heart lifted and sank. “Then you will have to make the arrangements,” he said; “I can't, not after this. There is just too much to overcome.” He waited for that to sink in and added, “But I'd love to hear from you - please call.”

  Typically, Ashleigh did not respond, or agree to anything. She merely shrugged.

  It was over. They went their separate ways. When he was walking her to her car, he said with sadness, “In situations like this, the couple would normally walk away separately and never speak to one another again.”

  She shook her head. “You don’t have to walk with me.”

  “I'm walking you to your car because I care for you, and respect you, and not because I think you need an escort.”

  “I don't know why you feel you have to. I can get home safely without you. I have done so all my life,” she said.

  “But that's not the point...”

  She nodded her understanding, again without agreeing to anything.

  A month passed, and another. It was spring. The pine Patrick had planted was now a vibrant green. It had grown at least a foot, Ashleigh thought as she looked out the window into her back yard. She hadn't spoken to Patrick since the library; he hadn't called. She knew what that meant. He'd said to her once, “I feel that if I don't call you, you won't, not ever... so I do the calling.” She hadn't answered, but knew it to be true. Now it gnawed at her. His silence gnawed at her. She felt the pit in her stomach fall even further and her heart twist yet again. She couldn't call him; she wanted to, but couldn't.

  She stepped back from the window. She was about to return to her laptop and finish off her report but instead turned and went to the back door, opened it, stepped through, and stood on the middle of the deck. The evening was upon the day. The air was cool. She could smell the damp earth and fresh grass and the drifting and sweet scent of the tulips about ready to break open. She took the steps down from the deck and walked up to Patrick's pine. She ran her fingers through the soft needles and before letting them slip back broke some off, lifted them, and smelled the resin. “I love the smell of pine.” She stuck her face deep into the tree and inhaled, letting the scent fill her.

  Chapter II - Reconciliation

  Ashleigh knew the movie she wanted to watch. She had been thinking about it for weeks. It was perfect; it said all she felt. She hoped Patrick would feel the same. She straightened the cushions on the couch and removed the magazines from the coffee table, slipping them out of sight behind the curtains that covered the sliding glass doors that opened to her yard. He'd be arriving soon. She took a deep breath and stood in the center of the room searching about - neat and orderly. She suddenly remembered and quickly ran to the hall to retrieve the DVD from where she'd left it with the rest of the mail. She hurried back in, peeling back the cover, carefully reading the title to ensure it was the right one – it was – and placed it into the player – the tray opening, she setting it in, and the tray closing. She watched it load. It would go through all the previews until it reached the leader, repeating it over and over until Patrick hit the “play” button. The men she knew - like her brother - always took charge of the controller. They were inbred like that. Patrick would assume control without even asking. This bothered her a bit, but she decided she could live with it. For once, though, she'd like a man to, at least, offer the controller. If Patrick did, she'd definitely take it. He wouldn't, though; he wouldn't even think to do so. She stood back and listened to the sound of the disc whirling in the player and was tempted to turn on her television just to make sure it was playing, but decided it wasn't necessary. Changing her mind, she turned it on just to be sure - and all was fine.

  She sat back on the couch leaning into the cushions and stretched her arm along the length of the back. She drummed her fingers. When they sat to watch the movie with the Chinese food Patrick was to bring arranged before them, would he try to sit too close? She didn't know - but probably not. Patrick would sit with a cushion between them. He'd smile as he sat, letting her know that he was purposely placing a distance between them. She knew what he was saying; he was saying, “See? This is the distance you like, isn't it?”

  The first time they had sat together on a couch it was at the Outback waiting for their table to be ready, he holding the red-blinking pager. He'd sat too close and she'd been forced to elbow him back. He did move back, but instead of being angry or annoyed he had smiled; he was always smiling, nothing seemed to bother him, not ever.

  He’d said, “I don't know what's wrong exactly, but I'm pretty sure I don't smell. I did shower... I even used soap.”

  “You'd sit on my lap, if you could!”

  “You’re right, I would,” he laughed again.

  She had rolled her eyes making sure he saw, but she could not help but smile with him – and that, in and of itself, annoyed her; if she’d had a choice, she would have instructed her face to obey and she would not have smiled. The body is very frustrating. You think you own it but really don’t. Sometimes she wishe
d she didn’t have a body, per se, at all; it would be much better to be a robot, she theorized – with, of course, full access to the source code that controlled such things as facial expressions, as well as all those autonomous bodily functions such as blushing, the buildup of intestinal gas, and so on.

  Now Patrick was very careful around her. He kept his distance; just the right distance, she decided: not too close, not too far. I have trained him well, she thought; but knew she had almost nothing to do with it – it was all Patrick.

  But despite the distance he kept, he was nonetheless reaching for her; she could feel it. She hesitated because she didn't really know how he could possibly be reaching for her when there was absolutely no physical evidence that he was. It was in the inflection of his voice, she decided; and how he smiled. That's how he reached. But who knew what is, or is not, going on inside Patrick? There may be no love in his heart. Like all men, he may just be scheming for one thing and one thing only. But she quickly decided that was unlikely. Patrick was not like other men. Well, he was like all other men - it's the nature of the beast - but he gave her the space she needed, and she liked that.

  Ashleigh pushed herself up from the couch and walked into the kitchen. The last man she had invited over had, despite the fact she had prepared her most popular Creole dish – that is, the dish the Woman’s Club she was a member of enjoyed the most, and which also took half of the day before and the full morning to prepare - at first had almost ignored her completely. She'd invited him on a recommendation. He was a co-worker and they seemed to get along fine. Her friends – again, the women in the Women’s Club – suggested she ask him over since he was such a nice man, and handsome too. “Clever, like you, too, dear.” But once in the house, greeting her by shaking her hand, he'd sat on the couch and watched golf all afternoon, his full attention turned to watch the little ball skip over the green even as she talked and served him the hor d’oeuvres - which were perfect and needed to be observed and enjoyed for what they were: that is, perfection.

  After the golf, he had been unusually witty - even for him. Finally, though, in the midst of the meal, when he should have been commending her talents as a chef, he set his knife and fork aside, cleared his throat, and stared at her directly. “Ashleigh…” “Jim…” He had said her name in a particularly breathy way, which she’d never heard come out of him before. She had waited and he had stared back. It was as if he was expecting her to conjure what was going through his mind - what a joke. “I’m looking for a woman,” he’d said finally, quickly adding as she dropped her fork and quickly brought her napkin up to suppress her laughter, that he needed a woman. He needed a woman to keep him company. He required a companion, not a wife, he was careful to explain. Someone to go the movies with, a date for dinner; and, if it should somehow be possible, if their relationship should somehow allow it, a sex partner, because, after all, they each had their needs - and who better but good friends to alleviate the need?

  Her laughter had immediately evaporated when he had added, “to alleviate the need” so calmly, so matter of fact, as if he were discussing a bodily function instead of a matter of the heart. On reflection, however, she did eventually agree that the issue of sexual need is, of course, exactly a bodily function. Once again, you can’t ignore the automatic responses of the body. Sex, she knew, is not like breathing, or the beating of the heart; it is not even like hunger. It’s more like an itch, an annoying sensation that sometimes takes all of one’s willpower not to address. More to the point on that particular occasion, as far as she was concerned there was no alleviation that needed to be done, particularly in her case, and she told him so in no uncertain terms.

  He had tried to kiss her as she cleared the table and ten minutes later, he was out the door. It was a bit awkward at work for a week or two but he eventually got over it.

  Patrick would not think like that, she was sure. He would never suggest their relationship – such as it was – should alleviate any kind of need like that. For one thing, he didn't like golf, or even football for the matter; but he did have a penchant for hockey which was due, in part, so he said, to his Canadian heritage - not that he didn’t have any need to satisfy: he did, obviously. But she was not at all sure what his philosophy on sex was, exactly. She knew her own – but that was only for her to know. She was not about to tell Patrick, that was for certain; he would have to find out for himself. Just before they started dating – right after she'd felt it necessary to fix things between them – she let it be known that, if he wanted to have any kind of relationship with her, he would have to go slowly – glacially slow; slower than what may seem to be humanly impossible, at least to him. She had gone on about it. She blushed as she recalled the circumstances: calling him out of the blue like that had been a bold move, one that she did only because, well, if she hadn't, he would have remained out of her life forever and that would have been no good. It was true that he might walk out eventually but until that time, she felt she had to give him a chance. He deserved at least that.

  She couldn’t get the memory out of her mind. The whole thing bothered her more than she would admit, but the last thing Patrick had said to her, which would have been the last time she would have set eyes on him if she hadn't called him back, was, sounding angry, not like him at all, “You should see me as an opportunity, Ashleigh; just like I see you.” “An opportunity for what!” she had thrown back; but she knew what he'd meant, and knew it might even be true. So, after that somewhat stressful – very stressful, in fact - conversation, and then watching him walk away, she knew it would be up to her to call because, after that, he never would. It was not an easy thing to do. She had no idea what had come over her. It was somewhat miraculous that she had done so. She was not used to being so forward - or as Patrick suggested later so brave.

  Patrick had once admitted he was falling in love with her – not lately, though, but before, before the blow up. “I've never been in love,” she had responded once they were again back together, carrying on the same conversation as if it hadn't ended, as if she was now trying to direct it in the direction she had intended in the first place. She had stared him down waiting for him to challenge her, to see both the truth and lie of it, wishing even now she had not because, for all she knew, she was already in love with him. “I don’t believe that,” he’d said and, atypically, had looked away, his lips pressed close together, shaking his head. That was something she would do, realized as she saw herself in him.

  The possible proof that she might already have some feelings toward him was in the fact she had actually let him kiss her. It had been a week ago, in her car. They had gone out to a movie together. She had driven and had taken him back to his truck. There was no sense in taking two vehicles and since she drove a Prius, and he a gas guzzling behemoth of a truck, she volunteered. People like you are killing this planet!” she had told him and he'd replied that it was because of his work.

  She was waiting for him to get out when he had called her name; “Ashleigh…” She thought later that it was perhaps an interesting parallel between Patrick and the other man; they had each, after all, approached her in the same monosyllabic way; except that Patrick’s intonation was quite different and he didn't attempt to kiss her when she turned; instead he’d said, “Both hands on the wheel, staring straight ahead, are we Ashleigh? Are you ever going to let me kiss you goodnight?” while she had stupidly replied, instantly regretting it, “I was just looking to see how much gas I had! This may be a hybrid but it does take gas occasionally!”

  Instead of laughing, he leaned in close to glance at the gauge. “...You're right…,” and had at that moment taken the opportunity to kiss her on the cheek. He pecked her again, this time brushing past her lips when she instinctively jumped and turned towards him. What surprised her most was that she hadn't pushed him away, as perhaps she should have. “That wasn't so bad, was it?” he'd asked but by that time she’d recovered. “Goodnight, Patrick!” she’d said leaning as far back as she
could within the confining limits of her small car.

  He had hesitated, watching her. She hated that. She hated it when he looked at her like that. Even though she was staring straight ahead, hands still on the wheel, and repeating for the third or even fourth time, “Goodnight!” she could tell he was studying her.

  He had touched her arm gently, just a grazing touch that lingered briefly. He often did that, and it bothered her, and at that time it had added to her sense of annoyance. She didn't like people, men particularly, touching her; not without permission. But he did it anyway, even though he knew it bothered her. It was not a mystery that he understood her aversion; she had repeatedly told him so. Even so, his touch was light as air. It was a touch reserved to awaken another from a light sleep– the light touch and the eyes fly open. She couldn't decide why, exactly, Patrick touched her arm like that, or sometimes placed his hand on the small of her back in way of greeting or saying goodbye. After that and after a smile that reached up into his eyes – he had nice eyes; alive and exceptionally clear - he had climbed out of her car and carefully latched the door shut behind him. She waited as he crossed the headlight beam from her car and unlocked the door to his truck. Only then did she drive off. He would have done the same for her. It was the least she could have done for him.

  But would he try kissing her again tonight? She decided he would, probably. Once on entering: she'd greet him at the door, offering him her cheek as he handed over the Chinese food – and then again on leaving. Standing at the door about ready to leave, he'd hesitate, and, turning back to her, she'd again let him kiss her on the cheek; and then, again, maybe, on her lips - but just once. Her heart involuntarily twisted at the thought. God, what would he do? She wanted him to kiss her, she realized, blushing as she thought this so that the heat rushed up into her face and down her neck; but would he try for more? She wasn't ready for that; someday, perhaps, but not tonight.