Down the Rabbit Hole

“Hey, it was subtle but I spotted it.” Carolyn jabbed a finger into the table. “I’ve known you since you were ten, okay? And now you tell me you’ve dumped him. I have to say I’m shocked. And a little skeptical that he just wasn’t everything you wanted him to be.” This last she said in a voice intended to imitate Macy’s, but it smacked dangerously of Minnie Mouse.

“See?” Macy sat forward. “This is why I don’t like dinner parties. If I hadn’t brought him to your little shindig you’d have never known him, never liked him, and peace would reign again in the world. Instead, this little ripple in my pond has your boat rocking. But okay, we went. Did you not notice how absent he was half the time?”

“It wasn’t just our little shindig. It was Thanksgiving too.” Carolyn’s brows drew together. “What do you mean, absent? Oh, well, he did take that phone call.”

“And he spent the whole evening checking his email. He did that on Thanksgiving too, remember?”

“But he was expecting something, right? A contract or something?”

Macy waved a hand. “Whatever. What about the time Lute caught him checking Facebook?”

“He did?” Carolyn was starting to look doubtful. Then her face cleared. “Wasn’t he trying to get in touch with his niece? Or sister? Or someone like that?”

“His cousin.” She sighed heavily, giving Carolyn a helpless look. “But there was always something like that. Something he had to pick that damn thing up for—maybe something valid, maybe not—but either way, he’d look and then he’d get sucked into it and poof! He’d be gone.”

“What do you mean, he’d be gone? He leaves?”

“Mentally!” Macy picked up her water glass. The agitation was beginning again. She took a few quick swallows. “You know, I spent months feeling like it must be me. That I must be boring. So I upped the chatter, tried to engage him, felt bad about myself and why he couldn’t seem to focus on me for more than five minutes at a time. And you know what I finally realized?”

Carolyn looked at her, probably surprised by the heat in her voice. “What?”

“That I was bored. Me! Not him. For the longest time I was sure that I was the problem, that if I were smarter, prettier, more interesting, he’d put the damn phone down. But no. The problem wasn’t me, it was him. Sitting at a table watching someone look at their phone is boring. So one day I’d just had enough. See ya!” She flipped a hand and shrugged, letting her gaze slip past Carolyn so she couldn’t read the hurt in it.

Carolyn nodded. “Yeah, okay. I can see that.”

The waiter arrived and took their orders. When he was gone, Macy added, “Besides, my life coach says it’s inefficient to spend time with people you’re hoping will change, that it’s a surefire way to derail your future.”

“Life coach.” Carolyn snorted.

“Stop it, I told you how much he’s helped me. I’m focused now. I’m clearing my life of anything that doesn’t serve my goals, and it’s working. The fact is, if love is not adding value to my life, it has no place in it. Letting things without value take up space in your life drains your energy for fulfilling yourself with what’s really important.”

Carolyn frowned for a long moment, then, as if she hadn’t even heard what Macy had just said, asked, “But couldn’t you have talked about it? Did you tell him the phone thing was a problem? You know, relationships are hard work. It’s a cliché, but everybody says it for a reason. Not everything’s going to be perfect right—”

Macy held up a hand. “Carolyn, I love you. But if you continue down that conversational path my head will explode. C’mon, I’m not an idiot. I’m twenty-nine years old. I know a relationship takes work.”

“Okay, sorry.”

“I did talk to him. First I joked about it. Then a couple of times I asked him to put the phone away.”

“And did he?”

“Of course. But the thing was, the next time we were out it was the same problem. And I don’t want to be that woman, the one who’s always nagging about not getting any attention. If he isn’t into me enough now, at seven months in, to keep the phone holstered, what’ll he be like in five years? Ten?” She poked listlessly at the tablecloth with her fork. “God forbid I’m ever in one of those dead relationships.”

She spoke with assurance, but inside that knot was forming again, the one that tightened every time she thought about Jeremy. There’d been so many things right about him . . . except for the one very wrong fact that he wasn’t into her enough.

That was what it came down to, every time. And it was that which caused the doors of her heart to slam closed. She’d rather be alone than be with someone who loved her less than she loved him.

“Well, all I know is I don’t want to be the one to tell Luther Serafini his baby sister’s on the prowl again.” Carolyn shook her head as she loosed her silverware from its rolled-up napkin.

Macy jerked her eyes to Carolyn. “On the prowl!” she protested.