A Winter Dream: A Novel Page 10

  “It’s exciting,” I said.

  “You’ll get over it,” she said. “You know, you still have that deer-in-the-headlamps look about you. But it’s kind of cute. I like that in a man. It’s very sexy.”

  “You like what in a man?” I asked.

  “Vulnerability.”

  “Peter doesn’t strike me as the vulnerable type.”

  She bit her lower lip, then leaned forward toward me, looking me in the eyes. “All men are vulnerable. You’ve just got to find the right kryptonite.”

  I just stared at her, tongue-tied.

  Suddenly, she leaned back and laughed. “Don’t be so serious.” She stood back up. “I better go.” She walked to my office door, then stopped and looked me up and down. “See you around, Joseph.”

  “Bye,” I said.

  She shut the door behind her.

  No, no, no, I thought.

  Minutes after she left I gathered my things in my backpack and went to find Timothy. He was sitting at his cubicle sketching with one of the Leo Burnett big black pencils.

  “Hey, Timothy.”

  He looked up. “Yeah, what’s up?”

  “I’ve got to take an extra long lunch today. Can you, like, take care of things?”

  He just looked at me.

  “I know, stupid question. Will you cover for me?”

  “Sure. When will you be back?”

  “Two hours. I need to run home. I’ll stay late to make it up.”

  “You’ve stayed late every night this week,” Timothy said. “Just work through lunch, then leave early.”

  “Are you okay with that?”

  “You’re the boss,” Timothy said.

  “In name only.”

  He grinned. “Don’t worry. Potts is leaving early. His squeeze came by.”

  “Yeah, I know,” I said, sighing.

  “What does that mean?”

  “She paid me a visit. Invited me out for a drink . . . or whatever.”

  He grimaced. “I would steer clear of that reef, my friend. Head for deep waters.”

  “Thanks for the advice.”

  “Anytime. Have a good weekend.”

  “I hope so.”

  I worked another hour, then left, reaching the Jefferson Park station by one. My heart was filled with apprehension. April worked at the diner until two on Fridays. I would reach her just about the time she got off. I could wait outside if I had to. I hoped there wouldn’t be a scene.

  It was ten to two when I entered the diner’s front door. There were only a half-dozen people inside and the only waitress in the front was Ewa, a tall blond Polish woman at least ten years older than me. April had told me that they were friends, but we’d never been introduced. Ewa said with a Polish accent, “Just sit anywhere you . . .” She paused. “No, you are here for April.”

  “Yes. Is she here?”

  She nodded hesitantly. “She’s in back.”

  “Could you tell her I’m here, please.”

  She just looked at me, her eyes narrowing threateningly. “You be careful. I will get her, but you be careful with her. She is a good girl.”

  “I wouldn’t hurt her.”

  “Maybe you hurt her without trying,” she said. “You be careful.” She walked back into the kitchen. It was a couple minutes before April walked out. She looked embarrassed and vulnerable.

  “Hi,” she said softly.

  “Hi.”

  She didn’t say anything.

  “Why haven’t you been taking my calls?”

  “I’m sorry.”

  I waited for some kind of explanation, but she didn’t offer one.

  “I came by to see if we were still on for tomorrow. For our tour.”

  “They’re not tours, they’re dates.”

  “So, they’re dates. Is there something wrong with that?”

  She didn’t answer.

  After a minute I exhaled heavily. “Look, I have no idea what happened. I thought there was something between us. If I did or said something to hurt you, I’m really sorry. I know we’ve just met, but I really care about you. I would never hurt you intentionally.” I waited for her to say something, but she didn’t. I exhaled in frustration. “Look, if you don’t want to see me, just tell me. I won’t bother you again.” She still just looked at me, tears welling up in her eyes. Finally, I said, “All right. I won’t make you say it.” I turned to go.

  “Wait,” she said, her voice cracking.

  I looked back at her. She was crying.

  “Please don’t go. I want to see you.”

  I took a step closer to her. “April, what’s going on?”

  “I can’t tell you.” She wiped her eyes. “I wish I could, but I can’t. But we’ll date, okay? We’ll get to know each other.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “I know. But I just need time. We’ll have fun. I promise. I’ll be good to you.” She reached out and took my hand. “I really want to be with you. I’m sorry I’m so hard. Please don’t give up on me.”

  I looked into her pleading eyes, feeling the warmth of her hand in mine. I took a deep breath. “I won’t give up on you. And I won’t ask what’s going on.” I tilted my head. “But there’s one thing I need to know.”

  She looked at me anxiously. “What?”

  “You’re not an outlaw, are you?”

  A broad smile crossed her face. “No.”

  “Good. Because I don’t want to end up in court someday testifying against you.”

  She laughed, then she hugged me. “I’m going to make you so happy you came to Chicago.”

  CHAPTER

  Seventeen

  It is impossible to build a solid foundation on the sand of the unkown.

  Joseph Jacobson’s Diary

  My high school football coach used to say, “Men, sometimes you gotta walk through Hell to get to Heaven.” I was beginning to believe him. As difficult as being thrown out of Colorado had been, I was actually starting to feel grateful that it had happened. I never would have met April if I hadn’t left home. My job at Leo Burnett was fulfilling. My Bank On It campaign was a big success, and April never failed to point out the BankOne billboards we passed. She even cut out BankOne ads she saw in newspapers or magazines.

  The next eight months were not what I expected when I first arrived in Chicago. They were good. A better word would be “idyllic.” April and I grew closer, to the point I couldn’t imagine being without her.

  I finally met April’s roommate, Ruth. She was not what I expected—practically a photographic negative of April. The evening I met her she was wearing a torn Nirvana T-shirt revealing the tattoos on her arms and neck. She had tattoos on her face and at least a dozen piercings. She wore small safety pins in her ears.

  She was friendly and soft-spoken, like April, but otherwise the two couldn’t have been a more incongruous pair. After we left the apartment, I asked April, “How did you two meet?”

  “She’s an old friend,” she said. “From Utah.”

  The route April took from Mr. G’s to the Jefferson Park station led past my apartment, so I gave her a key to my place so she could save the trip home and wait at my place after her shift on the evenings we planned to go out. She began stopping by and cleaning my place or bringing me food from the diner and leaving it in my refrigerator, usually with a love note.

  I remembered what my father had said about love—“You’ll know it’s love when you don’t have to ask.” I now understood what he meant. With Ashley, my heart was always asking. It seemed to me that with her, love was an emotional shell game. With April there was no such doubt. I wasn’t so much in love as love was in me. I felt it all the time with her; in every phone call, every smile, every frown of concern.

  In July, I came down with the flu for a week and she barely left my side, bringing me soup from the diner, doing my laundry and picking up my medications. She seemed grateful for the chance to take care of me. The inverse was true too. I wanted to make her happy.
Ashley was right. For better or worse, I was a pleaser. And pleasers tend to become doormats for those with different sensibilities. April was also a pleaser. We were perfect together. I’d never been closer to anyone in my life.

  Nor had I ever known anyone who was more honest, which was the greatest irony of our relationship. She simultaneously hid nothing present and everything past. It was as if a big curtain had been drawn over the largest part of her life.

  Most of the time it was possible to ignore the curtain. But every now and then something would slip out, and I would be reminded that there was something about her I didn’t know—something, perhaps, that could take her away from me.

  I learned one more thing. April was highly susceptible to guilt, and whatever it was she was hiding was definitely eating at her. At those times she would pray more and read her Bible and sometimes fast. She would put boundaries between us physically. These times would remind me that even in Eden there were snakes.

  April’s birthday came in August. On Timothy’s recommendation, I took her to the Berghoff, one of Chicago’s oldest and most famous restaurants. At dinner I gave her my gift, a silver chain with a Tiffany heart lock pendant in sterling silver with Tiffany Blue enamel finish. She squealed when she saw it. She asked me to put it on her. After that I never saw her without it.

  Summer slipped into fall, and fall into winter. As the weather cooled and the holidays approached, I could feel something happening between April and me as well. Relationships either grow or die, but they never stay the same. We’d come to a place of decision. I had already made mine. I wanted to take this to the next step. I didn’t care about what I didn’t know, or at least I didn’t think I did. I couldn’t imagine anything that would change the way I felt about her. What I knew for certain is that I couldn’t imagine a world without her. Whatever she was hiding, we were going to make this work.

  The day before Thanksgiving, Timothy reminded everyone about the upcoming Leo Burnett Holiday Formal in mid-December—one of the highlights of the company’s year. Timothy summed up the event with two words. “Legendary. Epic.”

  Thanksgiving came and though I was homesick, I was not without company. I helped April cook Thanksgiving dinner, which we shared with Ruth and her boyfriend, Bob, who, compared to Ruth, looked surprisingly normal.

  The dinner was good, but April was acting quiet again and there was sadness in her eyes. Her sadness made me afraid. It hadn’t really been that long since Ashley had thrown me aside. I had been wrong before. Who was to say I wasn’t wrong now? Had April stopped loving me? Or had the specter of her past returned to claim her?

  After dinner I told April about the Leo Burnett Christmas party. She was even more excited than I thought she’d be. “I’ve never been to anything like that before,” she said. “Ruth has some beautiful dresses I could borrow.” She kissed me. “They’re a little, uh, showy, at least for me, but I don’t think you’ll mind.”

  I smiled. “I doubt it.”

  Weeks passed and December brought an earnest chill. The cold even seemed to creep into our relationship. Relationships, by nature, require trust, and trust cannot grow in the fog of secrecy. Whether it was paranoia or the nature of our circumstance, April seemed different to me. I was afraid I was losing her. And fear is the most untrustworthy of counselors.

  Fear demanded that I know where we were going, and I couldn’t know that, I couldn’t trust that, without knowing where she’d been. She needed to come clean about her past. No more secrets. She needed to tell me everything.

  On December 7, a week before the Leo Burnett party, I decided to make her tell me.

  CHAPTER

  Eighteen

  Is it wisdom to search out what will hurt us most? Is painful truth better than ignorant bliss?

  Joseph Jacobson’s Diary

  It was a Friday night when I decided to force April’s hand. Even though we were at our favorite sushi restaurant, I had hardly eaten. Neither of us had. It was my fault. I was quiet and upset, and April was reflecting my emotions.

  Finally she asked, “Are you okay?”

  “No.”

  She gazed at me expectantly. “Did I do something wrong?”

  I took my napkin off my lap and set it on the table. “We need to talk.”

  Her eyes began to well up with tears. “Are you breaking up with me?”

  “No,” I said. I looked down for a moment, then said, “I can’t do this anymore, April. I need to know who I’m in love with.”

  She looked at me fearfully. “I’m not sure how to tell you.”

  “Just tell me the truth, and we’ll deal with it.”

  She sat there quietly for a moment. Then she said, “You know I love you, right?”

  I exhaled slowly. “That’s what they always say before they leave you.”

  She reached over for my hand. “I’m not leaving you. But you might leave me.”

  “I would never leave you.”

  “You don’t know that.”

  She looked fearfully in my eyes, then said, “Okay.” She took a deep breath. “I’m married.”

  “What?”

  “I’m not with him anymore, but I’m still married.”

  “You’re separated?”

  “Yes . . .”

  “But you’re getting divorced?”

  Her brow fell. “It’s not that simple.” She looked up at me. “I’m not saying divorce is simple. But . . .” She sighed. “I’m afraid to tell you.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I’m afraid I’ll freak you out.”

  “What could you possibly have done that would freak me out?”

  She was quiet for nearly a minute, then she said, “Remember, you made me do this.”

  The way she said that frightened me. “I know.”

  She swallowed. “Remember when you told me you come from a large family?”

  “Yes.”

  “So do I. There are thirty-six of us.”

  “Thirty-six?”

  “My father was married five times.”

  I wasn’t sure where she was going with this. “Well, he’s only got one marriage on my father.”

  “. . . At the same time.”

  It took me a moment for comprehension to set in. “He’s polygamous?”

  “That little town I’m from in southern Utah is called Hilldale. It’s a polygamist colony.”

  She looked into my eyes nervously. “I followed in my parents’ footsteps. I got married when I was eighteen. I’m the fourth wife of five.”

  I had no idea what to say.

  April looked frightened. After a couple minutes she said, “Please say something.”

  “I don’t know how to respond to that.”

  She reached across the table and took my hand. “Please don’t leave me.”

  “I’m not . . . I just . . .” I exhaled. “Wow. That’s nothing I’ve ever encountered.” I looked at her. “Or imagined I’d encounter.” I sat there quietly processing. “You left him?”

  She nodded. “We all did. At least four of us did.”

  “What happened?”

  “This will sound a little strange to you.” She hesitated. “Actually, probably a lot strange. John, my husband, is fifty-three. Two years ago the Elders of our church gave him another wife, Elizabeth. She was only seventeen. Elizabeth didn’t want to marry a fifty-three-year-old man. Especially since she had a boyfriend her same age. So, a couple days before John was to marry her, Elizabeth and her boyfriend ran away together. John was crushed. He felt so bad that after a few weeks the wives got together and told him he should go to Salt Lake and visit a polygamous family we knew with five daughters.

  “He came back from Salt Lake with Lindsay, a beautiful little nineteen-year-old blonde. John was as giddy as a honeymooner. The next few weeks we barely saw him. He was always with her. She had him wrapped around her finger.

  “When she realized how much control she had over him, she began to manipulate him. She became a little t
yrant. She would scream at us and give us orders. Once, she got mad at me and pulled my hair. I went to John, but he wouldn’t even listen to me.

  “The turning point came when John whited out his first wife’s name from their marriage certificate.”

  “Whited out?”

  “Because polygamous marriages aren’t recognized by the state, we only have one marriage certificate—the first wife. John’s first wife is named Andrea. She’s the same age he is. They kept that marriage certificate framed on the wall of their bedroom. John took some Wite-Out and painted over Andrea’s name, then wrote in Lindsay’s. That’s when Andrea threw them both out. So, for the next year, it was the four of us. We took care of each other.

  “But a year ago John said he was taking the house back, so we all left. I came to Chicago because Ruth invited me to be her roommate. She left the colony a couple years earlier.”

  “Ruth was a polygamist’s wife?”

  April nodded.

  “I never would have guessed that.”

  “Sometimes when people leave a belief system, they go to the opposite extreme. It happens a lot.”

  I put my head in my hands.

  “What are you thinking?” she asked.

  “I’m just mentally treading water,” I said. “I don’t know what to think about this.” After a minute I looked up at her. “How do you get a divorce when you were never legally married?”

  “It has to be done with the church. But I left the church, so there’s no finality.”

  “The Mormon church?”

  She shook her head. “No. Mormons haven’t practiced polygamy for more than a century. I belong to a fundamentalist group.”

  We both sat there, not knowing what to say. As the silence grew uncomfortable, tears began to fall down her cheeks again.

  “I don’t blame you if you leave me. But please don’t. I love you.”

  “I just need time to sort things out.”

  She wiped her eyes with her napkin. “I understand.”

  I stood. “Come on. Let’s go.”

  “No,” she said. “You go. You need to think.”