25. James
25
JAMES
L ess than one month until Valentine's Day and the big event, and I was nervous. I checked the guest list almost every day, and today was no different. The RSVPs had been coming in daily now, and so far, there were only a few left to be returned, with every invitation boasting at least one "yes" and most of them adding a plus-one to their ticket.
In years past, this was normal, so this year was nothing out of the ordinary, except for the fact that Barbra wouldn't be there. Some of her friends, always on my list because they were friends of mine too, had given their positive response. I wondered how that would go over for them when I made my announcement that we were officially separated and our marriage had been annulled. I wondered what their reactions would be to that bit of news. But I couldn't let the potential negative reactions of a few people stop me from moving on with my life. By now, it was likely that Barbra herself had told them. That would definitely make my life easier.
I sat behind my desk agonizing over that guestlist for twenty minutes, but the real reason I was so nervous had nothing to do with Barbra or our mutual friends' reactions to our divorce. I was mostly on edge about my decision to tell Ms. Hart how I felt about her. With as distant as she'd been for the past few weeks since our sex on Christmas Day, I worried she would back out and not even attend the event.
When we made the contract back in August for her to plan this event for me, life was different for both of us. She made it clear that her part in the process was to plan the event and that she would have staff available at the event to help if needed. She never intended to come. But I’d asked her to come, and she'd accepted my invitation to dance.
Of course, when I first planned this, I thought Barbra and I had a fighting chance we never actually had. She had planned to walk away from me right before the holidays all along, or so it seemed. So my na?ve hope that we'd have moved past all our differences and we could start over again with a renewal ceremony on Valentine's Day had been an illusion that faded faster than the dew on the grass on a spring morning. Evaporated.
Glancing at the clock, I knew I had a board meeting coming up, and before that happened, I wanted to check in. Ivy hadn’t been joining me for dinner. She spent most of her time now at the ballroom, preparing decorations and whatnot. Most of my other events had been hosted at my home, which meant she was spending her days working there. But this one, being out of my home, took her away, though I was sure she didn't have to work past nine p.m. each night.
It felt like she was avoiding me, but I didn't know why. It was a bit discouraging, too, to think that all I wanted was to make her happy, but she constantly shied away. I didn't know what to think. I believed I was doing the right things, sending the right signals. I just hadn't come out and told her I wanted something more with her, which was my intention during the party. I wanted to believe it was something on her end, some stress I didn't know about, but my insecurities just pointed back to the fact that I was more than a decade older than her and she was probably way out of my league.
My eyes skimmed over the guestlist on the computer screen in front of me, and I drummed my fingers on my desk. If Sam knew what I was thinking about Ms. Hart right now, he'd lecture me. When he found out I was giving her two million dollars, he flipped out. I had to bicker with him for forty minutes over the intent, and when he finally got the point that I had been the one to bring it up and not her, he called me insane. He and Mr. Sutter were two peas in a pod, but it didn't deter me. I knew what I wanted, and she was it.
So I pulled out my phone and attempted to assuage my nagging worry by sending her a message.
James 11:48 AM: How are things going with the party planning and preparations? I'm looking forward to our dance that evening. Do you think you'll still make it?
I typed several more sentences but decided to delete them. I didn't want her to feel pressured at all, but I did want to remind her of her promise to dance with me. And I wanted her to know I was thinking of her and looking forward to that evening very much.
I expected it to take her a while to respond, and I was about to put my phone down when I noticed the words Read at 11:48 a.m. appear under my sent message. Then three dots popped up and scrolled across the bottom of my screen as she typed her reply.
Ivy 11:49 AM: Looking forward to it. We're halfway done with centerpieces and the ballroom is coming together. Can't wait for you to see it.
It wasn't out of the ordinary to get a friendly update like that from her, so I didn't read too much into it. At least I got a bit of relief that she was still planning to come to the event and accompany me during the dance. It knocked the edge off my insecurities to make them more manageable.
But the distance she'd put between us still gnawed away at me. I missed our conversations over dinner, and I wondered if she'd just grown bored of me or perhaps she realized that I wasn't what she wanted. It haunted me, and I wanted to draw her back in where I could get a feel for her. It might make me change my mind about revealing how in love I was with her at the event if I saw she didn't want me.
James 11:54 AM: Dinner has been quite lonely without you. Are you working late again tonight?
This time, the response was slower in coming and I almost gave up and stepped out to go to my meeting, but the moment I put my phone into my pocket, it chimed as she responded.
Ivy 11:56 AM: Gotta get this art done. I'm sorry. Another time?
Her response was a polite way of saying "No, thank you." I'd seen it before a lot, mostly in business, but I was accustomed to the polite decline of an invitation. But something in my heart just wouldn't let it go. It was like a craving for her presence that I had to sate or I'd go insane. So I sent another message.
James 11:56 AM: Okay, well Friday evening?
I hit Send just as the elevator chimed and Sam stepped off the elevator and into my office. "Time to go, buddy," he said, and I heard the excitement in his voice. We were doing a presentation with the board on a new prototype our team had come up with, and he was leading the charge on this one. All I had to do was be present, which was a good thing, given how distracted I'd been.
I glanced at my phone as I stood and saw the read receipt pop up under the message I sent. Ivy had read it, but there were no little dots indicating her typing a response. I followed Sam back to the elevator and down a floor to the board room, and still, there was no activity.
When the clock rolled over to the top of the hour and Sam started the meeting by announcing that lunch had been catered by a local restaurant and would be served after the presentation he was going to do, I locked my phone and turned it to silent mode. Even the best self-discipline couldn’t keep me from checking my phone a dozen times during the meeting, but still no response. Ivy had left me on read, and that felt like a real rejection.
Maybe I was a fool for waiting until the party to tell her how I felt, or maybe it would just allow me to process the fact that she didn’t reciprocate my feelings and help me let go of her gently. At least I'd have a month to tear her smile out of my mind before she was gone and off to new adventures. It would make the next several years of updates about her new company and its growth more bearable if I just let it go. Right now, I just couldn't. Not until she said with her own lips that she wasn't interested.
Then I could let my heart break again.