Professor Feelgood (Page 67)

“And Diet Coke!” he yells right before I close it behind me. Seriously, the man has the metabolism of a hyperactive Cheetah.

As I head down the stairs and out onto the street, I call Jo. She answers after the first ring.

“Howdy. First things first – did you get any video of Jake doing yoga?”

“No. He didn’t take it well last time I did that.”

“Did you tell him it was for me?”

“Yeah, but strangely, he still glared.”

“Huh. Unexpected. Anyway, remember you told me how he and Ingrid met at the Zen Farm in Bali?”

“Yeah.”

“Wellllll, my cousin owns the Organic Chocolate Museum not far from there, so I got her to do some subtle sleuthing. She got back to me today with Ingrid’s last name. I may or may not have emailed you the link to her Facebook feed.”

I stop at a cross walk and press the button. “What? God, Jo ––”

“Wait, just hear me out. Jake’s never gotten any closure with this chick, because he has no idea if she went home and married her ex, right? Well, now we can find out for sure what Ingrid decided by snooping through her timeline.”

As I reach Jake’s local bodega, I grab a basket and head toward the snack aisle. “But he’s made it clear he has no interest in finding out, and we have to respect his wishes.”

“Do we? If he had a disgusting boil on his perfect body, would we let the infection continue to poison him? Or would we lance the damn thing, dress it in gauze, and then oil him down?”

“Oil him down?” I grab Jake’s requested snacks one by one and throw them into the basket.

“It’s my nurse fantasy, and in it, we most definitely oil him down. Several times. Then we give him a sponge bath and oil him down some more.”

I laugh and pull a bottle of Diet Coke from the fridge. “Jo, I’m telling you, if we do this, he’ll be furious.”

“Only if he finds out, which he won’t.”

I load everything onto the counter and wait for the cashier to ring it up and bag it. “So, if she’s not married and she’s posted a whole lot of ‘I left my one true love in Bali, and all I got was this lousy t-shirt’ pics in which she’s crying and pining for him, we don’t tell him?”

“Ah. Now I see the flaw in my whole, ‘He never needs to know’ plan. Because if she regrets leaving him, and he still loves her, then …”

Then they should be together. Even thinking it makes me break out in a cold sweat.

“But if she’s married,” Jo says, “which is the more likely option, then you can let him know and help him close that door, once and for all.”

She has a point. How can he ever truly move on without closure? And yet, going behind his back doesn’t feel right.

After paying the cashier, I grab my haul of junk food and head back toward the apartment.

“Jo, I know you’re just trying to help, but I don’t think I can do this. It feels like a betrayal, and I’m trying really hard to be his friend.” And nothing else.

She sighs. “Yeah, I totally hear what you’re saying. I won’t push you.”

“Thanks. And I’m grateful that you went through all that effort. Your heart is in the right place.”

“Actually,” she says, “I have situs inversus, which means my heart is on the opposite side of my chest than normal, but I appreciate the sentiment. Talk to you tomorrow.”

After we sign off, I scroll through my emails on my way back to the apartment. When I see the one containing Ingrid’s Facebook link, I hover over it for a few seconds. Then, before I can change my mind, I send it to the trash and hope like hell I’ve made the right decision.

_______________

I’m in the middle of unpacking Jake’s supplies in the kitchen when he emerges from the bathroom rubbing a towel over his damp hair. I breathe a sigh of relief when I see he’s dressed in a white t-shirt and jeans. It’s always easier to cope when his muscles and ink are covered.

“Coffee?” he says, throwing the towel over a crate before filling a saucepan with water.

“You know you have the money to buy a coffee machine now, right? You don’t have to continue to live like a reality show contestant.”

He sets the saucepan on the hotplate and fires it up. “You and your love affair with fancy gadgets. Coffee machines, computers, functioning walls. You’re soft, Tate. Soft, I tells ‘ya.” He brushes past me as he grabs two mugs, and that’s all it takes for a buzz to start in the deepest parts of me. There’s a change in him, too. His relaxed demeanor takes on an edge, and his voice gains a slight hint of irritation.

“One day,” he says, “I’ll take you trekking through the Peruvian rainforest, and then you’ll understand that while you were wasting time with your precious coffee machine, you should have been learning how to safely remove leeches from your private parts.”

As he scoops coffee into the mugs, I put his Diet Coke in the fridge. “Please tell me this is not something that happened.”

“I could tell you that, but it would be a lie. No man has known true terror, until he looks down while pissing and sees a giant Peruvian leech staring up at him.”

I close the fridge and smile. “I worry about you. I really do. I can’t believe the crap you did for fun when I wasn’t around.” I lean back against the bench and watch him work. He adds creamer and sugar to the cups, and when he’s done, he shakes his head, his jaw tight.

“What?” I ask.

“Nothing.”

It’s clearly not nothing, but I’m almost scared to ask.

He concentrates on the saucepan of water like he can make it boil with the force of his stare.

I clear my throat and straighten up the silverware on the counter. “By the way, Serena emailed earlier requesting more detail in that last chapter about Ingrid.” Her name always feels wrong in my mouth.

Jake crosses his arms and grunts a response.

“Don’t be a diva,” I say, moving closer. “As great as your writing is, you always shy away from the emotion of your interactions with her. I know she’s a painful topic, but that’s the point. Readers want to experience your angst and heartache.” No matter how much I could do without it.

“Why?” He keeps staring at the water. “Who are these people who get off on the suffering of others?”

I shrug. “In any good story, there’s no satisfaction without struggle. The more adversity a hero has to overcome, the more we root for him to win in the end. It’s the only way he earns his happy ever after.”

“Yeah?” He turns to me. “So, how are we ending this book, then? What’s my happy ever after?”

“Well …” I get an image of him reconciling with Ingrid and riding off into the sunset. “Uh … we’ll have to figure that out. It could be your skyrocketing career. Or your ability to touch people and help them with their own emotional struggles.” I look down. “Or … you getting closure on the whole Ingrid thing. The sunshine after the storm and all that.”

When I glance up at him, he’s staring, and the darkness of his eyes is more immutable than usual. “Uh huh.”

There’s so much subtext in that simple ‘uh huh’, I have no idea what he’s trying to say. Is he agreeing with me? Disagreeing?