Greg arrived at work on Monday morning not feeling any better about himself than he had either of the last two days. Of course the first thing he saw as he sat down at his desk was a picture of him and Jill, looking so happy together. He took the picture and walked out the back door, where the women from the office stood finishing their cigarettes before going to work. They silently watched him take his lighter and set the corner of the picture on fire. He let it burn until there was only a small part of it left, and then he stomped it out, and smiled at the women before going back inside. "Don't ask" he said, without any emotion in his voice.
Tracy stuck her head in the door of his office about 11. "Lunch later? I'll buy."
He looked up at her from his purchasing reports. "Gimme til 12:30, if that's OK?"
"Sure. Wherever you want to eat." She ducked back out.
He knew Tracy was the designated information mole, drafted to find out what was going on. He had done well this morning to not think about anything but work, but he figured he owed it to the rest of them to let them in on what so far was a pretty closely kept secret.
Greg had decided on Chinese, and after they ordered, Tracy started to tap-dance around the subject, something she was extremely good at. "So, what was that little performance about this morning?"
"She's gone. She didn't want to be with me anymore."
"I'm sorry. What brought this on?"
Greg felt like he was telling this story a lot. Maybe he should just write it out and hand it to everyone who asked how he was. Tracy adopted a more proactive stance to the subject. "Well Greg, I knew she wasn't right for you. How dare she break your heart. She'd better hope I never see her around, I'll give her a piece of my mind."
Greg couldn't help but laugh, because he knew how worked up she could get about a subject. He thought by the end of lunch, Tracy would be offering to have some of her Brooklyn connections break Jill's legs.
"You know that we are all here for you. If you're hurting, you don't have to worry about someone to talk to."
"I know. It takes something bad to realize how many friends you have. Thanks." He smiled at Tracy, then thought of something. "Don't go trying to set me up with your friends right off the bat. Give me some time."
It was Tracy's turn to laugh now. "I hadn't even thought of that. But if you say don't match-make, I won't."
He got through the rest of the day and made his way home, but he made a slight detour past the White Horse, curious to see if Maggie was working. He didn't see her through the window and almost made it all the way past when he heard the voice of the day bartender call out to him. "Hey. You don't know us here anymore?" Greg turned around and shuffled back towards the door. Stan whispered to him with a mischevious smile, "When you take the help home, you're like family. You can't ditch us now." Greg rolled his eyes, and made his way to the bar. Stan set the beer down. "She said you were a perfect gentleman."
"Damn, now my secret's out!" Laughter erupted from around the bar. "So she was here earlier?"
"Yeah, she got off at 4. I heard about your rough time. Sorry to hear things didn't work out."
"Thanks. I'm taking it one day at a time I guess."
Greg begged off making it a late night at the bar, and when he got home, he watched TV and read the paper. The buzzer startled him. "Yeah?"
"Can you come out and play?" It was Maggie. He let her in and as she made her way up the steps, he looked at the pile of stuff sitting on the floor, still needing a box. She breezed in with a quick kiss and set the bag she was carrying on the counter in the kitchen. "Have you eaten?"
"No, I hadn't felt like cooking."
"Well, you cooked for me, so I figured I'd do the same for you." She held up a box of spaghetti. "Come help me."
He chopped while she talked about her day. She had a way of talking in bursts, but Greg found it interesting. She never drew words out for emphasis, just ran everything together until she ran out of breath, or so it seemed.
When she had everything going well, she walked over to him, put her hands on each side of his head and gave him a long, passionate kiss. "So, how are you doing today? Still hurting, I'll bet."
"Depends on how much I think about it. As long as I can keep my mind on something else, it doesn't hurt as much."
"You're at that stage where you have to tell the story 10 times a day, right?"
"Yeah. Only twice today though, and once yesterday. In fact I thought you might be my friend and his wife, they seemed kinda worried about me."
Maggie smiled. "You must mean a lot to them. At least you didn't have to put up with the kitchen guys." She laughed, then whispered, "I told them nothing happened. You were a perfect gentleman." She kissed him on the forehead and went back to the stove.
As they ate, she asked him, "If she called you right now and said she made a mistake, she wanted to come back, what would you say?"
He thought for a long time. "No. She said too many things, accused me of stuff I had no idea she even considered me capable of. Plus, that's a very hypothetical question anyway. She's not one for admitting she made a mistake. She'd suffer before she'd admit she was wrong."
"So you don't feel any love for her at all?"
"I do, but not for the person she was the other night. It was like she changed personalities in about 5 minutes."
Maggie changed the subject. "I'm playing in a recital next week. Would you like to come? They'll be a party afterwards, you can be my date, if you want."
"I'd like that alot. Is that how we're gonna handle it? I'm your date?"
"We don't have to tell anyone anything more than we want them to know. As far as anyone's concerned, we're just acquaintances."
"We're more than that really, aren't we?"
She smiled seductively at him. "We are acquainted with one another in the best way two people can possibly be."
They sat on the couch, watching TV when the phone rang. It was Dianne. "Hi Greg. Are you busy tomorrow night? We're gonna come over and get Jill's stuff."
"I'll be here. I have everything together, but I'll bring some boxes home from work. Everything will be ready."
"We'll come by about 7 then."
"OK. I'll be here." He replaced the phone. "I guess she wasn't ready to talk to me. That was her roommate."
"Were you ready to talk to her?"
"No, I guess not."
Maggie shifted around so that she was straddling him and put her hands on his shoulders. "Don't think about her now."
"Did I tell you how beautiful your eyes are?"
"Not yet, but I bet you're about to. Let's play a game. Let's see how long we can go without breaking eye contact."
"What does the winner get?"
She put her finger on his lips. "You'll find out soon enough."