Why had he lied to Marianne? Why hadn’t he told her he was her pen-pal, and then hopefully settled down to pie, coffee and a long conversation about The Shop Around the Corner?
He’d even lied to her about his reaction to the movie. He’d loved it, and she would have been thrilled to hear that. But maybe that was why. They were acting out the plot of the movie, after all, or at least he was. She had no idea. All she knew was that he’d been borderline rude to her for no apparent reason, and then she’d been stood up.
He could have told her the truth, and still kept silent about why he was in town. They could have had a very pleasant date, and maybe it would have led to another date, and from there, anything was possible.
But now it was all ruined. After last night, it was unlikely that Marianne would be very forthcoming with the information he’d need to make his recommendation about the theater to his boss. And she was equally unlikely to want to continue the email relationship with her Duck-Man.
Still, the Duck-Man had to email her, and say something, however inadequate it might end up being. And then he had to figure out some other way to research the theater and its impact on the town.
He wrote the email, and re-wrote it, and re-wrote it again. After an hour and a half, he felt that it was as good as it was going to get, and he hit send. Then he ventured outside. There was a definite chill in the air; it was colder now than it had been last night, and his heavier coat was back in his apartment in Salem.
Well, suffering built character. Pete, his older brother, never missed the chance to tell him that, especially when Pete was the one causing the suffering. Jack supposed he couldn’t really blame Pete too much, though. They were eight years apart, and six-year-old Jack seriously cramped fourteen-year-old Pete’s style. Jack doubted he’d have been any more patient if their roles had been reversed. Thankfully, things had improved quite a bit in the last few years, especially after Pete got married and had a child of his own.
What the heck, maybe his older brother might have something useful to say about this whole mess.
“Jack? What’s wrong?” His brother’s voice was alarmed.
“Nothing. I just wanted to talk to my big brother,” Jack said. Why would Pete assume anything was wrong?
“Since when do you call me in the middle of the workday just to chat?”
What was his brother talking about? It was just nine o’clock in the morning.
Except that it wasn’t nine o’clock in the Florida Keys, three thousand miles to the east, where Pete Nelson ran his chartered fishing tours. It was noon, which pretty much was the exact middle of the workday. He was obviously even more rattled than he thought about last night’s events, if he could forget the time difference. “Sorry, Pete. I wasn’t thinking,” he said. “I just – you know what, I’m man enough, I can admit it. I need some advice.”
He told his brother everything. It felt good to unburden himself, to not have to measure every word and try to remember which lie he’d told to whom.
Pete didn’t understand. “Why do you have to lie about any of it? Why can’t you just tell everyone what you’re doing? It’s not like you’re trying to cheat anybody. You’re trying to help this woman. I don’t see the problem.”
Jack hadn’t at first, either. He’d made the same argument to his boss, and she’d told him, “You have to be neutral. And I have to convince the whole Historical Preservation Committee that you really are neutral when you give me your recommendation, so I have to believe you are. If I don’t, if there’s even the slightest hint of any kind of bias, for any reason, I have to factor that in. It’s happened before.”
He explained that to Pete, along with the story his boss had told him, about the library in Eugene that had been denied landmark status – and subsequently torn down, to be replaced by condominiums – because there were questions about how friendly the investigator there had gotten with the woman who ran the library. His report, recommending that the library be approved as a landmark, had been thrown out completely.
“I can’t let that happen. I have to be totally objective, so if I say the theater should be approved, they’ll listen to me.”
His brother laughed, which Jack didn’t appreciate at all. “And you think it should be?”
“Absolutely. Marianne works so hard on that place, and if we make it a landmark, she’ll be protected against anybody who wants to ruin it.”
Another laugh. “But you’re not biased at all.”
“Fine!” He had asked for this, hadn’t he? “I’m totally on her side! I want her to get her status, I want her to be able to keep the theater forever, I want her to have everything she wants.”
This time Pete didn’t laugh. “And you want her to know you helped her get it.”
That was it. That was exactly it. It was the one thing he couldn’t have. And it had to be the reason he’d acted like such a jerk last night. “I can be the hero, or I can get the girl, but I can’t do both.”
“Adulthood sucks, doesn’t it?”
Yes. Yes, sometimes it truly did.