“Kiki, is it? Right?”
She nodded eagerly, wetting her lips again.
It wasn’t her fault. It was the sort of flirty game that he would have engaged in a month ago. It would have led to sexy banter and thinly-veiled innuendo throughout the meal. By the end of dinner she’d be trailing her slick red nails up and down his arm and an hour after that they’d be skin to skin in his bed. Again, it wasn’t her fault. The thing was…Sam had already found the most fascinating, surprising, sexy girl the world had to offer. He’d found her and he’d lost her and it was breaking his heart every second of every day he spent away from her. .
“No offense, Kiki, but I can’t do this.”
Sam stood up, placing his napkin on the table. He took a hundred-dollar bill out of his wallet and dropped it on top of his napkin. Then he picked up his coat, tossed it over his arm and walked out of the bistro without another word.
***
When he got home, he took the elevator up to the top floor of his apartment building and walked up the steep flight of gray concrete stairs to the roof. He turned his eyes to the night sky, looking for the stars and was rewarded with cloud-cover and a pinkish-gray city sky. No Cassiopeia, no North Star to “help him find his way” as Jenny had promised. No stars at all.
He had bought a C. S. Lewis book impulsively on a lunch break and found a passage in it that resonated with him. He couldn’t shake it now that he’d read it. After the death of his wife, Lewis had written, Her absence is like the sky, spread over everything. That’s how Sam felt, too. There was no respite from his feelings, no matter how far away he was from her.
He held onto the railing that surrounded the perimeter of the roof, remembering Jenny at the arch when he asked her to come to Chicago. She had placed her hand on his arm: I’m not ready to say good-bye either. I’ve never felt like this. Never in my life. And how had he responded to that gift? He had pressured her, judged her, criticized her, tried to force her hand. For what? For a place he could barely stand anymore.
He hated himself. He hated that he had been wrong: going back to his old life was impossible. Knowing Jenny and leaving her had made it impossible. The hold she had on his heart was unyielding. Even from 1,500 miles away, his eyes searched for her in clubs, at church, in throngs of people. Places that used to hold a special energy for him were hopelessly colorless, good for little but useless sentimentality. His hands yearned to touch her, simultaneously resenting and worshipping the imprint of her laced fingers through his. Regardless of the distractions everywhere—work, parties, clubs, girls—his heart ached for her alone with a throbbing, unceasing longing.
And standing on that roof under a pitiable, starless sky, several simple truths became evident to a very changed Sam Kelley.
The first was that he wasn’t going to be able to resume his old life in Chicago.
The second was that what he had with Jenny hadn’t been infatuation.
The final one, which his heart had known for some time and his mind was finally obligated to accept with breathtaking clarity:
He was totally and completely in love with Jenny Lindstrom.
***
When he told his boss he wanted two extra days at Christmas to spend with his family, Thomas had given him a hard look. “First it’s a day in Montana that turned into three. Then you don’t show up to the Christmas party. Lots of clients were looking for you there, Sammy. Frankly you’ve been a little moody lately. Your work’s solid, but your attitude sucks. Who has time for that? How about you take the whole week and make sure you want to come back after New Year’s, huh?”
It was like slap in the face. In a good way. A bucket of icy cold water, a loud alarm clock, the screech of brakes. A wakeup call. Sam nodded at him, eyes growing wide and hopeful as a liberating awareness flooded him, making synapses fire like crazy in his head, putting together the very beginnings of a plan. Was it really that easy? Oh, my God. It was.
“You know what, Thomas? I’ll do just that.” He started breathing faster, excitement building.
Thomas had narrowed his eyes, probably realizing he had overplayed his hand, because Sam’s face probably had all of the signs of a man who’d just realized he wouldn’t drown if he jumped ship. “Sammy! Don’t be rash. Just get your priorities straight.”
Sam had chuckled and nodded at his boss with a lucidity—with a hope—he hadn’t had in two weeks. “That’s exactly what I’m going to do, Thomas.” He started to leave his boss’s office when he turned around, smiling broadly, excitedly, for the first time since he returned from Montana.