The Crazy One Read online

  Suddenly, the door hit something metal hiding behind it. There was a terrible screeching noise. Joel turned slowly. He looked straight at Lucy who was frozen in place. She was sure he'd be mad at her for sneaking into his room. If he yelled at her, she was sure she would cry. She didn't want him to see her cry.

  "Hi," was all he said. It was a question, like, What are you doing here?

  "Sorry," she said lamely. She took another step toward him, wondering what she would say next. He wasn't shouting at her to get out. He wasn't calling security. Did he recognize her from before? Was it okay because he knew her? Could it be he knew she was the one for him? That they were meant to be?

  A voice from the doorway at her back halted everything.

  "Can I help you?"

  She turned to see the nurse. She wasn't just any nurse. She was a young and extremely beautiful nurse with brown, wavy hair and artificially tanned skin. Why was she a nurse? She could be a model. Lucy immediately hated this nurse for caring intimately for her Joel. She hated her for her Florence Nightingale ways.

  "I was delivering flowers," she stammered. She looked around the room. There were balloons. There were a few gift bags, but there were no flowers. The nurse scowled and motioned for her to leave. Lucy turned, ashamed, and walked quickly down the hall. Joel didn't stop her. He let her go.

  "Wait a minute," called the nurse who already had the phone in her hand. Lucy kept going. She pushed the elevator button a dozen times. It wasn’t coming. She stepped back and scanned the area for a stairwell. When she spotted it she ran.

  Holding the metal railing, she hopped down the stairs two at a time. Adrenaline propelled her forward and she laughed out loud, assuming she had escaped free and clear. Then she heard the loud clank of a door pushing open on the floor below. A security guard stepped into the stairwell and looked up at her.

  "Hey," he shouted as he climbed the stairs toward her.

  Lucy let out an involuntary yelp. Spinning around to retreat back up the stairs, she twisted her ankle and fell down hard. A concrete step bruised her thigh and sent blinding pain through her body.

  The guard approached more slowly now. He simply stood over her for a minute and glared. When she attempted to get to her feet, he took her by her upper arm and didn’t let go. Another guard emerged from the staircase above. The two escorted her down to the first floor without a word.

  Before opening the stairwell door to a hospital full of patients and visitors, the guard released her. He folded his arms and glared at her again.

  "You have any I.D. on you?" he asked.

  Lucy pulled her wallet from her pocket and produced her driver’s license. What did he need that for? He wasn’t a cop. But she was too nervous to find the words to protest. She handed him the plastic card.

  He read her name out loud. The other guard wrote it on a tiny notepad. They exchanged looks, then both stared at Lucy again.

  "Are you a patient at this hospital, Lucy Bonneville?"

  For a minute she thought of saying yes. But he’d be able to verify it wasn’t true. So she told the truth.

  "No."

  "What are you doing here?"

  Like a child, she looked at the floor and mumbled, "Visiting Joel."

  "Visiting Joel Ruskin?" He chuckled. His colleague snorted. She hated the way he said Joel’s name, like she shouldn’t want to see him. If she could prove their relationship, he’d have a different attitude. But she couldn’t. She had no proof.

  "Well, Lucy Bonneville," he said, "I don’t want to see you in this hospital again. You’re banned for life. Unless you come in on a stretcher, don’t ever show your face here again."

  The other guard chimed in. "We’ll be watching out for you. Trust me, you’re not the first. We have a whole wall of banned individuals in the security office."

  He then stepped around her and pushed the heavy door open. She turned and stepped out into the bustling lobby. A few people turned to look at her with curious faces, but most didn’t notice the woman being ushered out by the guards. They watched her walk the long hallway to the parking garage.

  Once inside her car she nearly had a nervous breakdown. Her arms and legs began to shake. The adrenaline from the experience was starting to wear off and if she weren’t sitting in her car she would have fainted. She smiled before her emotions completely overtook her. Her hands went to her face to push back the tears that flowed.

  Despite the outcome, she had come close to Joel. This time they'd been alone together. Surely fate had allowed things to fall into place so easily. She really was meant to be with him. The universe was giving her a sign to hold on. It wasn't the right time yet. Now her future with him was much more certain.

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  Omaha – November 2015

  Black Friday, as always, was a nightmare. The mall had been open all night for stores that wanted to take advantage of the crazed shoppers. But Gobo's kept regular hours.

  When Lucy got home that night she fell onto her couch and let the mail in her hand fall to the floor next to her. She had worked ten hours. She'd eaten two meals huddled in the back room of Gobo's. She'd gone to the bathroom only twice because it took so long to get there only to find maintenance couldn't keep up with the hectic traffic and general grossness of the shoppers.

  The new issue of People magazine lay in the mail stack. It wasn’t hers. The mail carrier must have put it in the wrong box. She snatched it up to check the address on the label. Then she began to flip through the pages.

  She stopped on a page titled New Couple Alert. There were photos of four celebrity couples. Half of one of those couples was Joel Ruskin. He was posing at some kind of event with his arm around a woman who looked vaguely familiar. The article said her name was Michelle Bruin, and she was an actress on some show Lucy had never watched.

  Her palms began to sweat. Her heart was racing, and she could feel her face flaming.

  How could he do this to me? she thought. She's not even that pretty. Her dress is disgusting. It looks cheap. What in the hell would he want with her?

  Her stomach dropped. She felt like she could vomit. Emitting a low, desperate wail, she fell onto the floor and rolled onto her back. Her chest heaved as she tried to catch her breath. Had all the air been sucked from the room?

  He'd found someone. He was no longer available. She turned onto her side and slapped her hand on the magazine. She studied the smile on his face, which she now perceived as smug and mocking. He was looking right at her, like he was flaunting this woman only to upset her. It was a sickening display. She hated him. She had thought he was better than that; better than falling for a shallow, brainless actress. With this woman in the picture, there was no way she could make him love her.

  "Why didn’t you tell me you were seeing someone else, Joel?" The bare walls of the apartment echoed back at her.

  Standing from the carpet, she tore the page out of the magazine and ripped it into pieces. Her eyes stung with tears. She didn't hold back. She’d read online that he would soon be in Las Vegas filming a Christmas special. She imagined arguing with him on the phone while he was in a hired car on his way to the airport.

  "I'm not dating Michelle." He sounded annoyed. Was he annoyed he'd been caught cheating? "It was a publicity thing, nothing more."

  "And why can't I be part of your publicity thing?" She paced around her apartment holding her phone in her hand but not speaking into it. Instead she shouted at the empty air. "Am I too homely? Too middle-America?" Or had he been taking advantage of her the whole time? She wiped away a tear and tried not to let her voice quiver. Surely he could hear she was angry, but she wouldn't let him know she was devastated.

  "Stop it, Lucy. You know none of that is true. Michelle and I have the same agent. Our agent thought it would be a good boost for her show to be seen with me. He wanted to get the media talking. I promise you it was nothing more than that."

  She could barely get the next words out. "I think we're better off not seeing eac
h other anymore, Joel. It's too hard to maintain this... well... this whatever it is, halfway across the country."

  "Come on, Lucy," he pleaded. "You know I don't want that. I miss you. I want to see you and keep seeing you. We can make this work."

  "I don't think so, Joel." An unintentionally loud sigh escaped her lips. "I can't do this anymore. I deserve someone who can be there for me all the time. You deserve someone, I don't know, someone who lives in your world."

  Joel began to speak again, but she interrupted him. "Let's not drag this out, Joel. I've made up my mind."

  He was quiet for a minute. Then he finally said, "Okay. If that's what you want." His voice was calm, but he sounded defeated. "I'm at the airport now. I have to go."

  And that was the end of it. She tossed her phone onto the bed and threw herself face-first into her pillow. She cried uncontrollably for a half hour. Her heart was broken. Her head was pounding. She’d lost him and she was afraid she would never find happiness again.

  CHAPTER THIRTY ONE

  Her melancholy lasted through Christmas. Although she was surrounded by family, Lucy's heart was numb. She didn't even have an imaginary boyfriend to give her a virtual gift under the glow of an outdoor Christmas tree. Every time she saw a couple enjoying their holiday hand- in-hand, she regretted deeply that Joel Ruskin had let her down. And he'd picked the worst time to do it.

  As they did every year, her cousins and aunts and uncles gathered at her mom and dad's house to exchange gifts and eat all day. She wasn't in the mood for any of it. The others buzzed around laughing and speaking words that sounded like dull noise to her. She had moved from the couch in the formal living room because people wouldn't stop sitting down next to her and engaging her in conversation. Almost every adult had attempted to brighten her spirits. She only shrugged at them like a sullen teenager.

  Soon she had retreated to the family room where her cousin's kids were watching a holiday special on TV. None of them had any interest in bothering her. She again sat in silence and watched the images on the screen without really seeing them. Until the program shifted to a shot of the Christmas tree at Rockefeller Center in New York.

  Her stomach fluttered. Tears sprang to her eyes. She was supposed to be there with Joel in New York enjoying all the splendors of the holiday season. She wanted to sink into the couch cushions and suffocate herself. It wasn't only because Joel wasn't there for her on Christmas. It was because no man was. No man ever had been.

  When all of the festivities were over, her only desire was to hunker down inside her apartment and wallow in her sorrow. She stopped by the grocery store on her way from her mom and dad's house and bought all the junk food she could anticipate wanting. Once comfortably in her pajamas, she threw her bedding onto her couch and settled in for the night.

  Unable to help herself, she re-watched one of Joel's recent interviews on YouTube, imagining herself as the one he was talking to. She focused on him so intently that a hard knot formed in her stomach. She couldn't let him go, regardless of how he'd hurt her by being photographed with that woman. It didn't make sense that she could feel this way if he wasn't truly her destiny.

  Her head went to her hands and she tried to shake the pain of yearning she was feeling for this man, this stranger. She knew him well. She knew he was the only one she wanted. If he'd only let her, she would dedicate her life to him. The feeling of frustration overtook her and she slumped down into a fetal position. How could something be fated yet impossible at the same time?

  ◆◆◆

  Joni sympathized with Lucy over her breakup. She and Leron took her out the weekend after and got her nice and drunk. They'd ended up at a nightclub downtown where both Joni and Leron picked up hot guys and Lucy had to get herself home in a Lyft. The next day she had a hangover so bad that Uncle Gordon had to take her shift at the store.

  With a head full of rocks, she pulled herself to her couch. She turned on the TV but found nothing good to watch. Then, as if by fate, she spotted Joel Ruskin's name in the description of an afternoon talk show. Although she was still mad at him, she selected the program anyway. She would at least like to hear what he had to say. And maybe she had a longing to see his smile again.

  The show was already well underway. A woman in workout gear was demonstrating how to make a smoothie to ease a hangover. She chuckled at the coincidence.

  "Antioxidants are key," the woman was saying. She had shoved a few bananas and strawberries and even carrots into a blender. The result was a pinkish goop the host praised as delicious.

  After the commercial break it was finally Joel's turn. The host, Lauri Rock, introduced him and ushered him to the guest couch. He smiled and waved at the camera. Lucy's heart melted as if he had been seeing her instead of a studio of middle-aged women.

  "Think you could use that hangover cure?" Lauri Rock asked him when he was settled. Joel laughed and shook his head bashfully.

  "Definitely not today," he said. "Maybe in the near future." The audience laughed. The camera cut to a woman who was covering her laugh and nudging her friend. Jealousy fired in her chest. She had the urge to slap that woman.

  "What are your plans for the New Year?" Lauri Rock inquired. "Anything special?"

  "I do have some projects down the line, but I'm taking a few months off. I bought a second home in Colorado and it needs some tender loving care."

  The audience hollered at the mention of this. She wasn't sure why his revelation elicited that response. Maybe they were prompted to do so. But she was definitely excited by it. Colorado, after all, was only around ten hours away by car. Her family had driven there once when she was in middle school. It was their one and only road trip–something her dad had wanted to do on a whim. After that trip none of them wanted to spend that much time in a car together ever again. Planes were to be their permanent form of interstate travel.

  "Did you build a house in Colorado?"

  "No, I bought an old farm house. It's a bit of a fixer-upper."

  "Really? Are you into home improvement? Are you handy?"

  Joel chuckled again.

  "I try to be. Sometimes it's nice to get my hands dirty. We'll see what happens."

  Her interest was piqued. Joel hadn't been on her radar since he'd broken her heart. She'd stopped the alerts from his Twitter feed. She immediately went to her laptop to search his recent Tweets. There was no announcement of a new house, but he had twice mentioned the snow in Colorado (#whatwasithinking).

  Next she tried searching for articles about his home purchase. Nothing turned up. Frantically she searched for even the smallest clue. It proved to be hopeless.

  She turned on his Twitter alert again. Joel had always tweeted openly, as if nobody was paying attention. It was hard to imagine he didn't realize that, of his 100,000 followers, a few of them might be watching very closely.

  Colorado was close. If she was patient, she could find him. She could go to him. First, they had to get back together.

  CHAPTER THIRTY TWO

  It was two days after Christmas when I got his call. Joel, whom I hadn't spoken to in almost a month, was speaking to me with a hint of groveling in his voice. He asked how I was and how my Christmas had been. I was cordial, but suspicious. This call definitely had an ulterior motive.

  "I'm going to a New Year's party," he told me. "It's a big deal."

  "Good for you," I interrupted. I wondered why he felt the need to share this news with me.

  He chuckled a little as if he thought I was acting like a pouting child.

  "I want to ask you to be my date."

  "What about what's-her-name? Are you already over her?" I sat down on my kitchen stool and grabbed an orange from the fruit bowl. I could have squeezed it to death with the resentment I was holding in.

  "Lucy," he pleaded. "I told you, we only went out that one time. I'm sorry. I should have told you."

  "Yes, you should have."

  There was silence. I finally broke it.

  "I don't th
ink we should start this again, Joel. We're better off as friends."

  "Then, let's go as friends. Come on. Do you have plans for New Year's?"

  "No," I admitted.

  "Then make plans with me. Wouldn't you like to be surrounded by classy people in a swanky ballroom instead of drinking beer in a bar in Nebraska?"

  "Classy people like you?" I teased.

  "Hell, yes. I'm as classy as they come."

  I caved. He had charmed me into it. The truth was, I didn't have anything planned, and I'd rather ring in the New Year at a fancy party than alone in my apartment.

  There was no fancy Plaza hotel for me this time. Even though we were attending the party as "just friends", I stayed at Joel's apartment in his guest bedroom. I had flown into New York late at night and had taken a cab to his place. He'd been waiting for me and greeted me with his usual wide and infectious smile. I tried to ignore the feeling of longing that smile gave me. It told me to jump into his arms so I could feel his warm body on mine again. But I was standing my ground. I didn't want to rekindle our going-nowhere relationship that spanned too many miles.

  Instead of making love like in the past, we sat at his kitchen table and talked long into the night. He told me about a few projects he'd been considering for the New Year. I talked briefly about my mundane life back home. It was a nice and easy conversation; the kind friends have.

  The next morning we were back at that kitchen table, and he was cooking us eggs. I was starting to think he didn't know how to make much else.

  Before I'd left Nebraska, he'd told me not to bother bringing a dress for the party.

  "New York is full of dresses," he'd told me on the phone. "We'll find you one."

  "On New Year's Eve?"

  "New York doesn't shut down for holidays, babe."

  He'd called me babe in a silly way, not in a possessive way. He'd said it the way he'd said it back when we were friends, before we dated. I was relieved we were friends again. I'd been missing his emails and his phone calls. I'd resisted many urges to send him a message to say hi.