Fairy Tale Fail

Chapter 9b - Fulfillment's different for everyone

Another thing I discovered about Lucas: He drank three bottles of beer at dinner and managed to keep mum the whole time, but after maybe five non-alcoholic truffles he started to loosen up. Past midnight and we were both sitting on the carpeted floor. Each one gallantly offering the couch, neither accepting it.
   "Are you a secret rock star?" I asked.
   He shook his head. "What? No. Where'd that come from?"
   "Nowhere," I said innocently. "You know that people talk about you, right? I mean, at work."
   The TV was tuned to the BBC but I had long since stopped paying attention to it. And so did he, because at this he turned to lean against a throw pillow and face me directly.
   "What do people say about me?" he asked.
   "You can't not know. How long have you been at the office?"
   "I don't hang out with a lot of people there. What do they say?"
   "Well, it's more of… observational. People notice what you do. Who you're with."
   "Why would they do that? I'm boring."
   It figured that he wouldn't understand. But rather than explain to him, he launched into an explanation of how "regular" he was. He had started to explain to me just what exactly he did for work (I mean, "wealth management"? Really?) but somewhere in the middle he just started laughing.
   "Please forget everything I just told you. It doesn't matter," he said. "Seriously. The answer is, I do stuff my boss tells me so I get paid twice a month. That is all it is."
   "But you're like, assistant manager, right? And you've been promoted before?"
   "Not of my own doing. I guess I'm a good foot soldier." Lucas grabbed another truffle and bit half of it off, chewing slowly. "But what really makes it worth it is working with this one client. Huge corporation. They started this foundation and somehow roped me into it. They set up libraries in small towns."
   He seemed really into it too, telling me about the online book donation drive and the corporate partnerships, and I couldn't help but laugh. Somehow I had imagined Lucas having some sort of altruistic hobby, only because all the gossip about him gave him a Clooney kind of mystique, but I didn't think that it could be true.
   "Are you making fun of me?" he demanded. "Because people don't usually laugh when I tell them about the kids who can't afford books."
   "I'm not laughing at the kids," I said, "I'm sorry, please continue. It's great what you're doing, really. I think it'll help a lot of people."
   "Oh no, I have no illusions about that. The foundation does a nice thing for people, but they don't even know if enough people will go to the libraries."
   "But you do it anyway. Does it make you feel all warm inside?" I teased.
   "Yes," Lucas admitted. "They're not the easiest clients, but I'd rather deal with them than other people. Makes the job bearable. But it's just a job, right? Fulfillment's different for everyone."
   "Can you hang around with certain people I know and just say that?"
   "Don is an ass. You don't need to change his mind about anything."
   "Now see, good guys don't call other guys names."
   Lucas laughed. "I'm not a good guy."
   I remembered what I told Charisse – all the reasons why I couldn't be with a guy like him. He smoked (or used to), he drank, he had tattoos, and I had no idea how he was with responsibility. I didn't know him for very long, didn't even know his parents or what they did. I would have to explain so much to my mom if they were to meet. I couldn't imagine how he'd take care of me, what kind of life we would have together…
   What? I wasn't crazy. Shouldn't everyone do a background check on romantic prospects first? He was just too far off from my normal. Although being with him, right there, was fun.
   "What's the big deal about tonight?" I asked, serious for once. "Or are you just the type who hangs out all night with girls you barely know?"
   "You're not a stranger," Lucas said. "We work together."
   "You know what I mean." I half expected him to say some smartass remark, or deflect it by changing the subject, or say something about Don to get me talking.
   Maybe he was tired, or the chocolate got to him, but he stopped fighting it. "My ex was waiting for me at my parents' house. She's been trying to talk to me again, but I've been avoiding her. She found out somehow that I was staying there this week. Today I got a call that she just showed up and said she would wait until I got back."
   "Oh." I didn't know what to say, but didn't want him to stop talking. "I'm sorry, I don't know who she is."
   "Her name is Patty. Anyway, she… at least tonight I had a reason not to be there."
   It started coming back to me: hearing about her getting knocked up, and how they broke up six months later, and how he didn't even show up for the birth, and that he hadn't seen the child since then.
   But that was the story I heard from the grapevine. My heart sank a little.
   "Yeah, I heard it didn't end well," I said.
   "What did people say?"
   "That she was pregnant and you broke up after you found out."
   He shrugged. "Well, that part's sort of true. The short story is, she slept with another guy while we were still together."
   That I didn't know. "No, the gossip girls didn't pick that up," I said. Maybe I shouldn't have mentioned it.
   Lucas looked more amused than mad though. "So the people at the office think I abandoned my own illegitimate child?"
   Okay, now I wasn't sure which was worse. "Yeah, I guess. It's not fair to you though."
   He thought about it and popped another truffle in his mouth. "It doesn't matter. Don't tell them anything – I think the story going around is better for her. No one needs to know about the cheating."
   He's not a good guy, I repeated his own phrase in my head. He has no reputation to protect. But it was big of him to protect Patty's, even after what she did to him. Allegedly.
   "Are you sure the baby's not yours?"
   His story was a few months older than mine, but I recognized myself in the way he told it. My own breakup wasn't fresh; I could tell that story without getting sad, or angry, but that didn't mean all had been healed. In any case, he knew the kid wasn't his because they hadn't been intimate for a while before the "bump" started to show. Looking back, he felt he should have been more suspicious about her behavior.
   "She was my friend for a long time before that," he said. "I thought I would know if she didn't love me anymore."
   "Maybe she still does," I said. "I mean, all this effort to see you. People make mistakes."
   He tried to have relationships after Patty, but the trust radar was all screwed up. Whenever he went out with anyone after that, they didn't stay very long, and he wondered if something had changed in him.
   "Some people are just better as friends," Lucas said. "Maybe that's the lesson you have to learn too."
   "Hey my therapy time is over. This is your time now."
   "What I'm saying," Lucas said, clearing his throat, "is that being friends with someone doesn't mean they'll always be loyal to you. Or that they'll always be the kind of person you knew."
   "I don't mind the challenge," I said. "I like to think that all of this is just – do you know the morphology of the folk tale? – that I'm a hero on a journey, and that these are all just challenges I have to go through to prove that we belong together."
   "The monomyth," Lucas confirmed. "Hero's journey. Like fairy tales. Or Star Wars."
   "Exactly," I said, pleased that he knew. "Fairy tales are set up this way. I can't expect the happy ending without proving myself first. Did you study literature?"
   "No, but I was majorly into Star Wars. Took film as an elective and wrote about it as my final paper." And then he looked at me skeptically. "So this… this belief is what makes you think you're meant for him? Because you've been kept apart?"
   "It's a test," I insisted. "Maybe the only things worth having are the ones you fight for."
   "Or maybe," Lucas said, "The person who tests you three times isn't Prince Charming, but the Evil Queen in disguise."
   It sounded like a challenge, and even as I opened my mouth to protest and tell him he was wrong, I couldn't. Or maybe I became aware all of a sudden how close he was, and how seeing him all scrubbed from a shower made me want to run my fingers through his hair, and how we were alone, and how if he or I started something no one in this labyrinth of a house would hear.
   Focus, Ellie. I hit him with a throw pillow. "You are not a good guy."

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I haven't read this scene in so long! Felt a little something for Lucas again. Haha.