Okay, so I lied. There will be angst...
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As Saturday night loomed ever closer, the thought of seeing Jordan again churned through Woody's head.
It was a cocktail party given at the home of some bigwig donor. Kristi was thrilled. It was to be an exclusive affair, and she had managed to wangle an invitation for herself. She chattered excitedly on the way to the party while he sank further into his moody silence.
He was ambivalent about seeing Jordan. When she had asked for time apart two years earlier, he had carried on in an awful hope for weeks. The wound had remained open for a long while.
There had been some measure of healing after he transferred out of Homicide, and life had begun to move along at an agreeable clip. He had settled into a new routine at work, started seeing Kristi. If he thought of Jordan at all, he managed to bury her quickly in some distant corner of his consciousness.
Still, seeing her at the banquet had sent a pleasant ripple through him, and he found a small part of himself hoping he would see her again tonight.
"Don't be so nervous."
"Huh?"
Kristi had taken his hand as he stood uneasily in the foyer. "Your palms. They're sweating."
"Oh. Sorry." He wiped them hastily on his jacket.
"You'll be fine, Woody." Kristi patted his hand reassuringly.
He had begun to feel lately as if he were in the on-ramp of some six-lane super highway, about to get sucked into something he couldn't quite keep up with.
She grabbed his arm, and they merged into the noise of the chattering crowd.
Jordan saw him first. She stood with Reed and an excrutiatingly dull little man whose family had made a fortune doing something or other. She wasn't really paying all that much attention. She would look up expectantly every time the front door opened, and her heart sank a little when it was just another fawning campaign staffer or muckety-muck donor.
Then finally, just as she had decided, to her disappointment, that perhaps they weren't coming, Woody and Kristi rounded the corner and stood in the doorway. She wore a grin from ear to ear and an unflattering eggplant-colored suit with sequins on the collar and cuffs. It was the kind of thing worn only by mothers-of-the-bride or Miss America contestants during the interview segment.
Woody scanned the room, his hands jammed nervously in his pants pockets. Then, his eyes fell on Jordan, and he smiled a little smile and waved. She nodded back at him and tried to ignore the shudder of excitement she suddenly felt at his appearance.
He looked as if he were about to cross to her to speak, but Kristi had his arm then, and they began the dizzying whirl of introductions and small talk.
Jordan watched as Kristi and Woody circulated around the party. From across the room, Woody turned once to Jordan and shrugged helplessly. She smiled and gave him a reassuring thumbs-up.
It was like that all evening. Someone was always eager to get Reed's ear, so Jordan managed to make herself look busy. Waiting at the bar for a refill, reapplying her lipstick in the powder room countless times, listening appreciatively to the piano player as he played a string of melancholy standards.
When she thought no one was looking, she slipped into an empty room and out onto the terrace, knowing it would be awhile before Reed came looking for her. This far from the city, the stars were brilliant against the black sky. A cool breeze cut through the thick August air.
She heard footsteps on the stones of the terrace and did not have to turn to know that it was Woody. He had found her, and his presence was neither surprising nor unwelcome. He came and stood next to her.
"Do you ever stop feeling like a fifth wheel at these things?" he finally asked with an exasperated laugh.
"You'll either learn how to fake it, or you'll learn to find the good hiding places."
"Think maybe you can show me the ropes?"
"Watch and learn, newbie."
They shared a small, easy laugh. She had been anxious before, wondering what to say if she and Woody ever found themselves alone. So far, so good, she thought to herself and sipped at her drink.
"So, how've you been?" She asked with animation.
"Fine. Fine. How about yourself?" he responded in kind.
"Good. Real good." A pause.
"How's work?"
"Same as always. Overworked, underpaid."
He chuckled mildly. "Yeah, yeah."
"How about you? How are things down at the Boston P.D.? I kind of lost track of you after you left Homicide." She wanted to suck it back in as soon as she said it, but it hung there in the air. His face clouded over. The lightness of their breezy banter had been punctured.
"Work's fine, Jordan," he said curtly.
There was another pause. She searched for something to say.
"So. When's the big day?" It seemed the sort of thing she should ask.
"After the election." His voice was upbeat again. "December. Kristi's going to be pretty busy until then, and she's always wanted a Christmas wedding."
"Sounds nice. I'm really happy for you." She wanted to mean it, anyway. Ending their relationship had been her decision. She had always known logically that his life would go on without her, but the heart is rarely logical. Woody was not Jordan's anymore, but she couldn't quite wrap her head around the idea that he was someone else's.
"She's great, Jordan." She immediately regretted bringing up the topic. He plowed on. "You have a lot in common, really. She's very driven. Put herself through school."
"Ah, really? She sounds perfect." If he noticed the hint of sarcasm in her voice, he ignored it.
"You'd really like her. Maybe the four of us could have dinner together or you two could meet for lunch." There was a pause where she assumed she was supposed to respond, but she did not.
There was a lull. He rocked back onto his heels. She rattled the ice in her glass and drained the last of its contents. After a promising start to the conversation, an uneasiness had crept back in.
"Are we ever going to talk about the elephant in the room?" he began softly.
"Which elephant would that be?" She let out a humorless laugh.
He shifted his weight awkwardly, searching for the words. "We've never really talked about this, Jordan."
They hadn't, and it was something she had desperately wanted to avoid. But now as they stood out on the terrace making small talk against the undercurrent of tension, it seemed silly to think that they could simply pick up and pretend as if nothing had happened between them. "No, I guess we haven't," she said quietly.
"I just want to clear the air. Make sure things are okay between us." The moonlight streamed out from behind a cloud, and she could make out the pained earnestness on his face. "I know that things ended badly, but there's another few months in this campaign, and we're going to be seeing a lot of each other. I just want you to know there aren't any hard feelings about what happened. I've been wanting to say that for awhile, and I'm just glad I've gotten the chance to say it. And not in some email or Christmas card. But in person. Finally."
The bare simplicity of his words startled her. For all his boyish, small-town charm, she supposed he had always been the mature one in the relationship. She found it hard to speak.
"Look, we've got our own lives now. I'm engaged to this terrific girl, and you've obviously got a great thing going with Reed, so...there's no reason why we should be uncomfortable. There's no reason we can't come out of this thing as friends, right?"
"Absolutely." She smiled up at him. "Friends."
His shoulders dropped with relief. "Great." And then, softer, "That's great."
They stood for a moment, not knowing quite what to do or say. They both became aware of the piano music trickling out onto the terrace.
The Way You Look Tonight. Jerome Kern.She gave him a wistful smile.
The song had played at a piano bar where they had met for dinner one night early in their relationship. He had spontaneously pulled her to her feet, and they slow-danced there on the tiny dance floor. Later, they had gone back to her apartment and made love for the first time, and afterwards, he had hummed the tune softly as they lay in each other's arms and drifted into a contented sleep.
Yes, he remembered, too. He bit his lip and looked away.
"I guess I'd better go," he said, his voice barely above a whisper. "Good night, Jordan."
He turned and went slowly back into the bright clatter of the party.
She stood in stillness for a long while, knowing suddenly that this was all going to be much, much more difficult than she ever thought it would be.
XXXXXXX
No one spoke on the way home. Jordan kept her head turned towards the window and watched the street lights whiz past on the road back to the city.
Reed finally reached over and stroked the back of her neck. "I missed you tonight. Where did you run off to?"
She debated quickly how much to tell him. "Clearing the air," she said quietly, echoing Woody's own words.
Reed said nothing for a moment. "...Woody."
"Yeah..."
"Everything okay?"
They came to a stoplight then, and in the glow of the red light, she could see the look of genuine concern on his face. She owed him some kind of truth. Not all of it. Men always think they want the whole truth, but they never do.
She took a deep breath and began slowly. "Things between us didn't exactly end on the best of notes. I admit...we were both a little shocked to see each other last week at the banquet, but it's all water under the bridge. Everything's cool. Really."
"Good. I'm glad." His hand slid down and fell onto her knee. "We're coming up to the turnoff for your place. You want me to drop you off?"
She turned it over in her head. Woody was right. They had their own lives now. She had...how did Woody put it?...a great thing going with Reed.
Water under the bridge.
"No. Let's go to your place."
He grinned, and the car sped on.