Rose couldn't believe how everything had gone from nightmarish to unbelievable within the span of a day.
First Cal had announced that he needed to leave for California on a business trip and that he would be gone for almost two weeks. Despite everything-despite the humiliation, confusion, and frustration he sometimes made her feel-Rose felt her stomach drop at the thought of two weeks without Cal. She would be so bored, so lonely. She knew herself, and she knew she would get anxious and obsessive during that time, and she hated this about herself. She worried about her nightmares coming again, and having no one to hold her at night no matter how horrible she felt.
Then the weather report had come in: cold, frigid, stormy. She'd shuddered, worrying for Cal's travels and her own bleak mood in such claustrophobic weather, in which the world itself seemed to moan in agony at the unending winter.
And then . . . then, like a deafening clap of thunder heralding the coming spring, Cal had come home and said those magic words.
"Mr. Dawson says he'd be fine with you staying with him while I'm gone."
Camille informed her that Jack lived downtown, in a four-bedroom Edwardian four-square, less grand but far more metropolitan than Gardenhead. Rose hadn't received any instructions as to what to bring and agonized (and blushed) as to whether she'd be given her own bed, her own bathroom, whether he'd be charmed or annoyed if she brought too much.
Camille helped her pack her toiletries and clothes into two of Cal's old suitcases. Camille would stay and oversee Gardenhead in Cal's absence. There were no worries about Camille waking up with nightmares or becoming an anxious barnacle latched onto Cal like a baby, Rose mused.
She was too embarrassed to ask who had brought up her temporary accommodations, Cal or Jack. She wondered if it was a sick test on Cal's part, the same as how she now viewed her encounter with Jack in Cal's office-a sick test that she had most definitely failed.
What was expected now? Was she supposed to be accomodating and pleasing no matter what Jack requested? Or was she supposed to prove her loyalties and love for Cal, coyishly batting Jack away to prove she was worthy of Cal's affections? And, more importantly, she told herself, what did Rose want?
She wanted Jack to look at her and really see her again.
She wanted to see his smile again.
She wanted him to hold her.
Damn men, damn Cal, damn all of it! She couldn't, wouldn't, pine around Gardenhead for two weeks, using up all her energy on swimming and dancing and waiting for something more interesting to happen. She wanted to go downtown on Jack's arm, laugh and talk and feel normal for once. She wanted to spend all the time she could with Jack, start over and make him see that she wasn't an unthinking obliging sex toy, but someone worthy of his attention and affection.
Rather than dread the countdown minutes, now she couldn't wait for Cal to leave already.
