My Deja Vu Lover Read Free Page A

this week.”
       “Got my ass kicked twice today. Twice is enough.”
       “So you’re quitting?”
       “Typical, Macbeth. Nag, nag. You got that Midas touch, you know, everything works for you. Don’t expect the rest of us to meet your standards.” I said it like a joke but it was true. He could multitask and keep it all aimed at one ambition. Which is probably how he got the nickname Macbeth, short for Macklin Braithe, when he was a child. It stuck. “Bet you were the kid who picked up his games and went home if the other kids forgot the rules.”
       He kept the smile but it looked forced. “You should go back to school and get your degree.”
       “I wasn’t learning anything.”
       “You’ll never get a decent job without a degree.”
       “Or with one. Look at Cyd and Tom.”
       They had their degrees from the U and they were both in jobs they hated, stuck in cubicles squinting into computers all day.
       “So what did they expect with history majors? Get into something practical.”
       Yes, sure, we’d been through this a dozen times. Reminding him I was a trust fund baby and could squeak by if I stuck with a shared apartment and pizza wouldn’t shut him up.
       So I said the thing that always worked. “I love you, Macbeth.”
       He said, “Sure, April, I love you, too,” but he didn’t look at me. Instead he stood up and walked out, pausing at the door to say, “I need to pick up Cyd. We’re going out to some new Italian place she’s heard about. Want to come with us?”
       “No. I’m okay. Honest. Tom will be along soon.”
       Macbeth nodded and left, pushing in the lock button on the door before he closed it. The knob rattled from the other side when he turned it to make sure he had locked me in safely. After his car pulled away from the curb, I got up and switched off the overhead light, then returned to the window to stare out at the darkening sky above the moving shadows of the vine leaves.
       Could have told him to turn out the light when he left. Cyd would have done that. Not me. I’d spent my life avoiding confrontations, doing things my own way when no one was watching.
       Once in a while I’d tried to defend myself, explain why I wanted something, and I either stumbled over crappy explanations, or screamed things I couldn’t take back, or dissolved into tears.   So I quit bothering and kept my thoughts to myself.
       While I played with my thoughts, weaving them mentally through the vine maple like threads, I saw Tom hurrying along the sidewalk, his tall frame bent against the nonexistent wind. His head was lowered as though he could only move forward by butting his way through the mist. A forelock of dark wavy hair fell across his eyes. His trench coat flapped around his long legs.
       I banged on the window glass and waved but being Tom and lost in his own thoughts, he didn’t hear me.
       After I let him in he trailed me to the kitchen, his hands on my shoulders, and we stared together at the interior of   the fridge.
       “We could do eggs,” I said.
       “How about eggs benedict?”
       “We don’t have ham. Or muffins.”
       “It’s the hollandaise that counts. We can use toast.” He turned me to face him and wound his arms around me. He was tall and thin and average looking until you looked up into his eyes. Tom had thick black eyelashes out to there and his eyes were this lovely shade of dark brown, sparkling and teasing and full of promises he never remembered he’d made. Oh yes, I knew the boy well.
       “Your coat’s wet.”
       “Not inside,” he said, and opened it to wrap me up, pressing me against the rough wool of   his sweater. Right off I knew he’d split up with his latest girlfriend. He nuzzled my neck until I giggled.
       “We’ll never get supper done this way.” I pushed away from him because I wasn’t about to be a consolation prize.
       Despite the lack of ingredients,