I look to my right. I am a mere five blocks away.

"Thanks, Ruby!"

I hurry, weaving in and out of an already fast moving crowd. A light but hardly cold snow begins to fall. The air is crisp and cool but not unbearable. By the time I hit the skating rink, I am out of breath. My hands are braced on my knees and I'm trying to recover. I realize I must make myself exercise, but that is a task for another day.

When my lungs finally recover, I stand and notice the sign: Early Season Special Today: $10. I pull out the wad of cash in my pocket. Wad is not the right word. It's two five-dollar bills. It's the last of my money.

Then I spot Mikaela. She is alone on the ice, spinning in a circle, her arms wide and open, her tongue catching the snowflakes as they come down.

I pay at the window and am issued skates. I sit on the bench, tie them up, and glide onto the ice. It's been a while, but I always liked to skate. It brings back good memories almost instantly. As I skate toward Mikaela, I notice Jake on the other side of the rink. I skate past him, but he doesn't notice me. He's giving money to a mother and a child who look like they've come and watched and never skated themselves. Their faces are filled with delight.

I come along side Mikaela. "Hey, kiddo," I say with a friendly grin.

She scowls at me, her expression a cold mess of anger and sorrow.

"What's the matter?"

From her jacket, she pulls out a crumpled envelope and then what looks like a card. She tosses it to me and I slip a little trying to catch it. She then skates off. I stand there while others skate by me on my left and right. On the envelope is Mikaela's name written in pen and spelled wrong. I turn the card over to the front. I immediately recognize it as one of mine.

The front reads: Do I like you?

Inside, there are options with little boxes next to each one: No, Nada And Never. All the boxes are pre-checked, but someone has circled them for emphasis. And then the punch line: the Bible says G.o.d works all things together for good. Trust me. This rejection is for your good. And it's signed David . . .

Her crush.

My heart stings with guilt and sadness and anger. She's been nothing but nice to this kid. I've witnessed it firsthand. I turn to find her but she has now skated up right next to me.

"Mikaela, I'm sorry he did this."

"It's not your fault, right? You didn't give it to me." Her cheeks are red from the cold but I suspect that's not the only reason they're glowing.

"Look, it's a joke, okay? It's supposed to be funny. It's . . ." How to explain this to a child? "Trust me, this is for your good. Stay away from boys and especially don't kiss them. It messes up your senses."

"You kissed Jake?"

"What? No? . . . No." The first denial came out as a question, so that never really bodes well for believability. The next one should've been followed by an exclamation point, but it honestly barely deserves any kind of punctuation. It's more of a raspy, unconvincing croak.

"He kissed you?"

"Mikaela!" I am so fl.u.s.tered I'm trying to shush her but I can't even get my finger to my lips. It's sort of waving around like it has no place to go.

"Is he a pa.s.sionate kisser?"

I almost faint right there on the ice. I've lost sight of Jake. For all I know, he could be standing right behind us. "I am not talking to you about this!" I whisper, managing the exclamatory ending while flashing casual smiles to pa.s.sers-by.

"So he is!" Mikaela says. I notice she is momentarily distracted. I turn to see what she is looking at. It is a father skating with his daughter. "My dad used to take me skating at a lake near our house. We'd go every Sat.u.r.day."

I'm filled with emotion for my little friend, so much so that it knocks me right on my backside. No, wait. That wasn't emotion. Turns out it was Jake. I'm splayed out on the ice with Jake halfway on top of me. He rolls off and Mikaela is standing over us, laughing, while Jake is profusely apologizing and helping me to my feet.

We all skate together for a while, Jake and me quieter than normal. I watch him with Mikaela. He has a way with her-she seems to drop a lot of her facade and acts like the kid she is when she's with him. It also seems, for now, she has forgotten about David.

After about an hour, we lose Jake again. He's found someone else to help, a young woman sitting alone on a bench, distraught over something. I don't catch much of the conversation, only what I can hear while skating by. But he's in card quoting mode for sure.

". . . never lose hope. You'll find what's missing . . ."

Mikaela and I circle back around. We don't have to admit it to each other-we're both fond of eavesdropping. At our next pa.s.s she is talking.

"How can you say I'll find it? This is the fourth time I've been stood up!"

I didn't know it was possible, but she stomps off the ice with skates on her feet. She's wobbly, but she makes it to safe ground. Jake returns and I playfully hold my hand out. He smirks and slaps a one-dollar bill in my hand.

"Best three out of five?" I ask, but he skates on. I don't suppose we'll ever see eye-to-eye on this matter.

As I'm stuffing the dollar in my pocket, Mikaela looks at me. "He's going to lose heart if you're not careful." I sigh and roll my eyes at her. "He's waiting for your cognitive instincts to kick in."

"Cognitive instincts? Who says that? Did Jake slip you that special dictionary he uses?"

"I think he wants to believe what he tells you. But it's hard."

"You guys talked about this?"

But she skates off to join him, giggly and small again.

I go to work later, but my heart is not in it. I have trouble concentrating and nothing I write is coming out funny. I leave early and go buy a candy bar. I am two cents short but the cashier waves off the pennies.

Back in my room, I close the door and collapse with even weight distribution onto my bed. Before I'm able to draw my feet on there as well, there is a knock.

"Mikaela . . . I'm tired."

There is a knock again. I know her. She's going to stand out there and knock until I open the door. I pull a few strands of hair out of my ponytail, just to try to make myself look as ragged as I feel. Maybe she's a visual learner.

I yank open the door, but it's not Mikaela.

It's Jake.

He doesn't wait to be invited in. Instead, he steps right past me into my room. I close the door and stare him down, embarra.s.sed by my situation. I can't even offer him a gla.s.s of water. Or a toilet. He stands and looks at the Murphy bed for a moment, his hands in his pockets.

"This is where you live?"

"The Milford Plaza was booked." I cross my arms. I should probably fix my ponytail but right now but I need my body language to make a few things clear. "Why are you here?"

Jake sits down at the desk. The chair creaks beneath him. "Who made you so untrusting?"

"You came all the way over here to ask me that? I don't want to talk about it anymore than you want to discuss how your wife died."

He doesn't flinch but he does pause. "She didn't die. I almost think that would have been easier."

My arms drop to my side. "What?"

"When someone dies, at least you know they loved you. They didn't choose to leave you."

"Then . . . what happened?"

"She left me for my cousin. They both worked in the humor department. They wrote together. She said she wasn't cheating and I believed her. For a long time I believed her. And then one day she told me the truth. And even then I tried to make up with her, tried anything to get her back. But no matter what I said to her, it didn't help." He shrugged as he stared at the ground. "Ironically, I couldn't ever find the right words. I even tried to be funny. She said I wasn't funny like him."

He looked so sad at that moment. My heart broke for him. I stepped closer to where he sat. "That's why you never laugh? Or even crack a smile?"

"I've always been told . . . well, she always told me that my smile looks weird."

I step even closer and sit down on the edge of the bed. "Jake, I'm so sorr-"

It hitches up, throws me on my back, rolls me into the center as it closes up on me. I slide to the bottom and once again, I'm trapped on the other side of this stupid Murphy bed. I pound against the mattress. As you might imagine, it's not making the kind of noise I was hoping for. I try to grab the edges to rattle the thing, get it opened up, but it's locked. "When will I live somewhere besides this Y with this stupid bed that wants to kill me?" My face is smooshed against the sheets so I probably sound all m.u.f.fled and pathetic. But who are we kidding-it's not the mattress that is making me pathetic.

I can hear him laugh. "I kind of like this. You're a captive audience."

I smile in the darkness. I can hear that his tone is playful. "Is there a card for this?"

"Too much of a niche market."

"I can't be stuck in here while Jake Sentinel is finally laughing."

"Gives us a chance to discuss that kiss." And like that, he's unlatched the bed and it comes crashing open, with me on top of it. There is no way to play this calmly and coolly. My ponytail is definitely not cooperating. I can feel it flipped over the top of my head. I roll over on my back. He's looking down at me as I sc.r.a.pe the hair out of my face.

"You know, the first time you rewrote me, I could deal with it. I mean, your pigtails, they kind of got to me."

"What?"

"Technically, your check-in-the-box cards, you learned those from me."

The realization slams into me like a rogue Murphy bed. "You . . . the *yes, no, maybe so' boy?" I remember him now. He was small with gla.s.ses, hardly noticeable, especially to a girl who had no interest in boys yet. But that was not the only time he was in my life. I remember now, a boy named Jake, sending me cards through the mail every once in a while. I was just a kid, but my grandmother seemed to think he was something special. She sat me down one day after a card arrived, telling me that boys, in general, needed to be watched carefully, but any boy that sends handmade cards in the mail needs special consideration. I thought she was crazy at the time and dismissed the advice. Eventually, sometime during the first year of junior high, the cards stopped coming and I never thought about him again.

He smiles at me, a warm, familiar smile that flushes my cheeks. "Did you really think I'd hire some stranger off the street just because she's dreamed of writing greeting cards? You're practically the only nonfamily member we've ever hired."

"You were the first boy who liked me." I know, I sound like an eleven-year-old little girl and in case you were wondering, yes, I'm kind of gushing as I say it.

I'm still on the bed, on my back, gazing up at him. It feels very black-and-white-movieish so I sit up. The bed starts its slow rise, but I wiggle my rear to the center and then slowly get up. Except now we're very close. Maybe it's not a romantic moment. After all, the room is tiny. There's hardly room for two people to stand and not stand close. So the goose b.u.mps are less about proximity and more about how he's looking into my eyes, like he can see my soul.

"You have to go!" I blurt out. "You can't . . . I mean, we can't . . ." There's nowhere to go. I'm cornered by both Jake and Murphy. My skin tingles and I'm afraid my upper lip is soaked in sweat but I'm not sure. I wipe it with the back of my arm anyway.

The only way to get around him is to squeeze past him, and that means we'll brush against one another but I decide it's worth it to get to the door. I slide on past. He puts a hand out to steady me. I laugh inappropriately, like he's tickled my ribs or something. As you can tell, I'm not a smooth operator. This isn't the kind of scene you're going to see in a movie. n.o.body has armpit sweat rings soaking through her shirt at this point in a love story. They're gazing at each other, the romantic tension bursting from the screen. In my case, something's bursting, but it has more to do with my pride exploding by an awkward exit. I fall against the door with a thud. Don't even ask me what my ponytail looks like at this point. You know. I open the door with shaking hands.

"Why are you so afraid?"

"I'm not afraid. Just go." I feel like crying. Maybe I am crying. I can't quite tell. It's sweat or tears. Not sure just yet.

"Okay." He walks past me and leaves. I close the door and clutch my heart. I slide to the floor. This can't be happening. I can't be having feelings for another man. When will I learn my lesson? I've tried to teach it to Mikaela but I can't even learn it myself.

Don't fall in love. Don't believe those mushy, idealistic cards that say the stupidest things.

It's too risky.

Jake is too risky.

13.

Jake let out a deep, almost grinding, breath as he leaned back into his chair, watching Hope. It was stupid, but he thought maybe she would move her hand a little or show some sign of life in there. But there was nothing, just the steady, shallow breathing he'd become accustomed to hearing. And watching.

A sudden sadness swept through him. Before he even had a chance to try not to react to it, tears were streaming down his face. He couldn't wipe them away fast enough and tried to laugh it off, but his emotions weren't fooled. He shrugged, glancing up at her.

"So, that's what happened. She left me. Because I wasn't funny enough. Men have been left for not making enough money, for working too hard, for flirting too much. But I think I'm probably the first guy who got left for not being funny." It ached to even say it. He'd never said it, to a single person, ever. He cited irreconcilable differences, just like the divorce papers said, when anybody asked about it. "Ironic, huh? That's the very thing I always liked about you. You were funny. And not funny in an attention-getting way, you know? Intelligently funny. Your jokes went over most people's heads. But I got them."

It was a ridiculous scene, he knew, sitting there with his tuna fish, pouring out his heart to a woman in a coma about his sad tale of being left because he failed in the humor department. "Hope, I just think . . . I mean, forget about what happened with your wedding. I know it was painful. Believe me, I get that. I promise I do. But life is worth living, you know? And love is worth trying again. Take a risk. Maybe we can take it together."

He felt a strange urge to kiss her and he tried to dismiss it. First of all, there was the tuna. But second, who would kiss a woman in a coma? Only a man so pathetic he thought that might be his only chance to do it.

Still, as he looked at her, it was a Sleeping Beauty sort of moment. Could he ever be her prince? It was an inexplicable pull and he stood, backing away from her, right against all the cards, knocking a few of them over. His hand was covering his mouth, like he was guarding it, or her . . . he didn't know which. Someone needed to be guarded.

The door to her room opened and Jake turned away for a moment, pretending to be setting up the cards. If it was Bette, she had a strange way of seeing straight through him and he didn't want her to have to see this. If it was CiCi, he was going to have to make a quick exit-he was afraid there might be a demon or two she would want to pray off of him, and he wasn't so sure he shouldn't be prayed for at this point.

He swallowed down any remnant of emotion and turned, trying to peg an expression somewhere between hysteria and depression. Whatever expression he landed on didn't stay there long.

A guy stood there at the end of her bed, glancing between Jake and Hope. His hands were in his pockets. He wore jeans that drug the ground, dusty flip-flops and a wrinkled shirt, but looked strangely put together. His hair was cut very modern . . . messy with purpose.

It couldn't be . . . ?

"I'm Sam. Who are you?"

"Jake." It came out way stronger than he intended. There was something rising up in him, something like a . . . like a punch to this guy's face! It all seemed surreal. This guy was actually here, after all this time? What was he doing, paying his respects?

"And you are . . . ?"

Jake felt his fingers twitching. It was like he was growing into some sort of greeting-card version of the Incredible Hulk, except this was no greeting-card moment.

"I know who you are. You're the guy who left her at the altar."

Sam's face contorted briefly, like something just slapped him. Yeah, buddy. It's called the truth.

"So who are you?" Sam asked, after his face stopped rolling through a catalog of emotion.