Dear Diary, I'm In Love

  Other Boson Books by John A. Broussard

  Death and Near Death

  Dead and Gone

  Dead Before a Rival

  Expect the Unexpected

  Fifty-Minutes Flaherty

  Mana

  Mayhem, Mystery and Murder

  Murder at Milltown Junior College

  No Time for Death

  The Yoshinobu Mysteries: Volume I

  The Yoshinobu Mysteries: Volume II

  Published by Boson Books

  3905 Meadow Field Lane

  Raleigh, NC 27606

  ISBN 1-932482-45-8

  An imprint of C&M Online Media Inc.

  © Copyright 2006 John A. Broussard

  All rights reserved

  For information contact

  C&M Online Media Inc.

  3905 Meadow Field Lane

  Raleigh, NC 27606

  Tel: (919) 233-8164

  email: cm@cmonline.com

  URL: http://www.bosonbooks.com

  Cover art by Joel Barr

  __________________________________

  DEAR DIARY, I’M IN LOVE

  short stories

  by

  John A. Broussard

  __________________________________

  BOSON BOOKS

  Raleigh

  TABLE OF CONTENTS

  DEAR DIARY, I'M IN LOVE

  TWICE IN A BLUE MOON

  GENDER GAP

  CULTURAL RELATIVISM

  CROSSTIES ON A RAILROAD

  CHRISTMAS SNOW

  BURIDAN’S ASS

  BOX LUNCH RAFFLE

  NEVER TOO LATE

  THE SACRIFICE

  FOR LOVE OF MONEY

  CHANGING TIMES

  THE SABBATICAL

  FAST FOOD

  FINALS

  COUNT HENRY'S COY MISTRESS

  A KEEPER

  FALL GUY

  MATCHMAKER

  THE SEARCH FOR A MATE

  SAFETY FIRST

  IT’S IN THE GENES

  DEALER’S CHOICE

  LOVE BY DESIGN

  THE QUEST FOR A SON-IN-LAW

  THE GREAT AMERICAN PASTIME

  SIREN SONG

  THE BOOKSTORE

  NEVER MIX LOVIN' WITH CARDS

  DUPLICATE COPIES

  A MORE PERFECT UNION

  BEAUTY AND THE BOURSE

  CHLOE OF ARCADIA

  TO HAWAII, WITH LOVE

  THE LADY FROM HALIFAX

  DEAR DIARY, I'M IN LOVE

  June 1

  I doubt that I would be starting this diary if it weren’t for laptops. I had a maiden aunt who gave me a pretty, red, imitation-leather notebook with “My Diary” embossed in gold on the cover. She said every girl should start one at age eleven. If I remember right, I wrote the date on the first page and immediately lost the book.

  I’m not too likely to lose this laptop, since it’s my bread and butter. And, because I regularly send my programming back to the office, I’ll be uploading these words to my own personal files back there – encrypted, of course. Ah, the joys of modern technology.

  The only tradition I’m going to adhere to is in treating you like a person, Dear Diary. So let me tell you who I am before I start telling you all my secrets.

  I’m Elizabeth Axelrood, better known as Liz to all my friends. I’m now all of twenty-five, a business success and, while not a personal winner, at least I wouldn’t classify myself as a loser in that respect, either. I majored in psychology in college, and my mom and dad assumed I’d go on in that field, but computers fascinated me. Much against the wishes of my folks, I quit before graduation and went into programming. That’s how I met my ex-husband. We started our own company, Ax-cell Learning Inc., got into educational software on the ground floor, and have been running to stay ahead of demand ever since.

  Now, I suppose you want to know about Gordon Axelrood, and what happened between us. Maybe the best answer to the last part of that question is ‘nothing.’ When we met, we were both caught up in programming, we subsequently spent a lot of time together, one thing led to another, and we finally got married—to a large extent because it made the business relationship that much easier to work out. Ax-cell really became our total interest—our only interest. I guess that’s why we finally broke up. We really had little else in common except Ax-cell. I’m still a full partner in the business and, if anything, Gordon and I get along better now then when we shared bed and board.

  In a way, I guess I expected too much of him—or of any man I might have married, for that matter. As I think it over, I was really looking for a male replica of my sister Rebecca, better known as Becky. She’s almost a year older than me, and we were inseparable as children—cried when we had to be in different classes at school—shared and kept endless secrets, and just generally presented a united front against a world we felt did not completely understand us.

  Though we could talk to each other about anything, our talents were strikingly different. Computers had caught my attention early on, while Becky started on the path toward becoming a recognized artist—a first-rate printmaker—not long after leaving art school. Inevitably Seattle, the capital of the software world, drew me to the West Coast while Becky ended up in New York.

  Initially, much of our meager earnings went into almost daily phone calls. Then, as we both prospered, two to three trips a year—mainly for me, since my work left me more mobile—became our way of making up for the time spent apart. I may have lost count, but I believe this is my eleventh trip to New York, with an unusual lapse of almost eight months since my last visit.

  This one is special, though. Becky, of all things, is getting married! Sophisticated New Yorker that she is, I never thought I’d see the day when Becky would contemplate such a move. But, then again, something happened this last year which made it not quite so surprising. After a series of short-lived affairs, Becky found The One. Much as I love my sister, the past few months of talking to her and of emailing back and forth actually became tedious. Eric Prado developed into almost her sole topic of conversation. Left to Becky’s descriptive talents, he was indeed a paragon.

  But maybe the tedium was partly envy. She was desperately, totally in love. The photos she scanned into her letters revealed a radiant Becky along with a pleasant-looking man of about her age. Not much taller than her, he had a nice build—showing up well in bathing trunks—and an engaging smile. He was also clearly very attentive to his companion. It was nice to know that he shared many of Becky’s enthusiasms: for hiking, skiing and the outdoors in general… ones that I appreciated and wished I could indulge in more frequently than Ax-cell’s demands allowed.

  June 1, Late Evening

  I’m staying at a hotel a few blocks from Becky’s apartment. I’d forgotten how tiny New York apartments can be, and I wasn’t about to crowd in on Becky and Eric—who I haven’t met yet, since he’s off to Chicago at a business meeting of the corporation he represents here in New York. He wasn’t due back until late, and I was too jet-lagged to wait around. Plenty of time to see him and to help with the final plans for the big day. I was actually glad to escape to my hotel room, to do a bit of programming and to give you some of my thoughts.

  Becky is insisting the wedding is going to be a small but traditional affair. Our parents are both dead, and we really have no other close relatives. Eric’s folks are on a world tour, scheduled to be on an ocean liner somewhere between Hong Kong and Singapore when the wedding takes place. So it will just be me and some local friends of the couple. There’s an Episcopalian church in the neighborhood with a lovely little attached chapel Becky has ferreted out. Religion has never been much a part of our lives, but Becky was set on having more than a
city hall marriage.

  “I don’t intend to do this again,” she informed me, “so I want it to be something to remember without making it into a spectacle. Besides, Reverend Brockman is a dear. He’s taking care of all the church details.”

  Actually, I think Becky’s been over-planning. The first thing that struck me when I saw her was how tired she looked. She’s lost weight since I last saw her, and she’s never had any excess pounds to begin with. I hope it’s just the excitement of contemplating her future married life that’s causing the strain. Becky says she hasn’t been sleeping well and has decided finally to get a check up. The doctor couldn’t find anything serious but put her through some lab tests—results due tomorrow.

  June 2, evening

  It’s late. It’s getting dark. It’s unbelievable. It’s crazy. It’s impossible.

  No! There’s no such thing as love at first sight. There can’t be. But there is.

  Becky and Eric were having their after-breakfast coffee when I got to her apartment. His back was toward me when I entered the room. He turned, and I was immediately tongue-tied. Am I crazy, or did he feel the same blow to the stomach that I felt?

  “Here she is,” Becky was saying, “but I don’t think either of you need an introduction. I’ve been talking about nothing else but Liz and Eric for the last six months.”

  Maybe that was it. Becky had just been describing the perfect man to me in all those phone calls and emails. If she had been describing the perfect woman to Eric at the same time, might he not be reacting the same way toward me?

  The three of us sat over coffee as though nothing had happened. I avoided looking at Eric, so I’m not sure how he was reacting. His voice was pleasant—certainly I couldn’t detect any of the underlying nervousness and hesitation I felt in mine.

  I barely heard Becky when she described her doctor’s call. “You know how doctors are these days, always overcautious. She wants me to go in today for some more tests. How about coming along with me, Liz?” She laughed that marvelous laugh of hers and added, “Eric’s going to work up to the last moment so we can take a whole month off after the wedding. But I haven’t even decided for sure what I’m going to wear at the wedding, so I’ll need someone along for shopping suggestions. You’re going to be it.”

  Somehow, I managed to survive until Eric’s departure at eight-thirty. He hugged Becky, hesitated, then gave me a brotherly kiss on the cheek. The spot burned for minutes afterwards.

  Becky smiled at me after he’d gone. “See, Liz, don’t you agree that Eric’s everything I told you—and more?”

  My answer was a grotesque understatement. “He does seem very nice.” My mind was racing. No way! No way could I stay for the wedding. No way could I be around Eric for even a moment more. It was stupid, I knew, but I had to ease out gracefully. While we were off in a taxi to the doctor’s office, and while Becky was chattering away happily about the coming event, the honeymoon trip, and how she couldn’t understand how she could have been so lucky as to have found Eric, I was already planning program bugs that needed urgent elimination and that could be disposed of only by my presence back in Seattle.

  June 3, afternoon

  The wait for Becky to be finished with her tests didn’t help my muddled thinking any. I tried to read a six-week old Newsweek without much success. Medical waiting rooms are not my favorite places under the best of conditions. The one bright spot in this particular clinic was Becky’s doctor—a young, dark-eyed, dark-haired Indian woman. Dr. Hermine Gupta. Her smile was pleasant, though I didn’t find it reassuring as she approached me.

  She introduced herself, after checking to make sure I was Becky’s sister. “I thought it might be best to talk to you first.”

  My heart began to beat faster. “What is it?”

  “We can’t be absolutely certain until the latest test results come back. But, I’ve consulted with one of my colleagues and, on the basis of the preliminary tests, we’re agreed the indications are that your sister has leukemia.”

  I could have sworn that my heart stopped. Dr. Gupta rushed to reassure me. “Except in very unusual cases, the prognosis is good. What we’re checking on now is whether she may have the child form of leukemia—which does occur in adults and needs different treatment.”

  “Will she have to be hospitalized?”

  An emphatic nodding of the head. “I’ll clear with the hospital so she can go in first thing in the morning. By then we’ll have the latest set of tests back, at least the important ones, and we’ll start immediate treatment.”

  I was still shaking. “You haven’t told her?”

  “No. I wanted to check with you first. Sometimes it’s best to have a friend or relative along when a patient is told something of this nature.”

  I’ve known Becky long enough to almost read her thoughts. As we stepped into the examining room, she looked up from the magazine she’d been paging through. Her smile was a weak one. She looked at me and said, “Well?”

  Dr. Gupta quickly covered the essentials. Becky’s face became an unreadable blank, then her typical smile came back. “Poor Reverend Brockman. After all the planning, he’s going to have put off the date.”

  Just like Becky! She really was more concerned about the inconvenience she was causing others than she was about her own well being.

  I wanted to go immediately back to the apartment, but Becky insisted on doing what she considered to be essential shopping. I looked at Dr. Gupta, who shrugged and gave me her card, “Don’t hesitate to call if there are any problems,” she said. She then wrote out a prescription for a mild sedative. I didn’t ask what the problems might be.

  I drew the line at Becky preparing dinner for the three of us, though she had been looking forward to just that. Instead, I insisted on treating her and Eric to a posh restaurant meal at a place she had mentioned favorably in one of her emails.

  Eric was appalled when he heard the news. Becky and I interrupted each other in our attempts to reassure him—that Dr. Gupta insisted the prognosis was good these days for the disease, that catching it early was the best thing that could happen, that a few days in the hospital would set up the treatment schedule which she could then follow at home. And, not least, that once we knew how Becky was progressing we could set another date for the wedding.

  Despite the horrid news of the day, we managed to work our way through dinner. Becky picked at the food, and her silence prompted both Eric and me to energetically fill in the empty spaces. I couldn’t very well talk without looking at him, and the looking added to my discomfiture. Even worse was that any notion of escaping back to work was out of the question. I couldn’t possibly leave my sister at a time like this.

  The thought of being repeatedly thrown together with Eric is terrifying. If I must stay, I will be absolutely certain to avoid being alone with him. That was the promise I made to myself as they dropped me off at my hotel. I passed along Dr. Gupta’s phone number to Eric, with her admonition to call if there were any problems.

  June 4, morning

  If there have been worse nights, I can’t remember what they were. The phone rang at three this morning. Eric was calling from the hospital. Becky had gotten up in the night, tripped on a rug and bruised her arm. Neither of them had thought too much about it at the time, but after applying a cold pack to the bruise, it became evident the black spot was spreading rapidly. A call to Dr. Gupta brought an immediate order to take her to the hospital’s emergency room.

  “No word,” Eric said, as I met him outside Becky’s hospital room. “Dr. Gupta said she’d see me as soon as they have some idea of what’s happening.”

  The next hour was an uncomfortable one. At the last minute I had grabbed my laptop on the way down to the waiting taxi, and I was grateful I’d done so. The old magazines in the waiting room would have done little to distract me. I certainly didn’t want to sit and talk to Eric, and he seemed every bit as reluctant as I was to make conversation. Restless, he wandered down the hospital c
orridor, ostensibly looking for better reading material. I tried to lose myself in programming, gave up quickly, and switched to this diary entry.

  June 4, evening

  The rest of the day matched the morning and the previous night. Eric and I stayed at the hospital this morning, even though Dr. Gupta—who quite obviously hadn’t had any more sleep than we had—told us that the waiting was pointless, that Becky was under heavy sedation and that complications would prevent treatment from beginning until tomorrow. Neither of us wanted to leave, but eventually we did go to the cafeteria. I wasn’t hungry, and neither was Eric, though we agreed that we should both eat something.

  I think the food was the usual hospital standard. I wouldn’t have been able to judge, but I did manage to get something down. We spoke about Becky, naturally, and then I broached THE subject. What amazed me was how so much of our communication needed no words, no explanation.

  There had been a long pause, and I was the first one to break the silence. “Eric, I know I must be losing my mind, but the moment I met you I…” I couldn’t go on.

  His dark eyes looked at me over the coffee cup. Placing it down carefully, he said, “I’m not sure what it was, but something happened between us.” He paused, passed both hands down the side of his faces and finally asked, “What was it that happened? Do you have any idea?”

  I tried to smile. “I have no idea, but whatever it was, I wish it hadn’t. If it weren’t for Becky’s illness, I wouldn’t be here now. I planned on using some excuse to leave.”

  He sighed. “This is utterly ridiculous.”

  “Of course it is,” I said. I suddenly remembered an item from my psychology studies. “It’s a folie a deux.”

  Eric lifted an eyebrow, and I managed a weak grin. “A madness of two,” I explained.

  He flashed a devastating smile and said, “Maybe all love is madness. I was very much attracted to Becky from the very first, and if someone had asked, I would have said I was in love with her. But now I have the feeling that all I was doing was looking for you.”