by C. Spencer
More than that, I gain some semblance of clarity around my life—where I’m going, what I’m doing—during our brief few days together. And it’s starting to feel right again because Rae does seem to have this way about her—this way of focusing me. That is, until that welcome sense of clarity begins to feel strained or artificial and not good. And long story short, I’m back to dropping Jordan off solo once our weekend ends.
And I leave the office Wednesday unnerved, indecisive in hopes of making that school recital—the one I promised Jordan I’d attend—by seven when it starts. Only to arrive at an empty parking lot.
Because why, I think, would I do that? Why, why, because I set the wrong date. That’s why. And now I’m a full week ahead and won’t see Aline after all and am fine with that.
So let’s become that person who sits in the middle of a field contemplating life.
I won’t romanticize this, either. It’s not the infinite wildflower kind you might find in, say, Audubon magazine, pollinized in pastels or dandelion yellows. There are no birds. I’m not resting alongside the Giving Tree baked in rays.
Instead there’s a setting sky and end goals and bases, crabgrass, and I don’t even know what kind of weed this is. But the lawn is freshly mowed, with the parking lot safely within sight.
And I’m beginning to imagine Jordan on her days on end following school bells, bumping past mean girls through halls right beyond those double doors, weighed down under a heavy backpack, waving to one of those snobbish sixth graders she hopes to befriend one day.
Because popularity at age eight equals #LifeGoals.
Then it dawns on me. Because sure, I know this logically. But maybe it’s just now starting to sink in for some unknown, completely irrational reason. That being, I am an actual parent of a third grader. I’m one of those women. She’s not a toddler anymore. And how is that? Since I’m far from loosely qualified to take on this role.
Far from loosely qualified to handle any of this.
And it’s so like me to fall right back into my same broken patterns, those ruined-me ones, the careless many mistakes. If I could only forgive myself instead of condemning, criticizing, that’d be a start. Step back, think logically for once—as opposed to getting swept up, swept away, swept aside. Still I’m spending far too much of my time and energy on fears and doubts anymore. Questions.
But Andi’s right. Pick up and move on. Regret never solved a thing. What’s done is done. And just think of it this way: you’ll be far better off after this and for this. I’ll learn from my mistakes. I’ll grow, as they say. Pardon my lack of enthusiasm. This hurts.
So over the next however many minutes, I catalog cons I left behind, to pros for carrying forward.
Page eighty-seven in my book describes this process of letting go. This is how it happens, forgiveness. Now I just need to want to.
Or maybe not. It’s not in my best interest to understand, I suppose. We’re all trying to do the best we can with the cards we’re dealt. Still I’ve exhausted months trying to get over her, to make sense of her, years to find happy with her. Erase this, correct that—and just blindly accept all the rest? But I can’t absolve her.
I’m sure she’s now counting the days until she can call again like a landmine. Which means I’ll need to figure this out before she does. I suppose.
And until then, I’ll just pluck a dandelion, make a wish, and let it go.
Chapter Nineteen
On the Rocks or Frozen
Rae
To celebrate nothing at all on a Wednesday night after working late again, Madisen decides to uncork and pour a glass of her favorite eiswein. Make that two: one for her, one for me. Midweek. No occasion whatsoever.
Meanwhile, I’m sharing a conversation that just ended with Rebecca.
Rebecca: “Maybe I’m just overreacting.”
Me: “I don’t think you are. But why—what’d Tami say?”
Rebecca: “We need to work this through. That’s all. So we went away for a weekend in Greenwich Village, the Walker Hotel of all places.”
Me: “And you worked it through?”
Rebecca: “We didn’t converse, if that’s what you’re referring to.”
Me: “This is almost scandalous. What if she’s on to you?”
Rebecca: “If she is, she won’t say. Still, how was I supposed to know she wanted a repeat of that classic all over again?”
Me: “Another dinner soirée?”
Rebecca: “I told her no. She didn’t ask why. But she’s mentioned stuff.”
“Now I’m curious,” Madisen’s saying. “Why do they even carry on with this charade?” She takes a seat at the dining room table, then lifts her laptop.
“There’s love,” I say. “There’s always love—but not always trust. I wouldn’t be at all surprised if they, you know, amped up that little dinner party the second time around. They’ll do anything to stay together. At the same time, Rebecca’s pretty hung up on this girl, so who knows.”
“And again, why stay?” she says.
“I guess you’d have to know her. They sort of need this in their own way,” I say. “And it’s…brazen. Some fuel on that. Me, I’d never get into that sort of thing.”
“Staying for good and all?”
“I wouldn’t get married…no,” I say to that familiar look of cross-examination. “She’s just trying to hold on to some semblance of what they might’ve had in the best way she knows how.”
“When flowers would suffice.”
“You are kidding,” I say.
“I’m not,” Madisen says.
“Please don’t ever send me FTD if you do something shitty to me,” I say.
“Why would you say that? And why not?”
“Well, that’s to say, don’t do anything shitty to me. But you will. So when you do—”
“First, I won’t,” she says. “And second, what’s your opposition to flowers—and I’m not referring to dye-dipped carnations?”
“I’d rather you just come right out and say Hey, I really fucked up this time. It’s simple, really—how many of those bouquets do you remember to this day? Because trust me, I won’t.”
Instead, what I’ll remember is this right here—the look she’s giving me and the taste of this wine that doesn’t taste like wine and this feeling of mild intoxication. I’ll remember that simple song that couldn’t drown me out when I blurted out I love you. The same one I’ve looped I don’t know how many times because what I wouldn’t give to relive that again. And the scent in her hair when she’s close like this, when she bends across the table, or when she bends to twist a towel around it after a shower as I swipe a palm across a steamed mirror—and those sounds she makes. That’s what I’ll remember. Those sounds. Not flowers. That’s my problem.
And now.
She’s taken a seat at the dining room table, feet bare with a heel propped up at the chair’s edge, looking that end of day emptied after twelve hours of artificiality and business-formal, now slouched loose, authentic, changed into something more drawstring with that untied tie at the waist.
“I wouldn’t call their relationship perfect,” I say as I attempt to shift this whole thing back to Rebecca. “But nothing is. Love can be a beautiful kind of ugly sometimes.”
“It can be,” she says, languid in that after-work sort of way as she peers up over the glow of her laptop, her gaze hanging on my every word.
Before it’s back to her screen. And she’s doing that thing where you hover over an image to magnify before adding-to-cart.
“I won’t expect a bouquet of roses from you anytime soon,” she says.
“I’m thinking you might like my kind of apology better,” I say.
“And you apologize how?”
“Not with a credit card,” I say. “It really wouldn’t take much.”
“You think?” she says. And this all slips into well, you know, just that slow-going soul-drenching sort of stare down from across the table. Look, it’s not
a bad thing.
“Help me decide,” she says.
“It’s your decision,” I say.
“I’m just thinking,” she says, then crosses her leg intentionally. “What if this becomes one more thing we divvy up one day.” Then she laughs.
“Aren’t you funny,” I say.
“I know,” she says. “That shouldn’t be my default.”
“I hope it’s not.”
“You’re so easy to freak out,” she says.
“Well, I’m not about to counsel you on which appliance you should get,” I say. “And for the record, I happen to like my place.”
As she glides a thumb along the blush of her lip. “I am afraid, though,” she says.
“And I’m not?” I say, leaning in.
“But I have more to lose,” she says.
“Do you?” I say.
“I do. I mean, say we’re still here in a year.”
“I hope we are,” I say.
“Well, I can’t exactly truck my life into a studio loft,” she says, “hypothetically.”
So I kick back, cross a leg, glance around, listen to that jet pass. “I think you’re just trying to get a rise out of me.”
“It’s just how you do things,” she says, clearly intent on me, “once you have a kid. You plan too much.” She lifts her glass only to set it aside on the table thoughtlessly. “I happen to think we should talk about the—”
“The hypothetical?” I say.
“Exactly,” she says, “the hypothetical,” resurfacing the only conversation I don’t care to have right now. And, I mean, why is she suddenly pushing this? And it is sudden.
“I’m not exactly the marriage type,” I say.
“And, right, I’m almost there with you. I’m almost thinking you’re right. Convince me.”
“And the other night?” I say.
“I guess I just took it as a rejection,” she says in the most beautifully unconvincing way she possibly could.
“It’s not,” I say.
“Or maybe I just needed a bit more coaxing.”
“So not a deal breaker?” I say.
“How did shopping for a blender turn into this?” she says. But I guess I hadn’t really thought through the whole kid aspect. “Maybe I was just looking for a suggestion of a plan.”
“You know,” I say, “the minute you stop planning, you get to the good stuff.” Thinking perhaps I should distract her. And I do for a little while—I am. But even this kiss feels like an impasse. And soon enough, she’s settled on me in the most complicating way. In the most inflexible way. Even still, it’s not as if I could add anything to this conversation, at least nothing she actually wants to hear. “I think you should have a rough sort of idea where your life might go,” she says, “even if you never get there. Even if you veer somewhere completely different. That’s fine.”
“For certain things, sure, I’ll give you that. But this?” I say, running a thumb against hers. And who knows, maybe this is starting to sink in. Not just the kid thing but…Why are we doing this? Why do we spend so much of our time trying to right some wrong that was done to us by someone else? Blaming, averting, dissuading one another. As if I was Aline. As if I’d ever do something like that. So I’m back to my drink.
And she goes back to her computer. “Can I show you what I’ve found?” Almost conciliatory.
“Sure,” I say. “So tell me again why you need this blender?”
“For that occasional summer evening like this when you just might want a margarita,” she says, “and you don’t want it leaking all over the counter.” But they all seem the same to me, blender after blender, page after page. “This one. Easy to clean, computerized, the works. Five settings—soups, dips, smoothies.”
“Listen, it’s your money,” I say. “Do what you want.” And by the time she props her Visa on the keyboard, I’m making my way into the living room to close some windows, the chirping, that constant hum, silenced.
And when I get back, she’s still glued to that screen. Me, half tempted to lean in and see what’s so fascinating about this blender. But then it dawns on me that it might not be a blender anymore. It might be another email from Aline—but, even still, would it matter? It is what it is. They are what they are.
And let me state for the record that I don’t do the jealous thing. But I’m also not okay living in some shadow of a memory. Since there was someone else. A rather serious someone else. And now there’s always going to be that somebody else following us around, visiting, emailing her, calling—that sort. Not just those hints you share about someone you knew. Not a distant memory but right here to see, to know, to talk with—to share Madisen with.
Because what’d she tell me the other day? It was the sort of thing you’d never think to say if you were honest-to-God past your past.
“So what should we have for dinner?” Madisen’s saying, breaking my train of thought. Next she’s shutting her laptop. “And how’d it get so late?”
“You needed a blender,” I say.
“But you were enjoying your drink,” she says with a grip, this tug at my waistband.
“So did you order it?”
“Of course,” she says. “Do you think you might share me with a few strawberries, Jose Cuervo,” I hear as she drags a hand across my collar, her mouth so near I can almost taste it.
“I don’t like to share,” I say.
“You say that now,” she says. “You’ve never tasted my margarita,” she says, her mouth teasing before she’s slowly edging away. And I follow her along the counter. “So there was this birthday at work,” she’s saying, “chocolate buttermilk cake. Would you be interested?”
“Do you seriously need to ask me that?” I say.
“Apparently there’s a lot I need to ask,” she says, “like whether roses might offend you.”
“Or how many children you’ve had,” I say.
“I love chocolate buttermilk,” she adds tossing me this look and, I mean, come on.
“I’m not easily offended,” I say, drawing her in, and this grin, I can’t hide it.
But somewhere in the midst of pulling plates and her gesturing for something in the drawer, then “Never mind,” after reaching for a server, then slipping that wedge of chocolate along a small enough plate, after all that, something settles. The room settles or we do. And it’s as if you could hear a pin drop as I slice a bite of cake with my fork. As I watch her lips glide along the length of hers all too intently, gazing up.
“What you do to me,” I say.
“Tell me what I’m doing?” she says.
“You’re enjoying this.”
“I’m wondering,” she says, sucking a dab of frosting off her fingertip, “how they make this so sinful.”
You make it sinful. Because she’s doing this drop me off my guard thing again, and next, she’ll swing right back. It’s been this way all night, like that drone of crickets, on and on, only louder after you’d forgotten they were there, once you come back and listen. Every time it does, it’s that much harder to ignore. As she sets the plate down on the counter.
“You should have another,” I say.
But she shakes her head.
“Why not?” I say.
“I’m thinking,” she says in this unraveled way of hers. “It means something, that’s all.”
“That someday piece of paper?”
“Yes,” she says.
“To you,” I say, “and everyone else.”
“How can you not support something like that? It’s not a ring or a piece of paper. And sure, fine, it’s not a guarantee. But financially, it’s health insurance, joint taxes.”
“How romantic,” I say, forking that last bite before it slips between her lips as she cups a palm beneath—because sure, I’m hoping to dodge this whole conversation.
“Dessert for our main course,” I say. “This is something I could support.”
And she gives me that look again. More than that, there’s
something about this madness that’s making her laugh—us, this night, our not adulting. The way her lips slip along the edge of my fork, lifting her gaze to mine, and maybe she is enjoying every bit of it.
And I’m thinking this is what I’m going to remember.
“I think you’re taking this the wrong way,” I say, reaching around, then molding against her hips. But she’s still resisting. “I know you are.” And that’s how we stay—not conceding, not budging, as she lifts her gaze as if to say Try me—and I want to. “You know why?”
“Why?” she says.
“Because I couldn’t love you more.”
“But…?” I hear.
“But I love what we have,” I say. “Don’t rush the best part. And don’t plan something we never thought we’d have in the first place.”
And I guess that’s just how we leave it. Or at least I do. As we clean up then head upstairs and I shower. And after that, I’m at the edge of the bed, listening to pipes swell then clamp shut, figuring she’s had more time to ruminate and reflect, and so have I. So I’m playing it all over in my mind—why not, why we won’t, why I can’t—expecting some sort of ultimatum to round the corner, when the door to the bathroom makes that sound it always does down the hall, and I’m still tossing pillows across the room, toppling, tipping that stack of linens from their heap on the chair, which reaches that line of wainscoting that edges around the room to the door where she’s making her way in, unhurried, a hand stroking the back of her neck in one of those shirts you only sleep in, pinstriped. Undone. Not much else.
Still thinking I should keep on, explain, since she doesn’t get me. But what could I say that I haven’t already? And besides, she’s too inflexible, distracting, seductive in the way she’s closing our distance.
