Living Single

by Holly Chamberlin

  “Erin?” He handed me the pen.

  I managed to scrawl something illegible.

  Later, Doug told me he’d thought it would simply be easier to mask ourselves as husband and wife. Fewer questions and wondering glances that way. Still, he said, he thought we should split the bill and pay in cash. Not as much of a paper trail that way.

  “Of course,” I said coolly, but inside I was a heady wreck.

  Chapter Fifty-one

  I couldn’t sleep.

  You jinxed it, Erin, I told myself, all that stuff about how it was going to be different sleeping with Doug. You just shouldn’t have thought about it at all.

  What had I told myself, exactly? That I’d be able to sleep right off because I’d be safe with Doug. What did that mean, anyway?

  Well, it certainly didn’t mean how I felt after Doug grilled me on my thoughts about joining Trident all during dinner at a small local restaurant. No matter how hard I tried to get him off the topic, I failed.

  Finally, I’d just given up and concentrated on my butternut squash soup.

  Safe also doesn’t mean how you felt when Doug called home, I reminded myself as I stared up at the dark ceiling. Doug had explained it was his routine while on a business trip to call home twice a day, once at night, once in the morning.

  “I’m sorry, Erin,” he’d said. “Would you like me to go into the hall?”

  I’d forced myself to smile and said, “That’s okay. I want to take a shower.”

  So, while I took an unnecessary shower, Doug spoke to Carol from the bedroom. From our bedroom. I strained to hear over the running water but could hear nothing. It was probably better that way, though a sick curiosity was killing me. By the time I turned off the water and stepped out of the shower, Doug had ended his call and was leaning in the bathroom’s doorway.

  “Everything okay?” I’d said, feeling strangely ill.

  “Fine,” he’d answered. “Now, come here.”

  Of course, we fooled around.

  Doug had gone straight to sleep after we’d had sex. Okay, that was pretty standard behavior for a guy. It didn’t piss me off. What pissed me off was his habit of turning over every five minutes and my freakin’ inability to go to sleep.

  I groaned and turned onto my side, wishing Fuzzer were there with me.

  Or that I was home with Fuzzer.

  The next morning we had breakfast in the breakfast room, alone but for one other couple who nodded a greeting and left us to ourselves.

  We went back to the room to grab coats. I took my automatic camera from my travel bag.

  “No pictures, Erin,” Doug said.

  “What?”

  “I don’t want you to take pictures of us.”

  “But they’re only for me,” I protested. “I mean, I’ll show them to you but ...”

  But what? But I’d never send them to Carol? I’d never blackmail you? That awful conversation I’d had back in August with my friends had come back to haunt me.

  “I’d really prefer if you didn’t,” Doug said. “Please.”

  “Okay.” I tossed the camera back into my bag. “Sure.”

  Doug pulled me to him.

  “Thank you,” he whispered. Then he kissed my ear and my cheek and my neck and my lips.

  Everything was okay.

  Note to Self: “Wear helmet when apple picking.” I was a walking disaster with the apple-picker. Somehow I managed to unloosen a barrel or two from one particular tree—on my head. Somehow I also managed to whack Doug in the shoulder with the picker end. It caused a tear in his sweater I knew I could never mend.

  On the other hand, Doug wielding an apple-picker was like Doug wielding a sword or lance. Romance was absurdly pleased. At the same time Doug and the apple-picker gave me a glimpse of the domestic, at-home Doug, the guy who got the cat out of the tree and strung the Christmas lights on the eaves, the guy who mowed the lawn. The power tool Doug. The toilet-fixer, lightbulb-replacer, clogged drain-clearer that every single woman dreams of. Competent Doug.

  When we’d loaded the trunk of Doug’s Lexus with the apples I would take home—it was unspoken that Doug would not, could not, appear home with apples freshed picked during a “business trip”—I dragged Doug into the country store.

  “Everything in there is going to be a rip-off,” he warned. “They’re just waiting for us city folk suckers.”

  “I know,” I admitted. “But I want to look anyway.”

  While Doug wandered among the various homemade ciders, I poked through shelves of kitchen towels, jugs of maple syrup, and organic soaps.

  And then I found her.

  She was wonderful. Her name could be Hannah or Martha. She wore a calico dress and a white apron. Her boots were black. Her hair was made of yarn; it, too, was black. Her eyes were calm and deep.

  “What’s that?”

  I turned. “Oh, it’s an apple doll. See, the face is made of an apple that’s been carved then dried. She looks very wizened, don’t you think?”

  “Do you like her?”

  I nodded. “Yeah, I do. I was never one for sugary sweet dolls. I’m more the Strega Nona type.”

  “Then she’s yours.”

  Doug plucked the apple doll from my hands and while I stood stunned, mouth open to protest the gift but no words coming out, he took the doll to the cashier.

  A moment later, I followed.

  “Her name is Martha,” I told him, as the cashier wrapped the doll in tissue paper.

  “How do you know?”

  “She told me. You just have to know how to listen and most dolls will tell you their names.”

  “You’re wonderful, do you know that?”

  Yes, I thought. Now I do.

  Needless to say, Sunday afternoon came far too soon for me. We drove back to Boston largely in silence. I felt sadness creeping along my bones and after a while asked Doug if he’d like to listen to some music. We found a blue grass program and had some fun singing along—making up the words, of course—until we reached the B.U. Bridge. Then, Doug turned off the radio. More silence.

  We pulled up in front of my building at around six-thirty.

  I didn’t ask him to come up. I knew he’d say no—he had his rule about not crossing my threshhold and I assumed Carol was expecting him home at a certain time.

  Doug cut the engine and turned to me in the blue dark.

  “Well.”

  “Yeah.” I attempted to laugh. “Well.”

  “It was great, Erin. Wasn’t it?”

  He took my hand and held it tightly.

  “Yes, it really was.”

  Doug leaned forward and so did I and we kissed and it was very tender.

  “We should do this again,” he whispered and my happiness was complete.

  Romance swooned.

  Reason snorted in derision.

  Doug went back to his wife and kids in Newton.

  And I went home alone.

  Chapter Fifty-two

  E—imagine! lovely old gentleman made me a marriage proposal! sapphire ring v. elegant. said no but let him down gently. gotta run! M

  October twenty-fifth. The day after Abby’s thirty-third birthday. We met at Sel de la Terre. At my suggestion. They have amazing french fries, sprinkled with rosemary. After a drink at the bar, we took our table and waited for Abby. She was not so uncharacteristically late.

  I kept my eye on the door. After fifteen minutes—

  “Here she comes,” I said, without moving my lips. Sort of.

  “Can you see anything?” JoAnne whispered.

  I tried not to be too obvious but ...

  “No. Not from this distance. Maggie?”

  Maggie bent down and pretended to reach into her bag. After thirty seconds, she straightened. “No ring.”

  The woman should have been a spy.

  “Are you sure?” JoAnne hissed.

  “Yup.”

  “Act natural,” I said, and smiled up at Abby, now only two tables away.
/>
  “What the hell does that mean?”

  “It means, don’t jump on her.”

  “Hi, Abby.”

  She stood there for a moment, holding her bag before her in two hands, looking like she’d much rather flee than join us.

  JoAnne, Maggie, and I shared a look. None of us wanted to blurt out the question uppermost in our minds.

  “Hi, honey, have a seat.” JoAnne pulled the free chair away from the table.

  Abby smiled but the smile didn’t reach her eyes. Actually, it hardly reached the ends of her lips. “Hi, everybody.”

  “Happy birthday again, Abby,” Maggie said and raised her glass of wine.

  “Thanks.” Abby sat and immediately began to unfold and refold her napkin. “I really love the book, Maggie. I’ve started reading it already.”

  “A biography of Mozart,” Maggie explained.

  Thoughtful gift. I’d given Abby a Diana Krall CD—we all loved Diana Krall. And JoAnne had given her a gift certificate to Talbots, Abby’s favorite store. We’d done good.

  But now one of us was going to have to ask ...

  “So, Abby.” It was JoAnne, her voice completely neutral. “Did you and John have a good time last night?”

  “Oh, yes, it was very nice,” Abby said quickly.

  Maggie shot me a glance. “Um, where did you go for dinner?”

  “He took me to Upstairs at the Pudding. I guess he knew it was one of my favorite restaurants.”

  JoAnne nodded. “Very romantic. Very pink.”

  “Was the food as good as ever?” I asked. I did actually want to know.

  “Uh uh. It was—very nice.”

  Well, that confirmed our suspicions. Abby had definitely not gotten an engagement ring for her birthday. But should one of us acknowledge that—or should we all just leave it alone?

  There was more than a moment of uncomfortable silence.

  “He also gave me a book,” Abby said suddenly. “A novel I’d mentioned I’d wanted to read.”

  “Well, that’s thoughtful, too.” JoAnne looked across at me with a look that said, “How do we stop this game?”

  Abby did it for us. “No ring, though,” she said. By now her napkin had been smoothed to super flatness.

  “Oh.”

  “I’m sorry, Abby,” I said, and I meant it. She looked so sad. No one wants to see their dear friend looking so sad.

  “That doesn’t mean it’s not going to come at Christmas, honey.”

  I glared at JoAnne. Since when did she spout sentimental crap? My gut was telling me the engagement ring wasn’t going to come at all. But it wasn’t my place to share my gut.

  “It’s okay,” Abby said. She shook her head, fluffed her napkin, and put it on her lap. “Could we—could we not talk about it tonight? You guys are wonderful and all but . . . Let’s just have fun. Okay?”

  “Okay,” Maggie said heartily.

  And we tried.

  I shared a cab with Abby. When we got to her place she asked if I’d come up for a few minutes. To talk. I agreed. How could I not?

  Abby opened the door to her apartment. As always, it was spotless and neat as a pin. Not surprising that after years of my mother’s less than competent housekeeping, Dad should have been attracted to such a fabulous housekeeper.

  I kept that observation to myself.

  “I’m going to get into my robe,” Abby said and went off to her bedroom.

  I sat on her chintz-covered couch, wishing I could get into my own bathrobe right then.

  So, there had been no ring. I’d never seen Abby looking so disappointed. So—vulnerable. More than ever, tonight Abby had reminded me of a lost little girl.

  A moment later Abby emerged in her pink flannel bathrobe and pink fuzzy slippers. She’d been crying.

  “Can I get you anything?” she asked, with an attempt at a chin-up hostess voice.

  “No, I’m fine. Why don’t I get you something. Tea?”

  Abby curled up in a corner of the couch and nodded. I went to the kitchen and nuked a cup of her favorite—plum-and-cinnamon-flavored tea. I took it back to the living room and as I handed her the cup, she burst out.

  “How could I have been so stupid, Erin! I just ... I just thought that everything was going so well and I thought, well, of course he’ll surprise me on my birthday. Engaged at thirty-three, married at thirty-four ... Oh, Erin, I can’t bear being thirty-five and not married!”

  Abby dabbed at her eyes with a tissue. I felt a headache coming on.

  “Honey, you’re jumping to conclusions. Just relax. And remember, Abby, Dad—John’s—from a different generation.” Oh, Lord, was I saying this? “He does things differently. Maybe he thinks it’s too soon. Maybe he wants to take things slowly, be a gentleman.”

  Okay, my father went to college during the Vietnam War, not World War II. He hadn’t worn beads or smoked pot for thirty-some-odd years but he was hardly a fussy old man. But I had to say something.

  It seemed to do the trick. At least, temporarily.

  “That’s true,” Abby said musingly. “About his being different. But ... Erin, I feel so embarrassed! I could barely get through dinner last night without bursting out crying. How can I face him again when I feel so disappointed and he doesn’t even know what he did!”

  Or didn’t do, I amended silently. Because he doesn’t want to make a commitment yet. To anyone? To Abby.

  “Abby, things will be fine,” I offered lamely.

  “He didn’t say anything to you?” Abby asked, hopefully and fearfully.

  “No, not at all, and I didn’t say anything to him about . . . about what we thought might happen, either. So, don’t worry. He has no idea about—the ring.”

  Or did he, I wondered. My father wasn’t exactly dense. And Abby wasn’t exactly subtle. I couldn’t imagine that John Weston hadn’t picked up on Abigail Walker’s probably less than gentle hints about marriage. Or that he’d failed to notice her general despair the night before.

  “That’s good,” Abby said but she sounded doubtful.

  “Look, I think you should go to bed.” I got up and took her empty teacup. “It’s been a trying twenty-four hours and sleep sounds like a good thing.”

  Abby nodded. “Okay. Be careful getting home. And, Erin?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Thanks. I mean it.”

  We hugged. “I know you do, Abby. I know.”

  Chapter Fifty-three

  Ex-boyfriends are a problem no matter what way you look at them. They’re a problem when you run into them on Saturday morning, on your way to the dry cleaners, not looking your post-breakup best. They’re a problem when they won’t stop calling, either to beg you to take them back now that the women they left you for dumped them, or to harrass you for having left such a stellar guy. They’re a problem when they date again before you do. They’re a problem when memories of intimate moments with them make you cringe.

  There should be a way to excise exes from our lives. They should be removed, like suspicious tumors are removed, just cut right out. I suppose murder is one possibility, though the getting caught part isn’t very appealing. A lobotomy is another possibility, though I wouldn’t want to sport a nasty scar on my head for the rest of my life.

  Doug and I were strolling through the Gardens at lunchtime when I saw him. Post-college, Ex-Boyfriend No.4. Or No. 5. I’d lost track.

  “Huh,” I said.

  “Huh, what?”

  “Ex-boyfriend, two o’clock.”

  “Which one?”

  “The big dumb-looking one in the gray coat. Bert. Bert Something.”

  Here was a challenge. Would Bert remember me? Would he guess that Doug was my married lover? I dripped nervousness. Doug seemed to be enoying my discomfort, which, I’d begun to notice, was something he often enjoyed.

  I’d also noticed that Doug had taken to telling me to calm down, lighten up, stop overreacting, lower my voice, and stop being so emotional. Was everything I said or felt or did,
wrong?

  Maybe, I thought, Bert won’t see me. Or I could snub him. Or maybe ...

  “Hey! Erin!”

  “Shit.”

  Bert was coming our way, a big grin on his beefy face. Doug and I stopped and waited until he joined us.

  “Hey, Erin, long time no see.”

  He did not shake my hand. I was glad.

  “Yeah. Uh, Bert, this is—this is my colleague, Doug Spears. We’re—we’re coming from a meeting.”

  Bert shook Doug’s hand. Interesting.

  “Erin was crazy in love with me years back,” Bert said, lightly punching Doug’s arm. “Had to beat her off with a stick. Not literally, of course, don’t go in for hitting the ladies ...”

  “What!” I cried. “I was never in love with you!”

  Bert raised an eyebrow and Doug chuckled. He actually chuckled.

  This can’t be happening, I thought. It just can’t.

  “But now I’m a married man,” Bert said, and I swear he stuck out his chest as he said it. “Got hitched five years ago. Got two kids already. Wife’s in banking, quit to stay home with the kids. Maybe she’ll go back to work someday, not necessary. I make more than enough money, don’t need her salary.”

  Doug looked at me with that annoying, amused smile. He said nothing. He was waiting for me to say something.

  Bert defined the term “blowhard.” There was no way I was going to get out of this alive, except by playing along.

  “Well, that’s just great, Bert,” I said tightly. “We really have to go now. I—”

  “What about you, Erin?” Bert pretended to peer at my left hand. “No ring? No hubby?”

  “No, no husband,” I said. “No kids, either.”

  Bert clapped me on the shoulder. “Well, don’t worry. You’ve got some time yet. You’re not half bad-looking. Not getting any younger, though. Don’t wait too long!”

  Like what I was doing with my life was sitting around waiting to say, Okay, I’ll get married now. Just like that.

  “Okay,” I said, urging a tiny smile to my lips. “I won’t.”