THE EXES IN MY IPOD: A Playlist of the Men Who Rocked Me to Wine Country

by Lisa M. Mattson

  “You have to find your balance. You are the only one who truly knows what happiness means to you.” Roger’s deep eyes anchored to mine as he spoke. “Everyone has a different definition of happiness. Stop listening to other people and follow your heart.” I sat quietly, nodding, letting his words sink in. There are billions of people on this planet. How could I think there was only one guy who was perfect for me—and that guy didn’t want to be with me? Roger waved over the cocktail waitress and ordered me another bottle of Evian. My cheeks flushed.

  I looked around the now empty bar. The foggy confusion that had consumed me for the past few years began to lift, freeing my mind. The room felt as serene as a day spa. After months of banging my head against the wall, searching for answers, the puzzle pieces had snapped together. I’d spent thousands of dollars on therapists and all I’d really needed was a heart-to-heart talk with a stranger at a bar. The source of my problems became as clear as Fernando’s glass of Santa Margherita: My looming birthday wasn’t the mental roadblock—my marriage was. I married my best friend. I settled. But I could no longer live without the magic—not for another week, not for another thirty years.

  “You build your house on sand, and it cannot stand.” I chanted the words of my yoga instructor, Baron Baptiste. “Your emotional house should be like a rock.” I caressed the marble tabletop, nodding my head. I needed to be strong. I needed to find peace within myself. The fate of my future was sealed at that moment in a downtown Cincinnati bar. I’d felt this all along. Why couldn’t I face it sooner? My nickname in grade school was motor-mouth Harley. Why did it take me five years to open up? I guess I’d needed time to grow. Paul had made so many sacrifices for my career, and our move to California had ultimately helped him land his dream job too. My guilt was gone. It was finally time to face my true feelings.

  “Being alone isn’t easy, you know,” Roger said, signing the bill.

  I rested my chin in one hand. “I know. I remember.” I wasn’t the same self-conscious girl from Miami who stayed in unhealthy relationships because it was easier than being single. I glanced down at my wedding ring, filled with diamonds reset from the ring Paul’s dad had given his mother. I’d had it remade once while we were engaged because I didn’t like the way it looked or felt, which had really pissed Paul off. Even after more than three years of marriage, whenever I looked at that ring, it always felt like I was looking at someone else’s hand.

  We walked back to our hotel. It was a chilly, dry night in early March with remnants of a recent snowstorm piled along the street curbs. Roger put his heavy coat and wool scarf around my shoulders. I tucked my arm under his the old-fashioned way, as if we were strolling down the sidewalk in 1944, not 2004. We stood in silence at the elevator doors in our hotel lobby, looking at each other.

  “Are you ready to go to sleep?” I asked him. He shook his head. We walked into the lobby café next to the front desk. It was two in the morning. Napkins fanned like peacock tails on top of white plates, waiting for guests who’d arrive for breakfast in a few hours. We sat in a horseshoe-shaped booth side by side in front of two preset place settings. He reached for my hand. My heartbeat shot up like a cork popping from a Champagne bottle. I had not felt that much excitement since Fernando. I gripped his hand. We’d bared our souls to each other. We had a bond. And I must admit: I found him very attractive. We’re talking Hugh-Grant-before-the-hooker-snafu attractive. We stared at our interlocked hands for a few moments, then looked up and smiled at each other. My chest fluttered, overcome by the shot of bliss coursing through me. My fingers trembled. I pulled one hand out from under his and caressed his knuckles.

  I looked into his kind eyes. “Everything in life happens for a reason, you know?” He pulled my hand to his face and kissed it softly. It was thirty-eight degrees outside, and I wanted to crank the AC. My entire body tingled from the spark of his touch. I grabbed his hand and rubbed it gently against my cheek. Part of me wanted to invite Roger up to my room, to have one chance to feel the wave of passion pour over me that I’d given up on years before, to have a physical barrier placed between my husband and me.

  I squeezed Roger’s hand and rested it on the table, then slid my fists into my coat pockets. “I’m not a cheater.” I looked down at the untouched place setting in front of me. Tears swelled in my eyes. “I have too much pride and respect to do that to anyone.” Construction of my emotional house had already begun. I would never jump crotch first into a relationship again. That moment was a monumental internal victory for me.

  Roger cocked his head. “And I would never want or ask you to do such a thing.” I believed him 100 percent. He was the perfect gentleman, and my guardian angel sent from another galaxy.

  I gazed at his oblong face. “I’m so glad I came to Cincinnati.” I thought of a chain email my mom had sent me—the kind where you forward it to five people and will have good luck for ten years or something like that. It had said: Every person we meet in life is not a coincidence but a destiny. Every person we meet in life is either a student or a teacher. I’ve always lived by the belief that no person, place or thing in my life is here by accident, and that email was the perfect reminder. Roger was my teacher. Our trip to Cincinnati was my destiny. My life had finally reached a turning point.

  “Thank you for tonight,” he said softly, patting my hand one last time. My cheeks flushed. I watched as he climbed out of the vinyl booth and disappeared into the elevator.

  I sat in the passenger seat of my SUV, staring out the window. White mountains and ravines stuffed with snow-tipped trees blurred by. My mind bounced from the torturous weekend in Lake Tahoe back to Cincinnati.

  “What should we have for dinner?” Paul asked from the driver’s seat. He wore black ski pants, a Columbia coat and a winter beanie. His best friend and his wife canoodled in the backseat. Eight days before my thirtieth birthday, Paul’s best friend from college, an avid skier who’d also majored in hotel/restaurant management at the University of Alabama, had arrived with his bride for a Northern California honeymoon. Their trip was a roadblock, keeping me from having the most important talk of my life.

  “I don’t care,” I whispered, pressing my forehead against the cold window. Less than two weeks had passed since my heart-to-heart talk with Roger. I’d already begun living for me, not for Paul. I’d stopped eating Toaster Strudels. I’d stopped watching television and started listening to music again.

  Paul gripped the steering wheel. “That’s been your answer to everything this weekend.” Only a heartless bitch would file for divorce the week before honeymooners arrived at her doorstep for a romantic week of wine tasting and snow skiing. The entire weekend, I’d built an imaginary wall around myself. I’d gone to bed early while the newlyweds and Paul watched movies. I’d skied the green runs as slowly as a newbie. Paul had turned to me on the slope. “Hurry up!” he’d yelled. “Leave me behind. I’ll be fine,” I’d snapped back.

  I looked down at my puffy blue jacket and matching ski pants. That’s because I have a truckload on my mind. My big secret wanted to spring from my chest like the midget trapped in the oven in Project X. The four of us had spent two long nights in a frumpy motel outside Truckee, which was actually more adventurous than our typical Tahoe getaway. Ski trips with Paul were never about hot chocolates and hot tubs. “Why stay in a hotel when you can drive four hours back home and sleep in your own bed?” he’d say, his southern drawl camouflaging his patronizing tone.

  Jim Rome hissed about Pete Rose’s gambling on the car radio. I thumbed through my new portable CD case and popped Dido into the stereo slit.

  “Hey,” Paul barked. “I was listening to that.”

  “Rome’s a douchebag,” I replied with a snarl. “I’m tired of listening to shouting rants every time we’re in the car.” I tugged my blue beanie over my eyebrows and sunk into the seat.

  “Hunter” poured from the speakers. The strum of the guitar engrossed my tattered emotions. As Dido’s angelic voice sang the lyrics
, my knees began to shake. I’d never connected so strongly with a song in my life. While I looked out the window, Dido cooed about a king on his throne and a girl who wanted to leave. Goose bumps rippled across my legs. My eyes began to water. I sang along with Dido, finding more common ground in the chorus. I sang louder and louder with the building finale, not caring what anyone else in the car thought. I wanted a chance at life again. I wanted him to let me go. When the song ended, I hit rewind.

  “Don’t even think about changing it.” My jaws snapped at Paul, as his right hand moved toward the stereo dial. Our SUV gradually dropped into Sacramento Valley, leaving the snow and the mountains behind.

  Paul dropped his keys on the kitchen counter and strolled into the living room, surprised to find me sitting on our Ethan Allen couch, still wearing my work suit. He’d been on a business trip ever since we’d returned from Tahoe, which gave me time to sort out a plan.

  “We need to talk.” My jaw quivered. I watched him walk around the coffee table and plop down, leaving a cushion of space between us. Anxiety whipped around my queasy stomach. My mind’s eye could see the speech I’d been rehearsing for three days, which was now a wrinkled piece of paper crammed into the front of my packed suitcase, hidden in our guest room closet.

  “I’m very sorry for the way I’ve been acting.” My voice and hands shook. He sat on the edge of his cushion, thick arms folded across his broad chest. He didn’t say a word. I’d spent a week googling tips on communications tactics online: start with the acknowledgment of fault to soften any defensive reaction. The advice sounded pretty damn good for the most important conversation in my life with the most aggressive communicator I’d ever known.

  “It’s just that I’ve been thinking a lot about our discussions about communication, affection, things I want us to improve on.” My mouth was cotton-dry. I’d strategically selected the words “discussions” and “improve on” versus “fights” and “change.” He nodded his head. His face was pale just like during the couples’ workshop. We both sat in silence, staring at each other. I looked down at my damp palms, clasped atop my Jones New York dress slacks.

  “It’s not fair to you that I keep asking you to do things that don’t come naturally to you.” I paused to swallow. “Your relationship should be the easy thing in your life, not the hardest.” As I recited Roger’s mantra, my voice grew stronger, more confident. “If you truly love and cherish someone, your actions toward that person should be effortless.” My chin was up, my shoulders back.

  “But I do love you, Honey,” he said in his sharp tone. For the last six years, that type of response would have made me withdrawal from the conversation—retreating to a falsely peaceful silence where my isolated thoughts and confused feelings ran circles in my mind.

  “I know you love me. And I love you too.” I paused to regain my focus. “But you don’t adore me. You don’t cherish me. The intimacy I’m starving for would come naturally if you adored me.” I looked out the sliding glass doors across the room to our deck. “I finally realized we have to face the truth. We’re not soulmates.” My chest fluttered under my blue silk shirt. I felt like I’d crossed mile twenty-four of a marathon.

  He looked at my eyes fixed on his face. “You don’t think we’re soulmates?” His tone made it sound more like a cocky statement. I’d told Paul about Fernando when he took me to Islamorada for our first Christmas together. He’d said he thought we had lots of soulmates in each lifetime. It took me almost six years to finally believe him.

  I shook my head. My eyes watered. A downpour of sadness flooded my chest. I struggled to breathe. “I’ve been thinking about the past and the future a lot.” My voice trembled. “I have regrets.” I swallowed. My neck and shoulders felt tight, like I’d been lifting weights for two days. “I’m regretful of how our relationship started. How could you really ever respect me and love me the way I want you to anyway?” I looked down at the carpet. “I had no respect for myself.” My heart bashed against my rib cage. The first night in Key West, we’d skipped dinner and headed straight to Sloppy Joe’s for three rounds of Mind Erasers—a decision my mind could never erase. We’d had a sloppy make-out session at the bar, then Paul had followed me back to my hotel room—stopping off at his room to get his toothbrush and allergy meds. Even on the first night, Paul was orderly and organized. Very romantic. He was still legally married, and we’d screwed in my hotel room like two college kids on spring break. I’d spent the next morning in a steaming hot shower scrubbing my skin as veraciously as Meryl Streep during the contamination scene in Silkwood. Matthew’s ghost was still haunting me back then. Two wrongs didn’t make a right. I’d thought I was going to hell for breaking number six of the Ten Commandments.

  “We were separated,” he said in the same frustrated tone whenever I brought up his first marriage.

  I threw up my hands. “That is not the point.” My jaw locked. “I just know I can’t live another thirty years and look back on my life with regret.” I looked straight at him. Tears streamed down my face. I slipped my palms back between my knees to steady myself. “I have a hole in my heart. It’s been there since before we met. I know what it’s like to feel an electric connection with someone, something so powerful on a spiritual, emotional and physical level.” I took a deep breath. “I had it. I lost it. I thought I could live the rest of my life without it, but I know in my heart of hearts that it wouldn’t be fair to either of us. Your soulmate is out there too.” I looked at his shocked eyes and pressed on. “Someone who gets shivers every time you touch her. Someone who will be perfectly content with a husband who shows his love by handling the bills, helping with the chores, being in charge of everything.” My voice boomed with conviction and determination. Any worries about being judged were buried in a decade of failing at finding true love—a decade that was officially over.

  Paul rubbed his palms on the knees of his khaki slacks. His pale face turned to mine. “If you felt like this before we got married, why did you go through with it?” His sad eyes pleaded with me for the first time since our New York trip.

  My fingers trembled in my lap. I looked down at our fancy Ethan Allen coffee table. “I figured it was just wedding jitters. That’s what most women said when I asked for advice.” Then I recited my aunt’s words: Marry your best friend. All the magic fades away.

  Paul sat on the couch in silence, looking out the sliding glass doors across the room. I stared at the little crease in the side of his blank face. It was a silent standoff.

  “Do you have anything you want to say?” My voice cracked. I watched him, uncomfortably, for at least a minute. I couldn’t tell if he was going to fly from his cushion in a fit of rage or grab the remote and flip on the evening news.

  “I’m scared. I’m sad,” he said, matter-of-factly. “You know me. I show no emotion.” He leaned back on the couch and continued looking blankly out the doors to our deck. I stared at his shaved head. Paul never minced words. We’d lasted longer than most NFL head coach contracts, and this was his response to the end of our marriage.

  I shook my head, feeling a half-smile spread across my face. Yep. I knew him. And I finally knew myself too. The girl who craved affection and romance had married the responsible, wound-tight guy who couldn’t show emotions. I never would have stopped wanting more; he never would have changed.

  My eyes scanned the wine rack across the room filled with expensive bottles we’d been saving for a special occasion—1992 Caymus Special Selection Cabernet, 1995 Swanson Alexis, 1999 Groth Reserve Cabernet. We’d never had enough special moments to make a dent in our wine collection. I sat quietly on the couch, staring at the wine rack, listening to Paul’s breath. My chest already felt as if a grape gondola full of stress had been removed. It took me ten years to truly overcome my fear of confrontation; I felt like yin and yang were karate fighting inside me. Part of me felt horrible for leaving him. I’d given my word, said my vows, at a garden in Key West. We’d built a life together that would have to be
dismantled piece by piece. The other part of me wanted to grab that bottle of Swanson Alexis, pour a glass and toast to the most-empowering feeling in the world. I’d faced my fears. I’d taken back control of my destiny. My mind began to sprint through the possibilities of a new life that was about to begin.

  “You’re still going to edit my presentations for work, aren’t you?” Paul’s voice rang in my ears. My jaw dropped.

  A gasp zoomed from my mouth. “That’s what you’re worried about?” I glared at the side of his face. Any remaining ounce of guilt or fear leapt from my body and flew out the window. My exorcism was complete—minus the holy water and spinning head.

  My eyes drifted to the window. “Oh, yes. The great support tool for your career.” I grinded my teeth. My writing and marketing skills were what mattered most to Paul when our marriage was ending.

  A feeling swept over my body I’d never felt during a break-up: complete and total validation.

  CHANCE

  “SOMETHING IN THE WAY SHE MOVES”

  James Taylor

  REWIND: Chance’s black Jeep bounced along a rocky path snaking up the eastern ridge of Mount Veeder. It was a crisp, sunny evening, and Northern California wine country was awakening from its winter slumber—fruit trees blossoming, red clovers sprouting between vineyard rows, grapevines bursting new buds. Chance cranked the truck’s parking brake mid-slope below a forest of Manzanita and pines trees. I hopped out of the cab and into nature’s cradle of life, feeling reborn and ready to raise a toast to Mother Earth—and to Hammurabi, the inventor of divorce.

  My eyes floated across his Napa vineyard. “Wow. This view is unbelievable.” Rolling hills carpeted with wildflowers and grapevines fanned out around a cluster of boulders bigger than minivans. Vineyards that gorgeous got two-page spreads in Wine Enthusiast. Scents of mustard and chamomile drifted in the breeze. Chance grabbed my hand, pulling me toward the rock formation. My chest fluttered beneath my DKNY top and fleece jacket, overcome by the locale and the rush of his touch.