Far Too Tempting

by Lauren Blakely

“Sort of,” I say, and hit play, and he listens to the little tune I call “English Sex God Worshipping My Body.” It’s a silly number, nothing I’d ever really release. But he laughs at lines like, From Zero to Wet in Less than Sixty Seconds and God Bless Breasts, this man says.

  When it ends I e-mail it off to him. “And that is your first official gift from me,” I say, and he pulls me in for another kiss.

  “It’s my favorite gift ever,” he says. Then quietly, he asks, “Have you written anything else?”

  I shake my head. “No. Liking you has turned all my musical brain cells to mush.”

  I flash back to Matthew’s review of Crushed.

  Maybe there isn’t anything to say when you’re swooning, falling, floating, chasing. Maybe when you’re deliciously, deliriously happy, nobody wants to hear about it.

  Who would have thought that he’d foreshadow with pinpoint precision the problem in my work?

  From falling.

  From being happy, truly deliciously happy, no questions, no pretenses, no doubts.

  I am no longer crushed. I no longer possess a shattered center, a bruised, wrecked heart to guide me, to inspire words, lyrics, songs you blast in the car. My heart is no longer broken. It’s healing, and—evidently—romance doesn’t mesh with music for me.

  “That’s not good, Jane,” he says in a serious tone.

  “I know. It’s not good on a lot of levels,” I say heavily, but I end it at that because I don’t want to verbalize all the ways this writer’s block could play out—no more music, no more songs, no more of my heart’s desire.

  So maybe the answer is no more Matthew.

  I hate that answer.

  Chapter Twenty

  If I were a scientist or a neurologist or maybe even a psychologist, I might know which part of the brain opens up the heart again. I might know which synapse gets fired. I might know which lobe controls feelings and fears.

  But I’m not a scientist. I’m a singer and a songwriter—or at least I was once—and all I know is that there is some part that urges you to try a second time. Maybe it’s the part that makes a mother forget how much giving birth hurts, the part that can no longer recall bad kisses, the part that makes time a better painkiller than morphine, as months and years cast a gauzy veneer over past pains. It’s the part that has helped Kelly and Grant move past their fight. She told me they both admitted they let their fears get the better of them, but they’re trying to be more honest about everything. Less matchstick too.

  Whatever that part of the brain is that urges you to try again, it’s working in me as Matthew and I fall into an instant rhythm with each other over the next few weeks, talking every day on the phone, even meeting each other’s friends. The other night we hung out with John-Alistair and his wife at Simone’s, and a few nights later, we had dinner with Kelly and Grant.

  But now it’s my time with Ethan. I love the four-day stretches with my son, when Thursday falls into Friday, then the weekend and he’s still mine. They’re long enough to lull me into a false sense of security, the feeling that I almost don’t have to hand him off in a few days.

  The weather’s still crisp, but we’ve migrated to jackets rather than coats now that we’ve slid into April. I fire off a black Frisbee to Ethan for probably the 357th time. He’s like a Labrador when it comes to Frisbee. He’ll catch it and keep coming back, tongue hanging out, panting, poised for another one.

  “Again!” he commands. We’re playing in our favorite park, Stuyvesant Square on Seventeenth Street and Second Avenue. It’s a small park, quiet and sheltered from the streets by huge trees with leaves that blaze a fierce emerald in the summer. The branches are bare now, but they’ll fill in soon.

  I flick the Frisbee to Ethan yet again. The logo for The Knitting Factory on it turns into a swirling blur. I can feel a glide in my step, a smile that I can’t erase. I’m happy, truly in the thralls of something here, the rapture that is a new lover. I feel like I can fling this Frisbee back and forth forever. I feel like a kid. I feel like that Labrador. I feel like Ethan. I always get bored with Frisbee, the repetitiveness of it, after fifteen, maybe thirty minutes. But today I’m not stopping. Every time I throw the Frisbee I remember: a hand in my hand, lips on my shoulders, the delicious accent of my new British man.

  And this. Time with my son.

  I smile broadly for no reason. And it hits me—just how good life is. How I have so many reasons to be happy, but especially because I am here, right now, outside, playing. As I toss the Frisbee, it’s as if I’m letting go of all that saddened me, all that crushed me.

  I am throwing away my doubts.

  Except for one. The one big thing that’s missing.

  My music.

  It’s like a phantom limb, and like a missing limb, it’s not coming back. It is absent without leave. Vanished without a trace. Tears prick the backs of my eyes at the thought, and I try to swat them away as Ethan catches and cheers.

  “Check out my blind-bat throw,” Ethan shouts, squeezing his eyes closed and tossing the Frisbee artfully and expertly back to me. I leap maybe two inches, plucking the Frisbee from the air, then tossing it back, focusing on our game, not on the hollow piece inside that’s gnawing away at me.

  Ethan catches the Frisbee and then flings his body down on the ground, landing on his belly. “I can’t do it anymore,” he declares.

  I flop down next to him and give him a noogie. He laughs—bright, loud, true peals of laughter that remind me if I can’t write music I can do other things well. I am a good mom. I am a good sister. I am a good friend. I am a good girlfriend. I am a rock star who wrote an awesome album that helped a ton of people heal. I am even a good ex-wife, since I’m going to Aidan’s meeting in two days.

  That has to be enough, right?

  …

  I drop off Ethan at Natalie’s apartment on West End Avenue. He scampers with Ben and Grace back to the kids’ rooms while Natalie stands patrol next to the stove, whipping up her signature homemade, organic hot chocolate.

  She removes a thermometer from its special black casing—an actual thermometer cozy—and dips it into the pot on her stove. She tests the temperature on the milk, then she lies in wait by the stove the entire time the milk heats, ready to pounce on the burner the second it hits the proper temperature. Her precision and attention to detail may be the reason she makes the best hot chocolate I’ve ever tasted.

  “Owen says you’re making tons of progress on the new album,” Natalie says as she clutches the thermometer. She’s a pelican eyeing her prey from above, never averting her gaze on the fish below.

  “Oh, does he?” I raise an eyebrow, since this is a lie. On the flip side, Owen is upholding his end of the bet and writing like a fiend.

  Natalie nods and then swiftly dunks her thermometer in the kettle, the pelican’s flawless dive-bomb to seize her dinner. She holds up the mercury-filled silver tube with a triumphant gleam in her eye, then pulls the pot off the stove, pours in the chocolate pieces, and whisks the two ingredients so the chocolate melts into the milk. “Yes, he does. And I have a name for your new album.”

  “Yeah?”

  “You should call it I Have New Beau and I Forgot to Tell My Sister.” Natalie shakes her hips briefly and gives me a knowing stare.

  I hold up my hands, my admission.

  “You know there’s nothing I can’t wheedle out of Owen,” Natalie continues, pouring the mix into a white ceramic teapot with an Eiffel Tower illustration. A gift from our mom on her last trip to Paris. “And might I just add that I predicted this would happen.”

  “I know, I know. You always know best. And you know everything.”

  She nods appreciatively. “Good. I like hearing you say that. But this is further proof you need a publicist and I’ve made progress. Cranberry and I have been talking and she put me in touch with Ezra Koening about using his publicist, since she’s his booking agent too. I need to call him back this evening when the kids go to sleep. But we’ve been
talking and he has a great PR rep, so it’ll all work out.”

  Natalie pauses to write herself a reminder note. Apparently, she is best friends now with the lead singers for Vampire Weekend. She pats the note on the counter, then shoots me a pointed stare. “When were you going to tell me about this new man?”

  I shrug my shoulders. “I don’t know.”

  “You figured I wouldn’t approve.”

  “Gee, I wonder where I would get that idea from.”

  “Oh, my little Jane. What am I going to do with you? So young, so impressionable,” she says, pinching my cheeks like a grandma would do. “So you like Matthew?”

  I smile.

  “You do, then,” Natalie declares.

  I nod.

  “A lot?”

  I nod again.

  Natalie begins pouring hot chocolate into espresso cups. “Try some.” Natalie hands me a mug. “So you and Aidan are meeting with lawyers tonight or something about the divorce?”

  “We’re done with the Matthew conversation?”

  “If you’re happy, I’m happy.”

  “Where did the pod people put my sister?” I ask suspiciously, pretending to search for her around.

  “So you’ll have lawyers there, right?”

  Ah, I get it now. She’s playing nice on the new man, the same fellow she warned me against getting too close to a month ago, so she can play hardball on how I handle my divorce. Which is what I told her I’d be doing tonight—discussing the divorce settlement with Aidan. She’d kill me if she knew I was going to a meeting of Gay Men With Straight Wives.

  “Is your lawyer aggressive enough?” Natalie asks coolly. “Because you are making some serious jack now. And Aidan is a schoolteacher. Granted, at a posh little private school. But still, you’re finally making real money, Jane. So just make sure this lawyer isn’t going to play nice. You need to protect your assets,” Nat continues, determined to dispense her wisdom.

  “Would you like to come with me, maybe hold my hand?” I ask in a little girl’s voice, then indulge in my first taste of her hot chocolate. Not surprisingly, it’s fantastic.

  “I know you, Jane. You think you have to be so nice all the time, to the press, to your ex…” Natalie begins. I cringe at that. If she only knew where I was really going tonight, she would smack me. No, she would go with me and chew Aidan out in front of the whole clan.

  “In honor of you, I’ll be a big bitch tonight.”

  Natalie raises an eyebrow and nods approvingly. “Now that’s what I like to hear. You better get to your meeting, you big bitch.”

  “Thanks, Nat. And thanks for taking care of Ethan.” Then I add, “Did you snag a sitter for Friday? Can you and Trevor come to my show at the Knitting Factory?”

  “Am I your big sister, or am I your big sister? Of course I scheduled a sitter. Wouldn’t miss it for the world.”

  “Matthew will be there,” I tell her.

  “Then I’ll tell him he better be good to you,” she says with a smile, as much of a blessing as she’ll give.

  I hug her, bestow a quick kiss on my son, and then catch a downtown train, picturing Natalie meeting Matthew and issuing some brusque big-sisterly directive. But I like that image. I like too that Owen and Matthew are getting chummy. During our studio days together, they’re making jokes, reeling off rock trivia, sharing book recommendations. Owen even told Matthew about Taryn, since he’s seeing her regularly now. He mentioned her earlier this week when we were all in the studio.

  “So is she still using you?” I teased.

  “As a matter of fact, she was and is using me,” he said. “And I don’t mind. Because you know what she told me on our third date?”

  “What did she tell you?”

  “That she no longer had writer’s block, that I was the best kisser ever, and that she planned to use my kissing as the model for the male lead in her novel and was that okay with me,” Owen related with a gleam in his eye.

  “Wait. I thought that’s what you were afraid of?”

  “I was, but then she admitted it and she asked permission, and besides it’s like the coolest thing for a woman you like to use you as the model for her character’s sex appeal, isn’t it?”

  He held up a hand and high-fived Matthew, who added, “Right there with you, mate. That’s the ultimate flattery.”

  I laughed along with them, but secretly wondered if Matthew felt let down because he hasn’t had the same effect on me. He hasn’t been a muse for me, like Aidan was. But maybe I can only write about unrequited love. Then I scoff privately. Perhaps the meeting tonight will piss me off, and I’ll pen a tune. I’d take that. I’d take anything right now, even an angry lament.

  The train clatters into the downtown stop, and I emerge and head to the church where the meeting is held. Aidan doesn’t notice me right away because he’s standing on the steps with Tom, face-to-face. They’re looking into each other’s eyes, smiling, unbelievably happy. Aidan reaches for Tom’s hand and squeezes it as Tom gives Aidan a quick good-bye kiss. Then Tom walks off, Aidan watching him for a second or two.

  Tom, his lover, his boyfriend, isn’t going to meetings with him, clearly.

  Then it hits me.

  Maybe this is what’s holding me back from writing music. Maybe I don’t need to be the poster child for dumped straight wives. Because that’s not who I am anymore. I’m not the same woman who Aidan left. I’m not the same woman who wrote Crushed. But if I step foot in that meeting, I will be. I will be the woman who was fooled. I’m done being that person.

  I need to let go. But not of Aidan. I need to say good-bye to the woman I used to be. Because there’s a better me now. A stronger me, a happier me. I’m the person I want to be. I don’t need a man to be happy, and I don’t need a man to be unhappy. I just need me, and I like who I am—mom, sister, daughter, friend.

  The sound of my boots clacking on the sidewalk reaches Aidan. He turns around and looks at me. He smiles. “Hey, thanks so much for coming,” he says in the voice that is so familiar to me—pure, clear, tenor.

  “Yeah, about that…”

  But he doesn’t hear me over the sound of an ambulance suddenly rushing by.

  “Are you ready?” he asks.

  Ready. There’s that word again. I flash back to the night of the Grammys, to the without-a-doubt coolest night of my professional life. I am ready. I am ready to move forward.

  I shake my head. “I’m not going.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I was going to go and now I’m not,” I say matter-of-factly.

  Aidan rests his hand on the banister along the church’s steps, looking frustrated. “But everyone was expecting you.”

  I stay in place, my feet firmly rooted to the sidewalk as I look straight into the green eyes of the man I am divorcing. “I know. And they will just have to be disappointed tonight. That’s life. People get disappointed by other people. People get their hearts broken by other people. But you know what I would have told them?”

  He looks back at me.

  “I would have told them that I didn’t stop wanting you the second you left me. That even though you might have still loved me as a friend, as a person, I was still in love with you, and I thought it was all my fault that you didn’t feel the same way. I thought I wasn’t good enough. I thought I wasn’t pretty enough or sexy enough or interesting enough. But it’s not my fault. You know what I am deciding right now, tonight, in this moment?”

  Aidan’s still holding onto the banister; I’m still standing two feet away staring straight at him. “I’m forgiving myself for not knowing,” I say, because it’s not my fault he likes guys. “And I’m okay with the fact that you didn’t know and I didn’t know. I’m okay with how it all happened.”

  There comes a time when healing is simply a choice, when moving forward is a choice. You choose to love, you choose to commit, you choose to be faithful. I choose to heal.

  “Jane,” Aidan begins in a strangled sort of voice.
“I’m sorry.”

  “For what?”

  “For everything. I’m sorry I didn’t know when I met you. I’m sorry I didn’t figure it out sooner. I’m sorry I brought Calvin with me to tell you. That was unfair, and pretty shitty. And I’m sorry I didn’t really understand how much I’d hurt you.” Then he laughs, but it’s a self-deprecating one. “The whole world knew, from your album. And somehow, I was a thickheaded idiot, and I was only thinking of myself, and figuring out how to be.” He stops, pauses, considers the words. “How to be this new me.”

  A tear slides down my cheek. But it’s not a tear of sadness. It’s a tear of letting go. Of who we were. Of who I was. Impulsively, I give him a hug. He clasps me back. There is nothing romantic between us, nothing sexual. We are two people who came together, who made a family, and who pulled apart.

  That’s okay. It has to be. It’s the only way. Like Aidan, I’ve been figuring out how to be this new me. But I think I’m there. I’m her now. Maybe this is the final step I’ve needed to take to be on the other side, and perhaps it will bring my music back to me. To say good-bye to the muse of my unrequited heart.

  “Thank you. Have a good meeting.”

  “Thank you. Have a good night.”

  I walk away.

  Chapter Twenty-one

  The joint is literally jumping.

  It still mystifies me that people I don’t know and haven’t bribed and am not related to show up at my concerts.

  But Cranberry told me The Knitting Factory had completely sold out my show. She’s at the front of the house hanging with Dom, the club’s manager, and Natalie and her husband. Owen’s out there in the crowd somewhere with Taryn. Jeremy’s here too, along with his wife, Vicki, and their seventeen-year-old daughter. The only one missing is my son, but he doesn’t come to my shows yet, and he’s with his dad for the weekend. Then, in a few days he’s mine again and we’ll go to Maine to see my parents.

  The rest of the buzzing crowd is the great unknown. I love the people I don’t know, the people I have never seen who like my music. I’ve probably talked to some of them via Facebook at one time or another. Some will even wait by the stage door after the show and introduce themselves. I’ll stand there as long as I have to, signing autographs, talking to fans. This is what I love; this is what feeds me. Maybe on stage I will find my new inspiration. I will learn what the Gods of Music have in store for me, and then I can meet the very real, very looming, very big deadline I face.