“Sure,” she says, and I can hear Calvin screaming in the background, followed by Susan’s muffled voice telling him to quiet down or he’ll have to go to time-out. “What’s wrong?” she asks, returning to the phone. “You okay?”
“I am,” I tell her. As I say it, I know the words are true. “But I need to tell you something.” I take a deep breath. “Dan and I broke up on Monday. The wedding’s off.”
There’s silence for a moment, and I imagine her standing in her kitchen, lips pursed, judging me. After all, she’s always been the perfect one; I’m the one whose life is a complicated mess. “Well,” she says finally, “it’s a good thing we didn’t buy a wedding dress.”
“Yeah,” I say tentatively, wondering if she’s about to launch into a criticism about my irresponsibility.
“Do you think you made the right decision?”
“I do. I really do.”
“Then I’m proud of you, Kate,” she says, and I’m so surprised I almost drop my phone.
“I thought you’d tell me I was being immature and shortsighted,” I admit.
“Well, are you?” she asks.
“No,” I say, bristling a little. “I think I’m finally taking responsibility for being happy.”
“Then you’re doing the right thing,” Susan says. “Are you okay?”
“Yeah. I think I am.”
“Good. Then come over this weekend and tell me all about it in person.”
As we hang up, I smile and shake my head. Her reaction wasn’t the one I expected, but it was the one I needed, and I’m grateful for it. A feeling of peace settles over me as I walk through the falling night.
Twenty-Six
I call Dan a few times over the weekend to attempt to apologize, to explain myself, but he doesn’t answer, nor does he return my calls. I’m afraid he hates me, and I can’t blame him. At times, I hate myself a little too. By Sunday night, I have to admit that I’m calling him for my own good, not his. I’m looking for absolution, forgiveness. And maybe that’s not something I deserve.
At lunchtime on Monday, after a restless, unsettled weekend during which the dreams don’t return, I text Gina and ask if she’s free tonight after work. I need to talk, I tell her. She texts back and asks if I want to meet her at Hammersmith’s.
“I broke up with Dan,” I tell her as I slide into the booth across from her.
“I know,” Gina says, looking at the table.
“Susan called?” I ask, both annoyed at my sister and grateful that I won’t have to break the news to anyone else. I have no doubt Susan’s already told our mother too.
“She made me promise I wouldn’t say anything to you until you reached out to me,” Gina says. “I’m sorry. I didn’t know whether I should call anyway. She thought you needed your space for a few days.”
“I guess I did.”
“So?” Gina leans across the table and takes my hands. “Are you okay? I mean, really okay?”
“You know what? I am.”
“Susan said the breakup was your idea?” Gina asks, and when I nod, she looks worried. “Do you think you did the right thing?”
“Yes,” I say immediately. “What do you think?”
She hesitates. “I think it depends why you did it. Did it have to do with . . . the dreams?”
I shrug. “The dreams—or whatever they were—opened my eyes. I think I was so grateful to finally fall in love again that I never stopped to think about the fact that it’s possible to feel something for someone without him being the one, you know? I think that being with Patrick again, even if it wasn’t real, made me remember how I felt when we were together. Safe. Accepted. Totally free to be myself. I didn’t feel that way with Dan. At all.”
“Oh, Kate,” Gina says sadly, but I see recognition in her eyes.
Oliver comes over and takes our drink order, returning a moment later with a gin and tonic for Gina and a Guinness for me. Gina takes a sip of her drink before saying softly, “I’m so sorry I never said anything.”
“What do you mean?”
She sighs. “I always liked Dan. But I used to look at the two of you together and think, ‘That’s not what love’s supposed to look like.’ Wayne always said I should stay out of it, because it was impossible to know what was going on inside your relationship. Now I wish I hadn’t.”
Her words make me feel even more certain that I did the right thing. “You know what? I think this was a realization I had to come to on my own.” I take a long sip of my Guinness and use my thumbs to absently wipe the condensation from the outside of the glass. “Do you think I’ll ever feel the way I felt for Patrick again?” I finally ask. “Or was that a once-in-a-lifetime kind of thing?”
When Gina doesn’t say anything for a moment, I add, “I think maybe that’s why I settled. I thought I’d had my chance at love.” My stomach twists.
Gina takes another sip of her drink. “Do you remember Donnie?”
It takes me a few seconds to realize why the name rings a bell. “The guy you dated right before Wayne? The one in the band? What were they called? Heavy Metal or something?”
She laughs. “Heavy Leather, I believe. Stupid name. But do you remember how into Donnie I was?”
“I can’t believe I forgot about him! You were so sure he was your dream guy.” Donnie had a tenth-grade education, greasy dyed black hair that hung to his shoulders, muscles the size of bowling balls, and only a mild proficiency on guitar, although he always used to brag that there were scores of record producers interested in him. “I thought you’d lost your mind,” I add with a laugh.
She makes a face at me. “In retrospect, he was about as far away from Bill as I could get,” she says. “It was entirely stupid—although in my defense, he was a really good kisser—but I think maybe I just had to get it out of my system. All I wanted to do was run away from all those thoughts of what could have been, because I knew that the life I’d planned died right along with Bill. I look back now and think that maybe Donnie was a necessary part of moving on. But it wasn’t the right time, and he wasn’t the right guy.”
“Understatement of the year,” I mutter.
She laughs. “Okay, tease me all you want. But here’s the thing: When I was desperate to move on, because I thought it was what I was supposed to be doing, I chose wrong. Then, when I wasn’t looking for it, Wayne came along. Now I’m happy—really happy. And in a way, I don’t think that would have happened if I hadn’t kind of burned through all the bad stuff with Donnie.”
The words hit home. “The bumps in the road have a funny way of turning into stepping-stones, don’t they?” I ask.
She smiles. “In the best cases.”
“Do you think it’ll happen for me someday? Finding someone who’s as right for me as Patrick was?”
“I think it could, but only if you let it,” she says carefully. “Only if you’re not in a rush.”
It’s good advice, and it makes me feel hopeful. “Well, cheers to Donnie,” I say, raising my glass. She makes a face, so I hurry to add, “For being a good kisser and a building block for a better future. Also for being a perfect example of why people should shampoo their hair at least every few days.”
Gina laughs, but when she raises her glass to mine, her expression is serious. “To a better future, Kate.”
Two days later, I skip sign language class, because I’m not ready to discuss my breakup with Andrew yet. Of course I’m probably deluding myself that it matters to him, but he seemed to sense that something was wrong last week at Allie’s. I’m afraid he’ll ask again, and aside from my sister and my closest friend, I’m not ready to discuss it with anyone yet.
So instead of going to class, I call Susan and Gina and ask if they feel like grabbing dinner, just the three of us. Both of them are way too eager to say yes, and as I meet them at the entrance to Swifty’s in Susan’s U
pper East Side neighborhood, I can see in their faces that they’re worried. I suspect they both believe I’ve been sitting at home feeling despondent, but the opposite is true; I’ve been spending my free time researching how to become a foster parent in New York State, and it’s making me feel hopeful. Now that Dan isn’t a factor anymore, I’m feeling more and more convinced that I’m ready for a child, and right now, fostering with a possibility of adoption seems like the best route. After all, I’m already involved with the foster system through my work at St. Anne’s. Beyond that, I’m harboring a hope in the back of my mind that if Allie’s mother doesn’t come through for her, I might have the chance to step up to the plate.
Gina and Susan seem determined to fill any potential silences with chatter, probably because they’re afraid of how I’ll react if they bring Dan up. I smile and nod along as Susan tells me about a drawing Calvin did in preschool that looked just like a juvenile version of the Mona Lisa, and I laugh in all the right places when Gina tells a story about Madison getting into a bag of chocolate chips in the pantry last night when her back was turned, but my mind is wandering by the time I’m on my second Guinness and Susan has launched into an explanation of why she’s fairly sure Sammie is a math prodigy.
I scan the restaurant while half paying attention to an anecdote about how Sammie helped Robert figure out the tip when they went out to brunch on Sunday. Susan has just dramatically concluded that Sammie is on the cusp of understanding long division when I see someone familiar across the room, on the other side of the bar. It’s Andrew. We lock eyes and he grins and begins to head over.
“Hey, Kate!” he says, interrupting Susan’s story as he arrives at our table. She and Gina look up, startled, then they both look at me. “Playing hooky, I see,” he adds.
He’s still smiling, and I can’t help but smile back as I reply, “Sorry I skipped class. I’ll be there for Riajah and Allie tomorrow night. I promise. I just needed some girl time. I should have called.”
“No, not at all,” he says. “I was just worried. But it looks like everything’s fine.”
Andrew smiles at the girls, and I realize I haven’t introduced them. “Sorry,” I say, “This is my sister, Susan, and my best friend, Gina.”
“Pleased to meet you, ladies,” he says, shaking their hands.
“And you are . . . ?” Susan asks, arching an eyebrow and looking pointedly from him to me.
I can feel myself blushing as I rush to say, “This is Andrew Henson. He teaches my sign language class. And he works with the kids at the foster agency I told you about.”
“Ohhhhhhh,” Susan and Gina say in unison, exchanging looks.
“So how was class tonight?” I ask, trying to make small talk.
“Oh, the usual. Amy flirting. Vivian trying to learn phrases about peace, love, and rock ’n’ roll. We missed you.” Then, before I can respond to that, he continues brightly, “So am I intruding on a girls’ night out? Are you talking wedding dresses and wedding vows and wedding . . . I don’t know, what is it you girls talk about when it comes to weddings?”
He grins, clearly joking around. Susan and Gina squirm uncomfortably and look at me.
I clear my throat. “Um, not exactly. The wedding’s off. Dan and I broke up.”
Andrew looks surprised, then embarrassed, and I realize in an instant that even after the talk we had, he didn’t believe I’d make the choice to end the relationship. I’m startled that this hurts my feelings. “Oh, Kate, I didn’t know,” he says right away. “I’m so sorry.”
“No worries. It’s been a week now. I’m okay.”
“But why didn’t you tell me?” he asks after a long pause, earning him an eyebrow raise from Susan. “I saw you Thursday.”
“I don’t know,” I mumble, feeling like an idiot.
An awkward silence descends.
“Well,” he says a moment later, “now that I’ve completely stuck my foot in my mouth, I’m going to go wash it down with a drink. And what do you know, my date just walked in. Only”—he checks his watch—“twenty-five minutes late.”
I look toward the door and see a tall, modelesque girl with honey-blond hair, a deep tan, and a form-fitting beige dress scanning the restaurant impatiently. I force a tight smile at Andrew. “Well, you don’t want to keep her waiting,” I say.
But he doesn’t make a move to go. “Kate, I’m really so sorry.”
“Thanks,” I say.
He nods, tells Susan and Gina that it was nice to meet them, and heads toward his date, who’s found herself a place at the bar. I watch him go for a minute, confused. Am I jealous of the girl at the bar? Is she his girlfriend? Is she the girl I heard in the background the night I called him about Allie?
Just before he reaches her, he turns and smiles at me, and our eyes lock for a beat. Then he turns back around, and the moment is over. I watch as he kisses the girl on the cheek, wraps his arm loosely around her waist, and disappears with her around the corner.
When I finally look back to Susan and Gina, they’re both looking at me with amused expressions.
“So that’s why you’re so into sign language,” Gina says knowingly.
“What? No!” I can feel my cheeks heating up.
“You know it’s okay to have a crush on someone,” Susan says. She glances in the direction Andrew disappeared and raises an eyebrow. “Especially someone that cute.”
“He’s not . . . I’m not . . .” I realize I’m stammering. “I swear that’s not why I’m taking the class,” I finally manage to say.
“But you admit he’s cute,” Susan prompts.
I hesitate before saying, “Well, I’m not blind.”
Gina and Susan laugh, and I can tell they’re relieved.
After dinner, Gina grabs a cab outside the restaurant, and Susan says she’ll walk me to the subway before hailing a cab to take her back uptown. She loops her arm through mine as we walk. “I just want to see you happy, sis,” she says.
I think about that for a minute, then I lean my head on her shoulder and smile.
“I’m getting there,” I tell her. And I really am.
Andrew calls me the next morning and leaves a voice mail while I’m working with a client. I call him back on my lunch break.
“You okay?” is the first thing he asks when he picks up.
“Yeah. Why wouldn’t I be?” I hear how defensive I sound, how standoffish. I don’t know if I’m annoyed at him for being concerned about me in general, or whether I’m annoyed that he found the time to be concerned while spending the evening with a supermodel. Either way, I know I’m being ridiculous.
“We just didn’t have much of a chance to talk last night,” he says.
“Did you have a good time on your date?” I can’t resist asking.
“What? Oh. Yes, it was fine.” He sounds flustered. “Look, I just wanted to make sure you’re doing okay. It must have been hard to break up with someone you were planning to marry.”
“Honestly, I probably should have made the decision to leave Dan a long time ago.”
“But it’s always easier to see that in retrospect, isn’t it?” he asks. “I mean, when you’re in it, sometimes it’s just easier to keep moving forward.”
“Even if it turns out you’ve been standing still,” I murmur.
“Exactly.” He clears his throat. “Well, anyway, I was actually calling to let you know that you don’t have to come in this afternoon. Riajah has a dentist appointment that Sheila forgot to tell me about until this morning, and Allie has after-school detention.”
“Detention? For what?”
“Apparently she and her best friend skipped school yesterday and got caught.”
“What?” I demand.
“Yeah, it was pretty dumb,” Andrew says, echoing my thoughts. “They didn’t do anything terrible—they just went to the cemetery where
her friend’s grandma is buried—but since they were caught, there were penalties.”
“Wow,” I say softly. “I can’t believe she’d do this after what she pulled a couple weeks ago.”
“Yeah, well, I think the incidents are connected, to be honest. She had a tough visit with her mom a couple days ago, and I think it screwed with Allie’s head a little.”
My heart sinks. “How did her mom have a visitation? I thought Allie saw her smoking meth.”
“Her mom tested clean. Allie must have been wrong about what she thought she saw.”
“Do you think she was smoking?”
He’s quiet for a minute. “I don’t think Allie would lie about it. But it was dark and Allie is prone to jumping to conclusions.” He pauses. “The bigger problem facing Allie right now is that Salma and Rodney have officially given their notice.”
“What?”
“Allie doesn’t know yet. But this skipping school thing was the final straw, apparently. To be honest with you, I think they’ve been wanting to get out of this since they found out Salma was pregnant. I’m surprised they didn’t dump her after her little incident last week.”
“Oh, Andrew.” I don’t know what to say. Just when Allie is learning that not everyone in her life will let her down, two of the people who are supposed to be the most stable are about to do exactly that. It breaks my heart for her. “How much time does she have left in their home?”
“Eight weeks tops. That’s what Salma said when she called earlier. She kept saying she was terribly sorry, but they just couldn’t justify keeping her once Salma’s through her second trimester.” Andrew sounds pissed.
“Are you going to tell Allie?” I ask.
“Not yet.” In the deep breath he takes, I can hear the pain he’s feeling for her. “I want to see what her options are first. Eight weeks from now is about the time her mother should regain custody if she keeps all her visitation appointments and the social worker assigned to the case signs off on a reunification, assuming her drug tests are all clean. But if that doesn’t happen, I’m going to have to find another home for her, and I may not be able to right away. She might have to go into a group facility for a while.”
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