Apart at the Seams

by Marie Bostwick

  “Kieran, how old are you?”

  He reached for his coffee and tossed back a big swig. “Twenty-six.” I arched my eyebrows. “Try again.”

  “Okay, fine. Twenty-one. Almost. I will be. In January. But hey,” he said eagerly, “I’ve got no problem dating a cougar. I mean, look at Madonna. She’s still totally hot! You’re, like, thirty, right? You look really, really good for your age.”

  “Gee. Thanks.”

  “So?” he said, leaning forward. “What do you say? Can I have your number?”

  “Maybe you should try Mandy instead.”

  At that moment, Mandy stepped up onto a chair and blew her whistle. Kieran turned around to check out our mistress of ceremonies.

  “Good idea!” he exclaimed and jumped up, disappearing into the scrum of moving men.

  “Good luck,” I muttered and ripped open another packet of sugar just as a tall man with white hair and incredibly white teeth—as in too white to be real—who was wearing—I kid you not—an ascot and a sailing cap, the kind sea captains wear, sat down and thrust out his hand.

  “Byron Smythe-Jones,” he said, flashing his dentures. “Yachtsman.”

  “Ivy Peterman,” I replied. “Human.”

  He threw back his head so far that I could see the hair in his nostrils—there was a lot of it—and laughed so loudly that couples at the other tables turned to look at us.

  “Ha-ha-ha-ha! A woman with a sense of humor! I like that! Makes life so much more interesting, doesn’t it? Helps you keep your head during emergencies too. For instance, when I was sailing in the America’s Cup last year, I faced a rather sticky situation that—”

  “Byron,” I said, cutting to the chase, “how old are you?”

  “Forty-five,” he said stoutly.

  I arched my brows.

  “Well,” he said, chuckling, “does it really matter? Age is just a state of mind, isn’t it? Especially these days with all the . . . um . . . pharmaceutical enhancements that are out there. My last girlfriend was twenty-two, and she had no complaints about my performance, I promise you.

  “And,” he continued in a husky voice, leaning toward me, “there’s something to be said for experience and maturity, don’t you think? I’m sure I could . . . um . . . show you a few things, eh? You look like a girl who’d be eager to learn.”

  He winked slyly, and I felt my stomach lurch.

  “How old are you anyway?” he asked. “About thirty? That’s all right. I don’t mind a woman who’s a little past her prime. You look quite good for your age.”

  After I’d endured a detailed explanation of the differences between the various “pharmaceutical enhancements,” information I could have happily lived without for the rest of my life, Mandy blew the whistle.

  I could have kissed her on the lips.

  As I poured a third packet of sugar into my latte, I gave myself a little pep talk, told myself to calm down and stay put, that I had just been having a run of bad luck and that my other dates couldn’t possibly be as bad as the first two. But I didn’t really believe me.

  And in all fairness, Trace, a man about my age who worked as an assistant manager of a movie theater but was studying for his certification as a personal trainer, seemed nice enough and not nearly as hopeless as the other two. It was just that I wasn’t at all interested in the difference between whey and hemp protein powders or why body mass index was a more reliable indicator of overall fitness than a number on a scale. However, he did give me some tips about isometric exercises that would help banish my “flabby abs.”

  “What are you—about thirty?” he asked, and then shook his head sorrowfully. “You’re really too young to let yourself go like this, Ivy.”

  When the whistle blew for the third time, I grabbed my purse from the back of my chair and started for the door. I’d had all I could take for one night. But Mandy, who was circulating through the room, saw me, grabbed my arm, and propelled me back toward the table.

  “Hey! Twenty-three,” she chirped, glancing at the numbered sticker on my blouse, “we’ve just got two more rounds to go, twelve minutes. Why don’t you wait until we’re through before you head to the ladies’ room, okay?”

  “I’m not going to the ladies’ room,” I said. “I’m going home. This just isn’t working out for me.”

  Mandy puckered her lips and made a “poor baby” face. “Oh, come on, now. Don’t run off so soon, okay? It’ll throw off the whole system if you go. I’ll have two guys wandering around and nobody to match them with.

  “Okay,” she said, shrugging her shoulders, “maybe you haven’t run into the man of your dreams yet; I get it. But it’s early, okay? What if the very next date turned out to be your soul mate? But you missed meeting him because you gave up too soon and left early? Talk about tragic! So you just sit back down and hang in there for the next twelve minutes, okay? Remember, a girl has to kiss a lot of frogs before she meets her Prince Charming.”

  “Mandy. This room has nothing but frogs. There’s not a prince in the bunch, not my prince or anyone else’s. It’s completely hopeless, so I’m going home now. Okay?”

  I pulled my arm from her grasp. She opened her mouth to argue with me but was interrupted.

  “Excuse me. I got here a little late, missed the first three rounds, but the guy at the desk said I could still get in on the final two. Is one of you number twenty-three?”

  I turned around and looked up at the handsome face of a tall, tanned man with brown eyes and black hair.

  “Ivy?”

  “Dan?”

  “I can’t believe it’s you,” I said for the third time, shaking my head. “Seriously. You’re the absolutely last person I would have expected to see here. Why would you need to come to something like this?”

  “I could ask you the same thing,” he said.

  “Well, New Bern is such a small town, and almost everybody who lives there is married. It’s hard to meet people. And to tell you the truth, I really wasn’t sure if I was ready to date yet. My ex-husband was . . .”

  I paused, realizing I didn’t have to explain my situation to Dan. The story of how Hodge, as owner of a nursing home, had cheated the government out of close to three million dollars in fraudulent Medicare claims had been front-page news in New Bern. Everybody in town knew about that, as well as his “alleged” history of domestic abuse, hinted at rather than declared because I hadn’t pressed charges, figuring that the fraud conviction would be enough to keep him in prison for many years to come. Dan knew all that and more about me because, once he’d offered to take Bobby bowling, I’d had to tell him about Hodge’s upcoming release. Not all the gory details, just the basics, so he’d understand what Bobby was dealing with and why he’d made up that story about Hodge being stationed on an aircraft carrier.

  “I haven’t had very good luck with relationships,” I said. “And honestly, I never thought I’d want to try again. But after a while . . .”

  “A person gets lonely,” Dan said, finishing the thought for me. “I know what you mean. I met Lila, Drew’s mom, in high school. She grew up on Cape Cod, but her family moved to New Bern in the middle of her junior year. It was love at first sight, at least for me. I skipped going to college just so I wouldn’t have to leave her behind in New Bern.

  “Not that I was all that set on going to school. Lucky for me, it turns out I like landscaping, but the only reason I got into it was because it paid enough so Lila and I could afford to get married right away. We did, four weeks after graduation. Drew was born a week before our first anniversary.”

  “That was quick. You sound like me. I was only eighteen when I had Bethany.”

  Dan nodded. “Some would say too quick, but I’m not sorry we had him. Drew’s the best thing that ever happened to me. Lila was a different matter. When Drew was six, I found out she was having an affair with my best friend. You know, even after that, I actually wanted to try to work things out, but she left anyway. Just as well. Turned out she’d been
sleeping with a string of guys. I had no idea,” he said, lifting the paper cup of coffee to his lips. “Maybe I just didn’t want to know. I was crazy about her, but she was just too young, I guess.

  “Anyway,” he said, “a thing like that will make you a little gun-shy . . .”

  “Makes you doubt your ability to judge people,” I said.

  “Exactly. Having fallen so hard the first time, being so certain you’ve met the one, how can you be sure you won’t make the same mistake again?”

  “You can’t,” I said. “That’s why I decided to stay away from men. But lately I’ve felt so alone. All my friends are married, and they seem so happy. They don’t have as much time to spend with me now, not the way they used to. So I just thought that I might give this a try, you know? Test the waters a little bit and see what was out there. And since it was in New Haven and I wouldn’t be meeting anyone I already knew, I figured—what the heck? If I ended up making a fool of myself, nobody would have to know about it.”

  Dan chuckled and nodded as he ripped the top off a packet of sugar and poured it into his coffee. “That’s what I was thinking too.

  “Want some?” he asked, holding out the sugar caddy.

  I shook my head and held my hand over the top of my cup. “I’m good.”

  “Actually,” he said, looking at me over the rim of his cup, “when I decided it might be time to try dating again, my first thought was to ask you out. That’s why I came out to the driveway and started flirting with you that day when you came to pick up Drew—because I was hoping you might be interested.”

  “Wait. You were flirting with me?” I laughed. “I guess I must be out of practice on picking up the signals.”

  “Either that, or I’m out of practice sending them. I was trying as hard as I could to get your attention, but”—he spread out his hands—“no dice. I went back inside, licked my wounds for a week or so, and then decided to give this a shot.”

  I looked down into the beige pond of my latte, the foam down to just a few bubbles around the edges of the cup. He’d been flirting with me that day? Trying his hardest to get my attention? So hard that he would be willing to use my kids as a means of getting close to me?

  It had been one thing to be gullible and a terrible judge of character when I was the only one who could get hurt, but now I had kids. I didn’t want to be suspicious of everyone I met, and Dan seemed like a good-hearted guy, but still, I had to be careful.

  “Even though you weren’t interested in me, I’m glad I went outside to talk with you,” he continued. “Bobby’s a great kid.”

  “You know, you don’t have to take him bowling again . . .” I stopped myself, thinking how rude that sounded. “I mean, not if you don’t want to. I’m sure you’ve got better things to do with your time.”

  “Not really. Drew is so busy with school and work and girls these days that I practically have to make an appointment to see him. Seems like yesterday that he was Bobby’s age. I miss having a little guy around. Seriously, I don’t mind.” He smiled. “I’m having as much fun as Bobby is.”

  I studied his expression, trying to figure out if he was sincere or just trying to win me over by complimenting my son, but there were no telltale signs, no shifting of the eyes or twitching of the lips. He looked like he always did, honest and open and really, really cute, even more than he had before.

  “Can I ask you something? Does Bobby talk about his dad when he’s out with you?”

  Dan nodded. “Uh-huh. He’s pretty excited to see him, says his dad is going to bring him a macaw from China.”

  “A macaw? One of those big parrots?” I closed my eyes for a moment and groaned in frustration. “Where does he get these ideas? I explained to him that Hodge has been in prison, not the navy. Why does he keep making up these stories?”

  “Well,” Dan said, wrapping his hands around his cup, “if I were Bobby’s age and I had to choose between believing my father was a felon or believing he was a sailor, I’d pick sailor. It can’t be easy for him.”

  “No,” I murmured. “You’re right. I just wish I knew how much to tell him about his dad. I don’t want to sugarcoat it, but at the same time, I don’t want to go into any more of the sordid details than I have to.”

  Dan was quiet for a moment and then took a sip of his coffee. “Are you asking my advice?”

  I nodded. I guess I was.

  “Keep on doing what you’ve been doing. Tell him the truth about his dad but not any more than he needs to know. Keep Bobby safe, but give him a chance to get to know his father again. Who knows? Maybe five years in prison really has reformed your ex. Maybe he’s changed his ways and truly is ready to be a good father. If so—great. If not, he’ll reveal his true nature soon enough. Bobby will pick up on it. He’s a smart boy, and sooner or later, people always show you who they really are. You just have to watch and wait.”

  Easier said than done, especially if you’re the one doing the watching, but I knew good advice when I heard it. I was about to tell Dan exactly that when Mandy appeared out of nowhere and blew her whistle.

  “Okay! Last round!”

  Dan smiled and shifted in his chair, but without thinking, I reached out and grabbed his hand. “Don’t go,” I said.

  “Okay,” he replied, looking pleased but surprised.

  Mandy was surprised, too, but looked far from pleased as she approached our table.

  “I’m sorry, sixty-two,” she said, forcing a smile, “but you’ll have to get up now and go to your next date, okay? There are lots of interesting people to meet tonight. I’d hate for you to miss out.”

  Dan glanced up at her and then at me. “Thanks, but I’ve already met the most interesting person in the room. Think I’ll just stay where I am.”

  “Ha-ha,” Mandy laughed nervously. “Well, I’m glad you met someone you’re interested in, but really, you have to move on now. Those are the rules. I’m sure number twenty-three’s next date will be here any second.”

  Sure enough, just at that moment, my fifth and final date of the evening did show up.

  “Hello. I am Sergei,” he said, grinning widely. “I date you.”

  I grabbed his outstretched hand and said, “Oh, Sergei. It’s nice to meet you, but I was wondering if you’d mind dating someone else for this last round. You see, Dan and I would like to talk a little more . . .”

  His grin faded a bit. “Hello. I am Sergei. I date you,” he repeated, and then started jabbering in another language, probably Russian, but I honestly couldn’t be sure.

  Dan got up from the table. “Maybe we should go somewhere else to finish our conversation. Can I take you out for coffee? There’s a diner a couple of blocks from here.”

  “Can we make it a milk shake instead? Coffee keeps me up at night.”

  “Okay,” Dan said, and helped me to my feet.

  “No!” Mandy shouted. “Not okay! I explained to everyone at the start of the evening that you had to move on to your next date when the whistle blew, that you had to go through all the numbers on your list. No lingering! Those are the rules!”

  Dan held out my jacket while I slipped my arms through the sleeves. “Uh-huh. Well, I got here late, so I never heard about that part. And I’ve never been much of a rule follower anyway. Good night, Mandy. Thanks for a great evening.

  “Sergei,” he said, handing a piece of yellow paper over to the other man, who was glaring at Mandy and babbling away in Russian, “take my list. Who knows? Fourteen might turn out to be your lucky number.”

  20

  Gayla

  I still had my doubts about this whole dating thing and about putting off any decisions about divorce until the end of the summer, but that’s what I’d agreed to, so I decided that if I was going to do it, I might as well do it right.

  On Saturday morning I went to Kaplan’s boutique in search of a dress. Almost every dress I own—all of which were still sitting in my closet in the city—is black, but when I spotted a turquoise and green chec
ked shirt dress on the rack, I decided to try it on. Very Connecticut, I thought. If only it had come with pearls and a matching cardigan, I’d really look the part. It was definitely a departure from my usual, but it looked good on me, so I bought it.

  Brian liked it. That’s what he said when I opened the door that evening. Brian looked very nice, too, dressed in the Irish linen sports coat he knows I like and a blue button-down with an open collar. He smiled in response to my compliment and then, after a momentary pause, said we should probably get going.

  The drive from the cottage to the restaurant was awkward. We were both on our best behavior. Brian even jumped out of the car when we parked and ran around the other side to open my door for me. It really did feel like we were on a date, a first date. Except that on our real first date, we’d had no trouble talking to each other. We’d been fascinated with each other, firing question after question, responding without the least attempt to filter our answers, eager to learn absolutely everything possible about each other, feeling no hesitancy about sharing our most carefully guarded hopes and most outlandish dreams.

  Now, of course, we knew how the story turned out. We knew that desire, however deeply held, isn’t always enough. That hopes are often dashed. And that life is hard. We knew about disappointment and apathy, broken promises and failures. But we didn’t talk about that because it was a date and we were being polite. So very polite. So very well behaved.

  Anyway, what was the point of going over old ground? Or, as I started to think by the time the salad arrived, of talking at all. We already knew everything about each other. What more was there to say?

  But Brian had an idea—actually, more of an agenda.

  “Listen, Gayla. I was reading this book about . . . Well, about how to save a marriage in crisis, and I came across something I think we might want to try. It sounds a bit . . . um, touchy-feely,” he said, pushing his fingers into his hair. “The sort of thing my father would utterly have disapproved of, so naturally, I thought it well worth a try.”