Wanderlust

by Thea Dawson

  “Who was that?” I heard the woman ask Monica as she sat down.

  Monica’s reply made its way to me across the coffee shop as I pushed open the door and stepped back into the bitter wind.

  “No one. Just an old friend from college.”

  Chapter 2

  Monica

  I was still reeling from the surprise of seeing Jason when Sarah sat down.

  As always, she was beautifully dressed and precisely on time. Sarah was one of my favorite clients, one of the few I’d been able to meet in person, and one of my business’s most enthusiastic supporters. She had had a successful psychiatry practice for almost twenty years, but over the past eighteen months, she’d lost her mother to stroke and her husband to cancer, her only daughter had left for college, and she had turned forty-nine. Now she was determined to spend her fiftieth birthday abroad. “I can sit here and become and old lady, or I can do something I’ve always wanted to do,” she told me the first time I’d met, her shortly before Christmas. “It’s not a hard choice.”

  Most of my clients go abroad for a couple of weeks, maybe a month at most. Sarah was going to travel around Latin America for six months. I’d booked her flight and most of her hotels, planned an itinerary, prepped her on what to expect, and even helped her rent out her large, lonely house in Evanston. She was hungry for a change, for sunshine and warmth. For life.

  “Pretty good looking for a nobody,” Sarah replied, unbuttoning her fitted shearling jacket as she craned her long neck to get a last glimpse of Jason as he passed the window on his way down the street.

  “Hmm,” I said, because I didn’t really know what else to say. He was very handsome—better looking than I’d remembered him being, in fact—but for some reason I didn’t want to admit it. I pulled out my laptop and opened it.

  “Oh, my God, look at that ring! It’s gorgeous!” Sarah exclaimed, seizing my left hand for a closer look.

  I glanced down at my hand again and rolled my eyes. I should have known the ring would get attention.

  “You weren’t wearing this when I saw you before Christmas.” Sarah smiled at me, questions in her eyes.

  “It’s not what it looks like,” I said sheepishly. “It was my grandmother’s. I kept it in a safe deposit box in St. Paul while I was traveling, and picked it up when I went to visit my parents. It just happens that this is the only finger it fits on. I’m taking it to the jeweler later today to get it resized. I figured it was safer if I wore it.”

  “You’re not going to take it with you when you go back to Thailand, are you?”

  I shook my head. “No, I’m going to go back to see my parents again before I leave. I’ll leave it there again. I probably should have just had it resized in Minneapolis, but it’s been in a box since my grandmother died five years ago, and it seems a shame not to wear it a bit.”

  “Oh, don’t resize it! Keep it for when you get engaged. Then your fiancé can buy you something useful instead.” She assessed the ring. “I’d say that was worth a small car.”

  I laughed. Although she’d been widowed for almost a year, Sarah still wore her own engagement ring; from the look of it, she hadn’t objected to a small car’s worth herself. “Speaking of, don’t forget to leave your own here before you head off to Argentina,” I reminded her.

  She smiled sadly and looked at her ring, a classic princess-cut diamond surrounded by smaller diamonds in a platinum setting. “I haven’t taken this off in twenty-five years,” she sighed. “It’s funny. We have all these ceremonies and traditions for putting rings on, but there’s nothing for taking them off. But really, that’s just as big a step. Letting go.”

  I wasn’t sure what to say. I couldn’t imagine losing someone after being married for as long as Sarah and her husband had, and her words stirred up a sadness in me that I hadn’t felt for a very long time.

  Letting go …

  I was saved from having to come up with a reply by the barista, who dropped a pair of men’s leather gloves on our table and she passed by.

  “Your friend left these,” she said.

  “Oh, I don’t—he’s not—” I began, but she’d already walked away. I looked at the gloves for a moment, then stuffed them into my bag with an exasperated sigh.

  I caught Sarah looking at me with a faint, curious smile, and felt the urge to change the subject. “Did you get my last email about the hotel reservations in Montevideo and Sao Paolo?” I asked.

  We went over some of the blanks in her itinerary. Her plan was to work her way up through Argentina into Uruguay and Paraguay, then into Brazil, through Bolivia, and into Peru and Ecuador. Fortunately, she was fluent in Spanish, having lived in Madrid for a couple of years in her twenties. Most of my clients were nervous about the discomforts and dangers of traveling, but Sarah was clearly excited about pushing herself beyond her comfort zone and trying new things.

  She wanted to see and do everything, but as we wound up our meeting that day, I tried to convince her to leave room for some down time. “Wait until you see the beaches in Brazil, or some of the mountain towns in Bolivia,” I said. “Seriously, you’ll want to just stay in some of these places forever. Leave some leeway to just chill out for a while. You’ve got plenty of time.”

  “I thought I’d grow old with my husband,” she answered drily. “I don’t take time for granted anymore.”

  Again, I felt that vague sense of unease. It had never worried me before, but I suddenly felt as if time might be running out for me, too. But that was nonsense. Sure, I was only going to be in Chicago for a few more weeks, but there wasn’t anything important that I needed to do there. Really, I was just killing time while I waited for my new passport and my next assignment, and took a break in a first-world, English-speaking country. Practically a vacation, by my standards.

  “And what about you?” Sarah interrupted my thoughts, as if she could read them. “When do you head off to Thailand?”

  “February 14th,” I answered with a smile. “I have a contract with a publisher that’s putting out a series of travel books. I’m supposed to write some chapters on Southeast Asia.”

  “How exciting for you!” Sarah leaned back in her chair. “It sounds like you have such a glamorous, adventurous life!”

  I laughed. “Well, adventurous sometimes. Not usually all that glamorous.” I’d had my share of travel disasters, ranging from horrible hotel rooms to lost luggage to tropical illnesses. But I’d survived all of them, and now they made for good stories. And I’d had my share of amazing experiences that more than made up for the bad stuff.

  There was a brief silence before Sarah glanced out the window in the direction Jason had gone. She abruptly changed the subject. “Are you sure he was just an old friend?”

  I felt my face heat up. “Why?” I asked, trying to sound nonchalant.

  “I saw the way you looked at him. I mean, he’s good looking, but there’s more to it than that. Isn’t there?”

  I concentrated at my laptop screen and tried not to roll my eyes. Sarah was very perceptive. It was her job, after all. I shrugged. “We dated in college. First real boyfriend. You know.”

  “First heartbreak.” She nodded knowingly.

  I nodded back.

  Sarah continued to look at me silently, waiting for me to say something more. I shifted uncomfortably. I felt like one of her patients.

  “And that’s it, really.” I shut the laptop with a snap. “Haven’t seen him in seven years, ran into him by accident, talked for about two minutes, and then he left.”

  “But not before he asked for your number?”

  “He was just being polite. He’ll never call. He thinks I’m engaged to someone else.”

  “Ah, the ring. You let him think that?”

  “I didn’t really have a chance to explain.” Much to my chagrin, I couldn’t disguise the regret in my voice.

  Sarah raised her eyebrows. “And you wish you had.”

  I gave in. “Maybe kinda. I don’t know. I doubt he�
�ll call, and I don’t know how to get in touch with him.”

  “Nice try,” she snorted. “I bet you could find him in thirty seconds on the internet if you wanted to.”

  “But I’m not sure I want to.”

  “But you took the gloves,” said Sarah. “And now you’re like Price Charming with the slipper. Maybe it’s destiny. But even if it isn’t, you can’t let the poor boy go without gloves in this weather.”

  She stood to put on her coat. “I’d love to stay and talk you into a little cyber-stalking, but our time is just about up, and I have another appointment. I’ll look over the notes you sent, and I’ll call you if I have any questions.” She pulled on her own dark brown lambskin gloves that probably cost as much as my coat. “And the way you looked at him?” She admired her hands for a moment. “He looked at you the same way.”

  She smiled warmly and winked before turning away.

  I opened my browser again, determined to get some more work done, but I found myself staring blankly at the screen.

  Okay, I thought, I’ll indulge this just a little bit more, and then get back to work.

  I logged into Facebook and looked up Jason Moretti. Sure enough, as Sarah had said, it took only about thirty seconds to find him. But his account was set so that only friends could see any information beyond his profile picture and the fact that he lived in Chicago. I let the cursor hover over the friend request button for a few seconds, but something held me back. I logged out without hitting it.

  Not content to leave well enough alone, I Googled him. Some wrong Jason Morettis, a LinkedIn page for the right one, some random photos, a press release that a Jason Moretti (the right one, I thought) had written about a winery in California, and what looked like an article in a local paper in Sacramento.

  My heart sank.

  Mr. and Mrs. Clark J. Lynch of Sacramento, California, announce the engagement of their daughter, Meghan Annette, to Jason Moretti, son of Jacquetta Kroft and Antonio Moretti of Massapequa, New York. Ms. Lynch, a graduate of Vassar College, is a data analyst in San Francisco. Mr. Moretti graduated cum laude from McKean University and is a sales consultant, also in San Francisco. A date for the wedding has not yet been set.

  There was a picture of him with a pretty strawberry-blond woman, both smiling cheerfully. It was dated March of last year.

  So much for destiny. This was more like fate’s idea of a practical joke.

  Chapter 3

  Jason

  I realized as soon as I left the coffee shop that I didn’t have my gloves, but I couldn’t make myself go back inside. I was still reeling from seeing her. From finding out that she was engaged. And from her last words.

  No one. Just an old friend from college.

  I clutched the coffee cup for warmth, and hurried to my office as quickly as I could. Even so, my hands were numb by the time I got there. I hadn’t even taken my coat off when Sam stuck his head into my office.

  “Where the hell have you been? You know they’re looking for someone to ax around here.”

  “And it may as well be me,” I answered with more cockiness than I really felt.

  “Well, unlike you, I have kids to support, so try not to drag me down with you, okay? Do you have the updated presentation for the Smith Mayberry account? Joe’s having a fit.”

  “I emailed it to him yesterday.”

  “You emailed him last week’s presentation without the updates. For Chrissakes, Jason, get it together.”

  I sighed and got to work. As soon as I’d sent the correct version of the presentation, I texted Chip. One of the few silver linings about moving to Chicago was that I’d been able to catch up again with Chip, who lived in Lake Forest and worked downtown. When I’d moved here last spring, he’d done a great job of showing me around and introducing me to people, and I’d hung out with him and his wife several times. He’d been a real friend during the Meghan meltdown. But he worked even crazier hours than I did, and his wife had had a baby just before Thanksgiving, so although we kept in touch, we rarely saw each other.

  Jason: You free for lunch? You’re not going to believe who I just ran into.

  A few minutes later, he texted back.

  Chip: Pretty busy. Who?

  Jason: Monica.

  Chip: 1pm cafeteria in my building.

  I grinned ruefully. If anyone would get this, it would be Chip.

  The morning didn’t improve much after that, but at least it kept me busy enough that I hardly had a chance to think about Monica. At lunch, I braved the cold again. Unfortunately, the coffee shop was in the opposite direction from Chip’s building, so I didn’t have time to check on my gloves.

  Chip was waiting for me in the cafeteria, looking concerned. We grabbed some food and sat down.

  “So what’s the story?”

  “I ran into her in a coffee shop this morning. I was late for work and she was meeting someone, so we didn’t really have a chance to talk, but she …” I shrugged, “you know, looked great.”

  Chip nodded but didn’t say anything, clearly waiting for me to continue.

  “She’s engaged,” I added.

  He sat back as if he’d been waiting for it. “Ahh. And how’re you doing with that?”

  I hesitated a moment, but I could tell that Chip caught it. “It was great to see her. She looks like she’s doing really well.”

  “Bullshit. You were obsessed with this girl in college, and now you run into her just a few months after you and your fiancée break up, and she’s engaged. How are you doing with that?”

  I poked at some mac and cheese with my fork. “Fine. I guess. I don’t know. I was so excited to see her for the first minute or so. It was like … don’t laugh, but it felt like my luck was changing.” I glanced at him. Chip wouldn’t laugh, of course. He never pulled punches, but he never made fun of anyone either, even when we were in college. “And then when I saw that ring … it was like fate was giving me the middle finger.”

  There was a long silence. Finally he said, “You look like you’ve put on a couple of pounds since I last saw you.”

  “I—maybe,” I answered, taken aback. Chip dished out tough love, but he didn’t usually pick on people’s appearances. He was right though: I still worked out a lot, but too much beer and take-out were catching up with me.

  “Nothing, I mean nothing, about this situation is healthy,” he said.

  “There is no situation.” I could hear the defensiveness in my voice. “I saw her for literally less than five minutes.”

  He waved his hand dismissively. “I don’t mean Monica. I mean being here, in a job you hate, in a place you hate. And look at that crap on your plate.” Chip was a health and fitness nut, but he didn’t usually call me out on my eating habits. Then again, they’d definitely started to slip. “How’s the consulting business coming along?” he asked.

  My long-term goal was to strike out on my own as a freelance marketing consultant. I sighed. “Couple small copywriting gigs, sent a few proposals out. Classic Catch-22, stuck in my job because I don’t have any income from consulting, but I can’t starting earning money from my business because my job eats up all my time.”

  “Classic wantrepreneur, you mean. What are you really hanging on for? To prove it was worth losing Meghan over?”

  I flinched. “No, I told you, I’m trying to save up enough money so I can quit.”

  “How much money have you saved?”

  I hesitated, not sure if Chip would be impressed or dismayed at my answer. “About ten thousand dollars,” I muttered.

  “And how long could you live on that?”

  “I dunno, it depends.”

  “See? You haven’t even thought about how much you actually need. Single guy, no kids, no loans. Even in Chicago, I bet you could go maybe three months if you were careful. Really pinch your pennies, I bet you could last longer. Get some crappy job at Starbucks or temp a couple days a week, and you’d have all the time you could need. Call your dad and tell him you’l
l take that—what did he need you to do again?”

  “He needs a property manager to look after a couple of his buildings back on Long Island.”

  Chip nodded. “And you’d have a free place to stay, right?” He threw his hands up in exasperation. “The type of work you want to do, you can do anywhere. So go to Long Island, help your dad out, consult on the side without starving to death, and get a fresh start. Stay here, keep working for Duncan & Bourne, you’re just going to end up that fat, middle-aged, single guy who drinks too much and watches internet porn all the time.”

  “Well, thanks for that enlightening look at my future, but I still don’t want to move back to Long Island.”

  Chip rolled his eyes.

  “No,” I protested, “it’s like moving home with your parents. I should be able to do this on my own.”

  “Then do it. Do something. Stay here and get the crappy job at Starbucks, whatever. But, buddy, you need to move on this. Fish or cut bait.”

  I chuckled, partly to mask the uncomfortable feelings he was bringing to the surface with his tirade. “In college, you would have said it differently.”

  He relaxed visibly and smiled sheepishly. “I got a kid now, I have to watch my language.” He sighed and took a long sip of water. “Reminds me, I have a lead for you. I’ll email you the details later.” He sighed. “Look, I’m sorry if I went off on you a bit too much, man. But when you said you’d run into Monica again, on top of everything else …”

  “What?”

  He shook his head. “I can tell you’re just going to fall for her all over again. And it’s not going to go anywhere—it can’t go anywhere this time—and it’s just going to be one more thing that’s going to keep you stuck.” He shook his head again. “Don’t contact her. Just … don’t get involved in this.”

  “It’s not like I was going to try and break up her engagement or anything. Seriously, it was less than five minutes.”