“So, I guess she did want to rekindle.”
“We both did.” I’ll never tell Nate or Annika how close I came to shutting the door on giving us a second chance. It doesn’t matter now.
Sherry and Annika come back from the bathroom. Sherry takes a big drink of her wine and Annika mimics her, choking slightly.
“This wine is amazing and just what I needed after the day I had,” Sherry says.
“Me too,” Annika says with a sigh.
“This is my favorite Chardonnay, but sometimes I prefer a nice crisp sauvignon blanc. Then there are those times when nothing but a giant glass of Cabernet will do,” Sherry says. “What about you? Do you have any favorites?”
“It really doesn’t matter to me. I drank wine coolers in college, but no one orders those anymore.”
I pause with my own drink halfway to my lips as I wait for Sherry’s response.
“Yes! Oh, that brings back memories. I loved the watermelon ones.”
“I liked cherry. They turned my lips red,” Annika says.
“But they’re so sweet. I could never drink one now.”
“Oh, me neither,” Annika says a beat or two later, shuddering like she can’t imagine such a thing.
She is so adorable right now. Also, I’m pretty sure she would drink a cherry wine cooler right this minute if I set one down in front of her.
She and Sherry finish their wine and when the waitress asks if they’d like another, they both say yes.
“So, you must like books if you work at a library,” Sherry says.
“I like books more than I like most people,” Annika says.
Nate and Sherry stifle a polite laugh, but there’s nothing patronizing about their reaction. It really is nice to be with a woman who genuinely owns her choices. There were times when Liz’s behavior was as chameleon in nature as Annika’s, but in my ex-wife’s case, it was less about fitting in and more about manipulating her business opponent. It’s not fair of me to excuse one while vilifying the other, but I do it anyway.
Our dinner proceeds uneventfully. When we’re done eating, no one takes the waitress up on her offer of dessert, so Nate orders a third round of drinks for the table instead. Annika isn’t even done with her second. Her cheeks are flushed and she’s leaning back in her chair instead of the usual stiff posture she displays in social situations. Nate, Sherry, and I probably have what could be described as a solid buzz, but Annika’s size and low tolerance for alcohol has put her much closer to the intoxicated end of the spectrum. It’s the most I’ve seen her drink, ever, and when she finishes off the second glass she looks warily at the third.
“It’s okay if you don’t want to drink that,” I say to Annika, pointing at her glass.
“I don’t.” The blunt way she says it reminds me that I shouldn’t automatically assume she needs me to come to her rescue.
She may not have wanted any more wine, but what she’s already consumed is still working its way through her bloodstream. I ask Sherry some questions about her work, and she mentions a grant she’s hoping to gain approval for. “But I’m having trouble convincing my boss.”
“Never allow a person to tell you no who doesn’t have the power to say yes,” Annika says. In theory, yes, but in this case I’m pretty sure Sherry’s boss has the power to say both.
“What’s that?” Sherry says. She sounds hesitant, as if she’s not sure where this is going.
“It’s a quote from Eleanor Roosevelt,” Annika says. “Are you familiar with them?”
“I know a few,” Sherry says.
“My best friend bought me a book of them. ‘Do one thing every day that scares you’ is what got me through my twenties. ‘Do what you feel in your heart to be right—for you’ll be criticized anyway.’”
She had been doing so well, and it might have gone unnoticed if she’d only shared one or two of the quotes. But once Annika gets started on a topic that interests her, it’s hard for her to stop. She shares quote after quote, her cheeks pink from the wine and her enthusiasm about the subject matter. Annika talks with her hands, and her movements are becoming more pronounced by the second. Sherry and Nate are every bit as polite as they have been throughout dinner, but then Annika stops talking abruptly and the color on her cheeks deepens from excited to self-conscious as she realizes she’s let down her guard and gone totally off script.
No one knows what to say, including me.
While I’m still trying to decide the best way to handle this, Sherry leans toward Annika and squeezes her hand. “It’s okay, I’ve got a nephew who’s a lot like you.”
For possibly the first time in our lives, Annika and I share the exact same shocked expression. Hers soon gives way to mortifying embarrassment, and she gets up from the table and rushes from the dining room.
“I’m so sorry,” Sherry says. “Maybe I shouldn’t have had that last glass either. I wasn’t thinking.”
“It’s okay. It’s just not something she talks much about.”
Not even to me.
“Let me know what I owe for the bill,” I say to Nate. “I’ll settle up with you tomorrow. It was nice meeting you, Sherry.”
I push my chair back, grab Annika’s purse, and take off after her.
She’s standing outside on the sidewalk, pacing and bouncing. I don’t try to still her. I want to comfort her and wipe away the tears that are rolling down her face, but instead I hail a cab and when it pulls up to the curb, I hustle us inside it and give the driver her address.
28
Jonathan
CHICAGO
AUGUST 2001
By the time the cab pulls up in front of her building, her tears have subsided and she’s taking lots of slow, deep breaths. Once we’re inside her apartment, she sits down on the couch and curls herself into a little ball. She won’t look at me. I sit down beside her and wait. It’s a full five minutes before she speaks.
“All I wanted was to show you that I’ve changed. That I’m not the same person I was in college.” She sounds defeated.
“Well, guess what? You haven’t changed all that much. You’re still the same girl I fell in love with at twenty-two. And here’s a newsflash: I like that girl and always have, and I never once said I wanted her to change.”
Annika turns her head toward me slightly, curious.
“Sherry should not have made that comment,” I say. “It was incredibly assumptive and it wasn’t the time or the place. But did you really think I didn’t know?”
Her face crumples. Oh shit. She did.
“I try so hard to fit in. I spend hours studying appropriate behaviors.” She makes little air quotes around the last two words. “I will never get it right! Do you know what that’s like? It’s the most frustrating thing in the world.”
“I can’t even imagine what that must be like,” I admit.
“It’s like everyone around you has a copy of the script of life, but no one gave it to you so you have to go in blind and hope you can muddle your way through. And you’ll be wrong most of the time.”
“My ex-wife could have written the script. She was an expert in navigating business and social situations. And if it was a mix of the two, that was even better because she was a goddamn superstar at playing the game and wasn’t about to be outshone by anyone, not even her husband.”
Especially not her husband.
“But you know what else? Liz would drive right by a wounded animal on the side of the road if stopping even remotely interfered with whatever she was doing at the time. No. You know what? She would never have stopped, not even if she had all the time in the world.”
“What!” Annika cries. Because of my insensitive analogy, all she’s thinking about now are hypothetically injured animals.
“I’m trying to explain that the way you navigate the world will never be more important than the type of person you are.”
“How can you want to be with someone like me? How were you able to fall in love with someone who acts the w
ay I do?”
“It was easier than you think.”
She scoffs like she doesn’t believe me.
Annika has shared so many painful truths with me. Maybe it’s time I admit to some of my own. “There’s something about being with you that has always made me feel better about myself.”
“Because at least you’re not like me?”
“No, but when we met I wasn’t at my most confident. I figured I at least had a shot with you.” She looks shocked, and I rake my hands through my hair as I exhale. “But it didn’t take me long to realize I had greatly overestimated my chances and that I’d have to work hard if I wanted to make you mine because there was nothing easy about you. But that made it so much more special when you started to let me in. I watched you come out of your shell and I discovered so many great things about you, including how you loved me so fiercely. I never questioned your loyalty, even when I wished you’d show people how you really felt about me. I knew I would never hurt you.”
She’s back to not looking at me. “What if there’s a woman out there who’s somewhere between Liz and me?” Her question hits me hard, because it’s something I’ve thought about. I hate that I have, but she’s right.
“Maybe there is? But there’s no guarantee I’m going to find her and certainly no guarantee that she’ll fall for me, too.”
“You can have anyone you want.”
“That doesn’t mean I can make them stay. Liz cheated on me. It was when we were still trying to work things out, before we gave up on the marriage counseling that wasn’t helping and brought in the lawyers. It wasn’t like I found an email I wasn’t supposed to read or anything like that. She flat-out told me about it. It was some guy she worked with and the only reason she admitted it was because she knew it would hurt me. And it did exactly what she intended. That is one thing I’ve always known you would never do. I knew that if we reconciled there was a chance I might lose you again someday, but if I did it wouldn’t be because I’d lose you to another man. It would be because I’d lose you to yourself. To the things going on in your head. Can you let me in all the way? Can you tell me straight up what you’re dealing with, what you’re feeling? I’ve figured out most of it, and I want you to know that I don’t care if you need help sometimes.”
“Tina said I’m probably on the autism spectrum. High functioning, but still. I can get tested to find out for sure, but why? It’s not going to change anything.”
“I really don’t know what it would accomplish. Did she say what you might gain?”
“She said it might help me find peace.”
“Then I think you should do it.”
She hesitates. “What if it turns out that after going through the evaluation, I find out I’m not on the spectrum. That I really am just weird. I don’t know if I can handle that.”
“You’re not weird.”
“C’mon, Jonathan. All my life, I’ve been the poster girl for weird. It’s not that people like me don’t know how other people see us. But to us, you’re the ones who are weird, and we’re the ones who have to change if we want to fit in.”
“You’ve overcome a lot of hardships to get where you are today. The bullying. The people who tried to take advantage of you. It’s heartbreaking knowing that people treat others so horribly.”
“I don’t want you to be with me because you feel sorry for me.”
“I don’t feel sorry for you. I admire you. It takes incredible strength to do what you’ve done, and you deserve every bit of happiness that comes your way.”
“It’s hereditary.” She says it quietly.
“I’ve known that since the day you introduced me to your dad.”
“You’ll regret it. A lifetime with me. A family with me. You’ll get more than you bargained for the same way my mom did.”
It’s possibly the most intuitive thing she’s ever said to me. Annika may struggle to identify what I’m feeling, to empathize, but she is quite capable of understanding what it means.
“The only thing I’ll regret is passing up another opportunity to find out if we have what it takes to go the distance. I thought we were going to build a life together after college, but you changed your mind. Don’t you think it’s time we talked about it? Because if you’re going to avoid the hard stuff, no matter how unpleasant the memories, I’m not sure how we’re going to do this. And I want to do this. Very much. Do you?”
She nods. “I know I didn’t handle it the right way, but I was just so devastated.”
“I know. I was, too.” I pull her closer and press my forehead against hers the way I used to all those years ago. Our eyes are closed and we stay that way until her breathing slows and I feel her exhale in a sigh of relief. “But come on. It’s me, Annika.”
“It’s always been you,” she says as she presses her lips to mine.
We can talk later. We will talk later. But right now there’s only one thing I want to do. I’ve been waiting for ten years and I can’t wait any longer.
We open our mouths and kiss for real. The kisses are the kind of kisses you don’t exchange in public, and there’s a rawness to them that wasn’t there in college. Back then, everything I did in regard to Annika was conducted with care and caution, as if she were made of glass and might shatter. She’s stronger now. She might not think so, but she is. I can see her strength in so many ways. I can feel it as her hands grip my arms.
We shift so that we’re lying down. The small couch isn’t ideal for any kind of sexual gymnastics, but that doesn’t slow us down in the least. I inhale and take hit after hit of her scent, burying my face in her neck while I kiss it. The kissing turns to sucking and Annika arches her back when I remove her shirt and bra. I skim my thumbs across her nipples with a firm touch and she groans. Her full skirt has an elastic waist, so it’s easy to strip her of it in one quick motion. Ditto her underwear. I’ll have to make this couch work, because now that she’s naked, I don’t want to stop even for a minute. There is a total absence of shyness as Annika spreads her legs, and I smile, not just because of the view but because this is the girl I remember. I love the way she opens herself up to me so completely. When we were younger it took a while for us to reach the place where she felt comfortable enough to let go, but once she did, it made me feel like she trusted me more than anyone in the world. Rightly so, because I would never give her a reason to think otherwise.
Annika attempts to undress me without breaking contact with my mouth and within the confines of a surface that is shorter than our outstretched bodies. It’s comical. She soldiers on because she’s as determined to make this couch work as I am. She wraps her hand around me and I smile again because she hasn’t forgotten the way I like to be touched, either.
Feeling around on the floor, I fish my wallet out of the pocket of my jeans. I could ask Annika if she’s on birth control, but I’d use the condom anyway, and not just in the name of safe sex. If anyone would understand my reasoning, it’s Annika.
There’s really only one position that’s going to work, and when I sit up and reach for her, she climbs on top as if she’s read my mind, one thigh pressed up on either side of me as she lowers herself so quickly I groan, but not because it hurts.
I let out a breathless laugh. “And you claim you never know what I’m thinking.” She laughs, too, but our laughter fades away, replaced with whispered words from me about how good she feels and how long it’s been and how much I’ve missed her.
29
Annika
THE UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS
AT URBANA-CHAMPAIGN
1992
I awakened fully from a fitful sleep around 6:00 A.M. Jonathan slept soundly beside me, one foot touching mine. I’d been waking up off and on since shortly after midnight, because a persistent dull ache in my lower abdomen made it impossible to stay asleep. I’d shifted position, closed my eyes, and done everything I could to relieve the discomfort, but nothing had helped. My period had arrived the week before, lighter than normal and
a slightly darker color, but the pain in my back had finally gone away. The discomfort I’d felt from the backache paled in comparison to what was happening in my stomach now, and the pain seemed to have intensified significantly in the last fifteen minutes.
Around seven, I walked to the bathroom, hoping that might solve the problem, although I really didn’t feel like I had to go. My shoulder hurt and I felt strange as I walked, light-headed, almost like I might faint. I held on to the wall and gripped the doorjamb hard as I flicked on the bathroom light. I was wearing a pair of cotton bikini underwear and a T-shirt of Jonathan’s that I’d appropriated for my own. Now that I was upright, gravity had taken over and the blood soaked my underwear and trickled down the inside of my legs. Maybe I was having another period, and the pain was due to cramping. Dark spots appeared before my eyes, and I managed to scream Jonathan’s name as the floor rose up to meet me.
I didn’t think I’d been out for more than a few seconds, and when I came to Jonathan was on the floor next to me. “What is it? What happened?” he yelled. He tried to help me sit upright and I felt him shift my legs a little as he gathered me into his arms, my back against his chest.
“Oh Jesus. Annika, tell me what’s wrong!”
I couldn’t answer him with words because the pain ripping through my abdomen made it impossible to speak. Instead, I screamed.
Jonathan laid me back down on the floor and ran.
* * *
I regained consciousness as the paramedics were putting the oxygen mask on me. “Annika, I’m right here. Everything’s gonna be okay,” Jonathan said somewhere off in the distance. I turned my head in the direction of his voice and spotted him next to the door, his hands covered in blood. He was wearing a pair of shorts and his legs were bloody, too. I thought for sure they would drop me as they carried the stretcher down the stairs on the outside of Jonathan’s house, but I felt the thump as the wheels hit the pavement and they rolled me toward an ambulance waiting with its back doors open. A wave of pain hit me then, so severe that I began sobbing hysterically. As they loaded me inside, I tried to tell someone I thought I was dying. I tried to tell them how cold I was because it felt like my blood had been replaced with ice water, and that it was running through my veins in a miserably cold loop, but I must have only thought I’d spoken, because no one answered me. Once the stretcher was all the way in, they slammed the doors and we left, sirens wailing.
The Girl He Used to Know Page 16
