by Lynn Costa
Anyway, I did my best to force away my panicky worry about what Zack might be doing, because when I was able to get the rational part of my mind back in control I realized that as much as anything I was just projecting onto him my own guilty feelings about what I had done while Dustin was away. I tried to concentrate on the impending breakup scene that could be less than two hours away now!
* * *
At 9:20, Dustin texted me:
Videoconf still going no end in sight
A few minutes after 10:00, I received the exact same text from him. At first I thought it was a double message but then I realized he must have copied the previous message and just pasted it into a brand new text to let me know another 45 minutes had passed and he was still stuck.
This pattern went on every half hour or so until 12:30 P.M. My intense fear of the breakup scene ahead of me had given way to weariness. Now, I just wanted him to walk through my apartment door so I could get this over with already! This Saturday morning video conference that not only was unplanned but was now past the three hour mark (we could have watched an entire ASU football game by now; my mind insisted on making that comparison) was almost as draining on me as it was on Dustin; at least that’s how I felt.
And along the way, still no word from Zack.
Sometime around 9:00 I had been ready to give in and text him. But I went online and found the website for the conference and saw that the Saturday morning sessions had actually started at 8:00, and one of the panels that I thought Zack was sitting on was already underway and would be for another half hour. So that meant he was almost certainly busy right now, but it also meant that he had woken up and not texted or called me!
I couldn’t decide if I was worried or furious. Both, actually. Even if Zack had decided to lay low during what he presumed would be my Friday night breakup scene, then by Saturday morning he should have checked to see how I was doing. Just what was going on here???
Finally, I decided that the moment I heard from Dustin that he was done and on his way over, I would text Zack. I couldn’t take it any longer!
And when I received Dustin’s text at 12:35 saying that the video conference had finally concluded and that he was on his way over (I could sense his exhaustion even in the eight or nine words of his text message), I gave in and texted Zack:
U there???
I should have stopped at one question mark in my text but I couldn’t help it. I wanted him to know that I was pissed – and worried – because I hadn’t heard a single thing from him since he left. And even as I pressed “Send” I thought to myself that I really should have sent this message earlier this morning. Now, if he was at a lunch session at the conference or giving some other presentation, or whatever, and he didn’t see my message for a little bit, then indeed he would be texting me back with Dustin around.
I honestly didn’t care at this point, however. At this very moment in my life, only two things mattered: hearing from Zack, and getting this breakup with Dustin behind me.
About twenty minutes later my doorbell rang and even though I was expecting it, I felt myself gasp. This was it!
And still nothing from Zack.
* * *
As I opened the door I did a final read-through of the opening lines of my mental script:
Dustin, we need to talk...
My eyes immediately traveled slightly downwards to the dozen absolutely gorgeous red roses Dustin was holding.
Shit!
“Hi, sweetie,” he said as I slowly looked back towards his face; at his weary smile. “These are for you.”
He held the flowers towards me and as he did I realized that there were actually two dozen exquisite red roses, not one dozen.
Shit!
I forced a smile onto my face.
“Hi,” was all I said and I likewise forced myself not to flinch or draw away when he leaned in to kiss me. Fortunately he offered a travel-drained “I’m finally home” sort of kiss – nothing overly romantic, no tongue – so I was able to get through the kiss in a split second without recoiling from him.
“Thank you,” I added as he handed me the flowers, and surprised myself by the tones of warm gratitude that crept into my words. At least a little part of me was happy that after all of his travel problems yesterday and after his impromptu three and a half hour video conference this morning, he still stopped on his way over here to get me two dozen roses.
Shit!
My mind raced back and forth over trying to calculate what might be an acceptable duration between receiving a bouquet of roses and breaking up with the same guy who had just handed them to me. Ten minutes? Half an hour? Longer?
I was still contemplating the answer to that quandary when Dustin walked over to my sofa, plopped down with an agonizing sigh, looked at me, and blurted out:
“I hate this.”
At first I thought he meant “this” as our about-to-break-up scene, but as soon as that thought popped into my head I realized that unless he had some really good ESP – or that one of the two people in the know (Kensie or Courtney) had clued him in – he didn’t know anything about Zack or what was about to happen. I realized what he actually meant just as he continued.
“A year ago when we were in Miami, and even after we got here and I was working down in Newport Beach, I really liked my job and this firm. It was everything I had thought it would be when I got the job offer. But this whole Chicago thing, not just the travel but the 90-hour work weeks, has me wishing I had never accepted the job.”
He paused for a couple of seconds as he looked away, and then back at me.
“But if I had never taken this job I never would have met you, so...”
His voice trailed off.
Shit!
“Still,” he continued, “I can’t take much more of this. You should see Westingham in action out there...”
Dustin proceeded to describe Joe Westingham, a partner from our Los Angeles office who was in charge of the Chicago project and was one of the partners leading the twenty-person team. Everything that Dustin told me over the next five minutes sounded so much like Dave Evers as I had come to know him that I found myself wondering if Dave making partner was such a far-fetched long shot as most of us thought, his dickheaded behavior notwithstanding. Quite possibly Dave Evers was exactly what the firm was looking for in their partners, and in reality he was a shoo-in. Maybe it was just us newcomers – Courtney and Kensie and Dustin and me and a dozen or so others – who had the incorrect idea that Dave’s stupidity and demeanor disqualified him from the partnership ranks.
Anyway, I listened to Dustin’s narrative of just how shitty his days and nights were out there in Chicago but at the same time, my mind furiously raced to figure out just when would be the right moment to spring my terrible news on him. Suddenly, though, his eyes brightened as he got up from my sofa.
“Come on,” he said, holding his hand out to me.
No doubt seeing the puzzlement on my face, he continued.
“We’re going on a picnic,” he said. “Santa Monica Pier. It’s been way too long.”
I felt myself sigh. He sure was making this difficult for me!
“Come on,” he said again. “I need to get outside into some sunshine, and I want us to spend the afternoon together so I can forget about everything I just left and everything waiting for me when I get back there tomorrow night.”
How was I going to get out of this one?
* * *
I excused myself to my bathroom and plopped down on the toilet to not only pee but to think. I checked my cell phone yet again, and yet again there was still no reply from Zack. I was getting more and more agitated at him. 1:00 on Saturday afternoon now, and still nothing???
My next thought was to realize – and give thanks – that Dustin hadn’t strolled into my apartment, handed me the roses, and immediately started kissing me and steering me towards my bedroom; or the sofa; or any other place where he would begin undressing me and make up for more th
an two weeks of no sex. (At least between him and me, though of course he didn’t know that my time-since-last-sex calendar was significantly shorter than his was!)
Then I figured WTF. At least if we got out of the apartment and went on this picnic he had planned, we would be away from here and I wouldn’t be in a situation where he would begin to maneuver us towards sex... at least while we were over in Santa Monica, outside under the wondrous L.A. sun and today’s cloudless sky. And maybe that would be a better setting for the news I had to deliver to him.
I finished up in the bathroom and walked back out into my living room, mustered a smile, and said “let’s go.” Dustin had been standing by the table next to my apartment door, a picture in his hand that showed the two of us in happier days. He put the picture back in its place, smiled back, and repeated what I had just said.
“Let’s go.”
* * *
During the drive to the Santa Monica Pier he continued to tell me about how f’d up his project was. I listened, offered plenty of sympathetic responses and a short response or two, as my mind continued to split its attention in two. The other half was still focused on... well, you know:
Dustin, we need to talk...
I knew I wouldn’t go there during the drive, but I figured maybe as soon as we sat down somewhere, maybe right as we began to eat...then it would be time.
Dustin had brought a cooler already filled with a couple of turkey sandwiches and a bottle of Pinot Grigio amidst a half dozen ice bricks, and after he whipped into a parking space in the pier’s closest parking lot that had just opened up a few seconds before we got there, he went to the back of his SUV and retrieved the cooler as I shut the door. We walked onto the beach area just to the side of the pier and found a spot where Dustin opened the blanket he had also brought. While he was doing that I snuck another look at my cell phone.
Nothing.
We eased ourselves onto the blanket and then Dustin opened the cooler, retrieved the bottle of Pinot Grigio and a corkscrew, and within a few seconds the bottle was uncorked. He retrieved two plastic stemware drinking glasses – you know, the fancy type that from more than a couple feet away almost look like expensive wineglasses – and each glass was bestowed with a healthy pour.
“To no more of this long separation,” Dustin proposed as he lifted his glass towards me. I had no choice but to go along with the toast. But as I did, my mind again served up the words for me that I should have responded with:
Dustin, we need to talk...
As he handed me a turkey sandwich and an individual container of potato salad (he had stopped at one of the delis between my apartment and his to pick up the food), he continued unloading his tales of woe about how terrible his past few weeks working in Chicago had been. Then he abruptly said:
“And worst of all, I miss you a lot when I’m out there.”
Dustin, we need to...
He proceeded to tell me that he was lonely out in Chicago; that beyond how shitty his assignment was, the fact that I wasn’t there to come home to at least a couple times each week – like when we first got to L.A. – made the whole situation so much worse; that he couldn’t wait until this assignment was over, even though it now looked like at least another two months were ahead for Dustin and all of the poor guys and girls from our firm that he was working with out there.
Dustin, we need...
We finished the bottle of Pinot Grigio and by the time 3:30 rolled around, I was pretty buzzed. I also was agonizing the whole time over not being able to check my cell phone to see if Zack had finally texted me back. I was so sure that by now he finally would have, and I so much wanted to take a look but I know that Dustin would have asked me why I was looking at my phone on a Saturday afternoon. I might have gotten away with “sorry; it’s a habit” or something like that once or maybe twice; but nowhere near as much as I wanted to keep checking to see if there was any response at all from Zack.
When Dustin finally said “I’ll be right back” just after 3:30, I was able to check my phone and of course, nothing. Now I was even more confused, pissed, and worried... not to mention that in more than two and a half hours now with Dustin here at this impromptu picnic, I was slowly losing my nerve to do what I was so certain I needed to do; to say what I needed to say.
About ten minutes later Dustin came back carrying a wine bottle-shaped paper bag that, when he plopped back down onto our blanket, turned out to contain – big surprise – another bottle of wine; a second bottle of the same Pinot Grigio we had just finished off, in fact, that Dustin had bought in a convenience store just up on the Pier. I started to protest but Dustin genially cut me off.
“It’s a special occasion,” he said. “Just me being here; you know, us being together... that makes it special, and I want to keep celebrating.”
Dustin, we...
* * *
At least we were smart enough to grab a cab back to his apartment since neither one of us was in any condition to drive by the time 5:30 rolled around. He said that he would pick up his car tomorrow on his way back to LAX; he would have a cab take him back here and then drive to the airport. It would be a little bit out of the way, but Sunday mid-afternoon traffic shouldn’t be too bad.
In the backseat of the cab, Dustin put his arm around me and pulled me to him.
Almost exactly as Zack had done this past Wednesday night in another cab; in another lifetime, it was starting to feel like.
I said nothing. I was pretty drunk by this point after all the wine. And given what I thought – knew – was going to happen now, I actually wanted to be as drunk as I possibly could. You know the feeling, right? Everything all fuzzy; disjointed; stumbling over your words. Feeling almost as if you aren’t a part of yourself, as if you’re watching yourself as another person might do. In that zone where just one or two more sips of whatever it was that got you to this point would push you over the edge to puking all over the place, but as long as you don’t take those couple of extra sips you’re safe.
And you’re also not quite responsible for what you might do; at least that’s what you will tell yourself later on.
I felt his eyes on me, and I looked over at him.
Dustin...
* * *
I wished he would just go ahead and ask me the question already: “Is something wrong, Lindsey?”
I knew that question was on Dustin’s mind as we lay in his bed spooning, his left arm draped over mine; his body fitted against mine though not as tightly as normal. More than that: ordinarily when we’re in bed like this after sex Dustin’s hand was also resting against my left boob, usually stroking or flicking or lightly pinching my nipple every so often until it reached a certain level of arousal that he would use as a signal from my body to him that it was time for another round.
Tonight though, his left hand was squarely against my left arm and I could swear he was pressing his hand there rather than resting it, as if he was trying to signal me: “Feel where my hand is, Lindsey; not where it usually is, right? I know something’s on your mind so what’s going on???”
I thought I could go through with this with Dustin as if Zack was just a dream; some wispy erotic fantasy that had invaded my sleep for the past week, but which hadn’t actually happened; and apparently now had evaporated. Dustin was back, and he and I were together. Just like Scarlett O’Hara said, tomorrow was another day and I would deal with my terrible quandary then. In the meantime sex with Dustin would be just like it had always been: good; hot; especially since we hadn’t seen each other for so long.
My body had betrayed me.
No matter how much I tried to just “be in the moment” even I could tell that I wasn’t responding to his kisses, his touches, his licking as I should have been; even as drunk as I was. Even I could feel myself flinch when he eased himself on top of me and began rubbing himself on me... almost the same as Zack had done only a couple days earlier. I fought the urge to bench press him off of me in one swift motion and then he was i
nside me. And because it had been so long, he finished in only a couple of minutes. For those couple of minutes I did my best to pretend that I loved having him inside of me.
But my body had betrayed me.
No way was I going to say anything, though; not right now, anyway. Kensie had been right; the moment I saw Dustin earlier today for the first time in almost three weeks, two dozen roses or not, I should have just blurted out that ominous phrase:
Dustin, we need to talk...
So now what?
Chapter 11
Sunday, September 22nd
Of course, I woke up feeling like I had cheated on Zack with Dustin. Not only had I not broken up with Dustin as I had told Zack, Kensie, and Courtney – and myself – I would do, I had gotten so drunk and hurt because Zack hadn’t contacted me that I had wound up having sex with Dustin.
Fortunately, when Dustin and I both woke up around the same time Sunday morning – just before 7:00 – he didn’t press me for an explanation about why I had been so “off” during sex. He had been inside me only the one time last night since we both were really drunk from the two bottles of wine and we passed out shortly afterwards. So we wound up sleeping almost eleven hours.
Maybe he just assumed that my strange responses to him were for that reason – you know, because I was so drunk. Besides, he had never been the kind of guy to make a big deal out of me not coming. It happened occasionally in the year we had been together; in fact most of the times when I didn’t come was when I had been drinking more than I normally did. So that was probably it: he figured I was so drunk I just wasn’t as sensitive as I normally was, or whatever. And as for my body tightening up when he was holding me afterwards? Who knows what was going on inside his head.
But I knew what was going on inside my head: tremendous guilt, but increasingly tempered by the fact that it was now Sunday morning and I had yet to hear anything from Zack. In fact, when I woke up around 5:00, before I slipped out of bed to go to the bathroom I lay there for a couple minutes thinking; and once again, it was almost as if Zack was just an erotic dream who had never actually come into my life except in my fantasies.
