The Overlap

by Lynn Costa

  But despite all that, the fates had apparently decided that Zack and I deserved another chance and now it was up to me to do things right this time around.

  And that’s what I would do, I drowsily told myself as I flicked off the TV.

  * * *

  During lunch with Kensie Wednesday afternoon, I again felt like I had traveled back in time as she listened to my story with a combined OMG-WTF look on her face; the same look she had that Sunday night when I blurted out what had happened with Dustin.

  Finally, she said:

  “Don’t take this the wrong way, Lindsey, but was your life always this filled with such epic drama?”

  I started to bristle at her words, but at the same time I knew exactly what she was saying. The past three weeks had seen the biggest back-and-forth swings in my personal life with Dustin and Zack overlapping each other to the point where my brain felt like it was going to explode. This was so different than going back and forth between guys in high school or even college, even though on the surface it might seem pretty much the same.

  I told Kensington that Dustin had texted me yesterday afternoon to confirm that he wouldn’t be coming back to L.A. this weekend, and the rumor mill was sweeping the Chicago team that at least three more weeks straight, weekends included, was what awaited them since the six of us now back at MetroGen had been abruptly pulled from their project. Have to get all the work done no matter how many people are or aren’t there, right?

  “So you’re back to where you were a couple of weeks ago, right?” Kensie told me what I already had churned over and over and over and over...

  “Yeah,” I replied as I finished the last bite of my turkey baguette. We were seated outside, both of us luxuriating in the afternoon L.A. sunshine after our conference room sequestering that had lasted four excruciatingly long days. Unlike the week before last, though, the thought of heading back into the MetroGen offices didn’t make me want to puke. In the day and a half we had been back, the absence of Dave Evers had been so noticeable! Alan Robbins seemed to be a reasonable, very likeable guy and I immediately had good feelings about him... in a professional sense, of course. Time would tell but he seemed to be the exact opposite of Dave Evers in every way possible. My workdays might actually be enjoyable again!

  I had a surprisingly light workload this Wednesday afternoon with only two meetings, so the rest of the time I spent planning my preparation for this evening’s date with Zack. Zack wouldn’t be back from Burbank until around 7:00, he had told me, and suggested we meet at Vivant at 8:00 so he could shower and change clothes. The timing was perfect for me since I expected to leave work right around 5:00, and already had an appointment for 5:15 to get my nails done. I didn’t have enough time for a full mani-pedi and then still be able to get ready for dinner, so it would have to just be nails for now and then maybe over the weekend or early next week just my toes to try and get back in synch.

  And as much as I would have liked to have gotten a wax, I didn’t have enough time for that either. As that thought came and went, my mind unfortunately traveled back to the entire last week and weekend in Chicago, when I was having sex with Dustin. By that time I desperately needed a wax but even if I had had time in Chicago to get that done, I would have felt really weird doing so. You know, like I was getting myself all nice down there and it was specifically for Dustin. I was really overdue now, but even if I slept with Zack tonight, which I was pretty sure I would, I didn’t think he would mind me not being... you know...

  Anyway, I figured I would have exactly enough time to get my nails done, get back home, shower, and then get ready. I had already decided what I was going to wear: the exact same thing I wore on our first dinner date at Vivant. Staying with the “new beginnings, second time around” theme, right? So this morning I had already laid out my white knit top with long sleeves and the bandeau, and those same jeans from that night. My Steve Madden heels were all set to go, along with my Kate Spade studs and statement necklace. I was determined that Zack would see me exactly as I had looked on our first date... even my nails, I had decided. For the first time in my life I would get them done exactly as they currently were with the dual shades of purple separated by the diagonal dark purple line.

  I got to the nail salon a couple minutes before my appointment and they were able to get me in right away, so the timing was working out so far. The same girl who had done my nails last time was doing me again, and she apparently remembered that last time I had told her about my upcoming first date. I had been very vague in my description of Zack but had mentioned I had just met him the previous night and was going out with him the next night, and she had responded with something like “must be special, right?”

  So today, right after I sat down, she asked me:

  “Are you still going out with the guy from last time?”

  At first I didn’t know how to respond, because technically I was “going out” with Dustin the last time I was at the salon. But even when I realized she was talking about Zack I wasn’t quite sure what my answer should be. “Still going out?” Was I still going out with Zack? What about the “interlude” with Dustin?

  I decided I didn’t need to – didn’t want to – get into any of that, so I just answered her question with a smile, a nod, and a quick “uh-huh” response and mentioned I was going out with him again tonight. We talked a little bit while she did my nails but I think she could sense my anxiety with the clock ticking down towards my date. She finished up and wished me luck on my date as I hurried out of the salon and headed home.

  I went through my getting-ready-for-my-special-date ritual but even as I did, I could feel the twin sentiments of delicious anticipation of the night ahead but also the tremendous anxiety given all that had transpired with Zack – and with Dustin – that had brought us to the occasion of my “second first date.” My mind flip-flopped back and forth between hot, erotic recollections and dark moments of remembering what it had been like to think that Zack and I were done forever. But those moments of despair were behind me now; at least that’s what I tried to convince myself.

  As we had done on our first date, I was to meet Zack at Vivant rather than have him pick me up. And as on our first date, I grabbed a cab outside of my building. I half-expected to find the same driver as that night, but instead it was someone totally different. Not that that particular detail mattered, of course.

  The driver got me to Vivant at two minutes before 8:00, and when I approached the maître d’ stand the thirty-ish guy there looked at me and asked:

  “Would you happen to be Miss Barnes?”

  Memories of hearing those very same words, standing in this exact same spot, less than three weeks ago came flooding back.

  I nodded and he asked me to follow him to Mister Buchanan’s table. Sure enough, Zack was seated at exactly the same table where we had eaten dinner on our first date, and I was certain that this was no coincidence; I was sure that he had specifically arranged for this table.

  He stood when he saw me following the maître d’ and I saw that he was wearing an untucked fuchsia shirt and jeans. I looked down and saw the black horsebit loafers. Zack noticed that I was checking out his clothes, and at the same time, he was checking out mine. We both started lightly laughing at the same time, and then I said:

  “I guess we both had the same idea, huh?”

  “Yeah, I guess so,” he said as he came around the table to kiss me, nodding at the maître d’ as he did that we were all set now; that he would take it from here.

  I hesitated, then blurted out what was on my mind.

  “I guess we’re made for each other, right?”

  Zack smiled.

  “I guess so.”

  * * *

  His meeting up in Burbank had been a success. Zack had gotten his deal with the studio, and even while he was still doing work for MetroGen he would start working with the other studio. Pretty soon, he said, he might have to hire one or two other consultants to help with his increa
sing workload. Even as he was telling me all of this, I started thinking about the possibility that he wouldn’t be working at MetroGen much longer because of this new client. He hadn’t said as much but of course that was always a possibility; in fact, an inevitability. Still, as I had learned myself over the past week and a half, I had no guarantees myself that I would still be at MetroGen for any specific period of time. It was up to Zack and me to make sure that the bonds we built would be strong enough to deal with working in different parts of the L.A. area, or even with one or both of us out of town; that nothing like we had gone through would ever happen again as long as we were together.

  We celebrated with a bottle of Cristal, and then a bottle of some Cabernet that I didn’t know of but I knew from sneaking a peak at the wine list cost almost $600 for the vintage he had selected. Zack was obviously in a celebratory mood, and I was determined that after we left the restaurant, I would help him continue the celebration after we got back to his apartment.

  In the meantime, though, I did turn the conversation in a serious direction for about half an hour right after our entrees arrived. I wanted Zack’s opinion on my “accidents of geography” theory that had come to me on my plane flight back to L.A. on Monday. After he was done listening, he said:

  “Yeah, I definitely see what you mean.”

  He paused, swirled his Cabernet a couple times and stared into the glass as he did; as if he were looking for some sort of revelation in the miniature crimson whirlpool in his wineglass. Finally he looked back at me and said:

  “You know what, though? I don’t think it will last. I know it’s common in consulting for all of us at one time or another, but think about it. With you, it’s not just getting shuttled back and forth between here and Chicago on short notice – not to mention that no-notice trip to New York – but it was all made worse by having just met me and things getting started with us. I know it all seemed like a TV show or a movie, you know, with me leaving just as Dustin comes back in town, and then you leaving just as I get back; all of that. But that sort of thing can’t keep going on, right?”

  He halted to look at me, as if he expected some sort of response. I didn’t know how to answer – it sure felt like my fate wasn’t in my control – so I just shrugged.

  “Truthfully,” Zack continued, “I believe that we control our fates and the only time we aren’t in control is when we give up that control.”

  “What about when I broke up with my college boyfriend after graduation,” I countered, thinking about how Andrew’s and my relationship ended. “Suppose that he wasn’t headed to Wharton while I was moving to L.A. Suppose instead we were both staying in Phoenix. Maybe I wouldn’t have gone through with the breakup then, even though we really needed things to be over between us. So maybe it was only because of another accident of geography, or whatever you want to call it, that I actually went through with it, you know?”

  Zack shrugged, thought for a second, then said:

  “Maybe, but what about the guy you told me about in Miami, the one before Dustin, that you broke up with after just a couple weeks. If you were truly this perpetually helpless victim of ‘accidents of geography’ you would have just stayed with him for another couple weeks because you were leaving Miami anyway, and you would have just waited for the fates to put you on the plane to L.A. to end things for you. And in the meantime you would have just kept sleeping with him, like you yourself had no control over what you were doing. But that’s not what happened, right? You decided things were over, and even though you were both in class together, seeing each other every single day, you ended it.”

  He paused for another round of wine swirling and wineglass gazing before continuing.

  “Here’s what I really think,” he looked at me with determination in his eyes. “If you want us to be together, then those ‘accidents of geography’ will fade away. Maybe it was all just a test; you know, to see if we could make it through a rough patch being apart, with the other complications. But we made it... right?”

  Zack looked at me, his eyes demanding an answer.

  “Yes; we made it,” I agreed with him, smiling warmly as I spoke those words.

  “So just keep telling yourself: ‘I control my fate, no matter where I am or where I get sent.’ Even if you get sent back to Chicago on Monday...”

  My face must have immediately conveyed the horror I felt at such a notion even being a possibility.

  “It’s okay,” Zack chuckled. “Even if that happens, you’ll be the one in control of who you’re with, and where you sleep...”

  This time I must have winced so severely that the painful embarrassment I felt at Zack’s words might have been noticed by everyone else in Vivant tonight. But he just kept talking as if my face was totally void of passion.

  “...and you won’t feel that lack of personal empowerment that also made you feel totally helpless. You know what I mean?”

  I just nodded and steered the conversation in another direction. Zack was so matter-of-fact about what had happened. Not quite emotionless; “mature” or “worldly” maybe? Whatever it was, I felt a little bit uneasy that he was so accepting about what I had done with Dustin. Yesterday, when we talked things out at Cerise, he had showed more emotion and even seemed really upset a couple of times as I rambled through my confession. Now, though, he was back to the hot L.A. guy who had turned me on so much with his sophistication, or whatever you wanted to call it.

  But it didn’t matter. I was the one who had taken us to the brink with what I had allowed to happen with Dustin, but here was Zack saying over and over that he wasn’t going to let that ruin things between us. So enough second-guessing and mind-reading and all of that from me; time to look at the future – our future – rather than the very recent past.

  We finished our dinner. No port or sherry or Remy Martin for us tonight, though. Zack paid the bill and I followed him out of Vivant where he quickly hailed a cab to take us back to his apartment. I snuggled up against him in the cab the same way I had after we had gone to dinner at Solazarse, the night we slept together for the first time. We arrived at his building and he tossed the driver a twenty as we both exited towards the sidewalk.

  The same slow ride in the elevator, kissing each other the entire time, up to the fifth floor.

  The same short walk down the hallway to Zack’s apartment.

  The same resumption of kissing after we walked into his apartment.

  And the same fantastic sex that had been so vivid in my imagination for days after my first time with him before fading in memory to the point where I almost wondered if it had actually happened.

  Never again would I go through that feeling again, I told myself as I surrendered to the intense combination of pure lust and something that felt as close to love as I had ever felt thus far in my life.

  * * *

  “We should go away this weekend” were the words I woke to that Thursday morning. Before I could even focus my eyes, I felt a smile come to my face not only at the sound of Zack’s words, but in response to the sudden feel of his right hand sliding its way down from my belly button. I felt my legs part for his fingers. Apparently Zack wasn’t wasting any time with preliminaries this morning... though the fleeting thought occurred to me that maybe he had been kissing my neck or touching me while I was still swimming my way out of the night’s sleep, and I just wasn’t aware of it.

  Anyway, his fingers began to play with me as I croaked out:

  “Go away?”

  “Uh-huh,” Zack murmured as he lowered his lips to my neck, his lips coming to rest against my skin that hadn’t fully come awake yet. Still, I felt an instant, delicious chill as his tongue lightly flicked back and forth a couple times.

  “Where would we go?” I lazily asked, thinking that this was an “interesting” conversation we were beginning, considering what his tongue and fingers were doing to different parts of my body.

  “How about San Diego?” I felt him breathe into my neck. “La Jol
la?”

  It was my turn for an “uh-huh” response. Even as I felt his fingers begin to press a little bit harder, my mind instantly conjured up pictures of Zack and I seated across from each other on the elevated deck of a lavish restaurant, only yards in from the Pacific ocean. It’s twilight; we’re slowly savoring our sumptuous meals, smiling lovingly at each other. Then the scene shifts to the two of us walking barefoot on the beach after dinner as the sun drops beneath the horizon, knowing that very soon we’ll be back in our beachside hotel room, luxuriating in each other.

  Zack pulled his head away from my neck, hovered above me for a second or two, and said “San Diego it is” before he moved his face down to join his fingers in proceeding with his special wakeup this Thursday morning.

  * * *

  Kensington eyed me suspiciously when I told her about Zack’s weekend getaway invitation.

  “Last week at this time everything was over with him...”

  I interrupted her.

  “I thought everything was over,” I corrected.

  “Whatever.” Kensie’s semi-bitchy side was surfacing this morning, and I wondered if she and Rick had had an argument or something like that.

  “Anyway,” she continued, “one week ago you were back with Dustin, and now you’re going away this weekend with Zack.”

  I felt my eyes narrow.

  “What’s your point, Kensie?”

  Using her name obviously signaled Kensington that she had entered the danger zone.

  “Just that your life these days is like this long, epic drama,” she answered, reprising her words from when we had lunch together yesterday. “I mean, I’m glad that you’re all happy and everything now, but last week you were so miserable, plus you thought you had gotten back together with Dustin, or whatever you call it.”

  She paused.

  “I’m just glad you’re able to handle all this up-and-down stuff with two guys, the job, the travel; you know, all of that at the same time.”

  I took a deep breath. We were in one of the break rooms on our floor at MetroGen, and just the two of us were there. Still, I kept my voice low given that any second, someone could walk through the open doorway with absolutely no notice.