Beside Herself

by Elizabeth Laban

  “Okay,” she said, standing. She had expected a bit more of a fight from him. “Well, thanks!”

  She was home less than an hour from the time she’d left. The meatballs weren’t even cleaned up yet.

  As Hannah walked up 9th Street, looking for Villa di Roma to meet Joel for what she considered to be their first official date (but that, unbeknownst to her yet, Joel thought was really their third), she felt happy. That was the best, most accurate word she could find in her entire vocabulary to describe what she was feeling. It was not the usual way she approached a date, especially since her recent breakup. On the few dates she had gone on recently, she’d felt full of angst and nervousness with a distinct and serious lack of confidence. But this time was different.

  It took a second for her eyes to adjust to all the activity, but once they did, she saw Joel standing at the top of the bar waving.

  “You came! And you found it,” he said. “I never even asked where you were coming from.”

  “Queen Village,” she said. “This couldn’t have been easier. And did you think I might not come?”

  “You never know,” he said warmly. “And I’m so glad you did, not just because they have the best meatballs in the city, hands down.”

  The host led them to the next room, which had exposed brick walls and white cloth-adorned tables. A board with movable letters spelled out the menu.

  “I could eat Italian food every night,” Joel said. “Really, if I had to make a choice, that’s what I would pick.”

  “I guess I would too,” she said, wondering if he was gearing up to play the desert island game—If you were stranded on a desert island, what were the things you couldn’t live without? Book? Food? Cosmetic or toiletry? She had it down to a science—Stephen King’s The Shining, bread, and her facial moisturizer, which she loved, although her real answer was toilet paper. Playing this game wasn’t a terrible way to get to know someone. She looked across the table, the words to her answers ready to spill out. Maybe she would change up the book this time, offer John Irving’s The World according to Garp instead.

  “Your hair looks nice,” he said. “Did you just get it cut?”

  “Yes, actually,” she said, readjusting to this new line of conversation. She was surprised that he noticed. He had seen her only twice before.

  An older woman brought over ice water and a basket of bread. “Anything to drink?”

  “Red wine?” Joel asked Hannah, who nodded. It came in small juice glasses and tasted better than any fancy red wine Hannah had ever had. Hannah broke her first-date rule and ate the garlic bread; it looked way too good not to. They had fried asparagus in butter sauce, and she took Joel’s lead and dipped bread in the sauce until the plate was completely clean. They both had the spaghetti and meatballs, then tiramisu for dessert.

  “You pick well,” Hannah said when they were finished eating and so full. “My new favorite restaurant. I have to say, this was a great first date.”

  “What do you mean, first date?” Joel said, sitting forward. “This is our third date.”

  “Third? How do you count three dates?” she asked, sitting up, too, so she could be closer to him.

  “Our first date was hamburgers. Our second date was tea and honey. This is our third date.”

  Hannah glanced at her watch. It was almost eight thirty. She remembered how he had said they would have an early dinner so she could get on with her night if she didn’t have fun. Now all she wanted to do was kiss him and see him naked, even though they had just had a big garlicky meal. She felt a physical pull toward him.

  He reached his hand out and covered hers on the table. “Definitely date number three,” he said quietly.

  “I think it’s date number one. When you meet doesn’t count as a date, since you have no idea it’s going to happen; it isn’t planned in any way. Tea at the market was nice but also not a date. This—what we did tonight—is an official date.”

  “Well,” Joel said, and she knew he wasn’t going to argue anymore. How could she like someone so fast? She just had a feeling. With someone else she might have thought he was upping the number of dates to get her into bed, but she didn’t think that was what Joel was doing. Really, she didn’t even care. In fact, if that was what he was doing, then bring it on.

  “But,” she said, drawing out the word, “since you think it’s our third date, that does put a different spin on it all. Any interest in coming back to my apartment? We can walk there.”

  Joel stood up quickly, and she laughed. He sat back down and looked around frantically for the server.

  “Don’t worry,” she said, feeling confident and pretty and, still, the whole time they were together, happy. “I’m not going to change my mind.”

  They paid and walked back to her tiny place, feeling less and less full with each block. As they passed a bookstore on 2nd Street, he asked if she wanted to go in. She did. They went their separate ways in the small store, and he came back to her, holding a dictionary open.

  “So I looked this up not because I have to be right. It’s very important to me that you believe that. But the definition of a date is a romantic appointment—so yes, that would fit your description—and also a romantic engagement, which would fit mine. I’d say we’re both right.”

  “I’ll give you that,” she said, smiling.

  “And one more word,” he said, flipping the pages. “Incandescent: emitting light, passionate, brilliant. This is the word that has been going through my mind since I met you. It is you, but it is also me when I’m with you. Now take this dictionary away from me before I completely embarrass myself!”

  She laughed and let him hand her the dictionary, but something flipped in her at that moment, and she knew it. Usually she would hate that kind of corny display of emotion; she would think it was forced or at the very least uncomfortable. But not with Joel. He kept surprising her, but more than that she kept surprising herself with her reactions to him.

  “Wait,” she said as he moved toward the door. She looked at the dictionary in her hand. It was small with a decorated blue cover. It cost twelve dollars. She took it to the cashier and bought it, and then she carried the bag home and placed it on the tiny table just inside her door. They had sex on the floor. It was her one regret, she thought later. Their first time should have been on a softer surface. But afterward they lay there, and she reached up and handed him the bag. So many words ran through her head at that moment—finally, lucky, handsome, chemistry, too fast, hope—but he paged through the book and landed on a different word, and he read it out loud: happy.

  After the scrubbed date with Dan, Hannah spent the next six long weeks going out on dates with seven other men, and each and every time she had a moment when she knew she could not have an affair with him, when one of her three criteria proved either true or false or in some cases had to be amended.

  Her third date was with a man named Wiley.

  “Hello,” he said, spotting her immediately when she walked into the designated meeting place, a somewhat mysterious corner establishment called the Sit on It Bar in South Philadelphia. He had explained during their chat on the app that this was his go-to first-date suggestion, and even though it seemed a little odd to her, she had agreed because she was fairly sure she wouldn’t know anyone there. Wiley was cute and appeared to be trying hard, which she appreciated after her second date, which had been with a man named Juan, who hadn’t reacted to one thing she’d said. It had been almost like she wasn’t even there. For a few minutes she thought there was the chance that Wiley would be better.

  “You look just like your picture,” he said. She had come to see this was a good thing, a point worth mentioning.

  “So do you,” she said. But did he? When she looked closer, she could tell it was the same person, but the pictures on the site made him look slightly older. If she remembered correctly, his profile had said he was forty-four. She distinctly recalled thinking he had crow’s-feet around his eyes, but close up his skin
was smooth as anything, no wrinkles or crow’s-feet in sight. There was no way he was forty-four, though it was pretty dark in there, so maybe she was seeing things . . . or not seeing them, as the case may have been.

  “Oh, good,” he said. “I do fudge it a little. I’m into older women, so I try to look older in the photos, then wow them with how young I look in person.”

  “What? You mean you really are younger?” she said, pulling her purse onto her lap, getting ready for the exit. She could feel it coming. It was a move that was becoming familiar. “What do you do, photoshop it in or something?”

  “Yep,” he said proudly, thinking she liked it, not realizing this was the deal breaker. Why, she wondered, was there always a deal breaker?

  “How old are you?” she asked.

  “Twenty-nine,” he said, like that was a good thing. “I figure, what woman wouldn’t want to be with a fit, buff younger guy if the guy was into it, right?”

  For the briefest second she wondered if he was right. If it was all physical, why not go for a younger man? And he might not be looking for any sort of real connection; that would work in her favor too. But no, she couldn’t do it. He was far closer in age to Monica than to her, which definitely gave her pause. He wasn’t so young that it was creepy or illegal, but it wasn’t what she wanted. That was when she amended the “not too old” caveat to also include “not too young.” Plus, he was as much a liar as Dan was, just in a different way, so he also fell firmly into the jerk category. She finished her drink and said good night.

  By the eighth bad date, when she came home by seven forty-five, again, she thought she saw a small smile on Joel’s face that she didn’t like. He tried to hide it, but she was pretty sure it was there. The word happy ran through her head. He was happy that she was having no success.

  She could do this, she told herself as she went upstairs to take off her earrings and bracelets. She was a pretty, fit, smart, and interesting woman. She was determined. The next one was going to stick. It was time to get serious.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  “Who wants pancakes?” Joel asked, coming out of the bathroom fully dressed and ready to go. They had gone back to sleeping in the same bed, most nights with both kids between them, because Hannah didn’t want the kids to be upset.

  “Me! I do,” Ridley said, sitting up.

  “Chocolate chip?” Lincoln asked with his eyes still closed. He reached over and shoved Ridley, who had gotten a little too close. She looked startled and inched away a tiny bit. She was always so easy, always accepting when someone had an issue with her. It made life simpler, certainly, but now Hannah saw it in a different way. She was going to have to talk to her about that.

  “Sure,” Joel said. “That sounds good. Hannah? Chocolate chip for you too? Or I think there might be some blueberries down there somewhere.”

  “I think I’ll skip the pancakes,” she said. “I was hoping to swim right after drop-off.”

  The truth was she had meant to be the first one out this morning. She had a mission. And this, Joel’s trying to act normal and make pancakes, was exactly what she had wanted to avoid.

  “Then it’s three orders of pancakes,” Joel said, still upbeat.

  “Why don’t you go get breakfast started, and I’ll get the kids ready,” she said, trying to sound normal, trying to hold back her urge to tell him to cut the crap. Did he think he could turn things around with pancakes and meatballs?

  “Okay,” Joel said.

  “Any chance you can drop them today?” she asked, heading toward the bathroom. “I’m eager to get to the Y.”

  “Sure,” he said, as she’d known he would. He was trying to do everything she asked. It was actually her day to take them, and unless something had changed, she was fairly sure Joel had a pretty early meeting. Still, she needed to do what she needed to do.

  “Great, thanks,” she said. She would get them ready and then focus on dressing herself. She also wanted to make sure she was all shaved and that her pedicure, which she’d gotten a few days ago in preparation for something, though she hadn’t been sure exactly what, didn’t need any touching up.

  “Come on, you guys,” she said, hurrying them along. “You don’t want to miss the pancakes.”

  They were up and scattered into their rooms, where Lincoln pulled on light sweatpants and a Philadelphia Eagles shirt before heading to the bathroom to pee with the door open.

  “Is this a good outfit?” he called proudly toward her.

  “Very good,” she said. “Very South Philly. Perfect.”

  Ridley took forever choosing a shirt, and Hannah kept thinking, How much longer? Which was not the way she usually thought at all. The thing was she had decided that today was the day she was going to make her move on Lance, and now she could barely breathe.

  As soon as everyone was down and eating pancakes, she went back upstairs and pulled out her best bikini. She had been eating much less over the last few months, and she was fairly sure she had dropped a few pounds, not that she’d really needed to. She shaved and decided her toes still looked good enough. She put jeans and a T-shirt over her bathing suit, collected a change of clothes, and at the very last minute, slipped off her wedding ring and placed it in the pocket of her jeans. Then she headed out, stopping briefly to kiss both children on the tops of their heads. She usually breathed in their scalpy, human smell when she did this, but today, considering where she was going, she held her breath as she went from head to head. How could she begin an affair with the scent of her children lingering in her nostrils?

  “Bye,” she said, her hand on the doorknob, the tiniest twinge of excitement roiling deep in her belly. “Have fun at school.”

  Once she was outside, though, she didn’t want to go. She didn’t want to flirt and put herself out there and hope someone found her attractive. And who was this Lance anyway? She had built him up to be the one in her mind, the one she’d been saving for when she got really serious, but was he worthy of that? Maybe she should do this tomorrow. She had a big meeting about the new hotel project at eleven thirty. It had stalled pending a few important permits, and now it was back up full swing. She should be making herself presentable and doing research, but she just had a strange feeling that it was now or never with Lance.

  Okay, she decided, she would walk north toward the Y and see how she felt. That way, at the very least, she would be getting exercise. She was almost there when Joel called, the sound of the ringing phone interrupting Van Morrison’s “Crazy Love,” which she had been playing to psych herself up. At first she considered letting it go to voice mail. She could pretend she had already gotten into the pool by the time he called, but it was so early that it wasn’t out of the question that there could be a problem with one of the kids.

  “Hey,” she said, the words heartbeat and thousand miles running through her mind.

  “Uh, hey yourself,” he said. “The kids are all dropped. I was wondering if you had a few minutes to talk? Maybe we could meet for coffee?”

  She was so thrown off by this request that she stopped walking abruptly, and the wheels of a jogger stroller crashed into her from behind, hard.

  “I’m so sorry,” a woman said, coming around to her left side. “I didn’t expect you to stop, and I was just about to go around.”

  “It’s okay,” she said, wondering if the skin on her ankle had been cut. Maybe. It felt like that.

  “Are you sure you’re okay?” the woman asked, jogging in place next to Hannah, her hand on the stroller, clearly eager to keep going.

  “Yes, I’m fine,” Hannah said. If Joel hadn’t been on the phone, maybe she would have said she wasn’t fine—she was the opposite of fine. But at that moment it didn’t seem like her heel was the biggest source of her angst.

  The jogger nodded and took off.

  “I’m back,” Hannah said.

  “What happened?” Joel said, sounding concerned.

  “Nothing,” she said sharply, shutting him down.


  “Okay, well, look, I’m having a hard time,” Joel said. “I know I’m supposed to be having a hard time, that I deserve to have a hard time, but I can’t sleep, I can’t eat, and while I don’t want to go back on our agreement, our plan, what I would like to do is maybe talk more about, I don’t even know, a time line, maybe? Or some of the details? I honestly don’t know what I’m asking for—I guess to just talk to you. I miss you.”

  “Well, you should have thought of that before you embarked on your romantic adventure with Tara,” she said, surprised by how the anger was always right there, just waiting to come out. “You didn’t call me in to see if certain things worked for me or if they didn’t. Take the rose petals, for example. I never would have approved those rose petals. I think we’ve talked about this more than enough already.”

  “Okay,” Joel said, and she knew he wasn’t going to push.

  “Don’t you have a meeting?” she asked, annoyed. She was sure she could feel blood trickling down her heel, but she didn’t want to look. Also, it was starting to ache.

  Joel didn’t say anything. She could hear the sounds of traffic through the phone.

  “Hello?” she said, completely out of patience.

  “I’m not going to my meeting,” he said. “I took myself out.”

  “What does that mean, you took yourself out?”

  “I’m just not working on this particular phase of the project,” he said, like that was perfectly reasonable, even though Hannah knew it was not—Joel would never miss any phases of a project. He was a control freak. Under no circumstances that she could think of would he ever hand anything over to someone else at work.

  “Why?” Hannah asked. She was both alarmed and suspicious.

  “They’re dealing with the details of the color and lighting throughout the building to find the right image. It’s a lot of trying and seeing with the different spaces, you know how it is, and it would mean I would have to be there, in Minnesota. I don’t want to be there, I don’t want to go, so I’m letting Brett handle it. He’s happy to.”