“I’m in Seattle today and tomorrow. Would you be free for a drink tonight? To discuss my concerns?”
Concerns—plural. “Sure,” I said, dejectedly. My old boyfriend was getting married and now I was going to miss an important work deadline. Word would get around the publishing community that I wasn’t reliable and—well, you know the drill. “Where shall we meet?”
There was no way I could phone Colin back now. My angst over the Jim Davidson interview would undoubtedly be evident in my voice. I couldn’t sound all breezy and over him while I had this meeting with the disgruntled architect looming. Colin would think I was still pining away, crying myself to sleep every night clutching an old T-shirt of his. Gee, he’d think, I was going to invite her to my upcoming wedding, but maybe she can’t handle it? Maybe she’ll go psycho and try to attack my beautiful bride? I can’t risk it. No, I couldn’t talk to Colin now.
At four o’clock, I put on a black turtleneck and a charcoal knee-length skirt. Slipping into a pair of tall black boots, I surveyed myself in the full-length mirror on my bedroom door. Stylish, yet conservative and businesslike—just the look I was going for. There was no way I was going to risk any wardrobe malfunctions this time. I was mortified to think of our last encounter. My boobs had practically been popping out of my blouse, and I gave Jim a peep show any time my knees relaxed for a second. He probably thought I was some kind of bimbo trying to use my feminine assets to distract from the fact that I was a complete hack. Well, there’d be no chance of that at this meeting. I pulled my hair back into a severe ponytail, as an added measure.
When I arrived at the bayside bar, I took a deep, fortifying breath. Perhaps I was blowing this all out of proportion? I mean, this was an awfully nice location for Jim to select just to berate me about my crappy article. And really, my article was not that crappy. Why had I suddenly lost confidence in my work? The magazine had called me to do this job. They obviously thought I was good at my craft. Jim Davidson probably just had a few minor concerns about some of the content. I’d probably got some of the technical stuff wrong—like that ground pump heating thingy.
But when I walked toward Jim Davidson’s window table, and saw him seriously perusing a piece of paper (obviously, my crappy article), any confidence I’d bolstered seeped out of me. Jim looked just as dashing and sophisticated as he had at our first meeting, and I suddenly felt awkward, inept, and about fourteen years old. My discomfort was exacerbated by the initial attraction I’d felt toward him. God, did he know? It had probably been really obvious—especially after that flirtatious “I’ll buy the next drink” email. I’d even told the stitch ’n bitch club about him. They’d called him my old geezer boyfriend! I was so immature! So unprofessional! So—
“Beth...” Jim noticed my hovering presence. “Thanks for coming.” He didn’t smile, just stood and pulled out my chair.
“Yes, hello,” I said formally, taking my seat. Immediately I withdrew my notebook and flipped it open to a clean page. “You mentioned some concerns with the article I wrote about you?”
He chuckled. “How about a drink first?” The waiter appeared.
“I’ll have a soda water with lime,” I said, ever the professional.
Jim cocked an eyebrow at me. “How about a nice Cabernet? You’re wearing black.”
I would not succumb to his charm. “No, I—” I could really use a drink, though. “Well . . . I suppose I could have a glass.”
“Make that two,” Jim ordered. When the waiter had gone, he said, “It’s nice to see you again. Sorry I had to rush off so quickly last time . . .”
“Not at all . . . I’m sure you’re very busy,” I said, maintaining businesslike decorum. “I’d like to get your feedback on the interview right away, if you don’t mind. I’ve got a tight deadline.”
“Oh... okay.” He shifted in his seat. “Well, I read the article, Beth, and I thought it was really good, but...” He trailed off.
“But . . . ?”
“Well...I did have some concerns...one major concern really—”
The waiter chose this inopportune moment to deliver the wine. “Yes?” I prompted, when the server had departed. “Your major concern . . . ?”
“Right . . . well . . .” Jim suddenly seemed uncomfortable, almost nervous. God, was it really going to be that bad? Was he going to tell me I was the worst writer he’d ever encountered? That I should find a new career immediately? I reached for the wine and took a long sip. “Okay,” he said, with a heavy sigh. “I was concerned that...” He was looking at me intently now. “I was concerned that if I told you the article was good to go, I’d never get to see you again.”
What? The pen slipped from my hand and fell onto the blank page. What did he just say?
“I know this isn’t very professional of me but I just . . . I just really wanted to spend some more time with you... I wanted to talk to you—and not about green architecture.”
I glanced at his hand resting on the base of his wine glass. No ring! There was no ring! I picked up my wine. “I’m really glad you called,” I said, looking at him coyly over the rim of the glass. “I was hoping we’d have more time to talk, too.”
Three glasses of Cabernet later, I trundled out of a cab in front of my apartment. I was a little bit drunk, but I was a lot high. Jim Davidson had been so desperate to see me again, that he had made the whole “concerns with my article” thing up! There was nothing wrong with my article. It had all been a ploy! I really was a good writer—maybe even a great writer—and obviously, extremely attractive to handsome, sophisticated, top-of-their-field architects. And Jim Davidson wasn’t wearing a ring! That’s because he wasn’t married! Oh, he was married, once, a long time ago, but he let his career get in the way. He regrets hurting her, of course, but they weren’t right for each other anyway. They never had children—he didn’t have time then. But now—now he had mountains of time. He’d do things a lot differently if he ever had the chance again. He seriously said that! God—had I just met my destiny?
“What about you?” he’d asked. “Why isn’t a beautiful, successful woman like you married? You’re a catch.” I had shrugged. “Just haven’t met the right guy, I guess.” And for the first time, I realized it was true. I no longer thought of Colin as the right guy with the wrong attitude. We just weren’t meant to be.
Letting myself into the apartment, I was immediately met by the sounds of the TV. Kendra was home (of course) watching another chick flick—the one where Kate Hudson inherits some dead relative’s kids. I knew that Kendra was a Cancer and therefore a nester and homebody. But would it kill her to go out just once in a while? I couldn’t help but worry that my roommate might smell the alcohol on my breath. It was only 7:50 and I was half-loaded! I decided a brief hello was in order before I scurried off to my room to make the nonexistent edits to my article.
“Hi, Kendra. I’ll be in my room making some edits to an article I’m working on.” She yawned and nodded in response. “And I’ve got to make a couple of work-related phone calls,” I said, moving into the kitchen and grabbing the phone. Of course, there were no work-related phone calls to be made, just like there were no edits. I was dying to tell Angie about my date with Jim Davidson. Could I call it a date? It was, sort of, a date. Yes, I think we’d just had our first date!
No sooner had I closed the bedroom door behind me than the phone rang in my hand. Oh! I hoped it was Angie, or maybe Mel, and not Kendra’s mom calling to give her an update on her new knork. I pressed talk. “Hello?”
“Uh, hi, is that Beth?”
Oh, shit. “Yes,” I croaked.
“It’s me . . . Colin.”
Twelve
HIS GRANDPA DIED.”
“Oh, dear,” Nicola said.
Sophie asked, “Were you close to him?”
“Not really,” I said, placing my knitting in my lap and reaching for my wineglass. We were in Angie’s pristine apartment again. It was my turn to host, but I knew that Kendra wouldn’t open
up her home to a bunch of strangers. And we didn’t want her to alert the Promises Rehab Centre swat team to swoop in and haul us away for the inappropriate mixing of booze and knitting. “I didn’t know him well but he was a nice old guy. I remember he ate a lot of butterscotch candies and watched a lot of baseball.”
Martin asked, “What does Colin want you to do?” He’d started a black, wide-ribbed sweater with a beige band across the chest. While I was impressed that he felt confident jumping to such a complex project, I couldn’t help but feel a little hopeless in comparison. I mean, decreasing for armholes and tackling stripes! The mere thought made me feel like that inept little Brownie with the holey pot holder. I wasn’t sure I’d ever reach his level of expertise. Not to mention that it seemed my cream merino scarf would be the project that took me well into menopause. It never seemed to grow beyond about five inches before I made a mistake and ended up ripping out several rows.
I cleared my throat a little nervously. “He wants me to come over tomorrow night... to talk.”
“Tomorrow night?” Angie shrieked. “Tomorrow night is Valentine’s night!”
“It’s just a coincidence!” My response was defensive. “He’s upset. He needs a supportive friend right now and I’m the first person he thought of calling.”
“How convenient,” Angie muttered skeptically.
“Right. So his grandfather planned his death so Colin could invite me over on Valentine’s Day.”
“Are you going to go?” Nicola asked.
I paused. “I think so. I still care about him—as a friend—and he needs me.”
“I don’t think that’s a good idea,” Angie said, placing her needle, with its single row of aquamarine stitches, in her lap and looking at me frankly. “It sounds like a ploy to me.”
“Angie,” I said, “his grandpa is dead.”
“Okay, but does he really need you to come over to his apartment to talk about it? On Valentine’s night? Couldn’t you go out for coffee to talk about it—say, on Saturday morning?”
Nicola gasped. “Do you think he’s just trying to get her into bed?”
Angie gave her a “like, duh” look. “Men will do anything for sex.”
“Of course,” I snapped, “this was just a ‘my grandpa is dead’ booty call.”
Martin, ever the voice of reason, stepped into the fray. “What matters isn’t Colin’s motivation but Beth’s state of mind.” He looked at me. “Do you think you can handle being alone with him on Valentine’s night?”
“I can,” I said, with more confidence than I actually felt. “I’ve recently realized that Colin wasn’t the right guy with the wrong attitude: He just wasn’t the right guy. We weren’t meant to be.”
Nicola was staring at me intently. “Profound,” she said, nodding. She wasn’t even being sarcastic.
Angie’s eyes narrowed as she spoke. “This is about that old guy, isn’t it?”
“Well...” I blushed, and also wished they’d stop calling him “that old guy.” “I kind of went for drinks with him last night.”
“Oh my god!” Sophie squealed excitedly.
“So . . . ? How was it?” From Martin.
“It was really nice,” I said, making a concerted effort not to sound like Angie when she talked about Thad. “He’s very interesting... and funny.”
“Ring?” Angie asked pointedly.
“No ring. He’s divorced...years ago.”
Sophie jumped in. “Are you going to see him again?”
I shrugged. “I don’t know. I’d like to. He lives on Bainbridge Island and only comes into the city once in a while.”
“My parents have a summer home there,” Nicola said. “It’s beautiful. You should go visit him.”
“Slow down!” Angie said. “They’ve only gone out for drinks one time. She can’t very well show up on his doorstep.”
“Don’t worry,” I laughed. “And even if he doesn’t call again, I had a great time. Spending an evening with him made me feel so much more . . . I don’t know . . . optimistic about the future . . .”
“Sounds like fate to me,” Martin said, eyes on his knitting.
“How so?” Sophie asked, a bemused smile on her lips.
“The old guy came along just in time to make Beth strong enough to be there for Colin in his time of need—and strong enough not to sleep with him.”
“Exactly,” I said. “I’m going to support him as a friend and I’m not going to sleep with him.”
“You’d better not,” Angie said, sternly. “I don’t want to have to pick up the pieces if he breaks your heart again.”
“I’m not going to, okay?” I shrieked. “Can we please just drop it?” I knew of one surefire way to steer the conversation in another direction. I turned to Nicola. “How are the wedding plans coming along?”
As usual, her face split into a wide smile and her cheeks began to glow with excitement. “Oh, it’s going to be so magnificent. Did I tell you that we’re having the reception at the Fairmont Olympic Hotel? We’ve booked the Spanish Ballroom!”
“Wow,” Martin said. “I went to a fund-raiser there once. It’s spectacular.”
“I know,” Nicola gushed, her mauve scarf now ignored in her lap. “I adore the Italian Renaissance architecture. And we just finalized the table centrepieces last night. We’re having enormous bouquets of lavender and pale pink roses, in moss ribbon-wrapped vases with flowing ostrich feathers!”
“Wow,” Angie said.
Nicola looked on the verge of happy tears when she said, with a sigh, “It really is going to be the wedding I’ve always dreamed of.”
I was starting to feel just the teensiest bit nauseous when Sophie spoke up. “What about you and Thad?” she asked Angie. “How are things going?”
While this topic was only slightly less vomit-inducing than the previous one, I’d been wondering where that relationship stood myself. Maybe they’d broken up by now? Maybe Angie and I could start spending more time together, two single gals out on the town?
Unfortunately, Angie replied excitedly, “We’re going away together for a Valentine’s weekend.”
“Where to?” Nicola asked.
“There’s this place in the desert in southern Nevada. It’s sort of a spa retreat slash holistic Native healing centre.”
Well, that figured. Leave it to flaky Thad to suggest a Valentine’s weekend away at a spa retreat slash holistic Native healing centre. My eyes darted to the others to see if they thought it a strange vacation as well, but Martin asked, pleasantly, “And what will you get up to there?”
“We’re doing a sweat lodge ceremony. It’s meant to purify the body, mind, and spirit, to allow a new sense of self to emerge. It’s like entering the womb and being reborn.”
Oh, come on! But everyone else was smiling pleasantly, knitting away as though Angie had just announced they were off on a wine-tasting tour in the Napa Valley. Sophie even murmured, “Interesting.”
I simply had to say something. “Well, that’s quite a departure from the last holiday you took.” Last November, Angie had gone to Club Hedonism in the Turks and Caicos. She’d returned home with a tan and three pairs of men’s underwear to commemorate her conquests.
She shrugged and smiled. “It’s certainly a much healthier choice. I can’t wait to be purified.” She continued her slow and painstaking knit stitches as she said, “You know, Beth, you should try something like that. It could cleanse Colin right out of your system.”
“He’s not in my system,” I retorted. “And even if he was, I don’t think I’d need to sweat him out.”
“It couldn’t hurt,” she replied, flippantly.
I was suddenly feeling defensive. “I don’t need any crazy purifying techniques to get over Colin. I’m moving on. I’m feeling optimistic about my romantic future.”
“I have faith in you,” Nicola said, with a supportive smile.
“Me too,” Sophie agreed. “When you see him tomorrow night, you’ll be a supportive
friend, nothing more.”
“Thanks, guys,” I said sincerely. Then, for Angie’s benefit, “And I definitely will not sleep with him.”
Thirteen
DON’T SLEEP WITH him . . . Don’t sleep with him . . . Just support him in his time of need and don’t sleep with him. I repeated the mantra as I made my way up the walk to Colin’s building, as he buzzed me into the lobby with its omnipresent odour of frying onions, and as I climbed the carpeted staircase to his second-floor apartment. On the day of that symbolic dried orange peel toss, I had been so certain I’d never be here again, but, of course, I hadn’t factored in the death-in-the-family scenario. It would have been heartless to reject Colin’s plea for emotional support. He had been my friend, my best friend, for four years and I still cared about him. Don’t sleep with him . . . Don’t sleep with him . . .
But when he opened the door I felt my stomach lurch involuntarily. Oh god. Maybe I’d underestimated my remaining feelings for him? He looked so handsome and sweet and a little bit sad. He was wearing the faded khaki T-shirt that I had always loved on him. I tried to ignore how it brought out the green in his eyes and highlighted his pectorals. “Hi,” he said, huskily. “Thanks for coming.”
“You’re welcome,” I said. My voice was clipped and formal as I walked through the doorway. I turned to him. “I’m sorry for your loss.”
“Thanks,” he said sadly, his eyes downcast. “Come on in.”
As I entered the living room, the apartment felt familiar and yet strange. The elements were the same but it no longer had that feeling of hominess. Colin hadn’t replaced the pieces of furniture that I’d removed when I left, so the room had an unfinished feeling, like it was only half complete. I tried to ignore the symbolism as I sat on the small tan loveseat (the matching sofa was sitting in my storage locker).
“Can I get you a glass of wine?”
Wine was not a good idea. You certainly didn’t need wine to comfort a sad friend, and it obviously wasn’t going to make Colin any less attractive. No, I’d suggest a cup of tea instead. But somehow, when I opened my mouth, the word “sure” came out. What was going on with me? Did my borderline alcoholic liver have control over my brain? Or was my nervous system just crying out for some sort of relaxant? I decided to go with the second theory.
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