“No white dress, huh?”
“Nope. Not even a cheap bouquet from a Korean market. He was supposed to bring it to the courthouse and forgot.”
“That’s sad.” Abby sighed. “Okay, I won’t ever bring it up.”
“Me, neither, honey,” JoAnne said, patting Maggie’s hand.
Maggie gave an odd sort of laugh. “Whew. Glad that’s over.”
So was I. My life was full enough of secrets and deceptions.
Doug and I met Monday after work at Brasserie Jo for drinks before he had to drive back to Newton.
I had something specific on my mind.
It seemed odd to me that so far, Doug had never really talked about his wife. Odd because I’d always assumed a married man making advances toward a woman not his wife was supposed to talk about said wife—as in, “My wife doesn’t understand me,” or “My wife is a shrew.”
But Doug hadn’t said a word about his wife, except once or twice to mention her name in passing. It was as if he were single himself. Or maybe it was that his wife was so small a part of his life she didn’t deserve mention. Or maybe it was that she really didn’t understand him and they’d grown so far apart he virtually forgot about her once he got into his Lexus every morning for the commute to work.
It wasn’t that I was hoping to hear nastiness about Doug’s wife. At least, I admired Doug’s not bad-mouthing her. But I was puzzled. Who was this woman at home in Newton? And why didn’t she seem to matter to her own husband?
No longer being the shy, retiring type with Doug, I asked him the big question that evening. We were alone in the bar area, seated at a tiny table, sipping glasses of Merlot.
“Why don’t you ever mention your wife?”
If I’d thought he’d be taken aback, I was wrong.
“Because she doesn’t have anything to do with you.”
“But I’m ... we’re ... what are we doing, anyway?”
“Flirting. We’re drawn to each other. We want each other.”
“You’re sure of yourself.”
“In this case, yes, I am.”
“Okay, but ... I guess I want to know what’s wrong with your wife. What’s wrong with your marriage that you’re here with me like this?”
Doug said nothing for a moment. Then: “Erin, you’ve never been married, right?”
“No, but I’ve been through a divorce.”
Doug’s smile was weak.
“Sorry,” I said, and took a sip of wine.
“I made a mistake, Erin. I married the wrong woman. There’s nothing wrong with Carol. But I’m not in love with her. I love her, of course, and I take care of her and the kids, but she’s not my soul mate. Not by a mile.”
“Then, why?” I persisted. “Why did you marry her?”
“Honestly? She was nice. I was lonely. It seemed maybe a solution to—something. I was young. My friends from college were all getting married. It’s a typical story, Erin. I’m just like the majority of married men. Marriage is no big romance. It’s just—settling down.”
“That’s wrong,” I said fervently. “That’s what I’ve tried so hard to avoid doing.”
“And you’ve been successful. What can I say, Erin? You’re smarter than I am. And now you’re still free to make a choice.”
I thought about that.
“And you’re not free to? It seems to me that’s what you’re doing with me, making a choice.”
“Fair enough.”
“So,” I said, for lack of anything smarter to say. Where did this conversation—where did we—go from here?
“So, Carol doesn’t love me in the way I need to be loved. She can’t. It’s not who she is. I don’t blame her for it.”
But he’s punishing her for it, Reason hissed. He’s punishing her for his mistake in marrying her. Can’t you see that?
Oh, that’s not it at all, Romance whispered back. Now that he’s finally found his soul mate, he can’t just let her go. Now that he’s met Erin, life has new meaning for him. He can’t just stick his head back in the sand.
And neither could I.
Chapter Twenty-five
That Wednesday, at about three in the afternoon, I got an interesting call at the office.
“Hello?”
“Hi, it’s Maggie.”
“Hi, what’s up?”
Maggie was not a big fan of the phone. A call from her meant that something was definitely “up.”
“Well, I know it’s kind of last minute, but I’m going to Paris on Sunday.”
This was news.
“You’re kidding! Why? Well, okay, stupid question, it’s Paris. What made you decide to go now? Are you going alone? Is it a trip through MIT?”
Maggie laughed but it sounded forced.
“One question at a time. Yes, it’s sort of a trip through—work. And I’m going now because the airfares are dirt cheap. The airlines are desperate to get people to fly. And one of my—colleagues—is coming along.”
“That’s nice. Who?”
“Who?”
Hmm. Curiouser and curiouser.
“Yeah, who?”
“Oh, you don’t know—Dr. Bruce,” Maggie said dismissively. “Just a—colleague.”
“Well, gosh, I hope you have a fabulous time ...”
“It’ll be mostly work stuff,” Maggie interrupted. “Look, Erin, I’ve got to go. I’m running off to WLP. I just wanted to let you know I wouldn’t be around till next weekend. Tell the others?”
“Maggie, it’s only Wednesday, I’m sure I’ll—”
“Thanks. I’ll call you when I get back, okay?”
“Okay,” I said, very puzzled by my friend’s obvious discomfort. What was she hiding? “Bon voyage.”
And Maggie was gone.
Erin—sorry haven’t written. have been sick, malaria, ok now. don’t worry. don’t tell yr. father. spare any $? med bills pile up. hope you’re ok. m.
It was time.
Doug and I had already kissed, more than once and with increasing intensity. It was clear the passion was there. I wanted to have sex with Doug Spears. I felt as if I would go crazy if we waited a moment longer.
I was ready.
I made the decision. Or the very fact of Doug Spears made it for me. Maybe I had no part in choosing. He was my fate. He came into my life and our tale was already told. It had only been a matter of time.
It was hardly the setting I’d imagined.
Trident’s offices were located in the Prudential Center, on the forty-ninth floor of the tower. As a bigwig, Doug had a massive office, complete with couch and minibar.
We made love for the first time in Doug’s office. On the big brown leather couch. Handily, Doug also kept a blanket in his office for midafternoon catnaps. No point in staining nice leather.
Everyone had long gone home or to dinner or wherever everyone went at the end of the workday. Doug and I had grabbed a bite at Radius—the site of our first sort-of date—and strolled through the Commons for a bit, arm in arm, dangerously tempting fate and risking discovery. At seven-thirty, we headed for Trident.
We had to sign in at the building’s after-hours reception desk. Mac, the security guy, knew me from my increasingly frequent daytime visits to Trident’s offices.
“Burning the midnight oil?” he quipped as Doug wrote our names and the time of our entry in Mac’s ledger.
“Ha!” I was mortified. Mac had to know what we had come back to the office to do.
“Big presentation next month,” Doug said calmly, looking Mac square in the eye. “You’ll probably be seeing a lot of us.”
Maybe Doug had given Mac some sort of guy signal—one that said, Ask no questions and we’ll tell you no lies—because Mac looked away and mumbled, “Sure, sure.”
Doug and I walked to the elevator bank.
“You okay?” Doug asked.
I nodded. But no, I was not okay. I was about to pass out. Would Doug grab me in the elevator? Would my clothes be half off by the time
we reached the forty-ninth floor?
“What if someone else is up there?” I whispered.
“Mac would have told us.”
“How do you know?”
“He would have told us.”
Okay.
The elevator opened and we stepped into the car. Doug didn’t grab for me. I didn’t grab for him. We stood silently, looking into each other’s eyes. It was not something I’d ever really done, looked calmly and deeply at a lover, as he did the same to me. It was exhilarating, intimate in a way that drove me to a pitch of desire I thought would knock me over.
The forty-ninth floor. Silently, we stepped off the elevator. Doug took my hand and we walked—we didn’t run—down the long carpeted hallway to his private office. Through the blood beating in my ears I listened for voices and other telltale signs of occupation and heard none.
At the door of Doug’s office he turned to me. “Okay?” he said.
I nodded.
And we closed the door behind us.
I lay in bed that night and remembered. I remembered every moment of our time together, every inch of his skin, every word breathed into my ear.
In spite of the less-than-romantic setting, I had never had sex that good. Not just sex, though, the whole thing, the entire experience, the need and desire and how we looked at each other and how I was completely unaware of anything but the two of us. It was spectacular.
What a cliché, I’d always thought. It just doesn’t happen, the world shrinking to encompass only the two lovers, time seeming to stand still, the moment seeming eternal, comprising past, present, and future. Please. Spare me. What did John Donne and Emily Dickinson and John Keats and all those other dead poets I’d studied in college think they were trying to pull? Okay, their use of language was beautiful but what fantasies were they creating, what lies were they perpetuating? How could real life ever touch the splendor of poetry?
Well, it had for me that night. And it had changed everything.
Chapter Twenty-six
Still, in spite of the earth-shattering experience of sex with Doug, life went on much as usual. My life apart from Doug.
I sent what money I could spare to my mother, after frightening myself silly by going on-line to learn just how dangerous malaria could be.
I spoke to my father once a week, less than before he’d started to date Abby.
I went to work and generally stayed later than anyone else. I watched TV and read books. And I saw my friends, though I didn’t say a word about what was going on between Doug Spears and me.
We four women had had tickets to the Red Sox vs. the Seattle Mariners game at Fenway Park for months now. And there was no reason for me not to go as the game was on a Saturday, not a time during which I could be with Doug. Because Maggie was in Paris, I offered her ticket to Damion. He accepted.
“This is the life,” I said. “Who’s better than us, huh? Sun, sausages with onions, beer.” It was maybe the best day of my life. Of the summer, anyway. Of the days not spent with Doug.
“Weak beer,” Damion said, sneering at his cup.
“I’ll buy you a real beer later. As I was saying, a nice breeze, girlfriends, big men in tight pants. Big men running and crouching. Big men with great butts. I mean, this is great.”
Just because I was madly in love with Doug, didn’t mean I was dead to the presence of attractive male bodies. In fact, in a way, Doug had sexualized the world for me. He was the core and base of my sexuality and through him, the world had suddenly come alive with sexual energy.
“How can you eat those things?” JoAnne nodded at my sausage.
“Easy. Open mouth, insert sausage, bite, chew, swallow. I’ve been doing it since I had teeth.”
“Just don’t come running to me when there’s a hole in your stomach the size of a hubcap.”
“I think my nose is burning.” Abby touched the tip of her nose with one thin finger. “Is my nose burning? I put on lots of sun block before I left the house so I don’t know why my nose would be burning. But it feels like it is. Does my nose look red?”
“No, but it’s going to if you don’t shut up.” JoAnne flipped a small tube into Abby’s lap. “Here. Use some of my block.”
Abby peered at the tube. “Oh. It’s only SPF 15.”
“Put on two layers.”
“I don’t think it works that way,” Abby said worriedly. “I don’t want to be all red when I see John tonight.”
“Here.” Damion took off his baseball cap and handed it to Abby. “Wear this, too.”
Abby held the cap by the very tip of the brim, like it was a dangerous or very icky wild animal. “Uh, thanks, Damion. But, well, it’s really not my style. It looks good on you, though!”
Damion rolled his eyes and snatched back his cap.
I laughed. Life was good.
Doug was full of small but lovely surprises in those first weeks. When I got to work one morning there was a white paper bag sitting on the receptionist’s desk. It had been delivered from—and prepaid for—Au Bon Pain. Heather gave me an odd look as she handed it to me.
“Oh, yeah,” I said idiotically, “I almost forgot. I ... I had my breakfast, uh, sent ahead.”
What? I dashed off to my office and opened the bag. Inside was a cup of black coffee, an Asiago cheese bagel, toasted with butter—my favorites—and a note.
E.—Thinking of you this morning. Think of me? D.
There were more flowers. There were messages on my answering machine when I arrived home after saying good-bye to Doug under cover of darkness.
Erin, I miss you already and you just walked away.
Simple, sweet gestures. Like Doug’s first tangible gift to me. We met for lunch on the terrace overlooking the bay behind the Boston Harbor Hotel. It was like being on vacation for an hour—white sailboats and yachts, bright blue sky, sun glinting off the water, everybody in sunglasses, men shedding jackets, women in sleeveless dresses. It was a place where you could easily feel alone amidst the crowd of other diners.
When we had ordered, Doug took a small but chunky box from his pocket. It was wrapped inexpertly in shiny blue paper.
“Here,” he said, placing the box on the table before me. “It’s your birthday present.”
I grinned, inordinately thrilled.
“But my birthday is in January. It’s months away.”
“But I missed your last birthday.”
“But you didn’t even know me then.”
“Allow me my pleasures. Go on, open it.”
I did. Usually, I tear open packages, destroying the wrapping in the process. This time, I carefully broke open the tape in an effort not to ruin the paper. It would be saved, like every other tidbit associated with Doug. Souvenirs of our first heady days.
A box. Inside was a large lucite ring, the kind that never really loses popularity, the kind that used to be sold in the candy stores of my youth for loose change and that are now sold in museum shops and fancy gift shops for considerably more money.
It was largely translucent with shafts of pink and purple and violet shot through. The top of the ring was shaped like a heart. It was a heart plateau.
There was no way the ring would ever fit under a glove. It was a whimsical ring for whimsical occasions. It was gorgeous.
“I love it!” I said, laughing.
Doug ran his finger along my cheek.
“I wanted to give you something special. Right now I can’t give you the kind of ring I want to give you, so ...”
Oh, God, he’d really wanted to give me an engagement ring... .
“Oh, Doug, it’s beautiful. You make me so happy I can’t stand it.”
“Try to.”
And I did.
For about ten days I kept the official start of my relationship with Doug—which I considered our first full sexual encounter—a secret from my friends. But I couldn’t keep quiet any longer. I was dying to tell—not details but the fact that I was in love. The fact that Doug was in love with
me. I just knew he was.
I met JoAnne, Maggie, and Abby for dinner at Dish, a small, cozy place in the South End. It was a lovely evening and there’s not much traffic on Shawmut at that end of the street, so we took a table on the sidewalk.
I decided to dive right in.
“Well, I know you won’t approve, but ...”
“But you’re sleeping with that married guy,” JoAnne blurted. “What’s his name? Dirk Spiral?”
“Doug Spears. And how did you know!”
“Oh, come on, Erin,” JoAnne said. “You’re so transparent!”
“I am?” This was news.
“And none of us has seen you since the Red Sox game,” Abby pointed out. “You’ve been ‘busy’ every time we’ve gotten together.”
“I’m sorry guys, really. But Doug and I have to grab what time we can. It’s not like ... like ...”
“Like a normal relationship?” Abby said unhelpfully.
“See, I knew you wouldn’t approve.”
“It doesn’t matter what we think, honey,” JoAnne said. “It’s your life and nobody has a right to tell you what to do.”
“That’s right. You’re an adult,” Abby said helpfully.
“Yeah, sound of body if not of mind.” Maggie cringed. “I’m sorry, Erin. I think you’re making a big mistake but I’m here for you if you need me.”
“You mean, when she needs you,” JoAnne amended. “Because you will need us, honey. There’s no way having an affair with a married man is going to be a smooth ride. Unless you’re looking for a little excitement and drama. Tell me, do emotional pain and trauma turn you on?”
“God, no!” I protested. “I just ... I wish my friends wouldn’t judge me.”
Living Single Page 15