“He wants you to call him back. He said it was important. He has good news.”
“Did he get a job offer?”
“I don’t know.” She handed me the cordless phone. “Call him. I’m dying to know. He sounded excited.”
I finished crunching as I dialed. The phone rang once on the other end. I helped myself to a swig from Valerie’s soda can and checked my watch after the second ring. It was only seven-thirty on the West Coast. Too early for him to be sleeping, too late to be out to dinner, according to him.
“Hello?”
“Mike! I just got home. What’s your news?”
“I just got a job offer.”
“Which one? The software place?”
“The TCP/IP research place.”
“What TCP/IP research place? And what the heck is TCP/IP research?”
“It stands for Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol,” he said, as if that helped in the least. He might as well have been speaking in Swahili.
“I have no idea what you’re talking about, Mike,” I said, shrugging in response to Valerie’s questioning look.
“Have you heard about the World Wide Web?”
“Oh! You mean that U.S.A. for Africa thing?”
“What?”
“You know,” I said impatiently, “the video from a few years ago with Michael Jackson and Bruce Springsteen and Tina Turner and all those other stars singing?”
“He met Michael Jackson?” Valerie croaked at my elbow. “Oh my God!”
I shushed her, shaking my head.
“That’s ‘We Are the World,’ Beau,” Mike was saying flatly.
“Right.” I paused. “So this is something different?”
“Yeah. This is something different. You know Bradley?”
Bradley Masterson was his professor at school; the one he was helping with that research project.
“Of course I know Bradley.” It was Bradley’s fault Mike wasn’t already back in New York. I hated Bradley.
“One of his colleagues is going to be working on something called the World Wide Web, which is a new concept in blah, blah, blah…a global hypertext database that could be blah, blah, blah…”
Okay, I admit it. I tuned him out, as I always did when he got too technical.
When he paused for breath, I said brightly, “Hey, that sounds great.”
“Great?” Was it my imagination, or was he disdainful over my choice of adjectives? “This could be hugely excellent, Beau.”
“So how was the package?” I was determined to show him that we were on the same page after all.
“It was rad.”
Rad? First dude, now rad. Good Lord. The sooner I got him back to the East Coast, the sooner I could banish that annoying surfer lingo from his vocabulary. Anything was better than rad. Even the lackluster great. Even the Long Island–tainted oh-awe-some.
“So did you take the job?” I held my breath.
Valerie squealed in a high-pitched whisper, “He got a job?”
I nodded, holding her off with a raised hand as Mike said, “I wanted to talk to you first.”
I laughed. “Take it. Definitely take it. When do you start? Maybe I can fly out and drive your stuff back with you.”
Silence.
Not good silence punctuated by page-flipping as he checked his calendar for a suitable date. No, dead silence as he obviously tried to figure out how to break some horrible news to me.
I knew, before he spoke, what the horrible news had to be. I knew the job wasn’t here.
“It’s in L.A., isn’t it, Mike.” It wasn’t a question.
“It’s in L.A.?” Valerie echoed in dismay, hovering at my side. “Tell him that’s out of the question.”
Before I could do that, Mike shocked me by saying, “No, it’s not in L.A.”
“It’s not?” My heart soared higher than the top of Valerie’s hair. Of course it wasn’t in L.A. Of course things were going to fall into place. They always did, didn’t they? Why did I ever doubt it?
“What a relief,” I said, feeling giddy. “For a second there, I thought for sure you were going to say that it—”
“It’s in Silicon Valley.”
Okay, I was no computer geek—not by a long shot—but even I knew that Silicon Valley was nowhere near Manhattan.
“Isn’t that in California?” I asked Mike slowly.
“Yeah. But not L.A. It’s in northern California. You’d love it up there.”
No, I wouldn’t. I wouldn’t love it anywhere other than here, I thought stubbornly.
Then again…was he asking me to move with him?
“Maybe if I take the job, after I get settled you can come out and visit for a few days and I can show you around. Then down the road you might want to come out.”
Maybe? Might? Down the road?
Could he be any more noncommittal? I wasn’t necessarily hoping for a marriage proposal, but the least he could do was be a little less vague about our future.
“You’re so quiet,” he said.
“Yeah. Because I think you really want to take this job.”
“Well, it could be a major waste of time. There’s no way to tell. Or…”
“Or…?” I nudged when he fell silent.
“Or it could be the opportunity of a lifetime.”
“Which do you think it is?” I asked, thinking he had just pretty much summed up how I felt about our relationship at that point. Major waste of time? Or opportunity of a lifetime?
“I don’t know,” he said. “I don’t know what to do.”
I noticed he wasn’t asking me to tell him what he should do. Which was a shame, because I would. Gladly.
“I guess I’ll sleep on it,” he mused aloud.
“That’s a good idea.” Hopefully, while he was sleeping on it, he’d dream about me. And New York. And being with me in New York. Hopefully, he’d see that that was the way things were supposed to be.
As he went on about the job and technical computer stuff, I closed my eyes and tried to send Beau-in-New-York vibes to his subconscious.
When he paused for breath, I said brightly, “So how about those Yankees?”
“They suck,” was the prompt response. “I’m a Mets fan, remember?”
“Oh, right. I forgot.”
He went on and on about the Mets for a few minutes, which wasn’t exactly fascinating but better than all that technical World Wide Web stuff. I couldn’t imagine living with that on a full-time basis if he took the job.
We chatted for a few more minutes about baseball, and eventually, we hung up after exchanging our usual I love you’s. Mine was laced with more silent Beau-in-New-York vibes. His wasn’t very reassuring.
I mean, if you love someone, you want to be with them. Right? If you love someone, you don’t consider taking some stupid Tee-pee-something or other research job three thousand miles away.
I tossed the cordless phone onto the laminate countertop with a curse.
Valerie peered into my face. “Are you okay?”
“Do I look okay?” I burst into tears. “He wants to take a job in Silicon Valley.”
“He wants you to move to Silicon Valley?”
“Did I say that?” I knew I was being bitchy. I also knew she understood. That was the great thing about Valerie. Not much fazed her.
“You mean he wants to move to Silicon Valley without you? Pretzel?” she asked almost as an afterthought, offering the bag.
“No, thanks.” I sniffled and reached for the pack of cigarettes we kept on top of the microwave. I wasn’t technically a smoker—mostly just when I was out drinking, or depressed.
I puffed away and vented my frustrations about Mike while Valerie crunched her way through the bag of pretzels, alternately offering consolation and salty pats on the shoulder.
Whenever Valerie was depressed, she ate.
Whenever I was depressed, Valerie ate.
“The worst thing about it,” I said, lighting a new Salem Slim
Light from the stub of my old Salem Slim Light, “is that that horrible ‘We Are the World’ song is now stuck in my head.”
“I like that song.”
“You would. You like New Kids on the Block and Richard Marx, too.”
“What’s wrong with that?”
I shot her a pointed look and an “Ew.”
“I’m insulted,” she said mildly, obviously not the least bit insulted.
The falsetto pop chorus to “We Are the World” sang in my head.
“Did he say when he has to let them know about the job?” Valerie asked.
“No.”
I couldn’t get that damn song out of my head.
“I can’t take it anymore. I have to go turn on some music,” I said abruptly, heading into our bedroom. “Anything is better than this.”
In the bedroom, I headed straight for the boom box, which had been moved from the milk-crate bedside table to the desk, which was next to the wastebasket, which was beside a pale blue cardboard rectangle that lay on the floor.
It must have fallen out when Valerie tossed the trash the other day.
I reached down to grab it, realizing what it was in the instant before I picked it up and turned it over.
Mike.
Stylin’ Mullet Mike from the airport.
“What’s that?” Valerie asked, and I looked up to see her watching me from the doorway, an unlit cigarette in her hand.
“It’s just a business card.” I held it poised over the wastebasket again, but I couldn’t quite bring myself to drop it in.
“Whose business card?”
“This guy’s. I met him at the airport last week when I was waiting for Mike.”
“Is he cute?” She leaned in and lit her cigarette from the one I was holding.
“Really cute.”
“Available?”
“I guess.”
“And you asked him for his number?”
“No! He sort of…forced it on me.”
“Why don’t I ever meet any really cute available guys who force their numbers on me?” she asked wistfully. “Do you know how lucky you are?”
“If I hear that one more time…” I shook my head. “I don’t feel very lucky right now, okay, Val? My boyfriend wants to abandon me to live a million miles away. That isn’t lucky.”
“True.” She waited a second, then said, “Come on, Beau. Don’t just stand there holding that card. Either call this cute available guy or give me the card so I can call him.”
“Call him!” I echoed. “Why would I call him? I have a boyfriend. And why would you call him?”
“Because I don’t have a boyfriend. And desperate times call for desperate measures.”
“You’re not desperate, Val.”
“Sure I am,” she said cheerfully. “So are you going to call him?”
“No! And neither are you. I’m going to throw the card away, which is what I thought I did in the first place.” I was still holding it over the garbage can, but I couldn’t seem to make myself let go.
“What do you mean, you thought you did?”
“I threw it into the wastebasket last week. It must have fallen out when you dumped the garbage.”
“Nothing fell out when I dumped the garbage. I always check the floor around it, ever since we had that mouse problem.”
Yeah. That.
I shuddered just remembering the morning we woke up to a hear a horrible thumping, scratching sound. Turned out it was coming from a mouse gnawing its way through a sauce and grease–stained pizza box that had fallen from its perch atop the jammed garbage can in the kitchen.
“Of course it fell out of the wastebasket,” I said impatiently.
“Don’t be so sure. Maybe…”
“Maybe what? It magically reappeared?”
“Stranger things have happened,” she said mysteriously.
“No, they haven’t.” I rolled my eyes.
“I think it’s fate. Forget about me calling him. You need to call him, Beau.”
“I’m not calling him.”
I let go of the card and watched it flutter into the wastebasket again.
“Guess you don’t believe in fate, Beau.”
“Guess not.”
Valerie shook her head. “I’m going to go order Chinese. You want some?”
“No, thanks.”
I watched her leave the room.
I waited until I heard her on the phone with Dragon Panda before I plucked the pale blue card from the litter of lipstick-stained tissues.
I tucked it under my pillow, just in case…
Just in case, what? I asked myself.
I didn’t know the answer. All I knew was that I just couldn’t throw it away.
thirteen
The present
“God, you sound exactly the same,” Mike’s voice declares in my ear as, gripping the phone, I wrench my bare feet out of the kiddie pool and bolt from my chair.
“You, um, sound the same, too,” I tell him, scurrying across the yard, leaving the kids and Laura and the baby monitor behind.
But he doesn’t really sound the same. His voice is deeper, and he’s got a different accent. A bit of a drawl, really.
I find myself feeling inexplicably betrayed. He’s gone on to build a whole life without me; developed a whole new accent without me.
Well, what did you expect, Beau? Did you think he’d stay frozen in time, right where you abandoned him fifteen years ago?
“How did…”
“I get your number? You’re listed,” he says with a laugh. “You don’t mind, do you?”
“No! Where…I…do…I mean, are you in Florida?” I manage to ask.
“Yeah. For a few years now.”
“Really. What are you doing there?”
“Not much of anything, actually.” His laugh is easy, his drawl decided.
“Oh. So you’re not, um…” Married is what I want to say. “Working?” is what I say instead.
“Working?” He laughs again. More of a chuckle. “Nope, I’m not working. Not at the moment.”
Terrific. He’s unemployed, which he seems to find oddly amusing, and living in Florida. Probably in a run-down trailer park. Yet, I can’t help myself. Once again, I find myself wondering whether he’s married.
“How about you?” he’s asking.
I absently watch Josh shoving Mikey’s head underwater in the kiddie pool across the yard. “Me? Yes, I’m still married.”
There’s a pause, and then he says, “I meant are you working?”
“Oh! Sorry, I thought you…” I trail off, mortified.
“It’s okay. Just…I mean, I knew that. You mentioned that you’re still married in your e-mail. That’s great.”
“Yeah! It is! It’s great!” I look skyward, mortified, and realize that the broken branch I asked Mike to remove from the oak tree last month is still dangling precariously overhead. It so figures. I step out from under it, just in case.
“And you have three kids?” Mike is asking.
“Yeah! Three kids! They’re great!” And one is currently trying to drown the other as an oversize Laura struggles to play lifeguard. “Can you hang on for a second, Mike?”
“Sure.”
I set the phone on the ground, making sure that it’s out of earshot and beyond the range of falling branches, then stride back over to the pool.
“Mikey, are you okay?” I ask my sputtering firstborn, whom Laura has rescued from his brother’s clutches. “Josh, get into time-out under that tree. Now. March!” To Laura, I say, “Thanks.”
“No problem.” She settles back into her chair.
“Listen, Laura, this is a hugely important phone call. I have to take it in the house. Can you please-please-please just make sure they stay alive for five minutes while I’m gone?”
“Sure. What’s wrong? Is it Mike?”
“Yeah, it’s Mike,” I say with only a twinge of guilt because it’s not a lie. “Everything’s fine. I just need to
talk inside, where it’s quiet.”
“Go.”
“Thanks. I owe you a big favor.”
“Where were you when I was looking for a surrogate?” she asks wryly, wrapping my shivering son in the nearest beach towel.
I rush back to the phone, grab it, and make a beeline for the house, accidentally trampling what’s left of my prized stargazer lily bed in the process.
My heart is pounding. I can’t believe I’m actually in the midst of a conversation with Mike after all these years.
In fact…what if he hung up?
Pressing the receiver to my ear as I walk, I hear the faint sound of music playing in the background. So he’s still there. Thank God. Continuing the conversation is crucial. I don’t know why it is, but it is.
I wait until I’m sealed into the cool, dim, quiet interior to say into the receiver, “Sorry about that. I’m back.”
“Hi.”
“Hi.”
Somehow, the conversation just got more intimate. It’s almost as if we’re suddenly alone together at last.
“So…you’re still married,” he says again.
“Yeah.” I wait. “To Mike,” I repeat, when he doesn’t speak.
“And you have three kids?”
“Three boys.
“That’s great.”
“Do you have kids?”
“No. I always wanted them, but…” He sighs. “You know how it goes. Some things just aren’t meant to be.”
Yeah.
I know how it goes.
Some things just aren’t meant to be.
Like fatherhood.
And like…
Us.
I read sorrow into his silence and I wonder if that’s what he’s thinking.
Probably not. Our relationship is ancient history. I’m not self-centered enough to think that he’s been pining away for me all these years.
Maybe he’s just thinking it’s unfair that I have three children and he doesn’t have any. Maybe he’s thinking about his beloved wife, and how the two of them have been through years of infertility treatments.
I always wanted them.
Wouldn’t you think he’d have said “We always wanted them” if he were married?
I would think that. But then, I don’t want him to be married. I don’t want him to have a beloved wife. I want…
I want him to tell me he’s spent the last fifteen years frozen in time, longing for me. Longing for what might have been. That’s what I want.
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