“You bet he did,” I say with a laugh.
“Grandma and Grandpa wanted him to bring it home,” Mikey reports, “but Mommy said no.”
“They kept saying yes,” Josh put in, “but Mommy kept saying no. And Mommy won.”
Mike laughs. “Good for Mommy.”
“Hey, Dad, did you know that Grandpa knows even badder words than Mommy does?” Josh asked. “Grandpa said a lot of bad words about my new fire truck last night to Grandma after we were supposed to be sleeping. I heard him say damn. And he said hell, too. And then he said—”
“That’s enough, Josh,” Mike cuts in, and sets him on his feet again as we reached the baggage claim. He looks at me. “Did they drive you crazy?”
“The kids?”
“My parents.”
“Oh…” I shrug. “They were wonderful. Really. Your mother just kept thinking I was sick, or that the kids were sick, or that your father was sick. Has she always been like that?”
He laughs. “Hell, yes.”
“Daddy, you said a bad word,” Mikey pipes up. “Did you learn that one from Grandpa?”
“Maybe he learned it from Mommy,” Josh puts in. “Mommy said hell when the car trunk closed on her finger this morning.”
“The car trunk closed on your finger? Are you okay?” Mike asks, so concerned that I feel guilty.
About everything.
Not that I didn’t feel guilty before now.
I’ve been swamped in guilt, in fact, ever since that kiss on the beach on Tuesday afternoon. I’ve done my best to forget it ever happened, but I haven’t been able to.
At least I haven’t had to see or hear from Mike again since I abandoned him on the beach. He didn’t know where I was staying; he didn’t have my cell-phone number. For a while I was mortally afraid that he would call my home phone and tell Mike what had happened.
Clearly, he hadn’t. I mean, Mike is acting totally normal.
And the other Mike would have nothing to gain, really, by blowing the whistle on me.
Nothing other than revenge.
Which, when you come right down to it, I wouldn’t blame him for wanting.
Especially now.
If I try hard enough, I can almost forgive myself for being a fickle female fifteen years ago. But I can’t forgive myself for what I did this past week.
I suppose I can’t expect Mike to forgive me for that either. He clearly had the wrong idea about…lunch.
“How was the beach?” Mike asks, jarring me back to the present.
“The beach?” I echo, my mind racing wildly.
Can he possibly know? Is this a veiled attempt to get me to confess?
“Did the boys have fun with their boogie boards?”
“Daddy! How did you know Grandpa bought us boogie boards?” Mikey asks as relief courses through me.
“He told me on the phone. Did you like them?”
“We loved them,” Josh says, bouncing around with the enthusiasm of an energetic child who has been strapped into seat 7E for three and a half hours. “Did you ever ride a boogie board, Daddy?”
“No, I never did.”
“You should try it sometime. Maybe if you come to Florida with us next Easter, you can try it then.”
“Florida? Next Easter?” Mike looks at me.
I shake my head. “Your parents want to fly us down, but I told them I didn’t think you can get away.”
And I can’t go to Florida with you, Mike. I can’t go to Florida ever again.
“Maybe I can get away,” he says thoughtfully, catching me as off guard as the baggage carousel that suddenly buzzes and lurches into rumbling rotation. “When does Easter fall this year? March? Or April?”
“I don’t know, but if you want to take a vacation then, let’s go someplace we’ve never been before. Maybe the Caribbean, or…Mexico.”
“You want to go to Mexico?”
“I bet they have great chimichangas.”
He laughs. “I haven’t heard you talk about chimichangas in years.”
“That’s because I had an aversion to deep-fried food every time I was pregnant, and I was trying to lose the baby weight whenever I wasn’t. Hey—there’s one of our bags.” I point as a black nylon duffel approaches on the conveyer belt.
“Are you sure?”
“Positive. I tied red ribbons around the handles of our stuff so that we could tell them apart.”
Apparently, I’m not the only one who thought of that clever trick.
A dozen mistaken red-ribbon-bedecked black bags, twenty minutes, and a hefty short-term parking fee later, we’re on our way home.
All three boys fall asleep in the back seat before we reach the Whitestone Bridge.
“So how was it, really?” Mike asks, slowing the SUV as we approach the EZ Pass Only toll lane, backed up with Saturday-afternoon traffic heading north from the beaches.
“What do you mean?” My heart is pounding. What is he asking me, really?
“A week with my parents. Did they drive you up the wall?”
“Oh…” That.
Thank God. I exhale.
You know, I really have to stop thinking he knows that I saw Mike.
Kissed Mike.
After all, it’s the kissing, and not the seeing, that’s problematic. If I had merely had a simple lunch with him—say, a turkey wrap and an iced tea in IHOP—then parted ways, I wouldn’t feel as if I were keeping a shameful secret from my husband.
Heck, I could even mention it casually in passing, just to get everything out in the open: Oh, by the way, Mike, you’ll never guess who I ran into in Clearwater Beach last Tuesday….
Oh, who am I kidding?
I didn’t run into him.
And anyway, I wouldn’t have told Mike about Mike even if lunch had just been lunch.
“Your parents were great,” I say, noticing the silence and realizing it’s still my turn to speak. “Really. They kept insisting on taking care of the boys for me, even when I was right there with nothing else to do.” Like go around kissing old lovers. “I swear I haven’t changed a diaper in a week.”
“I’m glad.”
We fall into a comfortable silence.
Comfortable, I assume for him.
I won’t breathe easily until…
Well, sometimes I wonder if I’ll ever breathe easily again.
But at least I’m home.
I turn to look at the Manhattan skyline out the driver’s-side window, remembering what it was like when the city itself was home; when I couldn’t imagine that any other place ever could be.
What would it be like to live there now?
People do it.
Families do it.
If we lived in the city, Mike would spend a lot more time at home with us instead of on his commute. We could rent a place and leave leaky faucets and repairs to the super….
Mike interrupts my fantasy with, “You’re so quiet. What are you thinking about?”
“Oh, I don’t know. Just that it might be better to live in the city than up in the suburbs.”
“Are you crazy? We can’t live in the city. Where would we put our cars? All our crap? All our kids?”
“All our kids?” I echo with a snort. “This isn’t Cheaper by the Dozen, Mike. There are only three of them.”
“Three kids who are all used to having their own rooms. Do you know what a four-bedroom apartment in Manhattan costs?”
No, I don’t know, but yes, I can imagine. I know what Gordy paid for his no-bedroom, aka studio, in Hell’s Kitchen. It’s the same place Valerie and I once considered a dump located in no-man’s-land. Who would have guessed that his building would one day go co-op, or that the western reaches of midtown would command top dollar?
“Why would you want to live in the city when we have a beautiful house in Westchester, Beau? I mean, come on! Do you know how many families living in the city would gladly trade places with us?”
No, I don’t know, and no, I can’t imagine.
Our house is in Westchester. But it’s far from beautiful. I consider telling him that, but I don’t want to come across as discontented.
“We can’t move to the city,” he says again.
“I know we can’t. Never mind.”
He’s right. I know he’s right.
“Why would we want to live in the city?” he asks, persistent as a new Madonna album, still shaking his head.
“We wouldn’t want to live in the city. Just drop it. It was a thought, that’s all. You asked what I was thinking, and I told you.”
“It just seems like that came out of left field.”
“Yeah. It did. So never mind. Um, that line is shorter, Mike.” I motion at the other Easy Pass Only lane; the one we’re not in.
“It’s okay. This one is moving too.”
“That one is moving faster.”
“This one will catch up.”
Irked, I watch car after car slip through the adjacent toll while our line crawls along.
“So I’m glad my parents took good care of you and the boys,” Mike says, picking up where we left off a few minutes ago, as though the rest of the conversation never happened.
“Yeah. They really did.”
More comfortable/uncomfortable silence.
More creeping along.
I’m about to once again urge the maddeningly relaxed Mike to switch lanes, when he glances over at me and asks, “So you feel better, then?”
“Better?” Confused, I assume he’s talking about the bridge traffic. But that doesn’t make sense since I won’t feel better about that unless he moves into the shorter lane, which he hasn’t. “Do I feel better about what?”
“About everything.”
“What do you mean ‘everything’?”
“Just…you know.”
“No. I don’t. What?”
“You’ve been so unhappy lately. I just thought this break would be—”
“I haven’t been unhappy,” I protest, as déjà vu settles in. “Why would you say that? I told you before I left that I’m not unhappy.”
“Maybe unhappy is the wrong word. I guess I mean that you’ve been so…tense. Or, I don’t know, restless.”
“Restless?”
Restless as in bored with our marriage?
God help me.
“I am not restless, Mike. I don’t know what you’re—”
“Why are you getting so worked up? All I said was—”
“You said I was miserable.”
“No, I didn’t. I said you were restless.”
“And tense. And unhappy.” Which, in my opinion, adds up to miserable.
“Well, you have been. Is that why you want to move to the city all of a sudden?”
“I don’t want to move to the city,” I snarl. “I was just wondering what it would be like.”
“Well, it would suck.” Mike brakes as the stream of cars in front of us slows to a stop once again.
“Why are you still in this lane? There’s obviously something wrong up at the toll. Can’t you just move over?”
“What’s your rush? You couldn’t wait to get away last week. Now you can’t wait to get back home?”
“I never said I couldn’t wait to get away last week.”
“Well, it was obvious, Beau. And that’s fine. Just don’t…” He trails off, falling into silence that’s all around uncomfortable now.
“Don’t what?” I ask, needing to push him. I don’t know why I can’t let this go, but that isn’t an option.
“Don’t pretend everything was great before you left,” he says. “Please don’t pretend you were happy, because I know damn well that you weren’t.”
I shake my head, staring out the window at a long black limousine with tinted windows as it glides effortlessly past us toward the tolls.
Don’t pretend you were happy.
If Mike and I were alone together in the car, I might admit that I wasn’t. Yes, I might admit that, along with God knows what else.
Suddenly, I’m sick of it.
Sick of everything.
The guilt.
The past.
The present.
Marriage.
The suburbs.
Mike.
I guess, deep down, I just can’t believe that this is it.
That this is my life.
The life I chose.
“Listen, I’m off this week, remember?” Mike says suddenly. “You and I can spend some time together. I can help with the kids. It’ll be good for you.”
“Why does everybody think I can’t take care of the kids?”
It isn’t what I meant to say when I opened my mouth, but somehow, it’s what spills out, along with, “Oh, and putting in a toilet isn’t my idea of quality time, just so you know.”
And, “I don’t know why you’re suddenly so worried about what’s good for me.”
And, “If you’re not going to switch lanes, we’re going to be on this bridge for an hour.”
If he would only speak, I could shut up.
But he doesn’t.
The silence in the car has gone from uncomfortable to foreboding.
I’m afraid to look over at him—afraid of the expression I might find on his face.
Suddenly, he guns the engine and jerks the wheel.
I cry out as our SUV swerves into the next lane, cutting off a pickup truck whose driver hits the horn long and hard.
“What are you doing?” I ask Mike, glancing over my shoulder at the boys, still reassuringly strapped into their seats, still somehow asleep.
“I’m switching lanes. Are you happy now?”
No.
I’m not happy now.
But I don’t bother to tell him.
He already knows.
twenty-six
The past
“Hey,” Gaile whispered, poking me in the side. “At least try to look awake.”
I stifled a tremendous yawn and said under my breath, “I am awake. I’m just thinking.”
That, after all was the whole point of this endless meeting, according to Janelle. She wanted us to try to come up with some fun, gimmicky theme-week ideas for her show, which was slipping in the ratings as Arsenio picked up steam.
So far, nothing anybody had suggested had managed to banish the pout from Janelle’s beautiful face, although Gaile had come close with a suggestion that we do a week of cliffhanger endings: a send-up of sorts to Janelle’s soap-opera career.
“Ooh, I like that,” she said. “Like what kind of cliffhangers?”
Gaile admitted that she hadn’t thought that far ahead.
A few of the producers kicked the concept around halfheartedly while Janelle sent Gaile for a fresh mug of coffee, probably as punishment for hatching an idea that wasn’t fully formed.
At least she tried.
I was operating on maybe an hour’s worth of REM sleep. The most creative idea that had drifted into my mind thus far was to do an entire week of shows about the effects of sleep deprivation on a person’s career.
Or on a person’s love life.
I didn’t have the strength to deal with mine, that was for sure.
I had been in a turmoil ever since Mike got into town last night and dropped his bombshell about moving back to New York. That, of course, was part of the reason I hadn’t slept.
The other reason had to do with sex.
I know…
So sue me. I couldn’t help it. A few kisses, the promise of a future together, and I was tumbling into bed with him before you can say Mike….
But which Mike?
I was more confused than ever this morning when I dashed off to work, leaving the original Mike snoozing on my pillow.
It didn’t help that he had called me twice during the course of the day to see what our plans were for tonight—or that the other Mike had done the same thing. Three times.
Or maybe the other Mike had called me twice and the Mike in my apartment had called three times.
I couldn’t quite tell them apart on those pink message slips that Anita, the receptionist, kept leaving in my slot. Too bad we didn’t have mini answering machines at our desks. Now there was an idea.
Anita was so irritated about my letting all my personal calls bounce back out to her that I didn’t dare ask her which Mike had called more often. In fact, for all I knew, one Mike could have called me five times while the other one blew me off completely…or four times and—
The math was dizzying. And I didn’t have a head for numbers even on a well-rested day. The point is, my life was crawling with Mikes with whom I had tentative evening plans, and I didn’t dare answer my phone.
“Beau,” Pat, one of the senior producers, said abruptly, jarring me out of my speculation over whether I could somehow convince one of the Mikes that I was hospitalized with something highly contagious for at least a few days.
“Yes?” I tried not to look startled. I didn’t even know Pat knew my name, although I was pretty sure I had once caught her giving me dirty looks in the ladies’ room when I sprayed my hair.
Gaile said she was probably just wincing from the aerosol fumes, but I really thought she didn’t like me. She reminded me of one of those girls in high school who hate the cheerleaders just because they’re cheerleaders.
Yes, I was a cheerleader.
Ten to one, Pat wasn’t.
“You’ve been awfully quiet,” she said. “Don’t you have any ideas?”
“I…deas?” I sipped lukewarm coffee from the disposable cup in front of me, stalling so that lightning would have a chance to strike. “I do have a couple of ideas, but I didn’t want to, um, interrupt.”
“Well, you have the floor now,” she said, steepling her fingers under her double chin.
Wench.
I thought desperately for a moment, then blurted the first thing that came to mind. “What about if we do a whole theme week about…regular people?”
The room was silent.
I snuck a peek at Gaile.
She sent me the kind of look the lifeboat occupants on the Titanic must have given the poor saps left up on deck.
But I plunged ahead with my regular-people idea because everyone was waiting.
Waiting, and secretly wondering how long it would take for human resources to replace me.
“We could, uh, have a camera crew follow someone—or maybe a couple of people—around for an entire week. You know, just to see how they interact with each other and what they do in their daily lives.”
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