“Well,” she said.
“Yeah. I, uh, I’ll move if you want me to.”
“No. It’s all right.”
She sat down.
“Do you want a drink?” I asked. “I was about head back to the bar.”
“A white wine would be nice. Thanks.”
I returned to the bar and got Mara’s glass of wine. She was still there, quiet, when I returned to the table.
She regarded me for a few moments, and as she did so, something caught in my stomach, and I found myself wondering if she had been this good-looking when we were dating. Then a small smile spread across her lips.
“This must have been a weird experience for you,” she finally said.
“What do you mean?”
She rolled her eyes in disbelief.
“Come on. I know you better than that.”
I had to look away from her.
“I’m all right.”
“Sure you are. I know you wanted to up there with her tonight instead of Preston.”
The twinge in my stomach grew into a rock. I couldn’t say anything. She twisted the knife a bit more.
“Must have been tough, watching the only woman you ever loved marry someone else. Someone she doesn’t even love herself.”
I forced myself to look at her.
“She’s not the only one I ever loved.”
Mara’s eyes flared a little at that, and her lips pursed.
“Maybe not. But she was always number one with you, wasn’t she?”
I shook my head slowly, trying not to let her get to me.
“Tom, do you know what a ‘teaser’ is?”
“No.”
Her eyebrows went up in mock surprise.
“Wow. A miracle. Something I actually know and you don’t.”
“Just say what you’re going to say.”
“It’s a ranching term. When you’re going to breed a mare who’s in heat, you can’t let the stallion at her right away. You bring in another horse first to see if she’s ready to mate. If she is, you take that horse out and bring in the stallion. That first horse is called the ‘teaser.’”
“And your point being?”
“That’s what you were with Kate. They let you hang around until it was time for her to get married, then they booted you out of the picture and brought in Preston. You never had any chance with her. You were just the teaser.”
I couldn’t listen to this anymore. I returned fire the only way I could.
“Does it still hurt that much? That I dumped you for some impossible dream with her?”
She looked away from me finally, and her eyes closed. I realized she was battling tears, and I suddenly felt like shit.
“I’m sorry. That was over the line. I shouldn’t have said that.”
Mara shook her head.
“No. It hurt, but . . . the truth always does.”
I reached across the table and squeezed her hand. She returned the squeeze.
“Let’s just forget all this, okay?” I said. “It’s ancient history.”
She nodded.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “I shouldn’t have started.”
“Well, you were right, too. I’m not really enjoying myself tonight.”
A smile, a much more genuine one, crept back onto her face.
“Probably more than Kate is.”
I grinned.
“Probably.”
---
The reception ran on into the night, and as it progressed, I found myself paying more attention to Mara than to what Kate was doing. At first I thought I was just trying to spare myself any further pain, but when I watched Kate dancing with Preston for the first time, I realized what I had to do.
Kate was gone. For good, this time. She was not mine and never would be. I either moved on with my life, or I would end up wasting it by pining after her forever.
I danced with Mara a few minutes later, and though some tension still lay below the surface, we seemed to enjoy ourselves. Then Kate cut in, and I danced with her through the end of the song.
“I can’t believe you’re dancing with Mara!” she whispered when we were out of earshot.
“Some one put us at the same table.”
Kate gasped.
“No! Oh, my God, I’m so sorry. I had no idea.”
“It’s all right.”
“I didn’t have anything to do with the seating chart, I swear. It was my Mom who set it all—”
She froze, as did I, jaws agape. Then we both started laughing, though inside I was thinking that Mara might well have been correct about my role. Kate hugged me, shaking her head.
“You don’t think . . . “
“I’m not going there,” I said.
“I wouldn’t put it past her. You know she knows all about you.”
“Yeah. But as I said, it’s all right now.”
---
When the song ended, I rejoined Mara at the edge of the dance floor.
“I think I discovered the answer to tonight’s mystery,” I said.
“What mystery?”
“How we ended up at the same table.”
Her eyes swelled.
“Kate?” she asked incredulously.
“She says no. But it looks like it might have been her mother. So maybe you were right after all.”
She put her hand over her mouth and stared across the dance floor in a daze. Then she exhaled slowly.
“I don’t know whether to be upset or just amused.”
“I’d go with amused.”
She laughed softly, and I laughed with her.
---
I spent about half an hour circulating through the room after that, catching up with some of our old friends from Yale. I danced with Melissa for one song, then with another friend of Kate’s I had known in college. I ran into Phillip near the bar, and we talked for a few minutes as I watched Preston getting progressively drunker.
“Preston sure knows how to have a good time,” I said.
Phillip snickered.
“He won’t be having a very good time tonight if he keeps up like that.”
I laughed as Preston downed another shot of tequila, trying not to feel pleased at that thought.
---
A bit later, I found Mara again, sitting on a low wall that surrounded the pool.
“How are you doing?”
She shrugged.
“Tired.”
I leaned forward onto my knees, holding my drink in my hands.
“Mara, um, I’d like to say something.”
I heard her sigh.
“Go on.”
“I want to tell you how sorry I am for what I did to you. I’ve realized over the past few months how much of my life I’ve wasted chasing something I can’t have. I’m not asking you to forgive me, I just want you to know that I’m finally realizing how stupid I’ve been.”
I glanced at her, but she was looking away from me, looking out across the water.
“I guess, maybe tonight was what it took to make me realize how much I hurt you. I’m sorry.”
She took a ragged breath and turned back to me, eyes aflame.
“You think you know how much you hurt me? Do you really fucking think you know how much you hurt me?”
“I don’t—”
“You don’t have a fucking clue how much you hurt me!”
She paused for a moment or two, nostrils flaring as she glared at me. Then she shook her head in disgust.
“You don’t know how proud I was of myself for making it to Yale, how happy I was knowing I was getting out of that jerkwater town. That was I was actually going to go places and be somebody. That I wouldn’t have to date any more boys who smelled like cow shit and had dip stuck between their teeth. And then I meet this great guy from New York whose grandfather is a judge and who knows all these important people, and the whole time I’m scared to death that I’m not good enough for him, that I just don’t know enough about life and how to b
e sophisticated enough for him.”
She paused, wiping her eyes and catching her breath.
“And then I find out that I’m not! That every fear and insecurity I’ve been carrying around the entire time I was at Yale is confirmed. That no matter what I do or how I look, I can’t compete with girls like Kate, who’ve had everything their life handed to them on a fucking platter.”
She looked down at me, tears streaming down her cheeks.
“Tom, I loved you like I didn’t think I could love anyone. And you stabbed me right through the heart.”
I swallowed hard.
“I’m sorry. I don’t know what else to tell you except I’m sorry.”
She wiped her face again and cried into her hands. Then she leaned back and took a deep breath.
“Do you remember my mentioning that offer I got from HUD?”
“Um . . . yeah.”
“I told you I didn’t take it because it wasn’t what I wanted. That wasn’t quite true. It was what I wanted, at least the job, but it wasn’t where I wanted it to be.”
I closed my eyes and sighed.
“It was in New York,” I said.
“Right. So I turned them down. Eight million people in New York, and I turned them down just because I didn’t want to risk running into you on the street.”
“I’m sorry. I’ll say it however many times you want me to. If it’s any consolation, I’m hurting pretty bad myself right now.”
She laughed weakly.
“You know, that was the one thing I was really looking forward to tonight, seeing the look on your face when she married Preston.” She paused, sniffling. “Except when it happened, I didn’t feel better. I just felt like shit.”
I sat back next to her, trying to smile.
“I didn’t mean I’m hurting because of Kate. I meant because of you.”
Half a dozen emotions shot through her eyes before she turned away from me again. I sat there numbly, not sure what to say.
“Do you mean that?” she asked quietly.
“Do I feel dead on the inside thinking of what I did to you? Yes. As for Kate . . . it’s over. It was over a long time ago, I just couldn’t let go of it until tonight.”
She looked back at me now, jaw vibrating. She reached up and touched my cheek gently.
“Tom . . .”
“I’m not asking you to forgive me. I’m just saying I think I understand now.”
Then her hand dropped, and she turned toward the lawn. She didn’t say anything for a long time, though I could tell something was coming and kept quiet.
“I need to think about this,” she said finally.
“I know.”
“I can’t go through all that again.”
“I’m not asking you to,” I said. “Things would be different.”
“The guy I know at HUD says they still haven’t filled that job, but . . .”
“I know. It’s a big step.”
“I’d like to see you again.”
“We would take it slow. Start from the beginning.”
“A blank slate,” she said.
“A blank slate. Absolutely.”
She took a deep breath and exhaled.
“Do you have your card with you?”
“Yes.” I dug one out of my wallet and gave it to her. She stared at it for several long seconds before slipping it into her purse.
“I’ll try to call you when I get back to Chicago.”
“Okay. No pressure.”
She looked at me, eyes still wet, and then kissed me tenderly on the cheek.
“Thank you.” She stood up, and I stood up with her. “I should go,” she said. “I have an early flight tomorrow.”
“Okay. Take care of yourself.”
We hugged gently, and then I watched her leave, walking slowly across the lawn toward the house. The orchestra began a slow, jazzy tune, and I looked wearily up at the stars, twinkling in the sky above me.
X.
I stayed a bit longer, waiting only until Preston and Kate left. Then I climbed into the shuttle with the other guests and rode back to the hotel.
When I got to my room, I lay on my bed watching television, unable to sleep. I thought of Mara, aching over the things she had told me. I kept covering my face with my pillow in mortification at the memories of how cruel I had been to her, knowing now just how sharply the things I had said during our break-up must have cut her. I was going to make all that up to her somehow. Maybe a renewed relationship was not in the cards—I suspected I had done too much damage to her feelings toward me—but I could do my best to be a good friend.
I heard a knock on my door.
I glanced at the clock, seeing that it was just after midnight. I got off the bed, went to the door, and got the shock of my life.
“My husband is passed out dead drunk,” Kate said. “Can I come in?”
“Uh—”
She swept past me, still wearing her wedding gown, and flopped onto the bed. She backed up to the headboard and reached for the remote.
“Preston is drunk?”
“Out cold. I don’t want to talk about it.”
I sat down beside her on the other side of the bed. On the TV screen, Scarlett Johansson was running around in black leather.
“What is this?” she asked.
“Captain America. The second one.”
She smirked at me.
“I thought you liked cute brunettes.”
I returned the grin.
“There’s nothing else on.”
We watched the movie in silence for about ten minutes, and though I could tell that Kate was fuming about Preston, I didn’t say anything, sensing that she would talk when she was ready. I made her a drink from the minibar, opened a bottle of beer, and we ate a bag of Doritos together.
“Did anything happen with you and Mara?” she asked a bit later.
“Maybe. I don’t know. I gave her my card. She said she would call me.”
“It would be nice if you guys got back together.”
“Yeah.”
She sighed.
“I can’t believe I’m still going to be a virgin tomorrow morning.”
My head shot around in surprise, but Kate was already looking up at me, eyes narrowed.
“Don’t look at me like that,” she said. The glare—half annoyed, half embarrassed—intensified. “I said, don’t look at me like that.”
“I’m sorry. I just—”
“Thought there weren’t any twenty-five-year-old virgins left in the world? Well, there’re still a few of us left.”
“But after all this time?”
“Tom, you knew me better than anyone else at Yale. Who would I have slept with?”
She had a point.
“The only person I would have slept with back then was you,” she went on, “and I couldn’t sleep with you. Who does that leave?”
“Preston?”
She shook her head.
“No.” She sighed again. “See, by the time I got out of Yale, I was thinking that I had waited so long that I might as well wait until I got married. And when I started going out with Preston, that was what I told him. He accepted it, even though I wasn’t sure I really meant it. And when we had been going out long enough that I might have considered it, I had begun to suspect he was cheating on me. So I didn’t think I even wanted to do it with him. I still don’t. Not when he stuck that dick into a hooker at his bachelor party.”
“Two hookers,” I said wearily.
Her eyebrows shot up.
“Two?”
I gave her a slightly more detailed description of what had gone on that night than I had given her a few months before. Her face reddened in anger, and she finally looked away from me, shaking her head.
“God.”
“I’m sorry.”
She wiped at her eyes.
“It’s not your fault.”
I reached over, and she rolled onto my chest, letting me hug her. We stayed like th
at for a while. Then she started laughing weakly.
“God, this is so pathetic. I can’t believe I saved myself all this time for this.”
“Did anything happen?”
“No. I had to help him walk from the limo to the room. When we got there, he sat down on the end of the bed to rest, and I went to get him a glass of water. When I got back, he was already out. I tried to wake him up, but I couldn’t. I was so mad, I didn’t know what to do. I finally called the front desk to get your room number.”
She started crying again, and the spell lasted for another few minutes. I just held her and stroked her head. When she stopped crying, she simply lay still for a minute or two.
“Tom?”
“Hmm?”
She was quiet for a few seconds before she spoke again, very softly.
“I don’t want to be a virgin tomorrow morning.”
It actually took me a moment or two to realize what she really meant. I was frozen in shock, and she finally brought her head around to look at me. She just stared at me sadly.
“Kate, I—”
I couldn’t finish the thought. Her eyes dropped to my chest, and she took a deep breath.
“Do you know what ‘droit de seignior’ means? Did they ever cover that in law school?”
I answered her as calmly as I could manage.
“It’s medieval Norman French. It means ‘the right of the lord.’”
“To the virginity of any peasant girl who got married, on her wedding night. He got her before her husband did.”
I swallowed hard.
“Most historians consider it a myth,” I said. “And you’re not exactly a peasant.”
“Still. It wouldn’t be unheard of.”
She looked up at me, then reached over to squeeze my hand.
“Tom . . .”
I lay there, still paralyzed with shock, unable to say anything.
“Please don’t make me beg for this,” she said softly. “I’m feeling pathetic enough as it is.”
We stared at each other for only another second or two. Then I pulled her to me roughly and kissed her.
We groped at each other, moaning with long-accumulated frustration. She pulled at my shirt, popping the top button, before I simply jerked it over my head. I struggled with the zipper on the back of her wedding dress for a few seconds, and she untangled herself from me to help.
“Let me do it.”
She sat back on her knees and wriggled out of the riot of lace and satin. Under it she wore a sheer white corset, with garter straps going down to white silk stockings, with matching white panties. I had never seen her in anything more erotic than a long nightshirt, and I forced myself to pause a second to appreciate her.
The Teaser Page 6