The Dating Bender

by Christina Julian

  As I hung up my phone and reached for my wallet to pay for the espressos, I realized that I had no wallet thanks to the local talent. Before I had a chance to panic, though, stallion winked and said something in Italian, which I understood to mean he had taken care of things for me.

  I hugged him and left the café, feeling much lighter than when I entered. I strolled down the cobblestone street trying to find the best route back to my hotel. The street was strangely barren except for one person I saw up ahead. I picked up my pace trying to catch up, curious who it was—and saw Vatican Man. Something was different though…he didn’t look nearly as scary anymore. In fact, he actually smiled at me. And then he kept on walking, as did I, until all the craziness of the day—and a lifetime—melted away, right along with him.

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  I paced around my hotel room and obsessed over the facts. I had been married, divorced, fired, disowned, and almost excommunicated by a meddling nun. But at least I was alive. Hard to know if I should count that as a blessing or a curse, but I opted for the former. Now it was all about my come-to-Jesus meeting with Sheldon, fitting considering my proximity to the religious capital of the world. You can do this. It will be okay.

  I stressed for two hours trying to pick the perfect outfit, one that would strike a balance of looking cute and sassy but not too overdone. I landed on my favorite pair of pink jeans and a fitted baby tee. I paused to check my look in the mirror. It worked. I continued to stare at my reflection, looking for a sign that I was not about to embark on one of the bigger mistakes of my life. You can do this.

  The thought of seeing Sheldon again petrified me, but something propelled me to leave my hotel.

  As I walked back toward the fountain, I felt like I was about to jump off a cliff. All sorts of crazy things ran through my mind. Would Sheldon spit in my face and berate me for all the sins of my past? Did he somehow find out about the affair that led to the dissolution of our marriage and want to call me out on it? I wondered if he would ever be willing to forgive me.

  This scene from my overly active imagination played out. Sheldon ambushed me at Trevi Fountain and threw me in. As I flailed in the dirty water, unable to swim, tourists tossed large coins at me while he attacked me with barbs that detailed all the ways I had ruined his life. Was this lunch just a setup?

  I continued to walk, committed to facing my fears like a grown up. What had he been up to all these years? Had his workaholic ways paid off, did he ever remarry, and most of all, did he hate me or still love me just a little—all things that would soon be answered.

  My phone jangled me out of the turbulent trance.

  “Hey, Sam, I’m wrapping things up at the conference. Are we still on for lunch?” Sheldon asked.

  “Yep, I’m on my way. See you soon.”

  As the city streets streamed by, so did a filmstrip of memories and disturbing feelings toward my family, but the closer I got to Trevi, the slower the home movie rolled. Maybe it was the gravity of the situation I was about to embark upon, or perhaps just the godly streets of Rome, but the horror movie version of my life stopped playing. I picked up my pace to a gallop, making my way through alleyways and bumping people out of my path without even tripping. Progress. The thick crowds indicated that I must be getting close.

  Beads of sweat fell to the cobbled streets beneath me as I ran, anger dissipating with each step. It was time to stop blaming God and everybody else for my problems. What if it had been me all along?

  I glanced up to the sky and prayed—it was Rome, after all. I prayed for the courage to make it through lunch. I prayed for the strength to not cry. I prayed for Sheldon’s forgiveness, or maybe more than anything, my own.

  The ground was damp from the kids splashing water out of the fountain so I almost lost my footing, but stopped myself from slipping this time. I didn’t want Sheldon to have to fetch me out of the fountain again.

  I steadied myself just in time to notice him standing by the famous edifice. Despite the passage of time, he looked the same—better, actually. And God help me, I was still upright and dry. Not even a single tear flowed this time, only the water that ran through the fountain, ebbing rhythmically. Everything in life, ancient marks of history, even me, eventually moved forward. You are strong. You can do this.

  As I approached, Sheldon went first for a handshake and then a hug.

  “Sammy, it’s good to see you, I’m really glad you decided to come. You look great,” said a much softer Sheldon than I remembered.

  “You too,” I said, gasping for breath.

  We found a ledge nearby and sat for several minutes surrounded by tourists, yet I felt as if we were the only two people in the city.

  As the minutes and then hours progressed, we swapped stories about where our lives had taken us. I left out the parts about Frankie and Superstar and the countless family feuds. It felt like another lifetime ago and irrelevant to where I now found myself.

  As we talked about the different paths we had taken to bring us to this moment, I realized we had both actually turned out okay. Better than okay. Sheldon had built a security empire. The Super Bowl gig gave him the experience and exposure that eventually led to an opportunity to staff and manage a multitude of sports complexes and arenas throughout the country. All of Sheldon’s sweat equity had finally paid off.

  We had moved on in our lives, or in my case fumbled along, but when nobody was looking, it seemed we might have even forgiven ourselves and each other for being the kind of people who did the kinds of things that we did way back when.

  Our behavior wasn’t always pretty, our actions—okay, more accurately, my actions—were often not acceptable, and none of it was ever planned, but that was then. It was time to move past all that now.

  Sheldon pulled my hands into his, and with that one gesture, he settled my racing mind. I looked at him directly, for the first time without guilt or pain. Despite the swarm of tourists, I stayed present in our joint gaze. We exchanged what felt like decades of memories in the glances between us. Meaningful eye contact turned out to be not nearly as scary as I’d once thought. He looked at me kindly. Maybe I wasn’t that bad after all. Just a normal woman who had fought hard to break away from her family’s vision of her and finally won. I might have lost Justin, but maybe it had been worth it to get to this place of peace.

  Sheldon and I walked off together, strolling until he stopped at a craggy little house rich with cracks, a caving wall, and a sunken roof—but amidst the flaws and remnants of a storied past, there were modern touches tucked between the old. Like a rebirth in the making.

  He stared at me and then hugged me as if it were the last time I would ever see him. I felt a solo tear welling up, so I willed it to stop. You are okay, you can handle this.

  “Don’t worry, Sammy. We’re all good, you and I,” he said. “If you ever need anything, I’m here for you. I always will be, just like I’ll always remember you exactly as you are right now.”

  And with a dry-eyed yet heartfelt goodbye, he walked off with one last look at the rickety home that I suspected was destined for a comeback, just like me. He glanced back a final time and mouthed what looked like, I forgive you.

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  I landed at JFK stinky and jetlagged, but it felt good to be back. Europe was as great as the next place, but there were things in America that just couldn’t be beat, like soft, non-abrasive toilet tissue, for starters.

  Shannon agreed to meet me at the airport so we could catch up and she could kvetch about my choice to, as she put it, “run around Rome without her and my engagement ring.”

  She honked the horn of her jalopy so loudly I wondered if she had accidently fallen asleep on the steering wheel.

  “Sammy, I’m so happy to see you! And don’t you ever pull a stunt like that again. I was so worried about you,” she shouted, bear hugging me as I climbed into the passenger seat.

  “I know. It all happened so quickly. I just had to get out of the city
and reckon with my religion. God seemed to be working against me instead of for me.”

  “How did that turn out for you?” Shannon asked.

  “Well, I fell into a fountain, got tossed out of the Vatican, bumped into Sheldon, and…no, never mind the lowlights. I’m not gonna do the sob stories anymore. I’ve wasted too much time on that stuff. The highlights—Sheldon and I got closure, and you know what?”

  “No, I’m still processing that you bumped into him. That’s nuts.”

  “He doesn’t hate me. I think he might have even forgiven me. And I decided to forgive myself, right after I fired my family.”

  “You did what?” Shannon asked.

  “I finally stood up to them. Oprah was right. Boundaries are key. I can’t tell you how amazing I feel. Like, I’ve got a chance to start over without all the negativity sniping in my ear. And I’m going to Al-Anon.”

  “It’s about damn time,” she said.

  “And after being asked to leave the Vatican, I decided to take religion into my own hands. I trust that there is a kinder God up there looking out for me. All I need to do is get out of his way so he can do his job without the hazard of me getting in the way of myself.”

  “Well, I take back all of the tough love emails I sent you. If you needed to go all the way to Rome to find this stuff out, so be it. I’m just glad you’re back. So now what?”

  “No booze for me.”

  She laughed. “No, really. Where should we go out? I think all this good news calls for shots.”

  “Seriously, I’m done with all of that. A Serrano without a drinking problem…imagine the possibilities. As far as the rest of my life, I wish I knew.”

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  I walked down the street toward my new office. My very own business based in Alphabet City, whose seedy past, much like my own, was over. I decorated the trendy tenement building loft space with lots of retro furniture and pink accents.

  When I got back from Italy, I had been bombarded with frivolous, easy-to-delete voicemails, except for one from Babs, of all people. She told me to get my ass back in the country because NetSocial had finally gone public. Her voicemail will stay in my archives forever.

  “You’re fucking rich, Sammy. Come have fun with me!”

  In a matter of months, I took my earnings and transformed them into a solo endeavor called Sammy Can!—a one-stop event planning and promotions company catering to anybody who needed help—a concept I could have benefited from in the past.

  My tenure with Crazy Molly ended with a few perks that I worked to my own advantage. The first one was that I had mastered the art of working with difficult people, which came in handy as a sole proprietor, as clients could be uber-demanding (and on bad days even a bit crazy). Many of my initial customers came as a result of my work with Molly. Some felt that if I could work with her, I could manage any high-stress situation, and they were right. She was a nutcase, but her client contacts were A-list all the way. When she retired after a breakdown, Molly directed most of her customers to me—but not before chiding me one last time, about the drunken voicemail I had left her from the Catskills. I sent her an obnoxiously oversized wine and fruit basket that, while pricey, made everything better between us.

  I offered a full range of services, from public relations to event planning, which included throwing saucy parties for the most discriminating, and in some cases, famous clients. People liked my tough yet friendly approach to business along with my ability to hyper-focus on their needs. Yes, you’ve become a skilled professional.

  To generate some positive buzz for my company, I hosted a high-profile party for a client who launched a new jewelry line crafted from baubles confiscated during drug kingpin arrests. My client transformed the gems into one-of-a-kind sparkly works of art. I oversaw the auction for the line, which donated a percentage of the proceeds to Catholic charity foundations around the globe.

  ***

  On a sultry, hot spring morning, I was celebrating the success of the party over a cappuccino yogurt muffin and an iced latte when the front door of my office jingled and swung open. The visitor balanced a tower of boxes, flashing his badge beneath them, not bothering to look up.

  “Official FBI business,” he said.

  I peered past the parcels to check him out. When he looked up, our gazes intersected. Despite the longer mane of wavy strawberry blonde hair, there was no denying it was Justin. I would recognize those muscles anywhere.

  “Wow. How are you? I mean, well, I’m sure you’re fine, better off, actually,” I stammered.

  He looked at me flatly, and I felt as if he were staring right through my newly redeemed soul.

  “I thought you ran off to Europe,” he said.

  I tried not to read too much into the biting tone.

  “You’re not too far off with the running part. I wasn’t totally prepared to deal with, well, you know.” Of course he knew. It was all over his face. It’s okay to tell him you made a mistake.

  “I hope you found what you were looking for,” he said. “I had no idea you were behind this jewelry program. It’s gotta make your mom happy, giving back to the Catholics.”

  He winked at me. Was it possible he still cared?

  “I hope she’s glad. She and the Catholics mean well, even if they’re a bit antiquated in their approach,” I said. “And guess what? I fired my family when I was in Rome. It seemed fitting after all the times they’d tossed me out of their lives. It was time to return the favor,” I said, and then giggled nervously, remembering how close I felt to him but not sure it was appropriate anymore.

  This moment was about Justin, not my family. How did one come up with the right words when you wronged someone so deeply? Speak your heart, and those worthy of it will listen.

  “Maybe now you’ll be ready to find a way to repair things…maybe,” he said, looking equally apprehensive and awkward.

  Was it possible he was speaking more about us than my relationship with my family? Or maybe that was just wishful thinking. You’ll never know unless you take the risk. I paced around the office, dusting my pink orchids as he followed me with his eyes.

  “I really wish things worked out differently for us,” I said. “There hasn’t been a day that I haven’t thought of you.”

  I prayed for him to hear me.

  “I got to get back out there,” he said. “The terrorists never sleep, ya know.”

  And just like that, he left. No wink this time.

  I waited for him to look back, but he never did; he just crossed the street and ran down toward the neighboring alley. After all this time, he still looked both stealthy and studly. I wondered why one of us always seemed to be running away. I contemplated what it would mean to run to someone instead of away from them.

  So what if Justin didn’t look back? Maybe I needed to give him a reason to do so. I opened one of the boxes he left, grabbed a handful of confiscated jewels, stuffed them in my purse, and ran out. Morning commuters peppered the streets, but it didn’t stop me from picking up speed as I charged toward Union Square. I felt like Super Woman tearing through the streets, knocking over flower pots, jumping over fire hydrants and small dogs.

  “Oh God, please let me find him,” I chanted as I hit the street corner and stopped, waiting impatiently for the light to change.

  I looked across the street and saw Justin, speaking into his shirt’s pec pocket. The FBI thing still did it for me.

  I sprinted toward him, screaming his name and flailing my arms. He looked alarmed, but I didn’t stop. Then I spotted it—a parking meter!

  As I approached the metal pole, I made a sign of the cross, crouched, and then leapt as high as I could, flapping my hands as if they were wings. I went semi-airborne, but instead of clearing the meter with grace as Justin had done on the night we met, my pink bubble skirt got caught on my way up and I flopped to the ground. Fashion and flapping arm-wings could only get you so far, especially when you’re as short as I am. Justin laughed, thou
gh I couldn’t be certain if it was at me or with me. It didn’t really matter.

  The cement was sticky with ice cream, but not even a stained frock could derail my mission. I pulled my skirt back over my underwear (some things will never change) and tried to straighten myself out. One of the confiscated baubles fell out of my purse. Sweat poured off my brows and I felt like I could vomit. But I stopped myself—I had been learning to quell this tendency to expel. I picked up a honking huge platinum ring that formed two mating flies, clutched it firmly, and rose to my knees. I looked up to God and sucked in a big breath.

  “I’m sorry that I’m stinky and sweaty, and that you had to see my underwear in this particular light,” I said. “I’m also sorry I couldn’t clear the parking meter like you taught me, but what I’m most sorry for is running away from you when you proposed.”

  I waited for him to say something. He spoke not a word, yet a tiny smile twitched over his lips.

  “I have loved you from the moment I saw you and your pinch-worthy pecs at Pete’s,” I said. “I have never stopped, not even when we took that break. I want to spend the rest of my life with you, or die trying.”

  He looked at me, and then cocked his head. Did he feel sorry for me or enamored? It was hard to tell from my vantage point.

  “Sam,” he said.

  “Okay. Wait, no! I want you to understand me. I love you, and me and you, and heck, maybe I even love my parents for putting me on this earth so I could find you!” I yelled.

  “Yes,” he said.

  “Yes, what? You love me too, or you love my parents, which would be totally weird considering you never met them and have only heard my horror stories.”

  “Okay, I guess I’m gonna have to break this down for you,” he said, his eyes softening back to the familiar gaze I adored. “Yes, I love you, and yes, I love your parents because they are a part of you, and yes, I want to spend the rest of my life with you.”