Acrobat

by Mary Calmes

  “I—fuck! I didn’t mean to, but I’m walking into the hospital, and—”

  “It’s fine. Tomorrow,” I repeated. “I’ll talk to you later.”

  When I hung up, I took a sharp breath, and when my phone rang again, I could hear it in my voice when I answered that I was annoyed.

  “Nate?”

  It was a different voice, older, drunker, and confused as to why I was mad.

  “Sorry.” I softened my tone. “What’s going on?”

  “I need you.”

  “Why, what’d you do?” I teased Ben.

  “I think—” He took a breath. “—that Mel’s cheating on me.”

  There was no way. I knew my ex-wife, my dearest friend, the mother of my son, and she did not have a cheating bone in her body. The woman was made loyal and no other way. “Not possible,” I assured him.

  “Then get your ass to the Water Lily right now and I’ll prove it to you.”

  What I had thought was funny was not. The man was on the verge of a nervous breakdown. “Yes, dear, coming,” I said to keep things light. I needed to show him that he was being an idiot, and make sure nothing escalated.

  I changed my destination with the cabbie and arrived downtown ten minutes later. After getting out, I looked around for him and finally saw the waving hand across the street in front of what looked like a charming little pub packed with people.

  Bolting over to him, I saw how flushed he looked, and understood instantly that my on-the-phone analysis was correct and that I was looking at a very drunk man. My hypothesis was further confirmed when he breathed on me.

  “Jesus,” I groaned, waving my hand in front of my face. “Don’t stand near an open flame, Ben, shit.”

  “She’s there,” he slurred, pointing across the street to a very fancy, very high-end French restaurant, the Water Lily, so named after Monet’s masterpiece.

  “Who’s she with?”

  “Her boss.”

  “From the art gallery?”

  “She only has one goddamn boss, Nate.”

  “Uh-huh.” I crossed my arms over my chest. “How did you find her?”

  “I wanted to surprise her when I got in, so I used the GPS on her phone to track her down.”

  It seemed to me that tracking someone without an explanation could be problematic. I was living through an illustration of it. Instead of just calling, Ben had tailed his wife and, upon finding her, had jumped to the completely wrong conclusion. And I knew he was mistaken, because I knew Melissa. It was not in her to cheat.

  Uh-huh. “Can I see your phone, please?”

  He looked at me blearily, not steady on his feet at all, wobbly to say the least.

  “Please?”

  He fished the phone out of his pocket, bobbled it, and ended up tossing it at me in a wild Hacky Sack maneuver. No one was more surprised than me when I caught the damn thing.

  “What’re you doin’?”

  “Shhh,” I hushed him, arm around his waist as he started his heavy lean into me. I smiled as soon as I saw what I was looking for. “So, where were you?”

  “How d’ya mean?” He belched.

  “I mean….” I coughed, walking him away from the front door, leaning him against the red brick exterior of the pub, and straightening his tie and his jacket as I looked at him. “Where were you before you were here?”

  “On a plane.” He was working really hard to focus on me.

  “So you were out of town?”

  “Well, yeah, that’s why she—oh crap,” he groaned, cutting himself off, and I saw, the light come on through the alcoholic stupor. “Oh shit, was I supposed to be there too?”

  “Uh-huh.” I drew it out, turning his phone to him, letting him know with my condescending tone what a dumbass he was. “As you’re well aware, your lovely wife downloads her weekly schedule to you—and, for some ungodly reason, to me—so that both you and I are informed of her whereabouts on a day-to-day basis. Again, why I’m in that loop, I do not know. Maybe because we used to be married; maybe because we share a kid. Your guess is as good as mine, but it’s fun to read what she’s going to do, and the side notes are funny as hell. However—” I cleared my throat. “—tonight, if you were going to be back from your business trip, you were supposed to join her and her boss”—I pointed at the screen so he could see the calendar reminder—“Milton Horne, at the Water Lily at eight for drinks and dinner.”

  “Shit,” he groaned again.

  “Apparently the gallery is hosting a huge charity event and they had to discuss a theme, and she thought it would be nice to have you there too because, and I quote,” I said, turning the phone back to me so I could read it, “Ben’s ideas are usually so funny I almost pee my pants.”

  “Oh God.” He moaned loudly, bending over.

  I clicked off the calendar, returning to the main screen before putting his phone in my pocket and looking at him. “Can I ask, what’s with you and thinking your wife is cheating on you all of a sudden? What kind of stupid-ass crisis are you having?”

  “I haven’t been think—”

  “Was it the other day when she said she could be having an affair?”

  He whimpered.

  “What the hell, Ben?”

  He straightened up, taking a deep breath. “Two couples that we know, just this week they announced that they were both getting divorces.”

  “So?”

  “And she’s already been divorced once and so have I, and—”

  “Your ex-wife ran off with the pool boy, Ben,” I reminded him. “Unfortunate, but those are the facts.”

  He looked so miserable.

  “By the way, the yoga outfits they make, kind of hot,” I assured him.

  Instantly, he was scowling. “I will beat you ’til you’re dead.”

  “Who knew the pool boy was, like, a marketing guru, huh?”

  “Seriously, they’ll never find your body,” he threatened me.

  I chuckled. “Anyway, your ex-wife left you, and Mel’s ex-husband”—I grinned, pointing at myself—“he’s gay.” I whispered the last part.

  He growled.

  “So you have been married now for the last sixteen years and—guess what?—it’s been smooth sailing, calm seas.”

  “You’re doing boating metaphors ’cause you know I’m about ready to throw up,” he said, sounding like he was actually going to hurl.

  I smiled, moved forward, and took his face in my hands. “Idiot, your wife adores you, and you adore her back, and you’re both lucky to have each other, so could we please call a moratorium on the stupidity?”

  “We can.” He took a deep breath, smiling. “You know I really love you.”

  “Ohh-kay.” I laughed, pulling him off the wall. “Did you eat?”

  “No, just drank.”

  “Me neither.”

  “Why were you drinking?”

  “No, I mean I didn’t get dinner either.”

  “Why? Where were you?”

  “On a date.”

  “With who?”

  “I’ll tell you in a minute.” I sighed, arm around the waist of my inebriated friend. “Just come with me, all right?”

  “Whatever you want.” He sighed. “Just don’t lemme go.”

  “I need to get those demands from gay men, not straight ones.”

  “Sorry.” He hiccupped.

  BECAUSE it was the safest thing, I took Ben for breakfast. There was coffee and french toast and more coffee and water, and the longer we sat there, just talking, the better he felt. When his phone rang in the breast pocket of my peacoat, I answered it.

  “Hello there, beautiful.”

  “Nate?”

  “It’s a long story,” I said. The preemptive strike seemed best.

  “You’re obviously with him somewhere.”

  “Yes.”

  “Where?”

  “We’re at Nonna’s.”

  “In Old Town?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Okay, I�
�m coming.”

  “No, don’t do that. Let me sober him up first, and then I’ll bring him home.”

  “Oh, did he drink too much on the plane again?”

  “Sort of.”

  “Sort of?”

  “Give us another half an hour and we’ll be there.”

  “I’m holding you to that.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “Okay,” she said, and I could hear the smile in her voice. “I was going to call you anyway.”

  “Just because, or was there a specific reason?”

  “I wanted to bug you about Sean.”

  “Oh, I have news.”

  She made a noise. “Eww, why didn’t that sound good?”

  “I’ll tell you when I get there.”

  “Good. Come now.”

  “On my way,” I promised as I hung up.

  “Who was that?” Ben asked me when I got off the phone.

  “Your lovely wife.”

  “Is she mad?”

  “Why would she be mad? She has no idea what you did yet.”

  “Shit. Yet?”

  I shrugged, smiling.

  Thirty minutes later, as promised, Ben and I walked into their lush home in Oak Park, in the historic part, the Frank Lloyd Wright tour of homes area, and when she charged across the foyer and flung herself at her husband, I heard his deep sigh.

  “Jesus, Ben.” She sounded disgusted as she pulled back. “Why do you reek of scotch?”

  Long story, that, but because I had been the one he called, I got to be the one who translated his rambling into cohesive sentences.

  First she was mad—how dare he think so little of her, and since when was she a whore, and blah, blah, blah—and then she was charmed because, dear God, the man must really love her if he could worry this much. He was rich and successful and smart and funny and hot, in that Andy Garcia way, so he had nothing to worry about, but he was worrying nonetheless because he worshipped the ground his wife walked on. And then she was disgusted, because Milton Horne? Really? Eww. The man was so not hot, and if she was going to cheat, it would be with a guy half her age, not double it.

  “You’re really not helping,” I assured her.

  When she got up from where she was sitting by me on the couch to get in his lap and wrap herself in his arms, I bailed and left them kissing. They were very cute, but I had never been much for voyeurism even when I lived next door to two guys who liked to have sex on their fire escape every morning.

  I had to walk back into the town of Oak Park to get a cab, but once I was there, I saw the train platform and decided on that instead. My phone rang when I reached the station.

  “You left?” she asked me breathlessly.

  “And the fact that you just now noticed tells you why I left.”

  “I, we, just got a little carried away.”

  “And the fact that you did—yeah, didn’t need to see it.”

  “You really are such a prude.”

  “Am I?”

  She laughed, and since I liked the sound so much, I couldn’t help my smile.

  “Thank you for being the voice of reason in his head. Ben worries, but now he won’t anymore.”

  “Good. Everyone should have a meltdown once in a while, keeps things spicy.”

  “I think that’s the sex after, darling.”

  “Could be.”

  “But I want to hear about Sean.”

  “Lunch? Tomorrow?”

  “Oh, I would love to have lunch with you. We have to have the tuition talk anyway.”

  “No.”

  “Nate. I can afford to pay Jare’s tuition at Yale—just let me.”

  “No. He’s our kid, Mel, ours together. Let it go. Besides, I have a hit man on my fire escape story to tell you.”

  Long silence while, I was certain, she processed. “I’m sorry, what?”

  “I’ll tell you tomorrow.”

  “Nate?”

  “Make sure you’re there,” I taunted her.

  “You’re lucky I love you.”

  “I know.” I chuckled and hung up.

  That night, as I was walking by the vacant lot where normally there were the guys who yelled and sometimes threw bottles, it occurred to me that they were missing. Usually, morning, noon, or night, they were there. And now they weren’t. The old Cadillac they normally sat on was missing as well. The telltale aroma of marijuana and their raised voices were all absent. It was almost strange. On many occasions, I had seen the police roust them only to find them back the following day. Sal’s words came back to me, that maybe I wouldn’t see them anymore. I would have to remember to ask Dreo about it when I saw him next.

  Chapter 8

  MELISSA was there before lunch and demanding to know what the hell I was talking about when I said hit man.

  “He fell into the dumpster.”

  “Could you please just start at the beginning?” She looked pained.

  So as we walked across the quad, I explained, and she listened and started to hyperventilate. I told her about Duncan coming for a visit and the detectives in my apartment and how it was all a big misunderstanding because really, could she think of anyone less exciting than me?

  “Yeah, I can think of a lot of people.”

  “Really?”

  She rolled her eyes, and it took time for me to convince her that I was safe, no one was going to shoot me, and that if she wanted, she could call Duncan and ask him.

  “No, thank you.” She made a face. “If I never talk to him again it’ll be too soon.”

  “You really didn’t like him.” I smiled at her.

  “I’m sure he’s a very good man,” she told me. “Just not for you.”

  I shrugged. “I would have to agree.”

  There was still no word from Sean by the time she and I walked into our favorite burger place in Hyde Park to eat lunch, and I was not really surprised. Melissa was and told me so as we sat across the table from each other.

  “He seemed very interested to me.”

  I explained about our last conversation and how it had gone south. “I think our timing is off. It feels off,” I told her. “You know how that is?”

  She nodded. “I do. Remember Ted Evans?”

  “Yeah.” I smiled at her. “You dated him a year after Jare was born.”

  “Yes, and he was fine with us being married. He understood that I was straight and you were gay, so we only ever slept together the once. He got that we had separate bedrooms but we lived together because of Jare, blah, blah, blah—he got it all and he was great about it.”

  “He was,” I agreed. “I was surprised when that didn’t get serious.”

  “But see, that’s what I mean: he was all the things I was looking for, but we never quite got going. We’d make plans and a lot of times they’d fall through, or he was called away and then I was, and we had a good time, but we never even went to bed.”

  “You regret that?”

  “I did for a long time, but now I really think that would have complicated things more. Sometimes you want something so badly that you don’t realize that the timing is just crap. I was not in a place where I was ready to be anything but a mother. Jared was everything, still is to some degree, but he has his own life and his own path, so now, at forty-six, I can do whatever the hell I want. And some of my friends are still dealing with third grade and high school and birth control, and thank God I got it done early.”

  “You never wanted more kids?”

  “I have them. I have Ben’s kids and, well, Ben, right?”

  I laughed at her. “Fine.”

  She took my hand. “I loved being your wife, and for a while I even thought maybe, just maybe, his orientation will change and he’ll want me as much as I want him.”

  “Mel—”

  “No.” She put up her hand to shut me up. “I did. I’d see you shuffling across the floor late at night, Jare in your arms, walking to—Bob Marley?”

  “Yeah. He loved Bob. I still worry t
hat he’ll be out driving late at night and ‘No Woman No Cry’ will come on and he’ll fall asleep at the wheel.”

  She shook her head. “Stop.”

  “Just saying.”

  “Well, I used to watch you putting our kid down or falling asleep on the couch with him on your chest and think how badly I wanted to be the one curled up with you.”

  “Why are you breaking my heart with this?”

  “I don’t mean to.”

  “You know I love you.”

  “Yes.” She nodded. “I know, but that didn’t change the ache. Little by little, though, year by year, it changed from ‘I’m Nate’s for the asking’ to ‘I deserve more and so does he’.”

  “We both realized that there was more we wanted.”

  She stared.

  “Oh God, what?”

  “But see, here’s where it gets tricky. My timing was shitty with Ted and every guy I dated until I was really ready to take the plunge, you know? When I met Ben, I just knew. I was in a different place, and I jumped at the chance to—”

  “Jumped him, you mean.” I cackled.

  “I’m going to smack you.”

  “Sorry.”

  “But you….” She trailed off, deep in thought.

  “Me? Me what?”

  “Your problem is not about timing.”

  “You just said it was.”

  “Okay.” She took a breath. “I mean this, with Sean, this is about timing, but normally, what’s with you and guys is that you’ve never been in love.”

  “Again with this?”

  “Brian Palmer.”

  “He moved to San Diego.” I snickered.

  “And you could have gone too if you wanted, if you cared enough to go.”

  “I was crazy about Brian.”

  “If it was convenient, which, with him moving, it no longer was.”

  “I—”

  “Marc Takashima.”

  “Marc wanted me to move in; I wasn’t ready.”

  “And so because it was all or nothing, you guys were done.”

  I grunted.

  “Emmett Wallace.”

  “He wanted to move in with me, but you can’t rush it, Mel. You’re either ready or not.”