“Well, hey there, handsome,” she said, her voice raspy from what sounded like decades of smoking. “The usual?”
He nodded.
“What about for the little lady?”
Ben looked me over. “Two eggs over medium, bacon, and coffee that’s more cream and sugar.”
I looked at him in astonishment. “That’s exactly what I order. How did you know that?”
Ben shrugged. “I just know you. I can’t explain it.”
“So,” Hilda said, handing us our coffee cups. “I ain’t never seen you with a girl, Ben. I thought this whole time you came in here every night to see me.” She cackled.
I laughed behind my hand and, inside, was bathing in relief. Ben was clearly a regular here, and he wasn’t stumbling in with a different girl every time.
“You come here every night?” I asked. I couldn’t imagine being able to keep a body like Ben’s eating stuff like this.
“Well, I come every night I have a gig in Charlotte. Which is a lot of nights.” He grinned, increasing those butterflies in my stomach. “What can I say? I’m a sucker for Hilda.”
I smiled, feeling giddy and alive.
“So,” Ben said. “You’re the most beautiful girl I’ve ever seen. I’m assuming the fiancé dumping wasn’t over cheating. And I assume you didn’t really call off an engagement over some cruise control situation. So what’s the deal?”
I took a sip of my coffee, feeling myself sobering—and waking—up. “He’s just not the one.”
Ben rolled his eyes. “Obviously. That’s me.”
I was so fully and completely charmed by Ben. And, when I looked in his eyes, it was like I knew him too. Sitting across the table, I instinctively felt that I understood him better than anyone else ever would, that I could see what was inside of him. “So,” I said, taking my first bite of egg. “What’s your story?”
“I have a feeling,” Ben said, “that the only part of the story I’ll ever care about again is just beginning.”
“So this Waffle House late-night breakfast is the beginning of a Gabriel García Márquez–style love story?”
“God rest his soul,” we said in unison.
“That was pretty creepy,” Hilda interjected.
Ben laughed. “Love in the Time of Cholera is my all-time favorite book.”
I gasped, mid–bacon bite. “Shut. Up. Mine too. My grandmother and I read it every year. She says it’s a reminder of what true love should look like, of what you should find before you get married.”
“My mom says that exact same thing.” He paused. “Of course, she should’ve waited a little longer.”
“Why is that?”
“Because my dad cheated on her.”
“Oh no.” I shook my head. “So they’re divorced?”
Ben rolled his eyes and took another bite of waffle. “No. My mom’s a sex therapist who believes that sometimes sex is just sex.”
Even the word coming out of his mouth gave me those butterflies again. I shifted nervously in my seat as Ben smiled at me. I gave him a haughty look and said, “Just so you are aware. I’m not sleeping with you.”
He gave me an amused look. “You’re not?”
“No. I just met you, for heaven’s sake.”
He laughed, his fork in the air, mid-bite. “I know that, Annabelle. I told you: I know you.” He shrugged. “But if you’ll come home with me—just to talk”—he put his hands up as if surrendering—“I promise I won’t put any of my irresistible moves on you.”
He wiggled his eyebrows, and we both burst out laughing.
Watching the sun rise usually made me feel sick, gave me that panicked feeling that it was day again and I had yet to go to sleep. But, watching it rise out of Ben’s bedroom window the next morning, after a night of talking until my throat was scratchy, my head resting heavily on his now contentedly beating heart, it made me feel unbelievably happy, as though the sun was rising on the first day of the rest of my life. I knew that, as improbable as it seemed, I had found my missing half in a bar, onstage, singing me love songs. Anyone over the age of twenty-two would have known for sure that a devilishly sexy, slightly dangerous musician would choose a new victim after every gig. But I knew when he looked at me that he saw the same thing I did when I looked at him: fire.
It was a Thursday night, and the dentist’s office where I was the patient care coordinator wasn’t open on Fridays. That meant seventy-two hours of pure, unadulterated bliss with Ben. Looking back now, I’d like to say that I had misgivings, that I questioned how seamlessly it all came together. But I was either too young, too stupid or that potently in love.
I’d also like to say that Holden crossed my mind during that time, that the fiancé I had dumped with three sentences on the telephone was haunting my thoughts, the pain I had caused him weighing down my heart. But that would be a lie.
Lying in the grass in Ben’s tiny backyard, looking up at the clouds, relishing quietly in the glow of those first moments of take-your-breath-away love, Ben said, “I always knew I’d know when my true love walked through the door. Period. And there you were.”
I kissed him for probably the millionth time, rolled back over, and covered my face with my hands. “I can’t believe I am doing this. I don’t want you to think I’m the kind of girl who just goes home with guys she barely knows.”
Ben rolled over on top of me, took my face in his hands and kissed me. “I don’t think anything. I know you completely. I’m in love with you.”
I bit my lip. I wanted to say it was crazy. I wanted to run away. I wanted to tear it apart and analyze and find all the ways it wouldn’t work. But I couldn’t. “I’m in love with you too,” I said. “How am I in love with you? I just met you.”
“Because I’m your soul mate, obviously.”
I wanted to say I didn’t believe in soul mates. I wanted to tell this guitar-playing god of a man that soul mates didn’t exist. Only, they had to. Because, here I was, back in my Lilly Pulitzer and pearls, having just dumped the Gucci-loafer-wearing man of my dreams for a musician I didn’t know the first thing about. We had to be soul mates. There was no other explanation for why I would have traded the life I had always dreamed of, thrown it away on a whim.
“Hey,” he said. “Do you want to go snowboarding with me next month? I’m playing this gig in Montana, and it’s going to be awesome.”
“I love snowboarding. And Montana. And you.”
“There’s this bookstore in Missoula that you absolutely have to see. You’re going to love it.”
I turned my head to smile at him, loving the way his fingers lingered on my arm, the sun lingered on my face, the breeze lingered on our bodies. “Holden thought reading was a waste of time and that everything you needed to know could be found more efficiently via webinar.”
Ben laughed. “That’s why you and I aren’t inviting Holden to Montana.”
“Why are you going to Montana?”
“To celebrate my thirty-fifth birthday.”
“Wait. You’re thirty-five?”
“Yeah. How old are you?”
“Seventeen.”
I could see his face turning ashen, and I felt a little mean. Before he could begin to stutter, I laughed. “I’m just kidding. Twenty-two.”
He nodded. “Thank God. I don’t need yet another felony.”
It was my turn for the pale face. But before I could get too far into my fantasies of my maimed corpse hanging in Ben’s closet, he laughed. “If you can dish it out, you’ve got to be able to take it, TL.”
I rolled my eyes and shook my head. “Let’s teach our kids to ski really early so they aren’t afraid.”
“Definitely,” he said. “All three of them.”
I bit my lip and nodded. “I’m an only child, but I have kind of a big, crazy family. I really want that kind of c
haos in my life.”
“Yeah. My sister and I aren’t really that close. If you have two siblings, you’ll probably be tight with one of them.” He grinned at me. “I want to teach them how to play instruments when they’re really little. Wouldn’t that be cute?”
I smiled and kissed him. He was the most adorable human on the planet. The way he lit up when he talked about his music made me, quite honestly, jealous. And proud. “When did you get into music?”
He shrugged. “I don’t know. I can’t even remember a time when I didn’t play an instrument. It has been my life’s passion for practically forever. What about you?”
What about me? I’d always envied people who had some sort of talent that made them feel alive and fulfilled. But I didn’t want Ben to think I was less interesting. So I kissed him again and said, “I think maybe you’re my life’s passion.” And I meant it.
Those three days were the first time in years, maybe ever, that I’d truly felt alive. Food tasted like it was fresh from the ground, the air was cleaner coming into my lungs. The colors were more vibrant. And, as we walked around downtown Sunday afternoon, I realized that I was different too. I felt more beautiful, more confident, more positively glowing than I ever had in my life. I could feel passersby watching Ben and me, able to see our love as clearly as though it was written on the theater marquee we were walking under. And I realized that, improbably, Cameron had been right: I couldn’t possibly live my life without this kind of passion.
On Sunday night, I felt like I had spent a blissful time in Never-Never Land and was having to fly back into my boring bedroom window. I avoided it all day, but, finally, at five o’clock, I ventured, “Ben, I have to go home.”
He looked genuinely shocked, as though the idea that I’d ever had a life outside of this one had never occurred to him. “You are home, TL.”
I laughed. “I have a condo.”
“Sell it.”
“I have a job.”
“Quit it.”
I looked down at my hand. “I have a fiancé.”
“Marry me.”
I smirked, but I could feel my heart racing. I wanted to spend the rest of my life with my hand in his, my lips on his, my skin on his. I wanted to take his name and breathe his air and sing his songs. Forever. But saying that to someone you have known three days is generally considered bad form.
“I’m serious,” he said. “I want to marry you.”
“Ben, come on.”
He got down on his knee, right there on the sidewalk. “Annabelle,” he said, “I knew when you walked into that bar that I had written every love song of my life for you.” He softened a bit. “You’re it for me, TL. I want to spend the rest of my life making love and babies with you. I want to be there when you fall asleep and when you wake up, when you’re young and spry and when you’re old and feeble. I want to take care of you when you’re sick, be your shoulder to cry on when you’ve had a bad day, be the man who still thinks you’re that beautiful, young thing even when you’re ninety. I want to see your face when I’m taking my last breath and live one minute less than you so that I never have to be without you again.”
I am not an emotionally gushy person, but that last part got me. I thought of Lovey and the deep, forever love she had with D-daddy. She had known from the moment she saw him as a ten-year-old child, so why was I questioning that I knew now at twenty-two? Moreover, I had always said that the most important characteristic in my future husband was that, at ninety, I could prance around in a thong and he would still see my hot, twenty-something ass.
I smiled and, trying to ease the intensity of the moment, said, “So what you’re saying is that you don’t want me to go home right now?”
He stood up and gave me one of those kisses that, in no time at all, had become like oxygen to me. I had so many questions. “Where will we live? What will we tell people?”
He smiled. “It will all be all right if we’re together. Please marry me, Annabelle.”
I thought of my mother’s disapproving look, the disappointment Lovey would feel at me throwing away my so-called perfect life, the whispers all over town and the scandal of me marrying a man I barely knew. If Mom and Dad didn’t disown me and refuse to pay for it, people would be buying tickets to see this wedding. But now that I knew what it was like to feel this carefree, this in the moment, I never wanted to go back to the way things were. Maybe it was dangerous and maybe it was reckless. But that was how I felt. So I smiled back and kissed Ben again. I nodded, threw my arms around his neck and whispered, “I can’t imagine that I could ever love anyone like this. Of course I’ll marry you.”
And so I did.
Lovey
The Best Gift in Life
My momma always said that a woman’s most important job was taking care of her husband. And I had done that tirelessly from the day I walked down that aisle. But, at eighty-seven, packing, traveling and the mental strain of caring for a relatively helpless man were becoming quite a bit more taxing than they had once been. But it had all been worth it. For that half hour that Dan had seemed like his old self again, I would have traveled day in and day out for the rest of my fleeting time on this earth.
I thought about the photo of that day in Times Square, packaged tightly in my suitcase, surrounded by a cushion of clothing. I had the perfect spot for it, over the credenza in the den, right beside Dan’s chair, where we could look at it together all the time.
“You ready to get home, Lovey?” Annabelle asked, shutting off her phone for takeoff.
I nodded, closing my eyes, smelling the smells of home, feeling the give of my mattress, hearing the whirr of the air-conditioning as it clicked on and shut off.
“Home,” I repeated. It truly was the sweetest word coming off my lips. Much like “naptime” had been when all my girls were young.
Home was Dan’s routine. Home was a revolving door of caregivers, our doctors down the street, the emergency room I knew, no worries about strokes or infections or tooth abscesses.
“You know, Annabelle,” I said, “as much as I hate it, I think this might be our last trip.”
She shook her head. “Don’t say that, Lovey. You and D-daddy love to travel so much.”
I smiled thinking of Dan, so dapper in his overcoat and top hat, holding my hand, walking through an airport, completely transformed, transported by being somewhere new. I turned to peek through the crack between the seats, almost expecting to see that same bright-eyed, shiny-skinned man he had been. When I turned, it was almost as if it was someone else sitting there, the sallow complexion, free from the suit he wore every day of our married life.
“We loved to travel,” I said. And it surprised me when “He doesn’t know where he is anymore” escaped from my lips.
Annabelle turned to look out the window, and I knew I had upset her. But pretending that things were all right didn’t change them. Sometimes the truth just is.
Even still, I squeezed her shoulder and closed my eyes, remembering my granddaughter a year earlier, as happy as I’d ever seen her.
When she walked through my front door with Ben, only months before her wedding date with Holden, I knew instantly what had happened.
“You said you wanted a Love band when you finally did it,” I had said as Annabelle sat down on the couch beside me.
Ben had sat down beside Annabelle, put his arm around her shoulder, squeezed her and kissed her cheek. “The weird part is that I found that ring ten years ago at an estate sale my mother dragged me to, and knew I wanted to give it to my wife one day.”
I picked up Annabelle’s hand and turned it over, examining each false screw. Not one line was out of place. No cuts. No lack of symmetry. Not even a hint that it had been resized. “Don’t tell me it fit.” Normally the ring would have been ordered to the perfect millimeter.
Annabelle smiled even bigger, if it was pos
sible, so that I could see that her orthodontist had done a perfect job on even her back teeth. “What are the odds?”
“I didn’t even know what Cartier was until I pulled this ring out for Annabelle. I just thought it was pretty.”
Annabelle smiled sheepishly. “I guess I never saw myself getting married in Vegas, but it felt right in the moment, you know? Ben sang as I walked down the aisle, and it was just us. It was amazing.”
I tried to push away the feeling that none of this was Annabelle, that that ring was the only thing that fit. This man and this life she was so swept away by seemed to be the wrong size. But I’d never upset my girl, so I didn’t let on. I put my hands up over my face and shook my head. “So what do you think, Dan? Your favorite grandchild ran off to Vegas and married a musician she’d known three days.”
“Mmmm,” he muttered.
Annabelle and I laughed, the sparkle in our eyes matching, that a vestige of a man that we had both practically revered was showing itself. And I felt so sentimental in that moment that I let go of any anger I had at my granddaughter throwing away her perfectly orchestrated life of leisure. I knew what it was to be in love—even if it was misguided. And so did Dan.
“We can talk about the Holden of it all later, but what on earth did your mother say?”
Annabelle looked down at her hands and said, “Well . . .”
“No, no, no,” I said. “If you are grown enough to run off and get married on your own, then you’re grown enough to tell your parents on your own.”
“If I may,” Ben interjected. He moved around to one of the armchairs flanking the sofa, sat down and leaned over, his arms resting on his knees so that his face was only inches from mine. I found myself somewhat entranced by his dark eyes and the cadence of his voice. He reached over for my hand and said, “You are the most important woman in the world to the woman that is my world.” I would have rolled my eyes, but he was so sincere that I believed him. Plus, looking over at Annabelle, I realized: Why shouldn’t he be in love with her already? What’s not to love?
Lies and Other Acts of Love Page 8