When You Went Away

by Michael Baron

  “Wouldn’t surprise me in the least. He’s already an early winker.”

  I laughed and then concentrated on deciding what to order.

  “Are you starting to get upset about the fact that you haven’t heard from Tanya?” Ally said as our appetizers arrived a little later.

  “I’m way past upset. In fact, I think I’m so far past upset that it’s manifesting as resignation.”

  “Trust me, you’re not resigned. If you were resigned, you wouldn’t be going to the computer every night or writing volumes in her journal.”

  Ally was right, but I was still utterly confused about my feelings. “It’s just so damned empty,” I said. “I literally have no idea where she is. She could be traveling with the Riverriders – they’re in North Carolina tonight, by the way, I wonder if she stopped in on my in-laws. Or she could be anywhere. I mean, literally anywhere. She could be behind one of these curtains.”

  “I can’t imagine how frustrating this must be for you.”

  I shook my head. “You know, I’ve gotten better about not carrying it around with me all the time. And writing in the journal helps. I’m surprised how much. But I’ve been hanging on to that very last bit of actual communication I had with her. You know, the message she left at the hotel? What if I’m interpreting it entirely wrong?Maybe she didn’t mean for me to jump ahead to the next two lines of the song. There was absolutely no way she knew that I even knew the song. Maybe she just quoted the lines she did because she thought they were a graceful way to say, ‘Have a good life.’”

  Ally reached across and squeezed my hand. “What would you do if that were the case?”

  “I can’t even think about what I would do if that were the case. I mean, I’ve been clinging to this thread. It’s amazing how little a person needs in order to delude himself.”

  I took a sip of wine and then a bite of my food. I didn’t like the way I felt. For one thing, I intended this evening to be quiet and romantic. I didn’t want these emotions roiled up at this moment. And yet I couldn’t help myself.

  “And then there’s this whole thing about Mick,” I said. “I can’t get it out of my head that he’s completely taking advantage of Tanya.”

  “I know you think that he’s this seriously older man, but you have to keep in mind that he’s essentially a kid himself. He’s probably still working out a bunch of his own stuff.”

  “He’s a lot older than she is.”

  “He is and he isn’t. A little more than three years. Given the discrepancies in emotional maturity, they’re the same age.” Ally smiled at me. There was nearly the same amount of space in ages between Tanya and Mick as there was between the two of us – though there was a world of difference.

  I took another sip of wine and tried to dial it back a little. “Did you ever go out with older guys when you were her age?”

  “I was a senior in high school when I dated Vince Hemphill. He was twenty and he raced cars, which seemed unbelievably sophisticated to me at the time. That was the first time I really had my heart broken.” She sat back in her chair and shook her head. “Vince Hemphill, jeez. We went out for five months and then suddenly he just clicked off. I eventually learned that what really clicked were him and Maria Caruso.”

  “Did you have trouble getting over it?”

  “Really getting over it? I think you could say it took a little time. A few months, probably.”

  “So Vince Hemphill got to you?”

  “Yeah, he did. I mean in retrospect, our relationship was ridiculously shallow. A lot of making out in his convertible and groping at the movies. But at the time, it seemed monumental. He was the first person I ever said ‘I love you’ to other than my parents.”

  Hearing this made me feel uncomfortable, which surprised me. “So why haven’t you mentioned his name before?”

  “We haven’t really had this conversation before.” Ally was right.While I was certain it was standard practice for people to share their romantic histories with one another very early in a relationship, we never got to this topic. Certainly, my romantic history had documentation all over the house. But while Ally and I had lengthy conversations about Maureen, and what she meant to me, we never talked about the previous men in her life. At least some of this was because I didn’t ask. But it was primarily because she didn’t tell.We spoke in vague terms about dating, romance, and sex, but she never got more specific than that. I in fact knew more about her affection for the Yankees’ shortstop than I did of any boyfriend she ever had.

  “Let’s have it now,” I said, convinced that this would pull me back from where I was dangling thinking about Tanya and Mick. “Tell me about the great loves in your life.”

  She smiled. “There weren’t that many loves. And for the most part, they weren’t that great.”

  “No preamble. Details, please.”

  She seemed at once to be reluctant and eager to do this. And over the course of the meal, little of which I recalled later, Ally told me about the men who were important to her. The guy she went to the senior prom with and with whom she had an intense summer affair before they went their separate ways. The TA during her sophomore year of college who she discovered romanced three students at the same time. The friend of a friend who was one of her three roommates in her senior year and whose casual friendship became something much more meaningful for a short period. The man she lived with in her early twenties. And the man she thought she was going to move in with a few years later until she found out he was a little more married than he’d previously indicated.

  This triggered a reaction in me that I didn’t expect. I was fascinated because it painted in Ally’s background. And I genuinely wanted to know as much about her as I could. But at the same time, it made me a little skittish. As the list went on, I kept wondering when it was going to stop. Given her age, it wasn’t that Ally had been serious with a huge number of men, but I was unaccustomed to being with a woman whose dating history extended past college. I envisioned Ally laughing with these men the way she laughed with me, talking about her desires the way she did with me, making love with them the way she did with me, and I found I didn’t want these thoughts in my head. I remembered feeling some jealousy over Maureen’s past boyfriends, but that was a lifetime ago. And those thoughts faded completely as we built our life together, a life I knew she had never come close to sharing with anyone else. But this was something entirely different.

  “And then there was Philip,” Ally said. “The guy who had me picking out china patterns – literally.We were together for three years. It was beautiful and intense and it sure felt like the real thing. When he asked me to marry him, it was the single most romantic experience of my entire life.”

  “Wow, you were engaged? What happened?”

  Ally’s eyes clouded over and she took a drink. I decided to do the same. “I thought I was pregnant and he completely freaked out. We talked about having a family, of course, but he wasn’t thinking about having one right away. We had these huge arguments over it and I started to wonder if he ever wanted to have kids, and how I would feel about it if he didn’t. And then, when it turned out that I wasn’t pregnant, he freaked out even more. I mean, it was like he had been wearing a rubber mask the entire time we were together. I called it off and ran away. That’s how I eventually wound up at Eleanor Miller, actually.”

  The procession of men who sat down at our table that night rattled me a little and I could swear this last one took a bite from my entree. I didn’t say anything right away.

  “Now you know,” Ally said.

  “Did you think you couldn’t tell me about this?”

  “Why do you say that?”

  “Because you didn’t tell me about it until now.”

  “We just never really got onto this subject.”

  “Ally.”

  She shrugged. “I’m a little sensitive about the Philip stuff.”

  I nodded and let it drop, though I didn’t really understand what there was
to be sensitive about. It seemed to me that Ally had every right to break things off with the man if they didn’t see eye to eye about having children, especially because Ally’s affinity for kids made it obvious that she would be a caring and dedicated mother.

  When we got into the car after dinner, a dinner that had a tenor entirely different from the one I intended, Ally leaned over and kissed me gently on the temple. “It was good talking to you about this stuff tonight. Thanks for listening.”

  I smiled and kissed her. But I had to admit to myself that the experience was a little disquieting. I didn’t like hearing about Ally’s other lovers and I didn’t like having this new set of pictures in my head. I wasn’t sure what this meant. Had I begun to feel possessive about her? Had the conversation of the last hour and a half altered my impression about her in some way? Or was this simply some dumb-ass male competitive thing that I preferred to consider myself too evolved to experience?

  The one thing that was certain was that she found a way to divert me from my thoughts about Tanya and Mick.

  We got back to the house and said goodnight to Lisa. Then we walked into Reese’s room to check on him in his crib.

  “He’s such a gorgeous little boy,” Ally said as we stood over his slumbering form.

  He’s looking more and more like his mother every day, I thought, but didn’t say. I lay my hand lightly on his back, making sure not to rustle him. I turned toward Ally and saw that she was smiling down at him. “He is pretty cute, huh?”

  “Yeah, he is.” She kissed her finger and placed it on his forehead. “Sleep really tight, Reese-y.”

  Then she reached for my hand and drew me into the bedroom. She began undressing me as soon as we got there. We made love as hungrily and passionately as ever. In some ways, it felt as though we were doing it for the very first time. I wanted to make love to her since she walked into the library at the beginning of the night. Now I realized that through all of the conversation, even the parts that I found disturbing or uncomfortable, that desire had been simmering. I wanted all of her and I wanted it all at the same time.

  And I had to admit to my conscious self – what little there was at that moment – that I was competing a little here. I wanted to show Ally that she never had a lover like me before, that Vince, Philip, and all of the others in between couldn’t come close to my combination of experience and attention. It was a ridiculous reaction, of course, and hopefully one that Ally remained entirely unaware of. But it was definitely there.

  We kissed for a long time afterward, much more than we normally did. I felt energized and not at all like sleeping. I thought we might stay up and talk into the morning, and while I knew that Reese would make me pay for this later, I didn’t mind. But then Ally snuggled into me and told me she was suddenly very sleepy.Within a few minutes, she was out. I held her against me, stroking and kissing her hair.

  As I did, I started to think about Tanya again and, believing that I was a long way from sleep, I got up to write her.

  I know you thought I hated Mick from the moment I met him. You wouldn’t be entirely wrong about that. But I don’t think you completely understood why I hated him. What I hated about Mick was that he was the antithesis of everything good about you. He was Darth Vader pretending to be some kind of postmodern James Dean.

  The part that I missed – because, frankly, I wanted to miss it – was that he was the first guy who stole your heart. Regardless of who he was and how horrible, that still had to be really exciting for you. I wish I were able to step back for even a millisecond to see that from your point of view. It’s such an enormous moment.

  My first real girlfriend was Belinda Madsen. Sophomore year of high school. We sat in the back of the room in chemistry class making increasingly ludicrous drawings of the teacher in each other’s notebooks. It took me months to realize that what we were doing was flirting and I didn’t actually ask her out until the spring dance. We dated – which primarily consisted of hanging out on the football field after school – for three weeks, during time she absolutely captivated me. I nearly failed a test because she distracted me so much. When I offered this as an explanation to my father, he said, “Years from now, which do you think is going to be more important to you: this girl or your education?” As it turned out, neither was particularly important, at least as far as chemistry was concerned.

  You’ve been with Mick a lot longer than I was with Belinda. And I’m sure right now you consider him a great deal more than a distraction. Interestingly, by the time you read this, you’ll probably be trying to remember what he looked like, grinning about your little fling with him, or cringing over what a jerk he was. I’ll therefore dispense with all of the “fatherly advice” I could offer about the transient nature of early romances. Sadly, I also won’t say what I should have said to you when you were around about guarding your heart. You’ll have to figure that out on your own.

  You seem further away from me again. As I write this, I feel like I’m doing it only for myself. It’s the middle of the night and my mind is filled with all of the things I could have done or said differently in those last few months we were together and I wonder how much what I did say and do has contributed to driving you away to stay.

  It’s all a little daunting to me. I just want to reach you, Queenie. I just want another chance to do a better job.

  NINETEEN

  Ready Is Always an Issue

  Ally and I were outed at the office that Tuesday. Whenever she stayed over, we took separate cars to work the next morning and the voluminous traffic on 112 or the Nesconset Highway usually separated us at some point along the way by. Somehow today we stayed side-by-side the entire trip, parked only a few spaces from each other, and wound up entering the building together. Less than an hour later, Frank Marcus came into my office, closing the door behind him. Frank was yet another person Maureen and I went out with on occasion.

  “You and Ally Ritten?” he said provocatively.

  I looked up at him from behind my desk with an expression that I hoped conveyed confusion. He simply stood there with a half-smirk/half-smile on his face.

  “Me and Ally Ritten?” I finally said.

  “Do you know about the rumor that’s burning up the halls this morning?”

  “What would that be?”

  “That you and Ally are a thing.”

  I felt my stomach roil. I didn’t want to have this conversation with Frank Marcus. I understood it was inevitable that I would have this conversation with someone. I just didn’t want it to be someone who looked as bemused as Frank looked right now.

  “Ally and I are dating, if that’s what you mean by a thing.”

  Frank sat down in the chair opposite my desk. “Man, really? You and Ally?”

  “Do you have a problem with her?”

  “Ally? No, she’s terrific. I just didn’t expect you to get –” he leaned forward in his seat “– back in the saddle so soon, you know?”

  “Could you make it sound just a little more tawdry, Frank?”

  He threw up his hands. “No, hey, I’m certainly not judging you. I mean I loved Maureen – who didn’t? – but you’re a young guy and you’ve gotta get on with your life.”

  This was going worse than I imagined it would. Certainly, I assumed that some of my colleagues would be surprised and maybe even a little dismayed that I became involved with a woman so soon after my wife’s death. How could I blame them? But I guess I really hoped that the people who chose to address it with me directly would be more compassionate, maybe even suggesting that they were happy that someone had come along to make me feel a little less sad.

  “You’re saying this is hot news in the halls?”

  “There are literally people standing near water-coolers talking about it. When does that ever actually happen?”

  I closed my eyes and willed Frank out of my office. He was enjoying this much too much and I didn’t understand why. Frank and his wife went out with Maureen and me enough times t
o understand what she meant to me. He couldn’t possibly think that I had just tossed her memory aside to be with Ally.

  “It’s cool, Gerry, really. I just thought you’d want to hear from a friend before someone else barged in here.”

  A friend. Yes, a friend who I hadn’t seen away from work since the funeral. “Yeah, thanks Frank. It’s good to be forewarned.”

  He stood up and patted my desk. “No problem, buddy. And listen, I hope things go well with you and Ally. Like I said, she’s terrific.”

  Frank left and I called out for Ben.

  “It’s not on CNN yet,” he said as he entered, “but I haven’t checked their website.”

  “Is this really the kind of thing that gets this building motivated?”

  “Seems to be.”

  “No wonder we’re having a lousy year. Is everyone enjoying this as much as Frank is?”

  “Hard to say. I probably don’t hear any truly nasty stuff because I’m your assistant and everything. I also try to do the ‘above it all’ thing, so I get left out of the loop a lot.”

  “I’m proud of you.”

  “Thanks. I assume you want the door closed as much as possible today.”

  “Yes, please.” Ben turned to leave. I stood up to follow him. “I’d better go check on Ally first.”

  I don’t think I was ever more uncomfortable walking through the halls of Eleanor Miller than I was at this moment. I imagined every person I passed revising his or her opinion of me on the spot, visualizing me as the happy widower partying the night away with his new squeeze. Even when someone stopped me to ask about the specs on a product, I convinced myself that what this person really wanted to do was ask was whether or not Maureen had been lowered in the ground before I bedded another woman.

  I turned into Ally’s office and saw someone from the finance department I barely knew standing there with her. She smiled at me and turned to Ally to say, “I’ll leave the two of you alone.”