“If they look that young to us,” Cindy realized, “we must look….”
“Old,” I finished for her.
“Old,” she repeated, not noticing herself clutch the bottom of her hair as if to check that it was still there.
Chapter 3
The walk to Michigan stadium was somewhat comforting as we saw clusters of sixty-year-old men wearing maize-and-blue checkered pants, with sweater vests bearing the name of our alma mater. They sat on lawn chairs next to mini-vans with spare tires covered in blue vinyl jackets with a maize letter “M” on them. The older the men were, the louder their outfits. Many wore knit hats with blue pompoms at the top. They grilled bratwurst while equally decked-out wives scooped chili into plastic bowls. The sight of anyone older than us was a welcome one.
Autumn is the most beautiful time of the year in Ann Arbor because hundreds of different types of trees are filled with crisp orange and yellow leaves. Of course, some had fallen to the ground, but most desperately clung to the branches as if they knew letting go meant their death.
On the grass outside the stadium, three-year-old boys wore mini football uniforms and baby girls sported infant-sized cheerleader outfits. A half-dozen young, drunken boys came shirtless, each with a blue letter painted on his chest. When unscrambled, they would spell “Go Blue.” As they were, it simply implored, “BeG lou.”
“Beg Lou for what?” tailgaters shouted at the six pack.
You could see they were confused by the question, yet “G” managed to come back with a retort. “Beer!” he shouted. “Who the fuck is Lou?” he muttered to his friends.
As the band finished playing its warm-up music, the football team ran out of the tunnel and took the field as more than 100,000 fans cheered uproariously. There was something about a blank scoreboard that always lifted my spirits. Uniforms were clean. No one had been tackled yet. No yellow penalty flags had been thrown by men in stripes. It was like anything could happen. And we got to watch the whole thing from start to finish.
Late in the first quarter someone started the human wave. An entire section of fans stood, raised their arms, then sat down. Then the next section would do the same. And on and on it went until everyone in the stadium was waiting for their one silly moment to stand and shout “whoaaa” and then sit down again. The stadium was our fountain of youth and we all splashed around gleefully waiting for the wave to come our way.
Right before halftime, I had an odd sense that Matt was somewhere in the stadium. I scanned the section to the left of us, but no sight of him.
This is ridiculous. There are thousands of people here. There’s no way you’d see him even if he were here, I thought.
No, he’s here. Keep looking, said another part of me.
I looked to the section on the right and had two false Matt sightings before giving up.
Look now.
So I did. Two sections over was a guy who was about my age and looked an awful lot like Matt.
There’s no way that’s him, Common Sense told me.
It could be. Why is it impossible for him to be here? The goofy, hopeful Teenage Optimist in me couldn’t help wonder.
I squinted to see if it could be him. “Can I borrow your binoculars?” I asked an older man behind me. He handed them to me without a word, and looked surprised when I turned his lenses to the crowd instead of the football field.
I focused on my suspect and tried to decide whether it was him or not. Just the thought that it could be him sent a thrilling nausea through me. You’d think that love-at-first sight giddiness would lessen over so many years, but my reaction to just the possibility of seeing him showed me that my feelings for him had actually intensified.
* * *
I met Matt during spring break in Fort Lauderdale during our senior year in college. Cindy, Evie and I went with our other friends, Libby and Olivia. Olivia knew a group of guys we saw entering The Bahama, a hotel bar that we found on our first night of vacation. She motioned to the group of them and pointed to the extra seats at our table.
The Miami Sound Machine was blasting The Conga as we sipped blended pink drinks with umbrellas. Teens in Hawaiian shirts and island beads overtook the town, shouting pearls of wisdom like “Spring Break!” and “Party!” at the top of their lungs. A few of them crushed beer cans on their heads and passed out in the gutter.
Cindy and I both spotted Matt among the group at the same time.
“I call the guy with the brown hair in the white shirt,” she informed our table. The policy was that the first person to call a guy was the only one allowed to pursue him. The rationale was that the girl who was most interested would naturally spot him first. A logical assumption that helped maintain harmony in our overcrowded hotel room. There was one exception to this rule.
“Jump shot,” I said as the guys came closer.
And that was the jump shot. This simply meant that the guy would be a fair toss-up between the two and no matter whom he chose, there would be no hard feelings.
“Bitch,” joked Cindy.
“No, my friend. You are the bitch if you stand between me and that magnificent specimen of masculinity. Bow out, I beg of you.”
“I’ll do no such thing. The genetic possibilities are phenomenal with this man.”
“I hate you,” I said through a cemented smile as the guys began to seat themselves at our table.
“Olivia,” said their ambassador to ours. “These are some of my buddies from school. You’ve met Andy, Pete, Rich and Matt, right?”
They go to our school. Our school! Sweet mother of God, thank you for this miracle!
Matt sat next to me. “Hey,” he said.
I love this man. “Hey,” I returned, hoping not to vomit on him.
After an hour of drinking, everyone at our table was practically singing Auld Lang Syne together as if we’d known each other for a thousand lifetimes. Matt’s knee touched mine under the table and both of us declined to move them away. My hair follicles had a pulse beat. My pores opened so wide with terror, I swore you could stick a cork in each one.
“So, I didn’t catch your name,” Matt said to me.
Maybe not, but I just caught a jump shot.
“Prudence,” I said, trying to match his coolness.
“I’m Matt.”
And I’m in loooovvve with you! I managed not to blurt.
“So, you go to Michigan?” he asked.
I nodded for fear of something ridiculous escaping from my lips.
“I wonder why I’ve never seen you around.”
Perhaps it was the other 40,000 students milling about.
“Well, I’m around now,” I said, amazed at my own ability to flirt.
“You want to go take a walk or something?” he asked.
Definitely the “or something.”
I remember reminding myself to drink in this moment where those gorgeous blue eyes were looking straight at me, and that utterly delicious mouth was forming words that were inviting me to walk — or something. Matt was without a doubt one of the best looking guys I’d ever laid eyes on, and hands-down the sexiest living creature I’d ever seen — underwear ads included.
I would walk anywhere and do anything with you, I thought better of saying.
Cindy watched us both get up from the table as her mental game buzzer sounded that it was all over for her.
“Go get him,” she mouthed and winked. She was a good sport. Plus, three guys had practically set up campsites around her at our table, which was always a great consolation to Cindy.
Matt and I both lay on our backs on the beach and played tic-tac-toe on an imaginary board in the black sky. Very drunk couples stumbled by us, oblivious to Matt and me. I, on the other hand, was aware of every grain of sand under my head, the smell of the ocean air and every voice that passed by us.
“When I get you back to my hotel room I am going to fuck your brains out,” a guy told a girl as he draped his arm around her like a wounded soldier.
; “I haven’t got any brains left, but you can still fuck me,” she laughed as if this were the funniest thing in the world. Then he chased her and tackled her to the sand.
“I can’t wait another second. You are so hot,” said Drunk Guy as the couple laughed and rolled in the sand.
Matt looked at me and smiled as we were both simultaneously embarrassed and titillated by the uninhibited, unbridled sexuality.
“Um, X in the number six spot,” he smirked.
The couple got up and continued chasing each other on the sand until we could not see them anymore. Surely, they each woke up the next morning on the shore of the Atlantic Ocean, shook sand from their underpants and muttered, “Who the hell are you?”
“I already put my O in number six,” I said.
“No you didn’t.”
“Yes, I did. You’re drunk. You just forgot.”
He sat up quickly. “You are a cheater!”
“Am not!”
“Are too!” he laughed. “You are cheating at tic-tac-toe. Do you know what that makes you?”
Absolutely, totally in love with you?
“What?” I said with a smile that connected in the back of my head.
“Pathetic.”
How could a man calling me pathetic sound sweeter than any sonnet or poem or song I’ve ever heard in my life?
“Lucky for you, pathetic is exactly what I’m looking for in a girl.”
We both gave each other that pre-kiss smile, then stopped. The tic-tac-toe, the banter of pathetic cheating was all completely irrelevant and we both knew it. It was all leading to this. He leaned down slowly as if to ask if it was okay to kiss me. I smiled and did not stop him. Then for the first time our lips touched each other, and arms enveloped the other’s bodies. I had to remind myself not to caress every part of his clothed body, desperate to take in every detail of him. It would seem too needy, I thought. But he was just what I needed.
Now more so than ever, though I hadn’t realized it until that moment at the Michigan homecoming. I looked through the binoculars again. It looked so much like Matt. I wondered if Fate had sacked Common Sense.
Chapter 4
The Michigan football team huddled during a timeout, while I also decided what my game plan would be. I could have easily moved forty yards across the stadium bleachers without being tackled like a running back carrying the ball. But when I got to his section, I might have encountered unnecessary roughness. This guy very well could’ve been someone who just looked like Matt. Or worse, it would be him, and his beautiful wife and their two strapping sons.
I reminded myself that if I stopped right then, I could always preserve my version of our history. Frankly, the real version wasn’t so great, but this installment could be downright humiliating. He could politely introduce me to his wife as an “old friend,” then entertain her with the story of his abrupt departure from my life.
“I don’t blame you for a moment, darling,” she would say to Matt, pitying the poor soul for ever having to spend time with me.
“Seeing that raggedy old Prudence reminds me of how lucky I am to have a beautiful wife like you,” Matt would say to her at dinner that night as they toasted their blissfully perfect life together. She would return with something delightfully witty, never once referring to their love as “real.”
Still, I decided to go over and see what would happen. Jennifer calls this the “seduction of potential.” Lemon fresh Pledge. It could change your life. The game clock ran out on the first half, and streams of maize-and-blue people headed out for snacks and drinks. I slinked over to his section before I noticed Mr. Could-Be-Matt walking away from the group of guys he was sitting with, and toward the exit. I followed his trail, which ultimately led to the concession stand. As I stood on line, just five places behind him, I realized it was absolutely, without a doubt, him.
I wondered what I would say to him when he noticed me.
Oh my God! Imagine running into you here. Too fake.
It’s been so long! Why not hang a “Look at my crow’s feet” sign around my neck?
How are you? Maybe. Save it as a last resort.
Are you married? Definitely not.
I think of you every year on your birthday. Swallow fatal amount of sleeping pills before uttering these humiliating words.
As pitiful as it seems — even to me — it was true that every year for the past fourteen I remembered Matt’s birthday. Perhaps it was because the first time we slept together was on his twenty-second birthday, our fourth night together in Fort Lauderdale. The day before, I’d driven to town with Olivia, Libby, Cindy and Evie to stock up on alcohol and purchase a small cake for Matt’s birthday. I’d negotiated use of the hotel room until two that morning and planned to invite Matt over in the evening for cake and Jack Daniels. At midnight, I would be the first person to wish him a happy birthday. That was the plan.
At around eight-thirty, I got a call from Libby. She was at the guys’ hotel room and whispered, “You’d better call Matt.”
“Why? We agreed to get together later. What’s up?”
“Olivia and I have been here for a few hours, and Evie and Cindy just walked in. Matt thinks you’re blowing him off.”
“Why are Evie and Cindy there? I thought they were going for a walk.”
“Look out the window.” Pouring rain. “This was the closest place they could run for shelter. Anyway, Matt is doing a really bad job at trying to act like he doesn’t care, but we can all see he’s bummed out ’cause he thinks you’re avoiding him.”
“You’re kidding?” I asked. After just four days I could already see that unshakable apathy was very much part of the persona Matt had cultivated. Even though it was clear he liked me, he’d still pepper his conversations with “whatever.” I couldn’t help feeling just a bit giddy with the fact that he was showing visible signs of actually caring about me.
“Put him on the phone,” I asked Libby.
“No way. He’d kill me if he knew I called you. You call back here in a few minutes.”
Blowing him off? I laughed. If he only knew I was actually writing his name in blue icing on a supermarket birthday cake.
“Hey, are we still on for tonight?” I asked Matt when I called back.
“Hey Prudence,” he said coolly. “Where’ve you been all day?”
“Well, actually I’ve been shopping for birthday stuff for you. I thought we could celebrate together.”
“Shit,” he said.
“What an ingrate,” I teased.
“No, it’s not that. Thank you, no, thank you really. It’s just, well, when I didn’t hear from you, I thought, you know. I thought you were, you made other plans so I told the guys we’d go out drinking. I should’ve called. Shit. I fucked up. Okay, how ’bout this? Why don’t I come over now and then I’ll go out with my friends later?”
I didn’t love the plan, but I was already completely in love with him so I accepted it. I rationalized that this would be an opportunity to show him what a cool girlfriend I would be.
He arrived a few minutes before nine in an orange mesh football jersey over a white t-shirt and crisp 501 jeans. His brown hair was wet and combed neatly in a side part. At the door, he smiled so powerfully it seemed to have the ability to swing the door wide open all by itself.
“Hey,” he said. His head moved from one side of the room to the other as he scanned the rainbow of balloons strewn across the floor and his cake on the table.
“Hi. Come on in,” I said, trying to seem very okay with how the evening was turning out. In reality I was a bit embarrassed that I’d gone through all this trouble for a fifteen-minute round of drinks and slice of cake before Matt went out for his real celebration.
“This is sweet,” he said looking at the cake. “I had no idea you were doing this for me or I wouldn’t have made other plans.”
We had a plan, you idiot! Just last night, you kissed me against an illuminated Pepsi machine, and we said we’d get together tonight.
What happened between now and then?!
“No big deal,” I said instead.
“No, it is a big deal. I feel like shit.”
Good! You should feel like shit. We had plans. What happened to our plans?!
“Don’t worry about it,” I said. “More cake for me, right?”
“Yeah, I guess so. Listen, why don’t I come back later and we can keep our original plan? Can I come back at around midnight?”
Sure, I’ll just wallow in self-pity for the next three hours all by myself here.
“That’s fine.”
Look how easy-going I am, Matt. Please love me.
“Yeah, that’s okay,” I said lighter than the previous “that’s fine.” I kissed him on his lips and told him to enjoy the time out with his friends. “I’ll be here when you get back,” I said, the shining example of the most excellent girlfriend.
I turned on the news and poured myself a shot of Jack Daniels. The top story that evening was the storm. Thunder roared outside and rain frantically tapped on the hotel window.
“Looks like heavy showers in Broward County this evening,” said a blond anchor woman.
“Thank God for the news,” I said aloud to no one.
Twenty minutes later, there was an urgent knock at my hotel door. It was Matt, soaking wet and breathless. “Oh my God, look at you. Come in, come in,” I said rushing for a towel. Drying his hair with the cheap white hotel towel, I almost inaudibly stated the obvious. “You’re back.”
He smiled as if he wasn’t going to say anything else, then grabbed my waist and pulled me toward him and kissed me. Matt waited a second, like he was contemplating whether or not to explain himself. After the hesitation, he smiled. “You know, I was sitting there at the bar, and then I thought to myself, what the hell am I doing here? So I ran back.”
You ran back? You didn’t just casually stroll back to me, you ran. Okay, so it’s raining, which may have added some incentive for you to hurry, but it was me you were running to.
“Well, I’m glad you’re here,” I said before I kissed him. As our lips touched, I was returned to the present when a guy behind me on line stepped on my shoe. I’m glad you’re here, I repeated silently. Maybe that’s what I’d say when our eyes met at the concession stand.
The Wife of Reilly Page 3