Then she'd invited me to a speed dating session later that week. I'd laughed and said no at once, but she'd trapped me in my own reversing project.
"You've never done anything like this, right? So this is totally the time to try it out."
"Weren't you were the one who told me I'll need seven years to be ready for a relationship?"
"Who said anything about a relationship? You're just going to chat with some guys. Big deal."
It felt like a big deal, but I had to admit she was right and I probably needed the practice. I'd done all right on my 'cruise Toronto and talk to people' night but I had deliberately not chosen many men on their own. This time they'd be all I'd see, and that was far scarier.
Tina sat a few tables away, flaunting her cleavage in a black shirt cut so low she must have taped herself into it, and didn't seem nervous at all. Lucky girl.
The bell rang to start the sessions and my heart raced as the first man approached me. I took him in: short and bald, with bulging eyes that suggested he was even more nervous than I was. His stress and my utter lack of attraction to him calmed me a bit, and I smiled at him while he took his seat.
"Hi, I'm Andrea."
"Jeb. Nice to meet you."
We shook hands. He squeezed mine far too hard, but I managed not to wince. "You too."
"So, three minutes, huh? What are we supposed to talk about?"
I shook my head. "Never done this before."
"Me neither. Listen, do you have an accountant?"
I blinked. "Nope. Why?"
"We wouldn't work out dating-wise. I like my girls with a little more up top, if you know what I mean. But I'd be happy to take care of your finances for you."
I felt my mouth fall open but I couldn't make myself close it. He'd flat-out said I didn't have the physical assets he wanted and still thought I'd trust him with my financial ones? "I don't think so."
"Why not? Did I upset you with the..." He cupped his hands at his chest. "Hey, don't take it personally. It's not your fault."
The bulging eyes weren't from nerves. They were proof he was a frog and no prince. I took a deep breath, about to blast him, then reversed direction before I spoke. Anger wouldn't faze this jerk. No doubt he'd heard it all before. But a little humiliation might. "No more than being short and bald is your fault. But I have no money. I'm actually looking for a sugar daddy. Preferably one who'll buy me implants. You in? I like my guys with more hair and height, but you might do."
His face seemed to be trying to achieve several different expressions at once, but before he could speak I added, "Oh, wait. How much money did you make last year? I need a man with lots in his jeans." I smiled innocently into his shocked eyes. "Back pocket and crotch, I mean. Gotta have both."
Jeb did a spot-on goldfish impression for a moment, then pushed his chair back and left without a word.
I smothered my grin against my wine glass. I couldn't believe I'd said all that, but I wouldn't take back even a single syllable. More up top indeed. Where'd the bald guy get off telling me I needed more up top?
While waiting for the bell to ring again, I looked around at the other tables. Tina's date looked like a football player, with such broad shoulders I couldn't see her around him. I could hear her giggles, though, so he must have been more to her liking than Jeb had been to mine. I hoped she'd get to talk to Jeb; she had what he wanted but I knew she wouldn't like anything about him. And I wanted her to tell him that in excruciating detail.
Ding went the bell, and over to the next table went all the guys. My new date, Mark, was tall and sported a full head of reddish-gold hair. Two big advantages over Jed. He shook my hand without crushing it and was definitely the kind of guy you could bring home to Mom.
So I couldn't understand why he bored me half to death.
He was friendly and attentive, laughed at my jokes, and didn't comment on my bra size even once, but I'd had more chemistry with wooden posts. I couldn't help comparing him to Alex, and he didn't measure up.
A shudder skimmed through me. What if I saw Alex? How embarrassing would that be?
But no, why would he be here? He had a new love, having discarded the old one like a snake sheds its useless skin, and there'd be no reason for him to be at something like this.
"Don't you think?"
I snapped back to attention. "Sorry, I didn't hear that last part. It's loud in here." Fortunately, it was; it gave me a good excuse not to have been listening.
"I said, I think we get along great. I'd be happy to see you another time if you'd like."
I looked into his eyes. My every instinct said no, which technically meant I should say yes. But I couldn't. He deserved better. "Mark, I've just gotten out of a very long relationship. I'm seriously not ready for this, and to be honest I shouldn't even be here. I don't want to lead you on, so I'm going to say no."
He stared at me and didn't speak, and the silence stretched out to such a degree I was about to start apologizing when he said, "Andrea, I don't think anyone's ever been that up-front with me. I admire forthrightness, which makes it even sadder that you're not interested in me."
"I didn't say I wasn't interested in you, it's just--"
He held up a hand. "If you thought we'd connected nothing else would matter. It's okay. But look, how about this? I'm going away on business for a month or so, leaving next week. Can I call you when I get back?"
I took a breath to refuse and he said, "Not for a date. Just because I would like to get to know you better. If we ever become something more, great, but if not... well, I think I'd enjoy being your friend. My ex-wife played all sorts of 'you should be able to read my mind' games and I hate that stuff. God knows I wouldn't have to wonder what you thought about things."
I looked into his light blue eyes, waiting for a spark. He seemed perfect. Why couldn't I feel anything for him? No spark arrived, but I liked his honesty and his acceptance of me, and maybe he was right and we could end up connecting some day, so I smiled.
He smiled back and shot me a wink. "Is that a yes, my new friend?"
I fumbled around in my purse then held out my hand to him. "It is, my new friend."
We shook hands, and I slipped him my business card in blatant violation of the 'the guys give the girls their numbers, never the other way around' rule we'd been told at the beginning.
"Cute, funny, and a rule breaker." He shook his head. "You'll probably be married off by the time I get back."
I burst out laughing at the unlikeliness of that and he grinned at me.
The bell rang, and he said, "Truly a pleasure, Andrea."
I smiled. "Same to you."
He left, and the next one took his place. Then the next and the next and the next. Interchangeable men, and I had no reaction to any of them. Alex still had my heart. Was there no way to wrest it away from him?
Chapter Ten
Tina and I sat in the steadily filling theater Saturday night. She'd been on the phone when I arrived and had given me a wave then continued on with her conversation as if I weren't there, and I was trying not to feel ignored and flipping through the program to pass the time before Jamie's play began.
In the midst of the over-the-top bios and effusive thanks written by the actors and crew I spotted a 'We need clarinets!' advertisement and a wave of prickly heat swept me.
In high school, I'd played clarinet well enough that my music teacher had encouraged me to study it at university. I hadn't wanted to, though. I'd claimed to be more interested in business than music, which was true but not my only reason. Alex was heavily into music himself, a classical pianist, and he'd said many times, supposedly in jest but not really, that music was his area not mine. Going after it would have caused us conflict, and I hadn't wanted to do that. He'd been all right with me taking classes in school, but not with me focusing my life on it.
And so I hadn't. I'd put my clarinet into my parents' storage locker after high school and hadn't thought of it in years. A part of my past.
But now Alex, at least for the moment, was also part of my past, and the musical theater group needed me and I could use something to get me out of the apartment on a regular basis. Was it time to reverse letting Alex claim music as his domain?
Alex. Did I want him back or did I hate him? I fluctuated from minute to minute. My life still felt so unbalanced without him, but I also liked the changes I'd made and the freedom of making more when I wanted to. Though I still felt like an awkward teenager trying to figure out the world sometimes, I was an adult and could negotiate the world in a different way. However I wanted, really.
I couldn't believe I hadn't heard from him even once. His new relationship must have been exactly what he'd been after. But I had new relationships too. Tina and I spent a lot of time together on work breaks, Wendy and I were still a little reserved but got along great, and even Mark had emailed to say he'd enjoyed meeting me at speed-dating and would be in touch when he returned from his business trip.
I had other things in my life as well, like the crocheting I loved. I'd finished my cotton scarf and half-finished the woolly winter one, working away on the subway and for hours each night at home marveling at what my hands could create with yarn and a hook, and I'd planned a trip to the yarn store tomorrow for supplies to finish the winter scarf and start something new and amazing.
Definitely new but not so amazing had been the bellydance class I'd done the night before. I'd felt about as graceful and sensual as a damp cardboard box next to the teacher and even my still awkward fellow students, so I wouldn't be going back. But at least I'd tried. I'd been trying so many new things, talking to people and eating different foods and wearing unfamiliar styles, and my life was deeper and richer now.
But of course none of that was the same as being in a relationship with Alex. I'd felt so safe there, so secure. My life had been running in a particular groove for fourteen years and now my train had jumped the tracks and I wasn't at all sure how to live. Before, I'd been like a glass figurine wrapped in bubble wrap, protected and insulated by the feeling that I was loved.
But bubble wrap will suffocate you if you're wound up in it too long.
Had Alex and I been suffocating each other? Had we been together too long? Everyone thought we had, of course. But I'd loved him and he'd loved me, I thought anyhow, and I'd never understood the 'you've been with him too long so break up' attitude. Why break up when everything was still great?
I'd thought we were still still great, but he hadn't.
Tina ended her phone call and I pointed out the program ad. "I used to play clarinet. I might try out."
"Why not? What have you got to lose?"
Pride if the audition went badly, probably a lot of time to practicing and rehearsals if it went well, and maybe any chance of reconciling with Alex if he came back and didn't like it. Seemed like a lot.
*****
By intermission I was wishing I'd braved Alex's mocking and come to every last one of Jamie's performances. The show wasn't even close to flawless but the performers' obvious passion and commitment got them through and made it enjoyable. My urge to audition grew stronger every minute, but I still worried how that might affect my future with Alex.
Tina and I milled around with the rest of the audience in the theater's lobby, sipping overpriced crappy wine and, in Tina's case, checking out the men. I'd thought she was joking about finding someone to go home with, but her systematic process of analyzing and discarding the available options made it clear she wasn't.
She only paused when we ran into two of her friends, Elaine and Sonya, but since their sole topic of conversation was the relative scarcity of men in the crowd I wasn't sure it counted as a pause.
"Those two look nice." Elaine gestured with her head toward two men standing together. They did, actually. One was blond and tall, clearly athletic, and he should have been seriously attractive but was somehow too blandly perfect. The other was tall too but a bit overweight and average-looking except for his eyes, an amazing aquamarine color.
"You mean the blond, right?" Tina said. "The other guy's lame."
"Hardly. Didn't you see his eyes?" My cheeks blazed. Had I actually said that? Tame compared to the others' previous comments, but for me it was monumental. The first non-Alex man who'd made me feel any sort of spark.
"Good girl. Let them have the pretty boy. I'm with you, the other one's way hotter." Sonya held up her hand for me to high-five her.
I did, while Tina and Elaine rolled their eyes, then Elaine said, "It's too bad Annie's not here. She'd love the lame one. And she needs some diversion after the week she's had."
Tina frowned. "What's wrong?"
Elaine shook her head. "She should have known better. You don't pick up a guy on the rebound. Especially not like this. Get this, before he dated her and most of her friends he was in a fourteen-year relationship."
All the air seemed to disappear from the room, and my lungs, at once.
Tina stared at me, for once seeming worried about someone but herself. "Oh, God. Elaine..."
"What was his name?" I managed to whisper.
Elaine looked between me and Tina, frowning. "Alex. Why?"
My body felt like all its parts were drifting away from each other, dizzied and warped beyond recognition.
"Are you okay?" Sonya put a hand on my shoulder.
The contact helped bring me back down to earth, and I swallowed hard and made myself nod. "It's just..."
"She dated Alex for fourteen years," Tina supplied when I couldn't finish.
Sonya dropped her hand to her side and gasped, and Elaine said, "I'm sorry. I wouldn't have mentioned it if I'd known."
"You... you said he went through most of Annie's friends?"
"Don't torture yourself," Sonya said, sounding near tears.
I needed to know, though, so I held eye contact with Elaine until she said, clearly reluctantly, "He left you for Kelly but that only lasted about two weeks. Then he spent a week or two with Janice and a bit less with Brenda before hooking up with Annie. I think he's single now but I honestly don't know."
The names spun through my head and the dates were like spikes on those spinning names, ripping through my heart. He'd spent only two weeks with her? Kelly? I hadn't even been able to leave the house yet and he'd already left the person he'd claimed was his soulmate.
Tina gave my arm a squeeze. "You okay?"
I shook my head. "He left me for her and it didn't even last a month. I don't understand." A sob bubbled up inside me but I forced it down. "How could he do that?"
Elaine looked like she'd rather be anywhere but there, but Sonya stepped into the breach. "Trying to understand men isn't worth the effort. I bet he doesn't even know why."
I nodded slowly. Probably true, since Alex had never been the self-analytical type. I gave a deep sigh. "I'm sorry, guys, I'm wrecking your evening."
Elaine, notably, didn't respond, but Tina gave me a quick hug and Sonya made the supreme sacrifice by saying, "Want to go after 'eyes'? I'll let you have him."
I couldn't help laughing, though there was hysteria mixed with it. "That's so nice of you."
She grinned, clearly relieved I was recovering. "Hey, his friend isn't exactly hideous. I'll just take him."
Elaine and Tina protested this, and we moved off the topic of Alex. At least, they did. I couldn't.
Everything, everything, I'd done had revolved around him. It still did, too. I hadn't thought about whether I wanted to play clarinet, only about how Alex would feel. Even the reversing project, which I'd tried to convince myself was about expanding my horizons, was really about getting Alex back. Reversing could also mean going backward, and by trying so hard to remake myself into what Alex might want I'd completely abandoned any hope of becoming what I might want.
A poke in the shoulder made me jump, and Tina said, "Do you want to go home?"
"Yeah," I admitted. "I want to hide."
Sonya winced but Tina gave me a half-smile. "What's the revers
e of that?"
I had to laugh. What was the reverse of letting this news about Alex force me back into hermit status?
*****
"Oh, I'm so glad you came out tonight."
I made myself smile at the delighted teenage girl behind the ticket desk. "Me too. I just hope I remember how to play."
"It's like riding a bicycle. You never forget."
"I hope you're right." My last bike ride, about ten years ago, had ended abruptly when I fell off and broke my collarbone in two places. Playing clarinet, no matter how badly, couldn't be that painful.
"I totally am. So David will email you in a few days to set up your audition time and let you know what to prepare."
Prepare? I didn't have any sheet music. Or any idea where to get it. I took a breath to back out, then caught Tina's eye. Something in her expression told me she was expecting me to do just that, so instead I said, "Sounds good. Thanks."
"No, thank you."
I smiled and Tina and I headed back to our seats. When we'd settled into them, she said, "Good job. Now you'll be too busy for Alex."
I sighed. Even hearing his name made my heart hurt. I didn't think what I'd learned had quite sunk in yet, and I wasn't looking forward to how awful I'd feel when it did. "He's not coming back. He doesn't care. Clearly, or he wouldn't have done all that. I just don't get how I was so wrong about him all those years."
Tina's phone buzzed. As she pulled it from her purse, she said, "People are hard to read. You never know who's going to stab you in the back."
She opened her phone and studied the screen, and something inside me whimpered. I so did not want that attitude. I pushed my shoulders back. I wouldn't let it happen. Despite Alex's betrayal, I would not slip into automatically assuming the worst of people. I might get hurt occasionally by trusting people but better that than being bitter and cynical.
Tina burst out laughing and showed me the phone.
"We're talking to the two guys. E got the blond and I have eyes. You guys lose."
She pushed to her feet. "I can't let Elaine have that guy without a fight. You coming?"
Toronto Collection Volume 1 (Toronto Series #1-5) Page 107