The Men I Didn't Marry

by Janice Kaplan

  “Thank you, I guess,” I say, realizing that Bellini thinks she’s just paid me the ultimate compliment. But my goal isn’t to be anybody’s costly accessory.

  “I mean it,” she warns. “You can’t settle.”

  “Bellini, I’m not taking Bill back. Done is done. Now could we just watch the play? I think the curtain’s about to rise.”

  “There’s no curtain,” says Bellini, and I realize she’s right. A no-frills production—no chairs, no curtain, no clothes.

  Mercifully, we don’t have to talk anymore because the lights in the theater fade to black. When they come back up, there he is, Bellini’s barista, with nothing on him except a spotlight. I thought that would be the finale. Aren’t you supposed to save the best for last?

  “Talk about generous,” I whisper to Bellini, our eyes clearly focused on the same place.

  “I’d say he’s a Venti,” says Bellini, using the Starbucks slang for extra large.

  “Aren’t you embarrassed that a man you’re dating is naked?” I ask.

  “I like it when the men I date get naked.”

  “In public?”

  “If you’ve got it, flaunt it,” says the black-clad theater-lover on my left, who’s obviously overheard our conversation.

  “You’d go out with him, wouldn’t you?” Bellini asks, leaning over me to talk to the Venti admirer.

  “I’d have to see him in a Pinter play before I decide,” she says. “How is he with pauses?”

  “He never pauses,” says Bellini. And with a satisfied cat-that-ate-the-canary grin, she settles back to enjoy the rest of the show.

  Even though it’s after midnight when I get home, I call Kevin for our nightly good-night kiss. I’m always eager to hear his voice, but no matter how good the connection, phones can’t substitute for wrapping our arms around each other. We struggle with awkward pauses that we can’t fill with a hug.

  “My bed feels awfully empty without you,” Kevin says.

  “I’m glad,” I joke. But then I quickly add, “I think about you all the time.”

  “When are you coming back?” Kevin asks.

  “Maybe a little later than I’d planned,” I say hesitantly. “I have to settle this Tyler case.”

  “Since when’s Tyler more important than me?” asks Kevin. “I’ve seen the guy. I’m sexier than he is in a wet suit.”

  “Much sexier,” I say. I know Kevin’s joking, but every man needs his manhood stroked. I decide not to mention I’ve spent the evening gawking at a naked man who must have once worked at McDonald’s— he’d clearly been supersized.

  “Too bad your work’s so important that you can’t be with me for Christmas,” Kevin says with a slight edge.

  I’m briefly taken aback. “It’s not just my work. My kids will be home for the school break.” Kevin’s silent for a moment, getting my message that maybe he’s not my number one after all. But I need to let him know that he’s still wanted.

  “You could come up here,” I suggest.

  “I can’t; it’s our busy season,” he says. I don’t point out that I’m not the only one whose priorities get in the way of our being together.

  “I’ll miss you,” I tell him.

  “I’ll miss you, too.”

  We hang up and I think how easy it is for misunderstandings to brew long distance. I close my eyes and try to picture what the holiday is like on Virgin Gorda. I imagine palm trees strung with lights, man-goes roasting on an open fire, and Santa arriving on a speedboat. Our own white Christmas at home is always more conventional, though this year, even I’ll be bending tradition a bit.

  Adam and Emily arrive home for winter break, but I can’t possibly take any more time off from work to be with them during the day. They’re busy seeing friends, so they don’t mind. But I feel terrible. What nobody tells you is that as your kids get older, they need you less and you need them more.

  Late one night, we bring down the carefully packed boxes of ornaments from the attic and merrily decorate the seven-foot fir tree that I had delivered from Fresh Direct. They’ll deliver anything. On another night I duck into my study to go shopping for the bountiful presents I’ll put under the tree, picked lovingly from Amazon.com, the working mother’s real savior.

  The kids each invite friends from college to join us—four exchange students who can’t make it to their own families in Brazil, Italy, Spain, and Indonesia for the holidays. Christmas dinner turns into a giant smorgasbord, with each of the students contributing a dish. It may be the only time that the South American black bean and pork stew fei-joada is on the same table with the Indonesian lampung banana chips. Bellini brings the accessories—bejeweled bangle bracelets from Bendel’s that we use as napkin rings and a beautiful woven metallic-thread Missoni scarf that she puts down as a table runner. I’m reluctant to plop a sticky plate of yams on top of it, but Bellini assures me she knows the city’s best dry cleaner.

  Instead of Christmas songs, the stunning Brazilian student Evahi puts on Latin music, and I immediately remember Kevin teaching me to dance.

  “Great beat,” says Adam, grabbing Evahi and swaying her spiritedly around the dining room. She laughs, her full skirt swinging in a colorful blur and her thick hair falling across her face.

  The two of them look flushed when they sit down again, and beautiful Evahi moves a little closer to Adam than before. Every woman says she wants a man with a sense of humor, but what she really wants is a man with a sense of rhythm. And where did Adam get his, anyway? Clearly not a gene he inherited from his parents. I’ve always had two left feet and Bill has three.

  With the sexy music, the inventively designed table, and the U.N.inspired cuisine, it’s not a Norman Rockwell holiday. But happily, instead of a silent night, we’re having a raucously good time. I’ve bought little presents for all our guests, and after dessert, the table is quickly covered with discarded ribbons and ripped-open wrapping paper.

  “Ooh, this is perfect,” says Evahi, flipping through the book I found of black-and-white movie stills from the thirties. “How’d you know I love old films?”

  “Adam told me,” I say.

  She looks at him with a huge grin and then slips her arm into his. So Adam dances—and pays attention to what Evahi says. I don’t know how he’s doing in quantum physics, but as boyfriend material, Adam’s scoring an A+.

  And he just gets better.

  “Evahi, such a pretty name. How’d you get it?” asks Bellini, who might be ready to trade in her current moniker for a trendier model.

  “My parents named me after a South American goddess,” she says.

  “That’s because you are a South American goddess,” Adam says. The kid will graduate summa cum laude, with a degree in girls.

  “Are you majoring in film studies?” Bellini asks, continuing her interest in the pretty girl she’s decided is about to become my daughter-in-law.

  “She’s majoring in astrophysics so she can study black holes and jets from active galactic nuclei,” Adam says proudly. “Minoring in film.”

  “So I can have something to talk to people about,” Evahi says with a laugh.

  “Good idea,” says Bellini. Then to prove that everyone connects with movies, she adds, “Hallie has a client in the film business.”

  “Not exactly holiday conversation.”

  “You talk about it every other day,” says Bellini.

  “Who’s the client?” asks Evahi.

  “Alladin Films,” I say, not eager to spoil my mood by telling the whole story.

  “Wow,” says Evahi. “Do you happen to know a publicist there named Melina Marks?”

  I put down my cup of eggnog a little too abruptly, and it sloshes treacherously, but I manage to save it before it spills on the Missoni runner.

  “How do you know her?” I ask, bracing the cup with two hands.

  “She’s the next guest speaker in my film class. It’s really cool. We get to meet directors, casting agents, producers—all of these people
who work in the industry.”

  “Should be interesting,” I say. And possibly interesting for me as well. Could the college’s inviting Melina to speak be evidence that she deserved her promotion? Or maybe it’s just evidence that she slept with a dean at Dartmouth, too.

  I notice that Emily and her friends have drifted into the living room, bored with the film talk. Maybe we should have stuck with astrophysics. I go in to join them, and a few minutes later, the time-honored sounds of caroling cuts through the sitar music, which one of the kids has now put on.

  “It must be Rosalie and her crowd,” says Emily, who knows the Chaddick Christmas drill. “We listen for a while and then Mom goes to the kitchen to get the plate of homemade oatmeal-raisin cookies.”

  “Pepperidge Farm homemade oatmeal-raisin cookies,” corrects Adam.

  “Don’t destroy my illusions,” groans Emily. “Next thing you know, you’ll tell me there’s no Santa Claus.”

  Adam opens the door to the carolers and then turns to Emily with a smile. “Nope. Santa Claus is right here,” he says.

  We all gather at the door, and sure enough, a Santa with a big white beard and a red velvet suit is robustly singing with five other neighbors. Santa is impeccably costumed, but he hasn’t bothered to put a pillow in for his belly. I’m not surprised. Because I know immediately that this is a vain, unworthy, cheating Santa, not deserving of the red pompommed hat. And certainly not one who should be singing “Come All Ye Faithful.”

  “Bill, have a cookie,” I say to my unfaithful husband when the song is over.

  “Daddy, is that you?” Emily asks, delighted, rushing onto the snowy porch to throw her arms around her dad. “Come on in.”

  “If your mom doesn’t mind.”

  Bill casts me a sidelong glance, but he knows he has me over a barrel. Even the little town of Bethlehem made room for visitors. How can I cast out my children’s father on Christmas?

  “Sure, you can all come in,” I say, flinging open the door.

  Rosalie, who’s been leading the caroling, now leads the singers into the living room.

  “Didn’t I bring you the best Christmas present?” she asks, gesturing toward Bill, who’s ladling himself a cup of hot spiced wine.

  “Your song was very nice,” I say, commenting on the only thing she’s brought to the house that I’m sure I like.

  Santa Bill, the singers, and the kids are all talking animatedly, and instead of joining them, I escape into the kitchen. Everyone else seems happy, but Bill’s arrival has abruptly ended the party for me, so I start stacking dishes and filling the sink with warm, soapy water.

  “Nice to be eating meat again,” Bill says, coming up behind me, his fork poised over a plate of food. “You make all this? I love the nasi goring. And these lamb-skewer things. What do you call them? Sate? They’re the best.”

  I step away from the sink, dry my hands on a towel, and slowly turn toward Bill.

  “What are you doing here?” I ask, my voice harsher than I mean it to be.

  “It’s Christmas,” he says jovially. “Ho, ho, ho, and all that.”

  I don’t answer, because what am I supposed to say? “You have a ’ho. Go back to her?” No, I can’t put this on Ashlee. It’s Bill’s fault.

  “I guess you and your girlfriend are still on a ‘break,’ ” I say, making quotation marks in the air with my fingers to emphasize the word.

  Bill puts his plate on the counter. “Actually, we’re not on a break. We’re broken. It’s over.”

  “Gee, too bad,” I say, since that’s all the sympathy I can muster.

  “It is, but it’s good, too,” he says. “Because now you and I can get back together.”

  I’m dumbfounded. “You must be joking,” I say. “It might be Christmas, but there’s not that much good cheer in the world.”

  “Think about it. There’s no reason not to. I’ll take you out on New Year’s. We’ll have a good time, drink champagne. And you can see if you want to kiss me at midnight.”

  Chapter FIFTEEN

  WHO NEEDS BILL? Once Christmas comes and goes, I have plenty of options for New Year’s and his invitation isn’t even in my top ten. My kids want me to join them at the revelries in Times Square. Amanda’s throwing a party at her house with champagne for the adults and a clown for the children. She’s calling it “Bubbles and Bozo.” Bellini can get me into the Swarovski crystal black-tie bash at a downtown club featuring champagne and great gift bags: The invitation reads “Bubbles and Baubles.” I’ve said no to all of them, and instead I’ll take a bottle of Moet & Chandon into my Jacuzzi. I’ll toast the New Year with Bubbles and Bubbles.

  But by eleven P.M., I’m lonely. Even Dick Clark’s not around this year to keep me company, and Ryan Seacrest is just a little too young for my taste. I pick up my cell phone to call Kevin, but then I snap it shut. We’ve already talked for an hour tonight and I probably can’t reach him now anyway. He must be on the boat, taking a group of tourists on a midnight dive. At least that’s where he told me he’d be, and why he wouldn’t be able to call later.

  I hang up the two coats Emily tried on, rejected, and tossed on the front-hall chair before going out tonight. How could she have said no to Grandma Rickie’s hand-me-down mink jacket or my vintage Persian lamb? She settled on her own wispy pashmina shrug. Well, I guess she’ll have cozy shoulders. And there’ll be plenty of warm bodies packed together in Times Square.

  I straighten out the front-hall closet and look up at the dusty chandelier. Rosalie’s pointed out more than once that it could use a good cleaning. Maybe she’s home from Amanda’s party by now and would like to come over and help. I could use the company. I rifle through the pantry and find a half-full bottle of Windex. At least I have the right attitude; I don’t see it as half-empty. But by the time I find a clean rag, I decide to abandon the project. Polishing the chandelier on New Year’s Eve would be just too depressing. Besides, so much has changed this year something in my life should stay the same, even if it’s just the dust.

  Restless, I pad around the house in my chenille bathrobe and bare feet. It’s been an interesting year. Certainly not the one I’d expected last January first when I thought about what might be in store. As Ravi might say, change happens. I can’t even begin to imagine where I’ll be twelve months from now.

  Through the living room window, I notice headlights coming up our very quiet suburban street. Strange that someone’s coming home now. Amanda’s family-clown shindig ended at ten, and everybody else should just be getting ready for the ball to drop.

  Even stranger, the headlights stop in front of my house.

  Whoever’s driving doesn’t even turn off the engine. I see him dash to the front door, leave a package, and turn back to his car. When he’s gone, I go to the foyer and open the door. A blast of freezing air whips my face.

  A big, brightly wrapped box is sitting on the top step. I bring it inside and read the card, even though I already know it’s from Bill.

  You didn’t want to have champagne with me tonight, but I hope we can break open one of these another time.

  I rip off the paper and unveil Bill’s romantic gift. A six-pack of Dr Pepper. I shake my head. This is supposed to seduce me? What’s the matter with that man? But then I pick up one of the bottles and laugh. How Bill. He was probably very pleased with himself when he figured out how he could give me a sweetly clever New Year’s present without springing for Dom Perignon because, in a funny way, this is just as good.

  I probably married Bill in the first place because he knew how to make a perfect New Year’s night with just the two of us. I’ve never liked big parties, which is why no combination of Bubbles, Bozo, and Baubles could get me out of my robe tonight. Bill understood, and for our first holiday together, he bought two pair of snowshoes and took me to Central Park. It was a perfectly clear, crisp evening, and the ground already had a thick white cover. We clomped across the Great Lawn—or, that night, the Great Snowfield—and as if on cue, sof
t, gentle flakes of snow began to fall. At the stroke of midnight, we toasted our future with two bottles of Dr Pepper, just like those he brought me tonight. “I don’t need anything but you to feel intoxicated,” he’d said, kissing me.

  Remembering all that, I get misty-eyed, but then I sigh. Don’t get too nostalgic, Hallie. Sure, two days later you were engaged. But twenty-odd years later, he walked out.

  My phone rings, and as I walk over to pick it up, I know it’s going to be Bill. And what the heck, if he wants to come over and have a Dr Pepper, I’ll let him.

  But instead it’s Kevin. I can barely make out his voice over the staticky connection. It takes me a moment to shift gears. But then I’m thrilled to hear from him.

  “Where are you?” I ask, not able to hear the first few things he’s said.

  It sounds like he replies “gggmmmegmmme . . .” then a long whine that ends in a “t,” which, I’m guessing, means “I’m in the middle of the ocean, on the diving boat.”

  “I can hardly hear you,” I say.

  “I mmmmmmm . . .” he replies. Loosely translated as “I miss you my beautiful woman.”

  “I miss you, too. I love you.”

  “MM llllv ggmgmgemem,” he says.

  That one’s even easier to interpret. “I’ve never loved anyone as much as I love you right this very minute.” These one-sided conversations actually aren’t so bad.

  “We should talk later,” I say, as the signal seems to be fading away.

  But even if Caribbean wireless isn’t cooperating, Kevin seems determined to tell me something. He keeps talking, and just before we lose the connection totally, I make out six real words: “New York . . . day after tomorrow . . . coming.”

  The kids stay out late partying, but they’re still up before me on New Year’s Day. How did I raise the only teenagers in America who don’t sleep until noon? After I groggily join them for coffee and doughnuts, they head to the garage and load the old Volvo with ski equipment. Adam’s going back to Dartmouth early to get in some skiing before classes start again and he’s taking Emily with him. I’m glad my kids are buddies. On the other hand . . .