by Jane Heller
There was still no real sex, mind you. Dan was insistent that we shouldn’t “do it.” As long as we remained dressed, albeit with zippers unzipped and buttons unbuttoned, he rationalized that he wasn’t really cheating on Leah. And yet he was riddled with guilt, confusion, and indecision.
“I understand that you’re torn,” I said during a break in the action. “But maybe if we play this out, if you see how right we are together, if you get more comfortable with the idea of me being back in your life, you’ll have the courage, the conviction, to tell her it’s over between you.”
“I don’t know,” he said. “I don’t even understand how this could be happening.”
It went on like that—intense passion interrupted by concerns about Leah—for the rest of the week. Since I didn’t have any work to do, other than trying to find work, I allowed myself to daydream freely.
I envisioned Dan having The Talk with Leah and, though she would be devastated, she would find solace in her thriving veterinary practice and eventually attract many new suitors, due to her sweetness, pluck, and bodiliciousness.
I envisioned Dan and me getting remarried. We would not have the ceremony and reception at his parents’ house in Minco but rather at a tasteful venue in Manhattan, one of the spots recommended in a recent cover story in New York magazine. I would wear an off-white suit, something in the ecru/eggshell/oat-meal family, and he would wear a crisp dark suit, something that suggested formality without being formal, if you know what I mean. His parents and siblings would be only too happy to fly in and welcome me back into the family with the sincerity for which Oklahomans are famous. Weezie and Nards would be newly reconciled and serve as our matron of honor and best man, respectively, their two children contributing to the occasion by strewing rose petals from straw baskets as they preceded us down the aisle. Dan and I would write and recite our own vows; they would, of course, refer to our “time-out” from each other and be both witty and poignant. When the justice of the peace pronounced us “husband and wife,” someone in the audience would shout “Again?” and everyone would laugh and cheer, especially Robin, my divorce lawyer.
I envisioned Dan and me honeymooning in Paris or, perhaps, Rome, where we would sightsee and take lots of photographs and eat expensive, once-in-a-lifetime meals before repairing to the sea (Cap d’Antibes or Positano, depending) for a truly picturesque commemoration of our remarriage.
And I envisioned Dan and me returning to New York, to our old apartment, and resuming our life together. He would coach the C.W. Post Pioneers to a conference championship in his very first season with them while I, in addition to basking in his reflected glory as a coach’s wife, would start a small business. An antiques shop. Or maybe a chain of Vietnamese nail salons. We would have babies—perfect, well-behaved little towheads who looked just like Dan. He would want four and I would opt for two, but in the spirit of compromise we would have three. Mrs. Thornberg would be their surrogate grandmother; they would beg her to babysit for them, and she would be only too happy to oblige. She would let them sleep over in her guest room whenever Dan and I went away. She would make them egg salad sandwiches using her secret ingredients. They would call her “Nana.”
These reveries reassured me, entertained me, kept me in a constant state of anticipation for Dan’s daily visits. And then a development. On Thursday of that week, he said his conscience was killing him; that he couldn’t lead a double life anymore.
I tensed as I lay next to him on my bed. We’d spent the afternoon together, kissing and holding each other and playing with Buster, our little family intact. His announcement put a pin in my bubble of domestic bliss.
“What are you saying?” I asked. “That you’re ready to make a choice?”
“No. I’m not ready. That’s the point.”
“Then what?”
“I need more time with you. And I don’t mean the hours we grab when nobody’s looking for us, holed up here at your place. I mean free. Out in the open. Doing the kinds of things couples do. Taking it slow.”
“Fine with me,” I said, extremely relieved, “but what about Leah? And, more importantly, what about your wedding?”
“I guess I’ve gotta postpone it or cancel it or whatever it is people do,” he said with real anguish. “I’ll tell her I’m having second thoughts about making a commitment to her so soon. We’ve only known each other, like, three months. We fell in love, she moved into my apartment, we got engaged. Bam bam bam. It all happened so fast. I’m gonna say I need some space, to figure out if I’m sure about everything. What else can I do? I can’t go ahead and marry her. Not when I’m feeling the way I do about you.”
I kissed him, stroked his forehead, told him I loved him. “When are you planning to deliver this news bulletin?”
He shrugged. “Next couple of days, probably. Leah’s an amazing woman. She doesn’t deserve to be jerked around.”
The way I’d jerked Dan around. Another irony: my ex, whom I’d once cast as the villain, turned out to be a much better person than I was. “I’m sorry,” I said. “It was never my intention to hurt her.”
“Of course it wasn’t. You didn’t even know her.”
“Right.”
I didn’t know her. I just knew her medical history, her educational background, her height and weight, and every other scrap of personal data about her. God, did I hate myself.
“The main thing,” said Dan, “is that the pressure will be off once I put the wedding on hold. You and I can have all the time we need to find out if we’re the real deal.”
“Do you really doubt it?”
“I thought Leah was the real deal. Maybe she still is, and I’m just living in the past. It wouldn’t be the first time I’ve done that, according to you.”
I leaned over and kissed him again. He pulled me closer and kissed me back.
“Did that feel like the past?” I asked.
He shrugged. “Too hard to tell. We’d better do it some more.”
Later that night, Evan came over. He was leaving in the morning and wanted to say good-bye.
I was very glad he’d stopped by. Buster was too. I still dreaded the thought of not having him right down the hall, not seeing him, not being able to get to know him better, but he was doing what he needed to do, and I couldn’t stand in his way. It wasn’t my place.
“I brought a going-away present for you and Buster,” he said and handed me a flat package wrapped in brown shipping paper.
“Oh, Evan. You didn’t have to do that. You’re the one who’s going away,” I said, thinking again how much I would miss him. It seemed as if no matter what dumb-ass thing I did or how badly I screwed up my life, he kept showing up, either to rescue me or to try to talk some sense into me. If it hadn’t been for Dan, I suspected that he and I would have—Well. There was no point in speculating. I was with Dan, and that was that.
“Open it,” he said, his eyes shining with the enthusiasm of a kid at Christmas.
“Yes, sir.” I ripped the paper apart to find two paintings. The first was the one Evan had done of Buster at the water’s edge, the one of him sticking his toe in the water. “You finished it!”
“All done. My first canine painting ever.” He laughed. “And probably my last. One of them, anyway.”
“Are you kidding? It’s great.” I loved it even more than the earlier version. He had added colors, shading, and texture to the painting, as well as fine-tuned Buster’s face to make it look even more realistic.
I turned my attention back to the package and studied the second painting. It was of the same scene—a sandy cove with calm seas and blue skies overhead—but the dog had actually ventured into the water, his head bobbing above the light waves, the sun reflecting down on him, sparkling on him.
“I decided to do another one,” said Evan. “This time he makes the choice not to run for dry land. He’s swimming, paddling along without a care in the world. See how liberated he is? How daring? He’s not worrying about his security
. He’s enjoying the moment.”
“I do see,” I said. Intellectually, I understood the message of the painting, of course, but I was still clinging to Dan and couldn’t identify. Not emotionally. Not yet. “It’s beautiful. Both paintings are.”
“They’re all yours.”
“Wait. You can’t just give them to me,” I protested. “I want to buy them.”
“No way. They’re parting gifts,” he said. “Hang them somewhere and think of me.”
I hugged Evan. His body was lean and rangy compared to Dan’s more beefy football player physique. And he was dark—hair, eyes, complexion—while Dan was fair. The contrast between them was striking, and I couldn’t have gotten involved with two more different-looking men. But then I wasn’t involved with Evan, so why was I comparing them in the first place?
“What’s the latest with you and lover boy?” he said as he took a seat on my sofa.
“I followed your advice and told him how I feel.”
“And?”
“He’s postponing his wedding.”
Evan didn’t react right away. He just looked at me with this disapproving expression, almost as if he felt sorry for me.
“This is a good thing,” I said, plopping down next to him. “Dan and I are meant to be together.”
“I don’t think Leah would agree with that,” he said.
“No, but isn’t it better for Dan to let her down now instead of after they’re married?”
“Look, I don’t know Dan or Leah, and none of this is any of my business as I’ve said a thousand times. But has he flat out told you he doesn’t love her?”
“He said he’s confused and doesn’t want to make a mistake.”
“I repeat: has he told you he doesn’t love her?”
“No. But he told me he loves me.”
He sighed. “Melanie, it isn’t possible to love two women. Not in the same way at the same time. I’ll always love Kaitlin, no matter how badly she hurt me, because she was my first real love and we share so much history. But then I realized that I was starting to fall in love with you and it’s a whole other—”
He stopped midsentence when he grasped what he’d just allowed to slip out. We both sort of sat there in stunned silence.
“I had no idea,” I said finally. “I mean, I knew we were getting closer, but love?”
“Maybe,” he said. “If you’d have let it happen. Right now it’s all hypothetical, because you chose someone else. But, yeah, I thought we were headed there.” He laughed. “I think it was the night you locked yourself out of this place. You came knocking and seduced me with the T-shirt and bare ass.”
“Seriously, Evan. When did you start to have feelings for me?”
“When I figured out that you were this competent, I-can-do-everything-myself woman who’d been forced to grow up much too fast. You never had a childhood, Melanie. You never got time off to experience the joy of trying new things, of doing things just for the sheer fun of it. Maybe it was watching you bite into that pastrami sandwich and seeing the goofy look on your face that did it, but I loved being the one to experience those new things with you.”
“That’s a lovely sentiment,” I said, filled with emotion I didn’t fully understand.
“I think we could have had something special,” he said, his eyes so black, so beguiling. “I’ll never know for sure, but it seemed like we had a shot at a grown-up love. The kind of love that accepts weaknesses as well as strengths.”
“How could you love me when you know how shabbily I’ve treated people?”
He shrugged. “That’s what acceptance is. I don’t believe you meant to hurt anybody. I believe you were afraid and went into survival mode.”
“You are accepting,” I said with a shake of my head.
“Is that the kind of love you have for Dan? Or do you just love him when he’s behaving himself?”
“It’s not that he’s behaving himself,” I said. “It’s that he’s acting like he used to, when we were happy together. His self-confidence has really gone up, and it’s changed everything.”
“Leah gave him that self-confidence. She’s responsible for the change in him. She supported him unconditionally, loving him even when he was down. Can you say that about yourself?”
“Not exactly, but he does love me, Evan.”
“I’m sure he does, and that love will never really die. But you’re his past, Melanie. Leah’s his future. If you really loved him, you’d see that and let him go.”
“Is it possible you’re just saying that because you have a vested interest in what happens?”
He smiled ruefully. “I’m saying it because it’s true. When you love someone, you want them to be happy, even if it’s not with you.”
I rolled my eyes. “You must have talked to Mrs. Thornberg. She force-fed me the same speech, word for word.”
“Good. Maybe it’ll sink in now that you’ve heard it twice. But here’s another one I’d like you to remember: what makes ordinary people heroic is when they give up the thing they want most.”
“So that’s why you’re leaving?” I teased, trying not to face the fact that he was leaving. “So you can give me up and play the hero?”
“Nope. I’m no hero. Just an ex–book editor with some heavy quotations still floating in his head.” He rose from the sofa. “I’m leaving because the weather in the Bahamas is pretty damn fine. I’m gonna soak up the sun, read a lot of books, and paint my heart out.”
“Sounds like paradise. What if you never come back?”
“Then you won’t have to listen to my lectures anymore.”
I walked him to the door. “Paradise aside, when will I see you again?”
“I scribbled down my address on a piece of paper. It’s in there with the paintings.” He stood straighter, threw his shoulders back, as if he were marshaling his strength. “But promise me something. Don’t write until this Dan situation is resolved.”
“I promise.”
“And one more favor.”
“Sure.”
“If he ever finds out that you were the one who set him up with Leah, don’t duck it. Admit it. If your relationship can withstand the truth, maybe it’s stronger than I thought.”
“He’s not going to find out.”
“But if he does, Melanie? If he finds out and confronts you, be heroic. Be prepared to give up the thing you want most.”
“Okay, okay. I promise that too. Anything else?”
“Yeah.” He put his arms around me and started to lower his head toward mine, as if he were about to kiss me, then changed his mind and gave me a quick hug instead. “Take good care of Buster,” he whispered.
“I will,” I said and felt a hard lump in my throat as I watched him go.
Chapter
28
I didn’t hear from Dan for twenty-four hours. I figured he was dealing with Leah, sitting her down and breaking the news, arranging for her to move out, offering to buy her a ring as sort of a consolation prize. And I remembered he was supposed to appear at some sports function where pro athletes were signing autographs to be auctioned off for charity. I knew how much he enjoyed those events, so I was happy for him even though he wasn’t with me. See how unselfish I had become?
I went about my business on Tuesday, calling Pierce, Shelley’s competitors who’d once tried to woo me to their companies. I announced that I was finally ready to join them and to apply my considerable skills on their behalf. None of them wanted me. Apparently, word had traveled fast: Melanie Banks was talented but unemployable. There’d been rumblings about my erratic work schedule. There’d been rumblings about my getting tossed off the Jed Ornbacher account. And, of course, there’d been rumblings about my drug use, which, though utterly without merit, had become as good as true. As one former colleague put it, “You’d be coming in with baggage, and no one needs another corporate executive with baggage right now.”
Baggage. Who didn’t have that, for God’s sake? We were all a pro
duct of our past, of our mistakes and miscalculations. If I hadn’t been raised by a father who barely scraped together a living, would I have made the choices I made? If I hadn’t worked three jobs as a teenager, would I have learned to manage personal relationships as well as I managed investment portfolios? If I hadn’t lived with the fear of never having enough money, would I have grown up to be such a relentless striver for whom security was everything? Probably not, as Evan had pointed out. But what is baggage if not a series of defining moments in life? Besides, we’re stuck with it and there’s no sense in making excuses for it. The trick is to overcome it and change, and I felt that I had changed. I was the new and improved Melanie—at the precise time that nobody wanted her.
Well, nobody except Dan, I thought, as I waited for him to call.
By Wednesday afternoon, I still hadn’t heard from him, and I was starting to worry. Had Leah managed to talk him out of postponing their marriage? Had she seduced him with her shampoo-commercial hair and saccharine personality and steady, well-paying job and convinced him that he was only having wedding jitters, not actual doubts about their love?
I was about to cave in to my insecurities and call him at home, when there was a knock on my door. Actually, a pounding. I couldn’t imagine why anyone wouldn’t use the bell, given the option.
“Dan!” I said after I swung open the door and found my ex standing there, looking rumpled and sullen. I wrapped my arms around his waist. “I’m so glad you’re here. I’ve been dying to know what’s going on.”
Instead of returning my hug, he removed my arms as if he couldn’t bear me near him. Even Buster could feel the chill in the air and abandoned his usual animated Daddy greeting for the safety of his bed. People always say that dogs can anticipate a thunderstorm, and my boy was no exception.