Mr. Right-Swipe

by Ricki Schultz

  Like a server who’s just explained they’re out of the salmon but I can have fish sticks instead.

  I can’t suppress a laugh. “This was never about that. The need to just have someone. Believe me; I know I could find someone else. This was not just me clinging to you because you were there. You live in Sacramento, for God’s sake. This is about me and you. About happiness. About love. I don’t want a better man, a different man, the next one who comes along. You think I’d have chosen to love you if I could have helped it? You think I wouldn’t have chosen any other person? You led me to believe—you said—”

  I’m stammering, and my attention darts all over the table. An uncontrollable shake makes its way through my head, my hands, and there’s a stinging numbness that takes over my body.

  “What about this weekend? Last night? This morning? You talked about all the same things we’ve always talked about. Our trip to Cancun next month. What was that? And now, boom, I’m supposed to accept this just because you’re saying it here at the table? This very calculated thing that you lied to me about for—how long, Jesse? How long? Have you actually been going to that therapist like you said? Have you even spoken to a divorce lawyer? Have you talked to her about any of this? Was any of it ever even true?”

  There’s a ringing in my ears in the absence of my outburst.

  His silence tells me everything I need to know; the look in his eyes is enough.

  I have listened to him tell his pretty stories, weave his pretty tales, regale me with his pretty narratives of sacrifice and woe. Of all he was going through at home. I’ve been enchanted by the fairy tales he spun before my eyes—caught up in the beautiful pictures he painted of the life we’d have, the life he said he wanted.

  A life with me.

  But I don’t see any trace of it behind those eyes now. All I see is a man I don’t know.

  The realization that I never did know him, never did realize it until this very moment, throttles me, hard and low.

  I jump from the cushioned seat and stagger my way out of the restaurant, to the room. I hear him call after me, but I continue. The elevator takes for-fricking-ever—nothing is fast enough to get me out of here.

  I was wrong. How could I have been so wrong? How could I have been so stupid? How could I have believed him?

  At last, I’m in our room and tossing all my belongings—the silver heels I wore to dinner last night, my makeup case, my clothes—into my bag. Ripping the sheets from the bed, making sure I haven’t left anything of mine—anything of me—in this cold, strange room that seemed so familiar, so comforting, so warm, not an hour ago.

  I toss the leftovers from our midnight room service.

  Toss everything I thought I knew about Jesse, about us.

  And shut the door on what I know now will never be.

  * * *

  When I finish typing out the scene—the memory, really—I send it in an e-mail to Nick with a subject line that says: I’m Sorry. He may not understand, but he did ask who’d hurt me, how. So at least I’m letting him in.

  A day and a half later, I’m ready to query. The first thing I do after I send off a batch of six letters is hammer out one more text—to Valerie.

  Me: I need to talk to you.

  * * *

  Chapter 21

  While Nick doesn’t answer, Valerie does, and not too long after I message. I suggest we meet at our favorite brunch spot near school because, even if she can’t stand the sight of me, how’s she going to pass up made-to-order omelets? No one has that much resolve.

  I glance at my watch and realize she’s running late. If we weren’t in this weird friendship purgatory, I’d send her a jokingly passive-aggressive text and start in on the bottomless mimosas; however, since I’m trying to be better, and coherent, I do neither. I just drum my fingertips on the pink linen tablecloth and watch all the brunching families. Hear the roars of laughter coming from a group of guys in pastel polo shirts and golf shoes. I don’t even check any of them out, because that’s not why I’m here.

  And, really, I just don’t care.

  Valerie finally arrives, a frumptastic gardening-looking hat flopped down over her head like it’s 1992. I’d giggle if the sight of her didn’t instantly make me feel like two of Snow White’s reject dwarves, Weepy and Pukey.

  As she enters the café, she dons a small smile when she sees me. Pins prick in my chest, like the lead that’s been weighing me down has turned to helium, and my heartbeat quickens as I rise to greet her.

  “This is the most nervous I’ve ever been while waiting for a date,” I say and stand there like a moron. Because I’m just not sure if we’re hugging or what.

  She laughs and hesitates above her chair too. “Well, if my calculations are correct, this is your first girl-on-girl date, no?”

  Her continuation of my joke and the fact that her smile widens eases some of my anxieties; but we don’t hug. We sit. And it’s weird.

  We’re quiet while the server pours what smells like strong-ass coffee—a warm, bold aroma that promises to deliver the uppercut to the jaw I need to proceed.

  “Hey. I hate this,” I say. I don’t know where else to begin. “How did we get here?”

  She gives me a kind of melted look, head cocked, her usual porcelain features a bit wilted. “I know; me too. But before you say anything, I want you to know I’m not just here because you wrote me. I mean, I am—”

  She softens even more and starts talking with her hands. A good sign that she’s on the road to being Val and not some pod person whose exterior I can’t crack.

  “I was too much of a coward to write you myself,” she continues, “but I guess I would have made contact in a day or two anyway because—Rae.” Her eyes go serious, and she leans in. Implores me. Almost whispers: “Quinn has gone a little nuts.”

  I yank back.

  Valerie considers wearing skinny jeans to be “a little nuts.” Yet this is the same chick who had sex with a stripper at a bachelorette party—so she’s a complicated lady these days, all juxtaposition and hyperbole, and I need clarification. #obvi

  “What do you mean?”

  “Ever since our fight. She’s practically despondent. Nothing I say helps. I tried throwing us even more into the wedding prep, but that only drove her further away. She’s actually talking about calling it off.”

  This news is like a lap full of coffee.

  “What? Why?”

  “This whole thing with you—I don’t know. You have to talk to her. She’s not making a whole lot of sense. She’s thinking about going on another trip, skipping town. I think the realization of going through something as big as this, without you there…put her in meltdown mode.”

  “Geezus,” I say, and my mouth hangs open. “What do you think we should do?”

  “Have you texted her?”

  “No. I didn’t know if you would even answer. I was just sort of testing the waters and, luckily, you’re a lot less scary and a lot more forgiving than Quinn.”

  We both chuckle, and it feels good. Normal.

  “I can see that. Good call,” she says, wiping her eyes.

  I straighten up. “I mean, not that you’ve forgiven me yet.”

  “I’m here, aren’t I?” She eases on a smile and leans back in her chair. Her shoulders relax. “What exactly did you want to see me about anyway? I mean, I didn’t kick you out of the wedding. I’ve sort of been forced to choose sides, as the one and only bridesmaid now, but I’m not really upset with you, per se.” She hasn’t lifted her gaze from the cream she swirls in the delicate coffee cup, but the tension we seem to be wading through has dissipated.

  I set down the menu I’ve been using as a barrier for my shame and look full-on at Valerie. My best friend.

  “I just—I’m sorry. That’s really first and foremost. I guess I’ve had a chip on my shoulder for a while now. Just—looking around here, being around you, your family—these are all things I don’t have. And, sure, that sucks. But it’s not yo
ur fault. It’s not anybody’s fault. It’s just the way things are. And I can’t keep resenting you, resenting Quinn, raining on your parades because I’m still searching. I need to grow the hell up and realize that things change. Life changes relationships. It’s not always going to be like when we were seventeen.”

  She sits with that for a moment, playing with the corner of her menu under a fingernail. Then, finally: “It doesn’t have to change. It shouldn’t have to.” She glances up. “And I don’t think you resent me.”

  “You don’t?”

  “No. I just think it’s hard. We’re all so different. If anything, I think I sometimes resent you.”

  This catches me off guard, and I just sit back. Let her talk. Yanno, like I never let her do.

  And she continues, her gaze fixed back on what she’s doing with her hands.

  “Well, yes. You’re free to do whatever you want, whenever you want. Whomever you want. It’s amazing! Me, I have to ask permission to even go to the grocery store by myself. To take a shit without at least two kids there in the room. Not that I’m blaming Mike—I’m not—I’m…” Tears trickle onto her cheeks now, and she presses them away with her napkin. “He’s a good man. A decent father.”

  I let a beat go by. I don’t know whether or not I’m allowed to ask it, but I do: “A good husband?”

  The question hangs between us, and my insides are edged with ice as I await her response.

  Too far?

  And then she meets my stare again, wet eyes pleading. “I mean, am I a good wife?”

  “Yes,” I say. Right away. Without pause. “Yes, you are. Look”—I lower my voice and lean closer across the table—“I know why you’re saying that. That weekend. I know. But I’ve known you since we were kids and I know what type of a person you are. Nobody’s perfect.”

  “I didn’t see you sleeping with any strippers…”

  “Well…” I glance away, a grin tugging at the corners of my mouth, and—goddamn it. I still can’t even be appropriately ashamed of my night with Nick.

  Maybe I’ve made no progress at all. Maybe I’m more deeply flawed than I realized. Maybe I’m hopeless.

  She gasps and slaps a palm to the table. “You didn’t!”

  The dried-apricot-looking couple at the adjacent table flinches at the sound of her outburst and they make angry dried-apricot-looking faces at us.

  But there’s a buoyance to Valerie’s tone. A sparkle in her stare. Like we’re back in freshman year and I’m admitting to fooling around with Tony Valducci for the first time. She’s not upset; she’s happy for me.

  “Yeah, it probably wasn’t the best of ideas,” I admit, chewing a fingernail. “But I wasn’t thinking so clearly at the time. Anyway—that’s not the point.”

  We’re both smiling now, and this is starting to feel less like The End of Something and more like two best friends catching up after a long trip away from each other.

  But I begin to wonder how long it’s been since we’ve been this real, since we’ve connected like this. How long have we been away from each other?

  I shake off the question and focus on making my way back to her.

  “I just want you to know how much you mean to me. How amazing you are. Regardless of the stripper thing. You know what? Screw the stripper thing. Marriage is hard. I know. And I also know it’s been harder for you than you’ve let on. That I never let you talk about how hard it is because…I guess, on some level, I’m afraid of what you might say.”

  Her eyebrows wiggle up her forehead, but she remains quiet. Seemingly interested in what I’m about to say.

  “You’re supposed to be the strong one. The settled one. The one who has her shit together. Who takes care of everything. You know? And that’s unfair of me to put that pressure on you. I realize that. It’s unfair of anybody to put that pressure on you. But I know they do. And you put that pressure on yourself too.”

  She lets the moisture flow openly now, but her mouth is twisted into a crooked, close-lipped smile like these words I’m saying are the words she’s been dying to hear from someone, anyone, and I’ve just about made her whole year. Like I’ve freed her from some sort of mommy prison, just by validating that she’s doing the goddamn best she can with what she’s got.

  She clutches at both of my hands and beams at me, her bottom lip taut and doing a poor job of hiding the quiver in it.

  After I’m not sure how long we sit like this—silence between old friends knows no measure of time, really—she finally lets my fingers go.

  Readjusting her napkin in her lap, she’s out with it. “We’re in counseling, Mike and me.” She says it as though it’s as ordinary as ordering the eggs Benedict, which she also does when the server returns. “And I think we’ll take those bottomless Bloody Marys now,” she adds. “Is that okay?” she asks me.

  “Duh.” I flash the woman the ol’ two thumbs-up. “I was just trying to be respectable and rehab my perspective—I’m not cutting out booze. Don’t be insane!”

  “You are respectable.” She’s back to her usual playfulness, waving a languid hand at me like Nonsense, girl.

  Once the server’s gone, I return to the topic at hand. Cautious in tone.

  “How long have you guys been going to counseling?” I squeeze a lemon wedge into my water just to have something else to do.

  “We’ve been seeing a therapist for about six months.”

  She utters a soft chuckle when my mouth drops open.

  “So you can see why this digression might be particularly…bothersome. But I caught Mike texting some woman from work last year, and I don’t know. It doesn’t justify what I did, but—”

  “It doesn’t have to.” I hold her gaze.

  “I wanted to tell you. But, at the same time, I felt like admitting that would be making it real. Admitting defeat. Failure.”

  “Hey—don’t talk about my friend that way.” I frown. “That’s not failure. That’s working toward something instead of just running away.”

  She snorts. “Well, I don’t think sex with a stripper was probably all that helpful to the process, but—” She pauses. “And you didn’t run away. You just realized it early enough. I didn’t.” She shrugs. Blows a few strands of hair out of her face. “I think that’s been the source of some of the weirdness between us too, if you want to know.”

  “What?”

  “My insane jealousy of you.”

  “Jealous of me? How many of these drinks have you had?” I lift her glass and pretend to inspect it.

  “It’s just—and no one wants to talk about this—but marriage can be really…isolating. You can lose yourself if you’re not careful. And then you blink and all of a sudden you have four kids and you’re not allowed to say anything. It’s not okay to have a bad day.”

  I give a conceding nod. “Well, right. Because you’re all set.”

  “Do you know how many times—I’m actually embarrassed to admit—I have wished I could trade places with you? Be you? That I think, if I didn’t have these kids, would I even stay married to this stranger Mike sometimes is? That I’d run?”

  I emit a long, relaxing sigh. Or maybe it’s the alcohol that calms me.

  “Probably as many times as I wonder what things would have been like if I hadn’t left Daniel. But, at the same time, I don’t have any regrets. I know I can’t go back and I wouldn’t want to. Even as hard as things have been. It doesn’t change the fact that I sometimes feel a bullet in my chest when I see you coloring with Mandy and Mae. I still would like a chance at that, you know?”

  She laughs. “You do have the chance. Your life is full of possibility—even every Spark date—ha-ha—yes! While mine has already been decided. I know I’m the one who decided it, but still.” She takes a drink and her face takes on an Imma level with you look. “Even if by some magic I were offered the chance to change things, I know, deep down, I could never do it. I couldn’t. Kids or no kids. I’m not brave like you. I couldn’t leave Mike, no matter what. At t
he end of the day, I do love him. And I just don’t know what I’d do on my own. I couldn’t do it.”

  “It sounds like you’re apologizing for loving him. Don’t. Me surviving on my own is less bravery and more that I just have no shame anymore.”

  We both crack up, and a knowing silence spreads itself across the table as thick and creamy as the garlic butter I smooth on my croissant.

  “You know what? We’re both going to be okay,” I declare after a time. “Marriage is hard; being single is hard. We are destined to envy the other, no matter what, and that’s just how life is. But at least we’re talking about it instead of letting it fester and doing dumbass things.”

  The server finally brings out the goods. Valerie’s eggs Benedict, so gelatinous and perfect, the hollandaise sauce as yellow as a spring daffodil, not to be outdone by my choice—sweet hunks of pink shrimp swimming in mountains of cheesy grits. We inhale everything and agree that it’s enough to never need a man—husband or boyfriend, Spark or otherwise—ever again.

  “Speaking of doing dumbass things…” She gestures at me with a forkful of fresh melon. “I know we’re making up and this might set things back”—she winces—“but I’m the reason Nick isn’t at Wesson anymore.”

  I blink at her. It’s all I can do. “You told Deborah he’s a stripper?”

  “No—but I may have made a false claim that he was making some of the girls uncomfortable and suggested it would be best if he subbed elsewhere.” She chews at her bottom lip and turns on the wounded puppy look she’s perfected. “I’m sorry. I know you have a connection with him. But, at the time, I was doing it for me and for you—more for me, because I just couldn’t handle the daily reminder of my incredibly wonderful, incredibly stupid night with his cohort…and, for you, in that I thought I was doing you a favor keeping him off your radar. Guess that backfired.”

  “Drastically.” I snort.

  “I’m so sorry. Are you mad?”