For once, I wasn’t afraid of heights.
I stared at the lake and the mountains and rainbows, hung my head, and laughed out loud. At myself, at my self-doubt, at my inane inability to see that this was the point of pursuing a path of risk and solitude. My attempts to curse the universe had been met with splendor, regardless of my shitty attitude and bloody knees.
“Okay, Okay,” I said out loud. “Thank you, universe. I get it. This is the right fucking path.”
* * *
I stood at the edge of the newsroom under six TV screens and high-tech studio intercoms. I’d been back from Alaska for a week. The scrapes on my legs and knuckles had just finished scabbing up. Marc leaned back in his swivel chair, holding a pen between two fingers like a cigar.
“I’m heading to New Orleans this weekend,” he told me. “First time. Ever been?
“Yep. It’s great,” I gushed, distracted. It was a challenge to memorize my talking points while simultaneously breathing normally in the face of his cuteness. His jawline was straight as a ruler. I couldn’t remember what kissing a man with an unlined cheek felt like. I kept my eyes averted from his two-day beard and chestnut-brown hair. I’d start mouth breathing if I got too close.
“It’s New York with a funky soundtrack.” I believe I managed to sound relatively calm. “The Laundromats all have bars and live music. What’s the big occasion?”
I looked back at my note cards. The topic was how to talk to your kids about cheating. Cheating on tests and the SATs. Not the other kind of cheating, thankfully.
“Saying good-bye to my twenties,” Marc said ruefully. He sat back and looked up at me with big brown eyes. He appeared genuinely sad.
I burst out laughing.
“You infant. You’re going to love New Orleans. Have a blast.”
Back home that afternoon, I got a Facebook friend request, from . . . Marc Jessup?
A few minutes after I accepted, he messaged me.
“I want to send you updates from my trip,” he wrote. “And, btw, you looked super hot today.”
I flushed, flattered but hesitant to respond. Professionalism. We worked together. Sort of. We watercoolered together. But . . . I was not technically an employee. Right? And did Marc have any idea how much older I was?
He didn’t send me a single picture from New Orleans, though. The next week when I figured he’d be back, I sent him a private, intentionally innocuous, FB message.
How was your New Orleans trip? Did you eat beignets? Go on the Voodoo Tour?
Marc didn’t reply. Maybe he was violently hungover, sleeping in a New Orleans gutter.
Right after my TV hit that morning, I had to go to a funeral for a college classmate and golf buddy of Mom’s at the gothic Cathedral Basilica of Saints Peter and Paul, where Benjamin Franklin’s and Grace Kelly’s memorials were also held, albeit almost two hundred years apart. I dressed in my standard funeral outfit, a black silk kimono dress and patent leather stilettos. Which I also wore to the station before the funeral.
Marc was staring fixedly at his computer screen while I looked at my index cards by the watercooler, studiously not noticing me even though my kimono sash was six inches from his shoulder. Why had he ignored my Facebook message? Was he dissing me? One more data point proving men were the more mercurial gender, even though that’s what they always claim about us.
I shrugged to myself. Maybe I’d ask him about New Orleans after the segment. I tapped one of my heels. I hated mustering up the mojo to chitchat with anyone before going on air, anyway. I felt jumpy every single time. My topic today: is a school’s dress code good for teenagers, or harmful to their individuality? As for my own dress code, it was the first time I’d worn an actual dress to the station. I wondered if Marc noticed.
I rocked back and forth on my heels, jittery, waiting for the red “On Air” light to flicker off so I could slip into the studio. Marc still hadn’t said a word to me. Then he cut his eyes to me. Or rather, to my legs in their opaque black hose. His gaze stayed frozen on my calves as if he were about to start sketching them. A long stare. Then, while still rubbernecking at my legs, he raised his eyebrows. It gave me goose bumps. The good kind. A man noticing my body still felt novel to me. I was probably the only female in Philadelphia who crossed the street to get closer to construction workers.
When I came out after my hit, Marc’s swivel chair was empty but spinning, like he’d just gotten up. I left to go to the funeral, which, as expected, was unduly dominated by golf jokes. The family put her favorite driver in the casket, making me wish I’d thought of that for Mom.
That night, Marc finally responded to my FB message. The kids were at Marty’s. Surrounded by the cats lolling about in the evening sun, I was in my PJs, savoring a bowl of coffee ice cream on the back deck with the crickets and the fireflies.
Leslie, what would you do if I showed up at your door with a bottle of wine and a movie one night? he wrote.
Hmmm. Not the time to tell him I had two kids and was wearing purple PJs with cartoon cats on them.
I’d open the door, I wrote back instead.
You should wear that dress every time you come to the studio, he wrote. And those legs.
What the hell did a forty-nine-year-old write back to a twenty-nine-year-old—excuse me, thirty-year-old—after that kind of compliment?
I stared at his message for a few moments, at a loss for words.
Another message flashed on my screen.
Hey, babe, I’m a little drunk. Sorry if I made you uncomfortable.
Again with the babe? I loved it.
Would it be rude not to write back? The mom in me was concerned about his feelings. I had to respond.
Not at all, Marc. I appreciate the compliment.
I figured that could be interpreted as professional, right?
End of story. No more drunken Facebook messages that evening.
It seemed the lesson here was that men of all ages were confusing. Best to ignore their conflicting messages. However, I found that impossible.
* * *
I waited another week before texting Damon about meeting up at power hour.
I didn’t hear back.
Strange. But whatever. He was busy, too. Probably making up for the work he missed.
After a few more days of silence, I called him and left a rambling message on his voice mail.
No word from him.
Two weeks passed. I started to feel hurt and confused. Maybe he’d met someone new. Maybe he’d had a special someone all along. Maybe he regretted opening up to me about prison and his heart surgery.
As we’d gotten to know each other over the past few weeks, I’d worried that he was going to cut things off, because I was too white and too “Rittenhouse Squarey.” Perhaps I was. Maybe Damon was more realistic about our differences than I was. But it wasn’t right for him to disappear on me like that. Didn’t I deserve better?
Two days before, I’d heard a segment on the radio about “ghosting.” In case, like me, you don’t know, ghosting is when someone ends a romantic entanglement or even a marriage by disappearing, never answering texts or phone calls, sometimes moving everything out in a few hours when their supposed loved one is at work. A woman called in who’d been engaged for five years to a man who ghosted her. She’d finally hired a private investigator. Her fiancé had been married with kids the whole time. His youngest child had been born while they were supposedly planning their wedding.
Was Damon giving me my first taste of ghosting? Like in so much of modern “dating,” anything seemed possible.
At yoga one evening, missing having him in my sweaty corner, I realized I’d gotten something valuable from Damon: the feeling he embodied, that scars could be beautiful, that it was okay to reveal that life had beaten us up. I felt like writing him a note that said, Screw you for ghosting me, but thanks for showing me that I want a man with scars, and one who appreciates mine, even if I never see you again.
Walking back ho
me from yoga in the summer night, the lyrics from one of my favorite Leonard Cohen songs came to me:
There is a crack in everything
That’s how the light gets in
The security of married life was gone, my life cracked apart. I had another chance at happiness, no matter what shape it took, or how briefly it lasted. Maybe the answer, for me, was to find a new kind of happiness by learning something from each man who came into, and out of, my life, complete with cracks, imperfections, scars, and all.
* * *
Hi Chris. This is Leslie. You know, the crazy socks lady from the Philly airport.
I’m surprised I haven’t heard from you. I figure it’s one of three reasons:
—You don’t like meeting nice women in airports.
—You’re married.
—Aliens abducted you.
So, which is it?
I had heard exactly zero from Chris Bailey, the Marine from the Philadelphia Airport. So I sent that text to the cell phone number he’d handwritten on his card. In my phone, I had named him Crazy Boy, so that my kids couldn’t rummage through my contacts and then tease me about him. An hour later, Chris wrote back.
Sorry, I was laughing too hard to answer you. Wrong about all three. What happened instead was my friends Googled you. They told me you are famous and also that your Wikipedia entry says YOU are married. I was intimidated, although I’m embarrassed to admit it. I didn’t know what to do.
Fuck. KC had told me to fix that Wikipedia line. I’d blown it off.
I replied:
Don’t believe everything you read online! I’m not that famous. The Wikipedia site is outdated; I’m very divorced. Guess what? My agent booked me to speak at an event in North Carolina. So I’m going to cash in one of those dinners you offered. What do you say?
I could practically hear his soft southern drawl as I read his response.
Leslie, I’d be honored. Do you like motorcycles? I have a very nice one. I’ll pick you up at your hotel and take you to the best barbecue in Carolina and a long country ride through the back-road hills. What do you say?
I texted away: I say you are the sexiest man alive.
The dots on my phone rippled as he wrote back.
No, ma’am. But I will try when you come to town. I certainly look forward to seeing you.
When did I get so ballsy? I didn’t recognize myself. That felt like a good sign.
* * *
CNN sent a town car to pick me up at the studio after my next local segment, in order to whisk me across town to their studio for a live interview about a football player who’d cold-cocked his wife during an argument in preseason. She was now recanting and claiming it was her fault. Normal behavior for victims caught in the psychological abuse web, and one of the many complex emotional dynamics I wanted to explain to CNN’s ten million viewers.
I had on gobs of TV makeup and an aqua leather jacket from Saks (thank you, American Express Reward Dollars) ideal for harsh TV lights. The camera zoomed tight on my face and upper torso for the live feed, so I’d learned that only my top mattered; the studio desk hid my pants or skirt or whatever. So under the jacket, I’d worn my oldest black Capezio ballet leggings, my favorite. I will cry the day the fabric gives out and I can no longer wear them.
The CNN interview went so well, and I felt so jazzed from the car and the makeup, I felt like Ted Turner was going to call to offer me my own show. My media booker posted the clip on the front page of the company’s website, which felt like getting an A+ from your first-grade teacher.
When I was home that night making an early dinner for the kids so they could get to their important social media responsibilities, I saw another FB message from Marc pop up on my iPad, charging at a kitchen outlet. Before I could read it, Bella stopped chewing a bite of pasta.
“Mom, why are you paying so much attention to Facebook?” she asked with teenaged laser suspicion, the conviction that every single thing her mom did was (A) embarrassing and (B) her moral obligation to correct.
“Uh, work stuff, honey. A client,” I told her. I ruffled her hair and she pulled away. I turned back to the screen and Marc.
You should frame those goddamn pants you wore today.
A cold thrill snaked up my body as I stood in the middle of my kitchen, surrounded by kids, rigatoni, and splattered red sauce. The idea of lionizing my favorite old stretch pants did get my attention. I’d been in the studio for only ten minutes, yet Marc had noticed me. I felt the same adrenaline rush I’d experienced as a ten-year-old tearing across my elementary school playground, when I realized the boy behind me was chasing me because he liked me, because I was special and worth chasing, and as soon as I had the guts I’d turn around and let him catch me.
What on earth was I supposed to write back to let Marc know I wanted him to catch me, without embarrassing myself? Forty years later, I still had no idea how to flirt without sweating and hyperventilating. Especially with a man twenty years younger. Especially via social media. So I wrote nothing back to Marc.
I served the kids seconds, then took my iPad into the powder room to check whether Marc had left another message. Before I could unlock the screen, Timmy called to me.
“Mom, can I have a glass of milk?”
It was like the kids had ESP. I sighed and put down the iPad.
“Sure, honey.”
I headed to the fridge. The truth was, I loved these increasingly rare moments when the kids pretended to need me. Even if it was only for a cold beverage.
After they’d scooted upstairs, each clutching their phone like a slice of semiprecious metal, I turned on the kitchen TV to watch the news and finish my salad. A minute later, my iPad lit up. I guess it didn’t matter that I’d never responded to Marc.
Hey, can I text you instead? he asked. I don’t use FB much, except for work.
I typed in OK and my number. I only had to wait a few seconds.
Can I say something private?
Private? My curiosity won out. I wrote back: Sure.
The three blinking lights lit up the screen as Marc typed away.
I want to taste you, Leslie.
I spit out a bite of lettuce, launching it over the kitchen island onto Marty’s antique blue and red Heriz dining room rug. Thank goodness the kids were safely in their rooms.
I read the rest of Marc’s message.
I need to be inside you, Leslie.
I had to reread the texts three times to be sure they meant what I thought they did. Is this how people flirted today? With sexually explicit messages? What was next—a picture of his johnson?
I kind of hoped so. At fifteen or even twenty-five, I would have found it gross, or even traumatic, to receive a text like that. But now, the power dynamic had shifted. I had no reason to be appalled or frightened. This man-boy, twenty years behind me on the path of life, had no power over me. He couldn’t deny me a promotion or pressure me into sex before I was ready. And he wanted me. Me. Was Marc going to be the second man I made love to in my new postdivorce life?
Once more, I hadn’t a clue how to reply. So I didn’t do anything except blush.
* * *
Dylan Smyth. The two words at the top of my computer screen stood out like an electronic billboard in Times Square, practically paralyzing me. It had been over a month since I’d said good-bye to Dylan. What did he want?
I bashed my fingers on the keyboard to open the email. I was working late in my office off my bedroom, the small room that had once been the kids’ baby room, the crib long replaced by a whitewashed farm desk. From the French doors leading out to the Juliet balcony, I could see the blue lights in the hot tub and hear my mermaid fountain gurgling in the dark.
It was after midnight, and I had taken a break from writing an essay for the Star about the similarities between childhood bullying and adult relationship abuse to check email. I gasped, out loud, into the still night.
I read the email from Dylan against the soundtrack of my heart thudding i
n my ears.
Leslie,
Sorry I didn’t give you a heads-up but I am in Philadelphia tomorrow night by chance, unplanned. I don’t expect you to respond but just saying . . . Don’t forget about me.
Dylan
My first thought was, Yes, I want to see you, Dylan. My second thought was, I’ll never forget about you. I picked up my phone to call him. But it was too late. So I wrote back, Of course. Tell me where and when to meet you. I miss you. It took me an hour to fall asleep.
After I dropped the kids off the next morning, I called his cell phone. Dylan didn’t pick up. I think he blocked my number or turned off his phone because when I tried calling again, his phone started making a funny clicking sound. His voice mail had been disabled, so I couldn’t leave a message. I refreshed my email queue and checked my text messages obsessively all day and into the night. He never replied.
It felt like chasing a receipt dropped on the sidewalk on a windy day. Awkward and desperate, I was reaching for a crumbled piece of paper almost in reach, then always out of my grasp. I started to question why he’d sent the email. Was it some kind of weird joke or a hallucination? But it was there, in my email queue, flagged so I could find it easily. Which of course I did a few times a day, even though eventually, I tried not to read it anymore, because it made me too angry.
How could I still want Dylan? When I left my first husband, I’d promised myself I’d never let a man abuse me again. I left Marty because neglect and deceit are another kind of abuse. And what Dylan was doing—saying no, then yes, then no again, on his terms only, even writing Don’t forget about me—was yet another kind of manipulation, a form of saying Your needs don’t matter to me.
But they did matter. I mattered. I only wanted men in my life who got that. It took me until the end of the day, but around ten o’clock that night I deleted that email and all his voice mail messages, except for the one he’d left after getting my first letter. I promised myself that neither Dylan, nor any man, would get the chance to yank me around emotionally like that, ever again. If Dylan emailed me or called me, I wouldn’t jump. Well, maybe I would. I still had my list of sexual experiments I wanted to know if he liked. But if I saw Dylan Smyth again, I’d jump on my terms, not his.
The Naked Truth Page 12