Maybe This Time

That was my turn. Yes, this was my prom dress. Your turn. And tell me something besides what he bought you. Unless it was diamonds.

  “Okay. The one birthday I had during the year we were together, he forgot. No gift at all.”

  Not even later?

  “Yes, but later doesn’t count.” Now she sounded like Alice.

  What did he get you later?

  “Diamond earrings. Very tasteful.” She was pretty sure his secretary had picked them out, which made it so much worse. He’d never have bought those for her; if there was one thing she knew about North, it was that he knew her. Until he forgot her.

  See, that’s better, diamonds.

  “No. Better was his brother Southie who remembered and showed up on the day with a cake and these big green hoop earrings with bluebirds sitting in them. I still have those earrings.” She smiled to herself, remember Southie handing her the box and saying, “Bluebirds of happiness, Andie. They called your name.” Maybe he’d bought them because he’d known she wasn’t happy.

  Well, you still have the diamonds, too.

  “No.” Andie folded her arms over her chest. “I left them behind when I left. Your turn. Something about you.”

  I would never leave behind diamonds, the girl said, and pirouetted once and was gone.

  “Hello?” Andie said to the empty room, and waited a minute but the girl didn’t come back. “Damn.”

  She lay back on her pillows and tried to figure out what the hell was happening.

  You could have hallucinations about things you didn’t know about. Maybe the girl was a hallucination.

  I’m hallucinating, Andie thought. I have a brain tumor or something.

  No she didn’t. She just needed an explanation.

  It’s a ghost.

  No, that wasn’t it, either. It was probably her subconscious.

  If it was, her subconscious had a thing for her ex-husband.

  “That’s not it, either,” she said out loud. She was completely over North. Done.

  And now she was hallucinating ghosts.

  I need help, she thought, and was making plans when she fell asleep.

  The next morning, Andie told Mrs. Crumb to watch the kids and went to Columbus to the Ohio State library, calling Will when she got into town to tell him she was there and could have dinner with him if he was available.

  “If I’m available?” he said, laughing. “I haven’t seen you in three weeks. I’ll meet you at Max and Erma’s whenever you say.”

  Max and Erma’s in German Village. That was two blocks from Flo’s place. She should stop and see Flo. Or not.

  “Andie?”

  “How about six? That’ll give me all afternoon at the library.” And put me on the road in time to get back to the kids. If they ate at six and she left at seven, she could be home by ten-thirty, too late to put them to bed, but—

  “Can’t wait to see you, babe,” Will said.

  “Me, too.” But it would be early enough she could get some sleep before Alice started demanding cereal—

  “So are you going to see North?”

  “What?”

  “Are you going to see North while you’re in town?”

  “No. Why would I see North?”

  “Well, you’re in Columbus. So is North.”

  “So is Flo, two blocks from Max and Erma’s, but I have to get back to the kids. I have time to see one person. You.”

  “You’re not staying the night?”

  “No. I have to get back to the kids.”

  “Andie, it’s been almost a month,” Will said.

  “What’s been . . . oh.”

  “I’m a patient man, but—”

  “Yes, you are, and I appreciate it,” Andie said. But I have to get back to the kids.

  “—my patience is running out here. You won’t let me come down to see you and you won’t stay up here—”

  “I know, I know. Look, we should talk about this because for a while here, the kids are going to come first. I know that’s not fair to you—”

  “I haven’t even met the kids yet, give me a chance.”

  “Honey, I’ll give you all the chances you want once I get them back to Columbus and settled in.”

  “How much longer do you think it’ll be?”

  “I don’t know. I’m hoping to get some help at the library. Can we talk about this at dinner? Because I really have to go.”

  “Sure,” he said, but he didn’t sound happy, which was understandable. It had been almost a month for her, too.

  Except it hadn’t. She hadn’t even thought about sleeping with Will. Maybe it was age. Except women were supposed to hit their peaks in their thirties.

  Or maybe it was because she’d dreamt of making love with North almost every night since she’d gone south, that it was North she wanted even though she knew that the North she wanted was a fantasy.

  Maybe it was time to break it off with Will until she got her head back in the right place. He was a great guy and he deserved better. And she really wasn’t missing him, which wasn’t a good sign.

  Later for that, she thought and went out to the university.

  At the OSU library, she found a newspaper article on a panel discussion on ghosts. The big name there was the professor from Cincinnati named Boston Ulrich, the guy who’d written the book she’d found at the Grandville library, who’d evidently wowed the crowd with his assertions that ghosts did exist, although not in the ridiculous portrayals in movie and fiction. “They’re like us,” the article quoted him as saying, “except dead.” The buzzkill in the group was another professor, this one named Dennis Graff from Cleveland, who’d sourly asserted that there was no proof of actual hauntings. He was not popular. Andie wrote down his name and found his contact information by digging deeper. Boston Ulrich wasn’t the only writer on ghosts; Dennis Graff had written many dry papers on paranormal phenomena, two of which Andie found in the library, but evidently all of which had the same theme: No Such Thing As Ghosts. It took a lot to make the supernatural dry, but Dennis Graff had managed it. There were also a host of “ghost experts” that Andie was pretty sure would be of no use at all. The best of that bunch, a medium named Isolde Hammersmith, charged nosebleed prices, so somebody must have thought she was good, but the last thing Andie needed was somebody who thought she could talk to ghosts. What she needed was somebody who could explain why ghosts didn’t exist and how somebody was faking them or Andie was hallucinating them or whatever.

  She left the library and drove slowly down High Street, trying to avoid hitting any jaywalking students while preoccupied with her options. Maybe a psychiatrist, maybe her mind was playing tricks. Or maybe a detective, the Archers had an agency right there in Columbus they used, so maybe somebody just needed to investigate and find out . . . Something. There had to be something . . .

  She looked up and realized she’d automatically turned off High and onto Fifth Street, force of habit from when she’d been married to North and made that drive every day, so when she reached Neil Avenue, she turned left, heading south again. But when she neared the big blue Victorian that said ARCHER LEGAL GROUP on the tastefully painted sign out front, she slowed and then pulled over when the car behind her honked.

  The light was on back in North’s office. It was almost six but he was in there, she could see the glow from his window. He’d be in there for hours yet probably. The second floor of the house was dark, Lydia must be out, and of course the attic apartment wasn’t lit up; North wasn’t there. I’m not there.

  So he was working late behind that damn desk. She hadn’t always hated that desk. There’d been many an evening when she’d gone downstairs from their apartment at six and said, Hey, you have a wife, and shoved his papers on the floor, and he’d kissed her and they’d ended up on that desk, breathing hard. That was a sturdy piece of furniture, which had been a good thing, until the day she’d gone down to see him, and he’d snapped, Not now, I have to finish this . . .

  The door to the hous
e next door opened and Southie came out with the usual bounce in his step, off to have dinner with whatever woman he was chasing or drinks with some pal or something else that would make him happy. Maybe I should have married Southie, she thought, and then realized how awful that would have been. Southie was a sweetheart but she’d have killed him before the year was out just from sheer exasperation at his inability to focus on anything for longer than a month. And he didn’t work. It really was hard to respect a man who didn’t work seriously at something . . .

  Wow, she thought. That came out of nowhere. Maybe that had been part of North’s pull, that he was such a hard worker. There was irony for you.

  Southie got in his car and drove away.

  She looked back at the light in North’s office. She could go in there and talk to him. She could tell him that they should look into art schools for Carter, she could tell him that Alice would love to meet a lepidopterist although she wouldn’t act like it, she could tell him she thought somebody was playing tricks on her, that she was having weird dreams . . .

  No, she couldn’t tell him about the dreams. And she couldn’t go in there, either. He was working.

  She looked at the clock and saw it was almost six-thirty and started the car. She was late, and there was no reason in the world for her to walk through that door again, walking through that door just made her angry.

  She made two turns and got back on High Street, irrationally upset, and angry with herself for being irrationally upset.

  She had bigger problems than being discarded ten years ago. Focus, she told herself, and turned the car down Frankfort and into German Village and her future husband.

  Andie found a parking spot not far from Flo’s house and ran the block and a half to the restaurant. Will was sitting next to the window in the narrow side bay, and his face lit up when he saw her and he waved as she ran by, so when she kissed him and then sat down across from him, breathless, he said, “Easy there, kid.”

  “I’m sorry I’m late,” she said, leaning back to catch her breath.

  “I’m just glad to see you,” he said, laid-back as ever, the soft overhead light shining on his blond hair, and she thought again what an extremely nice guy he was.

  Oh, hell, she thought. I haven’t seen him for over three weeks. I should be thinking of something besides “nice guy.”

  “What’s wrong?” he said, his smile fading.

  “I’m not sure.” She shook her head. “Nothing.”

  “Did you see North? Did he upset you?”

  “No, I didn’t see him.” I thought about him, though. She looked at Will and realized that she’d never once felt the same way about him that she felt now for North, even now when it was over and she was never going to be with him again, she’d still been parked outside his house thinking, I could go in there.

  “Well, then, let me get you a beer,” Will began.

  “No, I have to drive tonight,” Andie said, remembering that long trip home in the dark. “Diet Coke would be great, though.”

  Will caught the waitress and asked for a Diet Coke, and Andie picked up the menu. The year they’d been married, North had just ordered a Diet Coke and ice water with whatever he ordered. So if she was late, the drinks were on the table when she got there. It wasn’t important, in fact, it was kind of controlling of him, really a black mark against him . . .

  It had been nice. To have the little stuff like that just . . . handled.

  “Andie?”

  If she told Will that she’d like him to order the Diet Coke and water before she got there, he would. He wasn’t a mind reader, for Christ’s sake.

  “Andie?”

  “What? Oh, sorry. Distracted.” Andie looked at her menu without seeing it. Something was really, really wrong, and it wasn’t ghosts. She put the menu down again and looked at Will, really looked at him.

  He was a good guy. Sweet, thoughtful, charming, smart, a really hard worker, she’d fallen for him because he was all those things and because he’d never break her heart the way North had because she didn’t love him that way, that hopeless, helpless, all-consuming passion for somebody that wrecked your life . . .

  “Now I’m getting nervous,” Will said.

  She didn’t want that kind of love again. But maybe Will did. Maybe he deserved somebody who loved him that way.

  “Andie?”

  “It’s just strange coming back here,” she told him.

  “To Max and Erma’s?”

  “To Columbus.”

  “You’ve only been gone three weeks.”

  “It’s been an intense three weeks.”

  “All the more reason for you to spend the night,” Will said, smiling, easy. “Give yourself some time to decompress.”

  “I’ve been compressed since I walked into North’s office.”

  “I love hearing about how he makes you feel crappy,” Will said. “Does that make me a bad person?”

  He was grinning at her, trying to get her into their usual laughing conversation, but she shook her head.

  “You’re one of the best people I know,” she told him.

  “Well, thank you very much. So what’s wrong?”

  “I’m just really tired. It’s me, not you.” Well, it was a little him, but mostly it was the kids. She looked at her watch. It was almost their bedtime now, but Crumb probably wouldn’t put them to bed, and she definitely wouldn’t tell Alice a story and—

  “Andie?” Will said, and she jerked her attention back to him.

  “Sorry. It’s the kids’ bedtime. I’m thinking about tooth brushing and storytelling. Not very romantic.”

  “See? I knew you’d want to be a mother after you had some time with kids.”

  “I don’t want to be a mother,” Andie said, really sick of saying that to him. “I want to take care of Alice and Carter.”

  “I can’t wait to meet them,” Will said, trying to placate her.

  He was being nice. She was being bitchy. “Oh, hell, I’m sorry again. I don’t know what’s wrong with me.”

  “Maybe you’re sexually frustrated,” Will said. “Come back to the apartment and I’ll take care of that. You can go back tomorrow.”

  I don’t want to. “That’s very generous. But if I leave now, I can be home by midnight. I don’t like leaving the kids alone.” Andie leaned back as the waitress put her Diet Coke in front of her. “Thank you.” Would she have said no to North? She never had, not until the end, when she was on her way out the door, trying to save herself—

  “There’s a housekeeper.”

  “Yeah, well, you haven’t met the housekeeper.”

  “I’d like to,” Will said, his smile gone. “But you won’t let me—”

  “Will, can we just . . .” She looked at him then, at the great guy he was, and thought, Great guy but the wrong guy. Goddammit.

  “Can we just what?”

  “You’re a great guy, Will.”

  “Thank you.” He smiled at her again.

  “You’re sweet and you’re kind and you’re smart and you’re hardworking, you’re everything I admire in a man.”

  “If you’re trying to make me feel better, you’re doing a great job.” He saluted her with his beer.

  “And you’re very good in bed.”

  “So about tonight,” Will began.

  “And those are all the reasons I wanted to be with you.”

  Will’s smile disappeared. “Wanted?”

  “I chose you because you really are an amazing man, somebody I could have fun with for the rest of my life, somebody I could trust, somebody who would always be there for me.” The words were pouring out of her now, she couldn’t stop if she tried—

  “These are good things,” Will said, looking confused.

  “And I really do love you,” Andie said.

  “Good,” Will said, even more confused.

  “When I left North, I left him. I never went back. I didn’t see him for ten years. And then when I went to give him the check
s back, I sat in his reception room just simmering with anger, I was still so angry with him, Will, I was irrational.”

  “Hey, if he makes you that unhappy, stay away from him.”

  “If he makes me that unhappy, I’m not done with him,” Andie said, and there it was, right there out loud.

  Will nodded. “I know. I think it’s good you’re talking to him again. I mean, I don’t like it, but I can see where you need to sever that connection—”

  “That’s not it,” Andie said. “I love you, I think you’re a great guy, and I’m not going back to North, I can’t go back to him, but . . . I’m still tied to him, and until I work that out . . . I’m so sorry, Will. I’m so, so sorry.”

  “So I’ll wait until you work it out.”

  “No,” Andie said, and then the waitress came back to take their order and she shook her head. “No,” she said, and the waitress left again, and she said, “No, I need to stop this. I can’t see you anymore.”

  Will sat back, looking stunned. “Just like that?”

  “It’s not just like that, it’s been like that since I saw North again and met the kids.” She frowned, trying to think of how to explain it. “I’ve been running ever since I left North ten years ago. Well, before that, if I’m going to be honest. But now I’ve got something I can’t run from.” She leaned forward, trying to make him see. “The kids need me. They don’t want anything from me, they’d be delighted if I left, but they need me. And things are so much better—”

  “I don’t care about the kids,” Will said. “I care about you. I—”

  “I need to be without North and you,” Andie said. “Until I get the kids safe, until I figure out what the hell I want, I need to just be . . . me.”

  “When have I ever asked you to be anything else?” he said, clearly annoyed now.

  “You haven’t. I put that badly.” Andie rubbed her forehead. “Okay, I’ll make this simple. I can’t give you what you deserve, and I’m not going to feel guilty about it anymore, so we’re finished.”

  “Don’t you think I should decide what I deserve?”

  “I think I should decide what—”

  “Because ‘I need to take care of two kids I barely know’ is not a good enough reason.”