Love the One You're With

  Suzanne nods. “Sure. And isn’t that satisfying?” she asks. “Sort of what every girl dreams of when she’s dumped. That the guy will someday feel regret and come back and tell her all about it…And the beauty of it is…you have no regrets whatsoever.”

  I look at her.

  “Right?” she says, the question drenched in meaning. A one-word test of my choices. Of Andy. Of everything in my life.

  “Right,” I say emphatically. “Absolutely no regrets.”

  “Well then,” Suzanne says with her usual conviction. “There you have it.”

  Three hours later, after Suzanne and I have shared a quick fast-food dinner at the airport and said our good-byes at the American security line, I am boarding my flight with a distinct ache in my chest and a nagging sense of unfinished business. As I settle into my window seat in the next-to-last row of coach, vaguely listening to the flight attendant drone about limited overhead-bin space, I revisit the events of the day, specifically the very abrupt ending to my final encounter with Leo. In hindsight, I wish that I had just told Suzanne that I needed a little more time with him. It would have been undeniably awkward to make the request, but one hour—even thirty minutes—is really all it would have taken to ease the anticlimactic conclusion to such an emotional shoot, and wrap up the unsettling conversation about our breakup.

  Despite the fact that I have no regrets about how things turned out in my life, I still can’t help wanting to understand my intense relationship with Leo, as well as that turbulent time between adolescence and adulthood when everything feels raw and invigorating and scary—and why those feelings are all coming back to me now.

  I quickly try to call Andy to let him know that we are taking off on time, but there is no answer. I leave a message, telling him that the shoot went well, and that I love him and will see him first thing in the morning. Then I turn my attention to the stream of passengers filing down the aisle, and say a prayer that the middle seat beside me will stay vacant, or, at the very least, that it will be filled by a tidy, quiet seatmate. But one beat later, a large, sloppy man with the distinct aroma of booze and cigarettes is bearing down on me with a bulging canvas tote, a Burger King to-go bag, and a Mountain Dew bottle filled with a questionable amber liquid.

  “Helloo there!” he bellows. “Looks like I’m next to ya!”

  In addition to his boozy aroma and carry-on beverage, his bloodshot eyes and excessive volume make it pretty clear that he’s already drunk—or very close to the mark. I envision a long night of cocktails, with some occasional spillage, accompanied by profuse apologies, inappropriate attempts to clean me up, and clumsy conversation starters. My only shot at peace is to shut him down quickly and nip all interaction in the bud. So I say nothing in response, just force the tiniest of polite smiles while he collapses into his seat and immediately stoops down to remove his filthy tennis shoes and stained tube socks, his beefy arms and chapped elbows invading every inch of my personal space.

  “Eh, boy! These dogs are barkin’,” he announces, once his sweaty feet are freed. He then offers me a fry. “Want one?”

  I suppress a gag, tell him no thanks, and promptly slip my in-flight headphones on, turning my body toward the window. Then I jack up the volume on the classical music channel, close my eyes, and try to think about anything other than Leo. About fifteen minutes of jostling later, I feel the plane begin to move down the runway, picking up speed before tilting sickeningly backward. As we become airborne, I give my armrest a death grip, irrationally bracing myself while fighting images of flames and mangled steel. We are not going to crash, I think. Fate is not so cruel as to have me spend my last moments with the man next to me. But when I finally open my eyes, my seatmate—and his Burger King feast—are nowhere to be found.

  And, in his grubby place, as if by magic, is none other than Leo.

  He gives me a sideways smile and says, “I got on your flight.”

  “I see that,” I say, trying to suppress my own smile, but quickly losing the battle.

  “And then I—uh—switched seats,” he says.

  “I see that, too,” I say, now full-on grinning. “Pretty tricky, aren’t you?”

  “Tricky?” Leo says. “I rescued you from that clown…who is now wasted—and barefoot—in business class. I’d tag it chivalrous—not tricky.”

  “You gave up a business-class seat?” I say, feeling flattered and strangely empowered as I process all the logistical effort that went into this moment.

  “Yeah. How about that? For a middle seat in the very back of the plane.”

  “Well. You are chivalrous,” I say.

  “Well? How about a thank-you?”

  “Thank you,” I say, as it begins to sink in that I will be spending the next five hours trapped in close, dark quarters with Leo. My heart skips a beat.

  “You’re very welcome,” he says, reclining his seat ever so slightly and then flipping his tray table up and down with what I detect is some nervousness of his own.

  We make fleeting eye contact, a tough thing to do when you’re side by side in coach, before I smile, shake my head, and shift my gaze back toward the window.

  The flight attendant makes an announcement that the seatbelt sign is still illuminated, and the captain will inform us when it is safe to move about the cabin. Perfect, I think. Absolutely trapped by no doing of my own.

  A few minutes of charged silence pass as I close my eyes, thinking that miraculously, I’m no longer worried about flying.

  “So,” Leo finally says as I open my eyes and the plane begins to steady in the California night sky. “Where were we, anyway?”

  Seventeen

  I can’t remember how I answer that first question of Leo’s; only that we successfully dance around any discussion of our relationship, or how exactly it ended, or really anything of a personal nature, for a very long stretch of the flight. Instead we stick to safe harbors like movies and music, travel and work. It is the sort of conversation you have when you first meet someone you would like to know better—or an acquaintance you haven’t seen in a long time. We stay on the surface of things, yet there is an underlying ease, too, a natural flow of questions and answers, marked by stretches of comfortable silence. They are so comfortable, in fact, that we are eventually lulled back into intimate terrain.

  It happens innocently enough, as I finish telling him about a recent shoot I did in the Adirondacks. “There’s just something about photographing a small town, the locals,” I say, “people who are tied so inextricably to their geography…It’s so satisfying…”

  My voice trails off as I feel Leo’s gaze. When I turn toward him, he says, “You really love your work, don’t you?” His tone is so admiring that it makes my heart flutter.

  “Yeah,” I say softly. “I do.”

  “I could see that today…I loved watching you work.”

  I smile, resisting the urge to tell him that I loved watching him during his interview, too. Instead, I let him continue.

  “It’s funny,” he says, almost as if he’s thinking aloud. “In some ways you seem like the same Ellen I once knew, but in other ways…you seem so…different…”

  I wonder what exactly he’s basing this assessment on, as our cumulative exchanges since passing in the intersection can’t exceed an hour. Then again, I find that my sense of Leo is shifting, too, and it occurs to me that not only are there two sides to every story, but that those versions can also evolve over time.

  I watch Leo take a sip from his plastic cup of ginger ale on ice and suddenly see myself through his eyes. Then and now. Two very contrasting portraits with something of the same core. I glimpse my former self—the needy, lonely, motherless young girl, new to the big city, struggling to find her own identity, an identity apart from her suffocating hometown, her sheltered college experience, her shiny best friend.

  I see myself falling in love for the first time, and how that all-consuming love—how Leo—seemed to be my answer. He was everything I wanted to be?
??passionate, soulful, strong—and being with him made me feel at least a byproduct of all those things. Yet the more I tried to entrench myself in that relationship, the more insecure I became. At the time, this all felt like Leo’s fault, but looking back, I can see that I have to share the blame. At the very least, I can see why I became less attractive to him.

  I think back to Leo’s earlier comments today, about how he took himself too seriously. Maybe that was true, but I can also see that I didn’t take myself seriously enough. And it was that lethal combination that made our breakup virtually inevitable.

  “Yeah. I like to think I’ve evolved a little,” I finally say, as more snapshots of our relationship return to me—things I had suppressed or simply forgotten. I recall, for example, how much Leo loved a good debate, and how his face would flicker with annoyance when I had no opinion. I remember his frustration at my lack of independence, his irritation at my tendency to settle or take the easy way out—whether in a job or mindset.

  “We both had a lot of growing up to do…A lot of the world to see and figure out on our own,” Leo says, confirming that I’m not the only one thinking in terms of our relationship.

  “So?” I say hesitantly. “Have you figured things out?”

  “A few things,” he says. “But life’s a long journey, ya know?”

  I nod, thinking of my mother. If you’re lucky.

  Several minutes pass, as I realize that for the first time since meeting Leo at jury duty, I can no longer neatly categorize what he was during our time together. He was not the man of my dreams, the perfect guy I once put on a pedestal; nor was he the villain who Margot had done her best to demonize; nor really any guy on that particular continuum. He was just the wrong guy for me at the time. Nothing more, nothing less.

  “You must be exhausted,” Leo says after a long silent stretch. “I’ll let you get some sleep.”

  “That’s okay,” I say. “Let’s talk some more…”

  I can hear the smile in Leo’s voice as he replies. “That’s what you always used to say…”

  A dozen things cross my mind in that instant—all inappropriate and half of which I nearly blurt out. Instead, I divert the conversation and ask the question I’ve been dying to ask since seeing him in the intersection. “So. Are you with someone now?”

  I keep my expression even while I brace myself for his answer, fearing a wave of jealousy that I desperately don’t want to feel. But when he nods, I am only relieved, even as I envision a statuesque beauty with a foreign accent, a captivating wit, and an intriguing, irresistible mean streak. The sort of diva Nico sings about in the Velvet Underground’s “Femme Fatale.” I imagine that she has her pilot’s license and can do tequila shots with the boys, yet also knits Leo sweaters and cooks with at least three different varieties of olive oil. She is lithe, long-limbed, and looks as good in an evening gown as she does in a white tank and a pair of Leo’s boxers.

  “That’s great,” I say, a little too enthusiastically. “Are you…is it…serious?”

  “I guess so…We’ve been together a couple of years…” he says. Then he surprises me by reaching into his back pocket for his wallet and pulling out a snapshot of her. Leo does not strike me as the type to have a photo of his girlfriend in his wallet, and certainly not the type to pass it around. But I am even more shocked when I turn on my overhead light and look down at a rather nondescript blonde, posing next to a man-sized cactus.

  “What’s her name?” I say, observing her hard, tanned arms, short pixie cut, and broad smile.

  “Carol,” he says.

  I repeat the name in my head, thinking that she looks exactly like a Carol. Wholesome, uncomplicated, kind.

  “She’s pretty,” I say, as I hand him back the photo. It seems like the right thing—really the only thing—to say.

  Leo slides the photo back into his wallet and nods in such a way that tells me he agrees with my assessment, yet doesn’t find her appearance terribly interesting or important.

  Still, despite her ordinary looks, I feel an unexpected competitive pang I don’t believe I would have felt if he had shown me the woman I was expecting. It is one thing to be defeated by an Angelina Jolie look-alike, another to lose to someone so squarely in my league. I remind myself that it’s not a contest as I flip off my overhead light and ask, “So where’d you and Carol meet?”

  Leo clears his throat, as if contemplating a revision to the truth, but then says, “It’s actually not much of a story.”

  This, of course, makes me happy.

  “C’mon,” I press, rooting for a blind-date scenario—which I believe to be at the bottom of the romance totem pole.

  “Okay,” he says. “We met in a bar…on the most repugnant night of the year…at least in New York.”

  “New Year’s Eve?” I say, smiling, pretending not to feel any residual bitterness.

  “Close,” Leo says, winking. “St. Patrick’s Day.”

  I smile, thinking how I share his disdain for March seventeenth.

  “C’mon. What’s wrong with you? You don’t love a good, raucous pub crawl?” I say. “Whoopin’ and hollerin’ and sippin’ green beer first thing in the morning?”

  “Sure,” Leo says. “About as much as I love all the Upper East Side frat boys puking all over the Six train.”

  I laugh. “What were you doing out on St. Patrick’s Day, anyway?”

  “I know. Shocking huh?…I’m still not going to win any popularity contests, but I guess I’m not quite as antisocial as I used to be…I think some Irish buddy must have twisted my arm that night…”

  I resist the temptation to say, More than I could do, and instead ask, “And Carol? Is she Irish?”

  It is a stupid, throwaway question, but it allows me to stay on track with the subject of Leo’s love life.

  “Something like that. English, Scottish, Irish. Whatever.” Then he adds, somewhat randomly, “She’s from Vermont.”

  I force a pleasant smile as I cringe a bit on the inside, picturing Carol, swinging open her family’s barn door on a crisp autumn day, proudly demonstrating how to milk a cow to her boyfriend from the big city…the two of them laughing uncontrollably when he can’t seem to get the maneuver down…milk squirting into his face before he topples off the painted wooden stool into a bed of hay…she falling on top of him, sliding off her overalls…

  I block out the image and allow myself one final inroad into Carol. “What does she do?” I say. “For a living?”

  “She’s a scientist,” he says. “A medical researcher at Columbia…She studies cardiac arrhythmia.”

  “Wow,” I say, impressed in the way I think all right-brained people feel about left-brained people—and vice versa.

  “Yeah,” Leo says. “She’s a smart one.”

  I look at him, waiting for more, but it is clear that he is finished talking about Carol. Instead he crosses his legs and says with what seems to be a purposefully breezy air, “Your turn. Tell me about Andy.”

  It is a hard question to answer, even when you’re not talking to an ex, so I smile and say, “I know you’re a reporter—and love those open-ended questions—but can you be more specific? What do you want to know?”

  Leo says. “Okay. You want specific…Let’s see…Does he like board games?”

  I laugh, remembering how Leo would never play board games with me. “Yeah,” I say.

  “Ahh. Very good for you,” Leo says.

  I smile, nod and say, “Anything else?”

  “Hmm…Does he skip breakfast—or believe that it’s the most important meal of the day?”

  “The latter.”

  Leo nods as if taking mental notes. “Does he believe in God?”

  “Yeah,” I say. “And Jesus, too.”

  “Very well…And…does he…strike up conversations with people on planes?”

  “Occasionally,” I say, smiling. “But generally not ex-girlfriends. As far as I know…”

  Leo gives me a sheepish glance, but doe
sn’t take the bait. Instead he sighs loudly and then says, “Okay…How about this one?…Does your husband seem genuinely surprised when he unscrews the cap on his Coke and discovers that, lo and behold, holy shit, he’s ‘Not a Winner This Time’?”

  I laugh. “That’s so funny!” I say. “Because yes! He expects to win…He’s an eternal optimist.”

  “So,” Leo says. “Looks like you found yourself a solid, Checkers-playing, Cheerios-eating, God-fearing, glass-half-full kinda guy.”

  I burst out laughing, but then worry that I’ve sold Andy short with Leo’s round of Q&As—or, worse, somehow belittled who he is. So I end on a decidedly loyal note. “Yeah. Andy is a great guy. A really good person…I’m very lucky.”

  Leo turns in his seat and looks at me, his smile quickly fading. “He’s lucky, too.”

  “Thank you,” I say, feeling myself blush.

  “It’s true,” he says. “Ellen…I don’t know how I let you get away…”

  I give him a small smile, feeling very bashful as I marvel how such a simple statement can be so healing and thrilling and unsettling, all at once.

  And it only gets worse—and better—when Leo reclines his seat and moves his arm onto the rest against mine so that our skin is touching from elbow to wrist. I close my eyes, inhale, and feel a rush of heat and energy that takes my breath away. It is the feeling of wanting something so much that it borders on an actual need, and the power and urgency of this need overwhelms me.

  I command myself to move my arm, knowing how imperative it is that I do the right thing. I can hear the scream inside my head—I am a newlywed, and I love my husband! But it does no good. I literally cannot make myself retreat. I just can’t. Instead I recline my seat to be flush with his and uncurl my fingers, desperately hoping that he’ll find them. He does, tentatively at first, our pinkies barely touching, then overlapping slightly, then a bit more, and more still, as if there is a tide pulling him toward me, over me.

  I wonder if he is still watching me through the shadows of the cabin, but I don’t open my eyes to find out, hoping the dark will make me feel less culpable, make what I’m doing seem less real. Yet the effect is actually the opposite—it all feels more real, more intense, in the way that you can always focus more on one sense when others are shut off.