I hesitate, thinking I should keep it vague, general, brief, but instead I detail all my misgivings about the so-called good life, tossing out words like insular and pampered, social climbing and stifling.
Leo whistles. “Man,” he says. “Don’t hold back.”
I smile, realizing how much better I feel after my diatribe—and better still when Leo says, with a note of hopefulness, “Can you move back to New York?”
I let out a nervous laugh and force myself to say my husband’s name. “I don’t think Andy would appreciate that too much.”
Leo clears his throat. “Right. I guess not…He’s…from there, right?”
“Yeah,” I say, thinking, He’s quite the hometown hero.
“So have you told him you think his city blows?” Leo asks. “That living anywhere other than New York is like drinking warm soda that’s lost its fizz?”
“Not exactly,” I say lightly, walking a tightrope of loyalty. I have always felt that griping about your spouse is, in some ways, worse than physical betrayal; I’d almost rather Andy kiss another girl than tell that same girl that I was, say, lousy in bed. So, despite our argument last night, I change my tone and try to be as fair as possible. “He’s really happy here…he’s working with his dad now…you know, the whole family-business thing…and we already bought a house.”
“Lemme guess,” Leo says. “A big-ass, phat house with all the trimmings?”
“Pretty much,” I say, feeling embarrassed by my riches—yet also the slightest bit defensive. After all, I agreed to them. I chose Andy. His family. This life.
“Hmm,” Leo says, as if contemplating all of this.
I continue, “His family would die if we moved back.”
“So Margot’s there, too?” Leo asks with a hint of disdain.
Feeling conflicted, I say, “Yeah. She moved here about a year ago…and she’s about to have a baby…So…it’s…really too late to move back.”
Leo makes a sound—like he’s laughing or exhaling hard.
“What?” I say.
“Nothing,” he says.
“Tell me,” I say softly.
“Well,” he says. “Didn’t we just say…that it’s never too late?”
I feel my stomach drop, shake my head, and mouth fuck. I am fucked. And this feeling only intensifies when Leo says, “Maybe you’d feel better if you came back for another shoot?”
“To New York?”
“Yeah,” he says.
“With you?” I ask hesitantly, hopefully.
“Yeah,” Leo says. “With me.”
I inhale, rake my teeth across my lower lip, and say, “I don’t know if that’s such a good idea…” My voice trails off, leaving us in loaded, heart-thudding silence.
He asks why—although he must know why.
“Lemme see,” I say, putting up a shield of playful sarcasm. “Let’s see…Maybe because I’m married?…And you’re my ex-boyfriend?” Then, despite my better judgment, I can’t resist adding, “My ex-boyfriend who disappeared into thin air years ago, never to be seen or heard from again, until he happened to run into me totally randomly one day?”
I wait for him to reply, nervous that I’ve said too much. After what feels like a long while, he says my name—Ellie—sounding exactly the way he used to, in the beginning.
“Yeah?” I whisper back.
“I have to ask you something…”
I freeze, anticipating his question as I say, “What’s that?”
He clears his throat and says, “Did Margot ever tell you…that I came back?”
My mind spins in a hundred directions, wondering what he’s talking about, fearing the worst—which is also the best.
“You came back?” I finally say, the import of his words making me dizzy. I turn away from the window. “When did you come back?”
“About two years after,” Leo says.
“After what?” I say, already knowing the answer.
Sure enough, he says, “Two years after we broke up—”
“When exactly?” I say, frantically piecing together the time frame—about a month after Andy and I started to date, possibly even the very day we first slept together—December twenty-ninth.
“Oh, I don’t know. Sometime right after Christmas…”
I digest the crazy, unlikely chronology, and then ask, “To our apartment?”
“Yeah. I was in your neighborhood…and just…came by to see you. She didn’t tell you, did she?”
“No,” I say breathlessly. “She didn’t…She never told me that.”
“Yeah,” he says. “I didn’t think so.”
I pause, feeling giddy and weak and even more floored than I did that day in the intersection. “What did you say to her? What did you want?”
“I don’t remember…exactly,” Leo says.
“You don’t remember what you wanted? Or what you said?”
“Oh, I remember what I wanted,” Leo says.
“And?”
“I wanted to tell you that…I was sorry…That I missed you…”
Nauseous and lightheaded, I close my eyes and say, “Did you tell Margot that?”
“I didn’t get the chance.”
“Why not? What happened? Tell me everything,” I demand.
“Well. She wouldn’t buzz me up…she came down instead…We talked in your lobby…She made it pretty clear how she felt about me.”
“And how was that?” I say.
“That she hated me,” he says. “Then she told me you were in a relationship…that you were very happy. She told me to leave you alone—that you wanted nothing to do with me. Something like that…”
I try to process his words as he continues, asking, “So were you…in a relationship?”
“Starting one,” I say.
“With Andy?”
“Yeah.” I shake my head, anger welling up inside me. Anger left over from last night. Anger at the timing. Anger at myself for feeling so fragile, exposed. And most of all, anger toward Margot for not telling me such an important fact. Even after all these years.
“I can’t believe she never said anything,” I say, tears stinging my eyes, wondering why he didn’t call or e-mail. How could he have relied on Margot?
“Yeah,” he says. “Although…I know it wouldn’t have made a difference.”
Silence fills the airwaves once again, as I consider how to respond. I know what I should say. I should say that he’s right—it wouldn’t have made a difference. I should tell him that he was too late, and I would have made the same decision that Margot made for me. I should tell him that she was acting in my best interest. That Andy’s still in my best interest.
But I can’t make myself say any of this. I can’t get over the feeling of being cheated. At the most, I was cheated out of the choice for a different life—a choice I had the right to make and that nobody else should have made for me. At the very least, I was cheated out of the all-important closure—knowledge that would have made me feel better about the worst thing to ever happen to me short of my mother dying, as well as the chance to reconcile my feelings for Leo with the way things ended between us. Yes, we broke up. Yes, Leo did the breaking up. But he regretted it. He loved me enough to come back. I was worth coming back for. It might not have made a difference in my life, but it would have made a difference in my heart. I close my eyes, riding a wave of resentment and indignation and more anger still.
“Anyway,” Leo says, sounding slightly uneasy as he struggles to change the subject, return to the present.
“Anyway,” I echo.
Then, just as I hear the sound of the garage door opening and Andy returning from wherever he was, I cave to what I’ve wanted to do all along. “So,” I say. “Tell me about this assignment.”
“You’re coming?” Leo asks, his voice brightening.
“Yeah,” I say. “I’m coming.”
Twenty-Seven
Over the next few minutes, I listen as Leo gives me a rundown of the assignment
—a feature on Coney Island—praying that Andy doesn’t burst in the room and catch me, breathless, cheeks ablaze. At some point, I will have to tell him that I’m going to New York—but I can’t make this assignment about our fight. It’s not about the fight.
“I’ll just need a few general shots of the beach…the boardwalk…the rides…” he says.
“Oh, sure,” I say distractedly. I am not ready to hang up—not by a long shot—but don’t want to press my luck.
“Not quite as glamorous as the last shoot, huh?” Leo says, as if I’m doing this shoot for the glam factor.
“That’s okay,” I say, flustered as I scramble for a few more details. “What publication is it for?”
“Time Out.”
I nod and say, “When do you need the shots?”
“In the next couple weeks. That doable?”
“Should be,” I say, trying to play it cool, pretend that I’m not reeling from my discovery that he came back. “I want to hear more about it…but—”
“You gotta go?” Leo asks, sounding satisfyingly disappointed.
“Yeah,” I say—and then spell it out for him. “Andy’s home…”
“Gotcha,” Leo says in a way that seems to solidify our status as co-conspirators. Unlike the Drake shoot we are in this one together. From start to finish.
“So I’ll get back to you…” My voice trails off.
“When?” he says, and although his tone isn’t eager, the question certainly is.
I smile in spite of myself, remembering how I used to try to pin him down in this same vein, always wanting to know when we’d next talk, next see each other. So I shoot back with one of his old-school, tongue-in-cheek answers. “As soon as humanly possible,” I say, wondering whether he remembers his line—and if he uses it with what’s-her-name.
Leo laughs, sounding so good. He remembers, all right. He remembers everything, just as I do.
“Great,” he says. “I’ll be waiting.”
“Okay,” I say, a shiver running down my spine as I think of how long I waited for him, how long it took for me to finally give up.
“So…’Bye, Ellen,” Leo says, the smile back in his voice. “’Bye for now.”
“’Bye, Leo,” I say, snapping my phone shut and taking a few deep breaths to compose myself. Then I erase the call log and head into the bathroom. This is about work, I think, as I look in the mirror. This is about finding my own happiness.
I brush my teeth, throw cold water on my face, and change into a fresh T-shirt and a pair of white shorts. Then I head downstairs, bracing myself to see Andy and realizing that although I’m still holding on to residual anger from this morning, my conversation with Leo has dampened my rage, replacing it with measured excitement and guilt-induced tolerance. Andy could be in the backyard playing croquet with Ginny, and I honestly think I’d be unfazed. I might even serve them up mint juleps.
But instead of Ginny, I discover Stella with Andy; instead of croquet, I spot a row of glossy Neiman Marcus shopping bags perched on the kitchen counter. As Andy unravels white tissue paper from a large sterling-silver frame, he shoots me a look that is either apologetic or simply imploring me to keep our marital tension under wraps—perhaps both. I give him an appeasing, borderline patronizing, smile, and then launch into good-daughter-in-law auto-pilot.
“Hi, Stella,” I say brightly, standing a bit straighter to emulate her perfect posture—just as I often find myself enunciating and speaking more slowly around her, too.
“Hi, sweetheart!” she says, hugging me hello.
I inhale her signature summer fragrance—a mix of orange blossom and sandalwood—as she continues, “I hope you don’t mind…I did a little frame shopping for you.”
I glance down at the counter and see at least a dozen more sterling-silver frames of varying sizes, all embellished, all formal, and undoubtedly, all very expensive.
“They’re beautiful…But you shouldn’t have,” I say, wishing she hadn’t. Because although these are beautiful, they are also so not my style. Our plain black, wooden frames are my style.
“Oh, it was nothing,” Stella says as she slides open a heavily beaded frame and inserts a family portrait from her childhood, everyone dressed in fine white linen, grinning broadly from aboard a dinghy in Charleston. The ultimate casually elegant, WASPy, summer snapshot. She blows a speck of dust from the glass and removes a smudge from one corner with her thumb. “Just a little housewarming gift.”
“You’ve given us so much already,” I say, thinking of the grandfather clock, the linen hand towels for our powder room, the hand-me-down yet still pristine Italian porch furniture, the oil painting of Andy as a child—all purported housewarming gifts, all things I couldn’t refuse, and all in keeping with Stella’s benevolent passive aggression. She is so kind, so thoughtful, so generous, that you feel you must do things her way. So you do.
She waves me off and says, “It’s really nothing.”
“Well then, thank you,” I say tersely, thinking that it was Margot who taught me, by example, the rule of protesting once or twice, but ultimately never refusing gifts or compliments.
“You’re very welcome, darling,” Stella says, obliviously patting my hand. Her fingernails are red-lacquered perfection, matching her pleated skirt and Ferragamo clutch, and giving the hulking sapphire bauble on her right ring finger a patriotic flair.
“So. Ell,” Andy says, looking anxious. “What do you say we use these frames for our wedding and honeymoon photos? The ones in the foyer?”
Stella beams, looking at me for my lady-of-the-house stamp of approval.
“Sure,” I say, smiling and thinking that would be a very fitting choice—given that the wedding was done Stella’s way, too.
Andy gathers up several frames and motions toward the front of the house. “C’mon…Let’s check ’em out.”
Wink, wink. Nudge, nudge.
While Stella hums and begins to neatly fold the shopping bags, I roll my eyes and follow Andy to the foyer on our purported frame-reconnaissance mission.
“I’m so sorry,” he starts in a whisper, leaning on the high-gloss mahogany table (yet another “gift” from his parents), where our wedding photos are displayed. His expression and body language are sincere, even earnest, but I can’t help wondering how much of his readiness to repent is tied into his mother’s presence in our home. How the Grahams seem to do everything with one another in mind. “I’m really sorry,” he says.
“Me, too,” I say, feeling at war with myself as I avoid his gaze. Part of me desperately wants to make up with Andy and feel close to him again, but another part almost wants to keep things broken so I can justify what I’m doing. Whatever it is that I’m doing.
I cross my arms tightly across my chest as he continues, “I should have said something last night…about the wine comment…”
I finally look into his eyes, feeling slightly defeated that he actually seems to believe that our fight was about a lackluster vineyard near Pittsburgh. Surely he can tell there is more happening here—issues much larger than last night. Like whether I’m happy in Atlanta, if we’re as compatible as we once thought, and why our fledgling marriage feels so strained.
“It’s okay,” I say, wondering if I’d be so conciliatory if I hadn’t just spoken to Leo. “I probably overreacted.”
Andy nods, as if in agreement, which bolsters my dwindling indignation enough for me to add a petty footnote. “But I really, really can’t stand Ginny and Craig.”
Andy sighs. “I know…But they’re going to be pretty hard to avoid…”
“Can we at least try?” I say, nearly smiling for real this time, as I drop my arms to my sides.
Andy laughs quietly. “Sure,” he says. “We’ll try.”
I smile back at him as he says, “And the next fight—let’s make up before we go to sleep. My folks have never gone to bed mad at each other—probably why they’ve lasted so long…”
Another smug notch for the perfect Gra
hams, I think, as I say, “Well, technically, I went to the couch mad.”
He smiles. “Right. Let’s not do that either.”
“Okay,” I say with a shrug.
“So we’re good?” Andy says, the worry lines gone from his forehead.
I feel a stab of resentment at how easily he thinks we can move on, gloss over our troubles, my feelings. “Yeah,” I say reluctantly. “We’re fine.”
“Just fine?” Andy presses.
I look into his eyes, and briefly consider spelling everything out for him. Telling him that we’re in the midst of a small crisis. Telling him everything. In my heart, I know that is the only way to fix everything, make us whole again. But because I’m not quite ready to be whole again, I halfheartedly smile and say, “Somewhere between fine and good.”
“Well, I guess that’s a start,” Andy says, leaning down to give me a hug. “I love you so much,” he breathes into my neck.
I close my eyes, relax, and hug him back, trying to forget about our fight, and all my complaints about our life, and most of all, how Margot might have doctored my past, with good intentions or otherwise.
“I love you, too,” I tell my husband, feeling a wave of both affection and attraction—and then relief that I still feel this way about him.
But in the instant before we separate, right there by our wedding photos and with my eyes still closed, all I see is Leo, standing in my lobby all those years ago. And now, sitting in his apartment in Queens, listening to Bob Dylan, and waiting for me to call him back.
Twenty-Eight
Despite the near-constant urge to do so, I manage to go the rest of the weekend without calling or e-mailing or texting Leo. Instead I do all the right things—all the things I’m supposed to do. I reframe our wedding photos. I write Stella a cheerful, almost-completely-sincere thank-you note. I go to church and brunch with the entire Graham clan. I take nearly one hundred quality black-and-white photos of Webb and Margot and her belly. All the while, I squelch any uprising of anger, reassuring myself that I’m not taking the assignment out of spite or revenge or to revisit the past. Rather, I’m going to New York for the work—and to spend a little time with Leo. I have a perfect right to work—and to be friends with Leo. And neither of these things should, in any way, detract from my marriage or my friendship with Margot or my life in Atlanta.