“You know I would never cheat on you!” I told him vehemently. Maybe too vehemently, because he scowled.
Before he could question me, I went on, “Even when we were supposed to be allowed to see other people, I never did.”
Okay, it was a white lie.
The first few years of our relationship, when we left summer camp and went back to our separate lives, we always told each other that we were free to date. We thought it was the mature thing to do. We just promised we wouldn’t talk about it unless one of us met somebody we liked better.
I assumed he never did, and I never did, either.
But I did date. I went to movies and dances with other guys. I saw some of them more than once, and I kissed more than a few. But Mike was always there, in the back of my mind. He had my heart from the moment we met, and I was pretty certain I had his.
I mean, when something works as well as our relationship always had, you didn’t tamper with it. Why would you? My trying to recapture with somebody else what Mike and I already had together would make about as much sense as some wannabe superstar remaking a great old song like, say, “American Pie.” Or an aspiring Hitchcock remaking an awesome movie like Psycho.
When the original was a classic, nobody else was ever going to come along and make it better. Period.
“Beau,” Mike said now, his breath warm against my bare shoulder, “we’re going to make this work. Trust me. No matter what happens.”
I wanted to believe that. I wanted to trust him. I wanted us to go on being us.
“But…” I took a deep breath. “You don’t even want to live with me, Mike. You said you’re not ready for that.”
I could feel the tension tightening his body as I spoke. I wished I could take back the words, but they were out there.
“Please don’t push me on that, Beau.”
“I’m not pushing you. I’m just stating a fact.”
He said nothing.
“Mike, I’m not saying we should move in together right away—”
“You’re not? Because it sounds like that’s exactly what you’re saying.”
“No, I’m not.”
“Sure you are. And I just don’t get it. What’s the rush, Beau?”
“There’s no rush. But I guess I just don’t get it, either. Why are you dragging your feet?”
“I’m not dragging my feet. I’m just not in any hurry to make more than one huge decision right now that could impact the rest of my life. One thing at a time. I have to figure out my career before I can even think about anything else.”
“But the decision about your career isn’t entirely separate from the decision about us.”
“Sure it is.”
“No, it isn’t. Not when where you live is going to impact our relationship.”
“It doesn’t have to.”
“Yes, it does. If you’re living thousands of miles away, our relationship is impacted.”
“You won’t be happy if I’m living anywhere other than under the same roof with you.”
“That’s not true, Mike.” I pulled myself away abruptly and sat up to face him. “You’re not listening. I just want to know whether there’s a possibility of it down the road, or if we’re both just wasting time.”
“I’m just wasting your time? You think this relationship is wasting your time?”
“No! I didn’t say that. I—”
“You—”
“Wait, Mike. Just listen. We’ve been together for—”
“I know how long we’ve been together, Beau.”
“Please don’t interrupt me. All I’m saying is that after all these years, it’s time to sink or swim, Mike.”
Gazing up at me from his white hotel pillow, he just blinked and said, “Wow.”
Yeah. Wow.
I think I just gave him an ultimatum.
An inadvertent ultimatum, at that.
Oops.
“I’m tired,” Mike said, and rolled over, turning his back on me.
But I knew he wasn’t really tired. It was only nine o’clock his time.
His time.
My time.
Obviously, like I said, when it came to the time thing, we were definitely not in sync.
seventeen
The present
Typical weeknight dinner hour at our house: Somebody left the television blasting a Nickelodeon cartoon downstairs; the older boys are at the half-set table fighting over who gets which vinyl-coated place mat; I’m balancing a fussy Tyler on one hip while stirring the fake orange cheese powder into the overcooked Scooby-Doo–shaped macaroni in a pot on the stove.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m a decent cook when I actually cook. But I’m not about to go to the trouble and expense necessary to concoct my famous veal saltimbocca or chicken chausseur for three finicky kids who prefer simple carbs and synthetic cheese from a sixty-nine-cent box.
On the rare occasions Mike is actually home for dinner on a weeknight, I will occasionally surprise him with a home-cooked meal from scratch. And occasionally, I will give him simple carbs and synthetic cheese from a sixty-nine-cent box. He knows better than to complain. I have often reminded him that he’s as capable as I am of opening a cookbook and throwing together a fabulous meal—something he has yet to do.
In the midst of the chaos, the front door opens and closes, an incident so unprecedented that everybody but Sponge-Bob SquarePants falls silent for a moment.
Then Josh exclaims, “Daddy’s home!”
My eyes immediately go to the stove clock. It’s not even six-thirty yet.
“Daddy’s not home, Josh.”
Yet I hear footsteps and the jangling of keys in the front hall. Either Daddy is indeed home, or a stranger just broke in to our house. A stranger who has his own set of keys.
To tell you the truth, both scenarios seem equally outlandish. True, Mike said he’d be home early tonight, but I wasn’t born yesterday. If I believed his promises, I’d also expect Mikey’s framed school picture from last September to be hung in its appointed position above the mantel any second now.
Still, the boys have abandoned their seats at the kitchen table and are making a beeline for the next room, where I can hear Mike laughing and greeting them.
Will wonders never cease?
Leaving the macaroni and cheese behind, I tote Tyler into the front hall, where Mike is already stripping off his tie.
“You really are home early.”
“I really am home early.”
“I can’t believe it.”
“I told you I would be. What’s for dinner?” he asks, bending to press a kiss on my cheek, then on Tyler’s.
“Now that you’re here, takeout.”
He laughs. “No problem.”
No problem? He hates takeout almost as much as he hates boxed macaroni and cheese.
“You’re in a good mood tonight,” I say as the baby stretches his arms up toward his daddy.
“I’m always in a good mood.”
I snort at that.
“Hey,” he says, but he’s still smiling.
I’m surprised when Mike takes the beckoning Tyler from me without being nudged to. Usually, he’d rather change his clothes, wash up and spend fifteen minutes on the toilet before he’s ready to take on one of the boys…let alone three.
I watch in disbelief as he plunks himself down on the couch, balancing Tyler in the crook of his arm and cradling Josh on the opposite knee, with Mikey sandwiched in between.
“So what’s up?”
“What do you mean?”
“You’re home early and you’re in a great mood. Did you get a raise?” I ask, lowering myself into a wingback chair.
“Nope.”
“A promotion?”
“Uh-uh.”
“You won the lottery and quit your job?”
He laughs.
I notice an incredible amount of dust on the end table and, come to think of it, in the air. It’s clearly visible in the late-day sunlight
streaming in through the front window.
Darn that Melina, anyway. She must have skipped the living room, too.
“What’s the lottery?” Josh wants to know.
“It’s a big waste of money,” Mikey tells him. “That’s what Grandma tells Grandpa when he talks about it.”
“Well, I didn’t win the lottery or quit my job,” Mike informs all of us. “I just felt like coming home early to see my family for a change. Not that I don’t feel like doing that every night.”
“So why is tonight special?” I ask him, because I get the feeling that it is. He never comes home in a wonderful mood. Hopefully he won’t notice the dust. Or if he does, he won’t threaten, again, to fire Melina.
Mike informs me, “I have a surprise for you and the boys.”
Said boys erupt in cheers and queries.
“A surprise! Yay!”
“I love surprises!”
“What kind of surprise?”
“Is it candy?”
“Can I have the biggest piece?”
“When can we have it?”
“You can have it in a few days,” Mike says, laughing and throwing up his hands.
“Why do we have to wait, Daddy?” Mikey protests.
“Yeah, no fair. I didn’t even break Mommy’s favorite pink teacup this afternoon.”
“Yes, you did, Josh. Daddy, he did!”
“Not on purpose,” he tells his big brother. “It was an accident. Right, Mommy?”
I sigh. “It was an accident. What’s the surprise, Mike?”
“You know how you’ve been saying you need to get away?”
My breath catches in my throat. “Yes…”
“Well, you’re going to get away.”
I squeal and leap up to hug him as the boys launch into a happy dance. “We’re going to the Cape?”
“Not the Cape…”
“Where?”
He reaches into his jacket pocket and pulls out a folded sheet of white paper, handing it to me across Mikey’s and Tyler’s bouncing heads.
“What does it say, Mommy?”
“Hang on, Mikey, I’m reading….” It’s a computer-generated receipt for plane tickets purchased online this afternoon. Four tickets from New York to Tampa, Florida.
Florida.
My first thought, God help me, is that Happy Nappy Mike lives somewhere in Florida. I don’t know exactly where. I never asked.
Florida is a huge state.
He could be hours from Tampa. He could be out in Key West, for all I know, or on the panhandle, or…
Or he could be in Tampa.
“We’re going to Florida?” I ask, looking up at Mike’s grinning face.
“Yup.” He looks pleased. If he ever knew…
But he doesn’t know.
“That’s awesome,” I say, trying to muster enthusiasm as the boys jump around cheering.
“My parents bought the tickets. They insisted. When I called my mother from the office this afternoon to ask her if they were up for a couple of houseguests next week, she gave me her credit-card number and said the tickets are on them. They can’t wait to see the boys. And you, too, of course.”
“That’s…that’s…great.” I glance down at the itinerary again, then say, “Oh, Mike, we need to get a seat for Tyler, too. It’s dangerous just to hold him on our laps the whole way. We can pay for it ourselves, and—”
“He’s already got a seat.”
“No, he doesn’t. There are only four tickets.”
“Right. For you and the boys.”
Thud.
“You’re not going?” I am incredulous. I haven’t traveled without him in years. I picture myself alone on a plane with three young children and am overwhelmed.
“I can’t go, Beau. My vacation isn’t until the following week, remember?”
“But…the boys and I are going to Florida without you?”
Florida.
Where Mike lives.
“I thought you’d be happy about it.” The twinkle in his dark eyes is fading faster than the August sunlight beyond the picture window.
“I was happy…when I thought it was going to be a family vacation. Not your shipping me and the kids off to your mother’s for a week.”
I’ll admit, I shouldn’t have said that.
I love my mother-in-law.
And Mike clearly believes he’s doing me a favor.
But I can’t help it. I’m just…
Shocked.
And…
Afraid.
Afraid that I might be tempted to look up an old friend while I’m down there.
“I’m sorry,” I tell Mike before he can speak. “I’d just…I’d rather go to the Cape. With you.”
“Cape Canaveral?” shouts Mikey, who studied the space program in school this year. “That’s in Florida. Can we ride on a rocket ship, Mommy?”
“Cape Cod,” I say, still watching Mike’s face.
“What’s Cape Cod?” Josh asks.
“Is it in Florida, Mommy?”
“No, Mikey. It’s in Massachusetts.”
“I want to go to Florida. Daddy said we’re going to Florida. I want to see Grandma and Grandpa and ride on a rocket ship. Why don’t you want to go to Florida, Mommy?”
“It’s not that I don’t want to go to Florida,” I say, mostly to my ominously silent husband. “But me and the kids alone…I’d miss you, Mike. We all would.”
“I want to ride on the rocket ship, too,” Josh announces. “And I want to get cotton candy. Okay?”
“I thought this would make you happy,” Mike tells me, shaking his head, his expression softening. “You said you wanted to get away to the beach.”
“I know, but…I don’t always have to get what I want.”
Yes, you do. You always have. You’re spoiled rotten.
“Well, you aren’t getting exactly what you want, Beau. I’m not about to send you to the Cape alone with the boys. My parents will help you with the kids. You can have some time to yourself. It’ll be good for you, Beau.”
“No, it won’t,” I say, alarmed at what I might be tempted to do with time to myself in Florida. “It won’t be good for me, Mike. It isn’t fair for me to be off in Florida having…time to myself…while you’re up here, working.”
He puts an arm around my shoulders. “You deserve it. You never get a break from the kids. Go to Florida. Let my mother baby-sit. She loves it. And you can go shopping or whatever it is that would make you happy.”
“I am happy,” I say, my eyes filling with tears.
I hate myself. I hate that I’ve been e-mailing back and forth with Mike. I hate that I’ve been thinking about him the way that I have.
Most of all, I hate what I did that summer fifteen years ago.
“Why do you think I’m not happy?” I ask Mike, struggling not to blink. If I blink, the tears will fall, and I can’t let him see that I’m crying.
“Hey…why are you crying?”
Yeah. I blinked.
“I’m just…I’m so happy. They’re tears of happiness. I love you so much, Mike.” I bury my head in his shoulder, awash in tears and guilt and regret.
He laughs. “I love you, too. So go to Florida with the boys and have some fun. You deserve it.”
No, I don’t. I don’t deserve it…
And I don’t deserve him.
eighteen
The past
When the phone rang the morning after Mike flew back to Los Angeles, I picked it up without thinking.
“Beau! There you are!”
My heart sank. “Oh! Hi, Mike!”
Yeah. That Mike.
I tossed aside the issue of People magazine I’d been reading, with its huge cover photo of Rebecca Schaeffer, the My Sister Sam actress who had been murdered a few weeks earlier by a crazed fan.
“Wow,” Mike said. “I can’t believe you answered. I expected to get your machine. Or your roommate.”
“Why did you think that?” I asked,
my mind racing.
Dammit. Why did I have to go and answer the phone?
I should have screened the call. I should have realized it might be him. Valerie had said he’d left a few messages while I was staying in the hotel the last two nights.
“When you didn’t return my calls, I got paranoid,” he said. “In fact, I wasn’t even going to bother calling you back again, but something made me give it one last shot.”
“Oh…well…”
“You wish I hadn’t called, right?”
Talk about awkward.
“No,” I protested, determined to put an end to this…this…this whatever was going on between us. I was going to be detached, no-nonsense, firm. “Actually, I’m glad you called.”
“Why? You have a thing for stalkers?”
All right, I laughed. I laughed despite the article I’d just been reading in People magazine. I couldn’t help it. The guy was amusing.
“Yeah,” I said, “stalkers are definitely my type.”
“Great. So let’s get together and I can stalk you in person. When are you free this week?”
I wasn’t free this week…or ever.
That was exactly what I wanted to say.
So why didn’t I?
Why did I hedge and tell him vaguely that I was going to be kind of busy at work this week?
That left the door open for him to suggest that we get together today, since it was Saturday. Or tomorrow, since it was Sunday.
I couldn’t think of an excuse. I swear, I tried…but I couldn’t come up with anything.
All right, maybe I shouldn’t have been grasping for an excuse. Maybe I should have come right out and told him to bug off.
But didn’t I at least owe him an in-person explanation as to why I could never see him again?
I told myself that I did.
I told myself that agreeing to meet him for a glass of wine tonight was no big deal.
Not even if a glass of wine on a Saturday night sounded suspiciously like a date.
But I knew it wouldn’t be a date. It would merely be my telling him—over a glass of wine on a Saturday night—exactly why he wasn’t allowed to see me, or call me, or stalk me, in the future.
Shortly after we hung up, Valerie came home lugging two Key Food shopping bags. I met her at the door and blurted out, “I just did a really, really crazy thing.”