“Oh.”
No use pretending I didn’t know what she was talking about, or that she had mistaken a sombrero-clad stranger for Mike. I had introduced her to him last week when he met me outside the studio after work, and Gaile prided herself on never forgetting a face.
“I gave him one of my comp tickets,” I said with a shrug, arranging the contents of an individual pack of Chips Ahoy! cookies on a plate for Janelle, who always demanded something sweet and chocolaty after her shows.
“Why?”
“He’s crazy about Milli Vanilli.”
Not.
In reality, Mike was here because he was crazy about me, and all right, the feeling was mutual. It had been two weeks since our first illicit kiss, and we had spent every spare moment together.
“You told me just the other day that you weren’t going to see him anymore,” Gaile reminded me, shaking her head. “You said you felt guilty about Mike. Your boyfriend Mike…or did you forget he exists?”
“I didn’t forget.” I stirred the tea vigorously to keep my hands busy and avoid stealing a cookie from the plate. I had a hard time resisting anything chocolate, but shrewd Janelle would undoubtedly notice a cookie was missing. “I really was going to stop seeing Mike. I just…couldn’t.”
“You’re not being fair, Beau.”
“To whom?”
“To anyone. Including yourself. Somebody’s going to get hurt.”
I wanted to tell her that it was none of her business, but Gaile wasn’t the type to back down. When she had an opinion, she voiced it. That was one of the things I loved about her…most of the time. The rest of the time, she was just a royal pain in the ass.
I listened to her go on and on for a few minutes about how I wasn’t being a responsible adult and it was time to grow up and do the right thing—as if the right thing were obvious. Which it wasn’t.
When at last she paused for breath, I said, “You know, you sound just like Dear Abby. Maybe you should ditch this production-assistant stuff and start writing a syndicated advice column.”
Ignoring that, she said, “Somebody has to shake some sense into you, Beau. This is wrong.”
“I know,” I said lamely. “I can’t help it. I keep telling myself that I have to break it off with Mike, but—”
“Which Mike?”
The truth was, I no longer knew.
But for Gaile’s sake, I said, “This one?”
She nodded her approval.
“I really like him, Gaile.”
“Then you need to break up with the other Mike.”
“I can’t do that. We’ve been together forever. I love him. He’s just…not here.”
And he might never be here. The offer from the software company had yet to come through, but they assured him that he was still on their shortlist. Just yesterday he had called and told me that he couldn’t hold off on making a decision about the California research job for much longer.
I begged him to give it another few days.
Then we said I love you and hung up.
Then I went out for Mexican food with Mike.
My guilt lasted as long as the guacamole did. By the time we were sharing a bowl of fried ice cream for dessert, my boyfriend in California was the furthest thing from my mind.
Whenever the thought of him did manage to intrude, I reminded myself that I wasn’t necessarily cheating on him. My current and revised definition of cheating involved sex, and I hadn’t had sex with the new Mike. In fact, I had never had sex with anyone other than the old Mike.
I said as much to Gaile, who seemed unimpressed by that news.
“It’s only a matter of time before you sleep with him,” she said with the unflappable conviction of Willard Scott predicting thundershowers.
“Why do you say that?”
“Because you have no self-control whatsoever, Beau.”
“Sure I do,” I protested, popping one of Janelle’s Chips Ahoys! into my mouth whole without thinking.
Oops.
“And anyway,” I went on, “don’t you think a person should sleep with more than one person in their lifetime? Let’s say I’m going to marry California Mike. What if I wake up someday in the next century and wonder what I’m missing? Wouldn’t it be better to get it out of my system now, while I’m still free?”
“Sure it would be…if you were free. You seem to have a way of forgetting that you’re not.”
She was right. The more time I spent with Mike, the more amazed I was that I could put myself in the moment with such little effort. Maybe I was born with a genetic scruple deficiency.
Or maybe, I thought as I fitted the lid onto the porcelain teapot and set it on a tray, I was just a spoiled brat who was used to getting her own way and to hell with everyone else’s feelings.
“Listen, Beau,” Gaile said, “you say that you’re in love with one Mike but you only like the other. That should make your decision a little easier, shouldn’t it?”
I shook my head. “I could probably fall in love with this Mike too, if I let myself.”
“Does he know you’re in a serious relationship with somebody else?”
I hesitated. “Sort of.”
“Beau…”
“All right, not really. I told him we were having problems. Which we are.”
“So it’s okay with Mike for you to see other people?”
“With my Mike? Not exactly.”
“Stop calling him ‘my’ Mike. It’s too confusing when you’re going around acting like they’re both your Mike.”
She had a point.
“Let me get this straight. New York Mike thinks you’ve broken up with California Mike?”
“More or less.”
“And California Mike thinks you’re still in an exclusive relationship?”
“Yeah.”
Gaile shook her head. “Beau, you need to tell California Mike that you want to see other people. And you need to tell New York Mike that you haven’t broken up with California Mike. You can’t have your cake and eat it too.”
“Now you sound like my grandmother.”
“Then she must be a wise woman.”
“Yeah, she is.”
And I sure as hell didn’t get this deficient-scruple gene from her. I couldn’t imagine my grandma Alice sneaking around with another Herman behind Grandpa’s back, even before they were married…and even if there were actually another semi-appealing Herman in town.
Grandma Alice and Grandpa Herman were one of those rare senior-citizen couples who still kissed each other hello and goodbye, held hands walking and laughed at each other’s jokes even though they’d heard them a thousand times.
I wanted to be just like them someday, still madly in love.
I just didn’t know with whom.
“The thing is,” I told Gaile, “what if I break things off with this Mike and then the other Mike decides to take the job out West? Where does that leave me?”
“You can always move out West with him—”
“He doesn’t want me to move in with him,” I reminded her, since she, of course, knew that whole story.
“Well, not in with him, necessarily. Just near him. Or you can start seeing this Mike again.”
“He’s not going to hang around waiting for me, Gaile. He’s an awesome guy. Some other girl will snap him up in a heartbeat.”
She shrugged. “Then maybe it isn’t meant to be.”
“Maybe it is.”
“Then maybe you and California Mike aren’t meant to be.”
“Maybe we’re not.” I swallow hard. “But I always thought we were. I’ve been in love with him since we were both basically kids.”
“That doesn’t mean it’s going to last forever.”
From the soundstage, I could hear the final strains of “Girl You Know It’s True.”
With a sigh, I picked up the tray and headed toward the guests’ dressing room, telling Gaile I’d talk to her about everything later.
“Hang in there, Beau,”
she said, running after me and giving me a quick hug. “I don’t mean to be so harsh with you. I just think you need to make a choice.”
“I know. And I will. I promise.”
After delivering the vocal cord–soothing tea to Rob and Fab and congratulating them on the wonderful performance I hadn’t seen, I met Mike in the lobby, where the rest of the studio audience was still milling around.
He was wearing his J-squared straw sombrero and toting a freebie cassette tape of Milli Vanilli’s latest album.
“How was the show?”
“It was great,” he said after greeting me with a quick kiss.
“Really?”
“No. It was pretty horrible. Janelle kept forgetting the first guest’s name, and I could swear the musical act was lip-synched.”
“Sorry.”
“Don’t be—it was fun anyway. Thanks for the ticket. And I get to keep the sombrero. How do I look?”
“Like you should be holding a margarita,” I said with a laugh.
“I wish. How long before you get off work?”
“At least a couple of hours. We have a staff meeting.”
“Well, I’ve got two tickets to the Yankee–Red Sox game tonight. What do you say?”
I knew what Gaile would say I should say.
I also knew what my boyfriend would say, and it wasn’t just that the Yankees sucked.
“I don’t know….” I said slowly, thinking that even in that doofy sombrero, he looked hot. It was getting harder and harder to see him and not be tempted to take things even further than they had already gone. “It’s a work night, and I have to be up early….”
“Yeah, but it’s the Yankees. They’re one of Major League Baseball’s greatest teams of all time.”
“Don’t they stink?”
“Well, yeah,” he admitted. “This year. But they’re going to be great again. And you can say you saw them play in person at Yankee Stadium. It’s historic.”
“I know….”
“You said the other night that you’d never been to a Major League game before.”
“I haven’t.”
I hadn’t done a lot of things, including sleeping with somebody other than my boyfriend.
But, I reminded my inner self, that didn’t mean I should do them.
Looking up into Mike’s dark eyes, I told my inner self to take a hike.
“Come to the game with me, Beau.” Mike ran a fingertip down my jaw.
“I don’t know….”
What was my problem? It was just a game.
“Oh, all right,” I said.
We’ll just have a nice platonic night out at the game and go our separate ways, I promised myself. Just a game, and nothing more.
No matter what.
twenty-one
The present
The Don CeSar is a flamingo-colored palace, far grander—and pinker—in person than it appeared in the pictures I found on the Internet last week.
What is Mike doing taking me to lunch in a place like this when he doesn’t even have a job?
Is he trying to impress me?
Does he expect me to pick up the tab?
Maybe he does, since I more or less informed him that I was coming to Florida, which might seem like I was inviting him to lunch…even though, technically, he was the one who did the inviting.
If he does expect me to pay, and I do, how will I explain the credit-card charges to my husband when we get the bill? The cash in my wallet probably won’t even cover one cocktail in a place like this.
And if ever I needed a cocktail—or six—it’s now.
After valet parking my father-in-law’s white Caprice Classic, I stroll into the lush lobby, prop my sunglasses above my forehead and do my best not to gape.
I live close enough to Manhattan that I’ve been in some incredibly elegant places. But this…
Well, this is so exotic, so distinctively Floridian, that I am momentarily awed.
Potted palms and fresh flowers galore. Pastel walls, luxurious mahogany woodwork and Italian-crystal chandeliers. A dazzling view of the placid blue waters of Boca Ciega bay. A grand piano, at which is seated a pianist who’s playing something old and jaunty that makes me feel like Daisy Buchanan in a flapper dress.
All I can think, gazing around at the atmospheric backdrop reminiscent of a romantic bygone era, is what on earth am I doing here? I should be home in suburban New York, crawling around under a sticky high chair picking up stray Cocoa Puffs.
I close my eyes, certain that when I open them that’s exactly where I’ll find myself.
Instead, I open them to find a concerned staff member asking in a friendly drawl, “Are you feeling all right, ma’am? You look a little faint.”
“Oh, I’m…I’m fine.” I look around, shaking my head a little.
“Can I help you find something?” she asks, the smiling image of southern hospitality.
“I…uh…the…the ladies’ room,” I stammer, and she points me in the right direction.
Actually, I just said that for lack of anything better to say. But by the time I get into a stall, I’m such a nervous wreck that I have to pee yet again. I went twice within the past half hour before leaving my in-laws’ house, which led Mike’s mother to ask me if I have a bladder infection.
I assured her that I didn’t, but she scribbled cranberry juice on her shopping list anyway.
“Just to be safe,” she told me. “Now, you go off to your shopping at Westshore, and don’t worry about the boys. They’ll be fine with me and Granddad.”
I hate that I had to lie to her about where I was going; hate that she was such a saint about baby-sitting; hate that she keeps insisting that I borrow their second car during our stay instead of renting one.
I want somebody to tell me that I have no business going off by myself in the middle of a Tuesday afternoon a thousand miles from home.
But nobody has.
Everybody, including Mike when he called earlier from the office, and my boys when I kissed them goodbye, has been urging me to have fun and not worry about anything.
So here I am, all dressed up with someplace to go, almost wishing I were back home in my mommy clothes.
I gaze at myself in the mirror in the ladies’ lounge, taking in the makeup, the clothes, the hair.
I look great.
Dammit.
My skin is sun-kissed from all day yesterday on the beach, but not burnt; my green eyes look bigger and wider set than usual thanks to dark liner and mascara. The coral-colored sleeveless summer shift accentuates my long, bare, newly tanned arms and legs and minimizes the hint of post-baby bulge beneath my belly button. My normally straight brown hair, streaked a little lighter from the sun and chlorine, is hanging loose down my back in waves courtesy of the soft water at my in-laws’ house.
Basically, I don’t look anything like my mommy self.
No, I look like a woman who might be up to something.
Something…
Naughty.
I frown into the woman’s eyes, telling her that she’d better behave. She frowns back at me, but only for a moment.
Then she checks her watch, reaches into her purse to turn off her cell phone and turns her back on the mirror.
Tramp.
It’s all I can do to force myself to walk, not run, out of the bathroom.
Part of me wants to scurry back out to my father-in-law’s Caprice Classic, but the rest of me wants to make a mad dash for the grand staircase and hurtle myself into Mike’s arms.
“Can I help you find something, ma’am?” asks yet another solicitous, overly friendly staff member.
“Yes, you can.” I smile back at him.
Ask him how to get back to valet parking.
“Can you please tell me where I can find…”
Valet parking.
Say it.
Say it!
“…the grand staircase?”
I know, but I can’t help it.
I want to see
him.
I need to see him.
Seeing him will put to rest any doubt I ever had that I made the right choice.
Yes, I’m doing this for my husband’s sake. For my marriage’s sake.
Really.
I might have been a giddy, weak-willed young girl the last time I saw Mike, but I’m a grown-up woman now.
Never mind that I’m so jittery with anticipation I feel like a giddy, weak-willed young girl.
As I stroll toward the grand staircase, I remind myself sternly that my future will contain no hurtling into anybody’s arms unless they’re my husband’s, at the airport back in New York.
I’ll have a quick, congenial lunch with an old pal and then I’ll hop in my big white old-man-mobile and go back to the retirement community from whence I came. Period.
There will be no flirting. No touching. No wine, no appetizers, no dessert. Nothing that will prolong this…this…reunion.
I round the corner, and there it is.
The fabled grand staircase.
It takes me a moment to realize that the attractive middle-aged man standing at the foot of it is Mike.
Oh, my God.
Oh, my God.
It’s really him.
And he hasn’t spotted me yet, meaning I can gawk without inhibition.
He looks good.
Really good.
Really good in a middle-aged way, like Richard Gere and Harrison Ford look really good in a middle-aged way; as opposed to having looked really good when they were fifteen years younger.
To my surprise, I’m…well, surprised. Surprised that he’s aged.
I guess I forgot, momentarily, that the Mike I’m meeting today isn’t the Mike from my past. Somehow I forgot that he, too, has grown older. Somehow, that makes him seem safer.
I find myself relaxing, just a bit, as I look him over.
There’s gray in Mike’s dark hair, but he’s got a full head of it. He’s tanned and clean-shaven and in good shape, with only the slightest hint of paunch sticking out beneath his pink—yes, pink—Ralph Lauren polo shirt above the belt of his khaki pants.
So much has happened to him since we last met. He’s been married, divorced; employed, unemployed. Yet he certainly doesn’t look any the worse for wear. In fact, he looks more relaxed and far better dressed than you’d expect of somebody who’s jobless.