Mike, Mike & Me

  I force my legs to move, carrying me toward him.

  He turns his head and spots me. “Beau?”

  “Hi.”

  “Oh, my God.”

  He’s walking, and I’m walking, and we’re walking…straight into each other’s arms.

  I don’t hurtle myself, exactly.

  No, but I do put my arms around his neck and squeeze, and I do notice that he smells great—like salt air and limes.

  “I can’t believe you’re really here,” he says, his voice close to my ear. Then he pulls back and holds me at arm’s length, saying, “Let me look at you.”

  I do, and it gives me another chance to look at him, up close this time. I can see a faint network of wrinkles around his eyes and the corners of his mouth, from the sun or from laughing or maybe just from age.

  I decide that I like those wrinkles. He wears them well.

  “You look gorgeous,” he says, shaking his head. “Three kids and fifteen years, and you look even better than you did the last time I saw you. How is that possible?”

  I laugh. It isn’t my laugh, but an unfamiliar, giddy one—more of a giggle, really. I can’t help it. The years have fallen away and I am a giddy, giggly girl.

  “I was getting really worried while I was waiting for you,” he confides, leading the way to wherever it is that we’re going. It doesn’t matter to me. It should, but it doesn’t. He could be bringing me to his lair to have his way with me for all I care.

  “Why were you worried?” I ask. “I wasn’t late, was I?”

  “No, I was early. And you were right on time. But I convinced myself that you weren’t going to show up.”

  “Why wouldn’t I show up?” I ask, and laugh. At what, I don’t know. But there’s that giddiness again, spilling out of me with reckless abandon that should set off warning signals in my brain, but doesn’t.

  “Because you’re married with three kids,” Mike says simply, and the giddiness evaporates just like that.

  “Oh…I…well, of course I’m married with three kids, but that doesn’t mean we can’t have lunch.”

  We are just here for lunch, aren’t we?

  I don’t say it aloud, but I must have conveyed the question in my gaze because he touches my arm and says pointedly, “I know we can have lunch, Beau. I just wasn’t sure you’d want to have lunch with me after all…after everything.”

  “You mean everything that happened when we broke up?” Might as well get it out there for discussion.

  We’re still walking, but more slowly.

  He nods. “That was ugly, wasn’t it?”

  “It was. And it was my fault. I’m sorry.”

  “So am I.”

  We stare at each other.

  Then he says, “How about a drink?”

  “You read my mind,” I say with a laugh. Not a giddy laugh this time, but a nervous one.

  Moments later, we’re in the Maritana Grill, the Don CeSar’s legendary four-diamond restaurant. Mike doesn’t tell me that it’s legendary or four diamond; I read that on the Internet. So I’m impressed when the congenial maître d’ greets him by name and even more impressed that Mike made a reservation…and that we’re given the best table in the room.

  I’ve already violated my no-flirting and no-touching rules, so when he immediately orders a bottle of wine from the extensive list, I don’t protest.

  As I watch him swirl it in his glass, taste it, and offer his approval, I realize he seems somewhat accustomed to the good life. Can he possibly be wealthy?

  “What is it that you did, exactly, before you lost your job?” I ask him when we’re alone again, with full glasses poised for a toast.

  “I didn’t lose my job.”

  “Oh! I thought you did.”

  “No.”

  “Didn’t you say you were unemployed?”

  “By choice,” he says simply.

  “Oh!” I say again, wondering exactly how wealthy he is. I can’t think of a polite way to inquire, so I ask instead, “What are we drinking to?”

  “To getting reacquainted.”

  “To getting reacquainted,” I echo, and clink my glass against his.

  I sip the wine. I can feel it going straight to my head.

  My stomach is empty; I didn’t dare eat the shredded wheat and whole-grain toast my mother-in-law put out for breakfast again this morning.

  I ate it yesterday, along with a cup of coffee, and regretted it shortly afterward when I found myself doubled over with cramps and rushing to find a bathroom on the beach.

  My in-laws, who ingest all that fiber along with prune juice and Metamucil every morning to keep themselves “regular,” were actually worried that I might have picked up some kind of “bug” on the plane.

  “Are you okay?” Mike asks, watching me.

  “I’m fine. Why?”

  “You looked like you were thinking about something.”

  “I was, but…”

  But it was poop, and you’re not one of my mommy friends, so I’m not going to bring it up.

  At least that thought momentarily killed the romantic ambience. For me, anyway.

  I tell myself that if I find myself getting too caught up in the moment at any time during lunch, I’ll just force myself to think about poop.

  “I can’t believe you drove all the way over here just to meet me for lunch and you just have to turn around and drive all the way back,” I tell him.

  “I don’t.”

  “You don’t?” I repeat. “You don’t what?”

  “Have to turn around and drive all the way back. I got a room.”

  At last, the alarm bells are going off in my head, and it’s about damn time.

  “You got a room?” I echo.

  “Well, not a room, exactly. It’s more of a suite.”

  “A suite?” I’ve become Polly the Parrot, dammit, but I can’t help it. I’m flabbergasted. By everything. The place, seeing him, learning that for him this is more than just lunch.

  But I already knew that, didn’t I? Lunch, for me, is polishing off somebody’s peanut-butter-and-grape-jelly-on-white-bread. On a good day, it’s the kids sitting still long enough for me to order and eat a turkey wrap and iced tea at the IHOP. It isn’t…

  Valet parking, reservations, fine wine.

  And it sure as hell doesn’t lead to a suite in the most elegant hotel I’ve ever seen.

  “It’s my favorite suite in the place,” Mike goes on conversationally after a sip of wine. “The presidential one. I didn’t think it would be available on such short notice, but they’d had a cancellation.”

  “The presidential suite?” I ask weakly, because he’s waiting for me to say something and I have yet to find words of my own.

  “Yes. You should see it. It’s really something.”

  No, I shouldn’t. I should definitely not see his suite.

  I should see myself to valet parking, that’s what I should—

  “Have you decided on appetizers yet, folks?” the waiter asks.

  Mike looks at me.

  I glance helplessly at the menu in my hand. I haven’t even glimpsed anything that’s on it yet.

  “Would you like me to order for us?” Mike asks.

  “Oh…sure.”

  Without further ado, he rattles off a list that begins with seared ahi and ends with beluga caviar. This, from a man who once refused to try sushi.

  When the amiably chatty waiter has collected our menus and disappeared again, I say, “Everyone is so friendly here.”

  “Looks like you’re not in New York anymore, Dorothy.”

  “New Yorkers are friendly,” I protest.

  He just gives me a look.

  “What? They are,” I insist.

  “Southerners are friendlier.”

  “Is that why you’re here?”

  “Partly.”

  Now that I’ve opened that door, I can’t help asking, “So what did you do, exactly, before you quit working?”

  “I was in bu
siness with a few other guys, but we sold it,” he says vaguely. “Tell me about your life.”

  I nearly spit out my wine. “Tell you about my life? You mean…all of it?”

  “Just the last fifteen years. You married Mike…when?”

  “Um…” Almost fifteen years ago. Not long after the Mike I’m having lunch with and I had our explosive last night together and went our separate ways.

  But I don’t want to talk about that, so I say, “Wait, you forgot to tell me about your job.”

  “You don’t want to hear about that.”

  “Sure I do.”

  “No, you don’t, any more than I want to hear about you marrying somebody else.”

  Taken aback, I look into his eyes. In them, I see someone who was deeply hurt and maybe never got over it.

  “Let’s save all that for later and talk about something else now,” he suggests.

  “Like what?”

  “Like those fish.” He gestures at the enormous aquarium nearby.

  I laugh.

  But he’s serious. We talk about the fish. Then we talk about the food. Then we talk about Florida.

  It sounds crazy, but it’s a good conversation. We laugh a lot, just like the old days.

  Too soon, the waiter arrives to clear away the remains of my profiterole with chocolate gelato and chilled white Godiva liqueur and Mike’s chocolate mascarpone tower with cinnamon cream.

  “Oh, my God,” I say with a groan as we stand to make our way out of the restaurant. “I’ve never eaten so much in my life.”

  “Yes, you have.”

  I look at him, startled first by his tone, and then by the fondly reminiscing expression on his face.

  “You always had a huge appetite,” he tells me. “I never met another woman who could eat the way you did.”

  “What about your wife?” I blurt, because I have to say something to jar him out of the past.

  That certainly does the trick. A shadow slides across his features. “I don’t really want to talk about her.”

  “How long have you been divorced?”

  “A year.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Don’t be. I’m better off, and so is she. Come on, let’s go for a walk on the beach.”

  A walk on the beach?

  I thought we were done. I thought lunch was it. I thought I was about to head home.

  Caught off guard, I can only allow myself to be led out onto one of the wide piazzas. The humid August heat radiates in shimmering ribbons off the wooden boardwalk and the powdery white sand crowded with midday sunbathers.

  “Let’s take off our shoes,” Mike suggests, bending over to remove his tasseled off-white leather moccasins.

  Florida shoes, I think, and picture my husband in his polished black wing tips. I can’t imagine him in moccasins, much less a pink shirt.

  “Coming?” Mike asks.

  “Won’t the sand be too hot?”

  “Not if we walk in the water. Come on.”

  I hesitate.

  I’ve seen too many romantic movies where the couple walks barefoot along the beach.

  I should tell him I have to get going.

  I should thank him for lunch and promise to e-mail.

  I should…

  “Come on, Beau,” he urges again.

  I should think about poop, I tell myself, noting the dangerous spark in his eyes.

  But somehow, I can’t.

  The only thoughts I can summon involve Mike—this Mike, not my husband—and our past.

  God, I was crazy about him back then. And he was crazy about me.

  I was so certain we were going to wind up together….

  “Beau?” he asks.

  “All right,” I say, and quickly cast off my sandals—along with my reservations.

  twenty-two

  The past

  I finally did it. I slept with Mike. Not the night of the Yankees game.

  The next night.

  And the night after that.

  And yes, the night after that.

  Once I started, I just couldn’t seem to stop. And there was no way that I could further broaden my definition of cheating. Believe me, I tried. There was just no way around it. Having sex with somebody other than your boyfriend was definitely cheating.

  I knew that what we were doing was wrong, but to his credit, Mike didn’t. Not at first. He didn’t know until I confessed to him that I was supposedly in a monogamous relationship with somebody else.

  I confessed this in the wee hours as we were lying naked in each other’s arms in his twin bed in his Chinatown apartment.

  “I thought you broke up,” he said, pulling back a little. I couldn’t see his face in the dark, but he sounded dismayed.

  “I never said that.”

  “I guess I just assumed it. You said he was staying in California to do that teepee thing and you didn’t want to move out there.”

  “Oh.” I guess I did say that, or at least imply it. “Well…we didn’t break up.”

  “You mean you’re cheating on your boyfriend?”

  “Sort of.”

  “Sort of?”

  “All right. Yes. Yes, I’m cheating.”

  “So I’m the Other Man.”

  Why did he have to label it that way?

  He was silent for a long time. I wondered what he was thinking about.

  And I wondered about California Mike. He had left me a message on my home answering machine that he was flying back to New York tomorrow, which was why I found it necessary to bring up the subject just now, with this Mike.

  I didn’t know whether the original Mike was coming back from California to get the rest of his stuff from his parents’ house and move it out West, or to accept the job in New York and find a place to live here.

  The reason I didn’t know was that I got his message secondhand from Valerie when she met me in the lobby at work this morning to drop off the change of clothes I’d requested. I hadn’t been home to our apartment in several days.

  Valerie, unlike Gaile, didn’t judge me or lecture me. She just delivered my clothes, and Mike’s message, with her usual efficient wistfulness. Clearly, she wished she were the one juggling two men; that she were carrying her own underwear around town in a Strawberries shopping bag.

  “How did Mike sound on the answering machine?” I asked her.

  “Like he was in a hurry.”

  “Not like he was suspicious or anything?”

  “Nope.”

  “Did he want me to call him back?”

  “He didn’t say to. And he said not to meet him at the airport. He’s taking a cab to our apartment.”

  “When?”

  “Sometime tomorrow night. That’s all I know.”

  That meant I would have to go home after work, instead of meeting New York Mike again as I had planned. I felt a pang at the thought of being apart for more than a night. I had become addicted to him in the space of a few days.

  “Did I ever tell you that my fiancé cheated on me?” he asked abruptly now, bringing me back to the present.

  “No.”

  “That’s why we split up.”

  “I didn’t know that.” I stroked his hair. “I’m sorry.”

  He seemed to flinch at my touch. He repositioned his weight, as though he was trying to put some space between us, but that wasn’t possible in a twin bed.

  Needing to reassure him, I began, “Mike—”

  “I probably should have known better than to get involved with somebody so soon,” he cut in bitterly.

  “Oh, Mike, come on. Don’t—”

  “Just so you know, I don’t think I can handle being dumped again on the heels of what I went through last spring.”

  “You mean dumped by me?”

  “What else would I mean?”

  “But…I’m not going to dump you, Mike.”

  There was a pause.

  “You’re not?”

  “No,” I promised, even as I asked mys
elf what the hell I thought I was doing.

  “Then you’re going to dump him?”

  “Yes.”

  “You are? Really?”

  “Yes,” I said again, shocked by my own decisive response…and yet knowing, somehow, that it was the right thing to say. And do.

  I was going to break up with Mike.

  Of course I was.

  It had been a long time coming, I realized.

  Why did it take me so long to see that? We were already living separate lives. We didn’t want the same thing. Apparently, we didn’t even want to be in the same city. We were only hanging on because we had spent so many years together…but never really together.

  All at once, I’d had it with a long-distance relationship. I was sick of bittersweet farewells, of counting down calendar days, of a huge monthly AT&T bill, of only buying and receiving birthday and holiday gifts that could be easily packaged and mailed.

  It was almost a relief to see our relationship’s many shortcomings with sudden clarity. Surely Mike saw them, as well.

  So.

  This was it.

  I would set him free to pursue the job in Silicon Valley, and he would set me free to pursue…

  Well, Mike. This Mike. He was everything I wanted.

  And he was here.

  “Are you sure you want to break up with him?” he whispered in the dark.

  “I’m positive. I want to be with you.” Day in and day out. I was ready for that. I was ready for permanence.

  “And I want to be with you, Beau. I know that it’s probably happening way too fast—”

  “Not too fast,” I protested, though I wasn’t sure of that. Was it possible for a whirlwind romance to turn into something worthwhile?

  “And anyway,” he said, “this feels right.”

  “It does to me, too. I…I think I’m…”

  He kissed me. “I know what you’re going to say.”

  I kissed him back. “How do you know?”

  “Because I think I am, too.”

  “You think you’re what?” I held my breath.

  “In love with you.”

  I expelled the breath, along with the last of my misgivings and the words that had been running through my head for days. “I think I’m in love with you, too, Mike.”

  As I settled my head against his bare chest and drifted off to sleep, I told myself that this couldn’t be wrong. I had never felt so safe, so secure, in all my life. Neither of us was going anywhere. We had all the time in the world to be together.