Talk about relief.
After all I had been through in the last twenty-four hours, all I wanted was to crawl into bed and sleep until noon.
Of course I couldn’t, as I had to be up and armed with a list of ten wacky sidekicks before 9:00 a.m.
But I could, and did, sleep a good ten hours, thanks to a hefty dose of Benadryl. I didn’t have a cold; but until somebody came up with a better over-the-counter sleep medication, that was my drug of choice. Not that I wasn’t technically exhausted enough to fall asleep on my own. But after what had just happened with Mike, I had the feeling I was in for a restless night.
I woke to find the sun streaming in the window and Valerie seated at her lighted makeup mirror opposite my bed. She was wearing acid-washed jeans, a white oversize men’s shirt belted at the waist and one of my big black fabric bows clipped in her hair.
“’Morning,” I croaked, sitting up and stretching.
“Hi.” Busy outlining her eyes in thick black liner, she didn’t turn around. “Boy, were you out of it last night when I got home. I shook you a few times just to make sure you were breathing.”
“Oh…I was just tired.”
“So what happened with Mike?” she asked, tossing aside the pencil and swiveling around to face me as I swung my bare feet over the side of the bed.
“Which Mike?” I asked.
“The Mike you were going to break up with the last time I talked to you.”
“Which Mike was that?” I was still fuzzy from the Benadryl and not even certain, anyway, when we last talked.
“Beau! You said you were going to dump Mike when he got here from the airport the other night. Remember?”
“Oh. Right.”
“You changed your mind?”
“Sort of.”
“So you dumped the new Mike?”
“Sort of.” Which wasn’t exactly the truth, but I wasn’t in the mood to explain what had happened last night. Truth be told, I wasn’t entirely sure what had happened last night. I only knew what hadn’t happened…and that I was in big, big trouble.
As if I hadn’t been in big, big trouble before.
I got out of bed and headed for the bathroom with Valerie hot on my trail.
“Beau, at least tell me what’s going on.”
“I promise I will,” I said, “just as soon as I know what’s going on.”
I closed the door on her protest and took a long, hard look at myself in the mirror.
Just what kind of person are you? I asked the girl in the ratty T-shirt and yesterday’s smudged mascara, tousled brown hair sticky with day-old Aqua Net.
The girl didn’t answer. She just turned her back and turned on the shower, getting ready to face another day.
thirty-three
The present
I change my mind about Manhattan by the time I’ve crossed into the Bronx, but I don’t turn around and head north again. I just keep on going, and by the time I hit the West Side Highway, I’ve changed my mind right back again.
I mean, why shouldn’t I go to Manhattan?
It doesn’t mean that I have to see Mike.
I have plenty of friends here.
All right, two.
All right, one, with Gordy away doing summer stock.
But I promised Valerie I would come visit her in the city, remember?
I get off the highway in the West Seventies and head toward the park, reaching for my cell phone with my right hand as I steer with the left.
Yes, that’s illegal in New York State.
But I’m the kind of woman who kisses another man behind her husband’s back, remember?
At this point, it’s fairly easy for me to cast aside any qualms about dialing while driving.
I dial Valerie’s office number from memory. At least, I think I’m dialing Valerie’s office number from memory.
But it isn’t her snotty secretary who picks up, it’s somebody who barely speaks English and is working at either the United Nations or a Japanese restaurant—I can’t quite make out what she’s saying.
Not that it matters.
What matters is that I’m on the winding road that crosses Central Park now. I have no idea what Valerie’s real phone number is or where her office is located, but I know where the Pierre Hotel is located, and I happen to be heading right for it.
Of course, there are countless other fabulous potential East Side destinations. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Saks Fifth Avenue. Le Cirque.
Valerie’s office is also somewhere around here, and I can always dial 411 to find it.
But since I’m in the neighborhood, what the hell? I’m going to go to the Pierre and finish what I started last week.
No.
I’m going to finish what I started fifteen years ago, and it’s about time.
thirty-four
The past
Mike returned from Long Island as abruptly as he left, showing up at my apartment just as I was changing out of the rumpled, rain-dampened rayon suit I’d worn to work.
“I didn’t know you were coming back tonight,” I said, letting him in the door, still adjusting my hastily donned long Coed Naked Volleyball T-shirt and black spandex stirrup pants.
“Didn’t you get my note?” he asked, kissing me on the cheek. His hair was damp from the summer storm, his short-sleeved pale blue cotton shirt speckled with water droplets.
“I got it.”
“Well, I said I’d be back in a day or two.” He dumped his duffel bag on the floor of my room.
“It’s been two. And I didn’t even know you were leaving so soon in the first place.”
“I didn’t either. But when I called my mother, she made a big stink about wanting to see me before I left town, so…” He shrugged. “I’m sorry. And I tried to call you at work and tell you, but you never called me back. Didn’t you get my messages?”
“No,” I lied, idly wondering, again, how many messages he’d left.
Not that it mattered.
Why would it matter if he left three messages and the other Mike left only two, or vice versa?
It would only matter if I were going to use that information to arbitrarily choose which Mike I should stay with and which Mike I should leave behind.
And I wasn’t. I had already made my decision based on far more relevant criteria.
Yeah. Sure I had.
I had made my decision based purely on which Mike happened to be standing in front of me. Or so it was starting to seem.
“So…do you want to go get something to eat?” he asked, checking his watch. “I’m starved.”
“But it’s only six-thirty.” I said it even though I knew what his response would be.
Oh, hell, maybe I said it because I knew what his response would be.
“Yes,” he said tersely, “and normal people eat dinner at six-thirty.”
“New Yorkers are normal people—”
“Some might beg to differ,” he inserted with a wry smile.
“—and most New Yorkers don’t eat dinner at six-thirty,” I continued as if he hadn’t spoken, “so if you’re going to be a New Yorker, you’re going to have to adapt.”
That said, I smiled to show him that I was kidding around. Except that I wasn’t.
“Why are you acting so bitchy?” he asked. No more Mr. Nice Guy. Clearly, I had pushed the wrong buttons….
Or the right ones, considering my mood.
I was trying to start a fight.
Why?
Who knew?
Maybe because I was a spoiled brat.
Feeling guilty—but probably not as guilty as I should have—I reached for Valerie’s pack of cigarettes and conceded, “I’m sorry. I’ve just had a really long day.”
“Since when do you smoke?”
“I don’t.” I lit up and took a deep drag.
“You’re smoking now.”
“I know.”
He seemed to be waiting for further explanation.
“It’s bec
ause…” I began, and trailed off. I gazed at the rain-spattered window and the grim gray dusk beyond it, trying to figure out if I wanted to appease him…or piss him off further.
“Because why?”
I settled for the truth, suddenly tired of this game we were playing.
Or rather, this game I was playing. He was more of a spectator, really—which didn’t seem fair. And that wasn’t all that didn’t seem fair.
“I’m smoking because I’m a nervous wreck, Mike.”
“You’re a nervous wreck? Why?”
I inhaled smoke deep into my lungs, so deeply that it actually hurt. I was glad. Maybe I needed to punish myself.
I shook my head, released the breath in a white mentholated puff, and said slowly, “There’s something I have to tell you before…well, there’s just something I have to tell you.”
When, exactly, had I decided to come clean about Mike?
I had no idea. For all I knew, it had popped into my head mere moments before I blurted it out. Or maybe I had known all along that I would eventually have to be entirely honest with this man. I guess maybe I thought I owed him at least that.
Maybe I owed him a hell of a lot more than that.
Or maybe I didn’t owe him anything at all.
I was more confused than I’d ever been in my life.
Which, if you’d been following my life up to that point, was pretty extreme.
“What do you have to tell me?” Mike asked, watching me closely, his nose wrinkling from the acrid smoke wafting its way.
“I’ve been seeing somebody else, Mike.”
There.
I’d said it.
I didn’t know what I expected him to say in return. Certainly something other than what he actually said; that’s for sure.
What he actually said was the last thing I ever thought I’d hear from his lips.
What he said was, “Marry me, Beau.”
thirty-five
The present
He could very well be out at a meeting or lunch in the middle of a business day.
In fact, the odds that I will find Mike here, in his room in the Pierre Hotel, are slim to none.
That, at least, is what I tell myself as I make my way into the lobby after parking the SUV at a garage over on Lex.
But then, I also once predicted that Madonna would vanish along with fingerless gloves and panty-hose-as-head-bands, and that INXS would be the next Beatles.
Funny how fifteen years can really put things into perspective.
A lot of things, and not just pop culture.
Mike is in his room when the hotel desk clerk calls upstairs to check.
“He says that you can go on up,” the man informs me, smiling in a businesslike, but not particularly friendly, way.
Looks like you’re not in Florida anymore, Dorothy, I think as I murmur, “Thank you.”
“You’re welcome,” he says, and tells me the suite number.
I want to ask him how Mike sounded when he heard that I was there, but he seems a little stiff. If he were a woman, I might ask. Or if this were a Holiday Inn.
But he isn’t a woman, and this sure as hell isn’t a Holiday Inn, so I merely thank him and make my way through the elegant lobby to the elevators.
This place is just as grand as the Don CeSar was. I wonder, not for the first time, how Mike can afford it.
But that doesn’t matter, really.
Nothing matters now, except that I do what I came here to do.
Steeling myself for whatever lies ahead, I approach the elevator.
The operator greets me and politely stands aside.
I pause. Can I really do this?
Suddenly, I want to bolt for the street.
But my feet carry me over the threshold and into the elevator instead.
“Which floor, ma’am?” the operator asks.
I hesitate only a moment.
“Fourteen,” I say firmly, and watch the doors slide closed in front of me.
thirty-six
The past
“Marry you?” I echoed in disbelief. “What are you talking about?”
“I’m talking about getting married.”
I just gaped at him.
Outside, thunder boomed, as if to punctuate the drama.
“I guess I’m not saying it right, huh?” He laughed nervously. “I had this whole thing planned out, this whole rad speech I was going to give you when I gave you the ring, and you caught me off guard.”
“Mike…” For a moment I was at a loss for words.
He was going to give me a ring?
A ring, and a whole rad speech?
He thought I deserved a ring and a whole rad speech after what I’d done?
Maybe he hadn’t heard me correctly.
Maybe instead of I’ve been seeing somebody else, Mike, he thought I’d said, I really need you to propose to me right now, Mike.
What? It could happen.
All right. It couldn’t happen.
So, pardon my French, but…what the fuck?
At last, I found my voice. “Mike, didn’t you…I mean…well, did you hear what I just said?”
“You said you’ve been seeing somebody else. I know.”
“You know that I said it? Or you know…that I’ve been seeing somebody else?”
“Both.”
Another shocker. Christ, they were dropping like Tetris blocks tonight.
“How did you know?” I demanded, wondering who’d told him. Valerie? Gaile? Pat, the senior wench at work who hated me?
“Well actually, I didn’t, for sure,” he said, even as I reminded myself that (A) Pat didn’t know I was cheating on my boyfriend, and (B) Pat didn’t even know I had a boyfriend, so (C) Pat couldn’t be the one who had spilled my secret.
Paranoid much? my inner voice asked sarcastically as my wan outer one asked, “You mean you just figured it out on your own?”
“Pretty much.”
“How?” I collapsed onto the nearest seat before my wobbly legs could give way. “When?”
“Over the last few weeks. I’m not stupid, Beau.”
No, he wasn’t stupid. Even though he had adopted the annoying habit of speaking like a Bill-Ted hybrid, he wasn’t stupid.
More guilt. I couldn’t believe I never gave him enough credit to think that he might realize something was up.
“Listen, I know that you’re a beautiful woman. I know other guys aren’t blind. And I know you’re only human.”
Hey, that was true. I was only human.
Suddenly, what I had done didn’t seem quite as unforgivable.
“You were starting to seem more and more distant,” he went on. “And you were never home lately when I called. So I put two and two together. It was about time, don’t you think?”
I opened my mouth to tell him that it hadn’t been going on for that long.
But somehow, that seemed worse. I didn’t want him to think I had fallen this hard for somebody else in the space of a few weeks.
“Maybe,” he said, his voice laced with regret, “I just never realized until lately that I was actually going to lose you if I didn’t grow up and step up to the plate.”
“But, Mike…you did step up to the plate. You turned down the job in California for me—a great job that I know you really wanted. And you’re moving back—”
“That isn’t enough for you. I could see that the other night. It’s obvious. You want more. And you deserve more. That’s why I went out to Long Island, Beau.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Here…I’ll show you.”
I felt numb as I watched him cross the room and bend over to reach into his duffel bag.
Something told me that another Tetris block was about to fall.
He rummaged through his bag, then returned to the chair.
“I went out there,” he said simply, softly, “to get this.”
This was a velvet ring box. He snapped it open and I found myself
gaping at a diamond engagement ring.
“No,” I said in hushed disbelief as he sank onto one knee at my feet and reached for my hand.
“No?” he echoed, stopping short belatedly as if he’d just heard what I’d said. “No, what?”
No, a lot of things.
No, this can’t be happening.
No, you’re not allowed to propose to me.
No, I can’t possibly marry you.
I took a deep breath. “Mike…”
“Beau, will you marry me?” The question spilled forth in an earnest rush. “I love you. Please.”
thirty-seven
The present
The door to the suite opens before I can knock, leaving me standing there with a raised fist and the realization that it’s absolutely too late to back out now.
Not that I planned to.
All right, I was tempted to ask the elevator operator to make it a round trip. But I didn’t.
So here I am, face-to-face with Mike once again.
And stunned, once again, to see that he’s aged.
No, not since last Tuesday.
Just…I don’t know if I’ll ever get used to seeing him with graying hair and crow’s-feet.
“I’m kind of surprised you’re here” is all I can think of to say as middle-aged but still drop-dead-gorgeous Mike steps back and motions me inside.
“I was about to say the same thing to you.” He closes the door behind me with what seems like a deafening click.
“I got your e-mail.”
“Obviously.”
“Obviously?” I echo, feeling as though my brain stopped functioning properly back at home, before I picked up my keys.
“You’re here,” he explains.
“Oh, right. I’m here.”
Here is a spacious suite with old-fashioned moldings, tall, drapery-framed windows, European furnishings and a stunning view of Central Park.
“What do you think?” he asks.
“It’s beautiful.”
“Eh,” he says with an unimpressed wave of his hand.
“Eh?”