Chapter Twenty-four
E—the 10th would have been my 34th wedding anniversary—or 35th? Just remembered! Hope all’s well. Marie
For the record: I did not mention to anyone that I knew about Abby’s day trip to Newport.
Brunch that Sunday was quite interesting.
“You know,” Abby said when we were settled and had ordered, “I was thinking about what Erin said. About living single. I think living single means ... learning to eat meals alone.”
Maggie looked at Abby with real curiosity. “You actually eat meals when you’re alone? Not just chips out of the bag and ice cream out of the container?”
“Well, sure, I try ...”
“See, I can’t do that,” Maggie said. “It doesn’t feel legitimate to be making a meal for myself. I mean, who am I that I should go to the trouble?”
“As for me,” I said, “I’ve got things to do. I’ve got no time to waste and no one to impress. I’m hungry? Give me a block of jalapeno cheddar, I’ll nuke it, tear open a bag of Tostitos and I’m set.”
“You’re just lazy.”
I grinned. “There is that. But seriously: Does getting married mean learning how to eat meals together every single night? What if you just don’t feel like eating dinner? Do you lose your independence so thoroughly that you can’t even eat a half gallon of mint chocolate chip for dinner if you want to?”
“You know what this is all about, don’t you?” JoAnne said. “Vegetables. You hate vegetables. And a meal implies vegetables. Protein, starch, and vegetables. Chicken you’re okay with, potatoes, fine, but spinach? Broccoli? Turnips? Uh uh.”
“I like turnips,” I protested. “And parsnips. Especially if they’re mashed with lots of butter.”
“Being married is like being home again with your parents,” Maggie said darkly and mostly to herself. “There’s always someone watching you, judging you ...”
“I’d love a man to cook for me,” Abby said. “I think it’s sexy.”
“But when you want to pig out you definitely don’t want a man to see you,” I said. “How can you pig out when you’re married unless he’s away on a business trip or something? You need privacy and time to hide the empty cartons.”
JoAnne laughed. “Oh, yeah, living single has its high points. It raises the art of eating disorders to a whole new level.”
“I like to watch the chefs on the food network,” Abby said. “I think Emeril Lagasse has the cutest smile! Bobby Flay is a bit too freckly for me, but ... Oh, Tyler Florence, he’s very handsome, and Jamie Oliver, well, I wouldn’t totally mind seeing him naked ...”
“Are you going to be okay over there?” I said, grinning.
“Abby’s a Food Network groupie!” JoAnne laughed.
“Well, it’s better than being a groupie of some scuzzy rock band. Like—Aerosmith.”
“Okay, I’ll give you that,” Maggie said. “That anorexic look never did anything for me. Back when I cared.”
“Living single means ...” I said, back to the original subject.
Maggie: “No fight over the clicker.”
“You could just buy a second TV,” JoAnne pointed out.
“True.”
“Living single means: No spontaneous sex,” I said. “With someone other than yourself, that is.”
“How many married couples do you know who are getting it more than once every two weeks?” JoAnne raised her eyebrows. “Not many, I can assure you.”
“How do you know?”
“The parents of my patients talk. Sometimes the patients do, too. It’s amazing what kids overhear ...”
“No shaving cream all over the mirror.” That was Abby.
I laughed. “Oh, my God, like you don’t get toothpaste all over the sink? I’ve seen you brush your teeth. It’s like spin art when you’re finished.”
Abby pouted. “Okay, well, how about: Living single means no one to hold your hand in the middle of the night when you wake up screaming from a nightmare.”
JoAnne and I shared a look; I let her take the answer. “Have you ever tried to wake a guy up in the middle of the night when you’re not promising sex? It doesn’t work. It’s something about the physiology of the male ear ...”
“No one to hear you fart in your sleep.” Maggie, of course.
“I have no rebuttal to that one,” JoAnne said. “Pardon the unfortunate pun.”
My turn. “Living single means: No steady vacation partner. That’s a bummer.”
“True.” JoAnne regarded us all. “Let’s face it, a woman will almost always dump her girlfriends for a guy. Girlfriends are backups when there’s a man around.”
“That’s wrong,” Abby said forcefully.
“But it’s true. We should be more selective but we’re not. We should honor our friendships but we don’t.”
“It’s hard, living single,” I said. “I mean, it’s hard being single, but the actual living of it ... I get so tired sometimes. I just don’t want to have to do everything myself. I just don’t want to have to try so hard all the time.”
“It could be worse, Erin,” Maggie said. “You could wind up marrying a guy who makes you feel even more alone than you ever did when you were single.”
Was that what my mother had felt with my father, I wondered, more alone than when she’d been single? Was that why she’d gone?
“True.”
“Don’t you think you can tell that sort of thing about a guy before you marry him?” Abby said.
JoAnne rolled her eyes. “Have you taken a look at the latest divorce stats?”
Maggie nodded. “You don’t know what it’s like being married to someone until you’re married to that someone. You can make a few educated guesses before the wedding but there’s a whole lot of unknown to come.”
“Since when did you become an expert on marriage?” JoAnne asked.
I pretended to be highly interested in my leek and goat cheese salad, determined not to betray Maggie by word or look.
“I suppose there’s no point in keeping it a secret any longer.”
I looked up, startled.
“You’re married!” Abby cried.
“No! God. I was married, a very long time ago. In grad school.”
“What happened?”
“It didn’t work out.”
“Well, we gathered that,” JoAnne drawled. “Why didn’t it work out? Details, please.”
Maggie blushed furiously. “I ... We weren’t compatible. And he really wasn’t the marrying kind after all.”
“He cheated on you?”
Maggie laughed dryly. “Many, many times. When I finally caught him with one of my so-called friends, I got up the nerve to leave.”
“Wow,” Abby said. “This is unbelievable. I feel like ... like you’re an entirely different person from the Maggie I knew five minutes ago.”
“Don’t say that, it’s not true! I’m the same as I always was. For better or worse.”
“But you have all this experience we knew nothing about,” Abby persisted. “All we talk about is getting married and you’ve already been married! That’s amazing!”
Maggie eyed me. “This is why I didn’t want to tell anyone.”
“Wait, Erin knew?” Abby squealed.
I nodded.
“And you kept it a secret? Impressive.” JoAnne.
“Look, Abby, I don’t know much more about marriage than you do,” Maggie went on. “We weren’t married for long and it was a disaster from the start. I did learn a lesson or two but they’re not the kind of lessons I want any of my friends to have to learn. Okay? So, now that you know, let’s not talk about it anymore. Please?”
“No white dress, huh?”
“Nope. Not even a cheap bouquet from a Korean market. He was supposed to bring it to the courthouse and forgot.”
“That’s sad.” Abby sighed. “Okay, I won’t ever bring it up.”
“Me, neither, honey,” JoAnne said, patting Maggie’s hand.
Maggie gave an odd sort of laugh. “Whew. Glad that’s over.”
So was I. My life was full enough of secrets and deceptions.
Doug and I met Monday after work at Brasserie Jo for drinks before he had to drive back to Newton.
I had something specific on my mind.
It seemed odd to me that so far, Doug had never really talked about his wife. Odd because I’d always assumed a married man making advances toward a woman not his wife was supposed to talk about said wife—as in, “My wife doesn’t understand me,” or “My wife is a shrew.”
But Doug hadn’t said a word about his wife, except once or twice to mention her name in passing. It was as if he were single himself. Or maybe it was that his wife was so small a part of his life she didn’t deserve mention. Or maybe it was that she really didn’t understand him and they’d grown so far apart he virtually forgot about her once he got into his Lexus every morning for the commute to work.
It wasn’t that I was hoping to hear nastiness about Doug’s wife. At least, I admired Doug’s not bad-mouthing her. But I was puzzled. Who was this woman at home in Newton? And why didn’t she seem to matter to her own husband?
No longer being the shy, retiring type with Doug, I asked him the big question that evening. We were alone in the bar area, seated at a tiny table, sipping glasses of Merlot.
“Why don’t you ever mention your wife?”
If I’d thought he’d be taken aback, I was wrong.
“Because she doesn’t have anything to do with you.”
“But I’m ... we’re ... what are we doing, anyway?”
“Flirting. We’re drawn to each other. We want each other.”
“You’re sure of yourself.”
“In this case, yes, I am.”
“Okay, but ... I guess I want to know what’s wrong with your wife. What’s wrong with your marriage that you’re here with me like this?”
Doug said nothing for a moment. Then: “Erin, you’ve never been married, right?”
“No, but I’ve been through a divorce.”
Doug’s smile was weak.
“Sorry,” I said, and took a sip of wine.
“I made a mistake, Erin. I married the wrong woman. There’s nothing wrong with Carol. But I’m not in love with her. I love her, of course, and I take care of her and the kids, but she’s not my soul mate. Not by a mile.”
“Then, why?” I persisted. “Why did you marry her?”
“Honestly? She was nice. I was lonely. It seemed maybe a solution to—something. I was young. My friends from college were all getting married. It’s a typical story, Erin. I’m just like the majority of married men. Marriage is no big romance. It’s just—settling down.”
“That’s wrong,” I said fervently. “That’s what I’ve tried so hard to avoid doing.”
“And you’ve been successful. What can I say, Erin? You’re smarter than I am. And now you’re still free to make a choice.”
I thought about that.
“And you’re not free to? It seems to me that’s what you’re doing with me, making a choice.”
“Fair enough.”
“So,” I said, for lack of anything smarter to say. Where did this conversation—where did we—go from here?
“So, Carol doesn’t love me in the way I need to be loved. She can’t. It’s not who she is. I don’t blame her for it.”
But he’s punishing her for it, Reason hissed. He’s punishing her for his mistake in marrying her. Can’t you see that?
Oh, that’s not it at all, Romance whispered back. Now that he’s finally found his soul mate, he can’t just let her go. Now that he’s met Erin, life has new meaning for him. He can’t just stick his head back in the sand.
And neither could I.
Chapter Twenty-five
T
hat Wednesday, at about three in the afternoon, I got an interesting call at the office.
“Hello?”
“Hi, it’s Maggie.”
“Hi, what’s up?”
Maggie was not a big fan of the phone. A call from her meant that something was definitely “up.”
“Well, I know it’s kind of last minute, but I’m going to Paris on Sunday.”
This was news.
“You’re kidding! Why? Well, okay, stupid question, it’s Paris. What made you decide to go now? Are you going alone? Is it a trip through MIT?”
Maggie laughed but it sounded forced.
“One question at a time. Yes, it’s sort of a trip through—work. And I’m going now because the airfares are dirt cheap. The airlines are desperate to get people to fly. And one of my—colleagues—is coming along.”
“That’s nice. Who?”
“Who?”
Hmm. Curiouser and curiouser.
“Yeah, who?”
“Oh, you don’t know—Dr. Bruce,” Maggie said dismissively. “Just a—colleague.”
“Well, gosh, I hope you have a fabulous time ...”
“It’ll be mostly work stuff,” Maggie interrupted. “Look, Erin, I’ve got to go. I’m running off to WLP. I just wanted to let you know I wouldn’t be around till next weekend. Tell the others?”
“Maggie, it’s only Wednesday, I’m sure I’ll—”
“Thanks. I’ll call you when I get back, okay?”
“Okay,” I said, very puzzled by my friend’s obvious discomfort. What was she hiding? “Bon voyage.”
And Maggie was gone.
Erin—sorry haven’t written. have been sick, malaria, ok now. don’t worry. don’t tell yr. father. spare any $? med bills pile up. hope you’re ok. m.
It was time.
Doug and I had already kissed, more than once and with increasing intensity. It was clear the passion was there. I wanted to have sex with Doug Spears. I felt as if I would go crazy if we waited a moment longer.
I was ready.
I made the decision. Or the very fact of Doug Spears made it for me. Maybe I had no part in choosing. He was my fate. He came into my life and our tale was already told. It had only been a matter of time.
It was hardly the setting I’d imagined.
Trident’s offices were located in the Prudential Center, on the forty-ninth floor of the tower. As a bigwig, Doug had a massive office, complete with couch and minibar.
We made love for the first time in Doug’s office. On the big brown leather couch. Handily, Doug also kept a blanket in his office for midafternoon catnaps. No point in staining nice leather.
Everyone had long gone home or to dinner or wherever everyone went at the end of the workday. Doug and I had grabbed a bite at Radius—the site of our first sort-of date—and strolled through the Commons for a bit, arm in arm, dangerously tempting fate and risking discovery. At seven-thirty, we headed for Trident.
We had to sign in at the building’s after-hours reception desk. Mac, the security guy, knew me from my increasingly frequent daytime visits to Trident’s offices.
“Burning the midnight oil?” he quipped as Doug wrote our names and the time of our entry in Mac’s ledger.
“Ha!” I was mortified. Mac had to know what we had come back to the office to do.
“Big presentation next month,” Doug said calmly, looking Mac square in the eye. “You’ll probably be seeing a lot of us.”
Maybe Doug had given Mac some sort of guy signal—one that said, Ask no questions and we’ll tell you no lies—because Mac looked away and mumbled, “Sure, sure.”
Doug and I walked to the elevator bank.
“You okay?” Doug asked.
I nodded. But no, I was not okay. I was about to pass out. Would Doug grab me in the elevator? Would my clothes be half off by the time we reached the forty-ninth floor?
“What if someone else is up there?” I whispered.
“Mac would have told us.”
“How do you know?”
“He would have told us.”
Okay.
The elevator opened and we stepped into the car. Doug didn’t grab for me. I didn’t grab for him. We stood silently, looking into each other’s eyes. It was not something I’d ever really done, looked calmly and deeply at a lover, as he did the same to me. It was exhilarating, intimate in a way that drove me to a pitch of desire I thought would knock me over.
The forty-ninth floor. Silently, we stepped off the elevator. Doug took my hand and we walked—we didn’t run—down the long carpeted hallway to his private office. Through the blood beating in my ears I listened for voices and other telltale signs of occupation and heard none.
At the door of Doug’s office he turned to me. “Okay?” he said.
I nodded.
And we closed the door behind us.
I lay in bed that night and remembered. I remembered every moment of our time together, every inch of his skin, every word breathed into my ear.
In spite of the less-than-romantic setting, I had never had sex that good. Not just sex, though, the whole thing, the entire experience, the need and desire and how we looked at each other and how I was completely unaware of anything but the two of us. It was spectacular.
What a cliché, I’d always thought. It just doesn’t happen, the world shrinking to encompass only the two lovers, time seeming to stand still, the moment seeming eternal, comprising past, present, and future. Please. Spare me. What did John Donne and Emily Dickinson and John Keats and all those other dead poets I’d studied in college think they were trying to pull? Okay, their use of language was beautiful but what fantasies were they creating, what lies were they perpetuating? How could real life ever touch the splendor of poetry?
Well, it had for me that night. And it had changed everything.