Seeing him again, I remembered that Matt had only one dimple, and when he smiled the right half of his mouth opened wider than the left. When he smiled, his head automatically nodded a touch. As he kissed my cheek at the concession stand, I smelled the familiar mix of beer and ice cream on his breath.
“So how’s it going, Malone?”
I love how he keeps calling me “Malone.” I never knew my last name could sound so sexy. Hell, in the reflection of his sunglasses, I actually look pretty sexy.
“I’m living in New York now, SoHo actually. I’m an accountant.”
“With?”
“Deloitte & Touche,” I said trying to sound nonchalant, but secretly feeling like trumpeting I’m king of the world, baby!
“Excellent,” Matt said, sipping his beer.
“I’m a partner there,” I said a bit too eagerly.
“Good for you,” he said like a proud uncle on graduation day. “Never thought you’d be slumming, Malone.”
Funny how the harder I always tried to impress Matt, the less I actually did. He seemed thoroughly and completely underwhelmed with my professional status. This was our game. Competitive apathy. While we dated, I never won a single match, though I really worked at it. Desperately, in fact.
“How ’bout you? What are you up to?”
Matt said he lived in Los Angeles and wrote, directed and produced independent films that he proudly described as “iconoclastic” and “edgy.” I loved him as a hot jock. As an artist, he got my undying worship. The downside, of course, was that my living in SoHo and working in the financial Mecca of the world didn’t seem quite as exciting as it had thirty seconds ago. The closest thing to iconoclastic going on at my firm was when we anonymously sent a box of shredded paper over to the folks at Arthur Andersen right after the Enron scandal broke.
“I’m working on a film about the life of Louis Pasteur right now,” he told me. “Sounds boring, but if we get it right, it’ll be pretty dicey stuff. You don’t want to hear about this. Let me shut up,” he smiled. “Tell me more about what’s been going on with you.”
When Matt looked at me, I couldn’t believe it was just Prudence Malone he was seeing. His gaze was absolutely infiltrating, as if he’d invaded my entire being and knew exactly what I was thinking. But he couldn’t have. Otherwise, he’d never have said that I didn’t want to hear about his film. Or anything that he could possibly say.
Talk some more
, I silently begged him. I didn’t want to be responsible for speaking. All of my breath was suspended in my chest, and I couldn’t think of a thing to say.
“Well, I’m living in SoHo and I’m a partner at Deloitte & Touche,” I managed.
You already said that!
Matt looked at his four beer cups and told me he’d better get running. “The guys are waiting for their drinks,” he explained. The Matt reunion fantasy and reality couldn’t have been more different. When I used to drift into thoughts of seeing Matt again, I had dozens of witty stories to tell him — all of which led to the conclusion that I am fabulous. I’d effortlessly regale him with snippets from my life. Charmed, he’d surrender and claim he was a fool to ever let me go. He wouldn’t return to his seat after three minutes, explaining that his friends don’t like warm beer. But who could blame him? In my perfect reunion fantasy, I didn’t repeat “I live in SoHo. I’m a partner at Deloitte & Touche” like some sort of freak. The next thirty seconds of silence was a frantic search for something to say.
Then I was rescued. Matt smiled. “Hey, what would you say to dinner tonight?”
Do not jump up and down right now. Do not throw yourself into his arms and wrap your legs around his waist. And by no means say the words, “Praise God.”
“I’m not sure. Why don’t you ask me?” I surprised myself and said instead.
He gave me that cocky snort of a laugh and said, “Okay. I’d love to have dinner with you tonight.”
“That’s a statement, not a question,” I smiled.
“Jesus, Malone, you’re a tough one to please. Okay, would you like to have dinner with us tonight?”
Us?
Turns out I finally got my “we.” We, that is, Cindy, Evie and I, were invited to dinner with Matt and the three warm beers. Our heart sank. I was hoping for dinner by candlelight, the long-awaited revelation of what went wrong between us. Perhaps a quick illicit kiss to seal the closure of my quiet desperation for Matt’s love. Instead, he was thinking extra large pizzas and a nostalgic game of quarters.
This format had its upside, though. If dinner was not a date, I was not cheating on Reilly. Group dinner. Friendly banter over the invitation. Totally innocent. A little flirtation might be just what I need to infuse some sexual energy into my marriage, I tried to convince myself. I can fool myself much of the time, but not this time. For me, it was a date, although at the time I was the only one who thought so. The thought was far more exciting than it should have been. As much as I knew that the smart thing would have been to decline Matt’s invitation, it seemed impossible. Saying no was not an option. A better person would have resisted. I asked for directions to the restaurant. There was no use denying the fact that I was still incredibly, inexplicably, unquestionably drawn to him.
Surely the word must have spread among moths that it’s a bad idea to fly into the enticing bright flame. And yet every idiot moth out there thinks,
I’ll just get close enough to feel the heat, then pull back just before getting
…zap.
Matt walked away after giving me directions to the restaurant. After a few steps, he turned back to me. “Listen, can you wait here for a few minutes? I really want to catch up with you, Malone, but I can’t just disappear from a beer run, you know? Stay right here, okay?” Matt said, pointing to the spot I was in. “Don’t move.”
Silly boy, I couldn’t move if I tried.
He walked away as fast as he could without spilling the drinks, then looked back at me and mouthed Don’t move.
Hurry back,
I thought.
Better still, run.
Chapter 5
Moments later, Matt returned as the marching band was playing “Life’s Been Good To Me So Far.”
My Maserati does one-eighty-five. I lost my license, now I don’t drive. They say I’m crazy, but I have a good time, life’s been good to me so far.
During the second half of the football game, we sat together on the grass outside the stadium and listened to the crowd roar with every new Michigan score. In an hour, he took me through the last fourteen years of his life. Every few minutes, he told me about an occasion that reminded him of me. Without question, these were my favorite parts of his stories. “I even called you once about three years ago just to say hello, but the machine said some guy named Reilly lived there so I figured I better not leave a message.” Though I knew it was a ludicrous attempt, I tried recalling which hang-up was Matt’s, what I was doing, wearing, feeling when I hit the delete button to erase the hang-up. “So who’s Reilly, your husband?” Matt asked.
I nodded solemnly. “He was.”
Was?
“Was?
You guys divorced?” Matt inquired.
I shook my head in no specific direction. Like one diagonal nod, maybe.
“He died?” Matt asked.
In a moment that seemed eternal, I thought about Matt’s question. If I told him I was still married, he would’ve likely returned to the stadium for the fourth quarter of the game never to hang up on my answering machine again. If I had backpedaled and told Matt I
was
actually divorced, his decision to dump me after college would be validated by another man — a man who really had the time to get to know me. A man who went into the relationship with every expectation of being with me forever. And still, that man couldn’t love me. My being widowed seemed like a good way to go. It made a statement: the only way my husband would ever let me go is if they pried me out of his cold, dead hands.
Pretending Reilly was dead was just too horrible, though. Perhaps I could live with myself if I had a weekend fling with Matt, but posing as a widow was a line I could not cross.
A decision had to be made fast. Who was I? The faithful wife who had the strength to pass on an irresistible opportunity? Or a lesser version of who I thought I was, someone willing to break the rules for a bit of excitement?
People aren’t meant to be sexually monogamous,
my Inner Male explained.
It’s not natural to expect people to go through an entire life and desire only one partner.
You do so much for other people. Don’t you deserve something nice for yourself?
continued Penised Prudence.
The two are completely separate,
he continued.
To deny oneself pleasure is to cease to live,
my Inner Guy pressed, though this time he had a European accent.
Fidelity is for bores.
Funny how my Inner Male felt completely comfortable weighing in with five opinions on the matter.
You’re almost forty. How many more opportunities are you going to get?
This voice was clearly my mother’s, though she’d shudder if I ever told her she was part of my internal infidelity pep squad.
Matt must have mistaken my silence as confirmation. “I’m sorry, Malone. That must’ve been tough,” Matt said. “When did he die?”
Say something. Say anything.
“Two years ago. Boating accident. I don’t really like to talk about it,” I said.
Not anything!
Common Sense shook me by the shoulders.
What had I done?! Poor Reilly doesn’t even like boating. He probably went to make me happy, and now he’s dead, I’m alive and I’m using his tragic demise to seduce my college flame.
Tell Matt it was a slip of the tongue
, my Inner Moron suggested.
Slip of the tongue?!
chided Common Sense. “
He died two years ago in a boating accident” is
not
a slip of the tongue. Just move on and stick with the “I don’t want to talk about it” line.
At this point I thought I’d never see Matt again anyway. I’d assumed he was only interested in a one-time thing, which I was seriously considering.
I kept my left hand in my jacket pocket until I was able to wiggle my wedding ring off with the other four fingers. Not easy to do. As I struggled with the removal of the evidence of my marriage to Reilly, I knew I was digging myself deeper into the lie I couldn’t stop telling.
When Matt ran to the men’s room, I quickly called Reilly on my cell phone. I knew this was extremely risky, but needed to hear his voice. I needed to hear that he didn’t know what I was up to. Perhaps talking to him would snap me back to reality. Back to sensible Prudence.
“Hello,” Reilly’s groggy voice answered.
“Sleeping in the afternoon?” I said, a bit too sweetly.
“Just resting,” he said.
Poor choice of words.
“What’s up? Why are you calling?” he asked.
“I just miss you, that’s all. I love you. Do you know that?”
Settle down.
He laughed. “Of course I know it. Isn’t the game still going?”
He knows!
“I was just thinking about you, that’s all. What’s going on in New York? Any exciting plans for the weekend?”
Please say something wonderful. Tell me you miss me desperately. Tell me you know that our marriage has been stale for years and you want to work on it. Tell me you’re taking me to Italy. Tell me you’re taking me to therapy. Tell me you’re wildly, passionately in love with me. Tell me you can’t stand another night without me and you need me to come home immediately. Tell me anything!
“Nah, I’m just going to try to kick this jet lag. I’m dead.”
Anything but that.
“Hey Reilly, what do you think about us taking a trip together when I get back?”
“Prudence,” he said impatiently. “I just got back from Singapore. And you’re
on
a trip. Do we have to get into this right now? I’m beat.”
“Okay.”
“So, how’s the weather in Ann Arbor?”
“It’s crisp, Reilly. I’m going to get going.”
I hung up the phone, and had a minute to make the transition from where I had been to where I was going. I could do this, I decided. Like men have been doing forever, I would compartmentalize with surgical precision, have my weekend fling, then return to the passionless, functional agreement Reilly and I were trying to pass off as a marriage. Guilt would have to wait. I’d earned a little fun, hadn’t I? As long as Reilly never found out, he’d never be hurt by this.
“Okay, Malone,” Matt smiled as he returned to our spot on the grass. “Tell me everything about what you’ve been doing with your gorgeous self since graduation.”
Waiting to hear those words.
Remembering my well-scripted reunion fantasy, I caught Matt up on my life, highlighting stories where I looked especially exciting and A-List. Matt got the Prudence Malone-produced three-minute MTV video of my life. After my skillful cutting, I felt as though I really did have a Maserati that did one-eighty-five. The newly packaged Prudence Malone helped put together IPOs. She attended heavy-hitter parties at the MOMA. And she most certainly didn’t give a shit whether or not she got speeding tickets. She might not even have auto insurance. Everywhere she went, cool parties spontaneously combusted. She was a hair flinger, a woman so sharp she could shut down James Bond with one icy shot from her arsenal. Not only would Bond strike out miserably (in his persistent pursuit), the new and spy-proof me would also be able to kick his ass clear to Queens.
“You know something, Malone?” he paused.
I know everything, Matt
, said a sultry voice in my head. Who was this? I didn’t know an Inner Vixen lurked beneath. I was still in Bond-thwarting mode.
“What’s that?” I said, my words wrapping around his like a serpent spirals a branch.
I felt like I was in the dressing room at Neiman Marcus personas department, flinging the rejected Tree of Knowledge dress with the matching apple beret over the door.