Chapter 2 Two Years Later
TWO YEARS LATER
“It can’t have been that bad.”
“Think ‘twenty car wreck on the BQE. Home perm with bleach highlights.’”
I’m sitting in the courtyard near my office building with Vivian, my best work buddy.
We always eat outside on nice days; it is cheaper than going to a restaurant but less stultifying than having a meal inside the Murano offices.
Whenever the weather isn’t openly hostile, we grab a spot at the scattered tables clustered across the street from our thirty-story high-rise, watching pigeons filching potato chips from stoned teenagers and buttoned-up office workers.
“Okay,” she continues. “What was the worst part of the date?”
“Well, first he says to me, ‘You have pretty lips. Like my mother’s.’”
“Oh, no.” Vivi shakes her head. “No, no, no.” Vivi has enviously straight, thick black hair, and it swings back and forth to emphasize her disapproval.
“He says, ‘My mom had curvy lips like yours. Want to see a photo?’ And he shows me a photo and then zooms in on his mother’s lips.”
“And then you walked out.”
I shrug. “No. I figured, okay, that was weird, but a lot of people are awkward on a first date, you know? And then he starts talking about his home business.”
“He was some kind of entrepreneur, right?” This is my fourth date in as many months, and Vivi enjoys keeping track of the details. She is a happily married mother of twin boys who seems to get a vicarious thrill from her friends’ terrible love lives.
“Oh, that part was true,” I agree. “His business turns out to be selling essential oils, which he mostly advertises on porn sites.”
“So he’s basically selling oils to make men’s junk…”
“Smell like patchouli, yes.”
Vivi starts laughing. “Oh, honey. How do you find these guys?”
“They’re all that’s out there, Viv. This is why I tried so hard to make things work with Nick. He’s unreliable, but at least he’s sane.”
“I thought you liked Nick because he was a bad boy.”
“I’m over bad boys. I’m over all boys.” My voice sounds pathetic even to me. “But the men are all taken.”
“Well, you gave Nick his shot, so you have to move on from that dream.”
“I know.” She gives me a hard look. “I know, Vivi.”
The previous summer, when Hannah was seven, I spent almost two months living with my ex-husband Nick in his current city of Atlanta.
The decision came after he insisted he had found a steady gig as a musician, and I should give him one more chance to patch things up.
We would buy a cute little house together down there, and he would pick Hannah up from school every day, and we would turn into a real family at last. It was a roller-coaster ride for all three of us: four weeks of Hannah and me learning to live with her dad again.
..four weeks of romance, and family dinners, and the hope that Nick was finally going to put us first..
.and then three weeks of realizing he was exactly the same as he’d always been.
He wanted Hannah and me in his life, but only on his schedule, and only when he was available.
I ended up taking Hannah back to New York again and begging for my old job back.
Hannah is now eight and still hasn’t forgiven either of her parents for disrupting her life like that, only to return to New York a couple of months later.
Not long after that, my sister Abby left the city to move in with her fiancé in Newfoundland, breaking up our little family even further.
My daughter has gotten her revenge by making a precocious transformation into a sarcastic tween.
Nick isn’t entirely out of our lives, though.
He says he is going to come to New York to watch Hannah during her upcoming April vacation, a break that lands right in the middle of peak tax season when it is impossible for an accountant like me to take time off.
That is only a week or so from now, which means I will be dealing with my bad-boy ex-husband soon enough.
If he shows up.
I really want him to show up.
“There are good men out there, you know,” Vivi says, packing up the remains of her salad. “I married one of them.”
“And when you are killed by an asteroid, I will sweep in and ask out Peter.”
“Just wait until the day after my funeral. Otherwise it’s tacky.”
“Well, of course. Twenty-four hours. But only because we’re friends.”
“You know how they toss a bouquet at a wedding?” Vivi says thoughtfully. “They should toss the flowers off the caskets of people who leave behind a good spouse. All the single people can line up to grab it.”
This dark joking is why Vivi and I are friends.
“Funerals would be so much more lively if we included a speed-dating round,” I agree.
Then I take in the city, the restless traffic, the buildings sweeping endlessly above me.
All these people and no one ever seems to meet anyone.
How is that possible? “Honestly, I’m so pessimistic I think I should give up on dating entirely. ”
And that is when I spot him: the auburn-haired man from two years ago, stepping out of our building across the street in another nice tweed suit.
“It’s that guy!” The words pop out of me. I haven’t seen him since he left the conference room on ‘Take Your Child to Work’ Day, but I’ve thought about him a few times since, wondering what his horrified expression was about.
“Which guy?” Vivi’s sharp eyes scan the area like she’s a bird of prey.
“The red-haired guy. I thought he left the company.”
Vivi’s gaze locks on him. “Oh yeah. Oliver something? I thought they moved him to the Toronto office, didn’t they? Maybe he’s back.”
“He was going to have a baby, right?”
“Ooooooh. Yeah.” Vivi’s voice is full of insider information. Trust her to have the dirt on everybody in an office of two hundred people. “I remember that story.”
“There was a story?”
Vivi smiles, delighted, which means it must be very bad news indeed. “So you know Katy who works in the legal department?”
“Maybe by sight?”
“She and I were part of an infertility support group a few years back. So apparently, she knows that guy. Ollie, I think? And a couple of years ago, he was telling everyone that his wife was expecting a baby, and they had a shower at the office because Katy was also friends with the wife. But then…”
“Oh, no.” My heart hurts. “Not the baby.”
“No, the baby is fine. But the baby is not his. The baby was his brother’s. And then the wife left him for the brother.”
“Ouch.” I feel the story in my gut, watching the man as he lines up at the high-end food cart that sells espresso and fancy pressed sandwiches. “And Katy was sure about that, or was that a rumor?”
“She went to college with the wife. She was friends with them both before he got the job at Murano. But I think we can guess why he wanted out of New York for a while.”
I watch him for a moment. He still reminds me of a librarian, polite and thoughtful. It’s the way he’s dressed, but also the way he is listening to the cart owner intensely, his head tilted as the man tells some long, elaborate story. Vivi follows my gaze.
“Laura,” she says. “Are you staring?”
I pull my eyes away. “No. I’m done with dating. I told you.”
“Uh-huh,” she says. “Well, I’m going to ask Katy about him, find out how heartbroken he is these days.”
“No, please. If he is single, then he won’t want a forty-one-year-old divorcée who is aging out of the possibility of more kids.”
“I have two words for you,” Vivi says. “Essential oils.”
I put my face in my hands. “Please never mention that date again.”
“Let me see if there’s a chance. Come on. I feel guilty about how much enjoyment I’ve gotten from your horrible love life. This is my chance to repay you.”
I watch him from across the street. He has moved aside to make room for the people in line behind him to order as he keeps talking to the cart owner.
There is something about the scene that holds my attention: the way Oliver treats the cart owner like a real person, the way he moved out of the way so as not to hold up the line, the way he really seems to care about someone besides himself.
“Alright, fine,” I say. “But do not tell him I’m interested.”
Nick’s voice on the phone is deep and warm. He sounds the way he always does: gravelly, apologetic, like I’m the only woman in the world for him. I probably am, too. Cheating was never the issue between us.
“Hey, Laura.” My heart speeds up, but I’m not sure whether it’s from lingering attraction or the anticipation of bad news.
“Hey.” I’m trying not to sound nervous or angry.
He’s due in New York first thing Saturday morning, in three days, and I don’t want to start his visit with a fight.
My house growing up was full of my mother screaming after men on their way out the door.
It’s one reason I try to stay calm; I know the bitter harpy who lives just under my surface, and I refuse to let her out. “Did you find a place to stay yet?”
I am determined not to offer Nick my sofa. Staying under the same roof with him is too much of a temptation, even now. His voice still gives me shivers.
“Not yet.” There’s a pause.
“Well, it’s coming up soon…” My voice is gentle. Not whining. Not threatening.
“I know, but here’s the thing…” And before he says it, I know.
“Oh, come on, Nick.”
“I want to be there,” he replies.
“It’s not about wanting or not wanting. Hannah needs someone to watch her while she’s out of school this week, and I have work. These are some of the busiest days of the year for me.”
“I can make it to New York by Wednesday,” he offers, like we’re negotiating.
“Wednesday,” I say flatly.
“And then you’d only need childcare for Monday and Tuesday and maybe Wednesday morning.”
“What am I supposed to do, Nick?”