Adulation (35 page)

“Are you homesick?” she asked. The question struck him as mature and reflective, and he looked at his daughter, as if finding her remarkable. He’d had this reaction so many times when it came to Ella, and loved that it felt like a unique experience every time.

“Maybe,” he answered. “I’m not sure.”

“Well, I’d miss you. We could Skype each other.”

“Yeah, I’m not a fan of Skyping.”

“Get with it, Dad.” She paused for a beat. “Thing is, I’ll be going off to college soon—”

“In what—four years?” he interrupted.

“It goes fast,” she said.

“Don’t remind me.”

“So then it wouldn’t matter where you live ’cause I’ll be off on my own.”

“So you’re saying I should wait a few years?” he asked.

“I’m saying you shouldn’t wait if your only criteria is being there for me.”

“You don’t think you’re worth the wait?”

Ella looked at him adoringly. “I’m just saying I want you to be happy.”

Danny stared straight ahead, pressed his lips tight, and tried to will the tears that were brimming to the surface to not escape. Ella turned on her iPod, stared out the window, and bobbed her head up and down to the beat of whatever she was listening to. He was more determined than ever to make it work with Charlene. But he wasn’t sure he’d ever truly be happy. Perhaps that had died in him the night of the accident.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

Sunny Smith

I
 
WAITED TWO
 
days before returning Josh’s calls. (Georgie, Marcus, and Theo were all in agreement to lethim sweat it out, despite the consensus that I had overreacted.) He picked up on the first ring, which wasuncharacteristic of him.

“Hey, Sunny.” He sounded simultaneously hopeful and worried.

I took a breath. “Hi.”

Already an uncomfortable pause passed between us.

“How are you?” he asked.

“OK,” I replied. “Listen, I wanted to apologize for walking out on you the other night.”

“You had every right,” said Josh. “The fault was entirely mine. I deserved it.”

More silence.

“Sooo...where are we?” I asked.

“New Jersey.”

“No, I mean, where are
 
we
?”

“Oh. Well, I guess that’s up to you.”

Ugh, I was afraid he’d say that.

I sighed. “I really don’t know, Josh. And it’s not because of what you said in the restaurant. It’s

just...”

“Look, Sunny, can you give me another chance? At least enough of one so that if you still feel this

way, we can break up in person and not over the phone. I really, really don’t want that.”

Score one for Joshua Hamilton.

“I can do that, sure.”

“You said you were coming to my son’s soccer game this Saturday,” he said.

I looked at the calendar hanging on my fridge. “Wow, that’s
 
this
 
Saturday?”

“Will you still come?”

I trembled inside. “Meeting your kids for the first time is a big deal, both for me and them. I don’t think it’s a good idea when things are so fragile between us. Suppose I meet them and then we break up— what kind of stability does that teach them? What happens to them, and the next woman you bring around?”

Every response so far had been preceded by a second of silence, as if he were taking the time to carefully choose his words.

“Maybe now you have an idea of how serious this is for me. I’m willing to take that risk and gamble on the fact that it won’t be a one-time meeting.”

“That’s an awfully big risk.”

“You sound like you’ve already made up your mind, Sun.”

Perhaps he was right. And yet I didn’t want it to be so. There was a part of me that loved the idea of going to Josh’s son’s game, of making it a ritual to sit on the sidelines and cheer him on, going out for

ice cream or pizza afterward. I loved the idea of his kids excitedly telling me  how many goals they scored and how well they were doing in school, competing for my attention.

Georgie and I used to make fun of women who said this:
 
I’m in love with the
 
idea
 
of getting married. I’m in love with the
 
idea
 
of him
 
(whoever “him” was). However, I’d been too short-sighted to see that I was one of them. I had been in love with the
 
idea
 
of having a family. Teddy had made it sound so simple and idyllic. And I had wanted idyllic. I wanted picture-perfect. So I did just that—I nurtured the picture without knowing how to live a life.

The picture was long gone, and I still didn’t know how to create the life I wanted. Was I supposed to get a new picture, or take Gandhi’s advice and
 
be
 
the change I wanted to see? I thought about something Josh had said to me on our first date: If I had really wanted to be a mother, I wouldn’t have let anything stop me. I wouldn’t have made any excuses, wouldn’t have dumped my writing aspirations (although I’d never demonstrated much tenacity there either, had I?). I would’ve found a way to be everything and anything I wanted to be. I would’ve
 
paved
 
a way.

Meanwhile, the 40 for 40 list sat next to my bed, recently neglected.

“OK, I’ll go to your son’s game.”

He practically let out a sigh of relief. “Thanks, Sunny. I can’t wait to see you.”

“Me too,” I said.

I had been anticipating whether we were going to have sex—throughout the entire two-hour drive to New Jersey  Friday night, and at his place, right up until John Lennon’s (or was it George Harrison’s?)lingering guitar jangle at the end of the Beatles movie
 
A Hard Day’s Night
 
. I suspected Josh had been aswell. If he made a move, would my accepting be seen as shallow, especially if things didn’t work outwith us? Would it be an act of intimacy or getting laid? Would it further complicate my deliberation ofwhether to stay together? If
I
 
were to make the move, would I be construed as a tease, hot one minute andcold the next?

Things had felt rather forced between us at first—we said nothing about what had happened at therestaurant or about what he’d done—and made small talk until he put on the movie and we settled on thecouch, huddled together under a blanket to keep warm. Josh was a good snuggler. I would miss that if webroke up.

I washed my face and brushed my teeth and changed into a T-shirt and baby-blue cotton pajamapants with clouds on them. Juvenile, I know. Sometimes it was hard for me to believe I was forty. Andalthough Josh thought they were cute, they certainly wouldn’t have been his first choice of seductiveapparel. He wore a faded Led Zeppelin T-shirt and silk boxers. He didn’t look juvenile at all. In fact, helooked rather sexy. Plus he smelled good, like fresh soap and mouthwash.

Damn. I wanted him.

We each stood on opposite sides of the bed, frozen, nervous, like two kids about to do it for thefirst time while their parents were away.

He broke the ice first and spoke slowly. “Do you want to go to bed? I mean, to sleep?”

Aw, crap. He was lobbing the ball in my court, and I didn’t want it.

“Yeah, I guess so,” I said, my tone unconvincing.

We each shimmied under the covers and Josh turned out the light. You’d think he lived out in thecountry, the room was so dark and god-awful quiet. After what seemed like hours, he called me by name.

“Yes?” I said softly.

“Are we gonna talk about this?”

I lay in blindness. “Tomorrow,” I said. “After the game.”

“OK,” he said after a long beat.

“Good night,” I said. I turned to face him, and leaned in to meet his lips for a kiss. He found mine and kissed me softly. Then he kissed me again. And again. And the next thing I knew, our bodies were intertwined and we...

You know.

Damn Josh and his magic kissing.

We’d both wanted it, I guessed. But I couldn’t stop wondering if we should have. Thus, betweenthat and adjusting to the unfamiliar bed and the darkness and listening to the rain patter against thewindow, I got very little sleep.

In the morning he went out to get coffee while I showered and tried to do something with my hair,hoping the clouds would finally empty themselves out by the time his son Jeremy’s game started. It hadbeen raining nonstop since four in the morning. Josh said it would be windy on the field, so I shook thecan of hair spray like I was about to graffiti the mirror and formed a misty halo around my head. Ugh. Toomuch.

I had just finished my makeup when he returned, balancing a cardboard carrier of two tall coffeeswith two bagels and a side of whipped cream cheese.

“I got breakfast and—” He stopped short when he saw what I was wearing: boot-cut jeans, the Nine West boots I’d bought in the city the day of the
 
Exposed
 
premiere, and the Stella McCartney birthdaysweater. “Why are you so dressed up?”

“Because I want your kids to think me a pretty suck-up.”

He laughed. “But you know the field’s going to be all soggy and muddy, don’t you? I mean, if therewas ever a day to wear one of your hoodies...”

Oh, for fuck’s sake.

“Should I go change?” I asked, dreading the usual work attire I’d arrived in last night, havingdriven straight from Whitford’s.

He nodded. “You’ll thank me later. And by the way, I think you’d look pretty wearing a barrel andsuspenders,” he said, interrupting his setting out two plates for the bagels to kiss me on the cheek. “Andno makeup,” he tacked on.

“Well, there goes my New Year’s Eve outfit,” I replied. “And the only reason you like me withoutmakeup is because you’ve seen me without it more than you have with it.”

“Don’t you think that’s a good thing? It meant you didn’t have to go out of your way to create afalse impression of yourself. I liked what I saw the moment I met you, and I’m not just talking about theoutside.”

Something about this touched me. “You talked to me for, what—five minutes? And I talked aboutmy stockroom.  What on earth was so stimulating about hand trucks and pallets?”

“Because you called it
your
 
stockroom. You called it home. That didn’t just appeal to me as amanager.”

And then I thought about those five minutes with Danny outside the theater. So many times sincethen I wondered if he would’ve looked at me that way if I’d not had the makeover or the new outfit. Whowas I kidding? He wouldn’t even have stopped me to ask for the time of day.

I picked at my bagel, too anxious to eat. Josh kept assuring me that his kids were polite and well-behaved, that they understood his father dated, and that one day he might even get remarried. He assuredme that there would be no sneers, no rude comments or fights picked just because, and no scrutiny. “You’re going to a soccer game, not walking down a runway,” he said. “The point of the day is to have agood time.”

We arrived at the field five minutes before the game was scheduled to start. I carried a fold-outchair—already soaked—and tried to warm my other hand with the hot chocolate we’d bought along theway. The rain had mixed with the hair spray (even with my hood on), and my hair wound up clumpingtogether, looking not unlike that of an abandoned brunette Barbie doll. Both teams were on the field, inseparate circles as they warmed up passing the ball to one another (only there were three soccer balls ineach circle) and then giving the goalies a chance to warm up with practice penalty kicks. I asked Josh topoint out Jeremy to me, and he scanned the green-jerseyed team (the opposing team wore yellow),squinting in the rain.  We set up our chairs away from the coach and the moms at the table with Gatoradeand carrot sticks and trail mix snacks, closer to the cluster of grandparents and other divorced dads (and Iwas surprised to see how many divorced dads there were. Or, at the very least, I presumed they weredivorced).