Back In the Game (8 page)

Chapter 16

I
t was bound to happen sooner or later.

I'm not usually in the Downtown Crossing area but I needed a new pair of navy pumps. Stylish navy pumps are almost impossible to find, but I figured that somewhere within those twisting, busy streets a pair might be lurking.

Besides, shopping for shoes, even basic, sensible shoes, is always an uplifting experience. Is this something to do with female hormones or simply social conditioning?

I took the T to the Downtown Crossing stop and emerged into the uncomfortably humid afternoon. I headed toward the DSW store. At the next corner I stopped with the crowd to wait for the green light.

And there he was. Matt. My ex-husband, hand in hand with a woman.

The woman was beautiful in that all-American way, tall and blond, far more attractive than me. Even I could see that she fit better with Matt than I ever had.

I stood to Matt's left, an old woman between us, waiting for that light to change. And suddenly, I felt scared. What if Matt saw me, what if he confronted me? I was just about to slide away when Matt turned his head.

He saw me. I know he did. I felt my mouth form a small, involuntary smile.

His sunglasses hid the expression in his eyes. His mouth indicated no particular emotion. He looked away. The light changed to green and he and his companion stepped into the street.

I didn't cross with the others. I watched him go and as I did I realized that seeing Matt with another woman hadn't caused any feelings of deep regret or overwhelming sadness. Mostly what I felt at that moment was relief that he hadn't shouted, “Adulteress!” or something worse, something obscene, not that Matt was prone to using foul language, but still.

And, of course, I felt a renewed wash of guilt.

Always guilt.

For the first time since I was a moody teenager mad at the world, shoe shopping failed to lift my spirits.

 

There was a bomb in the mail when I got home that night. Not a literal bomb, of course, a figurative one, but one that caused some bloody maiming nonetheless.

The letter from my mother was addressed to Mrs. Jessica Fromer. I had never taken Matt's name, but my mother had never accepted that. Now, I was divorced and she was still referring to me as someone I had never been.

I don't remember my mother ever sending me a letter before this one. Birthday cards, Christmas greetings, even the occasional newspaper clipping, but never a letter.

I opened the envelope with some trepidation. The trepidation was warranted. My mother had taken it upon herself to scold me for the divorce. In her mind, my inability to stick with the marriage was related to my inability to stick with anything.

In her words:

Yes, I remembered. Because one of the girls was a horrible bully and I was scared. Mom didn't seem to remember that part of the story.

No, I didn't have talent. I was completely untalented. And the other reason I abandoned chess that fall was because my course load was enormous what with all the Advanced Placement credits I was determined to earn before starting college.

Did my mother remember that I saved my parents the price of twelve college credits by working myself senseless that senior year?

I couldn't read any more. I wondered if my mother had ever known me, even just a little bit.

That nice young man I'd dated in sophomore year of college, Bart, hadn't been serious about me; he'd been obsessed, insanely jealous of any other male within yards of me, horribly suspicious of my every move. When he finally threw me against a wall for talking to a fellow classmate about an assignment, I'd had it. And my father had been there to support me through the process of reporting Bart to the campus police and getting a restraining order and then helping me get through the rest of the school year, avoiding Bart's menacing presence.

Where was my mother through all this? I wondered now if my father had kept it all from her, knowing she would become part of the problem and not part of the solution. Maybe she had known what was going on but had found it convenient to forget the ugly truth.

Whatever the case, I felt stunned and hurt. Why had my mother felt the need to reopen all those old wounds? The memories had scarred over nicely but now, all these years later, they felt raw and tender again.

I reached for the phone. It was another first; I don't think I'd ever placed an emergency call to a friend. What was happening to me? I wondered if I was breaking down completely.

“Nell,” I said, “I need to talk. Are you free?”

She was. I told her about running into Matt. And she tried to make me believe that my lack of emotional response to seeing Matt with another woman was nothing more than an instinctual response.

“Your self-preservation instincts kicked in,” she said. “That's normal. Just because you didn't fall weeping to the sidewalk doesn't mean you're incapable of love, or whatever it is you think you're incapable of.”

“Maybe,” I said. Then again, maybe not.

Then I told Nell about the letter from my mother. It lay where I'd tossed it, on the coffee table.

After a few sounds of outrage, Nell offered her advice. “As for the letter,” she said, “throw it in the garbage. It's invasive and hurtful and completely out of line. And I say that as a mother myself, one who tries very hard not to cross the line between valid concern and unhelpful intrusion.”

I smiled at the wall. “My mother never could keep her mouth shut. It drives my father crazy.”

“And that's why you're in Boston and she's in Florida. You don't have to listen to her, Jess. Tear up the letter, hang up the phone, delete the e-mail. You have the power.”

I laughed. “Have you been watching
Oprah
?”

“No, but I am reading her magazine and I love it.”

“Maybe I should pick up a copy.”

“Maybe you should. And I should go to bed. Long day.”

I said good-bye to Nell and hung up. And then I stuffed my mother's words into the garbage, as advised.

Chapter 17

H
is name was Charles Taylor. He was retired as the CEO of a small manufacturing firm. He'd lost his wife to ovarian cancer five years earlier. He had two grown sons. And Dr. Lakes had assured me that he had a fine moral character.

What she had failed to mention was that he was old.

I'd always been fond of Dr. Lakes. I'd been going to her since just after Colin's birth. For almost twenty years I'd been a loyal patient. So, how did she figure I deserved this interesting surprise? Was Dr. Lakes a secret sadist? Was she fond of playing cruel jokes on unsuspecting single women?

“Nell?”

“Hmm? Oh,” I said, embarrassed. “I'm sorry. I didn't mean to be rude. My mind just wandered for a moment.”

Charles Taylor cocked his head and smiled. He had good teeth. I wondered if they were his own or an expensive set of dentures.

“It's my age, isn't it?” he said. “Dr. Lakes didn't tell you that I was seventy-nine?”

“Seventy-nine!” The words came out in a bit of a shriek. I was mortified. “I'm sorry,” I said hurriedly. “I thought you were maybe seventy. You . . . You look great. Really. And no, Dr. Lakes didn't mention anything about your age.”

And I was going to wring her neck for it.

“But you agreed to go out with me based on what she did say?”

“Yes,” I admitted. “I liked what I heard. Though I must admit that for a minute or two I did wonder about the ethics of the situation.”

Charles laughed. The skin on his neck jiggled only slightly. “Don't worry,” he said, “Dr. Lakes hasn't revealed any of your medical secrets. I'm sorry about this.”

I tried to laugh, too. I wondered if anything on me was jiggling.

“Don't be,” I said. “It's not your fault.”

“Oh, I know it's not my fault. I just mean that I'm sorry things worked out the way they did. I like you, Nell Keats.”

“And I like you, Charles Taylor.” It was easy to say. I did like him.

“And you'd like me better if I were, say, fifty-nine.”

“Yes,” I said. “I'm sorry.”

Charles sat up straighter in his chair. He had good shoulders.

“No more apologies. Would you like to stay for dinner or should I take you home now?”

Why couldn't this nice man be forty-nine? Even fifty-nine?

“Let's stay for dinner,” I said. “The food here is wonderful.”

“And of course, the evening is my treat.”

“Charles,” I said with a sigh, “you're killing me.”

 

I was home no more than ten minutes when the phone rang. It was Richard.

“I called earlier but you didn't pick up,” he said.

“I was out.”

“Oh.”

Richard wouldn't ask where I'd been. I wondered if he was afraid to know.

“Why are you calling?” I asked.

“Nell, I have something to propose. Now, please just listen to what I have to say. Let me finish before you say no.”

“Richard,” I snapped, “just get to the point.” Why, I wondered, does he pussyfoot around me? Oh. Right. Because since he told me he's gay, I tend to yell and scream at him.

I pictured Richard taking a deep breath. “Bob,” he said, “has a very good friend, a guy he's known since college. They were roommates and they've stayed in touch ever since. His name is Jeff and he's a lawyer in a small firm downtown. Well, Bob was thinking . . .”

“Yes?” I said. Let Richard say it. I was not going to help him.

“Well, Bob thought that you and Jeff might hit it off. You know, at least enjoy a nice dinner together.”

My husband was setting me up with another man. What would Oprah say about this, I wondered. I really wanted to know.

“How do I know this guy Jeff's not gay, too?” I demanded.

“Bob says Jeff has always been involved with women. He was even married once. He's one hundred percent straight.”

I laughed meanly. “Yeah, well, that's what I thought about you and I was seriously wrong.”

Richard was silent for a moment, no doubt recovering from my latest blow.

“Nell,” he said finally, “you're missing out on a chance to meet a very nice guy.”

Really, could I be blamed for exploding?

“Don't you dare tell me what I'm missing out on! You know nothing about what I'm going through, Richard, nothing.”

“Nellie—”

Nellie. Only Richard called me Nellie. It was his name for me, right from the start. Tears welled and spilled.

“Just leave me alone, Richard,” I said thickly. “Unless you need to talk to me about the kids, don't call me. Do you understand?”

After a moment, Richard spoke again. He sounded weary. Well, I was beyond weary.

“I'm sorry, Nell. About everything, this call, all those years . . .”

I put my hand to my head. It suddenly felt very heavy.

“Good night, Nell.”

I hung up. And then I said, “Good-bye, Richard.”

Chapter 18

“L
ook, Laura, I wasn't entirely honest with you last night.” Whenever a man begins a sentence with the word “look,” you know you've been screwed. Whenever a man says he hasn't been “entirely honest” with you, you know he's told a massive lie.

I had met Marcus only the night before. I know I shouldn't have slept with him right away, but he was so handsome, so incredibly gorgeous. Every other woman in the room was eyeing him hungrily, but he chose to talk to me. Me!

Right up front I told Marcus about Duncan and me. I told him I wanted to get married again and have a baby. It was an incredible coincidence. Marcus wanted children, too. Just like Duncan, his ex-wife hadn't wanted a family and, though Marcus had begged her to reconsider, she'd held firm.

It seemed Marcus and I were made for each other.

So I took him home with me. We made love in the king-sized bed Duncan had been so eager to install.

And then, morning came.

“Oh,” I said.

Marcus made a goofy, sort of apologetic face. “I do have kids,” he said. “Three of them. They live with their mother in Lincoln.”

I looked at the crumpled sheets. I would throw them out. I would buy a new mattress pad. I would sell the bed.

“You lied to me,” I said. It was a stupid thing to say.

Marcus sighed and hung his head. How many times had he been through this little speech? “I know, and I'm sorry, but man, you looked so good in that dress and we were having such a good time . . . I wanted to tell you before we came back here but . . .”

I backed against the dresser for support. Also, a heavy lamp stood just to my right. If things got really ugly, I thought, I could use it as a weapon.

“But you just wanted to get laid,” I said. “You don't care at all about me. What else did you lie about, huh? You're HIV-positive? You're still married? What else!”

Marcus slipped on his boxer shorts. Always protect the goods when dealing with an angry woman.

“Whoa, calm down, it's not the end of the world.”

Strange. To me it felt just like the end of the world.

“I am . . .” I could hardly form the words. I tried again. “I am so angry. You . . . I want you to leave, right now.”

Marcus took a step forward. In an almost-whisper he said, “Come on, Laura, can't we talk about this?”

It was dangerous, his coming any closer.

“Get out! Get out, get out, get out!”

Marcus clapped his hands over his ears. “Jeez,” he said, totally annoyed, “you don't have to be so shrill!”

“Yes I do!” I screamed. “Yes I do!”

He was dressed in less than a minute. He didn't even ask to use the bathroom.

I slammed the door after his sorry butt. And then I opened it and slammed it again. And then I threw on sweatpants and a jacket, grabbed my wallet and ran, literally ran to the CVS store five blocks away, where I bought three home pregnancy kits. I mean, we'd used a condom but you never know. The pregnancy kits cost me over forty dollars. If I'd known Marcus's address, I would have sent him the bill.

I took the first test as soon as I got home.

Not pregnant.

I took the next test the next morning and the third on the day after that. Not pregnant both times. I felt such huge relief. I mean, I wanted a baby but not with some idiot who clearly had no intention of marrying me!

After that I vowed, I swore, that I would never again have sex with another man until there was an engagement ring on my finger and a serious family plan in place.

I vowed.

And I started to research obstetricians.