Cheating on Myself (25 page)

It couldn’t hurt to take a class to learn something new. It’s not like I was short on time. Maybe I could even get Joe to start teaching me the guitar after Thanksgiving dinner. I could picture it: him sitting behind me on his grandmother’s sofa, legs on either side of me, his hands over mine to show me what to do. Maybe Thanksgiving with Joe wasn’t such a terrible idea.

The email icon popped up, and I opened Joe’s response.

Joe: “Actually, I usually just get sushi. What
are
you doing next week? If you don’t have any big traditions, want to come to Iowa with me?”

Oh, god. A holiday
and
a trip? I needed to talk to Lily. This seemed crazy.

As I stood up to find her, another email popped up.

Joe: “We have a gig on Friday. Another parade. It just
happens
to be Thanksgiving weekend. Am I freaking you out by asking you to come on a holiday trip with me? Too impulsive? Maybe I should have talked to you about this in person…” Then there was a little emoticon, one I’d never seen before, with squinty little eyes and a lolling tongue. What was I thinking, trying to date a guy who uses emoticons?

A few minutes later, I had Lily cornered in a conference room. “Who uses emoticons?” I asked, giving her a quick run-down of the email chain. “I knew there was something seriously wrong with him.”

“I don’t think you should be judging him on a few emails, Stella. It’s kinda early for you to go away with him for Thanksgiving, but I guess if he’s worried that maybe you don’t have anywhere to be…” She shrugged. “I don’t know, I think it’s kind of sweet. Iowa, though?”

“I know.”

“You should do it.”

I stared at her. What did I have to lose? It would be fun to get away, and it would give me a perfect excuse for missing Laurel’s Thanksgiving. “It’s not too soon?” I asked Lily warily.

“You’re thirty-four years old, woman! You’re allowed to go away with your boyfriend.”

“But I wouldn’t necessarily call him my boyfriend yet. I still have some issues with him.”

She heaved a huge sigh. “Of course you have issues with him. You’re scared, and freaked out by the fact that you’re seeing a new man who is totally unlike Erik. It’s all really strange, I know. But this is normal, Stella. You have to move on—you
want
to move on. You’ve got to let yourself do things if you want to start fresh.”

“But he sleeps around,” I said pitifully. “Do I really want to stay overnight in a hotel with a guy who I
know
—for a fact—sleeps around?”

“That’s what you’re worried about?” Lily laughed. I blinked, wondering what was so funny. “Everyone sleeps around.”

I held up a hand. “I don’t.”

“No, you don’t. But that’s because you’ve been stuck in a relationship for a thousand years. If you’d been single all this time, you, too, would have slept around a little bit.” She curled her upper lip into a frightening-looking smile. “At least, I hope you would have.”

“He was married.”

“Exactly. He was married, now he’s divorced. The guy had to make up for lost time.”

“He’s a womanizer.” I was trying hard to poke holes in Joe, but failing miserably to convince myself or Lily that there were valid reasons for me not to sleep with him.

“At least he’ll be good in bed. You would hope.”

“What if he has diseases?”

Lily actually snorted at that. “Is this a nineties made-for-TV movie? That’s unlikely. He’s an intelligent adult… I’m going to assume he’s been safe, and smart,
especially
if he likes, uh,
entertaining
women.” She wrapped her slender arm around my shoulder, and guided me back out into the maze of cloth cubicles. “You’re making this harder than it needs to be. Just have some fun.”

I nodded. “You’re right. I like him. A lot. I’ll go.”

“That’s my new Stella.” As she led me back to my cube to write back to Joe and settle my Thanksgiving week plans, she said, “You’re going to need a wax, you know. I can practically see the little puff of pubes through your skirt.”

* * *

That night, Anders and I were running late, which made me extra tense as I prepared to meet The Brad. I’d promised Lily we’d meet them in the sparse front entrance of Plant & Bean at seven. But Anders, who had been less-than-enthusiastic about the date, had dragged his feet and taken the world’s longest shower, before announcing he had to stop for a quick haircut on the way to the restaurant. I rolled my eyes, but went with it, since it had taken a lot of begging to get him to come at all. He only agreed to come after I told him Lily was paying and I had every intention of ordering double-appetizers. Even then, he didn’t look happy about it, but I guilted him into coming.

Lily confessed that Anders had known about Brad for a while, but she’d also asked him to keep it quiet. I wasn’t surprised she’d told him—Lily and Anders had been friends forever, and I knew she relied on him when things got bad.

“I just really wish I’d known you knew about this, too,” I told Anders as we parked at a meter half a block from the restaurant. “I hated not talking to anyone about it! It’s stupid that we were both keeping her secret, when we could have at least vented to each other.”

Anders’ head was dipped low, searching for quarters in the car’s center console, but I heard him mutter, “I didn’t really want to talk about it.”

I stepped out of the car and watched him stewing while he jammed quarters into the meter. “I only have to plug this until eight, right?” He scanned the street for parking signs. The scarf he’d wrapped around his neck made him look dapper, as always, and his cheeks were flushed from the bitter November wind. He looked sad and angry, even through his handsome shell, and I could tell he was pissed about something.

“How much more do you know about this whole thing than I do? Have you known for a while?” I narrowed my eyes at him, linking my arm through his as we hustled down the street.

“I found out a few weeks ago,” he said. “Right after the Halloween party, I think.”

“Why do you look so grouchy? Aren’t you worried about frown lines?”

“She always does this sort of thing,” he grumbled, and then he wrapped his arm around my shoulders to keep me shielded from the wind.

“Thanks,” I said, tucking into his arm. “What do you mean? Has she cheated before?”

“No, not
this
exactly. But she just always fucks up her relationships. I wish she’d just figure it out.”

“Figure what out?” I asked, surprised at his bitterness. I’d never heard him actually criticize Lily—they often teased one another for fun, but this level of frustration was new. “You know Lily.”

He sighed so loudly I could hear it over the wind. “Yeah, I know Lily. And she’s genius at picking men.”

We’d reached the front of the restaurant, and I stopped short of the door. “Are you going to be like this all night?”

“I’ll try to be nice.”

“That’s the best either of us can do, right?” I smiled at him, and he gave me his best fake smile back. Then he opened the door to the restaurant.

As I walked through the door, Lily was the first thing I saw. She was dressed in a bright red, skin-tight dress, black suede heels, and her hair was bigger than ever. If she weren’t my friend, I would seriously wonder if she’d been hired as someone’s date for the night. God, I felt like a jerk for thinking that, but it was true. I could sense Anders’ reaction next to me, and the way his body stiffened at the sight of her made me think we were on the same page. Not that she didn’t look amazing, but she looked… desperate. Like she was trying so very hard, and had something to prove.

Brad, on the other hand, was understated in a pair of gray dress slacks and a sport coat. The sport coat didn’t have leather elbow pads, but it could have—that’s how much he resembled someone’s father. He was obviously good looking, but his style was so tight and rigid, it was a wonder someone like Lily would ever set eyes on him.

“You must be Brad,” I said, extending a hand. Anders, who was hiding behind me, didn’t bother shaking his hand.

“Thanks so much for coming, guys,” Lily said, and I could see she’d been crying.

She accepted a hug from Anders, and her shoulders released as he held her in his arms. “You okay?” he asked quietly. Brad wasn’t listening.

“I’m fine,” she said, smiling. “Great. But you guys are late!”

Neither Anders nor I said anything, following as Lily trailed behind the hostess and Brad to our table, which was conveniently set in the back of the restaurant, surrounded by palm fronds and a small pond. I noticed there was a dead fish hidden behind a leaf in one shadowy corner of the pond. God, I hated raw food, and this was making it worse.

There were ample pleasantries, but no one really asked anyone else any questions, since none of us really had any interest in getting to know anyone else. Anders and I chatted on one side of the table about nothing in particular, while Lily and Brad looked awkward on their side of the table. After we ordered, Lily tried desperately to find a connection between all of us, but it was obvious she was making an effort where she needn’t have wasted her time. Before our first course—sushi, which was so wrong, considering the floater a few feet from my chair—it was clear to everyone that this had been a mistake.

By the time the main course came, Brad had started to sweat and the sport coat came off. Lily put her hand on his arm, and we all noticed when Brad shook it off under the table.

Before dessert, Brad got a phone call and made excuses about why he had to leave. Frankly, I wasn’t surprised. I’d been waiting for him to take off all night, and even before he’d retrieved his coat from the coat check, Anders was visibly more relaxed.

“Well, that was fun,” he said, watching as Brad strode down the street toward the car. “I’m so glad we could meet him.”

Lily heaved a sigh, and she shook her head. “I’m so stupid,” she said. Both Anders and I nodded, not at all interested in disagreeing. “Why did I think that would work?”

We all looked at each other uncomfortably. I didn’t really want to be the first one to talk—both Anders and Lily were more honest and abrupt than I tended to be—but someone had to say something.

“You guys, there’s a dead fish in the pond.” I pointed to the bloated orange fish. “That seems oddly symbolic.”

Lily started to laugh before Anders, but then we were all in hysterics. When our dessert arrived a few minutes later, Lily took the one Brad had left behind.

“I get it,” she said though mouthfuls of foamed caramel. “He’s probably not coming to my mom’s for Christmas, is he?”

“No,” Anders and I said at the same time.

“Stella’s boyfriend invited her to Iowa for Thanksgiving, and mine won’t even stick around through dessert.” Lily glowered over her bowl of sweet foam. “This is revolting, by the way. Completely unsatisfying. Is there even butter in a foamed dessert?”

I took a bite of my own fruit and “flash-frozen-fresh” sheep’s milk cream. It tasted sort of gamey. I almost felt like I could taste the little sheep fur, infused in the icy milk. I pushed it aside, and dealt with Lily.

“No, he’s not going to be there for holidays, and he won’t be there on Sunday morning when you want someone to get you a latte—” I glanced at Anders appreciatively. “Not to be harsh, but he’s not even the kind of guy who’ll be there when you’re having a bad day. If your bad day coincides with his daughter’s piano recital or his son’s soccer game, your bad day isn’t going to matter.” I knew it was harsh, but with Lily, it wasn’t worth beating around the bush. She wanted people to give it to her straight, and I’d wasted enough time fooling myself that I didn’t need to fool my best friend, too.

She began to cry—probably for the second time that night. “I want someone to buy me lattes,” she said pitifully.

“I’m a latte guy,” Anders said quietly. “I can buy you lattes.” There was something in his tone that made me look up from my dessert, which I’d started to pick at again. He was looking at Lily with this… something. I’d never picked up on it before, but now I realized I’d seen him looking at her like this before. There was hope, and respect, and something that went beyond anything the rest of us had with Lily.

Oh,
I thought, watching Lily be completely oblivious to Anders’ offer.
He loves her. Lily is what he’s waiting for.

It was devastating, now that I saw it there. I wondered how long Anders had loved Lily like this, and how many times he’d had to watch her make stupid choices about men. How many times he’d had to watch her pick men who were a thousand times worse than himself. How many times he’d wished she would notice him like that.

And I’d told him we all thought he was gay! Ack. I was officially the shittiest roommate ever.

“Do you want to stay at our place tonight?” I offered, before I realized it was a good idea. But it was a good idea. She didn’t need to be alone, and the only way for me to show her that Anders was the perfect guy was for her to experience it herself.

And then, even though Lily fought hard for the check when it came, Anders insisted he would cover it. That was just the kind of guy he was. Lily would notice that someday. I was looking forward to that day coming.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

“
Have you slept with the singer yet?” Heather tugged at her swimsuit, and one of her breasts got stuck in the fabric. She’d had a mastectomy on her left side, so that half of the bathing suit always slipped on easily, leaving the right breast behind. She told me once she forgot there was still a boob there. How could you forget about a boob? I guess if there was only one to think about, it might be easier to lose just the one, but I think she just got distracted.

“I messed up,” I admitted, for the first time since it had happened. “I slept with my ex again.”

“Well, was it worth it?” Heather asked, tugging at the fabric of her suit. I watched out of my peripheral vision as her skin stretched and finally gave in. Halleluiah, she was clothed. “I hope you knew what you were doing.”

“I did,” I said. Then, “At least I thought I did. But then I went out with the band guy again.”