Mike, Mike & Me (15 page)

She’s a workaholic marketing manager; still single, still struggling with her weight, still searching for Mr. Right even as her biological clock prepares to toll its final hour. She’s also still the first to admit—without resentment, which has always amazed me—that she desperately wants what I have.

Sometimes, I look at her solitary life with a shudder and I think,
There, but for the grace of God…

But once in a while, especially lately, I look at her solitary life and I think I wouldn’t mind trading places with her for a day. Maybe two.

If I were Valerie, and single, I would be able to sleep late on weekend mornings. I would always have the remote control to myself. And I would probably know what means.

“Val, what does mean?” I ask, because preamble is largely unnecessary with Val, which is one of the reasons I love her.

“E.g. stands for the Latin phrase
exempli gratia,
which means
for example,
” she says promptly.

“No, not that e.g. I know that one. I’m talking about the kind of with those greater-than/less-than signs around it. The kind people use in e-mail.”

“You mean an emoticon?”

“A what?”

She laughs. “An emoticon. You know…like a little smiley face made out of a colon and a parenthesis.”

Yes, I think. Like:)

“The emoticon stands for evil grin,” Val informs me. “Why?”

Evil grin.

Evil grin?

What a relief. Evil grin is far more innocent than erotic grope.

Then again, when I think about what Mike wrote—it’s not like we’re both single or anything…if we were, I wouldn’t just be seeing you in my dreams—and I picture his handsome face wearing an evil grin while typing that—there’s nothing innocent about it.

“So spill it, Beau. Who is grinning evilly at you?”

“You’re never going to believe this.”

“Try me.”

“Mike.”

“Mike?” Clearly disappointed, she says, “I thought it was going to be something juicy.”

“Oh, it’s juicy.”

“I hate to break it to you, but exchanging e-mails with one’s husband isn’t exactly juicy.”

“Who said I’m exchanging e-mails with my husband?”

Silence.

Then, “You mean,
Mike,
Mike?”

“I mean
Mike,
Mike.”

“Oh, my God.”

“I know. He found me.”

“I didn’t even know you were hiding.”

“I wasn’t. I just…we lost touch after that last summer. You know how it is. I had no idea whatever happened to him, and then, bam. He Googled me.”

She snickers. “Scandalous! So where is he?”

“Florida.”

“Good. I was hoping you weren’t going to say New York.”

“Why?”

“Because if he was in New York, you might be tempted to see him, and that would be…well, wrong. Thou shalt not Google thy neighbor’s wife.” She snickers again.

“I’m glad you find this so amusing.”

“I can’t help it. Is he married?”

“Divorced.”

“So he’s available.”

“Yes, but—”

“Mommy, I want French toast,” Mikey announces, appearing in the doorway.

“In a second, sweetie. Go back and watch
Blue.
”

“But I saw this one before, Mommy. It’s the one where Mr. Salt and Mrs. Pepper take baby Paprika to—”

“Mikey, please. This is a very important conversation.” He doesn’t budge, so I add, “If you go in the other room right now, I’ll give you chocolate.”

“Okay.”

I give him a handful of Hershey’s Kisses I keep in the top of the plate cupboard for bribery. “Half of these are for your brother.”

“Which brother?”

“Josh. Do
not
give Tyler any candy. Do you hear me?”

“Yes, Mommy.”

“Are you going to give Tyler any candy?” I ask, because that’s how these things work.

“No, Mommy.”

“Are you going to share half your candy with Josh?”

“Yes, Mommy.”

“And are you going to make sure Josh doesn’t put his chocolate into his pockets for later?”

“Yes, Mommy.”

“Okay, go.” To Valerie, I say, “Sorry.”

“Chocolate in his pockets for later?” she asks, laughing.

“It’s a habit he’s picked up lately. He stashes food away like a little squirrel. Which isn’t so bad when it’s not chocolate and ninety degrees out.”

“I don’t know how you do it.”

“Do what?”

“This whole Mommy thing. It’s so stressful.”

She doesn’t know the half of it.

“Get back to the Mike thing,” she urges. “He’s available?”

“He’s available. But I’m not, and he knows it. So don’t worry.”

“Beau, be careful.”

“I am being careful. I’m not stupid.”

“No, but you are vulnerable when it comes to him. He had such a hold on you back when you were dating him.”

I squirm, remembering all too clearly my fierce attraction to Mike. Remembering what it was like to lie in his arms, to be kissed by him, loved by him…

“I was young,” I tell Valerie, pouring myself another cup of coffee.

“No kidding.”

“I’m older and wiser now.”

“We’re all older,” she says, “but the wiser thing…well, I’m not so sure about that.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“That no matter how old a person is, she isn’t always in control of her emotions when it comes to the opposite sex.”

“Are we talking about me, or you, Val?”

“Both.” She tells me about her latest failed romance, with a man she didn’t realize was married. “Oldest story in the book,” she says. “I wish I could say that I broke it off the minute I found out he had a wife and kids.”

“But you didn’t?”

“No. I never broke it off, period. He dumped me.”

“I’m sorry.” But not really. Of course I’m not sorry that her married lover cut her loose.

“So am I. Still.”

“Val…”

“I know, Beau. But I was crazy about him. So crazy about him that I managed to overlook all the things that were wrong about our relationship, and all the people I was potentially hurting. Including myself.”

“Point taken. Don’t worry. I’m not going to get involved with Mike again. I love Mike.
My
Mike. I wouldn’t do anything behind his back.”

“You did once before.”

“That was different. We weren’t married. We didn’t have three children and a life together.”

“Just be careful,” she says again. “You can’t trust yourself around him.”

“I’m not around him. We’re just e-mailing.”

“You’re playing with fire.”

“Oh, come on, Val.” I laugh. Nervously.

“I’m serious, Beau.”

“I’m fine, Valerie. Trust me.”

Silence. Clearly, she doesn’t trust me.

Time to change the subject to something a little less volatile. “Tell me about your trip to Denver,” I suggest.

She does.

As she talks, I check on the boys, making sure there are no signs of chocolate in the drool on Tyler’s chin, then retrieving silver foil Hershey’s Kiss wrappers from the floor, the crevices between the couch cushions, the soil around the potted ficus tree.

Then I head down the hall and make the beds, wipe the gobs of turquoise toothpaste out of the sinks, empty the bathroom wastebaskets Melina forgot to empty yesterday.

The whole time Valerie is chattering about her trip and I’m going about my mundane morning routine, I find myself battling intrusive, titillating memories of a dark-haired, dark-eyed Mike who isn’t the dark-haired, dark-eyed Mike I married.

“I have to get to a meeting,” Valerie says reluctantly at last, as, back in the kitchen, I start the French toast for the boys’ breakfast.

“I should go, too. I have to get…dressed.”

“Lucky you,” she says with a wistful laugh. “I’d kill to stay in my pajamas past seven some morning.”

“Come up to visit us soon and I promise you can,” I tell her.

“Maybe I will.” But she won’t. “Or you can come down to the city, Beau, for lunch and a matinee.”

“Maybe I will.” But I won’t.

Despite our best intentions, Val and I will never have that day-to-day kind of friendship again. I feel a pang of loss every time I talk to her. Loss, yet also a touch of reassurance, because we still know each other inside and out in the ways that really count.

We hang up with the promise to reconnect in person before the summer is over.

I slap a pat of butter on the griddle and set it on the burner, thinking about Mike.

The
wrong
Mike.

Valerie is right. I never did have any willpower where he was concerned. Despite my best intentions, one glance from him, or the slightest touch, would have me back in his arms again.

The best thing to do, I decide, whisking milk into eggs in a bowl, is to ignore his e-mails from here on in. I’ll just delete them without reading. He’ll get the message.

The phone rings as I’m flipping the first four slices of egg-soaked bread.

It’s Mike.

The
right
Mike.

“What are you doing?”

“Making breakfast for the boys. What are you doing?”

“Wishing I were anywhere other than here. The train was late and only one elevator is working in my building. It’s going to be a bad day. I can tell already. Maybe I can get out of here early tonight.”

“That would be great,” I say, knowing he won’t. He never does.

“Thank God there are only two more weeks until vacation. I really need it this year.”

“Yeah.” I sit down at the table and sip my lukewarm coffee. “But I wish we were going away, Mike.”

“I know you do, Beau. But there’s too much to do around the house, and…”

And he just wants to be home, because he so rarely is. I know that. Suddenly, I’m so sick of the same-old, same-old everything that it’s all I can do not to scream.

I desperately need a change of scenery. So desperately that I can’t help making a last-ditch attempt to sway him.

“If we went to the Cape or somewhere for even just part of the week, Mike, I could hire a mother’s helper when we got back and you and I could work on the house stuff together.”

“Not this year,” he says, though he does sound contrite. “I know you’re bored, Beau.”

“I’m not bored.”

“Yes, you are.”

“You’re right. I am.”

He laughs. Not a mean laugh; more of a sympathetic chuckle.

“It’s just hard,” I say, “being at home with the kids all the time. And I know it’s hard for you to be at work all the time.”

“Yeah. But I like to get away once in a while, too. Listen, maybe you and I can go somewhere romantic for a long weekend for our anniversary this fall.”

“Really?” I try to sound enthusiastic, but our anniversary isn’t until October.

“Sure. We’ll talk about it. Hang in there, Babs.”

“I’m hanging in there,” I say with a sigh. I really should tell him someday how much I hate when he calls me Babs.

“I love you,” he adds. “I’ll see you tonight. Oh, and one more thing—”

“Hmm?”

“Melina.”

“Mike…do we have to get into this now?”

“Beau, when I got into the shower this morning, the drain was filled with hair. And I’m not as upset that I’m losing it as I am that she’s not cleaning it out. Wasn’t she there yesterday?”

“Yes. I guess she forgot to do our shower.”

“And our sink. There was a big gob of dried toothpaste in it.”

I sigh.

“We have to talk to her, Beau.”

“I know. I will.”

“You need to call her and tell her that if she wants to come next week, she’s got to get her act together.”

“I can’t call her, Mike.”

“Why not?”

“She told me her phone got disconnected again. She hasn’t even been able to talk to her kids in Guatemala in weeks.”

“Oh, come on, Beau. With what we’re paying her, she can afford to fly to Guatemala every week to see them in person.”

“No, she can’t. She’s poor, Mike.”

“She has you brainwashed, Beau. Why are you so protective of her?”

“I don’t know,” I tell him with a sigh.

But I do know, and he wouldn’t understand. It’s that mutual maternal thing, that constant sense of empathy for a fellow female. I really hate that she’s here scrubbing our toilet and her children are in another country.

All right, maybe it’s been awhile since she actually
scrubbed
our toilet. After she left yesterday, I spotted a stray poop stain in the bowl in the hall bathroom and cleaned it myself before Mike got home.

Too bad I didn’t check the sink and shower drain in the master bath as well.

“If you don’t talk to her, Beau, I will.”

“No, I’ll do it. When she comes next week, I’ll talk to her in person. But she doesn’t speak English, remember?”

“Then how did she tell you about her kids in Guatemala and her disconnected phone?”

“She knows a few words, and she uses sign language. We can communicate that way most of the time. I’m just going to have to figure out how to tell her she needs to make a little more effort.”

“No, not a little more effort.
Mucho
effort.”

“Right.
Mucho
effort.” I shake my head. Why does everything have to be so complicated? “I really hate stuff like this, Mike.”

“I know you do. You’re too nonconfrontational, Beau. You need to learn how to deal with things head-on. Listen, I have to take another call. See you tonight.”

“See you tonight.”

I hang up and hoist my nonconfrontational self from the table. As I turn back to the stove, I realize that the neglected French toast is sending up a cloud of black smoke.

“Shit!”

“Mommy, you said a bad word,” a small voice promptly announces from the next room.

I rush over to the stove. In my haste to lift the griddle from the burner, I scorch the side of my hand on the open gas flame.

“Shit!” I exclaim again, wincing in pain.

“Mommy! You said the bad word again!” Josh scolds.

“Mommy’s very sorry,” I call, biting back an even badder word as I run my stinging hand under cold water.

“
Shit
is a bad word,” Josh informs me, materializing in the kitchen.

“I know it’s a bad word, Josh, and you shouldn’t say it either.”