What We Leave Behind (20 page)

“What about you?’ he asked. “You’re the least impulsive person I’ve ever met. As predictable as I am with women, you’re about as predictable with men.”

“What men?” I asked.

“Exactly the point. When was the last time you even went on a date?”

“Sex isn’t everything, Marty.”

“Obviously,” he laughed.

“It’s complicated,” I said.

“Spoken by someone who’s still holding a torch,” he teased.

“Whatever,” I said.

“I’m right, aren’t I?”

“No.”

“Who is he? I’ll kill him.”

“I’d like to see that.”

“Come on, you’ve heard all about my women. Who’s the guy that broke your heart?”

“This is ridiculous.”

“That bad?” he asked. 

I peered directly into his eyes. He said, “Tell me.”

I shook my head over and over, knowing I shouldn’t say his name out loud, but it emerged: “Jonas Levy.”

He hesitated a minute. “Adam’s son, Jonas Levy?”

I nodded.

“Now that I wasn’t expecting.”

“It was nothing, really.”

“It was way more than nothing. Don’t tell me a pretty girl like you hasn’t found a way to move on.”

I silently prayed for amnesia and that his compliment wouldn’t feel so nice.

“You look surprised.  I’m not all about boobs, you know.  If I wasn’t your boss…” he began, stopping himself just as the waitress dropped the shots on the table, which was excellent timing because I didn’t want to hear the rest. Or maybe I did, and the tequila would help me digest what he was saying. My eager palm wrapped around the smooth cylinder closest to me, and the cold liquid slid down my throat. Glass down, lime to the mouth, all this while Marty watched with amusement before downing his, flawlessly.

“Impressive,” he said.

“Likewise.”

“What else can you do?”

“Lots of things.”

“Tell me.”

The tequila went straight through me. There were parts within, warm and tingly, flirtatious and chatty, that prohibited any type of censorship over my mouth. I said, “What do you want to know?”

“Why don’t we start with what happened between you and Jonas?”

Something about hearing his name always felt like a freight train slamming into me at full speed.

“Nothing.”

“Again, with the nothing,” he said. “I must be on to something. Waitress,” he called out, “we’ll need another round.” And then to me, “to get to the bottom of all this nothing.”

The liquid was traveling at ridiculous speed. “What do you want to hear? I felt a zillion things for him. I think he felt the same for me, but it ended there. Nothing happened. It was never really able to progress.”

“Why not?”

“His girlfriend.”

“He had a girlfriend?”

“That’s what I said.”

“I cheated on every girlfriend I ever had back in those days.”

“How upstanding,” I said. “What’s your excuse now?”

“I’m not married. If I was, I’d take it a little more seriously.”

“Just a little?”

“I take marriage very seriously. That’s why I’ve never done it.”

I pondered this before raising the next shot to my lips. I wasn’t merely talking about sexual cheating here, and I think Marty knew that too. That’s why he said, “Little Jessica Parker, still lovesick after all these years.”

“Your empathy is astounding.”

“I’m sorry,” he said, straightening up. “It couldn’t have been easy for you.”

“No, it wasn’t.”

The waitress brought Marty‘s food and another round of shots. I didn’t have to be coaxed into it. He raised his glass to mine, and we toasted to fidelity.

“Jonas Levy, the first boy you ever loved.  Hard to believe.”

He said boy like we were in the eleventh grade, but it didn’t matter because I was already there. It was like being on automatic pilot. A gear switched, and I was catapulted through time. I could only nod.

“Are you feeling okay?” he asked. “Why don’t you have some chips or something to absorb the alcohol?” I’d become ravenous, as if my body knew that it was about to become depleted of vital nutrients. When the waiter approached, I ordered nachos loaded with cheese, sour cream, and extra jalapenos.

“And there’s been no one since? How long ago was that?” He looked repulsed.

“Six years,” I said, knowing the number by heart.

“That’s a long time to be living without love, without letting anybody close.”

I brushed it off. I’d been living without love long before that, long before Jonas.

“I thought I’d never get over it, but I did, and you’re wrong, I’m not still pining over him.”

That’s when the tequila kicked in, speaking on my behalf. “We don’t always leave someone we love, or forget them, or get over them all at once. Every time they hurt us and every time we cry, we’re saying a partial good-bye until the person is eventually gone. Believe me, I’m much better off now.”

“Adam never said anything. He must have meant a lot to you.”

“Hasn’t anyone ever broken your heart?” I asked.

Marty leaned forward, hands clasped. “People have never broken my heart, Jess. Films and songs, now they’ve broken my heart. Sometimes their words, their plots, leave me as flustered as a person might leave others. I don’t think I’ve ever allowed myself to love someone the way I love my work.”

“There’s something sad about that.”

“Yours is sad. Mine has been a lively road marked by great triumphs. I don’t just create and watch films with my eyes and ears. I observe and listen with what’s in my heart. I’ve experienced grief. I’ve felt pain. I’ve known loss and betrayal, and on the upside, I’ve felt great joy and even love.”

“But you’ve experienced all of that alone. Those are the types of emotions we’re supposed to share with other people, the kind that connect us.”

“I guess I never had a relationship with anyone that made me feel all that. If I had, I might have been encouraged to make it last.” I savored this about him, and then he said, “All the guys in the office have crushes on you.”

“You’re just trying to make me feel better.”

“It’s true. I told them you’re off limits.”

“You’ve really become my knight in shining armor, haven’t you?”

“Isn’t that what every girl wants?”

The fourth tequila shot landed in front of me. “I used to think that was what I wanted,” I started, but I didn’t finish. I’d seen how far away I can be carried.

The plate of nachos arrived, and I realized how nicely the cheese and the sour cream could coat my belly. I was ready for the next shot. Marty’s eyes were red and still a beautiful blue. He wasn’t outwardly drunk, but there was a definite loss in gross motor skills, and his guard was down—the way he was casually flirting with me and making me feel beautiful. I didn’t even try to pretend that I wasn’t charmed by him.

We talked about men and women and relationships, and although I’d had a very limited amount of exposure to the jerks that women complained about, I still had to agree with Marty that most of the time, women could be tough, scheming, and spiteful. If the men were guilty of anything, it was weakness, but the women, they could be utterly daunting.

“There
was
a love,” he blurted out.

“She must have hurt you real bad. It only took five tequilas to unrepress her from your past.”

“Her name was Michaela. She was South African, a model, and we were seventeen and mad for each other. I thought I was going to marry her, and then she went away for a shoot, and I, being the quintessential bastard, ended up in bed with one of her best friends.”

“You piece of shit,” I said.

“It’s not what you think. She played games, all the time, loving me one minute, keeping me at arm’s length the next. She was painfully insecure. I think she pushed me away to protect herself. There were rumors she’d slept with one of the photographers on a shoot.”

“But her best friend?”

“I had to do something to get a rise out of her.”

“And presumably yourself.”

“She didn’t talk to me for years. She’d forgotten her participation in our demise.”

He reached for my nachos. I watched as he rolled a black olive against his tongue. “And then she fell in love, this time for real, and we’ve been close friends ever since.”

“How come you don’t drag her to your Sunday movie break-up club?”

“She lives in South Africa. Gave up modeling, has three kids, lives on a farm or something,” he laughed. “I thought you enjoyed our movie dates.”

“I never thought of them as dates.”

“Semantics.”

“No, it’s okay,” I slurred, putting my hand on the table close to his. “You’ve been amazing. I don’t have many friends, and you’ve become one…” I didn’t go on because the words forming in my head weren’t for Marty, my boss, but for the man sitting across from me, the one who had me tiptoeing closer to possibility. Marty was giving me
something
, call it relationship, friendship, whatever it was. The seed was being planted, and it didn’t have to be hidden from the world or even from ourselves. Opportunity was before me, and I was allowing it in. Or maybe it was the tequila. God, I was feeling horny.

The emotions mixed with the shots, and as though he was watching a movie, Marty watched my face change. How the things he made me feel took over and frightened me. “I’ve never had this effect on a woman before,” he said. “Usually they’re ecstatic to be around me, and the last thing they want is to be my friend.” He said this with such a straight face it made me chuckle.

“Laughter. That’s good. I want you to be happy when you’re with me.”

“What’s with you guys?” I asked. “Does a little vulnerability scare you?”

“Only when I’m feeling a little vulnerable myself,” he said, which made me think twice about my next sarcastic reply. “I didn’t mean to pry about your past,” he went on. “Your sadness makes you who you are today. I’m enjoying that person, and I want to know her more and understand her better. The last thing I want is to be the person who makes you sad. So let’s leave the past where it belongs and concentrate on other things like tequila and glass slippers and fidelity and maybe,” he teased, “making out a little.”

He was right there in front of me. My lips could have reached his and let him inside. I felt out of control. Fortunately, the Mexicans intervened, arriving at our table for a mariachi session. I listened to the music, but my thoughts were swelling. When the trio finished, Marty handed them a nice wad of bills, and I observed him. This was a different type of man—secure, honest, candid, a breed of man that came with age, experience, and no false pretenses. He was himself, not a pretender.

“You never fell in love after Michaela?”

“Oh, I fell in love with hundreds of women. They just didn’t last very long.”

“Why doesn’t that surprise me?”

“You make me sound like some animal.”

“Aren’t you?”

“We’re all innately animals,” he said.

“Some of us.”

“I just never found the right one,” he confessed. “If the relationship was good, the sex was bad, the sex hot, the conversation cold. I have strict criteria.”

“Hot, voluptuous, with a penchant for music?”

“That’s what you think of me?” he asked, almost sadly. “You’re just saying that because you know exactly what my type is, and it scares you.”

We were officially hammered. I knew this because when my eyes met his, the room around me began to spin.

“I don’t know what I think of you,” I said, finding my voice. “You’re forthright and mysterious. It’s a contradiction.”

“What are we doing here?” he stopped me, unexpectedly.

“What do you mean?”

“What are we doing? What are we really talking about here?”

I was silent. I’d never been with someone so direct before. My adrenaline was pumping, and with each impulse, my body was becoming more and more alive.

“Tell me why I’m a contradiction.”

“You’re this cool, detached womanizer. You crave the wild, crazy nights, the women, the booze, possibly the drugs, but I think you’re just waiting for the next Michaela, the woman who will steal your heart away.”

“And you think that might be you?”

I didn’t want the tequila to speak on my behalf, but against my better judgment, my mouth opened, and “I never said that” shot out.

“I’m serious,” he said, searching my eyes.

“No, you’re not,” I refuted. “That’s just the tequila talking.”

His words stopped me from reaching for my glass.

“I like you, Jessica.”

“I like you too, Marty.”

He repeated it again.  “And if I have to, I’ll find you a job at another company so I can be with you, but I’m selfish and I don’t want to lose my best employee.”

 “You’ll chew me up and spit me out in less than two months, and then I’ll have no job.”

“Two months?” he asked.  “I’ll take it.”

“That’s not what I meant.”

“I know what you meant,” he said. “It’s hard for you to admit it, but you like me.”

I looked up at him. Did I really need to respond to that?

“Maybe you’re not used to men like me,” he said. “I don’t play games. If that’s what you’re looking for, I’m not it.”

This was what I’d wished for and avoided for years, my heart skipping multiple beats, my judgment clouded. I was on a cliff about to jump off, the feeling that I couldn’t breathe, the drama, the longing, and all the other terrible things that got me into trouble in the first place hovering around me.

“Would you be opposed to going on a date with me?” he asked. “And just so we’re clear, a real date, not as friends, not as your boss, not because I’m paying you, but because you want to be there.”

He was challenging all my existing pretenses. I couldn’t comprehend that we could just come together so easily. It didn’t fit into the schema I’d invented in my head. Love was supposed to be a struggle, dramatic and leaving you wanting for more. Love wasn’t supposed to be so
simple
. ‘Cause then it wouldn’t make sense when it got to the part when someone leaves.

“My chatterbox has suddenly gone mute. What’s wrong with you, Jess? What are you so afraid of?”

“I think I’m helplessly drunk,” I garbled.

“Think about it. I think we’d be good together.”