An Ex to Grind (37 page)

"Dan," I said after I opened the door and watched him charge past me into the room. "If you're here about the other day—"

"Damn right I'm here about the other day," he said, clearly distressed. "You came over to the apartment and cried your heart out and showed me a side of you that I—" He stopped to collect himself. "That I hadn't seen in a long time. You were vulnerable, open, honest. No criticizing. No judging. Just loving. All of a sudden, you were my college girl again, the one who used to make me feel like a million bucks. I started reliving how it used to be with us." He threw his hands up in the air as if he couldn't believe what he was saying. "Would you listen to me? I'm engaged to Leah. We're getting married in Minco. This makes no sense."

I shouldn't have worried about how I looked. He looked worse. He hadn't shaved. He had dark circles under his eyes. And his hair—Well, let's just say I wasn't the only one who needed a shampoo.

"It makes perfect sense. I reminded you of the girl you loved," I said, my hopes growing. Was it possible that I hadn't lost him? That I'd been too hasty in admitting defeat? "The question is: Do you still love her?"

"I never stopped loving
her
," he said, planting himself in front of me. "But how am I supposed to know what it all means? How do I tell if these feelings I'm having are real or just leftovers from the past?"

"You've got to explore them, Dan. Running from them won't do any of us any good."

He took my face in his hands. "Explore them?"

"Yes."

"Like this?"

He lowered his face tantalizingly close to mine and whispered my name. My immediate thought was: oh my God. I'm not dreaming this. It's not some lame fantasy. He's not finished with me any more than I'm finished with him.

"Yes."

He pressed his lips against mine and kissed me. The kiss began tentatively, even clumsily, as if we were rusty at knowing how to please the very mate with whom we'd once been so intimate. But gradually it built into an embrace that quickened and deepened and propelled us from our standing position in the middle of the room over to the sofa. When we finally broke apart minutes later, breathless with the unexpectedness of the physical contact, neither of us spoke. We just looked at each other, took a gulp of air, and went back at it. For two solid hours we kissed and groped and humped, fully clothed, like teenagers on a first date. Or, more accurately, like ex-spouses on a reconnaissance mission.

What we discovered during those two hours was that the magic between us was still there. We weren't wrong about that. Maybe it was the kind of magic that can only ignite between two former lovers, because it feels forbidden and familiar simultaneously, but we were definitely in the throes of it, neither of us wanting or even able to stop.

"This is trouble for me, darlin'" he murmured at one point. "I'm not some sleazeball who asks women to marry him and then goes out and makes it with his ex-wife."

"Of course you're not," I said, my mouth wonderfully raw. "But let's take this one step at a time."

He nodded and took the next step, which was to kiss me again.

Dan and I didn't sleep together, if that's what you're thinking. It was just a kiss fest at my place that Sunday night. A big, fat, juicy kiss fest. When he finally pulled himself up off the sofa, it was nearly midnight. I asked him if he'd told Leah where he was. He said he'd lied and told her he was out with an old college buddy. I said he hadn't lied, not entirely, because I was an old college buddy. He said he hated that he'd sneaked out of the apartment to see me. I said he wasn't a sneak and never had been; that these were extremely trying circumstances and there were no rules for how to handle them. He said he didn't want to hurt Leah under any circumstances, because he loved her. I said I thought he loved me. He said he did love me. What we had, ladies and gentlemen, was a man in conflict.

He came back Monday morning to bring Buster to me, and the kissing started all over again. We couldn't keep our hands off each other, couldn't get a sense of perspective. It was just like the old days, when reality was not on our radar. Neither of us had jobs to run off to (well, he had one, but it wasn't full-time yet), so we tuned the world out and let the Heartbreak Hotel become our hermetically sealed trysting place.

There was still no real sex, mind you. Dan was insistent that we shouldn't "do it." As long as we remained dressed, albeit with zippers unzipped and buttons unbuttoned, he rationalized that he wasn't really cheating on Leah. And yet he was riddled with guilt, confusion, and indecision.

"I understand that you're torn," I said during a break in the action. "But maybe if we play this out, if you see how right we are together, if you get more comfortable with the idea of me being back in your life, you'll have the courage, the conviction, to tell her it's over between you."

"I don't know," he said. "I don't even understand how this could be happening."

It went on like that—intense passion interrupted by concerns about Leah—for the rest of the week. Since I didn't have any work to do, other than trying to find work, I allowed myself to daydream freely.

I envisioned Dan having The Talk with Leah and, though she would be devastated, she would find solace in her thriving veterinary practice and eventually attract many new suitors, due to her sweetness, pluck, and bodiliciousness.

I envisioned Dan and me getting remarried. We would not have the ceremony and reception at his parents' house in Minco but rather at a tasteful venue in Manhattan, one of the spots recommended in a recent cover story in
New York
magazine. I would wear an off-white suit, something in the ecru/eggshell/oatmeal family, and he would wear a crisp dark suit, something that suggested formality without being formal, if you know what I mean. His parents and siblings would be only too happy to fly in and welcome me back into the family with the sincerity for which Oklahomans are famous. Weezie and Nards would be newly reconciled and serve as our matron of honor and best man, respectively, their two children contributing to the occasion by strewing rose petals from straw baskets as they preceded us down the aisle. Dan and I would write and recite our own vows; they would, of course, refer to our "time-out" from each other and be both witty and poignant. When the justice of the peace pronounced us "husband and wife," someone in the audience would shout "Again?" and everyone would laugh and cheer, especially Robin, my divorce lawyer.

I envisioned Dan and me honeymooning in Paris or, perhaps, Rome, where we would sightsee and take lots of photographs and eat expensive, once-in-a-lifetime meals before repairing to the sea (Cap d'Antibes or Positano, depending) for a truly picturesque commemoration of our remarriage.

And I envisioned Dan and me returning to New York, to our old apartment, and resuming our life together. He would coach the C.W. Post Pioneers to a conference championship in his very first season with them while I, in addition to basking in his reflected glory as a coach's wife, would start a small business. An antiques shop. Or maybe a chain of Vietnamese nail salons. We would have babies—perfect, well-behaved little towheads who looked just like Dan. He would want four and I would opt for two, but in the spirit of compromise we would have three. Mrs. Thornberg would be their surrogate grandmother; they would beg her to babysit for them, and she would be only too happy to oblige. She would let them sleep over in her guest room whenever Dan and I went away. She would make them egg salad sandwiches using her secret ingredients. They would call her "Nana."

These reveries reassured me, entertained me, kept me in a constant state of anticipation for Dan's daily visits. And then a development. On Thursday of that week, he said his conscience was killing him; that he couldn't lead a double life anymore.

I tensed as I lay next to him on my bed. We'd spent the afternoon together, kissing and holding each other and playing with Buster, our little family intact. His announcement put a pin in my bubble of domestic bliss.

"What are you saying?" I asked. "That you're ready to make a choice?"

"No. I'm not ready. That's the point."

"Then what?"

"I need more time with you. And I don't mean the hours we grab when nobody's looking for us, holed up here at your place. I mean free. Out in the open. Doing the kinds of things couples do. Taking it slow."

"Fine with me," I said, extremely relieved, "but what about Leah? And, more importantly, what about your wedding?"

"I guess I've gotta postpone it or cancel it or whatever it is people do," he said with real anguish. "I'll tell her I'm having second thoughts about making a commitment to her so soon. We've only known each other, like, three months. We fell in love, she moved into my apartment, we got engaged. Bam bam bam.
It all happened so fast. I'm gonna say I need some space, to figure out if I'm sure about everything. What else can I do? I can't go ahead and marry her. Not when I'm feeling the way I dp about you."

I kissed him, stroked his forehead, told him I loved him. "When are you planning to deliver this news bulletin?"

He shrugged. "Next couple of days, probably. Leah's an amazing woman. She doesn't deserve to be jerked around."

The way I'd jerked Dan around. Another irony: my ex, whom I'd once cast as the villain, turned out to be a much better person than I was. "I'm sorry," I said. "It was never my intention to hurt her."

"Of course it wasn't. You didn't even know her."

"Right."

I didn't know her. I just knew her medical history, her educational background, her height and weight, and every other scrap of personal data about her. God, did I hate myself.

"The main thing," said Dan, "is that the pressure will be off once I put the wedding on hold. You and I can have all the time we need to find out if we're the real deal."

"Do you really doubt it?"

"I thought Leah was the real deal. Maybe she still is, and I'm just living in the past. It wouldn't be the first time I've done that, according to you."

I leaned over and kissed him again. He pulled me closer and kissed me back.

"Did that feel like the past?" I asked.

He shrugged. "Too hard to tell. We'd better do it some more."

Later that night, Evan came over. He was leaving in the morning and wanted to say goodbye.

I was very glad he'd stopped by. Buster was too. I still dreaded the thought of not having him right down the hall, not seeing him, not being able to get to know him better, but he was doing what he needed to do, and I couldn't stand in his way. It wasn't my place.

"I brought a going-away present for you and Buster," he said and handed me a flat package wrapped in brown shipping paper.

"Oh, Evan. You didn't have to do that. You're the one who's going away," I said, thinking again how much I would miss him. It seemed as if no matter what dumb-ass thing I did or how badly I screwed up my life, he kept showing up, either to rescue me or to try to talk some sense into me. If it hadn't been for Dan, I suspected that he and I would have—Well. There was no point in speculating. I
was
with Dan, and that was that.