An Ex to Grind (38 page)

"Open it," he said, his eyes shining with the enthusiasm of a kid at Christmas.

"Yes, sir." I ripped the paper apart to find two paintings. The first was the one Evan had done of Buster at the water's edge, the one of him sticking his toe in the water. "You finished it!"

"All done. My first canine painting ever." He laughed. "And probably my last. One of them, anyway."

"Are you kidding? It's great." I loved it even more than the earlier version. He had added colors, shading, and texture to the painting, as well as fine-tuned Buster's face to make it look even more realistic.

I turned my attention back to the package and studied the second painting. It was of the same scene—a sandy cove with calm seas and blue skies overhead—but the dog had actually ventured into the water, his head bobbing above the light waves, the sun reflecting down on him, sparkling on him.

"I decided to do another one," said Evan. "This time he makes the choice not to run for dry land. He's swimming, paddling along without a care in the world. See how liberated he is? How daring? He's not worrying about his security. He's enjoying the moment."

"I do see," I said. Intellectually, I understood the message of the painting, of course, but I was still clinging to Dan and couldn't identify. Not emotionally. Not yet. "It's beautiful. Both paintings are."

"They're all yours."

"Wait. You can't just give them to me," I protested. "I want to buy them."

"No way. They're parting gifts," he said. "Hang them somewhere and think of me."

I hugged Evan. His body was lean and rangy compared to Dan's more beefy football player physique. And he was dark—hair, eyes, complexion—while Dan was fair. The contrast between them was striking, and I couldn't have gotten involved with two more different-looking men. But then I wasn't
involved
with Evan, so why was I comparing them in the first place?

"What's the latest with you and lover boy?" he said as he took a seat on my sofa.

"I followed your advice and told him how I feel."

"And?"

"He's postponing his wedding."

Evan didn't react right away. He just looked at me with this disapproving expression, almost as if he felt sorry for me.

"This is a
good
thing," I said, plopping down next to him. "Dan and I are meant to be together."

"I don't think Leah would agree with that," he said.

"No, but isn't it better for Dan to let her down now instead of after they're married?"

"Look, I don't know Dan or Leah, and none of this is any of my business as I've said a thousand times. But has he flat out told you he doesn't love her?"

"He said he's confused and doesn't want to make a mistake."

"I repeat: has he told you he doesn't love her?"

"No. But he told me he loves me."

He sighed. "Melanie, it isn't possible to love two women. Not in the same way at the same time. I'll always love Kaitlin, no matter how badly she hurt me, because she was my first real love and we share so much history. But then I realized that I was starting to fall in love with you and it's a whole other—"

He stopped midsentence when he grasped what he'd just allowed to slip out. We both sort of sat there in stunned silence.

"I had no idea," I said finally. "I mean, I knew we were getting closer, but love?"

"Maybe," he said. "If you'd have let it happen. Right now it's all hypothetical, because you chose someone else. But, yeah, I thought we were headed there." He laughed. "I think it was the night you locked yourself out of this place. You came knocking and seduced me with the T-shirt and bare ass."

"Seriously, Evan. When did you start to have feelings for me?"

"When I figured out that you were this competent, I-can-do-everything-myself woman who'd been forced to grow up much too fast. You never had a childhood, Melanie. You never got time off to experience the joy of trying new things, of doing things just for the sheer fun of it. Maybe it was watching you bite into that pastrami sandwich and seeing the goofy look on your face that did it, but I loved being the one to experience those new things with you."

"That's a lovely sentiment," I said, filled with emotion I didn't fully understand.

"I think we could have had something special," he said, his eyes so black, so beguiling. "I'll never know for sure, but it seemed like we had a shot at a grown-up love. The kind of love that accepts weaknesses as well as strengths."

"How could you love me when you know how shabbily I've treated people?"

He shrugged. "That's what acceptance is. I don't believe you meant to hurt anybody. I believe you were afraid and went into survival mode."

"You
are
accepting," I said with a shake of my head.

"Is that the kind of love you have for Dan? Or do you just love him when he's behaving himself?"

"It's not that he's
behaving
himself," I said. "It's that he's acting like he used to, when we were happy together. His self-confidence has really gone up, and it's changed everything."

"Leah gave him that self-confidence. She's responsible for the change in him. She supported him unconditionally, loving him even when he was down. Can you say that about yourself?"

"Not exactly, but he does love me, Evan."

"I'm sure he does, and that love will never really die. But you're his past, Melanie. Leah's his future. If you really loved him, you'd see that and let him go."

"Is it possible you're just saying that because you have a vested interest in what happens?"

He smiled ruefully. "I'm saying it because it's true. When you love someone, you want them to be happy, even if it's not with you."

I rolled my eyes. "You must have talked to Mrs. Thornberg. She force-fed me the same speech, word for word."

"Good. Maybe it'll sink in now that you've heard it twice. But here's another one I'd like you to remember: what makes ordinary people heroic is when they give up the thing they want most."

"So that's why you're leaving?" I teased, trying not to face the fact that he
was
leaving. "So you can give me up and play the hero?"

"Nope. I'm no hero. Just an ex-book editor with some heavy quotations still floating in his head." He rose from the sofa. "I'm leaving because the weather in the Bahamas is pretty damn fine. I'm gonna soak up the sun, read a lot of books, and paint my heart out."

"Sounds like paradise. What if you never come back?"

"Then you won't have to listen to my lectures anymore."

I walked him to the door. "Paradise aside, when will I see you again?"

"I scribbled down my address on a piece of paper. It's in there with the paintings." He stood straighter, threw his shoulders back, as if he were marshaling his strength. "But promise me something. Don't write until this Dan situation is resolved."

"I promise."

"And one more favor."

"Sure."

"If he ever finds out that you were the one who set him up with Leah, don't duck it. Admit it. If your relationship can withstand the truth, maybe it's stronger than I thought."

"He's not going to find out."

"But if he does, Melanie? If he finds out and confronts you, be heroic. Be prepared to give up the thing you want most."

"Okay, okay. I promise that too. Anything else?"

"Yeah." He put his arms around me and started to lower his head toward mine, as if he were about to kiss me, then changed his mind and gave me a quick hug instead. "Take good care of Buster," he whispered.

"I will," I said and felt a hard lump in my throat as I watched him go.

I didn't hear from Dan for twenty-four hours. I figured he was dealing with Leah, sitting her down and breaking the news, arranging for her to move out, offering to buy her a ring as sort of a consolation prize. And I remembered he was supposed to appear at some sports function where pro athletes were signing autographs to be auctioned off for charity. I knew how much he enjoyed those events, so I was happy for him even though he wasn't with me. See how unselfish I had become?

I went about my business on Tuesday, calling Pierce, Shelley's competitors who'd once tried to woo me to their companies. I announced that I was finally ready to join them and to apply my considerable skills on their behalf. None of them wanted me.

Apparently, word had traveled fast: Melanie Banks was talented but unemployable. There'd been rumblings about my erratic work schedule. There'd been rumblings about my getting tossed off the Jed Ornbacher account. And, of course, there'd been rumblings about my drug use, which, though utterly without merit, had become as good as true. As one former colleague put it, "You'd be coming in with baggage, and no one needs another corporate executive with baggage right now."

Baggage
. Who didn't have that, for God's sake? We were all a product of our past, of our mistakes and miscalculations. If I hadn't been raised by a father who barely scraped together a living, would I have made the choices I made? If I hadn't worked three jobs as a teenager, would I have learned to manage personal relationships as well as I managed investment portfolios? If I hadn't lived with the fear of never having enough money, would I have grown up to be such a relentless striver for whom security was everything? Probably not, as Evan had pointed out. But what is baggage if not a series of defining moments in life? Besides, we're stuck with it and there's no sense in making excuses for it. The trick is to overcome it and change, and I felt that I
had
changed. I was the new and improved Melanie—at the precise time that nobody wanted her.

Well, nobody except Dan, I thought, as I waited for him to call.

By Wednesday afternoon, I still hadn't heard from him, and I was starting to worry. Had Leah managed to talk him out of postponing their marriage? Had she seduced him with her shampoo-commercial hair and saccharine personality and steady, well-paying job and convinced him that he was only having wedding jitters, not actual doubts about their love?

I was about to cave in to my insecurities and call him at home, when there was a knock on my door. Actually, a pounding. I couldn't imagine why anyone wouldn't use the bell, given the option.

"Dan!" I said after I swung open the door and found my ex standing there, looking rumpled and sullen. I wrapped my arms around his waist. "I'm so glad you're here. I've been dying to know what's going on."

Instead of returning my hug, he removed my arms as if he couldn't bear me near him. Even Buster could feel the chill in the air and abandoned his usual animated Daddy greeting for the safety of his bed. People always say that dogs can anticipate a thunderstorm, and my boy was no exception.

"What's wrong?" I said as Dan took a slow walk inside my apartment. His posture was slumped, sagging, almost as if he'd been kicked in the stomach or had the wind knocked out of him. I wondered if he'd been in a fight but didn't see signs of bruising. "Did things go badly with Leah?"

He threw back his head and laughed, but he wasn't smiling. "You could say that."

"Oh. So she flipped out when you told her you were postponing the wedding?"

"You could say that too." He walked away from me and ambled around the room, picking up a pencil here, a newspaper there, and then setting them back down where they belonged. Odd behavior, to say the least.