An Ex to Grind (43 page)

On Wednesday afternoon at one-forty-five, Weezie and I were huddled together behind a clump of trees and shrubs in Central Park. The dirt football field where Leah and Dan were supposed to rendezvous was a hundred yards from our lookout point—close enough for us to follow the action through the binoculars I'd brought and far enough away for us not to get caught.

There was a game in progress, just a bunch of kids as opposed to the guys Dan used to play with, but it was Leah we were watching. She'd arrived early, right after we had, and she was looking eager, anxious, and very sexy in her miniskirt and boob-hugging top.

"You weren't kidding. She is a babe," Weezie remarked, having never seen her before.

"And sweet," I said. "Not the sharpest knife in the drawer, but Dan would be nuts to let her go."

"He
had
the sharpest knife in the drawer for thirteen years," she said, giving me an affectionate pat on the arm.

"Thanks, but I could have used more of the 'sweet.'"

"Maybe, but look what you're doing for him today. For both of them. In case I haven't told you, you've turned into a very generous person, my friend. Watching your guy hook up with someone else isn't easy. I know from experience."

"It's easier than I expected," I said. "Dan wasn't the only one who needed to grow up."

She was about to say something in response when I spotted a blond man walking toward Leah and shushed her.

"There he is!" I said, my hopes soaring.

"There he isn't," she said, my hopes plunging. She was the one with the binoculars at that moment and had a better view.

"Then where is he?" I said.

"Relax," she said, trying to be the voice of reason. "It's not even two yet. You said he loves her. He'll come."

"I also said he wouldn't commit to coming," I reminded her. "He didn't want to lead her on."

"I'm betting he'll come," said Weezie.

"It better be soon. I'm getting cold without a sweater or jacket." The mild spring weather had teased me into wearing a sleeveless shirt with my jeans. But now a breeze had kicked up, and the temperature had dropped and my arms had goose bumps.

"You'll warm up as soon as you see the fruits of your labor," she said.

And so we waited for Dan to join Leah. Two o'clock came and went. Five-after-two. Two-ten. Two-fifteen.

"Okay, where the hell is he?" I groaned. "Leah's standing there looking like her heart is breaking. I'm gonna kill him if he doesn't show up."

"How long should we give him?" said Weezie, who seemed less sure of the outcome now.

"As long as she gives him, I guess."

Two-twenty came and went. Two-twenty-five. Two-thirty. Two-thirty-five.

"I think she's crying," I said, peering at Leah through the binoculars.

"Who can blame her?" said Weezie. "She's been here for forty-five minutes."

"I can't believe he stood us up," I said.

"I really thought he'd show," she said, nodding.

"Could the whole deal with Desiree have traumatized him that much? Enough to swear off women forever? Even the one he wanted to marry?"

"Who knows." She sighed. "I've said it before and I'll say it again: men are the weaker, more fragile sex. They die before we do. They smoke and drink more. They crack themselves up in cars. They flunk out of—"

"Weezie, give me the glasses." I grabbed the binoculars and squinted at the field. As I narrowed my eyes, I could see that Leah had left her post beside the field and was taking a slow, resigned stroll around the area. She looked like a lost soul in search of her lost soul mate. "If he doesn't show in the next five minutes, she'll leave, and there won't be anything I can do about it."

I handed the binoculars back to her, frustrated that my plan didn't seem to be working.

"Oh, God," she said suddenly as she peered through the lenses.

"What?"

"Leah just looked over here. Get down!"

Weezie tugged on my shirt and pulled me down into the bushes with her. We hid there like soldiers in an enemy camp, squatting in the brush, willing ourselves not to move a muscle.

"Oh, no. She's seen us," I said after peeking. "She's heading in our direction and she's not happy."

"What do we tell her?" said Weezie. "That we're soaking up the afternoon sun?"

I ran through other possible excuses for being in the park at precisely the same time that Leah and Dan were scheduled to reunite: bird-watching; practicing tai chi; snipping specimens for our horticultural group. But, hey, we'd been caught.

"And I was feeling so good about this," I said, closing my eyes so I wouldn't have to watch Leah storm over to us and rant. I know I was being a coward, but I couldn't bear her anger and disappointment, both of which would be targeted at me and with good reason.

"Wait," said Weezie. "She just turned around and went back down to the field. And now she's running."

I opened my eyes. "Running?"

"Yeah, look." She passed me the binoculars. Sure enough, Leah had switched course and was now rushing toward the dirt field where a blond man—a handsome blond man who could only have been Dan—was rushing toward her.

"He came!" I said, dying to shout but muzzling myself. "If this were in slow motion, it would definitely be a shampoo commercial. Her hair. His hair. It's a beautiful thing."

Weezie and I watched like a couple of hard-core voyeurs as the two of them embraced. He kissed her. She kissed him. There were tears. There were hugs. There was love. There was so much love down on that field that we felt it all those yards away. But you know what? I barely flinched during their emotional reunion, only registered a minor tremor as it began to sink in that it was Leah Dan was kissing and not me. I was finally letting him go. I was not only letting him go, but I was deriving actual pleasure from seeing him so joyful. I even felt less antagonistic toward Desiree. She wasn't the most principled person I'd ever met, but she brought people together as a result of her matchmaking, and until then I didn't understand the satisfaction in that.

"Why do you think he took so long to show?" Weezie asked.

"Who knows?" I said. "Maybe he couldn't resolve his feelings. Maybe he was so ambivalent that it paralyzed him for a while."

"Men really are the weaker sex."

"And I'm too weak to discuss gender issues. I need food. Pizza. Beer. Lots of beer, as a matter of fact."

"Are you drowning your sorrows?" she asked, patting my arm with concern.

"No way. I'm having a victory party. You in?"

She smiled. "I'm not only in. I'm buying."

We stealthily abandoned our base and then made a mad dash for Fifth Avenue, where we jumped into a cab and rode down to Hell's Kitchen.

When we got to the neighborhood, I bought the pizza and Weezie bought the six-pack, and our party-of-two was soon under way at the Heartbreak Hotel. We were in the process of gorging ourselves on slices of pepperoni with mushrooms and onions when the phone rang. It was Leah.

I braced myself for her accusations. She had spotted me hiding in the bushes and I was sure she wasn't going to be pleased. "If you're going to yell at me for spying on you and Dan, I just want to say that it wasn't because—"

"I'm not going to yell at you," she interrupted. "I know you had my best interests at heart. You really, really wanted to make sure he showed up."

I was stunned. I was sure she'd think I had a more sinister motive for being in the park. "I did want to make sure he'd show up," I said, continually amazed by her forgiving nature. "Did he explain why he was late? I assume it was because he was wrestling with his emotions, still brooding about the terrible things I did to him."

She laughed. "It wasn't that at all. It turns out that Traffic Dan Swain gets stuck in traffic just like the rest of us."

"What?"

"There was a fire on the side street his taxi took across town, and everything was at a standstill. He was so fed up that he got out of the cab and ran the rest of the way to the park."

"So Traffic got stuck in traffic," I repeated, realizing that Dan would have been on time if not for the fire, which meant that he hadn't wrestled with his emotions; that he'd had every intention of meeting Leah at two o'clock; that he'd only left me hanging at Mrs. Thornberg's to "yank my chain."

She went on to thank me for making it possible for her to get together with him.

"You two are solid again?" I asked, hopeful that my staged reunion had set them back on course.

"Very. We're rescheduling the wedding and having it in Minco after all."

Her announcement triggered only a tiny flutter in my stomach, not the lurching I'd felt when I'd first heard they were getting married. "I'm very happy for you. And for Dan."

"It wouldn't have happened without you. We both know that."

"Don't be silly. If you're talking about the paintings, they were just my way of making amends."

"The paintings were an inspired idea," she said. "And now that we've figured out that they're yours, we'll return them to you as soon as possible. No, I'm talking about how you hired Desiree to find Dan a live-in."

"I'll say it again. I'm sorry I—"

"I'm serious! If you hadn't picked me, I would never have met him. So thank you."

"Oh. Well, then you're welcome."

She hung up. I turned to Weezie. "That was bizarre. Leah actually thanked me for playing matchmaker. I was expecting a hissy fit, and instead I got a pat on the back."

"Hey, she reconciled with her guy. Why shouldn't she be grateful?" She sipped her beer. Some of the foam clung to her top lip. "So now that she and Dan are squared away and Nards and I are growing closer, that leaves you."

"What about me?"

"Men, Mel. You remember them. When are you gonna let yourself have one?"

"
Have one
. Like they're fattening or something."

"Come on, pay attention. Have you heard from Evan?"

Evan. I'd been so focused on getting Leah and Dan together that I hadn't thought about him. Well, not in the past twenty-four hours. "No, and he said I shouldn't get in touch with him until the Dan situation was resolved."

"Presto! It's resolved. What are you waiting for? Call him."

Easy for her to say. She was married. She didn't have to put herself back out into the singles world, where there was never any certainty, never any security. It was only about "Will he like me?" and "Did I remind him too much of his last girlfriend?" and "Can I lay my heart on the line one more time?" It all seemed so daunting. Who needed it?

"Are you gonna call him?" she prodded.

"He doesn't have a phone. He's renting a bungalow in the Aba-cos so he can paint in peace. I told you that."

"Then visit him. 'It's better in the Bahamas.' Isn't that their slogan?"

"Oh, Weezie. Getting on a plane and just going there seems like—"

"Like Leah and Dan showing up in Central Park, not knowing if the other was going to show up too? Yeah, it's called taking a leap of faith. You've been telling everybody else to do it. Now it's your turn."

"Leah and Dan had already said the
L
word to each other by the time they took that leap of faith," I pointed out.

"Evan has already said it to you."

"Not exactly. He said he was
starting
to fall in love with me."

"Honey, he fell." She smiled. "You know he did. The question is how do you feel about him?"

I waited before answering. I wanted to be honest, straightforward, the way Evan always was. "Okay. How I feel is that I'd really like a chance to be with him without the complication of Dan," I replied. "I'm very attracted to him, that much I know, and I admire his values and his way of viewing the world. And, of course, I think he's talented. Oh, and he's also responsible; he doesn't shut everybody out just because he's passionate about his art. I guess what I'm saying is that it would be wonderful if we could have a future together."

Weezie shot me a devilish grin. "Yeah, you need to go to the Bahamas. And soon."

"But what if he's found somebody else by now? There must be a zillion women running around in their bikinis, tempting him."

She cast her eyes heavenward, as if I were too dense to understand. "If you learned anything from this debacle, it should be that people don't turn love on and off like a faucet. It lasts. It lasts through arguments, financial setbacks, infidelities, and, yes, divorces."

I nodded. She and Nards were living proof of that. Dan and I were too.

"Which means that if Evan loves you, he loves you," she said.

"A big 'if.'"

"
If
you went to visit him, you'd find out," she persisted. "You'd be doing exactly what he has Buster doing in the second painting: chancing it instead of playing it safe."

"What about money? I can't just fly off to paradise. I have to get a job."

"Oh, Mel. Mel." Another heavenward glance. "You have plenty of money. Pierce, Shelley gave you a very substantial severance package. You could take a whole year off and still be okay. I thought you'd gotten over your debtors' prison demons."

"I have, but I still need to find work at some point."

"At some point." She polished off her beer and looked at me. "Actually, I've been thinking about going back to work myself."

"You have? I had no idea." She had always maintained how content she was to stay home and raise her children.

"The kids are in school, and we have people to take care of the house," she said. "What I'd like to do is ease myself back into the workforce, but not at a hornets' nest like Pierce, Shelley."

"So you're thinking of changing careers?" I asked.

"No. I'm thinking of starting my own financial planning company." She smiled. "And I could really use a partner."

My eyes widened. "Me?"

"Who else?"

"Oh, Weezie! That would be fantastic. The best! But how would we swing it?"

While I listened raptly, she laid out her ideas for a financial consulting business.
Our
financial consulting business. We would start small, renting modest office space in the city, and expand as the need arose. Two star strategists together again, only this time with plenty of flexibility in terms of our schedules and no Bernie types looking nervously over our shoulders.