Cheating on Myself (18 page)

“Yes, I do have an actual list. I made it when I was fifteen.”

“The list hasn’t changed since then?”

“Not really. It was a very well thought out list. I’m thorough.”

He reached his hand behind my seat to reverse out of his spot. Before he shifted the car back into drive, he stopped and looked at me. “Was dating a medium-sized, handsome man in overalls on the list?” He asked this very seriously, but then laughed.

“Actually, no,” I said, laughing along with him.

“Then I guess it’s good I changed out of the overalls, eh?”

“Your fate would have been sealed if you’d left them on,” I teased. As we pulled out of the parking lot, I asked, “So you mean to say you don’t consider yourself grown up yet?”

“Not in the least. I play songs for children. It kinda keeps you from growing up in a lot of ways.”

“But you’re also an attorney. And divorced. Don’t both of those things have a tendency to age you?”

“Sure,” he shrugged. “But then you rinse them away and start again. It feels good to start fresh, rewind a few years, shuffle hopes and dreams and all that funny business. If I’d had a list, I would have rewritten it about thirty times by now. The life I wanted when I was fifteen would have left me stoned on someone’s couch, testing Playstation games for a living. Oh, and there would have been Cheetos. Lots of Cheetos.”

“You had big ambitions.”

“I’ve changed a lot since then.” He broke off, and I felt like there was something more he wanted to say. But it went unspoken and a moment later, we turned into a parking lot attached to a small, ramshackle-looking Mexican restaurant. “This okay?” Joe asked, noticing I was eyeing the restaurant warily.

“Sure, it’s fine. I’ve never been here before.”

“Best Mexican food north of Kansas City,” he said, opening his door. “So, Stella, how are you so confident you knew how your life should go when you were just fifteen? Don’t you ever wonder if maybe you sold yourself short?” He held the door for me, and we both stomped our icy, muddy boots on the mat inside the door. The inside of the restaurant was minimally-decorated, with plain wooden booths surrounding a few tables covered in vinyl tablecloths. The lighting was dim and sparse, and I was immediately reminded of a truck stop restaurant Erik and I had once stopped at while we were driving back from somewhere. When I was with Erik, we had promptly left any restaurant that looked like this. He refused to eat anywhere that appeared even a little bit sketchy. This place was definitely sketchy.

“I didn’t sell myself short,” I said finally. “My mom died when I was fifteen, and it gave me a lot of time to think about what’s important in life. For a couple months I dwelled on the things she never got to do, and it got me thinking about what the must-haves were for me.”

“What are some of the highlights?”

I thought through my list, and realized there was nothing worth sharing. “Sadly, there aren’t really any highlights. I didn’t really give myself very lofty goals.” As I said it, I recognized I was coming across as a real whiner. “I guess I’ve always just been realistic—I never asked for much, just a good job, good friends, maybe a trip to Italy...”

“A trip to Italy is on the list?”

“No, it’s not on the original list, but that’s one of my later-life addendums. A P.S., if you will. I didn’t recognize the allure of Italy until I realized Italian food was more than just a jar of red sauce poured over spaghetti with a little dried parmesan sprinkled on top.”

Joe cringed. “Sounds delicious.”

“That was my dad’s idea of ethnic cooking.”

The waitress came and took our order. I picked enchiladas mole, and Joe ordered fajitas. We both ordered Jarritos soda since the restaurant didn’t appear to have a beer and wine license. Obviously, Joe wasn’t trying to get me drunk tonight. Chalk one up to class.

“So,” Joe said, as soon as our drinks arrived, along with paper-wrapped straws. Joe paused, ripped off the top of his straw wrapper, and blew the rest of the wrapper at me. It was oddly amusing, rather than juvenile and annoying. Maybe it was just the expression on his face, one of simple glee and unwarranted pride that went along with the action. “A good job, good friends… that’s it? That was—is—your life list?”

“There’s more to it than that. Like I said, those are the highlights.”

“Is there anything you haven’t accomplished? What’s your big regret?” He put his chin on his hands, and his elbows on the table. His eyes were fixed on mine, and my stomach fluttered. His lips were still red and a little dry from singing outside on the float that night, and he licked them quickly as we looked at each other. Inadvertently, my eyes flickered to his mouth. Joe must have noticed, since he pressed his lips together, then smiled in that coy way he often did.

“Getting married,” I said, and instantly regretted it. We were on our first date, and I’d just come out with the fact that my biggest unfinished goal in life was to get married. Hello, potential lover, would you like to get married and have my children in, say, forty-five minutes? “I mean, not that I need to get married, like, now. But I would like to. Someday. Maybe. Kids weren’t on the list, though. I never felt a desperate need for kids.”

He laughed, obviously aware of my discomfort. “Glad we got that conversation out of the way on the first date.” He was still chuckling. I reddened and took a huge swallow of my soda. “You said you just broke up with someone?”

“After twelve years, yeah.”

Joe whistled. “That’s a long time.”

“Yep.”

“He wasn’t into the idea of a wedding?”

“Nope.”

“This line of questioning is making you pretty uncomfortable, isn’t it?”

“A bit.” I grinned. Blessedly, our food finally arrived, and I took a big, gulping bite so I could stop talking. I was sure the cheese hanging off the side of my mouth was every bit as sexy as I’d always wished I would be on a first date. Not that I’d really imagined a lot of first dates, seeing as how I wouldn’t have expected to be on any more of them at this stage of my life. After I swallowed, I said quietly, “I’m sorry I brought up the marriage thing—”

Joe cut me off. “I think I brought up marriage, actually. Last week, I seem to remember talking your ear off about my own crooked concept of happily ever after.”

I did remember that. In fact, his notion of sticking with your ever after through bad and worse is the reason I’d left Erik’s office earlier in the week with my tights in a bunch.

“Yeah, I’ve been thinking about what you said a lot,” I said aloud, not copping to the fact that my idea of a reconciliation was a quickie on my ex’s desk. “Do you really think it’s better to stick it out and try and try and try again, even if you’re not really, truly happy, in the hope that maybe you can change a person? Isn’t that a stupid notion?”

“Yeah, it’s very stupid.”

“So why did you say it?” I didn’t want to believe I’d misheard him. His words about regretting his divorce were a big part of the reason I’d had amazing, new-feeling sex with Erik. “Didn’t you say it’s better to keep building on the foundation than to start over completely?”

“Did I?” Joe shrugged. “Yeah, that sounds like me. But I go back and forth a lot.”

I seethed as he wrapped sizzling meat and veggies in a tortilla. It bugged me that he was being so wishy-washy. You can’t just up and change your ideals on a whim! He had told me he wished he had spent more time working through his marriage, that he regretted leaving something established for the great unknown. I had heard what he’d said, and it had led me to reconsider a future with Erik. It had led me to let my ex into my undies.

“You’re giving me looks,” Joe said, gesturing at my face with his fajita.

“What kind of looks?”

“Weird looks.” Wow, that was flattering. “Did what I say really have that much impact on you? You know I’m not some kind of relationship expert, right?”

“I don’t know. You have been married and divorced. That should give you some amount of savvy.”

“It just means I’ve made bad choices, then adapted accordingly. I firmly believe you can’t plan life, and you have to go with the flow. We sing about it.”

“In the band? You sing a song about divorce?”

“About going with the flow.” He sang a few bars of a song, and I was reminded of his charisma up on stage. Why was that charisma morphing into ignorance and immaturity in a one-on-one situation? As an adult, I would fully expect Joe to have stronger plans in place for himself. Like… well, like Erik. Erik had plans and goals and a road map. But he wasn’t acting on them. Unlike Joe, who’d apparently had no long-term goals for himself, but had just up and quit everything to be in a children’s rockabilly band.

“Do you ever think about the future? Like, five, ten years down the line? Don’t you feel like you need to put plans in place to get yourself to the next hurdle?”

“Hurdle?” Joe leaned back against his booth seat and set his fajita down on top of the salsa and sour cream-laden plate that sat in front of him. “I don’t really see life as something filled with hurdles to get through. I like to map my course with lots of blank spots, and see what lies around the next bend. Like hashing—you’ve gotta get somewhere eventually, but there are plenty of stops for fun along the way. Have you ever been on a hash?”

“Are you talking about drugs?”

He laughed, short and loud. “No. Hashing is basically running while socializing, with a little beer thrown in. One of the guys in my hash group once called us drinkers with a running problem, or something like that.”

“Running with beer?”

“If you’re going to run, there might as well be something good keeping you going. That’s my theory, anyway. We drink a little before, during, and after. Keeps you going.”

Now I was sure I was dating a child. Drinking before, during, and after running sounded a lot like hazing at a frat house. Grown men went out for nice dinners with their friends, they served on neighborhood association boards, they volunteered with their mother at the soup kitchen on Christmas Eve. At least, that’s what Erik had led me to believe.

I gritted my teeth. Once again, I was letting Erik’s opinions and views on life dictate my own. Instead of dwelling on how strange and juvenile this hash thing sounded, I let myself wonder if Joe wore the brown stocking cap while he was running. He looked hot in that cap. I knew he had great legs, too. The little bit I could see through the jeans had gotten me really curious, and I wished I had an excuse to see him in shorts—or maybe those tight, shiny running pants Lily always made fun of. Or nothing at all.

“Do you think I could go with you sometime?” I had not planned to say that, but there it was, and now I couldn’t take it back. I didn’t run. I only went to water aerobics. I hadn’t even tried to step foot on the treadmill since a few days after the yoga incident—and now I was thinking of downing a beer and hitting the pavement?

“We love newbies,” Joe said, and suddenly my only hope was that the date would go so off track from here on out that I wouldn’t ever have to do this hashing thing. “Come with me on Sunday. I mean, if you really want to. It’s going to be totally different than anything you’ve ever done before, I can pretty much guarantee that.”

I nodded hesitantly.

“If it’s not your thing, just speak up,” he said earnestly, “You never have to come again. If you’re not a runner, that’s cool, too. We have a big group that walks the route. It’s really just about hanging out. No competitions, I promise.”

“Okay, I’ll try it.”

“Excellent. Does this check off another box on your list?”

“Strangely, hashing didn’t make it onto the list.” I laughed.

“So we’re veering off plan? Is that allowed?”

“Come on!” I said, still laughing despite the fact he was making fun of me. “It’s not like I refuse to do things that aren’t on my list. It’s just that I want to make sure I
do
do everything that
is
on my list.”

“I can’t stop thinking about the logistics of this list,” Joe said, leaning in toward me across the table. “Does it actually exist? Be straight with me. Is it, like, written in purple marker and hidden in a diary somewhere? Or is it just a vague thing that lives in your head?”

“The list is hand-written, and I keep it under my bed.” I pushed my plate away, and relaxed back, watching Joe finish his entire skillet of fajitas. “Inside a yearbook. It’s written in a slim, black sharpie marker.”

“I’d like to see it.”

“I don’t show it to people.” I narrowed my eyes flirtatiously. Even though I was acting coy and speaking playfully, I was actually very serious. I’d never shown anyone my list—not Erik, not Lily, not Cat. It was sort of sacred. Like the wedding dress I had stuffed inside a garment bag behind the business suits I hoped to someday be able to fit in again. The wedding dress had been an accident—a spur-of-the-moment mistake I’d foolishly swept into my arms at a trunk sale I’d snuck off to one day in my late-twenties. I hid the dress inside the winter clothes’ box in my trunk for almost a week before I had the nerve to sneak it into my closet where I hoped it would stay hidden from Erik.

“Fair enough,” Joe eased up. “If it makes you feel better, I have a list of my own.”

“You do? Where do you keep it?”

“In my head,” Joe reached up under his hat and scratched at the hair behind his ear, as if saying the word “head” had reminded him of an itch that had been nagging at him. “But I know what’s on it. It’s a list of things I’ve done and never want to do again.”

“What’s on
your
list?” I was curious to know more about how he ticked. We obviously weren’t a great match in any of the traditional categories, and I still couldn’t figure out why he’d asked me out in the first place. There was no way I was his type, and even though he was hot, funny, and made me feel relaxed and comfortable, I didn’t know that he was mine. “Can you give me the highlights?”

“Marrying a lawyer is definitely on my list of things to never do again,” he said, cracking himself up. “Practicing law is on there, but I guess I have to scratch that off if I’m ever really hard up for cash again. Dating Tara Gayle would be on the list, as well.”