Emily's Reasons Why Not (25 page)

“Hi, it’s me,” I say in a whisper as I climb back into the shower with his robe on, clutching the bottle. “Are you up?”

“Of course I am. It’s noon,” shouts Reilly. “What’s wrong? You sound like you’re standing in the toilet.”

“I am. Sorta. Look, I found something in his medicine cabinet,” I whisper, eyeing the bottle.

“Oh, shit, what? Antidepressants. That’s okay, he’s balancing,” she laughs.

“Worse,” I say.

“Barbiturates? Crack? Coke? Herpes medicine?”

“Worse. I could live with all that,” I say, ducking further into the corner of the shower. I sit, climbing up on the little bench, crouched.

“C’mon! What? What’s worse than crack?” Reilly starts to match my whisper.

Silence hovers between us for a good five, six seconds. “Viagra,” I say.

“Well, no shit, Em. What did you think a guy who can ‘do it’ for two hours is using? It doesn’t even matter how old he is …”

The shower door opens and Magnum is standing there looking at me, bewildered.

“Whoaaa!” I fall off the shower seat, dropping the phone and spilling the little blue pills all over the marble and down the drain.

Magnum had come to tell me that a friend at his company had passed away last night. A heart attack. A young music executive who was really talented. A husband, a father of young twin boys, and, more important, a friend.

Lower than a bottom feeder. I feel lower than a bottom feeder.

How could I break up with this man who was standing in front of me—not mad that I got wickedly drunk last night, probably embarrassed him at some point, fell asleep minus any Viagra-induced sexual activity, who had bought me nothing but beautiful, thoughtful gifts, spoiled me rotten, told me I was “beautiful,” who now needs me to stand next to him at his friend’s funeral. I can’t. I simply can’t break up with him no matter how many reasons I have.

Two days have passed since the Viagra incident. We are on our way to Forest Lawn Cemetery. I hate funerals. Did I
mention that? The whole death, gone forever … scares the shit out of me. I mean, I have abandonment issues. Isn’t death the ultimate abandonment?

But here I go. Bravely holding my man’s hand as we sit across the casket from the widow and two of the most beautiful, curly-haired three-year-old twins I have ever seen.

The priest goes on about loss, the afterlife, and returning to the earth. I can’t help but stare at the widow. Her blonde hair, blue eyes; tired, almost scared face. My heart sinks for her. I think of the many nights alone she is going to have to brave in a king-size bed with his pillow empty. Her soul mate, her husband, her friend taken in the prime of their lives. I think about the struggles she will face raising those two little boys alone. I wonder what he must have been like? Handsome and young and a good father. I can imagine him playing touch football with his boys as they grow up. It’s all so upsetting. I lean over and whisper in Magnum’s ear, “It’s very sad, I mean the wife, alone, with those babies. It’s such a shock.”

He nods his head in agreement.

I keep staring at the widow, wondering, feeling, identifying.

“My God, it’s seriously such a tragedy,” I whisper again.

Magnum whispers, “Yes it is.”

Listening to the priest continue on about “ashes to ashes, dust to dust,” I look again at the widow before whispering to Magnum, “How old was he?”

Magnum leans over and whispers in my ear, “My age.”

But it seemed louder than an AC/DC concert. “MY AGE … MY AGE … MY AGE!”

I almost fall off my chair.

There it was … the motherlode, the biggest REASON of them all.

Reason #10
:
If he’s going to die of old age before your children are in junior high, he’s too old for you!!!

She was me, an image of tomorrow, a ghost from Christmas future. Me alone. Abandoned at thirty-six with two small children under the age of five. Nope! Not gonna happen. I start to get up and the priest eyes me.

Everyone eyes me.

I cover my face as if to be crying, which at this point isn’t far from the truth, and I walk away. Magnum looks from me to the group.

“It’s very upsetting to her,” he says and they all nod in sympathy, understanding. As if I was that widow—they know. He looks back at me. This time I have broken from a fast-paced walk to a full-blown sprint.

Up the hill, past a hundred graves, up another hill, past a hundred more … Jesus, how big is this place? Surrounded by tombstones, I sit resting as the sun starts to set toward the ocean.

I watch cars leaving. I can breathe again. Magnum finally finds me, sitting against the headstone of a woman named Irma Banks. Apparently she was a devoted wife and mother. We drive home in silence, like I’m doomed to be grounded, a bad high schooler, and he’s a disappointed parent.

He drops me at the front of my house and doesn’t get out. I turn around to apologize but he just drives off in his black 850 BMW. Not that I expect him to come in or anything. He is old enough to know better.

Reason #10
:
If he’s going to die of old age before your children are in junior high, he’s too old for you!!!

Reason #9
:
Don’t be a float at the old folks’ parade
.

Reason #8
:
No matter how old someone is, no one knows you better than you know yourself
.

Reason #7
:
You’re not my dad, so don’t tell me what to do
.

Reason #6
:
There is no substitute for the real thing
.

Reason #5
:
When your therapist knows, you know … he’s probably the wrong guy
.

Reason #4
:
If you like his life more than you like him, it makes it hard to be objective
.

Reason #3
:
Compromise is compromise no matter what season of life you’re in
.

Reason #2
:
If you’re not over your ex, you’re not ready, no matter how old you are
.

Reason #1
:
If his age is old enough to notice, it’s old enough to matter
.

Chapter ten

Smooth Sailing

F
riday evening. Walking on the strand, I see dolphins just past the shore break. It warms me inside. I look at the sun setting and I get an overwhelming sense of “okay.” Maybe it is my thirties or maybe it is just that I am finally at a point where I am happy being Emily. Magnum had done one thing. He had helped me over the hurdle of Reese. I wasn’t mad at Reese anymore, or for that matter, any of them. I wasn’t unhappy. I was just me. Still single and somewhat normal and now drama-free. I have resolved that my life isn’t supposed to be the cookie-cutter life that everyone else has. Or pretends to have.

I sit down on the beach and dial Dr. D.

“I want to see you,” I say into the phone.

“Why? Are you breaking up?” he says in a way that might be categorized as humor.

“No, it’s just … I feel a little strange. Like I am standing on one foot but I have learned to balance on it and I don’t know if that is, well, just how life is or if I have just come to accept that my life will never be fixed and will always be an evolving ‘work in progress, please excuse the mess.’ ”

He lets out a long breath. “Okay, come into the office tomorrow, Saturday, at ten in the morning before I launch my boat for the first time.”

As Dr. D. walks into the waiting room of his outer office he stands there a good long minute looking at me, then smiles. I am happy that he slipped me in on short notice and even happier he has given up part of his Saturday for my mental well-being. He turns and I follow him back into his office. We both sit. I catch a glimpse of myself in his mirror and wonder who that girl staring back at me is. She seems more peaceful.

“You’ve stopped with the lists, haven’t you?” He begins what I know is going to be a speech.

I shrug.

“Good.” I look up at his sort-of proud face. “I do care about you, Emily,” he says softly. “I want you to be happy, and you may be past that work.”

Dr. D. gets up, opens his arms.

I stand and he gives me a huge hug.

I push back and look in his eyes. “I know I can survive any man, mortgage payments, management issues, and carrying in the groceries, but it all makes me, I dunno, a little sad to be so damn self-sufficient.”

“You’ve become your own prince and life is just a little scary, but it’s good,” he sighs.

“I know, and I am okay with it. You know, I never wanted someone to save me. I just wanted someone to love me. And somewhere along the way, I learned to love myself.”

“I understand,” he says, gently setting me down on that couch where I have spent a hundred hours.

“I think that maybe my picker or my ‘flutter, flutter’ for men is broken.” I say matter-of-factly.

“Your picker is not broken,” he says. “The good thing is, you kept your heart open, Emily. You are not one of the ones I worry about living ‘the good life.’ You already are. You have something magical in you that lights up even this room. You’ve been trying to prove you’re successful and witty and sporty. That you’re a good cook and that you’ll make a perfect soccer mom and wife someday. Somehow trying to fit into some man’s blueprint of
his
life.” He looks me in the eye. “But you just have to be you,” he sets down his yellow pad, “because you’re amazing.”

The light just caught the sparkle of Dr. D.’s white teeth as he smiled. He has a great smile. He’s still talking, but I am caught in the sound of his smooth, sexy tone saying: “… with a big heart that gets you in so much trouble.”

My eyes drift down as if I’m embarrassed and land on the brown hairs of his strong forearms, as if I have never seen them before.

“There is a guy out there who deserves you—and he’s going to hold your hand when you cross the street.” He takes
a breath and continues, “He’s going to dance with you in a movie theater when the credits are rolling. He’s going to sweep you off your feet and make you feel like everything that you have gone through was to finally be with that one man.” He lets out a little chuckle. “And he’ll be your equal, which is no easy job. You will have that picket-fence life at the beach, because you already do, and now you just have to open your eyes to that person who is finally going to really, deeply love you.”

Flutter. Flutter
.

I am frozen, gazing in his big brown eyes with the promise of a happy tomorrow.

“Time’s up,” he says, standing.

I sit in my Rover, dumbfounded. I can’t put the key in the engine. I can’t move. I see Dr. D. roll past the parking structure in his Bronco towing his classic, cleaned-up, sparkling wooden boat with a huge mast and white sail ready to be pulled taunt. I eye the back of her, looking for her name, and it says …
Smooth Sailing
.

I can’t help but laugh.

I want to follow him, to catch him, to tell him, because I can’t think of one reason why not. I find myself wondering …

Would it be a bad thing to date your doctor?

Helpful Hints from Emily
INDEX OF REASONS

Keep It Out of the Office

Reason #10
:
You get fired
.

Reason #9:
Crying at work is unacceptable
.

Reason #8
:
People will talk about how well you perform in bed verses how well you perform your job
.

Reason #7
:
If your friends, mentors, and co-workers think your boyfriend has ulterior motives, he probably does
.

Reason #6
:
If what you’re doing for your boyfriend can get you fired, stop doing him
.

Reason #5
:
If you have to hide your relationship, it isn’t worth hiding
.

Reason #4
:
If helping your boyfriend makes you lie to your friends, boss, and mentor, don’t help him
.

Reason #3
:
That which is considered scandal in a relationship is bad, really, really, bad
.

Reason #2
:
If there are kitschy little sayings about the guy you’re dating, there is probably a universal reason why it is a bad idea
.

Reason #1
:
If your boss is bigger than life in your company, that doesn’t necessarily mean he is bigger than life in real life
.

Leave it in St. Croix

Reason #10
:
Face it, we’re all different on vacation
.

Reason #9
:
You will spend two months trying to get back to those few perfect days in paradise
.

Reason #8
:
If you are rooted, choose carefully where, when, and with whom to replant
.

Reason #7
:
It was the best it’s going to be on vacation
.

Reason #6
:
He should have offered
.

Reason #5
:
Your phone bills could buy you a new pair of Gucci loafers every month
.

Reason #4
:
Beware of the love bug on vacation
.

Reason #3:
He’s not who you think he is
.

Reason #2
:
When you don’t want the answer, it’s probably bad
.

Reason #1
:
Beware of promises made in paradise. Men talk about the possibility of a future with you on a romantic island when you are tan and easy-breezy, but it never makes the flight home
.

Don’t Go Pro

Reason #10
:
If your man seems too good to be true, he probably is
.

Reason #9
:
Wondering if I was the only one or a priority at all
.