Mike, Mike & Me (12 page)

“Because I don’t have a boyfriend. And desperate times call for desperate measures.”

“You’re not desperate, Val.”

“Sure I am,” she said cheerfully. “So are you going to call him?”

“No! And neither are you. I’m going to throw the card away, which is what I thought I did in the first place.” I was still holding it over the garbage can, but I couldn’t seem to make myself let go.

“What do you mean, you thought you did?”

“I threw it into the wastebasket last week. It must have fallen out when you dumped the garbage.”

“Nothing fell out when I dumped the garbage. I always check the floor around it, ever since we had that mouse problem.”

Yeah. That.

I shuddered just remembering the morning we woke up to a hear a horrible thumping, scratching sound. Turned out it was coming from a mouse gnawing its way through a sauce and grease–stained pizza box that had fallen from its perch atop the jammed garbage can in the kitchen.

“Of course it fell out of the wastebasket,” I said impatiently.

“Don’t be so sure. Maybe…”

“Maybe what? It magically reappeared?”

“Stranger things have happened,” she said mysteriously.

“No, they haven’t.” I rolled my eyes.

“I think it’s fate. Forget about me calling him. You need to call him, Beau.”

“I’m not calling him.”

I let go of the card and watched it flutter into the wastebasket again.

“Guess you don’t believe in fate, Beau.”

“Guess not.”

Valerie shook her head. “I’m going to go order Chinese. You want some?”

“No, thanks.”

I watched her leave the room.

I waited until I heard her on the phone with Dragon Panda before I plucked the pale blue card from the litter of lipstick-stained tissues.

I tucked it under my pillow, just in case…

Just in case, what?
I asked myself.

I didn’t know the answer. All I knew was that I just couldn’t throw it away.

thirteen

The present

“G
od, you sound exactly the same,” Mike’s voice declares in my ear as, gripping the phone, I wrench my bare feet out of the kiddie pool and bolt from my chair.

“You, um, sound the same, too,” I tell him, scurrying across the yard, leaving the kids and Laura and the baby monitor behind.

But he doesn’t really sound the same. His voice is deeper, and he’s got a different accent. A bit of a drawl, really.

I find myself feeling inexplicably betrayed. He’s gone on to build a whole life without me; developed a whole new accent without me.

Well, what did you expect, Beau? Did you think he’d stay frozen in time, right where you abandoned him fifteen years ago?

“How did…”

“I get your number? You’re listed,” he says with a laugh. “You don’t mind, do you?”

“No! Where…I…do…I mean, are you in Florida?” I manage to ask.

“Yeah. For a few years now.”

“Really. What are you doing there?”

“Not much of anything, actually.” His laugh is easy, his drawl decided.

“Oh. So you’re not, um…”
Married
is what I want to say. “Working?” is what I say instead.

“Working?” He laughs again. More of a chuckle. “Nope, I’m not working. Not at the moment.”

Terrific. He’s unemployed, which he seems to find oddly amusing, and living in Florida. Probably in a run-down trailer park. Yet, I can’t help myself. Once again, I find myself wondering whether he’s married.

“How about you?” he’s asking.

I absently watch Josh shoving Mikey’s head underwater in the kiddie pool across the yard. “Me? Yes, I’m still married.”

There’s a pause, and then he says, “I meant are you working?”

“Oh! Sorry, I thought you…” I trail off, mortified.

“It’s okay. Just…I mean, I knew that. You mentioned that you’re still married in your e-mail. That’s great.”

“Yeah! It is! It’s great!” I look skyward, mortified, and realize that the broken branch I asked Mike to remove from the oak tree last month is still dangling precariously overhead. It so figures. I step out from under it, just in case.

“And you have three kids?” Mike is asking.

“Yeah! Three kids! They’re great!” And one is currently trying to drown the other as an oversize Laura struggles to play lifeguard. “Can you hang on for a second, Mike?”

“Sure.”

I set the phone on the ground, making sure that it’s out of earshot and beyond the range of falling branches, then stride back over to the pool.

“Mikey, are you okay?” I ask my sputtering firstborn, whom Laura has rescued from his brother’s clutches. “Josh, get into time-out under that tree. Now. March!” To Laura, I say, “Thanks.”

“No problem.” She settles back into her chair.

“Listen, Laura, this is a hugely important phone call. I have to take it in the house. Can you please-please-please just make sure they stay alive for five minutes while I’m gone?”

“Sure. What’s wrong? Is it Mike?”

“Yeah, it’s Mike,” I say with only a twinge of guilt because it’s not a lie. “Everything’s fine. I just need to talk inside, where it’s quiet.”

“Go.”

“Thanks. I owe you a big favor.”

“Where were you when I was looking for a surrogate?” she asks wryly, wrapping my shivering son in the nearest beach towel.

I rush back to the phone, grab it, and make a beeline for the house, accidentally trampling what’s left of my prized stargazer lily bed in the process.

My heart is pounding. I can’t believe I’m actually in the midst of a conversation with Mike after all these years.

In fact…what if he hung up?

Pressing the receiver to my ear as I walk, I hear the faint sound of music playing in the background. So he’s still there. Thank God. Continuing the conversation is crucial. I don’t know why it is, but it is.

I wait until I’m sealed into the cool, dim, quiet interior to say into the receiver, “Sorry about that. I’m back.”

“Hi.”

“Hi.”

Somehow, the conversation just got more intimate. It’s almost as if we’re suddenly alone together at last.

“So…you’re still married,” he says again.

“Yeah.” I wait. “To Mike,” I repeat, when he doesn’t speak.

“And you have three kids?”

“Three boys.

“That’s great.”

“Do you have kids?”

“No. I always wanted them, but…” He sighs. “You know how it goes. Some things just aren’t meant to be.”

Yeah.

I know how it goes.

Some things just aren’t meant to be.

Like fatherhood.

And like…

Us.

I read sorrow into his silence and I wonder if that’s what he’s thinking.

Probably not. Our relationship is ancient history. I’m not self-centered enough to think that he’s been pining away for me all these years.

Maybe he’s just thinking it’s unfair that I have three children and he doesn’t have any. Maybe he’s thinking about his beloved wife, and how the two of them have been through years of infertility treatments.

I always wanted them.

Wouldn’t you think he’d have said “We always wanted them” if he were married?

I would think that. But then, I don’t want him to be married. I don’t want him to have a beloved wife. I want…

I want him to tell me he’s spent the last fifteen years frozen in time, longing for me. Longing for what might have been. That’s what I want.

And whatever Beau wants…

“I’m divorced, Beau,” he says.

Just like that, my burning question is answered.

I’m divorced.

Yippee, I think.

“I’m sorry,” I say, chiding my immature inner self. I mean, what kind of person is exalted to hear about another’s misfortune?

A terrible person, that’s what kind…

I look heavenward for forgiveness, absently noticing cobwebs wafting in the corner where the soffit meets the ceiling.

The kind of terrible person who is fantasizing about committing adultery with said misfortunate person.

There. It’s out there. That’s my fantasy. I am fantasizing about seeing Mike again and having an illicit affair with him. Obviously it can’t happen, and not just because he’s in Florida and I’m in New York.

There are plenty of other reasons.

Like that unsightly ridge of tummy fat beneath my belly button.

Oh, and the fact that I’m happily married and I wouldn’t dream of cheating.

Okay, obviously I’d
dream
of it.

I just wouldn’t
do
it.

No, sir.

I picture myself stepping into the Diane Lane role in that movie
Unfaithful,
a Westchester housewife sneaking around behind Richard Gere’s back with a sensual French lover.

I could never do that.

I’m a Westchester housewife, yes.

But Mike isn’t French.

And my husband isn’t Richard Gere.

Speaking of which, who in their right mind would cheat on Richard Gere?

Still, the fantasy takes hold. I see myself wearing decadent, tummy-bulge-camouflaging lingerie, see Mike having his way with me on a rumpled bed in a SoHo loft lined with bookcases and exposed brick.

“Beau? Are you still there?”

Reality check. The accent in my ear is Southern, not Parisian.

If he knew what I was thinking…

“I’m still here,” I say, wishing Tyler would wake up crying so I’d have an excuse to hang up.

“Listen, I don’t know why I called you,” he says suddenly, candidly. “I don’t even know why I e-mailed you. I just…I guess when I found you, I had to get in touch. And when I got your e-mail back, it wasn’t enough. I had to hear your voice.”

“Well…here I am.” I hate my chirpy, nervous laughter. I hate that I can’t think of anything clever to say. I hate that I feel so giddy and girlie all of a sudden, like a twelve-year-old getting her first phone call from a boy.

There’s an awkward pause.

I study the cobweb overhead. I have to remember to sweep it away before Mike spots it and wants to fire Melina.

“Beau?” Mike asks.

“Yes?” I ask, loving the sound of my name on his lips again after all these years, and thinking that
he
would never want to fire a poor immigrant cleaning lady over a stray cobweb or two.

“Do you want to hang up?”

“Hang up? No! Do you?”
Please don’t want to hang up. Please.

“No…I just don’t know what else to say. I guess I never thought past the hearing-your-voice part.”

I’m not the only one prone to nervous laughter.

“Well, how do I sound?” I ask.

“You sound great. How do I sound?”

“Like you’ve been living in the South for too long. Don’t tell me you eat grits and have a Rebel flag on your car antenna.”

“Hey, that’s all stereotype. No fair.”

“Do you?”

“Yes to the grits, no to the Rebel flag.”

Down the hall, I hear Tyler stirring to consciousness in his crib. I will him back to sleep, not ready to return to motherhood just yet.

As though he’s read my mind, Mike says, “Tell me about your kids, Beau.”

I do. I tell him about earnest, sensitive Mikey; mischievous, full-of-fun Josh; sweet and lovable Tyler. Talking about my children relaxes me. The tension dissipates, on both ends of the line, and Mike seems genuinely interested in my boys.

“So you’re a stay-at-home mom?”

“Yup, that’s me.”

“I’m having trouble picturing that. I really thought you might be a producer by now. Any regrets?”

“Nope. Not really.” Not about leaving work, anyway. Just about…

Leaving him?

No. I love Mike.
My
Mike. Till-death-do-us-part Mike. I know I made the right choice. Really, I do.

I guess what I regret is ending my other relationship the way that I did. I mean, I basically turned my back and ran away. And suddenly, after all these years, it feels like unfinished business.

“What about you?” I ask, attempting once again to shut out our troubled past—along with Tyler’s increasingly urgent whimpers. “Are you in between jobs?”

“You could say that,” he says, almost sounding coy. “I’m not sure what I want to do next, so I’m taking my time with it.”

“What did you—oh, crap.” Tyler has let out an earsplitting shriek from his crib. “Hang on.”

I drop the phone and run down the hall to the nursery, where my indignant baby lets me know he’s had it with this nap stuff. He’s soaked through his diaper and ravenous with hunger.

Guilt surges through me.

Clutching my crying child in my arms, I return to the phone and say with firm reluctance, “I’ve got to go, Mike.”

“Is that Tyler crying?”

“Yeah, that’s him.” I’m impressed that he remembers his name.

“Okay, well…it was great talking to you, Beau.”

“You, too.”

I hang on, bouncing inconsolable Tyler slightly on my hip, wishing he would quiet down so that I could prolong the conversation. It’s not that I have anything specific to say, just that I’m not quite ready to let go again. Yet.

“Listen, I’ll e-mail you. Okay?”

I grin, relieved. “Yes. That would be great.”

And that’s how it begins. Again.

fourteen

The past

I
was fifteen minutes late getting to La Margarita on Bleecker Street.

Not because I got hung up at work, or couldn’t get a cab, or had subway trouble.

No, I was late because I wasn’t sure I could go through with this.

I had made the date with cute Mike from the airport—well, not a date, exactly, so I’ll call it an appointment—impulsively last night.

Twenty-four hours and much soul-searching later, my impulse was to call it off. When I tried to reach him from the studio earlier to offer some lame excuse, the phone just rang and rang. No answering machine, so I couldn’t even leave a message.

What kind of person didn’t have an answering machine? This was 1989, for God’s sake, not the Dark Ages.

I considered standing him up, but Valerie wouldn’t let me. She said the least I could do was show up.

She also pointed out helpfully that it wasn’t necessarily a date. It was just a New Yorker being friendly to a newcomer. That the New Yorker happened to be involved with somebody else and that the newcomer happened to be an incredibly attractive bachelor was moot, according to Valerie.