Ordinary World (20 page)

“What in the world makes you think that all I wanted from you was sex? At what point did you get the impression that I just wanted to fuck you? Are you really that much in denial? Do you really
believe
that shit?”

“Tell me what you want, then.”

“I love you, Andrea. I want a long-term relationship with you.”

The words took me by as much surprise as when he’d first said them shortly after his father had died.

“Don’t call me Andrea.”

“Don’t call me Dev.”

He paused before continuing. “And by the way, you didn’t exactly run away when we first kissed that night on the balcony in Rome. You touched my esophagus with your tongue, if I recall.”

“Well, you had finished the strawberries, so…”

“You were horny as hell that night and you know it. So don’t get all high and mighty on me about my supposed conquest of you.”

I zipped up my jacket, pulled the collar close to my neck, and rubbed my ears, feeling the sting from the cold. And yet, neither of us moved from the bridge. David drew closer to me in an effort to shield me from the wind. Then he looked at me, shifting from anger to compassion in a manner of seconds, his eyes glistening in twilight.

“My parents were married for almost forty-five years when my father died. And my mother grieved. She had difficulty adjusting to things, like cooking for one person—she doesn’t know how to do it. She usually winds up throwing the food out because there’s no one to eat the leftovers. Still, to this day. But you know what she did do? Joined a bowling league, for starters—can you believe that? You don’t really know my mother, but trust me—bowling is not the first thing you would think of if you did.”

“What’s your point?”

“My point is that she wasn’t afraid to try new things. She wasn’t afraid to keep living, and continue with her own life, even though the biggest part of it was gone. And for forty-five years, it was the only life she knew.”

“Are you saying that because I only spent five years of my life with Sam—six, actually—that I shouldn’t have any trouble moving on?”

“No—absolutely not. You know I’m not saying that.”

“Besides, at least your mother and you and the rest of your family got to say goodbye to your father. You knew his days were numbered. You got to tell him the things you wanted to tell him.”

He said nothing; just wistfully looked out at the water.

“Didn’t you?” I asked.

“Yes, I did. Two days before he died. I told him that I loved him, and he told me that he loved me.”

I wanted to take his hand, to extend the same compassion to him that he was extending to me. And yet, my own hand stayed lodged in the pocket of my jacket, refusing to move.

“I’m glad you got that chance. I didn’t have that with Sam. I didn’t get to tell him one last time that I loved him, didn’t get to make love to him one last time, or thank him for the joy he gave me, or hold him in my arms. He went out for a bottle of sparkling cider and never came back.”

Tears came to my eyes.

“I have no idea how it must feel to have someone you love ripped out of your life like that and I’m not trying to pretend that I do. I’m not telling you to get over it or anything like that. My mother had the opportunity to join a support group—also out of her comfort zone, I must mention—when my dad was diagnosed, and fortunately she was able to foresee that her life was going to change. And someone in that group was able to show her that, although difficult, this could also be an opportunity to explore and use her life in ways she might not have previously considered. She lost her husband, but she didn’t lose herself. She reinvented herself. It wasn’t easy, but you should see her now.”

“She’s had over five years to do that.”

“There’s no timetable, ya know. Look…” He turned me so that we were facing each other, and touched my wind-burned cheek. “I remember that woman who was so hidden away, so ashamed of her body and afraid that she might be unlovable because of what she didn’t know.”

One by one, the tears slid down my cheeks.

“I also remember the woman in Rome who cried cathartically in my arms for hours—I don’t think I ever loved you as much as I did for those hours, Andi. That was
you
coming out from behind the curtain, and I was so glad to see it, as heartbreaking as it was.”

He tenderly smudged each tear away as they fell.

“You can’t go back to the way things were, Andi. You can’t be the woman you were when we first met, and you can’t be who you were when Sam was alive. The only option is to move forward, and be who you authentically are, the part of you that no tragedy or childhood wound can touch.”

I went into his arms and he held me close.

“I thought I was ready in Rome, right before we left. Guess I was wrong,” I said between sniffles and sobs.

“No you weren’t. You just got scared and hid her away again. You need to let her out.”

“How do I do that?”

“Forgiveness,” he answered.

“Who do I need to forgive?”

“Sam for dying, yourself for being powerless to stop it from happening, the drunk driver…”

Something inside me started burning, not unlike the rage I felt when I blew up at my students a little over a year ago. I didn’t want to talk about this anymore…how could I stop him from talking about this anymore?

I kissed him.

He smiled warmly.

“I’m freezing my ass off on this bridge, you know,” I said.

“Me too. Wanna get a cup of coffee?”

“Didn’t this fight begin at Starbucks?” I asked.

“Wanna get into a hot bath, then?” He moved his eyebrows up and down like Groucho Marx.

I smiled slyly and winked. “Last one in has to sponge the other.”

With that, he pretended to dart off in a sprint. We crossed to the other side of the bridge, arm in arm, and went back to his place, where we enjoyed an evening reminiscent of the bathtub date from our short-lived arrangement years ago, only this time I spent the night with him in his bed.

Chapter Twenty-six

T
HE DAY AFTER DAVID AND I RECONCILED, I TOOK OUT the journal I had kept while in Rome, and found the page on which I listed my “anniversary goals.”

Start a book club.

Start a writers group.

Research for a journal article about the rhetoric of death.

Get back to teaching.

Take a trip somewhere else.

First, I changed the name of the list to “Summer Goals” and added a fifth item: Finish Sam’s novel. Second, I put together a book club consisting of Miranda; Piero, the sexy Italian teacher; Sam’s friend George from EdmundCollege; and Jeff and Patsy Baxter. We decided to start with an oldie but a goodie:
Catch 22
. The writers group was trickier. David wanted in on it, but I didn’t know who else to ask. When Sam died, I’d isolated myself from so many of our friends that I felt awkward about calling them up out of the blue. Of course, I wanted Maggie to be a part of it, but she was too far away. I’d been trying to convince her to leave Brooklyn and move back to Massachusetts, where we’d first met, but she had tenure at Brooklyn U and didn’t want to start over.

            As for the academic article, conducting research was never something I enjoyed doing even when life was sweet and normal and predictable, but I wasn’t ready to check that one off the list just yet.

***

Jeff and I met for lunch at one of the bar-and-grill places in Amherst to discuss my return to teaching.

            “I don’t know, Jeff,” I said. “Every time I even think about re-entering a classroom, my palms start to sweat and I get nauseous.”

            “Sooner or later you have to get back on the horse, don’t you? The longer you wait, the harder it’s gonna be. We’ll ease you back in slowly. We’ll give you two grad level courses: The Introduction to Rhetorical Theory class and the Robert Connors Essays seminar. No freshmen. What do you think?”

            I raised my eyebrows at the mention of the second course—he knew I’d had my eye on it once upon a time—and went back to poking at my salad. “Maybe.”

            “Thing is, Andi, I don’t know if you’ll have a place to come back to if you take another semester of teaching off. The contract is pretty strict about that. You’ve had so much time off already.”

            “I really don’t know if I want to go back at all.”

            “What do you mean, ‘at all’? Are you saying you want to leave the university altogether?”

“I don’t know. It was a thought.”

“I actually thought you just finished a good year here,” he said.

“I did.”

“Then why do you want to leave?”

I sipped my water. “Don’t worry about it, Jeff. Forget I said anything.”

“If you leave, then what?”

            “I’m not hurting for money, if that’s what you mean. And I can still write, you know.”

“And that’s enough for you?” he asked.

            “For right now, yes. It’d be nice to write something that isn’t up for peer review and doesn’t end up as yet another line on the CV.”

            “I think you’ve had a more illustrious career than that the last few years,” he argued.

            “It’s getting old fast.”

            “I thought you loved it.”

I pushed my salad away and took another sip of water. “I do. Or I did. I don’t know anymore.”

            Jeff finished his beer. “What about that guy you’ve been seeing?”

            “Devin?” I said absent-mindedly; I was still calling him that whenever I talked to Maggie and sometimes Melody.

            “Devin?” he asked, confused.

            “—I mean
David
,” I quickly corrected.

            “David?”

            “Yeah?”

            “Who the hell is
Devin
?”

            “No one,” I said, now gulping my water and spilling some on my shirt.

            “Well, what about him?” he asked.

            “What about who?”

            “Is this an Abbott and Costello routine?”

            “It’s starting to feel like one,” I said.

            “Well?” he asked, a hint of impatience in his voice.

            “What was your question?”

            Jeff motioned to the waiter for another beer. I appreciated that he asked me beforehand if it bothered me. “I just thought it must be a good sign that you’re seeing someone.”

            “David and I have known each other for a long time. We met when I was at BrooklynU.”

            “Was he a professor?”

            “No, he was an es…” I quickly coughed on my words. “…an especially resourceful guy. He’s an art dealer. We were friends and then we lost touch until earlier this year. But it’s complicated, you know?”

            “Look kid, I just want you to be happy, and I want to see you around the hallways again. That place is so god-awful depressing when you’re not around. You always make it fun.”

            “I thought I made it even more depressing, since, you know...”