The Men I Didn't Marry (17 page)

“So about your case,” says Dave, done discussing his endowments. “This whole sex discrimation thing sounds like bullshit to me. Welcome to the world. Of course you get things because you look good and someone wants to sleep with you. It’s natural selection. Downright Darwinian.”

I pause, impressed that Diver Dave is referencing Darwin. But not so impressed by his take on the topic.

Or by Kevin’s.

“Come on, Hallie. I hire the people I like. Why shouldn’t everybody?”

“But do you sleep with all the people you hire?”

There’s an uncomfortable silence at the table. Susie and Kevin exchange a glance.

“He never slept with me,” says Dave, tossing up another peanut, which bounces off his cheek.

Susie gets very busy spreading a pat of butter on her bread. “Back to Mr. Tyler. Since I’ve just made them husband and wife, doesn’t that help your case, Hallie? I mean, it’s all legal now.”

“It makes it less sordid, but it doesn’t help the case. Now that he’s married Melina, it’s hard to say he wasn’t favoring her.”

“Ooh, teacher’s pet, teacher’s pet. What is this, fourth grade?” asks Dave, now holding the edge of his paper napkin into the candle flame and watching it burn. “I’ve had enough with political correctness. It just keeps you from having a good time.”

“We wouldn’t want anything to get in the way of any of you having a good time,” I say a little too archly.

Kevin puts his hand on mine and pats it soothingly. “Come on, Hallie. Loosen up. You’re not in New York anymore.”

“Maybe I should be,” I say softly.

He shakes his head. “Let’s not argue about this. It’s your job, and I bet you’re good at it.” He kisses me, and as usual at Kevin’s touch, I start to relax. But then he can’t leave well enough alone. “And look at you. I can’t imagine it hurt your career that you’re a great-looking babe.”

I’m flattered and insulted at the same time. I’m sitting here with a couple of guys who think life is a frat party, but at least one of them calls me cute.

The next morning while I’m wandering through town, Emily calls my cell phone, sounding a bit too cheerful. Since it’s final exam period at Yale, I expected she’d be a little tenser than this.

“I just have one ten-page paper left to finish on the rise and fall of Old World civilization,” she explains.

“It’s only four thousand years of history. You should be able to knock if off in an hour,” I say sardonically.

A seagull squawks in the background, and I cover the speaker with my hand, hoping Emily won’t hear. If she does, I can always tell her I’m in the subway. Lots of strange birds there. I don’t like to lie, and since I’m not quite ready to admit that I’m hanging out with Kevin, I’m grateful that Emily never thinks to ask me where I am.

“Any interesting guys at school?” I ask her.

There’s a long pause. “I’m too busy working to pay attention to guys,” she says.

“Working is good, but you should still have a little fun at school,” I tell her. “Best years of your life and all that.”

I hear a strange squawk, but this time it sounds like it’s coming from the receiver. Emily seems to muffle the phone herself, because I can barely hear what she says next.

“What?” I ask.

“Don’t worry, I’m having fun,” Emily says, a little clearer now.

“Good, so what else is going on?” I ask.

“Real busy. Just wanted to check in and let you know I’m fine.” She pauses, and then adds in that fake-chipper voice again, “If you have trouble reaching me in the next couple of days, just figure I’m holed up in the library.”

“My poor sweetie. I’ll be thinking about you,” I say as we hang up.

I feel briefly guilty about my daughter’s working so hard in a chilly library while I’m strolling blissfully in the island sunshine. It was fun to have her down here. Maybe I should have bought her that trinket she liked so much, even though it was too expensive. Leave it to my daughter. On an island where vendors hawk two-dollar puka beads on the beach, she managed to find a freshwater pearl necklace with a Tiffany price tag.

I turn around and head over to the little shop that had the necklace, looking forward to surprising Emily. But when I get there, the necklace is gone. The shopkeeper Imelda remembers me from my last visit and shrugs when I ask her about it.

“Sold the pearls this morning,” she says.

I look chagrined. “Darn, I wanted them for my daughter. She liked the necklace so much when we were here a couple of weeks ago. I should have bought it for her.”

“Someone else bought it for her,” says the shopkeeper. “She came in with that nice scuba teacher, Nick. What an adorable couple.”

I stare at her briefly, then shake my head. “If you saw her this morning, it wasn’t my daughter. She’s at college. I just talked to her.”

“You might have just talked to her, but I just saw her,” says Imelda firmly. “Her name’s Emily, right? We even discussed that she’d been in before with her mom.”

I stand there, bewildered. Emily already got the necklace? And Nick bought it for her? And they’re an adorable couple?

“Maybe they were in a few weeks ago,” I say to Imelda, hopefully.

“It was this morning. What part of ‘this morning’ don’t you understand?” asks Imelda, irritated that I’m doubting her.

Which part don’t I understand? The part where my daughter called me and said she was writing a paper. The part where I told her to have fun. The part where I worried that she was holed up in a library when apparently she’s holed up with Nick.

Baffled, I walk out of the store. How could Emily be on the island without my knowing about it? Wouldn’t she have told me? On the other hand, I’m on the island and Emily doesn’t know. But that’s different. I’m the mother; I’m supposed to know everything.

I head over to the dock to look for Kevin. He’s standing by a diving boat packed with bikini-clad tourists that’s about to go out. I grab him.

“Do you know where Nick is?” I ask.

“Nick, the young scuba stud?” he asks. “What do you need him for? Already looking to replace me?”

“No, I love you,” I say distractedly. “I just need Nick.”

“You love me?” Kevin asks, surprised.

I’m suddenly embarrassed, realizing we haven’t used that word with each other yet. “Not really love you,” I say.

“Then how would you describe it?” Kevin crosses his arms and a small smirk crosses his face as he waits for my answer. A couple of the scuba-ready tourists lean out of the boat to hear more.

“I like you. I really, really like you. I hope you really, really like me,” I say, flustered. Oh God, this is practically the speech that brought Sally Field down. And it’s probably not going over any better with Kevin and the tourists than it did at the Academy Awards.

“Oooh, she really, really likes you,” calls out one of the teenage girls who’s hanging over the railing.

“I really, really like you, too, Kevin,” snorts the captain from the bow. “Now can you get your ass on the boat so we can get moving?”

Ignoring the hecklers, Kevin wraps his arm around me and gives me a kiss. “I’m glad you love me, because I love you, too. I’ll show you how much tonight,” he says.

“I can’t wait,” I say, kissing him back and momentarily forgetting why I’d come.

But Kevin has a job waiting and I have a daughter waiting—somewhere. Though she’s certainly not waiting for me to show up.

Kevin hops on the boat and then helpfully calls out over the sound of the motor, “Nick’s up at the dive shop. But keep your hands off him!”

I rush up to the shop and fling open the flimsy screen door.

“Hallie, baby, how ya’ doin’?” calls out the guy inside.

Alas, it’s not Nick. Double alas, it’s Diver Dave.

“Is Nick around here?” I ask him.

“Nope, just me. Isn’t that good enough?”

“No,” I say bluntly. “I need Nick.”

“Whoa! Old Nickerino sure is getting more than his share of the action today.” Dave steps out from behind the counter. “He just went off on his moped with some cute little girl.”

“That cute little girl’s my daughter!”

Dave raises an eyebrow. “Couldn’t be. You’re not old enough to have a grown daughter.”

“Thanks. I started early,” I say. I shake my head. “Anyway, I’m definitely not old enough to have a daughter who’s screwing around with Nick.”

“No mother’s old enough to face that,” agrees Dave. “Come on, we’ll go find them.”

He flips the hand-printed sign on the shop door from OPEN to CLOSED. I guess nobody’s going diving again until we let old Nickerino know that you don’t screw around with somebody’s daughter. Does it ever occur to these guys that everybody is somebody’s daughter?

I follow Dave out the door to his shiny black-and-silver motorcycle. I’ve never been a biker babe before, but Dave tosses me a beat-up helmet and before he straps on his own, he pulls a black Jerry Garcia T-shirt on over his white tank top.

“Better image for the Harley,” he explains, straddling the seat and motioning me to sit behind him.

“I don’t understand why you bikers revere the Grateful Dead,” I say, tentatively approaching the saddle. “I want to make it clear that if we end up dead, I’m not going to be grateful.”

“Trust me. Every woman’s grateful after she’s been with me,” says Dave, although this time when he winks, it’s more self-knowing than salacious.

He starts the Harley, and it makes the intimidating VROOM that usually heralds the Hell’s Angels. We jerk forward and I grab onto Dave’s waist. A little scary to be on this thing, not to mention scary to be this close to Little Squid-Big Eel Dave. Though with a name like that, he could be the chief of the Cherokee Nation. The right person to . . .

“Find my daughter!”

“Will do! I can catch up to any crummy little moped!” He takes a turn a little too fast, which makes me grab him even tighter.

Up ahead of us, I see a speck on the road that, sure enough, gets closer and closer. Dave picks up speed, overtakes the moped, then makes a stunning U-turn, completely cutting them off. The moped skids in the dirt and almost falls over.

“I wanted to find Emily, not kill her,” I squeal.

“Yeah, but I bet you’d like to kill Nick,” Dave says. Our monster-size Harley and Nick’s miniature moped are both stopped, facing each other across the road, a High Noon standoff.

From his moped, Nick screams, “Dave, what the fuck are you doing? What do you want?”

“Give up the girl!” Dave hollers out to him from his seat.

Emily just puts her arms tighter around Nick’s waist. “Mom, is that you?” she asks incredulously. “What are you doing here?”

“Looking for you,” I say. “I can’t believe you came back to see Nick.”

Emily shakes her head. “I don’t get this.”

“I don’t either. You told me on the phone this morning you were writing a paper.”

“I am writing a paper. My laptop’s at Nick’s house.”

“But you wanted me to think you were at Yale,” I say accusingly.

“And you wanted me to think you were in New York,” she shoots back.

We glare at each other.

“Who’s that guy you’re with?” Emily asks, pointing at Dave.

“I’m her boyfriend’s best friend,” says Dave.

Emily looks stunned. “Mom, a boyfriend? You have a boyfriend? That’s so tacky.”

“No, it’s kind of sweet,” says Dave, thinking he’s being helpful. “They’re living together and . . .”

“
Shut up
, Dave,” I say loudly.

Dave shuts up, but it’s about half a sentence too late.

“You’re living with someone?” Emily asks, her voice rising along with her level of indignation.

“Not really,” I say, thinking that my passport’s still stamped “Visitor” and I’d need at least two more suitcases full of clothes to be considered a permanent resident.

“She’s just shacking up,” says Dave, who can’t seem to leave bad enough alone. “Kevin’s a great guy. He’s about to shoot a new movie with Angelina Jolie.”

“Is that the guy I met on the scuba boat at Thanksgiving?” Emily asks, still trying to make sense of the situation.

“No,” I say, having promised myself that I wouldn’t do a Bill and introduce my children to anyone I was dating. But since I’ve also promised myself that I’d never lie to my children, I then amend, “Yes.”

“Multiple choice?” asks Emily.

“Correct answer is yes,” says Nick. “They’re always together.”

“Nick, how come you never told me?” Emily asks, still sitting behind him and now giving him a little punch.

“I figured you knew. And your mom’s the last thing I want to talk about when we’re in bed.”

“Hey, Nick, you bought a real bed? You finally traded in your futon?” Dave asks.

“Of course,” says Nick, leaning back on the seat to give Emily a little kiss. “You don’t sleep with a girl like Emily on the floor.”

“You don’t sleep with a girl like Emily
anywhere
,” I say.

Nick revs his moped, hoping to drown me out. Dave does the same with the Harley, blotting out Nick’s words. So this is how men take each other’s measure. They test to see who has the bigger engine.

“
You don’t leave Yale to sleep with a scuba diver!
” I scream to Emily, over the loud vrooms.

“You left a fancy law firm to sleep with one!” she hollers back.

“My scuba diver takes photographs!” I roar, as if that’s the point.

Nick decides he’s had enough and turns the moped. Just as he’s taking off, a black BMW comes hurtling toward us.

“Watch out, Nick!” I yell.

Dave swerves our Harley out of the way, but Nick doesn’t hear.

“Nick!!” I scream, almost hysterical.

The BMW careens to a screeching halt just as Nick, finally aware of the danger, spins toward the side of the road. Nick and Emily tumble off the bike into a grassy patch and as Dave and I rush over, I hear a car door slamming.

“Oh my god, is everyone all right?” asks the ashen BMW driver, now at our side.

“I’m fine,” says Emily, standing up. She has a little scratch on her knee. She looks at Nick, who’s rubbing a bloodied elbow, but seems otherwise okay. Stunned from the fall, Emily bursts into tears and rushes into my waiting arms.