Mike, Mike & Me (21 page)

“Let’s take off our shoes,” Mike suggests, bending over to remove his tasseled off-white leather moccasins.

Florida shoes, I think, and picture my husband in his polished black wing tips. I can’t imagine him in moccasins, much less a pink shirt.

“Coming?” Mike asks.

“Won’t the sand be too hot?”

“Not if we walk in the water. Come on.”

I hesitate.

I’ve seen too many romantic movies where the couple walks barefoot along the beach.

I should tell him I have to get going.

I should thank him for lunch and promise to e-mail.

I should…

“Come on, Beau,” he urges again.

I should think about poop, I tell myself, noting the dangerous spark in his eyes.

But somehow, I can’t.

The only thoughts I can summon involve Mike—this Mike, not my husband—and our past.

God, I was crazy about him back then. And he was crazy about me.

I was so certain we were going to wind up together….

“Beau?” he asks.

“All right,” I say, and quickly cast off my sandals—along with my reservations.

twenty-two

The past

I
finally did it. I slept with Mike. Not the night of the Yankees game.

The next night.

And the night after that.

And yes, the night after that.

Once I started, I just couldn’t seem to stop. And there was no way that I could further broaden my definition of cheating. Believe me, I tried. There was just no way around it. Having sex with somebody other than your boyfriend was definitely cheating.

I knew that what we were doing was wrong, but to his credit, Mike didn’t. Not at first. He didn’t know until I confessed to him that I was supposedly in a monogamous relationship with somebody else.

I confessed this in the wee hours as we were lying naked in each other’s arms in his twin bed in his Chinatown apartment.

“I thought you broke up,” he said, pulling back a little. I couldn’t see his face in the dark, but he sounded dismayed.

“I never said that.”

“I guess I just assumed it. You said he was staying in California to do that teepee thing and you didn’t want to move out there.”

“Oh.” I guess I did say that, or at least imply it. “Well…we didn’t break up.”

“You mean you’re cheating on your boyfriend?”

“Sort of.”

“Sort of?”

“All right. Yes. Yes, I’m cheating.”

“So I’m the Other Man.”

Why did he have to label it that way?

He was silent for a long time. I wondered what he was thinking about.

And I wondered about California Mike. He had left me a message on my home answering machine that he was flying back to New York tomorrow, which was why I found it necessary to bring up the subject just now, with this Mike.

I didn’t know whether the original Mike was coming back from California to get the rest of his stuff from his parents’ house and move it out West, or to accept the job in New York and find a place to live here.

The reason I didn’t know was that I got his message secondhand from Valerie when she met me in the lobby at work this morning to drop off the change of clothes I’d requested. I hadn’t been home to our apartment in several days.

Valerie, unlike Gaile, didn’t judge me or lecture me. She just delivered my clothes, and Mike’s message, with her usual efficient wistfulness. Clearly, she wished she were the one juggling two men; that she were carrying her own underwear around town in a Strawberries shopping bag.

“How did Mike sound on the answering machine?” I asked her.

“Like he was in a hurry.”

“Not like he was suspicious or anything?”

“Nope.”

“Did he want me to call him back?”

“He didn’t say to. And he said not to meet him at the airport. He’s taking a cab to our apartment.”

“When?”

“Sometime tomorrow night. That’s all I know.”

That meant I would have to go home after work, instead of meeting New York Mike again as I had planned. I felt a pang at the thought of being apart for more than a night. I had become addicted to him in the space of a few days.

“Did I ever tell you that my fiancé cheated on me?” he asked abruptly now, bringing me back to the present.

“No.”

“That’s why we split up.”

“I didn’t know that.” I stroked his hair. “I’m sorry.”

He seemed to flinch at my touch. He repositioned his weight, as though he was trying to put some space between us, but that wasn’t possible in a twin bed.

Needing to reassure him, I began, “Mike—”

“I probably should have known better than to get involved with somebody so soon,” he cut in bitterly.

“Oh, Mike, come on. Don’t—”

“Just so you know, I don’t think I can handle being dumped again on the heels of what I went through last spring.”

“You mean dumped by me?”

“What else would I mean?”

“But…I’m not going to dump you, Mike.”

There was a pause.

“You’re not?”

“No,” I promised, even as I asked myself what the hell I thought I was doing.

“Then you’re going to dump him?”

“Yes.”

“You are? Really?”

“Yes,” I said again, shocked by my own decisive response…and yet knowing, somehow, that it was the right thing to say. And do.

I was going to break up with Mike.

Of course I was.

It had been a long time coming, I realized.

Why did it take me so long to see that? We were already living separate lives. We didn’t want the same thing. Apparently, we didn’t even want to be in the same city. We were only hanging on because we had spent so many years together…but never
really
together.

All at once, I’d had it with a long-distance relationship. I was sick of bittersweet farewells, of counting down calendar days, of a huge monthly AT&T bill, of only buying and receiving birthday and holiday gifts that could be easily packaged and mailed.

It was almost a relief to see our relationship’s many shortcomings with sudden clarity. Surely Mike saw them, as well.

So.

This was it.

I would set him free to pursue the job in Silicon Valley, and he would set me free to pursue…

Well, Mike. This Mike.
He
was everything I wanted.

And he was
here.

“Are you sure you want to break up with him?” he whispered in the dark.

“I’m positive. I want to be with you.” Day in and day out. I was ready for that. I was ready for permanence.

“And I want to be with you, Beau. I know that it’s probably happening way too fast—”

“Not too fast,” I protested, though I wasn’t sure of that. Was it possible for a whirlwind romance to turn into something worthwhile?

“And anyway,” he said, “this feels right.”

“It does to me, too. I…I think I’m…”

He kissed me. “I know what you’re going to say.”

I kissed him back. “How do you know?”

“Because I think I am, too.”

“You think you’re what?” I held my breath.

“In love with you.”

I expelled the breath, along with the last of my misgivings and the words that had been running through my head for days. “I think I’m in love with you, too, Mike.”

As I settled my head against his bare chest and drifted off to sleep, I told myself that this couldn’t be wrong. I had never felt so safe, so secure, in all my life. Neither of us was going anywhere. We had all the time in the world to be together.

Yes.

This was right.

Everything was settled.

The moment Mike the First got to town tomorrow, I was going to break up with him…if he didn’t break up with me first.

I wouldn’t be surprised if he did.

In fact, so convinced was I that our relationship was over that it never occurred to me that he might put up a fight…or that in less than twenty-four hours, I would seriously doubt the emotion I felt with such conviction right now.

twenty-three

The present

W
e walk on the beach for a long time.

Not holding hands.

Not arm in arm.

Just…walking.

And talking.

About the past.

Not the past we didn’t share—meaning, the last fifteen years we’ve spent apart.

No, we talk about the past we
did
share. Our past.

There are more than enough great memories to keep us laughing…at least, for a while.

Then things get serious.

They get serious when Mike asks me, point-blank, “So Beau…do you have any regrets about the way things turned out in the end?”

“Regrets?” I echo, feeling as though I’ve just stepped into a pit of quicksand. “Regrets about what?”

As if I don’t know.

“About marrying somebody else.”

I open my mouth to answer, but he doesn’t let me.

“And about you and me going our separate ways after that summer.”

Going our separate ways. He makes it sound so benign. As though it were a mutual decision, when, in fact, I was the one who made it. I was the one who told him I loved him, then pushed him away.

“Do
you?
” I ask, mired in guilt.

“Have regrets? Yes.”

“Oh.” Somehow, I didn’t expect such a straightforward answer.

Maybe I thought he was going to tell me how it was the best thing for both of us. Maybe I thought he was going to thank me for setting him free to…to follow his dreams. To marry somebody else, to live leisurely ever after in Florida, to wear white moccasins and pink shirts.

“I never got over you, Beau.” He stops walking and turns to face me, grabbing hold of my upper arms with his hands and forcing me to stop, to turn, to face him.

“Mike…”

“I’m serious. I’ve spent fifteen years wondering what would have happened if you and I had stayed together.”

“No, you haven’t.” I shake my head, reeling. “You got married. You must have loved your wife.”

“I did,” he admits. “In the beginning. But not the way I loved you, back then.”

“That’s because we were young.”

“Maybe partly. But it was also because we were pretty damned good together. You know we were. It wasn’t just me.”

What I see in his eyes is more unsettling than the smell of rain that suddenly permeates the salt air.

I force myself to look away, to gaze at the sky, where thunderclouds loom; at the incoming tide, no longer blue and calm but gray and foamy.

He’s waiting.

And whether I admit it or not, he knows.

But I admit it. I owe him that. I owe him more than that, probably.

“No,” I say slowly, looking at Mike again at last. “It wasn’t just you. But—”

“You can’t tell me you haven’t wondered what would have happened if you’d chosen me instead of him, Beau.”

“I haven’t,” I lie, twisting a bit to the right and then to the left. His grasp on my arms doesn’t flinch. He’s got a hold on me that’s impossible to shake off.

No, it isn’t,
I tell myself.
You could pull away if you really wanted to. You don’t want to.

“You’re saying that you’re happily married?” he asks.

“Of course I’m happily married.”

“And you don’t have a single regret?”

I can’t find my voice. My thoughts are reeling.

“Why are you here with me, Beau?”

All I can think is that he
knows.
He knows that there’s a part of me that’s never gotten over him, either.

But I don’t dare admit that. I don’t owe him
that.
Admitting to him that my feelings are unresolved would open the door to something I’m not ready to face.

Thunder rumbles ominously in the distance; a hot wind kicks up the surf.

My God. This is surreal. I feel as though I’ve stumbled onto a movie set. My life—my real life—is not this dramatic. My life is my children, my husband, my cobweb-and-crumb-strewn house that needs another bathroom under the stairs.

“We have to get back,” I tell Mike, my panic surging like the mounting tide. “It’s going to storm.”

“Wait, Beau…”

“No…I have to go….”

“First just tell me why you’re here. Just tell me why you’re here with me, and we’ll go back.”

“I don’t know why I’m here with you, Mike,” I say. “But I do know that I shouldn’t be. I have to—”

“No, you don’t have to go.”

“Yes, I do. It’s going to storm.” Again, I make the effort to slip out of his grasp.

Not enough effort.

“Go ahead. Tell me that you never want to see me again,” he says. “If that’s really how you feel, then tell me.”

“Why do I have to say it again? I’ve already told you that once in my life.”

“But here you are.”

I swallow hard. He’s right. Here I am.

“I’m not in Florida to see you” is my feeble protest. “I’m visiting my in-laws.”

“You didn’t have to tell me you were coming. I would never have known.”

I open my mouth to argue, but I can’t. I can’t because he’s right.

“You didn’t have to write back to me when I e-mailed you. You could have deleted it.”

“I know, but—”

“Why did you write back, Beau? Why did you tell me you were coming to Florida?”

“I don’t know.”

“Well, I do. It was because you wanted to see me. You can’t say that’s not true.”

“I
did
want to see you,” I admit, “but that’s all. Just see you. Not…”

“Not what?” He’s leaning closer. Dangerously close.

“Don’t,” I say, but this time I don’t even try to slip out of his grasp.

I close my eyes, hating myself for the way that I feel. I’m ashamed to admit it, but I don’t want him to let go. I don’t want him to stop leaning closer. I don’t want—

His lips brush against mine.

My eyes fly open.

“No,” I say. “Don’t.”

He does it again.

I can feel myself responding even as my hands come up against his chest and push. Hard.

“Beau…”

“No.”

“I’m sorry.”

My heart is pounding. I’ve never kissed anybody other than my husband…not since he became my husband.