Mike, Mike & Me (25 page)

But that wasn’t what I wanted, dammit.

Was it?

It would certainly simplify my overly complicated life, but…

I wasn’t ready to say a permanent goodbye to him yet.

Nor was I ready to say a permanent goodbye to the other Mike.

As we crossed the street toward one of Manhattan’s ubiquitous Charley O’s, I asked myself what I would be doing if the other Mike had been the one waiting outside the studio for me.

Would he and I be on the verge of becoming history instead?

Was this what it came down to? Was I making a choice based purely on chance?

Why, yes. Yes, I was. And it made about as much sense as any other scenario I could conjure at the moment.

The bar area was crowded with happy-hour patrons, all of whom looked as though they didn’t have a care in the world.

“Would you like to go to the bar, or do you want a table?” the hostess asked Mike, who looked at me.

“A table,” I said, aware that the conversation we were about to have called for privacy.

As she went off to check for a table, I jealously watched the cocktail-sipping, gossiping, not-a-care-in-the-world office drones.

Oh, how I wished that I didn’t have a care in the world. What I wouldn’t give to be standing at the bar sipping an Alabama slammer and dissing my boss with my co-workers.

“What if there aren’t any tables free?” Mike asked, shifting his weight from one foot to the other.

Hmm. Good point. What
if
there weren’t any tables free? I had already made one decision based on chance.

Why not another?

If there were no tables free, I decided, we would stand around and have a casual drink at the bar. And since standing around casually drinking at a bar was no way to have a serious conversation, our relationship would be spared. At least for tonight.

There. It was settled.

I felt a little better already.

The hostess reappeared, smiling.

I told myself that she was smiling because there were no tables and she, too, was relieved that there would be no breaking up tonight.

But she said, “We have a table opening up in back.”

“Great,” I said as my heart sank.

twenty-nine

The present

M
y suddenly sweaty palm maneuvers the mouse directly toward the e-mail from HappyNappy64.

Behind me, Tyler shrieks loudly from his Exersaucer.

“I know you want your toys again,” I say without turning away from the computer. “Wait a minute, sweetie. I just need to check one thing.”

Click
, and there it is.

Subject: New York

Subject…New York? I frown, reading on.

We need to talk. I’ll be in Manhattan on business the week of the twenty-second, staying at the Pierre. Call me there.

“No!” I say sharply…so sharply that Tyler, still babbling loudly in protest behind me, goes silent for a moment. Then he begins to cry.

That’s it?

Not a word about the Don CeSar, the beach, the kiss?

No apology, no explanation?

I reread the e-mail.

Tyler cries louder.

“Oh, sweetie…” Reluctantly turning my back on the computer, I hurry over to hug my son.

I’ll be in Manhattan on business?

Manhattan, of all places?

I pick up all the toys and gently replace them on Tyler’s tray.

“Mama wasn’t yelling at you.”

His teary eyes twinkle instantly and he reaches for a big, pastel, stuffed block.

Why Manhattan?

What kind of business?

“Don’t throw that block, Tyler.”

He throws the block.

I pick it up and put it firmly on his tray.

“No throwing.”

“Gote-dee-doo.”

“I know it’s fun while you’re doing it. But if you throw, you won’t have any toys to play with when you’re done.”

Business? I thought he didn’t even have a job.

Tyler throws the block again.

“I’m not picking that up, mister.”

Can seeing me possibly be the business he has in Manhattan? Or is it just a coincidence?

Tyler throws a rubber ball.

“That, either,” I say wearily, sitting on the floor and resting my head in my hands. I rub my eyes.

Why didn’t he mention that he was coming to New York when I saw him last week? Is it a last-minute thing? Maybe he was going to mention it but I didn’t give him a chance. After all, I ran away.

Something soft and jingly grazes my shoulder on its way to the floor.

“Stop throwing, Tyler.”

“Glah-bee-dot!” is Tyler’s gleeful response.

This is the week of the twenty-second.

Maybe he’s already in the city, waiting for me.

Does he actually think I’m going to call him?

There is no way I’m going to call him. Absolutely no way, I think, just before a wooden-rattle-turned-missile strikes me squarely in the forehead.

“Ow!” I yelp. “You little stinker!”

Tyler bellows in dismay.

“That hurt Mommy!” I scold, wincing as I touch the rapidly swelling spot above my eyebrow.

My son is now sobbing pitifully.

“I’m sorry,” I tell him guiltily. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to call you a stinker. You’re sorry, too, aren’t you?”

He cries harder, his little lower lip vibrating with intense emotion.

“Shh. I know you didn’t mean it, sweetheart. We never mean it when we hurt the people we love. Sometimes we just…we just can’t help it.”

I pick him up and rock him, but I’m crying too, bitter tears that have nothing at all to do with the painful lump on my forehead.

thirty

The past

“Y
ou didn’t break up with him.”

“No,” I said flatly in response to Mike’s question that wasn’t really a question. “I didn’t break up with him.”

He sipped his beer and I sipped my gin and tonic, thankful that we had both opted for drinks instead of coffee.

“Are you still in love with him?” he asked, returning his mug to the paper coaster so violently that white foam sloshed over his hand. He didn’t wipe it off; didn’t even seem to have noticed.

“I don’t know.” I handed him my cocktail napkin. “But he’s moving to New York.”

“For you?”

“For a job,” I said with a shrug, then looked him in the eye and admitted, “and for me.”

“So that’s it, then? You’re back with him?” He seemed incredulous, the unused napkin poised in his beer-covered hand.

I shrugged, feeling like a complete and utter fool.

“That’s what you really want, Beau? To be with him?”

“I don’t know what I want, Mike.”

Oh, yes I did know what I wanted, I realized, looking into his eyes. I wanted
him
.

Just as fervently as I’d wanted Mike last night.

I was torn.

Torn between two lovers…

Feeling like a fool.

A giggle escaped me.

I don’t even know where it came from. I mean, I was already well aware that there was nothing funny ha-ha about this.

But there it was, and I couldn’t hold it in.

“Did you just laugh?” Mike asked, looking even more incredulous.

“No!” I said, and another giggle promptly burst forth.

“You just did it again,” he accused, clearly hurt. “You’re laughing.”

Yes. I was. I was laughing. I gave up and gave in to another wave of mirth that was bordering suspiciously on maniacal. But I couldn’t seem to help myself.

Maybe it was the lack of sleep, or the gin, or the stress of the moment, but all at once it seemed hilarious that my life could be summed up by an ultracheesy decade-old Mary MacGregor song.

“Why are you laughing?” he asked.

“I can’t…explain.” I reached for his cocktail napkin, since he was still holding mine, and wiped tears from my eyes.

Not the kind of tears you cry when you’re about to break somebody’s heart, but the kind of tears you cry when you’re laughing hysterically.

“Try me,” Mike said, watching me. Those dimples of his were nowhere in sight, and somehow, I knew an attempted explanation wouldn’t bring them out of hiding.

“You wouldn’t get it.”

How could he, when I didn’t even get it myself? I heaved a sigh, trying to get hold of my unruly emotions.

“I’m sorry, I just…something just struck me funny. But…” I exhaled again, forcing myself to look at him. “I’m over it now.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes. I’m sure.” I nodded somberly, remembering why we were here.

The lyrics to the sappy old song were still running through my head, but suddenly, they didn’t seem comical at all.

“I’m sorry,” I said again.

He didn’t respond.

He just looked at me as though he didn’t believe I was sorry at all.

But I was. For laughing. For everything.

“I was going to break up with him last night.” I needed desperately to make him understand. “I really was. I was going to tell him all about you. I mean…about us. You and me. But I couldn’t. I didn’t have a chance before he—”

“Told you he was moving back?”

“Yeah.” God, this was brutal. “I just never thought he would do that.”

“Which means I was just your backup plan, huh? You were just keeping me around so you wouldn’t be alone if he did move.”

“No! You weren’t my backup plan. You were…I mean you are…really, really special to me.”

His dark eyes were filled with doubt.

“You have to believe me, Mike. I love you.”

The words spilled from my mouth as easily as the laughter had moments before.

And I meant them. Truly, I did.

Mike just looked at me and shook his head sadly.

“Mike, please,” I said, touching his arm. “I do love you. I just…I think I still love him, too. I can’t help it.”

“You can’t love two people at the same time.”

“But I do.”

“Well, you can’t,” Mike said again.

Yep, as the song said I was torn between my two lovers…

How had that ever struck me as amusing? It was tragic, that was what it was.

“You have to choose, Beau.”

He was right. I knew he was right.

I wiped tears from my eyes with a crumpled cocktail napkin.

Not the kind of tears you cry when you’re laughing hysterically.

The kind of tears you cry when you’re about to break somebody’s heart.

thirty-one

The present

T
wo days have gone by since I got back home to Mike—and to Mike’s e-mail.

I didn’t respond to it, if that’s what you were wondering.

Partly because I figured he wouldn’t read it right away, anyway, since he’s in New York. Unless he has access to a computer and e-mail. Which he very well might.

But I’m not going to rush into a response…if, indeed, I’m going to respond at all.

The main reason for that, I’ll admit, is that Mike is home this week, all week. Home on vacation, underfoot every second of the day—not in a bad way, really. Just…here. There. Everywhere. I’m afraid that if I even dare to sit down at the computer again, I’ll turn around and find him looking over my shoulder.

So I stay away from the computer.

But I don’t stay away from Mike.

My husband, Mike.

Truly, there’s something kind of nice about having him home.

Except when it sucks.

It only sucks when he and I disagree about how to handle disciplining one of the boys…or Melina, who’s due this afternoon to clean.

But when everybody is behaving themselves, Mike is upbeat and helpful and as handy as Bob Vila. Mikey’s school picture has been hung at last, the kinks are out of the garden hose, the broken oak limb has been transformed into firewood and neatly stacked behind the shed.

Now he’s working on the pipes under the stairs, where the new half bath is going to go. And I hate to admit it, but I’m almost glad he’s doing this instead of taking us on a fabulous New England beach vacation.

“I can’t believe you know how to install a bathroom,” I comment, peeking into the former closet to see him clanging away at a pipe.

“It’s not hard,” he grunts. “You just have to read the manual.”

“That’s what I always say about cooking,” I point out. “But you still refuse to give that a whirl.”

“When you learn how to install a toilet, I’ll learn how to make a pot roast.”

“Fair enough.” I set a glass of homemade lemonade on the floor by his leg.

“What’s that?” he asks.

“I thought you might be thirsty.”

“You’re kidding. Lemonade?”

“It’s no big deal,” I say, flashing a serene B.-Smith-meets-Betty-Crocker smile. “Just squeeze lemons, add water, sugar and ice.”

“Are you giving me the recipe so that I’ll make some for you someday?”

“Maybe.”

“You haven’t made me homemade lemonade in years.”

It’s something I used to do with him back in the old days…the newlywed days. Back then, I loved to surprise him with lemonade, or his favorite oatmeal-raisin cookies hot from the oven, or spaghetti sauce made from scratch instead of poured from a jar.