Love and Other Natural Disasters (19 page)

"Charlie," I said,
"that's not how he meant it."

"How'd you mean it, Jon?"
There was no mistaking the challenge in his tone.

Jon shook his head, suddenly
exhausted. "I'm walking away. Okay? Have a good night, Eve."

"What was that all
about?" I asked Charlie. I was watching Jon retreat.

"He bugs me, the way he was
looking all hangdog. He made his bed, Eve."

"What's with you and the clichés
tonight?"

He grinned. "Right now, I've
got bigger fish to fry than you and your ex. Where's the bar?"

I wanted to put in an appearance
and go home, but I'd promised Charlie a night out and I could see how much he
loved being there. He came alive among people who'd never heard his stories;
his discomfort was in being known too well. I was the opposite. Being truly
known seemed like the point of everything.

I pretty much hitched my wagon to
Charlie and relied on him to steer. He was a dynamo, moving from couple to
couple and group to group with a simple, "Hey, can I cut in?" He was
egalitarian, spending no more time with the few single women than with the
obviously attached. It was connection he craved, but the fleeting kind. He was
good at making people feel listened to in a minimal amount of time; if you
asked them later whether he had a short attention span, they would most likely
have answered no. But I could see it. I could see the moment he was done with
them and thinking only of a graceful escape. Between conversations, he'd ask me
if I was okay, if I needed to go home, and I said no, I didn't need to. I
figured this night was the least I could do for him.

But it was hard being on the same
roof as Jon. I was terribly conscious of where he was and whom he was talking
to. At one point, we were standing in the same general area, talking to
different people, and I was eager for the gaps in my conversation that would
allow me to catch some of his. I had the feeling he was acutely aware of me,
too, and while that's a sexy feeling when you first meet someone, it's just
depressing after a marriage and
two kids. I
thought of approaching him, but I wasn't sure what to say. I just wanted him to
have the chance that Charlie had taken away earlier, the chance to start
talking and see where it went. But I figured that if he wanted that, too, he'd
be brave enough to come back over. He wasn't.

The irony was, Jon and I had so
much in common at the party that night. Neither of us was sure exactly what
people knew. It was clear that some already knew about the separation, but how
many knew the reason? And if they knew the reason, whose side were they on? Was
I an overreacting, heartless bitch, or was Jon a lout? The threat of shame hung
over every conversation. I was sure Jon felt it, too. I could see it in the
sheepish expression he frequently wore.

When I wasn't watching Jon or
Charlie, I was watching Tamara. Sometimes I watched her watch Clayton. It was
transfixing, the love they clearly felt for each other. I realized they hadn't
looked that way at Thanksgiving. Being engaged seemed to have unleashed
something inside them, and between them. Maybe it was that now when they looked
at each other, they let themselves say "forever." I remembered what
it felt like to let go of everything that's previously held you back, the
abandon of saying, "The hell with self-protection, this is love!" I
wanted to tell her to save some of it, someday she might need it. But on a
night like this, she'd be crazy to listen.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

It wasn't entirely unexpected when
Jon called later that week to ask me out on a date. You know someone long
enough, you get a sense about these things. Of course, these were strange
times, but just by the law of averages, my instinct had to be right eventually.

My optimism was so cautious that it
verged on the superstitious. As I got ready on Sunday, sorting through
necklaces and earrings, I noticed my wedding ring in the jewelry box. I felt
its weight in my palm for just a second before laying it back down on the plum
velvet. Removing a pair of teardrop earrings, I closed the box.

I went down the hall to Olivia's
nursery. She was napping, but she stretched and let out a little cry when I
approached. I kissed my fingertips and laid them on the top of her head as she
settled back into sleep. Her hair was light brown, just as Jon had predicted.
It was too thin and wispy for curls, though.

She'd been blossoming under
Charlie's care. While she was still more watchful than Jacob had been, she'd
begun to smile and laugh with much greater ease. Sometimes I was jealous that
Charlie was such a natural—why hadn't she been so lit up when I was with her
all day long?—but mostly, I was grateful. Jacob, too, seemed much happier now
that Charlie was here. I'd done that much right.

I glanced at the clock. Charlie
should have been home by now. Actually, he should have been home way before.

His first "date" with Lil
had been the night before. She'd invited him over for a late dinner, after Luke
was in bed. I'd assumed he'd come home late last night, or first thing this
morning, but I hadn't seen or heard from him. He knew about my date with Jon,
and that he was supposed to be watching Jacob and Olivia. I tried to quell my
annoyance as I dialed his cell phone.

He answered on the fifth ring, just
when I feared I was going into voice mail. I could hear a child's laughter in
the background. I stifled my surprise. Lil didn't usually let her men spend
time with Luke. Maybe she'd made an exception, since Charlie already knew Luke
through Jacob.

"Hi, Charlie," I said,
carefully keeping my tone light. "It sounds like you guys are having a
good time."

"We're not just having a good
time. We're having an excellent time," he boomed. "Aren't we, Luke?"

I cringed a little at his seeming
desperation. "Are you in the car?"
Headed home,
I added
silently.

"No, we're at the zoo. We are,
more specifically, at the — Hey, Luke, where are we? What's that animal right
there?" He paused, and I could hear Luke saying something. "That is
absolutely right. We're looking at
meerkats
. Alert
little sons of bi—" He stopped himself, then laughed heartily, apparently
at something Luke had said.

"You were supposed to be home
by now. Jon and Jacob are on their way here."

"We must have lost track of
time."

"Well, can you leave
now?"

He lowered his voice. "I'm
kind of in the middle of something."

"Charlie, you were supposed to
be back by five."

"So I'll be late." He
said it louder, defiantly.

"You're already late."

"Then I'll be later."

"Don't be an asshole. I'm just
asking you to do what you already agreed to."

"And I'm asking you to cut me
some slack. How many favors have I done for you lately?"

I tried to control my temper.
"You've done a lot for me. And I appreciate all of it. But this is a
pretty special night for me. So I'm asking you to please honor your
commitment."

He dropped in volume as he said,
"This is a pretty special day for me, too."

In some ways, he was just a kid,
aching to impress a girl. Anger was replaced by resignation. "Well, how
much longer do you need?" I asked.

"Thanks, Eve." He paused.
"How about if I leave herein a half hour?"

"Okay. But a half hour really
means a half hour. That's a half hour in Eve time, not Charlie time."

He laughed. "A half hour is
sixty minutes, right?" "Don't fuck with me. You'd better be out of
there in thirty."

"You got it. And look, I'm
sorry. One of these years, I'm going to get that whole time management thing
down."

"See you soon," I said,
hanging up.

Ten minutes later, Jon and Jacob
arrived. "Mommy!" Jacob threw himself at me, hugging me with an
over-the-top enthusiasm I hadn't felt in a while.

"Well, hello there!" I
laughed, then looked up and met Jon's eyes. He was smiling. "Hi," I
said to him.

"Hey," he said.
"Jacob, are you forgetting what's in the backpack?"

Jacob released me and opened his
backpack excitedly. He produced a bouquet of bright yellow daffodils.

"Jake and I discussed it, and
we decided that the point of flowers is to make people happy. And of all the
flowers we saw, he was convinced that daffodils would make you the
happiest."

I took the bouquet, moved into
silence.

"Because they're like the
sun," Jacob said. "And when you're happy, you feel warm."

"That is very good thinking. I
love them." I looked back up at Jon. "Really, I love them." I
stepped back from the doorway. "Come on in. We've got a vase
somewhere."

Jon and Jacob followed me into the
kitchen. Jacob was chattering away. I had to tell him to be a little quieter
because Liv was sleeping, and he complied for just a few seconds before his
voice rose again. I realized how long it had been since he'd been able to talk
to Jon and me at the same time."... and we went to this museum, I forget
how to say it. How do you say it, Daddy?"

"The Exploratorium," Jon
supplied.

"The
Explora-tor-i-um
,"
Jacob drawled in an effort to commit each syllable to memory.

I bustled around the kitchen,
checking the cabinets. "And what did you see there, Jake?"

"We heard a lot. Did you know
you can't listen and talk at once?"

"That sounds like a good rule
of thumb," I said, finally seeing the vase way up high in a seldom-used
cabinet.

"It was an exhibit on
hearing," Jon said. "Do you want me to get that for you?"

"That'd be great," I
said. "Now I just need to remember where the scissors are."

"Why do you need
scissors?" Jacob asked.

"To cut the stems off the
bottom of the flowers."

"Why?"

"Oh, no, we're back to that
phase again!" Jon joked. He'd put the vase on the counter and now he sat
down in a chair and pulled Jacob toward him. "Do you remember that, Jacob?
When you used to ask 'why' all the time, but you didn't really want to know
why?"

"No. Why would I do
that?"

Jon started to tickle Jacob, and
Jacob collapsed against him, giggling. The ease between the three of us almost
felt like before Laney had entered our lives. All these months later, and I
could barely make it five minutes before her name recurred. I turned away, and
started looking through the drawers for the scissors.

"I bet they're in that drawer
with all the coupons and delivery menus," Jon said.
"Underneath."

He was right. As I cut the stems,
filled the vase with water, and arranged the flowers, I explained that Charlie
was running late. "Is that okay for the surprise?" I asked. "Can
we get there later?"

Jacob looked from Jon to me and
back again. "You're doing a surprise for Mommy?" he asked.

"We're going somewhere, and
Mommy doesn't know where just yet."

"I'm not going?" Jacob
said.

"No, it's just for Mommy and
me," Jon said.

"Is it something I'd
like?"

"I don't know. But I'm hoping
Mommy will like it."

Realizing we needed to divert Jacob
before he got upset about what he'd be missing, I said, "So, Jacob, why
don't you pick something we can all do together for a while? Any game you
want."

"We'll all play?" he
asked, breaking out into a big smile.

I looked at Jon, who said,
"All three of us."

Jacob charged out of the room, and
Jon and I laughed at his energy. I sat at the table across from Jon, leaving
the seat between us for Jacob. It was our most common configuration during
Liv's
first few months, like there was a force field
between us.

"So you think I'll like the
surprise?"

"Like I said, I'm hoping.
There's nothing sexier than a man with hope. I hope."

I laughed as Jacob returned and
plopped down between us. He put a boxed puzzle on the table. "It's going
to be Spider-Man," he said. "And it's going to glow in the
dark."

"We won't have time to finish
it," I said. "But we can get started, and then maybe Uncle Charlie
can take over."

"Uncle Charlie sucks at
puzzles."

Jon and I both tried not to laugh,
and I said, "That's not a very nice thing to say."

"But he said it first."

Jon and I let ourselves laugh then.
By the time Charlie walked in, we had the perimeter about half-completed. He
groaned. "Not a puzzle."

"Hey, when you're home on
time, you get to pick the activity," I said.

"Yeah, yeah," Charlie
said. He turned to Jon. "Hey, man, how's it going?"

"We've got the corners,"
Jon said, smiling. They were both trying, but there was residual tension from
their exchange at the party.