Love the One You're With (4 page)

“Really?” I said. I could think of nothing else to say.

“Yes.
Really
… So?”

“So?” I echoed.

“So can I come see you? I just … want to talk. Face to face. Alone.”

I didn’t really believe that was all he wanted—and a large measure of me hoped that it wasn’t. I thought of how much trouble we’d be in if we got caught together in a jury-duty booty call, and that we owed it to the defendant to follow the rules—that our reckless behavior could result in a mistrial. I thought of how unsexy my Steelers T-shirt and cotton panties were and that I had nothing nicer in my hastily packed suitcase. I thought about the conventional girly wisdom that if I said yes—and then something
did
happen—that Leo might lose respect for me and we’d be over before we could begin.

So I opened my mouth, poised to protest, or at the very least, deflect. But instead, I breathed a helpless
yes
into the phone. It would be the first of many times I couldn’t say no to Leo.

five

It is completely dark by the time I turn onto our quiet, tree-lined block in Murray Hill. Andy won’t be home until much later, but for once, I don’t mind the hours he’s forced to bill at his white-shoe law firm. I will have time to shower, light a few candles, open a bottle of wine, and find the exact right soundtrack to purge the last traces of the past from my mind—something cheerful, with absolutely no Leo associations. “Dancing Queen” would fit the bill, I think, smiling to myself. There is absolutely
nothing
about ABBA that conjures Leo. In any event, I want the evening to be all about Andy and me. About
us
.

As I step out of the cold rain into the brownstone, I breathe a sigh of relief. There is nothing lavish about our building, but I love it that way. I love the shabby lobby with its creaky herringbone floors and brass chandelier in dire need of a good polish. I love the jewel-toned Oriental rug that gives off a subtle scent of mothballs. I even love the lumbering, claustrophobically small elevator that always seems on the brink of a breakdown. Most of all, I love that it is our first home together.

Tonight, I opt for the stairs, taking them two at a time while I imagine a day far into the future when Andy and I return to this spot with our yet-to-be-born children. Give them a grand tour of where “Mommy and Daddy first lived.” Tell them, “Yes, with Daddy’s family money we could have afforded a plush Upper East Side doorman building, but he picked this one, in this quiet neighborhood, because it had more character … Just as he chose me over all those blue-eyed Southern belles.”

I reach the fourth floor, find my key, and upon turning it, discover that Andy has beaten me home. A virtual first. I feel something between sheepish and shamefaced as I push open the door, glance through our galley kitchen into the living room, and find my husband sprawled on the couch, his head resting on an orange chenille pillow. He has already banished his jacket and tie to the floor and his blue dress shirt is unbuttoned at the collar. At first I think he is asleep, but then I see one of his bare feet moving in time to Ani DiFranco’s
As Is
. It is my CD—and so far afield from Andy’s usual happy Top Forty tunes (or his sappy country music) that I assume our stereo is on random-play. Andy makes no apologies for his taste in music, and while I’m listening to my favorites, stuff like Elliott Smith or Marianne Faithfull, he will roll his eyes at the more turbulent lyrics and make cracks like, “Excuse me while I go chug some poison under the sink.” But despite our different tastes, he never makes me turn my music off or down. Andy is the opposite of a control freak. A Manhattan litigator with a surfer boy, live-and-let-live, no worries mentality.

For a long moment, I watch Andy lying there in the soft amber glow of lamplight and am filled with what can only be described as relief. Relief that I got to this place, that
this
is my life. As I take another few steps toward the couch, Andy’s eyes snap open. He stretches, smiles and says, “Hey, honey.”

“Hi,” I say, beaming back at him as I drop my bag on our round retro dinette table that we found at a flea market in Chelsea. Margot and her mother hate it almost as much as they hate the kitschy knickknacks that congregate on every free surface in our apartment. A coconut monkey wearing wire-rim glasses perches on our windowsill. Beads from a recent Mardi Gras hang from our computer monitor. A collection of salt-and-pepper figurines parade across our countertop. I am much more neat and organized than Andy, but we are both pack rats at heart—which Margot jokes is the only dangerous part of our being together.

Andy sighs as he sits, swinging his long legs onto the floor. Then he glances at his watch and says, “You don’t call. You don’t write. Where’ve you been all day? I tried your cell a few times …”

His tone is easy—not at all accusatory—but I still feel a shiver of guilt as I say, “Here and there. Running around in the rain. My phone was off.”

All true statements,
I think. But I still know that I’m keeping something from my husband, and I fleetingly consider revising my vow of secrecy and telling him the rest. What
really
happened today. He would most certainly be annoyed—and probably a little hurt that I let Leo come back to the diner to see me. The same way I would feel if Andy let an ex-girlfriend come share a coffee with him when he could have, nearly as easily, told her to kiss off. The truth might even start a small argument—our first
married
argument.

On the other hand, it’s not like Andy feels threatened by Leo or feels hostile toward him. He simply disdains him in the typical, offhanded way that nearly everyone disdains their significant other’s most-significant ex. With a mild mix of jealousy and competitiveness that recedes over time. In fact, Andy is so laidback that he probably wouldn’t feel
either
of those things at all if I hadn’t made the mistake of disclosing a little too much during one of our early-relationship, late-night conversations. Specifically, I had used the word
intense
to describe what Leo and I had shared. It didn’t seem like that much of a revelation as I had assumed that Margot had told him a thing or two about Leo and me, but I immediately knew it was news to him when Andy rolled over in bed to face me, his blue eyes flashing in a way I’d never seen before.

“Intense?” he said with a wounded expression. “What exactly do you mean by
intense
?”

“Oh, I don’t know …” I said.

”
Sexually
intense?”

“No,” I said quickly. “Not like
that
.”

“Like you spent
all
your time together? Every night and every waking moment?”

“No,” I said again. My face grew hot with fresh shame as I recalled the night that Margot accused me of blowing her off for Leo. Of being one of
those
girls who puts a man ahead of a friendship.
And an unreliable man with no marriage potential to boot,
she added, disgusted. Even then, somewhere deep down, I knew she was probably right, but despite my guilt and better judgment, I just couldn’t stop myself. If Leo wanted to see me, I dropped everything—and everyone—else.

“So what then?” Andy pressed. “You loved him to the heavens and back?” His voice dripped with playful sarcasm, but his hurt look remained.

“Not that kind of intense either,” I said, struggling to find a way to put a detached, nonpassionate spin on
intense
. Which is impossible to do. Sort of like inserting a joyful note into the word
grief
or a hopeful note in
doomed
.

I cast about for a few more seconds before I finally offered up a weak, “I didn’t mean intense … I take it back … It was a bad choice of words.”

It
was,
indeed, a bad choice of words. But only because it was true—intense was
precisely
what Leo and I had been together. Nearly every moment we shared felt intense, starting with that very first night in my dark hotel room when we sat cross-legged on my bed, our knees touching, my hands in his, while we talked until sunrise.

“Too late,” Andy said, smirking and shaking his head. “No take-backs. You can’t strike this one from the record, Dempsey.”

And so it
was
too late.

Fortunately, Andy wasn’t one to beat a dead horse, so Leo’s name seldom came up after that. But for a long time, whenever someone used the word
intense,
Andy would shoot me a knowing look or make a wisecrack about my “oh-so-smoldering, ever-passionate” ex-boyfriend.

I am not up for that kind of scrutiny now—joking or otherwise. Besides, I reason, as I peel off my jacket and hang it on our wobbly wooden coat rack, if the tables were turned, I’d rather not know about a chance run-in he had with Lucy, his most-beloved and longtime ex, who is now a third-grade teacher at a snooty private school in Atlanta. According to Margot, Lucy was as smart and wholesome as they come while still looking like she could be a body double for Salma Hayek. It was a direct quote I could have lived without.

With this rationalization, I decide once and for all that it is in everyone’s best interest to keep my insignificant secret a secret. I plop down on the couch next to Andy and rest my hand on his leg. “So why are you home so early, anyway?” I ask him.

“Because I missed you,” he says, smiling.

“C’mon,” I say, feeling torn. I like this answer, but almost hope there is more to it this time. “You’ve
never
been home this early.”

“I
did
miss you,” he says, laughing. “But my case settled, too.”

“That’s awesome,” I say. I know how much he had been dreading the even longer hours that come with a full-blown trial. I had been dreading them, too.

“Yeah. Such a relief. I have sleep in my future now … So anyway, I was thinking we could get changed and go to dinner? Maybe somewhere nice? You up for that?”

I glance toward the window and say, “Maybe a bit later … It’s really coming down out there … I think I’d rather just stay in for a bit.” I give him a seductive smile as I kick off my boots and sidle onto his lap, facing him. I lean in and plant a kiss on his jaw, then another on his neck.

Andy smiles, closes his eyes, and whispers a bemused, “What in the
world
?”

It is one of my favorite of his endearing expressions, but at this moment it strikes a small note of worry in my heart. Does my initiating foreplay really warrant a
What in the world?
Aren’t we occasionally spontaneous when it comes to sex? My mind races to come up with some recent, juicy examples, but disappointingly, I can’t think of the last time we had sex anywhere other than in bed, at bedtime. I reassure myself that this is perfectly normal for married couples—even
happily
married couples. Andy and I might not swing from the chandeliers and go nuts in every room of the house, but you don’t have to be nailing each other willy-nilly on the kitchen counters and hardwood floors to have a solid physical connection. After all, sex on and against hard surfaces might look hot in the movies, but in real life it is uncomfortable, overrated, and contrived.

Of course there
was
that one time with Leo in his office
…

I desperately try to push the memory out of my head by kissing Andy again, this time on his mouth. But as is the way when you’re trying not to think of something, the scene only grows more vivid. And so, suddenly, I am doing the unthinkable. I am kissing my husband while picturing another man. Picturing
Leo
. I kiss Andy harder, desperate to erase Leo’s face and lips. It doesn’t work. I am only kissing Leo harder. I work at the buttons on Andy’s shirt and slide my hands across his stomach and chest. I take my own sweater off. We hold each other, skin to skin. I say Andy’s name out loud. Leo is still there. His body against mine.

“Hmm, Ellen,” Andy moans, his fingers stroking my back.

Leo’s hot hands are digging into my back with crazy pressure, urgency.

I open my eyes and tell Andy to look at me. He does.

I look into them and say, “I
love
you.”

“I love you, too,” he says, so sweetly. His expression is frank, sincere, earnest. His face is the face I love.

I squeeze my eyes shut, concentrating on the feel of Andy growing hard against my thigh. Our pants are still on, but I center myself over him, grinding back against him, saying his name again. My husband’s name.
Andy
. There is no confusing who I am with right now. Who I love. This works for a while. And continues to work as Andy leads me to our bedroom where the all-or-nothing radiator is either dormant or sputtering steam everywhere. Right now, the room is downright tropical. We push away our goose down comforter, and slide against our soft sheets. We are completely undressed now. This bed is sacred. Leo is gone. He is nowhere.

And yet, moments later, when Andy is moving inside me, I am back in Leo’s apartment on the night the not-guilty verdict finally came down. He is unshaven and his eyes are slightly glazed from our celebratory drinks. He hugs me fiercely and whispers in my ear, “I’m not sure what it is about you, Ellen Dempsey, but I
have
to have you.”

It was the same night I gave myself to him completely, knowing that I would belong to him for as long as he wanted to keep me.

And, as it turned out, even longer than that.

six

Margot calls the next morning long before the sun is up—or, as Andy would say, before anyone in their right mind is up. Andy seldom gets agitated, but three things consistently set him off: people who cut in lines; bickering about politics in social settings; and his sister calling too early in the morning.

“What the
hell
?” he says after the second ring. His voice is scratchy, as it always is the morning after a few beers, which we ended up downing the night before at a Third Avenue bistro, along with burgers and the best shoestring fries in the neighborhood. We had a good time, laughing even more than usual, but our dinner didn’t jettison Leo any more than sex had. He was stubbornly there with me all night, remarking on the crabby man at the table beside us and the Joni Mitchell background music. As I finished my third beer and listened to Andy talk about his work, I found myself drifting back to the morning Leo told me that my face was his favorite in the world. He said it just like that, utterly matter-of-factly and unsentimentally over coffee. I was wearing no makeup, my hair pulled back in a ponytail, sun from his living room window streaming in my eyes. But I believed him. I could tell he meant it.

“Thank you,” I said, blushing, thinking that his face was by far my favorite, too. I wondered if this, more than anything else, is a sign of true love.

Then he said, “I will never get tired of looking at you … Never.”

And it is this memory, perhaps my top-ranking memory of Leo, that once again fills my head as the loud ringing continues in our bedroom. Andy groans as the caller finally gives up, waits a few seconds, and tries again.

“Let it go to voicemail,” I say, but Andy reaches across me and grabs the phone from my nightstand. To be sure of the culprit, he checks caller ID—which is completely unnecessary. Short of an outright emergency, it can only be Margot. Sure enough, her husband’s name, Webb Buffington, lights up the screen, along with Atlanta, Georgia, where, much to my disappointment, they returned last year. I always knew the move was inevitable, particularly after she met Webb, who was also from Atlanta. As much as Margot loved New York and her career, she’s a Southern girl at heart and desperately wanted all the traditional trimmings that come with a genteel life. Moreover, Webb was, in his words, “So over the city.” He wanted to golf, wanted to drive, wanted space for all his fancy electronic toys.

As evidenced by this morning’s call, Margot and I still talk daily, but I miss the face-to-face time with her. I miss having brunch on the weekends and drinks after work. I miss sharing the city—and some of the same friends. Andy misses her, too, except in intrusive moments like these, when his sleep is impacted.

He jams the talk button with his thumb and barks into the phone, “Jesus, Margot. Do you know what time it is?”

I can hear her high voice say, “I know. I know. I’m
really
sorry, Andy. But it’s
legitimate
this time. I promise. Put Ellen on. Please?”

“It’s not even seven o’clock,” he says. “How many times do I have to ask you not to wake us up? That the only decent part of my job is the late start time? Would you do this if Ellen were married to someone else? And, if not, how about asking yourself if you shouldn’t respect your own brother just a little bit more than some random guy?”

I smile at
some random guy,
thinking that the guy wouldn’t be random if I were married to him. Then I think of Leo again and cringe, knowing that he will never only be some random guy to me. I get Andy’s point, though, and I’m sure Margot does, too, but he doesn’t give her a chance to respond. Instead, he thrusts the phone at me and dramatically buries his head under his pillow.

“Hey, Margot,” I say as quietly as possible.

She issues a perfunctory apology and then trills, “I have
news
!”

They are the exact words, the same singsongy, confiding tone she used when she called me the night she and Webb got engaged. Or, as Webb is fond of saying in the retelling of their betrothal, before she could even muster a yes to him. He is exaggerating, of course, although she did call me first, even before her mother, which gratified me in a way I couldn’t quite pinpoint. I think it had something to do with not having my own mother and the reassurance that friends might supplant family, even in the absence of death.

“Omigod, Margot,” I say now, fully alert and no longer concerned about disturbing Andy.

Andy uncovers his head and says with a contrite, almost worried, expression, “Is she all right?”

I nod happily, reassuringly, but he continues to look fearful as he whispers, “What is it?”

I hold up a finger. I want confirmation even though there is absolutely no doubt in my mind what her news is. That voice of hers is reserved for exactly two things—weddings and babies. She had at least three significant promotions at J.Crew and had been blasé about every one. It wasn’t so much modesty as it was that she never cared all that much about her career, despite how good she was. Maybe because she knew it had a self-imposed expiration date. That at some point around thirty, she would voluntarily retire and begin the next phase of things, i.e., marry, move back to Atlanta, and start a family.

”
Are
you?” I ask, fast-forwarding to envision Margot, swollen-bellied, in a couture maternity gown.

“Is she what?” Andy mouths.

I look at him, wondering what else he thinks we could
possibly
be talking about. I feel a surge of affection for his boyish cluelessness.
Yes, Andy, she is making snickerdoodles this morning
.
Yes, Andy, she is in the market for a baby grand piano
.

“Uh-huh!” Margot squeals. “I’m
pregnant
! I just took a test!”

“Wow,” I say, feeling overwhelmed even though I knew that they were trying, and that Margot nearly always gets what she wants—in part due to her dogged, Type-A personality. But more because she’s just one of those charmed people for whom things just work out. Small things, big things, in-between things. I’ve known her for fifteen years and literally the only setback I’ve ever witnessed, the only time she genuinely struggled, was when her grandfather died during our senior year. And you really can’t count a grandparent’s death as a serious hardship. At least not once you’ve experienced the premature death of a parent.

I say all of this about Margot without resentment. Yes, my mother died at age forty-one, and yes, I grew up wearing hand-me-downs on class-picture day, but I still wouldn’t say that I come from the school of hard knocks. And I’ve certainly had it pretty good in my adulthood, at least so far. I’m not unemployed or directionless or prone to depression. I’m not sick or alone. Besides, even if those things were all true, I’m simply not in a competition with my best friend. I’ve never understood those women, those troubled, complicated relationships, of which there seem to be plenty. Am I occasionally envious of Margot—particularly when I see her with her mother? Do I wish I had her fashion sense and confidence and passport stamps? Yes, of course. But that is not to say that I would ever take those things from her—or begrudge her happiness in any way. Besides, I’m in her family now. What’s hers really
is
mine now.

So, despite the fact that this good news is far from unexpected, here I sit, stunned and giddy and overcome with joy. After all, there is a huge disparity between
planning
to have a baby, and actually getting that positive pregnancy test. Of knowing that in a matter of months you’ll become somebody’s mother—or in my case, somebody’s aunt.

“Congratulations,” I say, feeling teary.

“She’s
pregnant
?” Andy finally guesses, wide-eyed.

I nod and smile. “Yeah … Are you still pissed off, Uncle Andy?”

He grins and says, “Gimme the phone.”

I hand it over.

He says, “Maggie Beth! You should have just said so!”

I can hear her say, “You know I had to tell Ellen first.”

“Over your own flesh and blood?”

“Only one of you is happy to hear from me
any
time of day,” she says.

Andy ignores her playful dig and says, “Damn, this is great news. I’m so glad we’re coming down there next weekend. I can’t wait to give you a big hug.”

I snatch the phone back and ask her if she’s calculated the due date; does she think it’s a boy or a girl; has she thought of names; should I give her a shower in the city or Atlanta?

She tells me September twenty-first; she thinks it’s a girl; no names yet; and a shower would be lovely anywhere.

“What did Webb say?” I ask, remembering that there is another party involved here.

“He’s happy. Surprised. A little pale.” Margot laughs. “Do you want to talk to him? He’s right here.”

“Sure,” I say, even though I’m not in the mood to talk to him. In truth, I’m
never
really in the mood to talk to Webb—even though he has never been anything but friendly to me, which is more than I can say for some of the guys Margot dated before him. She’s always been drawn to an arrogant type, and Webb, too, certainly has the makings to be arrogant. For one, he’s an ultra-successful sports agent and former, semi-famous tennis pro—at least he’s known in tennis circles, once defeating Agassi on the junior circuit. And on top of his success and wealth, he has swoon-worthy, classically handsome looks, with frighteningly good hair and teeth so straight and white that I think of an old “Brush your breath with Dentyne” commercial every time he throws his head back in laughter. He has a big, loud voice and large presence—and is the kind of guy who knows how to give an eloquent speech that thrills the ladies and deliver a punch line to an off-color joke that makes the guys hoot and holler. So, by any measure, Webb
should
be intolerably smug. But he’s not. Instead, he’s humble, even-tempered, and thoughtful.

Yet, for some reason, I just don’t feel comfortable around him—perhaps because we have almost nothing in common except Margot. Fortunately I never admitted this to her when they first started to date—probably because I suspected right away that he was “the One.” It was the first time I had seen Margot totally, unabashedly smitten with anyone, the first time she liked someone as much as—or even
more
than—they liked her. I didn’t broach the subject with Andy either, perhaps because he seemed to be such a huge Webb fan, perhaps because I wasn’t exactly sure what I didn’t like.

But I did confess my feelings to my sister once, right before Margot’s wedding when I was back in Pittsburgh for a random weekend. We were having lunch at the Eat’n Park, our favorite hangout in high school, and still our sentimental pick whenever I go home. Every table has multiple memories, and we chose the one closest to the door that conjured her post–junior prom meal with a guy now doing time for something; my father’s impromptu nosebleed one evening (that we all thought was ketchup at first); and the time I ate five chili dogs on a bet. As Suzanne and I decked our Big Boys with an array of condiments, she asked about Margot’s wedding with what I detected as a bit of disdain that always seemed to be present when she discussed the Grahams—disdain that was, in my opinion, both unwarranted and a tad mean-spirited. But despite her tone, I could also tell that Suzanne was intrigued by Margot in the same shameless and superficial way we used to be intrigued by Luke and Laura on
General Hospital
and Bo and Hope on
Days of Our Lives
.

“This is
so
stupid,” Suzanne would always say as we watched the couples on our favorite soaps. She’d roll her eyes as she pointed out the improbabilities and inconsistencies of the on-screen romances, but there she’d sit, riveted to the television, hungry for more.

Similarly, as we ate our burgers, Suzanne wanted all the details on Margot’s upcoming nuptials, ferreting out any potential drama.

“That was a short engagement, wasn’t it?” she asked, brows raised. “Could she be knocked up?”

I laughed and shook my head.

“So what’s the hurry?”

“They’re in love,” I said, thinking that their entire courtship was storybook, including its brevity. Their engagement preceded mine, despite the fact that Andy and I were dating first.

“How big’s the ring?” she asked, somewhat critically.

“Huge,” I said. “Colorless, flawless.”

Suzanne digested this and said, “What kind of a name is
Webb
?”

“Family name. Short for Webster.”

“Like the television show,” she said, laughing.

“Yeah,” I said.

“Do you like him?” she asked.

Given her mood, I considered lying and giving her an unequivocal yes, but I have never been able to lie to Suzanne. Instead, I told her the truth—that although he seemed to be the perfect guy, I wasn’t all that psyched about Margot marrying him. I felt selfish and disloyal admitting it, and even more so when Suzanne probed, “Why? Does she blow you off for him?”

“No. Never,” I said, which was the truth. “She’s not like that.”

“So what is it then? … Does he
intimidate
you?”

“No,” I said quickly, feeling myself becoming defensive. I loved my sister, but it was not an uncommon dynamic between us since I had moved to New York and she had stayed put in our hometown. She’d subtly attack, and I’d subtly defend. It was almost as if she resented me for leaving Pittsburgh for good. Or worse, she assumed that I felt superior—which was completely untrue. In all the important ways, I felt like the
exact
same person I had always been. I was just exposed to more. I had a layer of sophistication and worldliness that comes with living in a big city, and frankly, being around the Grahams. “Intimidated by what?”

“I don’t know. By his looks? His money? His whole slickster, tennis boy, agent bag?”

“He’s not really a slickster,” I said, trying to remember what exactly I had told Suzanne about Webb in the past. She had an infallible memory—that she often used against me. “He’s actually pretty down-to-earth.”