She Has Your Eyes (11 page)

Even if the answer is no, I would love to hear from you.

Best,
Andrew

I read the last line twice, my heart pounding so loud I could hear as well as feel it. In an instant it all came back to me: meeting Andrew at South Coast University; falling in love; dating; his proposal at some dive during one of his shows (he serenaded me with a song he wrote just for me and revealed a ring on a leather band hanging from the capo on the guitar’s fretboard); waiting, waiting, waiting to have sex; my denial of his withdrawal from me; his confession that he slept with Tanya, was leaving me for Tanya, marrying Tanya…

Despite my being so devastated back then, Andrew’s dumping me was the best thing that had ever happened. Without it, I never would’ve moved back to New York, never would’ve met David, and subsequently never would’ve met Sam, although I’d like to think that meeting Sam would’ve been what the district attorneys on
Law & Order
called “inevitable
discovery.” I would’ve been married to Andrew, however. I wondered:
Would I have left Andrew for Sam had it worked out that way? Would Sam have tried to steal me away? Would we have had an affair?

I could no longer fathom being married to Andrew. The very thought was as foreign to me as being married to some random stranger.

But could I be his friend?

I hit Reply and typed:

I don’t hate you, Andrew. And there’s nothing to “make right.” You’re forgiven. But thank you for apologizing. That means a lot to me.

For a long time I didn’t want you to be happy. But when you lose your own happiness and think you’ll never get it back, you realize just how cruel it is to wish that on another person. I’m sorry for that, and I hope you are happy now.

Andi

P.S. Thank you for buying the novel. I had come across the unfinished manuscript about a year after Sam was killed. Didn’t seem right to keep it in a drawer. Also didn’t seem right to take the credit for it. It felt like a collaboration.

And then, my fingers poised on the keyboard, I ignored my gut as I typed three more words and hit Send.

I logged off, shut down my laptop, and went to bed.

Hours later and unable to sleep, I crept downstairs so as
not to disturb David. I watched mindless TV, the volume so low I could barely hear the voices. It didn’t matter—those three words were echoing inside my head, like a gong banging the side of my brain, to the point that I thought it would drive me insane.
How could I have been so stupid?

The three words I’d typed were
Keep in touch.

chapter seventeen

“You didn’t,” said Maggie as I sat in her office at Smith College, my head down on the desk, lightly banging it as I told her about my reply to Andrew.

“I did,” I moaned.

“Why on God’s green earth would you tell him to keep in touch?”

I picked my head up. “I don’t know. David and I had gotten into a tizzy earlier.”

“A ‘tizzy’?”

“Yeah.”

“What’s a tizzy?” she asked.

“Not quite a fight, but a little more heated than a disagreement. Worked up. I was feeling threatened by this whole situation with Wylie—would you believe he wants to redecorate the guest room for her? I mean, one minute he wants to sweep the whole thing under the rug, and the next minute—”

“Whoa—focus, Andi.”

“Can I just say the devil made me do it and leave it at that?”

“No, you can’t. Sounds to me like you knew exactly what you were doing.”

I put my head down and moaned again. “He was being so contrite and remorseful and I felt sorry for him.”

“Did it occur to you that maybe he was putting you on and got the exact reaction from you that he wanted?”

I rested my chin on my arms and looked at her. “It did, actually. But even if he wasn’t, what’s the harm in finally letting him off the hook? As it turned out, staying with Andrew would’ve been worse than being dumped by him. He and Tanya did me a favor.”

“There’s nothing wrong with forgiving him,” said Maggie. “But resuming communication with him is thirty-one flavors of wrong.”

“It was one e-mail,” I protested—or, to be more accurate, rationalized. “Now that he got what he wanted, he probably won’t bother with a follow-up.”

“What makes you so sure that’s all he wanted?”

She had a point; he did say he “wanted to make things right” with me. But I had pretty much shut that down, so he couldn’t possibly be ballsy enough to pursue anything else, could he?

Then again, I’d invited him to.

“Mags, I know you didn’t tell him about David, but did he ask you if I was seeing anyone?”

“No. But if he had, I would’ve told him you were. Maybe he was too afraid to ask the question. And let’s face it: even if you weren’t with David, I probably would’ve lied and said you were with someone just to piss him off.”

“Really?” I said, troubled by this admission. “You would’ve lied to him?”

“Wouldn’t you?”

I didn’t have to ponder the question. “Yeah,” I said, just as troubled by my own admission.

I wasn’t teaching classes that day, so I went home to find David working in the study. He took off his reading glasses when he noticed me in the doorway.

“Hey,” he said.

“Hey,” I replied as I entered the room. “I didn’t think you’d be home today.”

“Didn’t sleep well last night.”

“Me neither.”

“I know.”

I sank into the sofa and reflexively yawned. “I’m sorry about the tizzy,” I said.

David joined me on the sofa and pulled me close to him. “Me too.”

“I should’ve been more supportive.”

“You’ve been monumentally supportive,” he said. “I was being a self-absorbed jerk.”

“No, you weren’t.”

I closed my eyes and rested my head on his shoulder. One of the safest places to be. We sat quietly for a bit, the only audible sound being our breathing. I hadn’t even realized that I dozed off until the ringtone of David’s cell phone jarred me awake. I flinched and clumsily moved away from him as he reached for it, checked the caller ID, and sprang up, his joints popping.

“Hello?” he said, followed a second later by an uncharacteristically shy yet eager, “Hi!” followed by, “No, I’m glad you called.”

And then I knew:
Wylie.

Every muscle in my body tightened as David motioned to me and then the door, which was his way of asking me for privacy. The gesture rattled me, making me feel like he’d just asked me to exit more than the room. He closed the door
behind me as I left, which unnerved me even more. I retreated to my office and back to my laptop. I logged into my e-mails, and didn’t even allow myself to admit that I was
hoping
it would be there until I saw it: Andrew’s reply.

Hi Andi,

I can’t tell you how happy I was to get your e-mail. Was even happier to see that you’ve forgiven me. I certainly don’t deserve it. I really would like to keep in touch with you, if that’s OK. Maybe I’ve been nostalgic lately, but I miss our conversations from the good ol’ days. How are things at NU? Do you like it there? Same old, same old, at SCU.

Anyway, it would be nice to hear from you again.

Best,
Andrew

I snuck down the hall and could hear David speaking in muffled tones behind the closed door of the study. I didn’t like the feeling of being shut out.

Returning to my office and the e-mail, I reread it as my memory replayed the conversation with Maggie.
What makes you so sure that’s all he wanted?
Every fiber of my being was screaming at me to listen to Maggie. And yet, one little lone voice was inviting me to give Andrew the benefit of the doubt. Hell, maybe it was Andrew’s voice. Hadn’t he started out like this—Thoughtful? Attentive? Interested? He wasn’t always a slimeball. Or had he been on his best behavior all that time before he cheated on me, and slimeball was his true Crayola color?

No
, I decided. He was never a slimeball. Did he cheat? Yes. Did he betray me? Yes. Did he hurt me? Absolutely. Did he have Sam’s depth and sensitivity? No. But then again, neither had David. When he was Devin, he’d been insightful, thoughtful, even, but aloof. Not like now—so much more present, so open, so willing to let me in, even if it left him wide open to be hurt. If David could evolve, why couldn’t Andrew?

But David wasn’t letting me in. Not at this moment.

Once again, I found myself typing a reply.

Hey Andrew,

NU is great. I’m technically not tenured anymore—had left and then returned part-time after Sam died. I say “technically” because everyone in the department treats me otherwise. It’s not a large department, so we all know each other, and I guess everyone got used to me as being tenured. Fine by me; all the perks and none of the hassles. I teach one, sometimes two classes per semester, upper level. I don’t have much to do with first-year writing anymore, but I’m still a rhetoric girl at heart.

Just so you know, I’m getting married again. My fiancé’s name is David and I’ve known him for about ten years. We met when I moved back to New York (after you and I broke up), then reconnected a little over a year after Sam died. We had a rocky go of it for a while, but things are solid now.

Hope you are well. Take care.

Andi

There. That ought to do it. No open-ended invitations to write back, no leading him on, straight and to-the-point. Not even a greeting. Mags was right: Reopening the lines of communication with an ex was playing with fire. Especially since David and I got engaged after I’d been resistant to marriage for so long.

I was about to add a P.S. saying I’d changed my mind about keeping in touch when David entered the room, and in a knee-jerk reaction, I clicked Send rather than Save.

“Sorry I kicked you out, Andi, but I have good news. Wylie is coming up for a visit next weekend. I spoke to Janine and she gave the OK.”

I stared at him, stunned. “Did you think to consult with
me
?”

“I didn’t see the need. We have no plans to go anywhere. And you didn’t tell me anything was coming up. Come on, Andi, I thought you and I were on the same page!” he said, impatient. His tone was beginning to grate on me.

“We
are
on the same page,” I said, a bite to my voice, “but I still like to be consulted about these things. We consult each other about far less important things.”

His face softened. “You’re right,” he said. “I’m sorry. I should’ve asked you.”

“How is she going to get here?” I asked.

“We’re going to split driving duties. They’re going to bring her here, and we’re going to take her back.”

“Doesn’t it make more sense for us to drive to Hartford and spend the day with her there?”

“Wylie specifically asked to come here.”

“Why?” I asked. Something about her request didn’t sit well with me. Then again, perhaps it wasn’t too far a reach. Wylie was a teenager, after all. Spending time in a different
place was probably an adventure to her, a form of escape. Maybe it was her chance to see where and how David lived, whether it was worth pursuing a relationship with him. And me.

“Does it matter?” said David. “I’m just happy she wanted to, and Janine said it was OK,” he reiterated.

“I’m kind of surprised she did. She was so resistant when we met with them in Hartford. What happened to ‘revisiting the situation’?”

“This
is
revisiting the situation,” said David. He gave me a look—one that I’d never before seen and couldn’t read at all. Its unfamiliarity terrified me.

“What is it, Dev?” I asked.

He shook his head slowly, condescendingly. “Nothing.”

“Are we on the same page?” I asked. “Because if we aren’t, we’d better get there fast. There’s a lot of change taking place, and we can’t get married in the midst of chaos. We need to talk about this.”

His sienna eyes pierced me—dark, searching, as if he wanted to say something. He turned away for a moment, but when he turned back to face me, he wore a different expression altogether. Cool, collected. Business-as-usual.
Devin’s
look. So not comforting.

“Everything’s fine,” he said, and abruptly changed the subject. “So, your grandmother’s fried-dough pizza? You owe me a cooking lesson.”

Sharing secrets with my husband-to-be was the last thing I wanted to do at that moment, which terrified me even more.