Table for Two (5 page)

4

The bride isn’t
smiling—she’s biting her lower lip, nervously scanning the inside of the
church. Guests flit cheerfully about, and a frazzled wedding coordinator in a
beige suit is trying to get everyone to settle down. The groom is standing by
the altar, chatting with a couple of choir members. He keeps scratching his
elbow and re-adjusting his tie, and he can’t seem to focus on the conversation.
His eyes dart around, not landing on anyone in particular. He’s not smiling,
either.

And then their gazes find each
other, and everything fades into the background. Nothing else matters. He nods
at her; it is the slightest movement, but she catches it, and she nods back
just as subtly. The choir starts singing a ballad, their voices slowly filling
the vast space. This is their song, and it is bridging the distance between
them.

I don’t know the bride. I don’t
know the groom. I don’t know anything about these people, except that they are
getting married today and they have paid a team to capture every moment, every
word, every glance—a team that includes me. I don’t know anything about
these people, but I can’t bring myself to do what I always do when confronted
with happiness that isn’t mine—doubt it and dismiss it and tear it down.
I can’t, because it is there, almost tangible, despite the fact that neither of
them are smiling yet. Because I know that once she reaches the end of the
aisle, she will smile, and I know that he will, too.

I am right about this, of course.
And when all the wedding toasts have been made, when all the presents have been
hauled off to their new home, when the last guest has left, I overhear the
plans they are making. She is doing all the talking:
We have to write our
thank-you notes, you should tell your mom to join us for lunch before we leave
for Italy, you have to let your boss know you’ll be on vacation, and could you
please stop re-adjusting your tie?
He
doesn’t seem to mind. He can listen. He can wait. He is content with her hand
in his—the way she speaks is strong and firm but she holds his hand
comfortably, easily, like he is naturally a part of her. And maybe he already
is.

“So do you
think
she’ll show up?” Blake asks, three months later.

“I hope she does,” I say.

“She will,” he says, and even if
he sort of just answered his own question, I believe him. I have to. “Come on,”
I tell him. “Let’s get you married.”

Martin materializes beside me,
“Did you just say ‘let’s get married?’”

Henry laughs. “Nah, he said ‘let’s
get
YOU
married.’ Disappointing, but true.”

“What a letdown,” Martin says. His
expression turns serious. “I’m really happy for you, Blake.”

“Me too. Even if you chose this
loser here as your best man,” Henry says, gesturing at me.

“Hey,” I say. “Don’t question the
groom’s decision. He’s the boss.”

Robbie comes up to us to introduce
his girlfriend (Martin says, “Nice to meet you, Jill” and Henry says, “We’ve
heard
so
much about you,” and Blake says, “No, I swear to God
they haven’t.”) and to drag his brother and me inside the church, where
everyone is waiting.

And then we are watching Vicky
walk down the aisle, and I finally understand what people mean when they call
brides “radiant” or “resplendent.” I cannot describe her in terms of how her
jewelry matches her shoes or how expensively coordinated she looks—I
can’t do that anymore—but I do know that she is positively glowing with
happiness. When the gap between her and her husband-to-be is less than a foot,
she stops. They look at each other. He takes one tiny step towards her, and
then another, until the gap is no longer there.

The party is
in full
swing; the waiter keeps refilling my wine glass, the band is playing Dashboard
Confessional’s “Stolen,” ladies are spinning around in their highest heels, and
my best friend and his wife are in the middle of the dance floor, clearly the
best one of the best ones in each other’s eyes. Robbie brings me the guest
book, and after giving it some thought, I finally write, “Congratulations,
Blake and Vicky! I wish you all the best, and I wish you all the rest.” I hand
the book back to Robbie, but he is gazing fondly at Jill from across the room, and
I clear my throat and say, “Look at you, all lovestruck and adoring.” He grins
and tells me, “Man, sometimes I don’t even feel like I deserve her,” and I say,
“Well, maybe that means you just have to work harder to deserve her.”

I am on my way to the men’s room
when someone hands me someone’s camera, and although this isn’t technically my
job, or at least not today, I oblige. I stand by patiently until the group
assembles themselves and someone yells, “Okay, go!” At the upper right corner
of the frame, I think I see a familiar face just before I press the shutter.
She came
, I think. But the flash pops and she is gone.

I feel a tap on my shoulder from
behind, and I prepare myself to be taking photos of strangers for the rest of
the night. I turn around to see Kim smiling tentatively at me. “You came,” I
say, and she says, “I wouldn’t miss this for anything.”

We sit down. And we talk. She
tells me, “I wish you could have tried harder, Carl.” and I say, “I know that.
I know that now.”

She says, “I’m sorry I didn’t
break up with you in person. I couldn’t.” She pauses. “Actually, I’m sorry I
broke up with you without giving you a chance to explain.”

“I wouldn’t have been able to give
you the explanation you deserved,” I admit.

“Which is?”

“That you were right. About
everything. That I was being selfish and unfair.” The three-month-old speech
poured out of me. “And not just to Blake. I was selfish and unfair to you,
especially, and I’m sorry you had to go through that for seven years. I’m sorry
I took advantage of how patient you were with me. I’m sorry I took you for
granted. I’m sorry I forgot our anniversary. I’m sorry I stood you up because I
was too busy trying to sabotage someone’s wedding. And I’m really,
really
sorry I never listened to you. I’d like to make it up
to you, if you’d let me. You know, as a friend.”

She blinks. “Wow.”

I laugh. “Yeah. Wow.”

“You’ll make it up to me? Really?”

“Yes, of course.”

“Good.”

“Except... how do I do that?”

She looks at me for a long time.
I’m worried I asked the wrong question, but it is possible that she is amused
at my complete lack of certainty, which gives her complete control. I realize I
have no idea what she’s going to say—maybe she’s going to tell me to quit
this wedding-photography-apprenticeship-whatever nonsense and get a “real” job,
or stop making beer night with the boys a top priority. Maybe she’s going to
tell me to cut my hair, or make an effort to dress nicely when we go out again.
IF
we go
out again. Maybe she’s going to tell me to grow up and get a life.

She smiles. “You can start by
getting up and dancing with me.”

THIS CLOSURE

1

Seven months and
five
days after we broke up, I thought I saw you coming out of a store, one hand
full of your shopping bags bursting with brand-new clothes, the other on your
brand-new boyfriend’s arm. He looked vaguely familiar, like I knew him from
somewhere, but it was you I couldn’t tear my eyes from. Your hair was lighter,
wavier, and I couldn’t decide whether or not I liked it. The way you dressed
was different—you looked less laid-back and more like you cared—and
I didn’t know if it was a good different or a bad different. The way you
laughed had also changed: you closed your eyes and tilted your head back, and
it was like your whole body was laughing. I wasn’t sure if it made you look
better, but I knew it made you look happier.

Over lunch at the cramped office
pantry the following day, I tell my friend Irene, trying to sound like this
sort of thing happened to me all the time, “I saw my ex with her new
boyfriend.”

“She’s not your ex, Lucas,” she
reminds me. And she’s right—technically, you’re not my ex. I met you
formally at a party eleven months and twenty-five days ago, although I had
always known who you were because everyone just knows who you are (we went to
the same college, and you starred in a big
TV
commercial at the start of senior
year). You asked me if I wanted a drink, and I said
sure
, and you shoved your almost-full bottle of beer into
my hands. It was lukewarm, and I wasn’t even sure that it was clean, but I took
a swig anyway. I had to gulp the whole thing down before I could say, “I’m
Lucas.” You smiled and said, “Nice to meet you. I’m Bettina,” and I almost
replied, “I know.” I ended up getting you a drink (you asked for a Lychee
Martini but picked out the lychee bits and left them on a soggy napkin on the
counter), and we ended up talking until your friend dragged you out the door at
four
AM
. Of
course, that night, and for many nights afterwards, I was pretty much convinced
we were meant to be together.

“And I bet the new boyfriend looks
exactly like all the other boyfriends,” Irene continues. “Tall, rugged,
muscular, looks like he could beat the crap out of your scrawny ass?”

“Very funny,” I say. But again,
she’s right—you do seem to have a template for the guys you go for. The
night I met you, you had just broken up with a champion swimmer; the following
week, you were dating your trainer at the gym. A month after that, you were
sitting courtside at a professional basketball game, clapping and cheering and
fulfilling your girlfriend duties to the
MVP
. For months, I watched you flit from
one jock to the next, but none of them turned out to be strong enough to hold
you down. For months, I watched, but I never said anything about it. I
couldn’t—I wasn’t sure I had the right to. I didn’t even know if you’d
listen to me. I was just some guy you met at a party, some guy you can call at
two
AM
when
you’re tipsy and miserable, some guy who can pick you up when it’s raining and
you need a ride home, some guy you can fall asleep next to on the couch and
wake up the next day without any remorse whatsoever.

Irene shakes her head. “Does this
girl have any idea how much you like her?”

“
Liked
,” I correct her, as if the lack of the letter
D
were the real issue and not the use of
like
instead of the more accurate
love.
Nonetheless, I emphasize the
D
because I want to properly divide my
life into the past, the present, and the future, and I’m trying so hard to
categorize you as part of my past. I don’t want you to be the shadow always
hanging over my head, haunting me every time I attempt to move on. I don’t want
to hope and mope and whine and pine. I don’t want my mother to keep worrying
about me, asking unnecessary questions like,
Are you awake? Are you sad?
I don’t want to have to keep answering her with the
same accommodating optimism one would extend to a repetitive child:
I’m trying to sleep, but
come in
, or,
I’m fine, Mom. I can
manage.
I don’t want to be hurt,
because I
am
,
still, and the fact
that you didn’t do it on purpose doesn’t cancel it out.
I don’t want to be in love with you anymore. Because I
can deal with you being the one that got away—at least that was your
choice, your responsibility. But I won’t allow you to be the one who never left
my mind because I never tried to forget.

Irene asks if I’m over you, and I
say, “It was a long time ago.”

2

Of course, seven
months isn’t a long time, but considering how you’ve only been a part of my
life for less than a year, it should be. They say the amount of time it takes
to get over someone should be one-third of the time you were together (or in
our case, “together”), which means seven months and five days exceeds the
allotted moving on period. It seemed everything unraveled at such a swift pace
for the two of us; it makes no sense that I’m picking up the pieces in slow
motion.

If we were starring in a romantic
movie, this is how it would work: We come into each other’s lives via a
serendipitous meet-cute. You are heartbroken, I am smitten. You try to get over
your ex by dating around as I remain a constant, loyal presence in your life.
One day, you snap out of it—you’ve had enough of jerks. You’re ready to
be treated the way you should be. And then you realize, through a series of
flashbacks of the happy times we’ve spent together, that I’ve been here all
along, that the circumstances seem to have shoved us together, that you cannot
fight fate anymore. You realize that you too are in love with me. Meanwhile, I
lose hope that you will ever feel the same way and spontaneously decide to
escape by accepting a job offer in the States. You drive to the airport to stop
me. You run through traffic. You dodge security personnel. And just when I’m
about to board my flight, you call my name, and you tell me everything I’ve been
wanting to hear. (Or you burst into the waiting area too late, then turn around
to see me holding my suitcase, having chosen at the last minute to stay.) We
kiss, and everything spins into a blur. At that moment, we are the only two
people in the world.

That’s not how it worked for us. I
had always been smitten, even before the meet-cute, even before you were
heartbroken. You dated around while I remained a constant, loyal presence. But
you didn’t snap out of it. You didn’t realize we belonged together. You didn’t
feel the same way.

This is what happened: The night
we met, as you picked out the lychee bits from your Martini, you told me about
breaking up with Swimming Champ, your boyfriend since high school (I don’t
remember his name; maybe I just didn’t pay enough attention), and how one day,
he hinted at getting married in a couple of years and you found yourself
panicking: What if he wasn’t The One? What if he wasn’t even The One Before The
One? You ended up avoiding his calls, leaving his text messages unanswered,
refusing to acknowledge his side of the equation, until he finally gave up on
you and flew off to Switzerland, for good. You were hurt; why didn’t he fight
for you? You showed me the folder of couple photos on your phone and asked me
to erase it because you couldn’t bring yourself to. You looked away and I
pressed delete. I’m not sure why you confided in me—I’d like to think
something in me made you trust me right away, but it could have been because I
was a stranger with no pre-conceived notions of you and Swimming Champ, or
simply because I was right there beside you and it was convenient. Maybe you
found me charming and interesting, or maybe you were just lonely, but as your
friend dragged you out the door, you asked for my phone, keyed in your number,
and said, “Call me, okay.” It didn’t sound like a request.

The next day, I got up at eight,
left my phone on my bed, and went jogging around my village. I didn’t want to
call so early and wake you, but more to the point, I didn’t want to seem too eager.
I ran around for two hours, trying to come up with a good opening line.
Hey, Bettina
was too generic,
Good morning
was too formal, and
What’s up
just
sounded wrong because I was the one calling you. I was prepared for you to say
Lucas who?
and decided I wouldn’t take this memory lapse against
you. I was also prepared for you to call me a stalker and deny ever giving me
your number. What I wasn’t prepared for was you answering the phone after one
ring and barking, “So are we having lunch or not?”

My carefully planned opening line
went out the window. I stammered, “Uh, hi Bettina, I’m, uh, yeah, hi, this is
Lucas. From last night?”

“I
know
,”
you said impatiently.

“How did you know it was me?”

“Who else would it be?” I could
almost see you rolling your eyes and tapping your foot, one hand on your hip.

I didn’t have an answer for that.
So I said, “Yes, we’re having lunch.”

“Good,” you said. “Pick me up in
fifteen minutes.” I looked down at my soaked grey t-shirt and ratty basketball
shorts and wanted to ask for an extension, but instead I said, “I don’t know
where your house is.” That was a lie. Of course I knew where you lived—I
drove past it every day on the way to work (it’s actually part of the route,
okay), and I knew it was your house because you usually had breakfast on the
porch, sipping a cup of coffee lazily, your bare legs stretched out in front of
you.

“I’ll text you the address,” you
told me.

“Great,” I said. Then, because I
was worried you’d think I wasn’t taking any sort of initiative: “I can’t wait
to see you again.” But you had already put down the phone.

 
So we had lunch, and saw a movie, and hung out at a small
coffee shop beside the Korean grocery my officemate’s family owned. “I like it
here,” you told me. “It’s so peaceful.” We were sitting side by side, and the
day’s events were so surprising, the night so calm and lovely, and the place so
quiet like it was keeping our secrets for us, that I felt compelled to take
your hand. You let me.

The ride home seemed to take
forever (I had run out of things to say, and the lack of conversation fell
short of comfortable), and at the same time, passed me by in a blur—I
didn’t want the night to be over because I wasn’t sure if a brand new day would
still bring you with it. When we stopped in front of your house, you looked at
me like you were expecting something—expecting, as opposed to simply
waiting. So I leaned over and did what I figured you wanted me to do, hoping I
was right, and then, as you were kissing me back, hoping it was enough to keep
you.

And it was, at least for four
months and twenty days. Of course, my definition of “keep” was just having you
as a welcome addition to my otherwise ordinary life, not having you as my
girlfriend or even officially going out with you. You dated all these other
guys, but nothing ever lasted long, and it was easy for me to harbor the hope
that all these casual flings would eventually lead you to the serious, steady
deal: me. For four months and twenty days, I guess we were friends,
technically, and we had impromptu breakfasts and late-night sitcom marathons
and weekend road trips to Tagaytay, just the two of us. Of course, there were
also times when we would have coffee so you could dissect whether or not this
or that guy was interested in you, and times when you would ask me to go
shopping with you for a date outfit, a date which did not include me. Every
time we walked back to my car after dinner or a movie, you liked linking your
arm through mine, and occasionally, you would look up at me and say, “Are you
sure you’re not falling in love with me, Lucas? Tell me the truth.”
 

And I would always reply, “Are you
sure you want the truth?” You would fall silent and clutch my arm tighter; you
never gave me an answer.

But one night, seven months and
six days ago, you asked me to tell you the truth, and I did. The truth was
this: I couldn’t stop thinking about you and that kiss we shared once and never
spoke of again. Every moment was a moment further from the one where I leaned
towards you and you pulled me in close. Every thought of you brought back that
moment, our moment—the feel of your lips brushing against mine for the
first time, for the last time. The truth was, at that moment, we were caught in
the same place, breathing in the same air, which was why I couldn’t understand
how it meant the world to me while it meant nothing to you at all.

You looked at me for a long time
before you finally said, “I’m sorry I even asked. I just wanted to make sure
you were okay with this.”

“With what?”

“I don’t know. This.”

You untangled your arm from mine
and told me, “I’m sorry it meant something to you.” I said, “I’m sorry it meant
something to me, too.”

That was the last time we saw each
other.