The Night I Got Lucky (19 page)

Final y, I thought of the person who used to come to my mind first. I picked up the phone. “Mom,” I said, my voice breaking a little. “Can I come over?”

I
knocked on my mother’s huge mahogany door. She opened it almost immediately. She was barefoot, wearing a navy blue track suit and a white, cloth headband around her dyed-black hair.

“Baby dol ,” she said, hugging me. I drooped against her. I let go. What is it about my mother’s arms that can always make me sob?

She led me into “my” bedroom, one of the six in this huge house she and Jan had built during their marriage. Jan’s two children had been married and long out of the house when they met, but because my sisters and I were stil col ege age, or just graduated, Jan, in his sweet way, insisted that we each have our own room. The fact was that Dustin and Hadley had rarely stayed in theirs.

Mine was wal papered with salmon and white toile and decorated with white furniture. It was a space that calmed me whenever I entered it, but it was a room to visit, not a room to live in.

It usual y signaled a short vacation. Except that now I was on an indefinite vacation from my marriage.

“You didn’t say anything on the phone. What’s wrong?” my mom said, sitting on the bed next to me.

“Chris,” I said simply. “He asked me to leave.”

“Oh, Bil y.” She covered her mouth. Her delicate fingernails were painted the color of pink tulips. “Why?”

I shrugged.

“What happened?” she asked.

“I messed it up. I’ve messed up a lot of things.”

“Come here, honey,” she said, making a shushing sound. She pul ed me back into an embrace, causing me to cry again. This was why I’d come. To receive comfort, surely, and, not unimportantly, a roof over my cheating head, but I’d come to get my mother back, the one I’d had before she was a jet-setting, bridge-playing, independent social maven.

In the morning, I realized that the maven was stil very much alive.

“Sweetie,” my mother said, cracking my door. “I’m off. Wil you be al right?”

I glanced at the nightstand clock—7:30. Shit, I’d be late for work.
Way
late by the time I showered and dressed and joined the throngs of traffic on the inbound expressway. But then I realized I didn’t care.

I looked back at my mom. She was dressed in pink and tan plaid slacks, a white golf shirt and a jaunty pink cap.

“Where are you off to?” I asked.

“Golf. I play twice a week with Richard and Betsy.”

“Richard and Betsy?”

“I’m sure you know them.”

I was sure I didn’t. “When wil you be home?” I asked, trying not to sound needy. I’d wanted her to have her own life, after al . I stil wanted that.

“Hmm. Two-ish, probably, because we’l have lunch at the club. Come meet us!”

“No, thanks.”

“Off to work then?”

“No,” I said, deciding in that moment I could not bear the thought of the office.

“What wil you do?”

Take an overdose of ibuprofen? Find one of Jan’s hunting rifles? “I’m not sure, but I’l figure it out.”

“Wel , the house is yours,” she said, grandly sweeping an arm, as if a Wil y Wonka treasure trove of delights awaited me. “You’re welcome to be here as long as you need.”

“Thanks.”

She blew me an air kiss and turned away, leaving me to wonder why I didn’t feel so welcome at al .

I lay in bed for an hour, unable to drag my mind’s eye away from a memory—a scene I could see with perfect, laserlike clarity. Chris and me. Not the fight from the other night, not his pained face, although that image threatened to intrude every so often. No, the memory that played itself on a loop was the night he asked me to marry him.

It had surprised both of us, the intensity of our affection, the swift movement from strangers to people who shared their lives together. And our passion was a force to be reckoned with, too. Something that could, and did, strike without warning, forcing us together into theater bathrooms and coat closets during parties.

And so there we were on a Tuesday night in Chris’s apartment. I sat like a grand poobah on Chris’s big chair, a glass of wine on the arm, a smal plate of Parrana cheese Chris had sliced for me.

I was content and calm and in love when, about a half hour later, Chris cal ed me into the kitchen. There was a smal table in the corner, where we usual y sat, but the kitchen was drastical y different. There was the scent of something nutty and warm in the air, mixing with a hint of pungent garlic, but that wasn’t it. The kitchen was lit up with honey-white lights, making me think of snowy Lincoln Park at Christmas. Chris had strung lights around the two tal windows and over the top of the cabinets. White candles flickered from every surface—

the counters, the stove, the windowsil s. Dinner was set at the table, his grandmother’s silver candelabra in the center.

“Chris?” I said, turning to him.

He was wearing a blue oxford that night, which made his eyes appear the color of the Caribbean Sea. He smiled big. It was his nervous grin. “Bil y,” he said formal y. He gestured to the table. I saw his hand tremble a bit.

“What’s al this?”

Chris was always doing the sweetest things for me. I reveled in his pampering, and I tried to treat him equal y as wel —shopping for him during my lunch hour, sending him e-mail cards and leaving little notes in his briefcase.

“It’s a special dinner. Sit.”

At the table, Chris brought me a pastry baked golden brown and stuffed with porcini mushrooms.

“Mmm,” I said, practical y moaning with the first bite. “This is amazing.”

“I can’t wait,” Chris said. And suddenly, he was on his knees next to my chair.

“What are you—” I started to say.

“Shh.” He put a gentle finger to my lips. “Do you know what you are to me?”

I laughed nervously. Suddenly, the moment carried a weight of something life-altering. “I’m your girlfriend?”

“Yes. Thank God.” He laughed. “But you’re also…” His words died off. He looked down. He took a deep breath. He let it out and raised his eyes to me again. “You, Bil y Tremont, are my most treasured and favorite person in the world.”

I blinked back tears that had quickly formed. His words repeated themselves in my ears—
favorite person.
No one had ever said such a thing to me before, not my mother, certainly not my father, not my sisters or a friend.

“You, too,” I said. “You’re the best person I’ve ever met.”

“I had a speech planned,” Chris said, “but I don’t think I can do it.”

He reached in his pants pocket and pul ed out a box, which was covered with black taffeta. He opened it, and there it was—a dainty platinum band studded with diamonds, with a round, sparkling diamond that sat above the others like a queen.

“Wil you marry me?” Chris said. “Bil y, wil you be my favorite person for the rest of my life?”

I did start crying then. Hard, fast tears that choked me, fil ed my chest with a crushing force. “Yes!” I screamed. “Yes, yes, yes.” I tackled him with a hug. Chris fel to the floor.

We never ate dinner that night.

This was the scene that looped in my mind as I lay in bed in the quiet of my mother’s house. The memory of our engagement reminded me of how I had utterly failed Chris. How would it feel to have the most important person in your life, your
favorite
person, disregard their duties and betray you, casual y, quickly, as if those titles meant nothing? This ripped me apart because his words had meant something that night. His proclamation that I was his favorite person had carried more significance than a ring or a wedding.

I rol ed over and buried my face in the sheets, realizing that I was no longer anyone’s favorite person.

“Lizbeth, it’s Bil y.”

“Morning. You on your way in?”

“Not exactly.” I was, exactly, stil in my pajamas, standing at my mother’s taupe-tiled kitchen counter, nursing a cup of green tea, hoping that the antioxidants claimed on the box would rid me of the pol ution in my world. Despite the charge of motivation I’d gotten from Odette last night, I had few ideas on how to start doing something now. What I
had
done—talking to Chris

—I had fucked up royal y.

“I don’t feel so good,” I said to Lizbeth. True enough. Emotional y, I felt like crap.

“Oh, it’s that spring flu, right?” Lizbeth said. “I know five people who have that. You have to be real y careful or it could turn into pneumonia.”

“I’l be careful. Thanks. I’m sure I’l feel better tomorrow.”

“Great, wel , Roslyn has been looking for you, so let me transfer you.”

I clenched my teeth together. Roslyn had an ultrastrong bul shit detector.

“Bil y,” she said, coming on the phone. “I’m sorry to hear you’re not feeling wel .”

I coughed for effect. I lowered my voice to a near whisper. “Yes, thanks.”

There was a slight pause. Roslyn, I knew, equated sickness with personal weakness. As a result, everyone usual y came to the office when they had colds and flus and tonsil itis, fighting through fevers and runny noses and getting everyone else sick in the process. Everyone except Roslyn, that is. The woman was never il , never nervous, never much below or above her own personal flatline.

“Wel , take care of yourself,” she said with as much compassion as if she were ordering a hamburger. “But I wanted to talk to you briefly about the Teaken account.”

I took a seat at my mother’s breakfast bar, pul ing the green tea toward me. “Al right.”

Twenty minutes later, the green tea was gone, and I was hunched over the breakfast bar, mumbling responses to Roslyn’s exhaustive list of questions about the Teaken budget, the firm’s P&L and the status of getting new prints to hang in the lobby, a task which had somehow fal en to me. The tedium of my job overwhelmed me. Where was the creative thinking about different story angles for our clients, different ways to write a press release, alternative media outlets? Those decisions, those queries were what I had always enjoyed about my job. My old job as a senior account exec. This new one was al business, al the time. Before the promotion, I hadn’t thought of the work as business or boring or beneath me. I’d enjoyed it, except for those times I was obsessing about how I should be promoted, without ever stopping to think about what being a VP would entail.

At last, Roslyn wound down. “Wel , we can figure out later which account exec to assign to the new Bul s benefit,” she said.

Me!
I wanted to scream.
Let me do it.
But I was a VP now. I worked on the big picture, not the individual accounts. “Sure,” I said, listlessly.

“We’l talk about it when you get here tomorrow.”

It wouldn’t matter if I real y did have pneumonia. Roslyn would expect me to get a chest X-ray and some powerful antibiotics and be back at my desk in a day.

I began dialing Evan’s number almost as soon as I hung up with Roslyn. It was sheer habit—seeking out Evan’s opinion about al things work. It was how our friendship had functioned for nearly eight years. But I’d blown that. We both had. I clicked the off button on my mom’s phone, stil sitting at the breakfast bar. I turned it on again in the next second. I couldn’t avoid him forever. We had to talk about what happened. What there was to say, I wasn’t sure, but
something
had to be said, acknowledged.

I dialed Evan’s direct line. He answered on the second ring.

“Hey, it’s me. Bil y.”

A slight pause. “Where are you? I just stopped by your office.”

“Sick.”

“Real y?”

“No. Just sick in the head.”

We both laughed lamely.

“You ever going to talk to me again?” Evan asked.

“Yeah. Sorry I’ve been avoiding you.”

“Hey, I’ve been rejected by women before,” he said in a teasing tone. “Not many, but…”

I tried another laugh, but it was forced, more of a groan than a giggle. Another pause, longer this time and more potent, since Evan and I rarely had the slightest break in our conversations.

“I’m sorry, Ev.”

“For what?”

What should I say?—
I’m sorry I wished your lust into existence? I’m sorry I didn’t have enough willpower to resist it?

“The other night,” I said final y.

“I’m not. Wel , I’m sorry you’re uncomfortable, and I’m sorry about Chris, because you know I like him.” I flinched at the sound of my husband’s name from Evan’s mouth. “But I’m not sorry it happened.”

I stood from the breakfast bar and opened the French doors to my mother’s sun porch and her green manicured lawn. It was a decent spring day—slightly overcast and in the mid-sixties

—but it might as wel have been a blizzard in February. I couldn’t appreciate it.

“It can’t happen again,” I said, relieved at my statement. That was doing something, as Odette had said, instead of avoiding the situation. I charged on, emboldened and motivated now.

“I adore you, Ev, you know that, but this absolutely cannot happen. I love my husband. I’m just sorry I started down this road and brought you with me.”

“We’l see,” Evan said.

“No, we won’t,” I responded quickly. Evan’s powers of persuasion were legendary—from clients to store clerks to the women he dated, he could talk anyone into anything. It would be even harder to successful y have this conversation face-to-face, so I plowed on. “Nothing can happen like that ever, ever again. You have to respect my decision.”

He exhaled loudly. “When are you coming back to the office?”

“Tomorrow, I suppose, but that doesn’t matter. I mean what I say.”

“I’l see you then.”

After I got off the phone with Evan, I washed my face, combed my hair and brushed my teeth, thinking some basic personal hygiene might make me feel better. Wrong. The phone cal was sticking with me, and I felt guiltier and guiltier as each moment passed. Not only at the thought of Evan’s hands on my skin in that bedroom, but at the phone cal itself. Talking to him seemed, somehow, like cheating on Chris again.

And so back to the kitchen, back to my mother’s phone, and without thinking about what I would say, I dialed Chris’s work number. He was in a deposition, his secretary said, but he should be out in ten minutes and would cal me back. I sat at the breakfast bar, not even trying to entertain myself. Ten minutes passed, then another. I dialed his number again.