Trophy Husband (2 page)

I turn the radio up louder,
and even though I should listen to angry girl rock given how my
heart’s been in a sling for the last year, I can’t bring myself to
like that kind of music. Because deep down I am still the old
standards I love. So I sing along to the music – Frank
Sinatra’s
I’ve Got You Under My
Skin
– as I motor up steep hills that burn
legs while walking, then down a rollercoaster-y dip on my way into
Hayes Valley. The station shifts to the King, another favorite of
this retro-loving girl, and he’s now crooning
Can’t Help Falling in Love
.

My favorite song ever.

The song Todd didn’t want
to be our wedding song since he’d insisted on
Have I Told You Lately That I Love You
, the perfect tune since that’s how he felt about me, he
claimed.

A red Honda scoots out of the prime spot
right in front of the restaurant. As I glide my orange Mini Cooper
into the space, I mouth a silent thank you to the parking gods.
Don’t get me wrong – I’m grateful for the way they look out for me
and reward me with perfect little nooks for my car, but I have
other daydreams too.

Yet those ones seem so far out of reach.

Mainly, I’d like to find a guy who’s not a
weasel. The kind of fella who doesn’t ring you up from Sin City to
call the whole thing off the day before you’re supposed to slip
into a gorgeous white dress with that perfect ‘50s flair you were
looking for.

“Listen, I’ve had a change of heart,” Todd
said on my voice mail because I was on another call with the cake
shop. It would have been a perfect wedding. We had what I thought
was a perfect life. Cramped but cozy apartment in the Mission, my
business was taking off like crazy and he’d helped launch it, we’d
even picked out names for kids we might have some day – Charlotte
for a girl and Hunter for a boy.

Then he had an epiphany at a poker table in
Vegas when he met a gymnast he married instead.

The day before our wedding.

“I don’t really see myself having kids with
you, or a life with you, so let’s nip this thing in the bud,” he
said in his phone message.

So yeah. That kind of sucked.

But as I listen to this song, I find myself
longing for something more in my life. For someone to join me for
breakfast at my favorite diner in the city. Maybe a sweet kiss, a
nice goodnight make-out session, and maybe some love too, the kind
of love that lasts, always and forever, without leaving you in the
lurch, I admit silently, as Elvis croons about taking my hand and
my whole heart too.

Why do I do this? Why do I listen to this
music that tortures me? I thought my almost-hubs and I were meant
to be, and I was wrong, but yet as The King sings about falling in
love, I can’t deny that there’s a part of me that wouldn’t mind
falling in love again.

The kind where you can’t help it.

The kind that takes your breath away.

The kind that’s meant to be.

I know, I know. It’s like asking for the
moon, so I’ll stop my silly daydreaming.

But, hey, at least right now I have a
coveted parking spot.

I snatch my purse with its saucy cartoon of
a winking pirate girl on the side and head into The Best Doughnut
Shop in the City. It’s not really a doughnut shop. It used to be a
doughnut shop and then the owner converted it into a diner with
green upholstered vinyl seats. It’s my absolute favorite diner in
the whole city and it feels a bit like my special place.

I tell the hostess I’m a party of one, and
look, I’m not going to lie – it still hurts to ask for that solo
table, even though Todd never once, in all our five years together,
came with me to this diner. He said he didn’t care for cheap,
hole-in-the-wall eateries. Snob.

But even when I came here all by myself for
Sunday breakfast, at least I was still part of a two-some, even if
the other someone was sleeping in. Now, it’s just me. Party of
one.

I keep my chin up as the
hostess guides me to one of the last remaining two-tops. The place
is packed.
See Todd? You don’t know what
you were missing. This cheap diner knows how to bring it in the
breakfast department.

I sit down and smooth out my flouncy
knee-length poodle skirt. Even if I’m all by my lonesome, I still
like to dress up. Fashion is like a shield to me. The clothes I
wear center me, make me strong and steely with their distinctive
style.

I order my usual – scrambled eggs, toast and
a Diet Coke. Yep, I’m one of those people who drinks soda in the
mornings. I’m sure I should kick the habit for many reasons,
including the fact that Todd was my Diet Coke partner in crime, and
we both downed the carbonated beverage morning, noon and night. But
I refuse to let the memory of what we shared ruin my favorite
drink.

One minute later the waitress brings me a
glass that’s fizzing just the right amount. I thank her and take a
drink, then reach for my laptop from my bag. I might as well work
on my fashion blog as I wait for the food. As I flip open the
computer, the waitress guides a gorgeous young redhead over to the
two-top next to me. I scan her outfit first. The gal is wearing
sparkling white running shoes with a pink swirly stripe, black
workout pants and a color-coordinated snug workout top. There’s
something about her face though that’s eerily familiar. Like I’ve
seen her somewhere, but I can’t place it.

She flashes me a warm smile. “Hi,” she
says.

“Hey.”

“This placed is jammed today.”

“It’s like this every Sunday. The food is
amazing.”

“I’ve heard great things about it. I’m so
excited to finally try it.”

Okay, maybe I won’t need the laptop. Maybe
this gal and I will chat for the next thirty minutes, seeing as
she’s mighty friendly. I wouldn’t mind the company, to tell the
truth. It beats eating over a keyboard. “You will not be
disappointed. Everything’s good.”

“My husband said he’s been wanting to go to
this place for the longest time. He’s just out parking the car,”
she says and tips her forehead to the door.

I half expected her to say
her dad was going to join her because she looks like a teenager.
But maybe she was a teenage bride. “Well, both of you will love it
then. I’m a total regular. A
devotee
, as they say.” I add in a
silly little affected accent that makes her laugh.

“What do you recommend?”

“Anything. Except for hard-boiled eggs,
because they’re totally gross.”

“Oh god, yes. They’re like the most
disgusting food ever.”

I lean closer and say in a conspiratorial
whisper. “My ex used to love them. I couldn’t even be in the house
when he ate hard-boiled eggs.”

“You want to hear something funny? My
husband used to love them too. But I laid down the law. No
hard-boiled eggs ever in my house. I cured him of his hard-boiled
egg addiction like that.” She snaps her fingers.

I hold up a hand to high five her. “You
deserve major points.”

“Oh, look. There he is,” she says, and when
I turn to follow her gaze, it’s as if I’ve had a pair of cleats
jammed into my belly, and I don’t even play softball. But I bet
this is what it feels like when the batter slides into home and
you’re the catcher who’s not wearing a chest protector.

Blindsided.

Because she’s looking at Todd.

The diner is shrinking. The walls are
closing in, gripping me. I can’t breathe. This has to be a mistake.
An error. She has to be joking. I have to be seeing things. There
is no way her husband can be Todd. There must be another man behind
him, maybe a short man I can’t see. A pipsqueak little fellow right
behind Todd, who’s walking over to her table. But there’s no mini
man hiding behind him. It’s just him, and he freezes when he sees
me, then quickly recovers, taking the seat across from his
wife.

Wife.

It’s as if there’s a knife in my heart,
digging for all the soft spots and scooping them out. Serving them
up on the table for the two of them. The girl-child I’ve been
chatting with, my new fucking breakfast best friend, is the
college-age creature from Vegas who stole my
about-to-be-husband.

I’ve never seen her in person before. I have
only seen one photo I found of her on Facebook the day after his
voicemail, as I sobbed and clicked, surrounded by unopened wedding
gifts sent to our apartment. Now I feel stupid for not studying her
photos more, for not hunting out more pictures of her online. I
stopped after that one – a faraway shot of her at a gymnastics meet
since, of course, she’s a gymnast – because it hurt far too much.
But now with her here in front of me, I catalogue her features. Her
cheeks are rosy, her skin is soft and smooth, her hair is auburn
red and shampoo model bouncy with perfect waves, and her boobs
remind me of Salma Hayek’s.

They’re so freaking huge.

Fine, I’m only six years
older, but I have straight brown hair that I color blond, and weird
eyes that are sometimes blue, sometimes green, sometimes gray, and
my breasts are decent, but not dead ringers for cantaloupes. I’m
only twenty-seven and I know it sucks to be left at any age. But
the fact that he left me for a co-ed – giving himself a trophy wife
for all intents and purposes – didn’t help my self-esteem. I’d been
with him for five years; she’d been with him for one night, and she
got him all the way to the altar. I got stuck with two mixers I
never use, and
party-of-one
as my middle name.

“Hi McKenna,” Todd says in his best
business-like voice.

“Oh….” It’s like a long, slow release of air
from Amber, as her mouth drops open, and she shifts her gaze from
him to me, registering who she’s been chatting with.

She recovers faster than me
though, because I’m still speechless and stuck in this chair,
sitting next to Amber. She is the name of all my heartbreak. The
name that drummed through my brain for the better part of the last
twelve months, like an insistent hum in the pipes you can’t turn
off.
Amber, Amber,
Amber
. The woman he wanted. The woman he
chose. I will never hear that name without thinking of all that she
has that I don’t. The man I once wanted to marry.

“You know, why don’t we just get a new
table?” she says to Todd.

He scans the restaurant. This is the last
empty table. “There’s no place else to sit,” he says, and it’s
clear he has no intention of leaving.

What’s also clear is that he’s the only of
us – him and me – who doesn’t care that he ran into his ex-fiancé.
That realization smacks me hard, but it reminds me that I need to
pull myself together and channel whatever reserves of steely
coolness I have in me.

“It’s fine. I’m almost done anyway,” I
manage to say even though my food hasn’t arrived.

“So how’s everything going with you?” He
reaches for a menu and scans it. He doesn’t even look at me while
he’s talking. It’s not because he’s rude. It’s because I am nothing
to him. There’s a stinging feeling in the back of my eyes. I
tighten my jaw. I won’t let them see me cry.

“Great. The blog is great. The dog is great.
Life is great,” I say, pretending I am a robot, an unfeeling robot
who can spit out platitudes. I have to. I have to protect my heart
because it feels like it’s being filleted. “I see you like this
place now?”

“I love it. Favorite diner in the whole
city.”

My throat catches, and I grit my teeth.
“That’s great. And such great news about the hard-boiled eggs
too.”

He gives me a curious look.

“Nothing. It’s nothing.” I affix a plastic
smile when the waitress brings me my food. She turns to Todd and
Amber. They order as I slide my laptop into my bag and consider
ditching the place right now. Who needs food when there are
ex-fiancés and their new wives to remind you of all that was stolen
from you?

“And I’ll have a coffee too. No more soda in
the morning for me,” he adds before the waitress leaves.

The burning behind my eyes
intensifies.
It’s just coffee,
I tell myself. But he used to
hate
coffee. He detested it, and now
he’s drinking it instead of Diet Coke.

He turns his attention back to Amber. “But
no coffee for you still,” he says to her in a babyish voice. She
smiles at Todd as he lays a hand gently on one of hers. I try my
hardest to mask the all-too familiar feeling of my insides being
shred by him. God, I loved this man. I was a fool, but I loved him
like crazy, I fell for him the day I met him randomly at a bus stop
several years ago. He was mine, and he was wonderful, and he was
the only one I wanted.

“Well, it was great seeing you,” I say, and
start to push my chair away.

“You’re leaving?”

“Yeah. I totally forgot that I ate a bagel
already today. Stupid me.” I smack my forehead, as if I’m shocked
at my own forgetfulness.

“I do that sometimes too,” Amber says.
“Forget stuff. I think it’s because I have baby brain right
now.”

“Excuse me?”

“Oh,” she says, and there it is again. That
long expression of surprise.

Todd nods several times. “We had a baby. Two
weeks ago.”

My heart races into a very
painful overdrive of disbelief as it pounds against my chest. This
can’t be happening. Todd clasps his hand over Amber’s and she beams
at him, and that smile, for her, just for her, threatens my
precarious sense of
I’m-totally-fine-with-being-ditched-the-day-before-our-wedding.

“We have a little sweet little baby girl.
Her name is Charlotte.”

The diner starts spinning and I grab the
edge of the table. I squeeze my eyes shut, hoping, praying that’ll
do the trick and hold in the tears that are threatening to splash
all over my face. He changed everything for her, all the way from
children to breakfast choices. And he took everything from me,
including our name for a baby he wound up having a year after
leaving me a voicemail that said he didn’t want to marry me because
he couldn’t picture having kids with me.