A Slight Change of Plan (16 page)

“Are you a regular?”

That moment, on cue, a very pretty waitress stopped, grabbed Jake’s hand to give it a squeeze, and told him how good it was to see him again.

Jake looked sheepish. “Well, I guess you could say that. I’m part owner. I wanted something to keep me busy after I retired.”

“I’m impressed. But a little upset that when we walked in, everybody didn’t yell, ‘Jake.’ ”

He flashed a grin. “That’s my place across town.”

We ordered—two burgers—and I took a drink of water.

“So, what about you?” he asked. “I’m assuming you went to law school?”

“Yes, I did, but why would you assume that?”

He shrugged. “Because it’s what you wanted to do. I could never imagine you wanting something as badly as you wanted that and not finding a way to get it.”

I had wanted him more than I had ever wanted anything in my entire life and hadn’t found a way to keep him, but I didn’t mention that.

“Yes, I did go to law school. Then I got married, practiced law for a bit, had some babies, got a master’s degree at night, then started part-time doing tax law. Then I went full-time, and I just quit this past spring.”

“Retired already? Good for you.”

“Not quite retired. I thought I was going to teach a few classes at a small college, but that fell through. I’m sort of unemployed right now.”

He shook his head. “Now is not the best time to be unemployed. There’s this economic crisis thing going on.”

I nodded. “Yes, I noticed, but thanks so much for pointing it out.”

He waved my thanks aside. “Hey, no problem.”

We were quiet, but it was a nice quiet. I felt relaxed and very content. Maybe it was the safe, comfortable booth that surrounded me and made me feel safe. Maybe it was the company of a man who knew everything there was to know about me, and had once chosen to love me anyway. Maybe it was the martinis.

Whatever.

“So, how long have you been doing the dating thing?” he asked.

“Just a few months. After Adam died, I really had no interest in being with anyone else, but, I don’t know, I guess it’s part of the whole changing-my-life thing. I started feeling lonely. And my sister felt, very strongly, that it was time. How about you?”

He shrugged, and waited until the waiter set down our food. The plates were overfilled with meat, bread, onion rings, fries, coleslaw, and a whole dill pickle. He looked sheepish again.

“I wish they wouldn’t do this,” he muttered. “I spend hours at the gym, and every time I lose a pound, I stop here and gain three.”

I laughed. “Yeah, well, that’s old age for you, Jake.”

He made a noise. “No shit. I remember being able to eat four or five subs from Manny’s in one sitting without ever having to think about it.”

“Yes, your metabolism was legendary. Didn’t you eat a turkey one Christmas?”

“Not a whole turkey. Just the leftover carcass. If my mother had wanted to save it, she should have said something at the time. How was I to know about turkey soup?”

I laughed again. “And then there was the Night of Many Tacos.”

He looked surprised. Did he think I wouldn’t remember? It had been thirty-odd years ago, but in my mind it was as clear as yesterday. “Fourteen. But that was a dare. You haven’t gained an ounce,” Jake said.

“I haven’t. I’ve just gotten flatter everywhere. This is a very good investment, by the way. Great burger.”

“I know. I ate in a lot of pubs before I hijacked this one.”

“So, this retirement you’re talking about, is it anytime soon?”

Jake grinned. “Two years, six months, and fifteen days.”

“That’s great. Then what are you going to do? Besides hang out here every day and listen to your arteries slowly clog.”

He shrugged. “I still like the idea of moving to the mountains somewhere, remember? Like we used to talk about? Get a cabin somewhere, nice and peaceful. Fish and read. I’d still love that.” He sounded almost wistful.

I pointed a very crispy and delicious french fry at him. “Our original plan was to cut all the logs ourselves, make the mud to chink up the holes, and live off the land.”

He made a noise. “Yeah, well, I’m not twenty-two anymore. I’d just as soon have one of those premade numbers trucked in and watch the experts put it together. Preferably
from beneath the shade of a big, old tree sitting next to a cooler of beer.”

“That, my friend, sounds like a brilliant plan. How does the girlfriend feel about it?”

For the first time, he looked uncomfortable. He reached for his wine and took a quick sip.

“Actually,” he said at last, “Sandra is very much a city girl.”

“Really? And is she beautiful?” My voice was nice and even. Friendly. Like it really didn’t matter at all.

“Yes, she is.” He drank the last of his wine and waved for the waiter. “But we don’t have too much in common. She thinks the West Village is too sleepy. She prefers loud music to good food. And she’s a very big shopper.”

“Good lord. You hate shopping. At least you used to.”

He shrugged. “I still do. But she thinks I’m very good at holding bags and paying for things.” He spoke lightly and almost smiled as he said it. “I just started this online dating two years ago. Most of the women my age have all this baggage—they complain about their ex-husbands, moan about their kids, have money problems—it’s hard to find somebody who just wants to have a good time. And when I do manage to find a smart, successful woman with minimal issues and a reasonable sense of humor, all they want to do is prove to me what a great catch they are. I get it—it’s hard for ‘women of a certain age’ to find men who want to date them. And I’m one of those men; I really am. But they have this agenda, and they’re never relaxed enough for me to really get to know them. It’s been tough trying to find someone who just wants to spend time with me for the sake of, well, fun.”

“Oh.”

We were kind of quiet again after that. We’d sat down to eat just after six, and now, almost three hours later, we had reached a sort of plateau. I had to make the nine-thirty bus, so he walked me down Central Park West until it turned into Eighth Avenue, and we looked in the windows at all the jewelry and electronics, brushing by the tourists who stood gazing up at the night skyline. We made small talk and quick jokes until we reached the Port Authority building. He insisted on standing with me at the gate until the bus showed up, and then he gave me a cool kiss on the cheek and told me how great it was to see me again, and he walked off into the sunset. Figuratively, of course. There are no real sunsets inside the Port Authority building. Besides, it was too late in the evening.

He was just the same as he’d always been, in spite of the lines around the eyes and the thickening waist. His voice was deeper, coarser, and he had a much tougher shell around him. Being the CEO of a big corporation would do that to you, I imagined. His hands were the hardest part of the evening, because every time I looked down at them, I remembered their tenderness and strength, as well as their playful teasing. It seemed like I had spent the best few years of my life holding on to one of those hands.

So I got to spend forty-two minutes on the bus, looking out the window, wondering how I was ever going to be happy with someone like Tom Smith, or anyone else for that matter, when there was a Jake Windom in the world.

C
HAPTER
S
EVEN

I
had turned my phone off when I was with Regan, picking out her wedding dress, because I don’t consider myself one of those people who need to be constantly available to the world at large. No one is going to call me to advise them on an international crisis, or to walk them through a particularly delicate bit of heart surgery, so why do I have to always be “on”? Nothing was more important than Regan’s dress, and then I went off to see Jake, so I didn’t look at my cell phone until the next morning, and there were six text messages—five from Tom, beginning with
Hi, how are you?
and ending with
I can’t believe you’d treat me this way!

Seriously?

The sixth was a text from Laura, saying she had broken her leg, and could I give her a call?

“Laura? What happened?”

She sighed. “I fell down the basement steps. Stupid cat ran between my feet, and bam, down I went. It’s a clean break, right above the left ankle, but I’m out of commission for a while. They don’t put you in a cast anymore. They just tell you to keep all weight off the thing for six weeks. Thank God the boys are gone.”

Her two sons had been sent off to a month-long sports camp the previous weekend.

“Well, I guess the good news is that you won’t have to worry about who’s going to drive them all over creation for the next month,” I told her. “What about your job?”

She laughed. “I always slow down during the summer, and in this market, no one will even miss me. And I now have a perfectly good excuse to sit in the sun and read for the next few weeks, instead of running around trying to cover everything on Bobby’s ‘to do’ list. How was your day yesterday? Did you see Jake?”

“Yes. I also helped Regan pick out her wedding dress. It’s perfect, fits her like a glove, and cost less than five hundred bucks. She’s one lucky girl.”

“I’m sure she is, Kate, but what about Jake?”

I tightened my grip on the phone. “Jake is just exactly the way he was thirty years ago—smart, charming, funny—and I felt so comfortable with him. It was a great evening. After which he went home and probably banged his barely legal girlfriend.”

“Did you ask him about her?”

“Yes. He’s with her because he’s looking for some fun.” I had wandered onto the deck and was staring out into the woods. “He married the woman he left me for. She pretty much made his career. Then she left him. Six years ago.”

“Wow. So, are you going to see him again?”

“What would be the point? He’s got this other woman. And I’ve got Tom, who’s a fairly good man. I’d like things to work out between us.”

“Okay, but if Jake should get in touch with you again, remain open. I mean, if you had a great time, he probably did, too, and that could be the start of something.”

I put the palm of my hand on the top of my head and pressed down hard, as though trying to push out all my confused thoughts. “I’m not sure I should be thinking along those lines, Laura. Jake and I had our chance. I don’t know how useful it is to keep thinking about what-ifs.”

“The world would be a dull and miserable place without the what-ifs, Kate.”

“Maybe. Do you need anything?”

“Nope.” She laughed. “I’m going to make Bobby wait on me hand and foot for the next few weeks. I think I deserve it.”

I laughed with her. “You do, baby sister. Take full advantage.”

I hung up, then called Tom.

“Where were you yesterday?” he said.

I took a deep breath. “Yesterday I helped my daughter pick out her wedding dress.”

He was silent. “Oh. Why didn’t you answer my texts?”

“Because I did not want to be interrupted while I was picking out my daughter’s wedding dress, and turned off the phone, then forgot to turn it back on.” I was proud of myself that my voice was still nice and even.

“Oh. Well, I didn’t know that.”

“Really? So you just assumed I was checking my texts every five minutes but chose to ignore all
five
of your requests for attention? It didn’t occur to you that maybe, just maybe, I was doing something important, and didn’t have time to play the ‘Hey, how you doin’?’ game?”

He was silent. Good.

“Kate, it’s just that I was worried.”

“About what?”

“About what you were doing.”

There it was. I took another deep breath. “Tom, seriously, it’s none of your business what I’m doing.”

He was quiet for so long, I almost cracked. But having played the control game with Sam, the brightest and most stubborn of my kids, I knew when to hold ’em.

“Kate, it’s just that…”

“That what?” God, were we really having a conversation like this over the phone? I really hated technology. We should be nose-to-nose in a dark room, sweat trickling off our bodies from the summer heat, so in case it ended well we could have great makeup sex.

“What is this about, Kate? Why are you so angry?”

Well, poop. That was a very unfair question. I was angry because I had met Jake Windom, and that big fantasy I had in my brain about “closure” was just that—a big fantasy. I wasn’t happy I’d seen him because I could continue with the rest of my life with no regrets. I was miserable I’d seen him because it reminded me of everything I had lost.

This was not Tom’s fault, by the way. And I knew that. So I would have to be very careful to separate the reason I was mad at Tom from the reason I was mad at the world in general.

“Tom, the thing is, I’ve been alone for a long time. I’m not used to having to answer to anyone. I felt stalked. I mean, I think you and I may have a future, but we’re not there yet.”

“You’re right. I’m sorry. I’m used to clingy women, and my behavior has been conditioned over the years for me to play a very, well, active role. I need to step back and allow you your space if we want to be successful going forward.”

The words were right, but the delivery felt like a very patronizing sales pitch. But I took it.

“Good,” I told him, even though that was not how I felt. “I’ll call you.”

“How about dinner tomorrow night?” he asked.

Hmmm. I had already designated Saturday as a spaghetti Saturday. Since I felt a little guilty about dumping all over him, I said, “Come here Saturday. I’m making pasta, and there’ll be some people. It will be fun.”

“Okay.” His voice was considerably brighter, so it must have meant something. To him, anyway.

When we hung up, I felt something was not quite right. I called Cheryl.

“Can you and Marco come over for spaghetti on Saturday?”

“We’d already made plans, dinner and a movie.”

“I invited Tom,” I told her.

She was making little clicking noises with her teeth, which meant she was thinking. “Then we’ll be there, because you do need a crowd. He might think this is some sort of step forward, being introduced to your family and close friends. Are you ready for a step forward?”