After I Do (22 page)

April 20

Dear Lauren,

Charlie called me today and said he spoke with you and that it was OK with you if he asked me to be his best man.

What is happening in the world? I remember when he used to beg me to play Grand Theft Auto with him when you and I would visit on weekends from college. I didn’t even like that game, but I used to do it just to get him to shut up. And the whole time, he would just talk about girls. The. Whole. Time. And he was so stupid about girls. It baffled me. For a boy living in a house with three women, you’d think he knew how to talk to girls, but he just had no idea. And so I told him about how I asked you out. I told him that whole thing about how I pretended that it was you who was asking me out. And how it’s normal to be nervous, but you just have to do it anyway, because the girls are usually nervous, too, and they don’t notice that you’re nervous, and just stupid shit like that.

And now he’s getting married and having a baby. With someone he really seems to like.

And you and I aren’t speaking.

Thank you for saying it was OK. I miss your family a lot. That phone call from Charlie, it made my day. Hell, it might have made my year. This year has been so hard and so confusing, and when I heard Charlie’s voice on the phone, it really reminded me of what I’ve been missing.

I’m looking forward to this wedding. If only because I know I’ll get to see you again.

Love,

Ryan

N
atalie is wearing a maxidress. She’s the sort of pregnant that makes you want to offer your seat to her on the bus. Due in six weeks, she is glowing, but when you tell her that, she says, “It’s sweat. Trust me. I’m sweating like the house is on fire.”

I didn’t tell anyone it’s going to be a boy, so we stuck with yellow as the shower theme. My mother insisted on hosting it, and she’s gone a little over the top. There are yellow balloons and yellow streamers. There are gifts wrapped in yellow. And a yellow cake, courtesy of Rachel. I think perhaps there is also an unspoken theme of ducks that I didn’t get the memo about. The buffet table and the coffee table are covered in rubber duckies. Rachel even made a rubber ducky out of fondant and put it on the top of the cake.

“Guess it’s more of a fondant ducky,” I say when she shows us.

My mom laughs. “That’s what I said, but she didn’t seem to think it was funny.”

“This cake is beautiful,” Natalie says. “Rachel, I can’t thank you enough. It looks professionally done.”

I know that Rachel has baked this same cake five times, decorating it just this way, to be sure that she could do it. I know that she was up until the early hours of the morning getting the duck right. But she acts as if it was a breeze. “Oh, please,” she says. “It’s my pleasure.” Rachel has on a cute short red dress with a square collar. She was wearing high heels for the occasion but kicked them off about ten minutes ago, well before anyone was even here. “Although I did take a picture of it for my portfolio.” She’s supposed to hear news on the loan any day now.

Mom comes out from the kitchen with a platter. “OK, you three girls will tell me if I’ve overdone it,” she says. “But look! How cute, right?” My mother shows us a plate of cucumber sandwiches.

“It’s not high tea, Mom,” Rachel says. “It’s a baby shower.”

My mom frowns, but Natalie turns it right around. “They are adorable, Leslie. Really. Thank you so much. And my friend Marie, who is coming, is a vegetarian and always worries that there won’t be things for her to eat. So it’s perfect.”

“Thank you, Natalie. I’m relishing this time before you feel as comfortable around me as my daughters do. This is when I still get compliments and not things like ‘It’s not high tea, Mom.’” My mother’s impression of Rachel sounds absolutely nothing like Rachel and everything like Minnie Mouse.

Natalie laughs. “I really do like them, though!” she says.

“OK, Natalie,” I say. “You’ve proven your point. She likes you best.”

My mom laughs and puts the platter down and goes back into the kitchen to get more.

“Do you need help?” Natalie asks.

Rachel puts her arm out to stop Natalie from saying any more. “Relax,” she says. “You’re the pregnant one,” she says. “We are the ones who should be offering to help Mom, and we aren’t.”

“Yeah, so don’t make us look bad,” I say.

Natalie laughs and sits down on the couch, crossing one leg underneath her and smoothing out her dress. “Well, since I have you two, I actually wanted to ask you a favor,” she says. “As I know you know, Charlie asked Ryan to be his best man.”

Rachel’s jaw drops, and she whips her head at me. “What?” she says.

I shrug. “It’s what Charlie wants. What was I going to say?”

“And you’re OK with it?” Rachel asks. “How have we not talked about this?”

“It’s fine,” I say to Rachel. I don’t want to get into it and complicate things in front of Natalie.

Natalie looks at me. “I want to say thank you for that,” she says. “It has made Charlie really happy, and obviously, I’m not as well versed in the details of you and Ryan, but I would imagine it takes a big person to . . . just . . . thank you.”

I nod at her. It’s such a complex issue, with so many feelings involved, I fear that if I speak, even if only to say
You’re welcome
, I’ll start crying, and I won’t even know exactly why.

“Anyway, Ryan is Charlie’s best man, and it turns out his friend Wally is going to be able to make it to the wedding, so Charlie wanted him to be up there with him, too,” Natalie says. “Which means I’ve got two spots on my side, and I’d love it if you two would be my bridesmaids.”

“Wow,” Rachel and I both say at the same time.

Rachel continues. “Are you kidding? That is so thoughtful of you.”

“I know that it’s short notice,” Natalie says. “I wasn’t sure what was happening with Charlie’s side, but now that it’s all settled, I really do think it worked out perfectly. I would love to have you two up there with me.”

“Are you sure?” I ask. “I mean, our feelings won’t be hurt if you have friends you’d like to ask.”

“No,” Natalie says. “I mean, I have people I could ask. I have girlfriends I love. But you guys are family. I love the idea of being a part of a big family. My family is just me and my parents. I’m excited to have sisters.” Natalie tiptoes around the word
sisters
as if she’s not sure that it’s OK for her to be so presumptuous, and because of that, I feel the need to go overboard in letting her know that I absolutely do want to consider her my sister. That I want her to be a part of our family.

“We are excited, too!” I say, and then try to modulate my enthusiasm to seem less over the top. “Seriously, I feel lucky that Charlie has chosen someone so cool.”

“Yeah?” Natalie says. “You’d be my sort of co-maids of honor, I guess. Since there isn’t an official one.”

“Works for us,” Rachel says.

My mom comes back out with pigs in a blanket. “Check these babies out!” she says, laughing to herself. The three of us look at the tray and see that she’s put food coloring in the “blankets.” Some of them are pink, some of them are blue. “Since we don’t know the sex of the baby yet. Get it?”

“So we are going to be eating the babies as an appetizer?” Rachel asks. I start laughing; I can’t help it. Natalie tries to stifle hers.

My mom looks down at the plate, frowning. “Oh, no,” my mom says. “Do you think people will feel like they’re eating babies?”

“You guys are so mean!” Natalie says. “Leslie, they are great. It’s a perfect baby shower thing.”

“Mom, I was totally kidding,” Rachel says, trying to take it back. My mom normally doesn’t mind being made fun of, but today she’s taking it at least a little bit seriously, and I feel bad about that.

She hasn’t put the tray down. She’s seriously considering not serving them. “No,” she says. “It’s weird. Shoot. I should have just left them not colored.”

“No,” I say. “Please. She really was kidding. It’s perfect. It’s just like those games where people melt candy bars in diapers to look like poop or bob for nipples, you know? Baby showers are supposed to be a little over the top. It’s good!”

“You’re sure?” my mom asks all of us.

“Positive,” Rachel says.

Natalie nods her head. I walk over to my mom and put my arm around her. “Totally. You’ve done such a great job. It looks incredible.”

“OK,” she says, finally putting the tray down. “But I didn’t get any nipples to . . . bob for. Is that bad?”

“No,” I say. “It was just a suggestion. Is there more stuff in the kitchen? I’ll come help you.”

We head toward the kitchen, leaving Natalie and Rachel in the living room.

When we are out of earshot, I ask, “You doing OK?”

“Yeah,” she says. “This is . . . it’s a little stressful!”

“What can I help with?” I ask, standing at the counter, but it looks as if everything is under control.

“No, nothing,” my mom says. “It’s just . . . it’s my first grandbaby.”

“I know,” I say.

“I always pictured myself throwing a baby shower for my first grandbaby.”

“Sure,” I say. “I can understand that.”

“And I just figured . . .”

I wait for her to finish, but she doesn’t. “You thought it’d be for me,” I say.

It takes my mom a while to answer. “Yeah,” she finally admits. “Which is fine. Your life is your life. I’m so proud of what you’re doing with it.”

“I know, Mom. But that doesn’t mean it’s not surprising. Or that things haven’t worked out in a way that is stressful or confusing,” I say.

“I’m so happy about all of this,” my mom says. “I really am.”

“But . . . ?” I ask.

“But,” she says, taking the bait, “I don’t know her. When I was shopping at the store and putting together the menu, I kept stopping and going, ‘Does Natalie like olives? Does Natalie like cilantro?’ I mean, some people hate cilantro.”

“Yeah,” I say.

“I just don’t know her all that well yet,” my mom says. “It’s hard to throw a baby shower for someone you don’t know that well yet.”

“All that matters is that your heart is in the right place,” I say. “Natalie is easy to please.”

“Yeah, maybe,” my mom says, staring at the plate of crab cakes in front of her. “Will you just go out there and casually ask her if she likes cilantro? I put some in the crab cakes, and some people just really hate cilantro.”

“Sure, Mom,” I say, just as the doorbell rings.

We can hear Rachel open the door, and a group of women’s voices begin to chatter. The party has started. Natalie’s friends and coworkers will start streaming in. The gift table will begin to pile up. Before you know it, we will be pinning the sperm on the egg and acting as if the Diaper Genie is the most fascinating object the world has ever seen. “You know, one day, it will be me,” I say as I leave the kitchen. “And when it is, you can serve all the cilantro you want.”

D
avid is lying across my bed. His shirt is off. He’s just in his underwear. We’ve been drinking.

It all started because David said he wanted to make me dinner, and he brought over a bag of groceries and took over the kitchen. And since he brought dinner, I figured I should open one of the bottles of wine that’s been taking up space on the credenza. We each had a glass of red wine and then had another. And then another. And then we opened another bottle for some reason. Between the deliciousness of dinner and all the laughing, more drinking seemed like a good idea.

And here we are, stuffed and still drunk. We started kissing in bed. But his watch got caught in my hair, and we started to laugh. And since then, we haven’t really recovered. We’re just lying next to each other, both half dressed, holding hands and looking up at the ceiling.

“I think Ryan is going to want to get back together,” I say to the air.

David doesn’t move or look at me. He keeps his focus on the ceiling. “Yeah?” he asks. “Why do you think that?”

“Well, he said as much,” I say.

Now he does shift toward me. “I thought you guys weren’t talking,” he says. David knows the deal. He knows the drill. At this point, he knows about the fights and the resentments. He knows about the lack of sex, the bad sex.

“He writes me letters sometimes,” I say. I leave it at that. I don’t feel like explaining it.

“Ah,” he says. His hand is still in mine. He’s starting to massage my hand in his. “Well, how do you feel about that?”

I laugh, because that
is
the question, isn’t it? How do I feel about that? “I don’t know,” I say, and then I sigh. “I’m thinking that I’m not sure I feel the same way. Or, yeah, that’s exactly it. I’m not
sure
I feel the same way. It scares me that I’m not
sure
anymore.”

“Man,” David says, looking back up at the ceiling. “I’m almost envious of you. I wish . . . God, I wish I could stop thinking about Ashley. I wish I could feel
unsure
that I love her or want her.”

“It still hurts?” I ask, but I know the answer. I’m just trying to give him space to talk about it.

“Every day. It hurts every day. It kills me not to tell her everything going on in my life. And sometimes I just want to call her and say, ‘Let’s get dinner. Let’s figure this out.’”

“Why don’t you?” I ask. I roll onto my stomach, with my elbows out in front of me. Listening pose.

“Because,” he says, his voice becoming animated and passionate, “she cheated on me. You can’t . . . if someone cheats on you, I mean, the self-respecting thing to do is to leave that person. You can’t be with someone who cheats on you.”

Normally, I would agree with him. But it really sounds as if he’s saying it because he’s been told that’s what he should think.

“I don’t know,” I say. “It was one time, right?”

“She says it was one time. But isn’t that what all people who cheat say? Anyway, I’m not sure it matters whether it was once or a millions times.” He turns over onto his stomach now, too. Our shoulders grazing each other.

“People make mistakes,” I say. If I have learned one thing in all of this, it’s that we’re all capable of more than we think we are, for better or worse. Everyone has the potential to fuck up big when the stakes are high. “I threw a vase at my husband’s head.”

David turns to me. “You?”

I nod.

Yes, it was me. Yes, I am ashamed I did it. But it also wasn’t me. That wasn’t me. That person was so angry. I was so angry. I’m not angry anymore.

“The point is, everyone makes mistakes. And I have to think, the way you love Ashley, the way you talk about her, the way you can’t get over her, I’m not sure that’s all that common of a love. It might be the kind of love that can overcome this sort of stuff.”

The fact is, I look at David, I look at how he yearns for his ex-wife, I look at how he is clearly unable to move on from her in any meaningful way, and I’m the one who’s jealous. Not of her. Of him. I want to love like that. I want to feel as if I’m not OK without someone, without Ryan. But I
am
OK.

Things aren’t perfect right now. But I’m OK.

That can’t be good.

David and I keep talking. The conversation drifts in and out but always goes back to Ashley. I’m paying attention. I’m listening. But my mind is elsewhere.

I have something I need to do.

• • •

April 30

Dear Ask Allie,

I have been married for six years. My husband and I met eleven years ago. For most of my adult life, I have believed he was my soul mate. For most of our relationship, I have truly loved him and felt loved by him. But some time ago, for reasons that have only started to become clear to me now, we stopped being good to each other.

When I say that the reasons for this are starting to become clear, I mean I have realized that our marriage suffered from issues of resentment. We resented each other for things like how often we had sex, the quality of the sex we did have, the places we wanted to eat dinner, how we showed affection for each other, all the way down to basic errands like calling the plumber.

I’ve come to realize that resentment is malignant. That it starts small and festers. That it grows wild and unfettered inside of you until it’s so expansive that it has worked its way into the furthest, deepest parts of you and holds on for dear life.

I can see that now.

And the reason I can see all of this now is that my husband and I recognized that we had a problem about nine months ago, and we decided to give each other some space. We agreed to a yearlong break.

The year is not over, and I already feel I have gained a great deal of perspective that I didn’t have this time last year. I understand myself better. I understand what I did to contribute to the downfall of my marriage. I also understand what I allowed to happen to my marriage. When this trial period is over, I know I will be a changed woman.

The problem is that in our time apart, I have learned that I can lead an incredibly fulfilling life without my husband. I can be happy without him. And that scares me. Because I think, maybe, you shouldn’t spend your life with someone you don’t need. Isn’t your marriage supposed to be the union of two halves of a whole? Doesn’t that necessitate that they cannot be whole themselves? That they must feel as if they are missing a piece when they are apart?

When I agreed to this idea of taking time off, on some level, I thought I’d learn that it wasn’t possible. I thought I’d learn that life without my husband was unbearable and that it would be so unbearable that I’d beg him to come home, and when he came home, I’d have learned a lesson about never undervaluing him again. I thought this was a way to shock myself into realizing how much I needed him.

But when the worst happened, when I lost him and he started dating other people, the sun rose the next morning. Life went on. If it’s true love, is that even possible?

During our time apart, I’ve talked to anyone who will listen about my marriage. I’ve talked to my sister, my brother, my mother, my grandmother, my best friend, a man I’m seeing casually, and all of them have different ideas of what marriage is. All of them have different advice about what to do.

And yet I’m still lost.

So what do you think, Allie?

Do I get back together with the man I used to love?

Or do I start over, now that I know that I can?

Sincerely,

Lost in Los Angeles

I don’t reread it. I know that I’ll lose my nerve. I just hit send. And off it goes, into the nothingness of the Internet.