Authors: Debra Doxer
“He’s the one who asked you to
marry him.”
“I know. But being engaged is one
thing. Actually making it legal is another.”
“You’re divorced, too. Are you
scared of getting married again?”
“Of course. I don’t want to let it
stop me. But I’m scared.”
I nod, trailing my finger through
the condensation on my water glass, trying to form my next sentences carefully.
Our salads appear then, and I busy myself with pouring on dressing and cutting
up lettuce. I’m tempted to abort the plan to tell her about Mike and Bryn. I
consider and then reconsider while I cut my romaine lettuce into smaller and
smaller pieces. I keep coming back to one thought.
How can
I call myself a good friend and keep this a secret? If I were her, I would
never forgive me.
I look over at Katie as she forks a
crouton into her mouth. “I need to ask you a question” I begin.
“Okay,” she says, eyeing me
curiously.
“If I were dating someone and you
knew something about him, something bad, something that you knew would upset
me, would you tell me?”
She stares at me, her fork hovering
over her plate. “Something like what?”
Despite having thought this out all
through my sleepless night, I hesitate now, not sure how to describe what Mike
has done. It’s breach of trust, surely, but much more, too.
“Something like what, Andy?” she
asks, apprehensive now.
Making this a hypothetical is a bad
idea. I take a breath and push on, deciding to yank that damn tooth right out.
“I saw Bryn this week. She told me something… something about Mike.”
“Bryn told you something?” Katie
asks confused.
I nod.
“What are you talking about?” Her
fork drops onto her plate with a clank. “What about Mike?”
Then, to my horror, my throat
suddenly feels tight, like I’m going to cry. I am seriously botching this up.
Concerned now, Katie leans toward
me. “Andy?”
I blink hard and just say it. “Bryn
told me that she and Mike kissed.”
Katie just stares at me,
seeming to have trouble comprehending what I’ve just said. Then she leans back,
as though she’s trying to distance herself from it. “They kissed?”
“Yes. Once.”
“Mike and Bryn kissed?”
I nod.
“What do you mean they kissed? What
kind of a kiss?” she asks.
“A real kiss, Katie. I’m not
talking about a friendly peck.”
“When did she say this happened?”
she asks after a moment.
“It was after we got back from the
Bahamas. Bryn’s car died at the grocery store, and Mike came to help her.”
“I remember that. Mike told me
about that day. He told me he got Bryn’s car started for her.”
“I guess he left the kiss part
out.”
Katie sits up straighter in her
chair. “What exactly is Bryn claiming happened?”
I don’t like the way Katie is
looking at me. Like maybe I’m making this up. “She said that once Mike got her
car started, she gave him a hug to thank him. But he turned it into a kiss, and
she said that she kissed him back. But then she pulled away and drove off,
feeling badly, apparently.”
Katie shakes her head. “I’m sure
she misread it. It was probably just a friendly kiss.”
“I don’t think so. Afterward, Mike
called her and asked if he could see her.”
Katie opens her mouth to say
something, but then closes it again.
“Bryn said she refused to see him,
but apparently he calls her on the phone pretty regularly now.”
Katie’s eyes widen. “They talk on
the phone?”
I nod. I’m no longer feeling choked
up as my outrage returns. “During the day, when they’re both at work,” I
explain. “Bryn said that he always calls her and not the other way around.”
“Why? What do they talk about?”
“They’ve discussed the fact that
they have a physical attraction to each other, but they don’t want to hurt you.
He also told her that he has cold feet about the wedding.”
“He told her that?” Katie asks as
her eyes begin to mist over.
I nod, watching her as she tries
not to lose it. “I’m so sorry. I wasn’t sure whether or not to tell you any of
this.”
“Have they slept together?”
“No,” I answer quickly. “Bryn said
it was just one kiss and phone conversations. That’s it.”
Katie takes a deep breath. “Is it
possible Bryn’s lying?”
I hesitate before answering. Bryn
is many things, but I’ve never known her to lie. “I don’t think so,” I answer
softly as I reach into my bag for a tissue and hand it to Katie.
She automatically takes it, but
just holds it absently in her hand. “I don’t understand,” she whispers, slowly
shaking her head.
I don’t know what to say. Saying I
was sorry again seemed completely inadequate.
“They just kissed? Once?” she asks
me.
I nod.
“He never told me that. He never
mentions Bryn at all.” She finally realizes she has a tissue in her hand and
reaches up to dab at her eyes. “I can’t believe he’s been calling her and
telling her things he hasn’t told me. Why would he do that? Does he think he
can’t talk to me?”
“If he really is terrified of
getting married, he might be afraid to tell you.”
Katie takes a shaky breath,
considering this. “And what about Bryn? I thought we were friends.”
“I don’t really have an explanation
for Bryn other than that she’s lonely. He’s paying attention to her, and even
though she knows it’s wrong, she just can’t help herself.” I want to add that
if it weren’t for Bryn having something of a conscience it might have gotten a
lot further by now.
“What if he wants to leave me?” she
asks, looking like a lost child.
My heart sinks at her question.
“What if you want to leave him?” I reply, feeling frustrated with her reaction.
That seems to startle her, as
though it hadn’t occurred to her. Now I can’t help comparing Katie and Bryn to
myself. Here they are, both anguishing over a man, hanging on to him despite
his obvious shortcomings which are huge and glaring, and I’m ready to throw
someone away because he didn’t walk me to my car. The problem is, I still think
I’m right about that. I want to shake Katie. I want to tell her she is so much
better than Mike. She’s a smart, successful woman, and she doesn’t have to put
up with this schmuck. I find myself becoming angry with her for not valuing
herself more highly. But I swallow the need to voice those opinions along with
a sip of ice water from my glass on the table.
“I think I’d like to get the check
now,” Katie says.
I offer to pay for lunch. It’s the
least I can do. Katie protests meekly, before letting me. Then we walk together
through the heavy summer heat to our cars. “Is he going to be there when you
get home?” I ask.
She shakes her head, her expression
distant and dazed. “No, he took his kids to a water park today. He won’t be
back until dinner.”
I touch her arm to get her
attention. “This isn’t your fault. If Mike is scared to get married, he should
have talked to you about it. Going behind your back with one of your friends is
not the way to deal with cold feet. I’m sorry. I really am. For the record, if
you knew something like this about a man I intended to marry and you didn’t
tell me, I’d be mad as hell at you.” I don’t know why I say all this to her.
I’m letting her reaction to the news get to me.
Katie eyes me silently, her
expression grim and watery.
“Come home with me,” I suggest.
She shakes her head. “Oh, no.
Thanks.”
“Are you sure? We can talk more or
not talk. Whatever you want.”
She jingles her keys in her hand.
“I really need to go home and be by myself for a while.”
“Okay.” I don’t want to let her
leave. Whether it’s welcome or not, I reach out and hug her. Her response is
weak, but she returns the gesture. Then I have no choice but to watch as she
mechanically gets in her car and drives away.
“I just told her.”
“How did she take it?” Mom asks.
I’m sitting in my car holding my
cell phone to my ear. The car is sweltering after sitting in the midday sun. I
have the air-conditioning blowing full-blast, but the interior is slow to cool,
and I can feel the sweat dripping down and pooling at my lower back. “She
seemed shell-shocked,” I reply. “She didn’t get angry, just sad and kind of
dazed. I asked if I’d done the right thing by telling her and do you know what
she said?”
“What?”
“She said, ‘What if he wants to
leave me?’ She’s afraid of
him
leaving
her
?”
“You don’t think she’d leave him
over this?” Mom asks.
“I don’t know. I mentioned that and
she seemed shocked at the idea. How could she rather not know? Does she want to
marry the same type of guy she just divorced?”
“Maybe you should have stayed out
of it.”
I feel tears threatening again.
“How could I? How could I keep seeing them together, knowing what he’s doing,
the way he’s making a fool out of her?”
“I don’t know, honey.”
“I bet she says nothing to him. I
bet she pretends we never had this conversation and goes on like nothing
happened.”
“If she does, it’s none of your
business. You did what you had to. You told her. What she does now is her own
decision.”
I sink into the car seat. “Maybe I
shouldn’t have said anything. I wish Bryn had never told me.”
“She really isn’t a friend to
either of you. She shouldn’t have put you in that position.”
“I should have spent more time
considering not telling Katie. I always follow my moral compass with this
arrogant self-assurance.”
Mom laughs. “You do have this habit
of always thinking you’re right.”
“And you don’t?” I counter.
“Well, you might have gotten that
from me,” she answers. I can hear the smile in her voice. “Andrea, there is no
right or wrong here. You were trying to be a good friend. Don’t beat yourself
up about it.”
“What now? Should I call her later
to see if she’s okay?”
“That would be a nice thing to do.”
The car is beginning to cool off
now. Having Mom tell me that I haven’t done anything wrong feels like the
weight of the world lifting off my shoulders. I generally trust her judgment.
When she disapproves of something I’ve done, I always feel that much worse
about it.
Katie doesn’t answer her phone that
afternoon or later that evening. I leave voice messages on both her cell phone
and her home phone. They’re nondescript messages, giving nothing away of our
talk, in case Mike hears them.
Suffering from sleep deprivation, I
fall asleep early that night, and I sleep deeply. Although I continue to worry
about Katie, telling her has been like purging myself of a huge, greasy,
calorie-ridden meal that I shouldn’t have eaten in the first place. Unfortunately,
in my distracted state of mind, I forget to set my alarm when I go to bed, and
I have done nothing to prepare for Ryan and the beach day ahead of me.
After waking up late, I rush
through my shower, nicking my leg with a new razor. Then I check the
refrigerator for lunch supplies. Finding none, I settle for a can of soda from
the pantry. I locate my beach towel after a frenzied disruption of my
linen closet, and I retrieve my canvas beach bag, a green frog-patterned gift
from my sister, from the front hall closet where it has been sitting since my
last trip to the beach with my family over a month ago. Next, I don my favorite
turquoise bikini and cover it with a pink tank top and khaki shorts that are
too short to wear anywhere but to the beach. My legs are one feature that I’m
not self-conscious about. Since my hair is generally a total loss at the beach,
I twist it up into a clip and try to soften the look by pulling some curly
tendrils down around my face. I fill Tiger’s food bowl, grab my sunglasses,
slip into my flip-flops and wait. He’s late by ten minutes so far. Why is
everyone always late? I just don’t get it.
I check my cell phone to see if
Ryan has called and realize that I haven’t turned it on yet this morning. Once
I do, the phone immediately indicates there’s a message. Part of me is hoping
it’s from Katie, but I hear Ryan’s voice apologizing and letting me know he’s
running late. A message I greatly appreciate. While I wait, I munch on some
chocolate-chip cookies, the breakfast of champions, and throw Tiger’s rubber
ball across the living room. Tiger dashes after the ball and knocks it from its
path. Then he sits down beside it as he waits for me to throw it again. Despite
attempts at training him, he will not fetch the ball and bring it back. But
that bothers only me. He is perfectly happy to chase it and then plop down next
to it.
The doorbell rings, causing Tiger
to startle in surprise before racing upstairs. He has never gotten used to the
sound and hides every time it chimes. I grab my bag and open the door to find a
very nicely put together Ryan standing at my doorstep with the bright morning
sun at his back. He has on over-sized navy swim trunks and a fitted green
T-shirt that reveals tanned, muscled arms. Smiling at me, he pushes his
sunglasses onto his head. “Good morning.”
“Good morning,” I say, mirroring
his expression and feeling my stomach flutter a greeting of its own. “Did you
find my place okay?”
“Your directions were perfect.
Sorry we’re late.”
We? I peer around him to his black
Passat parked in my driveway. Sure enough, a dark figure, whose details are
fuzzy at this distance, is seated in the back. “My little brother is joining
us,” he explains. “I hope you don’t mind. That’s why I’m late. It was kind of a
last minute thing.” Ryan seems less than thrilled at this development.
“Oh. No problem,” I answer, feeling
the need to make it okay. “How old is your brother?”
“Fourteen.”