He’s finally losing his patience. “Yes, Dani, I have sex with her and with other women too. Not just you.”
Tears flood my eyes. I stand up, feeling idiotic and confused. I want to go home. I want to go to my house, not the stupid apartment. I want to go to the house I made a home. I want to hug my children and remember what it feels like to be loved.
“Don’t leave, Dani, please.” I sit, but I’m still clutching my purse. “I thought you just wanted to have some fun. I thought you knew I wasn’t really that type?”
“That type?” I say. “Have some fun? Sounds cheap.”
“No, it’s not cheap at all.”
I’m having déjà vu. This is basically how it ended when we were in college. I stand up again. “You’re just avoiding expectations.”
“I’m intentionally avoiding them, because I can. I’m single and I like to do what I want, when I want.”
“That’s selfish,” I say.
“No, it’s not selfish, it’s honest. You can call it whatever you want. It’s normal to me and to a lot of other people. I’m sorry you got the wrong idea.”
“Goodbye,” I say as I finally leave.
I walk a mile and a half to Shutters and call Alicia. I get to her room, plop on the bed and cry into a pillow. I tell her I don’t want to talk, and then fall asleep without another word.
—
It’s Monday morning, my head is pounding. Alicia is already gone. She left orange juice and a bagel next to the bed and a little note.
Dani,
I’m sorry. I know it was for the best though. Give yourself some time.
Love you!—Lish
Back at the apartment, I spend all day writing and on work calls. Around eight, I finally drag myself into the kitchen. I heatup chicken soup and look for a record to play.Devils & Dustis still on the record player, so I put it on while I look for something else.
I’m back in the Cape Cod memory with Alex. We were lying in bed at the B&B. He rolled over to face me. He was propped up on his side. “What should we do today?”
“Do you want to rent bikes again?”
“Yeah, we can do that,” he said as he brushed a strand of my hair back.
“Even though the hot girl that works at the counter was ogling you for ten straight minutes?” I said with a laugh.
The clerk at the bike rental place was a very pretty young woman who definitely made it obvious that she liked Alex.
“I didn’t notice.”
“How could you not?”
“I really didn’t, Dani, I swear.”
I believed him.
“Well, she was,” I said.
“You’re the only woman I want to be with. I love everything about you. I don’t even see anyone else. And as far as looks, you blow them all out of the water anyway,” he had said.
I feel myself getting emotional at the memory. The song is over, so I take the record cover and pull the blank sleeve out. I know Alex doesn’t look at any of these, so I take a pen and scribbleI MISS YOUon it before slipping the record and sleeve back into the cardboard.
It’s true. It might be the first time I’ve been willing to admit it to myself, but I do miss him. Alex would have never treated sex as something so trivial and arbitrary, the way Jacob did. When we were happy, Alex could say things to me that would convince me that I had something special…that I was unique. Tonight I just feel like a typical aging divorcée.
