I expect Vanessa to immediately dismiss the idea, but instead, she thinks for a moment. “If you hadn’t been pulling yourself together after you lost the baby, then maybe you would have been able to help Max when he needed it. Sounds to me, though, like Max was already broken when you met him. And if that’s the case, no matter how much you patched him up, sooner or later he was going to fall apart again.” She picks up her glass and drains it. “You know what you need? You need to let go.”
“Of what?”
“Max, obviously.”
I can feel my cheeks burn. “I’m not holding on to him.”
“Hey, I get it. It’s only natural, since you two—”
“He wasn’t even my type,” I blurt out, and I realize after I say it that it is true. “Max was—well, he was just completely different from the kinds of guys who were usually interested in me.”
“You mean big and brawny and sexy?”
“You think?” I ask, surprised.
“Just because I don’t hang modern art in my house doesn’t mean I can’t appreciate it,” Vanessa says.
“Max was always trying to teach me about football, and I hated football. All those guys piling on top of each other on Astroturf. And basketball is pointless. You don’t even have to watch a whole game—it always comes down to the last two minutes. And he was messy. He’d leave a melon on the counter after he cut himself a slice, and by nighttime, the kitchen would be crawling with ants. And he could hold a grudge like nobody’s business. I wouldn’t even know he was upset until six months went by and he brought it up during an argument about something totally different.”
“But you married him,” Vanessa points out.
“Well,” I answer. “Yeah.”
“Why?”
I don’t even know how to answer that. “Because,” I say finally, “when you love someone, you don’t see the parts of him you don’t like.”
“Seems to me you need to do a better job next time of getting what you really want.”
“Next time!” I repeat. “I don’t think so. I’m through with relationships.”
“Oh really. You’re putting yourself on the shelf at forty?”
“Shut up,” I say. “Get back to me after you’re divorced.”
“Zo, I’d take you up on that, if only because it means I’d have the right to be married. Seriously, look around. There’s got to be someone attractive in here for you . . .”
“I amnotletting you set me up, Vanessa.”
“Then just tell me. As an academic exercise, of course . . .”
“Tell you what?”
“What you’re looking for.”
“For God’s sake, Vanessa, I have no idea. I’m not thinking about any of that yet.”
I glance at the mermaid. She is on break, emerging from the tank by hopping up a ladder. When she gets to the top, where there is a ledge she can sit on, she reaches for a towel and dries herself off before checking her BlackBerry.
“Someone real,” I hear myself saying. “Someone who never has to pretend, and who I never have to pretend around. Someone who’s smart, but knows how to laugh at himself. Someone who would listen to a symphony and start to cry, because he understands that music can be too big for words. Someone who knows me better than I know myself. Someone I want to talk to first thing in the morning and last thing at night. Someone I feel like I’ve known my whole life, even if I haven’t.”
When I’m done, I look up to find Vanessa smirking at me. “Gee,” she says. “I’m certainly glad you aren’t thinking about this yet.”
I finish my wine. “Well,youasked.”
“I did. So that when I bump into your future spouse on the street, I can give out your number.”
“What’syourperfect date?” I ask.
