“Vivi, please?” I beg.
Ollie sighs. “I had a panic attack on our first date when I saw my ex-wife. And realized I need more therapy.”
“Oh.” Vivi looks skeptical for a moment.
“Laura has been very kind about not mentioning it. There may have been some tears involved.” Ollie is absolutely committed to the bit, I’ll give him that much. “So I figured, I don’t want to waste Laura’s time until I get that worked out.”
“We should let Ollie go back to his lunch, Viv,” I add.
“No, no, no. I want to talk to him. So. Oliver. Some questions. Let’s get to know you.”
Ollie shoots me a look, but fortunately, he still seems entertained. He settles in with his lunch as she considers him.
“So where did you grow up then?” she asks.
“A suburb of Melbourne called Toorak.”
“In Australia? What’s that like?”
“It’s like…Beverly Hills, maybe? The closest I’ve seen around New York is probably Upper Montclair, New Jersey.”
“So fancy as hell,” Vivi replies.
“Yeah.” He hesitates for a moment. “My dad is a successful businessman, and he wanted everyone to know exactly how successful he was.”
“Melbourne is in the southern part of Australia, right?”
“Yeah. There are palm trees there. A lot of swimming pools.”
“Do you miss it?”
He shakes his head. “I fell in love with New York when we moved here.”
Vivi considers him for a moment. “So your parents are still there, or…”
“They live on Long Island now. In Great Neck.”
“How Gatsby of them.”
“I think that was exactly the idea.”
“So what would your parents say if you brought home a divorced single mom?”
“Vivi—” I feel a little appalled at her bluntness, and faintly worried she’ll scare him off. I remind myself that in Vivi’s mind, he has already beenscared off.
“Well,” Ollie begins, “I’m thirty-seven years old, and I don’t really talk to my parents, so I don’t have much interest in what they would say.”
Vivi looks impressed. “Okay. Once you’re done with your spiritual journey, you can date Laura.” Vivi stands up. “I’m getting an iced coffee. Talk amongst yourselves.”
“She’s a lot,” I begin as Vivi walks away.
“She’s looking out for you,” he says.
“So did you tell Katy that we’re not dating anymore?”
“Yes. It was a little simpler than that.” He chuckles ruefully. “She knew about all the stuff with Phoebe and pretty muchassumed I was too screwed up to date anyway, so convincing her wasn’t hard.”
I take a breath. “I wanted to tell you…Hannah will be away a bit this summer. She’s spending three weeks with my sister Abby in Newfoundland. So if you can wait until then, I’ll have a few weeks where I’m pretty free, and we can figure out something to do.”
