Some things in life have to be acted upon. On tax day you have to pay taxes. On the 4th of July, unless you’re from another planet, you have to feel somewhat patriotic and appreciative of being an American. On your birthday you have to feel a little surprised that another year went by so quickly, and when someone you haven’t kissed in two years kisses you unexpectedly when you’d thought you were just out to a movie and dinner with a friend, you have to acknowledge it somehow. You can’t just do what I seriously considered doing, which was to pretend it didn’t happen.
I picked up my phone twice. Put it down twice. Thought about picking it up again four times. Didn’t. Finally got tired of the whole process, took a hot shower, and crawled into bed, where I tossed around for a good half hour (much to Basil’s dislike, as she’d settled comfortably against my legs) before I decided to send an email. Saying what, I didn’t know exactly but that didn’t stop me from sitting down to write one.
As it turned out, Owen beat me to it. Apparently moving from a dial up connection to high speed Internet has done wonders for his communication skills. He’d had a great evening, he’d written, and thanked me for going. He’d always, he wrote, enjoyed my company very much. And he was sorry, he said, for kissing me. It’s just that he had the same strong emotions he’d always had, that apparently not kissing me was the hard part when he saw me.
I had to read that last part a couple of times, realizing what he’d written is that maybe, when we stopped seeing each other (and why was that, exactly? He spent too much time golfing, for one. He wanted to go out to dinner three or four times a week, and that had been a problem for me because there were a lot of nights I’d just wanted to go home, and for another thing…I was drawing real blanks there, coming up only with the things that hadn’t been a problem. We had the same outlook financially, professionally. We were both avid readers. We both loved the beach, we were both natives of California although his southern California beaches were much warmer than my fogged over bay beaches, we had the same affinity for our families without requiring constant contact, we definitely had the same sense of humor, and taste in movies, and the same love of music, everything from Wyndham Hill collections to Collective Soul to electronica. He was a creature of habit to the extent that Monday was unequivocably grocery/library night, Tuesday was racquetball league, Wednesday was winter racquetball or warm weather golf, and at least one day of the weekend was skiing, all winter long. At the time, I’d found it predictable and restrictive. That was, however, well before I discovered my own routine of Monday book club, Wednesdays with Holly, and Thursday writer’s group. So what if he didn’t eat tomatoes, mushrooms, olives, any dressing other than Caesar or Ranch, and wouldn’t touch a brussel sprout unless he was starving. I wasn’t big on pancakes, French toast, jelly donuts or anything else remotely ‘spongey’, and looked at in the light of a few years apart, these things certainly seemed very insignificant, almost in the category of what my dad had called them when I’d let him know I wasn’t seeing Owen any longer. “Don’t lose a man like that,” Dad advised, “over little things you bicker over like a married couple might, not when you could be so fortunate as to become the married couple who did.” I was only, he said at the time, going to throw away the two years we’d invested and wake up a few years later and realize, everybody’s got foibles. Just hold them up against the whole picture and see how small they really get), he’d gone on feeling the same way about me.
I’d have to have been stupid not to see it, and stupid I’m not. It explained a lot. The email, several months ago, pictures taken the last Christmas we’d been together. I’d just opened something – maybe those boots I’d worn for the lunch at The Cajun – and he’d taken a couple of pictures. “This was the happiest day of my life,” he’d written. “I have never been more in love with someone. I keep trying not to think about you but it isn’t working. I hope all is well in your life.”
I hadn’t responded to that, but I had called after finding the gift bag and card on my doorstep when I came home on my last birthday. “It’s nothing,” he’d said, “I just thought you should know people think about you on your birthday.”
“Owen, I’m seeing someone –“
“I know that. But it’s still your birthday, right?”
I wound up reading his old emails on my computer and after about an hour of that, I went to bed, without responding to the email because I wasn’t sure exactly what to say. I talked with J about it the next day after work and her take was ridiculously simple: “So you’ve known this guy for eight years,” she said, “as a colleague, and as a friend. Then you dated for two years, and when that didn’t work out, you stayed friends. I mean, really friends, like the kind who can just yuck it up over trivial stuff, and be comfortable with each other and if I’m getting this right, he morphed from someone who wouldn’t let your dog on his furniture to giving your dog free reign through the whole house. And then you go out to a movie and a dinner and he kisses you, which –“ she glared at me then but just because that’s who J is. Even when she’s giving you good news she adds an element of the dire, “you couldn’t have disliked because as you said, that whole area was never a, um…source of discontent, and you’re telling me you don’t know what to say? Madeleine, get serious. I can see saying no to the Guy Who Doesn’t Love Dogs Enough, but to say no to your very own Harry? That’s just nuts.”
“Harry? You lost me.”
“No I didn’t, you idiot. Harry as in When Harry Met Sally, or isn’t that still your favorite movie of all time? You’ve got your very own Harry on your hands here, girl, and I wouldn’t wait for some sad New Year’s Eve to figure that out, like in the movie. I can’t believe you let him go the first time.”
“There was one thing,” I said in my own defense although it sounded a little flimsy. “You know he’s nine years older than I am, I told you he grew up in Southern California, and he’d talk about retiring there which, given his financial condition he’ll do a lot sooner than sixty-five, and—“
J held up a hand to silence me. She’s one of the few people who can actually do that and produce, well – silence. “And when you told him that bugged you, years ago, the idea that he’d move off to the beach and you’d have done nothing but wasted years with someone who was going to move off and retire somewhere else, anyway, he said what?”
“J, come on –“
“Girlfriend, he not only said what, he put this same what in an email?” She could be like a dog with a bone sometimes, she really could.
“He said, ‘Do you really believe I could be any kind of happy at all if you weren’t with me’”
“Point made. And honestly, Mad, being as you’ve been such great friends and all that, do you really think he’s been any kind of happy for the last two years? Maybe he was, that’s why he offered to watch your dog all the time. Yep, when you’re absolutely done with somebody the first thing you want is semi-custody of their animal so you’ve got a reason to see them on a regular basis. And how many calls at work, asking questions about future contracts? Are you the only CSM there, or aren’t there three others he could have called, being as it was all ‘only professional’?”
J’s not an attorney, she’s a nurse, but she’d have made a great attorney. You couldn’t win an argument with her.
“Harry, huh?”
“Ask yourself, did you really mind so much that he kissed you?”
I didn’t have to answer the question. Mine is not a poker face, or can only be if I try really, really hard and wear very heavy dark glasses obscuring my eyes completely. I wasn’t trying at all and I wasn’t in the habit of wearing sunglasses in the house.
So I emailed him back. With the truth. I’d had a great time, a really enjoyable evening, and I’d enjoyed laughing so much, too. And don’t ever apologize for kissing me, Owen. It hadn’t bothered me a bit and it wouldn’t hurt my feelings if it ever happened again. I then added a bunch of other stuff, my thoughts, really, on the past couple of years and, well…like I can get when I get a little, maybe…too analytical.
Of course he wrote back. Like I said, this whole high speed thing has been a huge leap forward for him. “You think too much (as evidenced by your email). Me, I just know how I feel and I know when I’m with you it feels right (and also very good). Sleep well, and think of me.”
As if that was going to be a problem.
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