Love the One You're With (2 page)

three

Where are you now?” Leo asks.

I inhale sharply as I consider my answer. For one beat I think he means the question in a philosophical sense—
Where are you in life?
—and I nearly tell him about Andy. My friends and family. My career as a photographer. What a good, contented place I’m in. Answers that, until recently, I scripted in the shower and on the subway, hoping for this very opportunity. The chance to tell him that I had survived and gone on to much greater happiness.

But as I start to say some of this, I realize what Leo is actually asking me. He means
literally
where am I sitting or standing or walking? In what little corner of New York am I digesting and pondering what just transpired?

The question rattles me in the same way you feel rattled when someone asks you how much you weigh or how much money you make or any other personal, probing question you’d strongly prefer not to answer. But, in refusing to answer it outright, you’re afraid you’ll look defensive or rude. Later, of course, you replay the exchange and think of the perfect, politely evasive response.
Only my scale knows the truth … Never enough money, I’m afraid
. Or in this instance:
Out and about
.

But, there in the moment, I always clumsily blurt out the answer. My true weight. My salary down to the dollar. Or, in this case, the name of the diner where I am having coffee on a cold, rainy day.

Oh well,
I think, once it’s off my tongue. After all, it is probably better to be straightforward. Being evasive could translate as an attempt to be flirtatious or coy:
Guess where I am
.
Come find me, why don’t you
.

Still, Leo answers quickly, knowingly. “Right,” he says, as if this diner had been a special hangout of ours. Or, worse, as if I were just
that
predictable. Then he asks if I’m alone.

None of your business,
I want to say, but instead my mouth opens and I serve up a plain, simple, inviting yes. Like a single red checker sidling up to double-decker black ones, just waiting to be jumped.

Sure enough, Leo says, “Good. I’m coming over. Don’t move.” Then he hangs up before I can respond. I flip my phone shut and panic. My first instinct is to simply get up and walk out. But I command myself not to be a coward. I can handle seeing him again. I am a mature, stable,
happily wed
woman. So what is the big deal about seeing an ex-boyfriend, having a little polite conversation? Besides, if I were to flee, wouldn’t I be playing a game that I have no business playing? A game that was lost a long time ago?

So instead I set about eating my bagel. It is tasteless—only texture—but I keep chewing and swallowing, remembering to sip my coffee along the way. I do not allow myself another glance in the mirror. I will not apply a fresh coat of lip gloss or even check my teeth for food. Let there be a poppy seed wedged between my front teeth. I have nothing to prove to him. And nothing to prove to myself.

That is my last thought before I see his face through the rain-streaked door of the diner. My heart starts pounding again and my leg bounces up and down. I think how nice it would be to have one of Andy’s beta blockers—harmless pills he takes before court appearances to keep his mouth from getting dry, his voice from shaking. He insists that he’s not really nervous, but that somehow his physical symptoms indicate otherwise. I tell myself that I am not nervous either. My body is simply betraying my head and heart. It happens.

I watch Leo give his umbrella a quick shake as he glances around the diner, past Annie who is mopping the floor underneath a booth. He doesn’t see me at first, and for some reason, this gives me a vague sense of power.

But that is gone in an instant when his eyes find mine. He gives me a small, quick smile, then lowers his head and strides toward me. Seconds later, he is standing beside my table, shedding his black leather coat that I remember well. My stomach rises, falls, rises. I am fearful that he will bend down and kiss my cheek. But no, that is not his style. Andy kisses my cheek. Leo never did. True to his old form, he skips niceties and slides into the booth across from me, shaking his head, once, twice. He looks exactly as I remember, but a little older, and somehow bolder and more vivid—his hair darker, his build bulkier, his jaw stronger. A stark contrast to Andy’s fine features, long limbs, light coloring. Andy is easier on the eyes, I think. Andy is easier
period
. The same way a walk on the beach is easy. A Sunday nap. A round peg in a round hole.

“Ellen Dempsey,” he finally says, looking into my eyes.

I couldn’t have scripted a better opening line. I embrace it, staring back into his brown eyes, banded by black rims. “Ellen
Graham,
” I announce proudly.

Leo furrows his brow, as if trying to place my new last name, which he should have been able to instantly trace to Margot, my roommate when we were together. But he can’t seem to make the connection. This should not surprise me. Leo never cared to learn much about my friends—and never cared for Margot at all. The feeling was mutual. After my first big fight with Leo, one that reduced me to a sniveling,
Girl, Interrupted–
worthy mess, Margot took the only pictures I had of him at the time, a strip of black-and-white candids from a photo booth, and ripped them in a neat line, straight down a row of his foreheads, noses, lips, leaving my grinning faces unscathed.

“See how much better you look now?” Margot said. “Without that asshole?”

That’s a friend,
I remember thinking, even as I located a roll of tape and carefully put Leo back together again. I thought the same thing about Margot again when Leo and I broke up for good and she bought me a congratulations card and a bottle of Dom Pérignon. I saved the cork, wrapping the strip of photos around it with a rubber band and stowing it in my jewelry box—until Margot discovered it years later when returning a pair of gold hoop earrings she had borrowed from me.

“What’s this all about?” she said, rolling the cork between her fingers.

“Um … you got me that champagne,” I said, chagrinned. “After Leo. Remember?”

“You saved the cork? And these pictures?”

I stammered that I viewed the cork as a token of my friendship with her, nothing else—although the truth was, I couldn’t bear to part with anything that had anything to do with Leo.

Margot raised her brows, but dropped the subject, the way she dropped most controversial things. It seemed to be the Southern way. Or at least Margot’s way.

In any event, I have just stated my married name to Leo. A not-so-small triumph.

Leo raises his chin, pushes out his lower lip, and says, “Oh? Congratulations.”

“Thanks.” I am jubilant, buoyant—and then slightly ashamed for feeling so victorious.
The opposite of love is indifference,
I silently recite.

“So. Who’s the lucky guy?” he asks.

“You remember Margot?”

“Sure, I do.”

“I married her brother. I think you met him?” I say vaguely, even though I know for an absolute fact that Leo and Andy met once, at a bar in the East Village. At the time, it was only a brief, meaningless encounter between my boyfriend and my best friend’s brother. An exchange of
How ya doin? … Nice to meet you, man
. Maybe a handshake. Standard guy stuff. But years later, after Leo and I had long broken up, and Andy and I had begun to date, I would deconstruct that moment in exhausting detail, as any woman would.

A flicker of recognition crosses Leo’s face now. “
That
guy? Really? The law student?”

I bristle at his
that guy,
his faint tone of derision, wondering what Leo is thinking now. Had he gleaned something from their brief meeting? Is he simply expressing his disdain for lawyers? Had I, at any point, discussed Andy in a way to give him ammunition now? No. That was impossible. There was—and
is
—nothing negative or controversial to say about Andy. Andy has no enemies. Everyone loves him.

I look back into Leo’s eyes, telling myself not to get defensive—or react at all. Leo’s opinion no longer matters. Instead I nod placidly, confidently. “Yes. Margot’s brother,” I repeat.

“Well. That worked out
perfectly,
” Leo says with what I am pretty sure is sarcasm.

“Yes,” I say, serving up a smug smile. “It
sure
did.”

“One big happy family,” he says.

Now
I am sure of his tone, and I feel myself tense, a familiar rage rising. A brand of rage that only Leo has ever inspired in me. I look down at my wallet with every intention of dropping a few bills on the table, standing and stalking off. But then I hear my name as a featherweight question and feel his hand covering mine, swallowing it whole. I had forgotten how large his hands were. How hot they always were, even in the dead of winter. I fight to move my hand away from his, but can’t.
At least he has my right one,
I think. My left hand is clenched under the table, still safe. I rub my wedding band with my thumb and catch my breath.

“I’ve missed you,” Leo says.

I look at him, shocked, speechless. He
misses
me? It can’t be the truth—but then again, Leo isn’t about lies. He’s about the cold, hard truth. Like it or leave it.

He continues, “I’m sorry, Ellen.”

“Sorry for what?” I ask, thinking that there are two kinds of
sorry
. There is the sorry imbued with regret. And a pure sorry. The kind that is merely asking for forgiveness, nothing more.

“Everything,” Leo says.
“Everything.”

That about covers it,
I think. I uncurl my left fingers and look down at my ring. There is a huge lump in my throat, and my voice comes out in a whisper. “It’s water under the bridge,” I say. And I mean it. It
is
water under the bridge.

“I know,” Leo says. “But I’m still sorry.”

I blink and look away, but can’t will myself to move my hand. “Don’t be,” I say. “Everything is fine.”

Leo’s thick eyebrows, so neatly shaped that I once teasingly accused him of plucking them, rise in tandem. “Fine?”

I know what he is implying so I quickly say, “More than fine. Everything is
great
. Exactly as it should be.”

His expression changes to playful, the way he used to look when I loved him the most and believed that things would work out between us. My heart twists in knots.

“So, Ellen
Graham,
in light of how
fine
everything has turned out to be, what do you say we give the friendship thing a try? Think we could do that?”

I tally all the reasons why not, all the ways it could hurt. Yet I watch myself shrug coolly and hear myself murmur, “Why not?”

Then I slide my hand out from under his a moment too late.

four

I leave the diner in a daze, feeling some combination of melancholy, resentment, and anticipation. It is an odd and unsettling mix of emotions exacerbated by the rain, now coming down in icy, diagonal sheets. I briefly consider taking the long walk home, almost
wishing
to be cold and wet and miserable, but I think better of it. There is nothing to wallow in, no reason to be upset or even introspective.

So I head for the subway instead, striding along the slick sidewalks with purpose. Good, bad, and even a few mundane memories of Leo swirl around in my head, but I refuse to settle on any of them.
Ancient history,
I mutter aloud as I take the stairs underground at Union Station. Down on the platform, I sidestep puddles and cast about for distractions. I buy a pack of Butterscotch Life Savers at a newsstand, skim the tabloid headlines, eavesdrop on a contentious conversation about politics, and watch a rat scurry along the tracks below. Anything to avoid rewinding and replaying my exchange with Leo. If the floodgates open, I will obsessively analyze all that was said, as well as the stubborn subtext that was always so much a part of our time together.
What did he mean by that? Why didn’t he say this? Does he still have feelings for me? Is he married now, too? If so, why didn’t he say so?

I tell myself that none of it matters now. It hasn’t mattered for a long time.

My train finally pulls into the station. It is rush hour so all the cars are packed, standing room only. I crush my way into one, beside a mother and her elementary-age daughter. At least I think it is her daughter—they have the same pointy nose and chin. The little girl is wearing a double-breasted navy coat with gold anchor buttons. They are discussing what to have for supper.

“Macaroni-and-cheese and garlic toast?” the daughter suggests, looking hopeful.

I wait for a “We just had that last night” sort of parental objection, but the mother only smiles and says, “Well, that sounds perfect for a rainy day.” Her voice is as warm and soothing as the carbohydrates they will share.

I think of my own mother as I do several times a day, often triggered by far less obvious stimuli than the mother-daughter pair beside me. My mind drifts to a recurrent motif—what would our adult relationship have felt like? Would I distrust her opinion when it came to matters of the heart, intentionally rebelling against what she wanted for me? Or would we have been as close as Margot and her mother, talking several times a day? I like to think that we would have been confidantes. Perhaps not sharing-clothing-and-shoes, giggly close (my mother was too no-nonsense for that), but emotionally connected enough to tell her about Leo and the diner. His hand on mine. The way I feel now.

I cobble together the things she might have said, reassuring tidbits like:
I’m so glad you found Andy
.
He is like the son I never had
.
I never cared much for that other boy
.

All too predictable, I think, digging deep for more. I close my eyes, picturing her
before
she got sick, something I haven’t done lately. I can see her almond-shaped hazel eyes, similar to mine, but turning down slightly at the corners—bedroom eyes, my father always called them. I picture her broad, smooth forehead. Her thick, glossy hair, always cut in the same simple bob that transcended trends or era, just long enough to pull back in a squat ponytail when she did housework or gardening. The slight gap between her front teeth and the way she unconsciously covered it with her hand when she laughed really hard.

Then I conjure her stern but fair gaze—befitting a math teacher at a rough public school—and hear these words uttered in her heavy Pittsburgh dialect:
Listen here, Ellie
.
Don’t go giving this encounter any crazy meaning like you did with him the first time around
.
It doesn’t mean a thing
.
Not a thing
.
Sometimes, in life, there is no meaning at all
.

I want to listen to my mother now. I want to believe that she is giving me guidance from some faraway place, but I still feel myself caving, succumbing to the memory of that
first
chance encounter at the New York State Supreme Court on Centre Street when Leo and I were both summoned to jury duty on the same Tuesday in October. Prisoners trapped together in a windowless room with bad acoustics, metal folding chairs, and at least one fellow citizen who had forgotten to apply deodorant. It was all so random, and as I foolishly believed for a long time, romantic
because
of the randomness.

I was only twenty-three years old, but felt much older due to the vague fear and disillusionment that comes with leaving the safety net of college and abruptly joining the real-world ranks, particularly when you have no focus or plan, money or mother. Margot and I had just moved to New York the summer before, right after we graduated, and she landed a plum marketing position at J.Crew’s corporate office. I had an offer for an entry-level position at Mellon Bank in Pittsburgh, so had planned on moving back home to live with my father and his new wife, Sharon, a sweet-natured but slightly tacky woman with big boobs and frosted hair. But Margot convinced me to go to New York with her instead, giving me rousing speeches about the Big Apple and how if I could make it there, I’d make it anywhere. I reluctantly agreed because I couldn’t stand the thought of separating from Margot any more than I could stand the thought of watching another woman take over my house—my
mother’s
house.

So Margot’s father hired movers to pack up our dorm room, bought us one-way tickets to New York, and helped us settle into an adorable two-bedroom apartment on Columbus and Seventy-ninth, she with a brand-new corporate wardrobe and crocodile briefcase; me with my useless philosophy major and stash of T-shirts and cutoff jean shorts. I had only $433 to my name and was in the habit of withdrawing five dollars at a time from the ATM, an amount that, shockingly enough, couldn’t score me a pastrami sandwich in the city. But Margot’s trust fund, set up by her maternal grandparents, had just kicked in, and she assured me that what was hers was mine because, after all, weren’t we more like sisters than friends?

“Please don’t make me live in a hovel just so you can afford half the rent,” she’d say, joking, but also quite serious. Money was something that Margot not only didn’t
have
to think about but didn’t
want
to think about or discuss. So I learned to swallow my pride and ignore my prickly hot neck every time I’d have to borrow from her. I told myself that guilt was a wasted emotion, and that I’d make it up to her one day—if not monetarily, then somehow.

For almost a month during that first vivid summer in the city, I spiced up my résumé with exaggerations and fancy fonts and applied for every office job I could find. The more boring the description, the more legitimate the career seemed because at the time I equated adulthood with a certain measure of hosiery-wearing misery. I got a lot of callbacks, but must have been an abysmal interview, because I always came up empty-handed. So I finally settled for a waitressing job at L’Express, a café on Park Avenue South that described itself as a Lyonnaise
bouchon
. The hours were long—I often worked the late-night shift—and my feet hurt all the time, but it wasn’t all bad. I made surprisingly good money (people tip better late at night), met some cool people, and learned everything I ever wanted to know about charcuterie and cheese plates, port and pigs feet.

In the meantime, I took up photography. It started as a hobby, a way to fill my days and get to know the city. I wandered around various neighborhoods—the East Village, Alphabet City, SoHo, Chinatown, Tribeca—as I snapped photos with a 35-millimeter camera my father and Sharon had given me for graduation. But very quickly, taking photos became something more to me. It became something that I not only loved doing, but actually
needed
to do, much the way authors talk about their urge to get words down on paper or avid runners just
have
to go for their morning jog. Photography exhilarated me and filled me with purpose even when I was, literally, at my most aimless and lonesome. I was starting to miss my mother more than I ever had in college, and for the first time in my life, really craved a romantic relationship. Except for a wild, borderline-stalker crush I had on Matt Iannotti in the tenth grade, I had never been particularly focused on boys. I had dated a few guys here and there, and had sex with two college boyfriends, one serious, one not so much, but had never been anywhere close to being in love. Nor had I ever uttered—or written—those words to anyone outside of my family and Margot when we both had a lot to drink. Which was all okay with me until that first year in New York. I wasn’t sure what had changed inside my head, but perhaps it was being a real grown-up—and being surrounded by millions of people, Margot included, who all seemed to have definite dreams and someone to love.

So I concentrated all my energy on photography. I spent every spare cent on film and every spare moment taking pictures or poring over books in the library and bookstores. I devoured both reference guides to technique and collections by great photographers. My favorite—which Margot bought me for my twenty-third birthday—was
The Americans
by Robert Frank, which comprised a series of photos he took in the 1950s while traveling across the country. I was mesmerized by his black-and-white images, each a complete story unto itself. I felt as if I knew the stocky man bent over a jukebox, the elegant woman gazing over her shoulder in an elevator, and the dark-skinned nanny cradling a creamy white baby. I decided that this sense of truly believing you knew a subject, more than anything else, was the mark of a great photograph.
If I could take pictures like that,
I thought,
I would be fulfilled, even without a boyfriend
.

Looking back it was perfectly clear what I should do next, but it took Margot to point out the obvious—one of the many things friends are for. She had just returned home from a business trip to Los Angeles, rolling in her suitcase and pausing at the kitchen table to pick up one of my freshly developed photographs. It was a color photo of a distraught teenaged girl sitting on a curb on Bedford Avenue in Brooklyn, the contents of her purse spilled onto the street around her. She had long, curly red hair and was beautiful in that adolescent, no-makeup way that I didn’t fully recognize at the time because I was so young, too. The girl was reaching out to retrieve a cracked mirror with one hand, the other was barely touching her forehead.

“Wow,” Margot said, holding the photo up close to her face. “That’s an
amazing
picture.”

“Thanks,” I said, feeling modest—but proud. It
was
an amazing picture.

“Why’s she so sad?” Margot asked.

I shrugged, telling her I seldom talked to the people I photographed. Only if they caught me taking their picture and talked to me first.

“Maybe she lost her wallet,” Margot said.

“Maybe she just broke up with her boyfriend,” I said.

Or maybe her mother just died
.

Margot kept studying the picture, commenting that the girl’s bright red knee socks gave the photo an almost vintage feel. “Although,” she added in her usual, fashion-obsessed way, “knee socks
are
coming back in. Whether you like it or not.”

“Not,” I said. “But duly noted.”

That’s when she said to me, “Your photos are pure genius, Ellen.” Her head bobbed earnestly as she wound her soft, honey-colored hair into a bun and fastened it with a mechanical pencil. It was a haphazardly cool technique I had tried to emulate a hundred times, but could never make look right. When it came to hair or fashion or makeup, everything I copied from Margot fell somehow short. She nodded once more and said, “You should pursue photography professionally.”

“You think so?” I said offhandedly.

Oddly enough, it was something I had never considered, although I’m not sure why. Perhaps I was worried that my enthusiasm would exceed my ability. I couldn’t bear the thought of failing at something I cared so much about. But Margot’s opinion meant a lot to me. And as insincere as she sometimes was with her Southern pleasantries and compliments, she was never that way with me. She always gave it to me straight—the sign of a
real
friendship.

“I
know
so,” she said. “You should go for it. Do this thing for real.”

So I took Margot’s advice and began to look for a new job in the photography field. I applied for every assistant’s position I could find—including a few for cheesy wedding photographers on Long Island. But without any formal training, I was once again turned down by everyone and ended up taking a minimum-wage position as a film processor in a small, boutique-y photo lab with ancient equipment. I had to start somewhere, I told myself, as I took the bus to dreary lower Second Avenue on my first day and unpacked my peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwich in a drafty back room that smelled of cigarettes and bleach.

But, as it turned out, it was the ideal first job thanks to Quynh, the Vietnamese girl who was married to the owner’s son. Quynh spoke little English, but was a pure genius with color and taught me more about custom printing than I could have learned in any class (and more than I eventually
did
learn when I finally went to photography school). Every day I watched Quynh’s thin, nimble fingers feed the film and twist the knobs on the machines, adding a little more yellow, a little less blue to yield the most perfect prints, while I fell more in love with my fledgling chosen profession.

So that’s where I was when I got that infamous jury summons. Although still quite poor, I was fulfilled, happy, and hopeful, and none too anxious to put my work (and pay) on hold for jury duty. Margot suggested that I ask Andy, who had just started his third year of law school at Columbia, for his advice on how to get excused. So I gave him a call, and he assured me it would be a cinch.