Always Something There to Remind Me (29 page)

“Thanks, Mrs. Winger. I like you too.”

We walked back to the bar together and made idle chitchat until she was finally swept away for pictures.

But before she went, she looked at me and said quietly, “Good luck to you.”

*   *   *

Those words were still ringing in my ears when I got to my office and saw that Rick had called three times. I called him back, fearing an emergency, as usual.

It was bad news, all right. But not in the way I’d anticipated.

“We have a dinner party on Monday night,” he said.

“Okay.” Another of his work things, no doubt. Ugh. “Where?”

“It’s a funny thing, you’re gonna love this. One of your old friends from high school called right after you left.”

Oh, no.

“Theresa,” he went on. “Wait, I wrote it down. Theresa Lawson.”

My throat squeezed shut. Of all the things I’d already thought about, all the ways I’d already, in this short period of time, tortured myself with thoughts of them together, somehow one of the most painful things was putting his name on hers.

I knew it was crazy, but the feeling of betrayal was overwhelming. I sat down. “Really.”

“Yeah. She sounded really nice and we didn’t have plans for Monday night.”

“But Cam—” I began.

“Is fine with it.” He was clearly pleased with himself for having handled all of this. “When I couldn’t get ahold of you, I called to ask her if she had anything going on that we needed to know about before making plans. She said it’s all clear.”

I closed my eyes and pinched the bridge of my nose. Obviously I didn’t want to do this. And I could get out of it, no matter how awkward it became to do so. If worse came to worst I could just say I was uncomfortable hanging out with my ex.

But part of me
wanted
to go. Some childish little bitch inside of me wanted to go with good-looking Rick and pretend I was happy and in love and that Nate didn’t matter.

Pretend I hadn’t just sobbed until I was dry and limp in his car.

“Amy’s going to come hang out with Cam here, in fact,” Rick went on.

All settled.

Great.

“Did you get directions?” I asked, wishing the not knowing where the house was would be enough to decline.

“Sure did!”

I felt ill. “Okay, then. Look, I’ve got to go wrap up all this stuff we’re doing for the show on Saturday. I should be home at a decent hour, though.”

We hung up and I sat back in my chair and closed my eyes.

Nate and I had had a relationship that was so sweet, so close. Yes, we fought sometimes—mostly that was me. And there had been some drama—again, mostly me. But when I looked back on it, what I remembered and felt was just intense love.

Truly, just adoration.

Somehow, there had been no self-consciousness, no posing, no trying to be cool. He’d sat with me for five hours by a drain in Theresa’s basement while I threw up four thousand beers and my immortal soul. I’d sat by his bedside day after day reading him a suspense novel when he was recovering from an operation.

Yes, there had been sex, and a lot of it. And it was really good. But when I thought back on him, it wasn’t my spine that tingled, it was my heart.

Would I go back in time if I could? No way. I wouldn’t be a teenager again for anything in the world. The feeling that lingered for him in my heart wasn’t a melancholy longing for a simpler time, it was a love that was independent of time and place.

Which could have been a really nice thing if it weren’t for the fact that now it was muddied by time and place because he was with Theresa, and now I had to wonder if there had always been some spark of attraction between them that I had arrogantly missed because I was so comfortable—cocky?—that he loved
me
.

Had looks exchanged between them that I’d never seen?

Had touches lingered when I wasn’t paying attention?

What had I missed when I’d introduced them for the first time? A buzz of attraction, quickly dampened by temporary loyalty to me?

What was the first conversation they’d had after they’d met at the church?
I always had a thing for you, but I was with Erin, so there was nothing I could do about it?

When had they first kissed?

When had they first made love?

Had he kissed her the way he kissed me? Done the things with her that he’d done with me?

You know, I don’t care if I was ancient history for both of them, the world was
full
of single people. Why in the world had they picked each other?

Especially him. He obviously wasn’t in love with her or he never would have done what he did with me. He was living a life I know, from his reaction afterward, he’d never wished for himself. And he was doing it with my former friend.

It should have made me hate him.

I wished it did.

*   *   *

When I got home that night, Cam and Amy were lying on the floor watching
Gossip Girl
reruns and Rick was on the sofa reading a law journal.

“Hi, guys!”

Cam barely looked up. “Hey, Mom.”

Amy waved without looking at me.

Rick put his journal down. “Hi, hon. How was work?”

“Ugh.” I put my purse on the hall table. “I’ll be really glad when this party is over.”

“Can I come?” Cam asked. “It’s going to be on VTV, right? Let me come!”

“No way. I don’t want you tainted by that kid.”

“What about me?” Amy asked with a smile. “I’m older than Cam. Can I go?”

I smirked at her. “Very funny.”

“Told you,” Cam said.

“Worth a try!” Amy laughed. “I hear
you’re
going out Monday night,” she said, looking at me with mild interest. “With some old friends. And Dad’s going too.”

Friends. Hm. “Yes.”

Cam sat up and muted the TV. “Is that the Theresa you and Jordan talk about? From high school?”

“Yup.”

“So who’s she married to?” she went on. “Anyone you know?”

I leveled a gaze on her. How did kids have this ability to pounce on the one thing you don’t want to talk about?
What’s a vagina? Why are you kicking me under the table? What’s that on Mrs. Holt’s face?
“Yes. Someone we were both friends with.”

“Cool!” Amy said, unaware.

“You know Theresa’s husband too?” Rick asked me.

Did I know Theresa’s husband? The question felt too sad to answer.

Suddenly it felt like an inquisition. I went into the kitchen and rummaged around until I found a box of Cap’n Crunch. “Yes.” I dug my hand in and took a mouthful of Crunch Berries.

“That will be so neat to meet your old friends,” he said, apparently unaware of the shift in my reaction.

It was uncharitable of me to find his use of the word
neat
unmanly, but I looked at him for a moment before I said, my mouth full, “Yeah.
Neat
.”

“Were you all close at the same time?” he persisted.

A Crunch Berry lodged in my throat. I held my index finger up and went to the fridge to get some milk. I came away with a beer instead. Given the circumstances, it seemed like the better choice. “Theresa and I were friends from tenth grade to, I don’t know, right around the time Cam was born.”

“I broke up your friendship?” she asked, then nodded, as if she’d been known to do this.

“No, no, I was just busy. We lost touch.” I took a sip of beer. It wasn’t actually as bad as you’d think with the Cap’n Crunch.

“What about the husband?” Rick asked, and he was clearly just curious, there was nothing loaded about his question at all.

As far as he knew.

I set the beer down and the foam rose and bubbled out the top. I sighed and got a napkin to clean it up, saying, “What’s
close
when you’re that age?”

“What’s his name?” Cam asked, narrowing her eyes at me.

I took a swig of the beer and looked at her evenly. “Nate.”

She widened her eyes in recognition.

I nodded.

Amy continued to watch
Gossip Girl.

Rick noticed nothing. “There was a guy in my dorm at USC named Nate. I wonder if it’s the same one. What’s his last name? Wouldn’t that be funny?”

“It would be … hilarious.” I gave a dry laugh. “But I doubt it’s the same guy.” Even God doesn’t mess with people
that
much. Plus, Nate had lived in California briefly but it was after he was out of school. “So am I supposed to call her back?”

“You probably should, but I went ahead and got the directions and everything. They live down in Palisades.”

I felt the blood drain from my face. “Great.”

None
of this was supposed to happen! It was all complete madness. What was I supposed to do now? Tell him I didn’t want to go because Nate was my ex and, oh, by the way, I fucked his brains out the other day?

This was a mess.

Rick said, “It’ll be fun. You never talk about your past. I’m looking forward to getting some insights.”

There would be plenty of those for the taking.

“I’m not that interesting.” I downed the rest of the beer.

“That’s not true.” Rick returned to his magazine. He’d noticed nothing about my reaction or my mood. Meanwhile, Cam was signaling frantically toward my bedroom because she wanted me to give her the whole scoop in private. Or whatever part of the scoop I could make appropriate for a fifteen-year-old.

“Um, Mom?”

“Hm?”

“Can you show me
that dress
you were telling me about?” She gestured toward the bedroom yet again.

“Sure.” I picked up the box of cereal and looked at Rick. “Do you mind?”

“Not at all. I’ll be in there in a few.”

I nodded, hoping he’d give me more than a few minutes to collect myself after I answered whatever it was that Cam was so desperate to ask me.

“
Mommy!
” Her stage whisper was loud enough to be heard down the hall.

I closed the door. “What?”

“Nate?
The
Nate?”

“Yes. Same”—I plopped down on the bed and jammed my hand into the cereal box—“Nate.” I put a handful of the sugary stuff into my mouth and remembered hearing it was more addictive than heroin.

I wished it could alter my mood like heroin.

“The one who was going to love you forever,” she clarified, a heavy question in her voice.

“That’s the guy.”

“He married your
friend
?”

I felt ill. “Apparently so.”

She was agape. “Why aren’t you more upset about this?”

I have to say, I appreciated the fact that she was taken aback by it. “It was a long time ago. Everything’s different now. I’m”—it was a small effort to choke the words out, but the sentiment was right—“happy for them.”

“Well,
I’m
not,” she said, indignation coloring her voice. “I think they’re both jerks.”

Amen to that. “Honey, you don’t even know them.”

“It goes against the most basic girlfriend rule and you know it.” When did she get so smart? That was totally true. “You’re not allowed to go out with your friends’ boyfriends.”

I nodded.

Apparently that nod didn’t convince her. “So you see why this is messed up, right?”

I laughed. “I see why it looks that way, yes. But a lot of time has passed.”

Cam snorted and rolled her eyes. “I don’t care.”

I had more cereal, shamefully gratified by her response and agreeing with it. “Okay, I admit it’s a little uncomfortable for me,” I said, mouth full, “but I’m not in high school anymore. He’s not mine. He never really was.”

“But he
was
!” She gestured helplessly toward the closet where the Box o’ Nate had been.

“No, baby. You never own someone else. You can’t dictate the rules they should live by. They’re grown people and apparently they fell in love.” I’d seen how Nate looked when Theresa had shown up. He wasn’t in love with her. But maybe he had been once. They must have been. Once. “It’s kind of cool, if you think about it. They met pretty young and are together still.”

She considered that for a moment, then voiced what the inner child was screaming in me. “But they met because of
you
!”

“It’s fine,” I said, more to myself than to her. “That’s just how it is sometimes.”

“I think it stinks.”

I nodded. Yup. It stank. “Sometimes that’s how life is. It stinks.”

There was a knock at the door and Rick came in. “Is this a private party?” It felt like an intrusion, but that wasn’t fair.

I looked at Cam.

“It’s fine,” she said, though I could tell she felt it was an intrusion. “I have to call Sara anyway.”

I’d never heard of Sara. She might have been made up.

“Good night, babydoll,” I said to her, and she came over for a good-night kiss. I handed her the box of cereal. “Stick that in the kitchen, will you?”

“Are you sure you don’t need it?” she asked, like she was offering me a glass of wine.

“No, thanks.”

“Are you okay?” she asked me pointedly.

“Of course!” I glanced at Rick, who didn’t appear to see anything amiss with her question. “Good night.”

“Good night, Cam,” Rick said. “Tell Amy I said it’s time for bed, would you?”

“Sure. G’night.” She left, looking a little deflated.

“Everything okay?” he asked me when she’d gone.

“Yes.” I made a show of yawning and stretching. “It’s just … boy trouble.” True true true.

It was time to accept his proposal. I’d resolved to do it and he was waiting.

“Rick,” I began.

“Mmm-hmm?”

“About that thing you asked me…” I took a breath.

“What was that?” He was focusing on his watch crystal, trying to clean it with the bottom of his shirt.

This was not the way to do this. Maybe it was even a sign. “Oh … nothing. We can talk tomorrow. I’m pretty exhausted.”

He frowned at the watch, then shook his head and looked at me. “I’m sorry, what was that?”

“I was just saying I’m tired. So.” There was nothing else to say. “Good night.”

Chapter 19

So, yes, obviously I
could
have gotten out of dinner with Rick, Nate, and Theresa.