Apart at the Seams (17 page)

But Brian did.

He knew the marriage was in trouble as early as three years ago, maybe even before. He'd sensed we were drifting apart and that the distance between us would only widen if we didn't do something about it. And what he'd done was bought the cottage, thinking it would tether us one to the other, keep us connected even as time, circumstances, and simple indifference pulled us apart.

Three years ago, as we sat on the porch and I was smiling with surprise and confusion, he was smiling with relief and satisfaction because he thought he'd fixed a problem I didn't even know we had. Or maybe I just didn't want to know. It's hard to say.

I laid the photo album on the table and walked down the steps and across the grass to my would-be garden. The planters were finished, defined by borders of gray-white Belgian block, and the boxwood hedges, stubby but promising, had been planted along the outer borders. But the archway entrances had yet to be installed, the pathways were still devoid of gravel, and the soil was scraped brown and bare; no flowers had been planted so far. But as I walked between the expectant flower beds, I spied a small patch of green, the leaves of a weed with especially deep roots that had managed to survive the ravages of the rototiller.

I bent down to pull it out, but as I got closer, I could see that there wasn't just one green sprout pushing up through the earth, but dozens. I plucked out a few but realized that I needed to spend some serious time out here before we planted the new flowers, digging down deep and getting rid of the roots. Otherwise, weeds would spring up everywhere and take over my garden.

I stood up, brushed my dirty hands on the legs of my jeans, then pulled my cigarettes from my jacket pocket and lit one up, strolling through the garden and around the yard, smoking and thinking.

D
rip, a coffeehouse just outside of New Haven, was the location of the “It's Only Coffee!” speed-dating event. It's also where I spent the longest eighteen minutes of my life.

After checking in at the registration desk, getting my packet and a sticker with my number, twenty-three, then picking up a decaf vanilla latte from the counter, I sat down at a two-seater café table. The crowd was bigger than I'd imagined it would be. There were probably thirty tables, maybe more. A lone woman sat at each one.

Mandy, the cheery organizer of the evening's festivities, who looked to be fresh out of college and seemed unable to speak a sentence that didn't include the word “okay,” wasn't exactly the kind of person I'd had in mind when I'd read about the “dating experts” in the ad copy. She clapped her hands to get the crowd's attention.

“Okay. Everyone should have gotten a piece of yellow paper in their packet with a list of five numbers on it, okay? Wave your hand if you don't have a list.”

She waited while people opened their packets and pulled out the list, scanning the room for waving hands. When none appeared, her face lit up.

“Okay! Good! That's your date list, okay? The women are going to stay seated at the tables. Ladies, be sure to put the stickers with your numbers where they can be seen, okay? Okay. Guys, when I blow the whistle, you're going to look for the table that matches the first number on your list and sit down. You've got six minutes to talk to each other, and believe me, they're going to fly by, so don't be shy. Just jump right in and start talking, okay?

“When I blow the whistle again, move on to your next date, which will be the second number on the list, and so on. Remember,” she cautioned, “even if you're enjoying talking to your date, when I blow the whistle you
have
to move on to your next date, okay? There are a lot of interesting people here tonight, and we want you to meet as many of them as possible.

“So. Okay. Does everybody understand the rules? Okay? No questions? Okay!” she exclaimed and clapped her hands again. “Ready? Set? Let's date!”

At the blast of the whistle, there was a sudden murmuring and milling about as men searched for the correct women. I felt conspicuous sitting there, feeling all those sets of eyes checking me out, and so, even though I don't like sugar in my coffee, I reached for a packet and added it to my latte, just so I wouldn't have to look up.

Just about the time I was thinking, with a certain amount of relief, that no one had gotten my number this go-round, a skinny, washed-out looking man wearing skinny, washed-out jeans and a red and white plaid shirt plopped down across from me and introduced himself.

Kieran Fleischman took Mandy's advice about jumping right in to heart. Within two minutes of his sitting down, I learned that he liked watching reruns of
Father Knows Best
on the nostalgia channel, owned a metal detector and, using it, had once collected fourteen dollars and twelve cents in dropped change from under the bleachers at the Yale soccer field, and spent his weekends geocaching, which basically sounded like using electronic compasses to go on scavenger hunts. He lived with his parents but was going to be getting a place of his own as soon as he could save up the money for a deposit. Last summer, he'd been a camp counselor someplace in New Hampshire, but the camp had been closed down because of some alleged infraction of the health code—“totally bogus,” he assured me—and so he was “between opportunities.”

“You haven't worked since last summer?”

“Well . . . I mow my dad's lawn every Friday, but the job market is really slow now. I've been applying for some jobs in finance, but they won't even talk to you if you don't have experience.” He spread out his hands in a sort of “go figure” gesture. “I don't think I'd really like finance anyway. I've been thinking about auditioning for
American Idol
instead.”

“Kieran, how old are you?”

He reached for his coffee and tossed back a big swig. “Twenty-six.” I arched my eyebrows. “Try again.”

“Okay, fine. Twenty-one. Almost. I will be. In January. But hey,” he said eagerly, “I've got no problem dating a cougar. I mean, look at Madonna. She's still totally hot! You're, like, thirty, right? You look really, really good for your age.”

“Gee. Thanks.”

“So?” he said, leaning forward. “What do you say? Can I have your number?”

“Maybe you should try Mandy instead.”

At that moment, Mandy stepped up onto a chair and blew her whistle. Kieran turned around to check out our mistress of ceremonies.

“Good idea!” he exclaimed and jumped up, disappearing into the scrum of moving men.

“Good luck,” I muttered and ripped open another packet of sugar just as a tall man with white hair and incredibly white teeth—as in too white to be real—who was wearing—I kid you not—an ascot and a sailing cap, the kind sea captains wear, sat down and thrust out his hand.

“Byron Smythe-Jones,” he said, flashing his dentures. “Yachtsman.”

“Ivy Peterman,” I replied. “Human.”

He threw back his head so far that I could see the hair in his nostrils—there was a lot of it—and laughed so loudly that couples at the other tables turned to look at us.

“Ha-ha-ha-ha! A woman with a sense of humor! I like that! Makes life so much more interesting, doesn't it? Helps you keep your head during emergencies too. For instance, when I was sailing in the America's Cup last year, I faced a rather sticky situation that—”

“Byron,” I said, cutting to the chase, “how old are you?”

“Forty-five,” he said stoutly.

I arched my brows.

“Well,” he said, chuckling, “does it really matter? Age is just a state of mind, isn't it? Especially these days with all the . . . um . . . pharmaceutical enhancements that are out there. My last girlfriend was twenty-two, and she had no complaints about my performance, I promise you.

“And,” he continued in a husky voice, leaning toward me, “there's something to be said for experience and maturity, don't you think? I'm sure I could . . . um . . . show you a few things, eh? You look like a girl who'd be eager to learn.”

He winked slyly, and I felt my stomach lurch.

“How old are you anyway?” he asked. “About thirty? That's all right. I don't mind a woman who's a little past her prime. You look quite good for your age.”

After I'd endured a detailed explanation of the differences between the various “pharmaceutical enhancements,” information I could have happily lived without for the rest of my life, Mandy blew the whistle.

I could have kissed her on the lips.

As I poured a third packet of sugar into my latte, I gave myself a little pep talk, told myself to calm down and stay put, that I had just been having a run of bad luck and that my other dates couldn't possibly be as bad as the first two. But I didn't really believe me.

And in all fairness, Trace, a man about my age who worked as an assistant manager of a movie theater but was studying for his certification as a personal trainer, seemed nice enough and not nearly as hopeless as the other two. It was just that I wasn't at all interested in the difference between whey and hemp protein powders or why body mass index was a more reliable indicator of overall fitness than a number on a scale. However, he did give me some tips about isometric exercises that would help banish my “flabby abs.”

“What are you—about thirty?” he asked, and then shook his head sorrowfully. “You're really too young to let yourself go like this, Ivy.”

When the whistle blew for the third time, I grabbed my purse from the back of my chair and started for the door. I'd had all I could take for one night. But Mandy, who was circulating through the room, saw me, grabbed my arm, and propelled me back toward the table.

“Hey! Twenty-three,” she chirped, glancing at the numbered sticker on my blouse, “we've just got two more rounds to go, twelve minutes. Why don't you wait until we're through before you head to the ladies' room, okay?”

“I'm not going to the ladies' room,” I said. “I'm going home. This just isn't working out for me.”

Mandy puckered her lips and made a “poor baby” face. “Oh, come on, now. Don't run off so soon, okay? It'll throw off the whole system if you go. I'll have two guys wandering around and nobody to match them with.

“Okay,” she said, shrugging her shoulders, “maybe you haven't run into the man of your dreams yet; I get it. But it's early, okay? What if the very next date turned out to be your soul mate? But you missed meeting him because you gave up too soon and left early? Talk about tragic! So you just sit back down and hang in there for the next twelve minutes, okay? Remember, a girl has to kiss a lot of frogs before she meets her Prince Charming.”

“Mandy. This room has nothing
but
frogs. There's not a prince in the bunch, not my prince or anyone else's. It's completely hopeless, so I'm going home now. Okay?”

I pulled my arm from her grasp. She opened her mouth to argue with me but was interrupted.

“Excuse me. I got here a little late, missed the first three rounds, but the guy at the desk said I could still get in on the final two. Is one of you number twenty-three?”

I turned around and looked up at the handsome face of a tall, tanned man with brown eyes and black hair.

“Ivy?”

“Dan?”

 

“I can't believe it's you,” I said for the third time, shaking my head. “Seriously. You're the absolutely last person I would have expected to see here. Why would you need to come to something like this?”

“I could ask you the same thing,” he said.

“Well, New Bern is such a small town, and almost everybody who lives there is married. It's hard to meet people. And to tell you the truth, I really wasn't sure if I was ready to date yet. My ex-husband was . . .”

I paused, realizing I didn't have to explain my situation to Dan. The story of how Hodge, as owner of a nursing home, had cheated the government out of close to three million dollars in fraudulent Medicare claims had been front-page news in New Bern. Everybody in town knew about that, as well as his “alleged” history of domestic abuse, hinted at rather than declared because I hadn't pressed charges, figuring that the fraud conviction would be enough to keep him in prison for many years to come. Dan knew all that and more about me because, once he'd offered to take Bobby bowling, I'd had to tell him about Hodge's upcoming release. Not all the gory details, just the basics, so he'd understand what Bobby was dealing with and why he'd made up that story about Hodge being stationed on an aircraft carrier.

“I haven't had very good luck with relationships,” I said. “And honestly, I never thought I'd want to try again. But after a while . . .”

“A person gets lonely,” Dan said, finishing the thought for me. “I know what you mean. I met Lila, Drew's mom, in high school. She grew up on Cape Cod, but her family moved to New Bern in the middle of her junior year. It was love at first sight, at least for me. I skipped going to college just so I wouldn't have to leave her behind in New Bern.

“Not that I was all that set on going to school. Lucky for me, it turns out I like landscaping, but the only reason I got into it was because it paid enough so Lila and I could afford to get married right away. We did, four weeks after graduation. Drew was born a week before our first anniversary.”

“That was quick. You sound like me. I was only eighteen when I had Bethany.”

Dan nodded. “Some would say too quick, but I'm not sorry we had him. Drew's the best thing that ever happened to me. Lila was a different matter. When Drew was six, I found out she was having an affair with my best friend. You know, even after that, I actually wanted to try to work things out, but she left anyway. Just as well. Turned out she'd been sleeping with a string of guys. I had no idea,” he said, lifting the paper cup of coffee to his lips. “Maybe I just didn't want to know. I was crazy about her, but she was just too young, I guess.

“Anyway,” he said, “a thing like that will make you a little gun-shy . . .”

“Makes you doubt your ability to judge people,” I said.

“Exactly. Having fallen so hard the first time, being so certain you've met
the one,
how can you be sure you won't make the same mistake again?”

“You can't,” I said. “That's why I decided to stay away from men. But lately I've felt so alone. All my friends are married, and they seem so happy. They don't have as much time to spend with me now, not the way they used to. So I just thought that I might give this a try, you know? Test the waters a little bit and see what was out there. And since it was in New Haven and I wouldn't be meeting anyone I already knew, I figured—what the heck? If I ended up making a fool of myself, nobody would have to know about it.”

Dan chuckled and nodded as he ripped the top off a packet of sugar and poured it into his coffee. “That's what I was thinking too.

“Want some?” he asked, holding out the sugar caddy.

I shook my head and held my hand over the top of my cup. “I'm good.”

“Actually,” he said, looking at me over the rim of his cup, “when I decided it might be time to try dating again, my first thought was to ask you out. That's why I came out to the driveway and started flirting with you that day when you came to pick up Drew—because I was hoping you might be interested.”

“Wait. You were flirting with me?” I laughed. “I guess I must be out of practice on picking up the signals.”

“Either that, or I'm out of practice sending them. I was trying as hard as I could to get your attention, but”—he spread out his hands—“no dice. I went back inside, licked my wounds for a week or so, and then decided to give this a shot.”