Back In the Game (25 page)

Chapter 58

“N
one of those weird names. I can't stand that.”

“Oh,” I said, “I agree.”

Matt and I were at his new condo in Charlestown. He liked us to be there rather than at my apartment. He thought it was too small, and he didn't like sleeping in a bed where another man had slept with me. It made him feel bad, he said; it made him remember that his wife had had sex with another man.

I didn't ask Matt how many other women had slept in his bed, after Jess and before me. In any case it was different; those women hadn't been his wives, so I really didn't care.

Anyway, we were talking about baby names.

“What about family names?” I asked. “You know, like people name their child after their grandmother's maiden name or something. Like, I don't know, Finnerty.”

Matt made a face. “Finnerty? As a first name? It sounds ridiculous.”

I kind of liked it; it was my mother's mother's maiden name. But with Matt I was all about keeping things calm and happy.

“Well, okay,” I said, “maybe that's not a good example. But, well, how about Keats? In honor of my parents.”

Matt sighed. “Laura,” he said, “I don't want to be difficult here, but Keats is a last name. Keats Fromer? It sounds—it sounds stupid. Even stupider than Finnerty Fromer.”

“Oh.”

“Do you want a soda or something?” he asked. I shook my head. Matt walked to the kitchen. I noticed the very top of his head was just beginning to go bald.

Matt came back from the kitchen with a Diet Coke and slumped back on the couch.

“What about your parents' first names?” he asked. “What were they again?”

I felt the sting of tears. I'd told Matt like a million times. How could he have forgotten?

“Mary and Lucas,” I said, and it was really hard not to scold him.

Matt nodded and took a sip of his soda. “Oh,” he said finally. “You know, here's another option. Your diamond originally belonged to my great-grandmother Alice. That's a nice name, don't you think?”

My daughter was going to be named Alice.

“What if we have a boy?” I asked dully.

Matt scooted to the edge of the couch, excited. “Here's the beauty of it,” he said. “My great-grandmother's last name was Alexander! We could name a boy Alexander and call him Alex. It's perfect. Even better, if we have a boy and a girl we have Alice Alexander all over again!”

I forced a smile. “Okay. That sounds good.”

Matt beamed; at that moment he looked about twelve. It annoyed me for some reason.

“Wow, Laura,” he said, “I am so glad we're on the same page with this!”

“Me, too.”

“And I was thinking,” he went on. “I was thinking that I really want our son to play football. Now, before you say anything, just hear me out.”

I wasn't going to protest. There was no point.

“Okay,” I said.

Matt drained his soda before going on. “I know the moms don't like the idea of their boys playing football, but trust me, it's no more dangerous than soccer, and every mom these days wants their kids to play soccer. I want our son to be an all-American kid, a football and apple pie sort of kid, you know?”

I nodded and Matt talked on. And I wondered if he really knew that I, Laura Keats, was in the room with him, listening to his plans for his children. I suddenly had the feeling that any woman could be sitting in this chair, any woman of childbearing age, tall or short, dark or light, it wouldn't matter because in the end, all Matt really wanted now was a family.

Any woman would do.

Matt, I realized, was using me as totally as I was using him.

 

When Matt had gone to bed, I went online—he has a home office that's really mostly a shrine to football—and started to research local suburban school systems. This was the sort of information you couldn't find in a phone book; since leaving Duncan, I'd become a bit better at the computer.

Winchester. Brookline. Marblehead. Cape Point.

Yes, Cape Point looked very nice, a great place to raise children. A good school system, beautiful houses, a country club, some pretty white churches. (Even though I don't go to church, it would be nice to have a pretty one nearby.) The only problem was that it was pretty far from downtown Boston. I estimated that it would take about two hours to get into the city on a weekday morning, and two hours to get back home.

I wondered: Was that too far for Matt to commute to work every day?

I looked again at the house. By the time we were ready to buy something, this particular house would be sold. But I bet there would be another just like it in the area.

Four bedrooms; two full baths and one half bath; a finished basement—maybe I could get a Ping-Pong table!; a big backyard where I could have Matt set up swings and a jungle gym and maybe even an above-ground pool—and of course, a barbecue; a living room; a dining room—I was glad I'd registered for so much new stuff, including a set of fancy china!; a totally renovated kitchen, which meant I'd have to learn to cook more than pasta, but being a stay-at-home mom, I'd have lots of time to learn, right?

Best of all, the house had a fireplace, a real stone fireplace with a mantel where I could put pictures of my mother and father and my children!

And I decided right then, thinking about that fireplace, that I didn't really care if Matt had to commute a total of four hours to work five days a week. He was getting the baby names he wanted. Fine. Then I was going to get the house and the location I wanted.

I thought it was a fair enough trade-off.

Chapter 59

“S
o, you really don't know where he is?”

I sighed and looked at the clock. This fruitless conversation had been going on for almost five full minutes, interrupting me just as I was about to attempt a small exercise using the cobalt violet paint I'd bought the day I met Alfonse.

Jake, one of Simon's longtime buddies and a fellow artist, couldn't seem to understand that I was no longer Simon's keeper.

“No, Jake,” I said into the phone. “I told you already, I don't know where he is. I'm assuming he's at his apartment. Have you tried him there?”

“Yeah, I practically broke down his door knocking. And he's not answering his cell.”

Probably because he lost it, I thought. It's probably lying on the sidewalk somewhere.

“Oh,” I said.

“Aren't you worried?” Jake demanded.

“No,” I said. “I'm not.” Not anymore.

“But you know how he gets.”

“Jake, Simon's just not my problem anymore. Why don't you call his girlfriend, Jane somebody-or-other?”

Jake snorted. “Jane's history. Last time I talked to Simon, he was with some chick named Bella. He told me she's into voodoo.”

Of course she was. “Then why don't you call her?” I said, hoping Jake would hear the impatience in my voice. “Maybe she can, I don't know, do some magic and find him.”

Unless he's right there in her apartment, eating her food, and splashing red paint on her walls.

“I don't know where she lives,” Jake said. “I'm not even sure she has a last name.”

I sighed heavily. “Look, Jake, I don't know what you want me to do. I haven't heard from him in weeks. I really can't help you.”

It was a moment before Jake responded. When he did, his tone was reproachful.

“You know, Grace,” he said, “Kara and I thought you and Simon would be together forever. I mean, I know you guys have been divorced for years now, but still. I've got to say it's hard to deal with your just cutting him off like this.”

“Life is full of surprises, Jake,” I said testily. “I really have to go. Say hi to Kara for me.”

I hung up before Jake could further scold me for taking back my life.

I looked again at the clock. I was meeting Evan for dinner at seven. There was a little over an hour to get ready. I went into my bedroom to choose an outfit.

Simon would surface. Or he wouldn't. Evan was in possession of the paintings: they were locked away in the gallery's storage vault. Simon's presence at the opening wasn't necessary.

I inspected a new blouse I'd bought just the day before. It was a bit of a splurge, but I felt no guilt about the purchase.

I felt no guilt about anything.

“You look lovely in that blouse.”

I felt myself blush. This is what Evan did to me: a simple compliment and I felt as if it were the first I'd ever received.

“Thank you,” I said.

Simon never noticed what I wore. He never noticed anything specific about me. I'd come out of the shower, hair plastered to my head and dripping water all over the bathmat, and Simon would look right at me and ask: “Did you take a shower yet?”

“Grace?”

I blushed again. “Oh, I'm sorry,” I said. “Was I staring at you?”

“It felt more like gazing. But I don't mind at all.”

The conversation went like that all through dinner. We both knew that night was the night, though it hadn't been openly discussed. But that's the way things were with Evan and me; increasingly we were living our lives in synch.

“You've hardly touched your food,” Evan said.

“Oh,” I said. “Right.” I realized I was holding my fork and knife over the plate. I cut into the piece of chicken.

Oh, yes. Romance over thirty-five induced lunacy. I felt thoroughly addled, eager to be alone with Evan and yet almost scared, too.

I took a bite of the chicken and chewed. Since when, I wondered, had sex become so important, so full of meaning?

Since Evan had come into my life.

We finished our dinners and opted to pass on coffee and dessert, which was fine because my stomach was a riot of butterflies, and even the relatively bland chicken dish I'd eaten wasn't sitting too easily.

Hand in hand we walked back to my apartment. With my free hand I held on to Evan's arm. I wanted to touch all of him.

We reached my building and I suddenly remembered the first night Alfonse had walked me home. Oh, I thought, Evan is so much more right.

No more boys, Grace. It's time for a man.

“I want to kiss you,” I whispered up to Evan.

He lowered his lips to mine and we kissed, slow and long. Finally, still holding me close, Evan said, “Grace, may I come inside?”

“No,” I said definitely. My apartment was thick with memories of Simon. I wanted to start fresh with Evan. “I'd rather go to your place. If that's all right.”

Evan smiled and kissed me again. “It's perfect,” he said. “Let's grab a cab.”

I'd never been to Evan's apartment before. I wasn't at all surprised by what I found there—lots of art, of course, all beautifully hung; clean Danish modern furniture with the occasional Asian accessory; a well-appointed kitchen with sleek metal fixtures.

And the apartment was spotless! No wads of dirty tissues on the floor, no crumpled clothes thrown over chairs, no overflowing garbage cans. In at least this respect, Evan was entirely different from my ex-husband.

“It's a beautiful home,” I said when Evan had finished giving me the tour.

Evan smiled. “I like that you said
home
. I want it to feel lived in and enjoyed.”

“But clean!”

“Ah, yes, thanks to the cleaning service, very, very clean.”

And then there came that awkward moment. We all know the one, the moment when you and the one you love find yourselves—waiting. Waiting for the first touch, wanting it more than anything, waiting and feeling almost shy and—

“Grace,” Evan whispered. And then he took my hands and I raised my face to his and for a long moment we looked at each other with a kind of wonder and then, Evan kissed me, gently at first and then with a passion I'd never known, not even in the early days with Simon, not ever.

Evan made love to me that night. I say that—made love to me—because that's what he did and that's what it was, not just sex, but something intense and intimate and loving and so, so thrilling.

Hours later, deep in the night, I lay awake, Evan's body against mine, content in his sleep. I was simply too happy to close my eyes.