Friday Mornings at Nine (35 page)

Despite her desire not to dig too deeply into Aaron’s motives for wanting this heightened level of attentiveness from her, Tamara played the part of a dutiful girlfriend for several weeks, nonetheless. She called him every day, even if it was just for a few minutes. She visited him at his invitation a number of times, and invited him over to her house, too. She seduced him several of those times (she quite enjoyed
that
), and she pretended not to be so surprised whenever he showered her with continued interest.

But she
was
surprised.

Was it supposed to be like this? How come the mystery hadn’t started to dissipate yet? Had she been living with Jon’s pointed indifference for so long that she was constitutionally incapable of recognizing the natural rhythms of a normal, functional relationship?

Hmm. Maybe.

She had, however, promised Aaron she would be honest with him if she ever had any real concerns. Well, after spending half a day sobbing over old photo albums (why the hell did she have to go look at those, anyway?), she was in an uncomfortably vulnerable state when he knocked at the door. And guess what? She had enough concerns to fill a fucking Mack truck.

“Hey,” he said, stepping inside. “You look awful.”

“Bastard.”

He laughed. “What happened? Did Jon do something evil? Benji giving you a guilt trip? See a particularly poignant greeting card commercial?”

She shook her head. “Vacation pictures from about ten years ago. St. Thomas.”

His eyebrows shot up. “Ah. Stupid memories…and way too much blue water. All that tropical sun and surf is just depressing.”

She managed a small smile. “Exactly.”

“Anything else?”

“Yeah.” She hugged him, struggled for a good breath and blurted, “Why am I not indifferent to you? Why hasn’t my attraction to you faded yet? I don’t want to like you this much.”

He kissed her cheek, then held her at arm’s length so as to see more of her. “Tell me something, Tamara. Is this what’s really bothering you, or is it, maybe, a projection? Because I’m a
great
guy. I’m witty. I have a paying job. I work out regularly—you’ve seen my awesome muscles.” He nodded at her in mock seriousness, tensed his left bicep and pointed at it. “I stopped making my mother do my laundry
years
ago. Hell, I’m even pretty much over the drama with my bitchy ex-wife, give or take a few nightmares. So, really, who wouldn’t find me a fantastic catch?”

Tamara opened her mouth to contradict him, but he winked and held up his hand. “No, no. None of those snotty comebacks of yours.” He kissed her other cheek and whispered, “I like you, too.”

“But this cannot possibly last?”

“You said that as a question, not a statement. It could,” he said. “It might not but, yes, it
could
. Why do you find that so hard to believe?”

What could she say? That she had dreamed of having deeper intimacy with the man in her life—both physically and emotionally—but she had been convinced that avenue was cut off for her? That she had been coming to the unsettling realization that in order for her most secret fantasy to be possible, she would have to expose all her fears and insecurities? That she knew life was too short to be so afraid, but she didn’t know how to break out of old patterns?

“I don’t know,” she murmured.

“I think you do,” he said, his voice infinitely gentle.

But he didn’t push her. Instead, he requested they go on a date together. Their first out in public. An evening with all the Christmastime trimmings: a dinner of roast goose and stuffing, a snowy sleigh ride offered by kids at the nearest community college, an hour of caroling followed by peppermint-schnapps-infused hot cocoa in front of his fireplace.

It was a fun and active night, but it ended with them just talking. About their childhoods. About their most memorable marital blowups. About how they had both resisted their initial attraction to each other. She found herself telling him things about her parents and her early boyfriends that she hadn’t thought about in years, let alone verbalized.

And he shared his personal philosophy, too. At one point (after, admittedly, a number of heavily spiked cocoas) he explained, “You have to work through pain to create a life worth having. Joy is out there, but you don’t just
find
it, you
earn
it. In order for happiness to bloom inside you, you have to be what you seem.”

She considered this. “So, how do I do that, Aaron? Where do I start?”

“You just start with yourself. With what you know is true about you. All you have to do is just be honest about what you really want…and what you really fear. Know thyself.”

“Thanks a lot, Socrates,” she teased him, but in many ways, she realized Jon had tried to tell her this, too. Jon’s claim when they were in Texas that she didn’t know what she really wanted had haunted her for two months. But Jon had hinted at some version of this same accusation for years, and she hadn’t wanted to listen. So, perhaps, by persistently ignoring his words, she contributed as much to their marriage’s failure as had his unrelenting indifference.

Armed with this bud of self-knowledge, she studied Aaron’s expression as he looked at her: calm, kind, confident. He wasn’t indifferent. And, while he wasn’t perfect either, he had faced a similar fire before and come out stronger. He had gained courage from his marital struggles and, best of all, being with him made her hopeful that she could, too. Cautiously but genuinely optimistic.

And wasn’t optimism what a true fairy tale was all about? Optimistic stories were intended to inspire readers, right alongside the characters. And, if one hopeful narrator should be so fortunate as to achieve this feat, the readers wouldn’t want the tale to come immediately to a close, would they?

Yet, if those same readers were familiar with fairy-tale convention, either modern or traditional, they would know the end would most likely be the best, most satisfying part of all. That the end of the original story would be the very place theirs would begin…should they be so inclined to tell it.

New Year’s Eve, Friday, December 31

T
he trio did not, of course, meet at the Indigo Moon Café on New Year’s Eve. It closed for the celebratory weekend at five-thirty. But, sometime around ten
P.M
., Tamara, Bridget and Jennifer got together at Robin’s Nest Bar & Grille, just down the road and overlooking a small private lake. Not a glitzy hot spot and hardly Glendale Grove’s answer to Navy Pier, but nice. Very nice.

Robin, the owner, brought out their pitcher of frozen strawberry margaritas, three large glasses and a platter of the house nachos, fully loaded. “Here you go, ladies,” she said. “Have fun.”

“Oh, we will,” Tamara replied, tipping the pitcher to expertly fill the three margarita glasses with the red concoction. No coffee on this night. They’d get it tomorrow, when they would undoubtedly need it. But tonight, it was all about celebration.

“So, here’s to us,” Tamara said, raising her glass. “May the coming year bring only good things to us all. A new year, a new beginning.”

They clinked glasses and took healthy sips, each of them reflecting on the changes in their lives over the past few months and projecting into their near futures the dream of even greater love and happiness.

Bridget, pleased by the current trajectory of her marriage, beamed pure joy at her friends and delighted in the rich vermilion of the frozen margarita. Such a pretty color and so tasty, too! “Oh, these are scrumptious,” she declared, surreptitiously checking out the multihued loaded-nacho platter and weighing just how many calories she wanted to ingest in one night.

It was New Year’s Eve, after all. A once a year celebration, yes, but also an homage to the cyclical nature of relationships.
To everything there is a season,
she reminded herself.
And a time to every purpose under heaven.
For Bridget, this was going to be the season for a healthy pursuit of passions, a healthy kind of friendship, a healthy marriage and a healthy body she could feel comfortable moving around in every day.

So, two margaritas and one reasonable serving of nachos were her limit, she cheerfully decided. She could live with that. And, in the spirit of moderation and honesty, she said to her friends, “For me, the best part of tonight is spending it with you both.”

“Thanks,” Jennifer said, her smile reaching her eyes, albeit temporarily, and giving them a much-needed sparkle.

Tamara set down her glass. “So, Graham was okay with watching the kids tonight so you could come out with us?”

Bridget laughed. “He’s off for ten days, remember? We’ve spent
all week
together already, and tomorrow I’ll be cooking a seven-course meal for the entire family. Graham knows I needed to get out of the house for a few hours.” She turned to Jennifer. “How are your girls? Are they enjoying their winter break?”

Jennifer appreciated Bridget’s gentleness in broaching the subject. “They’re doing all right. We all are,” she murmured.

In truth, of course, it had been a challenging couple of weeks for her, living on her own in the sanctuary of the motel and meeting her daughters at the mall, a nearby bookstore or some local diner every day. Michael would drop them off, pick them up and kindly entrust her not to decimate their family bond in the hours in between, but he couldn’t camouflage his frustration at her extended break from them and his residual anger over her lingering indecision.

Really, she couldn’t blame him.

However, she persisted in standing up for herself and to the world at large, despite their judgments of her. She would, for once, not be swayed by anyone’s demands nor allow a single solitary person to dictate the way she should manage her fears. Time had proved none of their suggestions were effective anyway. It left her with some gaps as far as appearing to be a model parent, but it also forced her to be much more real, raw and present with Veronica and Shelby, and their conversations over the past two weeks had been among the more memorable and truthful of their lives.

“I love that, away from the house, we’ve managed to break some of the patterns of inattention that were so easy to slip into before,” Jennifer added. Her two friends nodded. They both knew the danger of inattention in one’s closest relationships. “There’s really no escape from each other now,” she said, “so that part is mostly good. But the girls are embarrassed by the current living arrangements, I think, and even confessed to being relieved that they’re on vacation and don’t have to face their friends right now. I know they’re hoping it’ll all go away before school starts again so they can pretend it never happened. Michael would like that, too.”

“So, he’s not quite accepting, but just dealing with it, right?” Tamara asked.

Jennifer bobbed her head. “It’s hard for him, but I really appreciate that he’s been open, however grudgingly, to giving me this time. And maybe even realizing, without actually admitting it, that I’d needed it. We’ve had lunch together, too. Just us. Twice so far.” She sighed. “It’s awkward, but we keep trying to talk. And all four of us will be meeting up for dinner tomorrow. At least for a few hours.”

“Do you ever hear from David?” Bridget blurted.

“No,” Jennifer said just as quickly. Then, “Well, yes. He e-mailed me a couple more times, but I deleted his messages. I can’t help but think of him, but I’m not tempted by him anymore,” she told them, realizing this was completely true. David was like an addictive drug for which she had finally been given the full side effect report. She had known he was bad for her, but since when did an addict voluntarily cease abusing her vice of choice? Not until she was confident that the other choices presented to her were equally powerful and far less damaging. Not until she was
sure
she wanted to live life in full consciousness, despite the risk and the potential pain of reality. And much to her surprise, over these past few weeks, Jennifer realized she
did
want that. Badly.

Tamara said, “Kind of like ‘Auld Lang Syne,’ right? We never forget old acquaintances. Old exes. Or old boinking buddies.” She grinned. “Do we?”

The trio laughed, Jennifer most of all. “Okay, now that’s one song I still don’t understand the lyrics to,” she said. “Google was no help at all. The words just don’t make much sense.”

Tamara waved her palms in the air in a show of mock exasperation. “You don’t get the meaning of a traditional English holiday song but
Stevie Nicks
is so fucking comprehensible? What the hell, Jennifer?”

They giggled like teenagers and toasted to the longevity of Fleetwood Mac.

Around a sensibly sized bite of cheesy nachos, Bridget asked Tamara, “Any news from Benji?”

“Yep. He and Jon are hitting the big museums in the state of New York right now and, apparently, the Baseball Hall of Fame is ‘the bomb.’” With a thin swizzle stick she nabbed from the middle of the table, she swirled the remaining half of her margarita thoughtfully. “They’re having a good time together, and I’m glad they’re doing this road trip. I think Jon really needed to reconnect with Benji, and, to an extent, I got in the way of that for him. He loves to travel—for work or for pleasure—and he gets to share a little of that with our son now.”

She, by contrast, enjoyed staying right where she was. She appreciated her independence, loved having the house to herself and, even though she didn’t say this aloud, believed ardently that both she and Jon were better parents and better people when they were apart.

“And Aaron?” Jennifer asked, a small smile lifting both corners of her lips.

Tamara could in no way disguise her own smile. “He’s good,” she said, purposely enigmatic.

Bridget rolled her eyes. “Aw, come on! We want
details.
”

Tamara shook her head, reconsidered, then said, “Well…okay. Maybe a few.” So, she told them about her Christmas date with Aaron, about a handful of topics they had discussed and about a New Year’s Day brunch they had planned for tomorrow. She also told them about some of her worries, but that she was determined to let this relationship play out in spite of them. “Oh, yeah. And we exchanged Christmas gifts. I got him a new watch.”

“Really? What did he get you?” Bridget asked.

“A tool belt,” Tamara said, laughing until tears streamed down her face.

Jennifer glanced at Bridget in amusement and feigned a sigh. “I think she left out a few details.”

“Tamara,” Bridget said, grinning. “Spill…”

The music had been in a range of genres and decades at this place. Jennifer in particular noted a decided absence of the 1970s songs they had grown accustomed to hearing during their gatherings. But, just before the last stroke of midnight and during the obligatory “Auld Lang Syne,” the friends hugged each other, tossed the confetti that Robin the owner had so helpfully provided for everyone high into the air and joined hands, wordlessly.

Then, when the final strains of the annual melody with the bewildering lyrics had faded into the mist of the past year, Eric Clapton’s “After Midnight” came on. Tamara, Bridget and Jennifer—hands still clasped—stood up, shook the confetti out of their hair and rang in the New Year, dancing.