Mid-Life Crisis Diaries (9 page)

C H A P T E R  15

D
uring appetizers, they shared with each other the subtle differences in their situations. While Andre was completely shocked when Layla mentioned that she
needed a break
, Marsha admitted that Blake’s announcement that he needed to find himself wasn’t all that surprising once she allowed herself to think about it. He’d been restless his whole life.

Andre was an excellent listener, which Marsha took great comfort in. He commented when appropriate, and rubbed her hand when there was nothing to be said or when she was trying to piece together what to say. He shared with Marsha how certain he was in his relationship with Layla, and what should have been obvious warning signs. He was still in love with her, with who she used to be, but from the beginning there were things he should have noticed and felt cautioned by. He’d only assumed that what he felt for her, how sure he was that they were each other’s last love, was mutual.

“Was there evidence of an affair, at all? If you don’t mind me asking…” Marsha said.

“I’m sure there was,” Andre answered, tracing the edge of a plate with his fork. “She’s easily distracted.” There was pain in his face, turning his mouth down at the corners. It broke Marsha’s heart. Who could become bored with this man? Even if you
were
bored, who would dare act on it and risk causing this expression on such a kind face?

“She could’ve gotten a puppy or something,” Marsha joked. It worked, Andre’s face lightened and he chuckled, adjusting himself where he sat.

Andre leaned forward in his seat and rested his cheeks in his palms, giggling.

“I did actually offer to get her a puppy!” He leaned back in his chair and rested one hand on his belly while he laughed, rocking ever so slightly on the back two legs of his chair.

“What!”

“Oh yeah, once I noticed that she was getting restless, I kind of got afraid,” Andre stopped to rub the back of his neck with a nervous hand. “I was afraid that she was suddenly wanting children or something. So I suggested we maybe get a dog or something. You know, to share our adventures….” He rocked back in his chair again, and this time it fell to the floor, taking him with it.

“Oh my God, are you okay?!” Marsha jumped up from her seat and circled the table to help him.

“I’m good!” Andre jumped up and brushed off his pants. “I’m good.”

Marsha took her seat immediately and propped her own chin up on her hands like she was listening to a great storyteller. “Well? What did she say?”

“Ha! Give me time to recover, woman!” Two seconds of adjusting his perfect trousers and he leaned forward in his seat again, intent in his tale. “She said…” he bounced his eyebrows up and down twice for effect. “She said ‘Are you fucking crazy…’ And then she left.” Marsha’s mouth fell open, and Andre shrugged his shoulders. “Yep! Apparently she did NOT want a puppy.”

“That’s a good guess, yes. But still,” Marsha replaced her napkin in her lap. “She should’ve tried a puppy
first.
”

“True, true. Though I don’t think any one thing could satisfy her for long. It was kind of known in our larger circle that she had been with a few of the gentlemen. Or…men, I should say. And I didn’t find out until later that the number of our colleagues she’d actually spent time with was larger than I originally thought.”

“Oh Andre, I’m—”

“Don’t say sorry. It’s fine. I just shouldn’t have been so headstrong and sure of myself. I wouldn’t have looked at a business decision that way, I would have weighed all the possibilities and reduced the risk. Right? Isn’t that what you would do—now?”

“Now? Yes. I’d make the next guy sign a ten page contract and review it every quarter just to make sure.”

Marsha winked at him. It certainly
was
what she’d do now. If she and Blake were to ever reunite, she would be more careful about her own expectations. And if they didn’t, she would certainly be more selective if there were ever another chance at love. She learned
that
much in less than a week in Mexico. There were people in the world that were kind, beautiful, and steadfast.

Well, as steadfast as you can be.

“Once I paid for the surgery, I kind of realized what I’d gotten myself into.”

A worried look washed over Marsha’s face, she wasn’t sure which question to ask or avoid.

“Buyer’s remorse, as they say in the real estate business, I believe. Was it a….necessary surgery?”

“No, no. Nothing like that. Cosmetic. I paid for her to have her nose redone when we very first started dating. And after that, I sent her to have her chest done, even though I thought they were fine the way they were.”

“Oh.” Marsha pushed the rest of her appetizer around on her plate, wondering how to comment on someone else’s boob job. She came up with nothing, and was thankful when the waiter interrupted them with their food. He set the steaming tuna down in front of her, but it didn’t look as appetizing as she thought it would. Her belly turned as her phone buzzed in her lap. It was probably Blake.

“She had plenty of money to do it herself, if that’s what you’re wondering.”

He leaned over his meal, tilting slightly to the left in his chair, trying to get her attention with a sharp glare that she could only assume was his response to a strange look on her face.

“Oh no, no. I wasn’t, actually. It’s just…”

“What is it, love?”

He reached across his plate, steam rising from it, and reached for her hand. She shook her head and picked up the phone from her lap where he could see it. An apologetic grin peppering one corner of her mouth.

Marsha shrugged, not knowing whether to look and see who it was or to leave it alone and pay attention to the conversation at hand.

“Ahhh.” Andre leaned back in his seat and looked as sweet as she’d seen him in the week she’d known him. “You’d best see who it was.”

Marsha swallowed hard and opened her phone.
It was Blake.
His text message only said to call him.

“It says he wants me to call him. But I don’t know.”

“You said you were going to last time, and that’s what you should do. It’s why we’re here in the first place….although to be fair; I was going to invite you to dinner here tonight anyway.” Andre gestured toward her with his open palm, and signaled for the waiter. “I’ll have him keep our plates warm.”

Marsha was already texting Blake and waved her hand to Andre without looking, letting him know that she would only be a moment and he didn’t need to have their plates taken.

“I think he has another woman in Nepal or something,” she told him while typing the last of her message. She’d asked Blake when a good time to call him back would be and he immediately responded with
I can talk, but I can only talk now.

A sad sigh escaped her lips, and she looked up, aware that when this type of sigh found its way out, there was usually no one there to hear it. Andre
did
hear it, and his expression was understanding. He nodded to her with his eyes closed; reassuring her that whatever needed to be discussed should be discussed, no matter how painful. “I’m pretty sure it would wreck me if he did.”

“Even considering what we’re doing now?” Andre asked.

“Even considering that.”

The thought of calling him while Andre was sitting there made her uncomfortable, but she trusted him well enough.

“Why is that?”

“Because he chose to do it first. And before he made his ingenious decision to leave, the thought had honestly never even crossed my mind,” Marsha said proudly, pulling up Blake’s number.

“Perhaps just because you kept yourself busy,” Andre offered.

She waved her phone to him to let him know that she was ready to make the call. He was right, though. If she would have thought of it first, things might have been different. She shook the thought from her head and made the call. For a moment, Marsha considered excusing herself to the restroom to make the call, but dismissed it immediately. If Blake could try to end a marriage and run off with some tramp to Nepal, she certainly had no reason to balance herself on a dirty toilet seat to make a phone call. No, no. There was nothing to be ashamed of! If anything, Blake should be ashamed, because if she had her choice, she’d be here with him right now. Marsha looked around the restaurant while the phone was ringing.
The bathrooms probably aren’t half bad,
she thought.
I’d probably be quite comfortable in there.

She looked to Andre, her kind and gorgeous dinner partner. Whatever needed to be said could be said in front of her handsome date tonight. He was her only friend at the moment, and she was going to make use of that. Plus, if Blake were enjoying the company he was with, then she would enjoy hers. Andre smiled at her and the thought of his breath on her neck before they left sent tingles down her spine. Yes, if she were to choose not to be rude to ONE person on this planet, tonight she would choose Andre. Because for tonight, he was giving all he had to her. She couldn’t say the same for Blake, who didn’t answer until the fourth ring.

How the love of her life could wait so long to answer the phone immediately after insisting that they talk right this instant was beyond her. He was her first love, and waiting for him to answer half angered her, and halfway made her feel like she was in high school again waiting for him to call her parents’ house. Though she wouldn’t dare admit it to Andre, she secretly hoped that he just wanted to find out where she was so that he could swoop in and get her. She wanted to be rescued from this nightmare, even though it came with excellent scenery and a hot new friend. What she wanted more than anything was to have her marriage back along with a proper chance at saving it from the ashes.

A final bout of embarrassment swept over her as Blake finally answered. The tone of his voice on his very first
Hello
wasn’t one of a knight in shining armor. And the threat of embarrassment she could face on returning to California as a renowned
Love Guru
was overwhelming. The color washed from her face, she could feel it, and she felt nauseous.

He sounded irritated to be bothered, and her heart sank. She couldn’t hide it from herself, much less everyone in the room, which made her feel even more as though she were shrinking. She didn’t even care about what Andre would think. But the dinner patrons around her and the waiter would surely notice the poor soon-to-be divorced woman slumped down in her chair looking as though she were about to cry into her phone. She looked to Andre for comfort from her swimming head and he smiled at her gently.

Trying to maintain her composure, Marsha lowered her voice. “Yes, Blake.” She overheard thumping noises and shrieks of laughter from a female.
Love Guru
or not, when someone calls your husband’s name in the background and he asks them to be quiet, it’s usually not a good sign.

His voice was muffled and she could barely hear him. “Blake, are you at a club? I can hardly hear you.”

He cleared his throat. “Do you remember the time when you told me to wear that navy blue suit to a job interview? You claimed it was my lucky suit… Well, guess what, I should have never listened to you. I lost two thousand dollars tonight.”

A wave of anxiety crushed upon her. “You asked me to call you because of that? How can you blame me for such a thing? And gambling? Since when do you gamble, Blake? Two thousand dollars? How irresponsible can you be?!”

“It just goes to show that I should have never listened to you. You think you know everything because you’re the
Love Guru.”

Despite the shallowness of his accusations, his words stung. Then she heard the woman’s breathy voice again and she knew that Blake was indeed with someone else. She was sobbing now, and she couldn’t hide it. Her shoulders gave her away, and she furiously batted away the tears with little success. She didn’t dare look at Andre; she didn’t even want to know what he thought about it just yet. But he slid his feet around her ankles and rubbed them gently. It made some of the pain bearable, because he knew how she felt. But for the most part, she was still embarrassed and lonely. It was the loneliness that surprised her the most. It felt hot, and sharp, and was the worst thing she’d ever experienced.

Marsha turned off her phone. There was no way, no class that could possibly prepare her for how to actually handle a statement like that. Such complete disregard for the woman, the
person
on the other end of the phone, and from the man who had been her partner for most of her life. She couldn’t, it was unbearable.

“Excuse me,” Marsha stood quickly and dropped her phone on the table, heading for the restroom. She would be the talk of the night, for sure. At least for another hour or two until they closed. The doors to the bathroom creaked as she burst threw them, and she was greeted with a scent that was so floral, it threatened to lighten her mood, were she in the market for that sort of thing. Marsha fought the urge to dive into the stall and fall to her knees with her head in the toilet, and instead simply stopped to take a breath just inside the door. The room was calmly lit, with candles on the wash counter next to the sink. There were flowers in vases on the floor, and some hanging in sconces on the walls. They were huge and fragrance seemed to drip from the fixtures. In any other universe, she would have found the place lovely. As it were, she only had eyes for vomiting. Which she did, gracefully, about ten seconds later.