Mike, Mike & Me (27 page)

“Yes,” he said tersely, “and normal people eat dinner at six-thirty.”

“New Yorkers are normal people—”

“Some might beg to differ,” he inserted with a wry smile.

“—and most New Yorkers don’t eat dinner at six-thirty,” I continued as if he hadn’t spoken, “so if you’re going to be a New Yorker, you’re going to have to adapt.”

That said, I smiled to show him that I was kidding around. Except that I wasn’t.

“Why are you acting so bitchy?” he asked. No more Mr. Nice Guy. Clearly, I had pushed the wrong buttons….

Or the right ones, considering my mood.

I was trying to start a fight.

Why?

Who knew?

Maybe because I was a spoiled brat.

Feeling guilty—but probably not as guilty as I should have—I reached for Valerie’s pack of cigarettes and conceded, “I’m sorry. I’ve just had a really long day.”

“Since when do you smoke?”

“I don’t.” I lit up and took a deep drag.

“You’re smoking now.”

“I know.”

He seemed to be waiting for further explanation.

“It’s because…” I began, and trailed off. I gazed at the rain-spattered window and the grim gray dusk beyond it, trying to figure out if I wanted to appease him…or piss him off further.

“Because why?”

I settled for the truth, suddenly tired of this game we were playing.

Or rather, this game I was playing. He was more of a spectator, really—which didn’t seem fair. And that wasn’t all that didn’t seem fair.

“I’m smoking because I’m a nervous wreck, Mike.”

“You’re a nervous wreck? Why?”

I inhaled smoke deep into my lungs, so deeply that it actually hurt. I was glad. Maybe I needed to punish myself.

I shook my head, released the breath in a white mentholated puff, and said slowly, “There’s something I have to tell you before…well, there’s just something I have to tell you.”

When, exactly, had I decided to come clean about Mike?

I had no idea. For all I knew, it had popped into my head mere moments before I blurted it out. Or maybe I had known all along that I would eventually have to be entirely honest with this man. I guess maybe I thought I owed him at least that.

Maybe I owed him a hell of a lot more than that.

Or maybe I didn’t owe him anything at all.

I was more confused than I’d ever been in my life.

Which, if you’d been following my life up to that point, was pretty extreme.

“What do you have to tell me?” Mike asked, watching me closely, his nose wrinkling from the acrid smoke wafting its way.

“I’ve been seeing somebody else, Mike.”

There.

I’d said it.

I didn’t know what I expected him to say in return. Certainly something other than what he actually said; that’s for sure.

What he actually said was the last thing I ever thought I’d hear from his lips.

What he said was, “Marry me, Beau.”

thirty-five

The present

H
e could very well be out at a meeting or lunch in the middle of a business day.

In fact, the odds that I will find Mike here, in his room in the Pierre Hotel, are slim to none.

That, at least, is what I tell myself as I make my way into the lobby after parking the SUV at a garage over on Lex.

But then, I also once predicted that Madonna would vanish along with fingerless gloves and panty-hose-as-head-bands, and that INXS would be the next Beatles.

Funny how fifteen years can really put things into perspective.

A lot of things, and not just pop culture.

Mike is in his room when the hotel desk clerk calls upstairs to check.

“He says that you can go on up,” the man informs me, smiling in a businesslike, but not particularly friendly, way.

Looks like you’re not in Florida anymore, Dorothy,
I think as I murmur, “Thank you.”

“You’re welcome,” he says, and tells me the suite number.

I want to ask him how Mike sounded when he heard that I was there, but he seems a little stiff. If he were a woman, I might ask. Or if this were a Holiday Inn.

But he isn’t a woman, and this sure as hell isn’t a Holiday Inn, so I merely thank him and make my way through the elegant lobby to the elevators.

This place is just as grand as the Don CeSar was. I wonder, not for the first time, how Mike can afford it.

But that doesn’t matter, really.

Nothing matters now, except that I do what I came here to do.

Steeling myself for whatever lies ahead, I approach the elevator.

The operator greets me and politely stands aside.

I pause. Can I really do this?

Suddenly, I want to bolt for the street.

But my feet carry me over the threshold and into the elevator instead.

“Which floor, ma’am?” the operator asks.

I hesitate only a moment.

“Fourteen,” I say firmly, and watch the doors slide closed in front of me.

thirty-six

The past

“M
arry
you?” I echoed in disbelief. “What are you talking about?”

“I’m talking about getting married.”

I just gaped at him.

Outside, thunder boomed, as if to punctuate the drama.

“I guess I’m not saying it right, huh?” He laughed nervously. “I had this whole thing planned out, this whole rad speech I was going to give you when I gave you the ring, and you caught me off guard.”

“Mike…” For a moment I was at a loss for words.

He was going to give me a ring?

A ring, and a whole rad speech?

He thought I deserved a ring and a whole rad speech after what I’d done?

Maybe he hadn’t heard me correctly.

Maybe instead of
I’ve been seeing somebody else, Mike,
he thought I’d said,
I really need you to propose to me right now, Mike.

What? It
could
happen.

All right. It couldn’t happen.

So, pardon my French, but…what the fuck?

At last, I found my voice. “Mike, didn’t you…I mean…well, did you hear what I just said?”

“You said you’ve been seeing somebody else. I know.”

“You know that I said it? Or you know…that I’ve been seeing somebody else?”

“Both.”

Another shocker. Christ, they were dropping like Tetris blocks tonight.

“How did you know?” I demanded, wondering who’d told him. Valerie? Gaile? Pat, the senior wench at work who hated me?

“Well actually, I didn’t, for sure,” he said, even as I reminded myself that (A) Pat didn’t know I was cheating on my boyfriend, and (B) Pat didn’t even know I had a boyfriend, so (C) Pat couldn’t be the one who had spilled my secret.

Paranoid much?
my inner voice asked sarcastically as my wan outer one asked, “You mean you just figured it out on your own?”

“Pretty much.”

“How?” I collapsed onto the nearest seat before my wobbly legs could give way. “When?”

“Over the last few weeks. I’m not stupid, Beau.”

No, he wasn’t stupid. Even though he had adopted the annoying habit of speaking like a Bill-Ted hybrid, he wasn’t stupid.

More guilt. I couldn’t believe I never gave him enough credit to think that he might realize something was up.

“Listen, I know that you’re a beautiful woman. I know other guys aren’t blind. And I know you’re only human.”

Hey, that was true. I was only human.

Suddenly, what I had done didn’t seem quite as unforgivable.

“You were starting to seem more and more distant,” he went on. “And you were never home lately when I called. So I put two and two together. It was about time, don’t you think?”

I opened my mouth to tell him that it hadn’t been going on for that long.

But somehow, that seemed worse. I didn’t want him to think I had fallen this hard for somebody else in the space of a few weeks.

“Maybe,” he said, his voice laced with regret, “I just never realized until lately that I was actually going to lose you if I didn’t grow up and step up to the plate.”

“But, Mike…you
did
step up to the plate. You turned down the job in California for me—a great job that I know you really wanted. And you’re moving back—”

“That isn’t enough for you. I could see that the other night. It’s obvious. You want more. And you deserve more. That’s why I went out to Long Island, Beau.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Here…I’ll show you.”

I felt numb as I watched him cross the room and bend over to reach into his duffel bag.

Something told me that another Tetris block was about to fall.

He rummaged through his bag, then returned to the chair.

“I went out there,” he said simply, softly, “to get this.”

This
was a velvet ring box. He snapped it open and I found myself gaping at a diamond engagement ring.

“No,” I said in hushed disbelief as he sank onto one knee at my feet and reached for my hand.

“No?” he echoed, stopping short belatedly as if he’d just heard what I’d said. “No, what?”

No, a lot of things.

No, this can’t be happening.

No, you’re not allowed to propose to me.

No, I can’t possibly marry you.

I took a deep breath. “Mike…”

“Beau, will you marry me?” The question spilled forth in an earnest rush. “I love you. Please.”

thirty-seven

The present

T
he door to the suite opens before I can knock, leaving me standing there with a raised fist and the realization that it’s absolutely too late to back out now.

Not that I planned to.

All right, I
was
tempted to ask the elevator operator to make it a round trip. But I didn’t.

So here I am, face-to-face with Mike once again.

And stunned, once again, to see that he’s aged.

No, not since last Tuesday.

Just…I don’t know if I’ll ever get used to seeing him with graying hair and crow’s-feet.

“I’m kind of surprised you’re here” is all I can think of to say as middle-aged but still drop-dead-gorgeous Mike steps back and motions me inside.

“I was about to say the same thing to you.” He closes the door behind me with what seems like a deafening click.

“I got your e-mail.”

“Obviously.”

“Obviously?”
I echo, feeling as though my brain stopped functioning properly back at home, before I picked up my keys.

“You’re here,” he explains.

“Oh, right. I’m here.”

Here
is a spacious suite with old-fashioned moldings, tall, drapery-framed windows, European furnishings and a stunning view of Central Park.

“What do you think?” he asks.

“It’s beautiful.”

“Eh,” he says with an unimpressed wave of his hand.

“Eh?”

“You never did get to see the presidential suite at the Don CeSar. If you had, you’d be saying ‘eh,’ too.”

“I doubt that.”

“Can I get you a glass of wine?”

“No, thanks.” I gesture at his casual black slacks and white linen shirt, wondering why he isn’t wearing a suit and tie, and, again, why he’s here in his suite midday. “Do you have…I mean, aren’t you busy with…business?”

He laughs. “Not at the moment.”

“I thought that was why you were here.”

“It is. Why?”

“You don’t look like you’re dressed for it. That’s all.”

“The kind of business I’m here to do doesn’t demand any particular style of dress.”

“Oh. Well, actually, I thought you didn’t have a job in the first place.”

“I don’t, per se. My job these days involves some investments and holdings, and from time to time I come up to New York to deal with them.”

I want to ask him more about that, but he cuts me off with a brisk, “Sit down.”

I sit down.

He sits next to me on the couch. Not right next to me, but close enough that I can smell his cologne.

He never wore cologne when I knew him.

“The last time I saw you,” he says in a tone that’s hard to read, “you ran away, Beau.”

“You don’t mince words, do you?”

“I never did.”

“No,” I agree, thinking back. “You never did.”

His expression is wry. “As I recall, neither did you.”

thirty-eight

The past

“I
can’t marry you, Mike.”

The words were blunt, yet even as I said them, I wasn’t entirely certain that I meant them.

I still loved him. I still thought we could work it out somehow.

He swallowed hard, asked, “Because of
him?
”

That was the last thing I wanted to admit.

I wanted there to be another reason, a noble reason.

Like, I was secretly dying of a terrible disease.

Or, I couldn’t bear children.

In my narcissistic, youthful ignorance, I almost thought that either of those things would be easier to live with than what I’d done.

“Yes,” I said quietly, staring down at the diamond ring I was positive then that I would never wear. “Because of
him
.”

“I can’t believe you’re going to throw away everything we have because of a…a fling.”

Frankly, I couldn’t either.

There were so many things I suddenly wanted to say to Mike.

But not
this
Mike.

I just hoped it wasn’t too late.

I stood up and headed for the door.

“Where are you going, Beau?”

“I just…I’m sorry.”

“Wait a minute. You can’t just walk out. Beau, come on. Stay here and talk to me. You owe me that, at least.”

Yes. I owed him that, at least.

I was crying. Hard.

But I didn’t turn around, and I didn’t stay.

thirty-nine

The present

N
o, I never did mince words, and I’m not going to start now.

“That’s why I’m here, Mike.” I look him squarely in the eye. “Because of the way I ended things with you that summer. It wasn’t fair to you.”