The Love Wars (23 page)

Gross. I hate when unmarried couples call each other hon. It always sounds phony to me, like they’re playing house. I gulp my margarita and consider excusing myself when I spot Caleb.

He’s leaning against the wall, lazily sipping a beer, a half-interested expression on his face as he listens to someone tell a story. At first I wonder if he’s come dressed as his college self. He has the same half-present expression that he did the first time I saw him at a party my freshman year, as though waiting for something or somebody. I had watched him smoke a cigarette, something I had until that moment found disgusting, and—in an impulse I still find bizarre—imagined myself tracing the contours of his chiseled face with my fingertips. I must have stared for some time, because my friend Olivia followed my gaze across the room and nodded knowingly. “Total sex appeal,” she said, her voice leaving no room for doubt. And then she had insisted on debating which celebrity he most resembled, emphatically chanting “Bradley Cooper. Bradley Cooper. Bradley Cooper,” as I lied that I just didn’t see it.

I watch Caleb’s eyes drift, looking around the room.
Look at me, look at me, look at me,
I will, just as I did eleven years ago. He
nods at someone, I can’t tell whom, and then, as if in direct response to my thoughts, looks right at me. He excuses himself and strides across the room.

“Hey,” he says. He nods to Rico, who has been helping Duck redesign his office, and I introduce him to Henry and Julie.

“Hats off to not dressing up. I admire your resolve,” says Henry with a smile.

Caleb looks down at his plaid shirt and jeans, as though it’s occurring to him in this moment that he’s not wearing a costume. “Oh, yeah,” he says, expressionless.

“So, how do you guys know each other?” Henry says.

“Rico and Duck are almost finished designing Caleb’s office,” I say.

Caleb looks at me and raises his eyebrows, as if he can’t believe that’s the extent of my introduction.

“…and we all went to college together,” I say.

Henry looks back and forth between us.

“What?” I say, feeling my cheeks getting red.

“Excuse us,” Caleb says, putting his hand in the small of my back and steering me over to the couch.

He sits down and pats the cushion next to him.

“It’s all over your face,” he says, his tone serious.

“It’s supposed to be there. It’s makeup,” I say, but I wipe at my cheeks nonetheless.

He gives me a deep look. “I’m talking about your expression. You’ve missed me too.”

I look down at my hand and busy myself with smearing the makeup off with my thumb. “And you’re basing this on?”

He doesn’t respond, so I look up. Caleb is staring right at me, unsmiling, a golden curl falling over his eyebrow. Without thinking, I brush it off his face and his smile lines crinkle, three tiny ridges that deepen for an instant and then don’t entirely recede.

“Like I said. You miss me too. I know you.” He reaches around
my right hand for a second, lacing his fingers through mine and then using them to pry away my empty beer bottle. “I’ll get you a refill. You might need it for the rest of our conversation.”

“Seriously? You think you’ll do better if I’m drunk?”

“Not drunk,” he says, shaking his head. “We just need to manage your inhibitions. Acting on what you really want has never been your strong suit.” He stands up and goes over to the bar.

Henry approaches, jacket folded over his arm.

“We’re leaving now.”

I look around. “Where’s Julie?”

He points. She’s wearing her coat, deep in conversation with Rico. “They’ve been talking about John Currin for ten minutes.”

“So why don’t you guys stay?”

“We have to get to our other party.”

“Okay, well, I’m glad you came and it was really great to meet Julie.” I am lying. She’s kind of a bore, actually.

Henry stands there, paused.

“Who is that guy?” He nods toward Caleb, who’s in the process of opening two beers.

“We used to date in college.” I feel my cheeks getting hot yet again. “A long time ago.”

Henry looks at me for a moment.

“So, see you Monday?” I finally say.

“See you then.” I watch as he walks over to Julie and touches her shoulder; then she trails him out of the room.

__________

I
t’s bright, bright, bright. The sunlight slices through my closed eyelids and I force one open. My hair hurts. I reach up and tentatively touch it. Right: red wig, wire braids. I can tell without looking that I’m wearing only my robe, the blue cotton jersey one that always comes untied. I sit up in my bed and start to rake my hands through my hair, untangling the mess of red strands and wire, as I review the night.

My bathroom door swings open. I sit up straight as Caleb saunters out and my robe falls open. He’s wearing striped boxer shorts and that’s pretty much it.

Right. That was my night.

“Morning,” he says, sitting down on the foot of the bed.

Seeing Caleb, I am very aware of the horrible taste in my mouth. “Hold on a second,” I say, clutching my robe together as I scramble out of bed and into the bathroom.

I look in the mirror. My Pippi wig is still on, a vibrant red fringe half-covering the blond. The remnants of my rosy red cheeks and fake freckles are smeared all over my face, making me look like Baby Jane after a hands-free cherry-pie-eating contest. I gulp down two Advil, bending my head under the faucet for water, brush my teeth for about five minutes, pick off my wig and scrub my face three times with an exfoliating cream. I tie back my hair in a sloppy bun, which feels as refreshing as it should after a night of suffocating my hair with a braided wig.

When I finally emerge, straightening and tying my robe, Caleb is already dressed in his outfit from the night before.

“So?” he says.

“So…what?”

“Any regrets?”

“None.” It felt great to be with Caleb, a heady combination of familiar and electric. “Do you feel like the diner for breakfast?”

He grimaces. “I have to be downtown in”—he looks at his watch—“an hour.”

“Oh, okay.” I turn toward the closet.

“Wait a minute, wait a minute,” he says, grabbing the belt of my robe. He pulls me toward him and in one fluid move, we’re directly in front of each other, close enough for him to drop the belt and slide his arms around my rib cage.

I know it right before our lips lock. I’m hijacked: intoxicated by Caleb’s familiar smell (soap mingled with fresh tobacco) and
the taste of his toothpaste-fresh mouth. It’s like no time has passed, all memories erased, and I’m nineteen again. Only this time, I get it. He likes kissing. He likes me. I wrap my arms around his neck and tug him closer, knowing just what this is and knowing it’s completely fine.

____

W
hen Fern calls my cell phone, I am lying on my bed, risking paper cuts by rubbing my wrist against a yellowed scent strip from a fashion magazine’s March issue. I should be working on a draft of the Wades agreement; instead, like a hopeless teenager, I sniff my wrist and wonder if Caleb would like the smell.

“I am so sorry to bother you,” Fern says against the noise of sirens.

“What’s going on?’

“I hate to ask, but if you’re around, could you come meet us? I wouldn’t ask if I didn’t—”

“It’s fine.” I hear another set of sirens. “Where are you?”

Twenty minutes later, I walk into the pediatric emergency room at New York Presbyterian. Fern and her kids have camped out across a row of blue chairs that’s attached at the arms like a lineup of Rockette torsos. Anna is engrossed in a book with a frothy pink cover, her legs—in star-print tights—propped up on her chair. Connor sits next to Anna, entirely focused on eating an ice-cream cone, melted chocolate dripping down his hands and arm. Fern is holding an ice pack to Connor’s forehead. The three of them look like a family.

Fern smiles when she sees me. “Oh, thanks for coming. I’m so grateful. I tried not to bother you, but my sister, Lolly, is in
Pennsylvania this weekend and my friend Marie is meeting her boyfriend’s parents and for something like this, there was really no one else….”

“No problem.” I nod toward Connor. “He looks good.”

“Yeah, I think he’s okay.”

Fern leans over Connor, her hand still holding the ice pack. “Anna, this is my friend Molly.”

“Hi, Anna, great to meet you. High five!” I say, too loudly and brightly. I always feel awkward with kids, as though I’m reading lines from the script of a hokey after-school special.

Anna’s eyes widen, part disbelief, part alarm. Fern nods reassuringly and Anna quickly resumes reading, sticking a strand of her long brown hair in her mouth.

Fern meets my eye, smiles and mouths “Shy,” although I am sure that she thinks Anna’s reaction was as much due to my vigorous greeting as anything else.

“And this is Connor.”

Subdued by my strikeout with Anna, I keep it simple. “Hi, Connor. You hurt your head?”

“I gotta choclitt icecream! Choclitt! Ice! Cream!” is his response, as he continues to concentrate on inhaling the ice cream like he’s Mick Jagger and the sugar cone is a microphone. There is now chocolate in his curly brown hair, all over his chubby little cheeks and all over his red turtleneck shirt. He looks like a cherubic little pig in mud.

“So, this was a playground incident?”

“Yes, Connor was climbing the monkey bars”—over his head, she uses air quotes, indicating that whatever Connor was doing would not meet a technical description of monkey-bar climbing—“and doing a really
great
job, but he lost his grip and when he fell, he hit his head against the bars. The bleeding has mostly stopped, though.” Fern removes the ice pack and squints at the congealing cut. “And his pupils look normal too and he hasn’t gotten sick or anything, so he’s probably fine.”

Anna looks up and rolls her eyes. “Of course he’s fine. Connor falls, like, all the time.”

Fern nods. “I know, and I’m sure he’s okay, but he bumped his head, so we just want to make sure.”

“But we still get to make pizza, right?”

“Yes, pizza, right after this, your choice of toppings,” Fern says, using her free hand to rub Anna’s shoulder.

Mollified, Anna continues reading.

“So you called me for my medical expertise?” I say.

Fern sighs. “I wouldn’t put it past you to have medical expertise on top of everything else, but no, I left a message with their father to let him know we were here. I thought this was the type of information that he should know.” She keeps her voice light and conversational, but her eyes start to water and I realize why I’m here. She is scared of seeing Robert Walker and wants my protection.

The punch line, of course, is that I am scared of Robert Walker too. He belongs in a horror movie. I am freaked-out enough already at the thought of cross-examining him, even though in court, as Henry constantly reminds me, it’s all only words. Yes, words can be aggressive, annoying and migraine generating, but at the end of the day, how threatened can you be? The words swirl around and it’s over.

That argument doesn’t apply now. We are out in the real world with no bailiffs, rules of procedure or metal detectors. I’m not sure what would happen in an ER showdown, and while I am taller than petite lil’ Fern, I am hardly bodyguard material. I think longingly of that key-chain Mace spray my dad bought me before I moved to New York.

I match Fern’s light tone. “Yep, I’m really glad you called me.”

She shakes her head. “And I called Claire.”

“Interesting tactic.” I try not to roll my eyes.

As a matter of strategy and parenting, Fern has done the right thing by calling Robert. I dread his arrival, but even I have to
admit that he deserves to know when his kid is in the emergency room. Plus, if Fern had not told him, Risa could—and would—correctly accuse her of freezing him out in the same way that Robert’s been doing to Fern. Claire, on the other hand, has no parental rights. She just acts like she does.

Fern knows what I’m thinking and her tone is apologetic. “I just wanted him to get word as soon as possible, so I called her too.”

An idea hits me. “And did you call Emily Freed too?”

“Um, no. I didn’t. Do you think I should?”

“Oh, yes,” I say, carefully watching the kids to see if they’re paying attention to our conversation. Connor is still working on the ice-cream cone and Anna just turned a page, so I don’t think so.

I keep my tone carefully casual. “I think you should just call her, tell her that Connor had a little playground fall and that you think he’s okay. And maybe just tell her that you’re working hard to notify their dad, have left messages and will keep everyone posted.”

Fern nods. “All right, I’ll do it,” she says, sitting back in her chair.

“Fern, maybe do it now,” I say.

Fern removes the tissue from Connor’s forehead, which isn’t bleeding anymore, but sports a small purple bump in the middle—the nub of a unicorn horn. She takes her cell phone from her brown slouchy leather bag, gets up from her chair and walks about ten feet away from us. In a quiet voice, she leaves a message virtually identical to what I suggested. Then, at the end, she pauses and, looking at me, adds, “So, um, we might all be here at New York Presbyterian, all of us, in a little while, and if you have any suggestions on that, or thoughts, just, um, let me know. If not, I’m sorry to bother you on your weekend and we’ll see you next week. Thanks.”

Fern hangs up and, still across the room, starts pacing.

I walk over to her. “It’s okay. It will be fine.”

She stops, speaking quietly so her kids can’t hear. “I screwed up everything, didn’t I?”

“What are you talking about?”

“I’ll never win now. Robert will make such a big deal about this. He’ll say this proves I can’t handle them—”

“And he’ll look like an unreasonable monster when he does. Accidents happen. You acted responsibly. You have nothing to worry about.”

“Really?” She looks at me, biting her lip. “You still think we have a shot at winning?”

“Without a doubt.”

“Because…it’s just gotten so good with them, but I still can’t get back the time I missed. The thought of losing everything again…” Fern slowly shakes her head. “I don’t know how I could…if I could—”