“Intense?” he said with a wounded expression. “What exactly do you mean by intense?”
“Oh, I don’t know…” I said.
“Sexually intense?”
“No,” I said quickly. “Not like that.”
“Like you spent all your time together? Every night and every waking moment?”
“No,” I said again. My face grew hot with fresh shame as I recalled the night that Margot accused me of blowing her off for Leo. Of being one of those girls who puts a man ahead of a friendship. And an unreliable man with no marriage potential to boot, she added, disgusted. Even then, somewhere deep down, I knew she was probably right, but despite my guilt and better judgment, I just couldn’t stop myself. If Leo wanted to see me, I dropped everything—and everyone—else.
“So what then?” Andy pressed. “You loved him to the heavens and back?” His voice dripped with playful sarcasm, but his hurt look remained.
“Not that kind of intense either,” I said, struggling to find a way to put a detached, nonpassionate spin on intense. Which is impossible to do. Sort of like inserting a joyful note into the word grief or a hopeful note in doomed.
I cast about for a few more seconds before I finally offered up a weak, “I didn’t mean intense…I take it back…It was a bad choice of words.”
It was, indeed, a bad choice of words. But only because it was true—intense was precisely what Leo and I had been together. Nearly every moment we shared felt intense, starting with that very first night in my dark hotel room when we sat cross-legged on my bed, our knees touching, my hands in his, while we talked until sunrise.
“Too late,” Andy said, smirking and shaking his head. “No take-backs. You can’t strike this one from the record, Dempsey.”
And so it was too late.
Fortunately, Andy wasn’t one to beat a dead horse, so Leo’s name seldom came up after that. But for a long time, whenever someone used the word intense, Andy would shoot me a knowing look or make a wisecrack about my “oh-so-smoldering, ever-passionate” ex-boyfriend.
I am not up for that kind of scrutiny now—joking or otherwise. Besides, I reason, as I peel off my jacket and hang it on our wobbly wooden coat rack, if the tables were turned, I’d rather not know about a chance run-in he had with Lucy, his most-beloved and longtime ex, who is now a third-grade teacher at a snooty private school in Atlanta. According to Margot, Lucy was as smart and wholesome as they come while still looking like she could be a body double for Salma Hayek. It was a direct quote I could have lived without.
With this rationalization, I decide once and for all that it is in everyone’s best interest to keep my insignificant secret a secret. I plop down on the couch next to Andy and rest my hand on his leg. “So why are you home so early, anyway?” I ask him.
“Because I missed you,” he says, smiling.
“C’mon,” I say, feeling torn. I like this answer, but almost hope there is more to it this time. “You’ve never been home this early.”
“I did miss you,” he says, laughing. “But my case settled, too.”
“That’s awesome,” I say. I know how much he had been dreading the even longer hours that come with a full-blown trial. I had been dreading them, too.
“Yeah. Such a relief. I have sleep in my future now…So anyway, I was thinking we could get changed and go to dinner? Maybe somewhere nice? You up for that?”
I glance toward the window and say, “Maybe a bit later…It’s really coming down out there…I think I’d rather just stay in for a bit.” I give him a seductive smile as I kick off my boots and sidle onto his lap, facing him. I lean in and plant a kiss on his jaw, then another on his neck.
Andy smiles, closes his eyes, and whispers a bemused, “What in the world?”
It is one of my favorite of his endearing expressions, but at this moment it strikes a small note of worry in my heart. Does my initiating foreplay really warrant a What in the world? Aren’t we occasionally spontaneous when it comes to sex? My mind races to come up with some recent, juicy examples, but disappointingly, I can’t think of the last time we had sex anywhere other than in bed, at bedtime. I reassure myself that this is perfectly normal for married couples—even happily married couples. Andy and I might not swing from the chandeliers and go nuts in every room of the house, but you don’t have to be nailing each other willy-nilly on the kitchen counters and hardwood floors to have a solid physical connection. After all, sex on and against hard surfaces might look hot in the movies, but in real life it is uncomfortable, overrated, and contrived.
Of course there was that one time with Leo in his office…
I desperately try to push the memory out of my head by kissing Andy again, this time on his mouth. But as is the way when you’re trying not to think of something, the scene only grows more vivid. And so, suddenly, I am doing the unthinkable. I am kissing my husband while picturing another man. Picturing Leo. I kiss Andy harder, desperate to erase Leo’s face and lips. It doesn’t work. I am only kissing Leo harder. I work at the buttons on Andy’s shirt and slide my hands across his stomach and chest. I take my own sweater off. We hold each other, skin to skin. I say Andy’s name out loud. Leo is still there. His body against mine.
“Hmm, Ellen,” Andy moans, his fingers stroking my back.
Leo’s hot hands are digging into my back with crazy pressure, urgency.
I open my eyes and tell Andy to look at me. He does.
I look into them and say, “I love you.”
“I love you, too,” he says, so sweetly. His expression is frank, sincere, earnest. His face is the face I love.
I squeeze my eyes shut, concentrating on the feel of Andy growing hard against my thigh. Our pants are still on, but I center myself over him, grinding back against him, saying his name again. My husband’s name. Andy. There is no confusing who I am with right now. Who I love. This works for a while. And continues to work as Andy leads me to our bedroom where the all-or-nothing radiator is either dormant or sputtering steam everywhere. Right now, the room is downright tropical. We push away our goose down comforter, and slide against our soft sheets. We are completely undressed now. This bed is sacred. Leo is gone. He is nowhere.
And yet, moments later, when Andy is moving inside me, I am back in Leo’s apartment on the night the not-guilty verdict finally came down. He is unshaven and his eyes are slightly glazed from our celebratory drinks. He hugs me fiercely and whispers in my ear, “I’m not sure what it is about you, Ellen Dempsey, but I have to have you.”
It was the same night I gave myself to him completely, knowing that I would belong to him for as long as he wanted to keep me.
And, as it turned out, even longer than that.
Six
Margot calls the next morning long before the sun is up—or, as Andy would say, before anyone in their right mind is up. Andy seldom gets agitated, but three things consistently set him off: people who cut in lines; bickering about politics in social settings; and his sister calling too early in the morning.
“What the hell?” he says after the second ring. His voice is scratchy, as it always is the morning after a few beers, which we ended up downing the night before at a Third Avenue bistro, along with burgers and the best shoestring fries in the neighborhood. We had a good time, laughing even more than usual, but our dinner didn’t jettison Leo any more than sex had. He was stubbornly there with me all night, remarking on the crabby man at the table beside us and the Joni Mitchell background music. As I finished my third beer and listened to Andy talk about his work, I found myself drifting back to the morning Leo told me that my face was his favorite in the world. He said it just like that, utterly matter-of-factly and unsentimentally over coffee. I was wearing no makeup, my hair pulled back in a ponytail, sun from his living room window streaming in my eyes. But I believed him. I could tell he meant it.
“Thank you,” I said, blushing, thinking that his face was by far my favorite, too. I wondered if this, more than anything else, is a sign of tr
ue love.
Then he said, “I will never get tired of looking at you…Never.”
And it is this memory, perhaps my top-ranking memory of Leo, that once again fills my head as the loud ringing continues in our bedroom. Andy groans as the caller finally gives up, waits a few seconds, and tries again.
“Let it go to voicemail,” I say, but Andy reaches across me and grabs the phone from my nightstand. To be sure of the culprit, he checks caller ID—which is completely unnecessary. Short of an outright emergency, it can only be Margot. Sure enough, her husband’s name, Webb Buffington, lights up the screen, along with Atlanta, Georgia, where, much to my disappointment, they returned last year. I always knew the move was inevitable, particularly after she met Webb, who was also from Atlanta. As much as Margot loved New York and her career, she’s a Southern girl at heart and desperately wanted all the traditional trimmings that come with a genteel life. Moreover, Webb was, in his words, “So over the city.” He wanted to golf, wanted to drive, wanted space for all his fancy electronic toys.
As evidenced by this morning’s call, Margot and I still talk daily, but I miss the face-to-face time with her. I miss having brunch on the weekends and drinks after work. I miss sharing the city—and some of the same friends. Andy misses her, too, except in intrusive moments like these, when his sleep is impacted.
He jams the talk button with his thumb and barks into the phone, “Jesus, Margot. Do you know what time it is?”
I can hear her high voice say, “I know. I know. I’m really sorry, Andy. But it’s legitimate this time. I promise. Put Ellen on. Please?”
“It’s not even seven o’clock,” he says. “How many times do I have to ask you not to wake us up? That the only decent part of my job is the late start time? Would you do this if Ellen were married to someone else? And, if not, how about asking yourself if you shouldn’t respect your own brother just a little bit more than some random guy?”
I smile at some random guy, thinking that the guy wouldn’t be random if I were married to him. Then I think of Leo again and cringe, knowing that he will never only be some random guy to me. I get Andy’s point, though, and I’m sure Margot does, too, but he doesn’t give her a chance to respond. Instead, he thrusts the phone at me and dramatically buries his head under his pillow.
“Hey, Margot,” I say as quietly as possible.
She issues a perfunctory apology and then trills, “I have news!”
They are the exact words, the same singsongy, confiding tone she used when she called me the night she and Webb got engaged. Or, as Webb is fond of saying in the retelling of their betrothal, before she could even muster a yes to him. He is exaggerating, of course, although she did call me first, even before her mother, which gratified me in a way I couldn’t quite pinpoint. I think it had something to do with not having my own mother and the reassurance that friends might supplant family, even in the absence of death.
“Omigod, Margot,” I say now, fully alert and no longer concerned about disturbing Andy.
Andy uncovers his head and says with a contrite, almost worried, expression, “Is she all right?”
I nod happily, reassuringly, but he continues to look fearful as he whispers, “What is it?”
I hold up a finger. I want confirmation even though there is absolutely no doubt in my mind what her news is. That voice of hers is reserved for exactly two things—weddings and babies. She had at least three significant promotions at J. Crew and had been blasé about every one. It wasn’t so much modesty as it was that she never cared all that much about her career, despite how good she was. Maybe because she knew it had a self-imposed expiration date. That at some point around thirty, she would voluntarily retire and begin the next phase of things, i.e., marry, move back to Atlanta, and start a family.
“Are you?” I ask, fast-forwarding to envision Margot, swollen-bellied, in a couture maternity gown.
“Is she what?” Andy mouths.
I look at him, wondering what else he thinks we could possibly be talking about. I feel a surge of affection for his boyish cluelessness. Yes, Andy, she is making snickerdoodles this morning. Yes, Andy, she is in the market for a baby grand piano.
“Uh-huh!” Margot squeals. “I’m pregnant! I just took a test!”
“Wow,” I say, feeling overwhelmed even though I knew that they were trying, and that Margot nearly always gets what she wants—in part due to her dogged, Type-A personality. But more because she’s just one of those charmed people for whom things just work out. Small things, big things, in-between things. I’ve known her for fifteen years and literally the only setback I’ve ever witnessed, the only time she genuinely struggled, was when her grandfather died during our senior year. And you really can’t count a grandparent’s death as a serious hardship. At least not once you’ve experienced the premature death of a parent.
I say all of this about Margot without resentment. Yes, my mother died at age forty-one, and yes, I grew up wearing hand-me-downs on class-picture day, but I still wouldn’t say that I come from the school of hard knocks. And I’ve certainly had it pretty good in my adulthood, at least so far. I’m not unemployed or directionless or prone to depression. I’m not sick or alone. Besides, even if those things were all true, I’m simply not in a competition with my best friend. I’ve never understood those women, those troubled, complicated relationships, of which there seem to be plenty. Am I occasionally envious of Margot—particularly when I see her with her mother? Do I wish I had her fashion sense and confidence and passport stamps? Yes, of course. But that is not to say that I would ever take those things from her—or begrudge her happiness in any way. Besides, I’m in her family now. What’s hers really is mine now.
So, despite the fact that this good news is far from unexpected, here I sit, stunned and giddy and overcome with joy. After all, there is a huge disparity between planning to have a baby, and actually getting that positive pregnancy test. Of knowing that in a matter of months you’ll become somebody’s mother—or in my case, somebody’s aunt.
“Congratulations,” I say, feeling teary.
“She’s pregnant?” Andy finally guesses, wide-eyed.
I nod and smile. “Yeah…Are you still pissed off, Uncle Andy?”
He grins and says, “Gimme the phone.”
I hand it over.
He says, “Maggie Beth! You should have just said so!”
I can hear her say, “You know I had to tell Ellen first.”
“Over your own flesh and blood?”
“Only one of you is happy to hear from me any time of day,” she says.
Andy ignores her playful dig and says, “Damn, this is great news. I’m so glad we’re coming down there next weekend. I can’t wait to give you a big hug.”
I snatch the phone back and ask her if she’s calculated the due date; does she think it’s a boy or a girl; has she thought of names; should I give her a shower in the city or Atlanta?
She tells me September twenty-first; she thinks it’s a girl; no names yet; and a shower would be lovely anywhere.
“What did Webb say?” I ask, remembering that there is another party involved here.
“He’s happy. Surprised. A little pale.” Margot laughs. “Do you want to talk to him? He’s right here.”
“Sure,” I say, even though I’m not in the mood to talk to him. In truth, I’m never really in the mood to talk to Webb—even though he has never been anything but friendly to me, which is more than I can say for some of the guys Margot dated before him. She’s always been drawn to an arrogant type, and Webb, too, certainly has the makings to be arrogant. For one, he’s an ultra-successful sports agent and former, semi-famous tennis pro—at least he’s known in tennis circles, once defeating Agassi on the junior circuit. And on top of his success and wealth, he has swoon-worthy, classically handsome looks, with frighteningly good hair and teeth so straight and white that I think of an old “Brush your breath with Dentyne” commercial every time he throws his head back in laught
er. He has a big, loud voice and large presence—and is the kind of guy who knows how to give an eloquent speech that thrills the ladies and deliver a punch line to an off-color joke that makes the guys hoot and holler. So, by any measure, Webb should be intolerably smug. But he’s not. Instead, he’s humble, even-tempered, and thoughtful.
Yet, for some reason, I just don’t feel comfortable around him—perhaps because we have almost nothing in common except Margot. Fortunately I never admitted this to her when they first started to date—probably because I suspected right away that he was “the One.” It was the first time I had seen Margot totally, unabashedly smitten with anyone, the first time she liked someone as much as—or even more than—they liked her. I didn’t broach the subject with Andy either, perhaps because he seemed to be such a huge Webb fan, perhaps because I wasn’t exactly sure what I didn’t like.
But I did confess my feelings to my sister once, right before Margot’s wedding when I was back in Pittsburgh for a random weekend. We were having lunch at the Eat’n Park, our favorite hangout in high school, and still our sentimental pick whenever I go home. Every table has multiple memories, and we chose the one closest to the door that conjured her post-junior prom meal with a guy now doing time for something; my father’s impromptu nosebleed one evening (that we all thought was ketchup at first); and the time I ate five chili dogs on a bet. As Suzanne and I decked our Big Boys with an array of condiments, she asked about Margot’s wedding with what I detected as a bit of disdain that always seemed to be present when she discussed the Grahams—disdain that was, in my opinion, both unwarranted and a tad mean-spirited. But despite her tone, I could also tell that Suzanne was intrigued by Margot in the same shameless and superficial way we used to be intrigued by Luke and Laura on General Hospital and Bo and Hope on Days of Our Lives.