know, my parents live over an hour away, and Robert’s mom, well, she’s a little … eh.”
“Does she still smoke?”
“Like a chimney.”
“Robert,” Michael said in a deep, husky voice that sounded strangely familiar. “It’s your mother. Robert, I’m out of smokes and need to go to the store.”
“Smokes.” Amy brought her hands to her face while she laughed. “You know her so well.”
“Lots of practice. Seriously, though, it was my pleasure to watch him. He’s such a great kid.”
“He’s asked about you.”
“Oh, yeah?”
Amy nodded. “‘Is Uncle Michael coming over?’”
“Oh, man!” Michael stared down into his glass of beer and twirled it several times.
“Yeah, he wonders, like the rest of us, what ever happened to that happy-go-lucky guy who used to come over all the time.”
The comment was meant to be teasing and playful, but when Michael looked up, his smile was halfhearted and full of chagrin.
“Well, you’ll have to tell him that you saw me, and that I’m still alive.”
“Definitely,” Amy said quickly and hoped she didn’t overstep her bounds.
“And, if you’re okay with it, maybe I can come by sometime and see him.”
This question stunned Amy; she had to beg and plead with Robert to spend time with his son. Sometimes, the world is so backward. “Of course! That would be great.”
“Cool. So how much does that question cost me?”
“Hmmm. It was a fairly easy question, so just a sip.”
Michael paid up, smacked his lips together, and then sat back. “Okay. You’re up—fire away.”
Amy noticed that Michael didn’t have a ring on his left hand, and though this didn’t completely surprise her, as he enjoyed his bachelor lifestyle, he did date a seemingly endless number of very attractive women. They were usually at least ten years younger than him, which made double dates almost impossible: they would discuss finding a job or life after college, and she would be breastfeeding Tyler. It wasn’t difficult to see why any man wouldn’t want to date these women: they were fit, bold, and bewitching. Michael, however, wasn’t like other guys—or maybe he was, and Amy didn’t see it. It was just difficult to imagine him with any of those women in a long-term relationship, because they were the complete opposite of her, and if that was his type, it meant Amy wasn’t. And if she wasn’t his type (the line of questioning went in her head), then why did their conversations flow so naturally, and why did their eyes linger on one another as if counting the breaths before meeting again?
Amy decided to play it safe with her first question, because if she followed his easy question with an inquiry into his relationship status, her intentions would be obvious. “So tell me about your work.”
“Is that a question?”
“There might be a question mark at the end of it.”
Michael playfully shook his head. “I expected a little more.”
Amy returned his mischievous look and added a slight shrug with her right shoulder. It’s her question, and she’ll ask however she pleases.
“Well, not a whole lot has changed since you last saw me. I’m still at Vitasoft, and I’m still doing a lot of heads-down programming five days a week. The only reason I’m out here is because we have a new VP, who thinks it’s a good idea for us IT guys to work closely with the sales teams to see what they do and hear the concerns and needs of the clients firsthand.”
“That makes sense.”
“Yeah, it’s not an altogether bad idea, and I don’t mind traveling, as long as it’s not all the time. Some of these sales guys—”
“The guys you were talking to?” Amy gestured toward the bar.
“Yeah, those guys practically live out of a suitcase. No thank you. I told them I’d look for another job before resigning to that life.”
“That’s a bit brazen.”
“Maybe, and it may sound cliché, but I work really hard and I like to play hard. So I want to leave work at work, and not travel around the country with it.”
Amy had longed for Robert to approach work as simply a job, but there was no changing that man, and boy, did she try.
“For instance, they have some amazing mountain biking trails out here—just amazing—and it kills me not to have brought my bike. But even if I did, I wouldn’t have had time to go. These guys work like dogs.”
“So you still get outside?”
“Of course. Come on, you know me!”
“Well, I wasn’t sure with”—Amy cupped her hand to her chin—“the beard gone and all.”
“Oh, right, yeah, well.” Michael cleared his throat. “Stephanie wasn’t really crazy about it.”
So there was a love interest. This answered Amy’s second question.
“All right, that was an easy question, and I don’t even feel right for charging you for it, but rules are rules so … you’ll need to take a sip.”
Amy obliged and felt her cheeks grow warm; the liquor was sweet, but it sure did sneak up on her.
“Okay. So now that the first round is out of the way, let’s have a little more fun with these questions.” Michael stroked his chin. “I’m curious about your experience reentering the dating pool.”
Well, counting that silver-haired sleazebag who had approached her at the bar, Amy’s love life was not very exciting; it wasn’t even diary-worthy. She really didn’t count the IT guy from work, though he was very sweet to help her with her computer problems. He offered to buy her lunch, and then as they checked out of the cafeteria, his round face turned beet red when he realized he had left his wallet in the computer room. So technically, that was more of a business luncheon. The only other date was over a year ago when her friend Terri, a fellow nurse, told Amy that a year of moping around was enough and she needed to get out and have some fun.
Amy disagreed. The first year of divorce had a mandatory twelve-month sentence of gloom. Amy, however, was opting for the two-year plan. Terri insisted that with time served, she was up for early parole and proceeded to set up Amy with a cousin who had just moved into town. He was tall and heavyset and talked a lot about the New England Patriots. Amy nodded and listened and prayed that there was more to life after marriage.
“But wait!” Michael said. “I don’t want just any answer. You have to describe the dating pool as if it was a movie from the nineties.”
Amy’s thoughts were swimming in sweet minty bliss, so she stalled. “A movie that resembles the dating pool, or my experience in the dating pool?”
“Oh, I would really like to hear the answer to both of those questions.”
“Two answers? That’s really going to cost you.” Amy couldn’t even name a movie she had seen in two years, let alone one from the nineties, that described her situation.
“And I still get my third question?”
Amy shrugged nonchalantly.
“Okay, fair enough. I’ll pay the price. Let’s hear it.”
Michael leaned forward eagerly, and Amy searched the ceiling quizzically, feigning a deep thought process.
“Well, I guess I’d have to say a movie that resembles the dating pool would be Titanic.”
“Sounds promising.”
“Oh, you have no idea.” Amy caught herself on the verge of gushing an obscene amount of information—details she reserved for close friends or her sister. “Sure, it sounds promising and exciting.”
“And you feel like you’re on top of the world?” Michael extended his arms to the side and pretended to take in the sea breeze.
Amy laughed. “Sure, we’ll go with that.”
“But just as everything is going great, you suddenly hit a giant iceberg, and the next thing you know, the love of your life dies of hypothermia.”
“Exactly.”
Their eyes locked in that magical way that could only happen between the two of them, and each took a long sip of their respective drinks. When she was married, Amy t
old herself that this look just meant they were good friends who understood each other. Now, though, her heart lingered on other possibilities.
“Okay, so what’s your experience been like?”
“Oh, seriously, it’s like a porn flick—”
“Whoa!” Michael’s eyes shot open.
“Oh, no, no, no—not like that.” Amy’s face turned as red as strawberries, and she reflexively brought her hands up as a shield.
“Bartender, two more drinks, please.”
She buried her shaking head in her hand, trying to cover her embarrassment. “Oh, that’s not what I meant.”
“What did you mean?” Michael said innocently.
Amy removed her hands from her face and moved them rapidly in front of her as if trying to wave away the faux pas. “I meant like a bad porn flick.”
“Oh, even better.”
Their faces stretched in laughter as they leaned over and gripped their abdomens. As Amy balanced herself with an elbow on the table, Michael turned to the side and stomped on the floor with the heel of his shoe.
Amy couldn’t remember the last time she nearly peed herself with laughter.
“My face hurts. Oh, man!” Michael said and wiped tears from his eyes. “So please elaborate.”
“I just meant that there are a lot of guys out there with creepy mustaches who just want one thing.”
Michael shook his head in contrived repugnance. “Men disgust me.”
Amy nodded in agreement. “It’s worse than college. At least in college the guys were attractive. Now they just look like my grade school principal, or they’re really fat and can’t even make eye contact.”
She hated the way that sounded. Was she really that shallow?
“Well, a beautiful