Ben looks up from his paper and we make eye contact, both of us nodding politely. He folds his paper and pushes it aside as I take off my jacket and will myself to sit and say hello. My hands are shaky, and my voice does not sound like my own.
“Hello,” Ben says, in a tone I can’t pinpoint. He sounds happy and sad at once. He looks changed, yet utterly the same. His hair is a bit longer than I’ve ever seen it, but purposely longer—not in-need-of-a-haircut longer. I don’t want to like his new look, but I do. He is wearing his hunter-green hooded sweatshirt, one that predated even me. I can conjure the feel of the soft-brushed cotton and have the strongest urge to reach out and touch his sleeve. It suddenly occurs to me that he didn’t come from work, Ben’s wardrobe is casual, but not this casual. He is drinking coffee, and his cup is already half empty. So I say, “How long have you been here?”
“Awhile,” Ben says.
“We did say noon, right?” I say.
“We did. Yes.”
“Did you come from work?”
“No,” Ben says. “No work today.”
I start to say that we could have met somewhere else, so that he didn’t have to travel all the way from the Upper West Side, but I stop myself when I realize that Tucker might live in this Gramercy neighborhood. Instead I nod and say, “Just taking the day off?”
“Yeah,” he says as he unzips his sweatshirt a few inches, low enough to reveal an ancient REM concert T-shirt. I know that he bought it the night he almost caught Michael Stipe’s harmonica. I also know that there is a hole in the left sleeve, one that I used to poke my finger through.
Our waitress arrives a moment later and asks if we’re ready to order. We tell her we are, although I haven’t begun to think of food. Ben orders the smoked turkey breast sandwich.
“I’ll have the same,” I say because it requires less effort than anything else.
“Something to drink?” she asks.
“A Coke, please,” I say, although the last thing I should have right now is caffeine.
She nods, takes our menus, and briskly walks away as I think, Now what ?
Ben fills the silence and says, “Look. I know why you wanted to see me today, Claudia.”
“You do?” I say, thinking that I’m not even sure why I wanted to see him today. To congratulate him on his engagement? Or to talk him out of his engagement? I look at him expectantly, hoping he’ll just say it for me.
“Yeah,” he says, running his hand through his hair as he looks down at the table. “And I think it’s really big of you.”
“You do?” I say, realizing that it’s the former. That he thinks I came here today to give him my blessing in person. That he thinks his ex-wife is mature and gracious. I tell myself that I must live up to the billing.
Ben nods. Then he unzips his sweatshirt the whole way and takes it off. My eyes dart to the familiar hole. I manage a small smile and say, “Well thanks.”
I know I need to say more, say the actual words he is expecting from me, but I can’t get them out. I simply can’t make myself give him my blessing and my final good-bye.
Instead I muster up a weak, “I want you to be happy.”
He can take it or leave it. It’s the best I can do.
A long silence follows, one in which Ben fiddles with a packet of Equal, and I refold my jacket on the seat next to me. We look up at each other at the same second, and I’m shocked to see grief on Ben’s face.
“I want you to be happy, too, Claudia. I do But I just can’t let you do this.”
I try to process his words, but they make no sense. “Do what?” I say.
“Marry Richard,” he says, pointing to the ring on my left hand.
” What ?” I say, totally confused now.
His voice is low and his words come rapidly. “I know you came here to tell me you’re engaged to Richard. And I know you think you found in him something we didn’t have. A promise of the kind of life you want the kind of life you deserve I also know that I’m too late. Way too late. That vows have been broken and bridges have been burned. But I just want to tell you, Claudia I must tell you that I love you with my whole heart and I’d do anything to get you back. I don’t need a baby. I don’t even want one if it’s not with you I don’t want anyone or anything but you.”
I am stunned and speechless. I simply cannot believe what I’m hearing. It is my speech, the words I thought about saying to Ben, so many times, at least until I saw Tucker’s ring. It is too much to process at once so I start out with a simple question. I look at him and say, “What about Tucker?”
“What about her?” Ben says, looking as dumbfounded as I feel.
“Aren’t you marrying her?” I say.
He laughs and says no.
“But I saw her ring,” I say.
“Claudia. She’s engaged to some guy named Steve,” he says.
“A doctor at her hospital Why in the world did you think the ring was from me ?”
“But you ran the marathon together,” I say, feeling foolish with my flimsy Internet evidence.