“What else can you tell me?” Richard says after Tad takes our order and trots off. He looks at me expectantly, as if I’m the one who scheduled our little “business” lunch.
I take a sip of wine and say, “As far as work goes?” My mind races to various bits of gossip in the business generally. Just as I’m about to ask him if he’s heard the rumors that the mystery writer Jennifer Coats is unhappy with her editor at Putnam, and is shopping her new manuscript around, Richard shrugs and leans back in his chair. “Or whatever.” His whatever signals that this is most definitely not a business lunch.
I consider my response carefully, feeling as if I have just arrived at a fork in the road. Like the kind in one of those choose-your-own-adventure books I loved so much in elementary school. I could easily discuss the Jennifer Coats rumor or turn the conversation back to Amy Dickerson’s Today Show booking.
Instead, I hold up my left hand, wiggle my ring finger, and blurt out, “I got a divorce.”
Richard looks surprised, and I hope that he’s not going to play dumb and pretend that he knew nothing of my recent news. Then again, maybe he’s just surprised that I’m sharing it with him so readily. I’m a little surprised myself.
Richard tugs on his earlobe and says, “I heard. I’m sorry.”
I consider saying, “That’s okay,” but I’ve always hated when people respond that way after a death or any sad event in life. After all, it’s not really okay . So I say, “Thanks. It happens.”
Richard nods as he swirls the wine in his glass. He takes a long swallow, then says, “Half the time from what I hear.”
“Yup,” I say. “Odds you’ve never played, right?”
The first personal-question card has officially been played.
Richard laughs. “You got that right.”
“Ever come close?” I ask.
Second. “S ure.”
“How close?”
Third.
“Not that close, actually.”
Richard gives someone across the room a quick salute. I consider turning around to see who it is, but don’t want to appear as caught red-handed as I feel.
As if Richard knows what I’m thinking, he says, “Jason Saul.”
I give him a puzzled look and he says, “Little fellow in marketing? With the soul patch?”
“Oh, yeah,” I say. “It’s actually a goatee. Not a soul patch.”
“What’s the difference?”
I describe the difference, pointing to my chin. Richard nods, looking enlightened. I am reminded of my favorite facial hair story. Years ago, Michael was in a moustache-growing contest with another guy at work. Michael was badly losing, and to demonstrate his point over lunch, he nodded toward a girl named Sally whom he actually had a minor crush on and said, “Even Sally would kick my ass.” He was trying to be funny, but unfortunately, Sally was a dark-haired Italian and one of those girls who waxes her upper lip. Sally was horrified and humiliated, as was Michael when he realized his slip. I tell Richard the story now, and he laughs.
“Is Sally still around?” Richard asks.
“No. She left a short time later. Guess she was traumatized.”
Richard nods, and then says, “So where were we?”
“Why you never married?” I say.
Fourth.
“When I meet someone I like being with more than I like being alone,” he says, “I’ll marry her.”
I laugh and tell him that had been, more or less, my philosophy when I met Ben.
“So, what? You figured out late in the game that you still preferred your own company to his?”
Fifth.
“Not exactly Just irreconcilable differences.”
Richard pauses, as if considering a follow-up. Then he stops himself and gives Tad a signal that he’d like another glass of wine.
I decide to just tell him. “I didn’t want kids. He did.”
Maybe I should get a T-shirt made. Most divorces aren’t so neatly summarized.
“Shouldn’t you have covered that one while you were in the courting stage?” Richard asks gently.
“We did. He reneged on our deal. Now he wants them. Or at least one . One more than I want.”
“Bastard.”
I laugh. I like the sound of Richard calling Ben a bastard.
Tad returns with Richard’s wine. So here we are, I think, having multiple glasses of wine at lunch as we discuss my divorce and his perpetual bachelorhood. And maybe he’s thinking the same thing, because the floodgates open and we are firing off the personal questions too quickly to keep track of them.
At one point I say, “So, I hear that you and Hannigan had me on your lists?”
“And I hear that I’ve topped yours for thirteen years.”
I say, “That Michael is a gossipy little girl.”
“So it’s true, then?”
My heart races as I tell him yeah, it’s true.
“I’m honored,” he says.
“You should be,” I say.
He leans across the table and taps the base of my wineglass. “And believe me, I am.”
I work hard at not averting my eyes before I lean back across the table and tap the base of his wineglass. “So am I.”