“You really shouldn’t have,” I say again. Because I have nothing else to say.
“I wanted to,” he says. And then, “It’s no big deal.”
I look at him and feel the full truth of his statement. It’s really not a big deal to Richard. The ring. The Villa d’Este. The sex. Me. None of it is a big deal at all. I guess I knew this all along. I knew that all of this was just a matter of Richard living large. It was the sort of lifestyle I thought I wanted, too.
Still, at some point along the way, maybe on this birthday trip, I think I hoped for something more. Maybe I even hoped that I could find in Richard what I had with Ben. But it is suddenly very clear: Richard is not falling in love with me, and I’m not falling in love with Richard. We are not creating anything permanent or special. We are only having fun together. It is a fling, just like he said last night, a fling with an ending yet to be determined. I feel relieved to have it defined. Relieved to know that we are both feeling the same way. But I also feel a sense of profound disappointment. In myself and in the way my life is turning out. My ring catches the sunlight as I think, Maybe I am more like Richard than Ben. I am here because I am more like Richard than Ben .
* * *
twenty-two
On the flight back to New York that night all I can do is ponder my relationship with Richard. I decide that giving a girl a ring when you’re not in a serious relationship is sort of like giving a guy a blow job when you have no real feelings for him. It makes everything feel a little bit cheap. It cheapens the giver and the recipient. I don’t want to feel this way about Richard’s ring (or my blow jobs). I want to be enlightened and modern and independent and sexually liberated. I tell myself that Richard and I feel the same about each other. Nobody is using anyone, or perhaps we are both using each other equally. There is no deceit, no false pretenses. Richard is a grown man with plenty of experience, and he can decide for himself how he wants to spend his money. And I can decide for myself who I want to be intimate with. But despite my masterful rationalizing, the relationship just doesn’t feel right to me anymore. Every time I look down at my new ring, I feel queasy.
By the time we land in New York and take a radio car back to the city, my mood has rubbed off on Richard, and our conversations have become noticeably strained. He has already asked me twice if something is wrong, which is far from our typical light dynamic. I tell him no both times because you can’t very well tell someone who is not serious about you that you are not serious about him but that you feel somehow unsettled anyway. It’s like calling an ex-boyfriend and announcing that you’re over him. Or telling a boss who just fired you that you had wanted to quit for weeks. It’s just weird .
Besides, the last thing I want to appear is ungrateful. I am grateful. I loved our trip as much as you can possibly love a trip when you don’t love the person you’re with. When we pull up to Jess’s apartment, I kiss Richard and thank him one final time.
He says, “I’m going to miss you tonight.”
“I’ll miss you, too,” I say.
It is the first lie I’ve ever told him.
I only miss one person right about now, and his name isn’t Richard.
“Well?” Jess says when I open the door. She is wearing an oversized man’s undershirt and a pair of Daisy Dukes from our college days. The hem is unraveling in long strands. “How was it?”
“It was incredible,” I say. “The place is breathtaking and you packed perfectly. The lacy underwear came in handy”
“But?” she says. A best friend can always sense a but coming.
“But I don’t think I want to keep seeing Richard.”
Jess’s eyes widen and she says, “Why not? What happened?”
“I don’t know,” I say. “I really don’t know. It was all great and fine, and then he gave me this.” I hold up my ring.
She grabs my hand, identifying the gems as a pink tourmaline flanked by two peridots. Then she admits to giving Richard my ring size, but insists that he picked it out himself. She had no input. Then she says, “Wait. I don’t get it. Do you not like it or what?”
“I like it,” I say.
“So what’s the problem?”
“I don’t know The relationship, just makes me feel unmoored .”
” Unmoored ? What the hell does that mean? You read too many books.”
I didn’t expect Jess to understand, but I try to make her anyway. I say that Richard just feels like killing time, and killing time doesn’t feel good when you’re thirty-five.
“Shit,” she says, wincing. “I forgot today was the actual day. I have your card somewhere and another small gift Happy birthday. How’s it feel?”
“Not so great,” I say.
“Why not?” she says.
“I feel old.”
“So what? You don’t want kids.”