I think of the last time she told me that my age was irrelevant simply because I didn’t want children. This time I say something. “I know I don’t want kids But that doesn’t mean I don’t want anything .”
Jess looks hurt when she says, “You have me.”
“I know I do, Jess,” I say. “And I love you to death But you know friends aren’t the same thing.”
She doesn’t try to dispute this. Instead she says, “Well, you have Richard, too.”
“Richard’s not enough, either,” I say. “I want more. I want what I had with Ben.”
Jess inhales as though she is about to impart some wisdom I am pretty sure she does not possess. Then she stops and just says, “Don’t we all, my friend? Don’t we all?”
Later that night, my cell phone rings and awakens me from a fairly sound sleep. I answer with a disoriented hello.
“I expected voice mail.”
It is a man’s voice and at first I think it is Richard, and then register that it is Ben.
I sit up and snap to attention. No part of me expected a call from Ben, on my birthday or otherwise. I say his name, which feels intimate because I am in bed, in the dark. I look at the clock. It is only nine.
He says, “Happy thirty-five.”
“Thank you,” I say. My heart is racing, and I am smiling. No, I am full-on grinning. Ben has just made me happier than any ring, or any other person, could ever make me.
“How was your day?” he asks.
“It was fine,” I say. And then bravely add, “Better now.”
“So,” he says. “What did you do?”
I hesitate and then say, “Not too much.”
I feel guilty for lying to him (Lake Como could never be construed as “not too much”). And I feel guilty because I went to Lake Como without him. I tell myself that I don’t owe him the truth, and I am allowed to go anywhere with anyone I choose. But I still feel guilty.
“Annie says your boyfriend took you somewhere?” Ben says, and I can suddenly tell that he’s been drinking. The boldness of the question gives something away, but beyond that, his speech is slightly slurred, all the words running together. And just as I am very good at guessing what time it is in the morning by the light coming through the window, I can pretty much guess that Ben’s had five beers, six tops. What I can’t tell, however, is whether he drank them alone or with Tucker.
“Oh, she did, did she?” I say, wondering whether Annie thought she was helping me outor whether she was sabotaging me, when she passed this information along. Then I consider saying that Richard is not my boyfriend, but I’m not so sure I want Ben to have this information. It depends on whether he’s with someone, which of course, I don’t know. Apparently Annie’s gossip only flows in one direction. Regardless of her intent, I feel on the verge of writing her off.
“So where’d you go with ol’ Richard?” Ben says. “And I do mean old .”
“Are you drunk?” I deflect. I do not want to tell him where I was.
“Maybe,” he says. “I had to celebrate my ex-wife’s birthday, after all.”
“With Tucker?” I say, proving that, unlike Ben, I don’t need five or six beers to ask immature, incendiary questions.
Ben says, “That depends on where you went with Richard?”
“Well, you either were with her on my birthday, or you weren’t,” I say.
“I was, in fact,” he says.
“Fantastic,” I say, marveling at how one person can take me from happy to agitated in seconds. In fact, I am suddenly angry enough to consider revising my stance on Richard. Maybe I’ll have sex with him a few more times. In any event, I am going to wear my ring tomorrow to work.
Ben says nothing, so I say, “How did you and your girl celebrate my big day?”
“That’s for me and Tucker to know,” Ben says. “Just like, apparently, it’s for you and old Richard to know the secret spot of your special celebration.”
The “me and Tucker” is a knife in my chest. The pain is so sharp, in fact, that I blurt out, “Richard took me to Lake Como. The Villa d’Este to be exact. It was magnificent.”
I hear a click and realize my drunk ex-husband just hung up on me, beating me to it by seconds.
The next morning I roll into work, turn on my computer, and promptly Google Tucker Janssen, complete with two ss . She is all I’ve thought about since about four a.m., first in the form of a disturbingly graphic dream, and then in my wide-awake, paranoid, and thoroughly pissed-off state. I am dismayed when I get six hits, but not nearly as upset as I am when I click on the first listing and pull up her grinning mug and an article in her hometown (Naperville, IllinoisI knew she was Midwestern) newspaper. The caption reads: HOMETOWN GIRL TURNED HARVARD MED STUDENT SAVES DYING MAN. The article is four years oldwhich means she’s no longer a medical student. She’s a full-fledged, practicing doctor. I scan the article and read her quote: “I’ve actually known CPR since junior high, so I didn’t really apply any new skills. But the incident did lead to my decision to practice emergency medicine.”
My heart drops as I grab the phone and hit my speed-dial button for Jess at work.