That gave him a moment’s pause, but then he frowned and asked, “How in the hell did you get another woman out of . . . what happened?”
“Are you kidding? How could I not?” she mumbled through the tuna. “Suddenly we’re through, and you’re gone. No warning, no sign there was anything wrong. Quite the contrary, in fact. I thought things were pretty damn good. So what else could it be?”
“Leah,” he said, putting his fork down, “there was not another woman. Ever. I couldn’t have done it—I had no desire to be with another woman when I was with you . . . which apparently is another thing you never knew.” He picked up his fork again.
If it wasn’t another woman, then it didn’t leave too many explanations, did it? Other than perhaps that she’d been so pathetic in her desire to marry him and be with him forever that he’d balked, and as that was not something she really wanted to hear him say out loud, she blurted, “Whatever it was, it’s fine. I mean, I didn’t think that then, but look, if I had settled down back then, I wouldn’t have come to L.A., and look at me now,” she said, lifting her hands, one half a sandwich included.
He looked at her like she wasn’t making sense.
Okay, maybe she didn’t look entirely liberated, but she was. “You know what, Michael? You did me a huge favor,” she said with false levity. “I never would have followed my dreams if you hadn’t . . . you know. Dumped me.”
“Could you please stop saying that?”
“Why? It’s what you did.”
He frowned at his salad. “Well, it’s a relief to know you feel okay about it now, because I don’t. I’ve thought a lot about it over the years.” He stabbed at some lettuce. “Actually. I’ve agonized about the way I left things with you.”
Don’t. Please don’t. “Hey, it’s all good,” she said, flicking her wrist dismissively before taking another bite of her sandwich. Was she kidding herself, or did his eyes sincerely look full of regret? “This is pretty good tuna,” she said through a mouthful. “How’s your salad?”
He glanced at the salad as if he just realized he had it, but quickly looked at her again, his gaze piercing hers. “You’re right about one thing. I . . . I really was afraid of commitment. Deathly afraid of it.” He looked away for a moment and pushed a hand through his hair. “It was almost like a mountain I couldn’t climb. I’m not sure why, exactly, but I guess it has something to do with the fact that I grew up in foster homes and never really learned what commitment was.”
Leah almost spewed her tuna. “Whoa, wait,” she said hoarsely. “Foster homes? Since when? Now you are being an ass, Michael, if you think I’m going to fall for some woe-is-me-I-was-raised-in-a-foster-home schtick.”
He sighed heavily. “It’s no schtick. I’m serious.”
“Oh please!” she exclaimed with an incredulous laugh. “Your parents live in Ohio. Your mom is a homemaker, and your dad has a hardware business, and he called you every Sunday. Don’t you remember? You always had to be home by seven so you could take your dad’s call.”
“No,” he said firmly, shaking his head. “I don’t have any parents. The man who used to call me every Sunday was my boss.”
“Get out,” Leah said with a sardonic laugh. She had to hand it to him; whatever he was trying to pull was at least inventive.
“I wouldn’t lie about this.”
She snorted at that. “Okay, love that we’re going in a new direction here,” she said, wiggling her fingers at the new direction. “But you’re missing a couple of important details. For example, why would your boss call you every Sunday? Why would your boss be asking questions about your brother’s soccer game? And even if it was your boss, which it wasn’t, because it was your dad, why wouldn’t you just tell me?”
“That’s what I need to explain,” he said, and in what was possibly the greatest straight-man role in the history of theater, he leaned forward, his gaze intent. “There was no father, no brother. That was my boss. The talk of a brother was just . . . code.”
“Code.”
He nodded.