“Barbara!” he said again, and the voice made me feel flushed.
“Fred?” I asked, even though I knew for certain that this was indeed Fred Lancaster, the man who over the course of two decades had managed to break my heart, twice. The first time was when he left for the war, shipped out to the Pacific without ever looking back. The last time, he swept back into my life and out again so fast it felt like I’d dreamed his return. I’d vowed that if I ever I saw him again, I’d be sure to make him suffer. But Fred had moved out of the country, to Buenos Aires or some other hot South American city, and my fantasies about how to hurt him eventually faded in the chaos of Vietnam and assassinations and my own enormous grief.
Now here he stood.
In a storm like this, it was hard to say no to a man with an umbrella. I ducked beneath it, dripping rain on his wing tips.
“I can’t believe I’m actually running into you,” Fred said, shaking his head. “Just this morning I was wondering how I could find you.”
“Really,” I said, unable to hide my sarcasm.
“I heard about your daughter—” Fred began, but I held up my hand to shush him. I did not want Michelle’s name coming out of his mouth.
With his free hand, he touched my wet cheek. “How are you, Barbara?” he asked tenderly.
I wish I had recoiled. Or stepped out into that storm. But instead I bent my head so that his hand cupped my face. Fred stroked my cheek, and traced my lips. I closed my eyes. When his fingers lingered on my mouth, I wanted to stand on tiptoe and kiss him. I wanted to let him hold me again.
Instead, I opened my eyes and stared straight up into his.
Then I bit him.
Hard. Enjoying the feel of bone, the skin breaking, and the metallic taste of blood.
“Hey!” he gasped, his hand jerking back, knocking against my teeth.
I smiled. Revenge felt sweet.
Fred assessed the damage to his finger. “Lucky for you, I think I’ll live,” he said.
That’s when I noticed the thick gold wedding band on his ring finger. I ignored the pang of jealousy that cut through me, and said, “Lucky how?”
“Well,” Fred answered slowly, “lucky because that means I can buy you dinner. Tomorrow night?”
I knew the response should be no. I knew that I should walk away, fast.
“Okay,” I said.
“Okay,” Fred said, his voice low.
He bent toward me. I didn’t like the new style men were wearing, droopy mustaches and long sideburns. And Fred had both. Despite my protests, Jim had done the same thing.
“Maybe third time’s the charm,” he whispered, making me hate myself for the way those words and the smell of his Old Spice made my heart beat a little faster, made me want to rip off his London Fog and feel his skin beneath my hands again.
“Don’t count on it,” I said, surprising myself that I could pull off sassy.
In one swift motion, Fred straightened and yanked the umbrella shut. I could see small pinpricks of blood on his finger and they made me smile. The storm had ended as quickly as it began.
“We’ll meet right here then?” he said, motioning with his chin toward the Shepard clock. “Six o’clock?”
Before I could answer, he simply walked off in the direction he’d come, leaving me wet and alone, my tube of lipstick still clutched in my hand.
*
We’d named her after the Beatles song. At night, we sang it to her to put her to sleep. Michelle, ma belle . . . When that song came on the radio now, I had to pull over, stop driving, until I could catch my breath again. Jim still played it on the stereo, over and over again in the living room with the shades pulled shut, a glass of bourbon by his side. That’s where I found him when I got home, flopped in the easy chair, bourbon in hand, that hateful song’s final chords playing.
“Please,” I said, “don’t put it on again.”
He didn’t respond, or even acknowledge me. But he stayed seated at least, and let the needle on the record player keep skittering across the 45.
“Is there dinner?” I asked, already knowing the answer.
Maybe he shook his head no.
I didn’t wait around, just went to the kitchen and peered into the near empty refrigerator. At first, people brought food: tuna casseroles and Chicken Divan, meatloaf and lasagna. But eventually those stopped, as if in half a year’s time we should be better, over it, back to cooking dinner and living our life. Even though the high chair sat empty in the corner, and down the hall a room with lemon-yellow walls had a half-finished puzzle on the floor, a box of Crayola crayons opened, and an unmade big-girl bed. Even though, I thought as I opened a carton of cottage cheese, we had nothing to live for anymore.