“There aren’t, man. I’m telling you. I just met her at the wrong time. Fifteen years have gone by and I still think about her. I was married to another woman, a beautiful, smart woman, but sometimes I would think about Grace and wonder what it would have been like if we’d stayed together. I’d be making love to my wife and thinking about Grace. How fucked up is that?”
“ ‘Making love’? That’s really sweet, Matt.” He grinned, on the brink of laughter.
“Don’t patronize me.”
“I’m just saying it’s time to start nailing chicks. You’re long overdue. No more making love for you. Doctor’s orders.”
He slapped me on the shoulder and walked out.
Later in the week, Elizabeth stopped by my cubicle. I was leaning back in my chair, playing Angry Birds.
“Matt?”
I looked up to find her wearing a flowing maternity dress, looking like Mother Earth herself, caressing her baby bump. Elizabeth was pretty in a natural, granola kind of way. Plain features, plain brown hair, nice skin, and a sun-kissed glow all year long. It was her personality and her easy betrayal of our marriage that made her ugly.
“What’s up?”
“Don’t you have, like, a thousand photos to edit?”
I returned my focus to the screaming birds. “Done. Submitted.”
Out of the corner of my eye, I could see her put her hand on her hip like a stern parent. Her patience was dwindling. I didn’t care.
“You couldn’t pass them by me first?”
My eyes shot up to her and then back down to my phone. “Well, that’s a fine-lookin’ high horse you’re on, Lizzy.” I never called her that. “You think you’re my boss now?”
“Matt. I can barely tolerate this strife between us.”
“Strife?!” I chuckled and leaned back in my chair. My phone buzzed in my hand. Incoming call from a local Manhattan number I didn’t recognize. I held my finger up to Elizabeth, shushing her before I pressed talk. “Hello?”
“Matt?”
Oh God.
Her voice, her voice, her voice, her voice.
Elizabeth was still glaring at me. She threw her hands up and said, “Can you just call this person back? I’m trying to talk to you.”
“Hold on, Grace,” I said.
“Grace?” Elizabeth’s mouth fell open.
I covered the receiver. “Get the fuck out of here!”
She put her hand on her other hip. “I’m not leaving.”
I uncovered the receiver. “Grace?”
God, I wanted to fucking cry.
“Yeah, I’m here.”
“Can you give me two minutes? I promise I’ll call you right back.” I thought I was going to throw up.
“If it’s a bad time . . .”
“No, no, I’ll call you right back.”
“Okay,” she said, uncertainly.
We hung up. “So, you’re seeing Grace?” Something about her tone smacked of satisfaction, and her eyes said, Of course you are.
I sucked in a deep breath through my nose. “No, I’m not seeing her. That was the first time I’ve talked to her in fifteen years, and you just ruined it.”
“This is your job, Matt. This is a workplace.”
“Is that what you said to Brad before you fucked him in the copy room?” I shot back, flatly. I felt like someone had stabbed me in the chest and I was bleeding out. I felt weaker and weaker by the second. “I don’t feel good. Can you leave me alone please?” My eyes started to water.
She flushed. “I . . . Matt . . .”
“Whatever you’re about to say, I don’t care, Elizabeth. Not at all. Not even one iota.” I shrugged.
She turned and walked away.
I went to my recent calls and hit send on Grace’s number.
“Hello?”
“I’m so sorry about that.”
“That’s okay.”
I took a deep breath. “God, it’s good to hear your voice, Grace.”
“Yeah?”
“How have you been?”
“I’ve been okay. It’s been . . . a long time, Matt.”
“Yeah. It has, hasn’t it?” She sounded a little apprehensive. I was, too. “So what do you do now? Where do you live? Are you married?”
“I’m not married.” My stomach unclenched. Thank God. “I live in a brownstone on West Broadway in SoHo.”
“You’re kidding. I live on Wooster.”
“Oh, wow. That’s very close. Are you still working for the magazine?”
She knew I worked for the magazine? “Yeah, but I do more for the TV channel now. I’m not traveling as much. How about you? Still playing the cello?” A memory of Grace playing the cello in our dorm room, wearing nothing but her flowery underwear, drifted into my head. The light from the window had silhouetted her so I had pressed the shutter on my camera and snapped away as she played. I still had those pictures somewhere. I remembered that I had set the camera down, gone up to her, and traced the indentations above her cute little ass. She had gotten tripped up on the music and started giggling. I wondered now if I’d ever hear that giggle again.
“Uh-huh. Not professionally, I teach high school music classes now.”
“That sounds great.” I cleared my throat awkwardly. I wanted to tell her that she sounded different, doleful, un-Grace-like, but I kept those thoughts to myself.
Several moments of uncomfortable silence passed by. “So you saw the post, I take it.”
“Yes, that was really sweet . . .” She hesitated and took a deep breath. “When I saw you, I didn’t know what to think.”