Simplicity
November, 2001
Singing at the top of my lungs to my 80’s music, “Here I go again on my own…going down the only road I’ve ever known,” actually puts me in a good mood for a few minutes. It ends when the guy at the gate motions his finger across his neck to turn it off. The jerk doesn’t have a clue how much Kelly would like to hear what I’m playing, and I flash him a look that tells him how irritated I am. I make my way to my usual parking spot and settle in next to Courtney’s and Nicole’s cars. We’re gathering today to recognize the nine month anniversary of life without our voice of reason, and I’ve packed plenty of nachos and beer for the occasion. I sure hope Nicole didn’t forget the cigarettes. It’s still so much fun when the three of us smoke together. It takes me back to when we were young, to when lighting up a cigarette was the most forbidden thing I could possibly do. It takes me back to when things were simple.
I left New York three weeks ago, and I’ve barely spoken to Leo since. He’s been working twenty-four hours a day on the Hedge thing-a-ma-jig with Taddeo, but progress has been super slow. Everything is still such a mess in New York, and he’s worried that it’s going to take longer than expected to get things going at a pace where he’s comfortable moving back to California. But, staying true to my promise to Taddeo to not get in the way of their friendship, I haven’t said a word about how much our new set up scares me and about my fear of him never coming back.
Another thing moving along at a slug’s pace is our wedding. In fact, there’s still been no mention of it. With all of the 9/11 business and Leo’s hectic schedule, it just doesn’t seem right to bring it up…it doesn’t feel right to be happy. Besides, what am I going to bring up? Our parents haven’t met, my friends have never met any of his friends…Shit, half of my friends haven’t even met the other half of my friends! And what the hell am I going to wear? I can’t wear white again. Been there, done that, and I’ll just have to remind Leo of that little tidbit if I bring up dresses, so it’s best not to. There’s no reason to register for gifts. It’d be pretty tacky of me to do that twice in a lifetime. Sigh…Something tells me Barbie doesn’t get two dream weddings in her lifetime. Nope, all of the tasteful divorced Barbie’s quietly elope.
The closest Leo and I have come to the subject of our wedding is when we talk about the engagement ring. He’s asked me a few times over the phone if I love it and, of course, the answer is yes. It’s spectacular! Whenever I wear it, I even get stopped by strangers who ask to take a peek at it. Yes, you read that correctly…whenever I wear it.
Leo bought the ring back in June, right about the time I mentioned my suspicions to Kelly that he might ask me to marry him soon. Apparently, right after we went on our trip down memory lane to Mill Valley and San Louis Obispo, he ran out and bought it. Last month when he got down on his knee and proposed, he adoringly said, “The next time I go back to those places I want to bring my wife” and then he slipped off the pewter Banana Republic ring I’d been wearing since we got back together in March and slipped on the diamond sparkler. His original plan was to ask me to marry him at the Ritz Carlton on my birthday, but it was scrapped when Taddeo came to town. Then, the fight happened, and he wanted to wait until his black eye went away before he made another attempt. That next attempt was set for the night I sprang Freakmont on him, which explains why he was as mad as he was about it. By the time he simmered down from that night it was already September. He made reservations back at the Ritz Carlton for the weekend of September fourteenth, but we all know what got in the way of that. Knowing it would probably be weeks until he saw me in person again because of his new business partnership with Taddeo, he decided to do it when I visited New York last month. I’m glad he did, because it’ll give us an endearing story to tell our kids one day. But, and I’ll only admit this here, even though I’m scared about him being stuck in New York for more than five months, I’m a little relieved that he’ll be there for at least the next few. It gives me time to drop the M bomb on my best friends…who I know will be quick to drop the M bomb on Kurt.
I’ve been trying to figure out why I want to keep my engagement from Kurt. For the past few weeks I’ve been sitting in my cottage listening to every love song ever written, drinking wine and trying to make sense out of feelings that should’ve been left on Dr. Maria’s couch. One drunken minute I think I’m hiding my engagement because of guilt. Marrying the guy I had an affair with makes me feel bad. Sure, marrying Leo makes me look like less of a whore, and it’s proof that I really did fall in love with the person I chose to break my marital vows with. But, it seems like one more undeserved slap in Kurt’s face. I struggle with defending my union with Leo without feeling the shame that encases it. But then the next drunken minute I think I’m hiding my engagement from Kurt because I have a feeling, given his recent come to Jesus moment at the coffee shop about being an emotional lame ass for the last fifteen years, that he’ll knock my cottage door down to tell me I’m making a huge mistake. Of course I’d stand up for my choice, but it’s just one more emotionally-charged encounter with him I don’t want to have. Bad, bad things happen when I’m around Kurt. Buried feelings surface, and he makes me think about stuff I don’t want to think about anymore. But, when I turn off my persuasive love songs and sober up and really reflect on why I’m hiding my engagement from Kurt, I know the answer. And boy, I’m sure as hell glad I don’t sit on Dr. Maria’s couch anymore because she’d kill me if I revealed it to her. I don’t want Kurt to find out I’m engaged because…I don’t want to hurt him. Even after all of this time, I’m still trying to protect the feelings of a man who never asked me to. What’s scary is that in the process of doing that, I continue to assault the feelings of the man I love and the man who has vulnerably asked me time and again not to break his heart.
Right now I only wear my engagement ring at the yoga studios. When I’m around my rag tag team, I get to celebrate my excitement about becoming Leo’s wife. I get to talk about how far we’ve come and about how far we plan on going. I get to start over. But, outside of the studios, when I’m around Craig and Kendall or Courtney and Nicole, I hide my fresh start.
Cracking open my beer and reaching for the cigarette Nicole’s handing to me, I whisper to Kelly, “For now, it’s just our little secret.” And then I allow myself to enjoy the simplicity of the moment while we all light up.