For a full ten minutes of Tchaikovsky, the lights and music sustained their dance, and then after thunderous applause, whistling, and hollering, it started up again. Finn managed to pull his eyes away to glance over at Maribel, and was almost as mesmerized by what he saw across the blanket from him. Her face was illuminated with a rosy glow from the lights and lasers, her gaze filled with a look of pure awe and contentment that mirrored his own. Even as he reminded himself that he’d only just met her, and that he’d come here intent on finding someone else, he could suddenly see, clear in his mind’s eye, him and Maribel together—sharing morning coffee over their sketchpads in a sunny Asheville kitchen, sitting on their porch swing looking out over the mountains, partnering up to start their own graphic design firm right from home, walking arm in arm to local cafés, coming home at night and making love, and all the while marveling that everything they’d ever wanted was right there between them and around them.
It was unlike Finn to act before thinking it through—but the visions seemed so real, so out of nowhere and yet so clear, that before he could stop himself, he leaned over and placed the point of his finger on her chin, tipped her face toward his, and kissed her softly, slowly on the mouth.
*
Finn was awakened by a headache reminding him that switching from wine to draft beer late in the night was never a good idea. And then he remembered why it had been a good idea anyway. A very good idea.
He opened his eyes. Empty. His bed was empty. The bathroom door was wide open—no one inside. He strained for any sounds of Maribel moving about the apartment but heard nothing except the annoying drone of the raspy old refrigerator he’d been begging his landlord to replace. A few minutes went by, and he was sure. Gone. She was gone. Damn.
He’d known it was too good to be true.
He closed his eyes and felt a smile stretch itself across his lips as he replayed the previous night. The surprise and magic of the symphony and the lights. The beers at the old hole-in-the-wall afterward, where they’d finished the job of getting quite drunk, until their conversation had returned finally to how their night had begun.
“The thing is,” Maribel had said, leaning forward on her barstool confessionally, “I kind of had a feeling before I came tonight that you might not be the guy.”
“You’re kidding.”
“Nope.”
“Then why—”
“I figured a fifty-fifty chance. But I kind of liked the sound of you anyway.”
“Ah. So you weren’t that disappointed, then? Could’ve fooled me.” He grinned, remembering that she’d actually pouted. He’d never been so aware that a grown woman could effectively pout.
“Well, I wasn’t sure how disappointed to be at first, so I had to err on the side of caution,” she said. “Besides, what would you have thought of me if I just kind of shrugged and said, ‘Oh, well, you’ll do instead’?”
Finn laughed. “Touché.”
“What about you?” she pressed. “Were you actually disappointed?”
“Yeah, I actually was,” Finn said, still smiling. It was funny—that man already seemed like someone else now, someone he used to be. “But, oh well, you’ll do instead.”
Neither of them had been too drunk for the sex to be good. So, so good.
With a sigh, Finn forced himself to swing his legs over the side of the bed. He wasn’t even a little bit sorry anymore that she wasn’t the woman from the beach. He was just sorry she was gone.
He scanned the rumpled comforter, the floor, the armchair in the corner for some sign of her. A forgotten accessory. A hairbrush. Anything. But every trace of her was gone. It was as if she’d never been there at all.
Coffee. The only thing to do was make a pot of coffee.
Stepping into the kitchen, Finn stopped cold. The carafe of his brewer was already freshly filled, the burner light glowing red. He stepped closer. And there, underneath a clean mug sitting ready for him, was a note with her name, cell phone number, office number, home e-mail, work e-mail, home address, office address, Twitter handle, and Facebook page. At the bottom, she’d written: “This should be sufficient info not to miss the connection, but other data is available upon request.” He smiled, poured himself a cup, and called Maribel’s cell right then.
“What took you so long?” she greeted him.
9
AUGUST 2011
Violet peered into the bathroom mirror, wiping mascara from beneath her eyes with a too-rough, too-thin square of toilet paper. This was officially a new low point, crying over a man at work, of all places, moments before she had to start interviewing candidates for the graphic design job. What a disaster.
She was becoming a pro at breakups by now. They didn’t throw her the way they used to, didn’t make her question what was wrong with her and wonder if she’d ever catch up to her myriad of engaged and married friends. In fact, she’d almost come to expect them before they happened—and maybe that was part of the problem. But they were usually amicable enough. “It’s just not working out,” or “The timing isn’t right,” or some other cop-out. She would gorge on Ben & Jerry’s for a week or two, like a cliché, and at some point have a drunken night of sobbing alone in her apartment, or maybe at a friend’s, and then, her ritual complete, she would get over it.
But this one was nasty.
She forced herself not to take the cell phone out of her pocket, not to look at the text message again. It had contained a photo of a naked woman, asleep on her stomach, a sheet draped loosely across her buttocks. She’d instantly recognized Matt’s nightstand in the background, the iPod dock alarm clock she’d bought him for his birthday still in its familiar place.
“I’m moving on,” the text had read.
It would have been slightly less cruel if he hadn’t sent it in the middle of a workday.
She’d known he was mad at her—she hadn’t heard from him since that stupid fight had blown up Friday night. “Why do I always get the feeling you want me to be someone else?” he’d yelled.
“That’s not fair,” she shot back. “I always go along with everything you want.”
“Yes, you’re so damn easy to get along with,” he said. “Miss Go with the Flow. You think I can’t sense your disappointment? You’re nodding your head and agreeing, but it’s not because you really agree. It’s just because that’s what you do.”
She probably should have conceded the point. In truth, she had often wished he was someone else. But she didn’t think anything she’d done had warranted this. It was perfectly awful, Gram would say. Not that she could ever tell Gram something that was also so perfectly salacious—and perfectly humiliating.
“Are you okay?” Katie poked her head into the bathroom, looking worried.
“Yeah.” Violet sniffed. “Where do I find these guys?”
“Dicks R Us?”
Violet managed a laugh. She and Katie had worked together for years, and as the only two single women in the office, they’d taken to updating each other on their dating escapades as if it were a hobby. Katie had never been in favor of Matt. Of course, Katie had never been in favor of anyone Violet met ever since Violet came back from Sunny Isles Beach and told her the story of Handsome Stranger. Katie was convinced that he was the guy for Violet, and that their paths would cross again if only Violet was patient. After all, he lived somewhere in the sizable but not planetary Greater Cincinnati area. Outwardly, Violet always brushed this off as beyond unlikely, but in truth it was one of the few things she let herself imagine when things weren’t going well—and sometimes even when they were. Her eyes meeting Handsome Stranger’s across a crowded bar. Him making his way toward her, weaving through the clusters of people with increasing urgency, and when he finally reached her, engulfing her in an embrace and whispering in her ear, “I should have done that while I had the chance.”