I’m making the most of my last bite. The taste of veal is singular, rich, thick. Sure, every time you order veal it’s a little different, but they share common traits. Subtle flavors, pliable flesh, deep enjoyment. I finish my bite and smile. I think back to the seduction of Mia, how easy it was compared to some others I’ve encountered lately, most notably Caroline.
Caroline felt it, though. The chemistry, the surge. My power. But now I need to focus on Mia. That is the task at hand. Operation Make Mia Love Me Completely Again Tonight. What is going on with her? I wonder. Why the trip down memory lane? I swallow and soften my approach.
“You wouldn’t have said no, Mia,” I say. “It was an instant connection. Such chemistry. I know you felt it, too.”
“I felt it,” she admits, her voice quiet. I lean forward to hear her. “But with all the rules, well, if I had turned you down, what would you have done? Would you have been embarrassed? Tried to get me fired? You did hold all the power. I was brand-new at the agency. What would have happened?”
“I’m not sure I see the value in hypothetical conversations. But if you’d said no, I would have kept asking until you agreed to go out with me. I knew we were meant to be together. I couldn’t imagine a different outcome,” I say. I’m so good at this. “Our story is a romance novel. Love at first sight. As you wish and all that happily-ever-after.”
“I don’t read romance novels, but I do know most people are driven by fear and shame. Most guys would have been nervous to ask a new, young associate on a date, especially since there are rules about that. But you didn’t have any fear, not at all. You don’t have any shame either. It’s interesting,” she says. Apparently, she has finished pushing greens into her mouth as she places her fork at four o’clock and slides the bowl an inch forward. Impeccable manners, another reason I love her.
“I know what I want and I go for it. There’s no shame in that, Mia. Not to me,” I say. “I am what I am.”
“True,” she agrees. “I thought you were so unique, when we first met. You just wowed me. I remember huge bouquets of flowers arrived all the time. You tucked sweet love notes into surprising places at my desk. You swept me off my feet, like a movie, like how I dreamed. Before I knew it, I was ignoring my friends, my family and spending every moment with you. I was intoxicated by you. I thought you were so special, I thought you were the most handsome, most intelligent, most romantic man I’d ever met. And the sex, well, I had never been with a man. You taught me everything.” Mia pauses, takes a drink of water. Her eyes are shiny with love. “But now I know you’re a type.”
“A type?” What does that mean?
“May I clear your salad?” our waiter asks Mia, rudely interrupting when she was clearly trying to say something, something about me or about us, I’m not sure.
“Yes, thank you, I’m finished. No dessert for either of us, right, Paul?”
“Correct. The veal was perfect,” I say to the waiter, who ignores me.
“Coffee?” he asks Mia.
“Please,” she says.
“No,” I say at the same time. He will bring her coffee, I know, even though she knows I hate sitting through a coffee. When a meal is finished, it’s finished. I don’t like to linger at the table. I think you know why now: green beans.
“My family and friends couldn’t believe how fast I fell for you, how quickly we became engaged, just six months after our first date,” Mia says. “That’s really fast. I would kill Mikey or Sam if they did that. And then, bam. I was pregnant. It was all such a whirlwind.”
“But it was right,” I say. “I didn’t consider it too fast. Is there a rule about pre-engagement, honey? I don’t think so. When it’s right, it just is.”
“You’d had a chance to experience the world, move around, live on your own. I basically went from my parents, to college, to you.”
Yes, that’s what made you so perfect, I think but don’t say. I roll my head from shoulder to shoulder and hear a pop on the left side of my neck. What is she poking around at the past for? It is what it is. It led us here. It’s why I selected her. “Yes, I suppose you did. But that’s a path many women choose to walk, a lovely path.”
“Even when I discovered you’d been unfaithful, during our engagement,” she says as the waiter delivers her coffee cup and begins to pour the hot black liquid. The smell reminds me of morning, of the office, of Caroline. I know I’m scowling. The waiter hates me even more now. Why is Mia airing our past in front of this ice-eyed stranger?
“Sugar? Cream?” he asks. The way he says it has me imagining that he is saying to her, “Date, tonight?”
“No, thank you,” she says. After he bows and leaves, she glances at me and blushes. She must know I’m fuming, the fire starting.
“I don’t mean to upset you, Paul. It’s just that this time together, well actually, the past few months, I’ve been thinking a lot.” I don’t like it when Mia is thinking a lot. I just want her busy at home, taking care of the children, the house, keeping her parents happy and sending cash. She just needs to stop thinking, and stop talking to nosy neighbors like Doris and Buck.
“Honey, there’s nothing to think about,” I say. I shake my head intently, hoping she’ll just drink her damn coffee. Why is she rehashing a meaningless one-night stand from a decade ago?
It’s like she doesn’t hear me. “We’d already sent the wedding invitations out, the ceremony was days away when I found out about her. Someone at the office left that note in my desk drawer: Your fiancé is having a fling with a client. I still remember holding the index card the note was written on. My hands were shaking but even as I read it, I knew it was true. I’d watched you flirt with the woman at the office. I saw how she looked at you.
“I was too ashamed to call it off. But you knew that would be the case, didn’t you? That’s why you admitted it to me when I showed you the note. It was a power play. You proved you could do whatever you wanted and I’d marry you, stay with you. All those years ago, you’d already won.”
Yes, I always win. But still, I realize I’m clenching my jaw. The past is just that. If she wants to dwell on it, she can do it on her own time. I don’t feel guilty about my fling with that woman client. It was a last hurrah before the old ball and chain. Plenty of guys do it. But I do wish I could remember her name. It seems to me she moved to Michigan or something. Oh, well.