Love the One You're With, Page 3

  A flicker of recognition crosses Leo’s face now. “That guy? Really? The law student?”

  I bristle at his that guy, his faint tone of derision, wondering what Leo is thinking now. Had he gleaned something from their brief meeting? Is he simply expressing his disdain for lawyers? Had I, at any point, discussed Andy in a way to give him ammunition now? No. That was impossible. There was—and is—nothing negative or controversial to say about Andy. Andy has no enemies. Everyone loves him.

  I look back into Leo’s eyes, telling myself not to get defensive—or react at all. Leo’s opinion no longer matters. Instead I nod placidly, confidently. “Yes. Margot’s brother,” I repeat.

  “Well. That worked out perfectly,” Leo says with what I am pretty sure is sarcasm.

  “Yes,” I say, serving up a smug smile. “It sure did.”

  “One big happy family,” he says.

  Now I am sure of his tone, and I feel myself tense, a familiar rage rising. A brand of rage that only Leo has ever inspired in me. I look down at my wallet with every intention of dropping a few bills on the table, standing and stalking off. But then I hear my name as a featherweight question and feel his hand covering mine, swallowing it whole. I had forgotten how large his hands were. How hot they always were, even in the dead of winter. I fight to move my hand away from his, but can’t. At least he has my right one, I think. My left hand is clenched under the table, still safe. I rub my wedding band with my thumb and catch my breath.

  “I’ve missed you,” Leo says.

  I look at him, shocked, speechless. He misses me? It can’t be the truth—but then again, Leo isn’t about lies. He’s about the cold, hard truth. Like it or leave it.

  He continues, “I’m sorry, Ellen.”

  “Sorry for what?” I ask, thinking that there are two kinds of sorry. There is the sorry imbued with regret. And a pure sorry. The kind that is merely asking for forgiveness, nothing more.

  “Everything,” Leo says. “Everything.”

  That about covers it, I think. I uncurl my left fingers and look down at my ring. There is a huge lump in my throat, and my voice comes out in a whisper. “It’s water under the bridge,” I say. And I mean it. It is water under the bridge.

  “I know,” Leo says. “But I’m still sorry.”

  I blink and look away, but can’t will myself to move my hand. “Don’t be,” I say. “Everything is fine.”

  Leo’s thick eyebrows, so neatly shaped that I once teasingly accused him of plucking them, rise in tandem. “Fine?”

  I know what he is implying so I quickly say, “More than fine. Everything is great. Exactly as it should be.”

  His expression changes to playful, the way he used to look when I loved him the most and believed that things would work out between us. My heart twists in knots.

  “So, Ellen Graham, in light of how fine everything has turned out to be, what do you say we give the friendship thing a try? Think we could do that?”

  I tally all the reasons why not, all the ways it could hurt. Yet I watch myself shrug coolly and hear myself murmur, “Why not?”

  Then I slide my hand out from under his a moment too late.

  Four

  I leave the diner in a daze, feeling some combination of melancholy, resentment, and anticipation. It is an odd and unsettling mix of emotions exacerbated by the rain, now coming down in icy, diagonal sheets. I briefly consider taking the long walk home, almost wishing to be cold and wet and miserable, but I think better of it. There is nothing to wallow in, no reason to be upset or even introspective.

  So I head for the subway instead, striding along the slick sidewalks with purpose. Good, bad, and even a few mundane memories of Leo swirl around in my head, but I refuse to settle on any of them. Ancient history, I mutter aloud as I take the stairs underground at Union Square Station. Down on the platform, I sidestep puddles and cast about for distractions. I buy a pack of Butterscotch Life Savers at a newsstand, skim the tabloid headlines, eavesdrop on a contentious conversation about politics, and watch a rat scurry along the tracks below. Anything to avoid rewinding and replaying my exchange with Leo. If the floodgates open, I will obsessively analyze all that was said, as well as the stubborn subtext that was always so much a part of our time together. What did he mean by that? Why didn’t he say this? Does he still have feelings for me? Is he married now, too? If so, why didn’t he say so?

  I tell myself that none of it matters now. It hasn’t mattered for a long time.

  My train finally pulls into the station. It is rush hour so all the cars are packed, standing room only. I crush my way into one, beside a mother and her elementary-age daughter. At least I think it is her daughter—they have the same pointy nose and chin. The little girl is wearing a double-breasted navy coat with gold anchor buttons. They are discussing what to have for supper.

  “Macaroni-and-cheese and garlic toast?” the daughter suggests, looking hopeful.

  I wait for a “We just had that last night” sort of parental objection, but the mother only smiles and says, “Well, that sounds perfect for a rainy day.” Her voice is as warm and soothing as the carbohydrates they will share.

  I think of my own mother as I do several times a day, often triggered by far less obvious stimuli than the mother-daughter pair beside me. My mind drifts to a recurrent motif—what would our adult relationship have felt like? Would I distrust her opinion when it came to matters of the heart, intentionally rebelling against what she wanted for me? Or would we have been as close as Margot and her mother, talking several times a day? I like to think that we would have been confidantes. Perhaps not sharing-clothing-and-shoes, giggly close (my mother was too no-nonsense for that), but emotionally connected enough to tell her about Leo and the diner. His hand on mine. The way I feel now.

  I cobble together the things she might have said, reassuring tidbits like: I’m so glad you found Andy. He is like the son I never had. I never cared much for that other boy.

  All too predictable, I think, digging deep for more. I close my eyes, picturing her before she got sick, something I haven’t done lately. I can see her almond-shaped hazel eyes, similar to mine, but turning down slightly at the corners—bedroom eyes, my father always called them. I picture her broad, smooth forehead. Her thick, glossy hair, always cut in the same simple bob that transcended trends or era, just long enough to pull back in a squat ponytail when she did housework or gardening. The slight gap between her front teeth and the way she unconsciously covered it with her hand when she laughed really hard.

  Then I conjure her stern but fair gaze—befitting a math teacher at a rough public school—and hear these words uttered in her heavy Pittsburgh dialect: Listen here, Ellie. Don’t go giving this encounter any crazy meaning like you did with him the first time around. It doesn’t mean a thing. Not a thing. Sometimes, in life, there is no meaning at all.

  I want to listen to my mother now. I want to believe that she is giving me guidance from some faraway place, but I still feel myself caving, succumbing to the memory of that first chance encounter at the New York State Supreme Court on Centre Street when Leo and I were both summoned to jury duty on the same Tuesday in October. Prisoners trapped together in a windowless room with bad acoustics, metal folding chairs, and at least one fellow citizen who had forgotten to apply deodorant. It was all so random, and as I foolishly believed for a long time, romantic because of the randomness.

  I was only twenty-three years old, but felt much older due to the vague fear and disillusionment that comes with leaving the safety net of college and abruptly joining the real-world ranks, particularly when you have no focus or plan, money or mother. Margot and I had just moved to New York the summer before, right after we graduated, and she landed a plum marketing position at J. Crew’s corporate office. I had an offer for an entry-level position at Mellon Bank in Pittsburgh, so had planned on moving back home to live with my father and his new wife, Sharon, a sweet-natured but slightly tacky woman with big boobs and frosted hair.
But Margot convinced me to go to New York with her instead, giving me rousing speeches about the Big Apple and how if I could make it there, I’d make it anywhere. I reluctantly agreed because I couldn’t stand the thought of separating from Margot any more than I could stand the thought of watching another woman take over my house—my mother’s house.

  So Margot’s father hired movers to pack up our dorm room, bought us one-way tickets to New York, and helped us settle into an adorable two-bedroom apartment on Columbus and Seventy-ninth, she with a brand-new corporate wardrobe and crocodile briefcase; me with my useless philosophy major and stash of T-shirts and cutoff jean shorts. I had only $433 to my name and was in the habit of withdrawing five dollars at a time from the ATM, an amount that, shockingly enough, couldn’t score me a pastrami sandwich in the city. But Margot’s trust fund, set up by her maternal grandparents, had just kicked in, and she assured me that what was hers was mine because, after all, weren’t we more like sisters than friends?

  “Please don’t make me live in a hovel just so you can afford half the rent,” she’d say, joking, but also quite serious. Money was something that Margot not only didn’t have to think about but didn’t want to think about or discuss. So I learned to swallow my pride and ignore my prickly hot neck every time I’d have to borrow from her. I told myself that guilt was a wasted emotion, and that I’d make it up to her one day—if not monetarily, then somehow.

  For almost a month during that first vivid summer in the city, I spiced up my résumé with exaggerations and fancy fonts and applied for every office job I could find. The more boring the description, the more legitimate the career seemed because at the time I equated adulthood with a certain measure of hosiery-wearing misery. I got a lot of callbacks, but must have been an abysmal interview, because I always came up empty-handed. So I finally settled for a waitressing job at L’Express, a café on Park Avenue South that described itself as a Lyonnaise bouchon. The hours were long—I often worked the late-night shift—and my feet hurt all the time, but it wasn’t all bad. I made surprisingly good money (people tip better late at night), met some cool people, and learned everything I ever wanted to know about charcuterie and cheese plates, port and pigs feet.

  In the meantime, I took up photography. It started as a hobby, a way to fill my days and get to know the city. I wandered around various neighborhoods—the East Village, Alphabet City, SoHo, Chinatown, Tribeca—as I snapped photos with a 35-millimeter camera my father and Sharon had given me for graduation. But very quickly, taking photos became something more to me. It became something that I not only loved doing, but actually needed to do, much the way authors talk about their urge to get words down on paper or avid runners just have to go for their morning jog. Photography exhilarated me and filled me with purpose even when I was, literally, at my most aimless and lonesome. I was starting to miss my mother more than I ever had in college, and for the first time in my life, really craved a romantic relationship. Except for a wild, borderline-stalker crush I had on Matt Iannotti in the tenth grade, I had never been particularly focused on boys. I had dated a few guys here and there, and had sex with two college boyfriends, one serious, one not so much, but had never been anywhere close to being in love. Nor had I ever uttered—or written—those words to anyone outside of my family and Margot when we both had a lot to drink. Which was all okay with me until that first year in New York. I wasn’t sure what had changed inside my head, but perhaps it was being a real grown-up—and being surrounded by millions of people, Margot included, who all seemed to have definite dreams and someone to love.

  So I concentrated all my energy on photography. I spent every spare cent on film and every spare moment taking pictures or poring over books in the library and bookstores. I devoured both reference guides to technique and collections by great photographers. My favorite—which Margot bought me for my twenty-third birthday—was The Americans by Robert Frank, which comprised a series of photos he took in the 1950s while traveling across the country. I was mesmerized by his black-and-white images, each a complete story unto itself. I felt as if I knew the stocky man bent over a jukebox, the elegant woman gazing over her shoulder in an elevator, and the dark-skinned nanny cradling a creamy white baby. I decided that this sense of truly believing you knew a subject, more than anything else, was the mark of a great photograph. If I could take pictures like that, I thought, I would be fulfilled, even without a boyfriend.

  Looking back it was perfectly clear what I should do next, but it took Margot to point out the obvious—one of the many things friends are for. She had just returned home from a business trip to Los Angeles, rolling in her suitcase and pausing at the kitchen table to pick up one of my freshly developed photographs. It was a color photo of a distraught teenaged girl sitting on a curb on Bedford Avenue in Brooklyn, the contents of her purse spilled onto the street around her. She had long, curly red hair and was beautiful in that adolescent, no-makeup way that I didn’t fully recognize at the time because I was so young, too. The girl was reaching out to retrieve a cracked mirror with one hand, the other was barely touching her forehead.

  “Wow,” Margot said, holding the photo up close to her face. “That’s an amazing picture.”

  “Thanks,” I said, feeling modest—but proud. It was an amazing picture.

  “Why’s she so sad?” Margot asked.

  I shrugged, telling her I seldom talked to the people I photographed. Only if they caught me taking their picture and talked to me first.

  “Maybe she lost her wallet,” Margot said.

  “Maybe she just broke up with her boyfriend,” I said.

  Or maybe her mother just died.

  Margot kept studying the picture, commenting that the girl’s bright red knee socks gave the photo an almost vintage feel. “Although,” she added in her usual, fashion-obsessed way, “knee socks are coming back in. Whether you like it or not.”

  “Not,” I said. “But duly noted.”

  That’s when she said to me, “Your photos are pure genius, Ellen.” Her head bobbed earnestly as she wound her soft, honey-colored hair into a bun and fastened it with a mechanical pencil. It was a haphazardly cool technique I had tried to emulate a hundred times, but could never make look right. When it came to hair or fashion or makeup, everything I copied from Margot fell somehow short. She nodded once more and said, “You should pursue photography professionally.”

  “You think so?” I said offhandedly.

  Oddly enough, it was something I had never considered, although I’m not sure why. Perhaps I was worried that my enthusiasm would exceed my ability. I couldn’t bear the thought of failing at something I cared so much about. But Margot’s opinion meant a lot to me. And as insincere as she sometimes was with her Southern pleasantries and compliments, she was never that way with me. She always gave it to me straight—the sign of a real friendship.

  “I know so,” she said. “You should go for it. Do this thing for real.”

  So I took Margot’s advice and began to look for a new job in the photography field. I applied for every assistant’s position I could find—including a few for cheesy wedding photographers on Long Island. But without any formal training, I was once again turned down by everyone and ended up taking a minimum-wage position as a film processor in a small, boutique-y photo lab with ancient equipment. I had to start somewhere, I told myself, as I took the bus to dreary lower Second Avenue on my first day and unpacked my peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwich in a drafty back room that smelled of cigarettes and bleach.

  But, as it turned out, it was the ideal first job thanks to Quynh, the Vietnamese girl who was married to the owner’s son. Quynh spoke little English, but was a pure genius with color and taught me more about custom printing than I could have learned in any class (and more than I eventually did learn when I finally went to photography school). Every day I watched Quynh’s thin, nimble fingers feed the film and twist the knobs on the machines, adding a little more yellow, a little less blue to yield the most per
fect prints, while I fell more in love with my fledgling chosen profession.

  So that’s where I was when I got that infamous jury summons. Although still quite poor, I was fulfilled, happy, and hopeful, and none too anxious to put my work (and pay) on hold for jury duty. Margot suggested that I ask Andy, who had just started his third year of law school at Columbia, for his advice on how to get excused. So I gave him a call, and he assured me it would be a cinch.

  “You can’t lie on voir dire,” he said as I listened, impressed with the Latin term. “But you can exaggerate your bias. Just imply that you hate lawyers, don’t trust cops, or resent the wealthy. Whatever it seems they’re looking for.”

  “Well,” I said. “I do resent the wealthy.”

  Andy chuckled. He could tell I was kidding, but he also must have known from Margot how broke I always was. He cleared his throat, and continued earnestly, “Impetuous body language can do the trick, too. Look pissed off and put out to be there. Like you have more important things to be doing. Keep your arms crossed. Neither side wants an impatient juror.”

  I said I would definitely take his advice. Anything to get back to my regularly scheduled life—and my much-needed paycheck.

  But all of that changed in a flash when I saw Leo for the first time, a moment frozen in my mind forever.

  It was still early morning, but I had exhausted my stash of magazines in my tote bag, checked my watch a hundred times, and called Quynh from a pay phone to give her a status report, when I sat back in my chair, scanned the jury room, and spotted him sitting a few rows diagonally in front of me. He was reading the back page of the New York Post as he nodded to the beat of a song on his Discman, and I suddenly had a crazy urge to know what he was listening to. For some reason, I imagined that it was the Steve Miller Band or Crosby, Stills and Nash. Something manly and comfortable to go with his faded Levi’s, a navy fleece pullover, and black, loosely tied Adidas sneakers. As he glanced up at the wall clock, I admired his profile. His distinctive nose (Margot would later dub it defiant), high cheekbones, and the way his wavy, dark hair curled against the smooth olive skin of his neck. He wasn’t particularly big or tall, but he had a broad back and shoulders that looked so strong. I envisioned him jumping rope in a bare-bones, stripped-down gym or running up the courthouse steps, Rocky style, and decided that he was more sexy than handsome. As in, the “I bet he’d be great in bed” definition of sexy. The thought took me by surprise as I wasn’t accustomed to assessing strange men in such a strictly physical way. Like most women, I was about getting to know someone first—attraction based on personality. Moreover, I wasn’t even that into sex. Yet.