Ten

After my initial sadness I felt the cool breeze of relief: relief from having to explain myself, relief from making decisions, relief from worrying about Michael’s feelings. But I didn’t quite know what to do with myself. I flipped through a catalog, watched TV for about four and a half minutes and went for a walk. And then I came back, retrieved the Post-it and studied Patrick’s number. I turned it over, flipped it upside down and waved it around as if it were a birthday present I was savoring opening.

Should I?

What if I did and we said a cheery hello, excited to hear each other’s voice, and then ran out of conversation in seven seconds and had to suffer through an awkward silence before politely hanging up? Just because things were easy in the virtual world didn’t mean they would be easy in reality.

But wasn’t it also possible we could have an immediate connection and chat as if we were back in high school? Maybe we would laugh and joke the way we did back then. Maybe it would feel as if no time at all had passed. How fun would that be?

I wondered if Patrick was a different person from the one I knew. Do people change? Every young bride thinks so. Don’t we all marry with that bright shining light of what will be? Not what is, but what will be once the new hubby gets what it’s all about and realizes that sharing his every thought and wish and dream is fun!

Yeah, right.

That’s what I’d thought when I married the first time at twenty-two. And the second time at thirty-four. But now at fifty I finally understood: we all like to think we’ll change, that we’ll be more confident as we grow older, or wiser, more sophisticated, more tolerant, patient, understanding. But deep down we’re basically the same people we were when we were fifteen or twenty. And although maybe, with a concerted effort, we can change ourselves, we’re never going to change our partner.

So, should I call? Well, it was a fifty-fifty proposition: we’d either connect or we wouldn’t. I dialed the number. It rang once and then again as I tapped my fingernail on the desk. Suddenly I got cold feet and was about to slam down the receiver when a voice said, “Hello?” His voice. I recognized it immediately and blood rushed to my face.

“Hello?” he said again.

“Patrick?”

“Yes…?” He paused. “Libby?”

How’d he know?

“Oh, Libby,” he exclaimed, “is that you?”

“It is.”

“I’m so happy to hear your voice. Man, this is weird, isn’t it?” He laughed, a genial, familiar sound, even after thirty-two years. I could see the big smile on his face, but it was the face I last saw thirty-some years ago, not the new one in the picture he’d sent.

“It’s very weird. You sound so much like yourself. It takes me back in time.”

“Me too,” he said. “Little Libby Carson. Wow. Cool. So how are things?”

Unbelievably, I said, “Awful,” and as soon as the word was out of my mouth, I wanted to grab it and stuff it right back in. Couldn’t I have made a little small talk first?

“What’s going on?” he said, his concern reaching like a hug across the wires.

“Michael and I are fighting about this engagement thing. He sort of stormed out earlier.”

“Why are you fighting?” he asked.

“I’m not sure I want to get married. It was never in my game plan, so Michael’s not very happy with me right now.” What possessed me to tell him this? He’d sounded delighted to hear from me, probably thinking this was going to be a lighthearted “remember-when” kind of conversation, and here I was spilling my guts like a kid in confession.

Watch him hang up on me.

“Wow. Well … oh man, Libby, I’m sorry,” he said. What else could he say? I wished I could take it all back, hang up and start over. Why isn’t there a replay button in life? “Are you okay?” he asked.

“I’m okay,” I said. “Jeez, I haven’t talked to you in thirty-two years and the first thing I do is tell you all my problems.”

“It’s okay,” he said. “I’m not so good with my own problems but I’m dynamite with other people’s.” I chuckled with the lightness his words brought. “What are you going to do?” he asked.

Appallingly, tears came. I couldn’t speak except for small embarrassing mewling sounds.

“Libby?”

“Yes,” I said in a high-pitched, whiny, cry-baby voice. It was so incredibly embarrassing. I was fifty, for god’s sake. Fifty.

“It’ll be okay,” Patrick said. “It’s hard, but you’ll work it out.”

“Yeah, I know,” I said after regaining a scrap of composure. “I’m sorry to be dumping this on you after all these years, to be crying like a baby—”

“Libby,” he interrupted, “don’t worry about it, okay? I love other people’s misery. It makes me feel superior and I have so few chances to do that.” It felt good to laugh. “Look, if you want to talk, I can listen. If you’re not comfortable talking to me about it, that’s something else, but if you are, then don’t worry about it. Talk all you want. We’re friends.”

“We haven’t seen each other in a lifetime.”

“Well, so we took a hiatus.”

“Tell me about you,” I said. “What’s going on in your world?” I didn’t want to talk anymore. There was no telling what other stupidity could come out of my mouth with little or no provocation.

So Patrick talked and I smiled as I listened to the recognizable cadence of his voice, feeling like I was seventeen again, back in my lavender bedroom with Eric Clapton and David Bowie posters on the walls, idly chattering, making plans to meet before homeroom.

He told me about a kayak tour he’d done the day before. “Most tours take about four hours,” he said, “but this one took almost seven. Everything that could go wrong did. There’s a name for that, isn’t there? What’s that called?”

“Murphy’s Law,” I said.

“I’m renaming it Harrison’s Law,” he said. “I was already paddling the nine-year-old son when the father got a cramp and decided to walk back, so I had to tow his kayak in. Then when we got back the mom didn’t feel well and I’m helping her out of her kayak when she barfs all over it.”

I laughed. “At least she didn’t barf all over you.”

“Really.”

“Here I thought you had such a glamorous profession,” I said.

“Yes, very glamorous. Cleaning up vomit.”

He told me about the weather in Florida and about where he lived on the beach and about his dog named Chewbacca. The sound of his voice was soothing and I was happy just to listen. He told me how his son Ashley was working full-time, putting himself through school, studying filmmaking, and still found time for his wife and two kids. “There’s not a big call for filmmakers in South Florida,” he said, “but what the hell. It’s his life and he’ll figure it out. He’s a good kid with a good head on his shoulders in spite of the handicap of being raised by me.”

What if Patrick and I had stayed together and gotten married? Ashley could have been our son. Surely we wouldn’t have named him Ashley, though.

“You must have done something right,” I said.

“All I did was enjoy the hell out of raising him.”

“How is it that you were the one to raise him?”

“His mom got into drugs when he was little, so I took him. By the time she got it together, he was settled in with me and things were going pretty well, so we left it that way.”

“Do they have a good relationship? Your son and his mom?”

“Yeah, now they do. She cleaned up her act after a while. She’s doing good now.”

“Did she ever try to get custody?”

“No. She moved close, though, and spent as much time with him as she could. We were friends by that time and we worked it out between us.”

“How civilized,” I said, thinking of the broken relationships in my wake and the fact that I’d never spoken to any of my exes ever again.

“Yeah, I guess it is. But life’s too short to hold grudges.”

“God, you’re so reasonable. Were you always like that?” I didn’t remember this, but we were practically children when we were together. I liked his lightheartedness, his easy optimism. It was so different from what I was used to.

“I guess,” he said. “I’m not saying we can control how we feel, but I think we do have choices about how we let what we feel control our lives.” He paused. “I should shut up, shouldn’t I? I’m sounding like an evangelist.”

“Not at all. It’s a great attitude. How’d you get to be so mentally healthy?”

“Years of therapy,” he said. “Hey, I sent you a photo. Did you get it or are you just ignoring it out of respect for my feelings?”

I laughed. “I did. I love it. Your son looks just like you used to.”

“And I don’t.”

“Well, who does? You look great, though. At least in the picture.” He laughed. “And your family’s very handsome.”

“Send me one of you, okay?”

“I will.”

I had a fine, cozy feeling as I hung up, glad I’d called. Patrick’s perspective on life made me feel more philosophical about Michael. Maybe a separation would be good for us. Maybe a little distance would help us realize how important our relationship was. “You’ll work it out,” Patrick had said, and I knew that was true, one way or another. Maybe Michael and I would get married, maybe we wouldn’t. Maybe I would end up with Patrick instead. I laughed at this silly fantasy, but imagined seeing him again after all these years, gazing longingly into each other’s eyes, devouring each other’s face and then hugging excitedly, professing our long-lost love.

Silly stuff. The stuff of romance novels.

I went to my computer and searched through pictures I had stored on my hard drive. There was one from last year’s vacation, but I was wearing a blue dress with a large print that made me look like a blimp. What had I been thinking? I made a mental note to get rid of it. There was another photo that wasn’t bad but my neck looked saggy. Then I found one taken at a backyard party at Sophie and Pete’s. I was lying on the grass, leaning on my elbow as I played with someone’s small, blond grandchild. We had both looked up, surprised, when Michael called to me and snapped the picture. Sun glinted off the gray in my hair, making it look like shiny highlights, and I had an open, unself-conscious smile. I was wearing shorts and a low-cut top, and my legs looked long and sleek, even though they’re not all that long. Or all that sleek. But the angle was just right.

Patrick,

It was so much fun talking to you. A blast from the past.

So here’s a picture. Last time you saw me I wore black eyeliner and had long straightened hair parted down the middle. There are a few other changes as well. Hah! I’m also sending a picture of Sophie and Pete.

Say, didn’t you have a big, old black Ford with huge fins that we used to go “parking” in?

Libby

P.S. Do you have a girlfriend?

I couldn’t help myself.

A reply came back within minutes.

Girl, the years have treated you well! Are you sure you didn’t hire a stand-in?

I laughed out loud.

No, really, you are still beautiful even without the eyeliner.

Thanks for the picture of S & P. It’s great to see them! Give me their e-mail addresses, would you? I’d love to contact them.

That was a ’61 Ford Starliner, to be specific. I’m flashing back right now. Didn’t we used to go to a little covered bridge that was in a housing development somewhere and park there? So neat to pull up these memories.

Peace,

Patrick

P.S. Nope. No girlfriend.

Why did that please me?