JESSIE
I don’t think there is a more lonely time to be awake than four A.M. I’m lying in bed in pitch darkness Saturday night, staring at the ceiling, wide awake, and wondering how long it will take to adjust to my new nightlife.
It’s not the early hour, though. It’s the guy I’m thinking about.
After my last text to Giovanni, Kevin and I spent a few hours online looking at Paris flats. Kevin gave in to every demand I had: I wanted to make the kitchen my own, I needed at least two bedrooms, I needed to be in the city. It’s almost like I was trying to find fault with the places, and I couldn’t.
It didn’t help that Giovanni texted me about an hour into my apartment search.
Are we still going to the fund-raiser Monday night?
I wrote back truthfully.
Of course. I can’t wait.
I can’t either. I have to go present my wines now to a hundred people. Will be out of commission for a while. But call later if you want to talk.
I did want to call. I ached to call.
But then I felt guilty for how I felt. Kevin didn’t deserve that. Here he was, giving me Paris, marriage, a life. Magic.
But would it be magic? And isn’t everyone’s definition of “magic” different? Isn’t that what we talked about with loving the wine you’re with—that it’s not going to be the same wine for everyone. It’s the same with men. It’s the same with magic. You have to find your wine. Your magic.
What’s my magic? If I dreamt of doing something I knew I would never fail at, what would it be?
If I was the heroine in a romantic comedy, who would I want running after me in the rain?
It’s noon in Paris. I should be talking to my future partner about how torn I am. I sit up in bed, turn on my light, and text.
You up?
I wait at least ten minutes for an answer. Nothing.
Finally, I call Kevin.
“Hey there!” he says, and I can hear the smile in his voice.
“Hey,” I say back. “Do you have a few minutes?”
“I have all the minutes in the world. What’s up?”
Just rip off the Band-Aid. Take a breath and then spill. “I can’t move to Paris.”
That’s it. That’s all I say. I want to inundate Kevin with a million reasons why. But when it comes down to it, there’s no point. I can’t move to Paris. What more is there to say?
Kevin doesn’t say anything for at least a minute. I know because I watch my phone’s timer click 0:31, 0:32, 0:33 …
He finally asks me a question, and it throws me. “Is there someone else?”
“No,” I tell him honestly. “There’s the idea of someone else. That there’s someone out there who I can be effortless with, if only for the first few months. Where, yeah, maybe five years and two kids in we’re exhausted, or overdrawn at the bank, or finally getting a vacation, and it’s at a hotel with waterslides. But where everything with us isn’t always such a struggle. It’s not supposed to be this hard, Kevin. We’re not even married yet, and these last three years have already been so hard. I just need something easy. And living in Paris, while it’s a really great dream, it’s not my dream. And it wouldn’t be easy. And it wouldn’t be home. And I’m home. This is where I’m supposed to be.”
“You would never be overdrawn at the bank,” Kevin says, deflecting my heartfelt statement.
“You’re not getting it,” I say, a little angry. “So let me make it even clearer. I want someone who wants to be with me. From Day One. Who doesn’t go halfway around the world without telling me the real reason why. Who doesn’t need to be talked into spending the rest of his life with me. Maybe I don’t deserve that guy. And maybe the guy isn’t even out there. But it’s what I want. And I’m going after what I want. And hopefully I won’t fail.”
Kevin doesn’t say anything for a bit. Then he says, “Okay. I’ll stop bothering you.”
Another zinger, designed to bait me into saying, “You’re not bothering me Kevin.” Instead I say, “Thanks.” And then, for lack of anything better, I add, “You have a good life.”
More silence. Then Kevin makes a final mistake, which just shows me I made the right choice. He says, “Take care of yourself.”
Most people have a favorite line from a movie. Mine is from the 1970s sitcom The Mary Tyler Moore Show. In the pilot, Mary breaks up with her boyfriend after she realizes he’s never going to propose. After the breakup, as he is leaving, he says, “Take care of yourself.”
And she responds with my favorite line ever (which I now say to Kevin): “I think I just did.”
We’re off the phone within a minute. I’ll admit as I stare at my cell, I feel a wave of sadness start to flood over me.
And then I hear the ping.
I am. I just got off the phone with Nat. Can you talk this late?
And the wave of sadness immediately dissolves.
Giovanni and I spend the next several hours talking, and before I know it, the sun is out.
Which, okay, sounds a little suspicious, but we were just talking.
I am never going to do anything physical with him. He is Nat’s, and I know that.
Around seven, we fall asleep by putting our phones on the pillows next to us.
I am out in five minutes.
When I wake up a few hours later, I ask him, “Are you still there?”
“Hm?” he grunts sleepily over the phone. “Yeah, I’m up. How did you sleep?”
“Better than I have in weeks.”
We talk throughout the morning, taking only bathroom breaks. We finally get off the phone as I park my car at the bar just before two for our early open on Sunday. I know I am texting him more than I should throughout the afternoon.
But I can’t help myself. Life is short. How do I not be with this amazing man, at least in spirit?
You can be with someone emotionally, and not physically, right?
Right.
Right?