CHAPTER 12
On Monday my phone rings at about noon. We’re in the tea house, and it’s Ben. Leo and I stare at it for a few seconds. “Do you want to get it?” he asks.
“Do you?” I put the phone down and turn over. There’s no way I want to let Ben into this cocoon.
“I mean, could it be important? He doesn’t usually call, does he?”
I turn back to Leo, and the phone has mercifully stopped ringing. “He calls every few months. He says he wants to see the kids. I say ‘great!’ Then he says he’ll call back later in the week when he’s ‘nailed down a few deets.’ And then he never calls.”
“Never?”
“Never. The first time, I told the kids that he was coming, and they were all excited. But of course he didn’t come, so now I don’t tell them. On the off chance he ever knocks on the door, it’ll just be a surprise.”
The phone’s ringing again. Leo says, “He’s calling back? Seriously, you should pick up.”
“He just doesn’t like being ignored,” I say, and I answer the call on speakerphone.
“Hi, Ben.”
“Hey there. How’s it going?”
“Great.” I smile at Leo, because it is going great, so great, beyond great in my wildest fantasies, if I’d ever taken the time to have any.
“Great. And how are the kids?”
“They’re good. I mean, their dad left and he never sees them. But otherwise they’re good.”
“Do you realize you say that every single time we talk?”
“I do.”
He lets out an exasperated breath. “So, I was thinking I’d come in two weeks. I just have to nail down a few deets, but is it okay if I come and take them for a weekend?”
“Sure.” Leo rolls his eyes, and I nod.
“Okay, thanks. So you’re good? You sound a little distracted. Working on another one of your corny romances?”
I smile at Leo. “I am. And this is the best, corniest one yet.”
“Ha. Ever finish the one you were writing about me?”
“I did.” Leo’s making big eyes at me.
“Hilarious,” Ben says, because he really has no idea what a jerk he is.
When I hang up, Leo pulls me in tight. “So there’s no chance he’s going to follow through and show up?”
“I would drop dead of shock if he knocked on the door. Let me put it this way: Ben always does what he wants to do. If he wants something, he buys it. If he wants to leave, he goes. If he wanted to see the kids, he would have been here months ago.”
“Just do me a favor. Let me answer the door if he ever knocks,” Leo says.
The week rolls by in a familiar rhythm. Wake, sunrise, kids, run, tea house, play rehearsal, dinner. Some days we act like a normal couple. We go to the supermarket and the little grocery in town. He wants to go to Costco, but I tell him he can’t handle it. We go to lunch at the bistro and sit at the same table as our first date. I am so comfortable with Leo that I sometimes think I’ve lost the ability to pause between thinking something and saying something.
The waiter brings my bouillabaisse, and I say, “Are you really going to leave after opening night?” I can’t believe I’ve said it once it’s out. I look at my clams and try to regain my cool. “I mean, I know that’s the plan, but is it still the plan?”
Leo says, “I don’t have any place I need to be.”
Relief. “Okay. Well, good. I mean I didn’t know if I should be counting down or . . . oh, for chrissake.” Vicky freakin’ Miller walks into the restaurant.
“What?”
“It’s Vicky Miller. She had an affair with Ben and thinks I don’t know. Which is ridiculous because everyone in town knows.”
“That bastard,” he says. “What the hell.”
“Deep down, Ben felt really, really bad about himself.”
“You’re still covering for him.”
And in an instant, there’s Vicky standing at the side of our table, big smile. “Nora! I can’t believe it. I never see you out!” Nice.
“It must be Groundhog Day,” I say, making like I’m peering out of my hole.
“I’m Leo,” says Leo, with more reserve than I’m used to.
“Yes. I’m Vicky,” she says, like that’s exciting news. “I heard you were making a movie in town.”
“I was. But now I’m just staying with Nora.” He reaches across the table and takes my hand, waiting for her to speak.
“Well, that’s nice,” says Vicky, who left her underwear in my husband’s Audi.
When we’ve left the restaurant, Leo has a thousand questions. “So you never confronted him about it? You never confronted her?”
“I’m not a big confronter. I mean, it was clear he didn’t love me anymore, and it’s not like you can talk someone into loving you again.”
“Did you want him to love you again?”
I have to consider this for a second. “I guess. If he loved me it would have meant I was a good wife, that I’d been adequate at keeping our world spinning. I liked the idea of that. But I didn’t really care too much about the affair. A year later, he was gone anyway, so no harm, no foul.”
Leo stops me on the sidewalk. “That’s just cold. It didn’t hurt a little?”
“Well, a little. But what was I supposed to do? I kind of had a lot on my plate.”
“Tell me this. If I went and had sex with stupid Vicky whoever, would you care?” A woman wheels a stroller around us, but Leo’s not budging. “Just tell me. I know how to make a scene.”
“Why are you asking?”
“I’m just gathering information.” Leo is vulnerable in this moment. His face is expectant and his shoulders are braced as if he’s expecting a blow.
“I’d care a lot,” I say. And he kisses me, right there on the sidewalk at two o’clock in the middle of town.
As we walk to the car, he’s laughing. “I knew it. You’re so into me.”
Mickey has taken to stopping by on his way home from work to have a beer with Leo. Apparently, Leo won him over at the barbecue. There’s something about the way Leo is so comfortable with his success that makes it easy for you to forget about it. By the time Mickey and Kate left, they were making fishing plans for August. August. So now Mickey’s a little in love with Leo too. They sit on the porch, and I cook and try not to eavesdrop until Kate calls and tells me to send him home. Leo wants to know about barbecuing ribs. Leo wants to know about solar panels. Mickey wants to know who in Hollywood Leo’s seen naked.
Mickey tells Leo about the bird sanctuary, and he wants to check it out. Though I suggest it would be easier to drive there, we decide to make it our next morning run. I’m grateful for a new route and for the birds, and also for the fact that Leo comes on my runs now because it’s another hour we’re not apart.
If you’re not going to drive, the only way into the bird sanctuary is through the forest on a rough path that runs parallel to a creek. The maple trees have sprouted fuzzy green flowers that dot the bright blue sky. Everything will look different in a month. I take this in quickly because I’m concentrating on the path ahead of me, strategically placing each foot to avoid the maze of aboveground roots at my feet. Parts of this run feel more like an obstacle course than a casual jog. We’re sweating and we’re laughing as each turn presents us with another fallen birch or muddy puddle to dodge. Leo calls over his shoulder that he kind of misses my Subaru, and I feel vindicated.
When the forest ends, I’m relieved. The path becomes wider, with seven-foot-tall wild pampas grass lining either side. The feathery tops bend with the breeze, directing us forward. I can no longer see the creek, but I can hear it as we run.
We disturb a family of turkeys, and when they run off, we see that we’ve arrived. We stop to catch our breath. We are in a meadow of yellow and lavender wildflowers with old oak and apple trees scattered among them. The creek has reappeared and winds its way through the meadow and beyond. We stay quiet to listen to the birds sing at one another across the trees. It’s so orderly, in the back-and-forth rhythm of a conversation. I have never witnessed anything so beautiful.
“Well, this is new,” I say.
“It is,” he says and takes my sweaty hand.
“I mean, it’s a nice change from my old loop.”
“I mean, you’re the first person I’ve ever been in love with,” he says. Just like that. It’s a Wednesday, I think, but I’m not even sure. In a meadow dotted with trees, covered in sweat with birds chirping around us, Leo Vance is in love with me. In that second, my life is like the tea house—I can see all the way through to the other side where there’s an entirely different reality.