Baby Proof Part 7

"Was that what I think it was?" Michael says. He looks impressed.

"Yup," I say, squinting down at the water.

His black eyebrows arch high over his Oakleys. "Rather t.i.tanic -esque, huh?"

I laugh. "See that? Rose and I have a lot in common."

"Seriously. That was a strong move," Michael says.

"Thanks."

"Almost makes me want to kiss you," he says. "The cherry on top of your little ceremony, ya know?"

I consider his proposition for a moment and the fact that it might add a little texture to our friends.h.i.+p. Whenever I get that inevitable question, the one always posed to male-female friends: "Have you two ever kissed or anything?" I can say, "Indeed we have . Once upon a time, right after I hurled my wedding ring off the Brooklyn Bridge." It would make a good story in my romantic repertoire, one that Jess would surely enjoy-particularly because she thinks Michael is hot. Besides, maybe a simple kiss, like my symbolic ring toss, could serve as a catalyst of sorts.

Even though I think Michael's mostly kidding, I fleetingly study his full lips and think I'm going to do it. But I hesitate one second too long, leaving the realm of spontaneity and entering into awkward territory. I decide it's for the best. Why complicate my life by kissing a friend, especially a friend from work?

I look back toward the skyline and shrug noncommittally. "Would you settle for getting loaded in Brooklyn?" "Sure," Michael says. "Twist my arm."

We cross the bridge into Brooklyn, not breaking stride once until we arrive at Superfine, a restaurant on Front Street that Michael says has great food and a good, casual atmosphere. The tables are all full so we sit in the bar in a blast of blissful air-conditioning. I curl my legs around my stool as Michael asks the bartender, an older woman wearing pigtails (which I think is a frightful combination), what they have on tap. She rattles off our choices. Nothing grabs our fancy so we order two Heinekens in bottles. Michael says we'll be starting a tab. I gulp my first beer quickly, more for thirst than taste. Then, while Michael sticks with beer, I ramp it up with a dirty martini. Michael raises his eyebrows and smiles.

We order one burrito, and split it because it's huge. We also share an order of fries. Despite the food, I still catch a strong buzz quickly. Time begins to fall away, along with any thoughts of Ben. Michael and I talk about the books we're working on and people at work. Then I tell him the latest scoop on Jess's relations.h.i.+p with Trey, knowing that she wouldn't mind. Jess is very open with details of her life.

I remove a vodka-soaked olive from my toothpick and pop it into my mouth, telling myself to slow my pace. I need to stay in the buzzed, lighthearted zone and out of the morose, drunk one. Of course, that's a tall order when you're dealing with martinis. And the more I drink, the more my thoughts drift back to Ben.

At one point, I can't help blurting out, "I didn't think I'd miss him this much."

Michael runs his hand along the sides of his gla.s.s and then wipes the condensation on his shorts as he says, "So what exactly went down there anyway?"

I answer quickly, "We wanted different things."

He rolls his eyes. "Jesus, Claudia. That's worse than the 'we grew apart' song and dance."

"Fine," I say. "Ben wanted a baby."

"And you?"

I pause and then say, "I didn't don't want a baby."

"What do you want?"

n.o.body has ever posed the question quite like this before, and I have to think for a minute before I can answer. "I want a really good, committed relations.h.i.+p. I want close friends and good times. Like right now I want freedom to do my job well without feeling guilty or beholden to anyone. I want freedom generally."

"Oh," Michael says, and then takes a long swallow of beer. "I see."

"Tell me what you're thinking," I say, recognizing that you're more likely to invite or tolerate criticism when someone isn't so free with it.

"I don't know," he says. "It's just that being married cuts down on your freedom. Having a husband, or a relations.h.i.+p at all, puts constraints on you. You handled that fine. I don't think I could deal with those sorts of constraints. It's why I had to call it quits with Maya," he says, referring to his ex-girlfriend. It was Michael's most serious relations.h.i.+p to date, one that he ended when she demanded a ring, or at the very least, a key to his apartment. He continues, "I was so afraid that I wouldn't be good at it that I didn't even want to try It seems to me that you left Ben more because of fear than anything else."

"Fear of what?" I say.

He shrugs and then says, "Fear of failure. Fear of change. Fear of the unknown."

I look at him, feeling dizzy.

"And yet, here you are anyway" he says, his voice trailing off.

He doesn't have to say the rest. I know the rest. Here I am anyway, facing all of the above. Fear of failure, fear of change, fear of the unknown. And right here, in a bar under a bridge in Brooklyn, I feel a very small pang of regret.

Michael says he has to get back home, that he has a hot date tonight. Actually, he doesn't say it's hot, but I a.s.sume that part. Michael only dates hot women. So we take the subway back to Manhattan and part ways on the Lower East Side.

"Are you going to be all right?" Michael asks.

"Yeah," I say, kissing his cheek. "Thanks for today."

"It was my pleasure," he says, tipping an imaginary hat.

As we say good-bye, I wonder if, come Monday morning, I will confess to Michael the very stupid thing I'm about to do.

nine.

I really can't say exactly what makes me take the subway up to my old apartment when, prior to this afternoon, I was convinced that short of mere happenstance I would never see Ben again. Of course the martinis are a factor, but I've never been one to radically change my behavior when I'm drunk. I've never, for example, hooked up with someone while drunk whom I wouldn't have hooked up with otherwise. Besides, by the time I get off the subway at Seventy-second and Broadway, I'm not nearly as intoxicated as I was in Brooklyn. I could easily regroup and head back to Jess's place.

So I think my little detour has less to do with alcohol and more to do with what Michael said to me in the bar. The stuff about fear motivating my decision to divorce Ben. As I walk the several blocks to Ben's apartment, I consider my faults, ticking off the list of adjectives that other people have thrown at me during arguments and that I've thrown at myself during quiet, introspective moments: stubborn, judgmental, moody, impatient . I have my share of character flaws, but I've never counted cowardice among them. To the contrary, I have always thought of myself as one to accept challenges and take risks. It is part of the reason I've been so successful at work.

Still, something rings true in Michael's words. Maybe I am just afraid. Maybe I let Ben go because the fear of having a baby actually outweighed the fact that I didn't want one. Maybe I feared the person I would become. Maybe I feared something I couldn't quite name, even to Ben, even to myself.

Somehow I think I believe that seeing Ben will give me these answers. Or maybe it's just an excuse to see him again. In any event, it doesn't really matter. Nothing has changed. I still don't want a baby, and Ben still does.

But here I am anyway, standing on the sidewalk, looking pensively up at the third-floor kitchen window I used to look out of every morning and every night. I picture Ben, unshaven and barefoot, making a late-afternoon snack. I can see him pouring a gla.s.s of milk and arranging Ritz crackers on a plate before smearing just the right amount of peanut b.u.t.ter across the face of each one. I can see him licking both sides of the knife and dropping it with a clang into the sink. I can see him eating his crackers peanut b.u.t.ter side down, while he sits on the couch and watches golf. I can see all the little ordinary things he used to do, things that now seem like faraway memories.

I take a deep breath and climb the outside stairs to the front door. My heart is racing as I close my eyes and press the buzzer over my old last name. "Davenport, Apt 8C." I wait to hear static and Ben's voice saying, "h.e.l.lo?" but there is only silence. I look at my watch. It is 5:15. Maybe he went for a run. Ben loves to run in the park at this hour of the day. Sometimes I'd go with him.

I decide I will kill a few minutes and go get some soft-serve ice cream at the little candy store around the corner. I walk there slowly, looking around at my old neighborhood, noticing things I never noticed before. A green wire waste can. A jagged break in the sidewalk. A row of red geraniums planted in a second-story window box. When I enter the candy store, the Middle Eastern clerk working behind the counter smiles and says h.e.l.lo as if he recognizes me. Maybe he does. Maybe he has noticed that Ben now comes in alone.

I smile and order a chocolate-vanilla swirl in a sugar cone with rainbow sprinkles. I also buy a bottle of Evian and a pack of spearmint Trident. I am four cents short, so I get out my credit card, but the clerk says don't worry about it, you'll be back. I almost tell him that I won't actually be back, but instead I just thank him. I take my cone, retrace my steps, and try the buzzer again, just in case Ben returned while I was gone. Still no answer.

I sit on the top stair and take a few bites of the vanilla side of the cone. I don't know why I consistently order the swirl when I like vanilla so much better. It just seems like I should prefer chocolate. I also decide that the rainbow sprinkles were a bad idea. They are good in a dish, but too messy on a cone. I eat a little faster as the ice cream begins to melt. I tell myself that I will only wait for Ben as long as it takes to finish my cone. Anything longer than that might make me feel like a stalker. The last thing I need right now is to feel like a stalker. Besides, my buzz is completely gone now, replaced with a faint headache, the kind that is sure to get worse. I hold my cone in one hand, unscrew the bottle of Evian with the other, and down about half of it without stopping. I am starting to panic a little, wondering what I will say to Ben. Wondering if there is any point to my being here at all.

A lone pigeon bobs his way toward me. "Rats with wings" Ben calls them. I lick the chocolate side of the cone and contemplate walking back to the subway when I suddenly spot Ben jogging in place, about a block away, waiting for the light to turn green so he can cross West End Avenue. He is wearing burnt-orange running shorts, a gray Wake Forest basketball T-s.h.i.+rt, and his favorite White Sox baseball cap. I feel a nervous flutter in my stomach and then a sense of comfort for having correctly guessed that he was on a run. I still know you , I whisper, and then I wave just in case he can see me. It's not an eager wave, just a casual, hand-in-the-air acknowledgment. I wait for him to wave back, but he doesn't, just adjusts his cap, bending the bill with one hand. I wipe my mouth with my napkin, and stand, thinking he'll see me any second.

Instead, he turns in the other direction to face a girl jogging toward him. My mind freezes and then clicks into place. Ben is running with a girl. He is on a date. A late afternoon, summer date. A run-in-the-park-together date .

I think back to our first run together. It was after we had slept together. About a week later. Two tops. I know this for a fact. I have an excellent memory, especially when it comes to dates. And Ben.

I study this woman, this girl he is with. She has long, thick, white-blond hair pulled back in a perfect, silken ponytail that swishes back and forth just right. It is the kind of hair that I coveted when I was much younger, believing that I could somehow train mine to look and behave the same way. The girl strides forward, once, twice, three times and is now beside him. Ben says something to her and then leans down and grabs the bottom of his shorts as if to catch his breath. I can see his profile. He stands, and I watch his chest rising and falling with the effort that comes from a hard finish. His s.h.i.+rt is damp across the chest. The girl stretches her left hamstring. She has long, thick legs, reminding me of a beach volleyball player, only without the tan. Her skin is as pale as her hair. Her face is long and angular. I wouldn't call her pretty, but she is attractive, and unfortunately for me, very memorable. I can't tell how old she is, but something about her expression and stance makes me think she's still in her twenties.

All of these observations transpire in a few seconds, but that is long enough for a stream of ice cream to melt down the side of the cone and trickle onto my hand and forearm. It is also long enough for the light to change and Ben and his date to come bounding toward me. And it is plenty long enough for me to realize that I am completely trapped. If I still had my key to the front door, I would duck into the building and hide behind the stairwell near the mailboxes. Gamble that Ben already picked up the mail. I cannot turn and walk in the other direction because Ben knows my back as well as he does my front. I will be tortured wondering whether he saw me and just chose to let me walk away. And my third option, aggressively approach them is something I just can't make myself do. So I just stand there, my feet rooted to the concrete. I frantically try to clean myself up. By now another half-dozen drips of ice cream are trickling down the side of the cone, carrying sprinkles downstream with them. I am a total mess.

You dumba.s.s , I think to myself, for coming here at all and, even more, for ordering a cone on a hot day. A cone with rainbow sprinkles. What am I, twelve ? This is my last thought before Ben sees me. His expression is confused at first, as if I'm completely out of context standing in front of a place where I lived for years. Then he smiles tightly, obviously fl.u.s.tered over the impending introduction. His eyes are casting wildly from me to the girl. Me to the girl. She is still oblivious. She doesn't seem to notice me at all, looking right through me in the way you look right through so many people every day. Especially in a big city. She is in the middle of telling a story. Something about a stress fracture she got from running around the reservoir in the same direction, day after day. It was diagnosed right before last year's New York marathon. She had to pull out of the race. One of the saddest days of her life.

I can tell Ben wants to interrupt her, save everyone the extra layer of embarra.s.sment that comes when a third party has a delayed understanding of the awkward thing transpiring. But short of telling her to shut up, he can't stop the story. She finishes by saying this: "But that's one of my goals in life. To run a sub-three-and-a-half-hour marathon."

I am angry that we have one of the same goals, but I was only aiming to finish a marathon. I wonder what her other goals in life are. And if they include Ben. Motherhood. I feel as though I'm going to throw up. Ben has a pained look on his face, too, and this helps a little, but not much.

"Hi, Claudia," he says, looking up at me.

"Hi, Ben."

"It's good to see you," he says.

"Good to see you, too," I say. "How are you?"

"I'm fine," he says. "Just went for a little run."

I make direct eye contact with the girl, and wonder if Ben told her about me. Told her that, technically, I was his wife until last week.

"Oh, sorry, um, this is my friend Tucker Jansen," Ben stammers. "Tucker, this is Claudia Parr," he says, pausing for one beat before using my maiden name.

I memorize her name as she flashes me a polite, friendly smile. Unfortunately, it reveals absolutely nothing. I still don't know if she knows who I am. I do notice, however, that she has very few lines around her eyes. She is definitely in her twenties. I'd put her no older than twenty-six. The name Tucker seems to corroborate my guess. n.o.body born in the sixties and seventies has a name like Tucker. The surname craze didn't start until later. She is an eighties child. She was probably five when St. Elmo's Fire came out. Three when Flashdance hit theaters. It is entirely possible that she hasn't even seen those movies.

I swallow, descend the stairs, and shake her hand. "Hi, Tucker. It's nice to meet you." Luckily I am left-handed so my right hand is not the sticky one.

Tucker's grip is firm, but her skin is soft. Alarmingly soft. "Nice to meet you, too," she says.

We are all stuck at this point. What else can we say? If Tucker knows who I am, she can't say anything. And if she doesn't know who I am, she can't say anything. Ben really can't offer up, "This is my ex-wife." Or, "This is my new girlfriend." Or, "You two actually have a lot in common. You've both had stress fractures! Only Claudia got hers from tripping on an escalator rather than training too hard. And she only ever aspired to finish a marathon."

And I certainly can't say, "So, Ben, do you think that I'm allowing fear to govern my life?"

So we all just stand there for a second, smiling unnaturally, until I say, "Well, I was just in the neighborhood. Thought I'd say h.e.l.lo."

"I'm glad you did," Ben says.

"Yeah. But I have to get going now," I say, glancing at my watch. I am still holding the half-eaten cone, which is beginning to drip from the tiny opening in the bottom. Note to self: the next time you stalk your ex-husband, go with a waffle cone .

Tucker says, "Well, I better get going, too"

This statement is a strong indication that she knows exactly who I am. She feels rude and awkward standing there with my ex-husband while I am forced to slink away. It is arguably a compa.s.sionate move on her part, but it makes me feel even more pathetic. Then again, maybe she really does have to get home. Maybe she has to shower and get ready for the dressed-up, nighttime portion of their date. Or maybe they are already showering together. She appears to be completely unself-conscious, the sort of girl who might hop in the shower with a new boyfriend, under bright lights.

I feel tempted to let Tucker go so I can stay and talk to Ben. But I feel too humiliated and decide it's better to walk away first. Show both of them that I am fine with whatever they have going on. I give Ben a small, formal smile and say good-bye. Then I shuffle away quickly. I hear Ben and Tucker exchange a few words and then she is behind me, saying my name. She so knows the deal.

She asks if I'm going to the subway. I detect a Chicago accent and think, Midwestern, wholesome .

I say yes, I am.

"Me, too," she says.

Great . I am now stuck walking several blocks to the subway with her, maybe longer if we're going the same direction. Now I really think I might puke. I can actually feel the martinis and rainbow sprinkles in my throat as I ask, "So how do you know Ben?"

"We met at a party."

"Oh. That's nice," I say, and then can't resist asking, "When?"

"Memorial Day."

"That's nice," I say again, feeling somewhat relieved that we didn't overlap.

"Ben and I are just friends," she offers clumsily.

"Oh."

"Yeah."

After a long silence, I say, "Us, too. Although we used to be married."

"Yeah. I know."

"Well," I say with a nervous laugh.

"Yeah," she says with her own anxious chuckle.

And that's about when I think to myself that I'd rather be a contestant on Fear Factor than continue a conversation with Ben's new "friend." So I manufacture an Upper West Side errand.

"I have to run in here and check out some things," I say, pointing up to a random store we are walking past.

"Oh," she says. "Do you have a dog or a cat?"

Leave it to me to pick a pet store when I don't have a pet.

"Neither I, um, just need to get a few gifts I have some friends with dogs," I mumble. "So it was nice to meet you, Tucker."

"It was really nice to meet you, too, Claudia. Hope to see you again."

Not if I see you first and actually have a chance to escape.

"So. Bye," I say.

"Buh- bye , "she says.