I closed the door behind her and she put her bag down, dropping her keys on top of it. She held the bottle of wine up, “Peace offering?”
I laughed, “I didn’t realize we were at war.”
She considered for a moment, “Okay, that’s true. Then it’s a toast to getting to know someone.”
“I can get behind that.” I told her. I wasn’t a huge fan of wine, but I wasn’t about say that and get this whole attempt at socialization off to a bad start. I tried to think if there were even any wine glasses in the house that I’d seen or if we were going to have to sniff, swish, and sip out of beer steins or plastic souvenir cups picked up from a Lakers game.
She seemed to be reading my mind and went over to a cabinet and pulled out two champagne flutes, saying, “This is the closest we’re going to get to wine glasses. I bought them and brought them over for an anniversary.”
“Which anniversary?” I asked, watching as she pulled a corkscrew out of a draw. It just occurred to me that I had no idea how long she and Nick had actually been together. He’d never bothered to tell me.
“Six months.. but that was a few months ago… it’s been almost 9 months now.” she told me, popping the cork on the wine and pouring some in both glasses.
“Impressive.” I took the glass from her as she handed it to me. “So, a toast to us?”
“A toast to new friends.” She said, smiling and clinking her glass against mine.
The smile gave me made my heart hurt a little bit. She was so sweet… I could see why Nick liked her so much. I took a sip of my wine, trying to push the feelings down… I was pretty sure it was jealousy… and said, “You know, I have to admit, I was really surprised when you were at the door…”
“I thought you might be… but… I want to get to know you… You’re important to Nick and that makes you important to me.”
She sounded so sincere… I drained the rest of the wine from the glass… this was going to be kind of hard. I sat down at the table, “Well, what would you like to know? Be warned… I’m very honest, so if you don’t want the answer to something, don’t ask it.” I said, laughing.
She sat across the table from me, still sipping her wine. “Okay, for honesty, I guess I should tell you that Nick told me you never cheated on him.”
I smiled – just a little. It was nice of him to ‘fess up to that, but I doubted he’d given much more of his side of the story. “No, I didn’t cheat on him. I did fuck his friends, but it was after we were broken up. I wouldn’t have done that to him.”
“I know… he told me you were the best relationship he’d had.” She said it fairly easily, like it didn’t bother her much. I couldn’t help but think what a change that was from our initial meeting. Her expression changed a little, and she added, “I think he misses you sometimes.”
I must have looked confused when she said that… because I was. I could see how he might have missed me during our non-speaking-Hilton-whore days, but now? Why would he?
“He says you two are so much alike… I think he just misses what you had sometimes.” She said, trying to look at me as she spoke, but her eyes kept straying away.
“We ARE a lot alike, probably too much in some ways… which is probably another reason it didn’t work out. I know that he loves you for so many things that I’m not… I never could be… he needs that balance.” I told her.
Her expression relaxed almost immediately, like she just needed to hear that, to be reassured that I wasn’t going to try to steal him away from her. “I do wonder what he was like with you… just because… you and I are so different… and you’re so similar…”
That caught me a little off-guard. Was she saying she wanted to know what my relationship was like with him… or that she just got curious sometimes. I didn’t volunteer any information… she was going to have to specifically ask for it.
She looked like she was going to ask something, then decided against it and took another sip of her wine. “So, I don’t know anything about you. What kind of job did you have at home?”
I laughed. “Did. That sounds so lame. What did you do before you came out here to be a housesitter?”
“I didn’t mean it like that!” she exclaimed, seeming to be honestly worried she might have offended me.
“I know… I was just commenting on my own life… nothing you said. I studied journalism in college… but I dropped out of college… to be a girlfriend… and then I got a job working with a real estate agent that I met when Nick sold our house and then a mortgage broker that the agent worked with a lot asked me to come work for him…which is how I met Zach, the psycho.. and that brings us to…now.” I told her, thinking how ridiculous my life sounded condensed like that.
She didn’t say anything for a second, like she was trying to process everything I’d said. “You left school… for him?”
I nodded, “The way things were then… it was too much. He was too famous, fans were too crazy… they found out about me and… that was it. I wanted to be with him… so I quit and I went with him.”
“He’s really careful with me… he doesn’t want many people to know about us,” she said.
I couldn’t tell if she felt like that was a good thing or not. “Trust me, it’s much, much better that way. I mean, I know now isn’t the same as it was… he’s still a celebrity, but … it’s not as crazy. The more you can stay out of sight, out of pictures, out of the gossip columns, the happier you’ll be. Nothing can prepare you for the intense hatred of hundreds or thousands of people who’ve never met you.”
“It’s really that bad?” she asked.
“There’s still three active “I hate Summer” sites online.” I told her. “And we broke up how long ago? Yeah, it’s that bad. It was worse than that bad.”
She looked like she was thinking again. Then she asked, “Did you know who he was when you met him? Like when you got together, did you have any idea?”
“Yeah, I recognized him… I guess I just figured I wasn’t a big enough deal for anyone to care about. I should have learned from Mandy’s experiences, but … when you’re young and crazy in love… you’re stupid.” I said, laughing a little. I was totally unprepared for everything about Nick – I wasn’t ready to deal with his career, I wasn’t even ready to deal with being THAT in love with someone.
“How did you meet him?” she questioned, then took another sip of wine.
“He really didn’t tell you much about us… me… did he?”
She shook her head, sort of slowly, like she was debating whether or not to say something. “Just a few things.”
I waited to see if there was any more to that statement and when she continued to sip her wine and look expectantly at me, waiting for my answer, I guessed not. “Okay... did you see the Explorer in the driveway when you got here?”
She nodded, “Yes, I did.”
“That was the first present Nick ever gave me.” I said, smiling. The Explorer was my most cherished possession for that very reason. It was the first gift Nick gave me, and it would always be the most meaningful, the one that held the most memories, and had symbolized the start of the most amazing time of my life.
“O-kay…”
I could tell she totally didn’t get how this had any connection to the question. “He bought me a car because he totaled mine. That was how we met… he ran a red light and just took out my car. Completely annihilated it… It was amazing neither of us really got hurt. Well, amazing I didn’t get hurt, because his Durango barely got dented. So, I guess rather than going through the whole insurance deal… he just said he’d buy me a new one. We made a date to go car shopping… and I got a boyfriend out of it, too.” I was grinning again, just thinking of that first day we’d spent together. I’d been instantly attracted to him- he was so cute… and he turned out to be funny and easy to talk to. I wanted to be all practical and just get something basic like what I’d been driving before, but he insisted on going top-of-the-line… and I got the fully pimped out vehicle to prove it. Our first kiss had been that afternoon – in the SUV.
“That’s a crazy story!” she said. She laughed a little when she added, “He can be a really bad driver!”
“Oh yeah. I insisted on driving everywhere for probably the first six months we were together.” I told her. Eventually I relaxed some, let him start taking the wheel again. To this day I maintain the car-and-driver references in “Rockstar Baby” came from that incident. I actually think the whole song is sort of… me, but I’ve never asked and he’s never admitted.
“You were together a long time, weren’t you?”
“Long enough.” I replied, refilling my wine glass. I could have given her an exact number – in years, months, days, or probably even hours. It just seemed… unnecessary.
She got that look again, like she was trying to decide if she could/should ask me something.
“Macy, just ask… I’m not going to get mad. I’ll tell you anything you want to know.” I said. She needed to learn quickly that there was no hedging around me… I was upfront and honest and I wanted other people to be the same way.
“Okay…” she paused to smile and said, “I was sort of trying to figure out… how to ask. I don’t even know exactly what I want to know. I guess… were you… surprised when things ended? Or did you see it coming?”
I started to answer her, but she didn’t give me a chance, blurting out, “Did you think you’d marry him?”
Ah ha, so there was the real question. I gave her a wry smile. “I still own the dress that I bought… thinking when I married him… that’s what I’d wear.”
A totally indecipherable expression clouded her face. I couldn’t tell if she was thinking about something she’d done… or if she didn’t like that I still had the dress.
“I think you’ve just successfully discovered the one secret that no one else knows about me.” I told her, giving her what I hoped was a sweet, bonding kind of smile. “I never even told Nick… We’d only talked about marriage a few times… because we were still so young, I guess. It always seemed like a possibility, but one that was so far away. I just saw this dress one day… it was actually for prom, I think… but it just seemed so perfect to me, for running away and getting married on the beach, which is what I always assumed we’d do… at least, when I let myself daydream about it. I still have it… and part of me thinks I’d still want to wear it if I got married.”
I struggled to keep myself focused… I didn’t want to go dazing off on her… and let her know that every now and then, I still allowed myself to entertain a fantasy of what That Day may have been like, had Nick and I ever gotten there.
When she didn’t say anything, I felt like I needed to fill the semi-awkward (at least for me) silence. “I don’t know that I ever really thought I’d marry him… I think I just hoped I would. I wanted to think that what we had was stronger than all the other shit and that we could be one of those happily-ever-after stories, despite all the evidence to the contrary.”
She finally said, very, very quietly, “That’s how I feel, too.”
I began to wonder if her reactions were betraying her thoughts more than I realized… if maybe she saw her own fears reflected in the things I was saying.
I reached over to put my hand on her arm, “Macy… he’s crazy about you. I can see him falling… from that first visit I made ‘til the time I came out here to stay… I saw him change. He loves you. I have no idea how things will go for the two of you… but from what I see now… it looks amazing. Enjoy that… don’t worry about what may or may not happen, especially based on how things went for me and him. He’s a different person, in a totally different place in his life now. You’ve got the best version of him.”
Her eyes were shiny when she looked at me and I thought, oh my god, I made her cry. She blinked a few times, like she was trying to stop any potential tears from escaping. When that didn’t seem to work, she quickly wiped at her eyes. “Sorry…” she said, chuckling a little. “Thank you for that… it’s good to hear that… especially from someone who knows him as well as you do. It’s one thing if my friends tell me… you know they say what you want to hear… and they don’t really know him at all. But … I trust you… what you’re saying about him.”
I suddenly felt much more… affectionate, maybe?...towards her than I expected. It almost bothered me that I, apparently, really did like her as much as Nick kept swearing I would. But how could I not? I impulsively leaned over and hugged her, relieved when she reciprocated and didn’t freak out or push me off.
I let go of her and smiled. It was nice to think I may have made a potential friend.
“I think we’re going to be good friends.” she said, apparently having read my mind.
“I’d like that.” I told her, very honestly.
“My friends totally don’t understand where I’m coming from when I try to talk about him… so I stopped trying. So I’m glad you’re willing to talk about him.” she said, then quickly added, “But it won’t be all about him, I promise!”
I laughed, “It’s okay. I realize the prospect of the ex and the current girlfriend becoming friends is a weird one…But it can be done… Mandy and I are friends. We start with what we have in common… and right now, that’s him… and branch out.”
She seemed to be fine with what I was saying, until I mentioned Mandy… and I had to stop myself from laughing. I could only imagine what he’d told Macy about Mandy… if he’d omitted big chunks of our story, there must not have been anything left to tell about theirs.
Macy got up and gathered the empty glasses, taking them to the sink. When she turned back around to look at me, she said, “I’m sorry I was so awful that first time I met you… It was just that…” She stopped talking completely, gave me a half smile, and finished by saying, “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have acted like that.”
I knew that there was something very specific she was going to add to that and decided against it… and it bothered me. A lot. She’d been almost ready to admit why her initial reaction to me had been so unfavorable, and then she decided against it. Dammit… I wanted to know!
“It’s okay… if you didn’t know what was going on… I can see how the situation would have been… unsettling.” I said. “I’m sure I probably didn’t make things any better. I don’t always make the greatest first impression…” I chuckled, thinking of what her friends must have thought of me and how they’d probably all told her she was crazy if she’d told them she was going to come talk to me.
“I prefer second chances to first impressions.” She said with a smile.
A thought occurred to me, “Are you going to tell Nick about this?”
She looked a little mischievous, “Not just yet.”
I laughed, “Alright… our little secret.”
She hugged me again when she left, asking if I’d like to get together in a few days… to go out and do something. I said ‘yes’, of course, I was ecstatic at the prospect of someone to spend time with… and I was dying to know what was in all the “almost said”s… where I could tell she wanted to ask/say something and didn’t.
I puttered around the house for a while, sort of unsure what to do with myself now. It was later than I realized… Macy and I had actually been talking for quite awhile. I went into the office, where Nick kept his “library” a small-ish collection of books that he’d actually managed to wade through, and looked over the titles. I’d read most of them, a couple I’d read multiple times…except for… The Celestine Prophecy. Nick loved it… he even called it his favorite book, but I never could get through it. He swore up and down that it really changed his perspective and made a difference in his life at a time when he really needed it. I picked the book up and sighed, maybe the fifth (or sixth or… whatever) time trying to read it was a charm. I went back to the kitchen and made some tea, then went to curl up in bed. Based on previous experience with this book, I could expect to be fast asleep about 15 pages in… so reading in bed was a good plan.
I found myself even more distracted than normal as I tried to read about The Manuscript, but my mind kept straying to Macy. The total randomness of her visit and some of the questions she asked. But even more than that… the things she didn’t ask. I guessed I’d have to wait and see if spending more time together – supposing that did work out – would make her comfortable enough to just ask whatever she was really wanting to know.
When I finally got back to actually reading, I was impressed with my progress, but as was apparently tradition, somewhere around the Third Insight, I was out like a light.