Feels Like Falling Read online

  “Probably,” I said, thinking that that would just be one more thing to add to the shitstorm.

  “That shirt was from Ken, the phlebotomist.” She turned to Marcy. “When you find about a hundred vials of blood hidden in a man’s laundry basket, you don’t stick around to find out why they’re there.”

  “Damn,” I said. “You really have some stories, Di. I only have Greg stories. It’s pretty boring.” I felt a familiar anxiety grip my throat as I said his name.

  “Yeah, but your Greg stories are worse than all my ex stories combined.”

  “Speaking of ex stories,” Trey said, “you’re never going to be telling ex stories about Andrew if you don’t call him. Like I said, upper hand, sister.”

  Before I could retort, Marcy was calling, “Hi, Stafford,” waving to a handsome man in the pool with three kids in Puddle Jumpers.

  “Hi, Marcy. Hi, Gray,” he replied.

  “Hi, Stafford,” I called sunnily. “I can’t believe how big the kids have gotten!”

  “I know,” he said, “happens fast.”

  “So what did you hear about Stafford and Alice?” I whispered as soon as he was out of earshot.

  “I heard that she had an affair.”

  I nodded. “Me too.”

  “But,” Marcy said, “I heard she had an affair because he was a little more interested in his business partner than his wife.”

  “No!” Trey said. “I heard she left him”—he paused dramatically—“for her dealer.”

  “Oh, Lord,” Diana said. “Oldest story in the book.”

  “Is it?” Trey responded.

  I lowered my sunglasses to study Stafford while he was throwing his three kids in the pool. “So, what do you think about him?”

  “I don’t know,” Marcy said. “He’s cute. He’s nice. His kids are pretty. I could probably sport them around.”

  “So you don’t mind the kids?”

  She shrugged. “I mean, not really. I guess it’s just one of those things. If I loved him enough, we’d work it out—and I could keep my figure.”

  I already knew Marcy didn’t consider divorce a negative. In fact, she thought it was a plus. According to Marcy, a divorced man knew what commitment was all about. In her mind, a man’s second marriage had a brighter future than his first. Statistics would disagree with Marcy, but once she got something in her head, that was it.

  “Should you go talk to him, you think?” I asked.

  “You should,” Trey whispered.

  “Y’all need to learn to mind your own damn business,” Diana said.

  Marcy reached into her bag and pulled out her sunscreen. She stood up confidently and rested her foot on the end of the lounge chair while languidly rubbing her leg. Stafford looked. And he kept looking.

  “All right then. That’s a promising start,” I said.

  I saw our summer friend Julian, notoriously single, notoriously hot, and partially out of the closet, walking through the gate. Marcy and I had felt relieved when he finally came out to us. Only days before his announcement a couple years ago, I had been saying, “I just want to know. I mean, if he is, we could vacation together and he could be my plus-one to events that Greg doesn’t want to go to. If not, that’s inappropriate.”

  “Exactly,” Marcy had said. “And you know whether to keep him in the back of your mind as a possibility if Greg dies.”

  We had both burst out laughing.

  “Okay,” I said. “You get in the pool and chat Stafford up. I’ll check in with Julian.”

  I waved, and he sauntered over. Eyes turned left and right because, believe you me, that man spent a lot of time in the gym. When his shirt was off, there was drool coming from every which direction. He leaned over and kissed me on the cheek. “Hi, gorgeous. You look as fabulous as I’ve ever seen you. How’s the divorce treating you?”

  “It’s treating me pretty great,” I half lied, eyeing Marcy as she laughed flirtatiously. Then I added my signature line: “It was a beautiful chapter in my life story, and now I’m ready for a new one.”

  “Getting any action?”

  Diana chuckled knowingly. I shot her a look. But Andrew did run through my mind.

  “I heard that I’m-too-sexy-for-my-shirt Andrew has a thing for you,” Julian said.

  “How in the world did you hear that?” I was truly shocked.

  “Well, let’s see.…” He put his finger up to his chin. “Derrick overheard Brooke on the phone saying that someone at the club had asked you out, which obviously wasn’t much to go on. But then Derrick was playing tennis later that afternoon and he saw Andrew smiling and texting, so he asked Tina who Andrew was dating and she said no one, but she wished he were texting her with that smile.” That made us both laugh, as Tina was at least seventy. I motioned for him to continue. “So then Tina asked her daughter Margot if she knew who Andrew was dating, and when Margot asked her little cousin Roger, he said that he had seen Andrew at Hook, Line, and Sinker with one Ms. Gray Howard.”

  “Damn,” Diana said.

  “You should be in the FBI,” I added.

  Julian gasped. “So it is true! I want to eat whipped cream off his abs.”

  “So do I!” I said, laughing. “I’ll keep you posted.”

  “And that, my dear, is why we’re summer soul mates.”

  “Speaking of soul mates,” I whispered, glancing toward Marcy and Stafford, who were still chatting, “what’s the deal with Stafford?”

  “None of the rumors are true,” he said. “Alice is trying to blackmail him.” He paused dramatically. “From rehab.”

  “Hmm. Blackmail. Not a bad plan. What you got on Greg?”

  We laughed again. “You have everything on Greg you’d ever need all on your own.”

  “And yet I’m losing this damn divorce.” I finally turned and said, “Julian, I want to introduce you to Trey.”

  Julian pulled his sunglasses up onto his head as Trey stood up. “Oh my Lord, we finally meet in the flesh. All I have heard about from this one is Trey this and Trey that.”

  Trey laughed and held out his hand. “Nice to meet you,” he said.

  Julian looked at me, confused. “Wait. He’s straight?”

  I sighed. “Is this some sort of new cultural norm I’ve missed out on? Like I have to inform everyone now if someone is straight?”

  “He wears his hair like that because he’s a Yankee and says ‘girl’ because he’s up Gray’s butt,” Diana said. “Now you’re all caught up.”

  “And this is Diana,” I said, laughing.

  “And who is Diana?” Julian asked.

  “Oh, um…” I didn’t know what to say.

  She interjected, “I’m her maid.”

  “She is my savior,” I retorted.

  A voice from behind me said, “Jesus, Gray. Are you so high-maintenance now that you have to take your maid with you to the pool?” I turned to see our “friend” Alexander (don’t you dare call him Alex), who was cocky as hell and didn’t care who he pissed off.

  I could feel myself reddening with embarrassment. I glared at him. “We are all having a morning break, Alex.” I’d evened the score now.

  “Maybe you could quit being so rude,” Julian added.

  Alexander just shrugged and continued to the bar, where he pulled out a stool and sat down.

  I mouthed I’m sorry to Diana. She rolled her eyes. As Stafford turned to throw one of the kids in the water, Marcy looked at me and made a slicing motion with her finger across her throat.

  “Really?” I said when she reached me a couple minutes later. “None of those rumors are true.”

  “He has full custody,” Marcy said as if she were saying, “raging herpes.”

  “Ugh,” Julian said. “Nobody’s got time for that.”

  “I thought you didn’t care about the kids,” I said.

  “Yeah,” she said. “Every other weekend I don’t. But raising a one-, three-, and five-year-old on my own? Please.”

  “Agreed
,” Julian said. “Hey, what about Alexander?”

  “He brings his own wineglass to the bar,” Marcy groaned.

  “Ohhhh,” Julian said. “I was under the impression that you were marrying for money. If you’re looking for love, I have a few prospects in mind.” Then he waved at a woman entering through the gate and was calling, “That bag!” as he walked away.

  “He’s too much,” Marcy said. “But he really does mean well.”

  “Does he?” Diana asked.

  We all laughed, and I felt myself relax. She didn’t seem mad about the earlier slight.

  The waiter came up, and I said, “We need to order lots of food.”

  “Oh, oh! Onion rings!” Trey said.

  “And lots of rosé,” Marcy added.

  “Haven’t you people ever heard of beer?” Diana asked.

  “And evidently Diana will have some sort of beer,” I said.

  We were all smiling and happy. Yes, there was work to be done, but that’s why God invented laptops. I missed my boy, so many thousands of miles away. But if I couldn’t be with him, I realized, there was nowhere I would rather be right now than right here, lounging poolside, with my favorite people, all summer long.

  * * *

  Later that night, I tossed my phone on the outdoor couch beside me, finally giving up. Andrew wasn’t going to call. He just wasn’t. I had ruined my summer fling. I weighed my options. Did I call him? Did I casually run into him at the club tomorrow? Because there was no denying that I hadn’t stopped thinking about him for a moment since he’d left my house. But I knew I wouldn’t, because I had too much pride. Or maybe I was too afraid. What if he hadn’t called because the divorced thing had finally sunk in? Or because I hadn’t been pretty enough, or because I had cellulite on my thighs and he saw? Maybe he didn’t think I was a good kisser.

  Stop, I finally thought. Enough. I had always known that getting back on the horse would be hard. Maybe he hadn’t called because he didn’t want to, but maybe that had nothing to do with some shortfall of mine. The water was so dark and eerily still, only the moon’s reflection giving away that it was water at all. The stars twinkled, and I sighed.

  Before I could decide what to do, I heard the unmistakable putter of a small engine and saw the skiff it was propelling a few seconds later. As it pulled up to the dock, my heart leapt into my throat.

  I wanted to run to him, but that would look too eager. So I held myself back, strolling down to the dock. “Hi,” I said casually.

  “Hi yourself,” Andrew said, his back still to me as he leaned over to tie up the skiff. I watched his fingers as they wound the rope around the cleat. His hands were strong and practiced.

  He stood up, wiping them on his wrinkled khaki shorts with a small grease stain on them.

  Then he gave me that look… like he was the dying fire, and I was the kindling. I thought about being cool, but cool had gotten me these last few days of regret. I didn’t want to regret anymore. Andrew took my face in his hands and kissed me with so much intention that I thought I might have melted into him, that my lips might not even be my own anymore. He smelled intoxicatingly of boat fuel and seawater, the back of his shirt damp from the humid night and sea spray.

  “Hi, pretty girl,” he said, putting my fingers, which were wrapped in his, to his lips.

  “Hi,” I whispered back, acutely aware of those dimples and of how completely like a teenager he made me feel. “You could come hang out on the porch if you want to.”

  “Really?” he said, feigning shock. “Mom and Dad won’t mind?”

  I smacked his arm with the back of my hand, feeling butterflies at the mere act of touching him. He must have felt them too because he kissed me again for what seemed like a very long time.

  As we walked up to the house, the warm night air, still humid and sticky but with a refreshing hint of crispness, crept onto my skin. I grabbed a few pillows and a blanket from the basket on the porch and arranged them in the yard, then collected the bottle of wine I’d opened a few minutes earlier and two of the Lucite cups from the outdoor bar.

  “So does this mean I’m welcome here?” Andrew asked.

  I nodded and whispered, “I think it does.” I almost added: But only if you want to be. But I stopped myself. If he didn’t want to, he wouldn’t be here.

  “I know you’re trying to keep this whole thing on the DL,” Andrew said. “I just wanted you to know that I don’t kiss and tell.”

  Then he leaned in and kissed me, and it occurred to me that I kind of wanted to tell everyone. I wrapped my arms around his tight torso, and for a minute I felt so safe in his embrace that I forgot to worry about everything in my life that had gone wrong.

  “Julian knows,” I said.

  “Oh no,” he groaned. “So the DL lasted twenty minutes.”

  “Less.”

  Andrew sat down, reclining into the pile of pillows, and put his arms out for me to lie on his chest.

  “I just wanted you to know,” he said, “that when I said that thing about you being the perfect sugar mama, I was only joking.”

  I placed my head in that sweet spot and said, “I know you were. I wasn’t offended or anything.”

  “I’m really impressed,” he said. “I mean, you’re so young.”

  I sat up, smiling. “One, thank you for saying I’m young. Two, are you fishing for advice?”

  He laughed, putting his hands under his head, his elbows open wide. “No. Money isn’t important to me. I’m only getting my MBA to please my dad.”

  Andrew was studying at the College of Charleston, and just thinking about the fact that he would be back in the same city as my sister in a couple months made me cringe.

  “I want to play tennis forever, and I’m no Federer, so I’m never going to be rich. I don’t want a big house or new cars or fancy stuff. I just want to be happy.” He paused and added, “I love kids, and I love teaching them.” Under his breath he said, “Plus there’s this tennis mom I’m kind of into too.”

  I smiled. “I never saw all of my success coming, to be honest. I started a blog when I was in college, when blogs were the new thing, and I got a lot of followers really fast, and companies started to approach me about advertising their products.”

  “But that’s not ClickMarket, right?”

  I shook my head. “I got the idea to go back to them and ask for a percentage of the sales from my site instead of charging traditional ad fees. Most of them said yes, and the site kept growing, and as soon as I graduated I started hiring staff, and it grew more, and before I knew it I was this twenty-two-year-old making tons of money.”

  Andrew laughed. “A little Zuckerberg over here.”

  “It’ll always be my first baby,” I said.

  “And Greg is trying to take it.”

  I thought back to the conversation I’d had with my lawyer earlier today. Basically, I was screwed. Greg wasn’t just my husband. He worked for my company, if only just barely. He was probably going to win, and I had to face it.

  I looked up at the sky, the stars twinkling so brightly. I noticed the moon illuminating the sandbar that was only visible at low tide, the spot where Greg had proposed to me. I had thought it was the most romantic thing on earth. He had said, “The water washes away this sand, but nothing on heaven or earth will ever wash away my love for you.” It wasn’t exactly accurate, but I thought it was so romantic.

  “It wasn’t easy,” I told Andrew. “I built that business from nothing, on my own shoulders, when I was only a kid. I swear being young was one of the reasons it all fell into place. I didn’t psych myself out of success, because I believed I was infallible.”

  The night Greg proposed, as we celebrated our engagement, I’d told him about the idea for ClickMarket. We knew it was going to be good, but we had expected the affiliate bubble to burst long before now.

  I told Andrew all of that, and he said, “And now you’re screwed. You and Greg are stuck together forever.”

  I laughed. �
��We’re stuck together forever because of Wagner, so this is just one more piece of the pie.” I looked at the sky again, marveling that nine years after that gloriously romantic night, I was back on the same beach with a different man discussing how it all went wrong.

  “Well, damn. All I do is swing a racket all day.”

  “Being on the court is the same as being in the boardroom. Reading your opponent, learning to guess his or her next moves.”

  I lay back down on his chest, and he kissed my hair. “Like how I knew you were going to do that?” he whispered.

  I laughed. “Exactly.”

  “I guess when you get down to it, tennis is a game of life.”

  “Of course it is,” I said. “Oh, I used to love figuring out how to get into people’s heads.”

  “You’re sure as hell in my head.”

  After those four long days of radio silence, his cheesy reassurance was a relief. Lying there, the cicadas and crickets singing their song, the one that reminded me of the freedom and innocence of childhood summers, I was happy that I was in his head. As much as I hated to admit it, he was in mine too, but I didn’t say that. I didn’t say anything.

  Andrew shifted, and my pair of gold bangles, one with five intermittent rubies and one with five diamonds, clinked. Andrew lifted my arm. “What are these?” he asked.

  I wore them all the time. I even showered in them. “They’re for remembering,” I said. I pushed up the top one with the rubies. “This one is for my mom.” Then I pulled the second to meet it. “This one is for Wagner.”

  In the midst of my life falling apart, I’d been trying to focus on gratitude. And these bangles were a constant reminder of the good: This night. Wagner. The years I had with my mom. The stars. This house. The way the grass feels under my feet.

  Andrew studied my face intently for a few seconds. “You take such good care of everyone. Who takes care of you?”

  He kissed me. And I added Andrew to the list.

  diana: that wink

  My favorite picture of me is one on my first day of sixth grade, and I’m standing there smiling and all optimistic. My new mom in foster care, she took that picture to make me feel special on the first day of school. Thinking back on it, she was always trying to make me feel special.