Love the one you're with

thirty-one

In a moment more surreal than sad, I stand at our bedroom window, watching Andy back slowly and deliberately down the driveway, then use his turn signal as he makes his way onto the main drag of our neighborhood. I can almost hear the sound of it-blinka, blinka, blinka-in the quiet of his still new-smelling car, and persuade myself that a man who bothers with his turn signal isn't that angry. I'm not sure whether this is a comfort or convoluted evidence that we aren't meant to be together. That Suzanne's implication is right-we are short on passion, and merely have a caring, pleasant union that isn't even all that pleasant anymore.

I turn away from the window, telling myself that I'm not looking for proof of any kind, one way or the other. Maybe I'm in denial, but I just want to get on a plane in the morning, and go to New York, and do my job, and see Leo, and try to feel better about everything-the past, my marriage, my friendship with Margot, my work, myself. I'm not sure exactly how that's going to happen, but I know it won't happen if I stay here, in this house.

I switch Andy's lamp off again, and get back in bed, feeling as if I should cry, but realizing with a mix of fear and relief that all my emotions are dulled and watered-down versions of what I felt just minutes before when Andy was in the room with me. In fact, I'm so composed and detached that it's almost as if I'm watching the aftermath of another couple's big fight, merely waiting to find out what will happen next: Will she stay or will she go?

I close my eyes, exhausted and quite certain that I could fall asleep with just a little effort. But I don't let myself try; I have at least some right on my side, and sleeping might eviscerate it, turn me into the callous wife who gets a good night's rest while her devastated husband is driving in circles through the empty streets.

So instead of sleeping, I try Andy's cell, fully expecting to get his cheerful voicemail with that familiar, errant taxi honking in the background. Don't ever change that outgoing message, I recently told him, unsure whether I wished to preserve his happy voice or the New York background noise. In either case, he doesn't answer now-or any of the three times I hit redial. Clearly, Andy does not want to talk to me, and because I have no idea what to say to him, I don't leave a message. I decide against calling Margot's house, where I am pretty sure he'll end up eventually. Let them gang up on me. Let them invite Stella over, open a good bottle of wine, and simmer in their superiority. Let them do their thing while I do mine. I stare into the dark, feeling lonesome and yet so glad to be alone.

Some time later, I restlessly head downstairs where everything is dark and tidy, just the way Andy and I left it when we went to bed. I make a beeline for the liquor cabinet, where I pour vodka, straight up, into a small juice glass. Drinking alone feels like a depressing cliche, and I desperately don't want to be a cliche. And yet, vodka is exactly what I want in this moment, and what Ellen wants feels like the emerging theme of the evening. Or so I'm sure my husband would say.

I stand in the middle of the kitchen, suddenly craving fresh air, too, so I head for the back door, noticing that Andy reset the security alarm as he departed; he might hate me, but he still wants me to be safe. At least that's something, I think, as I sit on the top step, which has become my favorite spot in Atlanta, sipping vodka and listening to crickets and thick, muggy silence.

Long after I've downed my drink, called Andy's cell one final time, gone back inside, relocked the back door, and placed my glass in the sink, I find his note. I don't know how I missed it before, as it is in the middle of the counter, written on a yellow Post-it note-the kind we usually reserve for notes of a very different kind. For "I love you" and "Have a nice day," or "Need razor refills." My stomach drops as I hold the square pad up, under the stove light, reading Andy's block letters:

IF YOU GO, DON'T COME BACK.

I peel the note from the pad and consider not what I should do in the morning, but simply what to do with the note itself. Do I write a response on the blank lines underneath his instruction? Leave it on the counter in a crumpled ball? Toss it into the garbage? Press it into my journal as a sad memento of a sad time? None of the choices seem quite right-so I simply place it back on the pad, carefully aligning the edges to create the appearance that it was never disturbed, never read. I look at it one more time, feeling a sharp pang of remorse and regret that we have become the kind of couple who not only fights in the middle of the night but leaves ultimatums on Post-it notes in the kitchen.

We might even become the Buckhead couple that people talk about over a cocktail at the club. Did you hear about Ellen and Andy? Did you hear what she did? How he laid down the law?

I can just hear the Ginnys of the world: And then what happened?

She left.

Then he left her.

I stand at the counter for a long time, flashing back to the distant past and then the recent past, and a few snapshots in between, wondering if I believe Andy's words. I decide that I do. He might change his mind, but for right now, he means it.

And yet, instead of striking fear in my heart, or giving me pause of any kind, I feel all the more calm, resolute, indignant, as I head back upstairs and get back under the covers. How dare he draw a line in the sand? How dare he not even try to understand what I'm feeling? How dare he back me into a corner with his demands? I try to turn the tables, imagining Andy, homesick, wishing to reconnect with something or someone. And then I realize that that is why I moved to Atlanta. With him. For him. That is why I'm here now.

I fall asleep, dreaming random, banal vignettes about getting the easy chair in our bedroom slip-covered, and spilling sweet tea on my keyboard, and assembling a last-minute, makeshift gypsy costume for a neighborhood Halloween party. Dreams that, even under heavy scrutiny, make no sense at all given that I am at a crossroads, in a crisis.

When I wake up for good, it is four-fifty-nine, one minute before my alarm is set to go off. I arise, shower, dress, and go through all the matter-of-fact motions of a normal travel day. I gather my camera equipment, reorganize my suitcase, print my boarding pass, even check the weather in New York. Mid-sixties and scattered showers. Oddly enough, I can't conjure what mid-sixties feels like, perhaps because I've been hot for so long, so I focus on the rain, packing my umbrella and a black trench coat.

All the while, I think of Andy's note, telling myself I can always back out at the last minute. When the sun rises, I can decide to stay. I can ride the MARTA train to the airport, weave my way through security, meander the whole way to my gate, and still come home.

But deep down, I know that's not going to happen. I know that I will be long gone when Andy returns home to find his note, undisturbed on our marble counter.

Five blurry hours later, I find myself in the cab line at LaGuardia, the sounds, smells, sights all so achingly familiar. Home, I think. I am home. More than Pittsburgh, more than Atlanta, more than anywhere. This city, this very cab line, feels like coming home.

"Where are you headed?" a young girl behind me asks, interrupting my solitude. With ripped jeans, a ponytail, and an oversized backpack, she looks like a student. I imagine that she is near broke, and hoping to split cab fare into the city.

I clear my throat, realizing that I have not yet spoken today. "Queens," I say, hoping she's Manhattan bound. I am not in the mood for conversation, but don't have the heart to turn her down.

"Oh, drats," she says. "I was hoping we could share a cab… I was going to take the bus, but I'm kinda in a hurry."

"Where are you going?" I ask, not because I really want to know, but because I can tell she's dying for me to ask. I bet a boy's involved. A boy is always involved.

Sure enough, she says, "To see my boyfriend. He lives in Tribeca."

She says Tribeca proudly, as if the word has only rolled off her tongue a few times before now. Perhaps she just learned that it stands for Triangle Below Canal Street. I remember when I learned that tidbit-just as I remember mispronouncing Houston Street, saying it like the city in Texas, and how Margot corrected me, admitting that she made the same mistake just the day before.

"Hmm," I murmur. "Great area."

"Yuh," she says, as I detect a Minnesotan or Canadian accent. "He just found this awesome loft." She flaunts the word loft as I'm sure he did to impress her. I wonder if she's seen this "awesome" space yet, imagining it to be cramped and gray-yet still somehow wonderful.

I smile, nod. "And where do you live?"

She pulls a wrinkled jean jacket out of her roller bag, as I think denim on denim-not good. She buttons it almost to the top, making the look even worse, and says, "Toronto… My boyfriend's an artist."

It is a glorious non sequitur once again proving her love, proving that everything comes back to him.

Dangerous, I think, but smile again and say, "That's great," wondering how they met, how long they've been together, whether she'll move to New York to be with him. How their story will end. If it will end.

The line snakes forward, bringing me inches closer to Leo.

"So… are you coming home?" she asks.

I give her a puzzled look until she clarifies, "Do you live in Queens?"

"Oh… no," I say. "I'm meeting someone there… for work."

"You're a photographer?" she asks.

For a second, I am amazed by her intuition, but then remember my bags, my equipment.

"I am," I say, feeling more and more like myself by the minute.

I am a photographer. I am in New York. I am going to see Leo.

She smiles and says, "That's cool."

Suddenly reaching the front of the line, I tell my new, nameless friend good-bye.

"Good-bye," she says, so happily. She waves-which is an odd gesture when you're standing so close to someone.

"Good luck," I tell her.

She says thanks, but gives me an inquisitive look, likely wondering what luck has to do with anything. I want to tell her a lot. It has a lot to do with everything. Instead, I give her a smile, then turn to hand my bags to the cabbie.

"Where to?" he asks as we both climb in the car.

I give him the long ago memorized address, nervously checking my makeup in my compact mirror. I am wearing only mascara and lip gloss, and resist the temptation to add more, just as I made myself stick with a ponytail and a simple outfit of jeans, a white button-down shirt rolled at the sleeves, and black flats. This trip might be about more than work, but at least I have dressed the part.

I nervously pull my phone out of my bag just as Leo texts me: You here yet?

My heart pounds as I envision him freshly showered, checking his watch, waiting for me.

I send back: In a cab. See you in a few.

An instant later, he texts a lone smiley face, which puts me at ease, but also surprises me. Leo has never been an emoticon type of guy, unless you count his occasional colon-dash-slash face:-/ that he sometimes tacked onto the end of his e-mails, mocking my slightly asymmetrical lips-something Andy has never noticed, or, at least, has never pointed out.

I smile back at my phone, in spite of my mood-which isn't bad, but is by no means smiley. Then I slip my earphones on, turn on my iPod, and listen to Ryan Adams singing "La Cienega Just Smiled," one of my favorite songs that can make me feel either really happy or really sad, depending. Right now, I am both, and as I listen to the words, I marvel at how closely aligned the two emotions are.

I jack up the volume as I hear my mother saying, "You'll go deaf, Ellie." Then I close my eyes, thinking of Leo, then Andy, then Leo again.

After all, I think, isn't it always about a boy?