Love the one you're with

three

Where are you now?" Leo asks.

I inhale sharply as I consider my answer. For one beat I think he means the question in a philosophical sense-Where are you in life?-and I nearly tell him about Andy. My friends and family. My career as a photographer. What a good, contented place I'm in. Answers that, until recently, I scripted in the shower and on the subway, hoping for this very opportunity. The chance to tell him that I had survived and gone on to much greater happiness.

But as I start to say some of this, I realize what Leo is actually asking me. He means literally where am I sitting or standing or walking? In what little corner of New York am I digesting and pondering what just transpired?

The question rattles me in the same way you feel rattled when someone asks you how much you weigh or how much money you make or any other personal, probing question you'd strongly prefer not to answer. But, in refusing to answer it outright, you're afraid you'll look defensive or rude. Later, of course, you replay the exchange and think of the perfect, politely evasive response. Only my scale knows the truth… Never enough money, I'm afraid. Or in this instance: Out and about.

But, there in the moment, I always clumsily blurt out the answer. My true weight. My salary down to the dollar. Or, in this case, the name of the diner where I am having coffee on a cold, rainy day.

Oh well, I think, once it's off my tongue. After all, it is probably better to be straightforward. Being evasive could translate as an attempt to be flirtatious or coy: Guess where I am. Come find me, why don't you.

Still, Leo answers quickly, knowingly. "Right," he says, as if this diner had been a special hangout of ours. Or, worse, as if I were just that predictable. Then he asks if I'm alone.

None of your business, I want to say, but instead my mouth opens and I serve up a plain, simple, inviting yes. Like a single red checker sidling up to double-decker black ones, just waiting to be jumped.

Sure enough, Leo says, "Good. I'm coming over. Don't move." Then he hangs up before I can respond. I flip my phone shut and panic. My first instinct is to simply get up and walk out. But I command myself not to be a coward. I can handle seeing him again. I am a mature, stable, happily wed woman. So what is the big deal about seeing an ex-boyfriend, having a little polite conversation? Besides, if I were to flee, wouldn't I be playing a game that I have no business playing? A game that was lost a long time ago?

So instead I set about eating my bagel. It is tasteless-only texture-but I keep chewing and swallowing, remembering to sip my coffee along the way. I do not allow myself another glance in the mirror. I will not apply a fresh coat of lip gloss or even check my teeth for food. Let there be a poppy seed wedged between my front teeth. I have nothing to prove to him. And nothing to prove to myself.

That is my last thought before I see his face through the rain-streaked door of the diner. My heart starts pounding again and my leg bounces up and down. I think how nice it would be to have one of Andy's beta blockers-harmless pills he takes before court appearances to keep his mouth from getting dry, his voice from shaking. He insists that he's not really nervous, but that somehow his physical symptoms indicate otherwise. I tell myself that I am not nervous either. My body is simply betraying my head and heart. It happens.

I watch Leo give his umbrella a quick shake as he glances around the diner, past Annie who is mopping the floor underneath a booth. He doesn't see me at first, and for some reason, this gives me a vague sense of power.

But that is gone in an instant when his eyes find mine. He gives me a small, quick smile, then lowers his head and strides toward me. Seconds later, he is standing beside my table, shedding his black leather coat that I remember well. My stomach rises, falls, rises. I am fearful that he will bend down and kiss my cheek. But no, that is not his style. Andy kisses my cheek. Leo never did. True to his old form, he skips niceties and slides into the booth across from me, shaking his head, once, twice. He looks exactly as I remember, but a little older, and somehow bolder and more vivid-his hair darker, his build bulkier, his jaw stronger. A stark contrast to Andy's fine features, long limbs, light coloring. Andy is easier on the eyes, I think. Andy is easier period. The same way a walk on the beach is easy. A Sunday nap. A round peg in a round hole.

"Ellen Dempsey," he finally says, looking into my eyes.

I couldn't have scripted a better opening line. I embrace it, staring back into his brown eyes, banded by black rims. "Ellen Graham," I announce proudly.

Leo furrows his brow, as if trying to place my new last name, which he should have been able to instantly trace to Margot, my roommate when we were together. But he can't seem to make the connection. This should not surprise me. Leo never cared to learn much about my friends-and never cared for Margot at all. The feeling was mutual. After my first big fight with Leo, one that reduced me to a sniveling, Girl, Interrupted-worthy mess, Margot took the only pictures I had of him at the time, a strip of black-and-white candids from a photo booth, and ripped them in a neat line, straight down a row of his foreheads, noses, lips, leaving my grinning faces unscathed.

"See how much better you look now?" Margot said. "Without that asshole?"

That's a friend, I remember thinking, even as I located a roll of tape and carefully put Leo back together again. I thought the same thing about Margot again when Leo and I broke up for good and she bought me a congratulations card and a bottle of Dom Perignon. I saved the cork, wrapping the strip of photos around it with a rubber band and stowing it in my jewelry box-until Margot discovered it years later when returning a pair of gold hoop earrings she had borrowed from me.

"What's this all about?" she said, rolling the cork between her fingers.

"Um… you got me that champagne," I said, chagrinned. "After Leo. Remember?"

"You saved the cork? And these pictures?"

I stammered that I viewed the cork as a token of my friendship with her, nothing else-although the truth was, I couldn't bear to part with anything that had anything to do with Leo.

Margot raised her brows, but dropped the subject, the way she dropped most controversial things. It seemed to be the Southern way. Or at least Margot's way.

In any event, I have just stated my married name to Leo. A not-so-small triumph.

Leo raises his chin, pushes out his lower lip, and says, "Oh? Congratulations."

"Thanks." I am jubilant, buoyant-and then slightly ashamed for feeling so victorious. The opposite of love is indifference, I silently recite.

"So. Who's the lucky guy?" he asks.

"You remember Margot?"

"Sure, I do."

"I married her brother. I think you met him?" I say vaguely, even though I know for an absolute fact that Leo and Andy met once, at a bar in the East Village. At the time, it was only a brief, meaningless encounter between my boyfriend and my best friend's brother. An exchange of How ya doin?… Nice to meet you, man. Maybe a handshake. Standard guy stuff. But years later, after Leo and I had long broken up, and Andy and I had begun to date, I would deconstruct that moment in exhausting detail, as any woman would.

A flicker of recognition crosses Leo's face now. "That guy? Really? The law student?"

I bristle at his that guy, his faint tone of derision, wondering what Leo is thinking now. Had he gleaned something from their brief meeting? Is he simply expressing his disdain for lawyers? Had I, at any point, discussed Andy in a way to give him ammunition now? No. That was impossible. There was-and is-nothing negative or controversial to say about Andy. Andy has no enemies. Everyone loves him.

I look back into Leo's eyes, telling myself not to get defensive-or react at all. Leo's opinion no longer matters. Instead I nod placidly, confidently. "Yes. Margot's brother," I repeat.

"Well. That worked out perfectly," Leo says with what I am pretty sure is sarcasm.

"Yes," I say, serving up a smug smile. "It sure did."

"One big happy family," he says.

Now I am sure of his tone, and I feel myself tense, a familiar rage rising. A brand of rage that only Leo has ever inspired in me. I look down at my wallet with every intention of dropping a few bills on the table, standing and stalking off. But then I hear my name as a featherweight question and feel his hand covering mine, swallowing it whole. I had forgotten how large his hands were. How hot they always were, even in the dead of winter. I fight to move my hand away from his, but can't. At least he has my right one, I think. My left hand is clenched under the table, still safe. I rub my wedding band with my thumb and catch my breath.

"I've missed you," Leo says.

I look at him, shocked, speechless. He misses me? It can't be the truth-but then again, Leo isn't about lies. He's about the cold, hard truth. Like it or leave it.

He continues, "I'm sorry, Ellen."

"Sorry for what?" I ask, thinking that there are two kinds of sorry. There is the sorry imbued with regret. And a pure sorry. The kind that is merely asking for forgiveness, nothing more.

"Everything," Leo says. "Everything."

That about covers it, I think. I uncurl my left fingers and look down at my ring. There is a huge lump in my throat, and my voice comes out in a whisper. "It's water under the bridge," I say. And I mean it. It is water under the bridge.

"I know," Leo says. "But I'm still sorry."

I blink and look away, but can't will myself to move my hand. "Don't be," I say. "Everything is fine."

Leo's thick eyebrows, so neatly shaped that I once teasingly accused him of plucking them, rise in tandem. "Fine?"

I know what he is implying so I quickly say, "More than fine. Everything is great. Exactly as it should be."

His expression changes to playful, the way he used to look when I loved him the most and believed that things would work out between us. My heart twists in knots.

"So, Ellen Graham, in light of how fine everything has turned out to be, what do you say we give the friendship thing a try? Think we could do that?"

I tally all the reasons why not, all the ways it could hurt. Yet I watch myself shrug coolly and hear myself murmur, "Why not?"

Then I slide my hand out from under his a moment too late.