“Don’t act like I spent the last eighteen years kissing a picture of her and being a sad celibate,” I said.
“Hey, no one could accuse you of not trying. I met the exactly two girls you ever brought home to meet the family, including the one that came to my wedding. I’m not saying you have to get married and have kids to be happy. I’m just saying that you always seemed half-hearted whenever you talked about anybody else. I mean, you’re losing your damn mind over smelling her hair. And who the hell sniffs somebody’s hair when you bump into them?”
“It wasn’t a decision. It was instinct. There’s too much history there, and there’s no hope of getting past it. It’s just torture. I’ll forget it in a few days maybe. Or maybe I’ll never go back there for a burger again, or maybe I’ll sit at that bar every night for a week hoping she’ll walk in again. I don’t know, Greg. I don’t know what the hell’s the matter with me.”
“I’d tell you what all’s the matter with you, but we don’t have all night,” he chuckled.
“Very funny,” I said, “nothing like a supportive big brother who always has my back.”
“You don’t listen to me anyway. If you did, you would’ve called her that night when I told you to. You could’ve told her you made a stupid mistake and were sorry. It’s harder to do that when it’s been years. Like, decades, man. Move on or tell her the truth.”
“No way. Some things are better left in the past,” I said.
“Then quit whining and eat your burger. If you’re too chicken shit to talk to the woman, if you’re cowering in fear of her knitting needles or the fact that she has every right to be mad at you, then you’re not the man I thought you were.”
“Thanks, bro,” I said wryly, “nice job kicking me while I’m down.”
“Did you lose the business? You got cancer? No. You’re not down. You’re just upset that you saw your ex in the doorway of a bar. Which makes me think you need closure.”
“Which makes me think you been watching that Oprah channel again.”
“What’s wrong with that? She’s wise.”
“I just wish I could make things right, but I can’t,” I said.
“Why not? It’s been a long damn time,” he replied.
“I can’t explain it. I just know that there’s no coming back from what I said to her, man,” I said.
Greg was right about one thing. I had to get over this and move on once and for all. It affected me way too much just to see her and exchange a few words. After all these years, Michelle Spelling still had some kind of hold on me, No matter how much I wanted to pretend it had been over for a long time.
3
Michelle
I never run late. It’s not who I was. I was famously early or on time. I was annoying about it. But that morning, I was running late. Maybe because I couldn’t sleep for hours and then I tossed and turned and had stupid dreams about high school. Dreams about Drew.
Just because I saw him for a second. Not because I still felt hung up on a high school boyfriend when I was pushing forty harder than I liked to admit. In my dream, he had been teaching me to whistle. First he’d shown me how to make a blade of grass whistle between my fingers. Then, when I was flush with that success, he tried to teach me to whistle the regular way. I had puckered up my lips and blown and sucked air and tried and failed to make the sound. He had teased me and made me laugh, and I tried again and failed again. Then I just made the blade of grass whistle and lay back on the blanket where we had our picnic. I looked up through the tree branches at the patches of blue sky above. Drew stretched out next to me, arms crossed behind his head, and lay there beside me, looking up at the sky and whistling.
So I woke up crying. It wasn’t even a sexy dream. It was a heartbreaking dream about how happy we’d been way back in the day. The dream hadn’t been exactly like any one afternoon we spent together. More like it was similar to dozens or hundreds of them. Sunlight and tall grass and a blanket, and just love and peace overflowing. I imagine that’s what heaven must be like. Being warm and safe and having everything you really want, being loved. So when my throat was tight and there were tears on my pillow, I lay there for a long time trying to quit thinking about him and go back to sleep. When I finally nodded off, I must’ve hit snooze. A couple of times.