The First Husband

“If I say maybe, is that bad?”

She laughed, throwing her head back. “I’m not making a lot of sense yet, but just keep your thinking cap on,” she said.

“I can do that,” I said.

“Good,” she said, unlinking her arm from mine as we approached the conference room. “Big changes are coming. Great ones.”

Then with a wink, she disappeared into the conference room—me catching just a peek of Peter before the door shut.

I looked down at the legal pad. On top she had written Annie Girl = World Travel Connoisseur.

Below that, all over the page, she’d mapped out several divisions of Beckett Media: television shows related to travel, their radio programs, their Web sites. Putting them all in one large circle, Annie Girl written in the center, again—in the bull’s-eye.

I, apparently, hadn’t written anything.

The next Friday evening, in celebration of my first full week, Peter and I decided to see a play on the West End. To go out for a late meal, afterward, at a noodle place he loved.

But we had only just gotten in a taxicab when the night felt a little ruined. I got a message on my phone that I had a new e-mail. My heart was beating as I opened my phone, hoping against hope that it was going to be some word from Griffin. As more time went by, I got more and more worried that word from him was never coming. What did I want him to say, anyway? Anything, was the answer. Anything at all. But why was I surprised that something from Griffin wasn’t what was waiting for me. Something from Nick was.

This was what he wrote:

A-

This isn’t to put any pressure on you. Just to let you know I’m thinking of you. Not just when you’re in Massachusetts and married. Not just when I’m not supposed to be. In case you thought that was what this was about. The chase. It’s not. It’s about everything else.

I’m supposed to leave London a week from Monday. I hope to see you before then.

I hope to have a reason not to leave, at all.

Yours,

N.

“Good e-mail, no?” Peter said.

I turned to find him leaning over my shoulder, reading for himself.

“Peter!” I said.

“Oh, right!” he said. “Like now is a good time to start playing the role of bashful.”

“Anyway,” I said. “It doesn’t matter.”

“Why not?”

I shrugged. “I don’t know that I can put it into words.”

Peter patted my hand. “There’s my star writer,” he said.

“It’s just that Nick says

he wants to give me what I want,” I said. “He wants a chance to do that now.”

“And what’s the problem?”

The problem was that I wasn’t just angry with Nick for leaving and putting us in such a difficult place then, or even for walking back into my life when he shouldn’t have and putting me in such a tricky place now. If I was being honest with myself, it was more that I had started to wonder if what Nick was offering me was less what I want, and more what I wanted. Past tense.

“The thing is,” I said, “I’m not sure I’m clear on want I want anymore.”