The First Husband

He motioned for the waitress to bring him his own order, and turned back to his paper. And I turned back to mine, the two of us eating, side by side, like that, paper by paper.

And when I got home that night, I opened up my heart-shaped pocket to find the business card inside of it. On the back, Caleb had written Aly, and a phone number that didn’t match the others.

Oh, and also the following: You are attracted. 97%.

35

For the first two years of “Checking Out,” I had an epigraph that ran underneath my byline—a quote from Ernest Hemingway. A simple one-liner that read, “Never go on trips with anyone you do not love.”

I thought it was a great quote about travel, but ultimately Peter removed it. Not because we were receiving many letters finding fault with the sentiment. (Most of the readers who wrote in commented on their own personal nightmare tales of traveling with someone they didn’t know well enough.) But Peter didn’t care about the horror stories. He thought traveling with someone you didn’t love—traveling with someone who was a stranger, even—provided its own set of treasures. That it gave a trip a certain dramatic energy.

And he was right. But what Peter was missing was what I loved about what Hemingway wrote. It wasn’t about the terrible stories, the miscommunications. Those happened, often during travel, with people who loved each other too. The bigger point for me was that if you were on a trip with someone you didn’t love, at the end of it you’d only get to remember what you remembered. But if you went with someone you loved, you’d often get more than that. You’d get to share it with them. You’d get to remember what they remembered too.

The next day at work, almost as soon as I got to my desk, I heard a knock on the desk’s high wall and looked up to see Melinda in that day’s polka dots, which were a bright and friendly purple.

She gave me a big smile and before I could even say hello, she was sitting on the edge of my desk, her hand over her mouth.

“What?” I said.

“What, nothing? ” she said. “Someone just made quite an impression on my cousin, that’s all.”

I looked down at my work, trying not to blush.

“He really is a good man,” she said. “Despite my jokes about the subject. And he rarely takes a shine to anyone.”

I rarely do too, I started to say. But the sentiment that came to my head on the heels of that, and far more loudly, was: And I already know a good man. I already know a really great one.

“Well, in any event, I’m sure it will pass,” I said. “I often make a great impression when I’m not trying to.”

&n

bsp; “And then what happens?”

I shrugged. “I start to try and pretty much blow the whole thing up,” I said.

She laughed. “Well, then,” she said, “we better hurry and move forward with my excellent plan before that happens . . .” she said. “To a million first impressions!”

“I’m not following,” I said.

“We have a plan. How to tell your one, big story,” she said. “Ready for it? We are going to start vlogging you.”

“That sounds dirty.”

She patted my cheek, leaving her hand there. “Vlogging means we’ll be filming you on each of your locations,” she said. “A video column, if you will. And we’re going to call it ‘Checking In’!”

“‘Checking In’? ”

“Yes! It will explore the one thing that defines each city you visit. Plus, because it’s only one thing you are focusing on, it will keep expenses down. Brilliant, no?”

She gave me an enormous smile, which, I guessed, was her way of answering her own question. Then she made a marquee sign with her hands. “Annie Adams: Europe’s number one travel expert.”

“Says who?”

“Says us!” she said. “It’s part of Beckett Media’s new synergy plan. This is the branding opportunity we were looking for. You’ll be going on the local morning talk shows, news shows, et cetera. And eventually, when you are more comfortable, we’ll go global. What do you think?”

“I think . . .” I looked right at her. “I’m a little confused. This will be in addition to writing ‘Checking Out’? ” I asked. “Like an in-depth video tour companion?”

“No no no. No companion. In place of,” she said.