“I scared you, didn’t I?” he said when he found her in the lunchroom, a half hour later than their usual time.
“You didn’t scare me,” she said. She felt light-headed. “You just reminded me of reality.”
He nodded solemnly. “I understand,” he said. “Maybe the timing’s just off.”
He spoke as if there was a destiny to them, as if they would come together again, later. He’d always been a romantic.
“Maybe,” she said, humoring him.
“I’ll trust the universe on this one.” He looked upward, toward the sky, smiled, then added, “Just don’t be a stranger, okay?”
She was a stranger, though, for her own sake. She started applying to other jobs, knowing it would be too hard to see him every day at the office. It didn’t take long to find something—an up-and-coming pharma company hired her after one interview.
Deb assumed she’d never see Marco again, that he would always be her soul-mate-in-another-life. She couldn’t even think of him as “the one that got away” because he was never really hers.
Two years into trying to forget him, he called.
“My divorce is final,” he said.
Her heart was hammering in her chest. She’d been standing when she answered the phone; now she had to sit.
“Took longer than expected, but it’s final. I told myself I wouldn’t call you until it was final. I think we should try again, Deb.”
She didn’t know what to say, so she was quiet. He kept talking, stating his case with a speech that sounded practiced. He said there would be no pressure to move in together, no pressure to be a stepmom to his kids. They would date; they would enjoy each other. The universe—it was always “the universe” with him—would figure out the rest.
It was like something out of a movie. Or it could have been, if she wasn’t living with an international business attorney named Greg.
“Marco, stop,” Deb said, interrupting him, finally. “I’m with someone.”
She had to say it again before he understood.
“Just my luck.” He gave a little laugh. “I just can’t seem to get it right.”
“Get what right?”
“The timing.”
Deb and Greg dated for five years. True to her modus operandi, he was wonderfully unavailable. He worked late, traveled a lot. Or that’s what he said when he was gone so often. Then she found out he’d been cheating on her for months. Deb was too proud to be devastated. She pretended not to care, cast him out of her life as if he’d meant nothing. She did care, though. When she got into bed alone at night, she tried to read, but tears blurred her vision. The tears weren’t about missing him as much as they were about hating herself for being so stupid. She considered her private pain to be punishment for her past role as the mistress. She kept thinking about that past role, about Marco, about getting the timing right.
She called him, or tried to. He wasn’t at the same number. This, she thought, was the universe telling her to stop her silly ruminating and move on. But then, just a few months after the phone call attempt, she was at work, reviewing résumés for field sales representatives, and his came across her desk. Marco Mancini.
When she called the phone number listed at the top of the résumé, she cleared her throat, planning to put on a fake voice and say, “Hello, Mr. Mancini, I’m calling about the résumé you submitted to Revon Pharmaceuticals.” But it was a woman’s voice that answered.
“Hello?” the voice repeated while Deb did her best to collect herself.
“Oh, hi. Sorry. I’m looking for Marco Mancini. Do I have the wrong number?”
“No, this is it. This is his wife. What can I do for you?”
Deb hung up. It was a reflex, a hammer-to-the-knee kind of reaction.
He’d married again. She couldn’t believe it. She’d thought, stupidly, that he’d be waiting for her, that their togetherness hinged on her readiness and nothing else. She was absurdly and irrationally angry at him, this man she hadn’t even seen in person for eight years.
She spent the next few years working her way to a management position at Revon, dating occasionally, living in the same apartment, becoming something of a wine connoisseur. She thought of Marco from time to time, just wondering what had become of his life. Social media allowed her to entertain these curiosities.
Facebook was becoming increasingly popular and, given her position in the marketing world, she created a profile to familiarize herself with the platform that everyone was calling “the future.” He was the first person she searched for. There were only two people on Facebook with his name—one in Italy, one in Los Angeles. She couldn’t help but click.
His profile was public, but it was obvious he didn’t use the site much. She’d wanted to see his wife, to know whom he’d chosen in her place, but there were no photos, aside from a profile picture that looked to be a corporate photo, like something on a badge he wore clipped to his belt at work.
She decided to send him a message, just to say hello, scratch the itch that kept nagging her. It had been more than a decade since they’d had their fling. That’s how she’d relegated it in her mind—a fling, nothing more. Her note was short, and when she read it back after clicking “send,” she chastised herself for using too many exclamation marks.
He wrote back the very next day, with his own plethora of exclamation marks. He said he couldn’t believe they’d reconnected. He said they should meet up for a drink. He gave her his phone number. She didn’t ask about the wife. She wanted to pretend she didn’t exist, for just a little while.
They decided to meet at their old bar, the one across the street from the Genixer building, or what the Genixer building used to be (it had become an apartment complex; the company had sold to a pharma giant some years earlier). The bar had a different name but looked the same inside. Deb arrived first, got a table in the back, ordered a gin and tonic. When he walked in, it was as if no time had passed. He looked exactly the same, and she had the same fluttery feeling she did way back then.
“My god, you don’t age,” he said, hugging her, his hand lingering on her arm as they took each other in.
“Trust me, I do,” she said. “You, on the other hand, don’t.”
When they sat, he placed his hands on the table and she saw the wedding ring.
“So,” she said, trying not to stare at it, “catch me up.”
“We’re separated. Linda and me. That’s my wife—Linda.”
Deb felt her cheeks reddening, knew her eagerness was obvious.
She should have kept their meeting short and platonic. She should have paid her part of the bill after one drink and gone on her way. But that’s not what Deb did. Instead, she changed the subject, and they continued talking—flirting, really—until the bar closed. Deb had never been the last person in a bar before, had never seen the lights go on. They weren’t drunk, but they were tipsy and giddy.
“Well, I guess we should go back to my apartment,” Deb said when they stood in the street outside. She surprised herself with the proposition, knew she would be ashamed of herself the next day.