She was an ex-hippie, big-boned and apple-cheeked, with a bright blue streak in her graying hair.
“Something’s wrong. What is it?” she asked.
“Nothing. I’m sorry. I’ll try to focus.”
“Is it the guy from last night? The ex with the sports car?”
“Matt told you about him?”
“Uh-huh. You went home with him?”
“Yeah. Stupid. Now I’m crazy for him again, and it’s already over.”
I teared up.
“Aww, babe, don’t cry. Why does it have to be over?”
I wiped my eyes, fighting back the tears.
“He’s only in town for the weekend.”
She shrugged. “A lot can happen in a weekend.”
“And, he’s married.”
“Oh. Well, that sucks.”
“Yup.”
“You know, Bart was married when he and I first met.”
Bart was her husband of twenty years. They had four children together.
“I didn’t know that.”
“I was with someone, too. But we were both miserable. And from the second we met, we knew it was meant to be. I’m just saying. You only live once.”
She patted my arm.
I went back out on the floor, thinking about what Liz had said. What if Connor and I were destined to be together? What if we were true soul mates, who would never find happiness with anyone else? He was going to divorce Nina anyway, eventually. I’d sent him away without even exchanging phone numbers. What if he got single and couldn’t find me? I might not stay at the restaurant forever. Maybe I’d missed my chance. Made a terrible mistake. As the shift dragged on, I got more anxious. The mistakes piled up. I served the wrong food to one table, knocked over a wineglass at another. An hour before my shift ended, I was standing at the coffee station, when I saw Liz heading my way, and geared up to beg her forgiveness.
“I clocked you out,” she said. “I’ll cover the rest of your shift.”
“Look, I know I’ve been a klutz, but you don’t need to—”
“He’s here. Your friend with the fancy car. He’s asking for you.”
“Where?”
“At the bar. I said I’d send you over. Go. You’re useless, anyway.”
“I’ll make it up to you.”
“Yes, you will. You owe me, sister,” she said, with a wink, and walked away.
I hurried to the bar, squeezing through a solid wall of customers as I craned my neck to spot him. He was wedged in at the bar, facing out, scanning the crowd for me. Our eyes met. He put down his beer and came right over.
“Don’t be mad,” he said, hands on my shoulders, looking down into my eyes intently, “but I had to come. There’s something I need to tell you. Something I should have said—that I regret not saying.”
“Okay.”
“Can we go outside?”
I nodded.
In the parking lot, the air was cool and sweet after the heat of the restaurant. He started walking, but I stopped him with a hand on his arm.
“You said you have something to tell me?”
“I do. I’m just stalling. I’m afraid of scaring you off.”
“Just say it.”
“All right. Here it is.” He took a breath. “I went to the restaurant last night on purpose, to find you.”
I opened my mouth in confusion. “I don’t understand.”
“I’m just—I guess, I’m at a crossroads. In my life, my marriage. A few months ago, things were so dark, I—well, I started asking myself how I ended up like this, where I went wrong. And I kept coming back to our summer. How it ended. I didn’t fight for you, Tabby. And nothing has been right since then.”
“So, you purposely came looking for me? Is that what you’re saying?”
“Sort of. I wanted to come back to this place. I didn’t really imagine you’d still be here. But then I stopped for gas at the store in town, and that same guy still owns it. He told me you worked here. I pumped the gas and got back in the car. I sat there for a while, trying to decide what to do. I knew that if I found you, something big would happen. But then I came here. And it has.”
“The real-estate deal, does that even exist?”
“Yes. I’d been thinking about you. About this place. I wanted to come back, but I didn’t act on it. Maybe I didn’t have the guts. But when I learned the land was for sale, it was like fate. I had to come up.”
“Why tell me this now?”
He took my hands in his. His were hot, emotion coming through them like a wave.
“I couldn’t leave without letting you know how I feel.”
“You feel like your life went bad when we broke up. I get it. Things haven’t been great for me, either. We all wish we could go back and fix our mistakes. But the question is, who are you now, Connor?”
“I’m the guy who never stopped loving you. I have until Tuesday morning, and I want to spend that time with you. Talk to you, touch you, eat a meal with you. Make love in front of the fire again. I don’t care what happens after that. I don’t care if the world ends. I need you now.”
He leaned toward me, and the kiss was molten. I was done fighting this. I had no ballast—no husband, no kids, no prospects to hold me back. No reason to deny what my heart was feeling. We hurried, hand-in-hand, to his car. On the drive to the ski house, we couldn’t stop touching, kissing. It was a miracle we made it up the mountain in one piece. At the house, he unlocked the door, and we tore off each other’s clothes as soon as we were inside. He pulled me down the hall to a bedroom and threw me down on the bed without bothering to turn on the lights.
It was everything, and more.
In the morning, I texted Liz that I’d be out for the rest of the weekend. She wasn’t happy. So, I repeated back to her the words of wisdom she’d had for me last night. The words I told myself when I opened my eyes in the darkness, feeling sick with guilt, looking at Connor sleeping beside me and knowing it wouldn’t last. Knowing I’d pay a terrible price for feeling joy like this. You only live once.
9
That weekend was like our honeymoon. We spent hours in the massive bed, piled high with pillows, in a rustic-chic guest room straight out of a magazine. We made love by the glow of the fire in the gas fireplace, getting up occasionally to raid the gleaming Sub-Zero for delicacies or the wine tower for vintage wines. We soaked in the hot tub and watched the sun rise over the mountain from the wraparound deck. We talked of everything under the sun, from the most serious to the most inconsequential. Our families, what we wanted from life. What we’d been like as children. The personalities at the restaurant, the office where he worked, the places he’d traveled. I loved his voice, his sense of humor. I loved his eyes when he laughed and his face when he slept. We hid from reality, and by hiding, let ourselves get entangled, deeply.
But we couldn’t hide forever.
On Tuesday morning, Nina sent the jet to collect him. He dropped me at my car on the way to the airport. In the parking lot, I clung to him, wetting the front of his shirt with tears. He took my face in his hands.
“In our hearts, we’re always together. I need you to remember that,” he said.