When I take a deep breath and exhale, I glance at her, and she speaks.
“There’s something that I’ve been waiting to hear you say, Scarlett, ever since you found out about Adam and the other woman…”
“You can say her name.”
“Ever since you found out about Adam and Melissa. Ever since your divorce. It’s been over three years now. You’ve never said that your heart is broken. I have so many clients who sit where you’re sitting and tell me that their heart was broken by someone or something. It’s not a phrase I remember hearing you use. Is that right?”
“Yeah. I’ve thought about that too. I’m not heartbroken. I’m heartfrozen.”
“You said that Noah hasn’t found the limits of his imagination… Do you believe you’ve found the limits of your imagination? When it comes to love, specifically? Is that why your heart is frozen?”
“It is very difficult for me to imagine being head over heels in love.”
“Again?” She’s trying so hard to refrain from leaning forward in her chair that she’s pushing back into it, like she’s on the downward swoop of a roller coaster.
“Again what?”
“I was just noticing that you didn’t say being head over heels in love again. Were you never head over heels in love with Adam?”
I rub my lips together. I need to apply lip balm. I fish the little cosmetic bag out of my tote and apply a thin layer of strawberry lip balm before speaking. “Lenora gave me this cosmetic bag,” I tell Dr. Keller. As if that’s an answer to her question. “My best friend? The makeup artist.”
“Yes, I remember.”
“We don’t get to see each other enough, but whenever we’d get together, I could never find my lip balm in my giant tote bag. It drove her nuts. So she gave me this. Such a simple solution. My brain was so frazzled, it never would have occurred to me. Now I have little transparent bags for everything in here.”
“It’s very cute,” she says. “And Adam?”
“And Adam…” I place the small bag inside the big bag, adjust the handles of the big bag so they’re both leaning against the bottom of the sofa. As if this makes me less of a mess somehow. “The truth is, I was never truly in love with him. I was so infatuated with him. I was so in lust with him. But he never captured my whole heart. At least I don’t think he did. Maybe there’s something wrong with me. Maybe I can’t fall in love.”
“From what you’ve said, it doesn’t sound like Adam is a very nurturing person.”
“He is with Noah. Well, I don’t know if I’d use the word ‘nurturing.’ When he’s actually with Noah, he’s very attentive. And responsible.”
“But not with you.”
“He was always very attentive in bed.”
“Yes. Very passionate in bed, you’ve said. But you never felt—forgive me… I don’t want to put words into your mouth, but as I recall, you never felt like you were getting what you needed from him emotionally.”
“No. After a while I just convinced myself that I didn’t need anything from him emotionally. I get what I need from Noah and my parents and my friends and sometimes from my clients. From you. He gave me Noah.”
“And then he fell in love with his co-star.”
“Oh yeah…” I pretend to be reminded of this small detail from my past, but I’m not the actor.
“You never felt heartbroken about it?”
“I felt shame. And anger, of course. Sad in the way that you feel sad when something is coming to an end. Mostly, I felt guilty. I still do. I felt that it was my fault that our marriage fell apart. Because I wasn’t enough for Adam. And because of that, Noah has to split his time between us.”
“But you’ve said that Noah is doing great.”
“He is. As far as I can tell.”
“So perhaps there isn’t really anything for you to feel guilty about.”
“I think you mean I’d have to find something else to feel guilty about.”
Dr. Keller doesn’t go for my very hilarious joke, which is a little disappointing but not surprising. “Is it possible, Scarlett, that it wasn’t you who was not enough for Adam? But rather that Adam wasn’t enough for you?”
Gosh.
“Is it possible that it’s okay to have had a child you love very much—who you are head over heels in love with—with a man you weren’t in love with? And that it’s also okay for you to open your heart to another man who isn’t your child’s father?”
Well, shit.
“What do you think, Scarlett?”
“I mean… Sure. It would be okay.”
“Good. What would that look like for you? If you allowed yourself to open your heart again? To love without fear?”
Dylan Brodie.
I don’t even have to think about it.
It would look like Dylan Brodie.
Just thinking his name has the exact opposite effect on my body as hearing Adam’s did. My entire being relaxes at first and then tightens in one certain area…but then my brain always, always takes over.
For three years, invasive thoughts of Dylan Brodie have been like the gopher in Caddyshack, and my brain is Bill Murray going crazy trying to exterminate him from the golf course. If I keep this up, the inside of my skull will be a smoldering ruin and all that’s left will be an image of that beautiful man tying my shoelaces and then dancing around, victorious and shirtless. He definitely wasn’t shirtless that day at Erewhon, but for some reason my hippocampus keeps partially undressing him.
It doesn’t help that all of a sudden there’s this new commercial for some French cologne that follows me all over the internet and when I watch late-night television. He’s wearing a long leather trench coat and tight black pants—no shirt—at the beach. All wet, from head to toe. Emerging from the sea in slow-motion, staring straight into the camera with the same look he gave me on the sidewalk that day.
The look in his eyes was so vulnerable, but his behavior was bold, direct. His manner was boyish and manly at the same time. I had never experienced anything like it before or since. A part of me wanted to take him home and make him soup and then give him a really life-affirming but totally sexy hand job before sending him on his way. Another part of me wanted to whip out a cross and holy water while chanting “I will never fall for another actor again!” over and over. Especially not a handsome, charming flirt who’s probably really good in bed.
I’m too busy to post on social media, but I compose would-be tweets in my head all the time.
ME: I will never have relations with another actor ever again.
ALSO ME: I am so glad I Googled That’s So Wizard! after that beautiful man tied my shoelaces for me, and then Googled Dylan Brodie and found out that he always dates his co-stars, and then forced myself to watch That’s So Wizard! because it’s really creepy to see Dylan Brodie when he’s playing an adolescent boy so that helps me not fantasize about him. Sort of.
The only problem with Also Me’s plan of attack was that my son walked in when I was watching Disney Plus and quickly became obsessed with That’s So Wizard! So we ended up watching every single episode together. It wasn’t actually a problem, really, because watching the twelve-year-old version of Dylan Brodie with your son is a really great way to prevent yourself from fantasizing about Dylan Brodie. For a little while.