Page 3 of Nothing Less than Magic
“You want some ginger ale or Seven Up?” I start to flag over our server, but Austin stops me.
“Water is good.” He taps his glass, lifts it to his lips, and takes a visual lap around the bar like he’s searching for something. Or trying to avoid eye contact. “I thought this would be a good place for us to talk. You know, neutral ground.”
A place that neither of us has any sentimental attachment to or a hometown advantage. I talk about it all the time in my seminars. It can be couples counseling or something as simple as a dog park. Just a safe place, where two people can work out their differences, so each of them feels like they’re on equal footing.
Except for the fact that I’m afraid of heights and Austin isn’t, I’d call the Top of the Mark neutral ground. It was never one of our haunts. Like I said, it’s a tourist hangout. And although the lounge is packed, I guess there is some degree of anonymity in a large crowd. In other words, no one will be paying attention to us.
And it is romantic. It’s the kind of place you bring your kids for your twenty-fifth wedding anniversary to say, “This is where Daddy proposed.” Or in our case, “This is where Daddy begged me to take him back.”
“Okay,” I say, waiting for him to go on. “What do you want to talk about?”
“Us. I’d like to talk about us.”
I nod, because I’m not about to play mediator. In this case, I’m the aggrieved spouse, not a marriage therapist. Still, he’s silent, and the anticipation of what he’s about to say is killing me.Just spit it out, I want to scream.
“I love you, Chelsea.”
Finally.
I take a deep breath and reach under the table to take his hand. “I know you do, Austin.”
“I’ve always loved you. Damn, Chelsea, you’re my best friend.” His blue eyes pool, and he swipes at them with the hand I’m not holding.
This past year must’ve been hell for him. In all the time I’ve known him, I’ve never seen him cry. Not even at his father’s funeral. Granted, they weren’t close, but still . . . it was his freaking father.
“That’s why”—he pauses and clears his throat—“I want you to know how sorry I am for everything I put you through. I just kind of lost all sense of myself. Like I woke up one morning and didn’t know who I was anymore. I guess I just needed this time to find myself again.”
A million thoughts go racing through my head, none of them charitable. Top among them is you needed to drag us through a heart-wrenching, not to mention expensive, divorce to find yourself? How very self-indulgent of you. But I focus on the mantra of my best-selling self-help book:Your feelings are valid. In other words, despite how angry I am with him, Austin is entitled to his pity party.
“I’m sorry you lost yourself,” I say, trying to sound like a wife and not do the whole therapist thing, which I recognize may have been one of my overarching problems in our marriage. No spouse wants to be inundated daily with psychobabble. “And I’m so proud of you for doing the work it took to find yourself again.” Okay, a little patronizing, but the truth. I am proud of him.
He nods. “It was a long haul with lots of twists and turns on the way. Lots of self-doubt. About me, about us.” He smiles softly, sadly.
Seeing him like this, so contrite, makes my heart melt. Every bad word I ever called him is forgotten. All I have is love, so much love that my chest aches with it.
“Oh, Austin.” I reach across the table to hug him, already planning our first Halloween together since the divorce. We used to throw a big party for his colleagues in the clubhouse of our condo. Now my condo, after I spent a bundle to buy him out of his share. Oh well. At least we’re back on track, and what was once ours and is now his and mine will become ours again.
Our server returns to the table to see how everything is. His timing couldn’t be any worse, and it takes all my willpower not to shoo him away, because Austin and I are finally getting to the good stuff. He wants me back.
Austin’s stomach must be feeling better, because he orders a gin and tonic. Perhaps he was nervous that I wouldn’t forgive him or at the very least that I would make him grovel. Good. Because after all these years, he should know that I’m not a pushover, even though I am as eager to patch us up as he apparently is.
The waiter leaves, and it’s just us again.
“You were saying,” I prod, impatient for the grand finale. Then we can go back to my place, our old place, and consummate our reconciliation with a marathon sex session, like we used to do when we first met.
“I was saying what a wonderful friend you’ve been to me through all this.” He is no longer looking at me, instead gazing across the restaurant at that man again. The one he doesn’t quite recognize. The one with the distinctive tie.
I clear my throat, and he snaps his attention back to me. His drink comes, and he takes a long sip as I grow ever more anxious.
“And?” I rest my chin on my hands and hold his gaze.
“And”—he blows out a breath—“I have something to tell you. Something . . . well . . . here goes.”
I hold my breath, waiting for it, for the words I’ve been longing to hear since the elevator lurched open on the nineteenth floor of the Mark Hopkins.
“I’m engaged.”
I’m already up, ready to throw myself into his arms, when the words hit me like a sucker punch.
