“No,” Lilly said. “It would not.”
They were quiet, both thinking of other lives they had lived, other nights in twosomes with champagne. He could feel the charge between them. Simultaneous release and tension. Since he’d first been in her office he’d known it would come to this, and now it had. He felt the relaxation of arrival. Soon he’d see her naked. Soon there would be no tension.
“Animosity?” Jesse said.
“With my exes? Not the first one. He’s nice. He lives in Chicago now, works as a construction supervisor for a big company. I see him occasionally when he comes to Boston.”
“So what happened?”
“I don’t know, exactly. You go along thinking it’s forever, then one day it isn’t. One day he didn’t want to be married to me, and I didn’t want to be married to him.”
“Somebody else?”
“No. It was more that we hoped for someone else. Or something else. Our marriage just wasn’t enough.”
“How about number two?” Jesse said.
“The sonovabitch,” Lilly said, and pretended to spit.
“Another woman?”
“Another dozen,” Lilly said.
“Animosity,” Jesse said.
“A lot,” Lilly said.
“How long have you been single?” Jesse said.
“Five years.”
“You mind living alone?”
“Yes.”
They were quiet again.
“You?” Lilly said.
“No,” Jesse said. “I don’t mind living alone… I mind being alone. And I mind Jenn not being alone.”
“You’re pretty hooked into Jenn,” Lilly said.
“I am.”
“How long have you been divorced?”
“Four years.”
“I’m not sure that’s very good for you,” Lilly said.
“Probably not,” Jesse said.
“Have you ever seen a shrink?”
“No.”
“Maybe you should. It helps.”
“Maybe I should,” Jesse said.
“But?”
“My father was a cop,” Jesse said. “My whole life I been playing ball, or I been a cop.”
“So?”
“Seeing a psychiatrist is not something cops and ballplayers are supposed to do.”
“What are they supposed to do?”
Jesse paused, thinking about it.
“They’re supposed to hang in.”
“Forever?”
“As needed,” Jesse said.
Lilly looked at him thoughtfully. “Wow,” she said. “You need a shrink worse than I thought.”
“Jenn says so, too.”
“She seeing one?”
“Yes.”
“Well,” Lilly said. “You’ll go when you’re ready.”
Jesse didn’t say anything. Maybe he would. But if he did, it would start with the provision that he wasn’t going to stop loving Jenn. The champagne was gone so quickly. You have to concentrate every minute, Jesse thought.
