Baby proof

you're dealing with martinis. And the more I drink, the more my thoughts drift back to Ben.

At one point, I can't help blurting out, 'I didn't think I'd miss him this much.'

Michael runs his hand along the sides of his glass and then wipes the condensation on his shorts as he says, 'So what exactly went down there anyway?'

I answer quickly, 'We wanted different things.'

He rolls his eyes. 'Jesus, Claudia. That's worse than the 'we grew apart' song and dance.'

'Fine,' I say. 'Ben wanted a baby.'

'And you?'

I pause and then say, 'I didn't-don't-want a baby.'

'What do you want?'

Nobody has ever posed the question quite like this before, and I have to think for a minute before I can answer. 'I want a really good, committed relationship. I want close friends and good times. Like right now… I want freedom to do my job well without feeling guilty or beholden to anyone. I want freedom generally.'

'Oh,' Michael says, and then takes a long swallow of beer. 'I see.'

'Tell me what you're thinking,' I say, recognizing that you're more likely to invite or tolerate criticism when someone isn't so free with it.

'I don't know,' he says. 'It's just that… being married cuts down on your freedom. Having a husband-or a relationship at all-puts constraints on you. You handled that fine. I don't think I could deal with those sorts of constraints. It's why I had to call it quits with Maya,' he says, referring to his ex-girlfriend. It was Michael's most serious relationship to date, one that he ended when she demanded a ring-or at the very least, a key to his apartment. He continues, 'I was so afraid that I wouldn't be good at it that I didn't even want to try… It seems to me that you left Ben more because of fear than anything else.'

'Fear of what?' I say.

He shrugs and then says, 'Fear of failure. Fear of change. Fear of the unknown.'

I look at him, feeling dizzy.

'And yet, here you are anyway…' he says, his voice trailing off.

He doesn't have to say the rest. I know the rest. Here I am anyway, facing all of the above. Fear of failure, fear of change, fear of the unknown. And right here, in a bar under a bridge in Brooklyn, I feel a very small pang of regret.

Michael says he has to get back home, that he has a hot date tonight. Actually, he doesn't say it's hot, but I assume that part. Michael only dates hot women. So we take the subway back to Manhattan and part ways on the Lower East Side.

'Are you going to be all right?' Michael asks.

'Yeah,' I say, kissing his cheek. 'Thanks for today.'

'It was my pleasure,' he says, tipping an imaginary hat.

As we say good-bye, I wonder if, come Monday morning, I will confess to Michael the very stupid thing I'm about to do.

nine

I really can't say exactly what makes me take the subway up to my old apartment when, prior to this afternoon, I was convinced that short of mere happenstance I would never see Ben again. Of course the martinis are a factor, but I've never been one to radically change my behavior when I'm drunk. I've never, for example, hooked up with someone while drunk whom I wouldn't have hooked up with otherwise. Besides, by the time I get off the subway at Seventy-second and Broadway, I'm not nearly as intoxicated as I was in Brooklyn. I could easily regroup and head back to Jess's place.

So I think my little detour has less to do with alcohol and more to do with what Michael said to me in the bar. The stuff about fear motivating my decision to divorce Ben. As I walk the several blocks to Ben's apartment, I consider my faults, ticking off the list of adjectives that other people have thrown at me during arguments-and that I've thrown at myself during quiet, introspective moments: stubborn, judgmental, moody, impatient. I have my share of character flaws, but I've never counted cowardice among them. To the contrary, I have always thought of myself as one to accept challenges and take risks. It is part of the reason I've been so successful at work.

Still, something rings true in Michael's words. Maybe I am just afraid. Maybe I let Ben go because the fear of having a baby actually outweighed the fact that I didn't want one. Maybe I feared the person I would become. Maybe I feared something I couldn't quite name, even to Ben, even to myself.

Somehow I think I believe that seeing Ben will give me these answers. Or maybe it's just an excuse to see him again. In any event, it doesn't really matter. Nothing has changed. I still don't want a baby, and Ben still does.

But here I am anyway, standing on the sidewalk, looking pensively up at the third-floor kitchen window I used to look out of every morning and every night. I picture Ben, unshaven and barefoot, making a late-afternoon snack. I can see him pouring a glass of milk and arranging Ritz crackers on a plate before smearing just the right amount of peanut butter across the face of each one. I can see him licking both sides of the knife and dropping it with a clang into the sink. I can see him eating his crackers peanut butter side down, while he sits on the couch and watches golf. I can see all the little ordinary things he used to do, things that now seem like faraway memories.

I take a deep breath and climb the outside stairs to the front door. My heart is racing as I close my eyes and press the buzzer over my old last name. 'Davenport, Apt 8C.' I wait to hear static and Ben's voice saying, 'Hello?' but there is only silence. I look at my watch. It is 5:15. Maybe he went for a run. Ben loves to run in the park at this hour of the day. Sometimes I'd go with him.

I decide I will kill a few minutes and go get some soft-serve ice cream at the little candy store around the corner. I walk there slowly, looking around at my old neighborhood, noticing things I never noticed before. A green wire waste can. A jagged break in the sidewalk. A row of red geraniums planted in a second-story window box. When I enter the candy store, the Middle Eastern clerk working behind the counter smiles and says hello as if he recognizes me. Maybe he does. Maybe he has noticed that Ben now comes in alone.

I smile and order a chocolate-vanilla swirl in a sugar cone with rainbow sprinkles. I also buy a bottle of Evian and a pack of spearmint Trident. I am four cents short, so I get out my credit card, but the clerk says don't worry about it, you'll be back. I almost tell him that I won't actually be back, but instead I just thank him. I take my cone, retrace my steps, and try the buzzer again, just in case Ben returned while I was gone. Still no answer.

I sit on the top stair and take a few bites of the vanilla side of the cone. I don't know why I consistently order the swirl when I like vanilla so much better. It just seems like I should prefer chocolate. I also decide that the rainbow sprinkles were a bad idea. They are good in a dish, but too messy on a cone. I eat a little faster as the ice cream begins to melt. I tell myself that I will only wait for Ben as long as it takes to finish my cone. Anything longer than that might make me feel like a stalker. The last thing I need right now is to feel like a stalker. Besides, my buzz is completely gone now, replaced with a faint headache, the kind that is sure to get worse. I hold my cone in one hand, unscrew the bottle of Evian with the other, and down about half of it without stopping. I am starting to panic a little, wondering what I will say to Ben. Wondering if there is any point to my being here at all.

A lone pigeon bobs his way toward me. 'Rats with wings' Ben calls them. I lick the chocolate side of the cone and contemplate walking back to the subway when I suddenly spot Ben jogging in place, about a block away, waiting for the light to turn green so he can cross West End Avenue. He is wearing burnt-orange running shorts, a gray Wake Forest basketball T-shirt, and his favorite White Sox baseball cap. I feel a nervous flutter in my stomach and then a sense of comfort for having correctly guessed that he was on a run. I still know you, I whisper, and then I wave just in case he can see me. It's not an eager wave, just a casual, hand-in-the-air acknowledgment. I wait for him to wave back, but he doesn't, just adjusts his cap, bending the bill with one hand. I wipe my mouth with my napkin, and stand, thinking he'll see me any second.

Instead, he turns in the other direction to face a girl jogging toward him. My mind freezes and then clicks into