Love the one youre with

'Who's the beach?' Suzanne asks as I hear an airport trolley beeping its way through the terminal followed by a blaring gate-change announcement.

I have a sudden pang, wishing I were at the airport about to fly somewhere. Anywhere. For the first time, I feel a bit envious of Suzanne's job-her physical freedom, her constant motion. Maybe that's the appeal to her, too-why she sticks with a job she often describes as waitressing without tips.

'Andy is,' I say, looking up at the scorched white sky. It's almost as if the relentless heat wave has blanched it, stripping the blue away, leaving a colorless expanse of nothing. 'Andy's a sunny day with calm, turquoise waters and a glass of wine.' I smile, feeling momentarily buoyed by the thought of us lounging on a beach somewhere. Maybe a good vacation is all we need. Maybe I need to get on a plane with Andy-rather than flying away from him. But deep down, I know a romantic boondoggle would not fix our problem-and that I might be screwed no matter what.

'And Leo?' Suzanne says.

'Leo.' His name rolls off my tongue as my heart beats faster. 'Leo's an uphill hike in the mountains. In a cold drizzle. When you're a little disoriented and hungry and nightfall's approaching.'

Suzanne and I laugh together.

'No contest,' she says. 'The beach wins.'

'Every time,' I say, sighing.

'So what's the problem?'

'The problem is… I like it out there in the middle of the woods. I like the dark… the quiet. It's mysterious… thrilling. And the view at the top, overlooking the evergreens, down into the valley…'

'Kicks ass,' Suzanne says, finishing my sentence.

'Yeah,' I say, shaking my head as I picture Leo's strong forearms and bulky shoulders. The way he looks in a pair of worn Levi's, walking slightly in front of me, always in control. 'It really does.'

'Well, then,' my sister says. 'Go ahead and enjoy the view…'

'You think?' I say, waiting for her to prescribe exact parameters-tell me what I can and can't do.

Instead she only says, 'Just don't get too close to the edge.'

I let out a nervous laugh, feeling more anxious than amused.

'Or you just might jump,' she says.

And yet, in the days leading up to my trip, despite Suzanne's advice and my vigilance to keep Leo at arm's length, I find myself standing way too close to the edge and getting sucked back into his orbit. Our formal e-mail exchanges graduate to a flurry of familiar-even flirty-banter, that in turn gives way to a steady stream of longer and increasingly more intimate texts, e-mails, and even phone calls. Until I'm full-blown obsessing, just like old times, all the while trying to convince myself that I'm not obsessing. That it's not like old times.

Then, suddenly, it's the morning before my trip-which also happens to be the day of Margot's baby shower, an event I was already dreading on some level, at least to the extent that Ginny had hijacked the planning, making it a formal, ostentatious affair rather than good, close friends celebrating a beloved soon-to-be-born baby. But now, more than ever, I view the party as something to endure, get over with, so that I can escape to New York, pick up where Leo and I left off on our red-eye flight, and get down to the heart of the matter-whatever that is.

I stretch out under the covers, having just kissed Andy good-bye and wished him a good golf game, when my cell phone rings on high, vibrating its way to the edge of the nightstand. I reach for it, hoping that it's Leo, hungry for my morning fix of him. Sure enough, his name lights up my screen.

'Hello,' I answer groggily, happily, my heart beating faster as I anticipate his first words.

'Hi,' Leo says with sleep still in his voice, too. 'You alone?'

'Yeah,' I say, wondering for the hundredth time whether he's still with his girlfriend. Based on his occasional abrupt hang-ups, I have the sense that he is, and although the jealous, possessive part of me wants him to be single, in some ways, I like that he's in a relationship, too. Somehow, she makes the playing field more even, gives him something to lose, too.

'What're you doing?' he asks.

'Just lying here in bed,' I say. 'Thinking.'

'About what?'

I hesitate before offering what feels to be a confession. 'About tomorrow,' I say, brimming with simultaneous elation and fear. 'About you.'

'What a coincidence,' he says, and although his words are coy, he is speaking very plainly, directly. 'I can't wait to see you.'

'Me either,' I say, tingling everywhere as I picture the two of us together on Coney Island, walking along the water, snapping photos in the golden, romantic hour before sunset, laughing and talking and just being together.

'So what do you wanna do?' Leo asks, sounding as giddy as I feel.

'Right now?' I say.

He laughs his low breathy laugh. 'No. Not now. Tomorrow. After the shoot.'

'Oh, I don't care. What are you thinking?' I say, instantly regretting my response, worrying that I sound too much like my former wishy-washy self-always letting him make the decisions.

'Can I take you to dinner?' he asks.

'Sure,' I say, yearning for tomorrow to come as quickly as possible. 'That sounds really nice.'

'You sound nice,' Leo says. 'I like your voice all scratchy like that. Brings back memories…'

I smile, rolling away from Andy's side of the bed, his scent still lingering on the sheets. Then I close my eyes and listen to the thrilling, intimate silence. At least a minute ticks by like that-maybe even longer-as I drift back to our shared past. A time before Andy. A time when I could feel the way I'm feeling, with no remorse, no guilt. Nothing but pure, in-the-moment pleasure. Until I finally give in to the welling inside me, the physical longing that has been building for the longest time.

Afterward, I tell myself that he doesn't know what I've just done-and that he certainly wasn't doing the same. I tell myself that I had to get it out of my system, and that we will be all business in the morning-or at most, just close friends with an incidental romantic past. And most of all, I tell myself that no matter what happens, I love Andy. I will always love Andy.

twenty-nine

A few hours later, Margot's baby shower has concluded, her scores of guests have departed, and I am wandering around Ginny's regal, tasseled living room (complete with oil paintings of her dogs, a tapestry of Craig's family coat of arms, and a baby grand piano that nobody in the house knows how to play-or, for that matter, is allowed to touch), stuffing stray bits of ribbon and wrapping paper into a white Hefty garbage bag and feeling generally conflicted. Par for the course these days, and especially now, on the eve of my trip.

On the one hand, I'm consumed with giddy thoughts of Leo, mentally repacking my suitcase, picturing the moment when I first see him, and the moment we say good-bye again. On the other hand, and completely in spite of myself, I've had a surprisingly decent time-bordering on actual fun, thanks in part to the heavy flow of mimosas. I still maintain that the Buckhead social scene is, at its macro level, superficial and shallow and dull in the extreme, but one-on-one, most of the women at the party were genuine-and more interesting than you'd think they'd be when you see them yapping on their cell phones in their Range Rovers with their designer kids in the backseat.

Moreover, as I sat beside Margot on the couch with the honored role of gift stenographer, I felt a sense of belonging, of pride to be a Graham. Andy's wife. Margot's sister-in-law. Stella's daughter-in-law.

At one moment in particular, my emotional dilemma crystallized when one of Stella's neighbors asked me where my parents live, and I had to make that split-second decision of whether to specify that while my dad still lives in my hometown, my mother passed away years ago. Meanwhile, Stella, the queen of fast-thinking tact, subtly