“Seriously,” I laughed. “You’ve never really told me what you do all day.”
“That’s ’cause I haven’t been doing a whole lot lately,” he said, leaning back in his chair. “It’s been pretty slow. The Virginia office is nothing like Jersey—which I guess is a good thing.”
“I like to think so.”
“Plus, Virginia has one particular thing that Jersey doesn’t.”
“Oh yeah?”
“Definitely.” He gave me a look that could only be described as smoldering. “See, there’s this girl . . .”
I felt color rush to my cheeks as the server came over to take our drink order. The Shack was famous for its themed cocktails and Jay ordered a Yankee Doodle Dandy brandy punch, but since I knew I’d have to head back to work, I got a Boston Tea-Totaler.
When the server walked away, Jay pivoted. “Have your parents made it back yet?”
My parents were in a band and spent a lot of time on the road. Wait—that makes it sound too cool. Let me rephrase: my parents made up the two-member singing group The Rainbow Connection and toured the region performing at libraries, private birthday parties, and preschool graduations, delighting the under-six set with their pun-filled songs about such topics as woodland creatures, making friends, and learning to go pee in the potty.
“They get home Sunday,” I said. “Maybe you could come for dinner next week?”
Jay and my parents had really hit it off. My mother was fascinated by Jay’s Indian heritage and had used it as an excuse to try out to several new vegan dishes of Indian inspiration, often asking him if this or that tasted authentic. Jay was an omnivore born in Massachusetts who had never visited his parents’ country of origin—but he always told her she had a real flair for Indian cooking, which made her love him. And my father liked everyone. Literally. In almost twenty-five years on this planet, I had never heard him say anything remotely negative about anyone—except once when he said Kim Jong-un seemed “a little unstable.”
“I’d love that,” Jay said. “I actually promised your mom I’d bring her some of the amchoor I had my mom send from home. She wants it for her mango curry.”
“Mom really likes you, you know.”
“I like her too, but not half as much as I like you.” Jay reached across the table and grabbed my hand again. I linked fingers with him and squeezed back. It was probably a combination of the fresh air, the low light, and the fact that we were smack dab in that dreamy new-relationship phase—but I felt like I could stare into his eyes forever.
“You’re going to make everybody sick if you don’t stop that.” A voice as familiar as my own intruded into the moment. It was Ryan, my ex, and he was walking up to our table.
Ryan had been my first love, the guy I was sure I’d spend the rest of my life with. He was also the guy who’d broken my heart into a million tiny pieces when he’d decided after seven years that I wasn’t enough for him. He’d run off to Colorado (literally in the middle of the night) and called me from the road to break things off. But he never really let me go, giving me just enough hope that we’d get back together to keep me on the line for nearly a year. And then a couple of months ago, he’d come back home, told me he loved me, and that he wanted us to be together forever. I found out approximately twenty-four hours later that while living in Colorado he’d gotten a woman named Ridley pregnant and that he planned to move her to Tuttle Corner to raise the baby around family. He begged me to stay with him, saying he loved me and that Ridley was just a fling. But there are flings and then there are babies that result from flings. The whole thing was a little too complicated for me. While I believed Ryan loved me, I’d come to realize that the way he loved me wasn’t good enough—not anymore. I deserved more. Making the decision to move on was one of the hardest things I’d ever done but it set me on a new, brighter path forward. I hoped Ryan would accept it eventually and find his own brighter path.
“Hi Ryan,” I said, pulling my hand back from Jay’s.
“Hey,” Jay said, and I could hear a faint weariness in his voice. Ryan was as much a part of Tuttle Corner as I was, and it seemed we were forever running into him.
“Hello, lovebirds!” Ridley, who was a step behind Ryan, floated up to our table and bestowed upon us a blinding, thousand-watt smile. How somebody that pregnant could be that graceful I would never understand. Every head in the place turned to watch this vision of maternal loveliness glide by. When Ryan first told me about Ridley, I thought of her as the bizarro me—my complete opposite in every way. This image was confirmed when I actually met her. Ridley stood six feet tall and had long, toned limbs and a thick swath of white-blond hair that fell effortlessly to the middle of her back. She had startling blue eyes and approximately twelve perfect freckles distributed evenly across the bridge of her button nose. Her lips were full, bow-shaped, and naturally pink; her teeth straight and white; and, as if that weren’t enough, she had one of those raspy voices like a DJ. Oh—and at eight months pregnant she looked like most of us do after a big meal. There was no evidence of any sort of pregnancy weight gain other than the tiny bump just under her tanned, pierced, and always-exposed belly button.
Ridley and I were learning to coexist, but I’ll admit it hadn’t been easy for me. I was over Ryan, but seeing his perfect Amazonian baby mama and the way everyone fawned over her made me feel things I wasn’t proud of—things
