"So, if I may ask, what do you do on the nights you don't go out with Tristan?"
"I read. I surf the internet, watch movies."
"Uh-huh."
"I brood?"
"That's a better way of putting it."
"What do you suggest?"
"Sweetie, you're in Manhattan. You're young, you've got plenty of pocket money and everywhere you look there's something to do. Do it! Do something else for a change."
I took Jenn's advice to heart. When Boyd Clemson dropped in the following Thursday, I asked him if he'd like to grab a sandwich at Zabars. I didn't know anything about the guy other than he was a few years older than I, sharp as a tack and really easy on the eyes.
Truthfully, I enjoyed his company. It was a nice change from the intensity I experienced with Tristan. Boyd was about as laid-back and easy going as they come. He told me that his family had been in the publishing business for generations but his grandfather had sold the company back in the sixties for a tidy sum. His father had turned his considerable inheritance into a charitable foundation to promote the arts.
"I am what is disdainfully known as a 'trust fund baby'. Gramps putters around his bookstore. I putter around the world. When the trusts were set up, someone unwisely made them big enough to squash any motivation to work, but small enough to prevent any meaningful business investment," he told me over a pastrami sandwich and Dr. Brown's soda.
"You sound happy enough with your life."
"I am! I am content as hell. Kind of like a neutered Tomcat. I've been effectively castrated of ambition so I am free to devote myself to getting fat and complacent."
"You're not at all fat."
"I was speaking metaphorically."
We strolled a few blocks after lunch, digesting and talking. Boyd was a big theater buff and enjoyed finding the most obscure off-off Broadway productions.
"I can make a big impact by hooking the unknowns up with Dad's foundation. It makes me happy to do it. I love theater. It's so much more 'real' than film."
I told him about my stint as stage manager for the Mahkeenac Little Theater. "I had a great time. I was amazed at how talented the actors were. I'd never seen any amateur theater before and I was just blown away by how good they were."
"The actors I know aren't paid much more than volunteers anyway. Some of the productions are just a pure labor of love."
Boyd started visiting the shop more frequently after our lunch and I began to look forward to seeing him once or twice a week. He was a self-taught computer whiz kid and helped me over more than one 'bump' in the new catalog system.
"I've always had lots of time and state-of-the-art equipment. Plus, geeky-ness runs in our family," he explained.
Boyd had a girlfriend who was in her last year of college and away in Spain for a semester abroad. That suited me fine. I wasn't interested in him as a potential boyfriend anyway. I just wanted to spend some time with someone who didn't make me crazy like Tristan did. When Boyd asked me to pinch hit for a stage manager who'd broken his ankle, I was happy to oblige. I didn't realize it at the time, but my simple favor to my new friend would catapult my relationship to Tristan into a brand new dimension.
Eleven
He called Wednesday evening.
"What do you mean you can't go out Friday night? I haven't seen you at all this week!" Tristan was petulant and acting like a spoiled child.
"I told you that I've committed to stage managing that off-off Broadway play until the regular guy is fit to return. Why don't you come see the play and we'll grab a bite to eat after?"
"Because I don't want to see your crappy little play. I want to have dinner, alone, with you at Per Se."
"I'm very sorry, but I simply can't."
"Blow it off," he demanded.
"No."
"So . . . you'd rather blow me off?"
"I'm not blowing you off. I've made a commitment and I can't back out of it just because . . ."
"Because I want to see you? What about your commitment to me?"
"I wasn't aware I had any commitment to you." That was cold, I know. But he was being unreasonable. There were plenty of late night options for dinner and his refusal to compromise got under my skin.
"You're absolutely right, Raina. You have no commitment to me at all. Enjoy your weekend." He hung up the phone.
It's possible to feel right and wrong at the same time. Tristan was out of line and I called him on it. Yay me. I didn't know when or if I'd hear from him again. Miserable is a pretty lame word for how rotten I felt. I spent Thursday and Friday in a daze of despair. Imagining a life without Tristan--without him at all--took up every free thought I had. I didn't want to call Jenn. She hadn't been too thrilled with the whole idea of Tristan in the first place. I couldn't call Mom. She and Dad were already a little hurt by what they perceived as Tristan's abandonment and I hadn't told them that it was me who initiated that.
I couldn't really talk to Boyd, either. Somehow I hadn't gotten around to telling him about my bizarre relationship with a man who gave me earth rocking sex, lots of laughter, plenty of kick-ass dates and zero future. Boyd was all about his plans with his girlfriend Phoebe. He had their happy life all mapped out and that was enough to keep me quiet about mine.
I foolishly hoped that I'd spy Tristan in the audience on Friday night. I peeked through the curtains at the audience expecting to see his tawny head towering above the crowd. I smiled with pity for the poor soul who has to sit behind my giant. Only he's not your giant, remember that.
"Hey, it's bad luck to look at the audience," Boyd laughed from behind me. "In which case, I've cursed every production I've ever been involved with. How's the house?"
"Filling up. Looks like we have a decent crowd." Except for the one person I hoped to see…
***
Concentrate. The computer screen was turning into a maze of nonsense. My mind just refused to obey me as I struggled to cross reference 'Shakespeare' with 'Elizabethan'. It was an important interface and I just could not seem to make it work.
Every time the little bell over the door rang I hoped that it would be Tristan or at least the flower delivery guy. The last flowers I'd been sent were looking ragged on my coffee table, but I couldn't bring myself to throw them away. The finality of that was too much. It was a busy day and I had plenty of opportunities to be disappointed.
By the time I turned the key in the lock and headed for the subway I was so damn sad I wondered if I'd be able to make it through the night's performance without bursting into tears. The play was a very erotic tale of lovers who had been separated and reunited. Of course I couldn't watch it without thinking of Tristan. I'd never hurt this way, never missed anyone so keenly, never felt so devastated at a loss. As I listened to the hum of the train over the track, I knew that this was my first real heartbreak. And with that realization came the knowledge that I did love Tristan. Dancing around limitations and saying anything but the 'L' word didn't make what I felt anything but what it was. All the rationalization in the world couldn’t stop it from happening. Love trumps logic every time.