The Better Half(5)
261 252 8600 12:30 PM
I already do Nina Morgan Clarke.
TWO
This is not how this was supposed to go. I pull into the only parking spot I can find after circling the block four times. My back bumper hangs a foot into Leo’s neighbor’s driveway—the Silver Lake equivalent of felony trespassing. The day before school starts is predictably crazy, but I got to my office at 6:00 a.m. thinking if I arrived early, I could sneak away in the middle of the day while the teachers were working in their classrooms. Mimi, my assistant, said she’d have my back if anyone came looking for me. After ten years working under Headmaster Nevins, whose trademark communication style was reserved and efficient at best, she’s enjoying a shift in main office atmosphere. Mimi’s consistently ten steps ahead of where I have no idea I need to be, and my gratitude for her is endless. Every morning, I show up with two piping-hot lattes. I need to keep Mimi motivated on the ass-saving front through my first year as head of school. Second year I’m in charge, she can hang me out to dry for not knowing better. But this afternoon the fire chief showed up unexpectedly to test our sprinkler system, and even Mimi couldn’t get me out the door.
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m so sorry.” My relationship with Leo started with me apologizing at the Biltmore eight weeks ago. Now it’s the end of August, and our summer affair is headed for a similar fate as I hurry over to Leo and his mix of suitcases and duffel bags littering the sidewalk. I’m late and attempting to look suitably apologetic, while his mound of luggage reminds me just how long he’ll be gone. A charley horse from too little water during back-to-back meetings seizes my left leg. “Ow, ow, ow . . .” I grab my hamstring midgallop, and my gait turns into an awkward limp. I hope my apology and my pain will elicit some sort of forgiveness on Leo’s part. Given the folded arms across his chiseled pecs and the look on his face, I’m not giving myself winning odds.
Today’s the day Leo told me about two weeks ago, after we had spent more of our summer nights together than apart. Following work I would rush home, strip out of my master of the universe outfit that was some version of a sundress that stopped below my knees but bared my shoulders in the Pasadena summer heat, and throw on shorts, a tank top, and strappy sandals. Leo and I would meet in central LA so my father, Fitzroy, or Xandra wouldn’t discover us. And so we were closer to Leo’s house when the warm evenings and the giddiness from a couple of glasses of wine sent us tumbling into Leo’s bed. I was always sure to make it home before Xandra’s curfew.
That evening in mid-August, while I was perusing the menu to determine if we were still hungry enough to order a second round of sushi, I asked a question every woman should be cautious of when in the midst of a new relationship. “So, what are you thinking?” I was hoping Leo was going to say he was thinking about ordering more hamachi toro. Instead, he closed his menu.
“I’m thinking I have to tell you something,” Leo admitted, fiddling with his chopsticks. I knew right then the something had nothing to do with sushi, and my appetite sank. “I’ve had an amazing time with you this summer but . . .”
Jesus, not the but. At forty-three I’m too old for the but. The but is a young woman’s game. I’m supposed to be past the long, drawn-out explanation that always circles back around to the universal, it’s not you, it’s me. Or worse, there is a wife waiting in the wings. I didn’t want to hear Leo’s lengthy explanation in an effort to spare my feelings. I prayed he would end it quickly so I could at least walk out of the restaurant with enough dignity to fit into my clutch.
As I looked around the dining room, I was thankful we were eating in Brentwood and not Pasadena where a Royal-Hawkins family might witness their spanking-new head of school being publicly dumped. Tears do not elicit confidence. And then there was the matter of my lucky star necklace on Leo’s nightstand. Xandra gave it to me. How was I going to get it back?
Leo canted his head left to grab my attention and my eyes. “At the end of this month I’m moving to Singapore to open an office for Smith, Bodie, and Strong. It’s been in the works for about eighteen months.”
So, it’s not me, exactly. Hooray! Sort of. I took a long drink of ice-cold water to buy myself a moment to think. What I probably should have done was a shot of sake. “And you’re telling me this now rather than, say, before the camping trip when you made me sleep on dirt and eat dehydrated noodles because?” While my body was in the conversation, my brain was busy catching on that this was simply another way of saying Leo was leaving, and we were done. I had my phone in my lap, ready to call Marisol so she could meet me at my house and let me cry all over her. If she and I had ordered room service at the Biltmore like I’d wanted, I wouldn’t be here, being broken up with right before school started.
“Because this”—Leo pointed back and forth between the two of us—“or I should say because these past six weeks have been so much fun, Nina. And so, so . . .”
“Poorly timed?”
“I was going to say wonderful. Truly wonderful. I never expected it,” Leo said endearingly.
It’s true. My first summer concert ever at the Hollywood Bowl, we sat fourth row center. And wine tasting in Ojai for the weekend was delicious in every way imaginable. But it was weeks later while walking down the street, Leo assuredly holding my hand, that I took notice for the first time that being with him felt comfortable, even natural. I assumed he would want to be more inconspicuous, to avoid potential judgmental stares. Instead, he seemed not to notice or care what people thought about us being together. In fact, one of the things that deepened my attraction to Leo was that he so boldly inhabited his space, and with him, so did I.