One
“I know what you’re going to ask me,” Spike said. “And the answer is yes.”
We were at his restaurant, Spike’s. We were sitting at our favorite table on a steamy July afternoon, enjoying the air-conditioning and each other’s company. It was our first weekday lunch together in months.
Our food had just arrived—small Caesar salad for me, a massive portion of spaghetti Bolognese for my best friend. Emphasis onmassive. Maybe it was the fact that I hadn’t dined with him much over the winter and spring—I’d been spending most of the time at Richie’s place on the Jersey Shore—but when the server brought his plate, I did a double take. A carb assault like that in the middle of the day would have put me right to sleep. But who was I to judge? Even at our (slowly, mindyou) advancing age, Spike could still bench-press any member of his staff. That included his chef, Jorgen, a seven-foot-tall mountain of a man who probably weighed as much as my car. I’d seen Spike do it at the restaurant’s Christmas party. Jorgen had dared him. The big guy had been as shocked as anyone when he’d gone airborne.
“What am I going to ask you?” I said.
“No need to be coy,” Spike said.
“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
Spike put down his fork and sighed heavily. “Yes, Sunny. I’ll be your best man.”
I nearly choked on my salad.
“What?” Spike said. “We both know I’m too butch for maid of honor.”
I gulped some water and took a breath. “Spike,” I said, “I’m not planning a wedding.”
“Why not?” he said.
“I’m engaged to be engaged,” I said. “End of story.”
“You got engaged to be engaged on New Year’s Eve. It’s July now.”
“Wow,” I said. “Who needs a calendar when I’ve got you?”
Spike went to work on his spaghetti, cutting it into bite-sized morsels. He was a spaghetti cutter, not a twirler, which struck me as odd for a restauranteur/gourmand—or, for that matter, a grown-up. It was nothing new. He’d always eaten his spaghetti like a ten-year-old. But all this time apart, I supposed, had made me start observing things more closely. Not just Spike and the way he consumed pasta, but my otherfriends, my hometown, my parents, who somehow seemed to have aged more in my absence than they had in the past ten years. I loved them all. I’d missed them all. So had my miniature bull terrier, Rosie, who was curled up on the curved banquette between Spike and me, munching a crust of bread Spike had slipped her, while staring up at him with such blatant adoration, it made me a little jealous.
“I’m assuming this delay is about you, not Richie,” Spike said.
“Why would you assume that?”
“You’re big on delays,” he said. “Richie isn’t.”
“Astute,” I said.
“I try.”
Spike took a bite of his chopped-up pasta. He broke off another piece of bread and passed it down to Rosie. She barked appreciatively. The two older women at the next table gaped at us, as though they’d never heard a dog barking in a restaurant before. “Move along,” I told them. “Nothing to see here.”
One of them clicked her tongue at me. I can’t stand it when people click their tongues at me. I thought of several wiseass remarks, but refrained from saying any of them. Who said I hadn’t matured?
Instead, I addressed Spike. “No more treats after this. Rosie’s watching her figure.”
Rosie devoured the piece of bread and rested her chin on Spike’s knee. If she were a cat, she would have purred. Not for the first time, I envied my dog—her ability to find contentment in the simplest of things.
The truth was, Spike was right. The delay in wedding planning was about me. But it wasn’t for the reasons he was probably imagining. It had nothing to do with my feelings for Richie. Throughout the winter, he and I had been more in sync than we’d ever been, even at the happiest points of our marriage. It wasn’t because of my job, which I’d been able to handle quite well from my rented office space in Asbury Park, with my assistant, Blake James, holding down the fort in Boston most of the time. It wasn’t even my two biggest fears, change and commitment. I’d made peace with both of those monsters back on January 1, when I’d accepted the key to Richie’s apartment.
Something else was holding me back. Something that I hadn’t put into words until now.
“Peak Season,” I said.
“Pardon?”
I shoved a forkful of salad into my mouth. I could feel Rosie shifting under the table, her chin moving from Spike’s knee to mine—an emotional support animal if there ever was one. I slipped her a crouton. It was the least I could do.
