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“I’ve been getting used to a new job,” I began defensively, but then I stopped. I could see the anguish on Paul’s face. He looked as if he were in real physical pain. Oh my God, I thought, he’s not here to propose to me, he’s here to break up with me.
“There’s someone else, isn’t there?” I asked, immediately hating how timeworn the question felt.
He winced. Swallowed. Ran his hands through his hair as if he meant to pull it out by the roots. “Yes. Rita, the woman I met on the plane last month…” It all spilled out then, how they’d held each other’s hands when their plane almost crashed, how they’d spent the weekend at her parents’ house in Binghamton (“Oh,” I said woodenly, “I thoughtshelived in Binghamton.” “No, she lives here in the city,” Paul replied.), and how she had told him he ought to work in finance instead of just studying it (Rita turned out to be an investment analyst at a major Wall Street firm), and they started talking and emailingand texting and she had arranged an interview out in L.A. for him, and then this interview in New York, which was really only a formality because he’d already been offered the job at the big Wall Street firm, and he and Rita had already talked about him moving into her Tribeca loft.
“So I guess I’m the only detail you had to attend to,” I said when he finished.
“Don’t make it sound like that, Cal. I didn’t want to do this on the phone. And I couldn’t make you come out to California andthentell you. I thought it would be easier if you were in the city around friends and family…”
I laughed. “Family? Did you forget my grandmother lives in Santa Fe now? Not that I’d be likely to cry on her shoulder anyway.”
“I meant Annie,” he said. “I didn’t know if you were close to anyone up there yet, although I have wondered…”
“If I’m sleeping with anyone? I guess that would be easier on you if I were. No, I’m sorry to disappoint you. I’m not sleeping with anyone.” I knew what I was saying was technically true and that if I tried to explain about the incubus Paul would have thought I was crazy. Still, I felt a little twinge of guilt at the half lie.
“Actually, that’s kind of a relief—I know, I know,” he said as I spluttered. “I have no right to say that; it’s just I’ve had this feeling that there is something you haven’t been telling me.”
Although it was painful to realize how serious Paul was about Rita, I couldn’t really blame him for feeling I hadn’t been entirely honest with him when I’d been hiding a slew of supernatural occurrences—and one very natural kiss. I sighed. “I suppose I might have a crush on the new writing teacher.”
“I knew it! That Liam fellow. I Googled him and thought he looked just your type.”
“Really? I didn’t think so…and I don’t think it’ll go anywhere. We haven’t…Well, it’s not serious.”
“Oh,” Paul said, looking plainly relieved.
“So you Googled him?” I asked.
“Yeah.” He smiled sheepishly. “And looked at his Facebook page. Geez, the guy’s like an action hero—teaching inner-city kids, working for Amnesty International, and his poetry’s not half bad.”
The fact that Paul had actually read Liam’s poetry touched me oddly. I looked at him carefully. He’d relaxed enough to sit back in his chair. His hair was ruffled from the strenuous raking he’d been giving it. He looked younger again, like the Paul I’d met in college. I suddenly knew that if I made an effort here I could probably wrest him away from Rita. He’d wanted to talk in the morning because he didn’t trust himself not to sleep with me—and if he slept with me he’d feel obliged to tell Rita and they’d fight…It wouldn’t really be that hard. I could tell Paul my plans for quitting my job at Fairwick and moving back to the city. With his new job on Wall Street we could probably afford an apartment in Manhattan. And I had to admit that Paul would be happier working on Wall Street than he’d been teaching demanding undergraduates. And a happier Paul might be easier to be with…as long as I was really happy, too.
But I suddenly knew, without a doubt, that my happiness didn’t lie with Paul and that it never had. Maybe if I hadn’t been holding back a piece of myself things would have been different, but it was too late now. I got up. “I should leave,” I said. “I’ll go stay with Annie in Brooklyn.”
“No!” he said, jumping to his feet. “I planned to let you keep the room. The firm booked it for five days. I can go stay with…” He stumbled over Rita’s name and my resolve faltered as well. It was one thing admitting to myself that the relationship was over, and another sending him out to another woman.
But I could only delay that by one night unless I wanted him back.
“I think you’d better go,” I said. “But I’m warning you, once this really sinks in I might order a lot of room service.”
