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“What have you been up to?” heasked.
She told him about her job at the gallery, about her apartment and Virginia. He asked after Karen and the rest of the group, women he’d only heard vaguely referenced in the past (he mistakenly referred to Robin as Rachel), and she gave him the highlights, feeling strangely protective of her friends, motivated by a desire to make sure Peter knew they were all living full and happy lives, that they didn’t need men like him to be happy orcomplete.
He started tuning out two minutes in, and she stopped talking, turning her attention to her drink. She’d forgotten that about Peter — his lack of focus, lack of interest in anything that wasn’t immediately material to him. It stood in stark contrast to the interest Liam showed her in every conversation. Even Jack had been more attentive, although there had always been the sense that his focus was self-serving, that he was mining her words for meaning he could use to decode her for his ownpurposes.
“How about you?” she asked. “I heard you’re living with someone. How’s thatgoing?”
As she said it she realized the idea of doing the same was not appealing. She was free — to do what she wanted when she wanted, to wear what she wanted without comment, to eat what she wanted without thinking about anyone else’s preferences. She enjoyed Liam’s company but felt none of the urgency to make it official that she’d felt when she’d been in college and dating Peter, none of the urgency to get engaged, get married, just get on with it allalready.
She was having fun. She wanted to enjoy it without thinking about what was next for achange.
Peter looked down at his G&T. “It didn’t workout.”
“I’m sorry,” shesaid.
“It’s okay,” he said. “It’s for thebest.”
“Everything always seems to work out the way it’s meantto.”
He sighed and shook his head. “I don’t know, sometimes Ithink…”
“What?” Another thing she’d forgotten: the way Peter forced her to drag confessions from him when she could sense his eagerness, when it was obvious he wanted to spill his guts. She realized now it was a kind of power play, an attempt to make what he had to say seem more important by virtue of the effort Nina made to get him to sayit.
He looked at her. “Do you ever think we didn’t try hard enough? You andme?”
“No.” Of all the reasons she’d unearthed for her divorce from Peter, not trying hard enough had never been one ofthem.
“You don’t think we got lazy?” heasked.
She smiled. “We definitely got lazy, but that’s not why itended.”
“Why did it end?” he asked. “Because right now, sitting here with you, I can’t fuckingremember.”
“Oh, Peter,” she saidsoftly.
He closed his hand over hers on the bar. “I think I fucked up,Neen.”
She was suddenly very tired. In spite of his familiar appearance, she hardly recognized the man in front of her. He was a stranger, and she had the feeling he might have been a stranger all along. Either that or she’d just ignored all the stuff she didn’t want tosee.
There was so much wrong with what he’d said and how he was saying it — the use of her nickname when he hadn’t earned the right to use it, his use of the word “think” to describe his “fucking” up, like he wasn’t even sure of that much, like he was just trying the idea on for size, his aggressive grab for her hand, like he was entitled to it, toher.
She pulled her hand away. “Please don’t call me that anymore.” She took a long swallow of her martini. “We both fucked up in a hundred ways, Peter, but we were never going to last and be happy. We were too young when we got married. We didn’t know each other and we didn’t knowourselves.”
He swallowed. “Maybe, but we’re older now. We know ourselvesnow.”
“You don’t know that. Not about me. How could you? We haven’t spoken a single word to each other in twoyears.”
He looked chagrined. “I’m sorry about that. I just needed time to sort thingsout.”
She felt sorry for him. He was lost, grasping at straws to fill a hole that had nothing to do with anyone buthim.
“I don’t need your apology,” she said. “I let go of all the things that passed between us a long time ago, and believe it or not, I’mthankful.”
“Thankful?”
She nodded. “Everything happened for thebest.”
She realized as she said it that it was true, that she believed it. During and after the divorce, she had no idea why things were happening the way they were. It had been like looking at a tiny piece of a big puzzle, all the colors and patterns meaningless without the context of the rest of thepuzzle.
