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Sure, he’d seemed sincere the other night, but I’d been down this road before. He alwaysseemedsincere—so sweet and genuine that anyone would want to believe him. Convincing people of his good intentions was his superpower. Only after he’d lured you into lowering your defenses did the real Donal come out—the one who was forgetful, irresponsible, and self-centered. How many times had he made promises, then left me or others in the lurch back in high school? Whether accidentally or intentionally, the result was the same.
So no, I didn’t trust him to have my back now. No matter how sincere he’d seemed. Historically Donal wasn’t someone who followed through on his commitments.
Knowing this about him made me even more anxious about his relationship with Erin. I’d been terrified he was going to stand her up for their lunch date today. I’d texted him first thing this morning to remind him about it, again a half hour before to make sure he’d left on time, and then a third time to confirm he’d actually made it to the restaurant.
I didn’t doubt he’d been annoyed by my nagging, but would he have made it there if I hadn’t checked up on him? What if he’d stood Erin up and left her sitting in that restaurant alone thinking he didn’t care about her? It’d be just like that time he’d left me stranded at the basketball game. Or the time he’d promised to meet me at the library to work on a project for Latin class and never showed. Or that other time he was supposed to help me transport donations for the food drive and I’d ended up hauling everything by myself.
It was one thing for Donal to let me down—I was used to it and entertained no illusions about him. But if he got Erin’s hopes up and disappointed her, so help me God, I would kill him. Literally, I would murder him with my bare hands if he hurt her in any way.
Fortunately, he seemed to be taking this seriously so far. But I hated not being in control of a situation, and being forced to rely on Donal was even worse. He wanted us to be a team, but I knew what it meant to be on Donal’s team—me doing all the hard work while he got all the glory.
I checked my phone for the millionth time as I paced around my apartment. What I really wanted to do was text him and ask how the lunch had gone, but I’d already annoyed him by texting so many reminders today. If I pushed him too much, he might shut me out completely. Besides, they might still be at lunch. I was reluctant to interrupt if it was going well. Erin might think I was intruding on her time with Donal and decide I was pushy and overbearing.
Iwaspushy and overbearing, but she didn’t need to know that yet. In high school people had called me Bossy Tess behind my back because of my tendency to step in and take charge. It wasn’t as if I enjoyed doing all the work myself. I only did it when other people wouldn’t. They were happy to let me make all the decisions until it came to the one decision out of a hundred they actually cared about—then suddenly I was being bossy because I’d tried to take over a task no one else had been willing to do.
That was fine. Being bossy had made me good at my job, even if it hadn’t won me many friends. My clients appreciated my bossiness and paid handsomely for it, because it meant shit got done.
But I was trying extra hard not to be pushy and overbearing with Erin. She’d figure it out eventually, but I wanted to put it off as long as possible because I wanted her to like me.
Why hasn’t Donal texted yet, dammit?
I sank down on my couch and glared at my phone. Was he punishing me for nagging him? I wouldn’t put it past him.
Casting my phone aside in frustration, I surveyed the clutter that still covered my coffee table. I hadn’t yet put away the box of old pregnancy memories. It wasn’t like me to leave a mess sitting around, but every time I thought about packing it all away again something stopped me.
I leaned forward and picked up the cassette tape Donal had given me. On the spine of the tape he’d simply writtenSongs for Tessin his messy, teenaged boy scrawl. As I read the faded list of song titles scribbled in ballpoint pen, I couldn’t help smiling. They were all love songs. Not slow songs or mushy ballads, but every single song was about love, attraction, or sex. It seemed so obvious now, but at the time I’d been unsure, hesitant to believe Donal had those kinds of feelings for me.
And yet here I was, holding the evidence in my hand. It had been staring me right in the face back then and I’d refused to see it.
Maybe I was being too hard on Donal now. I should probably make more of an effort to give him a chance. I had to keep reminding myself he wasn’t a teenager anymore. He wasn’t the same boy who’d made me this tape, or the boy who’d left me at that basketball game in tenth grade. He was a middle-aged man, a partner in a big downtown law firm, a father, and an ex-husband. Those experiences had changed him in ways I couldn’t understand, just like the last thirty years had changed me.
As I set the cassette down, my eyes fell on the baby blanket I’d started knitting when I was pregnant. I’d had this fanciful idea that I could give it to the baby so she’d have something to remember me by. I didn’t even know if they would have let her keep it, and anyway I never finished the stupid thing.
I picked it up, running my fingers over the stitches. I hadn’t knit in years—not since I’d abandoned this blanket, in fact. If I closed my eyes, my hands could almost remember the motions. But I didn’t have the needles anymore. My stepmother had taken them back and transferred the blanket to stitch holders before I put it in storage. I didn’t have the pattern anymore either. I couldn’t even remember where I’d gotten it from. Probably one of Sherry’s pattern books, which I’d given away with all my parents’ other possessions.
As I sat there holding the blanket, squeezing the ancient acrylic yarn between my fingers, my phone chirped on the couch beside me.
Donal had texted me finally.
Do you want to come over tonight? If you bring pizza I’ll give you a million dollars.
* * *
“No mushrooms, right?” Donal eyed the pizza box in my hand as he admitted me to his condo. He might have changed since high school, but his pizza preferences hadn’t.
“Oh sorry, did you saynomushrooms?” I blinked at him innocently. “I thought you wantedextramushrooms.”
“You’re messing with me, aren’t you?” His eyes narrowed as he took the pizza box from me. “You’d better be messing with me.”
He wore jeans and a plain blue polo shirt that fit his body immaculately. So many men our age still favored the same pleated pants and Obama mom jeans that had gone out of style twenty years ago. Not Donal. His jeans were casually fashionable and hung low on his hips in a way I found inconveniently distracting.
It was an effort not to stare as he carried the pizza into the kitchen. Instead, I set my purse on a table by the door and went to admire the view from his living room windows. His building was only a half mile from mine and nearly the same distance from the Riverwalk, but his corner unit was higher, more spacious, and afforded a view of Lake Michigan, whereas mine faced away from the waterfront.
“Oh, thank God,” Donal muttered from the kitchen after opening the special deep dish I’d picked up from Giordano’s on the walk over. “For a second I was scared you’d totally fucked me over.”
Turning my back on his spectacular view, I wandered toward the kitchen and leaned against the doorframe. “I might be a heartless bitch, but I’m not a monster. I still remember how you feel about mushrooms.”
His mouth pulled into a frown as he cut a glance at me. “You’re not a heartless bitch.”
