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Felicia winced under her masseuse’s assault. “I should have warned you to take an Advil before we came over.” She laughed. “But I forgot myself.”
Her masseuse grinned.
“You’re divorced. Is that right?” Felicia asked after a moment.
She and Hue had clearly been doing homework on us, or at least me, because I didn’t remember mentioning it at either of our dinners.
“Yes, a little over a year now,” I told her.
“If you don’t mind my asking,” she said, “what happened?”
I took a breath. My job was to get the deal done, and if it meant dealing with questions about Matt, so be it.
“We got married right out of college, and things were fine until he got accepted to go to school out of town for his masters degree.” That was only part of the story. “And Samantha and I had just started our company, so I couldn’t pick up and leave.”
“Where was the school?”
“North Carolina. He got accepted at Duke.” I didn’t tell her he’d since left there because he couldn’t hack it.
“Fine school, but too far to drive for the weekend,” she said. “So you agreed to try a long-distance marriage?”
I hesitated answering this. My canned answer would have beenyes, but it was a lie. “No, we didn’t.”
She looked over quizzically, waiting for me to expound.
“He hadn’t told me he’d applied.”
“That’s not good.”
Understatement of the year. We were supposed to be working as a team to make a life, and he went off on his own to apply without asking or telling me.
“Matt thought it would have started an argument,” I told her. “And he was argument averse in the extreme. He was right. It would have been an argument when he applied. Postponing it only created a worse one when he finally informed me that he had been accepted and had already written them a check for registration fees.” I had finally gotten it off my chest.
“You poor thing. That’s terrible.”
“Needless to say, long distance didn’t work for us. And it is not something I would ever want to try again.”
She nodded silently, and we let the ladies work us.
Her masseuse took a short break.
“Do you think Liam’s ready for a second try?” Felicia asked.
I was confused by her question. “Second try?”
“Why, marriage of course,” she said.
It was my turn to wince. Had Liam implied to them somehow that we were destined to be married?
“I have no idea.” It was as close to a noncommittal answer is I could get.
Felicia took in a deep breath as her masseuse started again on her lower back. “It’s terrible what happened with his wife. The Boston business community is a small and close-knit one. We knew he was hurting after losing her. It's terrible for a disease like that to take one so young.” She clearly knew more than I’d expected about Liam’s ordeal with Roberta.
I couldn’t relay any of what Liam had confided in confidence. “I think what happened hit him pretty hard. I’m not sure he’s over it yet.”
I couldn’t let her know it had nearly destroyed him. I had been living with a happy man the last few weeks, but some people were better than others at hiding their hurt beneath a mask. If he was putting on an act for me, I couldn’t spot it, but I had been fooled before.
Felicia lifted her head. “I think he’s finally ready to move on. I wouldn’t be at all surprised if he pops the question.”
