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The first thing he heard was her laugh, ringing from across the crowded hotel bar. Something inside him startled, skipping painfully like a jostled needle scraping against a record.
It wasn’t that he hadn’t expected to run into her someday. They lived in the same city, one that often seemed to delight in creating moments that made you exclaim “Wow, small world!” more than you thought possible within a population of nearly eight million people. He’d imagined it a few times, in a few different ways — picking out drape patterns at some uptown department store and spotting her across the room; taking a date to an obscure Lower East Side club, and there she’d be, beautifully overdressed and sipping a gin martini; walking into the hospital’s Waiting Room and seeing her sitting on an uncomfortable chair with a broken arm (broken while running late down the subway steps, of course).
And then their was the Catskills. Last summer the Weissman clan had been absent for the first time in nearly 30 years, but just last week his mother had reported their return to the summer scene. Much to his protestations, he had received a full report of the rumors and whispers about the family. Apparently Rose’s meddling in matchmaking wasn’t limited to fixing up her daughter’s exes, but in fact had expanded to paying clients and business cards being passed around the resort to desperate parents of desperate children. Abe was now a weekend-Steiner only, commuting back and forth to his writing job with the Village Voice, and was subsequently being shunned by a large subset of the Steiner population for his controversial life decision.
And Midge. The person who he simultaneously wanted to hear the least and the most about, happily and frustratingly was also the person with the least amount of verifiable information on her dossier. His mother could confirm that she would be arriving for the last week of the season, just in time for the fireworks, but outside of that it was a shaky game of telephone. If anyone attempted to ask Rose about what Midge had been up to lately, or God forbid ask if Rose had successfully set up her own daughter yet, she would laugh nervously, wave her hand and reply “What a question!” without elaborating any further.
Abe was more slippery to corner because of his now-sporadic presence, and the one time Perry Scott cornered him in the buffet line to tell Abe about the fact that he had seen Midge kissing some mystery man in a dingy bar hallway in the middle of the night three weeks earlier, Abe had turned so red he could have stopped a car, and then proceeded to dump his plate of scrambled eggs back into the chafing dish before walking out of the dining hall without a word.
The one thing Benjamin knew for sure was that she was still doing stand-up. According to his mother, Beth Rosen had been taken (against her will, she insists) to a Mrs. Maisel show in April. Midge, and by extension the rest of the Weissmans, were now being shunned (in addition to the original shunning) for whatever had come out of her mouth that night. The only words his mother picked up through Beth’s frantic description of the night in question was something about the improper use of olive oil. Benjamin could guess that said improper use probably didn’t have to do with pouring too much of it on a salad.
“You really dodged a bullet with that one, let me tell you,” had been his mother’s closing words before hanging up that night.
It would be easy that way. Easier, at least. If he could keep himself in the state of righteous indignation that drove him to confront her in that diner. If he could look back on their time together with apathy, and react with genuine disinterest at the mention of her name. If he could just pity her like he did that day, and keep on believing that she missed out on him.
Because for one brief moment, he had felt sorry for her. He felt like the winner.
In the immediate aftermath of the surprise demolition of their relationship, his mind had been filled with nothing but self-doubt and embarrassment at how invested he had gotten in a love story that she had so easily written herself out of. But that day in the diner, all the hurt and self-pity had faded away and left behind nothing but bitter glee. Sitting across from her listening to her paint him in such an inaccurate light, listening to her paper thin excuses as to why she had left him behind, he felt angry, yes, but also derisive pity. He counter all of her arguments, maintain the high ground, and leave with his head held high. He could believe to his core that she would wake up one day and regret doubting him. He could comfort himself with the fantasy of her, lonely and alone and regretting what her worst instincts drove her away from.
As the months passed, however, he’d found that maintaining that high was nearly impossible. Beyond that, he didn’t want to pretend to feel so smug when in reality he just felt hurt. On paper he could make a convincing argument that it was all her loss, but in the end the hardest thing to overcome was the thought that she didn’t feel it was a loss at all.
And wasn’t that just the bitterest pill to swallow.
As the weeks turned into months turned into nearly two years, he’d come to terms with the uncomfortable and complicated reality that he may have been the aggrieved party, but that rational understanding couldn’t completely wallpaper over the fact that he still thought of his potential life with her as the road that would have driven him to the best destination.
In his more sobering contemplations he could admit that the reality would have likely been much more frustrating than his best intentions liked to imagine. He knows he would have supported her, and enjoyed her irreverent and biting humor when the gun was pointed elsewhere — but for all his confidence and amicability, he honestly couldn’t say how he would have felt if their private interactions had been dragged unceremoniously under a spotlight and exploited for the raucous laughter of strangers. How would he have felt if the seams of their relationship had been picked apart by her sharp words? How would he have reacted if even his best qualities had been laid bare for the punchline of their mundanity?
In the end, it didn’t even matter. Whether he was right or not — even though he was right — she had left. Whether he could have been the right kind of support for the life she wanted to lead or not, she hadn’t been too scared to take the chance. That, or, more painfully, underneath all the excuses and rationalities, she just didn’t feel the same way about him.
In the end, none of the destinations of his thought experiments regarding Midge led anywhere very comforting, but in the midst of them all he had somewhat prepared himself to be surprised by her presence.
If he ran into her at a store, or on the street, or on the subway, it could be a polite and (on his end, at least) bittersweet reminder of her vitality and existence. They would say hello, exchange noncommittal pleasantries, ask after the other’s mother, and part ways in a timely manner. They would both have places to be.
In the imaginary seedy downtown club, he sees a beautiful woman on his right. She is sweet, and sexy, and refined, and has some quality that impresses upon everyone who meets her that she is impossibly interesting. She loves him. And there, in a no-less attractive tableau through the smoky neon lights, is Midge — decked to the nines, black dress and pearls without a hair out of place, and she spots him across the room. She comes to their table, polite and engaging — and yet he can hear the stiffness in her words, her discomfort at his attention being focused on someone else. She jokes self-deprecatingly about leaving him, and the woman to his right takes it all in stride. He sees Midge leaving through the back door, with a brief and longing glance over her shoulder.
The hospital’s Waiting Room may be the most pathetic and self-pitying of them all, because in the end it’s the one where they find their way back to each other. The one where he forgives her, and where she wants him to forgive her. She is hurt, but entertainingly dismissive of her pain. She smiles and laughs at the kismet of it all: the rain, the slippery subway steps, the falling down at the stop nearest to his hospital. He was supposed to be at a conference that week, but the storm shut down the bridges so all he could do was work. In the haze of the cast and the pain pills she asks for company for a late-night cup of coffee, and he feels nostalgia and acquiesces. They get drunk on pancakes and syrup and she says, with trepidation and hope in her voice, “I’ve missed this.” It all leads to somewhere he doesn’t want to think about.
But for all the planning and thinking and, most annoyingly of all, longing, he somehow didn’t actually consider the "small world" of it all. There was nothing of their history that necessarily suggested a chance run-in, let alone one outside city limits. A mutual wedding, perhaps; a mutual street, sure; people got sick and injured, so perhaps at the hospital. But a mid-tier hotel in Philadelphia at nine-thirty on a Wednesday evening did not factor into his plans. Hearing her laugh apropos of nothing to do with him did not factor in.
He wanted the upper hand. He didn’t want to be tired, wrinkled from a day of lectures on the various methods of prostate removal, cramped in uncomfortable chairs made for men half his size. He didn’t want to be single and exposed, not nearly as recovered from the short-lived romance as he should be by now. He didn’t want to be the one standing at the door, having to decide whether to venture deeper towards the siren’s call or turn around and hide.
For how long he had been standing in the entrance staring, he was surprised she hadn’t noticed him yet. He could see half of her smiling face through the crowd, lit warmly by the tinge of the table lamp, smoke swirling aesthetically from between her fingers. The curl of her signature style was uncharacteristically relaxed, as if it was curled two nights ago and then left to settle how it may. The red of her fitted dress contrasted strikingly against her skin, which was just as eye-catchingly in itself as he remembered.
As the umpteenth person huffily brushed past him through the entrance, this one more of a deliberate shoulder than a polite nudge, he knew he had to make a decision, and just as quickly knew that he couldn’t leave without finding out whatever it is that he would find out by walking across the room. Would his interest in her find new life, reignited on both ends by a chance meeting in a new city? Would they try to make awkward conversation, and find themselves scrambling for excuses to retire early to escape their new and out-of-sync rhythm? Would he feel nothing, and watch as she itched for him to care?
The bar wasn’t that spacious, and he had long legs, so by the time his hindbrain had fully committed to the course of action, he was already sidled up to her table and watching as her eyes slid from the person across from her up to his face.
“Benjamin?” she said, her face just as stunned by the unexpected encounter as his had been minutes ago.
“Of all the hotels hosting medical conferences in all the world…” he replied, smiling involuntarily.
“What are you doing here?” she asked, mouth slightly open in what he wished was an unattractive manner.
“I’m stuck here for the next three days learning new methods for various prostate surgeries, isn’t that why you’re here?” he replied, and some not-so-buried part of him preened at her chuckle.
“If I had known that was happening I would have brought an extra notebook. Benjamin, you remember Lenny?” she said, gesturing to the man whose shoulder he had been observing her over for the past five minutes.
“Nice to see you again, doctor. You wanna pull up a chair? Not a lot of open tables tonight.”
“Sure, thanks,” he said, shaking Lenny’s hand while his brain tried to untangle itself from the second surprise of the night. To be honest, Benjamin hadn’t given the man much more than a passing thought since that first date with Midge, and when he did pass a thought it was usually when someone mentioned Lenny Bruce and Benjamin thought, “He knows Midge.”
“Well, after being lectured at about prostates all day, who could blame them all for wanting a drink?” Midge said as she stood to surreptitiously sneak a chair from a neighboring table. “You take the booth side,” she offered, sitting down on her stolen good. “I’m sure you could use a break from uncomfortable wooden chairs for the evening.”
“Honestly, yes, you’d be surprised at the lack of care doctors as a collective have for physical comfort, especially when they can save a buck on rentals,” he replied, sliding along the red-leather cushion. He supposed he shouldn’t be surprised to see Midge here, sitting at a smoky, atmospheric bar just like he’d imagined, but with company instead of alone. He supposed he shouldn’t even be surprised to see her here with Lenny Bruce — they were both comics, and though she hadn’t elaborated much on their relationship beyond that he’d helped her out of a few comic-related jams, there was a reason he’d asked “So, Lenny Bruce?” with all the implied implications in the first place. Even taking implications out of the question, the question had bared asking at the time, what with the headlining comedian they’d just paid to see comfortably conversing with his date like they were old friends.
“You never offered me the booth seat,” Lenny said, moving the near-empty martini glass in front of Benjamin over to Midge while waiving down the waiter.
“You slept until one in the afternoon,” Midge said, downing the last drops of her drink and popping the lone olive into her mouth.
“Sleeping late means I don’t deserve the grace of being offered a comfortable chair? Who makes these rules, truly.” The beleaguered waiter disappeared behind the swinging kitchen door, leaving Lenny’s waiving fruitless for the moment. “We may have to split the last thimble of my bourbon three ways if he doesn’t come back soon.”
“If that guy with the swoopy hair ever returns from his break we could get some service. He asked me if I’d ever modeled when I was on my way to the bathroom earlier — he’s a photographer, you see. Apparently, I could be a star with the right heels.”
“If only you were naturally taller, maybe he wouldn’t have gone on break.”
“I’ll try and work on that before he comes back.”
“I’d highly recommend being tall, its nice and airy up here,” Benjamin interjected.
“I don’t know, something about looking at the tops of everyones heads all the time makes me think I’d be more judgmental if I were tall. What if I see stray dandruff, or a messy part? I’m comfortable down here in the lower atmosphere, thank you very much.”
“Well, I suppose you can visit when you want, with the shoes,” Benjamin replied.
Midge smiled, and the silence filled the seconds as she fidgeted with the stem of her glass. “So, Benjamin.”
“So, Midge.”
“…how are you?” she asked, almost as if she were questioning the question as she asked it. “Or,” she stumbled for better words, “Are you well? I mean, you’re at a conference for doctors, not patients, so I’d assume you’re well, but I mean are you well as in, how are you. Because I don’t want you to not be good — but of course there’s no pressure if you’re not good! Not that you have to tell me that either, of course. Though I’d assume you’re at least partially good, because I did see a newspaper the other day that said the words 'Yankees' and 'home runs' near each other, and I’m assuming the connector in there was hit a lot of rather than haven’t had any, because otherwise why would it be on the front page. But I guess you never know, I mean bad news is more entertaining. I mean, I didn’t even read the article about the home runs, but I did read this piece about this woman who was murdered outside her apartment building with pruning shears. Not that the murder was entertaining, per se, but pruning sheers as a murder weapon does make it a little funnier than your average, run-of-the-mill knife attack. What do you think would be the funniest weapon to be murdered by?”
Benjamin was sure his eyebrows were raised, but hopefully not in too much confusion. Just a little, polite amount of confusion. “I’m not sure where to pick up.”
“Butter knife,” Lenny replied at the same time.
“Sorry, I think I’m a little nervous,” she replied, more to Lenny than to him, and tipped her empty glass into her mouth as if gin would appear if she just went through the motions.
“Here,” Lenny said, grabbing the glass out of her hand. “I’ll go track down our wayward waiter, or try and bribe the bartender with my good looks and charm—“
“—don’t forget to say ‘Don’t you know who I am?!’ if they ignore you. People love that.”
“—of course. One way or another I will return with libations and a bowl full of olives. Benjamin, what is your drink of choice?”
“I’ll take an Old Fashioned, thank you,” he answered with nervous anticipation at whatever awaited once he and Midge were on their own.
“All right, I will be back, and while I’m gone you two say whatever is said in these situations that allows this all to move forward towards a comfortable evening of drinks and conversation. Midge, tits up, yeah?” As he stood to walk towards the bar, Benjamin saw his hand quickly, but deliberately, graze the back of her neck. It could have been innocuous had her head not turned for a moment to watch him walk away, and Benjamin’s stomach tightened. Apparently he found the mystery man.
“Tits up?” he asked, fingertips pinching at the ironed line of his slacks in an effort to stop them from running anxiously through his hair.
“It’s a long story. Something Susie said to me once before a set that kind of stuck, like 'break a leg,'” she explained, finally dropping the long-burned out cigarette from between her fingers into the table’s ashtray. “Okay, apparently not that long of a story.”
The awkwardness was starting to suffocate him, and there was only one way out of the woods.
“So,” he started. “How are you, and/or what do you think is the funniest weapon to be murdered with?”
She smiled slightly, trying to let some of the tension seemed to abate. “Lenny was right, a butter knife is funny. Maybe one of those little cheese spreaders would work too — but I think those are still in the Butter Knife Family Tree, so it’s really all the same.”
“So dullness is the key?”
“The amount of effort you’d have to put into the stab really ups the absurdity.”
“Mmm,” he agreed. “And my other question?”
She looked nervous again. “I asked first.”
“Midge.”
“Look,” she sighed. “I’m not unhappy to see you, and its not like I didn’t imagine running into you at some point. But in my imagination I forgot to factor in that the last time we saw each other wasn’t exactly the most pleasant exchange, and that we’d actually have to say something about it all before everything could be…normal. And I know that everything that happened was my fault, and you were completely right to call me out on my bullshit that day, and that all means that this shouldn’t be happening this way. You should get to decide how this goes, and I don’t want to jump the gun and start gushing about my life as if all we were just friends who lost touch. That isn’t fair to you.”
“You’d be gushing?” he asked, and immediately wanted to put the words back in his mouth.
“See! This shouldn’t be about me, you shouldn’t have to listen to me even accidentally saying something like that if you don’t want to hear it.”
“No, no, I’m not…okay, maybe I can’t be completely stoic with my reactions to whatever details this accidental run-in reveals to me about what you’ve been up to over the past two years, but I want to rip the band-aid off, Midge,” he sighed, and then what he really, surprisingly, wanted became clear. “I don’t want to keep blaming you, or hoping you’re unhappy, or wondering if you are happy — maybe I just want to know something so all this mystery and baggage can be left behind for good, okay? Maybe whatever circumstances that conspired to land us in the same place at the same time tonight were conspiring in order to settle this.”
He paused, glancing over to where Lenny was settled against the bartop sipping a new tumbler of whiskey with a complete lack of urgency. Benjamin could see his and Midge’s drinks sitting, ignored, by his elbow. “Besides, I don’t think he’s going to bring us our drinks until we stop looking so tortured.”
“Positive reinforcement, light at the end of the tunnel, blah blah,” she joked. “Rip the band-aid off, huh? Is the band-aid ripping question 'How are you?' or did you have something else in mind?”
However embarrassing, however it stung, whatever the answer, the question wasn’t "How are you?"
“So, Lenny Bruce?” he asked her, for the second time in his life.
“If I had a dollar for every time someone asked me that,” she quipped, but her eyes were devoid of good humor. Her face said it all, but he had to hear it come out of her mouth.
“Midge, come on.”
She swallowed and breathed in, sitting up a little straighter with her chest a little higher. Apparently that unconventional affirmation included a physical element. “I’m sorry, you’re right, I’ll be serious. We hadn’t.”
“But now?”
“Now? The question is usually still asked by people expecting my answer to be ‘Yes, I fucked my way to the top, you found me out,’ so I’m usually just as contrarian in my answer as ever,” she replied, pausing for a moment to occupy her fingers nervously against the smooth edge of the table. “But if, say, someone who knows I’m funny all on my own asked, not to condemn me or deliberately misunderstand the situation, I might answer differently now.”
“You are really working hard to talk in a circle around this.”
“I just…you and I, we’re talking. We’re having this conversation here and now to get through it, but the conversation shouldn’t be about Lenny.”
“No, but it should be about you and I, and if the you part of that you and I finds the Lenny part at all important to this whole ‘clear the air’ adventure we’re going on right now, then he kind of does have to be at least a part of the conversation. If its not important, I’ll stop asking.”
“No, you were right the first time. It’s relevant.”
“Okay, so it’s relevant.”
“Yeah.”
“Anything else to add, or…” he prodded.
“See, we’re back to the place where I don’t think it’s fair to you if I say more than that.”
“Midge, I want to just—“
“I know, I know, rip the band-aid off. But it seems cruel for me to be the one doing the ripping when I was the reason you needed the band-aid in the first place.”
“It makes you both the best and the worst person for the job, yes, but I think in the end hearing your own words replace all my wonderings is what I need. What I want. I just…I want the truth, and I think you owe me that. I asked for it last time, and I don’t think I really received it, did I?”
“I’m happy,” she said abruptly. For a second he thought she meant she was happy he wanted the truth, but then he realized that she wasn’t happy to give him the answer, the answer was that she was happy. “The band-aid rip is that, yes, about Lenny, and yes that is an important part of the I in all of this. It’s all more than just that, of course, but it is a linchpin in the big picture. I’m happy.”
“Okay,” he breathed it in. “Was that so hard?”
“Yes.”
“Well, good, because it was kind of hard to hear. At least I’m not alone there.”
“Benjamin,” she said solemnly. “I never wanted to hurt you, you have to know that. Not that that makes what I did any better, but I just…I cared about you, but I was scared and a coward and I didn’t want to be responsible for what I was doing to you, so I ran.”
“That brings me to my next band-aid.”
“I can’t wait.”
“That day at the diner…” he started and stopped. Strangely, or perhaps not but it felt strange to think, he was dreading this answer much more viscerally than the question about Lenny Bruce. “That day in the diner, you said that you left because I wouldn’t have been able to handle being included in your act. That I would have resented the time, and distance, and whatever else you cited. I asked you for an explanation, and that’s what you said, but…”
“That was the truth. Or at least, I believed that was the whole truth at the time.”
“And now?”
“And now. Now, it’s been, what, nearly two years, and unfortunately you weren’t the last person hurt because of my hangups. Now, I’ve thought a lot about a lot of things, one of which is how I handled, or rather didn’t handle, ending our relationship. One of which is that for all the truth in what I said that day, about doubting you, and doubting me, and just doubting the idea that maintaining a relationship without censoring myself was even possible, what I didn’t admit was that I…I just didn’t feel what I needed to feel to make me ignore the doubt. The doubt was real, but I should have told you that the doubt wouldn’t have stopped me if I didn’t want it to.”
They were both quiet for a moment as her words — the truth this time, in all its pain and comfort — sunk in. He didn’t expect to see her here, and in all his projections of what it might be like to run into her one way or another, he forgot to consider her humanity. She felt guilty about making the right decision for the wrong reasons. She felt sorry about how she left, but not sorry about leaving. She was happy, and somber, and as sharp as ever. He’d forgotten that she was a person, with all the contradictory and conflicting dimensions that entails.
“Thank you,” he finally said, with a deep breath of relief that he felt down to his bones.
“How are you thanking me right now?”
“I guess I’m just a really great person,” he joked, but her reply came swift and earnest.
“You are a really great person — and a wonderful man, Benjamin. Maybe it’s too soon to be saying this, since we just made up about thirty seconds ago, but you are gonna make some equally-as-wonderful-woman very happy someday.”
“My mother will be very glad to hear that. Speaking of mothers, it turns out that perhaps you were not completely responsible for your mother trying to pawn me off onto some unsuspecting bachelorette.”
“Ah yes, my mother, matchmaker extraordinaire.”
“I guess I should have taken advantage of her services before she started charging.”
“I’m going to quote you word-for-word on that the next time she compares me to a prostitute.”
“Feel free, I’m happy to get into your mother’s bad graces if it stops her from putting ideas in my mother’s head.”
The easy flow of conversation was…nice. It seemed strange to think that they hadn’t talked like this in nearly two years. All of a sudden the time from then to now stretched out behind him. Two years he had been stewing in this, dragging all his hurt and blame and wishful thinking around like an anchor. Two years was a long time, which was all the more clear seeing her and talking to her. She had moved on, which he couldn’t deny stung a bit — but beyond that, he listened to her explanations and reasonings and believed that she understood now. He believed that she had finally told him the truth. And believing her made seeing her happy a much less bitter pill to swallow.
“Do your parents know?” he asked, gesturing his head towards the bar.
“Yes, though my mother is still deeply in denial.”
“No offense, but I can’t really imagine Lenny would ace your father’s background checks either.”
“No, not quite,” she laughed. “It sounds impossible, but I honestly can’t completely complain about how they’re handling this. I mean yes, my mother pretends that we’re just very close friends and still tries to sell me to every other eligible client she’s looking for a match for, and yes, my father turns much too red and loses the ability to speak if he even hears innuendo about us holding hands, but weirdly, they also kind of like him.”
“Record and all?”
“Well, my father did meet him when they got arrested together.”
“What?!” He couldn’t help burst out laughing at the incongruous absurdity of the image. “How in the world did that happen.”
“Papa went to see Lenny’s show, the police showed up, and there was a Playboy and a fervent defense of freedom of speech in there somewhere.”
“Well, I am impressed. And I promise to keep my mouth shut to save your parents and you even more scrutiny from the Steiner rumor mill.”
“That would be much appreciated. Mama hasn’t quite gotten used to us being outcasts yet, so lets not make it any harder on her than necessary.”
“You heading up there soon?”
“End of August. I have another week here, and then to Boston for three days, then back to the city for a bit before the firework show. You?”
“Going straight there from the conference actually. I found these little single-serve boxes of cereal, so I’m planning on trying to make it a short trip. You bringing your guest?”
“I think that much fresh air and passive aggression may not be good for his health,” she laughed. “I do have a show nearby the second night there though, so I might try to sneak him in under the radar. Maybe no one will notice.”
“Unless you plan on keeping him locked in the basement, I think about a minute after you’re spotted standing within six feet of each other someone’s sister’s best friends cousin’s aunt will be hearing about how Midge Weissman has run off with a degenerate felon.”
“Felonies are federal — all of his charges have been local.”
He raised his eyebrows.
“Right, not the point. Well, at least I’m keeping the people entertained,” she concluded, smiling kindly. “I don’t know about you, but I am more than ready for that drink.”
“I think we have sufficiently earned it.”
“Agreed. I’ll go give an extra hand, you keep the table protected.”
“Aye aye, captain,” he saluted, and watched her laugh and walk towards the bar.
If it were possible, the room had become even more crowded than when he’d first arrived, but he could still see Midge’s form press against Lenny’s back where he was hunched over a borrowed newspaper sipping his drink. Their movements were smooth and subconsciously coordinated, a hand skimming down the back of her dress, her leaning past him to grab her drink, synced up smiles and private quips.
What was closure, exactly? What specific word or action or feeling was the straw that broke the camel's back between first walking through that door and how he was feeling now? What medicine soothed the ache in his stomach, and untied the knot in his mind? Looking over at her now, staring up at Lenny Bruce with an expression he is pretty sure is illegal in public, he felt…happy.
If he and Midge didn’t have the history they did, he might ask her what it was like: being inappropriate. Taking real risks. Ask her how she did it: get divorced, stand on stage and bear her soul, defy her parents, leave her fiancé for the thrill of the road, go from being the pinnacle of housewife perfection to rejecting every expectation she had met for so long. He hadn’t thought to ask before, but maybe he could now.
Maybe she didn’t have to stay a bitter regret, or a lost potential, or a stranger. Maybe he could be happy to run into her, happy to hear about her happiness, and happy to have her in his life as a friend. He could imagine sometime, someday, listening to her joke about breaking off their engagement. He could imagine laughing along with her.
Maybe it wasn’t so bad after all.