“I’d pushed him to the back of my mind, you know?”
Joan nods.
“But every now and again he’d filter through to the front. And then he was there. Right there. And I didn’t know whether to laugh, cry, stop breathing…but I knew I had to get to him.”
“But you didn’t get to speak to each other?”
I shake my head.
“And how did he look?”
“Joan, there’s a torturous question. He looked hot.”
“No,” she says. “That’s not what I mean. I mean…did he look annoyed, unhappy, overjoyed, surprised?”
I shrug again. “I have no idea. He looked through me, at first, and then he smiled and he said my name and then he was gone.”
Joan’s mouth has dropped open and she whispers, “Oh my God.”
“He didn’t call me,” I say simply.
“When?” Joan leans forward over the fence.
“At any time. He didn’t call me after he finished his treatment. I’m assuming he’s finished. I have no clue. And he was in London and he never called me. So…” I let that hang there, hoping Joan’s going to justify Davey’s actions.
But she doesn’t. “I don’t know what to make of that,” she says.
“Neither do I.”
“Would you have run for George?” she surprises me by asking.
I narrow my eyes at her until she clarifies.
“Your situations with George and Davey weren’t so completely different. Both men didn’t last too long—”
“Thank you,” I say pointedly.
“You know what I mean. But only one has had this effect on you. George isn’t the one that got away. Davey is. You ran for him, despite the fact that he’d finished things with you. Did you love George?”
I go to speak but I can’t. I just shake my head, look into my coffee cup.
“Did you love Davey?”
I sweep my eyes up from my empty cup to look at her. “I think…” And then I nod. “Yes, I think so. We had some connection. But I feel a fool for saying it.”
“George was a classic rebound,” Joan says knowingly.
I take a second and then, “I know. Long rebound, though.”
“Wasn’t it just. So what now?”
“Nothing,” I say. “I’m done. I’ve deleted Davey from my phone.” And then I trill out my favorite phrase. “Self-preservation.”
She looks into her coffee cup as if there are tea leaves in there, telling her my future.
“A man isn’t what I need,” I say certainly. “I need to see friends, work hard at my job, which I love. I need to see my family as often as possible, give myself a few months away from bad dates with shit men. It’s not healthy to lurch from one guy to the next, the way I’ve done. I’m going to enjoy myself. I’m going to cultivate a single life,” I announce as if it’s a mantra on a meme I read.
“Life is what happens to you when you’re busy making other plans,” Joan says. “John Lennon,” she clarifies.
