Beside Herself Page 13

  “I’m glad to know you’ve been listening to me,” Dr. Snow said warmly, and Hannah closed her eyes and thought of The Sopranos. “Is Joel in agreement with you about this tonight?”

  “Yes, we’re just exhausted.”

  “Okay. I’m here if you need me. Just a phone call away. Take good care.”

  “We’ll see you next week.”

  When Hannah woke up on the Saturday morning after she’d first met Joel at the diner, she wondered if he would show up, if he had given her any thought at all since he’d bought her burger. Maybe he was a serial burger buyer, an apparent do-gooder, always on the lookout for the next possible target but never following through with the next step. Whatever—she didn’t even know him. If she never saw him again, she wouldn’t miss him. But still, she took her time getting ready that day, showering and washing her hair even though she would be outside selling honey.

  She arrived at ten, and Joel was already there, standing on the sidewalk and trying to blend in, moving from stand to stand, picking up a peach here, a tomato there. She shook her head and got out, heading right for the honey stand and her friend Eliza.

  “Sorry I’m a little late,” she said.

  “No problem,” Eliza said, smiling warmly and patting the seat next to her. “Thanks for coming at all.”

  “My pleasure,” Hannah said, and she meant it. What had begun as Eliza’s son’s bar mitzvah project—putting a few hives on the roof of their synagogue—had grown into a family honey business, and she was always asking friends to help sell it. Hannah was happy to help, of course, but if she was honest with herself, she was doing it for selfish reasons. She was lonely since she’d become single again and dreaded her empty weekend days.

  “Good morning,” Joel said, stepping up to the table.

  “Good morning,” she said. His hair looked so shiny and his skin so clear that she had an urge to stand and touch both, which she knew was ridiculous. But really, had he been so healthy looking at the diner? So . . . shimmery and otherworldly?

  “Is this your honey?” he asked, as if she didn’t know he was there to see her. It could have sounded like chitchat, normal banter between a buyer and a seller, not necessarily an interaction that would eventually lead to true love and two kids.

  “Actually, no,” Hannah said, standing now and pointing toward Eliza. “It’s really her business. Long story, but it’s called Holy Honey because it started on the roof of a synagogue. L’Hive’Em.” She knew she sounded crazy. It was what she usually said when someone bought a bottle. It was their slogan, but now she just sounded demented. Plus, Joel hadn’t even offered to buy any.

  “Nice,” he said, not seeming to notice how wacky she sounded or at least not seeming bothered by it. “I’ll take ten bottles.”

  “Great,” Hannah said, collecting the bottles and looking around for a bag. What she wanted to say was that he didn’t have to do that. He could buy one bottle with the same result, or none, really.

  “I have a bag,” Joel said, placing a reusable bag on the table, perfect for all the bottles of honey. Hannah noticed that the bag was decorated with sunflowers, her favorite. She carefully placed the bottles in the bag, one at a time, and collected his money.

  “Thanks,” she said. Surely he wasn’t going to just walk away.

  “Thank you,” he said, turning. He looked back over his shoulder and raised the bag. “L’Hive’Em!” She watched as he walked to the corner of Pine and continued to walk east. Should she just stand up and go after him? How would she ever find him again? Now she was going to be the one going to the diner every day at lunch hoping to run into him. She was a total mess, so overeager. He could be mean for all she knew. He could be boring, or not smart, or not clever—or worse, maybe he had no sense of humor. She would let him go. There: he was gone. Okay, so he wasn’t the one. Someone else would be.

  “Who was that guy, and why did he buy so much honey?” Eliza asked.

  “I don’t know,” Hannah said, thinking it was probably too hard to explain it and in the end not worth it. “I think he just really likes honey.” But she wanted to keep talking about him; she wanted Eliza to ask questions until she was forced to confess that she had actually met him before and she thought she might like him. Eliza was already talking to another customer. As the minutes went by, Hannah felt worse and worse. He had made the effort to come to the market; maybe he was waiting for her to make the next move. Why did she always mess this up? She could go looking for him, follow the path he’d taken, and see if she might be lucky enough to run into him. She stood again, thinking she would go, but then a group of four women came to the table, and Eliza was still talking to the other person. She helped them, each wanting to talk about the honey and the project and each counting how many gifts they had to bring back for their family members—they were visiting from Missouri—and when she was done, she looked up, and there was Joel, holding a cardboard tray with four cups.

  “Hi!” she said, smiling, so happy to see him. “Did you forget something?”

  “Well, yeah, your phone number,” he said, smiling shyly. “But I didn’t really forget; I was always coming back. It’s a little chilly out here, so I got some hot tea for you and your friend, and I put some of the honey in it. I hope you like it sweetened.”

  “Yeah,” she said, dazed. “I do.” She accepted the cup he held out to her. It was warm and smelled good. She took a sip. He handed one to Eliza.

  “Thanks,” Eliza said. She put hers down on the table and gave Hannah a look saying she was crazy; why was she accepting something from this strange man and ingesting it? But Hannah just looked right at her and took an even bigger sip. Clearly this was where an earlier explanation would have helped: He wasn’t a stranger exactly. He seemed really nice.

  “Here, for later,” Joel said, handing over the tray with the other two cups.

  “Thanks,” Hannah said.

  “So about your number,” he said. “Any chance you’ll give it to me? I wondered if you were free on Thursday night. I’d love to take you out to dinner. I don’t know where you live, and I’m not asking, but depending on what’s easy for you, I wondered if you would consider meeting me at Villa di Roma in the Italian Market? Maybe around six thirty so if you don’t have fun, it won’t ruin your night—there will still be plenty of time to do something else.”

  “Yes, good,” she said, sounding a little like a caveman. Eliza was looking at them, from one to the other, at first appearing stern and then nodding, like the image in front of her had come into focus and she finally understood. She turned her attention to the next customer. They were almost out of honey. Hannah cleared her throat. “I’ll meet you at Villa di Roma at six thirty on Thursday.”

  “Great,” Joel said, smiling. “Um, even though we have a plan, can I still have your number? So I can say hi before then?”

  “Yes, of course,” Hannah said, sounding more like herself. Joel pulled out a tiny notebook and pen, and she said her number slowly while he wrote it down.

  “And Hannah, with an h at the end?”

  “Yes, exactly.”

  “See you on Thursday,” Joel said. “And for the record, you made my day.”

  Hannah spent the next few weeks looking for someone to have an affair with. She had to get on with it, constantly talking back to that voice in her head that kept saying just because Joel had done it didn’t mean she should. But she truly felt she had no choice. It was either call the divorce lawyer now or do this and probably call the lawyer later anyway, so what difference did it really make in the end?

  She spent a significant amount of time when she should have been researching local items for her hotel project instead researching dating apps. She considered the League, OKCupid, Match, and Tinder but finally settled on Bumble, the one Kim had been using. She liked the swiping aspect of it—if she was going to do it, she might as well have that experience—and the upside was that the woman had to make the first move. So basically, she could match and mat
ch and match and feel no pressure until she was ready.

  She had to create her profile, which involved deciding whether to be honest about her name and age and situation or to be someone completely different. Could she be someone other than who she was, and if so, who in the world did she want to be? She had extracted as much information from Kim as possible, not yet admitting exactly why she was asking, though she planned to tell her all about it soon.

  When she became completely stumped, she decided to go see Richard. She felt drawn to him more than ever, and even though they couldn’t talk about it, she felt like he was a survivor of a terrible disease, the one she had just come down with, and she wanted to be near him.

  “Good morning,” she said breezily, even though he was still in bed and she wanted to ask why he hadn’t been dressed and helped into his chair yet today.

  “Good morning,” he said, deadpan, keeping his eyes on the window. He looked pale and uninterested. She sat on his bed and took his hand.

  “To what do I owe the honor of this visit? You don’t usually come so early.”

  “I missed you,” she said. “Why are you still in bed?”

  “I’m tired,” he said. “Isn’t bed where you go when you’re tired?”

  That was the thing about Richard: he was pretty much always right. Even so, she wanted him to not be tired. She wanted him to be his old self.

  “Will you go into the main room at some point?” she asked.

  “If they make me,” he said.

  “Can I ask them to get you ready, and we can sit out there?”

  “No, no, then everyone expects me to say something important. It just makes me more tired,” he said.

  “Okay, I understand that,” she said. She took a breath. “Can I ask you? I mean, I know you don’t seem to want to talk about it, but I think about it a lot. A while ago, after that time you talked for so long, you told me you had regrets, do you remember?”

  “You’ve asked me this before, and I told you I don’t remember saying that,” he said firmly but not unkindly. “I think you imagined it.”

  Now he looked her in the eyes and smirked because Richard was many things, but he was not a liar, and this was his way of telling her that he knew she hadn’t imagined it.

  “Okay, well, I’m always here if you want to talk,” she said. “And for the record, everyone has some sort of regret, don’t you think?”

  “What do you mean?” he asked, pushing himself up in bed. “Who?”

  “You know, everyone. Every person at some point does something that they wish they hadn’t done, or had done, or had done differently,” she said. “You know what I mean, right?”

  “Like what?” he asked, seeming more like a little kid to her now, sitting there in his pajamas in bed, a wide-eyed look on his face. “You?”

  Yes, she wanted to say, me. I am planning to join an online-dating site to have an affair, which I will most likely regret, after your beloved son had an affair, basically tearing everything apart, which he regrets. But we aren’t the only ones, apparently, she also wanted to say. It seems your wife, too, did something and probably had a few regrets.

  “Well, I don’t know,” she said instead, patting his hand and standing. “Just everyone. I’m going to see if I can find Reuben. I’ll be back soon.”

  He narrowed his eyes at her like he thought she was withholding information. But he didn’t protest. He went back to looking out the window. She walked down the hall, glancing in the rooms to see if she spotted Reuben. She finally found him in the lobby sitting across from a pretty crying lady—the daughter of a resident, Hannah thought—and touching her knee gently to calm her. The lady was looking down, tears clearly flowing, and Reuben leaned toward her, looking up at her face, trying to get her to focus on him. Shoot, how could Hannah interrupt that? She pretended to be admiring the art on the walls and walked from one framed photo to another, all the while keeping an eye on the unfolding scene in the lobby. Finally, the woman’s phone rang, she answered and stood up, and Hannah watched as she nodded to Reuben and walked outside. Could she swoop in now? Take his attention? Or had the woman said she would be right back?

  In the end she didn’t have to do anything: Reuben saw her and walked over.

  “Visiting Richard this morning?” he asked.

  “Yes,” she said. “He seems as down as ever, honestly.”

  “I know, I agree,” Reuben said. The other lady’s situation was behind him, and this problem was now all he was focusing on. It was a skill.

  “What was going on there?” Hannah asked. “Why was she so sad?”

  “That’s Justine. Her mom was that woman you asked about who died, Kim, remember? Now Justine’s dad has declined so much we’re suggesting he have comfort care only from this point on. Our program here is called Angel’s Kiss—basically it’s hospice.”

  “So, what? You just let him die?”

  “In a way,” Reuben said. “Or at least we stop intervening. No more trips to the hospital, heavier drugs if needed to keep him comfortable. There is definitely a giving-up aspect to it, but it is also a kind choice to make when the time is right. It’s hard to keep going and going and going. Sometimes people need permission to start letting go.”

  “Huh,” Hannah said, not able to imagine having to make that choice about Richard.

  “So what’s up?” Reuben said. “Hey, I just got some new coffee that I’m very excited about. Do you have time for a cup?”

  “Sure,” she said.

  “I know it sounds corny, but it’s this brand Joffrey’s from Orlando. They supply a lot of the coffee to Disney, but it isn’t all Disney. They roast it for you personally once you order it, and it just arrived. It’s delicious. The truth is I first got it for Mr. Reynolds on the third floor. I don’t think you’ve met him, but I do know he and Richard have talked; he’s a nice man. He always talked about a honeymoon he took to Orlando and the coffee they had in the morning and how he could never find something as good. Well, I imagined he was talking about a trip fifty years ago. Turns out it was his fifth honeymoon! He’s a real character. Anyway, I tried the coffee, and I was hooked. I finally ordered myself a batch.”

  Hannah thought maybe Reuben had gone into the wrong line of work—maybe he should have opened a coffee shop and been the in-house concierge and sometimes therapist. But really, she guessed, that was sort of what he was doing here anyway.

  As soon as they went into the room, she could smell it. There was something very hopeful about the smell of coffee. She waited while he chose a mug for her. First he held up the Crappity Crap Crap one, and she shook her head: the day hadn’t gotten that bad yet. He smiled and put it back on the shelf. He kept looking and finally chose one that said I Can’t Adult Today and, without clearing it with her, poured the coffee and handed it over. She smiled and took a sip—it really was delicious.

  “Does this have some Disney fairy dust sprinkled in?” she asked.

  “Maybe,” he said, chuckling. “What I do know is that Lucy would never drink it—my girlfriend? She drinks only single-origin coffee, and she has to know the source intimately, as well as the conditions for the people hired to do the work, not to mention how it’s sold on the open market. She’s pretty serious about it. I guess this is my way of rebelling. Though, for the record, I do care about people’s work conditions.”

  He had already picked a mug for the day, so he just refilled it. His said The Doctor Is In.

  “So,” she said, realizing she was going to give in to her urge to tell Reuben everything, “do you remember a while ago I told you that Joel had had an affair and we were trying to figure out how to handle it?”

  “Yes, of course,” he said seriously, taking a seat and indicating that she should take her usual seat across the table from him.

  “Well, the way I decided to handle it was that I would also have an affair, to get even, I guess, to clear the playing field. I don’t know, some sports metaphor or other. Actually, that’s not even true.
I think I’ve convinced myself that that’s why. But the truth is I was so mad it was just a threat, but now for so many reasons I feel like I have to, maybe even want to, follow through. Also, I want to buy time. In the end I have no idea if it will make a difference, but I wasn’t quite ready to call it quits. All of that leads me to my main point of the day—it is surprisingly hard to find someone to have an affair with.”

  Hannah watched as the look on Reuben’s face changed from solid listening mode to surprise to a flirty smile.

  He was pretty cute, and she was fascinated by him, his religious beliefs, how he gelled his Jewish background with the Catholic nursing home, but that would be crazy, way too close to home, and before she had a chance to move through all the steps of consideration, his face morphed again, this time into a jolly laugh. Of course, she thought, he was just kidding.

  “So,” she said. “I wanted to ask if you know anything about dating profiles? I mean, about putting one together?”

  “I know a few things,” he said warmly.

  “I’ve done some research,” Hannah said. “And I’m going to go with Bumble because the woman is in charge.”

  “Don’t I know it,” Reuben said.

  “Do you have a profile?”

  “I have had many,” Reuben said, but he didn’t sound defeated—he almost sounded proud. “They’re all shut down now, but before I met Lucy, I was a wild man when it came to dating apps.”

  “Really?” she asked.

  “Well, maybe not a wild man,” Reuben conceded. “But I tried. And actually, that’s how Lucy and I met.”

  “Interesting,” she said. “So how much information do you share? On your profile?”

  “I would say the photos you choose are the key,” he said. “You want to look attractive and normal, but not so different from how you truly look that if and when you meet someone they are immediately put off, thinking you tricked them. You, of course, are quite attractive. I don’t think that will be a problem.”

  “Oh, well, thank you,” Hannah said, the slightest bit flustered. “I guess my biggest problem is that I’m not sure how to get around the lying part. I mean, I’m not looking for a spouse; I already have one, at least for now. I’m not looking for a long-term commitment. I just want to, I don’t even know, connect with someone, anyone I can stand. My other problem is that I don’t want people to recognize me, so I can’t use my real name.”