SEVENTEEN
Many a time in life I had longed for the luxury of nothing to do. Now I found myself wishing for the opposite. While I was filling the hours as best I could—deep cleaning Jean’s house, dealing with mountains of postdivorce paperwork, and making the mile-long walk to Maizie’s for coffee daily—a job increasingly sounded like a good idea.
Fortunately, I wasn’t broke; in addition to alimony and half of the savings and retirement Adam and I had accrued over twenty-seven years of marriage, Jean’s generosity meant my overhead was low. But the lessons of my childhood were never far behind me; I knew all too well that cash in hand today could well be lost to the wind tomorrow. Working would give me purpose while upping the odds I would not run out of money.
I began applying for anything even remotely in my wheelhouse, and my canvassing paid off: at the end of February I received a callback for a community services coordinator position at a local nonprofit called CenterPoint.
CenterPoint billed itself as a stewardship collaborative that was dedicated to community outreach and pairing donors with family-oriented causes. I had no clue what most of that meant, but the position was a temporary gig with the potential for permanent hire, and they had actually found my résumé promising enough to offer me an interview. I was ecstatic.
When I arrived at the CenterPoint offices, a man named Adrian Fromm greeted me at the door. Adrian guided me through the lobby, which contained a foosball table and an elaborate coffee station, into a conference room. Though he was barely pushing thirty, he introduced himself as the executive vice president of the foundation, which was only a few years old.
“So tell me what attracts you to this position, Margaret,” said Adrian, who had taken a seat at the head of the table and indicated I was to sit to his left.
I perched myself on the edge of the swiveling ergonomic chair he had pointed to. “Please—call me Maggie,” I said, just as I had in the lobby.
He leaned back. As he crossed his legs, one of his feet emerged from beneath the conference table, clad in a leather loafer that probably cost four times as much as my entire outfit. “Right,” he said. “So. Tell me about you, Maggie.”
I took a deep breath. I was well aware that having not practiced social work for more than twenty years made me a tough sell, but I reminded myself that this was barely above an entry-level position. Anyway, being called in for an interview meant I had already won half the battle . . . didn’t it? “I worked for Illinois’ Department of Child and Family Services as a caseworker for children across greater Chicago. After DCFS, I worked at Chicago Safety Zone, counseling hundreds of men and women while I was there. It’s my understanding that your foundation directly supports women and families in crisis, which makes it seem an especially good fit for me.”
He peered at the paper he was holding, which I assumed was a copy of my résumé. “You’ve been out of the field for quite some time.”
“Yes, I was working with another family—my own,” I said, smiling in what I hoped was a winning way. “Chicago Safety Zone had an extremely high turnover; most of my colleagues came and left in under a year. I was there for four. I bring that level of commitment to everything I do.” It was unfortunate that said commitment was not a guarantee of success (see also: my marriage), but it seemed like the right thing to say.
Adrian pursed his lips as he frowned, and I wondered if he had anyone in his life who loved him enough to tell him that expression made him look like he needed to use the bathroom. “Interesting. Would you need to brush up on modern practices?”
“Do you mean social work?” I asked. “Because if so, I’m up to date on current counseling and outreach methods. And as my bookkeeping experience indicates, I’m extremely well organized and able to juggle a number of projects at one time. I believe I would enjoy and excel at coordinating effective programs for CenterPoint.”
Adrian’s expression had begun to glaze over. “I would love to hear more about what the position entails,” I said in an effort to engage him. “Would I be working exclusively with outside organizations to coordinate programs for CenterPoint, or would I begin facilitating them at some point? Because if the latter, I would be happy to apply for state licensure.”
He sat up, as if he were making an effort to look awake, and began rambling off buzzy phrases about fostering community connections and looking at every endeavor through the lens of the foundation’s mission. None of this was a legitimate explanation of what I would actually be doing. He must have seen the cynicism on my face, because he added, “We’d talk more about what the actual position entails later down the line.”
Neither of us spoke for at least five seconds longer than was comfortable. “I’m looking forward to hearing more,” I finally said. “I’m passionate about helping others, and it sounds like you and your colleagues are, too.” Liar, I thought as soon as I heard myself say this. As far as I could tell, Adrian Fromm’s primary passion was the sound of his own voice as he recited jargon.
“Great,” he said. Then he began telling me about CenterPoint’s “donor communities” and the “shepherding process” for each donation they received.
By the time he finished, I was ready to wallop him, so it was probably for the best that he stood, indicating that in less than ten minutes’ time, he had deduced that I was not the right person to fulfill the foundation’s mission—or more likely, to work in an office containing a foosball table. The entire reason I had been called in was probably so the company’s hiring manager could claim to have interviewed a broad range of candidates before hiring the person they had intended to choose all along.
“Thanks so much for meeting with us, Mary,” Adrian said, gripping my hand so forcefully that I felt one metacarpal bone crunch against another. I cringed, but his eyes were on his phone, which was faceup on the conference table. “I have a meeting in another minute. You remember the way to the door?”
“I do, and it’s Maggie,” I said. Based on the length of our interview, it was safe to assume that he wouldn’t be calling me for a follow-up. Even so, I did not want to walk out the door being called another woman’s name.
Adrian’s head lifted and he looked at me—actually looked at me, perhaps for the first time since I had walked into the office—and compassion flickered in his eyes. Perhaps I reminded him of his mother, or one of the women his foundation purported to support. “Absolutely,” he said. “Thank you for your time, Maggie.”
I was retrieving my coat from the coatrack after support group when Charlie shimmied up next to me. I startled, as my mind was still on Laurie, who had just revealed her ex-husband was a sex addict. This had got me wondering how often intimacy was the root of separation. For the past several years before we divorced, Adam regularly had trouble achieving an erection, and when I had encouraged him to see a urologist, he had informed me that the problem was not mechanical but the result of my approaching sex as another task on my to-do list. (Which I suppose I sometimes did.) If I had come on to him more often, would he actually have found it easier to get aroused? If he had come on to me more often, would I have been able to feel desire at a moment’s notice—or even after many long minutes of what was supposed to be foreplay? In the final years of our marriage, at least, he had clearly struggled to relate to me as a sexual being. In turn, this had switched my libido off, which had probably exacerbated his arousal issues. It was like one big downward spiral of sexual dysfunction. (And to think we had once been able to spend an entire day in bed, finding new ways to delight each other.)
Charlie’s presence brought me back to the present. “Didn’t mean to surprise you,” he said. He was leaning against the wall. “I was just wondering if you were interested in going out with me again sometime.”
Why yes, yes I was—but wasn’t dating a fellow support-grouper against some sort of rule? I glanced around nervously, but no one else was in earshot.
As I turned back to Charlie, it occurred to me that the real issue at hand was not support-group politics. It was that the last man I had been so immediately drawn to was Ian, my college boyfriend. Could I really attempt a casual relationship with someone who made my body hum?
I was going to have to try, I realized as I leaned in toward him without thinking about what I was doing. “When?”
He gave me a big grin. “Now?”
I zipped my down coat and looked at Charlie’s worn leather jacket. It was the kind of jacket few men could pull off, but he was one of them. “I was going to head home.”
“I could go with you.” Charlie laughed at himself. “Listen to me, inviting myself over. Sorry, I’ll—”
“No, that’s perfect.” The minute the words tumbled from my mouth, I wanted to shove them back in. So much for being careful.
“Okay,” said Charlie shyly. “If you’re sure.”
I wasn’t, but it was too late for that. Charlie drove behind me, which was just as well; I didn’t want him to see me clutching my steering wheel for dear life. Had I applied deodorant earlier? What if he thought I was inviting him over for sex? (Because I wasn’t. Was I?) This could end in a mess that made my night with Benito look like a tidy package tied with a bow, and that would be my fault.
In the rearview mirror, I watched Charlie pull up behind me in the driveway. Unless I was imagining it, he looked anxious, too.
“This is nice,” he said after he got out of the car. “Rustic for a spot so close to town.”
The porch was lit with twinkle lights, but my nerves were blinding me and I couldn’t seem to find the right key on my keychain. “Thanks. I can’t really take credit, though. It’s all Jean.”
“She’s your friend, so I’m going to call this an extension of your good taste.” His words soothed me, and I located the key and unlocked the door, which Charlie held open for me, motioning that I should go in first.
“This is really something,” he said as we entered, but his eyes were on me, not the house, and desire shot through me.
I understood then what an insane idea this had been. Benito was good looking in an abstract, unthreatening way, sort of like a catalog model. But Charlie’s full lips, his muscular arms, and even the deep timbre of his voice created the sort of visceral experience that overpowers your senses before you have time to back away.
“I’m nervous,” I blurted. “I’m attracted to you, and I don’t know if I’m ready for that.”
He chuckled. “Sorry, I think?”
“Don’t be. I know I’m overanalyzing it, but that’s kind of what I do.”
“That’s not necessarily a bad thing.” He took my jacket from my hands and hung it on a hook next to the door. “But you should know that this doesn’t have to be anything you don’t want it to be.”
I wasn’t sure if I believed him, but I said, “I think I can handle that.”
He slid his jacket off and hung it on top of mine. “Well, if that changes, tell me.”
“I’ll do my best. Would you like some tea?”
“Tea sounds like just the thing.”
When I was done in the kitchen, we sat on opposite ends of the sofa, each holding a mug. Things between us had again normalized, and we talked about Laurie’s dilemma and whether sexual addiction was real (we both presumed it was, but couldn’t say for certain). This led to a discussion about why neither of us drank. I explained that I had relied on alcohol too heavily during the separation and wanted a fresh start. Charlie, in turn, told me that his father had been a drunk. “Not the fun-loving, functional kind,” he said. “The kind who drinks away the grocery money and belts whoever he can reach before passing out. I didn’t want to be anything like him as an adult, and not drinking seemed like a good place to start.”
His voice was measured, but his face was full of pain as he told me this. I put down my tea and moved closer to him without thinking. “I’m so sorry. I had a rough childhood, too, but not like that. That must have been terrible for you.”
“Thank you,” he said quietly. Then he inched toward me, so that our knees were touching. “This is off topic, but I like the color of your hair.”
“Oh.” His compliment was unexpected, and I felt shy again. “Thank you. It used to be darker, but I’m trying to incorporate the gray, so . . .”
“You’d look great gray, too,” he said, so sincerely that I wanted to reach into the space-time vortex, find his father and this Lucinda character he had been married to, and give them both a piece of my mind.
“Charlie,” I said, “you never did tell me what you do for a living.”
He leaned back. “Oh, this, that, and the other thing. I’ve had a lot of different gigs over the years.”
His reticence to discuss work when we had just delved into far deeper issues struck me as odd. The leather-strapped watch on his wrist and the black sedan he drove told me that he was not hurting for cash. Did he, say, run errands for a mobster or work for a company that manufactured chemical weapons?
Before I could keep speculating, he added, “I worked in tech for a long time, usually at start-ups. I owned the last one I was at, and got burned out and sold it. That’s one of the seven hundred reasons Lucinda divorced me—because I didn’t like settling down with one company. She said it made her feel insecure about our future. So I guess I don’t really like talking about it.”
At least he didn’t make a living dissolving bodies in lye. “We can talk about something else,” I said.
“Thank you,” he said. His eyes were deep pools of black as he looked at me, and longing spread in me like heat. “I’m going to be honest with you right now.”
“Anything.”
“I’m thinking about kissing you, Maggie,” he said. “What are your thoughts on that?”
Thoughts? If I had a single one, I could not locate it in my head. I was an animal running on the pure, biological instinct to mate. But after I panted at him for a moment, some semblance of self-protection kicked in, and I managed to say, “I’d like that, but only if we can keep this casual.”
“Absolutely,” he said, and I willed myself not to concentrate on the fact that his voice had just lowered an octave. “You probably won’t even like kissing me anyway.”
I could feel my hands trembling. “Probably not,” I said.
“Then I apologize in advance,” he said, and put his hand on my neck and brought his lips to mine. His kiss was soft but hungry, and—dear God—he was kissing me as if I were delicious. As I kissed him back, it occurred to me that maybe I was delicious, and somewhere along the way I had forgotten that.
But after a few minutes, I started to think about Adam, and how little we had kissed at the end of our marriage. When we bothered to be intimate, there had been at most a perfunctory tongue touching before we moved on to the act itself. Had that been part of the reason our marriage had fallen apart? Or was our lack of kissing a symptom of the larger disease that had destroyed us?
I pulled away from Charlie. “I need a breather.”
He sat up and cleared his throat. “Of course. Obviously I don’t want to do anything you’re not comfortable with.”
See? I thought. There were brakes, and I was not afraid to use them. “Thank you. That was . . .” I blushed. “Wonderful. But like I said, this is really new for me.”
“Think it will be okay to see me at the support group next week?” Charlie’s face was flushed, too, but his voice was back to its usual register.
I nodded.
“Great.” He stood and bent to kiss me on the cheek. “I’m going to get going, but feel free to call or text if you want to get together before Tuesday. It was nice to spend some time with you, Maggie Halfmoon.”
Charlie Ellery was ninety percent more complicated than I had been aiming for. But when I was with him, I felt good. Not like my old self, necessarily—but nonetheless better than I had in a long time. Maybe that’s why, as I watched him walk to the front door, slip on his jacket, and turn to say goodbye one more time, I gave myself permission to see where this might lead.