Chapter 2: Not Over Just Yet!

Oh, what the hell.

On the little keyboard, I typed in a message and sent it:

"Hey, What's up Brit?"

After about a minute, there was a reply,

"OMG! JIM?"

That seemed like a reasonably positive response — at least she hadn't told me to drop dead.

I wished that I had prepared something really witty to say, a bon mot that would become an oft-repeated aphorism, but alas, I was working off-the-cuff.

"Just ran into Brad at breakfast. Thought I would say 'Hi'," I replied.

"Jim, can't chat right now, but could you call me later?" was Brittany's text back to me, "I would love to talk to you."

"Sure. I'll call tonight," was the only option I could manage on such short notice for my brain.

"Great — talk to you then!" Brit signed off with a little smiley face.

Oh god. What, if anything am I getting myself into, I thought.

Thank goodness it was Saturday, because I was fairly useless the entire day, anticipating calling Brit that evening.

OK, OK, so call me a wimp, call me a loser. At the least, a man obsessed. Here I was, eight months after I threw Brit out of my house, as nervous as a teenager trying to get up the courage to make that dreaded call to ask my date to the Senior Prom. It was SO retro — I could almost feel my face breaking out in pimples again.

My stomach was churning — although those extra three cups of coffee with Brad might have something to do with that.

The truth was, after a lot of time and reflection, I still missed Brit. An 'absence makes the heart grow fonder' kind of missed, far from the 'out of sight, out of mind, ' I'd hoped for. The thought completely disgusted me: two clichés in one breath.

I had done some dating, but my heart wasn't in it. A couple of the gals were nice enough, and had made it clear that they were ready and willing to swap vital bodily fluids with me. But to what end — getting my rocks off?

Permit me to rephrase that: I will stipulate that I don't consider getting my rocks off as an unworthy end, in and of itself; but after living with Brit, it wasn't the sum total of what I was looking for anymore.

Brit and I had been, for lack of a better word, in the process of becoming a 'team.'

We worked well together. We would split the chores around the house without really even having to talk about it. We didn't need long discussions about the mundane things in life, we just did them. There were few disagreements, because we were willing to listen to the other, and compromise.

Food was an example — we enjoyed the same cuisines, but were willing to try new things as well. At restaurants we would find that we were both looking at the same two or three items on the menu, which usually resulted in us each ordering a different dinner, and splitting them both between us.

It's a surprisingly intimate act, feeding one another over the table, placing a mouthful of the food from your plate into the mouth of your enamored. The trust of allowing someone to put a sharp set of tines into your gaping orifice, for god's sake!

And the pièce-de-résistance — Brit laughed at my jokes. If THAT wasn't love, than nothing could be.

Maybe it was partly my age, and a changing attitude. I was listening on my PDA to Diana Krall singing that old standard 'The Look of Love' (sucker that I am for easy-listening music) and it got me thinking.

There is a special excitement that goes along with the dating scene — that's the 'look of love' thing. You meet someone new, you want to explore them, discover what makes them tick, what excites them and puts them under your spell. You are obsessed.

It's the first time that you see the swell of her bare breasts; the gentle curve of her back becoming her derriere; the way her legs taper over the muscles to be constricted at the knees, only to curve out again over her calves, to her delicate ankles. The arch of her foot; her slim and elegant neck. The soft and perfect skin that you brush with your lips. Her hair spread on the pillow like an angel's wings.

And most of all, the look coming from her eyes, seeing you. Her mouth, moist and slightly open, inviting. Waiting.

No wonder that people are drawn by the seductive temptation of trying to recapture that special experience of the 'new.'

There comes a time in most people's lives, though, when the excitement of the hunt, the continuous challenge of a new love, becomes less alluring, and the idea of finding that one person, the one you hope can be your soul mate, becomes the more attractive option.

For whatever the reason, Brit had been the first woman to make me feel that way.

Then there was a series of questions that had been driving me crazy. Nothing surprising to anyone who has even gone through a break-up. The 'ego' questions.

What did I do wrong? Why wasn't I enough? What did he have that I couldn't provide? Wasn't I an adequate lover? What could I have done differently to keep her?

Perhaps I had underestimated the difficulty of two people who had divorced, at some visceral level, to really and finally make the split permanent.

In the case of Brit and Donny-boy, it had been financial problems, after all, at the root of their antagonisms. Neither had cheated on the other during their union. So far as I knew (although I hadn't actually asked, and Brit had never said) they were sexually compatible enough — as I had mentioned, Brit seemed pretty open to anything that I suggested sexually. No reason to think that she hadn't been equally willing with her ex-husband.

By now, you are no doubt thinking that these are the ramblings of a mad-man, not quite capable of lucid thought. You would be right!

That doesn't mean that my introspection had no effect. I was sure of at least one thing. I didn't want this conversation to take place over our PDA's. I wanted to meet with Brit face-to-face and have it out in circumstances where neither of us could just hang up and leave the other dangling in limbo, so to speak.

That moment of galactic clarity shaped my plan: when I called Brit, I would insist that we meet somewhere where we could talk at length. I would suggest either lunch or dinner, and if need be, retreat to my house, her apartment, or even her folk's place, if she wanted a (sort of) neutral location.

The rest of Saturday afternoon went fairly well for me. Having determined my course, I took a nap for a couple of hours. When all else fails, sleep on it.

At about seven o'clock that evening, I called Brit's number. She answered after the first ring.

"Jim?" she must have caller I.D., "I'm so glad you called!" Her cheerful voice lightened my whole mood.

"So am I, Brit," I replied, and took a quick breath, getting ready to give my spiel.

"Jim, if I could interrupt you, I would like to ask you, if instead of trying to talk about what happened over the phone, could we get together somewhere, maybe for lunch or dinner, to talk? I think that we might need some time to discuss things, and I want to do it face-to-face. Could we do that?" came her guileless request.

What can a man do when a woman preempts his line of reasoning? I agreed, of course!

It took us a while to find the right place to meet, but our handy-dandy PDAs came to the rescue. We started dialing in where we wanted to meet (in-between my place and her folks), the kind of food (Tex-Mex); it gave us a list of 'possibles', and we agreed on one place. Heck, I input our desired time, and the PDA made the reservation for us.

How did I live without my PDA?

That was how I found myself, the next evening, Sunday, waiting outside 'Restaurante, El Cid.'

I was even slightly dressed-up for the occasion, wearing what I had seen called, in one of those magazines that cater to the 'metrosexual' man, as 'smart casual.' A beige silk mock-turtleneck, with a new pair of navy slacks, a brown belt, and a sports coat, made of a slightly rough brown material that looked like I would be comfortable out shooting at birds. I'd even shaved with a blade, to get that beard really smooth. I suspect that my face smelled vaguely of sandalwood from my shaving soap and the moisturizer that is supposed to help your face recover from having flayed off the top layer of skin, along with the hairs.

I was completely calm. NOT!

About two minutes after I arrived, not more than ten minutes early — Brit walked up to the door.

How do women do it?

Brit's hair, normally a light brown, was even lighter colored, close to blond, with dazzling highlights. Her make-up was subtle, but enhanced her cheek-bones and brought out her exquisite eyes.

Until that evening, I always thought a figure-hugging dress was the most attractive kind of garment a woman could wear. You know one of those slinky things that showed a lot of cleavage and let you see each muscle as a woman moved.

In the future, I was going to need to readjust that opinion.

True the top part of her dress fit to show off her fabulous breasts and flat midriff, but the skirt was loose, flowing and swirling around her legs with each step she took. It had to be made of the softest material imaginable to show her small waist and the flair of her hips.

Oh god, those legs!

She looked incredibly beautiful. I was almost knocked off my feet.

As she approached, I'm sure that my jaw dropped, and I stood there staring like some pervert stalker! I couldn't help myself, my arms opened and my hands started to extend outward. I didn't really mean anything by it, but Brit smiled, slipped in-between my arms, put HER hands lightly on my shoulders, stood on her tip-toes and gave me a light kiss on the cheek.

I don't know what kind of perfume she was wearing, but it should be outlawed, because it clearly inhibits the thinking process. At least MY thinking process.

She took a step back, looking up at me, and smiled again. We just stood there for a short time — not more than a life-span — when Brit allowed time to move forward again. She took my arm, and said,

"Jim, you look so handsome tonight," she paused, and then,

"Let's go eat."

We entered the restaurant together, Brit's left arm intertwined with my right, and her right hand resting on my bicep. I gave my name to the hostess, and we were seated.

I was irrationally pleased by having achieved success the first time I used the PDA's auto-reservation feature. I guess it works.

Having Brit on my arm was by itself an ego booster. Every guy in the bar was eying her as we passed through on the way to our table.

By mutual, unspoken agreement, we didn't begin the knock-down, drag-out immediately. We both had a drink and ordered our meals, and chatted, getting reacquainted.

Brit seemed genuinely impressed and happy at the progress my little company had been making. She told me that she was always keeping her eyes open for news items about my firm, such as when we would announce a new contract or grant.

While I knew that Brit was no longer working for the accounting firm that I used, I didn't really know what she had been doing subsequent to her leaving. It turned out that she had finished her accounting degree, and was now in charge of the small accounting department of a start-up software company.

Our food arrived, and like it had been between us before, we ordered two different meals and then shared them. I gave Brit one of my Chilis Rellano, while she shared her Carnitas with me. Damn, how can you be so immediately comfortable with a person after an eight-month separation?

Soon, though, the time arrived when we couldn't put it off anymore, we had to confront the breakup, and whether we were going to go our separate ways, or find some way of being friends, or whatever. I know that I felt a need to talk.

"Jim," Brit started, "first, I want to apologize to you. I think that we had some misunderstandings, but they were all my fault, because I didn't have enough faith and trust to be completely candid with you."

She picked up her wine and took a sip, then put the glass back down on the table. She continued,

"There were a couple of things happening in my life that I would like to explain."

I interrupted,

"Would you mind, if rather than you telling me what happened from your perspective, that I ask you some specific questions first?"

Brit nodded at me, so I just dove in.

"Remember the card you got from Donny for your birthday?" Brit nodded again.

I leaned forward with my elbows resting on the table, my face drawing closer to hers.

"You know that the very next day, you called Donny. Not only that, but you never told me that you and he were spending a lot of time talking to each other," I asserted and Brit didn't disagree.

I was getting angry again, just thinking about it. It took quite an effort on my part to keep my volume down.

"Not only that, but I know that you were at his apartment the day that we broke up — for several hours. I could tell where you were using the GPS tracking in your PDA."

That surprised her a little; I could see her respond with a small jerk when I mentioned the GPS tracking. She was surprised, but she didn't look like she felt guilty.

"You can track where I am?" Brit asked, looking slightly horrified at her PDA.

"Not anymore," I clarified, "Just when our PDAs were on the same 'family plan.' But that's immaterial — the issue was that you were spending your time with your ex-husband, Don."

Brit looked at me with sad eyes, reached across the table and placed her hand on mine for a moment.

"That was one of my stupid secrets, that I should have simply told you about," she began.

"I saw how you and my Dad reacted to Donny's birthday card, and I was frightened that if I told you, you would get really upset, and things would get out of proportion."

"I got a voice-mail from Donny at work the day after my birthday party asking me to call him, which I did. He explained that he was working with one of these law firms that specialize in getting outstanding credit card balances reduced, but he needed my help to put together the materials for the lawyer," Brit explained.