The Man I Love (The Fish Tales, #1)(107)

He didn’t. “She did. Months of rehab. A lot of hard work, but she did.”

“Where is she now?”

“She danced with the Pennsylvania Ballet for a while.” Erik rolled his lips in, considering his next move. Keep it ordinary, he thought.

“Last I heard she was in New York. We’re not in touch anymore. We broke up rather badly.”

“I see,” Melanie said. “I imagine the shooting messed you guys up nine ways to Sunday. That sucks, baby. I know it’s an understatement but I just have no words.”

She scooped up a pile of minced garlic with the knife and dropped it into the skillet, which gave up a satisfying, oily crackle. She shook the pan a little, reached for a wooden spoon. The smell of butter and olive oil and garlic was making Erik woozy.

“It’s nice here,” he said.

Melanie took a drink from her glass as she stirred, put it down and ran the back of her wrist across one eyebrow. “Do you think you’d like to stay tonight?” she asked.

He watched her swift, experienced hands without answering. He wanted to stay. He wondered if they would make love, and he wanted it as well. But what about the aftermath? What if it happened again, that awful death spiral of anxiety?

“What do I do about that?” he had asked Diane.

“What do you usually do?”

“Get the hell out of there.”

“Why?”

“Because it’s… I don’t know.”

“No, push it a little. Finish the thought. Because it’s what?”

Erik flailed around for words, dropping his hands into his lap. “It’s embarrassing.”

“Nobody would understand is what I hear you saying.”

“Right. It’s insane.”

“Have you ever tried explaining it?”

“No.”

“What if you did?”

He blinked at her. “How?”

“Tell the story. You don’t have to get into the nitty-gritty intimate details. You could simply condense it down to its most elemental parts.”

“What, so I say one night I had an intense sexual encounter with my girlfriend, and the next day I watched her get shot? And it irrevocably linked sex and anxiety in my mind?”

Diane nodded slowly, a corner of her mouth twisting. “That works,” she said. “But I’d leave out the irrevocable part.”

“I can’t say that.”

“Why not, it’s the truth. And if she can’t handle it, there’s no emotional future with her anyway. You can f*ck, leave and save yourself the anxiety.”

So infrequently did Diane curse that the exchange had stayed firmly planted in Erik’s mind. And if ever there were a time give the advice a field trial…

What the hell, keep it ordinary, he thought, swallowing hard.

“I’d like to stay,” he said. “But there’s something about… Something might happen to me. I just need to let you know something.” He put his face into a hand, laughing. “I’m sorry, Mel, I’m not good at talking about this.”

Melanie handed him a head of broccoli. “Rinse this off, please. And cut it in florets. You can talk and be busy. Sometimes it helps if you’re a little distracted.”

It did help. Occupied with this little bit of business, he did his best to sketch out a coherent, generalized story of what transpired in therapy. Then he braced himself to be politely shown the door.

“So,” Melanie said, “what I hear you saying is one minute she had the proverbial hand down your pants in the lighting booth. And the next minute it was Armageddon.”

He nodded, rinsing broccoli bits off the blade of the knife and setting it in the sink. “Something like that.”

Melanie wiped her hands off and poured herself another glass of wine. “You know, I’m no shrink, but if one minute you’re making out with your girlfriend and sporting wood and feeling good and dying to get her back in bed. And the next minute the place erupts in gunfire, a man blows his head off in front of you and your girlfriend is all but bleeding to death… I don’t know, baby, I think my mind would keep all those things tied together for a real long time. Wouldn’t surprise me if you two were messed up afterward to the point where you couldn’t make much love.”

A humbling gratitude took him by the throat. He thought he would cry from the sheer sweetness of being understood. “We couldn’t. I mean we could, but it was just…messed up.”

“And you were so young. God.” Melanie scraped the garlic, golden-brown and fragrant, into a small bowl, then took the skillet and spatula over to the sink. “So what made you guys break up eventually?” She flicked the faucet on. Clouds of steam wafted up and fogged the window.

“I found her in bed with one of my closest friends.”

Melanie shut off the water and looked over her shoulder at him. She reached down the counter to her block of knives, selected one, considered it then solemnly offered it to him.

Erik burst out laughing. Her expression was so dry, so perfectly ironic and beautifully timed, and he began to love her.

She put the knife back into the block. “I’ll tell you what, I’m gonna feed your ass,” she said. “And then I’ll either take you back to your car tonight, or I’ll take you back to it in the morning. You decide.”