It's Got A Ring To It Page 6

  Just hearing his life journey, I found myself hungry for new adventures. I couldn’t get the vision of eating gelato in St. Mark’s Square and working my way through all the museums, out of my head. Pictures in books could only take me so far. At some point, I realized I’d have to go out on faith and actually live. My mind began running away from me. I had visions of Roman Holiday, and Larry and I were taking the city in by Vespa.

  Thoughts of Larry being this younger, sexier, Italian version of Gregory Peck got me excited and I really got into the conversation. Next thing I knew, my guard was officially down. Two and a half hours and countless instant messages later, I was ready to take down the “out of order” sign on my love life. It was no longer obsolete. I had a date with LVGent. A very cautious date, nonetheless. Excited anxiety rushed through me, but there would likely be no romantic Vespa ride around Rome. At least, for the time being. Nor, would there be an intimate stroll by the shore. Heck, even the idea of him picking me up or knowing what car I drove was farfetched at that point.

  We compromised on the dinner-movie date, and settled on just a dinner to start. A very public outing to Della Vite, the new critically acclaimed Italian restaurant and winery, located smack dab in the middle of The Strip. It was so new, that paparazzi still lingered around with their lenses prepped and ready for a glimpse of any remotely recognizable celebutante or socialite. I chose it for that reason precisely. Just in case Larry turned out to be one of America’s Most Cunning Criminals instead of Gregory Peck, the chances of a pic being snapped of us together could be just what the police would need to rescue me—or depending on how the date went, at least a nice memory for our scrapbook of our first date.

  EIGHT

  I was wearing Lena’s new ball gown with all the frills and its endless train. Nervously, I shuffled it behind me and let it billow in the wind. The butterflies fluttered in my stomach as I checked for flyaway hairs and stole a glance in the pocket mirror I had hidden in my corset. I turned in time to lock eyes with him as he neared me. They were all that I saw.

  The closer he got, the more his features came into focus. He wasn’t faceless this time. Ethan? Involuntarily, my hands reached for him. Come closer. My eyes strained to see clearer. The dark waves of hair. Able hands. No, those translucent eyes. The closer he got, the more I recognized him. I’d only seen him in person once, but it was more than enough to commit him to memory. Lord knows, I wanted to hate him, but despite his detestable ways, he fit the image of everything I wanted in a man. My nightmare had infringed upon my dream. At the end of the aisle, under that lovely gazebo, I stood there with Myles.

  “I do,” I heard myself swoon. And with that, my body stilled to atrophy as he closed the gap between us. The kiss was passionate—and weird. I could feel it, but I could see us at the same time. At the bridal salon, the way he made me feel was lukewarm at best, compared to the heatwave it sent scorching through my body. This just couldn’t be, I thought. And with the jarring ring of my alarm clock, it wasn’t.

  I should have been overcome with relief. Instead, the sting of disappointment lingered like the looming clouds outside my window. And so it went, time to embrace reality. Not with Myles, but with my actual faceless date, Larry. A nap before meeting seemed like a great idea, but the bird’s nest perched atop my head and the pouring rain forced me to think otherwise. After battling with my hair and ceding to it, I could’ve easily stayed home and been just as happy. Really, there was only one thing on my mind. That kiss. The kiss that dream-me had. It felt more real than anything I’d ever experienced. My knees got weak and I couldn’t ignore the warmth igniting in the depth at the meeting of my thighs.

  Absentmindedly, as I laid out my outfit, my thoughts dissected every twist of our tongues and meeting of our eyes. Something about it was so gentle and endearing. If I was being honest with myself, I hadn’t thought about kisses or intimacy in a long while—I wouldn’t let myself. It just seemed too risky to let myself wish for that type of affection again. The idea of ending up in the same agony for a second time was a chance I wasn’t willing to take. But after his lips brushed against mine, I remembered what it felt like to have someone yearn for my touch—and to yearn for his in return.

  But it was only a dream. I promised myself that I would stop hoping and keep my feet rooted in reality. Perhaps, Larry could be just what I needed. If he wasn’t someone that I could build a future with, at least I might get a goodnight kiss to hold me over until I did find a real man worthy and willing to care for my heart.

  A final glance in the mirror. One more dab of Pretty in Pink lip gloss and it was as good as it would get—for Larry. Grabbing my purse and keys, and locking the door behind me, I noticed the rain had finally let up. I took a moment to inhale deeply, letting it fill my lungs before I got in the car. Hopefully, it was a good omen for the night ahead.

  The drive toward The Strip always dragged on, making the clock appear to stall. Only about five minutes had passed and I knew I was going to be there early. The quiet was nice, though. Somehow, I could hide from my thoughts. I was tired of thinking. Tired of trying to make sense of everything. Somewhere along the way, I’d lost sight of what’s important to me. Along with my heart, I’d given away my joy.

  Before Ethan, I lived life to the fullest. There wasn’t a party or concert I didn’t attend. I’d seen every show on the strip several times over. I actually made it out of the country to see the world beyond the valley. I had friends. Then, I became the girl who ditched her friends for a relationship. It should’ve been a sign to me then. I spent every waking moment trying to mean something to him, but with Ethan, everything was either about him or about business. He was searching for the self he thought he’d find engulfed in a career. All day every day, he was driving himself to become a financial planner. I figured, if I was equally obsessed with work, then maybe I’d become as important.

  Still, the more he worked, the less important I became to him. Our date nights got cancelled and soon the tradition fell by the wayside along with any notion of affection. After seven years together, I was beginning to think we’d run our course. Then out of the blue, he suggested we set a date for the wedding. He hadn’t given his two cents about the wedding since he asked me for my hand. Every time I asked for his input, he’d just shoo me away. “Whatever you think is best.” I began to feel like he was trying to pacify me, like a wedding would keep me from continuing to ask him if anything had changed between us.

  At that point, my self-esteem was wavering. Deep down I knew something was wrong—something had been wedged between us. Still I hung on by the unraveling thread and prayed on my hands and knees that our problems were temporary. I’d convinced myself that he was just stressed with work and the wedding, and things would die down after we were married. I was using him as much as he was using me. Nothing seemed worse than being alone.

  As I merged onto the 15 South from the 95, the thought weighed on me. Something inside had changed since those days. It was as if a switch had been flipped and I couldn’t turn it back off. What used to be enough just wouldn’t do anymore. Sure, I’d finally stooped to online dating, but it couldn’t be any worse than what I’d already been through. Heck, I could do bad all by myself. But could I let loose and date without expectations? Looking over at the neon lights of the Vegas skyline, I knew there was no better place to test my willpower.

  For my own peace of mind, I parked next door at the Fashion Show Mall to ensure he wouldn’t learn what car I drove. As I walked over, an uncanny silence seemed to set upon the valley like an audience on edge, waiting in peaked anticipation of a debut performance. I’m no performer, but the fact that I was meeting with a man who was a complete stranger to me less than a week ago, definitely showed me a new side of myself.

  The whole dating scene was uncharted waters. For ten years. if you include the eight that Ethan and I were together, I had no idea how much courting had changed. It used to be that guys and gals met in grocery stores or church, exchanged
telephone numbers and gradually got to know each other. Fast-forward a decade, and dates are planned on computers like business appointments faster than a drive-thru Elvis wedding. I hoped Larry would be willing to go at my pace.

  Somewhere inside the restaurant, Larry was waiting patiently, but I slyly lurked at the bar trying to get a first glimpse. He’d only given me his name and said he’d wait for me, so I had no clue what I was even looking for. I resolved to act like a grown-up instead of making a shallow prejudgment based on what he might or might not look like.

  “Welcome to Della Vite,” said the hostess in a weird accent that sounded more cockney than Italian. Dressed in the form-fitted black knee-length dress with a red rose perfectly tucked behind her ear and waves of long auburn tresses, she was stunning. Suddenly, standing next to her in the black wrap-dress that I thought was so elegant, I felt inadequate and frumpy—not at all how I wanted to feel on my first jump back into the dating pool. I felt myself angling toward the door. Tempted to turn back, I was inches away when the beautiful hostess said my date had already arrived. Reluctantly, I followed behind her like the before version of some P90x exercise addict’s made over body. As the eye-catching beauty led me through the restaurant, the darting eyes of onlookers scrambled to see me and turned just as quickly. While I’d been worrying about his appearance, it hadn’t occurred to me until that moment, I might not fit his bill. As if confirming my feeling of inadequacy, when the hostess introduced me as his guest, all I heard was crickets.

  The look of confusion on his face beamed “unimpressed” and the idea of running, not walking, back to the car sounded like a get out of jail free card. Sweat beads swelled across my forehead. Then, it became apparent that his expression was a reflection of the shock and awe plastered across mine. I’d said what I was thinking out loud—“Shit!” Literally, I said “Shit.”

  He rose from his chair to greet me and I was grateful for his willingness to ignore my rudeness. I heard him ask me to be seated, but my legs wouldn’t work. My eyes were locked on him in total disbelief.

  “I’m sorry. I’m not what you were expecting,” his head bowed in embarrassment.

  “Yes! I mean no! No. That’s not what I meant.” My head dropped and I buried it in my hands, letting my body sluggishly melt into the chair across from him as he dismissed the hostess. Mortified, I apologized profusely, shaking my head, wishing I could rewind and start over. “Larry, I’m so sorry. It’s not what you think…it’s just that you remind me of someone else.”

  And the next thing I knew, the waterworks were in full effect. The more I wiped, the more they came, like an unleashed geyser erupting. Larry eyed me, confused and rightfully so. He must’ve been thinking that I was crying because of him, but I couldn’t stop long enough to explain that it had nothing to do with him. He put a hand on my shoulder and told me everything would be okay, but his words had the reverse effect.

  When I cry, if anyone tries to console me, it only makes me bawl. Through my sniveling, blubbering, broken tears, and mascara-run raccoon eyes, I kept apologizing to poor Larry, who had to suffer the brunt of my emotional breakdown. He must have been regretting the blindish hell date, but he managed to hide it well. Only when he was sure that it wasn’t a life-threatening emergency did he slide next to me and wait for me to compose myself.

  “You must think I’m a hysterical nutbasket.” Hiding behind my menu, I wiped at my eyes and tried not to stare, but the resemblance was uncanny. “Larry, I’m so sorry. I haven’t been completely honest with you.”

  He peeked over the menu and hesitantly pulled it down to look me in the eyes. “Okay. So tell me all about it.”

  Those warm chestnut eyes. I knew them well, but they weren’t his. I hadn’t expected that reaction from him, but I felt a weird combination of uneasiness and calm by the empathy in his voice—enough to tell him the real truth and not just the truth I was going to conjure up to avoid seeming like some loon.

  Through choppy words, I made an ill attempt at explaining myself. “Well, I feel so bad because you were so forthcoming with me. You opened your heart and told me about your wife being unfaithful to you and how it changed you, but you didn’t allow it to take you off the course of finding love…” I could feel myself veering toward tangents to avoid telling him. “I didn’t want to scare you away, so I told you that I hadn’t gone through anything like that, but I lied. I’ve been through exactly that, in nearly the same way you went through it, but I didn’t want you to know that I had let my pain rob me of my faith in love. You see, I was in love with a man, who I wanted to spend my life with. Eight years of my life was dedicated to him, wholeheartedly. We were engaged, but he left me. My heart was broken when he told me that he was leaving me. What’s worse, he left me for someone he’d been with for years during our relationship.”

  The dam that was holding back my tears broke. I let them fall and continued telling my story to the familiar stranger. Oddly, I think the fact that he didn’t know me and had no basis from which to judge me, gave me the strength to finally let it all out.

  Larry reached for my hands and took them in his. “I won’t judge you. Go on,” he squeezed, empathetically encouraging me to continue.

  “He only asked me to marry him, when he thought he was losing her.” The words blurted out of my mouth like verbal vomit and I couldn’t get the taste out fast enough. “I was just a stand-in, while he waited for her to realize she wanted him, too. And when she did, I was thrown out like trash. I found out on that day that I had an expiration date. I was no longer useful to him. I was expendable.” Larry reached to wipe a falling tear and my body responded to his comforting touch. “I’ve been hiding ever since that day. Only recently have I realized that I’ve only been hurting myself.”

  “Laila, that’s nothing to be ashamed of. You did nothing wrong. He was the unfaithful one. To me, that just means that he wasn’t the man for you.”

  “That may be so, but it doesn’t make it hurt any less. I’m still the one who is scarred and damaged. I’m the one having trouble dating.”

  “What do you mean? You’re out here, looking gorgeous. We’re about to have dinner at one of the best restaurants in the world. You’re dating now. Forget everything in the past and live in the now.”

  “Oh my gosh, Larry. That sounds so great. Really, it does. I want to, but you just don’t understand…” Before I could say anything more, he swiped another tear from my face, caressed my cheek and did what felt natural to him. He leaned in and kissed me deeply. I surprised myself when I returned the gesture. Suddenly, it felt like the kiss from the dream. I reached for his face and allowed my fingers to venture through his thick mane—letting him temporarily bandage the gaping hole in my heart. I couldn’t open my eyes. It wasn’t the dream kiss. We were still in a restaurant surrounded by people probably gleaming with disdain at our taste of affection.

  Cautiously, my eyes opened only to be confronted by the whole truth that I’d failed to share with Larry. The face attached to mine bore an uncanny resemblance. Instances from my past replayed in my mind. Snapshots of our life together flashed like a slideshow. Us, at the chamber meeting, desperately and unsuccessfully trying to stifle our inappropriate laughter. Kissing in the middle of Times Square. The tingles on my skin as he whispered that he loved me and would one day make me his wife as we looked on at our friends making the same vows before God and their loved ones. I knew Larry reminded me of him. No wonder I didn’t know whether his familiar voice made me feel uneasy or comforted. It was the same voice that relayed the worst news of my life. Those chestnut eyes. That deep chin. The thick curly hair. Larry could have been a clone of the man who had been the bane of my existence for the past two years—no ten years. If it weren’t for the truth in his eyes, I would’ve sworn that he was Ethan.

  NINE

  In the middle of the grocery store, the “Bad Mamma Jamma” ringtone sounded off loudly. I figured, either Mom had heard about my date or she wanted to discuss wedding plans. Ne
ither of which I cared to talk about among the produce pickers sifting through bruised apples, but it was either that or have them glare at me for not answering to stop the ringtone.

  “Hi,Mom!”

  “Laila, honey, what are your plans today?”

  “I’m picking up a few things at the grocery store now, but then I have to head into the office for a couple of hours. Why? What’s up?”

  “Do you think you can stop by after? There’s someone I want to you to meet.”

  Every time she says, “there’s someone I want you to meet,” I cringe. I knew those words were code for, “Someone’s ugly son or grandson has agreed to meet you and hopefully I’ll get to marry you off.” She’d laid off of me for a while, but the day Lena announced her engagement, the hunt for a mate for me was back in full force. Still, it really sucked to hear disappointment in her voice.

  “Who is it this time, Mom?”

  “Laila, I met this nice young man at the post office, who’s a photographer. He lives real close by. A few blocks over. I thought you might want to meet him and see if he could do Lena’s wedding photos.”

  The tension released from my shoulders. Weddings, I could do. Men, not so much. “Oh. All right. I’ll come right after I leave the office. Is everything else okay?” Fully aware of my mother’s reigning title as motormouth gossipmonger, I knew I was opening a can of worms. By far, she was the most long-winded person I knew. Every conversation started off with a worrisome interrogation of where I’ve been, what I’ve been up to, and who I’ve been with. Once she’s determined I was okay, it’s on to the latest report of some horrific ordeal she’s seen on the news or worse, Nancy Grace.