“But all the while you were sleeping with Jonathon?”
Monica shook her head. “Not after we got engaged. But Joel and I had been going to premarital counseling and they talked about the importance of being truthful and not keeping secrets, and I couldn't marry Joel with the guilt of what I'd done with his best friend over the years. So I confessed that I'd been in love with Jonathon, that I'd been with him off and on since I was thirteen, but that it was all behind us now.”
“Your confession broke off your engagement.”
“I lost him for good. I destroyed our love, and I ruined their friendship. I think that's what hurt Joel the most. He lost his fiancée and his best friend.”
My heart ached, but for once it wasn't for me. I hurt for Joel. “It must've been too painful for Joel to talk about.”
“My crime was that I was in love with two men. Two men who I often confused as one. I was immature and selfish. And when I tried to do the right thing, it cost me Joel.”
“But you married Jonathon.”
“Yes, but not until you married Joel. I begged for him to come back to me, but he told me he was dating someone. Someone completely the opposite of me. Someone who would never hurt him.”
“Someone safe,” I whispered.
“I don't know. I guess so. But my marriage has been strained since the beginning. Joel is still very much alive in my marriage. I'm not sure if it will keep us together or tear us apart. I don't know how to fix it, except to try to do the right thing again.”
I could feel my temples pound. The boy next door had married the girl next door, not out of passion, but for security. I would never cheat on him; he knew that. I wasn't the type. He had picked me carefully, someone so different than Monica that I would never remind him of his old flame. Monica's Blackberry buzzed. I began to panic. “You can't leave. We're not done here.”
Monica gathered her things. “I wish I didn't have to. Judges are sticklers for promptness. Let's get together again soon, though. Wow. I already feel better talking to you like this.”
And I felt strangely worse. “I can't wait another two weeks. Can you come over tonight?”
“My daughter has a basketball game and then I have to take the red eye to New York. As soon as I get back, though. I promise.”
“How long?”
“Three days. Four tops.”
I watched her leave as elegantly as she had arrived, though she was now a different person in my eyes. I knew her secrets. Some of them, but not all. Not the one I needed to know the most. I knew she was a cheater. Jonathon was a cheater. But what about Joel? What about my husband? And was I the rebound girl that became the rebound wife?
Was Joel just seeking revenge when he took me as a wife?
Alfred Lord Tennyson once wrote, “It is better to have loved and lost, than never to have loved at all.” With all due respect to Lord T, he didn't know what the hell he was talking about. It is far better to have never loved at all, for never knowing love means you will never know what you are missing. But then this is a Griever talking. I have a distinct feeling Alfred was a Normal when he wrote that. I doubted he would've said it just after he had lost the love of his life. In fact, he probably wrote it while in the throes of a passionate love affair and said it off-handedly to a Griever. It's just the type of smart-ass remark a Normal says to a Griever, believing he is making them feel better.
I knew I needed escape. I took Bellezza for a jog around the neighborhood when I really wanted to jog to the local 7-Eleven for a box of Ding Dongs. I had helped the boys with their homework and began putting away the mountain of clothes in my closet. I found pieces of apparel I had forgotten I even had. Brightly colored clothing. Blues, greens, reds, purples. I told my mother I didn't need help this week. I told Anh I was cutting off the organizational umbilical cord. I had to do it myself, for myself. If she and my mother kept cleaning up my messes, I would never learn. I knew I could not become Normal when my world was still so cluttered.
As I vacuumed the dust bunnies (how quickly they procreate) underneath the couch at 1 a.m., waiting for da Vinci to come home, it hit me: I deserved more than this. I had become a doormat with him-a highly sexual doormat, but a doormat all the same.
I had become da Vinci's security blanket, making America a little easier for him, just like he had made life a little easier for me. And I owed it to da Vinci, Panchal, and especially myself, to straighten things out.
So I implored Zoya, who was usually up eating a bowl of cereal with her pregnant appetite, to stay at the house with the boys so I could go fetch some Italian.
I had expected to find the frat house pumping with party music, but it was strangely quiet, the side door propped open with a large rock, making it all too easy to sneak in. I had no idea where I would find him, but I began climbing the stairs when a young freckled-faced frat descended the stairs with a beer in his hand. He immediately put the brew behind his back. I must look like someone's mother and he assumed he was in trouble. “Are you here to apply for the house mom job?”
My ego deflated, but fortunately, it wasn't that big to begin with. “House mom? Definitely not. I'm looking for Leonardo da Vinci.”
“Einstein? Oh, he crashed in Pickler's room.”
Einstein? Pretty rude, wasn't it? Just because a person doesn't know English very well doesn't make him dumb. “Could you show me the way?”
“Sure thing. Right this way. I really think you should consider the house mom thing, though. You get free room and board, and I'm sure the guys would like you. Our last one was a real old bat.”
I couldn't even get my own boys to clean their rooms, let alone a hundred hormone-crazed frat boys. I wasn't sure if I should feel complimented or insulted.
The frat boy-who told me his name was T-Bone, which seemed like an awfully big name for such a small man-led me through the stained-carpeted hallways, passing by the TV room with three guys asleep on the couches. The pungent odor was worse than da Vinci had described, a combination of alcohol, urine and gym socks.
T-Bone rapped lightly on the door, then peeked inside and turned to me with a grin. “He's busy,” he said taking a swig of his beer. “Sure you want me to disturb him?”
I shook my head, feeling hot tears rush to the surface. I should've left it alone. A few more weeks and da Vinci would've weaned himself from me. Why rush it? I heard moaning from inside the room and considered rushing in to surprise him and just end it right there.
“She's sick,” T-Bone said as he walked away. Intrigued, I stuck my head in and saw that a girl was throwing up in the trashcan next to the bed. Da Vinci lay on the bed, in the position I was so familiar with: one arm on his belly, the other above his head, in a deep sleep.
I entered the room to help the girl. I held her hair as she threw up and helped her to the bathroom to wash her face. “Jell-O shots,” she said, clutching her stomach.
I 'd forgotten all about those lethal jiggly things. Jell-O was strictly a kids' thing in my world. “Guys use them to wear down your resistance,” I told her, thinking it didn't seem like da Vinci to get a girl drunk to take advantage of her. A girl didn't need to be inebriated to want da Vinci.
The girl studied my face, the color returning to hers. “I'm Cheyenne.”
“I'm Ramona.”
Cheyenne's eyes widened. “ You' re Mona Lisa?”
I could hear da Vinci begin to snore. “That's right. How did you know?”
Cheyenne rolled her small shoulders back. “Leo talks about you all the time.”