Well, another Valentine’s Day has come and gone.
And I, Dana Peyton, am glad it’s over. While the rest of the world went out for dinner, exchanged flowers and chocolate, and ended the evening with declarations of love and/or passionate sex, I didn’t.
Instead, I ate a pint of Ben & Jerry’s, watched “The World at War” (I was in too much of a sugar coma to change the channel; and besides, it seemed appropriate), and ended my own evening with tears, depression, weight gain, and indigestion.
Thanks, Alex.
If it wasn’t for my ex-husband, I sometimes ask myself, where might I be right now? What career heights might I have climbed, what novels might I have written, what accomplishments might I have… accomplished?
But instead, I pledged my troth to a lying, cheating, sugar-frosted serial philanderer named Alex Peyton. And I have nothing to show for it but a succession of lonely nights, a permanent indentation on the sofa from watching too many episodes of “Downton Abbey” and “Say Yes to the Dress,” and more than a little residual bitterness.
So here I am, a past-my-prime, jaded ex-wife with a pile of magazines I don’t want to read (“Sex: Still the Best Workout!” “Are YOU Standing in Your Own Way?”), a daughter who barely speaks to me, and a fervent hatred of Valentine’s Day.
After Halloween and Christmas, Valentine’s Day used to be my favorite holiday. I usually got cards, conversation hearts (I GO 4 U!), and candy. Granted, the candy back then was a Whitman’s Sampler, not a box of Godiva chocolate truffles, but it made me feel special.
But it was the mix tapes Alex made for me that I loved best. Okay, they weren’t actually tapes, they were CDs; but they were filled with music he’d chosen for me. Songs like “Damn, I Wish I Was Your Lover,” “Finally,” “Please Don’t Go” (after a really bad argument), “How Do You Talk to an Angel,” “I Can’t Make You Love Me.”
I remember laying on my bed, listening to my portable CD player while I struggled with algebra homework or flipped through the pages of “Seventeen.” Alex always scribbled elaborate designs on the CDs with a black Sharpie. He never told me what songs were on the discs; I had to listen to find out.
On impulse, I abandon my glass of wine and the latest episode of “Revenge” and get off the sofa to go upstairs. Where, I wonder suddenly, did I put those old CDs?
I grab the chair from my desk and drag it in front of the bedroom closet. Impatiently I shove aside shoe boxes and stacks of out-of-season sweaters until I find it, way back in the corner of the top shelf – my old King Edward cigar box. Clutching the box to my chest, I step down and perch on the edge of the bed.
I lift the lid, and there they are – three CDs. Alex’s mix tapes. Shiny silver proof that, once upon a time, he really did love me.
I go to the laptop on my desk and slot a CD into the disc drive. As “Dream Lover” segues into “Another Sad Love Song,” I can’t help it. I start to cry.
What happened to us? I wonder. How did it go so wrong? Am I so different from the girl I was then? What happened to the Alex I fell in love with? Where did that guy go? Where did we go?
“Mom?”
I look up to see my daughter Becky hesitating in the doorway. Hastily I wipe my eyes with the back of my hand. “What’s up, Bex?”
“Why are you crying? Are you okay?”
Trust Becky to cut straight to the chase. I nod. “Just feeling a little sentimental, I guess.”
She comes in and sits down next to me. “Sentimental?” she echoes, and raises her brow as she picks up one of the disks. “Over some old CDs?”
“They’re not just CDs,” I protest. “They’re mixes. Your father made them for me when I was… when I was around your age.”
“You’re kidding. Can I listen to one?”
I shrug, even though I’m secretly pleased. “Why not?”
She inserts another CD into the tray and presses “Play,” and “Whoomp! (There it Is)” blares from the laptop.
Becky laughs. “I can’t believe dad recorded this. He actually made CDs for you? That’s so cool.”
“He liked the Spin Doctors. He always said “Little Miss Can’t Be Wrong” was my theme song.” I made a face. “Jerk.”
My daughter grins. “He had your number, even then.”
I throw a pillow at her, and we listen to the CDs, and we laugh some more, and Becky shakes her head in amazement that her parents actually had a life – a semi-interesting, “Semi-Charmed Life” – prior to her arrival.
The front door slams. “Hello!” Alex calls up from downstairs. “Is that my two favorite girls I hear up there?”
“Alex!” I jump up from the bed and make my way to the top of the stairs. “What are you doing here? I thought you had a date tonight.”
“I did.” He looks up, and despite his fatigue from a day in court, he looks as handsome as ever in his suit and tie. “I cancelled. It’s been a long day, I’m just not up to making conversation over drinks and dinner somewhere.”
“Oh, you poor thing,” I say tartly.
He chooses to ignore that. “I don’t suppose I could interest either of you in some popcorn and tv tonight, could I?”
I open my mouth to say no. But I catch sight of the glimmer of hope on Becky’s face, fleeting but definitely there. “Okay. But we girls get control of the remote, or no deal.”
“And we’re having kettle corn, dad, not that nasty white cheddar stuff,” Becky adds.
Alex holds up his hands in surrender. “Whatever you say.” As Becky rushes down the stairs and into the kitchen to make the popcorn, he glances up at me. “What were you two doing up there? I thought I heard music.”
“You did. I found those old mix CDs you made for me.”
Surprise flickers on his face. “I can’t believe you kept those.”
“I can’t either.” I come downstairs. “Remember that time you marked your red Chucks up with a Sharpie to look like Eddie Van Halen’s red and black guitar?”
He laughs. “Yeah. I doodled on everything, back then. Should’ve been an artist instead of a lawyer.”
“You wouldn’t have lasted a day, starving in a garret.”
“No, I guess not,” Alex agrees, and his smile fades as he frowns down at his expensive, Italian-leather shoes. He looks back up at me. “I miss you, Dana,” he adds quietly. “I was thinking that maybe we could… that perhaps we might-”
As I pause on the last step, my eyes on his, Becky returns with a bowl of kettle corn. “Come on, guys. The movie’s about to start.”
The moment – if that’s what it was – is broken. “Perhaps we might what?” I say, my voice light but unsteady.
He glances at Becky and smiles. “I thought we might have white cheddar and kettle corn. What do you think, Bex?”
“Okay,” she concedes. “But only this once.”
As Alex and I follow a few steps behind her towards the family room, he catches hold of my hand and draws me back. “I’d like to stay the night, Dana,” he murmurs. “In the spare room, of course,” he hastens to add. “If you’ll let me. I’ll make us all breakfast in the morning, just like I used to do.”
Again, I open my mouth to say no; but the tiredness on his face, coupled with my own strangely sentimental mood, makes me change my mind.
“I do miss your pancakes,” I admit. “All right. You can stay. But only this once.”
He squeezes my hand, then leans forward to kiss me. “Thanks, babe. You’re the best.”
So he stays, and the three of us watch television and eat popcorn and play a highly competitive game of Scrabble. And I realise how much I miss Alex. How much I miss us. Not just our family, but us. The two of us.
And as Alex and I head upstairs to bed – Becky went up two hours ago – I look at him and I suddenly think to myself, what the hell am I doing?
TO BE CONTINUED…