Time passed in a blur. Sally and I met at Pier A, hung out, and then got smoothies at the local shake shop. We met again the following Friday for a dinner date at one of the local Italian places, Sally in a slinky black dress. The owner brought out complimentary shots of some Italian liqueur that left us both stumbling onto the sidewalk afterwards, and from there we walked back down to Pier A, kissed on the park benches, and decided to go to a New Jersey water park the next day. Sally showed up for that wearing a black string bikini, and I was astonished to realize that I hadn’t even noticed her pin-up girl’s figure until our fourth date. We spent a glorious day splashing aimlessly alongside the park's various slides and fountains before coming back to my place, putting on a movie, and falling asleep in one another’s arms.
In mere days, Sally had become a fixture in my life. She was the piece I’d been missing. We’d both gone through rough patches, but together I thought we could take on anything.
 |
| Me and Joe on that fateful ski trip to Colorado. |
Elizabeth called on one of the few nights that week that Sally wasn’t around.
“Hey,” she said. “I miss you.”
“I know. I’m sorry. I’ve been really busy. I’ve met someone.”
“Obviously. I’m really happy for you, but I miss talking to you, too. I miss what we had. I miss being important to you.”
This surprised me. Had she not realized what she was giving up by letting our relationship go? “You’re still coming up in a couple of weeks, right? We’ll figure it out then.”
“Yeah, we will,” she said. She sounded determined. And that’s how she left it, an unspoken promise hanging heavy in the air.
I wasn’t sure how I was going to handle the overall situation, however. Elizabeth was supposed to come up for a three-day weekend. She was staying at my place—in my bed—there was no ambiguity about this. Meanwhile, Sally and I hadn’t spent three days apart since we’d met. Still, I wasn’t sure that I owed her anything. At that point, we’d known each other for all of two weeks. And yet, there was clearly no polite way could tell her, “Look, you can’t come over this weekend. I’ll be with my other girlfriend.” Moreover, Sally and I had an undeniable connection. It was real, and my life had improved dramatically because of it.
Potential dishonesty rankled. I didn’t want to start something great with a lie.
The next day, Sally told me that she was headed to Romania for two weeks for a church mission trip. Her trip coincided perfectly with Elizabeth’s visit. All I had to do, I realized, was stay quiet, and everything would work out flawlessly. I would not lie to Sally—or to Elizabeth, for that matter—but I didn’t think I was necessarily obligated to volunteer information that wasn’t anybody else’s business, either. In the end, I rationalized, I wasn’t actually required to volunteer anything, not yet, and I wouldn’t be until I decided what I wanted in concrete terms.
This sat poorly on my conscience, but after months of fearsome loneliness, the idea of having two women in my bed over the course of a pair of weekends was endlessly tempting.
Fate had other plans.
Sally found out; I don’t remember how. She insists that I told her, that I was trying to be honest with her, that I didn’t want to start our relationship on a note of dishonesty. I hope that this is true, that I’m maybe a better man than I sometimes give myself credit for being. What’s more likely, I think, is that we started talking about my plans for the weeks Sally was going to be overseas, and I accidentally let slip that I had a “friend” coming into town. I was not willing to lie about who my “friend” was, and things got quickly out of hand.
“What do you mean your friend Elizabeth is coming up?” Sally asked hotly. “Who is this friend? Why is she coming here? Where is she staying, Dan?”
Direct questions. There was no easy way to answer them within the standards of the Cadet Honor Code.46 I finally settled on, “Elizabeth’s been important to me. Going through all this crap with my father hasn’t been easy. She helped me through the worst of it. I’m not sure where I’d be without her.” This sounded decidedly better than, She’s coming up here to try to win me back with her feminine wiles now that you’re a part of my life.
“Where’s she staying?” Sally asked. “Is she staying here?”
I swallowed hard. “Yes.”
Sally looked down at her feet, and a long moment passed. “Damn it Dan, I thought we had something. I thought what we had was real. I thought it was important—to both of us.” She spun on her heel and headed for the door. At the last moment, she turned and said, “When you figure out what you want, you let me know.”
“Sally wait—”
“Wait for what? I thought you were different, but it turns out that you’re just another New York asshole. You don’t know what you want, and until you figure it out, there’s no place for me here.”
She slammed the door.
I sat staring at it for a long time.
Success in life is determined not just by who we know and what we can do. Real success derives from knowing who we want to be. Those times when I’ve been my best self, when I’ve transcended my physical limitations or simply chosen the harder right over the easier wrong,47 I’ve let my conception of myself determine my actions. I’ve forced myself, body and soul, to live up to my own highest expectations. I’ve actually become the man that I see in my head, the man that my vision of myself demands that I be.
Here was this incredible woman, and she wasn’t trying to make up her mind about who she was or what she wanted. Nor was she in the midst of some weird, existential crisis. She’d lived as much life as I had. She knew who she was; she knew who she wanted to become. I could be part of that, but I had to choose it. I had to choose it right now.
I could have what I wanted, but I had to commit.
Amazing, accomplished, intelligent, beautiful women do not come along every day. They do not fall in love routinely, nor do they commit to loving as a matter of course. They certainly don’t wait around for lesser souls who don’t have the will to make decisions about their own futures. Was I really going to let this one amazing woman walk out of my life solely because I could not decide?
I called Elizabeth. “I’m sorry,” I said, “but I don’t want you to come up.”
“What?!” She was immediately pissed. “What do you mean?”
“Come on, Elizabeth. You knew there was somebody else. I’m trying to be honest with you.”
“Dan, don’t do this.” Anger turned to sadness, and I could hear tears in her voice. “I just bought a black negligee with a matching bra and panties. Do you have any idea what I have planned for you? What you’re giving up? I’ll make this worth your while, I promise. I’m ready. You have no idea. I’ve missed you; I can’t wait to show you how much.”
“It’s too late,” I said. “It’s already done.”
“I can’t believe this. I can’t believe you would do this to me.”
“I can’t either. But I have to do what I think is right.”
We hung up, and I headed straight out into the night. I walked up to Sally’s apartment, a fifth floor walk-up on the backside of town across from Hoboken’s public housing projects. I pounded on her door.
“What do you want?” she asked. She was still angry, but it didn’t look like she’d been crying.
“It’s done,” I said. “She’s not coming up.”
“What? Just like that?”
“Just like that,” I said. “I love you. I want to be with you. I didn’t realize how much until I saw you walk out my door.”
“And what? I’m just supposed to trust you now?”
“I have never lied to you,” I said. “I just didn’t know what I wanted until you made me decide.”
A long moment passed. At last Sally said, “Well then, I guess you’d better come in.”
46. A cadet will not lie, cheat, or steal or tolerate those who do.
47. My favorite line from the Cadet Prayer. Even now, when I struggle, this is what I pray:
“Encourage us in our endeavor to live above the common level of life. Make us to choose the harder right instead of the easier wrong, and never to be content with a half truth when the whole can be won.”
No comments:
Post a Comment