Vicky, bless her heart, fights for me. She doesn’t like the idea of Dean Comstock forcing me out of consideration for the full professor slot. She can get pretty worked up when people disrespect me. I find that incredibly sexy about her, for some reason.

“Simon, all you’re doing is applying for full professor. You have just as much a right to do that as that schmuck with the rich daddy, Reid whatever. Who cares what Dean what’s-his-name, Dean Cumstain, thinks?”

“Comstock.” I laugh. “The guy who could single-handedly derail my career? I think I do care what he thinks.”

She shakes her head, disappointed and angry. I meant what I wrote in my journal. I love this woman and I always will. But she doesn’t love me back. She likes me and cares about me, but I don’t do it for her in that way. And that, for me, takes the air out of the balloon. Maybe Freud would have something to say here about the id or superego, but I’m not one of those guys who likes challenges. I’m not attracted to someone who’s not attracted to me.

When I first met Vicky, just six weeks after her sister’s suicide, she was so angry. Sad, too, but mostly angry. I was able to help her. Maybe that’s the only reason she was drawn to me. Maybe that’s why I was drawn to her. Your heart doesn’t come with explanatory notes.

“You already put your name in, right?” she asks. “All that’s left is submitting all the materials. And you have until sometime in September?”

“Yes, yes, and yes,” I say. “But I’m going to withdraw my name.”

She reaches across the table and takes my hand. It still stirs something inside me when she touches me like that, no matter what else I may tell myself.

“You deserve this promotion, Simon. You’re one of the best minds at that school. You love it. It’s what you were meant to do. I hate seeing some pompous jerk stick a finger in your eye, and you’re supposed to say, ‘Thank you, sir, may I have another?’”

“I know that. I don’t like it, either.”

“Then do something about it. At least make him promise he’ll back you the next time.”

“It doesn’t . . . work that way.”

“Why doesn’t it work that way?” She falls back against the booth cushion. “Sure it works that way. You said this guy’s more a politician than anything else. So make a deal with him. You’ll walk away this time if he promises to support you next time.”

I swipe up my menu, not because there’s any mystery about what I order but because she’s right, I should do something, but I probably won’t, and I don’t want to look her in the eye.

“You have options, you know,” she says, a hint of mischief to her voice.

I peek over the menu. “No, Vick.”

“You don’t even know what I was—”

“I have a pretty good idea,” I say, “and my answer is no.”

The waiter arrives with our drinks—water for me, pinot grigio for Vicky—and pretends he’s not eavesdropping on our conversation.

She picks up her glass and sips her wine.

“Tell me you heard me say no, Vick.”

Her eyes bulge. “I heard you, I heard you,” she says.

9

Friday, July 29, 2022

Maybe it’s best you went on vacation with your girlfriends to Paris for two weeks, Lauren, after we met for coffee. It gave me time to cool off, to think.

And here’s what I’m thinking: I don’t do things like this. I’m an ordinary guy with an ordinary marriage, working an ordinary job, living in an ordinary suburb, doing ordinary things. I don’t have affairs. I don’t have mistresses!

And it’s not too late to hit the brakes. Nothing’s happened yet. And who knows, maybe you’ll stop it—maybe you’ll be the one who gets cold feet.

But I know my reason. Vicky. Vicky Lanier Dobias, my bride of almost ten years. I know that, deep down, Vicky isn’t happy in our marriage, and she’d want me to be happy. She would. But she trusts me, and that trust means everything to her. I think I was the first man she ever trusted after that wreck of a childhood she had, and it helped her build a foundation of a life. If I tear that down, I’m not sure what will happen to her. I can’t do that to her.