Kristan Higgins - If You Only Knew

The man fails to make eye contact. Instead, he’s yelling something into a phone about “your bitch of a sister,” so I regretfully cross him off my list of potential second husbands.

Owen never yelled. One of his many qualities. I never, ever heard him raise his lovely, reassuring voice.

I wait till the guy is safely past—just in case he’s a serial killer, as my mother would no doubt assert—and get out of the car, swing my cheerful polka-dot purse onto my shoulder and check myself out in the window. Eesh. Andreas and I killed the last two bottles of Owen’s wine last night while watching Thors 1 and 2 for the eye candy. Part of my divorce was that I got half of Owen’s small but wonderful wine collection, and I didn’t object.

An image from our marriage flashes like lightning—Owen and me, on a picnic in Nova Scotia a few summers ago, holding hands. He picked a daisy and tickled my ear with it, and the sun reflected off his shock of black hair so brightly it almost hurt my eyes. His hair was—is—adorable, standing up in a way that defied gravity, perpetual bedhead that made him instantly appealing and almost childlike. No wonder his patients love him instantly.

The bewilderment is the worst part. That’s what they don’t tell you in divorce articles. They talk about anger and loneliness and growing apart and starting over and being kind to yourself, but they don’t tell you about the untold hours in the black hole of why. Why? What changed? When? Why was I the one you chose to marry, but all of a sudden, I’m not enough anymore?

But I’m not about to start off this phase of my life bewildered. Fuck you, Owen, I think, and it’s oddly cheering.

The super is supposed to meet me here and give me my keys. I tighten my ponytail, summon a smile and go through the iron gate to the super’s door. This courtyard could be adorable with some plants and a little café table, but right now, it only holds a ratty lawn chair that’s seen better days… It’s the aluminum-frame kind, the seat woven from scratchy nylon fiber. The image of a fat, unshaven man wearing an ill-fitting bowling shirt, scratching his stomach with one hand and nursing a Genesee with another, a mangy dog by his side, leaps to mind with unfortunate clarity.

But no. No negativity! In ten minutes, I’ll be unpacking in my beautiful new place. I can put the kettle on, even though I don’t like tea, but the image of tea is very cozy on this cool, damp day. Red wine is even cozier.

Maybe I’ll invite the super to have a drink with me. Or not, if he looks like the guy I just envisioned. Did the Realtor say if it was a man or a woman? I can’t remember. Better yet, a neighbor will come over—not the angry golden retriever man, but a different neighbor. An older man, maybe, someone who has a good bottle of wine in one hand. I saw the moving truck, he’ll say, and wanted to welcome you to the street. I teach Italian literature at Barnard. Are you free for dinner? I happen to be cooking a roast. Then again, what kind of single man cooks a roast? Scratch that. I’ll come up with something better.

I knock cheerfully on the super’s door—shave-and-a-haircut, two-bits!

There’s no answer. I knock again, less cheerfully and more loudly. Still nothing. Pressing my ear to the door, all I hear is quiet. One more knock.

Nothing.

I go back to my car and call the Realtor, getting her voice mail. “Hi! It’s Jenny Tate. Um, the super doesn’t seem to be here, and the moving truck will be here any sec, so…maybe you could call him? Thanks so much! Bye!”

On cue, the phone rings, but it’s not the Realtor.

It’s Owen.

“Hi,” I say.

“Hey, Jenny.” His voice is low and holds that intimate timbre that makes the parents of his patients name their next baby Owen, boy or girl. It also works well with women. Between that and his omnipresent faint smile, it always seems as if he’s about to tell you a secret, and you’re the only one he can tell, because you’re just that special. We women get a little feeble-minded around Owen Takahashi, MD. He could say, “Hey, I’ve been thinking about strangling a few kittens. You in?” and you’d find yourself answering, “You bet I’m in! When can we get started?”

“You made it okay?” he asks now.

“Yeah! Just fine,” I say, eyeing my house. “I can’t wait for you and Ana-Sofia to see it. And the baby! How is she? I love her name! Natalia! It’s so gorgeous!”

We’ve been divorced for fifteen and a half months. Soon, I hope, my need to be überchipper will fade.

“She’s beautiful. Jenny, I can never thank you enough.”

“No!” I sing, rolling my eyes at myself. If Andreas were here, he’d give me a nice brisk slap. “It was an honor.” Make that a punch.

“So listen, Jenny. We’d like to use Genevieve as a middle name. After you.”

Oh, God. “Uh, well, that’s not my name,” I say. For some reason, Mom just wanted Jenny. Not even Jennifer.

“Yes, I remember,” he says in that “I’ve got a secret” voice, evoking late Sunday mornings in bed. “But still.”

You know what, Owen? Don’t. Okay? I don’t want your baby to be named after me. Come on!

“That’s very…nice. Thank you.”

There’s a silence. A drop of rain slaps the windshield, but just one, lonely and useless.

“You’ll always be special to me,” Owen says softly.

I clench my teeth. What he means is I’m sorry I stopped loving you and found all that meaning with Ana-Sofia and discovered that I was dying to be a father—once I had the right wife, that is—and am living the dream right now, thanks to your clever hands and my perfect wife’s amazing uterus that just pushed the baby out in a matter of minutes. No hard feelings, right?

“Well,” I say in the same idiotic, chipper voice. “You’re special to me, too! Obviously! I married you, right? But I mean, you and Ana are both special to me. And so is Natalia! Right? How often do you get to deliver a baby, after all? It was fun.”

He laughs as if I’m the most delightful person in all the world (which he once told me I was, come to think of it). “I miss you already. We’ll see you for dinner next week, right?”

“You bet.” Because, yes, I’m going to their place for dinner next Friday. How civilized! How urbane! We’re so New York! You couldn’t pull this shit off in Idaho, let me tell you. Probably because people are more honest out there. “Give Ana-Sofia and the baby my love.”

Before I can say anything else that’s stupid or spineless or inane or all of the above, I click off, grab the steering wheel and shake it. “Do you have to be such a dickless wonder?” I ask out loud. “Do you, Jenny? Huh? How about a little dignity, hmm? Is that so much to ask?”

My phone dings with a text.

Mom:

I bought you a rape whistle. There was a gangland slaying on your street last week.

“No, there wasn’t, Mom!” I yell, strangling the steering wheel with even more gusto. “There was no gangland slaying!”

“Hey. You okay, Charlie Sheen?” comes a voice, and I jump against my door, grappling instinctively for the handle to escape my would-be rapist or gangland murderer. A man is leaning down, peering at me through the passenger window.

“Uh…can I help you?” I squeak.

“You were screaming. You seem to be the one who needs help.” He looks pained, as if I’m the nineteenth crazy person he’s dealt with today.

“I—It was… I was talking to myself. I work alone for the most part. Occupational hazard. Anyway. Sorry.” I try to remember that I’m a fabulous and creative person with an impressive work history in a very competitive field. Nevertheless, I feel like an ass. “Hi.”

“Hi.”

His hair is flippin’ beautiful, chestnut-brown and curling. His eyes are blue. Blue-gray, really. Or maybe green-blue. Yes, he’s looking at me like I’m insane, but those are some very nice eyes.