Two Scents' Worth

Perhaps it was fate that my client picked the place. It was a nice enough grille that I had not visited since friends dragged me there for a consolation dinner after a divorce I had not seen coming. Was it a year ago? No, more like a year and a half. I wasn't eager to return to those memories but it was not a big deal anymore. Although I still hurt from the betrayal of a wife I still loved, managing the pain of losing her was now much easier. Old triggers like this restaurant no longer put my emotions into a tailspin.

Still, I would have chosen to go elsewhere for lunch if I had known I would end up alone. The customer I was to meet had encountered some kind of office emergency and begged off at the last second. My iced tea was already on the table when he texted me, so it didn't make sense to leave hungry. Tall seat backs made my booth a sort of lonely cocoon despite the busy noontime crowd. I was perusing the menu when my nose twitched.

Women don't wear perfume so much anymore, let alone Chanel Chance. But I knew one who did. Or at least she did 18 months before. The scent arrived just as a thunk jarred my backside. The wearer and I were now sitting back-to-back, separated by a few inches of plywood and padding. I instinctively glanced to my right, toward the mirror above the bar way off to the side. I couldn't clearly see "Miss Chanel," but on the opposite side of her table was someone I knew much too well. It was Charlene, my ex-wife's best friend, who I felt sure had encouraged the infidelity that killed my marriage.

Charlene spoke and a voice belonging to Jilly, who had been my wife for six mostly good years, responded. I had not heard it since the last meeting in her lawyer's office, before a judge finalized the papers. The sound of her gnawed at the pit of my stomach. And I was trapped, literally. My only escape would be right past them, which risked a conversation I did not want.

"Have you decided, sir?" asked my waitress. I was lost in thought. "Sir?" she repeated. I began to order but stopped after one syllable, realizing that the acoustics favoring my hearing the women's voices might also favor their hearing mine. I pointed to the French dip picture on the menu. The waitress departed, looking a little confused about a customer whose voice seemed to fail halfway through his first word.

It was fortuitous -- or perhaps not -- that I could hear Jilly's closer voice better than Charlene's. The timbre sped my heartbeat a little, or maybe it was anxiety over what I might overhear. Was she still with Ansel, the bar lizard who swept her off her feet during a series of girls' nights out that Charlene had organized? Was Ansel's much larger cock still -- as Jilly coldly told me the night she announced her new romance -- providing her with orgasms beyond her dreams? Might she now have started the family that for some reason had always remained beyond my dreams?

"Yeah, it's been too long," Jilly said as I heard the sound of her handling a menu. Then mumbling from Charlene. Then Jilly again: "...a year? You're kidding. I'm sorry. Time gets away. And, of course, I don't do the party nights anymore. At first, I didn't need to." Her pace slowed and her voice lowered as she added, "Now, well, now I don't want to."

Huh? It's no surprise that Jilly would stop trolling for men once she caught a "big" one. But why would it even be an issue now?

"Did Shawn ever find out about you and Mike?" Jilly asked Charlene. (Aha. I always figured Jilly wasn't the only one screwing around on those nights out.) No sound at all; I assumed Charlene just shook her head. "Good," Jilly said. "He would have left you for sure."

An air-conditioner compressor did my curiosity a favor by shutting off about now. With the hum gone, Charlene was coming in more clearly if not loudly, in mid-sentence. "... have stayed if you had promised to drop Ansel and not gone all crazy about a divorce and a big dick?" Jilly sighed before answering. "I wish I knew. I wish I never met Ansel, but even after what I did I still might have been able to convince Joel to stay. Why did I have to go out of my way to hurt him with lies?"

The French dip arrived at my table with enough commotion that I lost the thread of the conversation. Jilly was still still talking, now with an emotional catch deep in her throat. "...at first. But the thrill was in being naughty. Being the dirty girl. Feeling the power of keeping a devastating secret. Seeing Joel, who was always so very perceptive, being clueless about his wife's cheating. God, I hate that word, cheating. I'd never done it before. I realized too late that the thrill and my fascination with the size of Ansel's dick wouldn't last." She paused. "The truth was that I couldn't really feel any difference. I just said things trying to drive Joel away. To make it easier for me to play." Long pause. "And I suppose it made it so much worse for Joel."

"Why did you ever tell him about Ansel? He was clueless."

"Because I was an idiot. I thought I wanted to be free -- and I really did have to be honest with Joel." She paused to chuckle at the irony of wanting to be honest about cheating. "Because I was infatuated with Ansel. Because I was bored with Joel. Because I was a spoiled little girl who hadn't grown up yet. Because I was too fucking stupid to keep a great thing when I had one. Because, because, because."

"And now?"

"Ansel was history right after you and I talked last time. He was a pig. I never even think about him. All I can think about is Joel. The cheery image of his smiling face gets me up in the morning; the awful image of his devastated expression puts me to bed at night. The way he talked and the way he smelled and the way he spent every spare minute and every spare dime trying to make me happy. The way he held me and the way he loved me. Ansel just knew how to fuck me; Joel knew how to really make love to me. Ansel was dangerous; Joel was safe. I learned the hard way that there is a huge difference, and that you're crazy to trade safe for dangerous."

"Yeah." Charlene responded. "Tell me about it. I left Mike behind a long time ago. Thank God I didn't confess to my husband like you did to yours. Shawn and I have never been stronger."

I think the sniffle I heard was Jilly's.

"I hear that Joel's not attached. So why don't you just tell this to him now?" Charlene asked. "Throw yourself on his mercy."

"Because he would never believe me now," Jilly moaned. "I would never take him back if he did it to me. I would never believe his apology. You didn't hear the things I said and you didn't see his face as I said them. I emasculated him. No woman can expect any man to get past that. He would always doubt me. Always wonder which me was real. If I was being true. I know I've grown up, but how could he believe it? I've changed so much. I am the woman who fell for Joel but I am no longer the woman taken in by some fucking asshole."

My ex-wife sobbed, and Charlene must have been clumsy in reaching to console her because I heard a full glass of something crash over, followed by a two-voice harmony of "shit!" Jilly, her lap obviously soaked by the spilled drink, scooted out of her seat and backed toward me so swiftly that I barely had time to turn away. I was saved by a waitress rushing in from my direction, herding Jilly the other way.

Tension broken, the women's renewed conversation turned to job complaints and shoes and other ephemera. As the air compressor kicked back on, I sat, semi-stunned. Who knew? That all this time, I was not hurting alone. That she still loved me. My busy brain doused my appetite after the first bite. The waitress, concerned, furrowed her brow as she looked up at me from my full plate. "To go," I whispered. I could tell that the women behind me were wrapping up their visit.

The perfume was still intoxicating, leading me to remember all of our fun times, all of our plans. I let myself again imagine the smiling faces of the children we'd have. And Jilly and I, side-by-side in our retirement rockers. Teasing. Laughing. Loving.

Behind me, I heard purses snapping shut. Time was running out. I engaged my legs, lifting my butt off the cushion, expecting to pivot 180 degrees to to my right and kiss Jilly in a surprise of movie-climax magnitude. But a sudden chill pushed me back down.

What happened in these booths was just a freak coincidence in Chicago, not some script in Hollywood. I have not had time to process what I overheard, and whether those words would be enough to suture the gaping wounds she left on my heart. I had only heard Jilly speaking to Charlene. Would she have said the same things to me? Was she lamenting the loss of the real me or just the loss of a marriage fantasy? One thing I knew for sure: My armor was still too thin to withstand any fresh rejection. I had to let her go.

I ducked my head as I sensed that the women were on their feet, hugging good-bye. Jilly's hip nearly touched my shoulder. I dared not move, or cough or sneeze or do anything to draw attention. I felt only melancholy as two pairs of heels clicked off toward the door. I glanced at my watch and stayed put, deciding to hold back for at least five minutes to be certain they left the area.

Finally comfortable that they were gone, I exited into a rainstorm. Great, I figured. Weather to match my mood. I paused under an awning to prepare for a dash through the torrent to my car. The downpour was so loud that I thought it was my imagination when a voice from behind softly called out, "Joel." The second time left no doubt about my name nor who had spoken it. I was caught.

"That was you sitting in the next booth, wasn't it?" Jilly asked.

"Yes," I said, without turning.

"How much did you hear?"

"Almost all of it. Were you saying that just for my benefit?"

She sighed. "No. It was the complete truth. I didn't know it was you behind me until near the end, when the air-conditioning came back on and your cologne blew my way. Men don't wear cologne so much anymore, let alone Armani Code. But I knew one who does."

I turned and we stared into each other's eyes, as if trying to study the thoughts in the brains behind. Jilly broke the long silence, asking, in a shaky voice, "Does any of this matter now? I'll understand if you just walk away."

Lean. Hug. Kiss. Cue the imaginary closing theme and credit roll.