From: mollymarks@netmail.co
To: sethrubes@mail.me
Date: Mon, Dec 24, 2018 at 9:02pm
Subject: Hey
You in town?
CHAPTER 12 Seth
I am not in town. I am in Nashville, at my brother’s house, with my family.
But I am very tempted to sneak out, charter a plane, and fly to Florida, just for the pleasure of replying to Molly Marks’s email in the affirmative.
My brother Dave walks into the den, where I am holed up, attempting to assemble a tricycle for my nephew.
“Need help?” Dave asks, looking skeptically at the sea of bolts and screws and random shiny red metal bars scattered on the floor around me.
“I might just throw it away and write him a check,” I say. “How much do you think? Five hundred?”
“He’s three.”
“All right. See if you can attach that wheel with that metal thing over there.”
“The Allen wrench?”
Dave is a mechanical engineer. My lack of familiarity with tools pains him.
Within minutes, and with scarcely a cursory glance at the inscrutable diagram that passes for instructions, he has assembled the mini red bike, handlebar tassels and all.
“We should get some sleep,” he says. “The boys will be up at five, and we can only hold them back so long.”
I can’t wait. I love Christmas here. We didn’t grow up religious—my mom’s a lapsed Catholic and my dad’s a secular Jew—so as kids, the holidays were mostly about presents and latkes. But Clara, my sister-in-law, is a big Christmas person. She has three trees of varying themes, pays professionals to cover their entire house in twinkle lights, and hosts Christmas dinner for twenty.
I am not quite ready for bed, however.
I want to gloat.
“Hey, guess what,” I say.
“What?”
“Molly Marks emailed me.”
After we hooked up at the reunion, Dave told me I’d never hear from her again.
I enjoy it very much when he’s wrong. Especially when the matter concerns girls I have crushes on.
His face immediately darkens. “No.” He shakes his head so vigorously it’s like he’s been possessed by the devil. “Delete it. She’s not good for you.”
The extremity of his reaction gives me pause. Objectively speaking, he’s almost certainly right. But that’s not enough to dampen my excitement. Molly’s thinking of me. That means something.
“It’s been fifteen years,” I object. “You can’t know she’s bad for me.”
“Yes, I can. She treated you like shit. She doesn’t get a second chance after that.”
His protectiveness is heartwarming, but I’m not convinced he’s right. People can change.
“We were kids when that happened. I had fun with her at the reunion.”
“And then she blew you off. A nice little reminder that she’s still the same person.”
“She didn’t blow me off, she just said she’d see me in five years. Would it be so bad to just—”
“Okay, yeah, write her back. Hell, fly her out here. Get married by a justice of the peace on Christmas morning. I’m sure you two will be very happy.”
I sigh. It is my opinion that he is not giving me, or her, enough credit.
“You don’t get it,” I say. “You have a wife and family and love and I have … lots of friends and a gym membership and a really big office at a law firm. I’m lonely. So why not take chances when they present themselves?”
He inhales long and deep, like we’ve already had this conversation two hundred times.
Which, of course, we have.
“Your problem,” he says, “is that you think a woman is going to miraculously make you happy. You keep jumping into all these relationships, talking yourself into thinking you’re in love when you’re not. I’m tired of watching you get yourself hurt.”
“Well, what do you suggest I do? Stop dating?”
