Bright lights, deafeningly loud music, thunderous applause . . . the assault to my senses was overwhelming. Thankfully, I had a minute to acclimate myself to all of the craziness while everyone’s eyes were on the bodacious Nicola who was prowling back up the runway in an orange shell-covered one-piece. She made it look so effortless, so easy, like prancing around in stilettos and a few strategically-placed strips of fabric was a perfectly natural thing to do. If only I could channel some of her confidence and style . . .
Okay, deep breath, I told myself. Remember Sara’s modeling tips. Shoulders back. Chest out, not too far out, you don’t want to topple over. Suck in stomach and . . . GO! Strut. Strut. Slow it down. You don’t want to trip. Just take long, sexy strides and keep your eyes trained on the end of the runway. Strut. Strut. Swing those hips. Smile. NO! Don’t smile. Look haughty and disdainful. Strut. Strut. Almost there. Just a few more steps. Yes! Stop and pose for the photographers. Good grief, those camera flashes are blinding. I’m seeing stars. Okay, enough with the posing. Now, untie the sarong. Damn it, this knot is tight! What was Sara think— Got it! Alright, remove sarong. Lift arms up. Circle around and . . . did someone just whistle at me? Hey, maybe I look better from the back than I thought I did? Score one for girls with junk in the trunk. Strut. Strut. You know, this modeling thing is actually kind of fun. Not that I’d want to make a habit out of it or anything, but . . .
Once I was safely in the wings, Sara embraced me with bone-crushing zeal. “You did great!” she enthused.
“Yeah, not bad,” Izzy agreed as she shimmied into a pair of tie-dye cabana pants. “I thought for sure you were going to upchuck all over the stage, but you came through in the clinch.”
“Which means you owe me $20,” Simone reminded my sister as she brushed past us in one of Sara’s bumper sticker bikinis.
“You bet that I was going to publicly humiliate myself?” I was hurt.
But Izzy was too busy smoothing down her hair to notice. “It seemed like easy money,” she blew off her disloyalty.
“A good sister would want me to succeed, not fail.”
“Don’t start lecturing me on being a good sister,” Izzy got her back up. “I am a great sister. Well, maybe not to Ana, but I’m pretty sure there was a mix-up at the hospital, and we aren’t even biologically related. As for you, I do nice things for you all the time. In fact, I just—”
“Girls!” Sara interjected. “Squabble later; save my career now. Izzy, you’re on next, so get into position. Pilar, you’ve got forty-five seconds to put this suit on.” She thrust a hot pink halter-style two-piece into my arms and shoved me behind a folding screen.
The rest of the fashion show went swimmingly (pun intended) and when Sara joined us models on stage after the big finale, she was greeted with an enthusiastically-delivered standing ovation. It’s not often in life that you get to bear witness to someone’s dream becoming a reality, but I did that day and I couldn’t have been more delighted to share my friend’s triumph with her. I, also, couldn’t wait to get backstage so that I could change out of the brown crocheted string bikini I was squeezed into. It was the skimpiest suit I’d ever worn, and since donning it I’d lived in fear of turning the wrong way too fast and having a body part pop out.
“Have you seen my robe?” I asked Izzy when I couldn’t find the garment in the spot on the floor where I was sure I’d dropped it earlier.
“Sara put them on that makeup chair over there.” My sister jerked a thumb to the left where I could see a pile of silk.
When I went to retrieve it, I bumped into Nicola.
“Hey, good work,” she was gracious enough to give me kudos. “You really looked like a pro out there.”
“Thanks, but I don’t think I’ll be giving up my day job anytime soo—”
“Poppa, why isn’t Pee-lar wearing any clothes?”
Was that Nate’s voice? Please, God, just let it be in my head, I prayed.
“I think she’s been doing some modeling, sport.”
Now, I was hearing Ford, too. I assured myself that there was no need to panic. I was just having a schizophrenic episode induced by stress. A few antipsychotic drugs, and I’d be right as—
“Pilar’s best friend, Sara, designs swimsuits and—”
Whirling around to face the disembodied voice, I found that it was, in fact, real and coming from Ford, who was standing less than a foot away from me, holding his inquisitive little boy by the hand.
I looked down at my nearly naked body, gasped with horror, then grabbed a kimono from the chair and shoved an arm into one of its sleeves in a desperate bid to cover myself. Unfortunately, when I attempted to repeat the maneuver with my other arm, I couldn’t locate the hole because the garment was all twisted around my back.
“Need some help with that?” Ford asked, trying not to look amused by my predicament and failing miserably.
“No,” I said as I continued to struggle, contorting my body like I was a human pretzel.
“What are you two doing here?” I wondered irritably.
“Aren’t you happy to see us?”
“Of course, I’m always happy to see you, Nate.” I finally got the robe on, but I was panting from the exertion like I’d just run a marathon without hydrating first. “I’m, uh, just a little surprised that you and your father were, uh, able to track me down.”
“Well, you weren’t answering my calls, so you didn’t leave me much choice.” Ford sounded recriminatory.
Izzy strolled up with a Tootsie Pop in her mouth. “Hey, Doc. I see you found the place.”
“What? You told him where I was?” If looks could kill, Izzy would have combusted into flame.
“Uh huh,” she removed the sucker from her mouth and licked her lips with her purple tongue, “he called while I had your cell phone.”
“I told her that I needed to speak with you in person.”
“And it couldn’t wait until Monday?”
“Obviously not,” he replied.
“You’re relentless.”
“With good reason. It’s important not to let things fester. Unresolved issues can be damaging to . . .”
“. . . a person’s emotional health. Yes, I know.”
“Wow, it’s like being back in Psych 101. Now, I remember why I dropped that class.” Izzy chomped down on the chewy center of her Tootsie Pop. “I’ll just leave the two of you to overanalyze yourselves into a stupor.”
“No, wait, Izzy.” I grabbed her by the arm before she could take off.
“Nate, would you mind hanging out with my sister for a few minutes while I speak with your papá?”
“You’re putting me on babysitting duty?” Izzy was miffed.
I smiled apologetically at the Fordham men, then turned my back on them and forced my sister to do the same.
“It’s the least you can do,” I whispered in her ear so that we wouldn’t be overheard, “since you’re the one who got me into this mess by not keeping your big mouth shut.”
“Nice try, but you can’t blame this on me,” she hissed in return. “You’re the one who macked on a marr—”
“Ten minutes, that’s all I’m asking. It’s not like I don’t do plenty for you.”
“Oh, alright,” she acquiesced begrudgingly, “but make it quick. You know how children annoy me.”
Yes, I did. Izzy had always disliked anything that was cuter or more needful of attention than she was.
“Come on, kid.” She extended her hand towards Nate.
Eying it warily, he queried, “¿Habla usted español?”
“Margarita, Piña Colada, Mojito, Havana Loco,” Izzy ticked off a list of cocktails.
Nate scrunched up his brow in confusion. “What are those?”
“They’re what hunky cabaña boys fetch for hot girls like me down by the pool. Now, let’s go before all the lounge chairs are taken.” She wiggled her fingers at him.
“Go on, son.” Ford ruffled Nate’s thick hair encouragingly, and the child took Izzy’s hand.
“Don’t let him wander off, and no alcohol while you’re watching him,” I muttered as my sister brushed past me, and she grumbled, “Party pooper,” in response.
I turned back to face Ford, and there was an awkward silence while each of us waited for the other to speak.
“Pilar, I just want—”
“Scusa, scusa,” Giuseppe frantically waved us out of the way as he bustled up with a dark-haired model in tow, “we’ve-a got a self-a-tanner crisis here.”
Clearly, the model had forgotten to apply any to the top half of her body because her arms looked quite pasty in contrast to her sun-kissed legs.
“Take-a these . . .” the makeup artist picked up the Serafina kimonos and tossed them at me. I didn’t react quickly enough, so the silky garments slid down my body and fell into a heap on the floor. “. . . and-a clear the area so that I can-a work.”
“Come on.” I motioned to Ford, then led him down a nearby passageway in search of a room that wasn’t being used.
When I tripped over some garment bags and wire hangers that had been left behind to litter the corridor, Ford caught me by the arm. “Why don’t you take those shoes off before you hurt yourself?” he suggested.
Taking his advice, I leaned back against the wall and removed the four-inch heels I’d been teetering around on.
Ford walked on ahead, pushing open a door that was slightly ajar. “This one looks empty,” he said as I rubbed the cramping arch of my left foot.
I hobbled over while he stepped inside and turned on the lights. He was standing in the center of the small, bare room when I got there. Once I was across its threshold, I closed the door for privacy’s sake, but didn’t move any farther forward because I liked the idea of being within arm’s reach of an exit.
“About what happened at your office yester—,” Ford began.
“Please,” I held up my hand to stop him, which wasn’t very polite, but I was more interested in verbalizing the jumbled mix of thoughts and feelings that had been swirling around in my head for the last 24 hours than I was in being courteous, “let me say something first.”
When he didn’t object, I forged ahead.
“I’ve been giving this a lot of thought and I think that we’ve been spending too much time together.” I directed my words to Ford’s right shoulder because I knew that if I looked at his face, I’d get sucked into the hypnotizing blue vortex of his eyes and any chance I had of expressing myself in an intelligible manner would be lost. “The lunches, the walks, the chats between appointments, the phone calls at home. It all seemed innocent at first, we had so much in common, we enjoyed each other’s company, we were just colleagues, friends, but over time we achieved a certain level of intimacy and I started to depend on you, confide in you. My mother told me I was playing with fire and I really should have listened to her, but I was naive. I honestly thought that our relationship could remain platonic and above reproach, that I was safe from any sort of emotional entanglement with you because of your marital status.”
“Pilar—,” Ford made an attempt to interrupt my monologue.
“I’m not done,” I admonished him for daring to speak. “Now, I don’t know if you and your wife are having problems, or what’s going on at home, but I don’t want to get in the middle of it. There’s an attraction between us; I won’t deny it. But to act on it . . . well, we already acted on it when we kissed so that ship has sailed, but to go any further would be wrong, very, very wrong. And I have too much respect for myself and for the holy sacrament of marr—”
“But my wife—,” Ford tried again.
“Nothing justifies cheating as far as I’m concerned, so please don’t tell me that your wife is frigid, or that she doesn’t understand you.” I’d heard those excuses from too many married men with wandering eyes.
“I’d never say that,” he assured me. “My wife did understand me, better than anyone.”
I narrowed my eyes at him. “Did, as in past tense? What happened? You grew apart? You stopped communicating?” Despite my assertion that I didn’t want to know about the inner workings of Ford’s marriage, the psychologist in me was curious.
“She died.”
Talk about dropping a bombshell. This one rivaled Hiroshima. I was too stunned to do anything but gape at Ford for several seconds afterwards.
“What?” I finally croaked.
“My . . . wife . . . is . . . dead,” he reiterated very slowly.
“But that can’t be right! You’re wearing a ring.” I pointed to the gold band on his left hand as if that was some kind of proof that he had a living, breathing spouse somewhere.
He touched the ring and a wistful expression took possession of his face. “I know I should take it off. She’s been gone almost a year and it’s silly to have an emotional attachment to an object, even one with sentimental value, but . . .”
“You’re not making this up, are you?” I hated to ask, but I’d been lied to by so many men recently that I wasn’t sure what, or who, to believe anymore.
With a sigh, he said, “You can check the obits in the New York Times if you want confirmation. My wife, Samantha Montgomery Fordham, was hit by a drunk driver on her way home from work on July 26th of last year. She was just a few blocks from Mt. Sinai, where she was employed as an OR nurse, when it happened. I got the call while I was making rounds. I rushed down to the ER, but . . . she was already gone by the time the paramedics brought her in.”
Although Ford related the story of his wife’s tragic fate in a steady tone of voice that betrayed no emotion, I could see the anguish in his eyes and knew that the telling of it was very painful for him.
“That must have been awful for you and Nate.” I was sympathetic, but resisted the urge to offer him any physical comfort.
“It was. It is,” he admitted.
“Why didn’t you tell me all this before?”
Ford scratched his cheek, which he hadn’t shaved that morning.
“I don’t like talking about it.”
“That’s ironic, considering your profession.”
“I suppose so,” he conceded, “but wallowing in grief wasn’t going to help me and it certainly wasn’t going to help my son. I left New York and moved here so that Nate and I could get a fresh start, away from all the memories. When I met you—”
“You let me assume that the wedding ring meant you were taken.”
“Yeah, I did, and in hindsight, I can see what a huge mistake that was. But, at the time, I had no way of knowing that you’d ever be anything more to me than the psychologist who had an office across the hall from mine. So, why spill my guts to a stranger? As our relationship progressed and we became friends, I found myself really enjoying our time together. Being with you was fun and easy, and it felt good to make a connection with someone.”
“A connection based on a misconception,” I reminded him, and he looked shamed, which made me feel a twinge of guilt. So, I softened the blow by adding, “I guess I can understand why you chose not to go the full disclosure route when we first met. You were going through a period of transition and adjustment; you were trying to get your bearings after a terrible loss. But we’ve known each other for months now, Ford. Months! And you’ve had plenty of opportunities to set the record straight, but you never even tried.”
“I just wasn’t ready to out myself as being single,” he explained. “I liked you, but the thought of taking it to the next level, admitting to myself that I had feelings for you, asking you out . . . I just couldn’t do it. And, as long as I had my wedding ring on, I felt safe, protected. You’d think that I was unavailable, so there’d be no expectations on your part, and no pressure on mine. I could just take things slow and see what happened.”
And that had worked out great for him, but what about me?
“Meanwhile, I didn’t know what the hell was going on. Why had you taken such an interest in me? Was I imagining that there was a sexual undercurrent to our relationship, that you found me attractive? How could I be developing feelings for a man who was happily married and had a wife and child at home?”
“Well, it was no picnic for me either,” Ford defended himself. “Since you thought of me as just a friend, I had to hear all about your rotten blind dates and stand by while that idiot, Victor, proposed marriage via skywriter. Then, there was that patient who was putting the moves on you. Why do you think I was so adamant about you referring him to another doctor? It wasn’t because I’m Super Shrink and could see through his nefarious scheme to seduce you in the name of character research. I was jealous.”
“And I thought that you were the better therapist, that you were so much smarter and more perceptive than me!” With a derisive snort, I began to pace back in forth in front of him, becoming angrier with each step. To think that I had listened to Ford, valued his opinion, and questioned my own competence when I hadn’t shared it. All the while, he was just trying to eliminate Derek as his rival for my affections.
“I’m not going to apologize for warning you against that creep. I was right about there being more to him than met the eye, about him having ulterior motives.”
I stopped right in front of him and placed my hands on my hips. “Yeah, well, I guess it takes a fraud to know one.”
He winced. “That’s not fair.”
“You’re right. There’s nothing fair about any of this. Since the beginning of our relationship, you’ve had an agenda that I wasn’t privy to. Now, everything you’ve ever said and done is suspect. The career advice, introducing me to your son, giving me a shoulder to lean on when Izzy got arrested . . .”
“I did all of that because I care about you, because I wanted to be involved in your life.”
“I wish I could believe that. I wish you were the kind, decent, straightforward guy I thought you were, but the truth is I don’t know you at all.” That realization filled me with sadness.
“Yes, you do.” Ford reached for my hand, but I shook my head and backed away.
“No, I don’t, not really. By not telling me about your wife and your life prior to coming here, you held a really big part of yourself back from me.”
“Is my past really all that important?” he wondered. “You know the man I am today. That’s what should matter. You have to trust yourself, trust your impression of me.”
I could feel tears welling up in my eyes. “But I don’t,” I said in a quavering voice. “I’ve always thought that I was a good judge of character, of people, but apparently not. Everywhere I’ve turned these last few months, there’s been some form of deception. Lovers, patients, friends . . .” I waved a hand at him.
“I’m not Victor, or Derek.”
“I can’t make that distinction anymore.” I wiped away a rogue tear that had fallen down on to my cheek. “I’ve been let down and taken advantage of by too many people lately. My instincts have failed me over and over again.”
Ford looked me straight in the eye. “You weren’t wrong about me, Pilar. If you’ll give me a chance, I can prove it to you.”
I sniffled. Why did I never have a tissue when I needed one?
“I appreciate you wanting to try, but I’m all out of chances. Rather than letting myself get caught up in another complicated and confusing relationship, I think I just need to focus on myself for a while. I’ve got to find a way to make rent on my office next week, keep Izzy out of jail, and work on seeing people for what they are instead of what I want them to be.”
Ford’s disappointment was palpable, but he didn’t argue. He just said, “Tell me what I can do to help.”
“I need time. Time for all of this to sink in, time to get my self-confidence back, time to figure out what I want.”
“I’m not going anywhere,” he assured me.
“I’m not asking you to wait.”
“You don’t have to. You may be unsure about me, understandably so, but I don’t have any doubts about you, Pilar, not anymore.”
He reached out a hand to stroke my damp cheek. “I had almost three months to make up my mind about you, so I owe you at least that much time. Take every minute of it.”
I nodded, too overcome with emotion to speak, and with a rueful smile, Ford turned away from me and walked out the door, leaving me all alone to indulge myself in a good, cathartic cry.