Page 18 of I Wanna Dance

After dance class, I asked Leah out for a drink and we went to The Lawrence. I had been there with work colleagues but never Camille, so it felt like a safe choice.

We sat at the bar, which she wanted. “I eat alone a lot, and sitting at the bar makes it more interesting.”

I ordered an Old Fashioned made with rum while Leah went for a Lagavulin neat.

She sat a little to the side on her barstool, like I did, so that we could look at each other. She was still radiant from the class, her cheeks slightly flushed, and her hair loose around her shoulders.

She sipped her Scotch and took a deep breath. “There’s nothing like a nice peaty whiskey.”

I grinned. “I’m a cliché! I like my alcohol in the form of rum.”

We talked about the kind of whiskey she liked and how it compared to rum. “One day, I want to go to Scotland and taste the whiskey there. Have you traveled much outside the US?”

“Some,” I conceded. “We tried to go away on summer vacation and explore. Went to Paris, London, the usual places. You?”

“Same.” She seemed pensive after that and then shrugged. “Kevin wanted to be able totalkabout where we went with his friends and colleagues.”

“Why did you stop working after you got married?”

“Kevin wanted a stay-at-home wife, and I wanted to make him happy.” She looked at me with sad eyes. “His validation was important to me.”

“Is it still?”

“No. But I miss my children,” she admitted. “I can’t help but feel that if Kevin could just get over the fact that I asked for the divorce—if he could let go of his bruised ego—maybe he’d stop poisoning my relationship with them. Maybe I could have Davis and Presley back in my life.”

She looked so forlorn that I leaned forward and stroked her silky cheek. “I can’t even imagine how much it must hurt to have your children turn against you.”

“Tell me about Camille?”

And just like that, she threw her sadness away and led with curiosity. I withdrew my hand and picked up my drink.

“She was an engineer like me. She was the Vice President of R&D for an IT company.”

“Wow!”

“Yeah.” I sipped my cocktail. “She was impressive in and out of work.”

“You miss her?”

“Every fucking day.”

She put her hand on mine and squeezed. “I’m so sorry for your loss, Marco.”

“Thank you.” I turned my hand so our fingers intertwined. “I’ve been at a crossroads. I loved…love Camille so much. Losing her...broke me. I feel that to haveyou, because of how I feel, I have to let Camille go. And that terrifies me.”

Her expression softened. “Marco, you don’t have to let Camille go. Love doesn’t work that way. You can love her and still move forward. You don’t have to choose one or the other.”

“How do you do that?”

“Do what?”

“See the world with so much compassion,” I marveled. “Your heart—it’s bigger than I ever thought possible.”

She smiled, her eyes shimmering with a mix of vulnerability and strength. “I learned some hard lessons after I left Kevin. The first was realizing that I had an identity outside of him. And yes, I missed our marriage and even him sometimes—but that didn’t mean I wanted to go back to him or that life. The second was understanding how much I’d been made to feel like I wasn’t enough during all those years with Kevin. If only I were thinner. If only I threw a better party. If only...

“I’m still working on that,” she admitted, her voice steady. “Working on being okay without his validation. Because now I know I’ll never get it, and, more importantly, I’ve realized I don’t want it anymore.”

“Your ex sounds like a right-on douchebag.”

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