11:33 p.m. Friday, December 6, 1985
Lee knew it was a bad idea when he started the climb up the trellis only moments before, but he hadn't known how shaky it was until he neared the top and had lost his footing, nearly falling twice. Now, as he sat quietly in the corner of her dark bedroom, listening to her humming as she turned off the shower, he was certain it was a colossal mistake. As he stood to leave, he heard the turning of the bathroom doorknob and froze. In an attempt to give her privacy, he turned his back to the door, only to find a full-length mirror gave him an even better view.
He was relieved, and yet part of him was disappointed that she had apparently dressed herself in the privacy of her bathroom. Her damp hair was piled on top of her head, held there by a clip. She wore an oversized long sleeve t-shirt that hugged her small frame and ended just above her knees. It still gave him an ample view of her very long legs. He squeezed his eyes shut. He needed to think, to decide what his next move was. Did he make himself known to her? Did he wait until she fell asleep and then sneak back out?
After a minute at her dresser, she walked back into the bathroom to hang her towel over the shower door. He made a mad dash to the window to make his escape, only to hear her gasp and then whisper his name in surprise.
He spun around and held up his hand to calm her. "Amanda, I'm sorry to just . . . uh, I, uh . . . didn't mean to scare you. I wanted to check in on you and it was so late, I didn't want to disturb your family . . . so I uh . . ." He trailed off as he stared into her freshly washed face.
"Lee?" She stared at him questioningly.
"Uh, I should leave." He rushed and turned to go back out the way he came.
"Wait, Lee. You're here." She looked into his eyes and shrugged. "You might as well stay." She grabbed her bathrobe from the bathroom and he moved to sit back down in the chair but stopped when he heard her voice.
"Not here, Lee. Let's go downstairs." She nodded toward her bedroom door.
"Right. Of course." He nodded and followed her quietly out of the room.
Once they made it onto the landing at the bottom of the stairs, Amanda pointed him toward the family room and indicated that she would get them something to drink from the kitchen.
Lee sat on the couch and waited for her to join him. Not for the first time tonight, he found himself questioning his late night visit. What was it about her that pulled him to her? He found himself thinking of her when she wasn't with him and thinking of ways to keep her in his company when she was.
He was pulled from his thoughts when he heard Amanda coming in with a bottle of wine and two glasses. "I hope this is okay, Lee." She whispered as she tiptoed over to him. "Except for my mother's Galieno, we don't keep too much alcohol in the house." She spoke in hushed tones as she placed her load down onto the coffee table.
Lee picked up the bottle of red to read the label, expecting a sub-par bottle purchased from her local grocery store, but was quite surprised when he found one of his favorites. "Amanda, this is a great selection. I'm impressed." Once he removed the cork, he placed it to the side to let it breathe.
"Well, I'm glad you approve. I picked it up last month while mother and I were out shopping." She sat next to him on the couch.
"It's nice to know that I'm rubbing off on you too." He smiled as he reached for the wine and filled their glasses.
"Too?" She questioned.
"Sure. You know you've rubbed off on me over the past couple of years. I'm definitely not the same man I was when we met."
"Well, of course not. A lot of things have happened, but I don't think I can take credit for that." She smiled as she accepted the glass of wine.
"A toast." He spoke loudly as if speaking to the room.
"Shhhh!" She glanced up toward the stairs. "My mother, Lee!"
"I'm sorry. I forgot." He lifted his glass to hers and whispered. "To late night talks."
She clinked her glass carefully to his and repeated his sentiment. "To late night talks." She took a small sip.
"So, you had a date with your ex tonight, huh?"
She nearly choked on her wine. Lee quickly patted her back to help but was waved off when she cleared her throat.
"No beating around the bush for you, eh Scarecrow?" She placed her wine back on the table and sat back. "It wasn't a 'date.' We just went for pizza and to catch up. It's been a couple of years since he was here last, and that was only to finalize our divorce."
"Well, from my vantage point, it looked like a date." He swallowed a big gulp of wine out of nervousness.
"Your vantage . . . what exactly were you doing at Dooley's anyway?"
He pointed to the ceiling, reminding her of her family sleeping just upstairs and she nodded.
"Spying on me again, Lee?"
"No, I was settling up the Prime Minister's bar tab. Imagine my surprise, when I turned around, and who should I see, but my lovely partner . . . dancing with her ex-husband." The sarcasm was dripping from his voice and he knew it.
"Looks can be deceiving. But you know that don't you, Scarecrow?" She gave him a challenging look.
His head shot up from his wine and he swallowed in anticipation. 'Where was she going with this? She certainly had enough ammunition on him.'
"Yeah, you know like when you and Cindy from the Steno pool were 'working on your report' in the copier room last year during the Christmas party?" She made sure he saw her use air quotes. "You remember that, don't you, Lee?"
He cringed. "Uh, yeah." He nodded his head vigorously. "You know, I see what you mean about things not necessarily being as they seem." He really didn't like remembering how he used to be with women, but even more specifically, he hated her remembering.
"Oh, so NOW you understand what I was saying?" She smiled and nodded her head triumphantly.
"Okay, so it wasn't a date. But you have to admit, you were pretty chummy." He couldn't stop himself. Lee was really put out when he had met Joe and realized he really was a nice guy. He was hoping he would be a Grade-A jerk, but then Amanda wouldn't have been married to someone like that. So, he was a great guy, but something had gone wrong for them to end their marriage. He had to know where she stood with her ex-husband. Did she want to get back together with him? It would certainly be easy for them both. They had history. Hell, they had children together. But where did that leave Lee?
"We were married for 10 years, Lee. When you're married to someone for any length of time, you're going to have intimate knowledge of the other person. Having that knowledge about another person removes all the pretenses that come with most relationships. Perhaps that's what you saw, you know? Just that ease we have with each other since we know the other so well."
He listened intently to her explanation and felt his stomach twist when she explained how she knew Joe intimately and him her. "So you don't want to go back?" There, he had asked the real question he wanted an answer to. Well, there was a very specific answer he was looking to hear. It felt like minutes went by before she answered, when in reality it was only a few seconds.
"I'll tell you what I told Joe when he asked me that very same question earlier this evening." She took a sip of wine, as if to gather her thoughts.
Lee took the last big gulp of his wine as he waited to hear her decision and placed the empty glass on the table.
"I don't want to go back, Lee." She reached for his hand and grasped it before she continued. "I want to go forward." She smiled confidently.
He couldn't help the big cheesy grin that he knew was on his face at that moment. Hearing that she didn't want to go back with Joe lifted the dark clouds that had been hovering over his head for the past week. Now the ball was in his court. He couldn't screw this up. His relationship with her was more important to him than any other he'd ever had. He'd have to handle this just right.
