I think the last time I saw TJ was the summer after High School graduation. I don't know why I remember things like this but I had asked him to a movie. I remember the only reason he could go with me was because his girlfriend, a new girl to the school had gone on vacation with her family. TJ wasn't a wallflower, he had other girlfriends in high school but they didn't matter. He always had a crush on me. I could have him whenever I wanted. He was sweet and did things for me. He was the one that was there the night I needed a ride to and from the clinic. We didn't get home until midnight. He got grounded for it but he never told anyone we went to the clinic. For four years he was my little puppy dog and I had abused him the whole time. I was a month away from leaving Denver for the last time. He was headed to State. I only asked him to the movie for one reason. I owed him for the hours of biology and Spanish tutoring. He was going to get what he had wanted since we were freshmen in Mrs. Reed's earth science class and he first stared at my boobs.
We ate pizza after the movie. He bought. He drove me home and I invited him in. My parents wouldn't be home for hours. I still don't know if he was scared or just clueless but he didn't come in. I remember standing out front and watching him drive away in the convertible.
He wasn't at the tenth anniversary or the twentieth. He had no way to know he was the only reason I went to either of them. At the tenth, I wanted to show off my globe trotting lifestyle and my French husband. At the twentieth I was single and alone and just wanted to see him because I wanted to feel it again. I wanted to feel his eyes on me and feel the confidence that came from his total devotion.
TJ had been a dork. He was good looking but he just didn't have what it took for me to screw him. I had a reputation back then, I deserved it. He didn't care. My mother, with her typical French indelicacy had said he just wanted my boobs. My father, who actually knew me knew better. He would tell me so when TJ would go trotting out of the house late during finals week having just taught me enough to pass my test.
TJ wasn't hard to find. The Internet is a powerful tool for finding lost loves. I sent him an email to his work address. He replied from a personal address. We exchanged life stories. I put the best spin possible on having travelled the world and then being left for a young girl. I was proud of setting myself up in a new city with my own business and a suddenly successful career. TJ sold stuff. He was one of those guys in a suit on the plane on Monday morning and then on the plane home on Thursday night.
I asked if he ever got to Houston.
Yes, he said. About once a month.
I told him to give me a call the next time he was in town.
He replied his wife wouldn't like that very much.
I wondered why he hadn't brought up his wife earlier. I hadn't said anything in his earlier email.
He didn't know why, he replied. He said maybe he still had his crush on me. He said it was pitiful how he still thought of me at times, especially when his son played games at our old high school and he would have to walk around the campus. He attached a picture. His wife was sweet. His youngest son was adorable. His teenage son hurt. It could have been a picture of TJ.
I decided to play offended. I told him he sure must think a lot of himself. I just meant a friendly lunch. What kind of slut did he think I was?
I was the worst kind of slut, he said. I was the kind of slut that slept with everyone but him. That was the problem, if we met and didn't do anything, it would be just like it had been before, me getting his attention and him getting to go home with blue balls. If we did do something, well, he would get what he always wanted but he had moved past that. He said he knew, intellectually that it was nothing but a crush but said that's not how it felt. He had felt that he loved me. All those guys, all those times he had had to hear about what I'd done at a party still hurt. He wished me well. He signed off "Love,"
Fuck. I do not like being put off. Fuck him. I am not the worst kind of slut. I am the god damndedest best kind of slut there is. I deleted the whole string of emails, called one of the men I was seeing, poured a glass of wine and waited for him to get there.
I was in bed, the police detective on top of me pretending to get off thinking about being the worst kind of slut when I realized I had to do it.
I flew into Denver on the early morning flight. I picked up my shitty rental car and drove to the Hilton downtown. I mentioned I had searched TJ. He was speaking at a conference on global Internet threats. I had booked myself into the convention. I didn't, as a children's book editor, have much need to learn about computer hackers. I sat through half of one of the early speakers before taking off and wandering town. I stumbled into a high-end boutique and splurged on a dress. It was sheer in places; a slit revealed my thigh almost to my hip and the neckline plunged indecently. I also purchased a bra and panties but back in the hotel I discovered I couldn't wear either with the dress. I was a proper slut when at 3:00 I headed down for his presentation. He had started when I entered the ballroom. I thought he paused as I walked in but I could have been making that up. The techy nerds around me stared.
TJ had always been tall. He played basketball and ran track and I remember him as this tall goofy nerdy kid with feathered hair. At the podium, he seemed even taller. Her wore a black suit with a thin subtle pin stripe. His jaw was square, his shoulders broad. He wore a crisp white shirt and a purple tie. He had aged well. His hair was cut short but was as dark and think as I remembered. He talked about the threat posed by the Russian mob and the government of China and I resolved to change all of my passwords that night. He finished and started taking questions and I stood to leave. I was obvious, pausing several times so that I was sure he saw me. I ordered a glass of wine and waited.
I never expected he would make me wait. I sat in the bar fending off every sort of suitor imaginable from tech nerds to salesmen to an FBI agent. It was after five when he came in. He had a short bald man with him, and a homely woman in a pantsuit. He didn't come up to me but instead moved to a table. The other two sat and he came to the bar. We were separated by a couple of suits and although I know he had caught me looking at him and given me a strange look of recognition he didn't come over. He took three drinks back to the table and sat down with his back to me.
It took everything I had not to approach him. I ordered a third glass of wine and resolved it was my last. If he didn't come up to me soon I would leave. I was getting looks from a kid across the bar. I say kid, he was probably thirty. He was just a kid to me. I would fuck him. I would show him a thing or two.
I was nursing my wine but was already half way through when a long black arm extended just past my shoulder.
"I'm sorry." The familiar voice said behind me. Then to the bartender, "I guess we need to cash out." At the end of the arm, the hand had extended an American Express card. "You seem incredibly out of place. Your husband drag you to this?" The voice said and I looked up at him. God, his eyes were deep and black, his face was older. It seemed hard. It was just now that I remembered he seldom smiled. He wasn't smiling now.
"Hi." I said. He had to recognize me.
"Hi." He said back casually. Did he really not recognize me at all?
"Your speech was terrifying, TJ."
"Really? I thought it went well. Not as well as my presentation on "A Room With a View. That will always be my masterpiece."
I remembered that book report. He hadn't read the book. He hadn't even seen the movie. He had watched a review of the movie. He worked the class into a frenzy clowning through it. Mrs. Anderson chastised all twenty of us for being rude during his presentation but felt it was obvious he had read the book and understood the subtleties of it social commentary or some shit like that. He had gotten an "A." He knew exactly who I was. When the bartender set the ticket in front of him he reached around me. Both long hulking arms wrapped around my shoulders as he signed. He was Thomas now.
"You look good, Annie, little skinny though. You should eat." He took his slip and left me sitting there. I didn't turn, expecting him to be back. When it felt like it had been too long I looked for him and saw him moving through the lobby for the door with the bald man and the Lesbian.
Alone, I looked back at the kid with the bushy long hair. He was in a suit, probably some sort of techie. I raised my glass to him and he came over. I asked the bartender for my tab and signed the check to my room. The boy asked if I wanted a drink. I told him I had already had too much. He said he liked my dress, I said I liked his suit and ran my hand over his arm. He was a confident little cougar fucker and suggested we go upstairs. I said sure.
The Hilton is an older hotel. They have black and white pictures up from when it was the tallest building in Colorado. The elevators were painfully slow. I clutched my little bag and tried not to show my anger, disappointment, and frustration. If it didn't come soon I knew I would tell the boy to get lost. The little arrow above the door had turned green but the doors still hadn't opened when I heard the heavy footfalls on the tile floor. I turned just as I thought they would run me over and was met with his broad chest and purple tie. His hand was on my cheek by the time I looked up and then his lips were on mine. It was a firm and deliberate kiss. It was short and when he pulled away I had to reach up and bring his head back down. I kissed him this time and it was softer, our lips lingering. The door opened behind me with a rattle. I broke loose the kiss and looked over to apologize to the kid who just had gotten screwed out of his night with an older woman. He was already walking away.
"Him, really?" TJ said to me.
"He was cute."
