Intermission

I met him by the pool in Miami.
He was a few chairs away from me and happened to see me mumble a ‘fuck you’ under my breath while violently throwing my phone into my bag.
“That can’t be good,” he said.
I looked at him, and I don’t know why, but I told him.
I had just found out, via text, that the guy I’d been seeing on and off for years, whom I was desperately in love with, was dating someone new and that it was starting to get serious.
He winced, then chuckled, “OK hold on, I think I can beat that. I’m here in Miami for a friend’s wedding. Well, just prior to coming here, I had asked my girlfriend to move in with me and instead she dumped me.”
“Yikes,” I replied, “What a sad pair of tourists we are.”
He offered to buy me a cold beer, but I noticed he was drinking something stronger and I said, “No. I want that. What is it?”
"Scotch."
"Yes. I want scotch."
He smiled.

We commiserated our individual love stories in complete detail and talked about our lives back home.
He told me how he had been adopted.  Studied hard and was now an investment broker in NYC.
He was a little on the nerdy side, but looked a lot like a young Richard Gere, I thought.
Before long, the sun was going down.
We were interrupted by two of his friends and my cousin.
I began to pack up my towel and things.
He pulled me aside and said, “Hey, listen. I know we just met, but I really, really liked talking to you today. I’m not ready to stop. Why don’t you come out for dinner with my friends and me? Bring your cousin!”
Normally, I would have called it a day, but something about him made me say, “Sure, let me wash up and we will meet you out front.”
My cousin thought I was crazy, but she humoured me.
We went to dinner as a big group but Young Richard Gere and I ignored everyone there and just talked quietly to eachother. And when everyone was paying their bills, he took my hand under the table and held it.
“Thanks for an amazing day,” he said. “Now give me your number.”

**

We spent the next day texting back and forth.
And then the next night he called me and said, “OK, I’m going to sound crazy, but I’ve not stopped talking about you to all my friends here and now the bride and groom told me to invite you. The wedding is tomorrow night. Please come. I think we will have an amazing time.”
“Are you crazy?" I exclaimed, "I can’t come to this wedding! They are all going to think I’m an escort. I’m literally the girl you met at the pool!”
“Stop! They know it's not like that. Please! C'mon. We will have a nice dinner, some drinks. You’ll love my friends. And I just know we will have a great time together. We both deserve a great time.”
“I don’t have a dress!”
“I’ll buy you one.”
“You are NOT buying me a dress.”
The conversation went on like that for a few minutes and somehow - he convinced me.
I went to the local mall that very same night and bought a black cocktail dress.

**

I arrived at the venue, looked around and noticed him pacing the lobby.
Young Richard Gere cleaned up nice in his tux, I thought.
He had the biggest smile when he saw me and gave me a warm hug.
“Wow. You look great! And you’re here. I can’t believe you said yes. Thank you.”
“I can’t believe I said yes, either.” I was smiling, too.
We took our seats for the ceremony.
It was a beautiful, warm Florida evening.
When it was time for the reception to start, he walked me to the pool and said, “I have to tell you something.”
“Uh-oh. What?”
“Look up.” He pointed to the moon above.
It was the biggest, brightest moon I had ever seen.
It was closer, somehow.
When I looked back at him, he took my face and kissed me.
“Now let’s go party!”

He introduced me to his friends, and he was right, I loved them.
Everyone welcomed me and the conversation flowed as easily as the wine.
After a lovely dinner and too much dancing, the guests started to dwindle.
His friends said their goodbyes to me, and gave me their email addresses.
Young Richard Gere grabbed champagne from the empty bar, took my hand and led me to the beach.
We sat by the water, alternately taking swigs from the bottle, and kissing like high school kids.

We both knew this had been a wonderful fluke.
Finding a person who understood at the exact moment you needed them to.
A person who understood needing to forget a while.
But we still had that sticky matter of our broken hearts to deal with.
And we knew it.
He put his tuxedo jacket on my shoulders and we lay side by side on the sand, in silence.
Holding hands, we looked up.