Melissa had been out in Calgary for almost a week and I expected her to be gone another few days at least.
In the mean time I had bumped into our mutual friend Sarah and had suggested that she come over for a drink.
Sarah and Melissa and I go back a long way so it was a very casual evening, Sarah and I drinking white
wine and talking about life and love. After a while I ordered in some Chinese food and we ate that sitting
on the floor at the coffee table. At nine or so, Sarah said she had to go.
She had parked a few blocks away and was worried about the city streets at night, so she asked me to walk
her to her car. Going down in the elevator she suddenly put her hands up to her hair and said, "Damn, I
left my bobby pins in your bathroom." I felt a twinge in my heart, and I started to laugh.
"What’s so funny?" she asked.
"We'll go back and get them," I said.
"Oh, forget it. They're just bobby pins. What's so funny?"
"I’ll tell you," I said as the elevator door opened and she passed ahead of me into the foyer.
We were walking down the street and she put her hand on my arm. "It was almost twenty years ago," I began,
"just a few years after Melissa and I had married. She was out of law school by then and she got put on this
big case back east, in Hamilton or someplace. She was assisting the senior partner, and she was gone for
six or eight weeks. Well, shortly after she left I was out on the town and I met this delicious young thing,
Bonnie was her name, on the dance floor and I fell in love, or in lust, anyway. Just like that. It was incredible.
I took her back to our place, Melissa's and mine, and we had a great time. The next day she moved in with me.
I was talking with Melissa most days on the phone, and, when she told me that she would be home the next day, I
had to move Bonnie out, which I did. That was that, I thought. Well, the first thing that Melissa did when she
got home, after being away all that time, was to walk straight into the bathroom, and there, beside the sink, were
three bobby pins. She asked me whose they were, and after a few pathetic lies she got it out of me."
We were at a corner, and Sarah stopped and turned to me. "Melissa never told me this," she said. "What happened?"
I shrugged. "We just got over it, I guess."
"And the other woman? What happened to her?"
"Oh, we fell out of touch."
Sarah unlocked her car door and slid in behind the wheel. "Did she ever forgive you?" she asked me through the open window.
"Melissa?"
"Well, yeah."
Again I shrugged. "I don't know," I said. "We haven't talked about it in years."
I stood on the sidewalk and watched Sarah pull out into the traffic then turned back home. It had been nice to see her again.
A yellow cab was standing at the entrance to my apartment block and as I approached I saw Melissa's long legs stretch from
the open back door to the curb. I shambled up behind her as the driver pulled her bags out of the trunk. "You're home early,"
I said, slipping my arms around her from behind and giving her a kiss under her ear.
She turned and gave me her big smile, the one she uses to hide fatigue, and put her arms heavily onto my shoulders.
"It settled," she said by way of explanation.
In the elevator she briefly recounted the negotiations as she leaned against the mahogany paneling. I carried her bags
to our door and opened it with the key. As I held it open for her and she sailed past I noted the strange mixture of
her scent with that of the sweet and sour. "How have you been?" she asked me.
"Missing you," I replied.
"Well good," she said. "Why don't you pour us some wine while I freshen up a bit."
My eyes followed her until she reached the bathroom door.
Bellingham October, 1991