...We didn't plan to live on different coasts. I had been dating P for eight months in New York City when we took off for a two-week vacation in California. I'm a writer, and I had some work to shop around and people to see in Hollywood. A few peomising leads developed, so we decided that P would fly home alone and I would stay on for a while. A cheap six-month sublet materialized, and I took it. Suddenly, we found ourselves in a long-distance relationship.
...We thought we'd easily survive the few months apart, but I was gone barely two weeks when P started complaining that she missed our old life and hated doing alone the things we used to do together. Our problem shouldn't have surprised us. Any relationship consists of small events whose significance lies in the shared experience. The morning coffee. The night's video choice. The sudden rainstorm-annoying when you're alone but fun when you're drenched and laughing together.
...The telephone helped. While some couples dismiss phone sex as juvenile or demeaning, we discovered that it has liberating benefits. During P's first visit, our initial physical encounter began in the same wild fantasyland where our last midnight conversation had left us off.
...If sex wasn't a major problem, her friends were. They had rooted for our romance, cited us as a model couple, but now were full of doubts: "He's gone. Are you going to see other people?" Seed planted, they watered it fastidiously. "Is he ever coming home?" They saw only that P was alone. No man. No ring. No commitment.
...My own schedule didn't have room for social life, and I wasn't interested in one. The quicker I completed my work, the faster I could get back to New York. For P, though, every night spent alone accentuated her plight. And soon, courtesy of a well-meaning friend, the invitation came: "There's this man. He's unattached, and we're just going to hang out. Why don't you come along?"
...P told me about the offer, and I encouraged her to go. A bunch of friends; what could be the harm? And what else could I have said? I didn't own her, after all. But why did I feel as though battery acid was leaking from my heart into my stomach?
...On the night of her date, I found myself staring at the silent phone. In New York, I was soon to discover, P and her friends had drinks and dinner, and several people took her home and stayed for a nightcap. The man, Rob, was the last to leave.
..."I told him all about you," she said on the phone, after he'd left. Our conversation that night dissolved into new ( and more desperate) dec;arations of love. She said, "I'm not interested in him." I wondered, Was she interested in someone else? Or once she got to know Rob better, would she become intrigued?
...The next night, Rob called, drunk, with his own declaration of love. She told me this because she wanted "no secrets between us." I burned to ask her about that first evening in her apartment, whether anything in her manner, her body language, her eyes, encouraged him. That would amount to an accusation though. Besides, I know how little prodding, real or imagined, men need. The fact remained that another man was after P, and he had a three-thousand-mile advantage.
...Two nights later. Seven P.M. Where is she? Why hasn't she called? The phone, once my ally, mocks me. It taunts, "How are you liking L.A. now?"
...She calls. We chat about inconsequential things. The question "What did you do tonight?" slips out, and my voice is anything but casual. "I went out for dinner," she says. Ah. With whom? Why didn't she say? Should I ask? Should I wait?
..."With whom?"
...The dreaded explanation: "Well, the way I know Rob is through friends from school." All those months together, and I never heard of these school friends.
..."So, Rob was at dinner," I say.
..."Yes, but I think he just wants to be friends."
...We both know that's not what Rob really wants. Later on in the conversation, P reveals Rob's true intentions. "He says he wants to get to know me better."
...I find myself asking a question that until now had been unthinkable. "Do you want to see other men?"
..."No, of course not. It's just so hard here alone. Are you sure you're coming home?"
...Renewed and urgent vows of love. This time accompanied by a round-trip plane ticket, which I Federal Express to P. Reunions are wonderful; some awkwardness at baggage claim, but we're soon in sync. Then, after the weekend, she flies home, and we're back on the phone. There was a tentativeness now, as though some precious, fragile object had broken and we were slowly trying to put it back together. We no longer talked every night. When we did, no mention was made of Rob or any other men.
...And then I, too, succumbed to temptation: I fell in love with California. Our situation wasn't really very different from the one faced by unmarrioed couples who aren't separated, who are able to kiss each ither asleep every night. Where are we headed? We had to agree that we were going nowhere.
...Did the separation break us up? Would we still be together if I hadn't stayed on in L.A.? Or would the growing apart have just taken longer? In New York, we were a great couple, sharing meals, laughs, movies, a bed. Did we mistake this closeness for love? Maybe the separation allowed us an objectivity that doesn't usually come easily. Perhaps we weren't close enough yet for a separation.
...Or perhaps we weren't meant to be a couple, and we learned the truth gently, by being apart. The though soothes me.