Mr. Unavailable #111: Hamptons Getaway, Day 2

See Could it Be?, It's Not Him, It's Me, The Recovery, We're Just Not That Into Each Other, The Continuation, The Curse is Broken, Unfortunately, The Make-Up Date, The Phone Call, The Negotiation, Dates 9 Through 12, Dates 13 Through 15, The Public Sex Talk, Bridging the Chasm, The Shut Down, All Kinds of Good, Meeting the Friends, Part 2 and Hamptons Getaway, Day 1 for the background on this one.

Day 2: We woke up in the morning. I made the coffee, he made the breakfast. It was lovely. he, indeed, made excellent scrambled eggs, as advertised. Fluffy and moist but not too moist. We sat outside on the patio talking for a few hours. We're really good at talking--about family, friends, theorizing on growing old and relationships. Eventually, we decided to make a plan for the day and decided to take it easy and head to Westhampton for an art show and then hit East Hampton for an antiques fair. It was truly a perfect day. If it hasn't come out by now, I should mention I have a little bit of a dark side. A mild example of that is that whenever fall is starting to hit and the temperature is a perfect 70-something and there's not a cloud in the blue-blue sky, I always think, "It's a September 11th Day"--as if I know that even a harmless beautiful day could turn horribly dark at any moment.

As we drove, I was telling him about my Montauk summer share, which had me missing some weekends with him in the city. i told him there were two left but they were all the way into the end of September and October. He said, "That's the best time to go." I said, "Do you want to go?" He said, "Sure" and told me to just email him the dates.

We drove the Mini, which I'd not-so-cleverly nicknamed "Coop," to Westhampton and walked between the stalls at the art show, stopping occasionally to surreptitiously critique the art, leaning together to whisper in each others' ears, using our secret collusion as an excuse to get close. Afterward, we walked down the main street, stopping to sit in the gazebo at the end. He had his arm around me and I rested my head on his shoulder as he told me about his classes that had just started and the students in them. A family that had been chased from the beach due to the strong winds was making a picnic in the gazebo and offered us some, which we declined. But I sat there, seeing us from their point of view. And what they were seeing was exactly how it felt--a couple if not in love, then on the brink of it. I pride myself on being fairly un-mushy, so I kind of make myself a little sick to say this, but: There really could not have been a more perfect moment.

We wandered back down main street toward the car, finding a bakery and an ice cream shop on the way where he indulged my affection for sweets as well as his own, buying ridiculously indulgent goodies--not just apple danishes but full-on apple dumplings and not just regular cones of ice cream but cookie cones full of ice cream--with him popping Tic-Tacs from his gigantic Tic-Tac box between and after. We drove to the antiques fair, catching the last 45 minutes. I fell in love with an $1,800 aquamarine ring and he found a 100-year-old silver credit-card (back then: calling-card) case. Both were out of our price ranges. We got back in the car and before we drove away, I said, "Wait a minute, come here tic-tac boy" and kissed him.

That night he made us sandwiches and grew distant again. We watched movies and it was hard to get him to come back. Eventually, we went to bed, chastely (same as the night before). Saying he still was not feeling well, he apologized for "not being the sexual dynamo" I was used to.

Signs of Hope: All day. It was a lovely day.
Red Flags: The evening distances. Our ever-so-chaste evenings.

Diagnosis: For him: Oh those distances.
For me: I'm alternately happy and, when he gets distant, afraid.