But Mischa wasn't on the home front. She was away from it all, and that timeless feeling was slowly coming back to her. The ol' outta-sight-outta-mind trick. She knew better now, knew the come down would be harsh, but at least she was better prepared. And at least she would have Tal right next to her, holding her hand.
Such a surreal thought. She'd gone to Italy thinking she would cheat on her husband. She had never counted on finding someone like Tal. Love wasn't part of the equation, was a foreign feeling. She hadn't wanted it, hadn't been looking for it. But it seemed to have found her. She knew she should tread carefully, but the feeling was too immense. It was everywhere, all around her, blanketing her. It made her feel guilty to think it, but she could honestly say that she'd never felt that way before, with anyone. Only him.
Tal had come with her, actually flown on the plane with her. His home was in Istanbul, after all, so he told her he would stay in the city with her, for as long as he could. His photography job, whatever exactly it was, seemed to be something he could do from anywhere – she wondered if he was freelance and without work, and figured he was embarrassed to say he was essentially unemployed.
The only downside to Istanbul was she was forced to throw herself into work. In Rome, sneaking off and calling in sick had been easy, but not anymore. Her boss was gone from the office more than he was there, so the burden of getting things done fell to her.
“It's weird,” Misch finally said, sitting down to dinner with Tal.
“What's weird?” he asked around a mouthful of food.
“I hardly see Peter. Like, at all. He's never in the office, or if he is, he's just dashing in and out. I don't understand what he's doing, I guess. How many business lunches can a person have in a day?” she questioned, stealing a piece of pizza from a tray in the center of the table.
“I don't know. A lot. I like lunch. Don't worry about it. Maybe you should play hookie more often, too,” he suggested.
“But still. Maybe I should talk to him, ask him what -,” she started when Tal stood up.
“Leave it alone, babe. The more distracted he is, the more time we get to spend together,” he interrupted her before leaning down and kissing her on the forehead. Then he walked away, sucking pizza grease off his fingers.
She frowned as he went into the bathroom, then she shook it off and dug into her dinner.
They were in her hotel room. She had been demoted back to the standard room, no more suites for her – though her current room did have two double beds in it. While she was at work one day, Tal shoved them together, making a super bed for them.
The guilt was still there, of course. Sometimes she wondered if it would always be there, in a small way. Her and Tal's relationship was built on top of the still-beating-heart of her last relationship. Not too cute. But the guilt was lessening in intensity, and she was grateful for that; it had been hard, at first, to have sex again, and Tal was a very sexual person. He was taking it slow for her, he hadn't pushed her or asked for anything, but she knew it wasn't easy for him, and she was grateful for his patience.
“I e-mailed Mike again,” she called out. That was another thing she was grateful for – they could talk about the dreaded “him” without that sense of doom anymore. No more hushed whispers or avoiding his name, like saying it would conjure him up, right in the middle of their dirty lie.
No, now it was just their dirty truth, so they could say whatever they wanted.
“Why do you keep doing that!?” Tal yelled back.
“Because, there's a lot of shit between us still. We shared an apartment, the car loan is in both our names, we have a joint savings account. We need to get divorced – that involves some communication. And believe it or not, I worry about him,” she tried to explain. Tal finally walked back out into the main room.
“Seriously, Misch. Give him space. You spent so much time wishing for space from him – imagine that ten fold, and that's probably how he feels about you, right now.”
Doesn't feel so good when the tables are turned.
“Whatever. Fine.”
She glared at her food, pretending it was his face, but Tal ignored her.
“What should we do tonight? I know a great club, we could go dancing, I could finally see your moves,” he suggested. She looked up at him.
“I know what we could do.”
“What?”
“Go to your house.”
He scowled at her before looking away.
“No.”
When they'd made their plans to leave Italy together, Misch had honestly thought they would just stay at his house. She had planned on canceling her hotel room, till he told her not to, that she couldn't stay at his place. He said it was too small, too crappy. A total bachelor pad, and one that hadn't seen a duster in almost two months. Not worthy of her.
But a week and a half had gone by, and he still wouldn't let her go see it. He spent some nights there, claimed he was doing work around the place, but it still wasn't up to par. It all sounded very hard to believe.
“You're not keeping anything from me, are you? There isn't, like, a bunch of baby Tal's and a Mrs. Tal running around over there, are there?” Mischa even laughed, but she felt kind of sick, and remembered their conversation from when they'd first met.
“Would you care if there was a Mrs. Canaan?”
I most certainly fucking would.
“No. No Mrs. Tal. There hasn't really ever been a long-term-girlfriend-Tal,” he joked back.