Page 3 of Infidelity Rules

I close my eyes and select jars at random, holding the vials just below my nose, my elbows propped on my sun-dappled kitchen table. Hmmm, I get a whiff of juniper berries in one, unripe peaches in another and the slightly pungent, sweet scent of black licorice in a third.

I open my eyes to find I’m correct on all three before moving on to another batch.

I have an hour before I’m meeting Dezi for dinner and I’m taking advantage of the time to polish my “sommelier nose” and study my hefty wine bible.

It’s not just for the restaurant, it’s so I can continue to advance as a sommelier.

And perhaps, someday, open my own boutique wine shop.

I close my eyes again and open a fourth vial, only to catch a heady mix of caramel and smoke.

Marcus.

Instantly, I’m back in the bar at Persimmon, suppressing the urge to place a finger in his dimple, among other things.

It’s been two weeks since our brief encounter and the man has invaded my thoughts ever since.

My brain finds reminders everywhere and my body buzzes in tandem.

A whiskey bottle at Persimmon? Buzz. A tall man on the street?

Buzz. A dimpled customer? Buzz. The radio dude with the deep voice? Buzz, buzz, buzz.

Gah. I need to get ahold of myself.

I shake thoughts of Marcus from my head—I am so not dating him—and glance at my phone. It’s time to meet Dezi. Hallelujah, a much-needed distraction.

.....

I spot Dezi almost immediately, perched at the bar in Le Petit Cochon, one of our favorite local joints for excellent wine and solid French bistro fare.

I’m a sucker for a huge bowl of mussels drowning in wine and butter and this place does a spectacular version, complete with a fresh baguette for dunking.

She doesn’t know yet I’ve met Marcus and I’m hoping she’s forgotten about him.

I don’t want to have to tell her he’s single as she’ll be thrilled.

And she’ll no doubt encourage me to date him.

Dezi is the only person besides my brother who knows about my penchant for dating married men as few others would understand.

She doesn’t love it, but she doesn’t judge.

She’s single too, and after listening to countless couples discuss their colorless marriages and sleep-inducing sex lives, she sort of gets it.

As a friend and therapist, Dezi probably understands my own motivations for dating married men more than I do.

“Hey there,” she says, rising from her barstool to give me a hug. “I swear I just saw your old fling Derek. You just missed him.”

“Really? I thought he stopped traveling to D.C.”

She shrugged. “Maybe a lookalike then? Or maybe he’s just visiting. Who knows?”

Derek was my latest love interest, but we ended our affair for good almost three months ago.

I enjoyed him while it lasted — nine months — but he’s no longer required to travel to D.C.

for work, so our romance naturally burned out.

As it turns out, his wife was having her own affair and has since filed for divorce and plans to marry her new love. Good for her.

“I ordered you your usual,” says Dezi, gesturing towards a gently fizzing flute filled with Crémant, one of my favorite types of sparkling wine.

“Thanks,” I say, clinking my glass with hers.

“So,” she says, studying the menu, “did you meet your mysterious man? Is he single? And most importantly, any chance you’re ready to try dating single men? You know, the kind who are actually available?”

Sigh . I was stupid to think she’d forget about him.

I can always count on Dezi to bring up my dating habits.

She rarely pushes too much, but she does like to check in and remind me what I’m doing isn’t exactly emotionally healthy.

I know she’s right, but I’m not about to risk my heart again. Hell no.

“Yes, his name is Marcus. Yes, he’s single. And absolutely not,” I say, answering her questions. “And you’re not allowed to ask me that again for at least a month.”

“I just want you to be happy,” she says.

“I am. I’m very happy. I’d be even happier if he was married.”

Dezi shakes her head and takes a sip of her drink. “Maybe this one is worth it. But you’ll never know unless you try. And that’s all I’m going to say.”

I nod and fiddle with the small flickering lantern adorning the bar, twisting the base to make the light scatter. “I’m not ready, Dezi.”

I have terrible judgement.

Shame and guilt sweep through me when I think about how foolish I was with my ex-fiancé, Liam, who strung me—a gullible jackass, apparently—along for five years.

And then how much pain I caused my ex-husband, Chris.

I put him through an entire wedding and year-long sham of a marriage.

I had wanted so badly to love him. But wanting something, no matter how desperately, doesn’t make it so.

I just didn’t figure that out until after the big white dress, the vows and the buffet dinner.

But I had said yes. So I tried to love and honor Chris, a kind man — my friend — as a husband.

But I have since learned, you can’t marry the right man, the good man, for all the wrong reasons.

Nor can you convince a man to love you who simply doesn’t. Nobody thrives, nobody wins.

I shudder at the memory of it all. I’m now glad Liam dumped me. And I know letting Chris go was the absolute right thing to do. But I never should have said yes to either one in the first place.

“Are you okay?” Dezi asks, interrupting my thoughts. Her voice is almost a whisper, barely audible over the restaurant’s soft track of French rap music.

“Absolutely, just hungry. Let’s order dinner,” I say, changing the subject and surveying the menu, although I already know what I’m going to order. I catch the bartender’s eye and wave him over. “The frisée salad with extra blue cheese please and the classic mussels for me.”

Dezi orders her usual — roasted beets with goat cheese and a plain omelet with fresh herbs.

Dezi and I met almost twenty years ago, shortly after we both graduated from college the first time around.

Armed with shiny new degrees, we both found ourselves a bit lost and rather disheartened by the utter uselessness of our generic majors — hers in biology and mine in something called health science, essentially biology for weenies.

I briefly considered nursing school until my older sister, a nurse, pointed out that not only would I have to touch people, but they might cough on me.

And, I would have to follow gross orders like “drain pus” or “flush catheter” or “insert enema now.”

Forget it. She lost me at the word pus.

So, I wound up sitting next to Dezi on our first day of class at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health in Baltimore. We had both decided that pursuing a master’s in public health was the path to our futures.

We were both clearly very wrong.

I made it through one semester before I realized a fascination with weird disease outbreaks (anyone read the Ebola book The Hot Zone more than once besides me?) and a fear of vector-borne illness does not an epidemiologist make.

Dezi, however, graduated with honors. Of course. And then she proceeded to plow her way through a Ph.D. program in psychology and currently teaches and works as a much sought-after therapist.

I finally found my way in wine and have never once looked back. It took a while, which seems ridiculous given I grew up in California wine country, but sometimes we’re blind to what is smack in front of us.

Needless to say, Dezi and I have been through a lot together. We struggled as we both contemplated career changes, returned to school, moved to D.C. and generally endured the growing pains of our twenties and most of our thirties together. She’s like a sister to me.

“So,” Dezi says, stabbing a beet with her fork, “what’s your game plan for Marcus?”

“No game plan other than to avoid him. And try to stop thinking about him.”

“And how is that working out for you?”

I roll my eyes. “Take a wild guess. But enough about Marcus. What about you?” I ask. “Are you still fending off your students?”

Dezi shrugs. “It was only that one time. He was a very sweet kid, just had a bit of a crush.”

“A bit?” I laugh. “He brought you a giant, heart-shaped sugar cookie. On Valentine’s Day no less.”

“I let him down gently,” she says, slicing into her omelet. “Thankfully, it doesn’t happen very often.”

“I wouldn’t be too sure.” I dip the heel of my baguette into my buttery broth. “I bet plenty of your students are smitten, they’re just too wise to act on it.”

“Well, let’s pray it stays that way. I don’t want to deal with that nonsense again. It’s hard enough juggling my classes, my clients and my research. I don’t need the headache of homesick freshmen with googly eyes.”

“What about Alex?” I ask, referring to my younger brother, who I think would be a great match for Dezi.

“Not this again. I’m not getting involved with your brother. Yes, he’s cute and smart and funny, but he’s your brother. Trust me, it’s unwise.”

“Okay, okay,” I grumble. “But if you’re allowed to bug me about dating single men, I’m allowed to bug you about Alex.”

“Hmmm, one of these suggestions is healthy, the other is stupid,” she says, tapping a finger against her chin. “Doesn’t seem like a fair comparison.”

“Truce. How about another glass of wine? You’re almost empty.” I gesture toward her glass.

“Only if you make a recommendation. I didn’t love this one.”

I throw my hands up in the air. “Um, hello? We have met before, yes? Why didn’t you tell me you didn’t like your wine?”

Dezi laughs. “Simmer down, my friend. Because I usually don’t care that much. But I want something different this time, so go for it. Practice your skills.”

“On it,” I say, scanning the wine list. “I’ll have the bartender set us up with a tasting.”

Ten minutes later Dezi and I are each enjoying our own little wine tasting, hers a selection of white Burgundies and mine a trio of Southern French reds.

“To excellent wine and healthy choices,” she says as we toast one another.

“Seriously?” I raise one eyebrow at her. “I am so setting you up with Alex.”

“Okay, okay,” she says. “How about to friendship and designer shoes?”

“Perfect.”

Dezi smiles and takes my cue as I guide her through her wines, encouraging her to take note of the scent of crisp green apples in one glass compared to that of crushed flower petals in another.

“What about him?” Dezi whispers, tilting her head toward the sandy-haired bartender sporting a bush of a beard and a Daffy Duck tattoo on his massive forearm. “He keeps looking at you.”

I shake my head. “No big beards. No bartenders. And definitely no on the duck.”

“Okay, so why not Marcus?” Dezi asks, clearly still pushing. “Not even one date?”

“No,” I sigh. “The likelihood of me dating a single man is on par with me asking Daffy over there to see any hidden tattoos.”

“So … give it to me in percentages.”

“Zero. Zero percent.”

.....

I didn’t plan to start dating married men exclusively.

But now I’m terrified of making another mistake—of either losing a man I desperately love or slowly suffocating in a dead marriage.

I simply can’t ever fall in love again or risk anyone loving me.

Married men are safe because it’s just a fling.

The affairs burn fast and bright, leaving no time for attachment and little chance of anyone getting their heart smashed to smithereens.

The pain of my past outweighs the guilt surrounding these affairs, but not by much.

That’s why I follow strict rules. Well, some strict—never fall in love, for instance—and some rather bendy—gigantic panties are not always the answer, for example.

It’s the hardline rules that help assuage my heavy heart.

First, I don’t date anyone with young children as I refuse to take away somebody’s dad.

I simply do not mess around when kids are involved.

And as I said before, I don’t meddle in healthy marriages.

Besides, strong marriages have a force-field around them and I swear I could shimmy naked in front of a happily married man and he’d excuse himself and go find his wife.

I don’t make an effort to turn a married man’s head. I am merely available once his gaze is already set to roam.