Last Dance. David Russell W.

life — we would always be really good friends, she kept assuring me — I never looked forward to her always unannounced visits. Of course, if her visits were announced in advance, she had long since figured out I wouldn’t be home when she arrived. Sandi stepped aside as I reached the doorway and followed me in as I unlocked the door. I didn’t bother trying to stop her; it would only make whatever argument we were about to have that much more public.

      “I see you’ve been redecorating,” she said, pointing to the white splotches of paint that covered the previously graffiti-covered door. “Chic. It goes with the general green tarpaulin look your condo’s been sporting.”

      “So what can I do for you?” I asked after closing the door and heading up the entrance hallway. “Are you just here to comment on my surroundings, or did you need to mess with my psyche as well?”

      “Winston, that’s not fair. I haven’t talked to you in ages. I wanted to see how you were doing.” Sandi wanting to know how I was doing was always a euphemism for her wanting to know how I could help her in some way.

      “Wine?” I asked.

      “Have you finally bought some non-alcoholic for me?”

      “And let that swill enter my home? Perish the thought.”

      “I don’t know what happened to you, Win. You’ve become such a snob.” She was right, and I had a pretty good theory about how I’d gotten there, but I was just too tired to trade insults with the former love of my life. Andrea always told me it’s because I couldn’t win in a war of words with Sandi. “I was hoping we could talk.” Uh-oh.

      “Talk about what?” I could do little to hide the suspicion in my voice. My heart rate only heightened as Sandi took up residence on the couch with both feet planted firmly on the floor in front of her. If this had been a casual visit, she would kick off her shoes and tuck her legs up onto the couch beside her, even though the move would be awkward in her pregnant state. Feet on the floor in front of her never led to anything good.

      “Relax. You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

      “You’re pale, but ghostly is a stretch.” She sighed her pouty sigh, the one that indicated she was disappointed with the attitude I was taking. I had heard that sigh a lot at the tail end of our marriage; it had pretty much been the cornerstone of our communication. “I’m sorry,” I told her. “I’ve had a hard week. You were saying?”

      “I know that things haven’t always been really good between us. But you know that I still love you and consider you to be one of my closest friends?” See?

      I believed the question to be rhetorical, so I didn’t respond. I always found it disappointing when someone didn’t recognize one of my own rhetorical queries and made a generally lame attempt to answer it. Besides, the only thing I could think of was a snide comment about her needing to get some new friends if she considered me to be one of her closest confidantes. But judging from the tone of her voice, whatever was coming next was sensitive enough that I ought to at least try to appear empathetic. “So I need to ask you something very important.”

      “Okay.”

      “Win, I want you to be there when the time comes.” She spoke so softly and with more humility than I’d ever heard from her that I momentarily forgot about her impending maternity and didn’t follow what she was talking about.

      “Be where?” Her eyes widened in astonishment. That happens a lot to me with women, it seems. In her surprise she leaned backwards on the sofa, and her distended belly protruded into my line of vision. “Oh,” I said, nodding and sounding a lot, I supposed, like Edith Bunker. The silence returned for a moment. Truthfully, it wasn’t that I didn’t want to support my ex-wife in her moment of need; to my own constant consternation, deep down on some twisted level, I still cared about her, much as I frequently couldn’t stand her. The sad fact of the matter was that I found the whole idea of being in the delivery room kind of gross. I knew that wasn’t likely to go over well as an excuse to get out of the role of Lamaze coach.

      “Well?” she finally asked.

      “Sandi, I don’t know what to say.” It was one of the few times in recent memory that I wasn’t lying to her. How the hell do you tell your ex-wife you’d rather be any other place than watching her give birth to some unknown man’s bastard love-child?

      “It’s easy, Win,” she said, leaning as far forward as her pending addition would permit. “You just have to say yes.”

      She was probably right; I could think of no way I could get out of this without some extremely clever excuse I could not concoct on the spot. Wine. I needed wine. Sandi continued to eye me, waiting for me to capitulate. With shocking clarity, I was beginning to realize I was about to agree to watch the whole birthing blood sport that would be Sandi’s spawn’s arrival. Too stunned to speak, I had only just begun to nod my assent when both our attentions were diverted to the sound of a key in the front door.

      “You’re really going to love me,” I heard Andrea already beginning before even coming into view. For all she knew I could be sitting on the toilet, but she would simply stand outside the bathroom door and let loose whatever was on her mind. “Not only am I the greatest crime fighter in the history of the city, I brought dinner. And I don’t want to hear any complaints about my choice of … oh. You’re here.” Andy had made her way into the living room mere seconds before I was about to commit to my new role of midwife to the ex-wife.

      “Andrea,” Sandi said, making no attempt to hide her disappointment not only at being interrupted but being interrupted by Andy, a woman of whom she had never grown fond. There are people whose outward contempt for one another often masks a deep-rooted respect and admiration for the other party. That was not the case here. They truly couldn’t stand one another. In deference to me, they were civil when the planets aligned to put the three of us in the same room, though I would have liked to see the two of them settle their differences with a good old fashioned mud wrestle — or at least a pillow fight. About the only thing these two headstrong women could agree on was their mutual need to chastise me for the way I ate, looked, dressed, worked, etc. The only way it could get worse would be if my mother joined them in the room.

      “I didn’t realize you were having company,” Andy said.

      “I didn’t either.”

      “Winston and I had something very important to talk about.” If Sandi thought her not-so-subtle hint would cause Andrea to leave, she had temporarily forgotten who she was dealing with. Andrea does not like me to be alone with my ex-wife. She thinks I’ll do something stupid. Like get her pregnant. “Winston is going to be there for the delivery.”

      Andrea nearly dropped the extremely large pizza box onto my birch floor. “Him?” she asked.

      “Yes. We may not be married any more, but we’re still very close.”

      “We are?” I asked. Both Sandi and Andy looked to me for clarification. “I mean, you know, you asked me, but I didn’t realize I had responded in the affirmative.”

      “You did.”

      “I did?”

      “Yes Winston. Don’t deny it. You can’t back out now just because you’ve got backup. I’m counting on you to be there for me.” She stood up. “Just like I’ve been there for you all these years.” That statement was even more ludicrous than the notion of me in a delivery room, but I was too stunned to argue.

      “But this is Winston,” Andrea interjected. “He cries if he has to squish a spider, for god’s sake.”

      “That’s not true.”

      “Right. That would presume you could get close enough to a spider to do the squishing.”

      “Exactly.”

      “None of that matters,” Sandi insisted as she put on her coat. “I know that when I need him, Winston will be there, strong and ready to support me in this most important moment. I can count