The celebration took place in the private room of a bar that many of the Marketing people frequented. When I got there the room was festooned with silly banners sporting messages like “Free at Last,” “Peter is Available” and “Look out Ladies.” I thought it was all pretty juvenile and in bad taste, but apparently everyone else felt differently.
The noise level was high, thanks in part to several kegs of beer that were quickly being drained by the crowd. I thought it was nice that his team held Peter in such high regard, but when I saw him in the crowd, it looked to me like he wasn’t enjoying the celebration as much as the rest of them.
Someone tried to get him to make a speech, and after futile attempts to resist he clambered up on a table. But instead of making humorous remarks, he kept things short and to the point. After thanking everyone for the party and paying tribute to their efforts again at Expo, he invited them all to carry on enjoying themselves. Then he quickly jumped back down into the crowd.
As the revelry resumed, I quickly made my way over to him, and we grabbed an unoccupied table and sat down. “Thanks for coming, Jess,” he said. “How do you like the party?”
I looked carefully at his face and saw the lines were still there around his eyes. “More to the point, how do you like it, Peter?” I asked.
The jovial expression that he’d been trying to maintain slipped away, and I could clearly see how unhappy he was. “I know I’m supposed to be all fired up and excited about being a bachelor again, but honestly, what I feel right now is depressed, and I’m not even sure why.”
“I think I can tell you, because that’s exactly the way I felt after divorcing my husband. My guess is that you’re down because you’re mourning the loss of your marriage.”
“But that doesn’t make sense, Jess. I don’t want to be married to Callie any more, not after the things she did and the way she treated me. There’s no way I could ever trust her again,” he said fiercely.
“Of course not,” I said soothingly. “But what you’re mourning is something different. You probably always pictured yourself in a committed relationship. Maybe you wanted to start a family at some point. Callie destroyed all that. It’s no wonder you feel depressed: you’ve lost the picture of how your life would be.”
He looked at me closely for a moment, then nodded slowly. “There’s a lot of truth in that, Jess.” He looked at me again. “Thanks for being such a good friend.”
Just then, some of his workmates came over and grabbed him by the arm. “This won’t do: too much solemnity, too much sobriety. Come on, Peter!” With that they pulled him away, but as he left he smiled and waved at me.
I soon slipped out the door and headed home. Parties like that aren’t my style, but I felt good about being helpful to Peter, and I found myself smiling all the way home.
Now that his divorce was behind him, I kept waiting for Peter to brighten up and come out of his depression. In some ways it was clear that he was on the mend, but that didn’t seem to translate into any change in the way he acted, at least toward me. He’d wave and smile when he saw me, and we still seemed to be on the same wavelength whenever we talked. But I kept looking for something more that I never seemed to find.
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