It was late December when I came home wearing a kilt and ceremoniously threw all my pants in the dumpster, declaring, “I’m never wearing pants again!” By New Year’s Eve, my wife of ten years decided to leave me.

I had argued against a divorce initially because we got along so great and I was unprepared to cook for myself. But ten years was a long time to be married, so we split amicably. We got her an apartment in the building we were already in so we could share custody of our dog, Chloe, and she was out within two weeks. We agreed that I would help her set up her new place and she would make sure I was eating properly. And we’d get together for regular sex, at least until one of us started seeing somebody.

We spent most of a Sunday moving her stuff (or half of our stuff) into her new apartment. Our neighbor across the hall was in and out all day, and knew what was going on. She made an effort to talk to both me and ‘Vanessa’ (not her real name, she asked me to change it), being all Sad and There For Us. Rachael’s cute and she’d always been a little flirty with me. At one point when Vanessa wasn’t around, Rachael told me that she was going in for breast reduction surgery in a couple of months. I said, “Oh, really? I’m thinking of getting penis reduction surgery. Maybe we should get together for a little ‘before and after’.”

She looked down and I really thought she was gonna lift up my kilt to check for herself, but she just smiled at me and I said that she should come over later and have a glass of wine on the porch (she was always envious of our porch). She said, “Maybe” and went back into her apartment. I hadn’t been with anybody but Vanessa since we got married, and I wasn’t necessarily thinking I was gonna get Rachael into bed that night, but I thought it would be good to have somebody cute to talk to. Maybe have her over a couple times next week and see what happens.

We moved up all of Vanessa’s stuff and she had the last bag of books. She set it down and gave me a hug. “I know this is the right thing to do. We’ll be fine”, she said. “Who knows? Maybe we just need some time apart.”

As she was hugging me, I could tell she was crying. She later told me that she’d spent the night up in her new place going through all our pictures, listening to the music we both liked, and wondering if this was all a mistake.

So she’s hugging me, and it was a pretty long hug. Long enough for me to realize that I was just about to spend my first night alone. Ten years of marriage; over and done. I didn’t really want to be alone. I’ve always preferred having a partner; I function better that way. And now I have to start dating again. Well, I thought, there’s no shortage of cute girls in this town, that’s for sure. There’s the cutie who serves me coffee in the morning, of course, and the blonde teller at my bank, Sara. There was Amy who worked at the marina, and Lisa who worked at the boat brokerage I sometimes did jobs for. There was Theresa who lived in Boston. Maybe I could fly her out for a weekend. There was the waitress at the Hilltop, the chick over at Ken’s Market, and that other waitress at the Hilltop, the one with the short blonde hair and green eyes. Goddamn, I’d LOVE to fuck that one. And Rachael. Maybe I WILL try to do her tonight, I thought.

Vanessa let go of me, gave me a kiss good-bye, grabbed her books, and she and Chloe were gone. I closed the door, had a beer and wondered what the hell I was going to do with the rest of my life. Vanessa and I were very close and we loved each other. Still do. We just wanted different things out of life and she was having a hard time dealing with my bipolar disorder. So she left. And here I was, alone.

But it was still early on a Sunday afternoon and I had a couple hours before I was gonna invite Rachael over for drinks and hopefully some naked time, so naturally, I went out for a beer.

I decided to go to a place up on Phinney Ridge that I had been to a week before. I had gone there for several years for my friend Dave’s annual birthday party, and this was the first one we had had after he died, a few months earlier. And it was also the first time I’d worn my new kilt out to a bar. I went without Vanessa, as she was protesting the kilt. The cute waitress, however, was drawn to it immediately and couldn’t keep her fingers off of it. Being married, I didn’t really flirt back, but I relished the positive reinforcement that you need when you first start wearing a skirt out in public.

I had a beer, but the cute waitress wasn’t there. I wrote a note on the back of my business card, something to the effect of- ‘Hey! remember me? I’m the guy in the kilt from last week. I was married then, but now I’m not! Wanna get together?’. I gave it to the bartender and asked her to ‘Give it to the girl who was working last Saturday night- dark hair, cute, I think she said she likes to paint...?’ (She never did call.)

I finished my beer, and I was pretty low. For some reason I thought I’d run into this waitress and she’d be so happy that I was now single, she’d invite me back to her place. We would get some red wine, paint each others naked bodies, and fuck all night. It seemed reasonable enough, but it wasn’t happening.

Plan B:

I got in the truck and drove back to Queen Anne Hill. Basically to park, because I was gonna go get smashed at one of the bars within stumbling distance to home. If I was going to spend the night alone, I wasn’t gonna do it sober, that was for damn sure.

I went to Hoyt’s and had a few beers and shots of scotch up at the bar. At some point I saw a group of four college-aged girls playing pool, so I ordered up a pitcher, got four more glasses and sat down at their table. Before I could think of something witty to say (I should have thought of something before I went over), they grabbed their drinks and moved everything to a new table. Fine. More beer for me.

Sometime after that I felt somebody sit down on the bench next to me and was relieved to  find that it was an attractive woman. “Hi! I’m Maggie!” she said, with this adorable English accent. My spirits rose.

We drank beer and scotch and she seemed to actually care about this drunk, pathetic guy who’s wife just left him. She told me I didn’t have to spend the night alone, and came back to my place.

We went to my apartment and drank and smoked her cigarettes and blasted music and fucked. I don’t remember thinking anything about it. I don’t recall any feelings of animosity towards Vanessa while I was boning Maggie. I don’t even think I felt relief that I could still get laid after all those years of monogamy. I just needed some human contact.

At seven in the morning my alarm went off, and although I’d barely even closed my eyes and was still kind of drunk, I knew I had to get to work by eight otherwise my guys would stand around doing nothing, or worse, do something stupid.

My head was killing me, there was a naked chick next to me who was not my wife, and I had to take a dump. I drank some water and went and sat on the toilet. I had my head in my hands, and was trying to get a grasp on what had happened in the last twenty-four hours when the naked chick comes bouncing into the bathroom and jumps in the shower. I started to point out that I was sitting on the toilet over here, and she said, “Oh, just strike a match, love.” It was the English chick.

So I’m sitting there knowing that something was very wrong, but I couldn’t quite figure out exactly what it was. My mind was a blur, and I tried to methodically recreate the events of the last several hours. It was very difficult and I couldn’t quite get clarity.

Until I hear the unmistakable jingle of Chloe’s collar as she comes bounding up the stairs outside the apartment and I remember that I’m taking her for the day so she doesn’t have to spend it in Vanessa’s new apartment all alone. Seconds later I hear keys opening the front door and it’s much too late (and quite inconvenient) for me to try and close the bathroom door.

My now-very-certainly-ex-wife-to-be pauses outside the bathroom and sees me on the crapper. She notices the shower running and gives me a puzzled look. Before she has a chance to ask me why the hell I have the shower going, the curtain swings open and the naked English chick says, “Hi! I’m Maggie!”

Vanessa turned and left. Which was a very good thing, ‘cause I got the impression that Maggie was all up for a dripping wet conversation with the woman she’d heard so much about the night before.

A couple of weeks later, when Vanessa was talking to me again, she admitted that Maggie had given her the closure that years of therapy might not have provided, and she thanked me.