The Great Ex-Scape

by Jo Watson

  Now he looked intrigued. “Right, it’s a bet then. Whose story is the worst?”

  “Okay,” I said. “What are we betting?”

  “That ring.” He pointed.

  “No. Never.” I shook my head.

  “I’m serious. Because if your story is worse than mine, then you genuinely deserve that ring.”

  “Okay,” I muttered, trying to work out if he was for real. “And if yours is worse?” I asked, wondering what I would need to give him.

  “Just stay here and have some drinks with me,” he suddenly said in a much smaller voice.

  “I already am.”

  “Have a few more. I’ve been sitting at this bar by myself for five nights and, truthfully, I’m lonely as hell.”

  “That doesn’t seem like a fair exchange, though,” I said.

  “A new study shows that loneliness is a bigger killer than smoking and obesity. So you’d be saving my life.”

  “Well, when you put it that way.” I smiled at him.

  “Okay, great. But we need an impartial judge to decide which story is worse,” he suggested.

  “Who?”

  “What about him?” He pointed over at the bartender, who was already looking in our direction, as if he’d been listening this entire time. The bartender looked like one of those perpetually laid-back kind of guys. Blond surfer hair, golden tan and an unhurried quality to him. He smiled at me and I quickly looked away.

  “Noooo,” I whispered under my breath. “I can’t tell my story to a stranger.”

  The bartender piped up. Clearly, he had no shame in now admitting that he had been eavesdropping. “You won’t believe the kinds of things that people tell me. I’ve heard it all, trust me.”

  “Like what?” I asked, as the bartender moved closer to us and casually leaned over the bar.

  “This one time, a guy told me he’d cheated on his wife the day before their wedding, with her maid of honor who was also her sister.”

  “What?” Alex and I gasped at the same time.

  “You think that’s strange, this other time an old woman in her eighties confessed to me that she’d killed her husband sixty years ago and buried him in the rose garden. She wanted to clear her conscience before she died.”

  “You’re kidding?” I said in horror.

  The bartender shook his head. “People confess all kinds of crazy things once they’ve had a drink or two.”

  “Mmmm, tell me about it,” I said knowingly.

  “So, what do you say?” Alex asked. “We both tell him our stories and he chooses which one is worse.”

  I shrugged. “Sure, why not? You go first though.” I pointed at him.

  The bartender cleared his throat. “Yeah, I already heard that one.” He smiled sheepishly at us. “And you’re not alone, let me tell you. It’s happened to a lot of men who’ve sat at this very bar.”

  Alex looked over at me. “Your turn then.”

  “Okay.” I took another sip from my drink and then launched into my story. Leaving out none of the gory, embarrassing details. By the end of it I had two pairs of eyes staring at me in horror.

  “Wow,” Alex said, shaking his head, “and how many people were there?”

  “At least eighty.”

  I watched them both as they took it all in. “And if you want, you can watch the video online too, since someone filmed and posted it.”

  “God! I’m so sorry,” Alex said, looking at me with genuine concern.

  “Yeah, honestly, that’s one of the most embarrassing stories I’ve ever heard,” the bartender confirmed.

  “So, which one is worse?” Alex asked.

  “Mmmm?” The bartender put his elbows on the bar and held his head in his hands, looking from me to Alex and back again. He was taking this very seriously. “So . . . you both had your hearts broken. That’s a tie. And one found out his girlfriend was cheating, but the other did spill her guts to the entire world.”

  “Thanks,” I said sarcastically.

  “I’d say it’s a tie then,” he finally said. “Cheating on a par with public embarrassment.”

  “Wait!” I jumped up, the alcohol swishing through me. “I forgot to tell you that someone live-tweeted the event too, and it got hundreds of likes and retweets.”

  “Really? Well, that changes everything,” the bartender said.

  “Wait,” Alex jumped in now. “She changed her social media relationship status the very next day to dating him instead of me.”

  “Also bad.” The bartender looked from Alex to me and back again. “I know, you two should just hook up. It would be one of those funny wedding stories you could tell,” he said, and then was called away by someone else.

  “Hey, who won?’ we both yelled after him, ignoring what he’d just said.

  “It’s a tie,” he shouted over his shoulder.

  Alex and I sat back in our seats and looked at each other for a while. “I guess you can put that away,” I finally said, pointing at the box.

  “Yes. I guess I can.” He grabbed the ring box and slipped it into his pocket.

  “Just out of curiosity, why are you carrying that around with you?”

  He looked genuinely confused at the question. As if he’d never considered it before. Then he looked me straight in the eye. “Honestly,” he started nodding his head as if an epiphany was dawning on him, “I think I’m just trying to hold onto something of her.’

  I nodded. I could relate. Suddenly I could feel the weight of the diary in my bag.

  11 April

  Dear Diary,

  Worst news.

  Devastating.

  Not sure how to contain myself. Have managed to wipe tears away sufficiently in order to write this but am teetering on the edge of a total all-fall-down.

  Sam is moving to Johannesburg. She is moving here and she is moving in with Matt.

  Stormy thinks this is a good thing. She thinks this is the final “straw in the coffin.” She thinks this will be a great catalyst for moving on from him. Only problem, I have no idea how to move on. How do I move on from someone I’ve now been in love with for 2 years? Who also happens to be my best friend? Do I even want to move on . . . of course I don’t! I’m still holding onto the hope that one day he opens his eyes and realizes how perfect we are for each other!!

  IDK. More later. Or not. I’m not sure. Maybe I need a break from writing about this too? In a way, it seems to make the whole thing worse. Who said writing was therapeutic? In this case, it feels like torture. It makes it more real to have it written down like this.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  “So, a doctor?” I finally asked. The bartender had very kindly put a bottle of tequila down for us “compliments of shitty life.” We were probably on our fourth revolting shot, each time we had one vowing. It would be our last as we grimaced and almost choked on the vile liquid.

  “Yes,” he said in a bit of a slurry manner.

  “And she left you? Who leaves a doctor?”

  “Exactly.” He banged his hand on the counter.

  “What kind of doctor?” I asked.

  But Alex didn’t answer immediately. He poured himself another shot of tequila and downed it. He slapped the shot glass down onto the table and then looked me straight in the eye.

  “Colorectal surgeon.”

  “What’s that?”

  “I’ll give you a moment to figure it out.” He crossed his legs and folded his arms casually.

  “Ooooh, this all sounds so mysterious,” I whispered.

  “Not at all,” he said. “In fact, there is nothing mysterious about what I do.” He fixed his eyes on me expectantly.

  “Okay . . . Colorectal surgeon, colorectal surgeon,” I repeated the words to myself a few times until a familiar word jumped out at me. “Colo . . . wait, rectal?” I asked, putting my hand over my mouth in shock as I said it out loud. It wasn’t the kind of word you found yourself saying that much in public. Or ever.

  He nodded.

 
; “As in, um . . . rectum?” I muttered under my breath.

  “Rectum,” he repeated, and my face flushed. Why is it that when you hear certain words they make you feel instantly queasy? Like vulva or anus, for instance.

  “A proctologist?” I asked slowly. I could now feel the amusement bubbling up inside me. It was small at first, but then it grew until I couldn’t quite hold it down anymore. He smiled at me and I burst out laughing.

  “Oh my God, that’s a good one.” The words shot out in between the loud guffaws. I held my hand up for a high-five. This guy was funny . . . or was he? Shit! His smile faltered and suddenly he looked serious.

  “You weren’t joking?” I pulled my high-five hand out of the air.

  “No.” He shook his head and started pouring more shots of tequila.

  “Oh, sorry.” I swallowed hard, feeling terribly ashamed that I’d just laughed at this actual surgeon who’d probably studied for a hundred years to become one—regardless of which body part his specialty was based around.

  “Yeah, that’s kind of the reaction I get from most people,” he said. “Feel free to take a few moments to make some jokes about it.”

  “Uh, like what?” I asked innocently, knowing full well that I could probably really run with this one. I could run far!

  “Oh, don’t act innocent.” He handed me a drink. “Go for it. I don’t mind, I’ve heard it all before anyway.”

  “Okay,” I said slowly and tentatively, sipping my drink. “I’m sure you’ve been the butt of many jokes.”

  “No! That’s a lame one. You can do better than that, Val.” He was smiling at me, egging me on.

  “Okay.” I thought about it for a while, but nothing came to me.

  “I’ll give you one for free,” he said. “So at the annual medical conference, someone in general surgery thought it would be funny to make a sign that said ‘Proctologists do it from behind.’ He hung it on the wall outside of our conference room.”

  I tried to keep my laughter in but couldn’t. When it finally tapered off I reached over and touched his hand. “I’m so sorry people make jokes like that. That must suck,” I said. “And I really didn’t mean to jump on the bandwagon either, it’s just, you don’t meet proctologists often, or ever. Personally, I’ve never had anyone up there, not that I wouldn’t go to one if I needed that looked at, up there, and I’m sure you’re really good at what you do, up there, not that I would ever, ever, come to you if I needed that um . . . my rectum . . . shit! Can I stop talking now?”

  “Please!” He shook his head. “And please stop saying ‘up there.’ ”

  I put my finger over my mouth and made a shushing sound. This made him smile.

  “Connie, that’s her name, by the way . . .” He held his drink up and I clanked mine against it. We tossed the shots back. “Connie thought it was funny too. She once asked me why I couldn’t be a cool doctor. She said she was embarrassed telling her friends what kind of doctor I was.”

  “What’s a cool doctor?” I asked.

  Alex shrugged. “I don’t know. Plastic surgeon, maybe? A neurosurgeon possibly?”

  “So basically she wanted McDreamy or McSteamy from Grey’s Anatomy?” I pointed out.

  He laughed loudly. “Colorectal surgeons can be sexy too, right?”

  “Yeaaaahh.” I stretched that word out and scrunched my nose up a little. “I mean, suuuure. Maybe it could be, sort of, maybe, possibly.” I was trying to sound reassuring, but was failing miserably.

  “It’s not all prostate exams, you know. I do complicated surgery with these special robotic arm things. It’s very sci-fi, actually.”

  “Now that’s cool,” I said. “You should lead with that. ‘I do surgery with cool robot arms.’ ”

  “Okay.” He nodded and smiled at me again. “Good suggestion. Maybe I should put that on my business card.”

  “It’s Matt, by the way. His name is Matt.”

  “Matt,” he repeated thoughtfully. “Matt and Connie. Monnie. We should call them that while talking about them.” He laughed again; clearly he was as drunk as I was by now. “Or Connt,” he suddenly added.

  I burst out laughing again at the sound of it. “Let’s stick to Monnie.” I paused and looked at him. His cheeks were flushed a pretty pink color, and his gray eyes were slightly hooded which made him look rather sexy. This was not how I ever imagined a doctor would be. The back of my knee suddenly itched and I scratched it. “Soooo,” I slurred, “how on earth did you become a proctologist?”

  “Colorectal surgeon,” he corrected me. “We prefer that, makes us sound far more fancy and less proctologist-y.”

  “Colorectal surgeon,” I repeated.

  “Truthfully?”

  “Total truth.” I poured us both another shot of tequila and passed him one. I’d lost count as to how many we’d had. Probably a bad sign. A very bad sign.

  “It was to rebel against my parents,” he said, between grimaces from the burn of the tequila.

  “Isn’t rebelling becoming a serial killer, or a member of the Hell’s Angels?”

  “Not in my family. Both my parents are really well-known surgeons. My mother is London’s top cardiologist and my father is this hotshot vascular surgeon that leads teams around the world specializing in separating conjoined twins.”

  “Whoa! That’s intense.”

  “Exactly!”

  “So where is the rebellion in this story?” I asked, my face tingling from the alcohol now.

  “Well, I was forced to go to med school. I wasn’t allowed to become anything other than a doctor, you see. But I’d once heard my parents make a joke about proctologists at a dinner party with all their other fancy surgeon friends, so I decided to become one just to piss them off and embarrass them!”

  I looked at him for a moment and then burst out laughing. I was laughing so much that I clung onto the bar counter and almost toppled over. “Wait,” I said, in between snorts of laughter, “you became a . . .” I was screeching now, “a . . . a . . . proc . . . rectal . . . surgeon . . .” tears were streaming down my face now, “of bums, basically . . . to, to . . . embarrass your parents?!”

  Alex started laughing too and out of the corner of my eye, I could see the happy honeymoon couples looking at us.

  “Basically,” he said, his laughter finally tapering off. “But . . .” He looked thoughtful for a moment. “But it’s so much more than that now. When people come to me, they’re usually at their most vulnerable. You learn how to put them at ease and make them feel better.” He shrugged, more to himself. “It’s very rewarding. And it’s a less hectic life, I’m not constantly on call like other doctors. You don’t have many rectal emergencies coming into the ER . . . well, only every now and again.” He smiled softly.

  I shook my head at him, his story was even more funny because I could actually relate to it. I’d done the exact same thing. “I also became what I am to embarrass my family,” I finally said.

  “Oh? Do tell me.” He leaned closer to me. His eyes were even more heavy-lidded from the alcohol, and he had this kind of sleepy, sexy quality to him. Suddenly, he wasn’t so nice and warm and friendly anymore. A guy you could just hang with. Suddenly, he became one of the sexiest men I’d seen in a while. I was completely caught off guard by this realization. Before Matt I used to look at men all the time, but I hadn’t looked at one like this in ages. I felt my cheeks go a little hotter. I was glad he’d called me over, despite my initial nonsocial feelings.

  “So,” I started my story, “my grandparents are these famous Russian poets, very well known. Poetry so depressing you want to crawl into a fetal position and hold yourself after reading them. My dad is a professor of literature at university and my mother is also a poet. They’re all very cultured. They all had very high expectations of me.”

  He was listening to me intently, and it dawned on me that I’d never told anyone this story before.

  “So instead of becoming a professor or the next Donna Tartt, like they all
wanted, I became a magazine features writer. I remember the moment that I showed them my first published article, it was on . . .” I started laughing at the memory. “On . . .” I tried again but the laughter was still going. “On how to find the G-spot.” I finally managed to get it out, way too loudly, and a couple of people turned and looked at me in horror. “You should have seen their faces.”

  Alex burst out laughing again. “It was probably the same look on my parents’ faces when I told them what my specialty was going to be.”

  We continued to laugh together. “God, we’re both so childish!” I hooted.

  “We’re such rebels,” he said, picking up the bottle again, but it was quickly pulled from his hand and whisked away.

  “I think I’d better take this away.” Our bartender appeared out of nowhere and whisked the bottle of tequila from us. We both protested, almost falling off our barstools while trying to grab it back from him.

  “Give it back!” I wailed, but he turned around and shook his head at me. “You’re a mean, mean man,” I said to him, a distinct slur to my speech. “We’re quite drunk, aren’t we?” I looked over at Alex, who was slightly fuzzy around the edges now.

  “That would be my medical opinion,” he said, trying not to slur his words as much as I was. His cheeks were a rich, ruddy color now, his hair was messy and he looked how I felt.

  “Soooo,” I said, pointing at the magazines, “why are you reading women’s magazines?”

  “These . . . well, when Connie moved out, these were the only things she left behind.”

  “So you’ve been carrying them around because they remind you of her?”

  “No, I’ve been using them to figure out what happened between us. Where the hell I went wrong, and also, to try and get over her.”

  I looked at him blankly. “You’re turning to women’s magazines for that?”

  “Look.” He flipped one open. “Ten Ways To Get Over Your Ex.” He pointed at the article and I dissolved into laughter again. I couldn’t help it. Because I knew that behind that article was probably a totally dysfunctional woman in love with her neighbor, and desperately making up the last four steps, because she’d run out of ideas at six.