Miserable Love Stories

by Alex Bernstein

  I stopped and bought some lousy roses from a Korean deli and pressed her buzzer. The intercom clicked on. She was furious.

  “What the fuck, Greg?” she snapped. “You promised.”

  “I know,” I said, jovially. “Hey! I’ve got flowers.”

  I held the flowers up to the camera. She buzzed me in.

  I took an elevator up to the fourth floor.

  “You’ve got five minutes,” she said. “I’ve got class and I’ve got to get ready.”

  She glared as I dropped the coat, scarf, and flowers and wandered through the place. It was small, Spartan, immaculate. A rollaway couch bed looked like it had never been opened. There was a simple Ikea breakfast table with three chairs, and a built-in kitchenette in the corner; off of the kitchen was a small, plain bathroom. A second room was empty except for half-opened boxes and a large walk-in closet that contained the rest of her clothes. Everything was shades of beige. Beige walls, lighter beige floors, beigish cabinets. As she’d said, there were no books, no art supplies, nor even art on the walls. It was almost a hotel room except all the hotel rooms I’d stayed in had more character than this.

  “So, that’s it,” she said, handing me my coat and moving me to the door.

  I grabbed her and pulled her close, grinning.

  “Let’s mess it up,” I said.

  “I—have—class,” she said.

  “Skip it,” I said.

  I watched her pull back, retreat into herself, and realized it was useless. The moment was gone. I took my coat.

  “You’ll come down later?” I asked.

  “Maybe,” she answered, annoyed. “Maybe not.”

  Outside, I was torn. I was pissed, frustrated, confused. With no gig and nowhere to be, I had an urge to explore her neighborhood, to find out where she shopped, walked, and ate when she wasn’t with me. I felt a chill, suddenly, and realized I didn’t have my scarf. I headed back towards her place thinking I’d grab it before she left. As I approached, I saw a familiar figure standing outside her door, smoking a cigarette and pressing the buzzer, impatiently. Not thinking, I almost called out to him but then noticed the bottles of wine he held. I saw him text something on his cellphone and then, a moment later, the door came unlocked.

  And Bob Caldwell went into Jen’s building.

  I didn’t see her again for weeks. I parked myself in my apartment, didn’t leave, didn’t eat, didn’t take calls, didn’t let anyone in, drank heavily, smoked a tremendous amount of weed. I missed gigs to the point where the band threatened to kick me out if I didn’t suck this shit up sometime soon.

  After a week or so, I finally got up, got out, and walked around. I walked and walked and as the haze in my head began to clear, I realized how obvious it had all been. Really, they were in front of me the whole time. How could I have not seen it?

  Of course, I stopped working at K/M altogether. I asked the agency who employed me for a building transfer, and they were good enough to move me over to a bland six-story office space in Murray Hill, where I worked mostly for an accounting firm. The employees there were forty or older. Everyone was quiet and exhausted and went home quickly after work. No all-night parties. Absolutely no one wanted a weekly pot delivery, but they certainly had lots of plants that needed watering.

  I thought of leaving New York entirely. And why not?

  Nothing was keeping me here.

  She was there the night of my first gig back. I knew she’d be there, because I’d heard she’d been coming by every night since the last time I’d seen her. I played anyway. I tuned her out and simply stared at the floor all night. On break, I went straight to the back, alone. I couldn’t hide, though. And then she was there, suddenly, beer in hand.

  “I’m sorry, Greg,” she said. “I know I fucked up.”

  I shrugged, indifferent.

  “It was all over before you even got there,” she said. “I swear to God. I’d been trying to break it off with him for weeks. You don’t know how he hounded me. I just—I just wanted to do well there. I didn’t think it would go as far as it did. I know it’s fucked up. I know.”

  “Peaches?” I said, looking at her, finally. “Peaches?”

  “What could I say? If I had told you the truth you wouldn’t have even talked to me.”

  “Of course I would’ve.”

  “No,” she said. “You wouldn’t.”

  She was right.

  “I quit,” she said. “I quit that night. I never went back. It’s over.”

  I stared at her.

  “I don’t know what’s bullshit with you and what’s real,” I said. “I have no idea who you actually are.”

  Tears welled up in her eyes. She tried to speak but saw my face flushed with rage and stopped. Taking a breath, she turned and walked—and then ran—out of the bar.

  I went after her. (Maybe I shouldn’t have. I probably shouldn’t have. But I did.) I caught up to her a block or so down. She’d slipped and fallen on the ice. Two or three people were trying to help her. I knelt down to help her and slipped and then we were both on the ice, flailing to get a solid footing, but it was useless. We backed ourselves up against a rack of Christmas trees for sale on the filthy sidewalk and sat shivering on the cold ice.

  “I shouldn’t have gone up there,” I said, sincerely. “It was a mistake.”

  “We should just get the fuck out of New York,” she whispered to me.

  “That—is a brilliant idea,” I said.

  She gripped my arm and held on, tightly, as forgiving flecks of snow fell softly and adorned us.

  Circle in the Square

  AT A CAFE. TODD AND JENNIFER, BOTH LATE TWENTIES, have coffee.

  TODD: You’re performing at Circle in the Square?

  JENNIFER: Yeah.

  TODD: You act?

  JENNIFER: Mmm. I dance occasionally, too.

  TODD: Wow . . . is this . . . so are you an extra . . . or—?

  JENNIFER: I’m one of the leads.

  TODD: You’re one of the leads? One of the main—?

  JENNIFER: Yeah.

  TODD: So, you really act?

  JENNIFER: I do.

  TODD: Since when?

  JENNIFER: I don’t know, seventh grade?

  TODD: You never told me you act.

  JENNIFER: You never asked.

  TODD: We’ve been connected at the hip for, like, six-seven weeks now. How could it not come up that you’re performing at Circle in the Square?

  JENNIFER: I don’t know.

  TODD: I mean, that’s not something that people don’t talk about. I know people that would kill to do anything at Circle in the Square!

  JENNIFER: I know. I was one of them.

  TODD: You just got the part?

  JENNIFER: Yeah.

  TODD: How long were you auditioning?

  JENNIFER: Last three weeks.

  TODD: Half the time I’ve known you?!

  JENNIFER: Yeah.

  TODD: I mean, hasn’t your whole life been about this audition?

  JENNIFER: Pretty much.

  TODD: And you never told me?

  JENNIFER: You didn’t ask.

  TODD: How would I know to ask? I don’t go randomly asking people if they’re auditioning at Circle in the Square.

  JENNIFER: I don’t like to talk about myself. I’m just—I’m a very private person.

  TODD: But—I told you my whole life story!

  JENNIFER: I know.

  TODD: I completely opened up to you!

  JENNIFER: I know.

  TODD: You didn’t tell me anything!

  JENNIFER: It’s fine.

  TODD: It’s not fine.

  JENNIFER: I was happy to talk about you. You liked to talk about yourself and your life and the things you were doing, and that was fine. It was fun.

  TODD: I shared things with you that I don’t share with anyone—

  JENNIFER: Well, I wouldn’t go that far.

  TODD: I trusted you.

  JENNIFER: I know.r />
  TODD: So, you didn’t trust me?

  JENNIFER: We were working together. It was a very productive experience. We did great work.

  TODD: I just . . . I thought . . . I thought . . .

  JENNIFER: What?

  TODD: I don’t know. I mean, you were giving me back massages . . .

  JENNIFER: You were very stressed out.

  TODD: I’ve been stressed out my whole life, but no one ever gave me back massages at work.

  JENNIFER: Look, I think maybe you just got the wrong idea.

  TODD: I guess so. I guess it was just work.

  JENNIFER: It was work. It was very good work. We did great work. You should be very proud of yourself.

  TODD: Yeah.

  JENNIFER: Are we good here?

  TODD: Sure.

  JENNIFER: Good.

  TODD: So, tell me about Circle in the Square.

  JENNIFER: Oh, hey—I’m sorry. I can’t. I have to go meet my boyfriend.

  TODD: You have a boyfriend?

  Hearts in Nature

  MIKE—

  So, I’ve decided. I’m going to Pokhara.

  I don’t know how to say this more delicately—not that delicate has ever been my strong suit—but I wanted to be honest with you. I’ve made up my mind. Pokhara is happening.

  So.

  So, first of all, I love you. You know that. I know that doesn’t help or make anything better or easier, but I do. I love you—completely, totally, and with all my heart. I don’t want you to wait for me. I want you to do what you need to do. Put me out of your mind. Live your life.

  I’m not doing this to hurt you or run away from you. As you’ve heard me say a zillion times—I have to do this. I realize now I will never have the courage or freedom to do this again. If I don’t do it, I’ll come to resent and hate myself, and would likely come to resent and hate you, too. I won’t let that happen, Mike.

  I wanted to put this down on actual paper, to try to explain how I came to this. What finally pushed me over the cliff these last two weeks was that terrible book on my coffee table, the one my grandmother wrote: Hearts in Nature. Yes, it’s an awful, schmaltzy thing. It’s just that . . . I don’t know. When I look at it now, I look at it differently. Something in me has changed.

  Gramma gave me that first edition of the book when I was ten. I don’t know whether or not she anticipated the unbelievable success it would become or that it would spawn a hateful industry of cards and mugs and more coffee table books and calendars. Oh my God—all those stupid, goddamn Hearts in Nature calendars everywhere. Everywhere! Tacky and gauche. Naomi actually found an old cat calendar the other day from the early twenties, the ones they say everyone used to have before all of Gramma’s Hearts in Nature shit took off. Before this there were, at the very least, ubiquitous kittens.

  Anyway, about a year before she died, back while I was still in high school, she told me that these cheesy desk-calendar things were not what she had originally intended. When she first started collecting pictures for the book, she was honestly looking for . . . something. For meaning, beauty, spirituality; for actual hearts in nature.

  She grew up extremely poor, you know? She didn’t have money to travel or leave the US. However, that didn’t stop her from doing everything she could to help people all the time; whether it was volunteering her PT services at nursing homes or teaching meditation classes. She was always giving something away. Everything, really. It made grandpa crazy, but no one could stop her.

  Did you know that she always wanted to go to Nepal? When the books first came out, she only set aside X percent for me and my family. Like less than five percent. The rest she gave to charity—even the future profits. The cheese factor only kicked in when she realized that mass producing the things would allow her to give exponentially to charity.

  However, I realized over the last two weeks that if she’d left for Nepal when she was my age, she’d never have made the books. Because she would have found herself out there.

  Why did she stay? To take care of my father? Was she too poor to go? Or did fear or complacency keep her stateside? Who knows?

  I looked through the book again with all the pictures of rocks that look like hearts; and leaves and clouds and streams and everything that just look like hearts. We used to make fun of those pictures because those hearts—the cute, valentine-y kind she was depicting—don’t actually exist in nature. And you know she had admitted that to me, that even in that first book she manipulated about twenty percent of the pictures. Moving rocks and leaves to make them more heart-y. It wasn’t till she sold the rights that the new owners just started manipulating everything digitally.

  But in that first book, Mike, there is something there: a yearning. Love. Spirituality. Hope. I couldn’t see it when I was ten or thirteen. I just saw stupid hearts, but I see it now. I think it was her way of finding herself out there. And I think hers was the biggest heart in nature of all.

  This has been upsetting for my dad, too. Ever since I told him he’s just been heartsick. I saw him sing last night, and there was so much pain in his voice. Listening to him, I couldn’t stop crying. In fact, he had the whole crowd in tears. He’s terrified of me going, you know. He’s convinced he’s never going to see me again. But deep down, I think he knows this is the right thing for me to do.

  So, I’m packed. Not bringing much. I have my ticket, my passport. I’ve already gotten some early assignments about what I’m supposed to be doing: rebuilding housing in a village, teaching kids English.

  So, I’m leaving Thursday.

  Maybe I’ll make a difference. Maybe I won’t. Maybe it’ll be a complete waste of time, but I have to try.

  I hope to be gone only a year. I honestly don’t know what will happen after that, but I’d like to see you when I come back. I don’t expect anything. Maybe just a smile and a cup of coffee. That would be plenty.

  I’d like to write to you, if you’re okay with that. After I get settled and start finding my way around, I’ll post pictures, if they let me. I’ll send you the links.

  And yes, I promise—no hearts in nature.

  Except for mine.

  I love you.

  Claire.

  The Christmas Catalog

  HOLIDAYS AT MY MOTHER’S BOOKSHOP WERE ALWAYS festive. A stunning tree stood near the front entrance with dozens of elegant, empty, gift-wrapped boxes at its base. Non-denominational lights—Christmas reds and greens along with Chanukah blues and whites—lit up her windows. Holiday tunes crackled across her broken-down cassette-driven sound system. Our family flocked there. Mom ran the place. Molly came in after school to run the cash register. Gramma waddled in in the evening, all made up in her red cape, ready to give customers various suggestions on books she’d never read. Dad came on Sundays to talk to the folks buying the New York Times. I came in to mop.

  Molly and I fought to see who would get to spray fake snow on the windows, the door, the counters, and on books.

  Unfortunately, the shop never did much business. It was bought with “seed money” Mom inherited from my grandfather. After six months, if the store couldn’t start paying for itself, my father would have to subsidize the rent and overhead and any employee costs. In three years, the shop had never made a dime.

  It was located on a quiet, non-descript side-street at the edge of town, less than a block from the railroad station. Sandwiched between Joe’s Meat Market—a shoebox of a deli with inch-thick dust on everything, including Joe—and an abandoned tchotchke store, it was dismal but quaint. To find yourself at this bookshop, you had to be either incredibly lost or a close, personal friend of my mother’s. All of her customers were both.

  Besides the location, sales were perpetually awful because of the poor selection—and sheer lack—of books. If you were looking, for example, for the complete works (or any works for that matter) of Dickens, Hemingway or Mailer, you weren’t likely to find them here. Nor were you likely to find histories of Rome, self-help books, reference
books, Isaac Asimov, or much Dr. Seuss. Of current novels and non-fiction Mom would get only a few copies as she just wasn’t inclined to maintain “popular” books and didn’t feel it necessary to pander to some “mass” audience. If you really needed that stuff, she could special order it. (Anything in print in six to eight weeks!) No, she had no interest in being just another big bookstore.

  Mom’s forte was Art Books. Big, out-of-print, sixty-dollar, coffee table Art Books. Beautifully bound, exquisitely printed, covering classic and contemporary; local shows and exhibits from around the world. Lavish, gorgeous books that no one wanted, and no one could afford. She loved them. Yes, her cooking, poetry and crossword book sections weren’t bad. And her bookmark and bookplate sections ran two aisles wide and were possibly the best in the country. But all were window dressing for her Art Books.

  And so, the shop lost money and more money and more money. Then Dad would re-invest and take a write-off. He’d urge Mom to push the more reader-friendly books, but nothing changed. In the last few months before Christmas, there was always a bit of unspoken tension in the house. Dad would come home from work moody and quiet, occasionally grumbling about how, at work, he still hadn’t gotten what he deserved. Mom told us that he had wanted to start his own business but didn’t have the finances, but he never mentioned the ongoing cost of the bookshop; never suggested it might be time to pack it in.

  This particular Christmas, however, things were going to be different, because this year Mom had decided to send out a Christmas Catalog.

  This became The Big Project. It was to be a huge holiday catalog, just like Shillito’s, but solely for us and our shop. With green mistletoe-trimmed borders and yule-log browns, it would be expensive and plush, but worth it. It would grab people—both locally and throughout the greater city—and invite them to come celebrate the holidays with us and our books. The catalog promised a lavish, well-stocked selection of popular titles. It contained a gift section, a children’s section. Mystery and science fiction, a lengthy center section gave details on location, hours, and free gift wrapping. In the back were brief, informative pages: a condensed History of The Shop (it’d been open three years, with two different owners); a Questions and Comments page; and a Calendar of Events for the winter season, including eggnog parties, a children’s reading series (for which she’d bought a new reading chair), and the big event: a real, live Author’s Book Signing with a well-known elderly feminist poet.