Gizelle's Bucket List

by Lauren Fern Watt

  Brooks, twenty-five, posing with a caged tiger? Nah, I much preferred the look-alike tiger whose snout was buried here in my lap.

  Fist-pumping Kevin with lips pressed to a bottle of Grey Goose? Probably not the type who would jump out of bed to walk Gizelle if I pushed the snooze button all morning. Plus, I’m more of a bourbon girl.

  Nick, with no face? Okay, your abs are nice, but do you have a head attached to that torso?

  Cat-kissing Matt?

  I mean . . . I love all animals . . . but I’ll always be a must-love-dogs girl.

  I swiped right on a lot of boys with dogs. They were low-hanging fruit. And when it seemed there was no hope for me, it was fun to Tinder for Gizelle, too, imagining what she might look like walking next to another profile dog in the park. Left. Left. Left. Right. Left. I swiped, laughing, poking Kimmy with my foot to show her guys I deemed especially ridiculous, snickering like a little girl at the boys who battled onscreen for attention. As I did this, Gizelle would emit a series of regular and profound sighs. She was silent on her inhales, but the exhales were deep and dramatic Chewbacca-like moans. If she could roll her eyes at me, this is how she would do it. I gave her head a soft pat, kept swiping and then . . .

  “It’s a Match!” The words danced across my screen with all the elegance of a PowerPoint animation. I tried to remember which one “Conner, 27,” was. There had been no dog screaming out from the profile, but this didn’t rule him out. I leaned in closer to my phone to explore. We had matching bungee jumping pictures, and unless he was being wildly deceptive with Photoshop, he also appeared to have hiked Machu Picchu.

  When my profile picture, the one of me and Gizelle, lined up next to Conner’s, the three of us lit up the screen. We looked cute on that screen. A couple of seconds later, he was writing me.

  “Nice dog,” he wrote. “What’s your dog’s name?”

  “Gizelle.”

  “That’s a great name.”

  And just like that, my first Tinder connection.

  We exchanged phone numbers and started texting. I sent him the photo of Gizelle on my Times Square rooftop, and he sent me a picture of a pit bull mutt named Wolverine he’d lived with in college. Wolverine was wearing a Michigan sweatshirt. This was followed by another picture of his parents’ dogs, three black-and-white fluffy papillons with underbites, also in Michigan getup. This was going so well! But then he sent one more picture of some fancy bottle of wine in a first class airport lounge. He added that he had bumped into George Clooney there. This felt a little boastful to me, but whatever. Conner had played football in college, studied for a year in Sydney, worked at a growing tech startup, and was training to be a sommelier on the side, just for fun. We decided to meet.

  * * *

  It was spring in Bryant Park. The winter ice-skating pond had been melted and stored away, the big green lawn was back to serve as a lunch table for nature-deprived businesspeople and their Chop’t salads. Pigeons bobbed their heads and bathed in the fountains, pink tulips sprouted from big cement pots, the horses on the carousel spun round and round to the sound of French cabaret.

  I showed up twelve minutes late and there he was, sitting with his ankle crossed over his knee beyond a group of black-suited finance types crowded around the bar of the Bryant Park Grill patio. He sat under a big green umbrella shaded under an even bigger umbrella of trees, BlackBerry in hand, waiting for me.

  I felt as though the park pigeons had relocated to my stomach. I walked toward him, keeping my head down, praying he would recognize me so that I didn’t have to be entirely responsible for the approach. I glanced at my phone, hoping I’d seem in demand and busy when in truth I could count on the fingers of one hand the people who might be texting me.

  I felt Conner looking at me and my cheeks began to burn. I forced myself to lift my head and our eyes met. He smiled, stood. No going back now. I slid my phone into my jacket and did a half wave of recognition as he got up and we slowly approached each other. He was taller than I’d imagined, wearing a light-blue button-down shirt that showed off a broad chest. For a moment I wondered if I had checked my hair after a cuddle with Gizelle before I’d left Rio. I ran my hands through my blond tangles and pushed the pony to one shoulder while leaving the opposite one exposed in what I hoped was an enticing way. Remember, Lauren. You are cool. Just be yourself. Oh, but lower your voice. Yes, think Johansson sultry. You are Scarlett.

  “Hey!” I croaked, going in for a nonchalant one-arm hug. Shit. Too high, Lauren, too high. Lower your voice, lower it. “So nice to finally meet you!” I yelled out. No! Overly enthusiastic. Scarlett would never say it that way. Later Conner would tell me that he was surprised my voice was, well, what it is. Though I think he used the word “startled.”

  Conner was cuter than I’d anticipated. He had the broad shoulders of the linebacker he’d been, big football player hands to match, a short brown Chandler Bing cut, and straight-cut slacks. (I was head-to-toe Gap, hoping it somehow looked like Rag & Bone.)

  We organized ourselves at the table and ordered two gin and tonics. Conner leaned back in his chair and I crossed my legs, putting one knee over the other, posing my hands in my lap. “Nice to do this. Work’s been nuts,” Conner said, as a short silence followed that I filled by smiling and nodding encouragingly. Then I quickly issued a disclaimer, saying how this was my first Tinder meetup and that I never did things like this but was new to the city. Although, I apparently was the type of person who did this; here I was doing it. For some reason the image of Gizelle finally giving in on her walk with Kimmy came to mind. She’d always seen herself as someone who pooped on grass, but in an instant she’d grown desperate and turned into the kind of dog who went on pavement.

  The drinks sparkled in the sun. Conner listened to me ramble about the two G’s in my life—Gizelle and the Gap. I did notice he said yeah a lot, quickly, even before I finished my sentences. Maybe he knew what I was going to say next and already agreed? Maybe he was nervous on this first date and didn’t know what to say? Then he took his turn and talked about the class he was taking in oenology, the study of wine, and how he spent the weekends going to Chelsea Market, collecting spices he would then divide into jars and spend a great deal of time sniffing, which would improve his blind-testing ability. He even made flashcards to quiz himself. “It’s fun,” he told me. I looked at him, nodding my head oh, tell me more, but wondering if “fun” was the right word to use when discussing sticking your nose in a cup to smell oregano.

  We sipped the sparkles from our glasses, and just as I could feel myself drifting off, staring at the tulips in the park that were peculiarly shaped as stemware, Conner mentioned that he missed camping and hiking and was about to go to India for his friend’s wedding. I’d been to India once and loved it so much, and I missed camping and hiking, too! I still wasn’t sure about him, but I was willing to learn more. And just as I was mustering up the words, You want to order another round? Conner looked at his watch. “I actually gotta run. I have a client dinner.”

  Even though I wasn’t wearing a watch myself, I knew our date hadn’t lasted more than forty minutes. Was it me? I thought, embarrassed that I even cared.

  “Oh, that’s fine,” I said, trying to brush it off. “I need to go walk Gizelle, anyway.”

  And he left, another one-arm hug good-bye, and I was left standing on the corner of Forty-Third and Fifth Avenue, confused.

  I called Kimmy to let her know I was still alive, and she suggested a girls’ Shake Shack night on the back patio of Rio. Gizelle and I climbed on Swamp Thang. Kimmy held forth in the chair across from us. “This guy sounds like a douche,” Kimmy assured with her mouth totally full as she smeared a crinkle-cut fry into one of the dozens of ketchup containers. Sure, Conner had left fast, he seemed to take himself pretty seriously (judging from his hair gelled to his head and all of those flashcards), and I wasn’t entirely sure he’d smiled or laughed once the whole forty minutes we were talking, but didn’t “douche” seem
harsh? Wasn’t that the typical best-girlfriend response? If a guy doesn’t like your friend, just call him a douche. He has to be a douche . . . But what if he wasn’t a douche?

  I handed Gizelle a fry, then leaned my head on her shoulder. As we sat on the back patio of Rio, which actually backed into a fluorescent-lit parking garage, I gazed down at the couch named Swamp Thang that had been snowed on all winter and now felt crunchy on my ass, and down at the week-old bottle of Charles Shaw I was drinking. I wasn’t sure I’d end up dating Conner, the sports-obsessed wine guy, but I really wanted to meet new people. I wanted to try new things. I was curious. I was attracted to him. I wanted to see him again.

  * * *

  A few days later, Conner asked if I wanted to walk Gizelle and grab a bite to eat after work. I was always up for anything that involved food and Gizelle—Gizelle felt likewise. He arrived at Rio looking stylish in a slacks and sport-coat combo, but a little out of place in our apartment’s kitchen/living room filled with the eclectic mix of Ikea markdowns, sidewalk salvage furniture, and the Gizelle toys scattered about like a day care (the toys she never seemed to play with much). Gizelle introduced herself, as she did with most boys, first with a short, quiet bark, then once I said he was okay, she’d slowly approach with her neck out, gradually letting her tail out from between her legs. Conner did the whole “That’s a big dog” routine, followed by a formal “It’s nice to finally meet you, Gizelle.” Then I ran around, Gizelle in tow, trying to locate keys-wallet-phone-combo while he thumbed at his BlackBerry and his iPhone went bing! in his slacks. We finally got to the door. “Ready?” I smiled, looping Gizelle’s leash around my four fingers and propping the door open with my hip as she led us onto the street.

  Gizelle walked calmly, casually shifting her weight from side to side, tail untucked, and I was thankful there weren’t any scary buses within a close enough distance for her to crouch and run away from us on our first date.

  As we strolled up Ninth Avenue, Conner suggested I pick the place because it was my neighborhood. This was bad news for me because Kimmy and I only ate dollar pizza and Trader Joe’s, and sometimes, if we were really living large, Maoz Vegetarian, a do-it yourself falafel chain that Kimmy and I loved because you could get unlimited toppings and condiments. We also enjoyed going to Pinkberry, not to buy anything, of course, just to ask for samples and then step out fast like something important had come up. I wasn’t about to suggest those dining experiences to Conner. So we kept walking up Ninth and I waited for the first decent-looking patio I could find, “This place.” I pointed confidently, with no idea what this place was.

  As Conner and I sipped extra-sour margaritas, Gizelle slurped water from an aluminum to-go pan. She made great first-date company, as any awkward silence could be quickly covered by turning the conversation over to her: “Gizelle, you okay? How’s your drink, girl? More chips?” And then we could thoughtfully admire her stripes shining in the last bit of daylight or talk about the interesting comments about the mastiff from passersby, which helped to ease first-date tensions. On this evening, Gizelle seemed to be drinking with more than her usual gusto, slurping extra loudly, lapping water all over the place right in front of Conner. (Was she even trying to get any water in her mouth?) I knew what she was doing, of course. She was obviously just making a big watery-slobbery mess to see what this new guy would say, to see if he could earn the mastiff stamp of approval. “She’s really goin’ at it, huh?” Conner observed, a half smile playing on his lips.

  “Yeah, she had a really tough day at the office.” I joked, a little pathetically.

  As we walked home, Conner took my hand. It was nice to be hanging out with a guy. He seemed confident, intelligent, and he was good-looking. But did I laugh on this date? Did I feel any butterflies?

  Every few steps, Gizelle would look back at me, perhaps making sure I was okay with this grown-up man holding my hand. I watched Gizelle, too, making sure she was still okay with Manhattan foot traffic. With Gizelle, it was never quite clear who was watching whom. We watched each other, making sure we were okay with what life sent our way. And strolling down Ninth Avenue, past Greek and Italian restaurants, Irish pubs, and sushi bars after a dinner that didn’t involve pillaging condiments and yogurt samples, life had sent us a grown-up I would eventually call my boyfriend.

  * * *

  First you’re sitting four feet apart at a table in Bryant Park trying to sound interested in tannins and Tempranillo. Next you’re bringing the dog camping in a lean-to at a lake, trying to forget that he told you s’mores were impractical and rolled his eyes when you asked him if he wanted to climb on top of the lean-to to look at the stars. So you look up at the sky by yourself, and swear this relationship doesn’t feel quite right. But then when you get back to the city, he invites you to dinner at a restaurant so small it looks as if the whole place is eating together at one table. You eat beautiful food and sip delicious wine and have nice conversation, and even though you don’t love the way he tends to review the restaurant like a critic and uses a multitude of adjectives when ordering wine, often calling the sommelier over to the table to ask him questions for which he seems to already know the answer, he still makes sure they boxed up leftovers for the dog. And when you leave, it’s nice to have someone to walk home with. It’s nice to have someone to slip into bed with. And in the morning you like the way he asks you to shower with him and you just stand there with each other, passing each other the shampoo with soap running down your noses, and it feels comfortable and normal, like you’ve been taking showers together forever. And deep down you believe he is a good person, and you like company and attention and having a guy around, so you keep seeing him.

  Before long I was a regular at Conner’s East Village apartment, thankful I had Kimmy to walk our fur daughter in the morning and noting that young single people should not have dogs unless they have nice roommates who also want dogs. Kimmy and I started hanging out less and less (never any drama, obviously; it was Kimmy, the easiest-going girl in the world). But her wild streak did not always mesh with Conner’s more conservative nature. “Are you sure you like him, Fernie?” she’d always ask. “I see you with someone else.” I’d tell her I didn’t know, that this wasn’t even a serious relationship. I was just having fun.

  “He’s fun?” she’d question. Soon she began going out with new friends of her own, and I liked that my new adult lifestyle didn’t include downing water bottles filled with Smirnoff at electronic music festivals, not that there was ever much wrong with that. I just had my own set of issues with always trying to feel productive and grown up.

  Conner was definitely a grown-up. He had a wine collection that was organized by region, varietal, and vineyard on a shelf designated for wine. His wine tools looked like instruments for surgery. He owned a rotating tie rack and two laundry hampers (one for lights and one for darks), and his closet contained clothes, on hangers, that he could actually find when he was looking for them. Everything on his wall was framed professionally: his college degree nailed into a corner, a painting of Prague, a big blue-and-yellow Michigan flag above his door. (Kimmy and I had a Zac Efron cardboard cutout in our window.) Conner was practical and organized. I lived in Times Square with a dog the size of a Mini Cooper. Perhaps practical would be good for me?

  Conner did genuinely love my Mini Cooper. He was always talking to her, telling her how beautiful and silly she was, calling us “his ladies.” He even paid to cab us places! Who cared if he didn’t share my sense of humor and I found myself a bit quieter and more reserved in his presence? He brought Gizelle steak leftovers from Peter Luger! He taught me the mathematical strategy behind winning a game of Connect Four. I could call him for advice on how to deal with my boss and he’d send me an email right away with bullet points of advice. He seemed to know how to do everything, which was a relief, because I always felt like I was guessing.

  I hadn’t hung out in the East Village before Conner, but I liked it. It felt like a neighborhood
. The people in the East Village looked like they actually lived in the East Village. There were not flocks of tourists in matching T-shirts following a leader holding up a flag on a ski pole, as there were around my place. There weren’t sixteen Spidermen on every corner. Conner and I started Citi Biking together, then one weekend he left to go out of town for work and told me I should bike down to Avenue A and Ninth Street to check out the Tompkins Square Dog Run for Gizelle. “She would really love the dog run,” he assured me. I biked downtown, over to Tenth Street between Avenues A and B, and when I saw the dogs running through the gravel park, splashing in a bone-shaped dog pool paradise under the towering trees, I knew Conner was right. Gizelle would love this dog run.

  So I ignored the little voice inside that was terrified of commitment, always telling me to bolt. I ignored the voice that kept telling me to leave because I didn’t totally feel like myself when I was around him. I thought maybe if I hung around Conner long enough, I would feel like myself. And since I knew he adored Gizelle, I decided to believe he adored me as well and chose to ignore the fact that he never could find a way to say it to me.

  8

  The Dog Park

  Tompkins Square Halloween Dog Parade

  Soon it was my first official summer in NYC. As my relationship with Conner developed, I could feel myself outgrowing life in my Times Square apartment. The bustle and the chaos seemed louder. The streets got stuffier. It was too hot for Gizelle to walk far, so I was confined to midtown with her. Somedays I wondered if the taxis installed amplifiers on their horns, or if the lights of Times Square were broiling me like some sort of insidious tanning bed. Gizelle was shooed away from shady restaurant patios, outed from the Duane Reade freezer section where I tried to cool off, and turned away from taxis. My siblings were living the dream in California, seeming to excel at everything artistically and always texting photos from the beach. I was working a dead-end closet job, neighbors with the Times Scare zombies, drinking way too much at The Governor’s Ball with Kimmy, and once a week Gizelle and I got asked out by a guy dressed as Cookie Monster.