Living Single

by Holly Chamberlin

  “Wild. You crazy woman. What happened?”

  Abby blushed. “Well, it didn’t go very well. When he came out and saw me there, well, he and his friends kind of—laughed. It turns out he was dating some gorgeous cheerleader for our rival’s team.”

  “He was a traitor. You deserve better.”

  Abby blushed. “Besides,” she said, her voice low, “I heard later that he wasn’t circumcised. Ew!”

  “Has anyone ever seen an uncircumcised penis?” I asked. “I haven’t. Up close and personal, I mean.”

  JoAnne shuddered. “Like Elaine Bennis said, no personality.”

  “I can’t believe you’re quoting a TV character,” Maggie said. “Again. Do you ever read? You know, like, books?”

  “I’ve heard sex is better for the uncircumcised man,” Abby said.

  “Nice. It’s always about the man!”

  “It’s like Viagra being covered by insurance,” JoAnne said, “but, at least in most cases, not birth control.”

  “Someone please tell me the logic in that!”

  “There is no logic but that of the All Mighty Dick,” Maggie pronounced. “It’s a classic Dick Issue.”

  “Again, to quote Elaine: How do they walk around with those things? And yes, I do read,” JoAnne said haughtily. “You know, like, books. Medical journals. Patients’ charts. It’s just that I find sitcoms a good form of relaxation. And they’re funny. Sue me, I like to laugh.”

  “Speaking of laughter ...” I murmured and nodded to the left. A Britney Spears wanna-be and her Christina Aguilera buddy had just taken seats at the bar.

  “I think it’s sad,” Abby said with conviction. “Those girls have no self-esteem. They don’t even know who they are!”

  “And they’re at least twenty-five,” Maggie added. “Old enough to know better.”

  JoAnne made a face. “Leave them alone. Who cares? You want to date the kind of guys who’ll ask them out? Not me.”

  Abby frowned and I snuck another look at the bimbos.

  Suddenly: “Has anyone read any of the Left Behind series?” JoAnne’s question hung in the air like a bad smell. All thoughts of Britney and Christina were expelled.

  Finally, I said, “Oh, no. Please don’t tell me you’ve read that trash.”

  JoAnne shrugged. “I admit to an occasional bout of sheer morbid curiosity.”

  “But when you buy one of the books you’re helping to support those Rapture nutbags,” Maggie said, her tone uncharacteristically fierce.

  “Didn’t Debbie Harry do a rap song called ‘Rapture’ ?” That, of course, was Abby.

  JoAnne made a face. “Who said I spent any money? I read the first installment in the bookstore. It’s not exactly serious literature. Basically, the writing is juvenile. And the authors have no idea how to write a female character. None. But there is something bizarrely fascinating about people believing so literally in the fantasies of the Bible.”

  “Don’t get me started on the born-again Christians,” I said, my tone not so uncharacteristically fierce. “I barely survived the regular ones.”

  “Catholics are not the same as Christians, Erin. You know that.”

  She had me there.

  Abby’s expression became dreamy. “I bet Satan is cute. You know, all manly and dark and brooding.”

  Here was an interesting twist to the conversation. I knew I would regret it but ...

  “Okay, Abby. I’m going to ask. Why do you think Satan is a hottie? Aside from his living in eternal flames.”

  Abby didn’t seem to get the unintended pun. She rarely did. “Well, Satan is supposed to be the Anti-Christ, right? Anyway the opposite of Jesus. And paintings of Jesus always make him look so—girly. Effeminate. Like he’s a whiner.”

  Maggie hid a smile behind her bottle of Tremont Ale.

  “Er, you know paintings have nothing much to do with any historical Jesus, right?” I said. “They’re about the artist and his time.”

  Abby shrugged. “I know. Still, every time I think of Jesus I think of those pictures where he’s sad and morbid and skinny. Who’d want to go out with him? I need a man with a little more—oomph.”

  “Oomph?” Maggie repeated, no longer bothering to hide her smile. “You think the devil has oomph.”

  JoAnne gave me the eye. “Ah, yes. The appeal of the bad boy. Something we’re all supposed to outgrow.”

  “Does anyone, ever?” I challenged.

  JoAnne took me up on the challenge. “Honest opinion? No. Does everyone continue to act on those urges? Also no.”

  “I think good boys are sexy,” Abby said. “Some of them. The ones with oomph, like your father, Erin.”

  “I don’t think any boys are sexy,” Maggie said, happily. “Not anymore.”

  I was having fun with the girls.

  That night, in spite of the good time I’d had with my friends, I couldn’t sleep.

  Three o’clock saw me settled on the living room couch, staring blankly at a rerun of E!’s Mysteries and Scandals. Somebody was having an affair. There were drugs. And an angry, gun-toting wife.

  It got me to thinking. A person wouldn’t cheat on his soul mate, would he? That would be a horrible violation of trust, the absolute worst.

  How can you grade violations of trust? Reason wondered.

  What was Reason doing awake at 3 A.M.?

  Doug’s cheating on you would be worse than his cheating on Carol? Reason went on. You both love him. How are Doug’s actions any less immoral?

  Okay, I see, I shouted. It does sound stupid, but ...

  But Doug would never cheat on me, I knew that as clearly as I knew my own name. How could he? When there was an all-encompassing intimacy, one that brought joy and passionate satisfaction, there was no room or reason for anyone else.

  Reason snorted. If you say so.

  Sounding a little cynical these days, aren’t you, I retorted.

  Comes from working with you. Let me ask you this: Isn’t Doug’s sleeping with his wife while he’s having an affair with you cheating on his soul mate?

  I cringed. It wasn’t the first time I’d wondered if Doug was still having sex with Carol now that we were together.

  Oh, he’d never do that, Romance cried, suddenly awake. I’m sure the thought of sex with anyone but you, Erin, is abhorrent to him. No, I’m sure he refrains from sex with Carol. After all, she doesn’t love him in the way he needs to be loved. He told you that himself.

  Of course he has sex with Carol, Reason shot back. For several reasons. One: To keep up his cover as a loving, devoted husband. Two: He’s a man. Men want sex in a different way from women. They want it more often. They’ll say and do practically anything for it.

  That’s sexist thinking, I protested feebly.

  Why don’t you just ask him, Reason suggested reasonably. You’re an adult. You said you knew what you were getting into. You said you could handle the truth.

  I got up to go back to bed.

  I was wrong, I thought. I can’t handle the truth.

  Chapter Forty-seven

  E—miss me? went on a little excursion, will tell you later. has yr father met anyone yet? he shldn’t be alone. M. P.S.—what abt yr love life?

  It was a typical late September day—cold and rainy—so we’d gathered for a comfort food dinner at Silvertone, one of those superpopular restaurants that declares it hip to eat meatloaf and mashies.

  Abby looked all flushed and dropped her fork three times before the entrées arrived.

  “Okay, spill it,” JoAnne said. “You’re driving me nuts.”

  Abby grinned.

  “I think—oh, I can’t believe I’m saying this out loud! But I think John’s going to ask me to marry him on my birthday!”

  “Ask or marry?” JoAnne drawled.

  “What?”

  “Leave her alone,” Maggie said. “Wow, that’s big news, Abby.”

  I took a deep breath. It didn’t help. “Abby, what makes you think, uh ...”


  “I just have a feeling,” Abby gushed. “The way he looks at me sometimes over dinner ... Like he’s wondering what style of ring I might like ...”

  In my experience, guys didn’t ponder women’s jewelry styles. Unless they were architects or artists and Dad was definitely neither. Nor was he a cross-dresser. But I said nothing.

  JoAnne nodded. “Uh huh. Has he, you know, said anything specific? Has he even hinted, given you any verbal clue at all?”

  Abby frowned prettily. “Well, no, but you know how men are! I just know he wants to surprise me.”

  Another thing my father disliked—surprises. Getting them or giving them. Again, I said nothing.

  Abby babbled on for a bit and I tuned out. I thought about my meatloaf. It was good. I thought about the meeting I still had to prepare for that night. I ...

  “Erin? Aren’t you excited?”

  “Huh?” I refocused. Abby was beaming but the longer I stared at her the dimmer the beam became.

  “Are you ... okay with this?” she said, hesitantly.

  I patted her hand. “Of course, I am, Abby. I’m sorry, I just . . . I was just daydreaming. You know, about the wedding. I . . . it’s so great. I’m happy for you. I ...”

  I shut up and grinned. It hurt.

  But Abby didn’t seem to notice my discomfort. She babbled on again and I left JoAnne and Maggie to their own devices while I let my own mind wander into the abyss.

  Nice, I thought. My father gets two weddings before I even get one. And men don’t even care about the wedding part... .

  Back up, Erin, Reason said. Think carefully here. I did. And I realized that my father hadn’t mentioned anything about marrying Abby to me. Not that he had to. Could Abby be imagining the relationship was progressing so well so quickly?

  Could I be in deep denial?

  Possibly.

  Oh, Erin, Romance fluttered. It’s right out of a fairy tale!

  No fairy tale I’d ever heard of. But Romance wasn’t always concerned with the truth and/or with accuracy.

  I got through the rest of the dinner admirably, if I do say so myself. At least, I didn’t throw any punches.

  I had to talk to Abby again about this marriage thing. We met after work the next day for a quick drink at Hamersley’s.

  Abby was relaxed and happy and somewhat festive in a red sweater set from—of course—Talbots. A little doggie pin sat near her left shoulder. I wore a somber black pantsuit. Armani Exchange, but the point was my mood, not the brand.

  We ordered, a glass of Proseco for me, a Cosmopolitan for Abby. As soon as our drinks arrived, I launched.

  “Have you really thought about what marrying my—about marrying John—means?”

  Abby looked puzzled. “What it means? It means I love him. If he asks me to marry him I’ll say yes because I love him.”

  Okay. She had me there.

  “What about kids? You’ve always wanted to have kids. I don’t know for a fact but I’m pretty sure—John—doesn’t want to start another family.”

  God, I hoped he didn’t.

  “Well, Erin, I’ve thought a lot about that since John and I have been together. And ... Well, I’m willing to give up being a mother as long as I can be his wife.”

  Stepford wife, you mean.

  “That’s an awfully big sacrifice to make for a man you met only a few months ago,” I pointed out. “Why are you the one giving up your dream? Did he ask you to?”

  Abby blushed. “We haven’t actually talked about it. I mean John mentioned once that he didn’t want to start another family, so I came to my decision myself.”

  I wondered. I didn’t think my father was the sort of man who’d ever deny his wife a child. In fact, I was pretty sure he was the sort of man who wouldn’t be in a committed, long-term relationship in the first place with a woman who definitely wanted a child when he definitely did not. He was too honest. I hoped.

  What did my father and Abby actually talk about when they talked? If they talked ...

  “Abby, have you considered what it would be like marrying a man over twenty years—God, almost thirty years!—your senior? That’s huge.”

  Abby smiled with what I’m sure she thought of as a wise smile.

  “Love makes all possible, Erin.”

  After the previous few months, I had no idea if there was any truth to that adage. I let it go.

  “Abby, if you marry my father, you would be my stepmother. Have you thought about that?”

  I had. And I was stubbornly opposed to it happening. It could not happen. My best friend would not and could not become—Mom.

  How would I introduce her? “This is Abby. She sleeps with my father.” Or: “Meet Abby. She looks thirty-two but she’s really fifty-five. Really.”

  “Well, that could be ... nice,” Abby said, hesitantly.

  I knew it. This was even too much for the Romantic Princess to bear. I ordered another round of drinks.

  “I mean, at least you know me, Erin. I’m not mean or anything.”

  “Abby, we’re a cliché,” I said, leaning over and grabbing her hand. “You realize that, don’t you? We’re like, I don’t know, an episode of Love American Style 2002. We’re a sitcom. I’m embarrassed even to be alone with myself. Single thirty-two-year-old daughter of newly radical mother and fifty-eight-year-old attorney father who’s dating daughter’s gorgeous brunette friend, also thirty-two.”

  And where did that scenario leave me? I’ll tell you where. It left me alone. And embarrassed. And suddenly, very, very tired.

  Why couldn’t things stay the way they were, even if the way they were sucked? That was the Big Question I now struggled with on an almost hourly basis.

  Abby was silent. I couldn’t keep my mouth shut.

  “Why do you have to do it? I mean, why? There’s no other man out there in the entire city of Boston and its surrounding suburbs good enough for you marry so you have to marry my father? Why my father? Why not someone else’s father?”

  I didn’t really expect an answer to these questions. But I had to ask them. Self-pity compelled me.

  Abby looked stricken and very sad. I felt awful.

  “Oh, come on, I’m not mad,” I said. “And you know I’ll support you whatever happens.” I did mean that. “Just, you have to admit it’s a little—odd—our situation. I just need some time to get used to the idea of having a stepmother only a few months older than I am. Be patient with me?”

  Abby smiled weakly. “Okay. And, Erin? Can I ask your opinion on something?”

  By now I was feeling quite generous.

  “Of course you can, Abby. What is it?”

  “Do you think a marquise cut is too tacky?”

  Chapter Forty-eight

  Many of Boston’s sidewalks—particularly in the South End and Beacon Hill and by the waterfront and Faneuil Hall and the North End, etc.—are buckled brick and old cobblestone. Boston is not a high-heel friendly city. No woman with a shoe addiction should ever move here. Ankles are turned and sprained, heels are ruined, a confident stride is reduced to an on-the-toe mincing step ... All I can say is, thank God for Marshall’s, Filene’s Basement, and Discount Shoe Warehouse.

  By the time I reached Les Zygomates my left heel had a nasty nick. That, and the luncheon mob scene inside, did not improve my mood.

  Neither did Doug’s insistence that we talk about my career.

  “Where do you want to be in five years?”

  I raised an eyebrow. “Is this an interview?”

  “Maybe. I mean it, what are your career goals? What’s your plan all about?”

  I thought about that.

  “I don’t know. I just ... I just work. I see what happens, what comes along. I don’t really have a plan. But I’ve done all right so far. I mean, I make pretty good money ...”

  “Erin, be serious! You could make double your salary at Trident.”

  “How do you know my salary?”

  “Let’s just say, I know it.”

&nbs
p; This bothered me somehow. But before I had time to think it through or to respond, Doug shot another question at me.

  “What do you value as a professional?”

  That was a relatively easy question to answer.

  “I value hard work. I value people who have the work ethic. I also value work itself, especially if it brings some sense of fulfillment to the worker and I really value it if it helps other people in some meaningful way.”

  Doug quirked an eyebrow.

  “You sound like some cheesy personal happiness guru, Erin. Nice sentiments, but if you really want to get ahead ...”

  “Of whom? Why do I want to get ahead of anybody?”

  “Okay then, if you really want to succeed in the business world, you have to start valuing smart work over hard work. You have to learn to play with the big boys, like Trident, and not waste time with the little girls, like EastWind, and their symphonies and dance companies.”

  “First of all,” I said hotly, “you sound like a cretin. And second, why does the business world have to be apart from the rest of the world? What if I want to succeed in life as a whole, meaning I want to be happy and healthy and loved and I want to love back and work and ...”

  “And what?” Doug prodded.

  And have a family of my own. Have babies.

  “Nothing. That’s it,” I said uncomfortably. “Can we please just eat lunch now?”

  Doug sighed like a man long put upon, said “Fine,” and tucked in.

  My appetite was gone.

  It was just the three of us that night. Maggie was with Jan. Of course, these days she was spending more of her time with her partner and less of her time with her girlfriends. It was natural. But it was—weird. I missed her.

  “I’ve been wondering,” Abby said.

  Abby was with us because my father was burning the midnight oil on a big case.

  Always the second choice, Erin, a nasty voice inside me said. Always the fallback.

  “Do you think Maggie’s really, you know, gay?”