Looking for Mr. Goodfrog

by Laurie Graff

  “Right, what’s a little sex between buds,” I said, pulling back my hand, going past him into the kitchen and opening the fridge to find one cold KISZ beer on the top shelf. Have your first kiss on us, said the ads. Figuring the one with Dirk had just been my last, I took the beer out of the refrigerator holding it between my legs while I pulled open the drawer to find a bottle opener.

  Dirk flew into the kitchen. He pulled the beer out from between my legs, twisted it open, took a swig and set it on the kitchen table before turning around and pinning me up against the wall.

  The last time I remember being pinned up like that was in fifth grade. Lee Loran held my arms against the chain-link fence in the school yard and wouldn’t let me go until I told him exactly how many movies I had seen in my life. Local theaters only, I was not allowed to include TV. Lee Loran. What in the world ever happened to Lee Loran? Lee Loran, Dirk Benson. One little boy and now one big one.

  “Karrie,” said, Dirk, keeping my arms pinned against the wall while he looked into my eyes, his body towering close and above. “I’m going to ask you something now, and I want you to be honest, okay?”

  “Okay.”

  “What do you need now?”

  “For you to let go so I can get a sip of the beer. I’m thirsty.”

  “Karrie. If you could have sex now, nice, good, friendly sex with someone you like that would make you feel great, no feigned romance, just a nice satisfying time that would make your day better and give you a little glow for auditions, why would that be so bad?”

  “And if it’s so nice, Dirk, so friendly and so satisfying, why is it just for now? Why can’t it also be for later? For tomorrow. Please, I don’t want to make you think ahead or anything, but God, what about next week?”

  Dirk and I had each other pinned. We had each other up against the wall.

  “Because you and I are buddies.”

  It made me wince. He was right. We were. Buddies with attraction. What in that moment made me think it could be different? Then again, why not? Weren’t those the main ingredients for a relationship? What was the spice that made it more?

  “Come on, you know I don’t want a life like that. You know I don’t want to be accountable to say I’m bringing the coleslaw on Thursday when I could be on a plane to Madrid to shoot a spot that day.”

  “You’re on hold for a commercial that shoots in Spain?” I asked, accountability looking like a number-one answer.

  “You don’t want me. You don’t want an undependable actor who’s married to his dream. You want a more dependable guy. A nice, reliable Jewish guy.”

  “But you’re nice and aren’t you Jewish? You are, aren’t you, Dirk?”

  “Half,” he said, reminding me again he was raised as a military brat and his only real foray into Judaism was his Bar Mitzvah in Ethiopia. “Listen. You know what you need,” he said, using his voice and his fingertips to stroke me.

  The soft touch up and down the inside of my arm was increasingly persuasive.

  “Ohh,” I moaned.

  “So many women are uptight because they won’t take some pleasure for themselves. Come on.”

  Dirk threw in a few soft kisses. I think he had a point.

  If I waited until I was sure, and I waited until I met a man I could be sure of, I could live out the rest of my life waiting.

  “Ohhh...”

  And it felt so good.

  “Ohhhh!”

  After all...I had my head on straight about Dirk. I really did, I thought, as, “Ohhhhh!” he started on the other arm.

  “And the beauty of it,” Dirk spoke between kisses, “is that I can still be calling you for the next twenty years.”

  Ohhhhhh?

  My stomach tightened at the thought of living through this dating pattern for another twenty years. In the state I was in now, I wasn’t sure I was even going to make it through the next twenty minutes. I exhaled, deeply, staring up to the heavens.

  “You look great, right now,” said Dirk, excited by something he saw in me. “Wow.”

  “Distress agrees with me?”

  “Don’t move. Just look up. Look right there,” said Dirk, pointing to a spot.

  The actress in me, used to taking direction, looked up, and the woman in me, grateful for a man taking any initiative, did the same.

  We stood, silent, breathing in and breathing out. Dirk let go of my arms, instead pushing my shoulders gently against the wall, and quietly kissing my elongated neck before leading me to sit on his lap at the kitchen table.

  “Now, listen up. I’m going to exit. And when I come back into the kitchen, you hand me the beer, and say, ‘Hi, honey, home from a hard day?’”

  “What? Are you kidding me? Suddenly we’re in an improvisation class? I didn’t sign up and I don’t want to play.”

  “Indulge me,” he said, sitting up quickly, causing me to stand as he exited the set he just built. “Okay...” called Dirk from the hallway. “Action!”

  He sauntered into the kitchen, pulled up a chair and mopped his brow while I, please do me the great courtesy of not asking why, handed him the beer and said, “Hi, honey, home from a hard day?”

  Dirk grabbed me by the waist. He pulled me onto his lap with one hand and took a swig of beer with the other with the intensity of an actor living his life at a kitchen table in an Arthur Miller play. Like a good actor, Dirk’s motivation was clear. The sudden intensity made me feel important. I felt his passion, and while I knew it was not really for me, I could still feel my body respond. Great acting is often referred to as “moment to moment.” Dirk was in love with all of them.

  “Cut!”

  “What?” asked Dirk, surprised I stood without a cue. “I was just getting into it.”

  “And now I’m getting out of it. This has been great day, Dirk, my bud, my pal, but it’s over.”

  “Oh, come on, Karrie,” he said, walking towards me. “I could feel the heat between us all day. I know you did, too. Wouldn’t it be fun to do it like an acting scene? Think of it as research in case you ever have to play a character in this position.”

  He was acting like such a jerk, but he was so darned cute. Part of me just wanted to let go and feel good. I knew if I could, I would. But truthfully, I wasn’t in good enough shape to do that. I knew the only thing I’d wind up feeling was bad.

  “I can’t be with you now, Dirk.”

  “Why? You could still be open to a real connection with someone else and you won’t even feel needy because I can take care of that.”

  “I can promise you that you can’t. It’s the moment, Dirk, and then you’re disengaged. And that won’t take care of my other needs. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with living for the moment, except that it’s wrong for me in this one. Get it?”

  “Got it,” he said, moving up and moving on. Dirk walked out of the kitchen and I followed him to the door. “Okay,” he said. “I have an audition tomorrow, anyway. I should go.”

  We stood there and looked at each other, each feeling bad for our part of the mess. We were friends, we had had a fun day and now we had each gone too far. I didn’t want it to end like this.

  “What’s your audition?” I asked, knowing it would get him to talk.

  “A play. Off-Broadway,” he said, crossing his arms in front of him. To show me we were off-limits. We weren’t going to touch.

  “Reading from the script?” I asked, shoving my hands into the pockets of my jeans. Two can play this game, I thought, feeling adolescent.

  “Monologue.”

  “Which one?”

  We both laughed out loud when he told me, knowing the play was a struggle between a woman and a drifter involved in an on-again, off-again relationship for fifteen years.

  “I bet you’re great,” I said, picturing him. “Great character for you, Dirk.”

  “I love the piece. Gets me a callback every time.” He paused. “Hey—you want to see it?” he asked, suddenly turning from the door, walking back to the liv
ing room, and moving a chair to set up this set. “You can give me notes if you want, but the first time I do it just let it wash over you, okay? Let it just be the first time, as part of the process, and then we’ll work on it. And when we’re done I’ll take you for tacos, okay?”

  “You got it,” I said, pulling up a front row seat on my couch.

  And so did I. I was ready, but Dirk was not. If only Dirk had the same passion for the process of love as he did for the process of acting. I sipped the beer and watched. I watched Dirk act, while watching him work in the process he loved. I witnessed Dirk doing what he loved, as I witnessed Dirk when Dirk was in love.

  Six

  All your old frogs should be quarantined anytime there’s an arrival of a new one to be sure it will not contaminate any healthy frogs in your collection.

  “I love the pheromones that are released when you dance,” Anne told me as we approached the pier.

  Pier 25’s Sunday Night Moondance was a definite summertime perk in Manhattan. The August night was steamy, and it felt like we had run off to a paradise on some other island. We walked past people eating and drinking around small candlelit tables, as we made our way down to the dock that held the dance, floating on the Hudson. The breeze blew off the water, and the beat of the music swung through the air. If you wanted, you could dance the night away.

  Anne was a terrific dancer. A professional, she’d gone back to school for a CSW in her thirties, making certain she’d have an age-friendly career waiting for her in her forties. We met a few years ago at a swing dance on a night when a man shortage forced the women to partner with each other. When it came to swing, Anne taught me everything I know. She taught me well, making sure I learned the importance of the basic step and a good outfit. If something about your outfit said swing, you probably would.

  Dressed in a navy-and-white sailor skirt, a matching headband pushing back her auburn curls, Anne looked ready for some fancy footwork. And it was only moments until a serious dancer—you can always tell by the shoes—scooped her into his arms and led her off to dance. I watched her petite body whirl. She looked like she was flying, and I knew how badly she wanted to cut loose.

  On the subway ride down, Anne and I were seated next to two sixtysomethings who, we couldn’t help but overhear, had just dipped their toes into the icy waters of online dating. Okay, so we were eavesdropping. But we couldn’t help it.

  “So when he came back after his call waiting I think he just wanted to get off.” The voice was loud and screamed New Yawk! “But I wanted to finish the call. And he didn’t even remember me he said so many women are writing him. Believe me, his profile wasn’t so hot and neither was his picture. But after all that we decided to meet. So I said to him, how am I going to know you? What will you be wearing? And he says jeans and dirty white sneakers. So I said you have to meet someone the first time wearing jeans and dirty white sneakers? That’s the impression you want to make? That’s what you want to wear? So then he says maybe he won’t wear the dirty white sneakers, maybe he’ll wear black leather shoes, but he’s definitely wearing a hat. He says how would you like if I wore a red hat?”

  “Save me from this fate,” Anne murmured, under her breath, her self-expressive body shivering as if it had just been chilled.

  I wanted to go on the date. I wanted to sit at the table across from them on their date. Wearing a trench coat and hiding behind a newspaper, watching her talk to the guy wearing jeans and dirty white sneakers, a maybe on the shoes but a definite on the hat.

  “So I told him just to wear the black leather shoes and not to wear the dirty sneakers and to definitely not wear the hat, and then he tells me that he’s going to wear Ray-Bans. I said to him what are you going to wear those for? It’s going to rain. Why are you wearing sunglasses in a hurricane? And to top it all off he’s from up in God’s country. Poughkeepsie. And I thought what am I doing this for? How in the world could a guy like this enhance my life?”

  “He sounds crazy,” I said, poking Anne.

  “But she sounds a little insane, no?” she replied, poking me back.

  “Online dating,” I snickered.

  “I met Carl online,” Anne reminded me. “And we went out for ten months before he heard his religious calling,” she told me even though she made me promise not to let her talk about him.

  Sometimes talking was the only thing that helped heal. But sometimes it made it worse. It all depended on who you talked to. Anne listened to people’s problems all day. But when it came to her, she didn’t always want to talk. Tonight Anne preferred to dance it out, releasing it through her pores.

  I, on the other hand, was another story.

  Considering I hadn’t even had a date for the past six months, I had quite a lot to say. My saga finally came to an end with the recent non-date day with Dirk. And I had been feeling sad since. It wasn’t about Dirk, but what he had stirred up. I realized my yearnings had been lying dormant because there was no one to open them. I used to meet men all the time. Okay, maybe I’d been kissing frogs, but at least I’d been kissing. I wasn’t meeting anyone anymore. Use it or lose it. And the pond was dry.

  “You really need to give online dating some serious thought,” Anne repeated, moments before she danced away. She had told me she was back online looking and urged me to do the same.

  I had given it some thought, but it was hard to give it serious thought. To me, online dating was the antithesis of romance. Romance was spontaneous and this was the complete opposite. Despite the myriad of press promoting the merits of online dating, I did not feel that trying to meet someone for a romantic relationship should be hard work, a numbers game, or approached in the same way you went about looking for a job. But maybe that was only because I was an actress, and I never really had one.

  “Shall we?” asked an older Chinese man who appeared out of nowhere.

  “Would love it,” I said. He escorted me onto the wooden dance floor as he placed one hand on my waist, taking my right hand in his other.

  I got hooked on swing from that first snowy night at the Y. The ballroom felt transformed into another era with a live band playing forties music, people wearing period clothing, and cookies and punch served on the side. The storm added another layer to the charm, making me feel like we were at a USO dance during the war. Weather conditions were detaining some troops, but when the men did finally arrive, the gaiety of the crowd and the music filled the warm ballroom on the cold winter night.

  The element, however, that made it so lovely was the ritual to the dance. A ritual mutually respected and mutually understood. It was clear that the men did the asking and the men would lead. And when the dance was over, the men thanked you before moving on. The dance between men and women clear.

  “A five, six, seven, eight!”

  The Chinese man and I bobbed up and down in time to the music. He was a strong leader who danced more by rote than inspiration. When I danced it was pure instinct, and I was only as good as my partner. We clapped when it ended, and he kissed my right hand before he walked away.

  Next was a swarthy Hispanic guy with highly developed muscles who spun me in circles before dipping me back for a big finish. There was a wiry, bland young man whose hand in mine felt like I was holding a dead fish. And a heavyset control freak that held me way too tight, continuously calling every move into my ear as he chanted, “Basic step, basic step, turn, turn, step, step.”

  I got away the moment I could, moving as fast as my feet would carry me, and colliding into a spry fellow with a very full head of wavy black hair.

  “Dance?” he asked, taking my right hand and leading me to a spot in the center of the floor.

  With the wave of the musical wand it began. From the very first step I entered a new world with this stranger, my body giving itself over and moving in ways I did not know I could be led or even know I could follow. He was a strong, passionate leader with turns and timing to beat the band. Our feet jittered and bugged and our bodies swung. His
was pressed close to mine and our arms, entwined, moved over and down like two figure eights clandestinely meeting in the dark. The river splashed against the dock, and the music flooded the space as the blood rushed up inside me. Alive. Then in one clean motion he pulled me up from the dip. It was over.

  “Thanks,” was all I managed to say.

  Could that word convey the thrill and sensations? I spontaneously stood on my toes and gave him a kiss.

  “You’re welcome.” He made sure to smile to thank me, before turning on his heels and quickly walking away.

  I felt like I’d been punched in the stomach. Unable to move, I stood still until a guy who looked like Hollywood’s idea of big bad blind date came up beside me.

  “You’re one good dancer,” he said, salivating, having watched me move in that way I never had before. “Want to dance?”

  Yes. The box of desire had been ripped wide open. I wanted to dance. God, I wanted to dance, but not with him.

  “I’m wiped out, but thanks,” I said, running away, running behind the dance floor and behind the stage to the quiet that lay at the end of the dock.

  A sofa, an actual worn-out couch, was sitting near the edge and I plunked down, a few feet from the water, staring out at the small waves, reliving the dance, reliving the touch. I stayed like that until I heard the ringing from inside my pocket. I always wore the purple flair skirt with the zipper pockets so I didn’t have to carry a bag and had a safe place for my money, my cell, my MetroCard and my keys.

  “Hello?”

  “Where are you? You’re not home,” Fred accused.

  From the ambient noise I could hear that neither was he. He was outside where someplace, nearby, someone was having a fire.

  “Move to the side and let the red truck go by,” I instructed.

  “I’m not driving, Karrie, and I’m not in a cab.” By the time he finished the sentence the noise had subsided and the truck had sped far away. “Where are you?”