by Laurie Graff
Ivan was past thirty, he had past forty; he may have even shot past fifty. Fifty! What happened when a frog was still bringing his own muffin to the pond at fifty? Was there anything good swimming anywhere I’d want to catch? Where was a pond I could fish in?
I was never so happy to see Charlie when fifteen minutes later I was back in the safety of my little abode. I let him lick my face before turning on the computer, seeing there were no messages on my machine. My heart did an involuntary flip-flop when I saw my mail from the J-Spot. I took a breath. What was he up to? What did Edward want now?
To: [email protected]
From: [email protected]
Subject: CONGRATULATIONS: You Hit The Right Spot!
Dear BlueEyes,
I confess to be in the habit of checking to see who has spotted me when I log on to the J-Spot. To my tremendous interest, I have noticed for the last few weeks that you, BlueEyes, have spotted me not just daily, but several times a day.
Are you sending me smoke signals? I can only surmise that you are obsessed with me.
While it is flattering, do know that the J-Spot has options for you to hide your profile if you don’t want me to be aware of your activity. However, I think you do, so please feel free to call!
Beyond
* * *
I looked for a gun so I could shoot myself.
He was so arrogant. So insensitive. Hurtful and mean. But it was even worse than that. It was unemotional. This was funny to him. It wasn’t important. It was only sport, our time together nothing more than recreational. I felt humiliated.
“Look how he treats us, Charlie,” I cried, including Charlie in my saga because it made me feel less alone. “Why did he do that to us?”
Poor me. Poor Charlie! He started whimpering and now he was sad. At least he’d never wind up on an analyst’s couch complaining I projected my negative dating experiences on him. Hugging my sweet innocent dog only made me cry harder, my sobs almost drowning out the ringing of the phone.
“Hello?” I wiped my nose of the sniffles, picking up when it hit the fourth ring.
“Is this BlueEyes?” asked a squeaky voice.
“What?”
“This is MatchMan, from the J-Spot. I wrote to you a few days ago and asked if I could call and you e-mailed me your number. I was out of town, but now I’m back. Is this a good time?”
No. This was not a good time. When it came to thecJ-Spot there seemed to never be a good time. But I tried to compose myself in case this might be it.
“Yes,” I said. “It’s fine. I’m Karrie. I remember your e-mail. I really liked your profile. You’re the shrink, right?”
“Yes. And you’re the actress. I’m Bob. I was very drawn to your profile. So how are you today?”
“Good. How are you? How was your day?” I asked, trying to bring the talk to something easy and immediate.
“Fine. My day was fine and I’m fine, thanks. So, BlueEyes...Karrie. Before we begin our talk, I’d first like to know how you feel about your online dating experience.”
“Are you doing a survey?”
“I’d just like to know your feelings about it so I can gauge myself against that,” said Dr. Bob, the shrink, already shrinking his experience of me into information he could analyze that would stop him from having a genuine experience.
“Well, frankly...” I wondered just how frank frankly should be. “Well, Bob, I don’t think online dating and I have been a great match, and I know that’s what we have in common so far, but maybe we can find something else.”
“Like what?”
“Like...I don’t know, anything... What did you have, tonight, for dinner?”
There. Maybe we could banter, chat about something light, innocuous. Yes, a light chat. Fun.
“I don’t think that will take me in the direction I need to go. Why won’t you discuss your feelings about online dating with me?” insisted Dr. Bob.
“Because they’re negative and they’re about other people, and you and I are brand-new.” I wanted the statistics and information from all of the men to disappear into cyberspace. “My other online experiences have nothing to do with us.”
“I believe every relationship is important. Tell me about your prior relationships. How many long-term relationships have you been in, how long did they last, and how did they end?”
I was silent.
“Why don’t you like online dating, Karrie?”
I was silent.
“Please explain to me why you don’t like it. I really feel we need to cover that question before we move on to your long-term relationships. Just tell me what’s wrong with it. I need to know how you feel.”
“So I had mashed potatoes with the skins, I made them myself, and I broiled a lamb chop. And you?”
I stroked Charlie’s belly, relaxing for just a second, catching my breath and gaining my strength before I’d say goodbye and get off the phone.
He thought this would bring about a romantic connection? Could anything feel more disconnected? Could anything be less romantic, less fun? Had people come to believe they had a program running inside them that would elicit love if they successfully installed the software? Had they lost their humanity to such an extent, they thought they were interacting when they hid behind a formulaic checklist hidden behind technology?
“So since you won’t answer me I assume you’ve had no long-term relationships, and your profile said you’ve never been married. Is that true?”
I was silent.
“Have you ever been engaged? Karrie? Have you?”
“No.”
Dr. Bob was quiet. I sat on the phone line listening to the quiet between Dr. Bob and me. Dr. Bob. Divorced, one child who lived with him, sometimes. Dr. Bob. Looking for a friend, a date, a long-term relationship, marriage and children. Dr. Bob, quiet. Dr. Bob, incensed.
“I feel I have excellent perception into these profiles and I was going to make an exception in your case. Karrie. But I cannot date someone who has no idea how to be in a long-term relationship,” said the socially skill-less, deluded Dr. Bob.
“Okay, but before we go, do let me tell you that you have really helped me here tonight, Bob,” I said, hearing his attention shift into gear, while I sat up on the couch ready to go in for the kill. “I had gone back on the J-Spot to be sure, and after this call with you I can safely take myself off knowing I will not be missing a goddamn thing. I thought part of being a shrink was the ability to listen. I told you there was no productive purpose in discussing past negative online experiences, but you continued to press. You don’t know how to listen, do you, Bob? Is that why you’re divorced? I have learned a lot from my time on the J-Spot. And I have learned that one’s ability to have a bad marriage is not a bigger success story than a person who has not yet found someone with whom to take that plunge. Thanks for the insights. Goodbye, Bob. Oh. Don’t call me.”
I walked over to the computer and clicked on member services to deactivate my profile and take it away. I didn’t know what tomorrow would bring, but at least I knew what it wouldn’t.
Fourteen
Having red eyes and orange feet, the Red-Eyed Tree Frog becomes stressed quite easily, and should not be handled unless absolutely necessary.
“So if I’m a shiksa,” said Anne, “what’s a guy who’s not Jewish?” she asked, nodding her head in the direction of Fred.
They had come with me to the Purim party at my synagogue. Though it had been at least a month ago, I had not seen Anne and was catching her up on the tale of the Muffin Man. Everyone was in good cheer as the holiday was festive. God knew I needed that!
Purim was a kind of Halloween as people often came in costume. When Rachel Smith and I were ten we went to the Purim carnival dressed as ballet dancers. We dunked for apples and ate cotton candy, parading through the festival in pink tutus and hot pink tongues! On a more serious note, the holiday celebrated the time when the Jewish people living in Persia were saved from extermination. If it
wasn’t one thing it was another.
“Shagetz,” I said, looking at Fred.
“Ooooh, so what do you think of my costume?” he asked, doing a twirl in the center of the floor. Fred was dressed in his usual jeans and sweater having added only a black half-mask.
“What are you?” I asked.
“I’m a shagetz. So in case I meet some cute Jewish guy here tonight who wants to know what I am, I can tell him I’m supposed to be a shagetz and it won’t be a lie. Besides, I’ll go anywhere for free food.”
Fred agreed to come when I told him there’d be wine and hamentaschen, the signature triangular cookies filled with preserves.
Anne and I were dressed as swing dancers. We were both wearing short flared skirts with sweaters, socks and sneakers. It was one of those noncostume costumes where it looked like you’d made a real attempt, but you didn’t have to feel unreal masquerading about, in the event it turned out you weren’t really in the mood.
“I always wanted to be Jewish,” said Fred, while we stood to the side munching the cookies.
“Well, you’ve come to the right spot,” I told him.
Looking around there was a smattering of people from other races, cultures and backgrounds.
“How come it’s so multi-ethnic at this synagogue?” asked Anne. Her eyes darted around in what I assumed to be a lookout for Carl, but if he was still in his Chaim phase he was too religious to ever come here. “Did everyone bring friends tonight?”
“Could be,” I said.
I observed a pretty Asian girl filling her glass with punch and felt fortunate to be part of a liberal and progressive congregation.
“It’s just a very open-minded place and it welcomes anyone who wants to be here,” said a man’s voice that seemed to rise up from behind, and fall in front of me.
I looked down to locate it, following it as if it had landed at my knees. Yet when I turned my head to the left, I saw the voice belonged to a pudgy pair of man’s legs clad in bright orange tights. The legs belonged to a short bearded guy.
“Hi, Anne,” said the bearded guy, talking to my friend.
“Hey! Look at you,” she said, leaning in and giving the guy a great big hug.
Carl? We had never met, but who could it be but Carl? Oh my. I had pictured him completely different, but this was him and there they were. Anne and Carl. Carl and Anne. It took me by surprise that Anne would date anyone who would ever, under any circumstances, wear orange tights. Even as a costume; especially as a costume. Orange tights! My God, couldn’t he have just come dressed as a cop?
“This is Rod,” she said, introducing the guy who thankfully turned out not to be Carl. “We know each other forever, through friends and friends of friends. How have you been, Rod? I haven’t seen you in ages,” said Anne.
“Good,” said Rod, sipping on a glass of wine as he entered our little circle. The burgundy color showed through the plastic cup, a nice complement to Rod’s spectacular tights.
Rod joining our circle had suddenly brought the conversation to an abrupt halt. He was staring at me and it felt pretty uncomfortable. Fred and Anne carried the conversation, while Rod continued to stare. Rod the bearded guy, the guy in the orange tights. I knew he had come over to say hello to Anne, but now he was annoying me.
“What are you supposed to be?” I finally asked.
“Servant to the King,” said Rod. “It was my costume. I was in the Purim play earlier tonight. I was the one standing in the back. Did you see it?”
“Yeah, we all saw it,” said Fred.
I looked at Anne with a face that said at least there was a reason for the orange tights! Fred, meanwhile, was looking at Rod like he was trying to remember him from the play.
“I’m trying to place you. Did you have any lines?” he asked.
I was thinking that he certainly had not, because it would have been hard to forget a short bearded guy with pudgy legs in a Purim play wearing a pair of bright orange tights.
“One,” said Rod. “I had one line. But it got cut.”
“Well, I thought the play was fun, even though I already knew the ending,” said Fred, whose curiosity, I could tell, was piqued as the orange tights hinted at the possibility that Rod could be pinch-hitting for Fred’s team. “Did you two ever date?” he asked¸ throwing the bait to Anne to see if she would reel an answer in.
“No.” Anne flashed Rod a big smile. “Rod’s the only guy on the Upper West Side I never slept with,” she said, completely out of character for her and completely joking.
“You look familiar,” said Rod, turning from Anne to acknowledge me.
God, what in the world did this guy want?
“Why? Did I sleep with you?” I said, cracking everybody up, especially myself. I’d had my share of frogs but at least they were green, not orange.
“Where did you go to school?” asked Rod.
“What?”
“You look familiar. Where did you go to school?”
“Why?”
“I think I know you.”
Anne and Fred perked up and looked at me while Rod, in all his orange splendor, again stopped speaking and continued to stare. This was ridiculous. This moment was precisely why I had brought my friends along. This was like dating online, offline! I was really sick of getting sucked into conversations with men I did not want to converse with, and now I was getting sucked into this one while my friends did nothing but watch and look on.
“You really look familiar,” Orange Tights persisted. “You know I’ve been seeing you around here. I’ve been watching you. I think I know you.”
“Well, I think you don’t. Listen, I don’t want to be rude,” I said to the orange stalker. “But I just don’t feel very talkative. I’m sorry, uh, Rod, is it?”
He nodded.
“Rod, we want to mill around a bit before we go,” I said including Fred in my statement. “Anne,” I said, looking at my politely astonished friend. “If you two want to catch up we’ll come back to get you.” I faced Rod. “I have to say, I really don’t know you. Aside from maybe seeing each other here, you don’t look familiar to me at all. I want to get another drink,” I said to Fred, signaling the conversation was finished and I wanted him to come with me. “Happy Purim, Rod,” I concluded, and turned with Fred to walk away.
But I didn’t get far because I heard Rod call “Karen?” causing me to spin around and face him. The acknowledgment of my name created a glow on his face that matched his legs.
“How did you know that?”
“That’s it, right? Right? Karen? That’s you, right?”
I stopped short, looking at him from a few feet away.
“You’re scaring me now. I don’t know you. How do you know my name?”
“Klein, right? It’s all coming back to me. Karen Klein, that’s it, that’s you, isn’t it?” he said.
The bearded guy in the orange tights was beginning to look more and more like an anti-superhero in some Jewish comic book. I looked intently at his face. Nothing was familiar, but... The way he was looking... It was sticking to me. To my body. It was really sticky and it wouldn’t let go. I wanted to scratch it off. The feeling was disturbingly familiar, but I... I just... I—
“What’s your name, Rod? What’s your last name?” I asked, praying to God it would not be memorable because the feeling was starting to itch and make me uncomfortable and it was beginning to remind of when I was in college and I lost my virginity to a guy named—
“Schwartz.”
And... Oh, no...
OH, NO.
NO! NO!!
But that was this and this was him, and...
“Rodney? Rodney Schwartz? That’s you? This is you?”
Anne was next to Rodney and Fred was next to me. Rodney moved towards me, as Anne and Fred moved towards him. Four corners of a box of confusion squished in and mixed together.
“That’s me!” he said.
Proud. Pudgy. Triumphant. Orange.
“RODNEY SC
HWARTZ! OHMYGOD!” I wailed. “I never wanted to see you again for the rest of my life!”
I was mixed up in the middle, turning in circles before running across the room, out the door, down the cement steps and onto the safety of the street. My head was suddenly pounding and I needed water. I needed something, something to drink. I felt sick, like I was going to throw up.
“I can’t believe this,” I screamed to Fred, who came running out after me, barreling down the stairs. “I just can’t fucking believe this! Do you know that—?”
Fred pushed me down to the curb on West End Avenue. He put his left hand over my mouth so I couldn’t speak, while he used his right hand to flag down a cab.
“West Seventy-eighth,” he told the driver, opening the door and practically tossing me into the back of the cab. “And step on it.”
“Rghhhh,” I grunted, taking my hands to push away his. “Fred! What do you think you’re—?”
“Listen up, Lulu, and listen up good.”
We were huddled up together, but now both of Fred’s hands were covering my mouth.
“You can breathe but you can’t speak. You can’t speak until we get into your apartment. Of all the stories you have ever told, this one is really a doozy. And I’ll be damned if it gets wasted on the steps of your temple, and then later over a glass of wine, and then tomorrow on the phone, and then next week at the workshop when you complain to me, again, how there’s no one-act for you. You want something to happen? You want to act? You want to be in a play? Okay. It’s showtime!
“Now I want every gory, juicy detail about Little Lulu and Rodney Schwartz, and I want you to tell it to me right here,” said Fred.
We were in my apartment, and Fred had planted himself on the oversized club chair in my living room. He pointed to the old Panasonic tape recorder he had me fish out of the top of my closet that was now plugged in and sitting on his lap.
“This will be the beginning of your one-person show,” he said all cozy, as he put his feet up on the brown leather ottoman. “We will transcribe what you say and this is how you will write your script. Now, as your director, I am going to sit back and listen.”