Looking for Mr. Goodfrog

by Laurie Graff

  “You don’t fit into the category of the funny, forties, suburban housewife. Even though you look younger, the casting people all know you so they know your real age. You don’t fit into that mom slot, you never grew into that,” he said as if that were a bad thing, a definitive thing, a thing I had to be.

  “But, Jerry—” I knew I would say this only once and let it go. Because after I said it I would never have a need to say it again. “I created something. My show. I created a character, a persona based on me in an original show. Don’t you think it’s possible to take me out of the box I no longer fit in, and sell me in this new package? Don’t you think it’s more exciting? Don’t you think it’s at least worth six months to try?”

  But he didn’t. Jerry said the casting people would never go for it. They remembered me a certain way and that era was over.

  Elvis and Marilyn would always stay their type, but other people grew. They aged. They changed. And they changed into something else. I looked at Jerry and while I felt sad, I had to admit that I liked what I had changed into. When I realized that, it felt good to be cut free. I no longer wanted to be the actress, or the person, he thought the casting people would go for.

  Jerry and I talked about how we would stay in touch. But when we said good-night we both knew we had said goodbye. And though I was disappointed, I was leaving the table with more than when I had sat down. My sense of self had grown. I owned it, it belonged to me, and I had made it happen. Without Jerry’s permission—permission I would no longer need.

  I went home and went straight to bed, but when I woke up the next day I did feel the loss. I had my show, but for the first time ever I was an actress without representation. I also knew I would miss Jerry. We could always laugh. Sixteen years was a very long time. It felt so cliché, but boy does time fly.

  So here it was. Already June. An entire year had passed since the arrival of the Save-The-Date card. Today was the day. Brooke and Mitch’s wedding. Sadly, this gray, drizzly Sunday matched my mood. And as I lay in bed looking out the window I hoped everything would clear up. Soon.

  Sunday Night

  And did it ever!

  The Fox. From the wedding! Doug Fox. It was all I could think about when I went to bed. How happy I was to have met Doug this afternoon, out in the sunlight on the deck overlooking the Hudson at Brooke and Mitch’s glorious, wonderful wedding.

  “Would you like to have dinner with me?” he had asked in the cab, it skidding past the cars on the West Side Highway, later, when he took me home.

  Tonight, the whole time I was onstage doing my show about the frogs, the day with Doug filtered through my mind as I felt I had finally met a good one! I drifted off to sleep picturing his face, his devilish grin, his short light brown hair, and the moment in the cab when he tilted his face towards mine, and kissed me. I fell to sleep, Doug’s kiss lingering on my lips, and I slept. Soundly.

  I awoke the next morning with the feeling all my frogs were in a well-organized row. And then I thought about Doug. Whoever said a kiss was just a kiss was sadly mistaken. But what made a kiss? What was it about lips coming together that created emotions that could send you falling or flying? Having spent so much time on stage talking about the kisses of the last fifteen years, I chose to lazily stay in bed, allowing myself to drift off and remember my very first ones.

  Gary Waks was the first boy I kissed. Well, not exactly. But by the time I actually kissed Gary I felt amazed and relieved, since what I knew about kissing before him had done nothing but disappoint.

  My very first kiss came from Lee Loran in seventh grade, at Joni Wolf’s Bat Mitzvah. The reception had wound down when Joni brought out the empty wine bottle and suggested the game.

  I always wanted to kiss Lee but it had never happened. In sixth grade we had an almost kiss, when after school one day he told me he liked the way my hair looked cut with bangs. I chickened out, taking off down the block to the safety of home. But now Joni wanted us to spin the bottle.

  We arranged ourselves into a circle of eight boys and eight girls. I watched as Lee’s turn moved him into the center. I watched this boy I’d known all my life, kneel down on one knee as he took the bottle to spin. This boy, who’d take my cake at birthday parties and mash it up with M&Ms. This same boy, whose voice now broke while his skin broke out. The bottle spun. I prayed and prayed it would stop in front of me. Until it actually did.

  Lee—and—Kar—en, Lee—and—Kar—en—

  I froze. Lee crawled to me on his knees. In front of the group he leaned over and kissed me. It was fast and furious, clumsy and strange, but it was something even worse.

  “He smells like turkey,” I told Rachel the next day at school, comparing notes in the coat closet.

  Two summers later when we returned to our rented bungalow in the Catskills, I found out I was the only girl who had never made out. Peer pressure pushed me to make out with Stu Berry in Denise Critelli’s bungalow one night when her father was in the city, her mother was out playing Mah-Jongg, and her brother was down by the lake blowing up salamanders. Denise and Gary Waks were making out on one side of the high-rise bed, me and Berry on the other. Berry didn’t smell like turkey, but I sure didn’t moan and groan like Denise did from whatever Gary was doing with her.

  I was still talking turkey when my first night the following summer, I took a walk alone on the road where Denise and I had spotted Gary and Berry the year before. I jumped when I heard the noise. But it turned out to be Gary, riding by on his ten-speed bike, his brown hair long, his body lean and already tan. He was seventeen, gorgeous, and I felt in that moment he was destined to be mine.

  “Whoa!” he said, parking his bike against a stone wall before coming to meet me. Rocks and pebbles crunched under his sneakers, and Gary eyed me closely as he walked.

  The light illuminating the big yellow Edelstein Estates sign shone, revealing me in my cutoffs, my brown hair down to my waist, my blue eyes wide, and my heart practically popping out of my tight red polyester top.

  “What happened to you this year?” asked Gary. “You’ve changed.”

  “I’m sixteen now. Do you think that’s it?” I asked, unaware of the change, but for the awareness that whatever it was it seemed to be good.

  Gary studied me hard before he stepped in, testing the waters to see if I would move away. I didn’t. I couldn’t. Something new was happening, as if invisible strings of desire were pulling us towards each other.

  “You’ve gotten so pretty, Karrie,” he said, as he took a piece of hair that dangled over my right eye and tucked it behind my ear. He grinned. “Who’d have thunk it?”

  “You think?” My heart thumped away. Gary touched me. My hair!

  “Very,” he said. “And you know what else?”

  His dark brown eyes penetrated through me. I had never seen a mouth like his. Soft lips, lush. The top lip curled slightly over the bottom. It affected me in ways I did not know how to describe. I had never even been so close to such a cute boy.

  “No. What?”

  “Voluptuous,” said Gary.

  I didn’t know the word so I didn’t know.

  “It’s like you’re ripe,” he said. “It’s sensual.”

  “Sensual,” I repeated. “Is that like...you know...” I felt butterflies. “Sexy?”

  “Better.”

  Gary smiled. First he gave me a look to see if it was okay. Then his lips brushed across the tops of mine as slivers of sensations cut right through me. Gary continued to kiss me, very soft and very slow. And for the very first time I was kissing back. Until I felt something that made me giggle.

  “Wait. Is that?” It made me stop. It felt like, uh...tongue?

  “Yeah,” he said. “Tell me if you like this. We don’t have to do it if you don’t want.”

  “I want. Show me.”

  “Nice,” Gary whispered later.

  “Mmm,” I whispered back.

  It was better than nice. It was what all the fuss was about.
/>   Yes, I had learned that it was much ado about something. And no one ever tells you that it gets better as you get older. Especially for women!

  I got up to attack the day. I needed to work out, work on the play, look for a new agent, and look at my calendar to see what nights I was available this week to go out with Doug. I was hoping for Wednesday or Thursday. If we had dinner midweek, perhaps he’d come see the show on the weekend. Or maybe it would be better if we spent more time together before he saw the show. It didn’t matter. However it tumbled would be fine, but I couldn’t wait.

  I looked at the clock. It had just turned ten. I didn’t take him for one of those guys who’d call first thing in the morning, but I did feel he was as jazzed as me. And I couldn’t wait for him to call.

  Monday Night

  It was only a day. I mean, if I were him I think I would have called today. If I were him I would have made a dinner plan in the cab.

  But I’m not him.

  Well, it was only a day. I was pretty sure that tomorrow he’d call.

  Tuesday Night

  He was cool.

  Doug was a very, very cool guy so he wasn’t the type to jump on it and call right away. Besides, I thought those how-to-get-a-guy books always said Wednesday was the night to call for a Saturday night date. This week I had a special show, for a singles group, but I supposed I could just see him after.

  Okay, no problem. Wednesday. Wednesday’s the day. I’m sure Wednesday he’ll call.

  Wednesday Night

  He didn’t.

  Thursday Night

  What’s going on?

  It’s almost eleven. It’s too late for him to call now.

  And if he hasn’t called by tonight, tomorrow’s Friday and then it’s the weekend so he probably won’t call till next week.

  He could have just been busy all week. Really busy. He could have had lots of meetings. For all I know maybe he had to go out of town. And when he’s back next week he’ll call. Or maybe even on Sunday. Sunday night would make sense. It’s a decent time frame. Certainly not overeager, but still it’s just a week. A respectable amount of time.

  Okay. I’m fine.

  I’m really okay. I’m busy, too. I have my show this weekend. I have people coming down, plans to go out. I’m cool, too. He’ll call on Sunday. Everything’s cool.

  One Week

  “I believe in very traditional male/female roles,” he said, pulling me back into him by gently and seductively pulling me by my hair.

  “I believe in them, too,” I said. I did. I do.

  “Would you like to have dinner with me?” he asked.

  When?

  “I’d love it,” I said, while the cab headed up Seventy-ninth Street to Broadway.

  When??

  “I’ll call you during the week,” he said, releasing me from his touch, but not until the taxi deposited me in front of my building, just off Amsterdam on West Seventy-eighth.

  I rewound the tape, replaying it over and over in my mind as I tried to see what I had missed. What I misinterpreted. What clue I had lost that would help me understand what was going on. I felt so bad, so monumentally disappointed.

  I really wanted him to call.

  Two Weeks

  One kitchen table: Jay Kohn’s, and one pint of Belgian Dark Chocolate: Godiva’s later, Jay—newest dating expert since he and The Girlfriend were as happy as two peas in a pod—told me that when a guy really, really likes you and has serious intentions he absolutely does not call for a first date right away.

  Instead, he waits two full weeks before he calls.

  The thinking behind that is he knows you are not some passing fancy, you won’t be just a flash in the pan, and he has to get ready. He takes those two weeks to contemplate, getting ready for this major life change as he knows he will be taking a plunge.

  Okay!

  Well...

  I guess we’d have to see.

  At least it sounded hopeful.

  I was heading downtown to do the show and then I’d come home. There would be a call.

  Or there wouldn’t.

  Three Weeks

  There wasn’t.

  And there would not be.

  Seventeen

  Frogs tend to be farsighted, having the ability to see objects fifty feet away but missing what’s right under their nose.

  Anne scraped the mozzarella cheese off the top of her chicken cutlet while I scooped it up from her plate, adding it on top of the sausage that was already added onto the slice. Vinnie’s Pizza, an Upper West Side hangout from the early days, had been renovated to include black-and-white etchings of Italy and table service. Anne and I decided to bag an upscale cafe on Columbus for Vinnie’s, a place we knew we could grab a bite before heading down to Lincoln Center for Midsummer Night Swing. Despite the new décor, I still folded the pizza in half and ate it with my hands. Aluminum tables and artwork were not motivation for me to eat a slice a pizza with of knife and a fork.

  “So I guess for someone with a CSW, I’m an idiot,” she told me, placing a napkin over the chicken parmigiano to sop up the grease.

  “Why would you say that?” I asked, watching the napkin absorb it with fascination. I never think to do that. If it’s really bad I’ll tilt the plate and let it roll off, but when I see grease I always assume the food’s just still marinating.

  “Well, you remember that Carl and I broke up last year when he became religious, but he really wasn’t into it and he went back. So we got back together the beginning of this year. Sort of.”

  “Oh?”

  I flashed back on the Purim party and wondered why she hadn’t mentioned it then, but there was kind of a lot going on. Not to mention I kind of disappeared after the reappearance of Rodney. In general, Anne was fairly private and had been as evasive about her sort-of-boyfriend this year, as she had been last year about her sort-of-ex.

  Carl was the first man Anne had really been sweet on in the five years since her divorce. Initially he had been neither her prince nor her ideal, but over time Carl became something very dear and important to Anne. And he seemed to be able to share everything with her except the ability to make a full surrender. Carl, a slightly overweight balding bachelor who just turned fifty, thought that everything about him and Anne felt right. Since he and Anne were so compatible and loving, he thought they might be able to move forward as a couple. And he was about to take that step, except for the gnawing fantasy that a more perfect, more beautiful and more fertile younger woman was just around the corner.

  Carl felt any ambivalence he had towards a complete relationship with Anne existed because of the reality of the fantasy woman. And when that woman appeared, his ambivalence would magically disappear, making the road to bedding, wedding and bearing his offspring a piece of cake.

  Sadly, in the eight months they were apart none of the women Carl dated worked out. In fact, none of them even got past a first date. Not when he was religious and dated religious women, not when he was unreligious and dated unreligious women. Carl dated various women of various ages and backgrounds that he met online, and when none of them worked out he dated a variety of women he met offline. Ultimately, he missed Anne. So Chaim was gone and Carl was back. Curled up on Anne’s couch watching reruns of Curb Your Enthusiasm, his heart more appreciative, his door more open, but the escape hatch still unhinged for the possibility of when the really right thing could come along.

  “So my fear,” she began, as she cut the cutlet, placing half of it on my plate for me to pile onto the pizza, over the sausage, and over the extra cheese. “My fear, is that a year from now he really will meet someone else and then he will leave. I’ve tried dating other men, but he’s so good to me, so caring and gentle, it’s hard. He’s just raised the bar.”

  Although this was sad, it sounded pretty good to me as this past Sunday officially marked a month that I had never heard from Doug. Even Jay Kohn was disappointed, but less for me and more for the flaws in the two-week theory. To lif
t my spirits, “After all, things with The Girlfriend couldn’t be better,” Jay promised if my show could only hold on through summer he would do his damnedest to get a reviewer down from the New York Times.

  I confess that earlier today I actually thought about calling Doug. Okay, a thought is not an action, and fortunately for me I didn’t have to think too hard because Doug was unlisted and I couldn’t find him online. The added bonus was that I couldn’t get his number from Brooke and Mitch because they were still in Italy. Okay, so they were not still in Italy. They’d been back from their honeymoon two weeks. But too much time had passed, and it was simply ridiculous for me to call Doug. And because Doug never called me I felt ridiculous calling Brooke, but that was really ridiculous so I knew I’d face that call sooner than later.

  Still, they say every dark cloud has a silver lining and mine shone when the phone did ring late Sunday night. I picked it up, heard the hello and my heart raced to the finish. My mind created the male voice as Doug’s, instantly creating some fictitious scenario that he had been called away on business, that he flew off to a family emergency to a land without phones devoid of all wireless towers, or that he’d been in a relationship that had taken all month to untangle, waiting to call until he was completely and totally free.

  But it only turned out to be Edward. It’s 12:12 a.m. Do you know where your ex-lovers are?

  Taking resolution anywhere I could get it, I got Edward on his cell on a midnight walk home that followed his cathartic experience of becoming dehydrated from crying after seeing a new film billed as the greatest love story to ever caress your heart. And he wanted to call to say hi.