THE EXES IN MY IPOD: A Playlist of the Men Who Rocked Me to Wine Country

by Lisa M. Mattson

  “I’ve seen the best sunrises in my life right here.” He swished his leather shoe against the wet stone again. “And I always had a cold beer in my hand.” His profile looked like a painting in the moonlight. We stood in silence for a moment, then he scooped my hands swiftly into his. “If we can’t drink, then we should swim!” He tugged my hand back along the rocky ridge toward the shore. I laughed and tossed my bangs away from my tanned face. I felt like a kid exploring a new playground … with a very hot teacher.

  “What is Vizcaya like?” I watched him lead me back to the shore. “I want to go there someday.” I still had not visited the famous Spanish palace overlooking Biscayne Bay.

  “It’s like traveling to Italy without getting on a plane.” His arms flew around his torso, moving as quickly as his lips. “I’ll take you sometime.”

  My cheeks hurt from smiling. That feeling of being wanted washed over me like a tidal wave. He wasn’t holding back on planning our future like James. He’d technically just invited me on a date—to a place like Italy! His boundless energy excited me. At the bar, Robert had grabbed a handful of swizzle-stick swords and built a tiny shed on the counter. He’d twirled the red straw in his gin and tonic like a majorette leading a band. We shared a passion for all things outdoors and aquatic. We were both servers. We were both on hiatus from college. Little did I know, finding a guy who’s at the same place in life is a good thing when you’re thirty and gainfully employed—not while you’re an underage college dropout.

  “Does it ever wear off?” I asked, rolling up my jeans above the knees. “You know, the excitement of this?” It was the first week of December, and I was hanging out on an island with a hot guy about to go swimming in the ocean. People back home would be scraping ice off their windshields in a few hours. Having spent two years at Brown, a private university in Rhone Island, Robert hated cold weather too. He was on the varsity crew team at college. The only crew I knew back then was J.Crew.

  “Never. You’ll never want to leave.” Robert raised both arms to the rising sun like a preacher at the altar, then waded into the water. “And the best thing is that you can be yourself in Miami.” He glided his hands across the water’s surface. “No one will judge you here. Your spirit is free to fly.” The sky turned pink, and I looked down at my body in the glow of morning sun. His words soaked into my skin. No one will judge you. Robert’s sermon supercharged me that winter. I could do anything and be anyone. My spirit was finally free. I slipped off my sandals and followed him in.

  “Why does it itch so much?” I looked down at the murky water splashing against my calves. It felt like tiny pins were entering my every pore—a different sting than swimming in salt water.

  “Ah, those are the no-see-ums,” he replied, waist deep in the water. “You’ll get used to it.” He proceeded to describe how the bane of beaches—microscopic sand fleas—came out each night to feed.

  I fought back a yawn. “What time is it?” Shades of orange and pink flowed across the sky.

  Robert shrugged his shoulders. “Who cares? We’ll sleep when we’re dead.”

  I stood knee-deep in the water, nodding, letting his words seep into my brain. It was a mantra I’d remember for the rest of my life. The water sloshed against Robert’s clothed chest. He extended his hands to me like an impatient parent. “Come on. It feels amazing out here.”

  His face turned rosy in the rising sun. I stepped slowly toward him until the thighs of my jeans soaked up water. Before I could take the next hesitant step, he whipped around to face me.

  “I’m hungry.” Robert patted his stomach. “Let’s go to Denny’s.” He barreled toward the beach. My eyebrows scrunched. Robert could switch gears faster than Mario Andretti. He ran toward my car, laughing, and I scurried behind him, letting my mind race. Breakfast before bed? I need to join a gym.

  Our first “date” could have ended after breakfast. Then again, INXS could have ended “Mediate” after the second verse.

  We tiptoed into my apartment. “We have to shower or we’ll itch for days.” Robert’s whisper had a dire sense of urgency. We undressed in the darkness of my tiny bathroom. I hurried into the shower, turning my back to him to hide my kidney scars. Throw a little water on my crotch, and I thought it looked like a Gremlin. “Turn around,” he barked. “It’s hardly noticeable.” He rubbed the loofa on my flat stomach. My forehead gashes? The model man didn’t even notice. My heart filled with love as he washed sand, salt and my insecurities down the drain. I immediately felt bonded to him with super glue. Robert didn’t care about my flaws. I always thought my physical scars would keep men from falling in love with me. I was still too immature to realize the power of being comfortable in my own skin.

  He rubbed his hair dry with my towel. “Cool if I crash here?”

  I grabbed another towel and wrapped it quickly around my torso. “Well, uh, my roommate is here. I don’t know if she’d be cool with it.”

  He tucked my towel around his waist like a skirt. “She’ll never even know I was here.” Yeah, right.

  As the morning sun peeked through my blinds, Robert crawled into my bed. “I won’t do anything you don’t want me to do.” He stroked my face. We hadn’t even exchanged phone numbers or last names. I wondered if he was thinking with his dick. My head kept saying, “We should wait,” but my lips didn’t move. Robert had seen my scars and he still wanted to sleep with me. Just like James, there was no turning back. Saying “no” to boys scared them away. I’d learned my lesson in the eighth grade when a boy I liked had climbed in my bedroom window one night and quickly began unzipping my pants. I’d told him I wasn’t ready. He huffed and crawled back out the window, leaving me alone in the dark. He never spoke to me again. In high school, once I’d started giving boys what they’d wanted, they’d always stuck around. And I wanted Robert to stick around.

  Every night with Robert started and finished just like the first. Dating him was like listening to Green Day for ten hours straight: exhilarating, yet exhausting. His only speed? Warp speed. He’d work a double-shift and want to go dancing until three on South Beach. He could drink beer until eight o’clock in the morning, then insist we eat egg-white omelets at his favorite diner before bed. The only meal we ever ate at a restaurant was breakfast—how’s that for a sign that your relationship is unconventional? Robert didn’t have an off button. He never ran out of batteries. I could barely function on less than seven hours of sleep; Robert could run a marathon on less than four. I pressed through the yawning spells. I was discovering so much about my new home—the skyline, the beaches, the bridges, the hip bars, the best breakfast spots—from spending hours with Robert while the rest of Miami slept. Living in the dark with Robert was always a party—a far cry from listening to Grateful Dead in a dank basement with Chris. At dawn, we’d always strip off our salty-wet clothes on my bathroom floor and shower in the morning light. A few hours later, Robert would jump out of bed and hop around my apartment like a kid on Christmas morning. I couldn’t help but wonder if he was part-vampire like Corey Haim’s hot brother from The Lost Boys.

  Once Robert was inside my bed, he had my heart. I loved him immediately. Having sex and feeling love were symbiotically chained in my heart. I’d never “screwed” a guy. We made love. I simply ignored the lessons I’d learned from my brief relationship with James. I always had this need to feel wanted by a man; his flesh pressed against mine gave me a sense of security, even if it was a false one.

  No man as handsome as Robert had ever bought me a drink or asked for my number. Come to think of it, he didn’t either. I was always the one making the effort. From the moment we started dating, I began exerting extra energy into all aspects of life. I rollerbladed faster and farther. I switched to non-fat milk in my White Russians. I applied my make-up like a patient artist instead of a Nascar driver taking a time-trial lap. No matter how high the Latinos boosted my ego or how frequently I exercised, I felt compelled to do whatever it took to make Robert stay interested in me. I
had stiff competition. Lots of beautiful women in Miami were hell-bent on landing a beautiful man like Robert. My efforts were paying off. He’d surprise me at work, hiding near Cheesecake’s payphones before sneaking a kiss. I bought what he sold. I would have followed him to Jonestown and drank his Kool-Aid. When he lit up a cigarette and offered me the half-empty pack of Marlborough Lights, I hesitantly pulled out a cancer stick and took a couple puffs—then batted away the visions of Chris’s coughing fits. When Robert passed me a joint behind Loggerhead, I plucked the doobie from his fingers and took a long drag. Chris would have lost his Doritos! I needed Robert to believe I was 100 percent cool and zero percent country. I bought a Motorola pager—life before cell phones!—so he could reach me 24/7. I felt really important.

  When Robert disappeared for a few days, I didn’t complain. He worked two jobs. My mind could think of nothing but pleasing Robert. Every time he walked into The Cheesecake Factory after his shift or I walked into Dan Marino’s after mine, the sight of his face sent me into a mental high of relationship possibilities: enrolling in college together at Florida International University, driving along I-95 and pointing up to the Calvin Klein billboard to say, “The blonde in the middle is my boyfriend.” Within a week of sleeping together, he’d invited me to go camping near Lake Okeechobee the week before Christmas. Robert already considered me a part of his future too.

  The song “Laid” by British rock band James always seemed to follow us from the bar to my bedroom. Even though we’d listened to tons of music at bars and on beaches, “Laid” is the only song that immediately takes me back to the pub-crawls and all-nighters with Robert. And it’s totally embarrassing. Why couldn’t his song be “Interstate Love Song” by Stone Temple Pilots? We used to listen to it together. Nope. I’m stuck with a song by a guy named James, who chants about beds on fire, neighbors complaining about the noise and a girl who only has orgasms when on top. The music controls the memories, and I’m cool with that.

  My phone rang on a Sunday morning. No surprise there. My mom called me every Sunday at 9 a.m. sharp after she got home from church—right before my brunch shift. To this day, we chat every weekend about what’s happened in our lives since our last conversation. I dropped my white oxford on the ironing board and grabbed the receiver.

  “Thank God I found you.” Robert’s voice charged through the line. His breaths trembled between every word. “I need your help.” My hand gripped the receiver. My throat got tight. Help?

  “What’s going on? Are you okay?” I shrieked, standing in the middle of my apartment, wearing only panties and a bra. Fear and shock rippled through me, making my head spin.

  “Alicia isn’t there, is she…is she there?”

  “No,” I replied, my mind dashing. “Why?”

  “Good. I don’t want her to know. You can’t tell her I called.”

  I felt as if I’d been parachuted into a soap opera love triangle. This is some fucked up shit.

  “What in the hell is going on?” My voice wobbled. “You’re scaring me.” He’d been trying to get her to “bless” our relationship for weeks. (Yeah, if your roommate thinks your guy’s not right for you, that’s a sign.) The night I’d met Robert, Alicia had said, “Too cute. He’s gay.” I rolled my eyes. She was just jealous that I was dating a model. Two weeks into the relationship, her tune had changed to, “Hot guys are trouble.”

  “What does she have to do with anything?” My voice cracked. Gorgeous Latinas like Alicia were always requesting Robert’s station at Dan Marino’s. I pictured the two of them having beers at Loggerhead while I was still closing my station at the restaurant. Maybe they went out back to smoke some weed. The first joint I’d shared with Robert in a parking lot was immediately followed by sex.

  “I don’t know. I don’t know…” Robert’s chaotic voice trailed off. The hum of the silent phone line crowded my racing brain. I looked over at Alicia’s empty futon. My tongue felt like a rock. “I just don’t want her to know.”

  The fear plunged deeper into the pit of my stomach. “Know what?” The silent line hummed so long, I could only hear my heart pounding.

  “Robert, are you there?” I pressed the receiver so close my earlobe throbbed. My arms began to tingle, as the wave of adrenaline pumped into my muscles.

  “Shhhh…wait,” he whispered. “I think someone is follow—” His last words were cut off by the beep of my call waiting. I growled. Not now, Mom!

  “What did you say?” I gasped. “My phone cut out at ‘follow.’ Call waiting.”

  “Who could be calling you right now?” His voice shrilled at the pitch of a fighting tomcat. “Who knows you’re home?” I looked down at my tanned body and lacy panties. Happy thoughts of my first winter without thermal underwear were replaced by fear. I felt like my new life had been tossed into a scene from Sleepwalkers.

  “It’s my mom,” I replied, pacing. “What is going on? Where are you?”

  “I don’t know where I am!” Every word was draped in panic. “Someone is following me. Please come get me. I need you.” The sound of Robert’s shaking breaths filled the line.

  “I’m right here,” I replied calmly. “Take a deep breath.” Visions of kidnappings and ransom notes poured into my head. Maybe some extortionist thought he was Val Kilmer. Robert was mistaken for an actor all the time. My boyfriend needed me like no one had ever before. And he hadn’t cheated on me with my roommate. I had to be strong.

  “What do you see around you?” I asked with the confidence of an intern on America’s Most Wanted. “I need you to tell me details of your surroundings, so I can figure out where you are. Street signs, house numbers, papers. Anything.”

  “I’m in someone’s apartment.” He raced through the words. “I think I’m on South Beach. I can’t find my keys or my wallet. Can you please just come get me? I have no idea where my car is.”

  I grabbed a paper and pen to take notes. “Can you tell me the last thing you remember seeing or doing before you went into the apartment?”

  “I did an eight ball at Liquid,” he muttered. “I don’t remember who I was with. I haven’t been to sleep yet. What day is it?”

  “You did a what?” I sounded as sheepish as an 80-year-old grandma who’d just seen her first computer. “An eight ball?” The vision of the black ball on a pool table rolled through my mind. If I’d spent the last twenty years living under a rock, my knowledge about illegal drugs and men would have been pretty much equaled what I’d learned growing up in southeast Kansas.

  “You know. Blow. Cocaine?” Robert paused. “Oh, you don’t. You are too cute.” My heart did a jackknife. My ear began tingling against the humming receiver. Shock slammed through my chest. Robert switched gears. “My head is going to explode. I don’t ever want to feel like this again. Why didn’t I just go to your place last night?”

  “How did this happen?” I whispered, my head reeling. Numbness began to roll down from my shoulders into my limbs. My whole body shuddered. It was seventy-five degrees outside and my windows were open. I needed a blanket, and I no longer owned one. I thought of Jami Gertz holding a rolled dollar bill to her nose in Less Than Zero. I’d let Robert into my heart, my bed, my entire life. My eyes burned. I gnawed at my thumbnail.

  “Babe, this is Miami Beach.” Robert’s tone was smug. “It comes with the territory. It’s not a big deal.”

  The hum of the phone line filled my ears. My lips trembled. “I guess…I…I didn’t know.” My mouth hung open from the shock. The ugly underbelly of big city life had been exposed. Coke was way beyond my discomfort zone with marijuana.

  “You’re so good for me.” Robert’s voice boomed in my ears. “I won’t do it again if you don’t want me to.” I squeezed the phone cord, my heart sputtering. His compliment clouded my mixed emotions.

  “Oh, shit…” Robert’s words turned to a whisper. “Someone is at the door.”

  Hairs shot up on the back of my neck. “Get out of there. Run!” I would have bet a night’s wort
h of tips he was either going to end up in jail or the hospital.

  “Wait, wait, wait.” Robert’s voice jumped with every breath. Papers rattled and footsteps trampled through the phone line. I pushed the receiver closer to my ear, pacing in my living room. I envisioned Robert darting through the apartment into another room. Then silence.

  “Oh, it’s just my friend Fabian and his girlfriend,” he said. “Good morning, you two.” I heard him chirp through the receiver. “Everything’s cool. I’ll call you later, Babe. Love you.” The phone clicked.

  My mind began a tailspin. My boyfriend just told me he did coke and he loved me all in the same phone call. I threw on my work shirt and raced up the buttons. Holy crap! Why me? Drugs were for losers. I’d never even seen a joint until I’d dated Chris, much less smoked anything.

  I stepped in front of my bathroom mirror and stared at my tan face—the strong jawline, high cheekbones and jagged forehead scar. Robert loves me. All of me. I ran a pick through my curly hair, letting our whacked out conversation sink in. All I wanted to do from that moment was help Robert. This beautiful, troubled man loved me, and he’d said it first. Guys didn’t drop the “L” word unless they meant it. He needed me. We’d slept together at least a dozen times. I had to be there for him.

  My thoughts ricocheted from walking on the beach with Robert to fishing ponds with my dad. Dad had been a binge beer drinker since his early twenties and often chose a barstool at the American Legion over a seat in the bleachers at my high school softball games. For years, the relationship seemed natural to my mom, who had grown up with parents who shared a six-pack of Coors every night after work. But during middle school, Mom started begging Dad to join Alcoholics Anonymous (AA). Mom, my brother and I had never forced an intervention; we’d started new lives with mom getting remarried and both kids growing up and leaving for college. Then I’d moved halfway across the country and had limited interactions with Dad to a phone call once a month.