Dear Jealous Bitch:
Clearly you are one of those nasty types who are only happy when someone else is miserable. Leave your friend alone and work on getting a personality half as good as hers. Then maybe you’ll have a social life, too.
JOHN
“Really, Teri, I’m fine. I just—I’m just tired, okay?” I rubbed my forehead as if to prove the point. “It’s been a crazy week and I just don’t have the energy to go on another fixup right now. Maybe next week. We’ll see.”
The truth was that my heart just wasn’t into dating. I was beginning to feel that if I couldn’t have Eva I didn’t want any woman. The dim possibility of love was exhausting me.
“I still think something is up, John.”
My sister is like a dog worrying a bone when she suspects a secret. Still, I did manage to get her off the phone after another five minutes of intense questioning.
No sooner had I extricated myself from the call than Gene came bursting into my office.
“You got a minute?” he asked, tossing himself into one of the guest chairs.
“Uh, not really.”
Gene leaned forward. “You have to hear this, man.”
“Gene,” I said evenly, “now really isn’t a good time.”
The self-centered don’t understand no like we other-centered people do.
“This will only take a minute. You wouldn’t believe what—”
I stood. Gene stopped talking, mouth open.
“I’m really not in the mood to hear about how you banged some chick last night, okay?” I said, with barely controlled anger. “I’ve got more important things to do with my time. And shouldn’t you be in your office working instead of bragging about yet another infidelity?”
Gene scrambled to his feet. “Uh, yeah, okay, sorry. I’ll just . . . Sorry.”
Gene hurried out of my office. Slowly, I sat. My nerves were still tingling. My blood pressure must have leapt at least twenty points. I took a steadying breath.
Ellen, being a smart person, knocked lightly on the open door.
“Sorry about that,” I said, assuming she’d heard my outburst.
Ellen closed the door behind her.
“I’m worried about you, John,” she said. “Something’s going on. You want to tell me about it?”
“Nothing’s going on.”
“You just lost your temper with one of your staff. Granted, if anyone deserves your wrath it’s Gene but the anger was out of line. Not that you don’t know that.”
“It’s nothing, really, Ellen,” I said again. “Thanks for asking. I’m just tired. I need to get more sleep.”
“Yes, well,” she said, “sleep is restorative.”
When she left she closed the door behind her, for which I was grateful.
75
Why should the right to fictionalize belong only to the artist? Everyone’s life is a work of art; everyone is his own creator. So, lie as long and as hard as the masterpiece that is your life requires.
—Creative License and the Average Person
EVA
It’s said the real reason one should never eavesdrop is that one is likely to hear something one doesn’t really want to hear.
And yet I just had to pick up the phone, ever so quietly, and put it to my ear.
Poor Jake. He thought he was speaking privately; he trusted his lover not to listen in on the bedroom extension. He was so naive. I pulled his shirt closer around me and with my eye on the door, I listened.
Jake: “Look, it’s not like I’m going to marry someone old enough to be my mother. I mean, someday I’m going to want to have kids and then what? I’m going to want to marry—I’m going to have to marry—someone my age or younger. That’s just biology, man.”
So, I thought, Jake has changed his mind about wanting a family. Was I responsible for this change?
Phil: “Yeah, but how do you know some of these grandmas don’t expect you to marry them?”
Jake paused and when he answered Phil’s incredibly naive question, his voice was unsure. “I can’t imagine a woman in her forties would expect a twenty-one-year-old to propose.”
“I’d be careful, my man,” Phil warned. “You might find yourself hauling around a middle-aged ball and chain one of these days. Yeah, it’s all biology. And the biological clock for forty-year-old women is ticking real loud. I don’t know why you bother with anyone over twenty-three. Twenty-five, tops.”
Jake lowered his voice, as if imparting vital information. “I told you, dude, sex with older women is more exciting, less inhibited. Besides, they’re not drunk every night like some of the chicks at school.”
Phil: “Yeah, but the body. Even Demi Moore, married to Kutcher—what’s up with that? I’m sorry, man, but I just don’t believe she looks so good when she takes off her clothes.”
Jake: “Didn’t you see her in a bikini? What was that movie, Charlie’s Angels or something? She’s got a great body.”
Phil: “Airbrushing. Movie magic. I’m not buying it.”
Jake (with a laugh): “Since when are you so obsessed with physical perfection? I’ve seen some of the girls you hook up with. That one the other night, the blonde? She was stuffed into those jeans. She was fat.”
Phil: “She was stacked, not fat. Anyway, nineteen-year-old skin is sexy. Forty-year-old skin is not. That’s all I’m saying.”
Jake: “You’re a pig, you know that.”
Phil: “Whatever.”
Jake: “Look, I have to go. So I’ll drop off the CDs later, okay?”
I didn’t wait for Phil’s reply; I’d heard more than enough. I dashed under the covers, risking injury to my decrepit, wrinkly body in the process.
Jake found me there a moment later, just waking up—or so I let him think.
“Were you on the phone?” I mumbled, stretching elaborately. “I thought I heard your voice.”
“Uh, did you hear—I mean, did I wake you?”
“Oh, no,” I lied. “I just thought I heard the sound of your voice.”
Jake looked somewhere above my head.
“It was just Phil,” he said. “He’s such an idiot sometimes.”
“Yes,” I said dryly. “I know.”
Jake gestured feebly to the dresser. “I’ve got an early lecture . . .”
I tossed the covers aside and sat up. “I was just leaving,” I said.
76
Dear Answer Lady:
My mother gave me ten thousand bucks to put aside for her funeral. Thing is, she’s totally healthy and will probably live for another ten years. My wife said I shouldn’t have but I spent the money on a new stereo and flat-screen, high-def TV. I figure, by the time my mother’s funeral rolls around, I’ll have made back the money from overtime or something. Was this wrong?
Dear Scumbag:
You are the definition of the “thankless child” and should be spanked severely. As for your mother, she’s either hopelessly naive or afflicted with Alzheimer’s. Why else would she trust a scumbag with her hard-earned money?
SOPHIE
I chose a little restaurant called The Bean for our lunch. Ben and I ate there about once a week. I hoped it would meet Eva’s standards but I could never be sure what she would find acceptable. Eva could be a harsh critic, of places and people.
And I so wanted Eva to like Ben and Ben to like Eva. My anxiety about this first meeting was, I think, understandable.
Ben was five minutes late.
“So,” Eva said, not too discreetly checking her watch. “Where’s the Mystery Man?”
Before I could answer my cell phone vibrated and I grabbed for it. It was Ben.
“Hi,” I said. “Where are you?”
Eva lifted an eyebrow at me. I looked away.
“Oh, that’s too bad. No, of course I understand. Okay. Okay, I’ll see you this evening.”
“Are we being stood up?” Eva inquired archly when I’d disconnected the call.
“There’s a bit of an emergenc
y at work,” I explained. “He didn’t say what it was, exactly. Rats, I’m disappointed. I really wanted you two to meet!”
Eva shrugged. “Well, I guess Mystery Man will just have to remain a mystery a bit longer.”
“Yes, well. I guess we can order now.”
“Good,” Eva said. “I’m starved.”
I really don’t know how she maintained her figure with all she ate. Ben liked my body, I thought, scanning the menu. Didn’t he? I considered getting a salad instead of a burger. Then I wouldn’t feel guilty about having dessert.
“So,” I said when we had ordered, “has John told you anything more about his search for Ms. Right?”
“No, why? Is there something to tell?”
“Not that I know of,” I admitted. “I mean, he hasn’t asked me to help him shop for a ring.”
“I doubt John needs anyone’s help for that. Even I have to admit he’s got good taste. I can’t imagine it wouldn’t translate into women’s jewelry.”
“You never know. Maybe he’s never bought jewelry for a woman before.”
Eva laughed. “John? He’s had a million women. I exaggerate, of course. But maybe you’re right. Men know that giving a gift of jewelry to a woman, even something as seemingly innocuous as a bracelet, can have the odor of commitment.”
Our meals arrived. I’d never had a salad at The Bean before. It was disappointingly small.
“So, tell me,” I said, watching Eva devour her whole wheat pasta. “Have you met anyone lately? Anyone you’re interested in.”
“It’s an obsession with you, isn’t it?” Eva replied, but her tone was light.
I shrugged. “I just want you to be happy.”
“And you equate happiness with a relationship.”
“With a good relationship, yes.”
Eva rolled her eyes at me. “But what if a good relationship isn’t my definition of happiness? What if my definition of happiness doesn’t involve any other person but me?”
“I don’t believe,” I said, “that anyone can be truly happy alone.”
“Fine,” she said. “That’s your belief but it isn’t mine and I think if you take a good look around, Sophie, you’ll see that a life lived outside the bonds—note that choice of word, ‘bonds,’ similar in meaning to shackles!—of matrimony or long-term partnership isn’t necessarily a wasted one. Or an unhappy one.”
“I’m sorry,” I said. “I didn’t mean to sound judgmental.”
Eva gave a little laugh that let me know that while she wasn’t letting me off the hook she also wasn’t really angry with me.
“Well, you did. ‘Single’—what a stupid term! No one is ever more or less than herself; being in a relationship doesn’t make you, an individual, a double!”
“Of course not. I didn’t mean—”
“A person who chooses not to make a long-term commitment to one other person can have a perfectly wonderful life. She can have friends and family and a career, and, I don’t know, belong to a society of like-minded people, like a church or a reading group or, a, whatever.”
“I know,” I repeated. “I’m sorry. Really. Forget I said anything.”
“Even the promise to pay for my lunch?”
Had I said that I would pay for lunch?
Eva laughed. “I’m only kidding. We’ll split it, okay?”
“Sure. But I want to order dessert first.”
Eva gave me the once-over and asked: “What’s your excuse for the calories you don’t need?”
I considered. “Disappointment. I’m disappointed that Ben couldn’t join us so I’m going to drown my sorrows in”—I glanced down the menu—“in peach cobbler.”
“Can I get in on that disappointment?”
I looked at Eva, stunned.
“Don’t look so shocked,” she said casually. “Even I indulge every once in a while. Besides,” she added, looking not at me but at her menu, “it’s more fun indulging with a friend.”
I ordered the peach cobbler and asked for two spoons. Eva had called me a friend.
77
Embroidery always adds color and interest to the hem of a skirt or the bodice of a dress. Why, then, wouldn’t it bring a certain liveliness to the story of one’s life?
—Taking a Life Lesson from the Arts of Embellishment
EVA
It’s said that a person is known by the company she keeps.
Before the reemergence of Sophie and John in my life, what company had I kept? Not much. Hardly any. How had I spent my “free” time? (Why free? Why, also, “spare”? Wasn’t every moment of a life necessary?)
Here’s how. Having sex without commitment with a variety of men about whom I knew very little beyond their approximate salaries and social position.
I kept, of course, the company of my colleagues, five days a week. But nothing could be said about me as a person by the presence down the hall of Jack Grossman, COO, or the presence at the reception desk of Marcella whatever-her-name-is.
And then there was Jake. His was the company I most kept right then, aside from the colleagues, random entities in my life. And yet I was forced to keep his presence from the two people who suddenly meant the most to me, the two people who’d barged into my life with the excuse of being “old friends,” a title they seemed to think conferred rights and privileges in the present.
I couldn’t tell Sophie or John the truth about me because the truth would make them hate me. I didn’t want them to hate me.
I am a keeper of secrets; therefore, one might argue, I am a liar. Why, I wondered, would anyone want to keep my company?
78
Dear Answer Lady:
I’m going to ask my girlfriend to marry me. Problem is, I’ve been checking out the price of diamonds and whoa, it’s like outrageous. Then I came across this store in the mall that sells rings with cubic zirconia. It’s amazing; you can’t tell the difference! I’m thinking of buying one of those and just not saying anything to my girlfriend. But how do I keep her from getting the ring appraised and wanting to see the certification papers?
Dear Cheapskate:
A diamond is forever. Clearly, if you proceed with your half-assed plan, your relationship is not. Take out a second mortgage, get yourself a loan, borrow the money from a friend, do anything you have to do to get this woman a real diamond—and not a tiny one, either. Do you hear me? I know where you live. (Nice fake-wood shutters out back. How much did that save you, twenty bucks?)
SOPHIE
“Sophie, sit down. I have something to tell you.”
When Ben walked through the door of my apartment that evening his expression was dark. I’d suspected something was wrong. Now, I was sure of it.
He’s breaking up with me, I thought. Of course. And sitting down to hear the news was not going to help one little bit. Why is it, I wondered, that men expect women to faint at a moment of crisis? I’ve never fainted, not even when Jake fell off his bike when he was four and knocked out his beautiful little baby teeth. There was blood everywhere but I was perfectly calm and—
“Sophie?”
“I prefer to stand, thank you,” I said, my voice a bit shrill.
“Okay. Well, I’m going to sit.” He sank heavily onto the couch. “I really don’t know how to say this, so—”
“Just say it, Ben.”
Ben’s face took on a ghastly look. And then I thought: Oh, no, he’s not breaking up with me, he’s going to tell me he has cancer.
I fell into the armchair facing him. Maybe it would be better to sit.
“About lunch today.”
“Yes,” I prodded, with a conscious effort to sound encouraging rather than defensive.
“There wasn’t really an emergency.” Ben’s eyes held mine. “I lied,” he said, “and I’m sorry.”
“Why? Didn’t you want to meet Eva? She’s my friend. I was embarrassed.” The last was a lie but what with the sitting and the standing and Jake’s knocking out his teeth and Ben’s having cancer I think
I can be excused.
“I’m sorry. Really.” Ben sighed and leaned forward, arms resting on his knees. “The thing is, Sophie, I did show up at the restaurant. I saw the two of you at the table, your favorite one in the corner, and, well, I just couldn’t join you. Not until talking to you first.”
The bad feeling in my stomach intensified and I thought I might have to dash to the bathroom. “Ben,” I said, “this is very confusing. Please just tell me what you’re trying to tell me.”
Ben paused before saying: “Sophie, I used to date your friend Eva. For about eight months. And I was the one who ended the relationship.”
“What?” I asked stupidly. “What do you mean?”
“Believe me, I had no idea that your friend Eva was the woman I once knew.”
I sank back farther into the chair and put my hands to my head. “Oh, my God, Ben, this can’t be happening!”
Ben got up from the couch and came to my side, where he knelt. He put his hand on my knee; it jerked reflexively away.
“But it is happening,” he said gently. “When I saw the two of you there together I was stunned. Never in a million years did I suspect the two women were the same.”
I let my hands fall to my lap and thought: Maybe it’s not true. Maybe my Ben is not the horrible person who broke Eva’s heart. Maybe my Ben was involved with Eva before that horrible person . . .
“When was this?” I asked abruptly. “When were you two involved?”
Ben told me. The timing was perfect.
“That man. I never, ever thought that you of all people could be the man who—”
A small, bitter-sounding laugh escaped Ben’s throat. “What? The man who treated her like scum?”
I opened my mouth to say something, I don’t know what, but Ben spoke first.
The Friends We Keep Page 24