by Cj Paul
Things calm down at the chakra shack and after an hour that feels like six minutes, Bret glances at his phone and says, “Oh shit! I’m late for an appointment.” He kisses me and bolts from the bistro, leaving me with the lunch bill...and his hefty bar tab.
We text profusely over the next few days, trying to find a time to meet that’s good for both of us, a time when neither of us will be rushed, at night...alone. Bret cajoles me to engage in Facetime with him since we both have new iPhones, but being cameraphobic to the extreme, I panic so completely that he drops the subject, or, rather, keeps it simmering on a back burner.
* * *
April is all grins at the change in me, claiming I am “in luvvvvvvvv” and going on and on about how happy she is for me and how this is just what I deserve and how there really are good guys out there.
My mom entertains a variety of opinions: disdaining Bret’s existence, thinking he is too good for me, wondering what is wrong with him if he is interested in me and that the only explanation could be that he’s married, and commenting that I’m lucky to have found a man who likes ‘chubby girls.’
But even Mom can’t kill my Bret buzz. He is articulate, funny, has an uber-sexy voice, and is as smooth as whatever kind of alcohol people talk about as going down smooth. I don’t really drink, so I have no point of reference, but I very much like the idea. He and I email, text, phone every minute we get the chance, and generally coo sickeningly sweetly. He is overjoyed when I inform him I’ve purchased Bulls ice hockey tickets for the following season – the current season being nearly over – and we make a date to go to another game to scope out the future seats.
* * *
It’s a Monday night and has only been a few hours since Bret and I enjoyed a puppy love-infused lunch together. Over the last few weeks I’ve found myself so lovelorn that I hardly think to eat. Bret’s noticed the weight I’ve lost and says I look great, adding that he thought I looked terrific already, but now, yum! Yeh, who’s chubby now, Madre?
I am just leaving for tonight’s ballet company board meeting when the recording secretary calls to alert me to the fact that two of the board members have whooping cough and that the meeting is cancelled. She then goes into a ten-minute harangue about how the cough bug is going around and that ya know, I do work in radio, and how I should gargle with salt water, drink lots of warm green tea with lemon and honey, take a ginseng supplement, and basically barricade myself in the house for a week or two as a preventative measure until the danger blows over. Throughout the one-sided conversation I picture her with victory rolls in her hair, a polka-dot dress and sensible shoes as she deftly plugs and unplugs wires from the 1940’s switchboard she operates.
A night off. The concept is so foreign to me I frankly don’t know how to process it. I stand frozen in my entryway, at a loss for what to do next. Then a warm, dopey grin crosses my face as my yellow and orange chakra buddies skip up to me, holding hands and offering me a bouquet of daisies. I nod knowingly and make the call.
Drat. No answer. The call goes to voicemail after the standard four rings. I try again, just in case.
“Hello?” a perky voice answers.
“Oh uh,” I look at my cell to see if I’ve misdialed. “Yeah, hi, uh...is Bret there?”
“Sure, who’s calling?”
“This is Claire.”
“Hon, someone named Claire for you?”
“What? I told you never to answer my business line. I have important clients who call on that line,” I hear him chastise from somewhere across the room.
“I didn’t mean to. I was just trying to... Ohhhhhhhh,” she cuts off as the phone drops and somewhere in the same room a baby starts to cry.
He picks up the phone and muffles it, but I can still make out what he’s saying. “Great! Now look what you’ve done! Take Junior in the other room. You may have just cost me a sale.”
“Bret Stevens here,” he says, in a saccharine, phony, guy-I-would-never-do-business-with sort of way.
“I...uh...” Words fail me.
“How ya doin’ tonight, Claire? Hey, I’ve been running the numbers and I think there are a couple of good options for your portfolio. A Roth combined with a two-year CD among some other more…” his voice drops seductively as he purrs, “creative options.
“I am pretty excited about what I’ve got for you and I think it will excite you too,” his words now dripping with innuendo.
“When’s a good time for you to get together to meet? Would Wednesday or Thursday be better for you?”
My mind is not really processing what’s happening. My chakras are at each other’s throats and a silent pandemonium has taken hold. I am stunned, heartbroken, nearly grief-stricken, and feel like a prize fool. But far worse than all of that, it means Mom was right. Damn.
Chapter SixI don’t know the last time I saw my mom so happy. She looks as though she’s found the fountain of youth. She’s energetic, sunny and has taken to humming...actual humming! Frankly, I wish she would just ‘I told you so’ me, but instead she’s being uncharacteristically chipper, supportive, and dare I say it, sweet! Seems as though the best thing to happen to her in ages is having me go through a humiliating heartbreak with all of the attendant ramifications.
With April living so far away and unable to hold my hand every waking moment, I’ve turned to my close confidants, Ben and Jerry, for solace. They are incredibly good listeners, saying nothing, but offering ice cream at every opportunity. Mom has noticed the salubrious effects of my time spent with them, and in classic passive-aggressive form, tells me that she is thrilled to see I’ve packed the pounds back on. Now I look like myself again and won’t have to worry about attracting unwanted attention from men. Gee, thanks, Mom.
In nearly the same breath, she tries to fix me up with good ol’ Nimo, and I can’t help but wonder if they are somehow in cahoots, given that out of nowhere he has started calling and texting again, this time more insistently. Actually, neither he nor my mother have ever talked and don’t have one another’s contact info. So why did he choose to turn up now? Did he somehow sense my availability and vulnerability? Is it something akin to pheromones? Can men smell female desperation?
In any event, Geronimo is on the warpath again, chatting me up, offering to wine and dine me, inviting me to stay over on the weekends to maximize our time together, using the two-hour driving distance between us as an excuse. We start going out every now and again, and pass the time pleasantly enough. Movies, dinner...he even goes to tea with me as a show of consideration. Our teatime jaunt was a shambles and not to be repeated.
It reminds me of how, when I was going to school in Europe, I would sometimes run into loud-mouthed, over-the-top, bad stereotype Americans who wore hundred gallon cowboy hats, wheat colored suits, broad smiles and spoke way too loudly, all the while, under the guise of humor, complaining about anyone they met in Europe who did not speak English. I used to cringe and try to hide in the corners lest one of these rude and bombastic countrymen try to strike up a conversation with ‘one of their own.’ Going out to tea with Nimo was like that. He kept joking about how hilarious it was that he was a man and that he was at tea...a heterosexual man, at that! The college-age server responded with good-natured mirth and understanding, while I inwardly apologized to all of my gay male friends.
Once the tea was served, Nimo launched into a comedy routine about putting his pinky up while sipping. He went a step further by donning one of the hats and boas that made up the display. He finally asked our long-suffering server to just call him Mrs. Doubtfire, and laughed uproariously at his own hilarity.
The final part of his act centered on the sizes of the finger sandwiches and petite desserts. The jokes were rampant about bird-sized servings, about how he’d have to order six of the high tea meals to fill up, how at $25 a pop it was clear the tea room was running quite a racket, and that he should quit his job, open a tea room and get rich too. While walking out the door, he made a point to bid ‘cheerio�
�� to the cute server. I surreptitiously slipped $20 into her palm in apology. As a closing punch-line, he added that ‘size shouldn’t matter,’ but that after those portions we’d be headed straight to the nearest In ‘N’ Out burger for a double double, with a ba-dum-cha rimshot sound effect punctuating the joke. If he’d used In ‘n’ Out’s underground menu and said ‘a double-double animal style with a Neopolitan shake’ perhaps I could have borne it. But he didn’t. That was our last and only tea outing together.
When not enduring Nimo, and in an effort to keep my mind off Bret, I’ve been beefing up my presence on Facebook. I always enjoy my time there and find I smile a lot while tooling around the site. It’s so refreshing to interact with people who are not bent on finding and exploiting your faults ad infinitum and inventing new ways to annoy you daily...yes, that means you, Mom. Similarly, it’s relaxing and fun to interact with people who not only have brains, but who don’t begin every sentence declaring, ‘You will laugh,’ who then proceed to tell you how the car in front of them on the freeway turned their windshield wiper cleaner on and how your car was hit by the spray, or what a laugh riot it was that you wore two black socks to work, but that they weren’t exactly mates...and oh, yes, that most definitely means you, Geronimo. While I’m at it, who goes around yelling their own name as an exclamation, even if their name is Geronimo… which is not your birth name anyway!
* * *
I have my new Bretless routine down pretty well. And I am a hero with the ballet corps for donating my Bulls hockey tickets to the recent charity ball’s silent auction. Go, me – woot!
I have also become quite admirably dexterous at carrying on multiple Facebook conversations while furthering my pursuit of taste-tasting the lot of Ben & Jerry’s offerings. I still refer to them with their proper names, as opposed to shortening them to B&J, as I do with my favorite trader, Joe. While I have grown quite fond of the dynamic dairy duo, we still have a way to go in our relationship, so I try to keep it professional.
It’s Saturday night and, as usual, I’m hosting an ice cream social attended by me and my two aforementioned dessert consorts. Facebook is doing its part to entertain me, and I am making myself smile by playing classic Depeche Mode. All in all, it just feels good to feel good! A variety of posts drift down my newsfeed and tonight everything is whimsical and delightful, even if it’s colored by the Chocolate Therapy to which I’ve submitted, specifically, ‘Chocolate ice cream with chocolate cookies and swirls of chocolate pudding.’ God, I love those two men!
An image of a Marie Antoinette style mermaid has been posted to my wall by a fan. I squee and ‘like’ and ‘xoxox <3.’
A photo of a Steampunk corset sashays by. I click ‘like,’ leave a fawning comment, and pull the photo off the page onto my own desktop for subsequent ogling.
An inspiring quote indicating that ‘humility is not thinking less of yourself, but thinking of yourself less’ saunters by. I share it on my own Timeline.
A friend private messages me letting me know the upcoming Hobbit movies will now be broken into three installments instead of one or even two. I am grateful that prayer works.
April posts a cute little ditty about ‘vices and virtues’ that catches my attention… especially as I am elbows deep into my current frozen sweets vice. It’s a quote by Abraham Lincoln that reads: “Folks who have no vices have very few virtues.”
Taking full advantage of the wise guy benefits of best friendship, I bait her by commenting on her post:
Claire Nichole Eden
And what are your vices, my dear?
One of April’s Facebook friends, whom I don’t know, chimes in next:
Alexander Armstrong
I have three vices. I use them in the wood shop in my basement all the time. Not sure what virtues are though. I’ll ask next time I go to Lowe’s.
Heeheehee, I ‘like’ it and type a reply:
Claire Nichole Eden
AHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAH aren’t virtues scantily clad Greek demi-goddesses?
Alexander Armstrong
If so I’ll definitely have to pick one up. April, you fit that description...wanna help me with my vices? LOL
My good humor is at peak tonight and I’m in one of those moods when everything strikes me as being hilarious. And though Alexander’s previous comment is only nominally amusing, it catches and tickles me just as I take a swig of coffee, and I choke in an attempt not spit the brew all over my laptop screen. And that cracks me up all the more.
Claire Nichole Eden
Heeheehee Alexander, I can’t drink my coffee and read your responses at the same time :D
Alexander Armstrong
Always happy to share a laugh, Claire! And pleased to meet you! I’m off like a prom dress. Headed outside to write and soak up some sun. I tried to send you a friend request, but I’ve been blocked for 14 days. Send me one if you like. Later ladies.
Claire Nichole Eden
Doh chortle chortle snort!
Okay, that last bit about the prom dress actually was pretty funny. I’d never heard that before and in my current state, I find it a scream.
So this friend of April’s tried to send me a friend request – interesting. My first thought is to ask April for the lowdown on this fellow. But she just texted me, telling me that she’s going radio-silent, turning off her phone, and that her most recent FB post will be her last for two weeks. Evidently she’s in the car, en route to a camping trip in an area without internet or cell service, causing her kids to threaten hara-kiri.
The fact that this man has been ‘blocked for 14 days’ by the Facebook Gestapo does not bode well. In my experience, that usually means the person has some sort of personal agenda or self-promotion going on, and is adding friends willy-nilly. I am not one to blithely add some stranger to my friend pool on FB, especially one who’s been ‘blocked.’ But this person seems fun and entertaining in a light and playful sort of way. And what’s more, he’s a writer. That is enough to bring him to ‘person of interest’ status for me. That means
Okay, so my decision to check out his page may have been a teensy-weensy bit affected by his minute profile picture that suggests a hottie. I click on the icon and the photo magnifies several times over. I gasp my surprise. That is the fun-loving fellow I was just jesting with? In the photo he looks much more like a rock star than a Facebook denizen...or friend of April’s, for that matter. Where has she been hiding him? The black and white image shows an artsy man with longish loose curly hair, an arresting, confident gaze, and a trimmed, neat beard. He’s not smiling and looks imposing in a romantic, musketeer sort of way. I decide to delve deeper.
Reading his profile, I learn that he lives in the Catskills. As an undergrad, he studied at Cornell, double-majoring in Anthropology and Archeology. For grad school, he went to NYU. He’s considered an expert in his field and is a published writer currently working on a new book, outside his usual scope. He loves fly-fishing and archery and used to collect rare comic books with his dad. His page posts suggest an affinity with cooking and hiking, and his favorite quote is a poem:
One Plus One
Time and space are one, they say
Threads entwined in the tapestry of life.
But they are wrong.
They say that one plus one is two
The math of reason, science, true
But they are wrong.
And maybe some, or all, would swear
I can't at once be here and there
But they are wrong.
Our life is love,
And love I choose
And one plus one is one, not two
And time, illusion, eternity
real
And space the place I dwell with you.
The present is the only realm
Where all that is is known as one
Perfect, simple, grace-filled, new
Our love alone reveals this, true.
And love alone reveals this, true.
AVA
AVA? I don’t know that poet.
I click the button. Friend request sent.
Chapter SevenEnough time has passed since the Bret fiasco that Mom should be back to her cantankerous self. But awkwardly, she’s still being nominally pleasant. What gives? Our Sundays still include a jaunt to Boudin’s, but now gardening has been added to the mix. Whenever I suggest skipping Boudin’s, Mom acts as though I just took away her binky. Though once we are at the bakery, she spends most of the time in constant agitation, barking at me to hurry up, “Don’t you realize there is gardening to be done? The flowers won’t plant themselves you know!”
Deep breath.
Ohmmmmm.
Mom nearly always gardens in white pants. Well, not after Labor Day, of course. But from the vernal to the autumnal equinox...or is that it equinoces? Anyway, from mid-March to mid-September, she can most often be found in her whites, either in her garden, or these days, my own. Miraculously, she never gets dirty – literally! Her gardening gloves are usually a ravaged mess of earth and fauna, but somehow those darn white pants remain pristine. And pristine they are. You have never seen such white whites! To this day, I ask my mom to get stains out for me. She’s better than any commercial laundry service and heaven knows I didn’t inherit her skill with whites, or her green-thumb, for that matter.
Being that it’s late February, Mom is into snowdrop crocus, rhododendron and Campbell's magnolia, which is a tree, I’ve just learned. I can never remember the names of the flowers and foliage, and when we get to the nursery I just point and say ‘Oooooh, pretty!’ If I’m out and about and espy something especially lovely, I snap a pic with my phone and then send it to Christian, my cheerleading partner from college, who without ever studying any of it, knows everything about every plant, flower, bird and animal on the planet. It’s uncanny and unnerving.