by Dermot Davis
I can hear some uncontrolled groans and some sighing by some women in the audience, like they just discovered why all their boyfriends have been cheating on them since forever. I’m making a note to remember this and maybe Google it when I get home. I can see how this could be a darn good defense to use when confronted about cheating, not that I ever would: ‘you don’t understand, honey, don’t blame me, I couldn’t help it, it’s the Columbus Effect.’
“In the absence of social restrictions, the human male would be promiscuous throughout the whole of his life. Women, however, tend to be more monogamous. Women want a lot of sex with the man they love; men want to have a lot of sex with a lot of different women.”
Wow, for me, this explains a lot. I’m not going to beat myself up over wanting to…
Without warning, Frances is up out of her chair and heading for the exit at some speed. I jump up and follow her. Catching up with her outside, I have to call her name to stop her speed walking. “I can’t do this,” she says.
“No, I’m glad,” I say relieved that we’re out of there and we don’t have to return for two more days of torture. “Me, neither. That thing sucked.”
“I don’t mean that,” she says. “I mean us. I can’t do this… I can’t do us. I’m sorry.” She turns and races off toward the car. I hurry around to her and head her off.
“That’s it?” I ask. “After all the talk about issues and honest communication and stuff: you’re just going to walk?”
“I can’t do this anymore.”
“Why don’t you say that you’re scared? I’m scared. Maybe everybody’s scared when they get close to commitment and intimacy but won’t admit it. I’ll admit it. I’m scared. I got so scared I almost screwed it up. Maybe I did screw it up. Did I screw it up?”
“I don’t know, Martin. I need to leave.”
I stand there in a kind of shock as I can feel my brain trying to figure it all out. Yesterday, I was ready to walk but Frances was really nice to me and I changed my mind. Now she’s ready to walk and I’ve no idea what to say or do to make her change her mind.
This is so peculiar. Boy meets girl and now boy is about to lose girl. What would Tom Hanks say to Meg Ryan at this point in the movie? I take Frances’ hands in mine and look her straight and meaningfully in the eyes.
“Frances. You’re a beautiful, caring, wonderful woman and…” This is always the best speech of the movie that’s so heartfelt and incredibly well written, that it brings a tear to the audience’s eye. I try my best to remember what Billy Crystal said to Meg Ryan in When Harry Met Sally, but I’m drawing a blank and I have to say something or she’s going to walk…“I’m really sorry you can’t follow your own advice,” I finally blurt out.
I knew it was really lame even as I was saying it and Frances does not look at all on the verge of tears and even less likely to have a change of heart. I stand aside and without a parting word and finally, with some tears in her eyes, Frances walks past me and out of my life.
It takes me two buses and a good stretch of walking to get back to my apartment. It feels like forever since I actually spent a night in my own bed and at this point, I am really looking forward to it.
First thing that hits me when I get through the front door is the weird smell. The air smells rank, like sweaty socks. The place is a mess with take out and pizza boxes, empty beer bottles and half empty bottles of hard liquor all over the place. I can pretty much tell by the placement and the general assortment of the take out boxes that this wreckage is not from a party the night before: this took some time to end up in this kind of a neglected state.
When I get to the hallway I see Mike sitting on the floor of the bathroom. The door is open and he’s still wearing his boxers and a tee shirt from when he got up this morning, or judging by his unshaven looks, this afternoon. He looks dazed and holds a beer in his hand that he doesn’t even seem aware of.
“What’s going on, Mike? You look like shit. You okay?”
“She left me, Marty. Gloria dumped my sorry ass. Can you believe it?”
“No, I can’t believe it. You were the best thing that ever happened to her.”
“She met…was seeing someone else, I don’t know the details.”
“Where did she get the time to meet someone else? She practically lived here, rent free, but that’s not important.”
“I think it was this guy we met at this party. I went to the bathroom, there was a long line…and when I get back she’s talking to this guy, a fucking photographer, can you believe it? Told her he could get her into modeling. I guess he got into her pants instead.”
“Jeez, she fell for the old, ‘get you into modeling’ line. The number of times I’ve used that line and it never once paid off.” He doesn’t react to what I just said, almost like he didn’t hear me, which I’m thankful for because now and again I totally shock myself at how insensitive I can be at times. Sometimes, I may be a little bit too much obsessed about me, I’ve noticed.
“I should have known better. Never bring your chick to a party, man,” Mike says, deeply obsessed with his own thoughts, I’d imagine.
“I know, I know,” I say as I pat him consolingly on the shoulder.
So, I grab two six packs of beers from the fridge and sit down on the bathroom floor with my buddy, our backs resting against the bathtub. We barely much say anything to each other; we both feel like shit, what is there to say? Simply by sitting side-by-side on the hard linoleum floor, with our unspoken tacit agreement that love sucks, we support and console each other. We don’t move till we finish every beer in the house.
16. The Wedding
I’m walking through my favorite park in Santa Monica, pretty much back where I started except I’d like to think a tad bit older and wiser. It’s almost sunset and the happy and in-love couples are out in force, some strolling arm in arm, some standing by the railing, watching the ocean, some are picnicking and some are kissing. I’m not taking their photographs anymore; I’ve put that project to bed. Instead what I’m inclined to take lately is the sunset itself.
Every night it’s different and every picture I take seems to reveal something marvelous within the texture of color and hue of the sky and the sun and sometimes some clouds. Since I’ve started this project, I’ve since discovered that there’s no such thing as an ordinary sunset or a generic sunset. Just like snowflakes, no two sunsets are exactly alike.
Two things have really surprised me since this whole Frances thing. First, it’s been really hard to stop myself from contacting her and second, for as little time as I’ve known her, I never thought I’d miss anyone as much as I miss her.
Sometimes I think that maybe I’m just in love with the idea of being in love. I do love sunsets and romance and the sweetness of touch and the rush of sexual…copulation, for want of a better word. I don’t think I’ve had a relationship that has lasted longer than the romance and maybe that’s all it is and will be for me. How can I move on and get past that? I think that I would have stuck it out with Frances but she kind of blind-sided me by being the first one to bow out.
“Mind if I sit here?” I turn and see that a really hot girl is asking to share the bench.
“No, not at all,” I say and remind myself that they say that the time you meet that someone special is when you’re not looking, when you’re not at all trying.
“Is this the most romantic spot on earth, or what?” the young woman comments.
“It sure is,” I say and I’m aware that I’m sounding world weary and wise for my age. Funny thing is, as beautiful as this young woman is, I have no interest in hitting on her. Zilch. I was joking before about being imprinted on Frances but I’m not so sure that it’s a joke anymore. Or maybe I’m just in love with the pining, the longing for this woman that I connected so deeply with; which is part and parcel of the whole romance thing that I have been obsessing about, right? Heck if I know.
A young man approaches and the young woman springs up and they kiss soli
dly on the lips. I could have bet money that she was hitting on me. It’s like my whole dating radar is busted or maybe it’s coming across that I don’t give a damn about the whole dating scene anymore. Roxanne is getting married on Sunday and the whole thing about bringing or not bringing a hot babe to the party? I don’t give a shit.
Just to further emphasize how little I care about whom I show up to the wedding with, I decide that Mike is going to be my plus one. Mike and Roxanne hated each other and if hate is too strong a word, then let’s just say that they couldn’t stand the sight of each other, pretty much the way I used to feel about Gloria.
I’m well aware that Mike is in no shape to be going anywhere, let alone a fancy wedding but he’s my best friend and we’ve stuck with each other through thick and thin and if it came to it, we’d probably take a bullet for each other, it doesn’t get tighter than that.
“I think I’m gonna hurl,” Mike says as he takes a major gulp out of his hip flask. I haven’t seen him eating in days and even though he’s dressed in a jacket and a nice pair of jeans, with his hair unkempt and his scruffy excuse for a beard, he still looks like he just rolled out of a garbage dumpster.
“If you’re seriously going to throw up, let me know quick so I can pull over, okay? I just got the car cleaned.”
“Why? You think you’re going to get lucky? You think Roxanne is going to change her mind at the last minute and run into your arms begging you to take her for one last ride in your piece of shit, ten year old car?”
“Could happen,” I say, playing along. “She’d have to beg real hard, though. Once I dump ‘em, I don’t take ‘em back.” We both laugh and even if he is in bad shape I’m glad that we’re going together.
“You need to pull over.”
“Seriously?”
Before I even get to the turn signal, Mike spews vomit all over the dashboard.
Our clean up detour means that we didn’t make it on time for the ceremony so we go straight to the wedding reception. As we enter the hotel, Mike peels off to go find the nearest restroom so he can get himself cleaned up.
“Martin!” Roxanne declares as I get to the sign in table. Standing with some of the bridesmaids and welcoming the guests, she looks truly radiant.
“Congratulations, Roxanne. You look amazing.”
“Thank you, Martin. So do you. Did you come by yourself?”
“No. Mike had to go to the restroom. You remember Mike, right?”
“You brought your roommate?” Roxanne asks with a mix of surprise and pity. “Yes, of course I remember Mike. How is he?”
“Here he comes, you can ask him, yourself.”
Roxanne watches a puke and water-stained, disheveled Mike walk unsteadily down the hall, as someone might watch a runaway train approach an end of the line train station, with a mix of awe and terror, perhaps.
“Roxanne, you old witch, you look amazing,” says Mike, going in for a cheek kiss. Roxanne quickly turns away to greet another arriving couple with an over-the-top greeting.
“You dodged a bullet, my friend,” says Mike. “Now let’s go drink all their free booze.”
We park ourselves at an outlying table away from the central action and proceed to drink all the beer we can carry back to the table without looking like a disgraceful pair of alcoholics.
“I don’t even know what I’m doing here,” I say to Mike. “What are we doing here?”
“You’re here, my friend, to stick it to her. You’re here to show her how amazing you are so that she eats her heart out.”
“Oh, yeah. I forgot.”
“And the free booze.”
Mike gets up but misjudges his step and almost keels over, taking the tablecloth with everything on it with him. “Relax,” I tell him. “I’ll get the drinks. And you will pay for the car detail.”
“Of course, I will,” says Mike. “Just go get some more refreshments.”
Since things ended with Frances, I’ve had several incidents on the street where I thought I saw her. On each occasion, the woman would turn around or walk closer to me and I would realize that, while in some way they resembled Frances, they obviously weren’t her.
As I head for the refreshments, a woman with her back to me, by the punch bowl, is another dead ringer for Frances. I’ve only seen such a thing in movies and I thought it was only some kind of movie convention, sort of like so we know what the lead character is thinking: he’s missing the girl. But it seems to be an actual condition: I am missing Frances. When the woman turns around, she looks to her left and then straight ahead and sees me. To my shock and amazement, it is Frances. She is radiant and dressed in an outrageously sexy dress. She looks absolutely, hands down…stunning.
“Frances?” I say, with obvious puzzlement. “What are you doing here?”
“I thought you were a no-show,” she says, with a mix of relief and excitement.
“What? No, I mean, we missed the ceremony but…what are you doing here?”
“We missed the ceremony? Did you bring somebody?” she asks, looking around.
“Yeah. I brought my roommate, Mike. The sorry looking dude sitting by himself over by the kid’s table.”
“He’s not looking too good.”
“His girlfriend broke up with him and I guess he’s experiencing PEA withdrawal.”
Frances thinks about that one for a second and then smiles with recognition. “What about you?” she asks. “Any PEA withdrawal symptoms you’d like to share?”
“Maybe later. What I would like to know is what you’re doing here. Not that I’m not pleased to see you, I am. Very much so.”
“I’m here because you invited me. I said, yes, that no matter what happens with us, I will go with you, remember? I may be a scaredy cat when it comes to relationships, but when it comes to attending other people’s weddings…I’m pretty much good to my word.”
“Are you alone?”
“Of course. I almost went home after the ceremony but I decided, what the heck, maybe I’ll meet someone special at the reception.” She smiles that amazingly beautiful smile at me and adds: “And I was right.”
“What now?” I stand and stare, unable to function much beyond drinking in her beauty.
“Well, I think we should stick to the plan, don’t you?”
“What plan?”
“We dance and cavort and frolic in front of the bride and all of the time I won’t be able to keep my roving hands off of you.”
“That sounds like a good plan to me.” All I want to do is hug her and squeeze her and smell her and taste her…
“Showing up with sadsack over there, she already thinks you’re a loser, right?”
“Oh, yeah,” I say, giving a wave to Mike.
“We’ll show her, then.”
Then Frances grabs my hand and leads me to the dance floor where we dance what can only be described as our version of the forbidden dance: suggestive verging on vulgar. Her sense of fun is back and I love her. Yes, I do love her. With her Jennifer Grey to my Patrick Swayze, we dirty dance up and down the modestly-sized dance floor. We do manage to get Roxanne’s attention and I couldn’t care less what kind of looks she is throwing our way, I only have eyes for Frances.
I have no idea where this woman is at in her head or what she’s been thinking since we last parted, and there’s no way I’m going to risk having a serious discussion about relationship or feelings or the future of ‘us’ or even PEA and Christopher Columbus, at least for tonight.
Zen and the art of honest communication will have their day but for now, fun Frances is back and she is one of my most favorite people in the entire world. I want to make her smile and laugh the way she makes me laugh and smile. Judging by the way everyone looks at us and smiles, I would say that whatever it is we’ve got going, other people can definitely see it and it’s worth making the hard yards to keep it alive and grow it further.
I’ve never been much of a dancer but with Frances, we dance all night and I’ve never had so m
uch fun. For some bizarre reason that continues to confound me, Mike, no matter what kind of state the guy is in, women…good-looking women always find him attractive. I can see that he is barely able to function as a passable human being and coming here, had zero interest in hooking up tonight but for some mind-boggling reason, one of the really cute bridesmaids took a shine to him and talked him into leaving behind all the free booze and going back to her place.
I’m happy for him but I also know that although this new chick is going to replace Gloria in his affections and take him out of his post-moonstruck depression, like all of us, it seems, he is merely repeating the cycle. Fall in love, get dumped, fall in love, get dumped…
Except that’s not what I’m feeling with Frances, right now. In fact, I would go out on a limb and say that this really feels like it is the last relationship I’ll ever have.
We’re on her bed and she’s somewhere beneath me and yet beside me…From memory, we’re doing Tantric Sex position number two from the book and I’m doing everything in my power not to come but instead to hold it and circulate it and…obviously whatever pained expression is on my face is comical because she laughs and then I laugh and then her body relaxes and then my body relaxes…and I explode. Ooh, baby, baby, I love your way, I want to be with you night and day, ooh, baby, baby…I spontaneously break into yet another love song…
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AUTHOR BIO
Dermot Davis is an award-winning playwright, having had plays performed in Dublin, Boston and Los Angeles. His creative work encompasses varied genres and styles — drama, comedy, and, more recently, sci-fi, with a special focus on human themes and characters transformed by life experience. A sometimes actor, he was formerly a child actor in Dublin, Ireland and the co-founder of the Laughing Gravy Theatre (which performed Irish Vaudeville and excerpts of Irish literary works as well as drama, including the original stage plays of Mr. Davis) where he and other members of the troupe were artists-in-residence at the Piccolo Spoleto Festival in Charleston, South Carolina. He currently resides in Los Angeles. Visit http://dermotdavis.com to learn more about him. Follow him on his Goodreads.com Author Page at http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/6565450.Dermot_Davis.