Who You Know

by Theresa Alan

  In the first few dates you have all your stories to share, all your jokes to tell. You see movies you don’t want to see and laugh at jokes that aren’t funny. Then, a few dates down the road, you have sex, and it’s good, and you wonder if this could be love. The next dates have a lot of sex and not so much talking, so you don’t notice that it’s because you don’t particularly have much to say to each other. You’re grateful someone finds you attractive and wants to spend time with you. You mistake your gratitude for love.

  Maybe Gideon was right. Did we ever truly love each other? Did we ever really like each other? Or were we so eager to be a part of a “we,” to have a companion for Saturday nights and occasions like holidays and office parties that we ignored the fact that we didn’t really get each other? Gideon was good-looking, he was intelligent, he was sweet and caring and the kind of guy I couldn’t wait to introduce to my friends and family. I really thought I loved him. It had been easy for me not to notice that we didn’t get each other’s jokes and that we didn’t really have anything to talk about. I was so enthralled with the idea of him, of the person I made him out to be in my imagination.

  I even made myself believe it was a good thing that we were so different. I’d never read a fashion magazine in my life, and he wanted nothing more than to make it as a model. He read every men’s magazine and knew the names of every designer. He always dressed better than I did. He even wore designer pajamas to bed. I liked wearing sweats and a T-shirt at night, but he liked me in silk negligees. Some nights I’d placate him, but the silk was too expensive to clean and I never slept well in it. I felt like an actress, someone pretending to be stylish. Why, I would ask, does it matter what I’m wearing when I’m asleep? He would argue something about the clothes making the man. He exhausted me with his dedication to style, to every little detail. One time when we were going to the clubs, I was wearing a black outfit, and I didn’t feel like putting my stuff from the brown purse I brought to work every day into my black purse. When we were getting ready to go, Gideon looked at me. “You’re not going to bring your black purse? Your brown purse doesn’t match.”

  I dutifully changed purses, all the while thinking, weren’t guys supposed to be oblivious to things like whether your purse matched your outfit?

  It wasn’t that we didn’t have fun together. We got that part right. We went dancing all the time. After a couple of drinks, in the darkly lit clubs, I would watch him dance and be enthralled with him, with the way he carried himself, the way he smiled and moved. His easy confidence was enticing. We would go home and make love hungrily; then in the morning we’d make love again, slowly this time. It took a long time for me to realize what was missing from our relationship. In Gideon, I had a lover and a companion, but I didn’t really have a friend. Gideon never really got who I was.

  I hadn’t realized how unhappy I was until Gideon told me. We had gone to see some mind-numbing movie and went to Wendy’s for dinner afterward. We sat across from each other with our plastic forks in hand. I looked at my salad and strained to think of something to talk about.

  “Avery, you’re a good person . . .” he began.

  I let out a little laugh. I knew what he was going to say. I’d known the end was coming without knowing I knew. I couldn’t look at him, so I turned to watch the people waiting in line to order their food. The caustic colors, the vinyl seats, the plastic silverware, and Styrofoam plates seemed to mock me. After a long moment, I managed to ask if there was someone else.

  “No. No.”

  “Why this sudden change then?” I said, my voice shaky. “Is it someone from work?”

  “There is no one else. I swear. It’s . . .You and I never laugh together. I don’t know . . . I don’t know if I ever really loved you.”

  For the next several weeks, those words seared through my mind a thousand times a day.

  I don’t know if I ever really loved you.

  I don’t know if I ever really loved you.

  I don’t know if I ever really loved you.

  It didn’t seem as though divorce should be so easy. But since we didn’t have any kids and didn’t own much, it was just a matter of signing some papers. I agreed to let him keep the apartment because I couldn’t afford the rent on my own. I found a new apartment a few weeks after we decided to separate, and I moved out a couple of weeks after that. I hadn’t wanted to live so close to Gideon, but I fell in love with this apartment, and I could actually afford the rent, no easy feat in Boulder.

  There were downsides to living alone. Never having enough whites to justify a load of laundry, for example. Every creak and noise took on new significance when there was no one to blame them on. Every night I came home from work and flung open the shower curtain, half expecting to find an armed maniac hiding in the bathtub.

  After a couple of weeks, I brought an eight-week-old kitten home from the animal shelter.

  I named her Martha. All she did was eat, sleep, and play. Watching her luxuriate in endless naps reminded me not to take life quite so seriously.

  Martha liked chewing on everything from books to cords, and she liked to sharpen her nails on everything except the scratching post I’d shelled out fifteen bucks for. It was, however, impossible not to love her.

  She seemed to grow every day, jumping up to higher and higher places in the apartment. I could throw anything across the room—a hair scrunchy, a pencil, a stuffed mouse—and Martha would bound across the room with a charging warrior meow and leap on the object with a Jackie Chan tumble, only to utterly lose interest in the item a moment later, abandoning it entirely.

  I reviewed with her the basic concept of the game catch, but she inevitably fell asleep before I finished my tutorial. We played with her toy mouse, and though I tried to encourage her to bring the mouse back to me to throw again, she was only interested in the mouse while it was in transit, and after a while she was too tired to even muster enthusiasm for that. After a few minutes of play, she’d lie down and bat at it halfheartedly and half-asleep.

  Martha spent most of her day dazed in a light sleep. Her stupor was occasionally interrupted by short bursts of energy in which she bounded around the house in crazed loops. She paused long enough to eat a few kibbles of food before collapsing again in fatigue.

  Her goal was to let no surface go unadorned by cat hair. In the first few weeks I had her, she couldn’t leap up to the counter, but soon she was surveying the apartment from the top of the fridge and the highest bookshelves (knocking several books over each time).

  She often got these bursts of energy at three or four o’clock in the morning. She liked to turn over the garbage and wrestle noisily with paper or plastic that spilled onto the floor, ripping and growling at it as if it were a menacing burglar. She would race over my sleeping body, and, though she was light, anything that leaps on you from the dresser while you’re deep in sleep is as jarring to wake to as a bucket of ice-cold water or the sound of a lawnmower being revved up right outside your window.

  I would fall back asleep, only to be awoken an hour later by Martha sucking savagely on my neck. I tried to explain that her nursing days were over and no matter how hard she sucked on my neck she would never be nourished with milk, but despite her lack of results she was determined to find comfort by nursing on my jugular vein. I would toss her off me and she would return within seconds. I grabbed her and held her at arm’s length while she struggled to regain access to my neck, then I let her go and dove for cover beneath my quilt and pillow. The determined Martha gnawed at me through the quilt. Kittens look harmless, but their teeth can be painful and are entirely unconducive to slumber.

  I would go off to work the next morning wearing a turtleneck to hide the hickeys given to me by my kitten, which symbolized the state of my life more than I cared to think about.

  JEN

  Wallowing 101

  I was far too depressed to eat; that much was obvious. I poured myself another glass of red wine and surveyed the damage. Half a dozen
bags from the mall littered the living room floor. Shopping therapy.

  Every time we broke up, I went on a shopping spree. I know material things don’t solve problems, but I felt better for a while anyway.

  I got a slinky black dress and black lace bra and underwear. I already had about six black bras, but I couldn’t help myself. I look good in black.

  This absolutely had to be the last time we broke up. I could not afford to max out my credit cards again. I was still in dire financial straits from helping Dave out with his car and credit problems. It was so unfair—I drove an old car, never traveled, lived in a shithole of an apartment, but still didn’t make enough money to buy a few new outfits every now and then without maxing out my credit cards. I needed a better job, a job that paid a livable wage. My chance was coming. When Sharon went on maternity leave, I’d get the chance to take over her spot for a couple of months. I just needed to make sure she picked me.

  I drained my glass of wine.

  Must not call Dave. Must not call Dave. God, I missed him already. He was so bad for me. Why couldn’t I fall for a sweet nerd like Rette did?

  Why was it that you can know you’re making a mistake, but you make it anyway? It was like when I used Sun-In in eighth grade. Even girls with light brown hair ended up with orange-streaked locks. I, with my dark red hair, ended up with hair that looked like a fire engine streaked with rust and decorated with bright yellow yarn. Very attractive. I had suspected it wasn’t actually a good idea, but the lure of inexpensive highlights had just proven too much. It was like getting wicked drunk to feel a little peace and clarity when all it ever brought was a heinous hangover.

  Dave was totally irresponsible. He was even worse with money than I was, which, let me tell you, is saying something. Although, maybe in a way, I liked being the responsible one in the relationship. Everyone always thought of me as Miss Irresponsibility. That’s what I got for having a brainiac overachiever for a sister. I wasn’t like a total failure in school; it only seemed like that because Rette was such a flaming teacher’s pet. Also, my little stay in the hospital my freshman year in college certainly didn’t help my grades any. The deal was, I was scared of gaining the freshman fifteen, and I went a little overboard and got a tiny little case of bulimia. Only my mother knows about it; not even Rette knows. But you can’t miss that many classes in college; it destroys your GPA. Believe me, I know.

  Anyway, as I was saying, in a way I liked being the responsible one. When Dave went to buy his car, I had to cosign because he couldn’t have credit after having some little credit problems, and it was kind of cool that he had to depend on me. But let me tell you, being responsible got old. Dave absolutely never took me out. I paid for everything. Once, I lent him my last thirty dollars, money I was going to use for groceries, and I found out the next morning he’d spent every dollar of it, one dollar bill at a time, stuffing it into a stripper’s G-string. Boy, was I pissed. But it all worked out in the end ’cuz without any food in the house, I lost three pounds!

  These days though, I was so over wanting to be the strong one in a relationship. I wanted a man to take care of me. This nurturing crap was overrated.

  The only way I was going to get over him was if I found someone else. What the hell was Tom’s problem? He wasn’t dating anyone, and I was easily the cutest single girl at work.

  I got a piece of paper and titled it “Strategies to get Tom to fall in lust with me.” I considered a moment, then scratched out “lust” and wrote above it “love.” It wasn’t easy to strategize after half a bottle of wine, but I came up with (1) be beautiful (easy), (2) be funny and sincere (no sweat), (3) be patient and demure. Let him come to you. (Fie! Who’s got time for patience? I don’t want to be one of those old biddies that has to have a kid with the help of medical science at the age of sixty-two!)

  What if I was over my prime and no man would ever look at me again?

  This was stupid, making myself cry. It was the wine. You know what they say, “Poor me, poor me, pour me another drink.”

  What if I didn’t meet anyone good enough to marry? The kind of guy who, if I came down with some hideous disease, would love me enough to stick with me till the end, no matter how gnarled and useless my body became.

  Dave wasn’t that guy. So why did I miss him so much?

  RETTE

  The Itinerary

  8:59 A.M. Consider getting out of bed. Opt to stay in bed and stare at ceiling. Think about eating potato chips and French onion dip.

  9:41 Get out of bed. Pour bowl of Raisin Bran. Feel righteous for not eating chips and dip. Notice that the phone does not ring with job offer. Flip through classifieds. Get depressed.

  10:02 Change into sports bra, shorts, and gym shoes. Do fifty sit-ups and twenty sets of leg lifts. Get hungry. Determine that Raisin Bran did not provide enough energy to enable rigorous workout.

  10:31 Snack on carrot sticks. Feel deprived. Notice how carrot sticks do not taste like pizza or a burrito or ice cream or brownies or a Snicker’s, yet despite all this suffering the body persists on being frumpy and lumpy. Notice that phone has still not rung with job offer.

  10:40 Turn on TV. Do not drink coffee, though want to desperately. Remind self that cantankerous stomach is a sign to take better care of self.

  10:45 Become bored out of mind with soap opera. Hate all the commercials for brownie mix, fried chicken, Taco Bell, and candy bars. Continue to crave chips and dip.

  10:49 Put step aerobic tape into VCR.

  10:51 Cramp up. Pause video. Decide to finish when carrots are more fully digested.

  11:02 Flip through want ads.

  11:04 Become discouraged. Call Avery. Get answering machine.

  11:05 Attempt to push chips and dip out of mind. Be unsuccessful.

  11:06 Decide to eat lunch now and finish workout in an hour. Eat a salad and an apple. Use ranch dressing with all the fat because of new scientific evidence that says low-fat products are actually worse for you. Feel righteous for not eating a Whopper with cheese and fries with a chocolate milkshake.

  11:26 Decide day has proven exhausting. Take nap. Feel certain things will be different after a good rest. Secretly hope a phone call for a job offer will disturb slumber.

  The phone did finally wake me up, but not, sadly, with a job offer. It was just Avery, inviting me downstairs. She wanted to see how my interview had gone the day before.

  I went downstairs and knocked on her door. I couldn’t wait to come back home and check messages.

  “You’re just in time. I’m baking scones,” Avery said. I followed her as she led the way to the kitchen. “Work was making me crazy so I came home for lunch to do a little baking. Baking always makes me feel better.”

  Avery must not get upset often or else she didn’t eat the fruits of her baking therapy because she weighed about eleven ounces. No, the reality was that she probably ate all she wanted. We fat girls like to think skinny girls must starve and suffer to avoid our fate of crowbar-ring our way into size twelve jeans, but the truth was probably that they never bothered to count a calorie as they mowed their way through grocery carts full of lard-laden delights.

  Her counter was covered in flour and measuring cups. I watched as she added the oats and the blueberries to the bowl.

  Avery had enviable domestic skills. Her home was impeccably decorated. Every silk flower, every throw pillow, every picture frame, every detail was coordinated and classy. All of her furniture looked like it belonged in a modern art museum.

  “I’m on a diet,” I said.

  “What on earth would compel you to do that?”

  “I have a wedding dress to squeeze into.”

  “You do realize Marilyn Monroe, sex goddess extraordinaire, wore a size sixteen.”

  “A sixteen? Really? Well, she had her fat arranged better.”

  “You are hopeless. You look just like the woman in Rembrandt’s The Bather, did you know that?”

  “I didn’t know that,” I said. “I’ve
never even heard of that painting.”

  “Well, she’s gorgeous. She has your color hair and your voluptuous figure . . .”

  “Voluptuous. Voluptuous is a transparent euphemism for fat cow. Do you get sick of me bitching endlessly to you? I promise I’ll get some other friends soon; then I can spread my bitching out a little.” I sat down at her table. She set a cup of coffee in front of me and set down small matching china saucers with cream and sugar. She used an entire dish to put the cream in instead of just pouring the cream from the carton into the coffee. Can you imagine unnecessarily messing up another dish that would have to be washed? She cracked me up.

  “So, how’d the interview go?” she asked.

  “I don’t think it went very well.”

  “I’m sure you did great. It would be so wonderful if you worked with me. I could use a close friend at work.”

  “What about Jen?”

  “Jen is a blast, but I don’t know if we’re close friends. I mean I wouldn’t call her in times of crisis.”

  I nodded. Jen was the type you could always count on to have a good time, but she had a short attention span. She only liked to hang around for the fun stuff.

  “Jen has always been like that. It bugged me until we were both in college together,” I said. “It’s supposed to be the older sister who teaches you about orgasms and blow jobs and draws diagrams of the clitoris and that sort of thing, but she was always the accelerated one when it came to fun stuff. She did a great job of corrupting me.” It was funny: We’d never hung out in high school, but when we ended up at the same college, suddenly we went out together a lot. Until Jen got to the University of Minnesota two years after I did, the most scandalous thing I’d ever done was get tipsy with the girls in our dorm room. Then Jen got there and I tried pot, saw my first porno, and spent a good number of weekends in a state of drunken debauchery. Jen had been the ringleader of every crazy thing I did in college.