How I Learned to Love the Walrus

by Beth Orsoff

  I probably should’ve let it go, but I felt compelled to try damage control. Brie was the closest thing I had to a friend on the island and a month is a long time to go with no one to talk to. "So what you really mean is the two of you are perfect for each other, he just hasn’t figured it out yet?"

  "Exactly," she said and chuckled.

  I understood because until twelve days ago, I was in a similar predicament with Blake.

  Chapter 11

  I still remember the day I met Blake McKinley. It was in Statistics for Social Scientists, my sophomore year at UCLA. He’d swaggered into class in his low-slung shorts and his ripped T-shirt, all buff and tan with sun-bleached hair and perfect white teeth. He had dozens of seats to choose from in the half-empty lecture hall, but he sat down next to me. Then he smiled and asked to borrow my notes. I was instantly smitten, as were most of the women in the room, and a few of the men too.

  I’d assumed from his appearance that he was a native Californian. I didn’t find out until five days later over French fries and Cokes at the student union that he was a Midwestern transplant just like me. That didn’t change my opinion of him though. If anything, our shared desire to transform ourselves made me love him even more. And love him I did.

  "Obsessed is more like it," my friend Nicole had said when I told her I’d experimented with three different fudge brownie recipes until I found the perfect one to use for Blake’s birthday. We’d been dating for six weeks and this was our first occasion together.

  "Actually," I said, as we trekked the half mile from Royce Hall to her apartment, "I have a favor to ask."

  "No," she replied, without waiting for my question. "I’m sleeping in my bed tonight."

  Blake and I both had roommates, but Nicole lived alone and occasionally lent me her keys.

  "That’s not it." I’d already gotten Blake’s roommate, Mike, to agree to spend the night at his frat house. "What I wanted to ask was if I could borrow some lingerie." Nicole’s stepmother was a buyer for Victoria’s Secret, so Nicole had more sexy underwear than anyone I knew. She was also four inches taller than me and her boobs were twice as big, so most of what she owned wouldn’t fit me, but I thought I could get away with a teddy as long as it was a clingy fabric and had adjustable straps.

  She arched one perfectly plucked eyebrow until it almost disappeared beneath her wispy chestnut bangs. "Have something special planned, do we?"

  "Well, you don’t turn nineteen every day," I said, and we both laughed. Nicole had been teasing me about my lack of "experience" ever since I’d admitted after three Jell-o shots that I’d never had an orgasm. Of course, that all changed when I met Blake. I could’ve had sex with him ten times a day if I didn’t have to go to class, study, and work too.

  "Then I have the perfect outfit for you," Nicole replied.

  When I heard the key in the lock, I slammed my economics book shut and lit the single candle in the center of the brownie tray. The cheap bottle of champagne I’d bribed my twenty-one-year-old roommate into buying for me by promising to wash her dishes for a week was already chilling in a plastic bowl filled with ice. All I had to do was peel off my sweats and strategically arrange myself on Blake’s bed.

  I don’t know who was more surprised when the bedroom door swung open—me, Blake, or the redhead standing at his side.

  Chapter 12

  "So am I a total idiot?" I whispered to Nicole the next morning during our Intro to Modern Art Seminar.

  "No," she whispered back as our professor droned on about the origins of cubism, and images of Picasso’s paintings flashed across the lecture hall’s giant screen.

  "Are you sure?" I asked, before the pink-haired woman with the combat boots and the nose ring turned around and shushed me. I’d felt like one last night when I’d accused Blake of cheating on me. (C’mon, he brought a girl back to his empty apartment at ten-thirty at night on his birthday. I was justified.) Yet Blake swore Juliet was just a classmate from his acting seminar and she’d only come home with him so they could run lines together for a scene they had to perform the next day. And I felt like an even bigger idiot this morning when I told Nicole the whole story, including the part where I apologized to Blake for overreacting and spent the rest of the night making it up to him.

  "Too soon to tell," she scribbled on my notebook before she stuck her tongue out at the back of nose-ring girl’s head.

  Three weeks later, Nicole wasn’t so noncommittal. "What are you, an idiot?"

  "But we’re only nineteen," I blubbered, as she handed me the box of tissues. "This is the time in our lives when we should be dating lots of people, not tying ourselves down to just one" I added, repeating the same words Blake had said to me the night before.

  "Oh please! Tell me you didn’t fall for that line?"

  I blew my nose and reached for another tissue, since obviously I had.

  "Syd, you know I’m only telling you this because I’m your friend."

  I braced myself. The last time Nicole said that to me she proceeded to tell me that my hair looked like it had been chopped off by an angry lesbian who’d just been dumped by her girlfriend who happened to look exactly like me. And that was the last time I ever went for a free haircut at the stylists’ training center in Santa Monica.

  "If he really cared about you as much as he says he does," Nicole continued, "he wouldn’t be cheating on you with Juliet."

  "He’s not cheating! We both agreed we should see other people."

  She gave me an exaggerated eye roll. "And was that before or after you caught her blowing him on the living room couch?"

  "After," I admitted and the tears started flowing again. Blake’s roommate never asked for his spare key back, but Blake did when I walked in on him and Juliet.

  "Syd, it’s time to cut your losses and move on."

  "But I lo-love him," I said, barely able to get the words out through the tears.

  "I know you do, sweetie," she said, as she put her arm around my shoulder and squeezed. "This too shall pass."

  And it did. Eventually. By the time we graduated, I could spot Blake on campus with his paramour du jour and not want to throw myself out a four-story window. And I hardly thought about him at all by the time he literally walked back into my life three years later.

  Blake actually did a double-take as he strode past me at Toast Café, a trendy Westside brunch spot. The timing couldn’t have been more perfect. If it had been any other Sunday morning, I would’ve been sitting across the table from Nicole, my hair unwashed and no makeup, debating whether to be good and order the egg white omelet with a side of fresh fruit, or to be bad and order the berry French toast. (I usually ordered the French toast.) Instead I was sitting across from Mark, a cute twenty-seven-year old lawyer I’d met at a party the week before. Since this was a date, I was wearing makeup, a sundress, and I’d blown dry my normally wavy hair so it was silky straight.

  "Blake, what are you doing here?" He looked slightly less gorgeous than I remembered in his fraying cargo shorts and sweaty t-shirt. Although his disheveled appearance didn’t diminish the interest of the table of four teenage girls sitting next to us, or our waitress, who suddenly remembered she’d forgotten to refill our coffee.

  "Breakfast," Blake said, holding up his to-go bag and cup. "I live around the corner."

  "That’s amazing. Nicole and I come here practically every weekend and I’ve never run into you before."

  Blake smiled. "How is Nicole?" The two had been friendly while Blake and I were dating, but they stopped speaking shortly after we broke up.

  "Good," I replied, as Mark asked, "Who’s Nicole?"

  "I just moved in yesterday," Blake said, ignoring my date. "My roommate told me this place has the best breakfast burritos in town, so I thought I’d give them a try."

  I wanted to ask him why he didn’t just eat at the restaurant. Even if his roommate couldn’t join him, surely his paramour du jour would’ve. Instead I said, "Blake, I’d like you to meet Mark Kana
n. Mark," I said, finally turning my attention back to my date, "this is Blake McKinley, a friend from college."

  Blake smiled at my characterization of him, then shook Mark’s proffered hand.

  If it had been just me and Nicole, I would’ve asked Blake to join us. Obviously I couldn’t do that when I was on a date. Yet that didn’t stop Blake from borrowing an empty chair from the table next to us (the group of girls happily gave it up).

  "You don’t mind, do you?" he asked Mark, after he’d sat down. "Actually, this is sort of a celebration for me," Blake said, turning his attention back to me.

  "You mean you don’t normally eat breakfast?" Mark said testily. I couldn’t blame him. If the situation was reversed, I’d be angry too.

  Blake ignored him. "You’ll never guess what just happened to me."

  "What?" I asked, also ignoring Mark’s furious stare.

  "Do you know that show Bite Me?"

  "I know of it." Vampires weren’t really my thing. Too much blood.

  "They hired me for two episodes but the producers liked me so much they’re turning my part into a recurring role."

  "That’s great, Blake!" Even when I was at my most despondent and Nicole was at her most vitriolic, neither of us ever denied that Blake had talent. In fact, I believe it was Nicole who had opined that it was Blake’s ability to convincingly lie to a woman straight to her face that would ultimately lead to his success.

  I would’ve followed up with more questions but the waitress arrived with our food and even Blake had to acknowledge the awkwardness created by his continued presence at our table. "I suppose I should let you two get back to your meal."

  "Yes," Mark said, stabbing a home fried potato with his fork, "you should."

  Blake grabbed his takeout bag and his coffee and stood up. "Now that I know you come here all the time I’ll have to stop by more often."

  Before I could respond one of the girls at the next table said, "I eat here all the time too," which caused the rest of them to break into peals of laughter, and even I had to chuckle. Mark, however, failed to see the humor in it.

  Blake turned his dazzling smile in the girls’ direction. "Good to know," he said, which resulted in more than one audible sigh.

  I glanced over at Mark, who was chewing noisily and staring down at his plate. I doubted he’d be asking for a second date, so I reached into my purse and pulled out a business card. I’d just had them printed up with my new title, "publicity manager," the week before.

  "You’re a publicist at BB&L?" Blake said as I handed it to him.

  "Yes," I said smugly. I wanted him to know that I was doing well too.

  "That’s great," he replied, seeming genuinely pleased. "We should get together some time and catch up."

  I didn’t think he’d actually call, although part of me was hoping he would.

  "The stupid part of you," Nicole said, after I’d filled her in on my plans to meet Blake for drinks the following week.

  "How am I being stupid?" I lowered my voice so not every one of my cubicle mates could hear our conversation. "He’s an up and coming actor and I’m a publicist in need of clients. It makes perfect sense."

  "You just keep telling yourself that." I could hear her fingernails clicking across her keyboard even while she dispensed crucial best friend advice.

  "C’mon, don’t you think I know better than to get involved with an actor?" Nicole had reminded me many times that the number one rule at Zenith Management, where she worked as a business manager, was "Don’t date the clients, and never date the actors." We didn’t have that rule at BB&L, but I acknowledged it was probably good advice.

  "And the number two rule?" Nicole asked, but didn’t wait for my reply. "Never mistake a client for a friend."

  That one I had a bit more trouble with, at least where Blake was concerned.

  Chapter 13

  Four years later I was still ignoring rule number two, although I’d never violated rule number one. Not that I hadn’t been tempted sometimes. Like the night Blake took me out bar hopping to cheer me up after my boyfriend of eight months broke up with me. Or when he was between girlfriends and he’d come over to my place and we’d order takeout Chinese food and watch DVDs. Although we might’ve exchanged a few longing looks (on my part) or lascivious glances (on his), we never ever exchanged a kiss. A fact I routinely reminded Nicole of whenever she admonished me for my "unhealthy relationship" with Blake.

  So I didn’t see anything unusual in Blake’s request that I stay for dinner and to help him pack after we’d spent the afternoon going over plans for the walrus documentary. Blake was leaving for Australia the next morning. Of course I’d stay. Nor did I find it unusual when he came up behind me while I was loading dirty plates into his dishwasher.

  "I have a maid for that," he said. "Which you should know since you hired her."

  "Yeah, I’m sure she really appreciates it when you leave her a week’s worth of crusty dishes under the bed." I only hired her after I found mold growing on his coffee table where he’d left a half-eaten pizza sitting out for two weeks. In his defense, he had been out of town for ten of the fourteen days.

  "Never under the bed." Blake smiled. "I always leave them out where she can find them."

  "My mistake. You’re a true gentleman."

  "I am," he said with what I thought was mock sincerity. So I laughed in his face.

  "You don’t think I’m a gentleman?" he asked, staring at me with his wounded puppy expression, the one that made every female over the age of twelve swoon.

  I laughed again.

  "Seriously, Syd, you really don’t think so?"

  "Seriously, Blake, I don’t think this is a conversation you want to have with me."

  I expected him to start laughing too, or at least crack a smile, but he sported his wounded puppy expression again and I finally realized he wasn’t kidding. "I’m not saying you’re a himbo or anything." Every time the paparazzi caught him with a new woman, he swore he’d broken up with the previous girlfriend first, and I hadn’t heard him utter the phrase "open relationship" in years. "But a gentleman might be pushing it."

  "How come?" he demanded.

  I made a split second decision to answer as his publicist instead of his friend. "Women don’t pay twelve bucks a pop to see perfect gentlemen. They pay to see bad boys behaving badly." At least that’s why they paid to see Blake.

  "C’mon, Sydney, we both know that’s not the real me."

  We did?

  "Although you do an excellent job of portraying me that way," he added.

  "Thanks," I said, hoping that would be the end of it.

  But he took a step closer and gave me an uncharacteristically shy smile. "I think we make a pretty good team."

  As I inhaled his intoxicating scent— Paco Rabanne mixed with Eau de Blake—I felt one of those moments coming on. So I told myself what I always tell myself: You’re friends, Sydney, nothing more. He doesn’t love you, he never loved you, the rest is all in your head. Then I looked up at him and smiled back. "I agree."

  "Good," he said, then he bent down and kissed me.

  I wish I could say I slapped his face and walked out of the room. Or at least that I didn’t kiss him back. But I did, as ten-year-old memories washed over me. It wasn’t until his hand started creeping up the front of my shirt, that I came to my senses.

  "This is a bad idea," I said, pulling away from him, narrowly missing landing butt first in the still open dishwasher.

  "You just said we were a good team."

  "Professionally," I said, as I bent down and slammed the door shut. "Personally, we’re a disaster."

  "I beg to differ," he said, oozing wounded pride. "I’ve always considered you a good friend and I thought you considered me one too."

  "I do," I said, immediately backtracking. "But I don’t do friends with benefits. At least not with you." Actually, not with anyone. Although I could see the advantages of it, especially during those dating dry spells. I’
ve just never been able to sleep with a friend without getting emotionally involved.

  "I’m not asking you to."

  I would’ve thought I’d imagined this whole episode if I hadn’t caught a glimpse of my lipstick on his chin. "Then what was that kiss all about?"

  "A date."

  "A date?" I practically spat.

  "Yeah, a date. You know, dinner and a movie. Like we do all the time, but with the sex part too."

  "Blake, you don’t need sex from me. You’ve got women practically lining up at your door." Literally. Although the restraining order seemed to be working.

  "So that’s a no then?" he said, turning away from me.

  "No! I mean, yes. I mean, what the hell are you talking about?"

  "Geez, Syd, do I have to spell it out for you? I’m asking you on a date. But if you’re not interested . . . ."

  Not interested! "Blake, have you forgotten that we tried this already. It didn’t end so well." At least not for me.

  "That was ten years ago. I think we’ve both matured a little since then, don’t you?"

  A cheap shot. He knew I couldn’t disagree. I turned away from him and focused my gaze on the six-burner Viking stove he just had to buy even though I’ve never seen him cook, while I reminded myself that even considering sleeping with Blake was a bad idea. A very bad idea. An idea so bad it would make volunteering to go to Alaska for a month look like a genius move when he reached for my chin and forced me to look up into those deep emerald eyes.

  "Sydney, if all I wanted was sex you’re the last person I’d turn to."

  "Thanks a lot!"

  "I meant it as a compliment," he called after me as I stomped out of the kitchen.

  I knew he did. I also knew the smartest thing for me to do would be to get the hell away from him before he actually said something nice. So when I heard his footsteps echoing behind me as I hurried into the living room for my purse, I forced myself not to turn around. Looking into those eyes was deadly for me, like a bird mesmerized by a cobra before it administered the fatal strike. I snatched my handbag off the coffee table and kept my head down as I hurried to the front door, still searching for my keys.