Her nostrils flare. “Well let’s not pat Greg on the back, Mary Kay. He was laughing, which means he probably laughed about it with my trainer too. Ex-trainer.”
You nod, Dr. Mary Kay DiMarco. “Okay, but remember. Greg’s in there all day and when you deal with the public all day, you hear crazy things. Greg does strike me as one of the good ones. And imagine if he didn’t tell you about the trainer.”
You tamed her without dismissing her—brilliant—and she makes a self-deprecating joke about being Bitchy McBitcherson and now you cut her off. “Stop it, Melanda. You’re allowed to have a reaction.”
I want to tear off your tights but for now I just nod affirmatively. “You said it, Mary Kay.”
I was beaming when I said that, beaming at you, and Melanda felt it and we are a party of three and she scans the diner and you nudge her, girlfriend to girlfriend. “On a happier note, you’re seeing that Peter guy this week, right? The one from Plenty of Fish?”
She grunts. No eye contact with you or me. “Plenty of Fish? More like plenty of pigs. He sent me a dirty joke about Cinderella and a Pumpkin Eater and, needless to say, I reported him.”
“Well,” you say. “You know how I feel about those apps…”
Melanda fixes her eyes on me now. “And what about you, Joe? Are you on the apps?”
She’s not stupid. She saw me beam at you. But I don’t want to be that asshole pooh-poohing her way of life. “No,” I say. “But maybe I’ll join just to give Peter a piece of my mind.”
It was a joke and you laugh but she doesn’t. “Aw,” she says. “That’s sweet but I don’t recall asking you to fight my battles. All good here.”
I let it slide. Imagine all the dick pics she gets, all the rejection. You take the reins and change the subject. “So, Melanda. How’s my daughter? For real.”
“Good,” she says.
You look at me and tell me that Melanda knows more about Nomi than you do and Melanda is proud—she’s one of those bestie aunts—and she says that Nomi is cooling off on Dylan Klebold and you sigh. “Thank God. I was hoping it was just a phase.”
“That’s what it sounded like to me,” I say, because I have a voice too. “Kids go through phases.”
Melanda grunts. “Well, I wouldn’t diminish a young woman’s feelings as a phase…”
It was okay when you said it was a phase and the three of us aren’t gonna be at Eleven Winery any time soon. I get it. You take care of Melanda because she’s alone. She’s telling you about Nomi’s ideas for her imaginary incubator and she’s not Auntie Melanda. She’s Auntie Interloper and you almost jump out of your seat.
“Seamus!” you shout. “Over here!”
So it really is a hazing ambush and this is Seamus in real life, working the room like a politician, glad-handing the other diners with his masturbation paws. Did that dryer work out okay for you, Dan? Hey, Mrs. P, I’ll swing by and check out your furnace. He wears a long-sleeve Cooley Hardware T-shirt and a baseball cap with the same logo—we get it, dipshit—and he’s too short for you. Too smarmy for you. But he grins at you like he could have you if he wanted.
“Ladies,” he says. Juvenile. “Sorry I’m late.”
I can just hear God in heaven. We’ll make this one short and squat with arms too long for his body and a bombastic voice that turns off women. But it’s hard enough down on Earth, so let’s give him piercing blue eyes and a strong jaw so he doesn’t blow his brains out when the midlife reaper scratches at his door. But it’s not all bad. I slide in to the wall. At least this way I’m across from you. “Joe,” you say. “I’ve been so excited for you to meet Seamus.”
You say that like he’s not the one who’s lucky to meet me but I am Good Joe. Convivial Joe. I ask him if that’s his hardware store as if the question needs to be asked and the waitress delivers coffee—he didn’t even have to place an order—and he laughs. Smug. “Last time I checked.”
The three of you gossip about some guy you went to high school with who got a DUI. You’re leaving me in the cold and I don’t have history with you and this is beneath you, using your friends to ice me out. I sit here like a mute monk and I should step outside and call Fuck You Slater, Ushkin, Graham, and Powell to file a class action against Marta Kauffman et al., because they made Friends and that show is the reason we’re in this mess. On a show like Cedar Cove, the goal is love. You watch because you want Jack and Olivia to get together. But on Friends, everything is an inside joke. They brainwash you into thinking that friendship is more valuable than love, that old is inherently better than new when it comes to people.
I dump ketchup on my fries and you reach onto my plate, reestablishing our intimacy. “Is this okay?”
I nod. “Go for it.”
Seamus wrinkles his nose. “No fries for me,” he brags. “I’m doing a Murph later. You wanna join, New Guy?”
I dab the corners of my mouth with a napkin. “What’s a Murph?”
Melanda grabs her phone and Seamus “enlightens” me about the wonders of CrossFit, telling me a Murph will kick-start my body transformation. “I have more muscle now than I did in high school, and in a couple months… six tops… you could too, New Guy, if you join up.”
Melanda is fully checked out and you’re not eating my fries anymore. You’re paying attention to him, bobbing your head as if exercise is a thing that interests you—it isn’t—and this is why people don’t bring friends on a first fucking date, Mary Kay.
You pound your fist on the table. “Wait,” you say. “We have to talk about Kendall.”
Melanda cuts you off. “No, we need to talk about my queen. Shiv.”
I open my mouth. “Who’s Shiv?”
Seamus laughs. “You’ve never seen Succession? Come on, New Guy. You don’t have a job. You have all the time in the world!”
Off you go, raving about Kendall and Kendall is a stupid name, a few letters away from Ken Doll. It’s no fun when three people are talking about a show that one person has never seen. You reach for a fry and your hand lingers on my plate and I can’t stay mad at you.
“Hey, guys,” I say. “Did anyone see the movie Gloria Bell?”
None of you saw Gloria Bell and Seamus isn’t sold—sounds like a chick flick—and Melanda shuts down—I can’t add one more thing to my list—and you smile. “Who directed it?”
“This Chilean guy,” I say. “Sebastián Lelio.”
Melanda makes a face. “A male director telling a woman’s story… how lovely.”
“I hear you,” I say. “But Julianne Moore is incredible. And the dialogue is top shelf… it has a Woody Allen vibe.”
Melanda’s nostrils flare. “Okay, then,” she says. “I think that’s my cue.”
You tense up and she waves for the check and I will fix this. Fast. “Whoa,” I say. “I just meant that it’s a smart film.”
Melanda doesn’t look at me. “I don’t condone Woody Allen or his art.”
You dig your credit card out of your purse and we will not end like this. “Melanda, I’m not defending Woody Allen. I was just trying to say that Gloria Bell is a good movie.”
“And you think Woody Allen is a synonym for good? Great. White male privilege for dessert! Ugh, where is that check?”
You’re staying out of it and Seamus is giggling like an eighth-grade boy in sex ed. “Melanda, I really do think you misunderstood me.”
“Ah, must be my lady brain on the fritz again…”
Seamus laughs and you show your teeth. “Oh, you guys… come on now. Truth is, Joe, I think Melanda and I watched Beaches and Romy and Michele so many times back in the day that we missed a lot of good movies and never really caught up.”
Melanda grunts. “Sweetie, don’t bother. We can go.”
“Look,” I say. “I only mention Woody Allen because say what you will about him… his movies have a lot of great female leads. And Julianne Moore is incredible in Gloria Bell.” You are staring at me like you want me to stop but I can’t stop now. “Melan
da, I think you’d like the movie, I’m sure of it.”
“Of course you’re sure. You know everything!”
I’m taking the heat for all the monstrous men in the world—who can blame Melanda for using me as a whipping post?—and you reach for my ice-cold fries, you’re stress-eating and I won’t let Melanda Peach me.
“Melanda,” I say. “I don’t know everything. No one does.”
“Pff,” she says. “Least of all me, a woman…” She shakes her head. “A librarian who endorses a child molester. How nice!”
Shortus drops a twenty and makes a run for it and you pick up the bill and Melanda’s on her feet, lecturing me. “I’m sorry I get passionate.”
“Melanda,” I say. “You don’t have to apologize.”
“I’m not apologizing to you,” she says and she looks at you like Can you believe this guy? “As a teacher, I know that we can’t separate the art from the artist. And I won’t praise a man for telling a woman’s story. But you do you, New Guy.” She smiles at you. “You ready, sweetie? Do you need a ride?”
You squirm. Message received. “Thanks,” I say. “But I feel like walking.”
Melanda smiles. “I would too if I ate all those carbs.”
You look at me but what can you do? She’s your friend, your old friend, and you get into the car with her and I am on foot. In hell. I fucked up my hazing and by the time I get back to the library you’re gone—you have a conference in Poulsbo—and I don’t think I made your coed frat.
At the end of my shift, I test the waters and post a page from a diner scene in Empire Falls and two minutes later…
@LadyMaryKay likes your photo.
Okay, you wouldn’t like it if you didn’t still like me and of course you like me. We have our books and the Brooklynites are right. Books are magic. We are magic. You send me a text.
You: Did you have fun at lunch?:)
I know it’s considered rude to respond to a text with a phone call but it’s also inconsiderate to haze a guy before you have sex with him. I walk outside. I call you.
You pick up on the first ring. “Well, hello there!”
“Is this a bad time?”
“I just got home but I have a couple seconds… What’s up? Everything okay?”
“Well, that’s what I was gonna ask you…”
“You mean lunch? Oh Joe, Melanda lives to debate and she liked you, she did.”
My muscles relax. “Phew, because for a minute there it felt like she didn’t… but if you say everything’s okay…”
“Joe, seriously. You were fine. Melanda… Well, yeah, she gets fired up. But she’s very passionate, very smart and you know…”
Your daughter is home. I hear cabinets slamming and you tell me that you should probably go and I do the right thing. I let you go. For a moment I consider walking to your house. But if I go and spy on you, I open myself up to busybody neighbors who might “warn” you about a “strange man” lurking in your yard. (Dear Bainbridge: Get a life.) Things are supposed to be different with you, Mary Kay. I am supposed to be different with you. If I watch you from afar, I am transforming from a person who is in your life to a person who is on the outside, looking in. I don’t want that for us and I know you don’t either.
I do the right thing and go home, I don’t feel at home in my home because the fecal-eyed family is out there, throwing bean bags into holes—yawn—so I grab a coffee and head downstairs to the place that makes my house special, the reason I chose the property over all the others. It’s called a Whisper Room. You turn on the lights, you close the door and that’s it. The world is gone They can’t hear me and I can’t hear them—long live soundproof spaces—and Love thought this room was creepy when I showed her the pictures. She saw padded walls and she called it a cage. But you get me, Mary Kay. You know this house. When you realized where I live, you said you’d had wonderful times in this Whisper Room. You knew the guys who owned the place. You hung out down here and I take a deep breath—maybe I’m breathing you in right now—and I have to be patient. You really are one the one. I just have to fight harder.
I do sit-ups and watch a little fucking Succession. Your boy Kendall has weak shoulders and basset hound eyes. I bet he never read Empire Falls, let alone Last Night at the Lobster, another selection for our Quiet Ones at the library. The endorphins kick in—Shortus is right about some things—and I don’t want to sue Marta Kauffman anymore. I want to send her flowers because she and her Friends also taught us that real relationships take time, that sometimes you make a baby with the wrong person, you fall in love with the wrong person, but eventually, you get with the right one.
You.
4
It’s been two days since you ambushed me with your fraternity siblings and I didn’t “stalk” you. I’ve been good. I went against all my best instincts and joined CrossFit to make nice with Shortus (a.k.a. to keep an eye on that fucker just in case) and I’ll admit it, Mary Kay. I did judge you a little bit. This adolescent cliquey side of you is not ideal. You’re a woman. A master of library science. But you’ve been hunkered down on Land’s Fucking End for your entire life. I tear the tag off a brand-new black cashmere sweater—my gift to you, for us—and tonight you’ll see the light.
It’s date night, motherfuckers!
You were so cute when you asked me out. You were smoothing a sticker on Dolly Carton and I bent over to look at the sticker—THE FUTURE IS FEMALE—and you stayed low, close. I leaned in closer. “Did you get permission to vandalize Ms. Carton?”
You staggered upright and flattened your skirt. “Haha,” you said. You looked at your phone. “I should probably get going. I have book club tonight at the wine bar…” I smiled—oh Bainbridge, you need to see Cocktail—and you wanted me to know where you’re going. “Eleven as in the winery,” you said, so nervous, so fucking cute. “But we’ll be outta there by ten.”
You waved goodbye and you scratched your tights, drawing my eyes to your legs.
Invitation received, Mary Kay, and I RSVP yeah as in yes.
I’m waiting for you in a recessed mini-mall across the street from Eleven and finally your Book Club winds down and there are credit cards and hugs, false promises about getting together soon and why do you women lie to each other so much? I slink around the block—and I slow down—and you spot me.
“Joe? Is that you?”
You jaywalk to me—no RIP Fincher to issue any tickets—and I meet you halfway, across the sky. Do we hug? We don’t hug. I nod toward the bar I chose for us, not a fucking winery, just a pub. “Come on,” I say. “One drink.”
You shift your purse. “I should probably go home. We ran late tonight.”
I expected a little pushback and I know all about your shouldprobably disorder. Shel Silverstein should probably have written a poem about the shouldprobablies and the female need to express her awareness of what a good woman would do right now. But you’re still hesitating and what the hell is there to think about? You’re my neighbor. You live right around the corner and the pub is right around the corner and your daughter isn’t six—there’s no babysitter to relieve—and your shoulders are tense getting tenser—“I don’t know, Joe…”—and did you learn nothing from Lisa Fucking Taddeo? Stop feeling guilty, for fuck’s sake.
I am the man you need me to be right now. Chill. Cavalier. “That’s too bad,” I say. “This could have been my very first Book Club.”
Your shoulders drop. “Well, I’d hate for you to miss out on your very first Book Club. One drink. One.”
No one means that when they say it and I open the door to the Harbour Public House and you walk in and we are a couple now. We make our way to a table and I tell you how much I really did like meeting your friends and you are puffed up. “Oh good! See, they’re nice, right?”
You sit in a booth and I sit on the other side. “And you were right,” I say. “Melanda isn’t mad. She followed me on Instagram…” White lie. I followed her first but she did reciprocate. “And she
made me think about a lot of stuff…” Ha! “And her incubator sounds incredible…” As if her posters are doing anything for anyone but her. “You gotta love that, ya know?”
You gotta love me and you do. I’m in your circle, at your table. “Yeah,” you say. “She’s great, she has a powerful voice…”
“Extremely. Your people are good people.”
You smile. I smile. The heat between us is palpable and you look around and remark on how empty it is and it’s just us and a couple of guys in wool hats. Sailor types. Our jackets come off and it’s obvious you’ve been drinking and the barmaid approaches, a soft and pear-shaped pre-Mothball. I ask to see a menu and you look at me. “Oh,” you say. “I ate. I should probably just have a water.”
I smile, undeterred by another shouldprobably. “I don’t mind eating alone.”
You end up asking for a glass of tequila—frisky—and I order a Southern fried chicken sandwich and a local vodka soda and you promise to steal French fries again as you lace your fingers together as if you’re on a job interview. “So,” you say. “How’s the house coming along?”
“Shit,” I say. “So, it’s true. You really don’t talk about the book in Book Club. You talk about everything but the book.”
Your voice is loose with liquor but you’re nervous—it is a first date—and you’re babbling about Billy Joel—you’ve always loved “Italian Restaurant”—as you text your daughter and tuck your phone into your purse. You tell me about your Book Club, how my fecal-eyed neighbor Nancy picked apart the book. We agree that there is always a Nancy and I tell you about a reading I hosted in New York when a Nancy had notes for the author. We’re in flow. The talk is small, but we’ve never been like this, alone in the dark, at night, in a booth.
“Okay,” you say. “I have to ask. I know you were done with New York and L.A. But I’ve been thinking about you…” You said it. “And I feel like there has to be more. A single guy moves into a big house on Bainbridge. What’s her name? The reason you’re here.”
You Love Me Page 4