by Pamela Ribon
There was something about not being prepared to see him that yanked my insides down and pulled me back behind that tower of canned goods.
He was chatting on the phone to someone, laughing every few seconds about some story I wasn’t getting to hear. He pushed his hair back behind his ear and leaned forward to improve his reception. It had to have been his new girlfriend on the phone. She was probably telling him about her day, babbling on about the most mundane things in the world, and he was charmed by every single syllable that came out of her mouth. Maybe he craves her like that. When she talks he doesn’t float away like he would when I’d talk about some crap that happened at work. He probably calls her while she’s at work because he misses her so much.
She’s probably absolutely perfect with this kick-ass lifestyle. She’s smart and talented, with a car that never breaks down and food that always comes out on time and cooked perfectly. I bet she makes her own bread. She probably always has clean sheets and she recycles. She has the perfect dog that catches Frisbees in the park. She gives the best back rubs and never demands one in return. She doesn’t eat much, but when she does it’s the sexiest thing he’s ever seen. I bet her name is something incredibly perky, like Holly or Tiffany. She comes the second he’s inside her and she’s always satisfied.
And then it happened. He lost the call. I heard him shout “Hello?” a couple of times. The signal must have faded.
Would he call her immediately back? Would he stop the next shopper he saw, demand to use his or her cell phone to call her back and tell her that he’s sorry she was interrupted? Would he run from the store to be by her side as soon as possible? What would he do?
He shrugged and shoved the phone back in his pocket. I guess it wasn’t Tiffany. Or maybe Holly doesn’t excite him enough that he needs to call her back right away.
Or maybe, just maybe, he still wished the girl on the other line was me.
Love until later,
Anna K
000012.
I did hide behind a stack of peas until Ian’s phone call was cut off. And I wondered if he was talking to Susan. But when he lost the call he didn’t just shrug and walk on. He stood there trying to get the call back until Susan walked up, tossed a bag of potato chips into their cart, and put her arms around his waist. Ian didn’t seem to care about his lost phone call once Susan was in his face. But I couldn’t have Anna K stare at her ex-boyfriend and her ex-friend in an embrace. Anna K would have left the room with some semblance of pride. Anna Koval, however, never left the room until all dignity had been lost.
I’d known Susan since college so I knew all of her flaws, all of which I will list here: she’s dumb, lazy, a bad tipper, likes to hog any food you share, makes strange noises with her lips when she sips drinks, and has the worst laugh I’ve ever heard. Like a hyena. Oh, and she’s got a gigantic face. All puffy and big and it towers over her body. She doesn’t even grow enough hair on her head to balance out her enormous face. Susan and I once spent an evening in the dorm listing all of the reasons why we were perfect girlfriends, but when your friend becomes The Girl After You, you’re allowed to think nasty thoughts about her. She is not your friend anymore.
Okay, so she’s not exactly dumb, but she used to do this thing where she pretended she was incredibly dumb so boys would talk to her. I hated it, and when I dated Ian he said he hated that quality in a girl as well. He seemed to not mind it on Susan, however, as I watched them practically chew each other’s lips off right there next to the Frosted Flakes.
When I was a kid, I had to take placement tests every time I moved to a new school. They were all the same and always included an IQ test. One part of the exam was a series of images where I had to identify the one thing wrong in the picture. I was really good at them. The sun was setting on the wrong side of the beach house. The chair only had three legs. The swing set was missing rope. We do it in relationships, too. We can take one glance at the picture and instantly spot what’s wrong. She’s wearing the shoes he hates. He’s on her side of the bed. He’s using a condom. If this image was frozen right now and handed to me, I’d fail the test. There were too many things wrong.
There was the kissing. Ian hated public displays of affection. He’d hold my hand, but if my fingers started wandering up his arm, he’d eventually grab my hand and lower it, or he’d move my arm away entirely. I once tried to kiss his neck and he backed up. He said it made him look like he was property to have me press my body all over him in front of strangers. Now he was mugging down with Susan in front of some six-year-old grabbing a box of Cheerios.
Ian was clean shaven. That was why I probably would have walked right past him if I hadn’t heard him on the phone. He hated shaving. Back when we first started dating, he had this clean face with great skin that I loved to run my cheek against. Two years later, he was sick with the flu for a couple of weeks and let a beard grow that he never shaved off. “What’s the big deal?” he’d ask me with that smirk just poking out from underneath scratchy brown whiskers. So I had to date a man with a beard because I’d already been dating the man under the beard for two years? Unfair. I think a beard changes a man. He thought a beard made him look smart. I thought it made him look like a serial killer.
The third problem with this picture is the outfit Susan’s wearing. She had on a little blue skirt that, if I was forced to admit it (because someone would be injured or there was a lot of money to win), I’d call “cute.” She also wore a tight-fitting short-sleeve top. If I had attempted this outfit when Ian and I were together, he’d have asked why I was “trying so hard.” He liked me in jeans and T-shirts. Whenever I put on a skirt he always felt like I was overdressed. He said it made him look sloppy. I hated how his laziness dictated my wardrobe, but I told myself that he liked me in simple clothes because he loved the person inside of the clothes. These are the things we convince ourselves when the person we love is actually making us sacrifice who we are.
When Susan moved forward to kiss his ear, her shirt rode up her back and I had to look away to take a breath. I had seen her thong. Ian was always trying to get me to wear a thong, but I wouldn’t do it because it made me feel dirty and I didn’t like having a piece of cloth running up my ass. I knew it disappointed Ian that I wouldn’t wear one, but I never understood what he thought he was missing out on. We usually started having sex once we were already in bed for the night. I don’t care how much of a sex kitten someone wants to be—nobody wears a thong to sleep. That’s pain.
Ian’s hands slipped around Susan’s waist and he hooked his fingers into the strap of her thong at her left hip. His hand lowered and I realized why he was changing himself for Susan. No matter how many of her flaws I could recite from memory, I knew the one thing she had over me that I could never beat.
Susan had a perfect ass.
She knew it, I knew it, and clearly Ian knew it, the way he was holding her bottom. He kissed her neck and held her ass in his hands. I bet she let him do all kinds of things to her. He probably didn’t even have to ask if he could do them, either. I knew he wanted to try things with me that he was too nervous to ask about, and since I didn’t really want to try them, I never brought them up either. I could tell that he wanted to do more, but he never said anything. I bet Susan just raised her perfect ass in the air without saying a word and let him do whatever he wanted.
The biggest thing wrong with the picture was that I was still standing there hiding behind a canned vegetable display. Why hadn’t I left? Why was I watching him hold her perfect ass, completely forgetting about the phone call he just lost, while he kissed her enormous puffy face?
Then I saw he had a six-pack of wine coolers in his shopping cart. Perfect ass or no, there’s absolutely no reason for Ian to buy anyone a wine cooler. He’s not dating a woman; he’s dating a sorority girl. I knew right then that he couldn’t be happier with her than me. She couldn’t replace me if she had seven perfect asses stacked on top of each other, silently waiting for Ian to ravage them
. Perfect asses standing in a row, accepting his every fantasy. They could be there glistening with perfect skin, smelling like lollipops, but at the top of that stack was Susan’s gigantic shiny face sucking on a “cooler” like a hungry toddler.
That’s when I laughed, that’s when they looked up, and that’s when I hauled ass out of the store.
I only had the one ass to haul, you see. And it might not be perfect, but it’s fucking fast.
000013.
Subject: re: re: re: Ramblings.
AK,
A series of questions led me to write this e-mail. At first I was actually thinking about your webpage (I think of it as “Anna K,” and then think of you as “Anna,” like Anna K is an object, but Anna is a woman, but then I guess I also think of you as Anna K. But then also I don’t really think of you as a person so much as this idea of a woman. I picture you as impossibly cute with a smile that makes all bad things go away. I’ve never even used the words “impossibly cute” to describe someone before. I don’t think I like it. I’ve gotten myself trapped in another parenthetical prison here, haven’t I? Let’s just move on together….)
I’m happy you wrote me back, even though I’m sure it was one of the form letters you send to all of your fans. I’m also assuming you have several fans. Because if you’ve made this one man sit up late in his Pittsburgh apartment reading over your past entries (more than once, I’m ashamed to admit), trying to piece together this most intriguing woman, then I’m sure there are thousands more like me.
I’m finding myself with plenty of spare time to write to you. I’m sort of between projects. (That sounds like I’m unemployed, but I’m not. But what I actually do for money is so terribly boring that if I even tried to describe it, you’d find yourself in a drooling coma within thirteen seconds. The “projects” I’m referring to are more what I do when I’m at home, away from my mandatory “day job.” I paint. I paint things and people, and I guess sometimes I’ve ventured into the scary realm of painting Meanings and Symbols and Themes. Lately I haven’t been able to paint a single stroke without getting a tightening in my throat and a quickness in my chest that’s screaming, “You suck, LDobler! You suck!” Did I start this with a parenthesis? Dammit.)
What I was going to say (before this third cup of coffee—the stuff of rambling confidence, and the only thing keeping me from deleting this entirely and going back to an old episode of Family Ties—(Alex has joined the ERA because he thinks this feminist girl is hot, but now he’s about to announce that he thinks it’s all bullshit because it’s better to be a Republican than to get laid)….)
I’ve lost my train of thought now. Oh, right. “Series of questions.” I was going to say that I know you’re busy, but I’ve been wondering a few things. If you find the time, I’d love to know the following:
A) Am I bothering you?
B) Do you want to know more about me?
C) Are you sure?
-LDobler
-----
Subject: re: re: re: re: Ramblings.
LD
A) No, you’re not bothering me.
B) Yes, I’d love to know more about you. I find you intriguing. Contrary to what you believe, I’m not swarmed with fans. There are very few of you. Well, there are more of you than I thought there’d be, but in comparison to the entire world, there are very few of you. And in terms of men who seem interested in me, I’d say there are very, very, very few of you. I mean that in the most undesperate way possible.
C) Yes, I’m sure.
By the way, do you find yourself thinking of me in strange places? I’d like to know where this image of me is getting evoked. I don’t want to tell you what to think and all, but I’d appreciate you being gentlemanly about your thoughts of me, at least until we get to know each other a bit better.
Pittsburgh? What’s that like? Is that a place you go to or end up?
A) I’ve asked you this before and you didn’t answer. What does LDobler stand for? Because right now it means “Lloyd Dobler,” John Cusack’s character from Say Anything. If that’s what you’re going for, then you’re clearly after my heart. Lloyd Dobler is the perfect man.
B) Are you the perfect man?
C) How did you find my webpage?
D) Do you think about me when you’re driving? Have you ever missed your turn because of it?
-AK
-----
000014.
A Texas summer can be so hot that people want to kill and maim and cry bloody tears. It starts in April and doesn’t let up until October, sometimes lasting all the way to Halloween. I had made it to August without a slaughter, but my rage was quickly turning inward. It had been 102 degrees for three days straight and when a heat wave like that hits, Texans stay indoors for as long as possible. Hiding from the heat inside of my apartment forced me to take a hard look at myself. I got angry about how lazy the heat made me. I had spent so much time playing storyteller for the Internet that I had neglected myself. I hated the way I lived, I hated the way I looked, and I hated the way I felt about myself. I was lonely and unhappy in my own skin. I felt like everyone could see I was uncomfortable and tacky. I was wearing shame like stirrup pants.
It was a Saturday morning and I was on my futon, flat on my back, trying hard not to move, when my phone rang. I tried to move only two fingers to answer it. As I brought my arm to my head a bead of sweat rolled from my wrist to my elbow. All I wanted was central air conditioning. Why couldn’t the city provide that? Wasn’t that the only humane thing to do?
“Hello?” I answered as I leaned my head closer to the fan beside me.
“I need your measurements,” Becca said without even saying hello.
“I can’t move,” I moaned, feeling the heat make wavy curves around my body. I looked toward my kitchen and swore I saw a mirage.
“I need to measure you for your dress.” I could hear the impatience in her voice. It was the heat, I reminded myself, and had nothing to do with me. I couldn’t imagine having a list of errands to run during this nightmare. I wasn’t even getting into my car these days for fear of getting my thighs stuck to the seats and needing skin grafts to stay alive. Dale had told me Becca was pretty testy these days, so I was glad to be a peripheral friend of hers and therefore the last person she called for anything.
“What’s the dress look like?”
“Open your door.”
I obeyed. Becca stood with her cell phone in one hand and a measuring tape in the other. Her long brown hair had been pulled back into an official “Don’t Fuck Around With the Bride” clippie, and she was smoking with the same hand that held the phone. She squinted toward me.
“Hey, Anna. Can I smoke in your apartment?”
“Are you kidding? Even my cat smokes.”
I stood back to let her in. I couldn’t remember the last time we were alone together. Since the breakup, she and I only saw each other when we were with the entire group. I never had much to talk to her about. I knew she worked in a PR firm, but I didn’t know what she really did for a living. Like all the other women in my life, she floated on its outskirts as a feminine mystery.
“I’d suck your dick for some air conditioning.” She walked past me into the living room.
“Right back atcha.” The heat also put an end to pretenses. Everyone spoke succinctly, conserving all energy to minimize body heat.
Becca lumbers when she walks. There isn’t a nicer way to say it. She stomps back and forth, as if both legs work independently of each other and never get on the same page. It’s like they’re playing a game with each other to see if each leg can keep up with the other one. I briefly thought of my downstairs neighbor as I watched Becca stomp over to my futon.
I lifted the bowl of ice cubes toward her. She took one and dropped it down the front of her bra. She gave a brief, chilled wiggle and I saw her face relax slightly.
“Thanks,” she said with a sigh. “Lift your arms.”
I tried to find a place to rest my gaze as my
arms floated over her head.
“Let your stomach out. Stop sucking it in.” Becca yanked me by the measuring tape. She should have taken more than one ice cube. I thought about dropping one down the back of her pants.
“I’m not sucking it in,” I whined.
“You are too. It’s not going to help any of us if you can’t fit in the damn dress. Just stand naturally.”
I stopped sucking it in. I hadn’t measured myself in years. The double-digit numbers she wrote to describe my waist and hips shocked me. When did a 4 get in there? I shouldn’t have anything that starts with the number 4.
“You look taller than you are. Must be your personality.” There was no compliment in her voice.
I didn’t have the energy to invent a comeback.
Becca slowly leaned forward, let her hair down, and then twisted it back up into the same shape, only tighter. Her face showed the strain she was under. Her eyes, normally slightly down-turned in a way that made you wonder if she was stoned, were now smaller and squinty. She looked exhausted and miserable.
I wanted to reach out and hug her. I wanted to hold her and tell her to remember why she was getting married. I knew that she had wanted this for a while. About two years ago, Mark told me that Becca had been having nightmares in which her parents were furious with her for not being married. So they had discussed it then and realized they didn’t have the money. She never let it on to any of us how disappointed she was that she had to wait, but you could tell. You could see it in the way she looked at married couples and families. She’d get this look like she was comparing, wondering what piece of happiness they had that was still missing in her life.