Misery Loves Cabernet

by Kim Gruenenfelder

  “Of course, if you do that, you’ll forever be associated with the guy’s miserable sports evening and corresponding hangover the next morning,” Dawn points out.

  “I didn’t say my game plan was foolproof,” Jamie concedes. “Now, quiet. The game’s on!”

  Dawn apparently has some interest in the game because she immediately turns around to face the TV screen.

  And the game begins.

  I ignore Jamie’s rule number two, and go back to the magazine.

  I have to! Wedding magazines are like porn for women. Pretty dresses, shoes, and lots of pictures of Tahiti. What’s not to love?

  As the center snaps the ball to the quarterback, I flip open to the magazine’s first article: “Answers to your burning questions about shoes, veils, and lingerie.”

  Here’s a basic rule on lingerie: if it’s pretty, and doesn’t have holes in it (except in strategically placed areas), men love you in it. They don’t care about the color, or where you got it, or if you think it makes you look fat.

  I may sound a little like Jamie here, but come on—this is not rocket science.

  I flip through to the next article. Oh, good, a quiz. Turns out that because I want to sleep with Johnny Depp, I need a really modern Baccarat crystal bowl.

  Hey, if I thought that bowl would give me a shot in hell of sleeping with Johnny Depp, I’d buy a dozen.

  “When do you think Smith will be back?” Dawn says to Jamie, her eyes glued to the screen as she takes a swig of beer from her glass.

  “Hard to say,” Jamie concedes, eyes trained on the same screen. “I would guess they’ll keep him out at least a few more weeks.”

  I read the quiz out loud to Dawn and Andy. “Who would you want more: Justin Timberlake, Johnny Depp, or Brad Pitt?”

  Dawn turns to me. “To marry or sleep with?”

  “Marry.”

  “What moron would answer ‘Brad Pitt’ to that?”

  I hold up the magazine, and show her some suggested registry pieces. “A woman who needs flatware that looks like bamboo shoots with tines.”

  “Did you know the name Brad came from some World War I general?” Andy asks while reading her baby book.

  Jamie leans into the table and quietly admonishes, “Ssh!”

  Jamie then sternly informs us that we are only allowed to talk during commercials, unless it’s about football.

  I find out about a minute later that asking if Jamie knows if the cute quarterback is married does not count as talking about football.

  The moment a commercial begins, my face lights up as I rest my chin in my hands and cheerfully ask Dawn, “So, has the whole maid-of-honor thing been horrible?”

  Dawn glares at me, “Do you know that little heifer called me last night, while I was on a date, mind you, to talk about possible wedding favors. Like anyone really gives a damn if they get dragées at the end of the night.”

  “Dragées?” Jamie asks, squinting his eyes in confusion.

  “It’s a polished silver candy-coated almond,” Andy tells him.

  Dawn shakes her head like it’s the stupidest thing she’s ever heard of. “Yeah, like anybody over the age of six is going to want to bring that home. So I tell Kate that. She thanks me and hangs up.”

  “Point is moot,” Andy tells Dawn. “Dragées are illegal in the state of California.”

  “Seriously?” I ask, “Why?”

  “Some lawyer sued, alleging that the candies were toxic. It’s not illegal to bring them into the state. You can consume them here. You just can’t buy them here.”

  “I am not smuggling candy across state lines,” Dawn vows.

  I try to keep from laughing. “So I’m guessing, having been a maid of honor recently, Kate called you back again ten minutes later . . .”

  “Five!” Dawn exclaims, thrusting out her left hand, and spreading apart all five fingers. “I’m on a date, which she knows, so I don’t answer. So she calls me back. Again and again until I pick up.”

  I smirk.

  “Are you smirking?” Dawn asks me suspiciously.

  “No,” I assure her, while still smirking.

  “Good. Because then she asks what do I think of measuring spoons . . .”

  I’ll admit, now I’m lost. “Measuring spoons?”

  “Yeah. Apparently some people give them to their guests as wedding favors. They include a spoon that says, ‘A spoonful of laughter,’ and one that says, ‘A dollop of kindness.’ At this point, I lose it. I say, ‘Kate, you want your guests happy? Send them home with a half bottle of champagne, and a straw.’ Then I hang up on her.”

  The game begins again, and Dawn and Jamie immediately turn their attention back to the screen. Andy is still engrossed in her baby name book, so I decide to take this time to scope out the men in the bar.

  Ah . . . what a nice assortment to choose from: there’s Lawyer Guy, complete with slightly undone tie (pulled to the side to reveal an unbuttoned top button) and perfectly tailored suit. He’s good-looking, coiffed, looks like he wears Chanel for Men or Hugo Boss.

  Then there’s Writer Guy: He’s with a group of friends, all of whom look like writers (they’re all wearing some version of a team jersey and jeans). His hair looks a little unkempt, but that’s okay. This is the type of low-maintenance guy who thinks it’s weird that you spend twenty dollars on a scented candle, but not enough to withhold sex or anything.

  In between the cute slob and Michael Clayton we have everyone else: We have the guys in oxford cloth shirts, some in bowling shirts (God, why was that ever a popular style, and when is it finally going away?), and many more wearing team jerseys. Two men are wearing Hawaiian shirts. Or, as I like to call them, “I’ve gained twenty pounds, and I think I’m fooling everyone” shirts.

  Leggings are for women what Hawaiian shirts are for men: comfy, sloppy, and never sexy.

  Most of the men look cute tonight.

  And none of them is Jordan, my subconscious reminds me.

  I drink some beer to try and drown her voice out.

  Almost one and a half mind-numbingly boring hours later, Andy has already cited pregnancy exhaustion, and called it a night. I have made eye contact with a few cute guys, a few more have cheerfully high-fived me when their teams scored, and I have had various “conversations” (although I use that term loosely) about various football and basketball players with various good-looking men (but only during time-outs and commercial breaks, per Jamie’s instructions).

  But I’ve yet to strike up a love connection, so when halftime hits, I’m depressed.

  “Do you realize how many of these guys have wedding rings?” I ask Dawn, dejected. “Which is a shame, because everyone here seems so genuinely nice.”

  “Well, of course they’re nice,” Dawn says, using the downtime to open her compact and check her lipstick. “These are the guys someone already picked and put a leash on. We need to go back to the shelter, and by that I mean the clubs we frequent, to go get one some other girl threw away.”

  Jamie sighs. “Guys, this is not a club, it’s a sports bar. These guys did not come tonight hoping to meet a woman. They came hoping to watch a game.”

  “Yes, well, I go to bars hoping to meet the perfect martini, but that doesn’t mean I’m adverse to an Abercrombie and Fitch model coming to say hello,” Dawn says, clicking closed her compact. “Order another pitcher. I’m going to make the rounds.”

  Dawn hops off her seat, and sashays her way to the ladies’ room.

  Jamie looks confused. “Why doesn’t she just admit she has to pee?”

  “Because she doesn’t,” I explain. “She’s pretending to go to the ladies’ room to separate herself from the herd.”

  Jamie laughs and shakes his head. “God, I love that woman.”

  “Me, too,” I say. Then I pull out my phone, and check it absentmindedly. No new e-mails.

  As Jamie flags down the waitress for another pitcher, I stare at my beer.

  “What’s wrong with me?” I ask
Jamie.

  Jamie does this half-sigh thing he does when he doesn’t know what to say. “Nothing wrong’s with you,” he tells me for the millionth time. “It’s him. You only had a few weeks together. They meant something. Just not as much as you thought they did. . . .”

  “But why didn’t it mean as much to him as it did to me?” I half say/half whine.

  Jamie shrugs his shoulders as if to say, “Sorry, sweetie.”

  I start playing with my cocktail napkin. “What’s wrong with me that no one wants to stay with me? It’s not just Jordan. It’s Dave before him, and Marshall before him. Doug, Jim, Nick, Spencer . . .”

  Jamie grimaces. “You really wanted to keep Spencer?”

  “No. Okay, I got rid of Spencer,” I admit. “Jim, too. But only because it was obvious that he was just killing time with me until someone better came along.” I start mindlessly shredding my napkin as I ask, “What am I doing wrong that the guys I want don’t want me?”

  Jamie rolls his eyes. “You’re not doing anything wrong.”

  I shrug as I continue to stare at my napkin, and away from the perfect guys in the bar with their perfect wedding rings and their perfect wives and their happy lives. I look over to see a beautiful blonde reporting for ESPN on the game. “Why can’t I be like her?” I say, jutting my chin in the direction of the TV.

  Jamie turns to look at the reporter. “Kelly Timbers? Why would you want to be Kelly Timbers?”

  “Because every guy in this place is watching her,” I say.

  “That’s because she’s interviewing the Chargers coach.”

  “No, it isn’t,” I insist. “It’s because she’s Cameron Diaz.”

  “Huh?”

  “In Something About Mary: Cameron Diaz is the perfect woman, she’s a beautiful blonde who loves sports. Which I always said there was no such woman, she’s a figment of men’s imaginations designed to make the rest of us feel bad about ourselves.” I point to the screen. “But there she is! That little hussy is a beautiful blonde with big breasts who can effortlessly flirt with a middle-aged guy as she asks about special teams and turnover differential. I hate her.”

  Jamie glances at the screen, then back to me. “Do you really think you’re not married yet because you don’t know enough about turnover differential?”

  “No, I think I’m not married because I don’t know what men want.” I take the last gulp of my beer. “Though they all seem to be in universal agreement that they don’t want me.”

  As I renew my interest in my cocktail napkin, Jamie looks at me sympathetically, then rubs my arm. He tries another approach. “Look, why do you think people make such a big deal about weddings? Do you think girls would make such a big thing out of the wedding, and the dress, and the party, and all that stuff if they found ten right guys and they had to do it ten times?”

  I look up at Jamie, then nod my head.

  “Okay, yes,” he concedes, “you all probably would throw the party ten times. But that’s because all women are bat-shit insane. My point is, it only happens once. There’s nothing wrong with you. You just haven’t met your guy yet.”

  “Do you think I’m fat?” I let slip out.

  “Yes,” Jamie says immediately, clearly kidding.

  I laugh a little. Then I sink back into my depression. “I just don’t know why this has to be so hard. Why can’t I just find a guy who’s cute, and funny, and nice to me?”

  “Well, you have,” Jamie deadpans, “but I’m related to you.”

  I give Jamie a snarky smile just as Drew and Liam suddenly appear at our table. “I’m sorry we’re so late,” Drew says cheerfully. “I left my phone on the set, so I had to go retrieve it. Fortunately, I ran into Liam there, and he had the game on, so I invited him to come with.”

  Liam turns to me, smiles, and gives me a quick kiss on the lips. “Hello, dear. I hope it’s all right I’ve joined you.”

  “Of course,” I say, confused, but not altogether unhappy to see him. He looks so good in a blue and green rugby shirt that it makes me want to take up the sport.

  “What’s the score now?” he asks.

  At this moment, I have no idea. What are they doing here? How did they know we were here?

  “Six to three.” Jamie tells Liam. “It’s been a bit like a soccer match. Everyone moves up the field—then nothing. Everyone down the field, then nothing.”

  “Sounds like my dating life,” Liam jokes as he flags down the waitress, and signals he and Drew need beer glasses.

  Is he joking? Was that a joke? Are men who look like that ever let out of a woman’s bedroom once she’s got him trapped?

  “Will you excuse us a moment?” I say to Jamie and Liam as I pull Drew away from the table.

  With the eyes of the bar following us, and people subtly using their cell phones to snap a photo of Drew, I yank him into a private corner.

  “What are you doing here?” I say quietly, but urgently. “In the first place, I saw you leave with your phone. And in the second place, when do you ever drive yourself anywhere?”

  “You know, I do have a driver’s license,” Drew says snippily.

  “Yeah. And I have a treadmill,” I counter sarcastically. “What are you doing here?”

  “I was bored,” Drew says cheerfully. “Dawn said you guys were here, so I figured I’d do you a favor, and bring Liam over. I checked, and he’s totally available.”

  Drew smiles, gives me two thumbs-up, and starts to head back to our table.

  I grab his arm and yank him back. “What are you talking about? Why do you think I want Liam?”

  “Come on. Jordan dumped you today by phone. By phone! If that doesn’t deserve a revenge sump-mmm, sump-mmm, I don’t know what does.”

  “He didn’t dump me. He is thinking about taking a job in Germany next year, that’s all.”

  “You know, men are totally okay with being the rebound,” Drew tells me. “We get sex, and we don’t have to break up with you afterwards. So for us it’s a win-win.”

  “I don’t need a rebound. I have Jordan.”

  “No, you don’t.”

  “Yes, I do!”

  “No, you don’t.”

  “Yes, I . . .” I stop mid-sentence. “You know, there’s a reason someone needs to write your dialogue. It’s not exactly riveting.”

  Drew crosses his arms, and looks at me accusingly. “You yelled at your iPhone.”

  I stare at him, confused. “What?”

  “In the car,” he clarifies. “When you were driving me home. Your iPhone beeped. You read the e-mail, then you made a yelly kind of grunt sound, turned off the phone, and threw it into your console so hard you nearly broke it.”

  That’s weird. I don’t remember my reaction to Jordan’s e-mail being quite so violent.

  “That was my mother,” I quickly lie.

  Drew flashes me a self-satisfied smile. “Darling, I’m an actor. I know behavior. If it had been your mother, you would have made a nasty comment about your family under your breath, then ignored the e-mail. But you wouldn’t have turned off your phone. After all, you always need to be available for me and what if I was calling?”

  I glare at him, not quite believing his story.

  He shrugs. “Okay, fine. I saw his e-mail address at the top of the e-mail when you read it.”

  I nod. Yeah, that sounds more like what happened.

  “Then I called Dawn to find out what was going on with you two, and she told me everything, including that you were here tonight trying to find a new man. So, I figured, why waste time finding a new man, when there’s a perfectly good ‘old’ man you already want to do the horizontal mambo with?”

  Ouch. He nailed me. I try to cover. “I never said I want Liam—”

  “Oh, please. You want Liam like a shoe wants the other foot. Why else would you have me read the script for his movie?”

  I decide to ignore the botched metaphor completely. “I told you to read the script because it shoots in Paris. Which is
where Jordan is working until the end of January.”

  “Oooohhhhhh,” Drew says, suddenly understanding. He looks over at Liam, casually conversing with Jamie and Dawn at the table. Then Drew turns back to me. “But you like Liam.”

  “No, I don’t,” I insist.

  Drew looks at me suspiciously. “Do you want me to make him go away?”

  I turn to watch Liam with the others. Damn, he is hot. “No, he can stay,” I concede. “But I don’t want you trying to set me up anymore.”

  “What if Orlando Bloom was asking about you?” Drew asks me.

  “Was Orlando Bloom asking about me?” I ask, kind of intrigued.

  “No. But I’m asking, if he was, am I allowed to set you up?” Drew says. “It’s sort of like asking a woman if she’ll sleep with you for ten million dollars. She says yes. Then you ask if she’ll sleep with you for a dollar. If she says no, really she’s open to the idea, but you have to negotiate. So, if I could set you up with Orlando Bloom, that means really I could set you up with Liam.”

  I’ve been working for Drew too long. I’m starting to follow his logic.

  Drew looks up at the ceiling, thinking. “Wait a minute. Or was I supposed to ask you if you would sleep with Liam for ten million dollars?” He looks at me. “Or maybe it’s me. . . . Would you sleep with me for ten million dollars?”

  I roll my eyes, and can’t help but throw one back at him. “I guess since you’re economizing, you’ll never know.”

  Before Drew can respond, I grab his arm and pull him back to our table.

  After we take our seats again, Liam leans into me. “So, who’s your team?”

  I quickly glance over at Jamie for an answer. He mimes something that’s completely foreign to me. I guess I let my eyes stay on him too long, because Liam turns to see Jamie pretending to shoot a gun.

  “I was gonna have you tell him the Cowboys,” Jamie tells me, smiling.

  “Why?” I ask.

  Jamie shrugs. “For my own amusement.” Jamie looks at Liam. “Charlie doesn’t know much about football.”