“Yeah,” I said, eyebrows raised.
“Jamie Reingold,” he said. “My friend from college and a few years later my girlfriend and then, well. She and I went to Vegas with five other friends, got a little drunk, and thought, what the hell, let’s get married. I’d never even talked about it with the girl, but after a few Jäger shots, it sounded like an excellent idea. So we found the closest chapel and had a guy in a polyester shirt with a Miller High Life logo on the back marry us. We were young and restless and stupid—”
“And in Vegas,” I said.
“And in Vegas . . . not really thinking too far ahead, but, anyway, we did it. And we were okay for about two years.” He seemed to count in his head. “Maybe a year and a half. I don’t know. When we realized one day that it was marriage, and if you met someone that was more of a match for your maturing self, you couldn’t pursue that person, which we both started to want as we grew apart, then we started to resent each other. Ridiculous, but we didn’t want to be married to each other.”
He looked out across the bay. “We were almost surprised by the need for a divorce, because we hadn’t been entirely serious when we’d said ‘I do.’ We should have asked for clarification of the question. In this case, what happened in Vegas didn’t stay in Vegas. It went wherever we did. We’d figured we could just get it annulled, but that didn’t work, so we thought, okay—divorce. Turned out New York law doesn’t take marriage as lightly as we did and getting divorced was a freakin’ nightmare.”
“I see,” I said.
“One year separation, court filings. It’s happening, though,” he reassured. “We did the paperwork. We’re legally separated. Haven’t kissed her in years, by the way.”
“Haven’t kissed me either,” I said.
“Not in way too long,” he said, and he smiled, and he leaned in and grazed my mouth with his lips, while looking right into my eyes—his eyes crinkling at their outermost edges as he smiled. And then again he kissed me, this time relaxing into it and closing his eyes. Then we kissed again. And again—ignoring the easing rain, embracing the future. And for this soaked, bloody pulp of a girl, whose memory of her love for this man grew clearer as a moonlit night asserted itself through the fog, all was right with the world.
* * * * *
I’d like to say that after the whole ordeal, my family underwent a total metamorphosis: My mom became a nurturing übermother, my sister and I turned into best friends, and my dear dad grew more of a backbone. But that didn’t happen. Something better happened instead: I changed. You know that person about whom you say, “When I grow up, I want to be like her”? Well, I did. And now I am.
I learned to accept my family for who they were and understand that, though they might be limited in certain areas, they all had good qualities that I could appreciate. Hating them for not being who I wanted them to be was only hurting me. Holding on to resentments, a wise person once said, is like taking poison and hoping the other person dies. Plus, if that happens—and I’m not sure he thought of this part—then that person’s not around later to give you the satisfaction of watching him fall on his ass.
I reimbursed my mother for the rent she’d covered, got whole with the landlord (and kept the bird), and also cut a chunk off my credit card debt (you should have heard the shock in Citibank Cindy’s voice when I called her), using part of a loan from Cat. Yes, I know about the hazards of lending and borrowing with friends, but it’ll be paid back in six months with interest—first two payments have already been made. Cat’s got more money than Bill Gates, it turns out, so she offered, and knowing that I, Jordan Landau, was now good for it, I accepted.
The next time I saw my neighbor in his Tiger Schulmann finery, I was carrying my recyclables to the trash room. He lit up the moment he saw me, not knowing which “me” he was going to get but certain that—memory or no—there would be an angle to play with pliant Jordan Landau of apartment 5E.
“Hey, Jordan!” he said with a toothy grin. “Remember me?”
“Yeah,” I said, looking down at his spandexed package and then back at his face. “Put some pants on, for Christ’s sake.”
I tossed my garbage into the receptacle and walked back to my apartment—not bothering to gauge his reaction.
* * * * *
At work, things got back to abnormal quickly enough. With the lid blown off her affair, Lydia broke up with Kurt, the secrecy of the thing apparently having been its primary attraction for her. He got a production job at another agency. And, not long after, she was jettisoned for having taken creative license—or let’s just call it taking creativity—in a few situations having nothing to do with me. Just as well. It allowed me to slip back into the stream as a senior writer within a few months, not exactly wiped clean of my sins but seen as more of a daring forger than a dim-witted fake. Even Art—of high-five fame—welcomed me back with a hand-stinging slap, perhaps my combination punishment and re-initiation into the land of the living.
He forgave. They all did. So I did, too. I learned to stop blaming the passengers for where the S.S. Jordan was headed and just take the wheel and navigate for myself. That’s the surest way to get to the best version of me—Jordan Version 3. I finally understood that you can’t run from who you are, but you certainly can change who you are. Every day you get the chance to decide who you want to be. And that’s as far as it goes.
Your family may seem to consist entirely of people you couldn’t stand to have around for ten minutes if they didn’t have all sorts of damning details to use against you. Then again, they may occasionally feel the same way about you. And since it’s the only family you get, somehow, in an imperfect permanent way, you fit together. And find a way to love each other.
And fortunately, we get to choose our friends.
* * * * *
I was riding my bike in the city a little while later on a gorgeous morning in early June and I passed the wall right near where Travis and I had our first accident. I remembered it—the one with the message scrawled in spray paint. It still said:
GOD IS DEAD.
—Nietzsche, 1883
But I hadn’t noticed what it said right underneath:
NIETZSCHE IS DEAD.
—God, 1900
I could tell that it was going to be a good day.
about the author
What can I say in this bio that you didn’t read in my last one? Wait—you did read Stupid and Contagious, right? Well, not too much has changed since that came out. Writing has a way of consuming every second of your life, partly with the actual writing and the rest with worrying that you’re not writing enough. Oh, I quit coffee for a while, which is big news. But then I replaced it with about twenty-seven cups of green tea per day. (Probably making the whole quitting-coffee thing moot.) People say writing is 10 percent inspiration and 90 percent perspiration. This is nonsense—it’s pretty much 100 percent caffeine. At least in my case. So while I may have switched seats on the Titanic, I’m still drowning (although vivacious and alert) in a sea of stimulant. But here’s a new book to show for it!
I still have the same parents: My amazing mother, Tina Louise, my number one champion and the bright spot on the dreariest of days. My brilliant father, Les Crane, perhaps the only person with a darker sense of humor than mine. I still have two dogs: Chelsea and Max. Chelsea turns sixteen this year. Which means she can finally drive. Legally.
My years spent writing for MTV didn’t do a whole lot for the intellect, but did nurture my profound love of music. And I got to meet Beavis.
Then it was time to pursue a few dreams—founding a record label, creating a line of jewelry, and finally moving full-time into writing creatively. Or at least fictionally.
And that’s pretty much it. Nothin’ to see here, people. I’m still just writing away: Screenplays . . . stories . . . letters to the editor . . . cookbooks . . . computer programs . . . term papers for undergraduates . . . prenuptial agreements . . . and the very book you’re holding.
&nbs
p; I hope you enjoyed it.
Keep in touch at: www.capricecrane.com.
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