How to Meet Cute Boys

by Deanna Kizis

  In the morning, however, when I left Max’s warm bed, the sunlight an incriminating glare on the freshly washed sidewalk, it didn’t seem so easy. I’m twenty-seven years old, I thought. I put on wedding dresses and I cry. As I unlocked my car door I wondered if, when Max stood on his porch and kissed me good-bye, he could see wrinkles around my eyes. I’d never thought I had wrinkles before, but what if I did? Maybe I didn’t look as good as the last girl who’d left his house. She was probably a college senior. Or a waitress from the Back Door Bakery down the street. Pulling onto Silver Lake, I called Kiki from my cell. On the third ring, she answered.

  “Kiki?” I said. My voice had a catch.

  “Ben? Is everything okay?”

  How dismal my situation really was hit me the minute I heard her concern digitally wafting through the air. “When I saw Star Wars for the first time, Max …” Was I going to cry? “Max … was an embryo.”

  With her shocked silence for company, I started my drive home.

  CHAPTER

  4

  Kiki arrived armed with a fresh pack of cigarettes, a sixer of Amstel, and sunscreen, and arranged the supplies on the decrepit picnic table that sat like an abandoned shipwreck outside my apartment. I checked the SPF number while flicking on my lighter.

  “Oh good,” I said. “This won’t wash off while we do sports.”

  Kiki smiled. “So how old?” she asked, handing me a beer.

  “Twenty years, eleven months, two weeks,” I said.

  Kiki sat across from me and lit her cigarette with one of those long matches my neighbors used for the barbecue, which I was afraid of since it was gas and I always thought I was going to blow myself up. The crunchy, patchouli-fumigated guy who lived next door grilled veggie burgers on it sometimes, but only when my window was open so my entire apartment ended up smelling like a Phish show on fire. I used it as an ashtray.

  “Did you ask your mom if she’ll drive you to his b-day party?” she asked.

  “He’s going home for it.”

  “So perfect.” Kiki stretched out, crossed her long legs at the ankles. “You don’t have to stress about getting him a gift that says you’re into him but not obsessed, and soon he’ll be old enough to go to bars.”

  “If you’re going to be glib, I’m ordering a pizza.”

  I went upstairs for the phone, brought it back, and dialed the preprogrammed number. I needed a large sausage and mushroom in thirty minutes or less.

  “You wanna free salad with it?” the guy said. “Only two dollars more.”

  “Then it’s not exactly free,” I said, rolling my eyes at Kiki.

  “Huh?”

  “Two dollars isn’t free.”

  “Please hold.”

  I waited an unbelievably long period of time, which allowed me to ponder possible consequences. As in, maybe I should get the salad and skip the pizza since the new guy I was dating was four and probably didn’t want to see my fat, tired twenty-seven-year-old flesh … He came back.

  “So, you want a free salad with that or not?”

  “Um, okay, yeah. Make it a salad and a pizza.”

  I’ll just eat the salad, I thought.

  “What—you’re going to go on a diet now?” Kiki said when I hung up. “Look, everything’s going to be fine. No, better than fine. Here’s the thing. So he’s a little younger than we thought. That’s not so bad. It’s society.”

  “Oh come on.” I rolled my head from shoulder to shoulder, trying to get my muscles to relax, and my spine made a loud crack. “You’re not seriously going to turn this into a political issue.”

  “No, listen, if you were a male VP at Sony and he were some hot d-girl nobody would even care. They’d give you a fucking promotion. Look, I’ve always believed that the right guy is just the right guy. Like if he worked at Kinko’s, but you liked him, his blue apron wouldn’t matter. Or if he didn’t make a decent living and lived in a shack, you’d just accept it. Remember, there’s always something we have to overlook. Back hair, bad parenting, drug problem, weird moles, passive aggression, poor fashion, stamp collection … I think you should count your blessings. Max is cute, okay? He has a good job. He’s got good hair. He might be younger, but what about Susan Sarandon and Goldie Hawn? They go out with younger men and they’re celebrities. The fact remains, Max could be perfect for you. Or not. I don’t think age is the issue. Whether or not he’s boyfriend material is the issue.”

  I tried to get Kiki’s words to make an imprint on my brain. Then I thought, When Max is thirty-three, I’ll be forty.

  “Have you talked to Good Morning Vietnam?” I asked, opening another beer and hoping a change of subject would do me good.

  “Edward? Nooo. But, in a moment of weakness, I called him.”

  “You didn’t.”

  “Can you believe? Left the most embarrassing message, too—said I had this T-shirt of his and wanted to know if he wanted it back. Total hell.”

  “Total hell. And?”

  “He didn’t call me back. In fact”—she paused for dramatic effect—“I give up.”

  “Oh, come on. You don’t mean that.”

  She said she did. No more men, no more dates. I found this hard to believe—Kiki dated more than the Mother, which was saying a lot. She claimed she yearned for solitude.

  “Nobody wants solitude,” I said.

  “I do,” she said. “I fantasize about it.”

  “Knowing that if you do it too long you’ll miss your peak years and end up childless?”

  “Oh, I don’t believe that backlash shit.” Kiki shook her hand in front of her face. “From now on it’s work and home. Then work, then home. I just bought a new DVD player, and I have a gazillion movies on the way from Amazon, so … That’s it. If I’m meant to meet someone, I will. Frankly, I think the universe will reward me for my restraint.”

  “You can’t act aloof so the universe will get interested,” I said. “The universe isn’t a guy.” I paused. “Now who’s going to go out with me and meet cute boys?”

  “Nobody.” She smiled. “Because you already have a cute boy.”

  After Kiki left, I puttered around, pretending to tidy up. That whole never-leaving-the-house-again thing—she sounded like she could actually be serious. Then again, only a few months ago she’d said she was going to quit her job, become a Buddhist, and renounce material goods in order to achieve a higher level of spiritual awareness. Started showing up at my house with trash bags full of jewelry, black cashmere sweaters, and designer shoes that seemed too dressy for her pilgrimage to nirvana. I stashed it all in the closet and gave it back to Siddhartha when she came to her senses a few weeks later. I’ve helped Kiki carry her microwave oven to the trash because she was joining the raw-foods movement, and I’ve helped her go pick out a new microwave when she ate so many carrots the whites of her eyes turned orange. Whenever Kiki gets one of these plans into her head, I play along and hope my best friend isn’t about to turn into a raw-foods-eating Buddhist vegetarian social worker.

  Anyway. Kiki, somehow, managed to make me feel like everything would be okay. But after she left, a kind of free-floating anxiety took over. I inspected my face in the mirror, and wondered if the sun gave me wrinkles. I lit a cigarette, and started to worry about what it was doing to the elasticity of my skin. I put on a clay masque, hoping to undo some of the damage, and while it dried I thought about those “How Old You Really Are” quizzes in Cosmo. I pretty much checked off every risk factor in the box and discovered that I was, like, fifty. While brushing my teeth, I worried that statistically Max was in a higher-risk group when it came to diseases. We hadn’t had sex yet, but we’d done other stuff—how risky was other stuff, exactly? And I wasn’t just worried about dying, either. I made it through my early twenties without getting a single cold sore, I thought, staring at my reflection in the mirror. Oh sweet Jesus, what if I get one now?

  I turned in early, and had a crazy dream in which I tried to find Max in a murky swamp. I was holding
my breath and diving down into smelly green water. Finally I spotted him. He was drowning. I reached for his hair, pulled him up to the surface. But when I went to kiss him, all I had was his severed head. I woke up, kicking wildly and screaming, “Noooo head! Noooo head!”

  Ten A.M. Phone ringing. Me sleeping. Phone ringing. Me pulling pillow over head. Phone ringing. Oh, hell.

  I picked up the phone. “Who’s calling before eleven?”

  “Yo! Where were you last night?”

  Did I forget to mention Ashton?

  “Out.”

  “Where’d you go to?”

  Ashton who ends his sentences in prepositions?

  “Uhhh …” I pictured the post-Kiki panic attack and leaned over to pick at the middle-of-the-night pedicure I’d given myself after that dream woke me up. I hadn’t let it dry all the way though, so I now had a waffle pattern from my sheets on each toe. “Out,” I lied. “Rock show.”

  “Who’d you see?”

  “You wouldn’t know. There were no synthesizers, oversize cargo pants, or tabs of X. There were actually people there who knew how to play a guitar.” I lit a cigarette and rubbed my eyes.

  “Gross. So I called you at, like, twelve-thirty, but there was no answer. I called you Saturday night, too.”

  Okay. So I’m a bad person. All right? A bad, bad person. But Ashton was Kiki’s idea. We’d met him at a gallery opening. He asked me if I liked the art; I said no. He asked for my number; I gave it to him. He seemed okay. But once he started leaving messages it didn’t feel right. I called Kiki at the office and told her I intended to blow him off.

  “No, no, no, no, no,” she said. “You’re dating now, okay. You gotta give people more of a chance.”

  “But you were the one who said most guys in L.A. are assholes,” I said.

  “Which is why you have to make sure you’re not tossing out the one amazing guy who isn’t an asshole. Investigate. Let things breathe. Seriously—you shouldn’t get rid of any potential partner until after you’ve had the sex.”

  THE FILLY LEXICON

  safety-guy/’sāf-tē-[[ggrave]]ī/ n.

  1: a male you’re sexually involved with who never asks for a commitment, and this never bothers you2: the lover you introduce at parties as your “uh, friend” 3: the perfect last-minute date for all non-family-related events, work functions, and lonely nights.

  Syn:PERMA-F--K; BOOTY CALL

  –B.F.

  So I started dating him, but he was neither amazing nor asshole. The best thing about it was at certain key moments I didn’t have to be alone.

  I got out of bed and tried to wake myself up.

  “Let’s go out tonight,” Ashton said. So the question is, I thought while pulling my bathrobe on over my pajamas, is it pathetic to go out with another guy because I haven’t heard from Max? Or is it pathetic not to go out with another guy because I haven’t heard from Max?

  “Ben—are you there?”

  “I’m here.”

  I couldn’t make up my mind. What if Max called and I had plans? It was hopeless. “Ash,” I said, “I’m gonna call you back when I’m not asleep.”

  “Word.”

  I fed Freak. Drank my morning diet Coke. Read my e-mails, which were mostly dispatches from the Whip, Filly’s editor in chief, who thought the tone on my last piece was off. I checked for an e-mail from Max, but there was none. Oh yeah, I remembered. He said if we exchanged addresses then we’d just become those people who e-mailed one another all the time and never actually talked. At the time, I thought this was romantic. Now I think I should have pushed. Because you can e-mail casually. But you can never, ever call casually. They see through you.

  By two, there was still no call. Maybe I should tell Ashton I’m free … I knew what the Mother would say. (“Just go. What are you moping around here for? Get your nose out of that book. You’re driving your mother crazy.”) She’d date through a bad case of polio.

  I finally sent Ashton a casual e-mail: “We’re on.”

  I spent the rest of my afternoon wishing I had a real job. I had a celebrity interview to prepare for, but sitting at my computer reading bios on upcomingmovies.com and poking at the keys to write questions more interesting than “What was it really like to work with [insert director name here]?” made me feel like I was wasting my life. I wanted to be out. To see the world. I thought about going for coffee, but sitting outside the Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf with all those people circling want ads in Variety always makes me depressed. Exercise was out of the question. So I started a load of laundry, which I then forgot about and left in the washer for half the day. (When I finally pulled it out it smelled mildewed and I had to scrounge up quarters so I could wash it all over again.) Then I tried to interest Freak in a toy called the “Cat Dancer” that I’d bought at the grocery store—five bucks for wire with a little piece of cardboard at the end. He just looked at me like, Why are you jumping around with that wire with a little piece of cardboard at the end? I started a book about Orson Welles because I want to better myself and not be a total idiot my whole life, but I got bored during Truffaut’s foreword and realized I just didn’t give a damn. In a last-ditch attempt to jazz up my day I went to Ron Herman, and Allegra, who’d picked out practically every piece of clothing I owned, did her best to make me look cute even though I wasn’t really in a shopping mood. She worked on commission, though, so I bought two wool pencil skirts I’d never wear because I didn’t actually work in an office, a snazzy-looking top I couldn’t afford that was tight and made me feel self-conscious, and—who knows why?—a wristband. When I walked in the front door with the shopping bags, I had my first pang of guilt over the money I’d spent.

  Maybe I’ll just wear the shirt tonight as a little test run, I thought, pulling the top out and inspecting the tag. I can probably just tuck this in my bra …

  “Heyyy, look at you!” Ashton said when I answered the door. He was admiring my new top.

  “Oh.” I pulled at it self-consciously, trying to keep my left boob from making an unscheduled appearance. “Thanks.”

  “The tag’s sticking out the side.”

  He crossed the living room to pet the cat, which I’d told him a million times never to do. Freak happily sunk a claw into his thumb.

  “Ow!” Ashton gave me a pathetic, Mommy-take-care-of-me look, so I went to the bathroom to get him a Band-Aid. While I was there, I dug through my makeup drawer for a pair of nail scissors so I could remove the offending tag. I realized I was going to have to keep the top at the same moment I decided I hated it.

  I bandaged Ash’s thumb. He leaned down to inspect my work.

  “No kiss to make it feel better?” he said.

  “Grow up,” I said.

  “Never.” Ashton smiled. He has perfect teeth.

  “So,” he said. “I was thinking falafel.”

  This was something that always bugged me about Ash. He worked at a start-up electronic music label and couldn’t really afford to go someplace nice. I got that. But the lack of romance … It made it seem like dinner was just a nod to convention before we swapped bodily fluids.

  “Don’t you think we could go to a real restaurant this time?” I asked.

  “What’re you talking about? Falafel is the shit.”

  “No, it’s just shit.”

  My remark was uncalled for—I was surprised I’d snapped like that—but still. I grabbed my purse and stuffed my keys, lip gloss, and a twenty-dollar bill inside. “I’m sorry,” I said. “It’s just, why can’t we, you know, make a real plan for once. Even if we both paid, we could go somewhere …”

  Ashton looked genuinely hurt. Even his dark hair, which usually stuck straight up, seemed to wilt. He told me he’d sit in a trash can with me if that was what I wanted to do. It made me feel so guilty I wanted to scream.

  This was how I ended up sitting at Falafel King trying to be gung-ho about eating a pita stuffed full of fried balls and dripping with a mayonnaisy sauce. The place only had counter
service so I had to keep getting up. I got a napkin, sat down, then realized I didn’t have a fork. I got the fork, sat down, and discovered I’d finished most of my diet Coke. I got the diet Coke, sat down, and found that my napkin had fallen on the floor. Adding to the up-down-up-down ambience was a nearby trash can piled high with the remnants of other people’s dinners. The garbage smelled exactly like what I was eating. And it didn’t escape my attention that I’d been worried that Max was too young for me, while here was Ashton, who was my age, yet he still preferred restaurants that served on paper plates.

  Oblivious, Ashton launched into a story about some party he’d gone to with his friend Dezi, a DJ at a club on Sunset. I didn’t like Dezi because he never remembered me and he called everyone “bro.”

  I pretended to listen. The last time I’d seen Ashton, I’d been talkative and flirty and had some pink in my cheeks. Sure, it was just the promise of no-strings-attached sex that put it there, but it was there. Now all I could think about was Max. I was worried that by now he’d decided I was too old for him, and he’d never call me again. Maybe I need true love, I thought. And all the excitement, insecurity, and self-loathing that only true love can bring.

  Ashton said, “Do you have any friends you can set Dezi up with?”

  “What?” I was back on planet earth.

  “Dezi.”

  “No! I mean, I don’t think so.”

  We ended up back at my place on the couch, where I pretended to enjoy another one of Ashton’s Crazy-Night-Out-with-Dezi stories. When it was over, he slid his hand up my thigh. I shifted away.

  “I think I have a headache,” I said. I couldn’t believe that lame excuse had left my mouth.

  “Take some Tylenol.” He was now kissing my neck.

  “I’m too tired to get up.”

  “I’ll get it for you.” His hand was back on my leg.

  “You know what”—I pushed his hand away with a little more force than I meant to—“I want to just go to bed. Alone.”