by Deanna Kizis
“I think you’re going to find it difficult, because it’s not what your psyche wants.” She sat back.
“What does my psyche want?”
“What do you think your psyche wants?”
“Please don’t start that. You know I hate that.”
“Listen, Ben, you’re being very defensive, and I have a class starting in a few minutes so we’re going to have to wrap this up. All I’m saying is that, on some level, you wanted to confront the issue. You created this situation, intentionally, even if it was unconsciously.”
For some reason, this made me angry. So I said, “Nina, are you going to be experimenting with people soon, or are you going to stick with rats? Because, at this point, I think rats are the safer option.”
“Are you being passive aggressive because you’re angry with me, or because you’re angry with yourself?” She leaned forward again. “Or perhaps your sister?”
“What are you on?”
She ticked the reasons off for me. “She’s getting married. You’re not. You’re angry with her on a macro level because she makes you feel inadequate. Which makes me think you may be turning your relationship with Max into a kind of competition. Or you may be trying to get him to compensate for your own feelings of inferiority. And when I tell you this, you take your anger out on me. It’s called transference, Ben, and I think it’s very interesting.”
“I’m not transferring shit!”
Nina raised her eyebrows and sat back with her arms folded across her chest. I decided if she told me I was having a breakthrough I was going to scream. Then I realized I had hurt Nina’s feelings.
“Okay, okay,” I said. “I’ll be a willing patient, a good patient, and I’m asking you, please … Why would I have intentionally created this situation I’m in with Max?”
She didn’t answer.
“Earth to Nina?”
She looked over my shoulder at the street.
“Oh, so you can be passive aggressive but I can’t be a transferer, or whatever you call it?” That did it.
“All I’m saying is you wouldn’t have created a whole ninety-minute tape full of fucking love songs unless you wanted him to know that you love him so you could find out if he loves you back! Jesus fucking Christ!”
A table full of Delta Gammas in monogrammed sweatshirts turned and stared. Nina rubbed her temples, trying to get back into her professional place. She took a deep breath, smoothed her brown hair into its low ponytail. “Look, this is the entrée you needed to open up a discussion that may give you the results you want,” she said once she regained her composure. “Or not. But if you talk to him about it at least you will know where you stand. Which was probably your goal in the first place.”
“I don’t know …”
“I know this isn’t what you want to hear, Ben, but a cigar is never just a cigar.” Nina got up, removed the cigarette from my lips, and put it out in the ashtray, saying, “You should really get a prescription for Zyban. An additional benefit is it might help with some of the free-floating anxiety.”
“I’m sorry, Nina,” I said.
She smiled. “I forgive you.” She checked the time. “Oh fuck. I’m late.”
With that, she packed up her battered copy of Freud’s Civilization and Its Discontents, her chai, her cell phone, and she left. I watched her head toward campus. It was funny—as Nina strode down the sidewalk, all the other passersby quickly stepped out of her way.
THE OTHER FOUR-LETTER WORD
A Three-Part Lesson in Love
BY BENJAMINA FRANKLIN
You can’t say I love you first to a guy. Every girl knows this.
How do we know?
Experience.
When I was fourteen, my first boyfriend was a theater geek. I adored him. He was the Sebastian cellophane to my bilevel hair cut. (It was the eighties, therefore my hair was the eighties.) We met at theater camp, and for three whole weeks, we spent every afternoon together. But then fall came, and Tina Totino, aka “The Rack”—who had matured at an incredible rate—reappeared at school like the Angel of Death with the most enormous tits I’ve ever seen. My theater-geek boyfriend informed me he wanted to take Totino to the homecoming dance. He said he “had to play the field while he still could.” (This being the melodramatic, self-important verbiage used by a fourteen-year-old boy experiencing the bracing, but nonetheless exciting, thrill of breaking his first heart.) And I, in a moment of desperation and naïveté, screamed, “How could you do this? Can’t you see that I love you?”
LESSON #1: Screaming Can’t you see that I love you? makes men feel like they’re trapped. Being held against their will. Emotionally blackmailed into staying in a relationship. So they take The Rack to the dance.
When I was twenty, I met the snow-boarder/punker/computer-programming major who would do the most romantic of things, like show up outside my dorm in a limousine, while dressed in a tuxedo, and take me to McDonald’s for a Happy Meal. The sex was fantastic—he was this big. And he could play Nirvana songs on his guitar. I waited for six months for him to tell me he loved me. But after six months of exclusive dating (!) I could wait no longer. I took the initiative and said, “I love you.” And I waited for him to respond in kind.
LESSON #2: I’m still waiting.
When I was twenty-five, I met the man I thought I was going to marry. I was wrong. Even though he had a stable job, was an excellent cook, and had a really nice condo, it got to the point where we just couldn’t stand one another. And yes, one huge wrinkle right in the middle of our perfect-on-paper relationship was that I turned to him one day, after a year of living together, and brought up That Which Must Not Be Said Aloud. This time, I slyly avoided making a blanket declarative statement, and instead I popped the question: “Do you love me?”
LESSON #3:No, no, no, no, NO! You cannot think that asking, “Do you love me?” is any different from saying you love them. Because why would you ask someone if they love you if you, yourself, do not love them? Well, you wouldn’t. Nobody would. Not only that, guys don’t say, “I do love you!” in response. They say, “Why do you ask?”
I POPPED THE QUESTION: “DO YOU LOVE ME?”
Wait months. Wait years. Wait forever. He’ll never, ever, ever say “I love you” with any frequency or conviction unless he thinks it’s his own discovery, his own declaration, hell, his own concept. Erase the word love from your vocabulary the same way you would erase hideously dirty slang before you go to Sunday brunch with your Irish Catholic grandmother. Remember: Love, when it comes to romance, is the foulest of four-letter words.
After coffee with Nina, I walked back to my car, grabbed the latest parking ticket off the window and shoved it in the glove compartment with the rest, and headed toward Beverly Hills where I was meeting the Mother and Audrey for yet another fitting. Instead of turning on NPR like usual, I left the radio off and pondered Nina’s advice. It seemed a little hard-core. I mean, she always acts like you should confront everything head-on, but she never seems to actually do this. Oh, sure, Nina confronts her friends. She confronts her superiors even. But when it comes to guys, she’s all armor. Every time I see Nina she’s dating someone new. A student from her Psychobiology of Emotion and Stress class. A professor she thought was “brilliant.” The guy from behind the wheat grass juice counter at the Erewhon health food store. The WB Network television producer she met at the … actually, I don’t remember where she met the TV producer. Oh, right. Hatha yoga class. She sleeps with them all right away, it lasts a week, maybe two, and probably just about the time the guy is starting to think that he needs to find a way out, she completely loses interest.
The student she was dating brought her a carrot juice to class one morning. The professor gave her an A minus on a paper she was fairly certain only deserved a B plus. The guy behind the counter of the health food store just seemed too excited to see her when she dashed in to purchase frozen Boca burgers, and the TV producer invited her to the Emmys. Based on these transgre
ssions, Nina decided each of them seemed just a little bit north of needy. And she hates needy. Makes you wonder how she can stand to be friends with me, frankly. But anyway, she becomes unavailable in every way, and then the guys become incredibly interested. They call and e-mail and show up at her house in the middle of the night declaring their love and asking, why, why won’t she just give them a chance? This confirms the suspected neediness, and Nina always feels relieved that she caught it when she did. I may rush toward intimacy. But Nina runs from it like a vegan from a barbecue.
I parked my car at a meter spot and freaked when I discovered twenty-five cents bought only seven minutes in Beverly Hills. I had enough for half an hour. I put the new parking ticket on my windshield just in case and walked inside, where the Mother informed me exactly how late I was while I sat there watching Audrey getting pinned. I wasn’t really sure what the point of my presence was—what, really, is one’s function while someone is getting a dress altered? I tried to be enthusiastic while we discussed how the fabric on Audrey’s gown was draping. But my mix-tape hell—and the fact that I was still playing the songs endlessly in my head—made trying to concentrate on Audrey like trying to watch television with the radio on. Twenty minutes passed and I started to worry that I was probably about to get yet another ticket. “Do you have any change?” I asked the seamstress. She shook her head briskly, and continued to pin and tuck, pin and tuck.
The Mother, at least, was making up for me. As she circled Audrey, who was actually standing on a pedestal, she gushed over the hideous sateen, dye-to-match pumps on her feet. I found it hard to believe that they didn’t realize these were the exact same hideous, sateen, dye-to-match pumps teenage girls buy for high school prom. And when the Mother thought nobody was looking, I spied her inspecting a pearl-encrusted veil and trying it on her head. This from the woman who swore the next time she got married (which really could be any day now) she’d do it at city hall exactly like she did the last three times.
Next we went to lunch (I did get another ticket, by the way), and Audrey brought along a file—an actual file—filled with wedding ideas from Martha Stewart. Pertinent articles were mounted on pieces of pastel construction paper, and they were color-coded. Green for “Floral Ideas,” pink for “Bride To-Do,” blue for “Groom To-Do,” et cetera. I leafed through them, reading the notes carefully written in the margins in Audrey’s curlicue script. For “unexpected fragrance and texture,” she could stick fresh herbs like rosemary, thyme, or sage into her bouquet. Instead of a greeting line, which could seem too formal, Aud was thinking about writing individual “thank-you scrolls” that yours truly could hand out during the reception. There was even a page on tiny “throwing hearts” that Aud wanted to order, which, the clip read, have a dash of romantic appeal and, unlike rice, have the added benefit of not making birds’ stomachs explode.
“Martha, Martha, Martha,” I said, crossing my eyes.
“Oh come on, you know you love it,” Audrey said.
“She doesn’t love it,” the Mother said, “because she’s a bi-atch!”
“Did you just say ‘bi-atch’?” I asked.
“I heard it on the radio!” She and Audrey dissolved into giggles. I was lunching with the Gilmore Girls.
“So,” Audrey said, spooning chilled asparagus soup away from herself—Audrey being the only person I know who actually eats chilled soup—“are you bringing this Max guy to the wedding?”
“I guess so.”
“But you haven’t asked him.”
“No.”
“You should. I’m dying to meet him.” Pause. “I hear he’s younger?”
I shot my mother a look. “A little.”
“That’s okay.”
I told her I was glad she’d found a way around it.
“So? …” Audrey was looking at me expectantly.
“So? …”
“Mom tells me you’ve been all abuzz with bridal shower plans. I’m dying to know what they are.”
“Oh …”
The Mother was wearing a cruel little smile.
I hadn’t done a thing. Well, that wasn’t completely accurate. At home, on my desk, was a notebook I’d bought at an art supply store that I planned to fill with lists of all the things I’d need to do for the wedding. I’d mulled over which book to purchase for forty-five minutes. Would it be most useful if it fit in my purse, or if it was oversize and then had more space for me to write? Would the pad be best with perforated paper, so notes could be neatly ripped out? Or would that make me lose important information? Finally I chose a lavender, linen-covered notebook that neither fit in my purse nor was oversize, because I liked the color and the way the expensive, coddled-cream paper felt when I ran my finger over it. I brought the book home, and wrote “Audrey’s Wedding List” on the first page in the special black pen I bought to go along with it. I felt excited and mature.
I hadn’t picked it up since.
Audrey was still staring at me. I got a brief respite when the waiter brought her chopped salad, my gourmet cheeseburger (that’s Muenster instead of American cheese, to you), and the Mother’s grilled tenderloin. I realized everything Audrey ordered for lunch was cold and green.
“Okay,” she said. “I’m ready.”
“I’m thinking … tasteful!” I waved my hands in front of my face like a magician saying Abracadabra! Audrey’s eyes lit up. Encouraged, I continued.
“Classic! Refined! Polished! Not … genteel … No. Not … prim. Certainly not. But … elegant. Elegance is everything!” I startled an old lady sitting catty-corner to us, who was dining with a friend, whispering back and forth over the last twenty minutes about God knows what.
“That sounds wonderful!” Audrey said, like she was surprised. “Mom, doesn’t that sound wonderful?”
“Wonderful.” The Mother sliced into a piece of steak.
“Audrey,” I interrupted myself, “why are you doing that?” She was carefully picking up garbanzo beans with her fork and knife and placing them in a neat row at the edge of her plate.
She leaned over conspiratorially and said, “Carbs.”
“Right.”
“So?” she said. “What else?”
“I’m thinking … Cream. And … Lavender.”
“Oooh, I love lavender. I briefly considered it as one of my wedding colors, but then I decided maybe it was too girlie.”
“Well, for a wedding lavender is completely inappropriate.” I was starting to enjoy myself. “I mean, you have to consider whether or not the color will date, and lavender is kind of an inaccessible shade, really, when you think about it, once you involve the groom. Doesn’t have that masculine practicality … But for the bridal shower, lavender is perfect. It’s feminine and it adds a certain brightness to the occasion.”
“I totally agree,” she said. “Will the invitations be lavender as well?”
“Invitations?” I took a sip of my soda to buy myself some time. “Yes, those will be in your shower color scheme. As a way of … introducing it.”
“You don’t want to shock people,” the Mother offered. She was being sarcastic, but I rolled with it.
“Exactly. Now”—I laid my hand over Audrey’s, like I was about to tell her the most fabulous secret—“I don’t want to go into the actual invitation design because that’s a surprise. But … What time will it be? ‘What time?’ you may be asking yourself … And ask you should, because”—the Mother looked extremely amused—“it will be a brunch. Yes! A ladies-who-lunch brunch! At Mom’s house! And there will be quiche! Individual quiches for everybody! And mimosas! Right? Mother?”
“Oh,” she said. “Of course. And tell Audrey who will be making all that quiche.”
Nice try, Mom. I smiled and said, “I will.”
They said it together: “You will.”
“Relax. I got a recipe—off MarthaStewart.com?”
I guessed right because Audrey didn’t correct me.
“I totally know what I’m doing. R
emember, the theme of your bridal shower will be”—I waved my hands around again—“elegance is everything.”
She looked happy enough to burp babies.
I thought, I’m a genius!
That night was movie night. Max and I were lying on his bed, and he was engrossed in Shakespeare in Love. Gwyneth Paltrow’s body looked bigger than it probably does in real life since he’d gone to Circuit City the previous Sunday and bought the largest flat-screen television they had. It was so large Max had to completely remodel his bedroom—everything was somewhere else. He’d also bought a new comforter because I’d happened to mention last weekend that I thought his room got a little chilly at night.
“I don’t want you to ever be cold, B,” he said, patting the spot on the bed next to him and putting his arm around me.
So Gwyneth was having a bad hair day, prancing around saying “Anon this” and “Anon that.” Meanwhile that actor—the one with the dark hair—was putting lots of emotion into his eyes while he watched her trounce around on stage. Oh, it was all very romantic. On the television. But in Max’s room, not so much. You know that black-hole-of-deadly-silence thing guys do sometimes? The one where you keep looking at him, wanting him to say something, but he keeps staring straight ahead at the TV? And you know that he knows that you’re looking at him, but to ask him why he’s being so quiet would make you sound like a fifties housewife so you don’t? It was that black hole of deadly silence. Before we’d started the film, I’d tried to get him to talk. Told him an edited version of my sister’s engagement party—all while trying to gauge whether he was wondering why I hadn’t invited him—but he didn’t take the bait. Just said, “Sounds like it was a fun time.” (Insert black hole of deadly silence here.)
“Max?” I propped myself up on one elbow. “Is there something wrong?” (Code for, “Did that mix tape freak you out?”)
He pulled his eyes away from the TV. “I’m watching the movie,” he said. (Translation: “I don’t want to talk about it.”)