When I get home at 12:30, I have very smelly feet, and five hundred and sixty dollars less in my bank account. Five hundred for a year’s worth of classes, and sixty for that adorable white costume that I’ve still got on because it’s so darn cute.
Sam is wrapped in her afghan, watching Beautiful Bride again. Photo albums have been strewn all over the couch. “You smell,” she says.
“Thanks, so do you. Did you sleep on the couch? Did anyone call for me?”
“No and no. Why? Who should call?” her voice sounds like a flat bottle of Diet Coke I might have accidentally left on the counter.
“I met a boy at the bar. He said he’d call.”
“Just because a guy says he’s going to call doesn’t mean he’s going to call. City Girls says that a guy says he’s going to call only because it’s an easy way to end a conversation. Who is he?”
“Damon Strenner.” Since when does Sam read City Girls?
“I know him. He’s cute. I thought he had a girlfriend.”
“Guess not.” Enough with the girlfriend thing already. He’s obviously gotten over it; can’t everyone else? My Cosmopolitan, Mademoiselle, Glamour and City Girls magazines are spread out all over the floor, looking far too well-worn. “You’re memorizing this stuff?” I plop down on the floor beside her, and begin leafing through pages.
“They’re full of useful information. I’ve learned all about tantric sex. If I ever have sex again, I’m going to try The Pretzel.”
“And The Pretzel is what exactly?” I ask.
“The woman’s on top with her legs wrapped around and under the guy’s knees, and his arms are loosely looped around her back.”
“Sounds like work.”
“It has four barbells out of five. That means it’s pretty difficult. I want to try The Diving Board, too.”
I don’t even want to know how that works. A thought occurs to me. “Do you know your and Marc’s combined first initials are S and M?” “So?”
What a great Halloween costume for them—they can throw on some leather clothing, sew red letters S and M onto their chests, and handcuff themselves together. However, I’m not clear whether “so” means she’s unaware of what S-M is or if she knows but doesn’t care. I drop the subject.
“Look how happy we were,” she whines, tossing the flowered photo album onto my lap. On the right side of the page are three pictures of the then-happy couple on a Florida beach, and one of her sitting on a hotel bed. Each picture boasts a typed label: Sam at the Hyatt, Marc and Sam on the Sand, Marc and Sam in the Water, et cetera. The left side of the page is a collage of airline tickets, museum ticket stubs, menus, and bus tickets. She’s the type of person who probably kept the wrapper from their first-time condom.
Marc and Sam certainly look happy in the photos. In one picture Sam is lying on a hotel bed, wrapped in a white afghan, smiling and holding a glass of wine. In fact, in all the pictures, even the ones of her in the water, Sam is smiling and holding a glass of wine. Wait a second…“Sam, is that your afghan in the picture?”
“Um…yes.” She runs her hand along the white afghan draped over her legs.
“You bring your own linen to hotels?” Is it possible? Can anyone be this nuts?
She refuses to make eye contact. “Do you know what kind of disease lives on hotel comforters? There’s cum stains, there’s dried blood, there’s—”
“Do you bring your own pillows, too?”
“Pillowcases. Don’t you watch 20/20?”
“You have to lighten up. No one will want to marry anyone who’s this crazy.”
And then she goes ahead and starts crying.
I was so kidding. Some people have no sense of humor.
Damon calls at three o’clock. I can hear the phone ringing, but I can’t see it anywhere. It’s got to be somewhere on the floor of my room…I see sweaters, a crumpled sheet, yesterday’s thong…
“Hi, there,” he says after I finally find the phone cradled between two cups of my strapless bra.
“Hi.” He called! He called! He said he was going to call and he called he called he called!
“Are we still on for tonight?”
He feels the cosmic pull. The current runs straight from his stripe to my soul. “Certainly.”
“Great. Where should I meet you?”
Meet me? Where should I pick you up? is what he’s supposed to say. What kind of soul mate wants to meet me somewhere? “I don’t know. Where do you want to go?”
“Where do you live?”
“Back Bay.”
“Me, too. Why don’t we meet at Marlborough and Dartmouth?”
“Marlborough and Dartmouth?” On the corner? He wants to meet me on the corner? Am I a prostitute? What if some pervert pulls me into his moving car? What if the getting-hisjollies-supercreep from last week is waiting there for me?
“Is that okay?”
No. It is not. Who meets his soul mate on the corner? What if he doesn’t show? What if I’m stuck there for hours waiting, checking my watch every two minutes? To make the time pass I’ll have to play little games with myself like trying to remember the names of all the guys I’ve ever wanted to sleep with.
“I guess.” I guess you’re not my soul mate, you inconsiderate jackass. “What time should I meet you?”
“How’s 9:30?”
“Fine.” If he’s not at the corner by 9:33, I’m out of there.
“See you there.”
Unless I decide not to show up because of these completely despicable dating conditions. “Damon?”
“Yeah?”
“What number can I reach you at? In case something comes up?” In case I find some self-respect and tell you to go to straight to hell instead of to a street corner.
He pauses. Hello? What’s the problem? I’m being nice here, trying to get your number in case I decide to ditch you so that I won’t leave you standing on the corner and counting cars all night.
After a long pause, he rattles off his number.
“I’ll see you later then.” I slam down the phone. A two-minute conversation and we’re already in a fight.
“Was that Damon?” Sam hollers from the living room.
“Yes. See, he called! We’re going out tonight!” I scream back through my bedroom wall.
“What time?”
“At 9:30! Why? Do you want to have dinner together?”
“No! I’m going out with Marc! But City Girls says you can tell how serious a guy is about you by what time he calls the date for! If he calls the date for after nine, he just wants to get into your pants!”
That’s not good. However, I refuse to give in to Sam’s pessimism. “Unlike some people, I’m not looking to get married! And I like guys going into my pants!”
“I don’t need to get married, just engaged! He’s picking you up here at 9:30?”
“Yeah!” No need to fill her in on the exact details.
Suddenly I am stricken with panic. What does one wear on an arty date? “What does one wear on an arty date?” I shout through the walls. “Sam? Samantha!”
“There’s no need to yell,” she says, appearing in my doorway. “I’m not deaf, you know.”
“Do you have any striped shirts?” I ask.
“Stripes?” Sam answers. “Why stripes?”
“He likes stripes. I’ve seen him twice and both times he was wearing stripes.”
“But what if he’s wearing stripes again? You’ll look like Bert and Ernie.”
“I’ll wear a vertical stripe.”
“You’ll look like a tic-tac-toe board.”
“Straight or curly?”
“Your stripe?”
“No, my hair! Funky or demure?”
Demure wins. After my shower, the ritual begins. First the towel-dry. Then the comb-through. Next the frizz-control. And finally, one inch of hair at a time, I slowly make my way around my head with the blow dryer and the family-size round brush. I hear Sam’s voice over the hum. “What?” I holler. “What?”
<
br /> No answer. I hate that. It’s like when someone calls and you’re about to pee and you have to pull up your pants all over again and make a dash for the phone and then the person just hangs up.
Thirty minutes later, my hair is beautifully, unnaturally straight.
I stroll into the living room like a runway model. Sam is spreading peanut butter on a celery stick.
“I tried to tell you not to bother with your hair. It’s raining.”
Damn.
“Tonight’s the night,” she says, handing me a well-coated stick.
“What night?” I think I left my umbrella in the office. I hate it when I do that. Why do I always do that? What’s wrong with me? Why is my umbrella never where it’s supposed to be?
“Ultimatum night.”
Uh-oh. At this particular moment, Sam’s potential troubles obviously run far deeper than umbrellas. “That’s a very bad plan.”
“No, it’s not. Candice says you have to say it like it is. And here’s how it is—I want to be with someone I can plan the future with. If he can’t be that guy, then I have to find someone else who is.”
“Are you ready to accept his response if he doesn’t say what you want to hear? Who’s Candice?”
“The City Girls writer.”
“I think you’re making a mistake.”
“I’m doing it.” She spreads more peanut butter on another stick.
I’ve created a monster.
At 9:30 Damon is sitting on a bench at the corner. He’s wearing a gray shirt with a green horizontal stripe. His closet must look like some sort of geometric line graph.
“Hey,” he says and kisses me on the cheek, which would have been really nice if I didn’t at that second notice he’s wearing jeans. Jeans! Who wears jeans on a first date? He may as well have shown up with his hands down his pants, scratching himself. Was he wearing jeans at Orgasm? I was too distracted by his stripe to notice.
At least it’s stopped raining.
“Hi,” I say. “So where are we going?”
“I don’t know. Where do you want to go?” Am I going to have to play the eighth-grade what-do-you-want-to-do-no-what-do-you-want-to-do game? This is a date. He asked me on this date. He is supposed to have some sort of plan beyond a street corner encounter. Besides, whatever happened to the sexy French café where he’s supposed to reveal the secrets of the universe? Of course! That’s why he’s wearing jeans! Oh, God, does this mean I was supposed to wear jeans, too, but because I’m not, he figured I wouldn’t want to go and that’s why he’s playing this stupid eighth-grade-what-do-you-want-to-do game?
“How about the Rose? It’s just down the street,” he says. Unknowingly, he just saved himself as forever being referred to in all my dating-war-stories, past and future, as the insisted-on-meeting-me-on-a-street-corner-and-wore-jeans-and-to-top-itall-off-couldn’t-come-up-with-a-place-to-go boy.
It’s a cute bar, the Rose. The ceilings are so low, a taller date would have to bend his head. It’s empty except for us and one other couple at the back, and we can hear the conversations of the bartender and the waitress. The wooden tables are high and round, and look kind of like the waxed end tables in my apartment. Except on Sam’s tables I can see my face; on these I see fingerprints. We slide into two metal chairs at the front of the bar.
We talk about what a cute bar it is.
I start fidgeting. Why doesn’t the waitress come to our table? It’s not like she’s doing anything else.
“What’s wrong?” he asks.
I feel like I’m sitting on a foldout chair in the school gym, writing a final exam. “These seats aren’t very comfortable,” I say. Translation: you better find us a new table.
“I guess the waitress isn’t coming. Let me go get some drinks. What do you want?”
Nothing you’ve got to offer, baby. So far, I am not very impressed with Stripe-Boy. “White wine, please,” I say, and he scurries away. I watch as he talks to the bartender, waving his arms in the air. He looks like a stick-drawing in a flip cartoon book. I am so not going to offer to pay for this drink; I know he’d let me for sure.
“Let’s go outside,” he says. He’s holding a carafe of house wine. “Supposedly the chairs are more comfortable out there.”
That’s so sweet. Maybe I’m being a little harsh on the guy.
The patio has about ten small metal tables lit with candles. We’re the only ones here. We take the table in the back, under a small tin roof. I’m about to sit down when he says, “Wait—make sure your chair’s not wet.”
That’s also sweet. I’m definitely being too harsh on the guy. Maybe he just hasn’t dated that much. Maybe he doesn’t realize he’s not supposed to wear jeans on a first date, French café or not, and especially not to a place like the Rose. Maybe he doesn’t realize that he was supposed to pick me up at my house. Are my standards too high, even for today’s enlightened male? Is there such a thing as an enlightened male?
My chair is wet. He wipes it with a napkin.
“Do you mind if I smoke?” he asks, pulling out a pack of Marlboros.
“No,” I say. I never quite got the hang of smoking. I tried a few times as a teenager, but it always made me cough. Too bad, really. Smokers always seem to have something to do with their hands.
He pulls out a cigarette and lights it in the candle in front of him. He pours us each a glass of wine. I tell him I love Boston’s ice cream, and he tells me he’s lactose intolerant. I tell him my mother is lactose intolerant and she can never have any milk or cheese. I used to use her soy milk in my cereal; it tasted as if I’d dumped a spoon of sugar into regular milk. He tells me he drinks regular milk and just takes lots of pills. The pills cost fifteen dollars a bottle; almost all he earns gets spent on those damn little milk-busters. Then we talk about cheese—we both agree it’s not cheddar unless it’s old. Then he says that after-dinner coffee should only be drunk with Baileys and I tell him that photographs are better in black and white.
The patio is crowded now, well, not exactly crowded, but at least three other tables are occupied. See, Sam? Lots of couples go out at 9:30. Our voices are getting louder, not only because we’re straining to be heard over the new voices on the patio, but because we’re three-quarters of the way through the carafe of wine. We talk about relationships and exes. I ask him about his, he tells me how he just recently got out of a relationship, I tell him the same, and we talk about transition. Suddenly rain is pitter-pattering on the tin roof, and the couples at the other tables pick up their glasses and disappear inside.
“Where do you live?” I ask him.
“Around the corner.” Is that a statement or an invitation? “In the Platinum Towers.”
“Wow.”
“We have rent control.”
“We? You have a roommate?”
“Oh. Yeah.”
Our heads are tilted toward each other and our eyes keep locking. There’s a magnetic pull around our hands. I tell him that I like his glasses, that I can never find a pair that fits my face, and that I wear contacts. I try his on to see how they fit. They smell like aftershave and wet smoke.
“How do I look?” I ask, and he says gorgeous.
And I say, “Men don’t make passes at girls who wear glasses.”
And he says, “Says who?”
I pass him back his glasses and our hands touch and omigod he’s not letting go. If I were a Cupid heroine I’d say I have shivers going up my spine, but they’re really going down, and my head feels dizzy. Is this the chemistry that Julie is always moaning about? Julie the character, that is, not Julie the editor. How can I tell the difference between chemistry and wine? Is there a difference? Should I just stay drunk my whole life?
“Dorothy Parker says,” I tell him.
“Ah, good old Dorothy? Wasn’t she a drunk?” He’s still holding my hand.
I start to giggle. “And what’s wrong with that?” His fingers gently caress the inside of my palm the way Matt Roland did in the sixth grad
e. He told me that the palm caress means a guy wants sex, and I punched him in the arm.
“Let’s play Author,” Damon says.
“Author?”
“Yeah. I jumble the name of a book, and you get to guess the author.”
“Okay, shoot.”
“David Copped a Feel.”
“Too easy.”
“Okay, here’s another. The Old Man Has to Pee.”
I start to giggle. “Stupid game. Who’s your favorite poet?”
“I can’t pick just one. Who said this?” he says. He squints his eyes and recites, “‘Let us roll all our strength, and all our sweetness, up into one ball; And tear our pleasures with rough strife through the iron gates of life.’”
I’ve never been good at “Name That Tune” or “Name This Poem,” or naming anything at all. Hmm. There was a reason I chose to specialize in the nineteenth century. The sixteenth? seventeenth? eighteenth? centuries all sound the same to me. “John Donne?”
“No, but close. Andrew Marvell. ‘To His Coy Mistress.’”
I kind of remember the poem from one of my survey classes. A guy tries to convince his lady friend to sleep with him by telling her that she should enjoy her life while she’s still young and beautiful, because eventually she’ll be dead and then it will be too late.
I know I shouldn’t do this. Every rule my mother has ever taught me, every one of my Fashion Magazine Fun Facts are shrieking No! No! No! in a teenage-horror movie-type scream. But it’s been four months since…That’s more than one hundred and twenty days. But how can this develop into the soul-mate relationship it’s supposed to if I sleep with him right away? A real heroine would never sleep with a guy on the first date. The sexual tension would have to build to at least the ninth chapter, where it would cumulate into a “ball of sweetness.” If in a moment of passion she does cave in and sleeps with him right off, she usually gets pregnant, and refuses to see him. The next time she sees him is two years later when she accidentally runs into him at the video store. And of course, she’s with her little darling boy, Adam, who has the same mysterious smile as his father. And of course, she’s never forgotten Adam’s father.
No! No! No!
Screw coy; tonight I’m feeling brave.
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