“In the interest of full disclosure, I had rejoined eHarmony, Match, and Chemistry a few weeks ago, when we weren’t in touch,” I confess.
I can see Sam react. He nods, the wheels turning in his mind. Will this girl be a cheater—after all this effort?
“But I canceled all of them,” I add.
Sam smiles. “Did you get a refund?”
“No.”
He becomes even more animated; his face gets closer to the screen. “How much did you lose?”
“About two hundred dollars. At least.”
His eyes look glossy and he glances off to the side. His face changes and when he looks back, I notice his eyes are filled with tears.
“You gave up all that money for me . . .”
I start to laugh. Most guys would be horrified by this. And if Sam were a girl, he’d cry over my commitment to him. Sam is different. He is deeply moved by my financial sacrifice. Throwing away my precious dollars touched his heart.
I explain that it feels wrong for me to date other guys. I don’t want to date period, but I’m willing to see what comes next. In between his peeing, we continue discussing our families, our checkered pasts, funny stuff in our daily lives. We don’t delve too much into the serious issues, though I know it’s only a matter of time. There’s a reason why we’re in our current situations.
There’s a reason why this is moving fast.
Is it just loneliness or could there be something more? In a Marie Ferrarella book, there would be this special conflict, an obstacle that keeps us apart. Our big external obstacle is the distance, the lack of common ground aside from high school.
The easy resolution of internal conflict is why romance novels often don’t seem real to me (probably why I love reading them). The heroine is an orphan but manages to conquer her abandonment issues to trust in the hero. All it takes is true love, and she’s healed. Perhaps the hero was beaten by his drunk father but, with the heroine’s love, can accept her embrace.
From my experience, it doesn’t work this way. Problems linger no matter how happy you are. Love helps, but it’s a transient friend, ebbing and flowing. I can only rely on myself for those really awful moments. Plus, I have no idea anymore how to rely on someone every day. To me, everyone is in danger of leaving. Especially Sam.
While he brightens my day, I don’t see happily ever after. So what is there left to lose? This is why we start telling each other everything.
He confides in me about his mother’s death, how this affected his family. Sam grew up in Miami with two brothers, one who is seven years older and another who is severely disabled. Sam’s father lives and breathes selling insurance. Sam’s mother had been ill for years, which made the brothers fend for themselves in some ways. Though the father is a loving, warm man, raising three boys couldn’t have been easy.
After high school, Sam did some college-hopping and wound up graduating from Columbia, with a focus on French literature. He met his wife at Columbia and they married in his late twenties, though he knew almost immediately that he’d done the wrong thing. I knew from the beginning that Sam was divorced and I didn’t think much of it, especially since they didn’t have children. In many ways, his experience sounds like a “starter” marriage, where the husband and wife get together young and learn how incompatible they are in their thirties. But I could tell Sam was a little shell-shocked by what he’d endured, getting his first teaching job in Israel with a new wife and experiencing a tumultuous downward spiral in his relationship. Toward the end of his marriage, living and teaching in Israel, Sam was waking up with thirteen cats and the knowledge that he had to extricate himself from a terrible situation.
After his divorce, he rushed into another engagement, and that went sour after a few years. He went from one volatile relationship to another, though I know deep down there’s a reason why you go out with certain people. His exes must have provided some happiness, and they fit a pattern of sorts. I have my own patterns.
He pours out his heart to me, makes it seem effortless, as in he’s done with his past. In some instances, I know he’s still upset and confused, but he’s the type who lands on his feet, survives, and maintains a sense of humor.
So what about me? What really messed me up? Why am I still single?
Uh, where do I start? It’s the most moronic question, really. I’m single because I’m a complete loser, I want to say. It would be easy to blame my spinsterhood on my parents’ divorce and their remarriages, but that was thirty years ago. People are just messy. I’m messy . . . and trying to avoid repeating my parents’ mistakes. I had a lot of growing pains; so does everyone.
But since he’s told me so much, I feel like it’s time to relay the Big Story, the one I live with every day and in every relationship. It’s no longer the most important part of my life, but it’s always racing in my blood.
I begin, trying to keep it short, adult, no crying.
Sam listens attentively as I explain how everything might have been different if Jane and I hadn’t ventured out for a drink one January night in 1991, a mere seven months after I graduated from college.
Jane and I had gone to school together, partied in the same circles, smoked Parliaments. People billed her as the next great theater director, and, after college, she wanted to put on a play in Cleveland, where I’d moved. Because I lived in the neighborhood, she asked for my help with her show. I hung around rehearsals, ran errands, and helped keep details on track. Most of all, I liked having her as my friend. She created fun wherever she went and this new city was lonely.
At about eleven P.M. that Monday night in January, while walking a block to a bar in the Flats—not the most populated or safe part of downtown Cleveland—a car pulled up to us. A man jumped out and pointed a gun at us, saying, “Get in the car.”
For a moment, Jane and I looked at each other. Do we run? We weren’t mind-readers and there was a gun on us, so we got in the car with one man driving, another with the gun pointed at us.
This is the end, I thought.
For the next ninety minutes, we made stops at ATM machines in order to drain my bank accounts. I punched in the numbers while a gun was in my back. They talked in Jamaican accents, played Prince’s Purple Rain album—one of my favorites—and threatened to find our friends and kill them. At the end of our tour, they stopped in a remote neighborhood and raped us both. They then ordered us out of the car, and we ran, hiding behind cars in a remote parking lot. Eventually, we found a neighborhood bar and the bartender let us call 911.
The rest of 1991 was a blur before I moved to New Mexico. Jane and I spent half the year in court as witnesses, helping put the two men in jail. I won’t say it was vindication, though it felt good to know they were behind bars.
There were bumps along the way. One judge rendered a shocking sentence that would release one rapist (whose charge of rape was dropped without our knowledge) early. This caused media controversy, to the point where he wound up staying in jail for a few more years.
Then in 2004, the district attorney’s office found me and informed me that my rapist was up for parole. This resulted in crippling insomnia that made me miss a lot of work at Harlequin. I was embarrassed that I couldn’t get out of bed. Every time I went outside, I felt this oppressive microscope bearing down on me. I wanted to crawl under the covers, so I did.
On the day of his parole hearing, a Monday in June, I couldn’t stay home because I had used up my sick days. My good friend in human resources, another Sam, very kindly gave me the reality check I needed by suggesting I come to work or take some kind of “leave,” which scared me into action. What would I tell my mother? That I couldn’t sleep? Mothers don’t sleep either. They should be the ones to get the days off, not me. So I hadn’t slept in a few days, and no amount of medicine would knock me out. I had to go to work, even on this horrible day.
I dropped off to sleep a
t two A.M. to an episode of Wings but woke up at four A.M., stiff as a board. After several days of seclusion, I couldn’t stay in my apartment anymore, so I showered and dressed. If I could get through the next twelve hours, I’d be home free.
At five thirty A.M., I crept to the subway and went to work, thinking it might feel safer to be around people. The DA’s office wouldn’t find me. I didn’t want to get that phone call at work, and I never check my cell phone. Maybe, before everyone arrived, I could sleep on the floor in my office. My legs shook all the way down to Harlequin’s office in the city hall area, though I hadn’t eaten in a while either. I had turned into this fragile waif, all from a stupid phone call that might tell me he would be set free.
Once I reached the office, I closed the door and tried to sleep on the floor, feeling completely insane. Then again, I probably wasn’t the craziest one in the room. My stress was understandable, too. How often did I have a meltdown? Not often, so this was okay.
The hours went by, dark turned to light, and my colleagues drifted in. By ten A.M., I sat in our editorial meeting, still shaking, feeling as if I might break in half. The doors closed, people started talking, and I did everything I could to pretend I was normal.
My friend and colleague Gail sat near me. She had been at Harlequin for eight years before I started. She is Rhoda, basically—funny, emotional, supportive, and a bright light. She’s someone whose conversations you want to overhear because everything that comes out of her mouth is interesting and hysterical. We didn’t talk all that often, but for some reason on this day, I pulled her aside after the meeting. We went to my office and I closed the door.
“Do you ever feel as if you’re going completely crazy?”
She grabbed my hands—which she always does, and I love it; so does everyone—and reassured me. “Are you kidding? At least once a week. And whatever it is, it’ll be fine. I promise. Don’t worry, sweetie, okay?”
It’s like a standard thing to say, but coming from Gail, it sounded like the wisdom of the ages and meant a lot to me. This was why I never felt too compelled to leave Harlequin. If you had periods where you were sick of romances, there were always the people who worked on those romances. I’ve met hordes of special people braving the romance deluge and life with me. We visit in one another’s offices, congregate in the kitchen, constantly send e-mails to one another, check in through various other means. We read some of the same books, see shows, go out to restaurants, nod conspiratorially at conferences and meetings. Through any upheaval, my friends at work provide continuous friendship.
And Gail was right, as my colleagues are about most things. It was fine. I still have those crazy moments. I still get panic attacks and have difficulty sleeping. At night, without medication and fully under my subconscious’s reign, I dream about intruders coming into my apartment, my car, pushing guns, knives, into my face, the whirring thoughts that only fear of further violation can unleash in my head. I’ve tried having tea with my imaginary assailants. Tried telling them I forgive them (I don’t, really). Tried to understand the plight of the criminal. All I can say is, “Screw you.” A few times, I’ve said this, but they still haunt me.
Both attackers wound up in jail for thirteen years. Getting this sentence involved many court appearances, letters to judges, parole boards, and media intervention. After the first few years, I didn’t want to know anything more and stopped sending forwarding addresses to the parole board. Usually, though, someone would find me, and by 2004, I knew one or both of them would be released. They had to get out sometime. While I don’t have trouble talking about this period of my life, the reality of it—like a phone call from Ohio—can cripple me for a few days.
It’s no wonder I sought out the world of romance. These stories are a boost, no matter what mood I’m in, who I’m dating, and what my situation is. And over the years, some authors captured elements of my experience, what it feels like to move on after rape. Claudia Dain’s The Holding and Justine Davis’s Clay Yeager’s Redemption made me cry buckets because their heroines learn to believe in love again after trauma.
As the words tumble out of my mouth, I feel stronger. There’s that tiny part at the pit of my gut that wonders, Will Sam find me too pathetic now? I mean, this isn’t the cheeriest topic. And it’s not as if I haven’t told this story a million times—in some instances to create intimacy that wasn’t there in the first place—but telling it to Sam feels different. I don’t need him to start crying for me. We don’t have to keep talking about this either. In fact, maybe we should change the subject. But Sam does react in a way that feels right.
“Three thousand miles seems too far away right now.”
He gives me a smile, the kind that doesn’t quite come across a webcam, but I know he cares. It melts my heart. I feel thoroughly enveloped by his signature warmth. This is a good guy. We may not turn into a real couple, but I’m grateful to connect with another human being, no matter how far away. It’s worth telling my ugly story.
We talk more about what happened and he asks questions. Eventually, Sam and I do move on from this unveiling, discuss the lighter side of things, his students, the Marie stories I’m always editing, along with managing the romantic suspense romances. He becomes part of my routine. If I don’t hear from him, my day isn’t the same.
But when he books an actual ticket to New York, arriving December 17, I suddenly realize: This is more serious than I thought. He’s going to be here tomorrow. Maybe the next day, too. And the next.
He is planning to stay in New York—with me—for a week. Once the visit is over, he will go back to Switzerland or Miami and look for another teaching job. His crossroad fits perfectly into my schedule. And with my Harlequin hero taking all the risks, I have nothing to lose.
I bite the bullet and tell Marie about this new potential romance. I expect cheerfulness masking disapproval, since our story is a little . . . unconventional. Instead, I get vintage Marie approval: Can I write your story? she asks.
Sure, Marie.
Or maybe I’ll write it.
PART III
Sometimes a wind comes up, blows you off course. You’re not ready for it, but if you’re lucky, you end up in a more interesting place than you’d planned.
—Nora Roberts, The Calhouns: Suzanna and Megan
CHAPTER ELEVEN
The Airport Scene
When it comes to romantic comedies, I’m firmly in the Julia Roberts camp. She’s like sunshine on the screen. My brother and I see her movies together and for two hours, no natural disaster can stop us from worshipping the goddess.
But from the moment I see Sandra Bullock in Speed, in 1994, I think, Oh God, that’s actually me. Only I’m red-haired and far less vocal.
I am melodramatic during a crisis (though I can drive through Manhattan with a panic attack). I spend a lot of time in my pajamas crying over failed relationships just as Sandra does in Hope Floats and Practical Magic. I’m so mortified by some of the situations I’ve been in—dating jerks, traveling through four states to visit jerks, spending thousands of dollars and oodles of time on jerks—that I resort to my jammies and bags of knitting. And as I age, this hermitage gets worse. In addition to being alone (which I like and hate), my body is breaking down. I complain about my joints, for goodness sakes. Does Julia do that? No. Sandra, yes. She may not say it, but she does a fabulous sulk.
I’m also the girl who, when wearing high heels, looks like a bear who’s been kicked hard in the ass. And then I’ll fall as Sandra does in Miss Congeniality. My heart gets broken easily, too, and I cry a lot over stupid things when I’m alone, like when the cupcake frosting is mushed when I take it out of the bag.
Julia cries at beautiful things, like opera with Richard Gere, when talking about Susan Sarandon’s precious children in Stepmom, the stress of fighting injustice in Erin Brockovich, the paparazzi publishing naked pictures of her in Notting Hill. Sandra just bawls all d
ay long over stupid men and the crappy hand fate has dealt her.
Julia is the woman you want to be. Sandra is the madcap woman you already are, which is why, I think, so many people love her.
As I converse with Sam over Skype, I try to exude as much Julia as I can, playing up the red hair, the glamorous makeup, optimum black turtlenecks and flattering T-shirts. Behind the scenes, I’m all over the place: Happy and calm because I just feel good. Grateful that this friendship is even happening. Scared of what might not happen. I think of where Sam will go after his one-week visit with me.
It’s only natural that I’d turn to both Julia and Sandra during this time of questioning. I rerent The Proposal, that story where Sandra is a workaholic, has no social life, then makes her assistant fake-marry her so that she can stay in the country. Sandra plays a Canadian. I work for Canadians. We have so much in common.
The only difference between me and her is—well, a whole lot of things. But as it happens, I’m living in a romantic comedy. There’s this interesting new friendship developing quickly. I feel those butterflies, as if a special event is taking place. With the butterflies come the obstacles, like distance and how unlikely it is that I’ll trust another boyfriend. Like Sandra, I bury myself in work because it’s solid ground. If everything goes to hell, I will at least go to the office and read these luscious romances. I’ve read love stories even through—especially through—the most devastating breakups. Separation of work and real-life love is easy for me. I have no delusion that my life will be a romance novel. How could it?
But maybe all that love stuff has sunk in too deep. I should be completely neurotic about the whole situation. Why am I not more freaked out? I just feel good every time I talk to Sam. I always have this sense that he will call again tomorrow, so I don’t wait by the phone.
Romance Is My Day Job Page 18