After discarding countless Rules copycats and weird cosmic ordering books, I finally found it: Find a Husband After 35 (Using What I Learned at Harvard Business School) by Rachel Greenwald, MBA. How could I not try this book?
I bought it immediately, jumped in my car and drove home, where I locked myself in the study with the book and a jumbo-sized box of Junior Mints. According to the introduction, I was about to embark on something called “The Program,” which was “a combination job search and strict diet: there are commitments, sacrifices and rules involved.” I groaned. I missed the Victorians already.
The more I read, the more terrifying the prospect of being single at thirty-six became. Because, apparently, even if you’re the most successful, attractive, socially engaged thirty-five-year-old around, once you hit thirty-six, the party is officially over.
You’re on the shelf. Like, way up on the shelf. The top shelf, where it’s dusty and only reachable using one of those wobbly little step stools. The vast majority of men have been fished out of the sea and those still obliviously swimming along will only be caught by the cleverest of women, women who have made finding a husband their number-one priority. Have a fulfilling career? If there aren’t enough men at your workplace, you should probably quit. Own your own home? If your neighborhood isn’t teeming with eligible bachelors, sell and get out!
What I’m saying is, you’re probably fucked. At least, that’s what Rachel Greenwald, MBA, is saying.
I decided to take a Diet Coke break and walked into the kitchen to find my parents giggling like a couple of teens who’d just huffed a whole lot of glue. I stopped in the doorway for a second and watched him pinch her on the ass, watched her swat him away and collapse into another fit of giggles, and I thought: this is nice. Marriage is nice. Stability is nice. Home is nice.
I was going to be twenty-nine soon. Most of the people I went to high school with were on their first child by now, spreading softly and contentedly into domestication.
I had the domestic dream once—a handsome, handy husband and a little clapboard house. According to Rachel Greenwald, I’d achieved the ultimate goal. If her book was any indication, there were lots of women who were desperate to fill my former wifely shoes. They were willing to consider leaving their jobs and moving to a different city in the hopes of finding a stable, committed relationship. They wanted exactly what I’d thrown away.
The truth was, each day that passed here, I started to wonder more and more why I’d left Portland and everything that came with it. It was a sweet little town, comforting and kind, and filled with people who I loved. People who loved me. What was so wrong with that? Maybe London, Adrian and this whole ridiculous dating project had just been a fevered dream I was destined to wake up from.
Tonight, just as I was about to go to bed, my phone flashed with a text message from Bike Guy.
Did I ever tell you that you give great head?
I threw the phone across the room. It was flattering, sure, in a really weird way, but it also made me feel kind of gross. What was I doing with my life that a forty-two-year-old almost-homeless man was texting me about my blowjob prowess while I sat in my childhood bedroom, trying to figure out what I was going to say to my ex-husband when I saw him?
I picked up the book and studied its cover. Maybe the idea of finding a husband wasn’t so bad, after all. Particularly as I already had a perfectly good one lying around here somewhere.
November 2
After a slightly stilted breakfast with my mom, who I was both desperate to tell that I’d seen Dylan and also desperate not to in case it set off a deluge of hopeful questioning, I threw on my running gear and headed over to Meg and Sue’s. I let myself in and helped myself to a banana from the fruit bowl while Harold noisily sniffed at my shins. I knelt down and gave him a good scratch behind the ears.
I heard Meghan moving around upstairs. “That you, kid? Be down in a sec!” she called. “Just putting my running stuff on!”
Meghan came crashing down the stairs, holding her sneakers in one hand and Harold’s dog leash in the other.
“You ready?” she said, pulling on a sneaker.
I filled Meghan in on the tampon encounter during our run, Harold yapping at our heels. It was a beautiful day: blue-skied, autumn crisp and unseasonably warm. We looped around the Eastern Parkway and finished up at Back Cove. Meg let the dog off his leash and we watched him chase after flocks of seagulls, stretching our legs out under trees with branches still heavy with leaves in brilliant reds and yellows.
I lay down on my back and stared up at the sky through the canopy.
“What are you going to do about Dylan?” Meghan asked.
“I don’t know,” I said, picking nervously at a clump of dirt. “I’m starting to think I made a mistake.”
“What do you mean?” she said, turning toward me and propping herself up on her elbow.
“I wonder if I should . . . if we should get back together.”
Meghan sat up and looked at me like I’d gone crazy. “Why the hell would you want to do that?”
“It’s just—I feel like I had what everyone wants and then ran away from it. What’s wrong with me that I don’t want what everyone else wants?”
“A more pertinent question would be: why do you think you should want what everyone else wants?”
“I don’t know. I’m reading this new guide and it’s all about how finding a husband after thirty-six is, like, impossible and—”
“Uh, I’ll stop you right there. Why are you taking these guides seriously? You know as well as I do that they’re bullshit. Now, what’s really going on?”
I shrugged. I could feel my throat constricting with unspent tears. “I feel like I’ve let everyone down by running away like that. I’m such a fucking wimp.”
Meg grabbed my chin. “Hey, look at me. You are the bravest person I know. You were unhappy so you left everything behind and started a completely new life for yourself. Do you know how amazing that is?”
“It sounds pretty chickenshit to me.”
“No, it doesn’t. So many people in your position would have just stayed where they were and been miserable forever. But you had the courage to walk away from it.”
“But look at you and Sue! You guys went through a rough patch, but you’re working through it. Maybe I left too soon. Maybe I should have tried harder.”
Meghan stroked my hair. “Don’t you think the fact that you weren’t willing to stick it out is proof that it wasn’t right between you and Dylan?” She sat up and faced me. “Sue and I are willing to work on things because we both know that we want to spend the rest of our lives together. Can you honestly say that’s how you felt about Dylan?”
I thought for a minute, remembering Dylan’s kind eyes and the way he used to kiss the tip of my nose before bed every night. “I loved him, Meg.”
“I know you did, kid. But I don’t think you loved him completely. That’s not a criticism—it’s just a fact. You did the right thing by leaving. Just because you had something that other people want doesn’t mean it has to make you happy. You’ve got to make your own happiness.”
I nodded. I knew she was right, but I couldn’t let go of the fear that had set into my bones since coming home. “But . . . what if I end up alone?”
She put her arm around me and squeezed. “There are worse things to be than alone.”
I thought of my last weeks with Dylan: the stilted suppers, the endless bickering, the simmering resentment, the cold freeze in the bedroom . . . she had a point.
“So, what are you going to say to him?”
“Fucked if I know,” I said, plucking a handful of grass and tossing it in the air. “Meet him for a drink, let him tell me what an asshole I am for an hour, come over to yours and get shitfaced. That’s the current plan at least.”
“He’s not going to tell you you’re
an asshole, kid. Well, at least not for a whole hour. He’s a good guy. He just wants to know what the hell happened.”
• • •
I heard from Dylan later that afternoon: drinks on Tuesday at the Old Trawlerman, 7 o’clock.
November 3
I was wandering around the aisles of the closest twenty-four-hour grocery superstore, mindlessly chucking a pack of peanut-butter Oreo cookies into the cart and still mulling over yesterday’s conversation with Meghan when my phone rang: it was Lucy.
She started speaking as soon as I picked up. “Lo, I have some shocking news.” Her voice was high and breathy, like she’d taken a break from a panic attack to give me a call.
“Have we been robbed?” I asked. I’d been waiting for us to get robbed since the day I moved in. It wasn’t exactly the most salubrious apartment building in the area.
“No!” she said. “Nothing like that. It’s . . . well . . . oh my God, I can’t believe I’m about to say this, but . . .” Her voice was getting higher and higher.
“Lucy, for chrissakes, spit it out!”
“Lo, I’m getting married!”
“What the fuck?!” I screamed. A woman with two toddlers tucked in the front of a shopping cart stopped to give me a dirty look.
“What do you mean, you’re getting married?” I hissed.
“Tristan proposed last night! Oh, Lo, it was amazing! He took me to the top of the Shard and there was champagne and roses and he was like, ‘Look across the river,’ and when I did, that funny looking building, what’s it called . . .”
“The Gherkin?” I offered.
“No, the other one. You know—the funny trianglish one that melted cars.”
“The Cheese Grater.”
“Yes! The Cheese Grater was all lit up and the windows spelled ‘Marry Me Lucy!’ Can you believe it? I felt my legs go and when I turned around, Tristan was on one knee and holding out the most enormous diamond you have ever seen! I’ll send you a photo—it’s on my Instagram. Isn’t it incredible?”
It was incredible, all right. I was happy for Lucy, I really was, but there was something faintly depressing about hearing of a friend’s engagement spectacular when one has just run into one’s own ex-husband buying tampons. It really takes the shine off one’s perception of one’s life, particularly when one has recently been ruminating on one’s future of loneliness and desperation.
Still, I rallied. It wasn’t Lucy’s fault that Dylan had found me in the tampon aisle, and Tristan was a great guy and I was sure he’d treat her well (especially if she put him in Aunt Dorothy’s Cupboard regularly). They would be happy together, and that’s all that mattered.
“I’m really happy for you, Luce. I can’t wait to see a photo of the ring.”
“Wait till you see it in person—it’s a stonker! Speaking of, when are you coming home, babe? I miss you! We’re going to have a little engagement do on the sixteenth so you have to be back for that.”
“I wouldn’t miss it for the world.”
So Lucy was getting married to a gazillionaire and would soon be moving from our little flat into an enormous penthouse in West London, where she would spend her life flogging him into their happily ever after.
And here I was, contemplating a bag of chocolate-covered pretzel pieces while wearing my dad’s old tracksuit, mentally preparing myself for meeting my ex-husband.
November 5
I tried to slip out of the house unnoticed, but my mom heard me rummaging around in her purse, looking for the car keys.
“Are you going over to Meg and Sue’s?” she asked, bustling into the kitchen.
I gave her a kiss on the cheek. “Nope.”
“You girls going out for dinner then? Maybe to Sangillo’s? See who you run into?” Her voice sounded innocent, but she was eyeing me shrewdly. The game was up.
I sighed. “I’m going for a drink with Dylan, Mom.” She let out an involuntary squeak. “I ran into him at the drugstore the other day and I said I’d have a drink with him. I didn’t tell you earlier because I didn’t want to get you excited.”
“I’m not saying anything!” she said, even though her eyes had gone all misty and hopeful. She gave my arm a squeeze. “Just tell him we said ‘hi’ and that he’s always welcome here.”
I rolled my eyes. “I’m not sure how helpful that would be.”
I drove down to the docks, parked behind the railroad museum and walked over to the Old Trawlerman. I hadn’t been there since high school—it was the only place in town that didn’t check ID—but it hadn’t changed a bit. The same weather-beaten locals were lined up at the bar. It wasn’t Sangillo’s, but this place had its own ghosts. I scanned the room for Dylan and, when I didn’t see him, I ordered myself a bottle of Bud and sat down at a table in the corner. I had successfully peeled off three-quarters of the label when I saw him walk in.
He looked good. Better than in the drugstore. He was wearing a thin gray T-shirt and loose Levi’s, and had obviously made some effort to tame the mess of blond curls on top of his head. An involuntary little rush of comfort washed over me when he spotted me, and for an instant I thought: maybe I could. I waved, but instead of coming over he nodded and headed to the bar, where he greeted the bartender with an elaborate handshake and started talking to him enthusiastically.
So it was going to be like that.
Finally, after six solid minutes of bar chat, two elaborate handshakes and one apparently free bottle of beer, Dylan sat down across from me. His face was a blank—he must have been preparing for this since the tampon encounter.
He took a swig of his beer and finally looked at me. “How’s your family?”
“Okay. Mom’s heading up some campaign to save the Grasshopper Sparrow and my dad has basically retired to focus full-time on yard work. You know, the usual.”
“Good to hear.” He took another sip and looked at me squarely. “So I guess you’ll be heading back to London in a few days?”
My flight was booked for Friday, but the idea of actually boarding it seemed sort of inconceivable. I shrugged and said, “I guess.”
We were silent for a moment. I fiddled with my hair and wondered if my eyeliner had drifted up to my eyebrows; I couldn’t remember ever being this nervous in front of Dylan, not even when I passed him our first note back in junior year of high school. I lifted my beer to my lips and took a drink, spilling at least a third of it down my shirt in the process. We both cracked up.
“Smooth move, Ex-lax,” he laughed, handing me a wad of napkins from the plastic dispenser on the table. “I thought you were meant to be some European sophisticate now.”
I laughed. “Yeah, my elocution lessons are going fucking swimmingly. Can I have a cigarette?”
We headed outside and leaned against the brick wall of the Old Trawlerman, shielding our cigarettes from the sea breeze with our hands and talking about old times. The bartender kept coming out onto the patio and silently placing more beers on the table. When the sun went in, Dylan ran and got two sweatshirts from his car: one for him and one for me. I put it on and inhaled: it smelled like our old house. Like home.
Finally, after we’d smoked all our cigarettes and the bartender started clearing away the empty bottles at our feet, he grabbed my hand and pulled me toward him.
“Where’d you go, Lauren? Where’d you go?”
The truth was, I still didn’t know. We’d been happy. High school sweethearts, college years spent apart in different cities, each of us sowing our wild oats before we both ended up back in Portland and back together. When he proposed, it seemed like the most obvious thing in the world to say yes. Even my dad shed a little dad-tear of happiness when we told him we were engaged. The wedding was a big DIY drunken party in an old barn outside of town: candles stuck in jam jars, paper chains strewn all over the place, me in a white slip dress I’d bought off eBay for $14. Dyl
an had even made our wedding rings in his workshop. Seriously, if it hadn’t been my own wedding, I would have thrown up from the Etsy-ness of it all. But it had been mine, and I’d loved every minute of it.
We moved into our little house and settled into our little life together, and at first it was great. Happy. Comfortable. But after a few years, I started to feel like it was just that: little. The same morning routines, the same good-bye kiss, the same beers drunk at the same bar with the same people at the same end of the day. I was twenty-six and I could predict the tenor of every day that stretched out in front of me. I started to get scared.
One morning, after another night in Sangillo’s, I woke up and realized that, if I didn’t do something, I’d end up hating him. So when an old professor got in touch with me about a job opening at the Science Museum in London, I realized I’d found my escape route. London would save me. Before I knew it I was boarding a plane and leaving my life behind. It had happened so suddenly, it was almost like violence. And throughout it all, Dylan had remained silent, watching me disassemble our life together with military precision without so much as raising his voice.
The moment came when I’d packed up the last of my things and was waiting for my dad to come over with the truck to haul the boxes—and me—away. The little house looked so empty without my stuff everywhere. Dylan sat in the middle of the room, marooned in a sea of packing tape and cardboard, and slowly lifted his gaze to meet mine.
“You coming back?” he’d said, his voice low and gravelly.
“I don’t think so,” I’d said, trying desperately to hold on to the idea of the new life I’d so vividly imagined for myself. “I think I’m gone for good.”
I looked at Dylan now, felt his calloused hand sure in mine, and every part of me wanted to let go. To fall into his arms and say, let’s just forget the past year. To hell with London. To hell with being single. To hell with the project, with the job, with being independent. Let’s just go home.
Love by the Book Page 26