The Art of Love

by Gayla Twist

  I’m about to say something in defense of Aziz when Elliot cuts me off with, “Come on, Sue. Let's eat.”

  It’s my birthday, and I don’t want to get into an annoying fight that I can’t win, so instead I ask, “Where are we going?” He promised to make reservations weeks ago, so I’m hopeful.

  Elliot shrugs. “Here. I thought we'd grab a table at Bush.”

  “Bouche,” I automatically say correcting him.

  Elliot is embarrassed by any word that doesn’t sound American, so I’m convinced he says the name wrong on purpose. “Whatever.”

  I feel all expectations for the evening plummet. “But, Ellie, I work here.”

  “Exactly.” He gives me a ‘no, duh’ look. “So you should be able to score us a table.”

  The prospect of having a meal where I spend fifty hours a week working is a major disappointment, but Elliot hasn’t made reservations anywhere else, and it is Chicago. Unless I want to eat my birthday dinner in a third-rate pizza joint, I have no choice but to get us a table.

  As luck would have it, Kiki is not at the hostess stand, so we are seated at a reasonably nice table for two. After actually noticing a disdainful look from the hostess directed at his T-shirt, Elliot has attempted to button his collared shirt, covering the grandma graphic, and I am profoundly grateful. He’s brought the gift basket with us, although I would have just as happily left it at the bar.

  After we’re seated, he plunks the festively cellophaned toiletries on the table and shoves the basket toward me. “Happy birthday.”

  “Thanks,” I reply, having trouble concealing my lack of enthusiasm.

  Elliot is surprised. “Aren't you going to open it?”

  “Why?” I shrug. “It's a gift basket from Elizabeth's Conspiracy. I’m pretty sure I know what’s in there.”

  This makes Elliot scrunch his prominent brow. “You love stuff from Elizabeth's Conspiracy,” he tells me.

  “I'm allergic to stuff from Elizabeth's Conspiracy,” I explain, not for the first time.

  Even still, this is fresh information to Elliot’s mind. “Since when?”

  “Since always.”

  When Elliot and I started dating, I told him that I am allergic to perfume. I can’t stand the smell of it on my skin; it makes my stomach kind of queasy. I don’t even like when other people are wearing more than a drop. But somehow, in Elliot’s brain, this has not translated to the fact that I am also allergic to heavily perfumed toiletries. He’s laboring under the delusion that all women are pretty much the same, so all women appreciate this kind of gift. The fact that it takes little thought or effort on his part probably is more convincing to him than me repeatedly explaining that his repetitive gifts make me want to puke.

  In Elliot’s defense, a smelly toiletry gift basket that has the potential to make me break out in a rash at least involves him leaving his apartment to acquire it. I once had a boyfriend hand me a magazine subscription he’d filled out for a magazine I’d seen lying around his house. To top both of those lame gifts, a friend of my mother’s once received two rare baseball cards from her husband, who happened to be a rabid baseball card collector. He said he thought she might like to start collecting. In retaliation, she immediately went out and purchased a diamond cocktail ring, explaining that although it was a gift for him, she would wear it. I admire her style.

  Elliot is still a little stunned that I’m not gushing over the gift that he’s also given me for Christmas, Valentine’s Day, and our first year anniversary. “That's ridiculous.” He refuses to back down. “All women love Elizabeth's Conspiracy.”

  “Not if it makes them break out in hives,” I tell him, but I’m pretty sure he’s already stopped paying attention. I set the basket on the floor, fully intending to leave it behind when we’re finished.

  I give my boyfriend an expectant look, but he doesn’t pick up on it, instead focusing his attentions on complaining about the prices on the menu. Finally, I realize the subtle approach is not going to work, so I say, “Elliot, didn't we talk about you trying harder to be on time?”

  His pained expression conveys that he thinks my expectations are unreasonable and I’m really just being a nag. “It’s no big deal,” he shrugs. “I got hung up.”

  “You could have called,” I point out. “Cell phones do exist.”

  “Nope.” He pulls his phone out of his pocket and waves it at me. “Battery's dead.”

  I just don’t understand why every guy I’ve ever dated feels it’s his mission in life to crap all over my birthday. I mean, how hard is it to make a reservation and maybe put on a nice shirt? I’m seriously ready to lay into him, but I stop myself because out of the corner of my eye, I see Trent Winchell approaching our table.

  If it wasn’t obvious by his last name matching that of the hotel, Trent is a member of the Winchell family. He runs the hotel and restaurant where I work. He’s that rich-boy, boarding-school blond and very fit from playing polo or whatever it is wealthy men do for exercise. He’s wearing an expensive-looking sweater and dark slacks. There’s that easy confidence about him that only being born into wealth can provide. Everything about him screams that he comes from old money.

  Full disclosure—I’ve had a mad crush on Trent for about two years now. That’s when I was driving to work in a horrible rainstorm, and I blew a tire. Trying to change a tire in good light during a nice day on a quiet street is challenging enough, but during a downpour on the side of the highway with cars whipping past, all of them feeling the need to lay on their horns, is extra challenging. That’s when out of nowhere, a Town Car pulled up, and Trent lowered the back window. “Need a lift?” he asked, flashing me a compassionate smile. He didn’t exactly know me at the time but recognized me as a Bouche employee as they went past, so he had his driver loop back around to see if I was okay. Then he gave me a ride to work, called someone to fix my car, plus bring it to the Winchell, and he didn’t even complain as I dripped on his leather seats. Talk about insta-crush. Not that he would ever think of me in a romantic light, but a girl can admire from afar, can’t she?

  “Suzanne.” Trent comes over to me and takes my hand in both of his. My body goes electric as I feel like I’m holding a live wire. “Aziz tells me it's your birthday.”

  My face is on fire, and I can’t stop my free hand from flying to my hair to make sure it’s all right. “Trent,” I exclaim. “I mean, Mr. Winchell... I mean, Trent.” I’m sounding like a complete idiot, so I take a deep breath and try to pull it together. Uh... This is my boyfriend...” and then I completely blank on his name. “...Uh...” is all I manage.

  “Elliot,” Elliot snaps with warranted irritation.

  “Nice to meet you, Elliot.” Trent flashes a smile that probably cost as much as a four-year–college tuition. He doesn’t really look in Elliot’s direction, though; he keeps his gaze on me. “Sue, I'm sending over a bottle of champagne to your table. Compliments of the Winchell Hotel.”

  “Thank you Mr. ... Trent.” If my face gets any more red, I’m sure it can be used to warn ships away from treacherous shores.

  “Yeah, um, dude?” Elliot interjects. “Champagne gives me gas. Can you make that a couple of brews instead?”

  I am mortified. I truly could die on the spot.

  Trent turns to take Elliot in fully for the first time. His eyes flicker over the jeans, the shoes, the wrinkled shirt. “No.” Then he turns back to me and says, “Have a lovely evening, Suzanne.”

  As Trent walks away, Elliot glares after him, completely livid. “What a total douche,” he snarls.

  I am embarrassed beyond actual words. I knew having dinner where I work was a mistake, but if I’d known it was going to be this humiliating, I would have opted for the third-rate pizza.

  Elliot gets to his feet. “I've got to drop a deuce,” he feels the need to announce. “When the waiter comes by, get us some of those cheesy appetizers I like.”

  He saunters off before I can even stutter out, “Um… yeah... okay.�
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  I sit by myself with my eyes closed, breathing in through my nose and out through my mouth. It’s this meditation technique I’ve read about, but it’s really doing nothing to make me feel better. This absolutely has to be the last straw. I can’t keep tolerating Elliot and still have any respect left for myself.

  The music for when Jaws is about to attack some hapless swimmer starts to play. "dun-dun Dun-Dun DUN-DUN DUN!-DUN!" I open my eyes and notice Elliot’s cell dancing across the table. I pick it up to silence it but am caught by the caller ID. It reads "Office." Elliot hasn’t managed to hold down a job for longer than a few weeks for the entire time we’ve been dating, so he really has no reason to have “office” saved in his phone.

  I’m normally not the overly suspicious type, but something compels me to answer. “Hello...?” I all but whisper.

  “Elliot! You nasty boy!” a very female voice trills. “I found your underwear. Behind the couch! How did it get back there? You dirty thing!”

  I don’t know what I was expecting, but it’s definitely not this. Elliot has always been less than adequate in the bedroom, to put it kindly, and he’s sunk to completely incompetent in the last month. I guess I now know why. “Uh...” is all I manage to say into the receiver.

  “Elliot?” the female says again, the dawn of suspicion starting to creep into her voice.

  I drop the phone and just take off. I can hear the voice echoing in my head as I speed walk out of the restaurant. “Hello...? Elliot...?”

  Chapter 5

  I am the biggest idiot on the planet. That’s all I keep thinking. I knew Elliot was a loser. I knew he treated me like crap. And I knew somewhere in the back of my mind that I really needed to dump his ass, but I never, in a million years, dreamed that he was cheating on me.

  The first time Elliot and I had sex, he apologized when it was over. Hell, he didn’t just apologize, he begged for forgiveness, insisting he would get better. The next few times after that, he kept apologizing then running a replay loop where he commented on what he did well and where he needed improvement. I began to feel like I was having sex with my optometrist. “Better? Or worse? Better? Or worse?” Finally, I explained that it really isn’t sexy to be with someone who keeps saying, “I’m sorry,” afterwards.

  After the first three months is when I should have broken it off with Elliot. That’s enough time to realize if you want to invest more energy into someone or if you’re better off jumping ship. But Elliot seemed really into me, and although I wasn’t getting a ton out of dating him in return, I didn’t want to hurt his feelings. That’s a lot of my problem with dating: I’m too worried about how the guy feels and never really think about whether I’m actually benefiting from the relationship. And for me, after three months, the boyfriend / girlfriend groove sets in. The guy stops trying so hard; I stop expecting so much. The problem with Elliot is that I wasn’t getting that much out of the relationship to begin with, so when he stopped trying, there was just this hairy mess I was dating for the sake of having a boyfriend.

  Even so, the thought that he is cheating on me sends me into a rage. Cheating on me on my birthday! How low can you get? And that woman, calling up to gush over him. It was pathetic. I think a lot of the problems women have with men are perpetuated by women. If we keep faking things in the bedroom and giving them positive feedback that what they’re doing is curling our toes when it actually isn’t, then how are they ever going to improve?

  But men’s egos are so fragile. Just the slightest hint that what they’re doing isn’t sending you over the moon and they either sulk, get angry while simultaneously blaming you, or go find somebody who will lie to them more convincingly. I am completely guilty of nursing Elliot’s ego along. That’s probably what gave him the confidence to go out and start cheating on me in the first place.

  I am such an idiot!

  I don’t even know how I got back to my condo. I guess I must have driven, but it’s all just a blur. I know it’s not smart to drive when you’re upset, but I didn’t think about that when I ran out of Bouche. All I could think about was getting the hell out of there. I didn’t stop and think that it would be smarter to take a cab. I’m lucky I didn’t get into an accident.

  Just entering my apartment makes me feel a little better. I fully believe that where you live should be a sanctuary, and I’ve done my best to make my condo a little haven just for me. Any spare foot of wall space in my living room has a bookshelf. I’m obsessed with Chinese history. Like I said, my dad is from Hong Kong. So most of my books have something to do with China.

  I also have quite a bit on Ireland. It’s not a true passion of mine, but my mom keeps giving them to me, and I read them because I don’t want to hurt her feelings. The thing is, there are a ton of Irish people in America, and there’s a lot of information about Ireland. There are a zillion Irish bars in Chicago, and the city practically shuts down every March 17th so that everyone can get drunk. But it’s not the same for China. If you look at census polls, there are a lot of people with Chinese heritage living in America that we’ve just, somehow, overlooked. Yes, most major cities have a Chinatown, but it’s not like everyone runs around drinking Chinese liquor and wearing red on a special day each year to celebrate the culture.

  Anyway, I also collect Chinese antiques when I can afford them. It’s a reasonably esoteric collection for an American, especially an American female. Most people in the states know nothing about Chinese history but are pretty darn fascinated by Japan. Ask almost any guy in America about a samurai sword and he’ll go on and on about how many of the swords the Japanese military used during World War II were actually ancient family swords and how some of them are worth millions of dollars. It’s basically an urban myth that titillates the average suburban white male.

  Hey, I’m not saying there aren’t swords that were brought home by GIs as war prizes. I’m not even denying that some of them are ancient family swords. And I’m sure there are many Japanese people who would be thrilled to get their family sword back. What I submit is that not many of the Japanese have the desire or the means to pay out a million dollars on a sword. I guess when things were really booming in Japan back in the eighties, Americans got the impression that all Japanese have a ton of money and that dropping a million bucks on a sword really isn’t that big of a deal. I’m sure it happened once under a set of very special circumstances, but American guys act like all you have to do is find a WWII samurai sword and you’re set for life.

  I really shouldn’t complain because it means Chinese antiques are a lot cheaper than Japanese antiques. I focus most of my obsession on armor, edged weapons, jade, and cloisonné. Everyone who comes over to my apartment for the first time is always a little thrown because my personality, apparently, does not line up with a woman who’s obsessively collected a bunch of antique swords, but I guess it’s my way of connecting to my father.

  This may sound weird, but I’ve never met my dad. He and my mom had their “romance” when he was living in the U.S. for grad school. She didn’t even know she was pregnant until he was on his way back to Hong Kong. Mom says he’s fairly well off, but he’s never come to visit or anything. He’s probably afraid that if he enters the United States now, he’ll get slammed for a bunch of back child support or something. I’ve talked to him on the phone about a half dozen times, and he used to send presents sometimes when I was really little, but that’s about it. I was raised by my mom and my grandmother. Mom comes from a family of four sisters, all of whom are divorced. So besides my very reclusive grandfather, who died when I was eleven, I didn’t have a lot of men in my life while I was growing up. That’s probably why I’ve become a little too dependent on relationship self-help books. I mean, how else am I supposed to figure out what the hell is going on in guys’ brains?

  I go into the kitchen and rifle through the cupboards until I find a still-unopened pint of some fancy vodka I was given as a Christmas gift several years ago. I think it was a re-gift because the woman w
ho gave it to me said she puked on vodka in college and couldn’t stand the smell of the stuff, so it really didn’t make sense that she would give it to me as a gift. I crack the seal on the bottle and dump a healthy pour into a water glass. In the back of my fridge, I find a jar of green olives. I throw a couple in my drink along with a splash of the olive juice and some ice. Taking a large swig, I feel the alcohol burning my throat. Not the best martini on the planet, but serviceable.

  I head to the living room to relax on my couch. The drink does wonders to calm my anger, but about halfway through, I start to feel a touch of melancholy. Not for Elliot exactly, but it just hurts to be cheated on. Plus, I hate trying to find someone new. I hate dating in general. I start to feel all insecure, and I get way too nervous and can’t really relax or act like myself when I meet someone for the first time. And besides, where the hell do you meet someone new? I don’t really like bars, and besides, who do you usually meet in a bar? Some drunk guy. There’s always online, I suppose, but that comes with its own risks.

  But why did Elliot cheat? Why? My brain can’t stop going there. Is there something about me that makes a guy think, “I definitely need a little on the side,” or something? And where the hell did he find someone to cheat with? He’s not exactly George Clooney. Or even Paul Giamatti. He looks more like a stereotypical terrorist that would be cast in a Hollywood blockbuster with Bruce Willis running around a high rise. And he’s not even the head, charismatic terrorist type. He’s more like one of the henchmen that gets killed in the first half of the film. Since when is that a look that women are willing to cheat for? I take another slug of vodka and decide to just go ahead and feel sorry for myself.

  I scan through my numerous dating advice books and find one that looks likely, His Cheating Heart. Maybe there is some wisdom between the covers because I sure can’t think of anything. I thumb through the pages and find a potential resource—Chapter Seven: How to Forgive a Man Who Cheats.

  I’m a good three pages in before my brain thinks, “Wait a minute. What am I doing?” I don’t want to forgive Elliot. The hell with that. I want to forget Elliot, get past Elliot, move on to greener pastures. But first I have to understand if there is something I did wrong to get me in this situation. Besides continuing to date Elliot well past his expiration date, which is my most obvious blunder.