It was pitch-black outside, of course, and no lights were visible on the ground. There were some stars in the sky, though, and that was comforting. Suddenly my slumbering seat neighbor, who weighed in the vicinity of 250 pounds, shifted, jolting both our seats. Then I realized the plane was gliding smoothly through the air. It was just my overweight seatmate causing the “turbulence.”
I relaxed my grip on the armrests and focused on the trip ahead: a week of pure fun and entertainment in New York City, where I was going to stay with my college friend Richard and his wife. Richard, I was sure, would show me a good time despite his stodgy tendencies. (In college, he was the only guy I knew who listened solely to classical music and drove boatlike American cars.) We would eat well, at least, since Richard—who, like me, had gone to graduate school in Seattle—had declared over the phone with characteristic arrogance, “There are more good restaurants on my block in New York than there are in all of Seattle.”
Though I tried to imagine the culinary delights that awaited me on Richard’s block (where people would hopefully be dining sans fleece), my head was still stuck on the Li’l Rockclimbing Spy. Thank God I’d left town when I did. My friends had liked the LRS just fine, but in my opinion, his behavior on Saturday night had been less than stellar.
Monday, October 21, 2002
10:30 PM Breakup Babe
About an hour into Saturday night’s party, I was sitting next to GalPal #1 and her boyfriend, The Professor, on a saggy green couch in GuyPal #1’s cousin’s living room, sipping a frighteningly strong vodka tonic from a red plastic cup.
Across the room, the Li’l Rockclimbing Spy was professionally chatting up a tall blonde in a corner of the room. So far, he’d spent about twenty minutes dancing with me, and the rest of the time flitting around the room, talking to every single girl in sight BUT me. I was—unsuccessfully—trying not to let it get to me.
“Hey,” I said to GalPal #1, “don’t you think he’s flirting with other girls kind of a lot?”
My heart was beating hard when I asked this, fearing she would say, “Yes, he is; he’s a horrible flirt. He really shouldn’t be treating you this way. Dump him immediately!” in which case I would have to listen to her. A Libra and a lawyer, GalPal #1 always sees both sides of every issue and never rushes to judgment. When she does make a judgment, however, it’s always right.
She thought for a few seconds. “Oh, I don’t know,” she said loudly. GalPal #1 says everything loudly. She’s tall, whippet thin, and beautiful—with wavy chestnut hair that she can never completely control. Saturday night she wore a shimmery short skirt that The Professor—an intense, bespectacled blond who teaches German literature at the University of Washington and loves phrases like “poststructural deconstructionism” and “phallocentric paradigm shifts” (but who still likes his ladies to look sexy)—had obviously picked out. Left to her own devices, GalPal #1 would have worn sweatpants. “Seems to me,” she continued, “he’s the kind of guy who just talks to everyone.”
“Really?” It was true that I’d teased the Li’l Rocklimbing Spy before about being the “mayor of Seattle.” Whenever we ventured out, he ran into people he knew and exchanged numbers with them. “Maybe I’m just being paranoid,” I said. “He is a really friendly guy.”
He had, in fact, gone outside with Sexy Boy and GuyPal #1 about a half an hour ago to get high. (I was none too happy about this, but at least, I rationalized, it was their drugs, not his.) After the three of them returned to the party, sucking on breath mints, Sexy Boy sidled up to me in the kitchen and said, “Seems like a nice enough young man. Kind of young, though, isn’t he?”
I avoided looking in Sexy Boy’s dilated green eyes. I caught a faint whiff of Drakkar Noir mingled with Altoid. I had to be careful around him lest Hope-a-noma recur.
“You only wish you could date someone as young, don’t you?” I took a swig of my newly replenished and overly strong vodka tonic, trying to sound more nonchalant than I felt. Having Sexy Boy in close proximity still unnerved me a little, even if he was stoned to high heaven.
“Oh,” he said, affecting the faux-philosophical tone he was fond of, “the youngsters are good filler, I guess. Until the real thing comes along.”
Before I could think of a sarcastic retort, GuyPal #1 strode up to us, black hair in its regular ponytail, eyeglasses in place of sports goggles. Apparently both he and Jenny (who, thank God, was nowhere to be seen) had been completely drunk for the flight back to Seattle from San Juan Island. Sexy Boy, GuyPal #1 said, had been merely “relaxed.”
“We like your boy toy!” GuyPal #1 said. He was full of good spirits, as usual, and tonight they were bolstered by drugs and alcohol. Then he glanced at Sexy Boy and they both smirked.
“You do?” I looked at them suspiciously.
“No, seriously,” he said, then immediately got a serious look on his face, which caused Sexy Boy to burst out laughing. Then GuyPal #1 started to laugh too, and then they were both laughing uncontrollably.
“Oh, they’re just jealous,” GalPal #1 said to me after I’d stalked off and thrown myself down next to her on the couch to complain. Her hair was piled on top of her head, falling in fetching tendrils around her face. How I envied hair like that, for which flatness was never an issue. “I’m sure Sexy Boy probably still has a little thing for you, and GuyPal #1 is just being silly. Actually, he told me he thought the Li’l Rocklimbing Spy was a cool guy.”
I felt momentarily reassured. GalPal #1 herself had been quite enthusiastic about the Li’l Rockclimbing Spy. “He’s really cute!” she’d said, as soon as we were alone together.
“You think so?”
“Oh YEAH,” she said, practically blowing my eardrums out, then looking around to make sure The Professor couldn’t hear. “Those shoulders! Those muscles! That is my kinda guy!” She then took a sip from a red plastic cup reeking of tequila. It appeared that GalPal #1, usually not much of a drinker, was living it up tonight.
Now, an hour later, the Li’l Rockclimbing Spy detached himself from the tall blonde in the corner, though not, I noticed, without giving her his card. Calm, I told myself, stay calm. He’s the mayor of Seattle, remember? He gives everyone his number!
Just as he got to the couch, though, and was about to sit down, GalPal #1’s friend, whom we shall dub Marketing Chick, walked up to GalPal #1. I’d noticed the Li’l Rockclimbing Spy flirting with MC earlier in the evening but had attempted to ignore it. I wanted to like MC for GalPal #1’s sake, but her expensive clothing and perfect body annoyed me. So I was none too happy to see her just as I was about to get the Li’l Rockclimbing Spy to myself again.
And then imagine my shock when I saw the Li’l Rockclimbing Spy, as he was sitting down, grab MC’s arm and pull her down on the couch next to him.
Huh?
MC bounced right back up, annoyed. Her hip-hugging Donna Karan jeans bared a tantalizing slice of toned midriff. “Hey,” she said, smiling, but in a pissed-off kind of way, “stop it.” She shot a sideways glance at me, and I noted—not for the first time—how beady her eyes were. Clearly she was embarrassed that my date was hitting on her right in front of me, but her chagrin didn’t make me feel any better.
I looked over at GalPal #1 and The Professor to see how they were reacting to the situation, but The Professor was whispering in GalPal #1’s ear and they were looking over at someone or something on the other side of the room.
My stomach burned. I didn’t want to act too pissed off or upset, so I said to the Li’l Rockclimbing Spy and MC with a little fake smile on my face, “Hey, guys, I’ll be right back.”
The airplane shuddered. I gripped the armrests and stared even harder out into the night. My breath frosted the window, thoughts of the Li’l Rockclimbing Spy instantly gone. The plane was going down! But then it slipped back into its groove. And slowly I relaxed again. My thoughts floated back to the party.
Then I pushed myself off the sofa, went to the bathroom, and sat down on the edge of
the bathtub. The bathroom featured typical party decor: three lit candles that emitted a vanilla scent. It was meticulously clean. I put my head in my hands and tried to breathe while Needy Girl and Sensible Girl went at it.
“Dump this guy right now, would you? I’d really like to get a good night’s sleep for once in my life.” For the colder weather, Sensible Girl had donned navy blue flannel pajamas and beige wool socks. She stood by the bathroom door, arms crossed over her chest.
Needy Girl sat on the edge of the bathtub. She wasn’t at her most put-together tonight. Her hair was flat on one side, poufy on the other, and her red lipstick was clownlike in its brightness. When she spoke, her voice was tired. “Oh, come on, now, give the guy a break. He’s only twenty-four. He’s just full of…youthful exuberance.” She herself sounded anything but exuberant.
Sensible Girl took a deep breath then expelled it. Then she said slowly, deliberately, “Exactly. He’s only twenty-four. She’s obviously not going to marry this guy anyway, so now that he’s proved how immature he really is, it would be a fine time, an excellent time, in fact, for her to end this ill-advised experiment.” She looked at us both sternly, her hands now on her hips.
The bathroom doorknob rattled. All three of us jumped.
“Just a minute!” I sat for another few seconds on the edge of the bathtub, and waited for Sensible Girl to say something else, but she remained silent. Needy Girl looked at me from the edge of the bathtub, a hopeful smile on her face. Her black-lined eyes looked sad.
When I walked back out into the party, I saw the Li’l Rockclimbing Spy sitting alone on the couch. GalPal #1, The Professor, and Marketing Chick had all gone off somewhere else. He smiled when he saw me, or, rather, his upper lip curled into a sneer of greeting. He motioned to me from across the room, patting the couch next to him.
I felt I should run in the other direction. Or sidle up to a nearby guy and start flirting madly with him. I felt like I should be doing anything, in fact, but walking obediently toward this boy who’d spent the entire evening blowing me off.
Instead I kept plodding across the room toward him. Sensible Girl had abandoned me and even Needy Girl had disappeared. But I could feel my demons, Loneliness and Boredom, pushing me forward. As Counting Crows filled the living room with their asinine lyrics about love and forever, I felt as if lead weights were attached to my feet. But still I kept walking.
My seatmate let out a loud snore that penetrated my headphones. I jumped. Something is wrong with the engine! Then I realized my mistake and turned up the volume on my CD player. Lucinda Williams was moaning for a departed lover, as if in mortal pain, “I envy the wind, I envy the stars…” I stopped the CD and fumbled around in my backpack for another one. I needed something more upbeat, even if it was four in the morning. I popped in my old airplane standby, Dookie, by Green Day. That album had gotten me through numerous bouts of turbulence. Once again, as my pulse slowed, my thoughts spiraled earthward.
“So,” I’d said to the Li’l Rockclimbing Spy after we left the party and were back at my apartment. “It seemed to me like you were flirting a lot at that party.” I started putting some dishes away as I talked, in an attempt to keep the conversation “light.”
“What?!” the Li’l Rockclimbing Spy said in mock horror. He came up behind me, wrapped his arms around me, and started kissing my neck. “I wasn’t flirting with anyone! Except you!”
I thought about just letting it go at that. About surrendering to him and his muscles right then. Lightening up. It always felt like such a loving gesture when someone wrapped his arms around me that way.
Instead, I turned to him, kissed him on the lips, and said, in as carefree a tone as I could, which wasn’t very, “Come on, I saw you give your card to at least three girls there.”
“Dude!” He backed away from me and sat down hard at the kitchen table. “Yeah, I gave out my card, but it was all for music stuff! If you noticed, I gave it to a few guys, too.” Private investigation was just his day job. The Li’l Rockclimbing Spy was also a drummer who wanted to start his own record label.
I turned back to the dish rack, heart pounding. I grabbed a couple of plates and put them in the cabinet. They rattled.
“Well,” I said, staring into the cabinet, which had been lined years ago with dinosaur-patterned paper, “whatever it was, it would have been nice if you’d spent just a little more time talking to me. I mean, I know you’re not my boyfriend”—how strange it felt to be saying that to someone—“and you can do whatever you want when we’re not together, but when you’re with me, it would be nice if you could pay just a little more attention to me.”
God, I sounded pathetic.
His voice got cold. “Don’t you think you’re being just a little controlling?”
Controlling! I wanted to whirl around and yell. I am being so fucking mellow right now! You think THIS is controlling?
Instead I took a deep breath. Then I turned around slowly to face him, the Li’l Rockclimbing Spy sprawled in the chair, legs stuck out way in front. He was chewing on his front lip, jaw tense.
“Yes,” I said. “It’s possible I’m being controlling.” I forced a smile. Of course I didn’t think I was being controlling at all, but I’d read enough self-help books during The Great Unpleasantness to learn a few things about arguing.
“Try, if you can, to see the other person’s point of view. To really hear what they’re saying, instead of reacting defensively, which is a natural impulse” (Amos White, Relationships for Dummies).
The Li’l Rockclimbing Spy sat up straighter. Then he ran his hand through his floppy blond hair, watching me. Waiting. I felt encouraged by his expression. He was waiting to hear what I had to say. To hear my side now that I’d conceded his point.
“Many successful couples resolve their disagreements by injecting humor into them, thus defusing tension” (Dr. L. Sega, Ph.D., He Says, She Says).
“Is it possible,” I asked, “that I might be a little controlling, but that maybe you were also flirting at that party? Just a little?” I injected a teasing tone into my voice.
“NO, it’s not!” he said. “I was NOT flirting!” His tone was exasperated. Almost angry, but not quite.
“All right,” I said, walking slowly toward him. Half of me was disappointed that my doctor-recommended arguing techniques hadn’t worked; half of me wanted to believe him. Maybe he wasn’t flirting. Maybe I was overreacting.
Then I’d eased myself onto his lap, put my arms around him, and said, in as light a tone as I possibly could, “Okay, let’s agree to disagree about this, then, shall we?”
The next day I congratulated myself on handling the issue so well. I hadn’t flung accusations. I hadn’t yelled. I’d learned a few lessons from The Great Unpleasantness, and one of them was that I had often been too confrontational with Loser. Not that it excused him from being a cheating, lying, low-down bastard, but still—I could have been less of a bitch.
Li’l Sis, however, put a damper on my self-congratulatory mood.
“Why are you even bothering?” she’d asked in a weary tone, after I’d described The Flirting Incident to her over the phone. Li’l Sis had spent her early twenties gallivanting around Eastern Europe on a Fulbright scholarship, having ill-fated affairs with Marines and Romanian Mafioso, but now that she is happily married, her moral superiority complex has gotten a tad worse.
“I’m…just having fun?” I said, sounding entirely unconvinced.
Then there was silence on her end. A silence in which, I knew, Li’l Sis was composing herself to sound less judgmental than she really felt. Then she said, “So, seeing him flirt with tons of other girls in front of you was fun?”
“No,” I mumbled. “Anyway, I’ll probably break up with him when I get back from New York.” Then I changed the topic. That was the first I’d talked about breaking up with him, but it seemed like the right thing to say. And after I got off the phone, it even felt like the right thing to do. I’d go to New York
, get over him, and tell him when I got back that we shouldn’t see each other anymore. First, though, I’d let him drive me to the airport.
But then I couldn’t get in touch with him for two days. Had the Li’l Rockclimbing Spy preemptively dumped moi? But then he’d resurfaced in time to drive me to Sea-Tac for my red-eye tonight, claiming he’d been “busy” with an “epic” work assignment doing surveillance on “some dude in Woodinville” who was suspected of insurance fraud.
The surveillance process (or so he said) had involved him climbing a tree, hiding in shrubbery, and scaling a ten-foot-high brick wall. Had this excuse come from anyone else, I wouldn’t have believed it. But he was an investigator, after all, one who had been hired in part because of his physical agility. Plus, he sounded particularly “amped” about the whole thing and had a scratch on his face from hiding in the bushes.
My resolve to dump the Li’l Rockclimbing Spy melted somewhat during that drive. He looked so cute and manly with that scratch on his face. And he is rather accomplished for a twenty-four-year-old, after all. He’s already traveled all over the world, climbed myriad spires and Seattle landmarks, and played drums for some of Seattle’s loudest punk bands!
It’s a lot more than I can say for Loser, whose biggest aspiration was to make sure his toilet was clean and his car expensive enough to impress his millionaire coworkers. Then again my therapist told me that dating someone just because he’s different from Loser is a stupid idea.
So, whatever, I’m lost on this issue. For the moment. But soon it won’t matter because I’m about on my way to New York. In a plane. And we all know what that means. At least I got my kicks while I could!
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Well, I could say this much for myself, I thought as I inflated my travel pillow; it had been two whole weeks and I still hadn’t had sex with the guy! I made a thumbs-up sign in the window, leaning back a little so I could encourage my own reflection. In the dark window, which hid imperfections, my hair looked sleek and glossy, my brown eyes liquid. I smiled, and my teeth gleamed back at me. “Way to go,” I mouthed to my better-groomed twin.
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