Suddenly, I flashed back to that night at Sexy Boy’s house, when I sat there waiting for the kiss that never came. I felt sick to my stomach for the second time that night.
Then, without further ado, he leaned over and kissed me.
I stopped and stared off into the distance. I was envisioning that kiss in my head—that long, delicious kiss—and trying to figure out how to describe it. In my recent foray into “risqué” and “romantic” material, I’d discovered how difficult it was to write about sex in a nonclichéd way. I recalled, how, when I first wrote about the Li’l Rockclimbing Spy, I’d actually used the phrase “wet, warm, and hungry” to describe my physical state. When I’d read it over a few minutes later, I’d laughed out loud then immediately deleted it. Had my writing gotten any less hackneyed since then? I wasn’t sure. But if I didn’t provide details, my readers would feel cheated. I was sure of it. So I dove in.
It was the kind of first kiss you wait for all your life, the kind that melds passion and tenderness with undeniable technique. It was as if, alongside his medical degree, The Doctor had earned an advanced degree in Kissology.
As he held my face in his hands and kissed me—softly at some moments, more insistently at others—his tongue going to just the right places at just the right times, every other thing in my life melted away. All there was, for fifteen minutes in that car, were his lips and mine, his hands in my hair, my hands in his hands, his breath on my cheek, my tongue on his neck. Our kiss.
Until I finally pulled away and said, in a hoarse voice, “I guess I should go now.” Because something in Sensible Girl’s tone got to me that night. And I knew, if I ever wanted him to come back, that I needed to leave him wanting more, never mind that I wanted to tear my clothes off right then and there.
For once, though, I decided to be sensible. Because, lustful as he made me, I want more than just hot s*x from The Doctor. So, in the interest of making my dreams come true, I decided to hold out. Because we’ll have plenty of time during our long, happy marriage, n’est-ce pas?
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An “advanced degree in Kissology.” Ha! As I packed up my computer and gathered my numerous items of outerwear together—hat, scarf, gloves—I chuckled at myself. It was silly, but sometimes silliness was the only way to keep my attempts at romantic writing from flat-out cheesiness. What I had failed to tell my readers was exactly how the date had ended, because the actual ending just hadn’t lived up to the kiss.
“I’ll talk to you soon, R.,” he’d said, when I finally pulled myself away and announced that I had to go to bed. I would have been much happier, of course, had he said, “What are you doing this week? Want to get together Thursday?” Or, better yet, “What are you doing for the rest of your life? Want to get married?”
But I didn’t really have to worry. He’d finally kissed me, after all. Meanwhile, let my readers think the date had ended with some appropriately sizzling words.
Fully attired and saddled with my laptop case (which, as always, was loaded down with books, unopened mail, portable CD player, and a cornucopia of pharmaceuticals), I made my way out of Victrola to 15th Street. A cold, damp wind immediately infiltrated every crack in my scarf and coat. On the trees, gold and red leaves hung bravely, looking heavy and sodden.
Shit! I realized too late that I’d been so preoccupied that I’d forgotten to make predeparture eye contact with the cute barista. I looked inside and saw him at his usual spot behind the espresso machine. But he didn’t glance up. Damn.
Well, I thought, tightening my scarf against the clammy wind, I could always be extra flirty next time. If I wasn’t happily married to the doctor, that is. As I walked to my car, I thought, again, of the Li’l Rockclimbing Spy. I was going to see him later in the week. I had to tell him about that kiss, didn’t I? We’d never really worked out that part of the “deal.”
Hell, I’d think about it later. There wasn’t room in my head for him right now. I just wanted to savor the thought of that kiss. The memory of the doctor’s hands in my hair, on my face, and the way his lips had felt so soft against mine. No one had kissed me like that in a long time.
As I drove to work across Lake Washington, my thoughts floated above the traffic, the bridge, the slate gray, wind-slapped water. They hovered somewhere near the cloudy top of Mount Rainier, which was barely visible to the south. The future opened itself up to me once more as Hope-a-noma wrapped its shiny tendrils around my heart.
Oh, my, that kiss sounds divine!
Delilah | Homepage | 11/18/02—12:01 P.M.
I swear, this site gets more X-rated every day.
Just Call Me a Prude | 11/18/02—2:56 P.M.
So, are you going to tell the little rock climber boy? From a married woman’s point of view, you’re living out my fantasy right now. Oh, the grass is always greener, I know, but don’t rush into marriage! You’ve got it pretty good right now.
Ms. G. | Homepage | 11/18/02—5:31 P.M.
You don’t want to date another moody guy! Look how it worked out after dating Loser for two years.
Li’l Sis | 11/18/02—10:16 P.M.
Chapter Nineteen
As the leaves drifted from the trees, I waited for a call from the doctor. Two days passed. Four. A week after our date, my shimmering fantasy lay in pieces around me. Daughters. Pottery Barn. Dark-haired. Crib. Oh, I knew it was too soon to write him off completely, but he should have called by now. Undoubtedly there was some sinister reason why he had not, and I could only suspect the worst. I had repulsed him.
It was over. Our kiss, our delightful, delicious kiss, had been, quite literally, the kiss of death. I didn’t even want to tell my poor mother. I was her only hope for a good Jewish match now that my sister had married a laid-back blond from the Midwest. If I didn’t marry a Jew, all the neuroses might be bred out of our family!
The blog, as usual, gave me some perspective on the situation, but couldn’t cheer me up completely.
Monday, November 25, 2002
2:24 PM Breakup Babe
Waiting for a cute boy to call after your first kiss is like waiting for biopsy results. The longer you wait, the more you imagine the worst. And now, six whole days since we passionately locked lips in the front seat of his car, The Doctor has not managed to pick up a phone and reassure me. I can surmise only one thing: MALIGNANT.
But you know what? That’s fine. FINE, I tell you! Because the Li’l Rockclimbing Spy—at age twenty-four—is way more of a man than The Doctor. You know why? He called me the night after we met and has called almost every day after that! Whereas Mr. Doctor Man has approached me in a crablike and guarded manner—asking me out once every two weeks for dinner, and now that we’ve actually kissed (gasp!), scuttling back into his hole.
Oh, I know. The thirtysomething Doctor probably has way more baggage than the youngster. He’s probably been “hurt.” He probably wants to “take things slow,” to make “sure.” But f*ck that. You just don’t kiss someone like that and not call them unless you’re some kind of yellow-bellied loser.
It was a pale gray, cloudy day when I wrote this entry from my office, a day of the sort that plagues Seattle for days on end during our nine-month winter. When those sorts of days piled up around mid-January, I’d find myself begging: “Weather, please do something! Please be stormy! Or please be sunny! But please—stop—doing—THIS!” It was too early in the season for me to be disturbed by the gray, but I was. It mirrored too perfectly the flat, gray future of my love life.
I looked at the phone and resisted the urge to call the Li’l Rockclimbing Spy. I’d seen him once since my kiss with the doctor, but had refrained from telling him anything about it. Instead, I’d tried to savor what was sure to be one of our final trysts before I broke the news to him of my impending happy future with the doctor. Now that the happy future had been canceled, it took all of my willpower not to cling to the LRS.
Meanwhile, I was also tempted, of course, to call the doctor mys
elf. Why sit around and wait like some passive-aggressive princess waiting for her prince to come? I’d never been one of those girls who believed that men should always be the pursuers. I ignored the phone for the moment and kept typing.
As for the Li’l Rockclimbing Spy, our dealings have been mostly businesslike. We stay in; we don’t go out. We meet at night, not during the day. We don’t engage in bonding activities that might bring us closer, such as romantic trips to the San Juan Islands or sunset walks on the beach. Thanks to this disciplined approach, I’ve been able to keep my feelings in check. Because, “inappropriate” though he is, he would be easy enough for me to fall in love with if I let myself go. Because how often in the past have I confused lust with love?
Occasionally, he will say things such as “We should take a road trip together” or “We should go on a hike one weekend,” to which I reply, “Yeah,” or “Sure,” in a vague way as I try keep my heart from leaping up and my mouth from saying, “Yes, when?!” Then the conversation trails off and we go back to doing what we do best, f*cking.
Now, of course, my darlings, this is not the kind of relationship
I want. You all know that! But on the other hand, it sure beats not f*cking, if you know what I mean.
Now that The Doctor appears to be MIA, though, I wonder if I can keep ahold of that crazy heart that wants nothing more than to fall madly in love. No matter what the consequences.
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I felt marginally less blah after posting this entry. I’d especially enjoyed calling the doctor a “yellow-bellied loser.” But it was only 2:30. Four more hours of prison time stretched ahead of me, with no meetings to break it up. Jane wasn’t logged on to Instant Messenger either, as she usually was at this time of day. Where the hell was she? I felt guilty about what a slacker I was being at work, but how could I possibly work in this kind of emotional limbo?
The phone started whispering to me again. Call the doctor! I stared at it. It was beige and innocuous looking. A standard-issue corporate phone that one would not imagine capable of evil. My heart sped up. Would it really be so bad to call him? We’d passionately kissed after all! This enforced silence was so artificial! GalPal #1, an even more impatient person than me, had already advised me to get it over with.
“Just call him already,” she’d boomed on the phone the other night (as usual I had to hold the receiver several inches away from my ear). “In the end it’s not going to matter who called who. Either he likes you or he doesn’t, and it’s better to find out sooner rather than later if he’s not into you.” She’d waited exactly twenty-four hours for the professor to call her after their first kiss (which occurred ten minutes after they met), and then she promptly called him and asked him, “Are you into me or not?” Apparently he was, but had been waiting the requisite three days to call. It had been (mostly) smooth sailing since then.
Playing her words over in my head, I checked my e-mail. There, to my delight, was exactly what I was searching for. Distraction! In the form of an e-mail from Sexy Boy. Sexy Boy, of all people, had become an adviser of sorts over the last month, and he’d responded to an e-mail I’d written him earlier in the day asking for advice about the doctor.
From: Jack Kilroy
To: Rachel Cooper
R., I’m heading out right now for a three-day trip to Alaska, but I will say this. It’s a sad fact but true that people in general—men, especially—always want what they can’t get. This doctor fellow is no exception. I’m certain that if you simply act as if you don’t care, he will be at your feet in no time, since you are such a beautiful and talented girl. In any case, good luck, and we can talk more when I get back.
Ha. I’d gotten used to Sexy Boy’s meaningless flirting. I kind of liked it, of course. But I knew to take everything he said with a grain of salt. He was a flirt and that was that. The momentary thrill of seeing his e-mail quickly morphed into malaise. He was right about the doctor. I couldn’t call him.
This day, which had long been teetering on the edge of a cliff, was about to fall off. I could feel it. Elbow on my desk, head in my hand, I stared at my computer. If only there was something interesting in there. Something really, truly distracting and entertaining instead of boring and anxiety producing. I’d already obsessively checked my blog for new comments. Read the few other blogs that I liked, and a few others that I didn’t like that much. So, as I often did when I was bored, I clicked on my hit counter to see how many hits I’d gotten today and where they were coming from.
At first, it had always been a thrill to check my hit counter. My favorite part was finding the new referring Web sites. These days, I could usually expect to find at least two new referring Web sites per week—usually other blogs—where someone had linked to Breakup Babe. The thrill always lessened when I read more than a few paragraphs from these other blogs. The writing was just so bad.
On the one hand, I was happy for all these people, who, like me, had discovered a way to make themselves heard. On the other hand, couldn’t they find something interesting to write about? Or an interesting way to write about it? Jesus, people, who cares if you’re sick with a fever and have been vomiting for the last two days? NOT ME! Who cares if you haven’t blogged in two weeks? Don’t spend the first half of your blog entry apologizing profusely for how little you’ve blogged recently, because you’ve been vomiting. The truth is you’ve done the world a favor by sparing us your asinine, poorly written musings!
Yet, I was still utterly grateful for every single link, and always added these blogs to my Nice Peeps Who Link to Me list (a categorization that excused me from endorsement). Today, I clicked on to my referring Web pages section without much hope. Right away, I noticed a new referring Web site: Thirtysomething.blogspot.com. Promising name, at least. Funny, I remembered watching the show Thirtysomething with my parents and thinking thirty was so old.
I clicked on the link to Thirtysomething.blogspot.com. Waited for it to load. Stupid, slow Internet. As I waited (wondering how many minutes of how many lives were lost waiting for Web sites to appear), I looked around my office, with its gray carpet, its fluorescent lights, and my own futile attempts at making it colorful and “fun.” God, how had I ended up working in a megacorporation? Me! The most promising writer in fourth grade?
Well, the world had clearly been robbed. Because here I was on a gray-nothing day in a gray-nothing office with no one to love me, and nothing to show for my thirty-odd years but a few travel articles and a stupid purple blog.
A feeling of gloom touched me with its clammy tentacles. I knew this drill well enough. Soon enough I would be completely miserable, and the gray afternoon would stretch to infinity. I would be unable to work, yet unable to leave due to my eight-hour quota and the preposterous amount of bridge traffic that made movement impossible before 7 P.M. Where was General Celexa, damn it?!
At last, Thirtysomething loaded on my screen. I noticed the pale pink background and the tasteful green stars that decorated the template. Nice design, but not enough to stop the inexorable advance of despair. Then the words Breakup Babe in the middle of the first paragraph drew my eye. Oh! Someone writing about me rather than just adding a link to my blog in their list of links. My dark mood hesitated. And the more I read, the further it retreated. By the time I was done, daffodils bloomed in my heart.
My first, oh-so-articulate thought after reading this paragraph was “Oh my God.” My second, even more articulate thought, was Oh. My. God. At which point, gloom and doom a distant memory, I grabbed my coat and my cell phone and rushed outside, too happy, even, to fear the sight of Loser/ette. Suddenly my drab, corporate office could no longer contain me and the realization I’d just made.
The next day I blogged about it.
Tuesday, November 26, 2002
12:16 PM Breakup Babe
So, something happened recently that I think you should know about. And, no, I didn’t f*ck The Doctor, so please get your mind out of the gutter! No, this e
vent has nothing to do with men—fancy that!—and everything to do with my currently stalled but soon to be star-studded literary career!
Yesterday, as I randomly perused the blogs of those tasteful people who link to me, I found a blog called Thirtysomething. There, smack dab at the top of the page was this paragraph, written by the fabulous “GenieG,” author of Thirtysomething.
“Hey, check this out!” said GalPal #2. We were at Victrola together on a Saturday, one of the rare chunks of time I got her to myself, sans baby, sans husband. The cute barista was nowhere to be seen.
“Can you hold on for just five minutes?” I looked up at her. In a reversal of my preconceptions about parenthood, GalPal #2 had lost years off her face since her daughter had been born a year ago. She’d recently cut her blond hair into a short pixie do that showed off her high cheekbones and delicate facial structure. Her expression was always alert and ready to smile. Lately, I thought, she was like Tinker Bell, a darting, luminescent presence watching over me, encouraging me. She was even more cheerful now that she’d just started taking Prozac. “I just want to finish up this entry,” I said.
“Oh, okay, but this is really cool!” She raised her eyebrows and gestured with her head to her computer screen, which I couldn’t see.
“All right, I’ll hurry!” GalPal was always getting enthusiastic about something or other, only to be enthusiastic about something else in a day or two. I took her enthusiasms with a grain of salt. To her credit, though, she was just as often enthusiastic about ideas for her friends’ lives as for her own.
I turned back to my own computer.
“So imagine my surprise when I stumbled across Breakup Babe, a blog detailing the aftermath of a failed relationship. Well written, and as funny as it is poignant, the experiences were so relatable, I wished that I could pick them up, like a book, and mark, with a pencil, every entry that seemed familiar. Having dinner with a handsome guy so as to inspire jealousy? That’s me! Crying in the office bathroom for an hour? That’s me! Feeling your heart split in two because it looks like he has moved on and you have not? Oh, so me!! Revenge fantasies involving fame and fortune for you, poverty and misery for him? Oh, boy!”
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