Emily's Reasons Why Not

by Carrie Gerlach

  Is this a sign? No. Shake it off. Finish getting ready. I complete the final touches. After slathering, I spray Chanel Number 5 in the air and run quickly back and forth through it. I gloss my lipstick and dab a little lotion behind the ears to insure the powdery smell is everywhere.

  I drink the last of the wine, shimmy into a sheer black teddy that barely covers my Naired flower, toss the empty bottle of wine into the trash. Wow, I drank the whole bottle … and float down the stairs to the living room. The house is quiet and a slight breeze blows in my hair. I am feeling sexy, confident, horny, drunk. I open the screen to the patio and waltz out to …

  Craig’s … mom, dad, two sisters, and two brothers.

  SHIT! They are absolutely silent, with their backs to me, all looking though their binoculars at a moose or something in the distance. I slow-creep backward, but before I can get away, Craig’s mother has her binoculars pointed directly at me. Craig’s dad just dropped his. I am no longer feeling sexy, confident, horny, or drunk. I am the humiliated hooker from L.A. who is now completely sober.

  “How could you!” Craig yells at me in the bedroom. I sit on the end of the bed with the comforter wrapped around me.

  “I thought we were having a sexy night, just the two of us. I wanted to surprise you.”

  “Well, that was a hell of a surprise.” He shakes his head. “I wanted my family to meet you. You know how important family is to me.”

  “I just didn’t know they were here. How was I supposed to know? We haven’t seen each other in a month, Craig.”

  I can’t believe I am defending myself right now. Any normal guy would NOT have his family here for our first night together. Any normal guy would have stuck up for me. Any normal guy would have already thrown me on the bed and made sweet, sweet love to me.

  Reason #7: It was the best it’s going to be on vacation.

  I chew my steak silently as I listen to stories about Craig’s stupid family all night. I listen about feeding the trout farm, whether it will be an early spring, and to top it all off we have to be in church Sunday morning. Baptists. I am trapped in the backwoods with the Clampetts.

  Days two, three, and four are pretty much more of the same. I think he is still mad at me for the naked family exposure incident. At least one of his family members has been in his house at all hours of the day, every day. I have cooked with his mother, cleared the table and washed the dishes with his sisters, while all the men in the family sit in their BarcaLoungers watching reruns on the Game Show Network. Tomorrow is church. I think I have entered the twilight zone somewhere circa 1950.

  I am going crazy! I never thought I’d say it, but I have become a California woman. I need my Starbucks. I need drive-through Taco Bell. I need my apartment with Sam. Gay guys, Grace, Reilly … I need to be home. Please, someone tell me I am going to be fine.

  Reason #8: If you are rooted, choose carefully where, when, and with whom you replant.

  Breathe. Calm. In. Out. In. Out.

  After church Craig’s entire family came over for Sunday brunch. Still, no time alone with Craig.

  I know one thing for sure. We have nothing in common and I am wondering what we talked about on a beach somewhere in paradise.

  Where did that guy go?

  Reason #9: You will spend two months trying to get back to those few perfect days in paradise.

  I change out of my sundress from church and put on jeans and a T-shirt when Craig’s mother comes into my room. She is carrying a large white box. “Honey, can you try this on?” She lifts the lid to reveal a WEDDING DRESS. “It was my mother’s and I wore it and I expect any woman who is thinking of marrying my son to wear it.” But she didn’t say it in a sweet way.

  I pull the dress out of the box and it looks almost Puritan in style. I force a smile and hang it close to my body. This is not Vera Wang.

  No, never. Not going to happen. What the hell is going on here? I look around the room for cameras.

  “It’s very lovely and quite an honor, Mrs. Kautz, but I think that I would like to pick out something more … me,” I say, gently laying the dress back in the box. “And I think it’s a little early to be thinking about marriage anyway.”

  “It certainly is. I will say, whomever marries my son WILL wear this dress. Got it?”

  Momma Kautz stomps out of the room and down the stairs. Moments later I hear Craig stomping up them.

  “What did you say to my mother?” he demands.

  “Nothing. I said nothing.”

  “She said you refused to wear Granny Kautz’s dress, and that you were, well, rude.”

  I have had it with this mama’s boy asshole.

  “I wasn’t rude, I just said that I’d like to pick something out for my wedding if and when I ever get married. Why are we even having this discussion? And while I am at it, why is your family still here? Why haven’t we been alone in four days? I’ve cooked you and your family dinner, done the dishes, folded the laundry, and gone to a Baptist church. I can’t take it anymore. I want to go home.”

  I am out of here.

  I jump into something that resembles a country cab, Craig leans down in the window and for about one second I think I see a glimmer of the guy from St. Croix … Maybe he is going to kiss me, maybe this is all some sick joke. Maybe it is some freaky test or bad reality show …

  “What will I tell my family?” Craig asks angrily.

  Shock. I am feeling utter shock.

  “Tell them your fiancée was right!”

  Reason #10: Face it, we’re all different on vacation.

  On the plane home I watch square patches of states passing 30,000 feet below and am glad to be above it all. Away from Montana, away from Craig, away from vacation illusions and on my way back to reality and real possibilities.

  Reason #10: Face it, we’re all different on vacation.

  Reason #9: You will spend two months trying to get back to those few perfect days in paradise.

  Reason #8: If you are rooted, choose carefully where, when, and with whom to replant.

  Reason #7: It was the best it’s going to be on vacation.

  Reason #6: He should have offered.

  Reason #5: Your phone bills could buy you a new pair of Gucci loafers every month.

  Reason #4: Beware of the love bug on vacation.

  Reason #3: He’s not who you think he is.

  Reason #2: When you don’t want the answer, it’s probably bad.

  Reason #1: Beware of promises made in paradise. Men talk about the possibility of a future with you on a romantic island when you are tan and easy-breezy, but it never makes the flight home.

  Chapter four

  Don’t Go Pro

  I sit in the outer lobby of Dr. D.’s office with my journal on my lap. I am fifteen minutes late and trying to scratch down ten reasons why it didn’t work with Reese. Hmmm, let’s see …

  Reason #1: He “plays” for a living.

  Reason #2: He will be sleeping in eighty-one different hotel beds in six months … possibly with eighty-one different women.

  Reason #3: He owns more than one cell phone.

  Reason #4: By design, he is going to be constantly leaving me.

  Reason #5: He lives in two different cities.

  Reason #6: He doesn’t read, except for the sports page and the highlights on ESPN at the bottom of the TV screen.

  I giggle, thinking of what Reese’s reaction would be if I e-mailed him the list tonight.

  Reason #7: Too much competition makes me batty.

  Reason #8: Waiting, knowing the game will soon be over.

  Collecting my thoughts, I write again in all seriousness.

  Reason #9: Wondering if I was the only one or a priority at all.

  I stop at reason 10 … My pen freezes and I know that I will write no more. I am suddenly angry at the whole idea of writing these lists. All at once I see, through the paper, that I am writing on top of that damn bridal magazine. This is fucked. I hate these lists. I rip the s
heet out of my journal.

  The doorknob turns and I jam the reasons into my bag before Dr. D. steps out, talking in that Xanax tone of his. “Hi, Emily. Did you bring your reasons?”

  “No.”

  “Ohhhh …” he drags it out and finishes with a stern but questioning “… kay. You’ve had enough therapy sessions to know what we need to work on. The lists are important.”

  I shrug, in full don’t-give-a-damn defiance. I must be PMSing.

  “Come in. Let’s talk.”

  “Maybe there aren’t any reasons for Reese.” I stall, knowing damn well there are, and plop down into a stationary position on the sofa.

  “Of course there are reasons. There are always reasons.

  Don’t go backward. We are trying to move forward.”

  “There are lots of reasons, but not like reasons-reasons, okay? I don’t know. Why does it matter what the reasons are for him? It’s,” I sigh, “over.”

  “Is it? Then why are you getting so upset?” He sets his yellow pad to the side.

  He knows what I know, that I don’t want to put the reasons down. That if I do, it’ll kill all hope, that writing all ten reasons is the same as shooting an arrow through my own heart and possibility.

  “If you’re not here to do work, you shouldn’t be here at all. You have to want to be happy, Emily, and getting there is sometimes painful. I’m not capable of doing some magic trick that will make you miraculously able to fall in love with the ‘right’ guy. I’m not Oz hiding behind the curtain. You have to figure out what you want and go after it.”

  I remain stubborn and catch him looking at the list, poking out of my purse. Defiantly I stuff it down into the darkness of my new Tod’s bag, pick it up, and hug it close to my chest.

  “Go, then. Take the afternoon. Think about whether or not you want to be happy.”

  Wow. Can he do that? Kick me out of therapy when I am obviously in need of mental help? Even my therapist is now abandoning me. I’m getting stood up for my therapy date. This sucks. FINE, fuck him.

  I climb into the Mustang and take off for the beach, I can’t help but feel like a naughty ninth-grader ditching school in hopes of getting caught so she can get her parents’ attention.

  I get to Manhattan Beach, a sleepy coastal town a stone’s throw from the rat race of L.A. I sit on the sand and watch the waves pounding at the shore the way they have for a million years. I can’t help but think that the ocean is God’s cardiovascular system keeping us all going. It helps to clear up any confusion I may have had about my own permanence. A jumbo jet takes off from LAX in the distance. A twelve-year-old boy plays fetch with a lab and a tennis ball, hurling it as far as he can each time. A couple of late-twenties women do volleyball drills in the distance.

  I look back at the strand behind me and see people gliding by on the bike path. A man pulls a baby in a two-wheel canopy stroller behind his beach cruiser bicycle. His wife roller-skates beside him.

  In slow motion I watch her lose her balance and begin to tumble. I gasp a little, knowing she is about to hit sand on slick concrete He reaches out for her, but misses by a fraction of an inch. But as quickly as it all began she catches herself, does a little spin, and skates out of it.

  “Nice recovery,” I hear him say as they roll away.

  “Thanks,” she says, and for a moment they hold hands.

  My body is standing up. My feet are walking across the warm sand. The key is sliding into my Mustang ignition. It doesn’t start. I pump the gas and she turns over. I drive back to Sunset Boulevard and get to Dr. D.’s office just as he’s locking up. He takes one look into my eyes. Maybe he knows we are close. Maybe he pities me for the hour-and-forty-five-minute drive back through Friday traffic. Whatever the reason, he decides that now is the time. We are on to something. If not a breakthrough, then at least a meeting of the minds. I hand him the list. It still ends at nine, but at least it’s something. My eyes say please. He looks into them and sees the wordlessness coming from my heart. It is time.

  So here I am, back on the couch. “That’s why I came back,” I tell him. “The man on the beach cruiser tried to rescue his wife, he tried to catch her, but he couldn’t and then right when I thought she was going to eat it and take out two skateboarders she recovered on her own and skated on. That’s me, at my best, on the verge of disaster with help at my fingertips yet somehow I must right myself, I must skate on of my own volition and accord. I can and will stop myself from eating the concrete of life. Sounds weird, but I had some strange connection to the entire episode. Her starting to fall, him trying to save her and missing, and her ability to save herself. It all made sense, like fate’s own personal movie for me.”

  He sits silently, understanding and at the same time looking puzzled, which is the perfect frame of mind for the unfinished story I am about to unload on him.

  I look in his eyes. “I want to avoid the fall and help myself recover.”

  So I begin.

  Baseball is supposed to be America’s favorite pastime. The players are the darlings of pro sports, those tight pants, great butts, strong upper torsos—not to mention the forearms—the legacy of men like Babe Ruth, Ty Cobb, and Roger Maris. A bat, balls, ins, outs, and apple pie, right? Plus they just look so nice swinging that wooden stick at ninety-five-mile-an-hour fastballs in front of all those fans. The crack of the bat. The smell of fresh-cut summer grass. White chalk on the dirt. Home runs. Grand slams. Perfect games. Makes it hard to remember that it’s only a game when you read about it in the paper every day with all the other facts of our time.

  Nine months ago I was relaxing with my computer open on my lap in a small hotel lobby that looked as if it was decorated by Laura Ashley herself. The drapes, carpet, chairs, and couches were covered in pale pink, yellow, and green prints of flowers and paisleys. Lovely on first glance, but after a while I began to notice the smaller details, like the cigarette burn next to my black Prada bag resting on the arm of the chair. Hotels, even really nice ones, are different when you stay there for weeks on end. You see the stains left by the people who came before you.

  I am in Pittsburgh. Avery, my boss, has sent me to handle the on-set PR for one of our network’s low-budget movies. It has no stars other than a fifty-foot suburban river snake who feeds on the homeless as part of a government conspiracy to rid the city of its unwanted. Need I say more?

  I am glad to be out of Los Angeles, even if it is Pittsburgh, which isn’t half as bad as I figured it would be. The people are friendly, and at 130 pounds I am considered thin where in L.A. anything over 110 is pushing the high end of the blimpometer.

  I haven’t had the flutter, been kissed, or had sex with an other person since Craig nine months ago. Nine months with no physical attention other than hugs from the girls, Josh, and Sam. More than anything, I think I just miss being touched. God, I miss holding hands. But …

  I am feeling healthy and strong in my independence. By myself and okay in my hotel, where I have plenty of good conversations with Beth the concierge. She’s twenty-two with purple spiked hair and thinks that it is “totally cool” that I get to work on a movie set.

  After three weeks and four days in the hotel, I find interesting places to work on writing the press kit other than my room. Today I lounge in the lobby after saying good morning to Todd, the front desk manager, and Alan the doorman.

  Clicking away on my laptop, I look up from the glowing screen in time to see a six-foot-two, 220-pound all-American dreamboat with dark cropped hair and blue eyes walk off the elevator and head toward the Starbucks at the entrance of the lobby. My eyes follow his strong, beefy, thirty-something shoulders across what must be a fifty-inch barrel chest. Tight abs are clearly visible through his white T-shirt leading down to yummy hips. From the backside, his baggy Lucky Brand jeans add a nice touch to his perfect bubble butt.

  Holy …

  Flutter, flutter.

  Batwoman!

  I thought I’d be safe in Pittsburgh, but instead I�
�m stuck, motionless, simply blinking in awe. Cozy in my overstuffed chair, I watch him slip out of sight into the coffee shop.

  I am suddenly feeling very, very thirsty for a latte.

  Standing in the Starbucks line behind him, I smell his hair, still wet from the shower. I want to reach up and run my fingers through it. I close my eyes and take another deep breath. He smells like hotel soap mixed with sweet Paul Mitchell hair gel and maybe a hint of Hugo Boss cologne. I exhale and open my eyes.

  “Your usual, Emily?” the Starbucks girl asks me.

  “Yep. Thanks, Jen.” I look down, a little embarrassed as Jen yells “triple-venti-nonfat-no-foam-three-Sweet’n-Low-latte.”

  I step to the side and Mr. All-American turns and smiles at me.

  I am taken aback by his boyish face, which has the most perfect, deep dimples and cleft chin that I have even seen. My mouth is agape. I may have shoestrings of drool falling from the sides of my lips. Not sure. Mesmerized. Transfixed.

  His cleft could give Kirk Douglas’s a run for its money. It isn’t that he is model gorgeous. It is about the entire package, equipped with special features that seem to jump out and scream “sexy and sweet and blessed by God.”

  I am weak in the knees. I haven’t felt weak in the knees, well, since David over two years ago. But even when I first met David, it didn’t feel like this. There seems to be something unique, something that feels familiar about him, something that just clicked inside me. Weird.

  I get my triple-venti-nonfat-no-foam-three-Sweet’n Low-latte before his mocha frappicino is ready.

  “It must be helpful to know people,” he says with the slightest hint of a Boston accent.

  “And be a good tipper,” Jen pipes in.

  “With a nice smile,” Ted the coffee guy adds as he hands me my drink.

  Group support! Couldn’t have planned it any better.

  “Thanks.” I can feel the blood in my cheeks. I wonder if I am red. I can’t help but give an ear-to-ear smile at Mr. All-American with the man-boy face and walk away.

  Be calm, subtle, coy, not too flirty.