by Zack Love
Heeb had achieved instant intimacy by uttering Melody’s password – a code that he had cracked through sheer cleverness rather than any deep and comprehensive intuition about who Melody was and what she really wanted. Thus, it was only with considerable effort and adjustment that Heeb could understand and accommodate Melody’s many needs. But why did he bother? After all, when he had first started chatting with Melody online, the most he actually wanted or hoped for was an adventurous one-night stand with a sexy oddball. However, during their first night and morning together, he realized that he was actually intrigued by her idiosyncrasies, and curious to understand her as well as she assumed he already did. He was also drawn to her – particularly when they showered together and her dark cosmetics and wild hairdo were washed away, leaving only traces of lilac in her dark brown hair.
The morning after their first encounter, a lazy Sunday, they ordered in breakfast and ate it on Heeb’s bed. She had a fruit salad and he had lox and bagels. Between mousy bites, Melody shared some additional facts about herself that gave Heeb pause.
“Do you know why it’s funny that my last name is Katz?”
Heeb felt a moment of alarm. “Your last name is Katz?”
“Yeah. Why? What’s the big deal?”
“So…So are you Jewish?” Heeb had just convinced himself that he was sufficiently intrigued by and attracted to Melody that he wanted to date her for a while. But this new information threatened a premature end to his “play period.” He had under a year left for “play,” and he thought he could enjoy dating Melody for a month or two and then move on to the caddish project of cramming in as much additional play as possible before his two-year search for a Jewish wife began. But if she was Jewish, he might be tempted to extend that initial month or two into something longer. Why? Because if that something longer was good enough to last as long as say, eight months, he would already be so close to the two-year search period, that he might as well just stick with Melody, rather than start over and risk finding no one as good as her in time to be married by thirty. So Heeb was worried that, if Melody Katz was, in fact, Jewish, he might already be compelled, on their first morning together, to entertain the possibility that he would marry her. And that would be it: Heeb would have met his wife on the Internet. Equally discordant with all of his childhood notions of matrimony was the idea that his wife would be someone he had slept with on their very first meeting. Then he recalled Lucky Chucky’s marriage story, and decided that this additional detail was acceptable, but still somewhat odd.
“I’m an atheist – or at least an agnostic,” she answered. “But technically I’m Jewish. I mean, my parents are Jewish…Why?”
“Oh. Never mind.”
“Are you?”
“Technically.”
“Well, technically you didn’t guess why it’s funny that my last name is Katz.”
“Why? Because you love cats?” Heeb ventured.
“Oh my God! You’re brilliant.”
“Am I right?”
“You should have been a tarot card reader or something. None of it’s legit, but they do have good intuition. I can’t believe you’re wasting your talents as an actuary.”
“So you really love cats?”
“Yeah. I have twelve living with me in my studio.”
“Wow…How nice,” Heeb replied with politic politeness, even though he had always harbored a passive aversion to cats – particularly in any quantity exceeding one.
“They’re all very well trained, and I’ve developed a very good deodorizing system, so my apartment actually smells really good.”
“I don’t care how good your system is. There’s no way I’m stepping foot into that studio,” Heeb thought to himself. And then he said to Melody, “Sounds like you’re the kind of cat lover they would feature in one of those human interest stories on the morning news.”
“It’s funny, because a journalist once offered to interview me for a story, but I’m really too shy for that sort of thing.”
During the weeks that followed their initial meeting, the taxing process of adjusting to Melody actually made Heeb care more about making the relationship work, even if it meant the unplanned, premature end of his play period. The mere fact of having to accommodate so many of Melody’s desiderata at his own expense made Heeb feel more invested in the relationship. The main requirement, of course, was his time – a demand that forced him to drop some of the very courses he had hoped would introduce him to women. After an extensive discussion, Heeb and Melody agreed that he would drop out of everything but photography, and that she would enroll in the same class with him – if they could persuade the instructor to let her join the class so late, based on her impressive portfolio of cat photographs taken over the last few years.
But despite Heeb’s Herculean efforts, he always seemed to fall short of fully satisfying Melody’s emotional needs. When he had to work late so that he couldn’t meet her or talk on the phone, she quickly grew angry and frustrated at his unavailability. After working for nearly half a year as a freelance dog walker, babysitter, web developer, math tutor, and housecleaner, she had forgotten what it’s like to have most of one’s life consumed by a full-time, New York City job. She now had an erratic schedule with large periods of free time during which she assumed or wished that Heeb would be available as well.
Perhaps their most irreconcilable difference was her unbounded and apparently unavoidable love of cats, a fact confirmed by the reliable presence of at least a dozen bristles clinging to her clothes or shoes at any given moment. By her own admission, her feline fixation had cost her a few long-term relationships over the years.
For a while, Heeb managed to find apparently neutral and understandable reasons for them to go back to his place rather than hers: it was more spacious and better equipped with home entertainment systems, it had a better Bach collection and easier access to good restaurants, and it was located closer to his office and to most of her odd jobs. But after about three weeks, Melody correctly concluded that the only reason he wouldn’t go back to her place – which he had never seen – was the prospect of being in a small studio with her and twelve cats.
As their relationship grew rockier, Heeb finally decided to call Carlos for advice.
Carlos was already aware of Melody’s many eccentricities and needy psychology and asked Heeb to remind him of her virtues. “I know you guys have great conversations and great sex, but is there anything more to this whole relationship?” he asked.
“Does there need to be?” Heeb asked lightheartedly.
“I suppose not,” Carlos replied in reflective amusement. “Well, let’s not forget about friendship, taking care of each other – ”
“We have that too. And she’s probably the first woman who has ever unconditionally loved me.”
“It sounds to me like she has a lot of conditions: two hours a day of communication, tolerating cats in ridiculous quantities, constantly keeping your breath and body odor in check, going to an independent film once a week, and – ”
“But those having nothing to do with me, Carlos. Except the odors. And that’s only because she’s very sensitive to scents and my breath is sometimes bad enough to kill the roaches in my apartment.”
“So you really think she loves you unconditionally?”
“Yes. It’s really the first time that a woman loves me exactly as I am. I think Yumi loved me more because of how well I treated her and because she really needed someone to help her when she first arrived. But Melody genuinely loves me for who I am. She’s not using me in any way. She needs me only on an emotional level…She’s just a bit crazy and expects me to put up with it. But she would never in a million years pull a Yumi on me. She thinks we’re perfect soul mates.”
“Really?”
“If I gained fifty pounds, became homeless, and lost the hair on the sides of my head, she’d still be with me, as long as I could put up with her meshugas…There’s something really compelling about that. The on
ly problem is that we might just be fundamentally incompatible on certain things, including the cat issue.”
“I don’t know what to tell you, Heeb. Every relationship has its own rules. Had you asked me back in college if I thought that I could ever have a girlfriend who would take two years to quit smoking and who would expect me to sit in therapy until I overcame my mysophobia, I’d have told you that it was impossible. But Carolina and I confronted the impossible. And now we’re both better off. As individuals and as a couple.”
“So what are you saying?”
“That being in love can change almost anything: from your expectations and limitations to your very life plans. It’s a completely unpredictable force. And how it operates within any particular relationship is a total mystery to anyone outside of that relationship.”
“But I don’t know if I’m in love with her…She’s definitely in love with me, and on our good days, I feel like I might be falling in love with her. But on our bad days, I feel like if I stay with her we’ll both end up institutionalized.”
“It’ll work itself out, Sammy. Just give it some time.”
Chapter 17
Love me, Love my Katz
On Sunday, five weeks into their relationship, Melody decided that she would confront Heeb about the cat issue the next time they spoke. The day before, the two had argued over the fact that she always came to his place. But because Heeb had had a lot of work to do at home and would need to wake up extra early the next morning, he acquiesced much more readily than usual when she refused to come over. The fact that he didn’t call back after their fight to make up and charm her into coming over only further angered Melody, particularly since she hadn’t seen him since Friday morning. Deep down she hoped that Heeb might get enough work done to accompany her on her Monday morning dog walk. But if he couldn’t join her, she would also welcome the opportunity finally to excoriate him as needed, and air all of her accumulated grievances.
The exceedingly muggy Monday morning, towards the end of the summer of 2000, got off to a bad start for Sammy. In his frantic rush to get to the office by 6 a.m. so that he could finish a report expected by forty people, he quickly grabbed the many objects he needed to take but no bag in which to carry them: his apartment keys, an umbrella for the expected afternoon downpour, an assortment of documents and floppy disks, his cell phone, his walkman, his calendar, his wallet, some bill payments that he had to put in the mail, and the trash that was stinking up his apartment (his residence always deteriorated after any three-day period in which Melody hadn’t been over).
To maximize his morning efficiency, Heeb had developed the habit of first calling the elevator, then dropping the trash in the building incinerator, and then locking his apartment door, by which time the elevator would arrive. As Heeb dropped the trash down the incinerator, while holding his keys, umbrella, phone, wallet, documents, calendar, mail, and disks, he thought about how bad it would have been had he accidentally dropped his only pair of apartment keys down the incinerator with the trash. This thought tempted him, as he was locking his front door, to run back inside and look for his bag, but the elevator arrived, and he decided just to opt for efficiency over convenient carrying. In the elevator, he organized the assorted objects as follows: he put his keys, wallet, and disks into his various trouser pockets, his walkman onto his belt with the headset around his neck, his cell phone, and mail in his right hand, and the umbrella, calendar, and documents in his left hand.
As Sammy exited the elevator and began walking towards the train, he debated whether to call Melody and tell her that he wouldn’t be able to join her 8 a.m. dog walk. If he called now (at 6:15 a.m.), he risked waking her up, if she had forgotten to turn off her ringer, and – even worse – he risked getting into a heated argument with her over the fact that he couldn’t make their walk. On the other hand, there was a chance that at this early hour he would just get her voicemail, which would be ideal. Another consideration in favor of calling so early, during his walk to the train, was the fact that from the time he entered the train station until after his 11 a.m. meeting was over, he wouldn’t be able to call Melody, and this might look to her as if he had just flaked on her dog walk.
Heeb was cranky from lack of sleep and stress related to his upcoming meeting, his hands and arms were uncomfortable from schlepping so many loose objects while walking at such a frenzied pace, and he was unsure of how exactly to manage Melody’s potentially explosive reaction (particularly since they still hadn’t made up from the previous night’s fight). Nevertheless, he concluded that calling her during his walk to the subway station was the lesser of evils.
As Heeb dialed Melody’s number, he prayed that his call would go straight to voicemail.
After a few rings, he heard: “Heh…Hello?” He had awakened her.
“Hi…It’s me…I’m really sorry about calling so early.”
“What…what’s wrong?” she began groggily.
“I just didn’t want you to think that I had forgotten.”
“Forgotten what?”
“About the 8 a.m. dog walk.” By now, Melody had seen that it was just after 6:18 a.m.
“Sammy, why are you calling so early?”
“Because otherwise we won’t be able to talk until around 11 a.m.”
“But we can just talk during the dog walk.”
“No. That’s what I’m calling to tell you…I can’t make the walk today…I’m sorry.”
And that was it. By this point Melody, who was a light sleeper, was awake enough to recall all of the simmering gripes that she had wanted to express since their last tiff, and decided that it was time to unleash her fury. “So this is how you make up for last night?”
“I’m sorry about last night. I just had a lot of work and didn’t want to schlep – ”
“Don’t give me the schlepping shit. If I can schlep to your place every fucking time we meet you can schlep to mine once in a leap year. You don’t like my cats. That’s the only reason you’ve never been to my place.”
“That’s not true.”
“Admit it once and for all or I’m hanging up on you. I’m tired of the bullshit reasons about better restaurants, it’s closer to our jobs, you’ve got a better Bach collection, and blah blah blah. It all comes down to my cats. And that’s it. Period. Admit it.”
“Twelve cats is a lot for a studio.”
“But you’ve never even seen the place.”
“Look, four hundred square feet would be tiny for me without a dozen cats and another person…I’m just claustrophobic I guess.”
“And you don’t like cats.”
“That’s not true. I’m not just not crazy about being in a cat farm.”
“Admit that you don’t like cats so that I can hang up.”
“Did I just lose my right to dislike cats?”
“Love me, love my cats.”
“I can’t believe I just lost that right.”
“Love me, love my cats.”
“The right to dislike cats is an inalienable right.”
“Not if you love me it’s not.”
“Look, can we just talk about this later?” Heeb really didn’t want to suffer through this conversation just before an important business meeting and he felt very aware of three nearby yuppies who looked far too bored with their walk not to eavesdrop on his increasingly heated call. But deferring the discussion was unthinkable for Melody; she had finally mustered the courage to launch into a whole litany of complaints, and she wasn’t about to lose her momentum.
“And you don’t call enough,” she continued, ignoring Heeb’s plea.
“But we speak on the phone about eight times a day on average.”
Heeb saw that he was stuck on this call and began to move away from the yuppies in the direction of a lone morning walker – a man in his fifties with headphones on, wearing shorts and sandals, and reading the paper while walking. He seemed too busy to tune in to Heeb’s spat.
“That’s not enough
. And I’m always the one calling you.”
“Yeah, during work, when I’m not supposed to be on the phone.”
“You spend too much time in the office.”
“Do you want to support me? You know I’ve always wanted a sugar mama. Or should we open up a dog-walking company together?”
Sensing that the conversation would only get more heated and irrational, Heeb glanced at the older walker next to him, just to confirm that he hadn’t yet taken any interest in Heeb’s conversation. He was still reading the newspaper with his headphones on.
“You’re part of corporate America for God’s sake. You don’t have enough edge,” she continued.
“What do you mean?”
“You wouldn’t commit any crimes with me. Or even misdemeanors.”
“You mean drugs? Or anal sex?”
They had had a fight over this issue about a week earlier.
“Either,” she replied.
“I can’t put my dick in anything that could contain parts of our dinner in it,” he rejoined, without noticing the fifty-year-old look over at him in disgusted disapproval. “It just grosses me out, OK? It’s against Biblical law.”
“I told you I’m an atheist.”
“Well maybe it’s time to rediscover your religion,” he retorted.
“I tried licking your toes once, like you wanted. Even though it was disgusting – especially with my sensitivity to odors.”
“I washed my feet for twenty minutes first.”
“Well you missed some spots. Anyway, that’s not the point. You should be willing to try anything once,” Melody countered. “Including a tongue enema, which I haven’t even asked for yet, even though I love them.”