by Dan Begley
The four of us head to Colchester’s Friday night for my blind date, and I can tell straightaway she’s the perfect girl for me. Her name’s Trista and she’s tall and lean and her jeans fit great, and she’s a poet who’s read both Brownings, and we talk about Donne and Milton and structuralism and postmodernism, and I don’t ask but I can tell she knows it’s “12 items or fewer,” not “less,” at the grocery store checkout, and if we got married and sent out holiday cards, she wouldn’t put “Happy Holidays from the Samuel’s” when all you need is the simple plural (Samuels), and, of course, she loves that I’m a writer and loves to hear me talk about what I’ve written, especially Henley Farm, and she gets all the themes and symbols and allusions that I’ve subtly woven in. In other words, she’s a computer-generated, virtual-reality perfect match, but she’s real, and I don’t have to wear any hi-tech goofball visor glasses to see her.
Only I’ve dated this girl before. Her name is Hannah, or Stephanie, or Kristen, and she’s always this way, or a version of it: cute, funny, polite, on the quiet side, intelligent, grammatically and academically impeccable. And guess what? It’s never worked. And the reason it’s never worked, I realize for the very first time tonight, as I listen to what I say, and the way I say it, as Mitch, not Jason, has nothing to do with them. It’s me. Like Narcissus staring into a pool of water to get his own reflection, I’ve always chosen women who let me be exactly how I want to be—dismissive at times, maybe a bit condescending—which, if you think about it, aren’t the most admirable traits. And while I think it’s good that I’ve found women who accept me as I am—you shouldn’t go into a relationship thinking you have to swap out every part of yourself: that’s a recipe for disaster—it’s also made me lazy and indulgent, and I haven’t been asked to extend myself or evolve or improve.
A good relationship—love, frankly—should be a bit like manure. It should take something that’s basically healthy and good and make it blossom and grow tall and strong and smell nice and have vibrant colors and bear lots of fruit. Love should make us bigger in all the right ways (and let’s keep our minds out of the gutter; I don’t just mean down there). It should be like the Grinch when he hears the Whos of Whoville singing and his heart grows three times its normal size and he lifts up the whole sleigh, dog with fake reindeer antlers and all. It should give us ripped muscles where they need to be ripped—generosity, compassion, good deeds—because if it doesn’t, if it just leaves us in our same flabby old skin, why bother?
So…
I have a nice evening with Trista at the pub, but since I don’t see us getting much beyond our mutual affinity for the Metaphysical Poets and other things grammatical and literary—my fault entirely—I mention that maybe the four of us can get together again, which, I believe, is the proper way of intimating that the two of us, Trista and I, won’t be. Bradley shoots me a glance like “You gotta be kidding me,” but I just shrug. How would I explain? He doesn’t even like the Grinch.
CHAPTER TWELVE
I call Katharine Longwell on Saturday morning. I’m prepared to trot out a parade of details to jog her memory—St. Louis, Starbucks, cousin named Bradley, you gave me your card, your boobs were huge—but I barely get past my name when she cuts me off and says of course, she remembers me. She was hoping I’d call. I tell her Bradley has a hundred pages of a manuscript she’d love for Katharine to read, but she’s too shy to ask, delicate creature that she is—an Emily Dickinson in that way, and no good with criticism—so I’m calling on her behalf, as her agent. Katharine’s reply is breathtakingly swift: Absolutely, send it, she’d love to read it! This is a good week for her; she’s in Chicago, not much on her plate. So I pack it all, take it to the post office, and just like that, Catwalk Mama is strutting her way to Chicago, to get the once-over from Katharine Longwell. In other words, holy fuck.
The winery crew meets at the studio lot at seven o’clock. We pile into three cars, having established who, by evening’s end, will be in no condition to drive—Rosie, Dave, Gina—who will be perfectly sober—Fran, Steve, Vicky—and who will be somewhere in between—the rest of us. It’s one of those scenic drives, over the river and through the woods, and the last mile or so is on a dirt road, and when we get there, the main house is ancient and bare-bones and really nothing more than a shack to order your wine. Where’s the wine-making equipment? The bathrooms? But the outdoor patio looks better than fine, with lantern lights strung overhead and plenty of space, and a band is setting up.
There are twelve of us total, so we pull a couple tables together and start hauling our goodies out, since it’s the kind of place that lets you bring picnic baskets as long as you buy their wine. I went simple, Brie and crackers, but Marie lays out a plate of pastries that look far more sophisticated.
“What are they?” I ask.
“Portuguese custard tarts.”
I’ve never heard of such a thing. Krispy Kreme donuts, yes. “May I?”
“Help yourself.”
It’s the shape of a cupped hand but half as big, with a custard and blueberry topping. I take a bite. “Oh, man, this is good. Wow. Fruity. But not too fruity. And rich.” (I realize I do not have a future as a food critic: “Fruity. Yummy. Me like!”) “Not the kind of recipe you’d get off the back of a cereal box, is it?”
She gives a small laugh. “This was the dessert we made in my last cooking class. Iberian cuisine.”
“Ah, so dancing classes and cooking classes for you.”
“I have to. The cooking class meets once a month and we cook up all this food, with tons of calories. Then I have four weeks of dance class to work it all off.” She pats her hips. “I could probably use six.”
I take another bite of my tart. “So where do you go for that?”
“A place called Chez Henri. It’s actually a restaurant open to the public, but they have two kitchens. Students cook up their dishes in one, then we all sit out with the other diners. It’s a lot of fun. In fact, I have another class this Friday. Wanna come?”
I lick a splotch of custard off my finger. “If everything tastes this good, you bet.”
The band launches into a swingy version of “The Girl from Ipanema” and the place gets hopping, people in sundresses and linen slacks and Hawaiian shirts pouring onto the dance floor, moving any which way they can. Those of us from the studio try to use our steps, and sometimes it works with some of the songs, but when it doesn’t we just laugh it off and say we’re glad Adonis isn’t here to see. I dance with Fran and Marie and Jennifer and Rosie—who, true to her word, is well on her way to being in no condition to drive—and there’s mingling of the tables and lots of “You gotta try this” and “Who made that?” and we talk about Sideways and what a great movie that was, and how it must’ve made it cool to order pinot noir because of that terrific scene where Virginia Madsen talks about the pinot grape, and how it must’ve made it uncool to order merlot, because, well, it’s “fucking merlot,” and did the movie really affect sales of pinot noir and merlot, which leads to a conversation about how Oprah got sued by the cattle ranchers a few years back because she said something about not liking beef, and we discuss whether Oprah’s so powerful she could take down an entire industry with just a wilting glance. We agree she is: the woman makes presidents. And with all apologies to Bradley and Skyler and Trista, it’s a thousand times more fun than last night.
Much later into the evening, after we’ve all had a chance to sample the wine and salads and sushi and Brie and custard tarts and whatever else has found its way onto our table, I ask if anyone does know where the bathrooms are.
Dave struggles to lift his bleary eyes from his empty wineglass. “Bathrooms? They have bathrooms here?” Apparently, Dave’s been visiting the side of a tree.
Steve points over his shoulder. “Up that hill and bear to the left.”
“Follow the signs,” Jennifer cautions. “It’s a bit tricky.”
Marie nudges me. “I can show you, since I wouldn’t mind stretching m
y legs.”
We head up a grassy incline, and it’s actually sort of quiet on top, since the band’s on break and we’re removed from the chatter. From here, everything lies below us—our friends at the tables, the swaying lantern lights that remind me of glowing bubbles, the silent vineyards rolling and tumbling as far as I can see. Overhead, a three-quarter moon is veiled by a thin layer of clouds, like a sheer curtain. A breeze stirs over my body and tickles the hairs on my neck, but not in a way that makes me want to scratch it, but in a way that lets me know I’m alive and I can feel things and autumn will be coming soon, with cool temperatures and pumpkins and color on the trees.
“It’s beautiful up here, isn’t it?” I say.
“Mmm. I love it.”
From the way she says it, I can tell she’s thinking the same—feeling the same—that life is wonderful in moments like this; and something catches in my gut, something sweet and deep and exhilarating, like a dip on a roller coaster, and what’s pumping through my blood and warming every inch of my skin is the certainty that I want other moments like this with her, the two of us, alone, in the breeze, and the only way for me to have those times, and have them for real, is to tell her who I really am.
“Marie, there’s something I need to tell you…”
She turns to me slowly, still feeling the breeze on her face, and she’s something of a vision, in her halter top and billowy skirt, the bare skin on her shoulders tan and soft and glowing, her eyes catching a sliver of moonlight, her earrings shimmering and mingling with her hair; and I realize I can’t say what I want to say, because if it doesn’t come out right, or she doesn’t hear it the right way, that’s the end of us, and there’s no way I can risk losing her now, because for the first time since the night we met, I’m not looking at Bradley’s sister, or a woman I’d be embarrassed to introduce to my dissertation panel. Just Marie. So instead of the truth about me, I give her the truth about her.
“You look beautiful. You are beautiful.”
She smiles, and even in this light I can see she’s blushing. But from the way her gaze won’t let go of mine, I can tell she has more on her mind, and she needs my help, so I lean closer and she brings her lips to mine, and we kiss.
Does the kiss last five or ten or sixty seconds? Don’t know. Are her lips soft and warm and electric? Maybe. Is there a little tongue involved? Could be. The sad and unfortunate truth is, I have no idea. I’m so nervous and giddy and overcome and thrilled to finally be kissing this woman I’ve wanted to kiss since the moment I saw her! and only at this moment do I realize it’s been since then, and now I’m actually doing it, and I’m so caught up in actually doing it that I forget to take notes on what it’s like. Then it’s over.
We stand and look at each other for a long time, in silence, like maybe we have swallowed each other’s tongue. Then we look some more. Then finally I get some words out, and they’re the words that every woman longs to hear on the crest of a hill on a beautiful summer’s evening after she’s just been kissed by the man she may or may not be falling for.
“I have to pee.” Which I go and do.
When I get back to the table, thankfully she’s out on the dance floor. We don’t have much contact the rest of the evening, and when we do, we’re overly polite (“The band is great, isn’t it?” “Wonderful!”), but mostly we ignore each other and try not to make eye contact, and we go back in separate cars, and barely wave goodbye across the parking lot. All of which is perfectly understandable when you really, really like someone. And you’ve just kissed them. And you’re twelve.
Chances are good that somewhere along your TV-watching way, you’ve seen a doctor in a hospital utter a line that goes something like this: “The next few hours are critical.” Maybe it was House of House, or Meredith or McDreamy or McSteamy, or even an old-school doc like Marcus Welby, and maybe they were talking about a guy who’d just been shot or hit by a car or had some preposterously confounding ailment that caused his heart to beat twice an hour, and it was touch and go whether he’d live or breathe on his own or ever walk again. The point is, whatever happened during those “critical” hours would go a long way in determining his fate.
Since I’m not a doctor (just a drug rep—ha!), I don’t know how often this really occurs, or if it’s accurate. How many hours are critical? And are they critical, or just really important, or is this just some trumped-up TV line to keep you coming back after the commercial? Whatever the case, I do know that when it comes to nonmedical conditions of the heart—such as saying I love you, or having sex, or making out with your best friend’s sister—the next few hours are critical, in the sense that this is your chance to let her know it wasn’t a fluke, that the alcohol had nothing to do with it, that you’d like it to be the start of something big.
Here’s what I want to do when I get home. I want to call her. I want to call her and tell her that I’m lying in bed and can’t get to sleep because I’m thinking about her and that kiss, and my head is still buzzing and my lips are still tingling, and I’m trying to remember exactly what it was like, and can you help me fill in the details? Better yet, how about I just come over and we can do it again. But I don’t, since it’s already late and she’s probably in bed and there’s no need to wake her; and I’m thinking a version of the same in the morning, that it’s still too early and she’s sleeping in. Besides, we all know there are rules about when to call a woman after a date, to send the right message that you’re not overeager, but not uninterested either, so I’ve got that to consider (though technically speaking, this wasn’t a date, and we’re already friends, so probably this is different). Plus, I’ve got the entire day to make that call, right?
Only Bradley rings me up early and we head out to shoot baskets, then we go back to the apartment to watch football; and because Skyler has to work all day, this means the two of us making a marathon of it, watching all the games, which ordinarily would be great, but today not so much, since I need to have a heart-to-heart with his sister about where we stand, and is she feeling the same, and was that a French kiss, or not? Around five I feel the day slipping away; by seven, I have a panicky lump in the pit of my stomach that’s telling me I should’ve called earlier. I finally get Bradley out the door at eight and make the call, but she’s not home, which is disturbing: she didn’t even bother to stick around to make sure she got my call. Then, she does call back an hour later and says she was out to dinner and a movie with a friend named Chris. But who’s Chris, and is it Christine or Christopher, because suddenly I care very much. Worse, she sounds jittery, hesitant, a little strange (guilty?), which rattles me a bit, enough that when she asks about my day and I tell her I watched football, at a bar, alone, it all comes off sounding squirrely and evasive, like I’m trying to hide something, which, oddly enough, I am; and we wind up not talking about last night, and especially not the kiss, because by now I’m sweaty and uncomfortable and rambling. And then we hang up.
Monday night goes even better. I’m not sure how to greet her (handshake? kiss? proposal?), so I do nothing, just say hi, which means all the momentum of Saturday night is lost, and even worse, now we have negative momentum, since doing nothing signals a retreat from the kiss. I muddle through the lesson and our Showcase time with Adonis—stiff, formal, distant—and she’s pretty much the same—like she hardly even knows me—and then it’s over and I go home. A couple beers later, I figure out what’s going on: before the kiss I was glib, spontaneous, playing with house money, with nothing to lose, but the kiss changed everything, showed me how much I like her, and now I’m getting nervous, uptight, self-conscious, wanting to be on my best behavior, and as a result, losing all my personality. It doesn’t take a genius to figure that one out. But what’s her excuse?
Ever since Saturday night, she’s been as talkative as my belt. She hasn’t said a word about the kiss, or her feelings, or us. Unless… this is her way of talking about the kiss, and her feelings, and us. Of course! It fits! All along, she’s the one who�
�s been making all the moves—inviting me out for drinks after the first lesson and to go shoe-shopping and to the movies and her cooking class. Now she’s not making any moves at all. She’s a statue. Which means the kiss meant nothing to her, but she’s too chicken to tell me, and this is her passive-aggressive way of letting me know. Oh, that’s rich. I give her the next couple days to call, to explain herself, but when she doesn’t, I have my proof.
I consider not going to class on Thursday night, just skip the whole mess, but I do, to see if there’s anything left to salvage. Apparently not. I tell an idiotic joke that’s pathetic from start to finish—even giving you the punch line, “The pickle slicer got fired, too,” without the rest doesn’t damage the joke much, because there isn’t much to damage—and no one else laughs, but Marie laughs like a fucking hyena. I know why she’s doing it: it’s her chance to pretend how supportive of me she is, that she’d fill awkward dead space with laughter to help me save face, so that later, if I tell any of them that we kissed and how poorly she behaved in the days that followed, she has witnesses who’ll point out that she laughed at my stupid joke. It’s a cheap stunt, and I almost tell her as much, right in front of everyone, but I don’t. But I think she gets the message, because she keeps her distance the rest of the night, and I don’t join any of them for drinks.
The next day my phone rings, and I assume she’s finally worked up the nerve to cancel our cooking class date for the evening, probably with some excuse about having a cold, or headache, or malaria (the lengths some people will go to just to avoid saying they don’t like you). But it’s not her. It’s Katharine.
“I got Bradley’s story. I read it. I love it. I need to talk to her.” She’s saying all this in a rush, so that I hardly have time to process it. “Can you give me her number, Mitch?”