Lauren Takes Leave

by Gerstenblatt, Julie

  And that there’s only one way for this to end.

  I shove Lenny away from me. He looks confused and reaches out for my hand. I slap it away.

  “Don’t ever do that again!” I snap.

  “Me?” he asks.

  “I was talking to myself!” I yell. “But, yeah, now that I think about it, you, too!”

  I turn and push through the crowd, hoping to forget the way anger and heartbreak distorts his handsome face.

  I need to leave. I need air. Even though the Clevelander is an outdoor club, the place is making me feel claustrophobic.

  I need to push this woman out of the way, this woman who is talking to the Artist Formerly Known as Tim Cubix.

  “Hey, Artist!” I call. “I’ve got to get going!” I put my hand to my ear in order to gesture a telephone call. “Tell Jodi and Kat to call me, will you? I’m going to take a walk back to the hotel.”

  Tim excuses himself and comes my way. It’s so loud in the club that he has to shout in my ear. “Lauren, you look wigged out.” I feel his warm breath on my neck and I think I might just pass out. Give up and pass out right here. Because, really, these amazing men are too much for one suburban housewife and middle school teacher to handle. In the future, if ever I find myself in need of a small adventure, I should just keep it simple and go in search of a high-end European toilet.

  “Um…” I begin. “Kissed a man…not my husband…might pass out…need backup…girlfriend 911…job, husband, children all driving me insane…loved you in that Macbeth remake set in Portugal…”

  “I’m not gonna lose ya!” Tim Cubix assures me, sounding like a commander in a Vietnam War movie. “No girlfriend left behind!”

  He scoops me up and carries me over his shoulder like a wounded soldier, pausing here and there as he scans the crowd for my friends.

  Instead, he finds a seat for me at the end of the bar and plops me down on the high, backless stool. Brushing some sweat from his brow, he sighs. “Too crowded. For now, you’re just going to have to settle for me.”

  At first, I think he means that I should kiss him instead of Lenny, and I want to shout, “Uncle!” I’ve had enough, I give up. And then I come to my senses; he means he’ll stand in for Jodi and Kat. “I’m not sure I can explain,” I say. “But, you know, thanks for playing.”

  Tim smiles, a big full-on grin. “What? You think because I’m a guy, I can’t relate to whatever it is you’re going through right now?”

  I consider this. “It’s more the movie-star factor,” I say. “You make me feel really uncomfortable. Physically. Like my insides are actually melting into a gelatinous mess.”

  “Jeez.”

  “I know,” I say, “It isn’t pretty. Just trying for truth here.”

  But instead of walking away from le freak that is me, Tim Cubix starts talking.

  “My eight- and six-year-old sons, Slim and Leo, they’re always fighting these days. Wresting and getting into each other’s space. One will be like, ‘Dad, he’s hurting me!’ and the other will be like, ‘He started it,’ and I’m like, Can’t you just stop touching each other for five minutes, people? And the big girls, Leyla and Bette, same thing…my house has, like, a thousand small forest fires everywhere. You think you have it bad, Lauren? No offense, but I’ve got six children, three times as many as you.” His eyes are wide and he’s holding up six fingers as proof of the math, in a Nixon-like pose. It’s comical, but I try not to laugh, because I want to keep our heated debate on track. It’s the first time I’ve felt really comfortable around him and I don’t want to break the spell.

  “No offense, Lex Sheridan, but you’ve probably also got ten times the staff.”

  He orders us some water from the bartender. “True, but the other day Ruby caught one of our nannies using her straightening iron and was really grossed out. And in terms of discipline or love, no hired help is a substitute for a mom or a dad.”

  I can’t believe it. Ruby Richmond has a babysitter as hair-centric as mine!

  Which means I’m totally missing the point of his tutorial.

  “Ruby and I have tried everything with the kids, from star charts to special days with just one of us, and we’ll hit on a strategy that works for a while, but nothing seems to work consistently. It’s like as a parent, I’m a magician, a tap dancer and a parole officer all in one.”

  Got it. So the Rubix Cubes know that raising a family is exhausting and not always particularly rewarding. I open my mouth to speak, but Tim just keeps on venting.

  “Plus, we’re trying to toilet train the twins, now that they’re turning three. Bubba is all right with it. He’s an easygoing little dude. But Didi just won’t take a shit. She holds it and holds it, driving me and Ruby nuts, until we think we’ll have to take Deeds to the hospital. Then, finally, she’ll go into the bathroom and close the door behind her and strain and cry until she’s landed the biggest dump you’ve ever seen in your life. Didi actually clogs our toilets.”

  I am rendered speechless.

  “Not to mention, there’s all the usual stress of parenting with the added scrutiny from the paparazzi. I might be fiercely angry with my child, but, in public at least, I have to look like the perfect father. Leyla likes to go to the children’s shoe store for the helium balloons, you know? And so we left the store one time and she accidentally let go of the balloon and, naturally, started to chase it. Into traffic on Wilshire! I grabbed her arm really hard and yanked her back from the curb. My heart was beating wildly, adrenaline rushing. I could hear the paparazzi calling after me, and so, in the middle of making sure my child was unharmed, and simultaneously wanting to scream at her and smack her butt, I had to think, Remember, the cameras are flashing.”

  “Is this my breakdown or yours?”

  “And then, there’s always the issue of fidelity,” he says, raising his eyebrows knowingly.

  “You’re quite the conversationalist.” I’m mesmerized by his dimples and will continue to say anything to make the man smile, even just the teensiest bit. Score.

  “Every few weeks, Star magazine or People or TMZ.com runs some piece about how I was caught cheating, or how Ruby is flirting with some celebrity on the set of her new movie and I’m jealous. They make up quotes, attribute them to ‘someone close to the actor’ or ‘sources say.’ It’s all bullshit. Ruby and I aren’t married, but we have made a commitment to each other and to our children. Sexual fidelity may or may not be a part of that equation, but that’s for us to decide. So the point I want to make to you, Lauren, is that your life is in your hands. You’re a grown-up, making mostly good decisions. Parenting sucks, fidelity sucks. Sometimes. But isn’t that real? Isn’t that messy and awful and confusing, and therefore, worth every bit of the struggle?” He says it like he’s asking himself the very same thing, like he’s rehearsing for the biggest role of his career. We’re both drunk enough to have tears in our eyes. “Isn’t it beautiful?”

  I blink mine away and nod my head. “I kissed Lenny.”

  Tim swallows a gulp of water. “Shocker.”

  “And there’s no erasing that, no Superman reversing the globe to make time rewind, to undo the event. And now I’m scared.”

  “Scared of what?” Tim Cubix, posing as Dr. Phil, asks.

  “Of…well…” The music is still blasting, a typical Eminem rap, and I align my thoughts with the heavy beats of his refrain.

  I’m scared of liking the kiss,

  I’m scared of wanting more,

  I’m scared of losing Doug,

  that he won’t love me anymore…

  I’m scared of so many things; those are only the ones that rhyme. It’s all there, and Tim sees it in my face but doesn’t make me speak it out loud. Instead, he pulls me into a brotherly hug. “Own it. Reflect on it. You’ll figure it out.”

  Spoken like Dr. Grossman.

  Chapter 19

  Tim flags down Jodi and waves her over. He debriefs her quickly, then disappears back into the crowd, giving me a thum
bs-up and a wink.

  I tell Jodi the whole story, how I went in search of Lenny and how I kissed him, and how Doug and I don’t get busy very much these days. “And when we do, it’s so boring and mechanical that I just don’t even see the point!” I blurt, my face growing hot under her scrutiny. As close as we are, my friends and I hardly ever talk about the specifics of our marital sex lives. “And kissing Lenny was…amazing.”

  “That’s your problem?” she asks. Like I’m complaining about a stick of bubble gum having lost its flavor. “Welcome to the real world, Lauren! Where married people fall out of lust!”

  She finds an empty stool and perches herself next to me at the end of the bar.

  “Here’s the thing,” she says. “Let’s just follow this through to its end point, to the worst-case scenario, or best-case scenario, depending on how you want to look at it.”

  “Best case,” I say.

  “Well, best case, in your warped little mind, you and Lenny fall madly in love and you have this amicable, easy divorce from Doug. Lenny loves your kids and you live happily ever after in some sort of Barbie Dream House version of real life.”

  I’m already sad just hearing the word divorce. “That sounds more like worst case to me.”

  Jodi shakes her head at me. “No way. Worst case is the same scenario, only it’s ten or so years down the road and you realize that you no longer want to have sex with Lenny either. That he’s become your new, old Doug.”

  “But I like my old, original Doug. I don’t want to grow tired of anyone else.”

  Jodi reaches across the bar, grabs a maraschino cherry from the bartender’s garnish setup, and pops it in her mouth. “Exactly. So, my point is, marriage gets old. It’s the nature of the beast. Lee had all this dental work done once and, for a while there, the thought of kissing him really skeeved me out. And, meanwhile, we hired this gorgeous electrician—named Fabio, I swear—and I was having all these lustful thoughts about Fabio’s plugs and my sockets and shit. So all of this is going on and I’m like, Jodi, what are you going to do? Have sex with the electrician? Really? Just to feel a momentary charge? I mean, Lee’s a bit of a gonif, and his family is totally dysfunctional, but I love him to death. I would never want to hurt him. So, instead, I waited it out. And after Lee got his bridge permanently replaced, and he smiled at me during Lindsay’s travel soccer game one Saturday, it all came rushing back. I felt like jumping his bones in the back of my Escalade. Ebbs and flows. End of story.”

  I mentally wade through the muck of Jodi’s story until I find the clear stream in the middle of it. “So…I get it. It’s not Lenny!” I tell Jodi.

  “Then, who is it?” she asks, confused.

  “No, I mean, that’s what you’re telling me, right? It’s the idea of Lenny.”

  “Oh! Of course, that’s what I’ve been saying all along,” she agrees, popping another cherry into her mouth.

  I miss the promise of new love—or lust, at any rate. It’s that completely unexplored, exciting, flip-flop in my stomach, first kiss, “high school high” feeling that my life has been missing.

  I crave that spark that Doug and I misplaced long ago, that spark that happens when you connect with someone new, when you enter into some territory you have not yet explored. Doug and I used to have that static electricity, like a feeling of being pulled by the same orbit around any room we were in. We loved touching each other, or even thinking about touching each other.

  Now it’s just a peck on the cheek in the morning and some vanilla sex a few times a month and on most of the major Jewish holidays.

  Don’t ask.

  Jodi passes me a drink and I take a sip. “Skinnygirl margarita,” she explains. “My fave.”

  I find Lenny dancing with a young blonde again. They are laughing about something. He towers over her and has to lean down to speak to her. She stands on tippy-toes to catch his words.

  Kat notices me and Jodi watching Lenny. She waves tentatively in our direction, then gives me a thumbs-down sign.

  I plaster on a smile and wave back. Is she trying to tell me that Lenny is bad news? That she doesn’t like the new song that the DJ is spinning? “I’m going to fill Kat in on the drama, okay?” Jodi says. I shrug in response, which she accepts as my acceptance of her blabbing to Kat.

  I have to wonder, could that excitement still be there with Doug? Or is the feeling only present in the danger, in the newness, in the this-is-not-my-husband factor of someone like Lenny?

  Some young girl bumps into me and spills her drink on my shirt. “Sorry!” she giggles. A guy with a baseball cap on backward helps to steady her and gives me a wink. I wonder if the girl’s mom knows what she’s up to tonight.

  I take another sip of Skinnygirl and study Lenny. Breakdancing, charismatic, YouTube-sensation MC Lenny. He’s the life of the party, the polar opposite of Doug.

  Why won’t Doug ever dance with me? At bar mitzvahs and weddings, why does he stand against the wall, arms folded across his chest, and shake his head no? Anger bubbles up so quickly that it surprises me.

  Before I know what I’m doing, I’m drunk-dialing my husband.

  “H’lo?” Doug picks up. He sounds groggy, and I realize it’s after 11:30 at night. But now that I’ve got him, I can’t let go. My words come out fast and sort of slurred, but I feel a clarity I haven’t in years.

  “I love to dance, Doug! You know that! When we got married, you led me to believe you did, too. I thought you were a fun guy, a guy to grow old with like those couples on the dance floor that move together as one! But…you lied! So, I need you to tell me you’ll dance with me! Right now!” I realize how that sounds and try to explain. “I mean, not that you’ll come dance with me right now—oh—this isn’t coming out right…but anyway, it’s of utmost importance!” I guess I’m pretty buzzed, because a swarm of bees have taken up residence in my head.

  “Where are you?” This is Doug’s response.

  “In a hotel. Sequestered. I told you before.”

  “Uh-huh.” He sighs. “With all that noise in the background. Dancing.”

  “No!” I backtrack. “I’m not dancing now. You’re confused.”

  “I’m confused.” He laughs, unmistakable irony lacing his tone.

  “Well, maybe I’m tipsy.” I have to shout a little to be heard over the crowd as it cheers for something that I can’t see. I try to get a grip, recall the lie. “Yes, Doug. You see, I’m sitting here with my fellow jurors in Alden, with nothing to do and nowhere to go. Of course! We raided the minibar and now we’re playing some music because we aren’t allowed to put on the television.” I pause and try to hide a burp. “We happen to be a very lively jury.”

  “I see,” he says. “A very lively jury. Indeed.” He either coughs or laughs, I can’t tell.

  “Yes. And this…jury. They’ve got me really thinking. This case, it’s about…infidelity…a wrong turn…I can’t say more. And I’m deliberating right now, I mean, we’re in the midst of these very emotional deliberations, and I can’t help but think of us.”

  “Cunts!” some guy yells at a group of women who have just walked away from him at the bar.

  “What was that?” Doug asks.

  “Bailiff asked us if we wanted pints. Of beer.” I move away from the center of the courtyard and try to find a quiet corner.

  “How does this court case involving infidelity remind you of us?” Doug asks softly.

  “I wonder…if the woman in this case had no choice. For the past twelve years, her husband left her alone a lot of the time, you know, with work demands, lots of travel. She raised these kids all by herself, when she wasn’t working, and she had this horrible babysitter who often used her ceramic straightening iron!” I explain. “And then the husband didn’t even make an effort to romance her! No dancing, he said, no time or money for vacations. He would criticize her and the children and all that they were doing wrong, but never compliment her as a mom or wife for all that she was getting right. I would imagine s
he was really bummed out, living with a man like that, a man who sucked the joy out of her life. Maybe this woman had no choice but to commit adultery with”—I fish for a descriptor that is not “YouTube rapping sensation”—“the tennis instructor. Maybe she was forced into fantasizing about a guy who was much more fun than her husband. Dreaming of a different life, a younger life. Maybe she had to stray, to save that little piece of herself that was dying more and more each day.” I wipe my eyes with the back of my free hand.

  I scan the crowd for Lenny and find that he’s not with the blonde anymore. He’s talking to a perky redhead who I immediately decide is a ho. What the fuck? Is Lenny just a crazy flirt, throwing all the spaghetti against the wall to see what sticks? Or did he really come here for me?

  Choice A: Cheat and go back home. Choice B: Give up on my marriage. Neither one seems all that great. I conjure a third option. Choice C: Give away the man I love to flirt with and try to make it work with the man I still probably love. Let Lenny find someone really available.

  Which he’s kind of doing anyway.

  “Asshole!” I say, partially into the phone, watching Lenny do the cabbage patch dance with the redhead. Then I remember Doug. “I mean, the tennis instructor. The wife ultimately killed him. He really had to go.”

  “Lauren, are you there?” Doug shouts. “I can’t tell if you’ve been listening to me.”

  “I’m here,” I sigh, turning my back on the crowd and sitting down on the edge of the pool. “But I haven’t been listening.”

  “I love you and I will dance with you from now on. I just…suck at it; it’s embarrassing. A forty-year-old guy doing the Macarena. But I will try, for you. Not, like, all the time, but occasionally…I’ll dance. I won’t ever sing karaoke, though. But I promise to go easy on the kids, especially Ben. I just need you back. From…jury duty. So we can talk, for real, face-to-face. Please,” he begs.

  “Face-to-face,” I repeat. I remember my forehead and wonder if Doug will notice.