Authors: Holly Chamberlin
Living Single (23 page)
Chapter Forty-one
I
still felt bad about blowing up at Doug by the pond in the Gardens. The man had a right to feed the ducks and geese without being attacked for imagined bad behavior to his lover.
still felt bad about blowing up at Doug by the pond in the Gardens. The man had a right to feed the ducks and geese without being attacked for imagined bad behavior to his lover.
I wanted to make it up to him in some meaningful way, but of course was hampered by the terms and conditions of the Situation. And I was scared. Scared of my own irrational behavior that seemed to rise up out of nowhere, a geyser of bitterness. A meaningful gesture, one that showed how much I cared, could not be accompanied by a screaming fit.
Maybe instead of focusing on the feelings of your married lover, Reason advised, you should spend some time analyzing the source of your anger and bitterness.
Maybe. But it was far easier to act than to think.
Lying to oneself produces frustration, which leads to anger, Reason intoned. Until you face the Situation squarely ...
I shut out Reason and prepared a silly but hopefully meaningful surprise for Doug. Two days later when we met for lunch at Radius I presented him with a gallon-sized zipper-locked plastic bag filled with breadcrumbs.
“I made them myself,” I said.
Doug took the bag and a grin spread across his handsome, slightly weathered face.
“What do you say we have lunch in the Gardens today,” he said.
We got up from the table, apologized to the waiter, and headed out.
I might have been afraid of birds. But I was far more afraid of life without Doug.
JoAnne had asked me over. When she opened the door and I saw the scowl on her face, I took a step back.
“What did I do?” I said.
“Nothing. It’s not about you. Come in already.”
I followed JoAnne into the living room.
“You’re pissed off or something.”
“Brilliant observation.”
I raised my eyebrows.
JoAnne moaned dramatically and flopped onto the couch. “Sorry. Sit down.”
I did.
“What’s up? And yes, I’d love some juice, thanks.”
JoAnne pounded off into the kitchen and returned a few minutes later with a glass of cranberry juice, no ice.
I took a sip. “Okay,” I said. “Spill.”
She did.
“Look, remember back in June when I found out I didn’t have cancer and I decided it was time to take care of me for a change? I mean, really take care of me, the whole me, not just my physical self.”
“Of course I remember. Sounded great. Still does.”
“Erin—there’s a little problem.”
“What?” I said.
“What the hell was I thinking? I mean, I’ve tried everything from aromatherapy to Wicca. Wicca! What more do I have to do to—change? What does ‘being good to myself’ mean, anyway? Where the hell did I get that phrase? Some dopey Lifetime Channel talk show? I don’t know what I’m doing!”
I was torn between the desire to roar with laughter and the desire to pat JoAnne on the head and say, “There, there.”
“Well,” I ventured, “the therapy is okay, right? I mean, you feel it’s helping?”
JoAnne made a face. “I guess. I don’t know. Jesus, doesn’t anybody make a quick fix kit or something! Need a change? Apply liberally, rinse, repeat, presto, everything’s shiny and new.”
I was beginning to understand something, the root of JoAnne’s frustration. As far as I knew, JoAnne hadn’t gone on one date since Martin.
Oh, yeah. It was time to strategize. Forget the herbs and spacey music and goddess workshops. It was time for her to get back out there and meet a man. It was time for sex.
“JoAnne,” I said, “you need to get laid.”
“Well, duh,” she snapped. “But I’m supposed to be choosing wisely. I’m not supposed to be getting involved with just a fuck. My therapist says I need to meet someone who wants a relationship. Shit. What has my life come to?”
“Your therapist is right,” I said. “Now, have you considered trying one of those seven-minute dating services?”
“Shoot me. Just go ahead, kill me now.”
I grinned. “Okay, okay. Just asking. So, it looks like we’re left with ye olde classic dating service. Or the personals.”
“No personals,” JoAnne said fiercely.
“All right then,” I said, picking up a copy of the
Globe
that was sitting on a side table. “It’s a dating service.”
Globe
that was sitting on a side table. “It’s a dating service.”
“I can’t believe I’m even considering this,” JoAnne muttered. “It’s humiliating.”
“Oh, please. More humilating than sitting alone at a bar trying not to look like a desperate sex-starved woman?”
“You do that?” JoAnne asked sweetly.
“Yes. And so do you. Do you really need another reminder? You’re considering using a dating service because you’re mature enough to realize you can’t trust your old patterns any longer. You’re considering this because you’ve had a second brush with cancer and you realize that your life is passing you by and that maybe a real relationship would be a good thing for a change. So be quiet.”
“Yes, Mother.”
“Now, let’s see. We have—okay, Options. And Choices ...”
“Sound like abortion clinics. Next.”
I scanned the page. “Your Call?”
JoAnne rolled her eyes. “Sure that’s not Last Call?”
I sighed. This was not going at all well. “Just try to be open, okay? Now: New Crop.”
“No,” JoAnne said shortly. “I’m getting produce out of that.”
She had a point. “Here’s one. Perfect Partners, Inc.”
JoAnne considered. “Okay, not bad. A bit law-firm-like but ...”
Now we were getting somewhere. All it took was the first little step ... “Right-On Romance!”
“Oh, no. No way. I’m channeling
Different Strokes. All in the Family. The Jeffersons.”
Different Strokes. All in the Family. The Jeffersons.”
One step forward, two steps back. “Okay. Here’s one. Reality Romance. That sounds, I don’t know, intelligent.”
“A.K.A, Time to Settle.”
I looked at JoAnne consideringly. “You know you’re impossible, don’t you?”
“Yes.”
“Okay. As long as you know. Moving onward ... We’ve got: On Point Romance.”
“For ballerinas only.”
And weren’t most male ballet dancers gay, anyway? And the ones who weren’t probably weren’t big on hanging out at expensive bars. I’d heard that dancers were very poorly paid. Their salaries made a tuba player’s look hefty. Ballet dancers were not the way to go.
“Here’s one,” I said. “Couples Co-ordinate.”
“Specializing in geeky mathematicians.”
I laughed. “Is there any other kind? Okay, I get your point. So, what about Perfect Partners, Inc. It’s the only one you didn’t entirely shoot down.”
“I don’t know. Read the rest of their ad.”
I did.
“Where are the offices?”
“What does that matter?”
“I’m considering giving these people my hard-earned money, I want to know where their offices are located.”
“Uh, Somerville.”
“What! No way. Forget it. Slumerville? Uh uh.”
It was a long, long afternoon.
If JoAnne was experiencing a dry spell, Damion had hit the jackpot.
I called him one evening and got the latest.
Damion’s official new boyfriend was the real deal. Frederick was ten years Damion’s senior and had been in a long-term relationship until his partner had died. Not of AIDS or some other illness. The poor guy, only thirty-seven, had been hit by a car while on a morning bike ride. Frederick had been awarded a good deal of money by a sympathetic court; seems the driver was seriously drunk at the time of the accident and wanted on assault charges.
After Tom’s death, Frederick had sold the home they’d shared in Lincoln for almost ten years and bought a condo in the South End. He’d told Damion that with Tom gone, he just couldn’t stand living alone in a big suburban house, surrounded by all the memories. Frederick had sold most of the furniture, bought new pieces, and put some other, more personal items of Tom’s in permanent storage. A formal portrait of Tom stood atop the baby grand piano in Frederick’s condo, the only physical reminder of him.
“Is he morbid?” I asked.
“Not at all,” Damion said. “He’s totally moved on with his life.”
Tom had been allergic to animals, Damion explained. Frederick had always wanted a cat so after moving to the South End he’d walked on down to the Animal Rescue League of Boston and adopted two kittens, which he named Coco and Chanel.
“What happens if you guys get serious?” I asked Damion. “Two cats living with two dogs? Sounds like trouble.”
But Damion wasn’t worried. He was falling in love with a man who was falling in love with him.
“It’ll work out,” Damion said, “you’ll see. True love makes all possible, chicka.”
I wondered.
“How did you meet him again?” I asked.
“Erin, don’t you ever listen anymore? I swear, since you’ve been seeing that creep your brain has turned to mush. We met through a friend of his who I did a job for last month. It’s a great way to meet, through someone who knows you both.”
“Isn’t that what blind dates are all about?” I said glumly. “Blind dates have a lousy reputation. Everyone says ...”
“I don’t listen to what everyone says, my dear. I do what seems best for me.”
“Okay. Well, good luck. When do I get to meet this guy?”
“Soon, I promise. Let me enjoy him all to myself a bit more, though, okay?”
“Sure,” I quipped. “Who am I to thwart the progress of true love?”
Who was I even to recognize it?
Chapter Forty-two
E—is it nice in boston? v. hot here, all the time. miss fall and opp to wear my mink. ricardo offered to buy me one but what wld i do with it here? M.
We decided that if JoAnne was going to do the dating service thing, she was going to do it right. Which meant we were going to have to help her. We gathered at Abby’s apartment and got down to work. Maggie begged off, saying she was taking a class for a colleague who was ill.
“Perfect Partners asks that you fill out this simple questionnaire,” Abby explained, “to help them get to know you. It says in the brochure that they’ve successfully matched up over two hundred couples in the past two years! Isn’t that wonderful?”
JoAnne grunted.
“Curb your enthusiasm, dear,” I said.
JoAnne sneered.
It was going to be a long night.
Abby wiggled in her chair and cleared her throat. “Okay, let’s get started. Now. First question. Remember, answer honestly,” she admonished.
“Okay, okay. Just start.”
“First question: Store you can’t live without?”
“Express.”
Abby looked surprised.
“JoAnne’s a hoochie mama at heart,” I commented helpfully. “You might want to put that down somewhere.”
“Favorite ice cream flavor?”
“Oh, come on,” JoAnne cried. “This is ridiculous. How do the answers to these questions reveal anything essential about me?”
“You want to register with this dating service, you fill out the Personality Profile,” I said, struggling unsuccessfully to hide a grin.
“Christ. Okay. Go on.”
“Favorite ice cream flavor?”
“Coffee.”
“Hmmm. Interesting.”
“What? What’s interesting about my liking coffee ice cream? Is it too masculine or something?”
“No, no,” Abby said. “Just wondering. Okay, next question. What movie star do you find most sexy: Brad Pitt, George Clooney, or Denzel Washington?”
“Why do those same three names always come up in these stupid polls? None of the above. I’m into Charles Laughton.”
“The fat dead guy.” I just wanted to be sure. “With the puffy lips.”
“He’s not fat anymore. Put it down.”
Abby sighed and tossed the questionnaire on the coffee table. “You’re not being honest, JoAnne. You’re giving a false picture of yourself.”
“Next.”
Abby sighed again. I was enjoying this immensely. JoAnne’s prickly discomfort was far more entertaining than a sitcom.
Three hours later, we had a profile that vaguely resembled the JoAnne Chiofalo we knew and loved. It was going to have to do.
Doug and I went for a walk one evening after work and found ourselves at the Holocaust Memorial at Dock Square by Congress Street and the Union Oyster House.
I think it’s one of the most haunting and powerful monuments ever built. It’s particularly powerful when experienced at night.
We stood quietly just outside the walls of glass, etched with six million numbers representing the victims of the Holocaust.
“My grandfather was Jewish,” Doug said finally, softly.
“Really?” That was interesting, as was any new information about Doug. But there was something odd about the way the words had sounded.
“On whose side?” I asked.
“My father’s father.”
“So, your father is Jewish, too, right?” And that would make Doug, also, Jewish, at least partly.
“No,” he said. “My grandfather converted to Christianity. My father was raised in the first church of suburbia. When he and my mother had kids, they gave up the whole religion thing entirely.”
“But, when you’re Jewish you can’t just stop being Jewish, right? I mean, it’s more than a religion, it’s a people, a huge and varied culture, a ...”
“Not for me,” Doug said harshly, and I knew the subject was dismissed.
I knew but I couldn’t let it go. Not for the first time I wondered about Doug’s wedding, about Carol’s religious beliefs, about...
“Did you and Carol get married in a church?” I asked, attempting to sound nonchalant.
Doug answered promptly.
“Carol was raised Lutheran. We got married in the church she went to every week as a kid.”
“Does she still go to church?”
“Why do you want to know these things?” Doug’s voice betrayed a slight annoyance. As if—as if he thought I was intruding on his privacy?
Why did I want to know these things about Doug and Carol? Morbid curiosity? Or would knowing these domestic details somehow lead me to further knowledge of Doug as an individual? Truth was, I didn’t really understand my motives in prying.
I shrugged. “It’s interesting, that’s all. I like to know about people.”
Doug began to walk through the Memorial.
“So,” I said, walking quickly to catch up. The words were going to come out of my mouth. I couldn’t stop them. “If you got married again, would you do it in a church? You know, if the woman ...”
Doug stopped short and I bumped into him.
“Sorry,” I mumbled.
“Erin,” he said, his voice serious and low, “I’m not getting married again.”
“Oh. I just meant ...”
“Erin, listen to me. Have I ever lied to you? Have I ever told you that I was leaving Carol?”
“No,” I said, my heart shattering.
“I’m sorry. This will have to be enough, what you and I have. Okay? Do you understand that?”
I nodded, too sad to speak.
Doug took my hand and we walked on.
No, it’s not okay, I thought. And I don’t understand. What Doug and I have is not enough and it never will be.
Now you’re talking sense, Reason said. I hadn’t even known it was listening.
And no, I thought, bravely, stubbornly, I don’t believe that Doug will never get married again. I believe in us. I believe in our love. I believe we can be together the way we should be.
There’s my girl, Romance soothed. Don’t give up hope. Love can conquer all obstacles.
Except reality, Reason said. It can’t conquer reality.
Other books
Hidden Gem by India Lee
Perchance To Dream by Newman, Holly
Tessa Masterson Will Go to Prom by Brendan Halpin & Emily Franklin
Quattrocento by James McKean
Passionate Tides by Johnson, J.N
Falling in Love by Stephen Bradlee
Captcha Thief (Amy Lane Mysteries) by Rosie Claverton
Take Me Forever by Sellers, Julie
Grown Folks Business by Victoria Christopher Murray
Pride and Prejudice (Clandestine Classics) by Jane Austen, Amy Armstrong