Chapter Fifty-three
E
x-boyfriends are a problem no matter what way you look at them. They’re a problem when you run into them on Saturday morning, on your way to the dry cleaners, not looking your post-breakup best. They’re a problem when they won’t stop calling, either to beg you to take them back now that the women they left you for dumped them, or to harrass you for having left such a stellar guy. They’re a problem when they date again before you do. They’re a problem when memories of intimate moments with them make you cringe.
There should be a way to excise exes from our lives. They should be removed, like suspicious tumors are removed, just cut right out. I suppose murder is one possibility, though the getting caught part isn’t very appealing. A lobotomy is another possibility, though I wouldn’t want to sport a nasty scar on my head for the rest of my life.
Doug and I were strolling through the Gardens at lunchtime when I saw him. Post-college, Ex-Boyfriend No.4. Or No. 5. I’d lost track.
“Huh,” I said.
“Huh, what?”
“Ex-boyfriend, two o’clock.”
“Which one?”
“The big dumb-looking one in the gray coat. Bert. Bert Something.”
Here was a challenge. Would Bert remember me? Would he guess that Doug was my married lover? I dripped nervousness. Doug seemed to be enoying my discomfort, which, I’d begun to notice, was something he often enjoyed.
I’d also noticed that Doug had taken to telling me to calm down, lighten up, stop overreacting, lower my voice, and stop being so emotional. Was everything I said or felt or did, wrong?
Maybe, I thought, Bert won’t see me. Or I could snub him. Or maybe ...
“Hey! Erin!”
“Shit.”
Bert was coming our way, a big grin on his beefy face. Doug and I stopped and waited until he joined us.
“Hey, Erin, long time no see.”
He did not shake my hand. I was glad.
“Yeah. Uh, Bert, this is—this is my colleague, Doug Spears. We’re—we’re coming from a meeting.”
Bert shook Doug’s hand. Interesting.
“Erin was crazy in love with me years back,” Bert said, lightly punching Doug’s arm. “Had to beat her off with a stick. Not literally, of course, don’t go in for hitting the ladies ...”
“What!” I cried. “I was never in love with you!”
Bert raised an eyebrow and Doug chuckled. He actually chuckled.
This can’t be happening, I thought. It just can’t.
“But now I’m a married man,” Bert said, and I swear he stuck out his chest as he said it. “Got hitched five years ago. Got two kids already. Wife’s in banking, quit to stay home with the kids. Maybe she’ll go back to work someday, not necessary. I make more than enough money, don’t need her salary.”
Doug looked at me with that annoying, amused smile. He said nothing. He was waiting for me to say something.
Bert defined the term “blowhard.” There was no way I was going to get out of this alive, except by playing along.
“Well, that’s just great, Bert,” I said tightly. “We really have to go now. I—”
“What about you, Erin?” Bert pretended to peer at my left hand. “No ring? No hubby?”
“No, no husband,” I said. “No kids, either.”
Bert clapped me on the shoulder. “Well, don’t worry. You’ve got some time yet. You’re not half bad-looking. Not getting any younger, though. Don’t wait too long!”
Like what I was doing with my life was sitting around waiting to say, Okay, I’ll get married now. Just like that.
“Okay,” I said, urging a tiny smile to my lips. “I won’t.”
Bert loped off and Doug and I continued through the Gardens.
“Can you believe that moron!” I hissed. “What a freakin’ nerve! He’s hallucinating!”
“Oh, come on, Erin. Aren’t you exaggerating, just a bit?” Doug’s cocky smile just fueled my fire.
“I was not in love with him,” I said fiercely.
“Maybe you were, just a little. It was a long time ago, right? Maybe you forgot.”
“Oh, I haven’t forgotten. I’ll tell you what really happened. One night Mr. Numbnuts said to me, ‘Hey, babe, don’t fall in love with me.’ Believe me, falling in love with Bert was the last thing on my mind. So, I answered, quite nicely, ‘Uh, love? This is just a fuck.’ And he looked at me like I’d just strangled his pet puppy. He was horrified. He just couldn’t imagine meaning nothing more to me than his technique. Which wasn’t so fabulous, by the way. Well, that was the end of that. He acted all huffy and injured and then he broke up with me.”
Doug eyed me.
“You really didn’t care?”
“I really didn’t care. But obviously, Bert did. It’s been how many years and he still can’t let it go?”
We walked on. Anger made me want to run, not walk.
“Why did you go out with him in the first place if he was so lame?” Doug said suddenly.
I felt my heart go hard.
“Why does anyone do anything?” I said. “Boredom.”
Jan was at a meeting of independent booksellers. Maggie was free to have dinner with us. We gathered at my house for takeout from Jae’s. It was an amusing challenge keeping Fuzzer out of the chicken dishes I’d ordered.
When the food was distributed, JoAnne said: “So, tell us. What’s it like with a woman?”
“JoAnne! God ...” Abby gulped her water.
“I’m curious. I mean, I have an idea but I’ve never gotten a first-hand report from an actual ...”
“Lesbian. You can say it, it’s okay. Pass the spring rolls?”
“Really, Maggie, we don’t have to talk about this ...” I said as I handed her the plate.
“I know. But we’ve spent hours talking about sex with men so JoAnne is right to assume she can ask me about sex with women.”
“See?”
“But I’m not going to tell you anything.”
“What? Why not?” JoAnne demanded.
“Because my sex life—now that I’m having one again—is private. It’s no one’s business but mine and Jan’s.” Maggie grinned sheepishly. “Besides, I’m too shy to talk about it.”
“Well, you guys are still new,” I said. “It’s normal you’d want to keep things special.”
“That, too. But I’m not going to be giving a course in lesbian sex to you chickies any time soon so ...”
“Rats.” JoAnne. “Anyone going to eat that last dumpling?”
“I’m relieved,” Abby said, then clapped her hand to her mouth. “Oh, I didn’t mean ... I just ... Maggie, you know I’m shy, too!”
It was a good evening, the four of us just hanging around, drinking wine, eating Asian food, taking turns scratching Fuzzer’s head. It was like old times.
But it wasn’t. Things had happened to us. Other things were happening. And still other things were about to happen.
Chapter Fifty-four
November, Boston
N
ovember in Boston is often gray, rainy, and cold. But that’s only after the trees have exploded with color and the air has freshened.
November the first. The day after Halloween. A holiday best left to children, in my opinion. Too many adults find it license to be idiots. Idiots in stupid costumes. Drunken idiots in stupid costumes.
I’d stayed home and distributed candy for the few kids who came around. All were accompanied by their parents. Maggie and Jan had gone to bed early, pooped after a day of serving and cleaning up after a holiday meal at WLP. Abby and my father had rented the old black-and-white
Dracula
with Boris Karloff and popped popcorn.
JoAnne had donned an expensive rented costume and gone with Peter Leonard to a party given by someone from his office.
JoAnne had gone as Cleopatra. Peter, it seemed, had gone as himself. An asshole.
The four of us met at Tremont 647 for dinner.
“Gather round, girls,” JoAnne said when we were all together. “I have a little story to tell.”
Peter Leonard had turned out not to be a perfect partner, at all.
“From the minute we got to the party,” JoAnne said, “Peter acted as if I didn’t exist. He didn’t introduce me to anyone. He got his own drink. Then he got me one, but only after I’d asked him to. So, being the social butterfly that I am, I began to mingle. And it didn’t take me long to see that every woman at the party but me was a twenty-something. A young twenty-something. I tried to strike up a conversation with one girl dressed as a genie but it’s hard to have a meaningful talk with someone who doesn’t know the name of the current mayor of Boston.”
“Ugh,” I said. “I know the type. Dumb as a bucket of hair. What about the men? Anyone eligible?”
JoAnne laughed. “If you’re looking for late thirty-something assholes who make far too much money for their own good. Judging by the conversations I overheard, Peter isn’t even the worst of the bunch.”
“So, what happened?” Abby asked. “Did you just leave?”
“Well, that was the plan. First, being a well-mannered social butterfly, I figured I’d find Peter and tell him I was out of there. And I found him all right. With his tongue down the throat of the dumb-ass girl I’d tried to talk to earlier.”
“Loser,” Maggie pronounced.
“Oh, yeah. Total loser. But I wasn’t leaving without his knowing I’d seen him. So, I shouted his name and when he came up for air, I picked two apples from the bobbing bowl and tossed them to him.”
My jaw dropped like a cartoon character in shock. “You didn’t.”
“I did. And I said, ‘Here. You might need these. I noticed you don’t have any of your own.’ ”
Abby looked puzzled.
“The apples were, like, his balls,” Maggie explained.
Abby gasped. “Oh, my God. Did he do anything? Did he say anything? He must have been so embarrassed!”
JoAnne shrugged. “I don’t know. I don’t even know if he got my meaning. I walked out of the room, grabbed my coat, and got the hell out of there.”
“You ...” What could I say? I was so proud. “You amaze me. Kudos, woman, and kudos again.”
“What are you going to do?” Abby asked. “You really liked him.”
JoAnne laughed. “What do you think I’m going to do? It takes more than a bimbo in a freakin’ genie costume to keep me down.”
“Hurrah for you!”
“See,” I said. “Being open to emotional experience doesn’t mean giving up all powers of discrimination. It doesn’t mean you have to be anti-intellectual. And it doesn’t mean issuing an open invitation to be trod upon.”
JoAnne eyed me. “Just who are you preaching to?”
I didn’t answer.
“My advice,” Maggie said, “is to stay away from those dating services and just live your life.”
“Not exactly the most original words of wisdom ...” JoAnne grinned. “But I like them.”
Erin—any snow yet? don’t miss nov in boston one bit! thinking of writing memoirs of travels. think it wld sell big, if i do say so myself. M.
Abby had come over to watch an Audrey Hepburn movie. She owned just about all of them on video and was slowly replacing them with DVD versions. I was the happy recipient of the slightly worn videos.
It should have been a light, fun occasion but from the moment Abby walked into the apartment, it was clear she had something on her mind.
I popped the tape into the VCR—
Breakfast at Tiffany’s,
this time—and got us settled with champagne, cracked black pepper crackers, a variety of cheeses, and olives.
“Ready?” I asked, though I knew in my heart it would be some time before we would get to the movie.
“I have to talk,” Abby said, sitting upright on the edge of her chair, busily twisting the tassle on a throw pillow.
“Okay.” Yes, the movie would wait.
“Erin, could you ... Do you think you could talk to John? You know, about me and him.”
It was not what I was expecting to hear.
“Oh, Abby,” I said, “I can’t do that. First of all, I doubt he’d say anything but ‘Mind your own business.’ Second . . . well, I think I should mind my own business. Why can’t you, you know, just ask him if anything is wrong?”
Abby flopped back into the chair and rested her head against its back. Fuzzer immediately leapt onto her lap. “I’m afraid,” she said. “I’m afraid of what I’ll hear.”
“What if I hear something—bad. You’d want me to tell you, right?”
“No. Well, yes, I suppose. Erin, I just can’t figure out what’s going on! John’s been so distant lately. Since my birthday. Not mean, not really cold, just—kind of like a stranger. I feel he’s uncomfortable with me suddenly and it makes me feel uncomfortable. Erin, I swear, last night both of us couldn’t wait to get home. To our separate apartments.”
“I really don’t know what to say, Abby. Except that you should talk to him. Maybe something at work is driving him crazy, I don’t know. And you won’t know either, unless you just ask him if everything’s all right between you.”
“Maybe if I just say nothing and act like everything’s fine—which will be hard but I can do it—whatever’s going on will pass. They say that sometimes ignorance is bliss.”
And, I added silently, they also say that having your head up your butt means you’re a big sack of stupid.
“Well, it’s up to you, Abby,” I said. “I’m sure it’ll all work out.”
Another lie, but it seemed to satisfy Abby, who now busied herself with scratching Fuzzer under his chin and humming softly.
I took a sip of champagne and started the tape.
I’d done what I thought was the right thing. I’d advised Abby to speak honestly with her boyfriend. But I had developed a strong curiosity now and knew I’d butt in where I shouldn’t. I’d talk to Dad. I just wouldn’t tell Abby that I had.
Secrecy and lies, deceptions and falsehoods. The words were like a chant in my head. They were becoming my own personal mantra. I could see my tombstone now:
HERE LIES ERIN WESTON. ADULTERER, CONSUMMATE LIAR, BETRAYER. MAY SHE ROT IN HELL
.