Choose Your Own Love Story

by Ilyse Mimoun

  Crystal soothes your anxiety by ignoring it.

  “Oh, here’s a cute one,” she says, pointing to a guy named Max412.

  Max412’s profile isn’t awful. He seems employed, doesn’t confuse it’s and its, and claims to know the movie Clueless by heart like you do. Plus he’s read the Jane Austen book Emma it’s based on. You feel your heart jump a tiny bit and decide it must mean Max is bad news. After all, your instincts have been dead wrong lately. Instead, you respond to someone who’s reached out to you with the screen name Hereforyoubaby. It’s an absurd screen name, but you and Crystal agree a little sensitive cheesiness might be good for morale.

  Onward, romantic soldier!

  Continue to page 40, section 14.

  14

  One look at Hereforyoubaby has your stomach drop, and not in a good way. The man has one of those hipster curly-q mustaches previously reserved for cinema villains. You find it ridiculous. Same for his giant plastic glasses. No glasses or mustache on his profile pic—why does everyone misrepresent?

  He has asked you to meet him at an excellent Vietnamese soup place you’re familiar with, and he exhibits noticeably gallant behaviors such as pulling your chair out and calling you “fetching.” But when it comes to talking, he barely comes up for air to let you say a word.

  He even lectures you about the beauty of Vietnamese pho. You offer that you know all about pho—you are, in fact, a food critic. He seems not to have heard you. You repeat yourself with a joke, “I’ve pho-gotten more about pho than you’ll ever know! Seriously, I’m a food critic.”

  He looks offended and says, “My aunt was a food critic—a workaholic who ate herself to death. It’s more common than you think.”

  You glower into the steaming pho. It’s obvious that hereforyou is only hereforhim. Luckily, the soup has the perfect amount of cilantro, so you can concentrate on it while he waxes philosophical about home-brew beer and the death of the music industry. Cilantro, cilantro, cilantro. Minty, refreshing, lemony cilantro. Goodnight, thanks for dinner, great to meet you, no, I don’t need to be walked to my car.

  Your next million dates are all different but generally equally depressing. Self-obsessed actor dude. Guy with ten start-up ideas. They all have the same problem as hereforyoubaby—they talk too much!

  Take Zack, for example. He takes you to a bakery for a late-night snack. It’s a fun idea, and Zack is pale and beautiful like an aging vampire. But as soon as you take a bite of your recently dethawed blueberry scone, he says, “You should know I’ve been married before.”

  “Oh,” you say, noting the orange zest in the scone, a pleasing complement to the blueberry. “You didn’t mention that in your profile.”

  “Don’t worry—I don’t have alimony payments. My last ex married the perfect man. Very wealthy, pretty much lets her do what she wants. I have kids too.”

  “Oh . . . cool.” Come on, Zack! Kids too?! you think. We need to be able to believe in these profiles. Sure, you described yourself as “slender” when “average” might have been more accurate. But everything else was true!

  “Yeah, it’s working out pretty well. We can get some cookies if you want.”

  “I’m good with the scone, thanks. That’s the only time you were married, right?”

  Zack strums his hand on the table. “Actually, I’ve been married three times. My first marriage was just obligation. She was pregnant, and my mother said it was my responsibility, basically. Then she cheated on me with a friend of ours who was also married. I was devastated. I would take the train an hour and a half early on Saturday morning to get my kids, spend time with them, and then take the loneliest trip back to Brooklyn, staring at the window into the black emptiness of my reflection. Day after day after day.”

  “Jesus,” you say.

  “The second wife I met in a rock-and-roll club in New York. I looked at her doing some hard drugs, and I thought, hey, she’s the one.”

  “Oh,” you murmur. Maybe you do need another scone. You feel your loose bra strap falling down your arm, but you’re afraid to push it back up, like it will seem like you’re not listening to his desperate monologue. Zack is so pretty, with that porcelain skin and red mouth. And he smells good, like spicy lavender.

  “What I didn’t realize was how much she drank. I was really into partying in those days too, but I could keep it under control. When she drank, though, she’d go postal. If I left the toilet seat up, she’d break a vase. After two and a half years of marriage, it was terrible.”

  Zack gets up to put milk in his coffee, and you sigh. Zack’s profile said he was a music composer who likes quiet evenings and reading the New York Times—not making their scandal section. You’re about to cut the date short but Zack returns and immediately resumes speaking.

  “We went to this Jungian analyst together, and the therapist actually suggested we separate, which was great. I actually toyed with the idea of asking the therapist out, but I didn’t. ’Cause I didn’t want someone who could analyze my dreams.”

  Why are you listening to this nonsense? Is it because the green of Zack’s eyes is endless? Or because his voice is as gravelly and hypnotic as Idris Elba?

  “In the meanwhile I had taken over some of her clients who bought cocaine, and they’d come to our beautiful apartment. Shit got crazy. Five years later I got bottomed out, came back here. Met another woman—Brazilian—incredible. Totally sexual. She came every time she gave me a blowjob and sometimes when she sat down at a restaurant.”

  You almost choke on your last scone crumb.

  “It was just a year, no commitment. We tried again a while later, didn’t work. Control was a big thing for her. She was an incest survivor; it was very important for her to feel like she was in control. And there was other stuff that happened, you know, as they do in relationships.”

  “Yeah—”

  “A year later we decided to get married. It felt ideal! I gave my wife money to start a career as an artist—she wanted to do a gallery show about surviving incest and maybe some greeting cards. But nothing was happening.” Zack half-laughs and gives you this intense hungry look. You find yourself swimming in the deep green of his eyes.

  “One day out of the blue I get the call ‘the marriage is over, I’ll pick my stuff up.’ I was flabbergasted. To this day I haven’t figured out totally what happened. Jesus, listen to me ramble. I can’t believe I’ve been talking this long. You’re a really good listener, you know that?”

  You plunge your fork into his chocolate layer cake. Zack is clearly the mayor of Red Flag Island. He’s narcissistic, probably a drug addict, and totally unstable. Nothing good can come of this.

  On the other hand, Zack is gorgeous.

  Plus, he’s acting like he likes you. Bad boys never like you. Somehow they’re always looking for someone more unhinged, a chick, who smokes cigarettes and wears leather thong underwear. One time you almost told a gorgeous bass player, “I promise you I’m crazy!” But he could just smell that you pay your taxes on time and floss regularly.

  And now here’s Zack—brooding, sexy, and wrong. You’re seized with the urge to pull him into the bathroom and unzip his jeans.

  A fantasy is one thing, but you’re too old for this! Get back on track, turn to page 105, section 30.

  How long have you been cooped up eating Tofutti Cuties by yourself?

  Live a little! Turn to page 164, section 45.

  15

  “Sas efcharisto,” you say, which means thank you in Greek. You think.

  And efcharisto leads to ertho (come over), so you do.

  And ertho leads to o thee mou (oh my god), as Vladimiros buries his gorgeous mouth in your womanhood and leaves you crying out for perissotera (more).

  You spend hours in his bed, drinking Makedonikos wine and making frenzied love. Vladimiros flips you on your stomach, on all fours, against the wall. Your cheek is smushed, but you don’t care. In one afternoon he turns your body into a pleasure playground. Since you can’t commu
nicate with language, your body must speak for you. Your body weeps perissotera, perissotera, perissotera.

  And then his wife walks through the door.

  And she doesn’t look very happy. Vladimiros immediately straightens up and wraps blankets around his body, leaving you standing there, naked and horrified. His wife starts screaming, and Vladimiros starts screaming too. You don’t understand what he’s saying, but you get the gist.

  Back at the hostel some locals tell you you’ve been a victim of Greek “kamaki,” which refers to a harpoon that catches a fish in one stroke. Then, presumably, doesn’t care about the fish anymore. Too bad, because you were very careless about protection, weren’t you?

  A couple of weeks later, on your last day in Greece, you float in the bright turquoise ocean. The beaches here have the kind of captivating beauty that Vladimiros did—a beauty you can lose yourself in. But you shouldn’t really be in the water since you are expecting your period at any minute.

  Expecting . . . but not getting.

  Not today.

  Not tomorrow.

  Not in three days when you’re flying back to America.

  On the taxi drive home you stop at the pharmacy to pick up ten different pregnancy tests. And a candy bar. By the time you burst through your door, you’re simultaneously exhausted, jet-lagged, and in a state of total panic. You need to know right now if you’re pregnant. Or right after you check your Facebook messages.

  Friends miss you, friends like your pictures of food, and then there is a very funny message from someone claiming to seek his “lost puppy.”

  Tire guy!

  Apparently he found you through the miracle of social media.

  Now all you need is one more miracle—like the courage to face that pregnancy test. Or the confidence that you can make a beautiful future for yourself, no matter what the results. Or maybe the miracle will be that tire guy is the man of your dreams. And he is just dying to be a father . . .

  THE END

  16

  Getting ready for a date with someone you might like is a terrible thing.

  Maybe there were times when you used to enjoy it, but you can’t remember them, and you curse yourself for comparing yourself to airbrushed billboard models who look like underfed nympho zombies. Stupid insecurities are such a waste!

  But that’s not what makes getting ready so terrible. What makes it terrible is that with each stroke of the blush brush, each pluck of an errant brow hair, you are investing more and more into a relationship that hasn’t even begun. The act of getting ready for a date is a prayer, like people who dance so that God will make rain. It conjures the hope you’ve worked so hard to keep dormant in the innermost chamber of your heart. It brings that hope rushing right back up, so if it doesn’t go well, the disappointment is crushing. Yes, guys usually pay for first dates, but does that compare to a rain dance?

  Tonight, although you’re scared to admit it, Max seems cool, at least as much as you can tell over two old fashioneds in a noisy bar. The place is meant to look like a speakeasy, and you give Max two points for a cute pick. Max himself is cute––slender and nimble like Aladdin. He’s shorter than you usually like, but there’s something confident about him. He seems to be sensitive without sniveling. He’s a reader, like you, and was recently laid off from his job as a public defender due to budget cuts. He’s still got a positive attitude and doesn’t want to quit fighting the good fight. You’d like to know more, but tonight you’re focused on yourself.

  It scares you—this not knowing what comes next. It’s scary that for two years Greg meant everything, and in three years he’ll probably mean nothing. What even worse may lie ahead? Will you find great happiness with Max or someone else, or will you be miserable forever and say, “Oh well, at least I wrote a pretty good piece about Balinese duck confit and never murdered anyone.”

  This is what you’re thinking, but thank goodness you don’t say any of it to Max. If there’s one thing you learned from your mother, it’s how to fake being peppy. But the funny thing is, you get the feeling you could tell all this stuff to Max. You get the feeling he might understand.

  So you’re happy when he asks you out again. At the very least, it’s a relief to know you haven’t totally lost your game.

  Unfortunately your second date is a mediocre brunch of bland egg-white omelets and too-sweet mimosas at some overpriced Beverly Hills joint. Afterward Max says, “Do you mind if we stop in Crate and Barrel? I have to pick up a citrus juicer.”

  You force a smile and say, “Sure,” though inwardly you roll your eyes. Errands? On a second date? You know women are supposed to do hula-hoops for the false intimacy such chores imply, and maybe pre-Greg you would have jumped at the chance, but not anymore. You have your own errands to do—who needs this? And why did Max choose Beverly Hills of all places? Isn’t he out of a job? There are more fake breasts and spray tans on this street than a whole season of that new extreme plastic surgery reality show that is beyond offensive. And you should know because you watched the whole season.

  Ugh, look at this creature walking in—black leather leggings and ten-inch heels to go to Crate and Barrel? And the schlep she’s with is dressed like a homeless person! Can someone give you a break? Max glances at the woman, but if he likes babes like this leather-clad lunatic, he is barking up the wrong tree.

  Cool it, you tell yourself. Take it easy! No wonder some of your friends say you’re getting bitter. On the other hand, is there really a healthy midpoint between bitter and naïve? And why the hell does Max need a juicer? Does he not realize there is no fiber in juice?

  “My dressings have a lot of citrus in them,” he explains, “but I keep getting seeds in there. Like I made a kale salad, and I had all these lemon pits I had to pick out with a spoon. And I’ve got some even more fascinating stories, if you can believe that.” He smiles at you.

  You know that Max has only recently taken up cooking, so it’s funny how he calls them “my dressings” already. What an ego on this guy!

  You sigh and finger some red ladles. They match your sundress with bright cherries on it. You’ve been wearing optimistic clothing to counteract your recent scowling problem. You hadn’t meant to become so sour, but single life is wearing you down. You remember being a very sweet child. And you remember being sweet with Greg—before he exhaled you from his life. If someone throws you out, does that mean you’re garbage?

  “Are you finding everything you want?” chirps a woman who screams efficiency. Perfect makeup, a clipboard and headset, heels that go clickety-clack. Her eyes are tired, though.

  “Actually, I’m looking for a mechanical stainless-steel citrus juicer, but I only see electric ones,” Max says.

  “Let’s just see what we can do about that.” The saleslady zips over to the computer and types furiously. “We should have one in stock in the back.”

  Perhaps sensing your irritation, Max says, “Don’t worry about it—I can come back another time.”

  “No!” the saleslady says. “I’ll be right back!” She sprints to the backroom and produces the juicer with astonishing speed. She starts wrapping it with brown tissue paper.

  “Oh you don’t need to wrap it,” Max says, but she counters, “No, I do need to!”

  You notice the urgent tone of her voice and move beside Max at the counter. You decide to smile at him, having read that one can activate happy neurons by smiling.

  When the saleslady starts printing the receipt, Max says, “Oh, that’s really not necessary,” but the saleslady says, “No it is. You are not leaving here without everything going perfectly.”

  She sounds like she’s on the verge of tears. Whereas you had been inwardly mocking her a few minutes ago (a headset? seriously?), suddenly you feel a fierce kinship with the woman.

  You recognize the sound in her voice, that mixture of desperation and fatigue. You can see the woman fastening her name tag day in and day out, wondering how she ended up selling muffin tins, wondering what he
r mother would say if she were alive, wondering whether her ex-husband had ever loved her at all, wondering how the same little girl who loved science fairs and crushed it at the eighth-grade debate contest wound up so far away from the sparkly life she had envisioned. You want to hug her and cry with her about everything.

  You doubt Max has the empathic accuracy to pick up on this. You read somewhere that many men lack this vital quality. But Max looks the saleslady right in the eye and gives her a warm smile.

  “Thank you,” he says kindly. “I bet this place would fall apart without you.”

  The saleslady stands up straighter and her eyes gleam.

  “It’s my pleasure,” she says.

  Max turns to you, but you can barely meet his gaze, so humbled are you by his goodness.

  The search is over—this guy is the one!

  Turn to page 69, section 21.

  The timing is just wrong—you’re obviously still a train-wreck.

  Turn to page 60, section 18.

  17

  Congratulations—you’re smart enough to have figured out that Greg only wants what he can’t have. No take-backsies!

  Plus, Claude makes you feel so accepted and loved. How have you gone without that for so long?

  “He’s perfect!” you tell your perfect friend Meg.

  She tells you to stop putting people on pedestals.

  She’s right, of course. Over the next several months Claude reveals some of his flaws. He snores, for one thing. And it would be nice if he could pick up the newspaper once in a while instead of one of his cycling magazines. And he never admits to being afraid.

  Unlike some of your past dudes, Claude has no problem expressing love and tenderness toward you (and his daughter, Amy). But he seems to have a problem admitting weakness in himself, even making stupid excuses for his protruding gut, like that the calorie counts on his instant oatmeal packets are lies.