The Dictionary of Failed Relationships

by Meredith Broussard

  “Oh, look, it’s the heavy mob!”

  Darrell jumped. The posh bird was standing beside him. She was wearing an alarming red item—the material was crinkled like a fan, and it rose from her back like a dragon’s wing. He guessed it was designer and very expensive. He supposed that made up for it looking ridiculous. She waved her cigarette packet at him, and he saw that she was as drunk as a lord. Her well-preserved face had a pale-greenish tinge, and she didn’t have full control of her neck muscles—her head alternately wobbled and went stiff.

  Even so, it was a bit much: to bowl up to a bloke minding his own business and merrily accuse him of being a gangster!

  “So, what car you driving at the minute, Darren?” She laughed, as if this was the wittiest line in the world. Darrell, with the ease of a man comfortable in his skin and with his choice of motor, replied, “An old Merc.” And then—because although Darrell was placid, he wasn’t a pushover—he nodded at Tamara’s crinkly wing and said, “You paid for that, did you?”

  But Tamara didn’t hear. Her green-tinted contact lenses had almost popped out of her head. “We were certain you drove an Escort,” she cried. “I bet Nicholas a grand! What a surprise! Do you have any other surprises for me, Darren?” Tamara’s attempts at flirtation were clumsy. After years of working as a stockbroker, the small amount of empathy she once had had flaked away like dandruff, and her social skills were those of a young Jeffrey Dahmer.

  “It’s Darrell, actually. What do you drive?”

  “Audi TT,” purred Tamara, rearranging her Issey Miyake dress, lighting up and tossing her match into the murk of the five-hundred-thousand-year-old rain forest. “Back where it came from,” she sang, to Darrell’s look of dismay. She leered at him. He had beautiful eyes. She remembered the feeling of his hand in hers. Rough. Mmm. She fancied a bit of rough. Her gaze flicked downward. She wanted to touch him. And what Tamara wanted, she got.

  “Where’s your little girlfriend?” she murmured, hosing him in alcohol fumes.

  “She’s a friend.”

  “Oh? Then she won’t mind me doing this.” Tamara gripped the back of Darrell’s head and pulled him toward her. Darrell’s thoughts, in no particular order, were these: That was a come-on? Seafood. Suction pump. Liz Hurley gone to seed. Why not? Sod him. That idiot. Fling. Good. Blimey. Scary. Why not? Ouch. What, here? I suppose time is money. A use. Not bad. Bit of rough. Bit of posh. She’s done this before. Not my type. Tongue like a salmon. Why not? Julie. Julie.

  “Wait.”

  Darrell tried to wriggle from the embrace. It was like attempting to escape from a killer octopus.

  “What the fuck is going on here!”

  Reluctantly, Tamara let Darrell go.

  Nicholas—red eyes, red skin, red hair—was now seeing red. The whore! How grubby!

  Sneaking off to cuckold him with a . . . a . . . a—Nicholas had difficulty conceiving of a word foul enough to describe the creature in front of him—a tradesman! This person might earn in his lifetime what Nicholas earned in a month. Was the man a lottery winner? How else could he infiltrate the Datai? Why wasn’t he in Tenerife? But hang on. If he earned less than Nicholas, and Tamara was kissing him, then he must have something else, something that he, Nicholas, didn’t have. What? Nicholas galvanized the meager resources of his entire brain into answering this question, and failed. “I’ll fight you!” he roared.

  “That,” said Tamara smoothly, “is not a good idea. Darrell has big muscles”—she giggled—“everywhere. And you don’t. Don’t make a fool of yourself.”

  As she said the words, she realized that she no longer planned to marry Nicholas and give up work and let him buy her ever-increasing circles of pearls, diamonds, rubies, and whatever else he could order from Tiffany’s without actually setting foot in the shop. Nicholas continued to stare at Darrell, but he still couldn’t see it. He was so devoid of generosity, with a soul as dried and shriveled as an old raisin, that he never would be able to see it. All he ever saw in anyone was profit or loss. He saw other people purely in terms of what he could gain from them, and how inferior they were to him. Goodness was invisible to him. Like a spoiled child with no imagination who would never see Tinker-bell, Nicholas was blind to a pure spirit as only the truly ignorant can be.

  “Darrell,” said a cool voice. “What exactly are you doing with these people?”

  “Snogging my fiancée, that’s what!” shouted Nicholas.

  “Ex-fiancée,” corrected Tamara, removing her two-carat diamond engagement ring and tossing it over the railing, where it joined the rest of her discarded nonbiodegradable detritus on the rain forest floor.

  “You . . .” Various anatomical vulgarities suggested themselves to Julie, but eventually she chose the noun that she felt described Darrell best: “Fool.” She stalked off.

  “Julie, wait up!”

  Julie ignored him (although to her annoyance, she couldn’t stalk very far—it was a choice between the hotel lounge or the computer room). She refused to go back to their jungle villa, with its luxurious interior and prim twin beds. Twin beds because Darrell wouldn’t dream of making a pass. Oh no, not in fifteen years, not even after his twenty-fifth birthday, when he drank thirteen pints of beer—not so much as a crude fumble! (He’d vomited meekly in her toilet, said, “It’s OK, I feel much better now,” and passed out on her sofa.) And yet, this hard-faced Pegasus look-alike, who despised everything about him without knowing anything about him, had seduced him in minutes!

  “Julie, please!” Darrell had left Tamara and Nicholas to their rich, joyless lives, and finally caught up with her. Gently, he touched her upper arm.

  “Off me!”

  “I’m sorry,” he said, releasing her. “I know you don’t like them.”

  “They don’t like us.”

  He laughed. “I know that. The woman was just about comatose. She probably mistook me for a plumber she once fancied.”

  “You didn’t have to kiss her back then, did you? What are you, a gigolo?”

  Although he knew it was unwise, Darrell couldn’t help giggling at the word gigolo.

  Julie, who was desperate not to giggle with him, bit the inside of her lip hard enough to draw blood. This maneuver enabled her to glare convincingly, until she reminded herself what he had done and found that she was able to glare quite happily, without the aid of self-imposed torture. “Don’t think just because I nearly laughed then that I’ve forgiven you. You’ve ruined my holiday!”

  As she raged, Darrell watched her, and a faint squiggle of hope began to squirm inside him.

  “. . . It was meant to be a nice, relaxing holiday! A celebration . . . to celebrate my qualifying and your being promoted again, a sophisticated holiday, not a . . . a . . . an orgy with people who don’t even like you!”

  “So tell me,” blurted Darrell. “Have I no chance of ever succeeding?”

  Julie blinked. “You what?”

  Darrell blushed to his soul. Excruciating. Mortifying. The most embarrassing moment of his life, however long he lived. Why the hell did he say it! He hadn’t meant to. The ludicrous phrase had been circling his consciousness like a shark. He’d only picked up Emma because Julie was forever going on about it and how romantic it was, and he wanted to see what all the fuss was about. What she considered romantic. And he’d found that what she considered to be romantic was several centuries and classes away from everything that he was. Secretly, he thought the hero, Mr. Knightley, was a pompous ass. But if that was what appealed to Julie, then Mr. Knightley was spot-on. He, Darrell, had sod-all chance of ever succeeding.

  She was laughing at him. Julie was practically on her knees with laughter. He couldn’t blame her. “I don’t believe you,” she gasped. “When? When did you read Emma?”

  “Last weekend,” he said through gritted teeth. He couldn’t look at her. She grabbed his hand. “Nice,” she told him. “But that line is not you.” She paused. “Try again.”

  Darrell forced himself to meet her ey
es. “Right.” He breathed deeply. “Julie. I think you’re a bit all right, and I, I love you. Er. That’s it, more or less. I—”

  She kissed him. And the next day, she gave up on The Portrait of a Lady (Darrell suggested she save herself the time and look in the mirror). And because she was a lady, she never did tell Darrell about the Dagenham jibe. And because Darrell was a gentleman, he never told her that he’d known all along.

  ETIQUETTE

  By Thisbe Nissen

  et·i·quette ’e-ti-kt, -’ket noun [French étiquette, literally, ticket] (1750) 1: the conduct or procedure required by good breeding or prescribed by authority to be observed in social or official life. 2: that which should be adhered to more closely by certain members of a certain gender, after meeting other members of a certain other gender, so as to avoid confusion and entry into call-hell.

  Don’t say you’re going to do something unless you actually plan on doing it. You and I were playing “I’ll show you mine if you show me yours.” We said 1-2-3, GO. I pulled down my pants, and you laughed and ran away.

  If it’s going to be a one-night stand, let it be a one-night stand. Say: “Hey, it was nice meeting you. Maybe we’ll run into each other again someday at some other wedding.” Don’t say: “Let’s talk soon.” Don’t call from O’Hare when your connecting flight home gets delayed. Don’t send cute postcards, each time promising the next card will be “more scenic,” each time promising a “next.”

  Don’t get angry when someone uses things you said against you. Especially when those things were said under the influence of more than your share of Bloody Marys, and before some heated foreplay in the backseat of a taxi to the hotel, where the bride’s parents were so graciously putting us all up in the charitable hope that their daughter’s wedding might get a few of her friends laid as well, and a few hours of sex that made me think I might finally be able to understand how people decide to get married at all.

  Certain things are not to be said during sex if one would like to maintain that sex is just sex and nothing more. Like, “God, I love you.”

  When your mother told you not to say anything at all if you couldn’t say something nice, she wasn’t referring to relationships, in which case it’s much nicer to say something: “I’m not really interested,” or “I don’t do long-distance,” or “I’ve met someone else,” or “Relationships scare me,” or “Did I forget to mention my wife and seven children?” or “Yo no hablo inglés.”

  Misrepresentation can be grounds for a lawsuit. Did you know that?

  Life is confusing enough as it is. And would still be plenty difficult even if everyone actually did tell the truth insofar as they could discern what the hell that might be. I have little patience for guessing games and no patience at all for the rules of courtship—both those unspoken and those outlined in a best-seller I refuse to read—so I don’t do coy, hard-to-get dances or spend my time dangling carrots.

  There’s nothing more pathetic than a woman waiting around for some guy to call . . . reading and rereading the words he left scrawled on a scrap of hotel stationery, trying to find within those simple lines—name, street, city, state, zip, area code, phone—some explanation as to why she now feels that to use any piece of that information would be to push and pry on the door of a life that’s been suddenly and inexplicably slammed.

  It’s courteous to give a person a little warning. Like, maybe you could have said something before you went and slammed the aforementioned door, since I happened to be standing in the goddamn doorway.

  When it starts to feel like you’re at a SoHo dinner party where everyone’s skinny and wearing black and you’re laughing gaily as you sip your cabernet, when suddenly you feel something fuzzy against your leg and it turns out to be the girl you just slept with, and she’s under the table begging for scraps, then you know that something’s seesawed way off-kilter in the power dynamic. I am not a basset hound.

  FAQ

  By Elizabeth Benedict

  FAQ ’fak noun [Internet terminology] (c. 1990s) 1: acronym for “Frequently Asked Questions,” a popular way of presenting detailed or complex information on a Web site. 2: a list of questions and answers presented in a simple-to-follow format.

  What were there before FAQs?

  Philosophers. Questions with no answers.

  Are FAQs available on every subject?

  There is a shortage of them pertaining to “female troubles.”

  What are “female troubles”?

  Men.

  But haven’t women always had trouble with men, even before FAQs?

  The questions used to be different. And there were never any answers.

  For example?

  Between 1945 and 1963, the average women was tormented by these questions: “Should I call my mother-in-law Mom?” “Should I go to a doctor who doesn’t make house calls?” “Is it permissible to disagree with my husband’s views on Red China?” “How many times a week should I wax the kitchen floor?” “Is this all there is to life?” “How will I know if I’ve had an orgasm?” The average woman was often too ashamed to ask anyone, even her mother, these questions.

  How have the questions changed?

  Today’s FAQs on female troubles concern matters involving the intersection of etiquette, law enforcement, mental illness, addiction, and technology.

  Can you give us an example?

  Can we ever! These are the most frequently asked questions on our site:

  What are the benefits of dating a recovering crack addict?

  Drama. Will he pick up again? Will he pick up if I do something he doesn’t like? Will he pick up when he realizes I’ve changed the password on my ATM card? If so, will it be as bad as it was the last time I changed the password? Can I believe him when he says he will never sell my dog again?

  You get to feel needed without ever being sure that you are, so there is always plenty to hope and strive for.

  Even though addiction counselors say you shouldn’t, you can blame yourself if he does pick up again!

  How many Internet porn sites do you need to discover on your boyfriend/husband/fiancé’s computer (e.g., analsexwithpuppies.com, slutsandchildrenfirst.com, cumhardandfastwithdebbie.com) before you confront him?

  Three to five.

  What is the best way to confront him in this situation? Despite the prevalence of this problem, we have no idea.

  Should you ever date a man over forty-three who has never been married?

  No. In the words of one of our consultants, “Better he should have murdered his wife than never to have been married, because then at least you’d know he can make a commitment.”

  Should you ever date a man who is attempting to divorce a woman who has never had a job?

  No. No exceptions.

  If a man tells you he wants you to have his child, does this mean he is seriously interested in you?

  No. There is no correlation between this statement and his feelings for you. In fact, there may be an inverse relationship: Having said something so bold and serious, he is likely to have scared himself half to death and need to retreat at the first opportunity.

  Is it better to date a man with an ex-wife or a dead wife?

  Most women would instinctively answer “dead wife,” but they would be wrong. The dead woman’s physical absence is often a trick to make you think the man is available.

  One of our consultants filed this memorable and heart-rending case study:

  Jake and I met on the Internet and were having an awesome long-distance relationship. We spent a sexy weekend together in New York, halfway between his hometown and mine. We spent a weekend together in Chicago. Then Jake called and invited me to spend Memorial Day weekend at a bed-and-breakfast in Napa Valley, wine country, California! He had a favorite place he stayed at: a detached, two-story mini–town house with a Jacuzzi, a water bed, a private sommelier, a daily massage, room service, and Internet access. We would both fly to the San Francisco airport; together, we’d rent a
car and drive to the wine country. I needed to decide within the hour because that’s all the time the owner had given Jake, and this was a premium room. I rearranged my entire work schedule, swapping shifts with another woman; bought the only plane ticket I could afford (nonrefundable, changing planes in Chicago, Minneapolis, and Salt Lake City); and took three calls from Jake, reminding me that I only had an hour to decide. For two weeks, we talked every night about our upcoming trip. But he sounded funny when he called the week before we were to meet there. “I just spoke to my daughter,” he said softly. His daughter was twenty-three. “She really misses her mom.” The wife had died two years before, but Jake didn’t talk about her much.

  “Gee, that’s too bad.”

  “Really misses her.”

  “I can imagine.”

  “It’s got me in a funk. Of missing her myself.”

  “I’m sorry to hear that.”

  “You can’t imagine what it’s like. The agony.”

  “Agony, tough word, big word. Sorry.”

  “I’ll never meet anyone like her. The place we’re going will remind me even more. We had blissful times in that room. Just the two of us.”

  “You went there with her?”

  “Of course. How else would I know so much about it?”

  “You didn’t mention that to me.”

  “I was trying to pretend I could forget. But I see now—how could I ever forget the times we had in that room? Jeepers, I hear my call-waiting beep. Can you hold?”

  I said I would, but I didn’t. I hung up. And he never called me back, the miserable, grieving SOB. But here’s what I don’t know: How could I have protected myself from this? Shouldn’t I have guessed he’d gone there with his wife? Was I total jerk not to realize this, even though he didn’t tell me?

  Is it always up to the woman to look out for the trouble spots, the danger zones, the bad moves, the foolish vacation destinations?