Looking for Mr. Goodfrog

by Laurie Graff

  “No problem. I feel flattered,” he said, and then he hung up.

  I kept the meeting to myself like a big, giant secret. I could not believe I was finally going to see Doug Fox. And I made it happen by doing everything I felt, as a woman, I should not. In the end, what made him respond was flattery. But I spoke the truth. I did enjoy meeting him, I had a great time, I did want to see him, and I sure was looking forward to it. Flirtation and flattery! So it had been that simple, all along?

  Perhaps I’d not been aggressive enough. Perhaps I should have been calling up men for years, buying theater tickets, making dinner reservations and taking them out on extravagant first dates. Hell, maybe I should have been sending them flowers. I came of age in the era of Women’s Lib. I should have been more liberated and taken a stronger stand.

  I went out and bought a new black skirt that looked just like the one I had in white except it was black, a color I knew I could count on to step up to the plate and be whatever I needed it to be for the drink. So confident was I of the color black, I bought it in a V-neck summer sweater and a pair of open toe high-heeled sandals. I tried my outfit on at home, practicing in front of the mirror with an empty wine glass, certain I would look casual but datelike. Like I wasn’t really trying. Yeah, right. Even I couldn’t believe that one.

  The weather was beautiful come Wednesday. I ran the reservoir earlier to be relaxed and ready. So it was nothing short of one big mess of a disappointment when two hours before the date, right after I had showered and took pains to apply my makeup, my cell phone rang with a call from Doug telling me he was really, really busy and he really, really couldn’t make it. He had appointments, he had a meeting, he had to pack for a business trip...I think he even said he had to take a nap! He talked on and on and I let him. Until I heard him say he would be in touch sometime after December 1, when his schedule was free, putting four months between me and another phone call I would never receive.

  It was time to stop fishing and reel in my line. I took the bait off the hook since it obviously wasn’t working as any kind of a lure.

  “Doug. Listen. I need to see you because I have to ask you something. It’s for my work, but...” The game had been fun but I wasn’t a shrewd enough player to win. “It’s also for me. I don’t want you to think I’m some wacky chick because last week I was so flirtatious about a date and now I’m telling you it’s about work. I’m genuine and I do want to ask you something, but the work just helped give me the confidence to call you. It gave me permission. I mean I don’t call men as a rule, and I can see why because it obviously doesn’t work.”

  “No,” he said. “It doesn’t. You got me going last week but today...” His voice trailed off and he didn’t finish his sentence.

  “You weren’t interested to see me.” I needed to know so I finished it for him.

  “No,” he said. “I wasn’t. But I will do anything to help out an artist.”

  We made plans to meet at his loft for a chat. Trading the new black skirt and sandals for a pair of cargo pants and flip-flops, I hopped on the C train downtown to Canal. Walking east through the colorful neighborhood I realized I was no longer afraid to see Doug, just excited to ask him my question. Without the pretense of The Date, I felt I even had a shot at an honest answer.

  Doug’s loft was great. He kissed me hello, showed me around, and we both settled for big glasses of nonalcoholic iced tea before we settled in. He had a wild assortment of cool antiques; a spinning wheel, a turn-of-the-century desk and a bicycle built for two. I took a seat on the dark brown leather sofa, expecting him to sit across from me on the chair. But he sat down next to me, close, and looked into my eyes.

  I had felt the electricity as soon as he had opened the door. Wearing a worn-out white T-shirt, jeans and flip-flops, he was tanned, toned and attentive. Despite the verbal protestations I heard on the phone, his eyes danced as they followed my every move.

  You can’t start those conversations right away, so we spent time talking about the summer, the weather, movies and the news. We talked about the new facade for a bakery he’d designed, about my show, and about the possibilities it all ensued. We each had our feet tucked under us. Sitting on his sofa, heads tilted. Talking and smiling in a delightful sort of way.

  “So, Karrie,” Doug finally said after taking a deep breath. “What is the question you wanted to ask?”

  With a strength and dignity that surprised me, without recrimination and without any blame I smiled and said, “I wanted to know why you never called me?”

  Doug was jolted like he felt a surge of pain. He leaned back to examine the situation with new perspective before telling me I was very brave.

  “It takes courage to ask that and that’s a very valid question,” he said. “I know what it feels like to be on the other side of that question when I’m not called back. It sucks. It’s rude. I was wrong. I apologize. And you deserve an answer.”

  An overweight high-school kid who couldn’t get the girls, in his twenties Doug turned into a svelte, athletic man who could get any girl he wanted. And he wanted everyone, until his late thirties. Then he felt guilty. He had too many—too many options—and he didn’t know how to choose. Doug stopped dating so he could stop choosing. He became complacent in his aloneness, comfortable in his lack of pursuit. Now he would only choose if he were sure the choice would be the one that would last.

  This information supported Paul’s theory that Doug hit the wall in our relationship just when the cabbie had pulled up to my front door.

  “So, Doug,” I began, trying the theory on. “Are you saying that when I got out of the cab it was like we had already broken up?”

  “I didn’t think you’d be the one. So it wasn’t worth the dates, the sex and the disentanglement. I thought it would be easier to not even start, if it at some point it was going to have to stop.”

  I didn’t react, forcing Doug to get a good look at me. His eyes burned close to mine. He seemed to care what I felt, trying to guess what I thought. I thought he was scared. I thought when Doug liked someone he became immobilized and scared. But he was well protected, because his theory would surely insulate him.

  On the other hand...

  “So you just weren’t that into me,” I said, coining a now well-known phrase from another well-known book. I said it lightly, with a smile, like it didn’t matter, because whatever his reasons that was the case, so it really didn’t. “That’s cool. I guess I just liked you more that day than you liked me.”

  “Really?”

  Doug was very interested to hear about that so I told him. I told him what led up to our meeting and how brilliant it felt when we did; at the beginning of our banter, out in the sunshine, over the railing overlooking the Hudson.

  “It was fun,” he said.

  “Yes. It was,” I said with finality.

  But our conversation didn’t end. We stayed on his sofa talking about everything under the sun until it went down, only noticing when darkness had filled the room. Because after the question was out of the way, after it became clear he just wasn’t that into me and I wouldn’t try to change that, after all the expectations had been ditched and diffused, we got to be two people who both had trouble finding a relationship. That alone had given us much to discuss.

  “I still hate dogs,” Doug reminded me.

  “I hate cigarettes,” I told him when he lit up his second. Doug prodded and asked why.

  It wasn’t just the dirt, the smoke and the smell. It was the babysitter who was watching me when I was four years old who fell asleep with a lit cigarette and set our apartment on fire. The babysitter who tried in vain to open the front door that was seconds away from becoming inflamed while a scared-to-death me hid under a table a few feet behind her. My father arrived home with my mother, as they say, just in the knick of time. Ironically, it was Mel who saved me when he valiantly bashed and thrashed and opened our apartment door. It wasn’t long after the fire he left to join the circus. My memory of Mel a
lways heroic, the memory fading and changing as life readjusted that picture.

  And Doug didn’t just hate dogs because they barked and they shed and you had to pick up their poop. Doug’s younger sister had become competitive with him over the family dog, pulling Pete out of Doug’s seven-year-old arms and yanking him so hard he turned on Doug and bit him hard on his thigh. Doug was rushed to the hospital, petrified.

  “I have the scar to prove it,” said Doug, as we both acknowledged our scars. Scars that had healed but had still left their marks.

  He had to pack and I had to go. Doug leaned in, very close. I thought he would kiss me and hoped he would not. I wanted us to leave this exchange intoxicated by each other. Not by alcohol and not by sex.

  “I’ve learned something here tonight, Karrie,” he told me, thoughtful, careful. “You have opened my eyes to something. Do you know what that is?”

  “Me?”

  “Yes. I really enjoyed talking to you and well...I don’t know if it’s true, that I’m just not that into you,” he said. “What do you think?”

  “That’s not for me to say.” I dipped my head up towards his asking another question I already knew the answer to. “Are you attracted to me?”

  His eyes opened wider, and he brushed his fingers softly across my cheek as he nodded. That was all I needed. I was ready.

  “I didn’t know the ending of our story when I got out of the cab that night.” I spoke clearly and gently. “I only knew I was willing to find out. Sometimes we’re just not that into someone. But sometimes we could be. And we’re just not that into finding out why we can’t find out about them. We’re not into finding out what stops us. Do you know what I mean? You cannot meet anyone you’re into, but you have to be able to be into it if you do.”

  Doug looked like he was studying me. I could tell he wanted to say more, but he would not do anything where he could not follow through. He would not ask me to have dinner. He would not say he would call. He would not pull me in for a kiss by pulling me by my hair, allowing himself a taste when he knew he would have to let go.

  “You have opened my eyes and I think I have to open them some more. If I do, would I be able to call you?”

  We stood in the front, at his door in the dark. A small light glowed on a desk behind us. The air conditioner had not reached that part of the loft. It was hot, and the heat rubbed up against us.

  “You can call me anytime, Doug,” I said, and meant it. “You’ll always have a friend in me.” He quickly kissed me, and I went out the door.

  I did not expect to hear from Doug. It wasn’t that I didn’t want to; I just did not expect to. I also didn’t need to. It seemed to me he just wasn’t that into anyone because he wasn’t into being in a relationship. That was the main reason, the missing piece, and that’s where Doug was now.

  And I was on the street. Cool and calm and buying a treat of chocolate ices to eat while I walked over to Canal to catch my subway home.

  Nineteen

  One’s experience level is an important factor in determining the choice of your very first frog.

  “Five minutes to places,” said Ryan, who’d been acting as the stage manager during the extended run. Having applied the finishing touch of lipstick, my Frogaphobia face reflected back in the mirror.

  “Thanks, Ry,” I called back, and took a swig of water before I ran to the ladies’ for a last minute pee before going out onstage. Jay had called me earlier to tell me the news. The Times reviewer would not be coming tonight.

  “It was set,” he said, upset when he spoke. “It was all set. For a week. I just called today to confirm a pair of comps would be at the box office, and he told me they cut back and could only review one off-off-Broadway thing a week and he could only send out one person and she was already assigned a different show.”

  “Which one?” I asked, as if that would have anything to do with anything. It just seemed easier than dealing with my disappointment. Losing the Times felt like losing everything. I had such high hopes for that review and now the option was gone. “Did you ask?”

  “I did, and it’s even in the same building as MTW. The Harrow Theater Company on the second floor is doing that show on war and they feel it’s a better fit with the news. I’m sorry.”

  “Oh well, thanks anyway, Jay. I know how you tried.”

  What could I say? He’d been working very hard and I could see that doing PR was not easy. It’s just that I was still sans agent, not having much luck getting any new ones to come down to the show, and I needed a shot of adrenaline to give things a push. We were well into September. Ryan had extended me for two shows a week for over three months, and I didn’t want to quit until I had gotten ahead. But I would need people in the seats to make that happen.

  “You know, this may sound over the top, Karrie, but I felt things were slipping a little with The Girlfriend, so I did the roses thing again, but this time I changed the colors. Light pink, hot pink, and mauve—I never knew there were so many different shades of roses, so many shades of pink! Anyway, you can’t believe how good things are now. I really owe you. I’ll make it up to you. Screw the Times. Next week—People.”

  “Places,” called Ryan, popping his head inside the dressing room door. “There’s a full house tonight. Should be great. Break a leg, beauty.”

  Tying the belt on the yellow terrycloth bathrobe I wore in the opening, I left the dressing room and walked onto the dark, bare stage. The green trail of glow tape led me to the spot on the set where the lights would uncover me when the show began. It no longer felt strange to be onstage alone. I knew the script upside down and inside out. It was odd how sometimes I could be completely in character and immersed in the show while my day’s laundry list literally ran through my mind. I climbed onto the boxes that formed the bed, snuggling under the bright green comforter. The stage still in black, the opening music began.

  The Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs soundtrack recording of “Some Day My Prince Will Come” played, while a series of different types of frogs were projected onto a screen behind me. The audience immediately started to laugh. I could practically rate how receptive the audience would be depending on which frog got the first laugh. If they didn’t laugh till the fifth, I knew the audience would be a dud. The third was the standard response, and indicated a fairly decent house. Tonight got the biggest laugh ever on the very first toad. I smiled at the irony.

  All week I’d been praying the night the Times reviewer came the house would be responsive and big. And tonight, as I worked, it was one of those magical nights onstage when the whole show felt brand-new again. I got laughs in new places, found new nuance and business, and didn’t think I’d ever had more fun. The standing ovation I received during the curtain call lifted me over Cloud Nine. I assumed part of the success was because I’d been so relaxed, not overworking or pushing to impress the New York Times that wasn’t there. In fact, I didn’t even have friends in the audience. When I changed backstage into my street clothes, I felt content to go home and sink into a hot tub with a glass of wine and the knowledge of a job well done.

  So it was nice to see someone standing down the long corridor with her pen out, obviously waiting for me and my autograph.

  “Karrie! Hi. I’m Caitlin O’Conner from the ‘Arts & Leisure’ section of the Times. Can I talk to you for a minute?”

  She stood before me: this woman, close to my build, close to my age, a short red bob, and thin red lips wearing a black shift and red sandals. Looking at her left hand I saw it was ringless, like mine. I hoped that would be a good sign.

  “Hi, Caitlin. I’m so glad you’re here. Did you see the show? I was told you couldn’t make it,” I said, wondering if I had said too much, but I had to know, because if she did see the show, and she actually saw tonight’s show, and she was coming backstage to meet me, it could mean that, maybe, possibly, she really...

  “Loved this show!” she said, talking fast like a reporter, spilling over with enthusiasm. “You kno
w, they cut us back and I was supposed to cover the thing downstairs on the war, and I saw the poster for Frogaphobia when I came into the lobby, and to tell you the truth, I believe make love not war, and I’m so sick of hearing about what’s a good fit with the news. Theater is entertainment and it doesn’t have to correlate with the damn, depressing news. And I needed a few laughs—my boyfriend dumped me last week and...” She suddenly stopped, thoughtful and a little sad.

  “I know,” I said. “I wrote a play about it.”

  “Well, you start writing because when my review comes out you’re going to get moved and you’ll need to have yourself a legitimate full-length play,” said Caitlin.

  I lived, ate and breathed the show. The work, the theater, the stories and the frogs. I had no shortage of material, which was a blessing because with all I had to do there was no time left to date. A longer version was in the works. There had been calls and interest, but no offers...yet. I felt optimistic. A good review from the Times could change your life, or certainly the life expectancy of your show. I sent Caitlin O’Conner a sincerely thankful note to which she e-mailed and told me that her boyfriend had read her review, and not wanting to be thought of as a frog came back to her on bended webbed knee!

  People came backstage and told me Frogaphobia had become the hot first-date date in the city. Jay Kohn was in love. Anne brought Carl to see the show and, by association, he felt so ashamed of his warts he asked Anne if they could begin again, for real. Everyone seemed to have spun a happy ending with their frogs or frogettes except for me. My dance card was empty. The only frogs I had now were immortalized in the show, plastic or stuffed. I had received so many frog gifts my apartment was littered with the creatures, adding new pizzazz to Charlie’s life.