THE EXES IN MY IPOD: A Playlist of the Men Who Rocked Me to Wine Country

by Lisa M. Mattson

  When my pulse slowed, I collapsed onto the couch. My fingers stumbled down the buttons of my work shirt. I ripped the oxford off my sweaty back and dropped it on the floor. My bare arms stuck to the leather. I pulled my bra from my chest, using the underwire to fan myself. Chris’s stupidity baffled me. A deep-sea diver filling his most precious asset with cancerous smoke? His brain was far superior to mine; Chris could have been cracking code for the CIA or helping his dad launch another new line of video games. Instead, Chris wanted to eat junk food and smoke weed. And play “pull my finger.”

  A trail of Doritos crumbs dotted the crease between two cushions on the couch. I exhaled and swept the tiny orange pieces into my left palm. The diamonds on my twenty-four-carat gold Bulova watch sparkled. The memory of our first Christmas made me crack a half smile. At least Chris knew how to give gifts. As I stepped toward the kitchen, sand granules stuck to my bare feet. Fuckin’ pig. I stomped over to the dining room table. Nose scrunched, I grabbed the beer-can bong and empty bags of chips. I marched to the kitchen closet trash bin and returned with our broom. While sweeping his sand from the floor, my mind raced. I actually believed a man in his early twenties, who’d lived five years in a frat house basement, would have a magical metamorphosis once we’d left college and moved to South Florida. No one had taught me that the whole girls-mature-faster-than-boys thing didn’t end at puberty. I’d been asking Chris to quit smoking—cigarettes! I’d also asked him to clean the sand off his diving equipment, shorts and shoes in our breezeway before coming into the apartment. Since the moment we’d moved in, sand was sprinkled on our floor like rock salt on a frozen road. And as much as I love sand between my toes, a girl can only take so much. Living with a boyfriend for the first time felt like trying to potty train a puppy. Chris stacked dishes caked in ketchup and melted cheese in the sink when the empty dishwasher was eight inches away. Piles of dirty laundry were strung around the bedroom, living room and bathroom, depending where he decided to get naked for the day. The burps, the farts, the requests to either smell or pull his finger continued on a daily basis. I certainly wasn’t a walking infomercial for Spic and Span, but I wanted to keep our home neat. I wanted to be a responsible adult. And date one.

  I looked out the window to the muddy canal below our balcony, twirling my hair. The waters surrounding me could be bluer. And the grass was greener. I stomped into the bedroom, grabbed a plastic laundry basket from the closet and headed to our wicker dresser. I yanked the top drawer from its railing. My jaw locked as thoughts of Chris smoking at our table buzzed through my brain. Panties, socks and bras toppled into the basket. My hands stripped the baggy Levi’s off my legs. I threw on a tank top and pair of gym shorts and looked in the vanity mirror. My clothes, my apartment, my life. It’s all a mess. My chest ached from the anger. It was a kind of fiery hurt I’d never felt with a boyfriend—frustration and disappointment sparked by his bad habits—not the usual numbing, crippling pain of being dumped for another girl.

  After packing make-up, toiletries, half my street clothes and all my work uniforms, I called Linda, a co-worker who’d just moved to Miami from Gainesville. She was also taking a year off school.

  “I have a huge favor to ask.” My voice shook.

  I stacked two overflowing laundry baskets by our front door and looked at my watch: 4:35 p.m. Chris would be home in less than an hour. My pulse jumped. Confronting a boyfriend about serious issues scared me more than major surgery. I had no idea where to start. When my father used to waltz into our house months after Mom had divorced him, her tactic was usually the silent treatment. I’d snipped at him like a guard dog just for opening our fridge or using our toilet without permission. Chris was the person who’d convinced me to leave any resentment toward my father back in Kansas. It was another reminder of the all the good that existed in Chris’s heart, which made facing him even harder. My eyes darted toward the kitchen. I sifted through the piles of junk mail on the counter and found an ink pen. I took a deep breath. I was always the kind of girl who never rocked the boat in relationships. Guys should do the dumping. The pen felt like a butcher knife in my hand. My mom had taught me how to end a relationship. She’d left my father three times, packing up our belongings at night because she’d gotten fed up with his drinking again. Dad had never known there was a problem until he’d arrived home and found our beds and dressers empty, and one of Mom’s hand-written letters on the kitchen table, spilling her heart.

  I spun around and looked at the oak table behind me. Pieces of ash and potato chips were sprinkled across the surface. My nostrils flared. My fingers trembled. I stared at the pen in my hand, thinking of all the frustrations I needed to get off my chest. The bills. The food. The cigarettes. The drugs. I thought of the notepad we kept in the bottom drawer of the kitchen cabinets. A deep sigh filled the room. My shaking fingers rested the pen in the middle of the table where he’d left the bong. I walked to the door and stacked the laundry baskets in my arms. Chris would get the hint.

  Running away from my childhood with my boyfriend, then running away from my boyfriend. That was how this Harley rolled.

  Tropical storm Gordon blasted Miami and the northern Keys—just days later. My side of the bed was still empty the night Gordon made landfall. My heart was crammed with guilt, then elation, as thoughts of a new life in Coconut Grove careened with the reality of sending Chris a message about our future without saying a word to his face. Maybe that storm is the reason “Box of Rain” became Chris’s song, over all the other Grateful Dead, The Cure and Jane’s Addiction tunes he’d forced upon me. My mind is tempted to trip over every bad memory while the bittersweet sting of the lyrics hits me—especially the lines about walking out a doorway, feeling your way, finding a new direction that had been waiting for you.

  Chris gave me one of the greatest gifts of my life. If Lance had not dumped me, I would have never met Chris. I would have never left Kansas. I may have never stopped wearing LA Gear sneakers or using Aqua Net hairspray. And I definitely would have never found that gateway to the doorway of my destiny. Every person we meet and every relationship we have is for a reason. And those relationships sculpt us forever. Chris’s gift—that box of hope and dreams for a new life in Florida—was filled with excitement and disappointment, sunshine and rain. I wanted to ask Chris the same question Jerry Garcia sang in his chorus: What did I want you to do, Chris? I wanted your dreams to be bigger than a dive boat. I wanted you to be more responsible. I wanted you to care about your weight as much as I cared about mine. A new direction was right there, just waiting for me. And I didn’t need a trail of Doritos crumbs to follow it.

  Seven days later, I drove to our apartment around three thirty when I thought Chris would be at work. As I pulled into my parking space, a knot formed in my throat. His white Probe, plastered with Grateful Dead and Greenpeace stickers, was parked in its designated spot. I gripped the steering wheel, feeling the tension build in my neck and shoulders. I’d done to Chris what Lance had done to me: moved on with my life before ending ours face to face. Chris knew it was over, and I was sure he knew why. My clothes were gone. I’d left him a pen. But we shared a lease agreement and a checking account. I couldn’t avoid Chris any longer. It was time to face Mr. Dirty Sanchez.

  I pushed my legs up the stairs, feeling the beads of sweat under my white work uniform. I stood outside the front door in the thick humidity for five minutes, breathing out of my mouth. My hand trembled as I slid my key into the lock. When I slowly pushed the door open, my eyes immediately met Chris’s. My body froze. The shock sucked all the air from my lungs. He stood three feet in front of me, stacking cassette tapes in a laundry basket on the kitchen table. His green eyes were dark and distant. His ever-rosy cheeks were covered with stubble. Greasy chunks of hair fell around his stout face. I wondered when he’d last taken a shower. Part of me wanted to crawl under the table and die from shame, part wanted to call his mother. Chris couldn’t run a household, and now he’d lost the ability to care fo
r himself. My stomach squished. He glanced back into the basket, before hefting it into his arms. His baggy T-shirt fit snugger than ever before. My keys dangled in the open front door. I felt the humid air pouring into our frigid apartment. My pulse shot into orbit.

  Chris brushed past me in the doorway, laundry basket tucked under his arm. The air around us suddenly smelled of sweat. A look of disgust and sadness coated his face. “I can’t believe you would do this, Harley.” He paused with the front door to his back. I could feel the heat of his body standing next to mine. I pried my eyes from the tile floor and looked into his watery eyes. My heartbeat banged so hard I felt it in my ears. “You disappeared. You couldn’t even tell me why. How could you just throw two years of our lives away?”

  My mouth went dry, my lips numb. The weight of frustration and disappointment resting on my back for weeks was instantly doubled by a barbell of shame and sympathy. There was so much that needed to be said. I tried to scrape the remnants of courage from the kitchen counter still littered with unopened mail.

  “I…I am…sorry.” My lips trembled, my voice quivered. Tears began building in the corners of my eyes. My tongue felt paralyzed. My eyes scanned the living room wall beside me. With the exception of his stereo, Chris had purchased every piece of furniture for us—the dining room table, the couch, the white wicker bedroom set, the queen bed. My expensive GT Talera mountain bike bought for the exercising that never happened: a gift from Chris. With the exception of a coffee table I’d bought at Wal-Mart for $20 and a papasan chair on the balcony, my physical possessions fit neatly into a half-dozen milk crates. Chris had financed my world.

  “I love you,” Chris said, voice shaking. “I love you more than I’ve ever loved any girl.” His eyes burned through my skull.

  I wanted to say, “If you loved me, you wouldn’t use drugs. You would stop smoking. You would pay the bills. You wouldn’t tell me you want to ‘check my oil’ after sex. You would stop eating a pint of Ben & Jerry’s everyday.” My lips quivered. My knees felt shaky. I couldn’t make a single syllable leave my mouth. My anger stayed bottled inside my flat chest, like always. Being quiet was easier than speaking up with guys.

  “Rent is paid through the end of the month…” His voice trailed off as he walked down the stairs. “I’ll be back to get my furniture then.” His emphasis on the word “my” made the sting worse. My feet tried to step toward the front door, but my knees locked. I wanted to chase him down and block the stairwell. I didn’t want our breakup to make us enemies. I needed a happy ending. The thought of having someone who once loved me hate me still makes me sicker than watching The Blair Witch Project. My mind screamed as I listened to his flip-flops smack down the concrete steps.

  I looked around the apartment, listening to the hum of the AC. I wiped my eyes and walked over to a pile of jewel cases in front of his stereo. The milk crates of Grateful Dead tapes, Jane’s Addiction and The Cure CDs were gone. Only my favorites remained: Indigo Girls, Sarah McLachlan, Gin Blossoms and New Order. I thought of Chris cursing me as he drove down the Florida Turnpike. I should have told him why it was over. I’d never had to look someone in the eye and deliver bad news before. Bad news hurts people. And I like to please everybody. Eighteen years later, I finally perfected my exit speech: Chris, I want to thank you. Thank you for pulling me through a doorway in life I never would have found on my own. I’m sorry for being such a scared, spineless girl. You are an angel. You rock. Enjoy your Doritos.

  I just wasn’t old enough to realize the importance of confronting my man about our problems. I didn’t know that guys want girls to spell shit out. It took me a decade to learn that the best way to deal with relationship issues is to talk about them immediately—don’t let them stew, don’t think the problems will go away. I can’t believe I thought living together would force my boyfriend to grow up. Because I’d turned twenty, the next logical step was finding the man who would be my husband. Getting to “happily ever after” as quickly as possible was always my goal, so I thought every guy who showed interest in a banged-up country girl like me deserved a chance. And that was my biggest problem.

  I cranked up the Indigo Girls’ “Closer to Fine” letting the strum of a six-string guitar dance in the air. I snapped open the vertical blinds and let sunshine bathe the entire room. I walked into the bedroom and pulled my last stack of white milk crates out of the closet. The Indigo Girls’ voices filled my ears. I sang along, pulling K-State T-shirts from the bottom dresser drawer. Tears ran down my cheeks. Chris had helped me take life less seriously. I couldn’t fight away the smile. The fear of leaving Chris (and being all alone so far from home) had wrapped me like a blanket. I’d sailed my ship of safety all the way to Florida, and sank it in less than ninety days. Now I could crawl on your shores, Miami. I was free. Everything in my life was one step closer to fine.

  It was time to return to the place where I’d been sheltered from the thunder and rain.

  JAMES

  “LABOUR OF LOVE”

  Frente!

  REWIND: “Let me show you how to do it,” James said, his voice low and raspy. He ripped a long piece of duct tape off the roll. I stood next to him on the banquette tapping my foot and biting my upper lip. My eyes watched his strong hands grip the shiny tape. I tried not to think about where the day was heading and stuffed my hands deeper in the pockets of my apron, waiting for James’s next move. My introduction to kinky foreplay? Not quite.

  “This really works?” I watched him press the strip diagonally on one of the veranda windows at The Cheesecake Factory. It was a very strange side-work request for a waitress from the Midwest. When tropical storms were brewing in the Atlantic, people in Miami who didn’t have storm shutters plastered their windows with tape. Hurricanes called for plywood. I found all of this utterly fascinating, considering that the only thing we did in Kansas during a tornado warning was hop in the bathtub and throw a mattress over our heads.

  “I’m from Atlanta. How should I know?” James laughed, as he continued to cover the wall of windows with diagonal silver Xs. “I bet people wouldn’t do if it didn’t work.” His southern drawl became stronger as soon as he started talking about home, which I found so cute. Rain pelted the glass, blurring the view of the brick sidewalks below. His citrus-scented cologne filled my nose as his hands glided along the strip of tape. My stomach began making a quilt. I gnawed at my thumbnail, then grabbed the tape roll and tugged. A gust of wind smacked against the glass. I gasped and dropped the roll on the floor. With every band of rain, a wave of anxiety washed over me. It was the first week of November, and Tropical Storm Gordon would make landfall within eighteen hours.

  I stared blankly at the piece of tape in my hands. “I’m not ready for this.” I had far more to worry about than preparing for my first tropical storm.

  “Are you going to try to drive home?” James hopped off the banquette. His bangs bounced in the air. James had dark brown hair and wore it slicked back on the sides and feathered on the top—very 1990s, very sexy. We both wore blue-striped neckties with our white uniforms that day, which was a telltale sign of our compatibility. He always looked more like an attorney than a waiter, with his crisp, white shirt and perfectly knotted tie.

  “I don’t know what I’m doing.” I turned to him from my perch on a banquette and sighed. “I don’t know where I’m going.” I rolled my head from side to side, hoping to release some tension in my shoulders. My bushy ponytail flopped behind my head.

  James sat down in a booth across the dining room to begin folding a two-foot-high stack of white linen napkins—the primary side-work duty of all Cheesecake Factory servers. Another band of rain slapped the windows. I shrieked like a teenage girl at a horror movie. James laughed. My body whipped around to the wall of glass behind me.

  “What’s going to happen? Will the windows shatter? Can flying glass kill a person?” The words flew from my mouth, turbo-charged.

  “We’ll be fine.” James continued to neatly fold napkins
at a casual pace. “You can always stay in the Grove.” His tone was warm, almost sweet. I looked into his hazel eyes. My mouth felt numb. My eyes darted down to the terra cotta floor.

  I shrugged my shoulders. “It’s too late.” I looked into the empty dining room. The veranda’s tables were dotted with washrags, spray bottles and rolls of tape. Most of the servers had been “cut” for the day because the restaurant was “dead,” and only four of us stayed to help clean and prep for the big storm.

  “Too late for what?” His eyes barely peeked over the napkin stack.

  “It’s too late, for, I don’t know. For everything.” I tossed an empty roll of tape on the table and re-tightened my curly ponytail. With Hurricane Andrew’s wrath still fresh on locals’ minds, Miamians were stockpiling supplies as if Gordon was a Category 5, and I had only two bags of Doritos and a liter of Coke in my pantry. “Publix’s shelves are totally bare. You’d think the store’d been looted.” I didn’t mention Chris; James had heard plenty about him during pre-shift napkin-folding sessions, which were basically staff gossip sessions.

  “We just need to wait.” James looked out the window. “See which way the storm turns.” A look of concern crimped his lean face. I tried not to focus on his muscular forearms, his soft hands gently turning each napkin. James channeled a young Gary Cole—back when he played Vice President Bob Russell on The West Wing, i.e. before he drove a car through his house on Entourage.

  I followed James’s eyes to the blurry window. “I hate all this waiting.” I tossed an empty tape ring on the table. Waiting for a slow-moving cyclone. Waiting to save enough money to get my own apartment. Waiting sucked.

  My fingers fumbled with a new roll of tape. “What’s going to happen?”