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

by Lisa M. Mattson

  “You’re our guest, Honey.” She turned to the sink and flipped on the faucet. “You just make yourself at home.” Her hospitality was just enough country to summon my inner Elly May Clampett from eternal exile.

  “I haven’t had homemade mashed potatoes in years.” I looked into the metal bowl with wide eyes. “My mom made them all the time when we were kids. Now I only get them during Thanksgiving dinner.”

  “When you’re the only woman in a house full of men, you have to make them every Sunday.” She winked.

  I gripped the edge of the kitchen island, nodding. I could feel the mother-daughter bond forming between us and fought back my perma-grin. Too eager again, Harley. Stay cool. My head was dizzy with happiness. Their family ties were reeling me in, reminding me of how nice it would be to settle down with a man who had happily married parents. I could be the daughter they’d never had. I could be a part of a stable, happy family for the first time in my life.

  “I’ll put you to work though, Mister.” She tossed a pair of metal tongs to Michael. He grabbed a ceramic platter off the island and walked over to a casual dining table in front of the sliding glass doors. Then she yelled “Dinner’s ready!” over the blaring television just like my mom always did.

  Michael pulled out a high-back oak chair for me, then circled the table with a pitcher of iced tea, filling our glasses. The family settled comfortably into their usual seats at the table with Mom and Dad at the heads and the boys on the sides. Steaming platters and bowls fanned out along the center of the table. Michael sat down across from me and grinned. We engaged bashful looks and my mind shot back to his bedroom. I blushed and scooted in my chair. His mother handed each of us a heavy china plate from the stack in her arms while Largo circled around her feet.

  I dished mashed potatoes onto my plate. “Your Saw Palmettos are beautiful.” I glanced at the trees along the fence beyond the pool. “I’ve never seen a Traveler’s Palm that big in a residential neighborhood either.”

  “Michael told us you study plants.” His mom raised her fork to her mouth. “You could help me with my gardening.”

  I grinned and nodded, overwhelmed with pure joy. My future mother-in-law. “FIU has a great environmental studies program.” I launched into an animated explanation of my scholastic strategy, using my fork as a prop. FIU required more science electives to graduate with a communications degree than KSU, so I’d stocked up on any class that got me closer to the exotic flora and fauna around me. In my “Ecology of South Florida” class, we learned the scientific names of hundreds of trees and birds, and took field trips to all the native ecosystems. “I love how interesting and diverse the ecosystems are down here.” I poked my fork at the potato lumps, smiling. I purposefully chewed in slow motion to avoid warp-speed shoveling—a bad habit picked up working in restaurants. I kept my elbows off the table and my back straight. I blabbed on about my father instilling his love of nature in me, but didn’t mention the times he never came home from the bar to take me mushroom hunting. The conversation with Michael’s family flowed effortlessly, just like it always did between Michael and me. His parents’ faces lit up when they talked about the condo in Key Largo and how much they loved spending time on their boat.

  My eyes circled the table. “I can’t believe you all get to cruise through mangroves anytime you want.” I jabbered on about my fascination with the colony of plants and animals living symbiotically in the roots of the red mangrove tree.

  “Why did you leave home?” Michael’s mother asked.

  I stared down at my plate and chewed far longer than was necessary. But I’d come prepared. I navigated the anticipated question without making my psychedelic past seem too colorful. The weather was bad. The financial aid laws stunk. The opportunities were slim. I worked hard, but I would never accept a GPA below 3.5. Chris—and every mess of a guy I’d cared about since him—were buried in my closet. Forever. I took a long sip of my iced tea. My head was finally clear.

  I cut my steak into tiny bites, feeling all eyes on me. “But my real passion is public relations. I want to work in media relations for the Audubon Society.”

  His mom sipped her iced tea and glanced at Michael. “Looks like you’ve finally found someone busier than you.”

  Michael looked across the table, his smile growing. Michael’s mom told stories about him juggling school, coaching peewee football and volunteering as a trainer at high school games. They never buried their heads in their plates. No one farted or burped. It was nothing like my childhood house, but I felt more at home with every bite. I was already looking forward to my next family dinner.

  “Well.” I rested my knife gently on the edge of the plate. “We’ve been talking about my school so much, maybe we should talk about you. How was your trip?” I batted my eyelashes at Michael. He’d spent the previous weekend in Tampa helping out the coaching staff at a USF football game. Michael hadn’t told me much about his life back in Tampa—just the gruesome stories about shattered ankles and broken legs he’d helped mend.

  Michael grabbed his glass and took a huge gulp. “It was okay.” His tone was flat. He looked down at his half-eaten tri-tip. “I told you it was my last trip.” His voice boomed through the kitchen, filled with guttural frustration. The piece of steak in my mouth felt like a ticking time bomb. My eyes bounced from Michael to his mother. Everyone buried their heads in their plates. Knives scratched against china. ESPN buzzed from the big screen in the next room. Okay. What the fuck just happened? His brother and dad took long sips from their glasses, then looked past Michael to the television. I chewed the meat and forced a swallow. My throat felt like I’d just downed a Flaming Doctor Pepper. My eyes whizzed to his mom. She patted her lips with a cloth napkin and looked past me to the pool. It was as if I’d asked how his grandma was, and she’d just died.

  Michael hacked away at his steak as if his knife were a chainsaw. His mother started talking about the latest tropical storm forming off the coast of Africa. Jeff and his dad began reciting highlights from the morning Dolphins’ game. A lump of anxiety and confusion set up camp in my pounding chest. I’d flipped some sort of psychological switch and had no idea how to hit rewind. His mom stood up, her chair legs scraping the tile floor.

  “Can I…uh…help?” I asked, voice cracking. My whole body felt numb. I looked up at Michael’s mom, searching for a lifeline. Let me help clean up this mess. Make whatever just happened disappear. It was the psychology of a waitress—a clean table wiped away any bad memories of the last meal I’d served. I felt so comfortable washing dishes with Michael in Key Largo. I needed someone to put me to work.

  “No, that’s all right, Honey,” she said softly, looking down at us. “I’m sure you and Michael have a lot to talk about.” Her blue eyes turned to ice. He lifted his glass and shook the ice cubes lose. My eyes stared at his forehead, waiting for him to look at me. His head flew from left to right. He looked about as comfortable as a straight army sergeant sunbathing on South Beach at 10th and Ocean. I looked down at the remnants of beef on my plate and dropped my napkin on the table.

  Michael’s face turned beet red. “You want to go outside?” I stood up from the table sheepishly and thanked his mother for what started off as a wonderful meal.

  The front doors closed behind us.

  “I’m so sorry.” He grabbed my hands on the front steps. “Tonight wasn’t supposed to turn out like this.” He paused and stared down at my fingers as he rubbed them. A wave of relief washed over me. I tucked my bangs behind my ears.

  “It’s okay. I understand.” I wrapped my arms around his waist. I squeezed him tightly. “Juggling work and school is wearing on you.” My chin rested square on his chest. “I get it. I feel the same way.” I looked up at him, searching for reassurance. Michael’s blue eyes stared down at me. A look of conflict and frustration covered his rosy face. I dropped my arms and stepped back, feeling the steak start to churn in my stomach.

  “I think…we…need…to…talk.” Michael pa
used between every word. He scuffed the soles of his shoes on the concrete step. I twirled my hair to keep my hands busy. My frayed emotions dangled in the warm night air. My jaws clenched. “You remember how we talked about how we weren’t going to talk about our past relationships?” His voice trembled the question. My stomach muscles began twitching with fear. Rather than recite our entire dating history before sleeping together, we’d made a pact not to ask any questions. The past was the past. And God knows, I was all for it. Any game of dating quid pro quo, I would lose.

  He ran his hands through his blonde hair. “Well, I have to talk about it.” His tone was somber, fraying my nerves. “I saw my ex-girlfriend last weekend.” His emphasis on the word “saw” made my chest hurt. I wrapped my arms around my stomach and squeezed myself. He definitely didn’t pass her in a campus hallway. Michael began talking about Shari, a girl he’d dated for a year while on the USF coaching staff. He’d broken it off a few weeks before we’d met. I stuffed my hands in my pockets and stared out at the front lawn. The fact that he called her by name made my skin crawl.

  His blue eyes watered. “I had no intention of doing this.” He looked down at me. Words began sputtering from his lips. He’d gone to a post-game party. She was there. His brow furrowed as his head shook. My eyes bounced from his red, sad face to the concrete under our feet. He’d slept with her. My chest got tight. I wanted to scream. All my dreams of us began to break into pieces.

  My tongue felt numb. I had no idea what to say. My mind raced back to the dinner table. “Everyone inside knew about this?” My voice shrieked; my arms flew to the front door. Michael was close to his family, which I adored. But the fact that he’d revealed his infidelity to his mom and dad—and decided it would still be a great idea to have me over for dinner—made me feel like the guinea pig in a science experiment. My whole body shivered.

  “How?” My voice shook. “How could she come between this?” I grabbed his big hands and pressed them to my heart. Tears pooled in my eyes. “You told me this time was different. You told me I was special.” My voice shuddered. I’d given him my body and my heart. The bond seemed unbreakable just a week before. I remembered all the times he’d said, “You’re just so cute, I have to squeeze you,” and “I have so much fun when we’re together.” I slammed my eyelids shut.

  “I’m so sorry.” He ran his hands through his hair again. “I don’t know what to do. I feel terrible. I’m a complete mess. I’m torn.” He grabbed for my hands. I jerked away as if I’d just touched a hot flame. “All I know is that I’m totally in love with you, but I guess I still have feelings for her.”

  My eyes widened and darted around his face. Great. Now he tells me he loves me. My chest felt like the steak Michael had hacked apart. I loved him too. Part of me wanted to kiss him. The other part wanted to slap him. I fished for my car keys in my purse.

  I turned away from him. “You can’t do this to someone you love.” I exhaled deeply, looking at his long driveway. I wanted to tell him that I’d loved him from the minute he’d cleaned my fish and filleted on the boat dock. I wanted to tell him that I’d loved him even more when he’d driven to the convenience store to buy condoms. I bit my lip. “I need to go study.” I turned up my nose and marched down the front steps. I’d just entered the world of relationship uncertainty, which never seemed fathomable with Michael.

  The bizarre turn of events replayed in my head all the way home. I’d worked too damn hard at not smothering him like a sleeping bag for the relationship to collapse. How can the perfect guy be flipped faster than a house on Extreme Home Makeover? Michael was handsome and kind with a bright future. He’d treated me like a queen—until he’d screwed his ex. He was sorry. He’d come clean. Didn’t that score him some forgiveness points? My mom had forgiven my dad for at least ten major screw-ups before filing for divorce. Michael was good for me. Michael had a career, manners and a wonderful family. And money. Paying bills and buying groceries would never be an issue in our house. My anger over Michael’s betrayal quickly consumed me like a Supernatural marathon on TNT. I’d already been burned by the Holy Grail of cheaters—a married man. If there would have never been a Matthew, maybe I could have forgiven Michael. A critical lesson about men had been tattooed into my brain: once a cheater, always a cheater.

  My answering machine blinked three times, making me feel important after a long day of classes.

  “I just wanted you to know I’m thinking about you.” Michael’s warm voice filled my tiny apartment. The machine beeped again. “Hey. It’s me again. I can’t stop thinking about you. I screwed up. I’m sorry. Okay, I should hang up now. Call me.” Beep. “Hey. I think my phone cut off, so I just wanted to make sure you got that message.”

  The final beep hung in the air like a thick cloud of cigarette smoke. It was becoming my daily routine—coming home and listening to Michael’s sweet, desperate messages. I collapsed on my bed and looked up at the pine rafters. My emotions were tangled in knots. There weren’t any single guys in Miami as great as Michael. I’d dodged enough bullets to know. How can I start all over again? Being single always felt like half of myself was missing. I was peanut butter and bread, and I couldn’t live without the jelly. I grabbed my stereo remote from the nightstand and pressed “play.” Tracey Thorn’s smooth voice drifted through the room. Everything but the Girl songs always had this way of making me feel happy and sad at the same time, with their sweet, yet melancholy tone and jazzy vibe. I clicked forward to “Troubled Mind.” Was I reading more into Michael’s words than he put into them? He’d tied my knots; he needed to undo them.

  I followed the usual formula to distract myself from the demise of our relationship: a thorough examination at Planned Parenthood. I’d had unprotected sex with Michael once when he’d forgotten to bring a condom—and the boy was double dipping—which was only allowed with chips and salsa. I was vested deeper than a 401K, and I needed some solace. Getting a clean bill of health made handling heartbreaks easier; so sad how focusing on my physical wellbeing helped me ignore the mental. The waiting game began.

  The phone rang for five minutes straight on a Thursday afternoon in October. The summer humidity had loosened its grip on Miami, and the changing of the seasons made it easier to accept that Michael and I were probably finished.

  “It’s good to hear your voice.” His words cooed through the phone line.

  I kept up my guard. “What’s going to happen next time you see her again? You know it will happen.”

  There was a pregnant pause. Michael didn’t launch into the canned rebuttal about how she meant nothing to him. I wondered what this Shari girl had to offer that I could not. Big boobs? I didn’t hound him with phone calls. I gave him backrubs. I didn’t complain when we only saw each other two times a week. I never whined about how our dinner dates involved iced tea and dolphin fingers instead of Chardonnay and stone crab—luxuries he could afford. I never nagged because he didn’t bring me flowers.

  “I had to tell you. I didn’t mean to hurt you.” Michael’s voice was sincere. I smiled in silence, squeezing the phone receiver. His honesty ripped me apart. We talked about school and work. The normalcy made my nerves relax. “When can I see you again?”

  “I don’t know,” I replied, my voice distant. I stared at the Traveler’s Palm outside my window.

  “I appreciate you not yelling at me for what I did.”

  I twirled the phone cord in my fingers. “I’m not that kind of girl.”

  “That’s why I like you so much.”

  “You didn’t answer my question,” I said sternly. The line hummed while I waited.

  “I guess…I guess,” he paused. “I just need more time.” His voice was soft and wispy. My blood began to boil.

  “This is not a buffet.” My jaw locked. I felt like I’d just licked a bar of soap. “You can’t have both of us.” His response made me wonder if I even wanted him back. I missed his affection, but the pain was dulling with each passing day. “I have to iron my
uniform. Have a good night.” I slammed the receiver in its cradle and cranked up 311’s “Down” to feed my anger.

  My phone rang on a Monday afternoon. It had been twelve days since my last conversation with Michael. His voice was warm but distant. He asked how things were at school and work. We talked about midterms. It felt like having a conversation with my step dad. Our fairy tale was over, and I was mad at myself for not ending it first.

  “I have something I need to talk to you about,” Michael said, the buzz of traffic filling the line of a campus pay phone. “In person. This afternoon.” The happy-go-lucky lift in his voice was gone. He sounded like a high school principal. “I can be there in an hour.”

  “Can’t we just talk about it now?” I stared down at the unopened mail and a pile of homework on my coffee table. “I have a lot of studying to do before work.” My patience had worn thin. I glanced down at the lavender OB/GYN postcard atop the pile of mail. I’ve been cleared. Time to move on. My body was clean and my mind refocused. Living in relationship limbo didn’t suit me. I’d started talking to a very cute guy named David who sat behind me in ecology class and worked at a saltwater aquarium store. He didn’t live with his parents or have an ex within driving distance, which were fast-becoming dating prerequisites.

  “It’s really important,” Michael pleaded. “I need to see you face to face.” I could sense the seriousness in his voice and agreed to a drive-by. A sliver of excitement sliced through me. He wants to see me. He wants me back. I can be the one who dumps him and ends this mess. I needed some music with a little venom and turned to my favorite angry musician, Alanis Morissette. My mind raced through the scenarios of why it was so important that he see me that day. It was nice to feel wanted for the first time in a week. I wanted to tuck the OB/GYN card under a magnet on my refrigerator like an A+ report card, but tossed it in the trash can so Michael wouldn’t see it.