“Come on,” I replied. “It’s not like they don’t know what’s going on.” His parents were vacationing in Antiqua with friends, which was probably the only reason we actually even had a sleepover during our entire relationship. His mom was a religious conservative—beautiful, blonde and wound as tight as Ann Coulter.
“I’m their angel.” Tyler pulled on his T-shirt. “Cody is the one who gets in trouble.” Tyler had an identical twin who lived in northern Florida and was just as cute and athletic. Dating a twin always enticed me, as my dad had a twin sister.
“What time will you get off, uh, work?” I stopped myself short of saying “home.” I pulled my suit jacket from a hanger in his closet and disappeared into a daydream. Sleeping in a house in the same bed with Tyler was the closest I’d gotten to cohabitation since Chris. We both had college degrees and full-time jobs with benefits. We both liked to run and both practiced karate in middle school. We both had blonde hair and sky-blue eyes; my friends called us Ken and Barbie. He loved to surf, showing off a free-spirited, daring side that reminded me of Matthew, the ghost of my past. We were happy, young adults who liked jamming out to angry songs by 311, Rage Against The Machine, Deftones, Our Lady Peace and Creed. Our conversations revolved around South Park episodes. We were the epitome of compatibility. My internal clock was buzzing: time to live with a man again. It had taken me four months to feel repaired enough to put my heart out there again. After three weeks of sleepless nights on my tear-stained pillow, I’d decided sleeping with someone else would help me get over Fernando. Brilliant idea. Two one-night stands—one with James’s old roommate, Adam, and then another with a Jason Preistley lookalike who managed a South Beach hotel and lured me into his apartment with a bottle of Caymus Conundrum (part Sauvignon Blanc!)—did not ease the pain. A great bottle of wine is like catnip for aficionados, but loveless sex left me feeling even lonelier. Duh. I’d almost accepted the fact that Fernando would not come to his senses and want me back. Almost. With Tyler, our kisses had enough spark, our conversations had enough substance and our worlds had enough common ground.
His voice pulled me back into the moment. “If you can wait to get here until after five thirty, that would be best.” I squeezed my tan dress jacket with both hands to suppress my anger. Tyler sat down on the matching bed across the room. The thought of Tyler and his identical twin brother sleeping in their identical twin beds wearing matching Superman Underoos brought a smile to my face—even though he was trying to hide me from his neighbors.
“Don’t worry.” I stood in the center of his room. “I won’t park in the driveway.” Staying overnight with Tyler cut thirty minutes off my drive home and thirty pounds of frustration off my chest, so I let the secrecy slide. I’d recently moved out of my apartment in South Miami to share a house in North Miami Beach with Scott and Diane, former co-workers who fell in love not long after they’d met at Cheesecake Factory. My new digs provided quick access to Tyler’s parents’ house in swanky Lauderdale-by-the-Sea. Sharing a house with a happily engaged couple, however, was about as uncomfortable as peeing in the woods. It was time to stop being a third wheel.
“I’ll call you when I get home,” Tyler said. I nodded while adjusting my skirt. Tyler had to call me; I liked it that way. I’d decided to get serious about my dating strategy—i.e. actually having a strategy. Let him make the effort.
I glanced down the hallway. “I’ve got plenty of work to do.” My voice was cool and crisp. “If I don’t answer, I’ll call you when I’m free.” Learning how to be a patient swan during courtship, not a bulldozing tank, did not come easy, but losing Fernando was the relationship wake-up call I’d needed since high school: My instincts were the devil. I’d always told myself to just follow my gut, put my heart out there from the beginning and the right guy would fall for me. I still can’t believe I thought every guy would actually want more than sex once he got to know me—at a time when their hormones were running on Hawaiian Tropic bikini contests. So, the time had finally arrived to set some dating ground rules. No more offering my phone number. No more sex on the first date. No more invitations for drinks, dinner and sleepovers within the first few weeks. No more calling a guy before he called me. Ditching my hook-up habit required professional intervention. Before meeting Tyler, I’d purchased The RulesTM: Time-Tested Secrets for Capturing the Heart of Mr. Right. I’d quickly realized I’d broken every rule in it. Don’t Accept a Saturday Night Date after Wednesday? With Raul, I’d been accepting dates on Saturdays at 9:48 p.m. that night, and had offered to drive—and pick up the bar tab.
“I’ll be hungry before dark,” he said.
I shifted my weight from side to side. “I shouldn’t be too late.” Following The Rules with Tyler had worked wonders. Boundaries became my best friends. I’d declined his first date invitation (Rule #7). I’d never called him first (Rule #5). Face-to-face meet-ups occurred once or twice a week at restaurants or ballparks, contingent upon my schedule as much as his. I’d perched myself on aluminum bleachers in the grand stand, cheering as he’d dove to catch line drives at third base. After work, we’d rub knees under the booth at the Ale House in Hollywood. We’d exchanged soft, sweet kisses in parking lots next to our cars before going our separate ways home. The only diamond on his mind involved a baseball field. It was the same return to innocence I’d felt when first dating Michael.
“When do you feed Rocky?” I asked, standing over the other bed. Tyler grinned, then grabbed a metal cylinder filled with dead bugs from the window ledge next to his terrarium.
He shook the cylinder above the terrarium’s top latch. “Whenever he wants.” His pet bearded dragon sauntered across the mulch to a petrified branch. Our shared love of lizards had also jumpstarted the relationship. I draped my jacket on the foot of the other bed and sighed. Watching Tyler and Rocky made me miss my little iguanas. My work schedule and commute had left me with no choice but to give Parker and Dax to a waitress at Cheesecake.
“What do you usually make for dinner?” I asked, walking toward the adjoining bathroom. His fancy, thick carpet felt warm and soft under my bare feet unlike the Berber rug in my bedroom. I plucked a round brush from my toiletry bag and eagerly awaited his answer. Sitting down with Tyler to share a home-cooked meal and a bottle of wine was a moment I’d anticipated more than the release of the Cabbage Patch Kids in fifth grade. Cooking was my nesting instinct. We usually met for dates at one of the Ale Houses for beer and smoked fish dip.
“I’m not really big on dinner.” Tyler kept his nose in his closet, thumbing through dress shirts. “I usually eat a bagel and a banana.” Tyler tugged a crisp, white shirt off a hanger. “A bowl of oatmeal with skim milk, and I’m good to go.” His indifference about food surprised me—not what you’d expect from someone who worked out harder than trainer Bob on The Biggest Loser. When Tyler wasn’t auditing records at an accounting firm, he played baseball for the West Palm Beach Expos, minor league affiliates of the Montreal Expos. His rigorous training schedule included a strict (and unconventional) dietary plan. I stared at my damp hair in the mirror and gritted my teeth. Playing house for the first time was a big step forward for him. I wanted to play the happy wife who cooked him dinner when he got home from his long day at the office. He wanted to eat a bagel and watch ESPN.
“But, Hon, I’ll make you cookies.” My voice chirped like Eric Cartman’s mom from South Park. Tyler laughed and shook his head. Lightening the mood was my only defense when conversations with boyfriends got uncomfortable. Tyler and I rarely talked about anything serious. I should have expected nothing more from someone who called my vagina a “cha-cha.” Laughing made me feel happy. And all I really wanted back then was happiness.
“How about some Cheesy Poofs?” Tyler replied in his Cartman voice. I watched myself in the mirror, giggling. My shoulders quickly caved at the sight of my face, showing its first laugh lines. I’m getting old. I sighed and grabbed my hairdryer from the countertop. The motor’s buzz drifted through the second
floor while I wrapped layers of hair around the sculpting brush. It was September 1998. I’d graduated from college sixteen months prior and had lived alone for more than three years. Most of my friends back home were engaged or married. Several had babies. Me? I had a part-time boyfriend who dreamed of being called up to the majors. When Tyler wasn’t at baseball practice, he was cramming for the CPA Exam.
Tyler stepped into the bathroom doorway. “Hey, we could go for run tonight.” His tone was soft, warm. His slacks fit his body better than a Kenneth Cole model’s. Tyler was quite the eye candy, which often distracted me from our idling relationship. He slipped his muscular arms into a crisp, white oxford. Oh, my little hottie.
“I don’t know if I can keep up with you.” I fluffed the layers of my hair. My lips twisted with a smirk. Even though we both liked to run, we had never gone running together.
“I’ll go slow. I promise.” His blue eyes sparkled in the morning light. My cheeks plumped from smiling wide. Isn’t this what I’d always wanted? A man who’d ease slowly into my life—not parachute into my apartment holding a box of condoms when he didn’t even know my birth date? I didn’t have much free time for Tyler anyway, working two jobs in two counties. Even though I spent weekdays running the distributor’s desktop publishing department, I kept working weekends as news editor of The Wine News in Coral Gables. Writing and editing wine stories was keeping my dream of moving to California alive—a dream that I’d moved to the backburner once feelings for Tyler had developed. Falling in love meant making compromises. That was the kind of mumbo-jumbo I’d let social norms tattoo inside my head. I only had a few years left in life’s optimal window to find my husband. I totally believed a nice-looking, sweet guy like Tyler was worth the sacrifice of my dream career—especially if we could get married before turning twenty-six—the point of no return for girls who were still single.
I moved toward Tyler and kissed his lips softly. Kissing him always felt like returning to the playground. All we needed was a little more maturity to make us work. His touch was always gentle and sweet, not the electrical surge of Fernando kisses. The fireworks with Tyler were more like sparklers than Saturn missiles, but it was a start.
“You can take one of my bagels for breakfast.” He pecked me again on the lips. I closed my eyes, relishing his sweet taste.
My lips chased his, sneaking another peck. “Why don’t I just inject the fat right into my butt with a syringe?” I scrunched my face. “Carbs are my worst enemy.” To keep my mind off Fernando, I’d thrown myself into an intense workout regime that included running five days a week. My thighs were the thinnest since my senior year of high school, and I wasn’t about to let my diet screw up the new me. It felt damn good to look presentable in a bikini, and attract a guy like Tyler.
I parked my silver Volkswagen Golf in my designated spot on Tyler’s cul-de-sac—across the street from his house—so the neighbors would think he was home alone. Sneaking around made me feel like a stashed case of beer on prom night. I sat in my car in my work suit with the air conditioning blasting, looking at his house. It was a super-sized Tara from Gone with the Wind, painted bright white with as many windows as the White House and six massive columns stretching from a brick terrace to the roofline of the second story. There was only one house in my hometown that nice and that big. When Tyler had invited me over to meet his parents for the first time, he’d made me swear that I’d say we met at a Third Eye Blind concert in Coconut Grove.
“I’m getting tired of the lies,” I muttered, sitting alone in my car. I’d met Tyler by posting an ad on Yahoo! Personals. I’d believed my boundary building required more tools than The Rules. I’d needed to put distance between prospective men and myself—we’re talking miles—to quell my weakness of getting too close, too fast. At the time, dial-up Internet was taking the country by storm, and online dating was the taboo alternative to the traditional blind date. Meeting men online was considered too risky and untested, especially in a metropolitan city with a robust homicide rate. But You’ve Got Mail had premiered the year before. Meg Ryan and Tom Hanks had inspired me to take a chance at Internet love. Tyler—the best-looking guy I’d ever dated—had said he was too shy to approach attractive women, so he’d decided to give online dating a try.
I squeezed my steering wheel until my knuckles turned white. I followed The Rules and made some new ones. So why are we stuck at this place? I’d refused to continue dating men I’d met in bars or restaurants. Finding a new environment in which to meet Mr. Right was as easy as spotting two straight men at 10th Street and Ocean Drive. Working at the distributor meant regular invitations to Bacardi promotions and winemaker dinners. Weekends writing for The Wine News often required attending wine festivals and auction galas. My life was becoming one big cocktail party—quite a refined one, I might add—but I had no idea where to meet men outside of work other than the gym, which steered me to online dating. Tyler didn’t like hanging out in bars and lived about one hour north of Miami by car, which seemed like enough distance for me.
I stepped out of my chilly car onto the warm pavement and walked swiftly up his brick sidewalk, my sling-back heels clicking along the way. It was a typical, sticky, summer evening: oppressive air with a gorgeous sky painted shades of orange, pink and purple. Rows of palm trees and sculpted bushes jetted out from a circular drive, which looked like a golf club entrance. A sparkling white yacht glided by on the Intracoastal behind their colonial mansion. Tyler’s house belonged on a postcard. My dad’s backyard had a decaying barn and a pigeon coop. His parents played tennis at a country club. Mine played bingo at the American Legion. But Dorothy had outgrown Kansas. I could identify Merlot’s plummy nuances in a blind tasting. I owned a sequined gown and had worn it twice. I’d shed as much of my stereotype as possible and believed I could win the heart of a rich boy, and the approval of his parents.
With my suit jacket hanging from my forearm, I glanced back at his neighbor’s bay window. Alright. The coast is clear. I huffed and ducked under the breezeway connecting their home to a four-car garage. My knuckles tapped on the pane-glass door. Tyler trotted through the long, galley kitchen in gym shorts and a Sigma Nu T-shirt. He tugged me quickly in the door.
“Hi,” he said in his boyish tone, then kissed me softly on the lips. His sweet, gentle kiss made my mind race back to his courtship. We’d chatted online for two weeks on AOL Instant Messenger before Tyler had asked me to go to a Third Eye Blind concert. He’d sent me flirtatious IMs filled with lots of “hehehes,” “LOLs,” “*grins*” and smiley faces. We’d exchanged pictures by email. He’d told me I was pretty. I’d loved the excitement of rushing home after work to flirt with him on the computer for hours. Now, I was rushing home to be hidden away.
I clutched my purse and jacket. “Will we ever stop hiding?”
He batted his long eyelashes. “I don’t know.” I looked into his blue eyes, shaking my head. “But I do know that you need to suit up.” He plucked a half-eaten bagel from the kitchen counter and took a bite. “I need to enjoy my freedom while I have it.” He chewed with a smile.
I could feel my face turning to stone, so I walked into the den and sat my purse on a chair. Tyler had four months to prepare for his CPA Exam and often dive-bombed those little reminders into our conversations. His use of the word “my” added another layer to my mounting disappointment.
“Your upper body is too stiff,” he said as we jogged up his cul-de-sac, past rows of electric gates, stucco walls and coconut palms. The fiery sun sank into the horizon, as we turned onto Federal Highway and headed north toward Lighthouse Point.
“Really?” A gentle breeze helped keep us cool in the evening heat. “What am I doing wrong?” My eyes bounced from the pavement to my Coconut Grove Arts Festival tank top.
“Let your arms flow with your body movement. Don’t think about your legs. Your arms should propel you. My coach always told me to pretend that I had bananas in my hands.” I watched his arm movements and mimicked him,
and felt my lung capacity increase and my body relax into the cadence. It was the first time Tyler had been my teacher, which endeared him to me even more.
The warm air filled my lungs. My heart hummed, in sync with our pace. I felt strong, in control and on top of the world, like I always do while running. The thought of spending every evening jogging with Tyler bounced in my head. Shoulder to shoulder, we glided down the sidewalk.
“I got a call from a headhunter today,” he said between breaths. “Deloitte & Touche has an opening for a financial analyst in West Palm.” The words danced off his tongue. My arms tightened again. Who’s-a-jigga-what-what? My ponytail slapped the back of my head. West Palm Beach was forty minutes north of his house. If he took that job, we’d be right back where we started, geographically speaking. And he was gushing the news like a lottery winner. My breathing accelerated. I stared at my Nike sneakers flying underneath me.
“Did you send in your résumé?” I asked, bananas in my hands.
“I have an interview next week.”
“That’s…uh…great.” The words panted from my lips. My smile was plastered on like stucco. He wiped the sweat from his brow, so I did the same. My little voice was screaming inside: You’re supposed to be asking me if I want to share an apartment—not move away! The voice inside my brain had recently begun throwing her own fastballs, which always seemed to happen around the six-month mark with any boyfriend when I had no freaking idea where I stood.
We showered together after our run. I like this routine, I thought as I covered my torso in soapsuds. My eyes pivoted from Tyler’s beefcake body and beautiful face to my small boobs and kidney scars. He’d seen me naked four times and was still dating me. I looked out the steamy window. You’ve always been pretty enough to attract a guy like Tyler. I rubbed my pouf sponge on his stomach. His face turned red, and we both giggled. He was more conservative than Fox News on Monday morning. In bed, Tyler was a missionary man. I wasn’t about to try to spank his ass. He was prim and proper—the kind of guy that made me feel very wholesome despite my sexual history. Tyler rinsed off and stepped out of the shower. He didn’t hand me a towel. He wasn’t the type to open car doors either.
THE EXES IN MY IPOD: A Playlist of the Men Who Rocked Me to Wine Country Page 26
