The Magic of Found Objects

by Maddie Dawson

  And in case you’re wondering—and I know you are—outside of one disastrous, experimental make-out session when we were fourteen, our relationship has never gone down the rabbit hole of romance.

  We are not each other’s types, that’s why. He goes for women who could have appeared on America’s Next Top Model, whereas I . . . well, I just can’t make myself care enough to go to all that trouble. I barely put on mascara for work, and even then I smudge it half the time. Also, I hate wearing high heels on my off hours, and I refuse to wear any outfit that requires a special bra. (I have exactly one saggy, flesh-colored bra, and when that one loses the last of its elastic—well, that’s when I’ll consider going and buying another.)

  As for him, he’s a great guy, but he doesn’t have a lot of nuance to him. He likes problems a person can fix, like weight gain. Bloat. Signing up for gym memberships. And he can’t stand still—he’s always doing boxing moves or bouncing up and down on his toes. Also, I hate to mention it, but he doesn’t separate the whites from the darks when he does laundry, so his clothes are always a little dingy. And he thinks that Meryl Streep is overrated. Meryl Freaking Streep!

  But I suspect we’re in one of those friendships that might last for life.

  I saw him through the tragic moment when his high school girlfriend, Karla Kristensen, (aka The Love of His Life) married someone else, and he comforted me with Toaster Strudel and cream puffs (big deal for a gym guy) through the demise of my short-lived marriage to Steve Hanover, even though he didn’t approve of either of those foods or of Steve Hanover (aka The Love of My Life).

  Also, after all these years, I appreciate that he doesn’t tease me about the fact that I am terrified of heights, bees, haunted houses, thunderstorms, and the possibility of snakes coming up through the toilet bowl—and I pretend not to see that he’s crying in movies that have to do with dogs dying.

  Anyway.

  We’d both been pretty much living the single life in New York City for years, basically hanging out together because, frankly, we were still hung up on our previous relationships . . . and then a year ago, we were at our third wedding reception in two months, when Judd suddenly turned to me and said, “You know something? I’m sick of this. What we’re doing with our lives is bullshit. We need to get back out there and meet people for real.”

  I looked down at my patent leather Jimmy Choo Wedding Reception High Heels, bought under duress. “And by people, I’m assuming you’re referring to—?”

  He looked me in the eye. “Yeah. Our future spouses. I’m thinking this is our year to meet them. We’re going to get serious about getting serious. You in?”

  Well, of course I was. I’d been bumbling around year after year since my divorce, not really finding anybody who would play the part of Husband in my fantasies about marriage. Ever since Steve Hanover took what I used to call my heart and stomped on it, I’ve lost a bit of my mojo. I’m mostly content to come home, strip off my glamorous work clothes, scrub off my mascara, put on leggings, and sit down at the kitchen table and make myself work on the novel that I’ve been writing off and on for five years now. The novel that makes me feel I’m more than simply The Person Who Attends Other People’s Weddings and Then Goes Home to Listen to Her Eggs Drying Up.

  But now, Judd and I were going to tackle the problem head-on. Action! We did our old Pemberton High handshake to seal the deal.

  “And,” he said, “I think we’re going to have to do online dating. And spreadsheets. No going out with people from work either! Or blind dates. We’re going to be organized about this! We are going to rock this thing! We’ll have a system in place! We’ll report to each other! Dissect-A-Date, we’ll call it.”

  Judd has never found a situation in life that couldn’t be improved by launching a planned attack, especially if it involves a spreadsheet.

  Overnight, we turned into each other’s dating concierges and post-date consolers. Dissect-A-Date provides everything from fashion advice to profile consultations and postmortems. We also give tips on getting along with the opposite sex when necessary.

  “Women like to feel you really see them,” I instructed him. “You have to listen without interrupting. And then ask questions. Also noticing her shoes will go a long way. And it should go without saying, no burping.”

  “Okay. And I need to tell you that men don’t love it when women are extra picky about ordering food in a restaurant,” he said to me. “Only allow yourself to badger the waiter about the origins of one ingredient per date. You do not need to see the late chicken’s vision board.”

  Our dating experiment did not start out well. There were lots of duds.

  One night, three months in, when we were at my apartment watching Friday Night Lights and eating popcorn, I told him that maybe, instead of finding somebody and getting married, I would just write books, take a succession of lovers, and perhaps learn to do interesting things with scarves and shawls.

  “It’s possible,” I said, “that the short, stunted little marriage I already had was it for me in the matrimony department.”

  “Come on. That’s ridiculous. You’ll meet somebody else. You just got to put yourself out there. It’s a numbers game.”

  “But here’s the problem. I don’t remember how to fall in love,” I told him. “I sit across the table from all these perfectly presentable men, and I simply can’t remember what switch gets flipped to make me care about any one of them.”

  “Seriously? Listen to me,” he said at last. “This is the writer in you, isn’t it? You’re always overthinking things. The way I see it: love is a decision, not a feeling. That’s what you may be forgetting.”

  “I used to be so good at it,” I told him. “Then the other day I actually found myself asking Google, ‘How do you fall in love?’”

  He shook his head. “Yeah? And what wisdom did the Google have to offer?”

  I shrugged. “Google said you can’t force it. That’s why it’s called falling.”

  The diner is hopping. Alphonse, our favorite waiter, greets us when we come in: “Phronsiejudd! At last the night can begin!” And then he rushes over with our favorite beers—me a Blue Moon and Judd a Sam Adams.

  Alphonse and Judd have to take a few minutes to discuss the Jets (as usual), which are disappointing (as usual). Alphonse, jolly, gregarious, is grinning and snapping his towel as he talks, but I’m watching Judd. There’s something weird about him tonight, the way he’s fidgeting and smiling too hard. He keeps cracking his knuckles. As soon as another party comes in—five loud, dressed-up people, all smiling—Alphonse glides away to seat them, and I turn to him.

  “So what’s this great epiphany you had?” I say.

  He turns to look at me, and his eyes are bright and kind of crazy. He leans forward and takes my hands. Very uncharacteristic of him, taking my hands. “Look at me. Look at my face. Do I look different to you? Because I think I might have gone two notches up on the maturity scale. I suddenly know what I want in life.”

  “Wait. Did this come from being on a date you hated?”

  “I think maybe it did. That horrible woman with her hair tossing propelled me into maturity.”

  “And what do you want?” I release my hands from his and take a sip of my beer.

  He leans even closer, and now his eyes are practically boring into mine. “I want to get married.”

  I study him silently, uncomprehending.

  “To you,” he says. “I want to marry you.”

  I laugh. It’s so ridiculous. Ludicrous, even, this idea, sailing in from out of the blue. Trust me; there has been nothing—nothing—in the thirty-one years of our friendship that has this making any kind of sense.

  “You do not want to marry me, and you know it,” I tell him firmly. “I know what this is. You’re having your annual going-home-for-Thanksgiving angst. This is a Tandy’s crisis, plain and simple. And marriage to me won’t solve it.”

  He laughs. “No,” he says. “This is way bigger than Tandy’s.”


  Okay. Let me stop here and tell you about Tandy’s. Tandy’s is a bar and grill in our hometown. And every year, when Judd and I go back home to Pemberton for Thanksgiving, it’s become a tradition for all our old high school friends to meet there every night, once we’ve gotten through with our family responsibilities and put our parents to bed, that is. Everybody shows up.

  At first Tandy’s nights used to be all about everybody knocking back some beers and complaining about their parents. Then the diamond rings started showing up on the fingers of the Early Marriage Adopters, as Judd calls them—and after that came a sprinkling of infants. (That was fine; we could still cope.) But now that we’re all in our midthirties, not only has every other person in our high school class acquired a spouse, they now also have kids. Real kids. And not just babies anymore; they have middle-sized children. And mortgages! The dreaded minivans! Orthodontist bills!

  And what do we have?

  By Tandy’s standards, we have zilch. (My heartbreaker of a marriage didn’t even last long enough for me to show my husband off to the Tandy’s crowd.)

  I’m not going to lie—our trip back on the train has been known to turn into a Greek tragedy—complete with some gnashing of teeth, spilling of regrets, rending of garments, you name it. Mostly by Judd, if you want to know the truth. He’s often saying he feels pathetic, which is so crazy, because Judd is doing great. Both of us are. We just don’t have any spouses and kids. We’re behind in that department.

  What our classmates don’t realize is that Judd has his own gym and was written up in the New York Post for the way he gets little old ladies to bench press. He has groupies! (And so what that they’re senior citizens?)

  As for me, nobody at home quite gets it that I’m working for a New York publisher, and that I got to meet Anne Tyler one time. And that I own ten black leggings and fourteen black turtlenecks, and I go to book launches and corporate cocktail parties. And that Judd and I see celebrities all the time, get takeout at three a.m., and know the ins and outs of the New York subway system, even the mystifying weekend schedule. We understand rent stabilization, for pity’s sake.

  Also, I’m writing an actual novel. I’m on page 135 of it, which is decent progress, considering I work all the time and only have evenings and Saturday mornings at Starbucks to work on it.

  But no—we don’t have babies and two-car garages and picket fences. And more times than I like to admit, frankly, I’m eating dinner out of a Styrofoam takeout carton, standing over the sink, having just run in from work even though it’s almost bedtime.

  But I like New York life, really. I picked this. I knew early on that New Hampshire wasn’t where I was supposed to be, and I escaped. I went to NYU, and then stayed. Judd came to Manhattan ten years ago—not because of me, but because in his rambling search for employment and a new start, he’d gotten a job as a personal trainer in a New York gym. I suspect he really came because the per capita number of supermodels is so much greater in New York than on the farm. (The boy appreciates beauty.)

  So why do we forget all that when we’re faced with our old friends and their settled-down lives? I do not know. I remember them as teenagers—the girls gossipy and funny, chewing gum, making big plans, and the boys handsome and strong, all of them smelling of Old Spice as we’d make out in their pickup trucks in the woods. I loved them then, and I love them now, even as I am so glad deep down that I didn’t stay and marry one of them. The Old Spice guys are doughy and complacent now. They’ve somehow turned into our fathers, pontificating about the weather and the price of beans. The women are sarcastic in their discontent, hands on hips, eyes rolling. Men! they say. Why can’t they ever listen!

  But you get with a bunch of people you used to love, and see them coupled up, passing around pictures of their babies, and you can’t help but notice the looks that pass between husbands and wives, and the way they finish each other’s sentences, steeped in all that intimacy and knowing . . . and sometimes seeing that just kills you is all.

  Even my twin brother, Hendrix, fell in love in high school and never looked back. It was as though he and Ariel Evans, his chemistry lab partner, had been destined from birth to be together. They now have three little boys, and Ariel, despite her ethereal name, manages their household like she’s the CEO of a well-run corporation, making lists and schedules and barking out commands to keep all four of her males in line. And Hendrix seems just fine with that. When I once pulled him aside and asked how he adapts to all the organization his life contains—not to mention the nagging—he just shrugged and said, “So Ariel nags—so what? I love her. She’s not perfect. This is what marriage looks like, Phronsie.” He sounded impatient, like he was having to teach me remedial life skills or something.

  And—well, now that I’m thirty-six, I have to admit that I really, really want what Hendrix has. Somebody just for me. I want a guy who has his own side of the bed next to my side of the bed, whose clothes hang next to mine in the closet, and who will take the scary spiders outside and let them loose, and who will understand the look I get on my face when I want to leave a party. Who knows that I like chocolate rum raisin ice cream best of all, but red raspberry can do in a pinch—never vanilla. And who tells me all his secrets and listens to all of mine when he’s lying across the pillow from me. Who lights up when he sees me. Who has hidden places in his personality that only I know about.

  And, what the hell, I want somebody to be listed as next of kin on the hospital form, should it come to that—a guy who has the legal right to visit me if I’m ever in the ICU.

  And, despite my never thinking this desire would sweep over me, I want a baby. I badly want a baby. Which is a big surprise, even to myself. But I do.

  But this guy across the table—the one proposing—well, he isn’t the one for all of that. He’s great. He’s fun, he’s nice, he’s interesting. He knows the part about the chocolate rum raisin ice cream, and he’s willing to carry spiders outside.

  But the simple fact is: he is not in love with me, and never has been. Period.

  Alphonse swoops down just then, bearing a plate of eggplant fries and hummus, and plops it down in front of Judd. The diner’s idea of health food. “This is on the house, Juddie my buddy,” he says. “Not to be pushy or anything, but you look like you could use some oil and salt. And thanks for helping me move my stuff the other day, man.”

  “Anytime. You know that,” Judd says, and they do a fist bump and Alphonse glides away.

  “When did you help him move?” I say.

  “Oh, last week. He found a cheaper rent, and so he needed some help with the couch and a desk. I went over and helped him load up the truck.”

  He eats a handful of eggplant fries and looks at me. “Look. I know what you’re thinking. But this isn’t about Pemberton or Tandy’s or anything like that,” he says. “I want to get married, to you, and it’s not about what anyone else thinks.”

  “But it’s not really about me either,” I say. “And you know how I know that? Because we are not in love. Case closed.”

  “I know, but that’s the best part. Just hear me out. This is brilliant when you think about it. First premise: Nobody wants to be alone for their whole life. I don’t, you don’t. Second premise: We’re already old friends. Unlike most of the people we know who got married because they were madly in love, we still actually like each other, and they don’t. Third premise: We have what most marriages are aiming for, which is true compatibility. We put up with each other.”

  “Judd, I . . . forgive me, but putting up with each other is not a very high mark. That won’t get us through the first six weeks.”

  “Wait. Look at this. Before we came tonight, I made a little temporary engagement ring for you out of a twist tie I had.” He reaches into his sweatpants pocket and pulls out a piece of wire covered with peppermint-striped paper, all knotted up into a circle, and hands it to me. “The good thing about this kind of ring is that it’s adjustable. And replaceable.” He gives me a
big smile. “You could get a new one from me every week.”

  “Wow. You are really going all out with making a compelling case.”

  “I know. I’ve put a lot of thought and effort into this.”

  I feel dazed. How long has he been thinking about this? Also, it’s interesting that he doesn’t even bother to dispute my claim that we’re not in love. He’s not even put out by my refusing him. I take a sip of my beer and look over at the normal people in the diner, people who are talking and laughing and who presumably know who they should marry and who they should not. Who have never had to explain to another person that being in love is an important component to married life.

  “I just don’t see how you can discount love like this,” I say. “It’s insulting to love to talk like it doesn’t matter.”

  “No, no. It does matter. But the truth is, this is love. You don’t recognize it. But love is all this good stuff that we already have”—he stops to wave his arms in the air, taking in everything—“the history we share and these diner evenings and the times we’ve eaten popcorn while we watch Friday Night Lights. I put butter on my popcorn for you, Phronsie! That’s what love is—not all that moonlight and sonnets and walking in the rain bullshit. Nobody wants to walk in the rain! Nobody! And nobody likes suspense or playing games.”

  “I don’t know,” I say slowly.

  “Look. I made up my mind that if we both had unsatisfactory dates tonight, I was going to ask you. Because, Phronsie, face it: we are not happy with dating. We’ve put a whole year into finding spouses, and look at it this way: maybe we couldn’t because we are the spouses. You know?”

  My face feels hot. I lower my voice. “Judd, please. I want to be in love. And you do, too. Remember that? Remember Karla Kristensen and your year of pining away? No offense, but it was kind of a big deal in your life.”

  “No offense to you, but how has that worked out in either of our lives? I believe you were, as you call it, madly in love when you got married before and—”

  I flap my hands at him, beseeching him to stop. I was married to Steve Hanover for eight months, two weeks, three days, and either ten or eleven hours. And yes, I was in love with him beyond all sanity. But it went badly. Maybe he was too handsome for me—he was a 9.8, while, with excellent lighting and a new haircut and color, I can achieve an 8.2 for maybe fifteen whole minutes before I slide back down to a 7. Possibly you have to stay in your own category, looks-wise.