Keep Calm and Carry a Big Drink

by Kim Gruenenfelder

  “No. Went to Columbia, then stayed in New York for my residency.”

  “Did you know anyone who lived here before you moved?”

  “Yes and no. I actually have a friend from medical school who practices in Honolulu. She invited me out here after I left my wife. Oahu wasn’t quite the right fit for me, not sure why. Maui felt more like home.”

  “You were married?” I blurt out. (Note to self: google-stalk and facebook-stalk the crap out of that nugget of information later this evening.)

  Ben shakes his head. “Yes, and I don’t want to bore you with that story. It’s not exactly good first-date material.”

  “What is good first-date material?”

  “Politics, religion, future,” he jokes. “And my love of ComicCon. That always gets the hot girls excited.”

  “But not exes?” I probe, trying to sound as light as possible. “Because I am fascinated to know what idiot woman could have let you go.”

  He takes a second, probably to debate what to share with me. “Have you ever been married?” he asks thoughtfully.

  “No.”

  “Well, my experience is, when recounting what happened, you both end up looking like crazy people, clueless people, losers and assholes. Who’s playing which role kind of depends upon the day and the fight. Soooo…” He shrugs and tries to force a smile. “I kind of hope we can talk about something else.”

  “Okay.… So what brought you here?”

  “My friend Randi invited me to stay with her in Honolulu during my separation. I just got on a plane and never looked back.”

  I can’t help myself—my jealousy rears its ugly head. “So, you didn’t fly across the world for sex with Randi?”

  He chuckles. “With Randi? No. She was my roommate in med school. She’s pretty, but there was always something about her that was more like a sister. Anyway, so I go to see her and stay with her family. She’s an ER doc too, and she doesn’t do call. She only works four twelve-hour shifts a week—no seventy-hour workweeks. She has a toddler and a baby and a husband who works a nine-to-five job in local advertising.

  “It took me all of one day to see she was happy. And I wasn’t. There was so much I hated about both my job and my life. I hated the constant adrenaline I needed to keep up with an emergency room in Manhattan. What was exciting at twenty-six can be exhausting at thirty-two.”

  “I feel that way about dating,” I joke. Well, sort of joke.

  “Yeah, me too. Anyway, so I was walking on the beach in Waikiki, playing with Randi’s kids, and as I tossed her giggling toddler up in the air for the fifth time, I realized that I don’t have to be the person I set out to be when I was a kid. When I was ten, I thought Bo from The Dukes of Hazzard was cool—what the heck did I know? I immediately started to make job inquiries and applied for a medical license in Hawaii. Eventually, I found an urgent care in Lahaina looking for someone.”

  I realize I’ve been nodding the entire time he’s been talking, “Wow. You actually followed your midlife dream. Good for you.” I take another bite of fish taco. Culinary-orgasm good. “So, any regrets? Miss anything?”

  “I’ll admit, I do miss the money.” He motions out the window toward the town, pitch-black and mostly asleep on this peaceful Sunday night. “But I love the million-dollar weather.” He takes another bite of food. “So, what about you? What’s your life story?”

  “Not done writing it. Check back with me in thirty years,” I say, smiling, as I eat a french fry.

  “How long are you here for?”

  “I don’t know. How long can you be charming for?”

  “If I said the rest of your life, would that be overkill?”

  “If you say the rest of my life, I will camp out at your doorstep and facebook your mother,” I answer without missing a beat.

  He laughs. And not one of those polite first-date laughs—a genuine guffaw.

  Excellent.

  For the rest of the meal, we talk about the usual first-date stuff: where we grew up, how many brothers and sisters we have, our majors in college, etc. We talked about books, movies, and our favorite bands.

  And we laughed. We laughed all night. He told one story about his family dog that had me laughing so hard, I nearly fell over, and my sides hurt.

  After dinner, instead of going to a bar, we walked across the main street in town and took a long walk on a pitch-black beach.

  I love the sound of pounding ocean waves. The tide must have been coming in because all I could hear was ocean—no people, no cars, nothing but that Zen sound that makes me want to close my eyes and float.

  Ben and I walk for a while in silence. I feel the way I did when I was fifteen, and a German transfer student named Horst walked along a beach with me, and I kept trying to figure out how to get him to hold my hand. Everything felt new and hopeful back then. That same feeling washes over me now.

  “Are you cold?” Ben asks.

  “Maybe a little,” I admit. We had taken off our shoes, and all I was wearing was a short-sleeved shirt and a miniskirt. So, yes, I was freezing.

  “I’m sorry—I forgot to bring my jacket. Do you want to go back to the car?”

  “No, no. I’m fine,” I lie.

  “You sure?”

  “I’m sure.”

  He stops to face me. “No, you’re not.”

  Kiss me, kiss me, kiss me, kiss me, I think to myself, hoping he’ll be able to read my mind.

  “Do you want to go someplace warmer? Maybe get some coffee?”

  I decide to go for broke. “Or we could go to my place for a while.”

  A weird look crosses Ben’s face. “You know what? I have a long drive back and have to be at work in the morning. Can I take a rain check?”

  Wait, what? “Oh. Sure,” I say, vaguely startled. Wasn’t this date going well? Have I been going on so many bad dates I don’t know what a good one even looks like anymore? “We’re still seeing each other tomorrow, right?”

  “Oh, yeah. I think that Black Rock idea will be fun.” He rubs my shoulders with his hands. “Let’s get you home.”

  We head back to the car. He doesn’t kiss me. As much as I am tempted to, I don’t lean in to kiss him either. I have decided that, at least for tonight, I am going to be the woman who is being pursued. Or not pursued, or whatever this is.

  Once we’re at his car, Ben pulls out a jacket from his backseat and wraps it around me. Then we hug.

  And that’s all we do.

  All right, I’ll admit on the drive home, I am ridiculously tempted to lean over and kiss him. But instead, I lean back and try to wait.

  We get back to Jeff’s house. His living room light is off, but his porch light is on.

  As Ben walks me to the doorstep, we see that Jeff has put the money tree Ben brought just outside the front door.

  Taped to one of the branches is a note from Jeff:

  Why, will you look at that?! A money tree! Right here on our date! Why, I’ll bet if I kissed her in front of that tree, she would find it incredibly romantic! Romance-novel romantic! Bore-her-gay-best-friend-with-the-details-twelve-times-over-breakfast romantic!

  “Oh my God!” I say, horrified and covering my face.

  Ben, on the other hand, can’t stop laughing. “You know what I love about him? It’s the subtlety.”

  “I am so sorry. I can’t believe he did that.”

  “Well, it’s a nice thought. I’ll see you tomorrow,” he says, still smiling.

  And he kisses me … on the cheek.

  Yes, on the cheek.

  Say what now?

  “Pick you up around six?” he asks me cheerfully.

  “Perfect,” I lie, trying to keep my voice from catching a bit.

  “Great,” he says happily. Then he turns around to leave.

  I watch as he walks to his convertible. As he opens his door and climbs in, he yells to me, “Does your key work?”

  “Huh?” I look down at my key. “Oh, hold on. Let me check.”

 
I easily slide my key into the lock and turn it to the right just as Ben says, “Good, because I couldn’t leave until I knew you were safe inside.”

  Damn, I guess I did that too fast then. “No, we’re good,” I say awkwardly, and force an even more awkward smile and a wave.

  Ben waves back, then closes his door, turns on the car, and pulls away just as I walk into the house.

  Okay, seriously, what was that all about?

  Why would a guy who has told me he’s not gay ask me out two nights in a row, then kiss me on the cheek at the end of the night?

  I flip on the living-room light and cover my eyes. “Okay, first of all, I’m sorry if I’m interrupting. And second of all, I’m going to fucking kill you, but not until you give me advice.”

  It’s so quiet in here I’m pretty sure I hear crickets. I open my eyes to see neither Jeff nor Brian is here. What is here is a silver champagne bucket on the kitchen counter with a bottle of Mumm’s chilling and a note telling me, Brian and I decided to go out. Enjoy!

  I angrily yank the champagne out of the bucket and put it back in the fridge. Then I rummage through his freezer to find something with a lot of cream. I pull out a fifty-six-ounce tub of Roselani ice cream and read the label, “Haupia.” I peel off the lid and smell coconut. That’ll do. I grab a spoon and the carton and head for my room.

  Minutes later, I have changed into shorty pajamas, eaten a good third of the tub, and am sitting in bed, google-stalking Ben on my notebook computer. Other than for some doctor stuff, and a picture of him at a swim meet in high school, I hit a dead end. I do manage to track down his Facebook page, but all it says is that he is a male living in Hawaii and that to get any more information I will have to friend him.

  I click off his Facebook page to see that Nic has just updated her Facebook status with The cost of prom night on average is $1,139 per attendee, or $2,278 per couple. Seems more romantic to just fly to Paris for the night, but maybe I’m old.

  She’s up. Huzzah! I quickly write to her:

  You have no idea how much I miss you right now. What are you doing up?

  Then I wait for a response. Less than two minutes later, my cell phone booms Elton John singing “The Bitch Is Back.”

  I smile and pick up immediately. “I should never have let you choose your own ringtone.”

  “Ah, but you’re smiling, aren’t you?”

  “I am. How is the baby?”

  “He’s delicious. Although I am doing lap number million and six around the living room, trying to get him to sleep. How is Maui?”

  I sigh loudly. “It’s perfect other than I have a guy problem.”

  “Already?” Nic asks in surprise. “You’ve been there minutes.”

  “I know. Remember that guy, Ben, I met at the bar in JFK?

  “You met a guy at a bar in JFK? Like the airport?”

  “Okay, let me start over. So there’s this guy…” I quickly fill Nic in on all of the Ben details, ending with tonight’s date and peck on the cheek. “So, what do you think?”

  “Hmm,” Nic thinks aloud. “Girlfriend?”

  “No, I don’t think so. He did recently go through a divorce though.”

  “That could mean he has a harem of rebound women lurking about. Gay?”

  “Did I mention Jeff was his patient?” I ask dryly.

  “Fair enough. Plus, who’s closeted these days?” Nic thinks a moment, then throws out some doozies. “On some kind of antidepressants and can’t get it up? Maybe on heart medication and doesn’t want to get superexcited? Über-Christian?”

  “Okay, if any of these are true, I don’t want to go on the second date.”

  Nic whispers, “Oh, JJ’s asleep. Hold on.” While she’s off the phone, I put a lid on the ice cream, bring it back to the freezer, then fall down the rabbit hole of the Internet. Clicking on the hotel with the torch-lighting ceremony brings me to a site selling previously owned time-shares in Maui, which leads me to a real estate site, which lists year-round rentals on everything from studio apartments to multimillion-dollar estates. By the time Nic has come back, I’m already on to my next subject in my head.

  “He’s divorced,” Nic continues from before. “Does he have kids he had to get home to? Maybe he’s not ready to tell you about them yet?”

  “What do you think of my taking a sabbatical from my teaching job?” I ask, admittedly rather out of the blue.

  “What?” she blurts out.

  As I read a post about a one-bedroom in Kihei near Jeff, I tell her, “It’s just that I’m looking at these rentals in Maui, and if you’re here for more than a month, they can be almost reasonable.”

  “Minneapolis reasonable or Los Angeles reasonable?”

  “Probably San Francisco reasonable, but that’s not my point. I’m not tied down by a man yet, my family’s all over the country, my job will wait for me, if I haven’t already been laid off. Why not move here for a year?”

  “Because your family is in LA. We’re your family.”

  “Yes, you are and I love you. But … I don’t know. I mean, it’s weird that this guy didn’t kiss me good-night. But it’s been less than an hour, and I’m already thinking about other things. The old me would be completely obsessing about him until he picked me up tomorrow night, at which time I would have tried to find a way to kiss him just to make myself feel better. The new me is thinking, I have no furniture. I could rent a studio apartment, get a futon and a money tree, and eat tacos every night.”

  Nic is quiet on the other end.

  “Nic?”

  “Wow. Sorry. Just surprised. Are you serious?”

  Am I serious? Right now, I don’t know. But I love the possibility that I could be. That tonight, if I wanted to, everything could change. “You know what? I’m just babbling. Throwing out ideas. I didn’t mean anything by it.” Then I change the subject. “So I’m done obsessing for tonight. Talk to me about you. How are you? How are the girls? What camps are they in? How’s Jason? How tired are you from the baby?”

  “The girls are both in paleontology camp this week. And Jason has actually been driving them in the mornings without the need to snooze seven times…”

  We spend the next hour talking the way we used to in college. She gave me every detail of her day-to-day fabulous life, and I listened intently and laughed a lot at the way she described things. And unlike sometimes in my past, I am not even the tiniest bit jealous.

  Because the moment I realized it was in my power to rent an apartment in the most beautiful place in the world, it no longer mattered that she had hit most of life’s milestones before I did. I am just hitting different ones. And at my own pace. So while one woman’s milestone might be Get married, it turns out one of mine is I’m going to go look at an apartment tomorrow. All by myself.

  All by myself is a great milestone.

  FORTY-FIVE

  The next morning, I wake up around 9:00 A.M., grab an old Go-Go’s T-shirt from Jeff’s guest closet, throw on shorts, stretch, and go for a run through town.

  Kihei is different on a weekday. The vibe is different. I won’t say it’s fast paced, it’s not, but people have gone to work, and the stores are all open. Everything—the scenery, the smells, the sounds—it all feels colorful and warm. I have fun running past regular things that somehow look different—better!—here in paradise: a preschool with kids happily climbing a multicolored, plastic jungle gym and gleefully chasing each other across the bright green lawn. Teenagers walking in and out of the grocery store. A mom with a jogging stroller chatting with another mom who’s baby is in a BabyBjörn. I jog past a beach where I almost run smack into the middle of a series of chess tournaments between pairs of senior citizens. Finally, I end up at a mom-and-pop bakery and pick up a couple of chocolate croissants.

  I come home, make coffee, then quietly knock on Jeff’s door. “Are you alone?” I whisper cautiously.

  “Why are you whispering?” Jeff asks in a normal voice. “If I am alone, you would need to speak
up to wake me up, and if I’m not alone, you’ll wake up Brian anyway.”

  “Sorry. Are you decent?”

  “Sadly, yes,” Jeff says through the door.

  “Meaning you’re alone.”

  “Indeed. Come on in.”

  I walk in, carrying a breakfast tray with a croissant, cup of coffee, small glass of juice, and his painkillers for the day. Jeff is wearing a beat-up AC/DC concert T-shirt that was ancient back when he wore it in college, and some plaid pajama bottoms. His face lights up as he sits up in bed. “Oh, nice.” He grabs the painkillers the moment the tray is in swiping distance.

  As Jeff pops the pills with some juice, I ask, “How do you feel?”

  “Like I’m never going to walk again without limping. I’ll be fine though. So, did you do the walk of shame?”

  “No!” I say, offended. “I was home by ten. He kissed me good-bye. On the cheek.”

  “Ooohhhh. Ouch.”

  “I know, right? No thanks to you, by the way. What was up with those notes?”

  “Crap. I thought I was being cute. Sorry.”

  “Yeah, dude. Seriously,” I say, climbing into bed next to Jeff. “But you can make it up to me by allowing the obligatory ‘What the fuck is he thinking?’ questions.”

  “Shoot.”

  “He kissed me on the cheek, yet he is taking me out again tonight. Thoughts?”

  “In no particular order: My note screwed him up, and he thought I could be in the living room listening in. Or he met you when you were flying to meet another dude, who he worries you’re still stuck on. Or he’s just mind-fucking you, and he’s hoping you will have taken it personally and be all over him tonight to prove your sexual worth as a female.”

  “Huh. All of those are decent. I’m impressed. Okay, next question: Do they have malls in Maui?”

  “Malls?” Jeff repeats in a nondescript redneck accent. “You mean those highfalutin places where they sell T-shirts and cologne?”

  “I need to get a new outfit for tonight. Just answer the question.”

  “There’s one in Kahului. Built with tons of beige and off-white stone. It looks like it could be in any suburb in Phoenix.”