by Lynda Curnyn
“I’m not kidding,” he said, warming to his subject. “I was reading just the other day how this woman sued her fiancé for emotional distress when he broke it off right before the wedding.”
“We weren’t engaged, Dad.”
“That’s true,” he said, and I could hear the wheels turning. “Did he ever give you any gifts? Love letters that might be construed as promises of commitment?”
“Forget it, Dad,” I said, not wanting to ’fess up to the fact that I had allowed myself to fall in love with a man who said from day one that he wasn’t going to commit.
“Well, if you ask me, Emma, I think it’s for the best,” my dad said soothingly. “Who knows, maybe you’ll meet a nice lawyer. Then we could kill two birds with one stone!” And he laughed in some misguided attempt to cheer me up, but all I could think of was Henry Burke’s shiny bald head and how utterly unable I was to love such a man, despite my father’s wishes. I mustered up some halfhearted reply, then moved on to safer ground, like my job and how I was angling for a promotion. By the time I hung up, I had managed to convince my father that my life was a lot cheerier than it seemed. But as I stared at the receiver, I felt emptier than I had ever felt.
When I thought about it, I realized a lot of my dismay had to do with being almost certain that my father was drinking again. And there was nothing I could do about it. I understood perfectly why Bernie wouldn’t take on my father’s latest case. How could he argue the harness was defective when, in fact, it was my father with the defect? And the worst of it was, in my current hungover condition I was really in no position to judge. People did what they needed to do to get by, right?
But I could just hear my mother outlining a few psychological paradigms that might give shape to this particular dysfunction. And at the moment, most of them also applied to me.
Shrugging off the thought as the truly dysfunctional are wont to do, I called Jade, my comrade in debauchery, to see if she was okay. I still thought she might need to meet over coffee and talk about this whole thing with Michael. But as I dialed, I knew I would have to tread lightly, because when it came to Michael, Jade tended either to clam up or get defensive.
I got her machine and wondered if she was screening. “Jade, are you there?” I paused to give her a chance to pick up. “Okay. Well, can’t say that I am envious of your ability to get yourself out of bed so early after our raucous evening last night. My head is killing me.” I paused again, wondering once more if she was there and just didn’t want to talk. “Anyway, I just called to see if maybe you wanted to go get breakfast, talk about last night. Not that I think you need to talk about last night,” I added quickly. “All right. Well, call me when you get a chance.”
I hung up and sat wondering where she might be. Then I dialed Alyssa, figuring I could both see how she was doing and get my father’s request out of the way.
Richard answered the phone. “Hey, Em, how are you?”
“Good, good, how are you doing?” I replied. The image of Henry Burke rose before me, and I suddenly felt embarrassed. As if Richard had offered me a Mercedes-Benz that simply needed a wax job and I had politely declined.
“Great, great. So I heard my pal Hank and you had a good time the other night.”
“Oh, yeah. Well, we, uh—”
“Said he just picked up tickets to the Sting concert at the Garden this weekend. You going with him?”
“He did?” Maybe there was reason for me to return good ol’ Hank’s phone call, I thought, then was immediately horrified at the discovery that I was in danger of becoming one of those girls who would do anything for a free meal, a free concert, free anything.
“Yeah. I think he said he got floor seats.”
“You’re kidding,” I replied, wondering why I wasn’t one of those girls who would do anything for a free ride.
“Hank’s the man. He’s got connections everywhere. You’ll never have to worry about a thing when you’re with him.”
Except footwear. Could a woman really commit to low heels for the rest of her life? “He seemed like a nice enough guy. I mean, he was very sweet.”
Richard was silent for a moment. “Oh, I get it. You weren’t into him.”
Relieved that I wasn’t going to have to live another lie, even for the sake of floor seats to Sting, I replied, “No, I guess I wasn’t. He called…but I never got back to him,” I confessed guiltily.
“Hey, that’s not a big deal. It was worth a shot, right? These blind-date things are tough, you know?”
He was so sensible, so good natured, I thought. Alyssa better not break his heart. “Yeah, I guess you’re right. I feel bad, though, because he was a nice guy, and I don’t want to hurt his feelings. Maybe I should call him back…or something.”
Richard laughed. “Are you kidding? Don’t worry about Hank. He’s probably lined up someone new already. In fact, I was out with him for happy hour last night, and I saw him talking to some pretty blonde. I think he may even have gotten her phone number.”
The creep. “Oh, well. That’s…good, I guess.”
“Oh, yeah. Don’t you worry about Hank. If you want, next time I see him, I’ll cover for you. Say you left the country or something.” Then he laughed. “Hank will get over it. I mean, the guy never lacks for women.”
Suddenly Hank, with his gleaming bald spot and blah conversational skills, grew incredibly appealing in my mind. I quickly shook the feeling off. What was I, crazy? What kind of world are we living in here when short, balding men had dates lined up back-to-back and beautiful single women like Jade—and, yes, I would even venture to include myself in this category—could barely find someone to stick around long enough for meaningless sex? Oh, right. New York City. Where the women are plentiful and the men…pitiful.
“Well, I’m glad poor Henry won’t suffer on my account,” I said.
He chuckled. “I miss that sarcasm of yours, Emma. When are you going to come over for dinner again?”
Just as soon as you and Alyssa are safely married and I don’t have to feel guilty looking at you, I thought. “Soon. Soon. Hey, listen, I’m wondering if you can recommend a lawyer for my litigious dad.”
“Uh-oh. What did he do now?” Richard was well versed in my father’s lawsuits, as we had spent many an evening analyzing the sheer audacity of many of them.
“Fell off a roof.” Then I added, “He was wearing one of those mountain-climbing harness things, and apparently the clasp wasn’t working properly.” I didn’t mention my suspicion that he might have been drinking. I always hesitated when it came to revealing my dysfunctional upbringing, especially to men like Richard, who grew up in Westchester in a perfect house with perfectly nice parents, one a doctor and the other a lawyer. His parents even had a golden retriever named Skip, for crying out loud.
“Is your dad okay?” Richard was asking now.
Depends on what you mean by okay, I thought, but aloud I said, “Well, he did break his right shoulder and right arm.”
“Ouch,” Richard replied.
“Yeah, you’re not kidding.”
“Well, let me think about it. See if I can come up with a good lawyer for him. Sounds like he might have a case, who knows?”
So sweet, Richard was. So very, very sweet. Damn Alyssa and her raging hormones. “Thanks, Richard. So, is Alyssa there?”
“Naw. She’s at the vet.”
Oh God. “On a Sunday?”
“Yeah, well, you know Lulu went for those tests yesterday, and Alyssa was really worried. She didn’t want to have to wait the whole weekend for the results. So the doctor offered to meet her today and talk to her about the results. Nice guy, huh?”
Helluva guy. “Uh, yeah.”
“I offered to go with her, but Alyssa wouldn’t have it. She seems to think she’s gotta manage this whole thing with Lulu on her own.” He sighed. “I guess it must be hard for her. She’s had that dog since she was a kid.”
“Yeah.” My heart was doing a sad little plunge to my
ankles as I listened to the concern in Richard’s voice.
“I’m just hoping for the best,” he said. Then he chuckled ruefully. “You know, I used to tease Alyssa about her attachment to that scruffy little ball of fur. I have to admit, though, I’ve grown quite attached to the old girl.”
“You are not going to lose Alyssa,” I said, my voice full of determination.
“Alyssa?” He chuckled. “I was talking about Lulu.”
Idiot! “Right. That’s what I meant. Lulu.” I bit my bottom lip. Hard. “Anyway, don’t you worry about anything, Richard. You and Alyssa are going to get through this thing. With Lulu. Everything is going to be just fine.”
And when I hung up the phone a few minutes later, I wondered just how fine everything really was going to be.
Confession: I have become the other woman.
I made it all the way to Monday night without giving in to the urge to call Derrick, which was pretty good considering that Jade was MIA since Saturday and unavailable to talk me out of it. I was worried about what might have happened to her, until I called Threads on Monday and learned that she had, in fact, reported in at 10:00 a.m. that morning, before she went out on a shoot. I might have called Alyssa again, but I couldn’t bear the thought of knowing Richard might be in the background and in danger of overhearing me blast her. Since she was in court all day today, I would have to wait before I had a chance to tell her just how unspeakably cruel I thought she was for doing what she was doing to Richard.
But by the time Monday night rolled along, I felt entitled to call Derrick. After all, it was now over a week since we had last spoken. And so what if he hadn’t called again, aching to talk to me, after that initial realization of how much he missed me? He had given me his number right? Maybe he was waiting for me to call him. And because I was the type who would never let anyone suffer too greatly on my account, I waited until just after midnight, passing the time jotting down lame ideas for that damn proposal on the older bride for Patricia, then carefully dialed his phone number, which, I’ll admit, I had already memorized from staring at it so often.
After one ring, I knew I had done the right thing.
At two rings, anticipation filled me.
At the third ring, I started to plot my next move. Leave a message if he’s not home? That would put the ball in his court. Not a good idea in my current state of mind.
At the fourth ring I wondered if he had even gotten a machine yet. If he hadn’t, he would have no idea I was calling him. Hell, I could ring him all night, unless of course he had caller ID. Unfortunately I had no way of knowing that.
Suddenly a breathless and—God help me—female voice came over the line. “Hello?”
“Uh. I, um…I think I have the wrong number?”
“Who are you looking for?”
“Derrick Holt?”
“Nope, you’ve got the right number,” she chirped perkily. “He’s not in right now, can I take a message?”
So thrown off was I by this woman—whoever she was—I didn’t think about my next best move. I answered dumbly, “Just tell him Emma called.”
“Emma? Does he have your number?”
Yeah, sweetheart. Emblazoned on his brain. “Yes, he has it.”
“Okay, I’ll give him the message.”
“Thanks,” I replied weakly, my head spinning.
“Have a good night,” she said pleasantly, and hung up.
Who was she, dammit? My mind immediately sorted through the possibilities until I settled on the one that hurt the least. The roommate. Relief washed through me. She had to be the roommate. There was no way Derrick could have gotten cozy enough with a new girlfriend this fast, right? Not enough so that she’d get key privileges. Hell, I didn’t get a set of Derrick’s keys until we were dating a solid six months. And even then I had to demand them.
The roommate. Okay. I could live with that.
Then a new dread filled me. Richard and Alyssa had practically been roommates once.
I called Jade, knowing she was the only one who could talk me out of the terrible turn my thoughts had taken. At the sound of her message, I started to panic. “Where the hell are you?” I all but shouted at the sound of the beep.
“Emma?” came Jade’s groggy voice as she picked up.
“Oh God, I’m sorry, Jade,” I said, feeling immediately guilty. “Are you sleeping?” I glanced at the clock. It was midnight, after all, though I knew Jade stayed up pretty late most of the time.
“It’s all right,” she said.
“Is everything okay with you?”
“Yeah, fine. Just tired.” Then she laughed, the sound rich and satisfied. “I’ve been on a marathon of sex ever since Saturday night.”
“Saturday night?”
“Yeah, after you got out of the cab, I decided there was no reason I had to be alone. I headed straight over to Enrico’s. I didn’t get home until a few hours ago.”
“You’ve been with him the whole time?”
“Well, except for a brief intermission today when I went on a shoot. Otherwise, I’ve pretty much been in the horizontal.” She laughed throatily. “And the vertical. Did I mention my little Enrico used to be an athlete back in Italy? Mmmmm,” she purred.
Apparently Jade had managed to exorcise thoughts of Michael the only way she knew how. With lots of mind-blowing sex. “You must be beat. I’ll let you go.”
“Is everything all right?”
“Derrick has a roommate,” I blurted, the memory of the woman’s happy little voice filling me with newfound angst.
“So what? You knew that, didn’t you?”
“A female roommate.”
“Oh.”
“Now all I can think about is him coming home to her every night. Them sharing dinners. Videos. Next thing you know, she’s more girlfriend than roommate!”
“Emma—”
“I know what you’re going to say, Jade. I should forget about him. After all, he’s not my boyfriend anymore. He’s not in my life. He has the perfect right to move on.”
“He hasn’t moved on, Emma. He just got a roommate.”
“Yeah, well, it’s easy enough to fall in love with your roommate. Look at Richard. He fell in love with Alyssa when she was spending so much time at his apartment.”
“You have to take your mind off this. You are not going to get anywhere with—”
“I can’t take my mind off it. In fact, it’s all I’ve been able to think about ever since I hung up the damn phone. All I can see is Derrick talking with his roommate, laughing with his roommate, telling his roommate all about his day. His next screenplay idea. His hopes and dreams.” I sighed. “And I’ll just be that girl he used to know on the East Coast. I can’t bear the thought of…of…becoming an anecdote. A part of his past.” My voice broke. “I still love him, Jade.”
She sighed, and it was one of the saddest sounds I’ve known to come out of Jade. “I know, honey.” She was silent then, and I knew that space of quiet was filled with understanding. She knew what I was going through. Hell, she suffered from the same ailment.
“You need another guy,” she said finally, her voice full of determination, “someone to take your mind off Derrick. What happened with that guy you met Saturday?”
“Not a peep out of him yet.” A pit formed in my stomach. Maybe I was just not the kind of woman men pined for, chased after, romanced. Apparently I was the kind that drove men away. As in, clear across the country.
“Well, it’s too soon anyway,” Jade said. “He didn’t look like some desperate geek to me. In the meantime, let me see if Enrico has any friends.”
“No, I don’t want to—”
“Emma, sex is the single girl’s Prozac. Trust me on this.”
“Forget it, Jade. I’ll manage,” I said, then realized that my cupboards were currently bare of anything resembling binge food.
Dear God, how was I going to survive this?
Suddenly my eye fell on a dusty bottle of Baileys Iris
h Cream, a gift I had gotten last Christmas and had yet to open.
Oh God.
“Do you think I’m an alcoholic?” I asked, eyeing the bottle with dread.
“Whoa. Where did that come from?” Jade said.
“I did drink an awful lot on Saturday. Three or four drinks in as many hours. And then there were those shots Manny bought for us. That’s not normal. I could have a problem.”
“Three or four drinks and a few shots of Tequila on a Saturday night only qualifies you for a hangover.”
“But it was almost like I had to get drunk in order to…to function.”
“Gimme a break, Emma. You are not an alcoholic. I know you think just because your father had a problem—”
“Has. My father has a problem, Jade,” I cut in. Then, with an exasperated sigh, I confessed all. “He fell off the roof of his house last week. He didn’t say so, but I suspect he’d been drinking again.”
“Oh, shit. Is he all right?”
“Beyond a broken shoulder and arm, he’s fine. As fine as he’ll ever be, anyway. All ready to sue and blame it all on someone else.”
She was quiet again, and during this silence I imagined she was putting it all together—my need for alcohol to carry on a conversation at a party, my father’s need for alcohol before he climbed up on top of a house.
“Look, Emma, I’m sorry about what happened to your dad. I really am. But all you’re doing is using this incident with your dad to take your mind off Derrick, when I have a much better solution.”
“Sex? Sex is a better solution?”
“It’s a healthier one. Good cardiovascular. And not bad for your self-image, either.”
I sighed as I realized I had no desire to have sex again. The whole idea seemed suddenly exhausting. I couldn’t even imagine being naked with anyone but Derrick. Then I realized that there was a very strong chance Derrick would soon be getting naked with someone else. “At this rate, I don’t think I’ll ever have sex again. And least of all with some oversexed twentysomething immigrant boy you might round up for me.”
“Okay, but you don’t know what you’re missing….”
Oh, I did, I thought. It just had nothing to do with sex. And everything to do with a certain screenwriter who was on the sure path to happily-ever-after. With someone else.
