51/50: The Magical Adventures of a Single Life

by Kristen McGuiness

  “What’s wrong, Rob?” I asked.

  “Nothing. It’s just, it’s Friday night, you know. You really shouldn’t be canceling a date last minute on a Friday night.”

  “I’m in bed, Rob. I’m in pain.”

  “I know, I hear ya. Still, it’s Friday night. It’s a little rude.”

  Something in my gut says I should hang up on the guy, that I should cancel the date, but whether it’s my good manners, or the place in me that still wants to beg people to stay, I don’t. I apologized again, I hung up the phone, and I put in the movie Rear Window.

  Oliver once said that I resembled Grace Kelly, not so much in my looks, but in my demeanor. When watching her last night, I understand why. Because though she looks fairly cool and collected, she is actually a fast-talking spaz under the surface, and when her mouth gets going, all she can hear is herself. And in Rear Window she is the perfect woman; so perfect that Jimmy Stewart is afraid to marry her because he thinks he would prefer someone more bland, someone more schmoo. Grace gets him in the end. But then again, she’s Grace Kelly. She married a prince. And of course Jimmy Stewart is so much like my Jimmy here that I cannot help but feel that this is how the universe laughs at us.

  “It’s been three years for me,” I say as I tell Rob how single I am over dinner. I know I sound a little morose. I sound like all my dates who just shrug once they realize they’re not interested. I don’t even hide the fact that I am depressed.

  “Wow, three years, what’s wrong with you?” He laughs and then bites into the pastrami and rye that has just arrived. Apparently Rob might teach others about organic diets, but he himself can dig a meat sandwich from time to time.

  “I’m not sure. I’ve been trying to figure that out.” I shovel a large spoonful of potato salad into my mouth. I talk with my mouth full. “And you? Ever been married?”

  “No, I was close once, but it didn’t happen.”

  I tell him how Siren and I are bored by the male sex. “I guess we’re just beginning to feel like you’re all so predictable. And we adore you, we do. It’s just, well, we have your number. And that’s dangerous. It’s dangerous to not be surprised.”

  Rob laughs. “What are we, recipes or something?”

  “Kind of.”

  “I think,” he jokes, “I would be a cranberry pomegranate reduction —pretends he has read more books than he actually has and masturbates twice a week.”

  “Mmm, yeah, except for you’re lying.” I take down another flight of potatoes as I mumble through them, “You masturbate more than that.”

  “And lies about how much he masturbates,” Rob quips.

  I have to laugh at that. And then I decide to just drop one.

  “I quit masturbating,” I say.

  Rob shakes himself. “What?”

  “Yeah. My libido is just gone.” Rob might be shocked but not as much as I am.

  “I have an idea,” Rob says. I brace myself. He suggests that we go to a sex shop around the corner.

  “We won’t buy anything; we’ll just see if we can reprogram you,” he suggests.

  “I don’t know.”

  “I promise we’ll keep it innocent. No matter what, we will end our night with a kiss on the cheek.”

  And that’s a plan I can agree to. We spend the next hour jousting with dildos and making dirty sounds between the shelves and trying to figure out how someone could look themselves in the mirror after fucking a foam pussy. I actually begin to forget about Jimmy and about Rob’s previous behavior because this is fun. We leave the sex shop, laughing and bumping into each other in the parking lot. I drive him back to his car, and I pull over. It’s a busy street, and I am in the red. There are people walking by, so I don’t take my foot off the brake. I don’t put the car in park. I don’t even undo my seatbelt because I am hoping that Rob and I will keep our pact to go to the sex shop and end the night with a kiss on the cheek. Rob undoes his seat belt and turns toward me.

  “All right,” Rob announces. “I am going to try to kiss you again, even while you attempt to fend me off.”

  “Rob, I’m sorry, but that’s exactly what I am going to do. Can’t we just do what we said? Can’t we just end it with a kiss on the cheek?”

  “Whatever.” He leans in, and I think he is smart and is going for the peck, but suddenly I feel his tongue pushing into my mouth, and it’s wrong. I keep my mouth closed, and Rob pulls away.

  “You’re really not going to kiss me?” he hisses.

  “No, I told you that. I want to take this slow, please.”

  “It’s our second date. That is slow!”

  “So? Is there some rule in place?” I’m a little taken aback.

  But Rob gets pissed. “That’s bullshit.”

  This guy really is an asshole. “I’m sorry, Rob. But if I don’t feel like kissing you, then why should I?”

  “Because we’re not ten. I bought you dinner; we had a fun night. You normally end a date like that with a kiss.”

  “Well, I don’t.”

  “Well, you’re a freak,” he says, and quite frankly I think we’re both surprised by his behavior. Silence. I let that one sit there.

  “Look, Rob, that is just how I feel, and if you’re not interested in going along with that, I won’t take any offense. Really.”

  “I’m sorry. It’s just weird to me, that’s all.” Rob tries to back down. But the card has been played, and from here on out whatever Rob might say or do has been destroyed by the word still bouncing around my car. We just went to a sex shop together. We talked about masturbation and terminal singlehood. We had fun. And he ruined it. Rob gets out of my car, and though I know he feels bad, it doesn’t change anything. I can’t help but wonder if my instincts actually worked this time.

  And so I hope that I can apply those same instincts to Jimmy. After the meeting is over on Tuesday, he saunters over and asks me how I am. Except he pulls me back up into that same hug, and though I am so confused, I try to focus. I try not to act all crazy Grace Kelly, but I can’t.

  “Guess what?” I nearly yell in his face. “I got a promotion at work!”

  Jimmy still has his arms around my waist, and mine are around his shoulders.

  “Really, that’s awesome! What will you be doing?”

  We slip apart as I tell him, “I’m gonna be asking rich people for money.”

  His face falls, and he looks a little sad as he says, “You’ll be good at that.”

  It’s a strange response, and I can’t help but feel that he thinks I’m some fast-talking grifter, just a sassy and sophisticated con whom he couldn’t figure out so he turned to the nearest schmoo. He asks me if I’m hungry, and if I want to join him and John for dinner. Before I can confirm, I am in a conversation with someone else, and I see him and John walking off.

  I know it’s for the best because just those few seconds in his arms scrambles me up again. The next morning, I am sitting in another meeting, and I begin to fantasize that Jimmy and I never ended in the first place. That we have been dating now for three months and that we’re hitting that place in a relationship where new challenges might be showing up, but the excitement that this is really happening makes the little bickers and nags fairly invisible. I imagine that he had come to my work’s holiday party and that we had spent New Year’s together and that when my mother visits in two weeks, we would have been in the place where he would have spent some quality time with her. I imagine as I am sitting in the meeting that he would have come in a little late and put his hand on my neck as he sat down behind me. I would have turned around and shot a sleepy glance in his direction. People would at this point know us as a couple and comment on what a great pair we were. And I would have gotten the boyfriend who, for a moment, looked like mine.

  23

  Date Twenty-Three: That Old Dylan Song

  I meet Marcus at Philippe’s French Dip in Chinatown. Marcus is an art designer for movies and TV. He is tall and skinny and looks his forty-four years of age. H
e’s also dressed incredibly cute and has an easy laugh and asks an enormous amount of questions. Though I wasn’t entirely smitten from our e-mails, he resembled a boy I once loved in high school and that was enough for us to set a date over roast beef sandwiches on a Tuesday night.

  I’ve got half a French dip in my mouth when Marcus asks me how my parents met. I talk through my sandwich. “That’s a good question.”

  And the reason why my existence was decided by a single nanosecond of fate. I would have said that latter part too, except this is why dating is hard. So much eating and talking at once.

  “My mom was actually vacationing by herself in Florida. The weird thing is she can’t quite remember why she was there. It was to visit a friend or something. She had just graduated high school, and I guess was killing time while she tried to figure out what to do with her life.”

  “Where did she go to high school?” Marcus should be a reporter.

  “Dallas. That’s why we ended up moving back there when my parents divorced. Anyway, she was there in Ft. Lauderdale and was standing at a stoplight when a man walked up next to her with this big Irish setter. Red Dog.”

  To this day my family cannot mention Red’s name without saying, “What a good dog.” Because Red was special and was, until me, probably the love of my father’s life. I tell Marcus how my mom commented, “What a beautiful dog.” Even today the story confuses me. Because my mom doesn’t talk to strangers on street corners. And she certainly doesn’t talk to random men. But I guess that’s just the simple twist of fate. Seconds and words and street corners lining up just right so that our windows of opportunity become clear. Clear enough for my dad to look over and see my mom and know that he had to meet this naive, little redhead complimenting his Irish setter. “So are you,” my dad replied. And though my Mom might have been nervous that he had just called her a dog, she couldn’t help but feel the excitement that flows when you stand on the edge of your life and slip right over.

  Marcus listens intently as I continue, “My dad followed my mom into the juice bar where she was headed, insisted on buying her a juice, and well, here we are.”

  A little over a year later they were married. Another year later I was born, and in 1981 my father was sentenced and went away for the next twenty-five years. They got divorced when I was six, and at the age of eight my mother took me to my favorite park and sat me down to have what would be a very serious conversation. I knew something was up. I knew my parents were divorced, so it wasn’t that. Our white poodle Gigi had already died the year before, leaving us with no surviving pets, so I checked that one off the list too. Maybe she found out I had stolen the colored chalk from my second-grade teacher. I prepared myself for the stern lecture and shaking head and narrowed eyes that would come to haunt my ill-behaved life. But it had been over a year since the theft, and by the swell of tears in her eyes, the way her mouth fell soft and open, she looked far too sad to be on the verge of punishing me. She slowly explained, “Daddy is in what they call a correctional facility.” Not jail, not prison—a correctional facility. And so we began a lifetime of glossing over the truth of who my father is.

  I don’t tell Marcus all of this, of course, because I don’t air my dirty laundry as easily as I used to. Marcus is put in the awkward position of airing his, however, when I ask, “So how long have you lived in Chinatown?”

  He looks down, “Well, I guess now I get to tell you the long, sordid story.” My interest is piqued but Marcus’s telling of it is neither long nor sordid. In fact, I can tell I am getting the much-shortened, guarded version of the tale. He is divorced and has a four-year-old son, and it seems they all once had a house together up the street. When it came to a tragic end, however, Marcus was forced to move into an apartment in the area, and has been there since. I can tell some serious shit went down when he says that he and his ex are finally on friendly terms and that she now has a boyfriend.

  “I’ve pretty much been out of work since, which sucks, for obvious reasons, but I do get to help out a lot with my son, so it has its perks. I just wish I lived in Germany or Italy where the birthrates are low, so they actually pay you to take care of your children.”

  “Really? They pay you for having kids in Italy?” I ask.

  “They do.”

  “Shit, that’s perfect.” I tell him how my friends and I have made a pact that should we not get married and pregnant by a certain age, we plan to move in together, have children, and raise them in a multi-parent household. I nearly gush, “But if we do it in Italy, we can also make some cash. And we’ll be close to the Prada outlet.”

  “Sure,” I can sense Marcus is not as enthusiastic about my revelation.

  “Marcus. I think I might have found the great solution,” I say, and I am not kidding. Because when he tells me his ex isn’t angry anymore, I know the divorce was Marcus’s fault. And I wonder whether it’s worth it. Whether you finally meet the guy, have the kid, and he ends up fucking it up anyway. And sure he might be good for child care but that’s only when he’s unemployed and living tenuously off the profits of the dream house you bought and renovated together before having to sell it amidst pain and tears and betrayal. I want to ask Marcus if he cheated on his ex, but I don’t. Instead, I tell him the world turns on the backs of women. He laughs, but only a little, and I know he can’t help but admit that it’s true.

  I think about John’s fear that I will hate men by the end of this. And once again, I decide that I won’t. Because whatever mistakes Marcus has made, I have made them too, and I sit there across the table just as single and confused and slightly jaded as he is. We get up to go, and Marcus stops.

  “So should we go out again?”

  I have begun to realize that my easy banter and tendency to laugh is often mistaken by men as romantic interest. And I am not interested in Marcus. I am too young and vibrant yet to end up in someone’s Chinatown apartment, taking care of their four-year-old son, pretending I am happy when I never even felt a spark in the first place.

  But what else can you say when you’re standing in a historical restaurant filled with roast beef and slaw, and you’ve already shared quite a bit of your own histories, and you feel bad for how much this guy standing there, looking at you, has gone through, and you know he would take it all back if he could.

  “Sure.”

  I get in my car and call my father. Two weeks ago, he sent me roses and chocolates and a little teddy bear that has managed to go to bed with me every night since. He has called me numerous times over the last two days, begging me to return his call, telling me that he decided not to pursue his old career. He says he is living with a friend and is writing the book about his life instead. I talk to Nana earlier in the day, and we agree that I should return the call but only to ask him for some more time apart. That he needs to focus on what he is doing and show me that his change is in action and not just word.

  I call him, and I think he might be drinking. His voice is heavy as he tells me that he is staying on a farm in Tennessee. “Look, K. I just want to say that the last conversation we had, it’s dead, okay? It’s dead and buried.”

  I would disagree as it is still very much alive for me, but I have begun a new template with my father where he talks and I remain quiet, and then I say what I have to say and try my best to prevent his frequent interruptions with the phrase, “Please, let me speak.”

  “Dad, believe me, I know that you love me, but sometimes we don’t know how to love people the right way.”

  “Aw, Jeez, Kris, you sound like you’re from L.A. Come on, we don’t know how much time we have on this earth.”

  “I agree, and I respect that. It’s because of that, because we only get one shot at this, that I want to do it right. That’s why…”

  “Kris…”

  “Please, let me speak. That’s why I need time to decide how I want to progress, to see whether I want to even participate in this relationship.”

  He falls silent and then says, “Oh,
so, is that how it is?”

  He sounds like so many of the men I have dated. I stay calm as he tells me that he needs my help getting his book published. “I’m not calling you just because you’re my daughter, you know. I want you to be a part of this. We could make some good money here. With my stories and your connections.”

  I ignore this. Ignore the fact that my father is in essence telling me he is using me. I ask him to give me a month. He feels bad and says that he wants me to visit, that he will pay for it, that he wants to see me. But I remain strong. “Look, Dad, call me in a month. We can see where we’re at then.”

  I hang up the phone and choke back the tears. I am trying to create boundaries, but I also can’t help but wonder whether I am punishing the guy. I have it in my head that if only I could be healthy and strong in my relationship with my dad, then I could be healthy and strong in my relationships with men in general. Rob, my date from the sex shop, said he hates feeling like he is being punished for another guy’s mistakes. And I wonder whether I am now punishing my father for all the mistakes the guys I have dated have made. Or if I have punished all the guys for the mistakes of my father.