51/50: The Magical Adventures of a Single Life

by Kristen McGuiness

  Oliver tells me about the small village in which St. Francis once lived. At one point the villagers found themselves attacked by a local wolf, and so they went to St. Francis and asked the great man for help. Apparently, this wolf had been eating their children. St. Francis went to the wolf and gave him a mound of bread, and the wolf ate it. He gave the wolf a mound of meat, and the wolf ate that too. The next day, St. Francis walked into town with the wolf at his side. He took a piece of bread out of his satchel and handed it to the wolf as they walked. The villagers all asked, “How did you stop this wolf from eating our children?” And St. Francis told them, quite plainly, “I fed him.”

  Just as he did so many times before, Oliver holds up the looking glass for me and shows me my metaphor. Because I am the hungry wolf. Walking along, starving for love like I once had, with Oliver and with others. And all I want is a piece of bread. But for some reason, they always fear that I am looking to eat their children. Oliver jokes that his current relationship isn’t like the torrid tryst we had. I can’t help but laugh even though it hurts. “That’s a good thing, Oliver.”

  I look down and out across Los Angeles.

  Our time is up and as much as I want to tell Oliver about my life, I think we’ve said enough. As we turn to go, he asks, “How do you know if you have a drinking problem?”

  He had mentioned earlier that he was currently not drinking, and I knew something was up. I don’t know what to say. I don’t know that I can be responsible for opening that door. Or maybe it’s the only thing I can do. So I tell him, “You know when it no longer works for you, and yet you still can’t stop doing it.”

  But it sounds so cliché and easy that it gets tossed off in our conversation.

  What I want to say is that seeing the ravages of alcoholism does not prevent you from having it. That is one of the first delusions that must be smashed. And then you go to a meeting, and you listen, and you get the book, and if you got The Shining, you don’t kid yourself that there is any other way to do it and still live a happy, healthy, and spiritually productive life. And if anything else, by doing that sort of legwork, you will know whether you have a drinking problem or not.

  That’s it. That’s all. The rest is up to you, my lovely friend.

  Oliver walks me to my car. He reaches out and holds my hand, but in a good, kind way. We stop and hug, and there is no major chemical reaction or explosion, just two people who know each other enormously well. He tells me that we don’t need to be strangers, but out of respect to him, his relationship, me, we do. I tell him I will e-mail him this chapter as he has asked, but otherwise, I will see him again in two years to catch up. I hold on to his hand as I open up my car door. I cannot look at him as I say, “I will always love you, Oliver.” My voice cracks, and I hold on tight as he replies, “I will always love you too.”

  I get in the car. He stands there watching me go. I walk home tonight with excruciating pain and love for this world. I notice every leaf, every limb, every splash of light, and in a way, I trip the light fantastic. I feel set free. I feel incredibly blessed that I had the chance to know Oliver. And that we might always love one another. And I wonder what my destiny might be. Because though I finally showed up present and whole and ready to go, I grew up too late, and Oliver had already left. And if the universe has decided that they’ve got something for me that is bigger than that man, I can’t help but look forward to how this sparkling ribbon of time pans out.

  46

  Date Forty-Six: Same Story, Different People

  “Don’t you miss it?” Mimi asks me as we stand, out of breath, at one of the highest peaks of our morning walk. We stare out at the sunrise view of the sloping hills and the Hollywood sign and that enigmatic Observatory. Mimi and I have been talking about romance.

  “I do,” I tell her. “I miss it all the time. I don’t know. I think the hardest part is not being able to look forward to someone’s call.”

  And it is. There is nothing more heart pumping than that little red light on my phone that tells me that someone has called or sent a text message. And I know that I am in a low point of romance when that light blinks, and there isn’t even a shudder to be had that “he” might have called. Over the last few weeks, “he,” as in Ben, has not been calling.

  But ever since I met with Oliver, I just don’t know that I need to be worried about that little red light. I kind of feel like love might be bigger than that. I can cry over losing that man for the rest of my life, or I can realize that he was the railroad switch that led me onto the next path. And maybe that’s all relationships are really for: to teach us how to live in this world.

  And so I am willing to bet that there will also be a lesson with Ben. It’s like Mimi says, “That’s a very interesting relationship you have there. I’m confused, but we’ll just have to see.”

  And we will. We will just have to see.

  On Saturday afternoon I am sitting in my bathroom, painting my toenails, getting ready to go out that night, when the phone rings.

  “Hey, so how’s the book coming?” Ben asks.

  “Good. Amazing. I am in editing mania.”

  “I hear that.”

  “You too?” I ask.

  “Yeah, I’ve just been polishing up some pieces.”

  “Oh.” I get the feeling Ben does a lot of polishing, more than I am currently doing to my toes. That the polishing is better than actually going out there and making it happen. That it’s safer that way.

  “So I have an idea,” Ben tells me. “I go to this writers’ salon downtown every month, and they’re having one tomorrow. You wanna come with me?” And that’s how I go from not talking to Ben at all to sitting outside my apartment building, waiting for him to pick me up.

  He pulls into the fire lane, and I bound down the stairs and into his car. I am tan. I have on makeup. My cleavage is obvious. But no compliments are coming from Ben. Instead, we laugh and joke and make a few nervous comments as we drive to the salon. We park across the street, and as we’re making our way across the five-lane road that separates us from the studio, I watch Ben take off ahead of me. I want to tell him to slow down, to wait for me, but we’re not there yet, and I know it.

  We go inside and wait our turn to read. I look over to where Ben sits, and I try to figure out what I think of this strange man who keeps appearing in my life. He is wearing a ripped T-shirt and shorts and obviously has no interest in trying to impress me with how he is dressed. But again, I look at his tan calves, and his strong forearms, and I want to forget his dumb perverted jokes and the fact that he looks at me like I am just any other girl. Because I know he knows that I am not.

  He gets up to read his piece, and he might as well be reading a chapter from this book. The story, the humor, the tempo, the loneliness. The looking for love in all the wrong places. Ben and I go out for coffee afterward. I am not sure if we are on a date, and when the bill comes, I pay for it because I get the feeling we’re not. We talk about our work and our lives and our dreams and our childhoods and our families. I don’t really go into the situation with my father, which is a clear sign to me that I am becoming a healthier individual. This night, I keep my big story to myself.

  But it might just be that I really don’t know what to say about him anyway. Because on Friday my father calls me to tell me that he is leaving Texas to go home to Connecticut for a couple of weeks. I am supposed to visit the following month. “I think I’m gonna try to stay there, K,” he tells me.

  “Why? What’s wrong with Texas?”

  “It’s just really hard, Kris. They treat the animals so terrible, and the workers...”

  “Last week you loved it. I don’t understand. You have any other job offers?”

  “I’ll probably go back,” he says, though I can hear the lie in his voice. “But I needed a vacation.”

  “Oh, okay, a vacation.” The man has been playing handball in the federal pen for the last thirty years. I find a vacation laughable. But more than that, so mu
ch more than that, he is once again breaking the date that has been twenty-five years in the making. And though they are screaming in my head, I cannot say the words I most need to say: “But I have a ticket to come visit you.”

  He hears it in my voice, though, in the thick quiver I have put up to hold back the tears. “I’ll probably still be there when you come to visit, K. And if not, you can just come to Connecticut.”

  “Mmm, well, we’ll see. Nana and Uncle Tom and Vic are already expecting me to come to Texas. And that’s why I bought the ticket…”

  “Well, if it’s about money, Kris…”

  “No, Dad, it’s not about money,” I snap. I can’t take this. I don’t want to take this. I have lived my whole life being deceived and disappointed by this man. I am so tired of being promised that he is coming home, and then just when I finally decide to trust, when I finally buy the lie about my best date yet, he fucks me over. Again. He doesn’t say anything because he knows what he has done, and there’s just not much a parent can say to that.

  “Yeah,” I mutter. “Well, enjoy your vacation.”

  I hang up the phone, and I breathe in deep because I have spent too many tears crying over this man. And I have a job to go to, and a heart to heal, and I am too old to believe in some Santa Claus Daddy that doesn’t know how to be a real father. I talk to my mom the next day, and I tell her that I think it is absolutely beautiful that since telling Nana that my dad might not be there, Uncle Tom and Uncle Vic have both called to let me know that they want to be my date for that weekend.

  Two days later, Ben and I end up seeing each other at a meeting, and afterward, we talk again for an hour outside. About our work, our books, our feelings about romance. We have so much fun, and I wonder whether the long talks and shared beliefs are what is real—that they are the steel that creates those railroad switches, those points in the road that ask for us to change. And I know that as Ben tries to hide behind his walls of sarcasm and indifference that I can teach him as much as he can teach me. We agree to edit each other’s work, and it is an intimacy that we breach. He will read all of this. And I am not scared. I am not scared to say that I do not know who this Ben character is, or what role he will play in my journey.

  I know that we can only love as much as we are willing to be hurt. And so I must be open to that, as much as I need to protect myself from people who don’t know how to love. Ben and I don’t act like we might actually be attracted to each other, but I am okay with becoming friends and allowing the rest to happen as it should. Because as much as I like believing the fantasy, I know that it only leads to my disappointment. And I think I need to take my time to find out if a man is willing to show up when no one else will or run just when you let him in. And I can’t go another twenty-five years not knowing the difference.

  47

  Date Forty-Seven: I Win

  I don’t win things. I just wasn’t born with that kind of luck. I remember that by the end of elementary school everyone had won a school raffle or classroom toy giveaway or a game of bingo at least once. But not me, and by the time I was in high school, I would barely look at my ticket as they would call out the numbers to whatever raffle or drawing was being conducted. I know that there is a physical principle of luck and that it has as much to do with time and place as it actually has to do with fortune. But that’s the thing—I have been ten minutes late my whole life, and so my little ticket would always flutter into the raffle bin at the wrong time. I would fail to show up for the writing contest, the big promotion, the man of my dreams. Until now. Because I feel like I might be more on time these days. Not perfect. Still a minute or two late, but close enough. Close enough that in the space of one week, I win thirty-three dollars and another shot at love.

  On Friday night I am again set up by Mimi. I think she is giving up hope and is now just throwing darts aimlessly at the wall, hoping that something hits.

  Joey is a graphic novelist with a forward-moving future in screenwriting. From the e-mail correspondence between him and Mimi, I pictured someone funny, with a good body, a slight Brooklyn accent, and a boyish face. I realized later that what I had pictured was actually Joey from Friends, but that’s another issue.

  Joey invites me to go to a Dodgers game with him, and I immediately accept. I like baseball, but even more than that, I like the fact that this guy is already asking me out for something more interesting than coffee. But then he starts sending me clips of Dodger games, and by the eleventh YouTube link, I find out that Joey is a Dodger fanatic. He has season tickets, goes to every game, and apparently I don’t have much of a chance of seeing him anywhere else but there. But I’m okay with that because these dates have stopped being about finding love and have instead become a simple cure for loneliness.

  Joey picks me up at work and drives me in my Dodger baseball cap with his Dodger-blue truck to Dodger Stadium. He leads me through the parking lot, past the concessions, and up into our seats, and I feel like I am in a movie. Because these are the kinds of seats that the main characters always have in the romantic comedies about baseball fans. These are Vince Vaughn/Tom Hanks/Jimmy Fallon kinds of seats. We are on the front row in left field, and the grass is bright green, and the sun is just going down, and the air is warm, and I feel like every kid at their first game—nervous and excited and proud to be there.

  The field is so close I feel like I could touch it.

  Later when I ask Joey if he brings friends to the games often he tells me, “All my friends are already at the game, so not really. Tonight was definitely the first time I brought a woman.”

  I get the feeling that as long as Joey is sitting at Dodger Stadium with a small group of primarily male Dodger fanatics, that statement probably won’t be changing for some time. But he is great to go to a game with, and I think he feels the same way about me. I am up and down, screaming and hollering the entire game. I am asking questions and eating Dodger dogs and desperately trying to get Manny Ramirez to throw me his practice balls. As the game nears the finish we begin debating as to who is going to win the pool at the end of the night. There was a bet at the beginning of the game based on what time the game would end. It was a quarter per bet, and I put in a dollar. I chose four times, one of them being 10:32 p.m. As the game edged closer to 10:30 p.m., I began to get nervous. Sure we were in the top of the ninth and leading; sure we had one out—but two outs in two minutes? I didn’t think it would happen. And then there was a man on first, and then there was a ball in the air. And then there was a catch, and one out became three outs. And we looked at the clock, and you got it. 10:32 p.m.

  Joey tapes the whole thing and puts it on YouTube, so later I see what happens when someone spends thirty years waiting to win something. Thirty years of watching The Price Is Right, thirty years of school and workplace raffles, thirty years of always looking at my number and shrugging my shoulders.

  “I WON!!! I WON!!!! I WON!!!” I am jumping in the air; I am screaming; I am high-fiving strangers and hugging Joey. I am handed all thirty-three dollars of my booty, and I am falling over myself. “I’m a Dodgers fan now!” I tell the camera as I spread out the cash in my hands.

  The following week, I take my thirty-three dollars, fill my tank with gas, and drive to the new home of one Jimmy Voltage, knowing my luck has changed.

  I am going on a three-day, horseback-riding trip into the mountains of the Sierra Nevadas over Labor Day weekend. We will be riding horses all day and camping at night and even getting the chance to fish. I haven’t fished since I was fourteen, and fortune really didn’t serve me there either. But I want to try again because, though it might have nothing to do with luck, that trip to the Sierras is one of the greatest prizes I have yet to receive in my life. As a bonus, Jimmy Voltage has offered to help me purchase my fishing tackle.

  I meet him at his house. I get out of my car, and he is already standing on his porch, waiting for me. He is living in a beautiful two-bedroom home with a Jacuzzi and a backyard, and I can see that he t
oo feels like a winner. He bounds down the stairs and nearly picks me up, and his hug is so big, I quickly find myself wrapped up in his warmth. We haven’t spent time alone since we drove back together from Oxnard in November. And ten months later, I stand looking up at him, happy for his life.

  “It’s what I’ve always wanted,” he tells me. “It’s been my dream to have my own house, and now I do.”

  I smile as he squeezes me tighter and say, “You do.”

  We go to lunch, and we talk like we never have before. I tell him about my dates and my life and my firm belief that I am exactly where I am supposed to be. He tells me how he has had to let go of looking for the perfect partner. With being obsessed about finding just the right woman for the adventure. The conversation could get really thick here, but we are interrupted by a friend of Jimmy’s, and so we let it go.