by Liz Tuccillo
Now if she had spoken to me or Alice, we would have both said something like “He’s not your friend. Sex changes everything. That’s the sad truth of it. Assume he’s fine. Assume his life is exactly the same as it was the last time you saw him. And if you find out later that his son was bitten by a rare South American bee and Bryan had spent the past few days sleeping in the highly-contagious-disease section of Mount Sinai Hospital, well, send him a nice email and apologize.” But we were not there for Georgia. So instead, she gleefully dialed.
She left a message. She knew there was a very good possibility she’d get his voice mail, and she was ready.
“Hey, Bryan, this is Georgia. Just calling to say hi! Hope you’re well.” And then Georgia hung up, almost proudly. Well. That took care of that. She let out a triumphant sigh. The worry, the dread, the panic, whatever you want to call it, had been lifted. She knew immediately she had done the right thing and she felt like a superwoman.
For exactly forty-seven seconds.
Then an awful realization hit her and gave her a feeling of doom unlike anything she had experienced. It dawned on her that she was now just waiting for him to call again. All she had done was give herself the briefest pause from the agony of waiting for him to call her. And now she was back to waiting—but it was far, far worse. Because now she had actually called him. Now if he didn’t call, he would not be simply taking his time calling her after having slept with her, he would be actually not returning her call. She had doubled the misery.
So now, to speed things up a bit: The rest of the day went by. Bryan didn’t call. And Georgia literally had to take to her bed. The kids were picked up by a sitter who stayed and made dinner for them. Georgia was still lying in bed at nine o’clock, when the church bells rang, the doves sang, the clouds parted, and the angels played their harps.
Because he called. He called, he called, he called. Georgia doesn’t know when, in all her born days, she had felt such deliverance. They chatted. And laughed. The knot in her stomach went away. Oh my God, she didn’t know what she was so worried about. Women can get so crazy sometimes! They talked for about twenty-five minutes (of course Georgia was keeping track) before Georgia started to wrap up the conversation. Right when they were about to hang up, finally, Bryan started to make plans.
“So. We should get together soon.”
“Yeah. That would be great,” Georgia said, two days of stress and worry releasing from her body.
“I’ll call you this week and we’ll make plans,” Bryan said.
“Oh-h-h. Okay,” Georgia stammered, confused. She hung up the phone and her first thought was, What the fuck? Why did he have to call her to make a plan when they were already on the phone now?
Now she began the next phase of the disassembling of a dream. She became obsessed with figuring out what she had done wrong. What had she done that made him go from “No, Thursday is too far away” to “I’ll call you this week and we’ll make plans”?
So Georgia waited again. Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday. She tried to put it out of her mind. She got herself a couple of job interviews. She met up with Alice and they did some shopping. She tried to yell at her kids less. The shameless devil on her shoulder was telling her that if she wanted to see Bryan so badly, she should call him. That there’s nothing wrong with a woman asking a man out; it’s the twenty-first century, for goodness sake. But on Friday, just as she was about to pick up the phone, a stay of execution was granted. And he called and asked her out for Tuesday night. Tuesday night? Well, okay. He must have known that you shouldn’t ask a woman out for the weekend on a Friday night; that’s not polite. And she guessed she could ask Dale to take the kids.
So they went out on Tuesday night. Georgia remembered why she liked him so much. Every once in a while the nagging thought would enter her head, What would have happened if I had never called him last Monday? Would he have ever called me? But she put it out of her mind as quickly as it came in. They went back to his house. They had sex. And Georgia got another shot of the love/sex drug that would make her obsess about him for the next four days, during which all he did was text her once to say, “Hey, let’s get together soon!” But this time she did not call him. She was resolute. More than needing to see him, to have sex, and to be validated, much more than all of that she needed to know how long he could go without seeing her. Now, that required strength, stamina, and emotional fortitude on a level that had never been asked of her before, not even in childbirth. And the only way she was able to muster this Herculean restraint was to call and torture Ruby and Alice. (And me, when she could get me on the phone.) The conversations went something like this:
Georgia to Ruby: “But I just don’t understand. If he didn’t want to go out with me, why wouldn’t he just stop asking me out? But if he does like me, why doesn’t he like me as much as he did in the beginning?” Ruby would have no good answer, because really, how do you answer that?
Georgia to Alice: “Maybe he’s never going to call me again. I mean, he said he was going to call me but he didn’t say when. Is it so hard to make a plan for the future? Even a tentative one? What does that mean when you don’t want to make a next date while you’re still on your current one? Is he that busy? Does it feel like too much pressure?” And Alice, a girl after my own heart, just kept saying, Don’t call him, don’t call him, don’t call him.
I guess it would be fair to say that Georgia, whose sanity was really not that fully present to begin with, had now officially completely lost it.
There are some people who have catastrophic results when alcohol and their blood mix together. One could say the same thing for Georgia when it came to mixing her disposition with longing. Some people can suffer through it; some people can overcome it and move on. Georgia was felled by it. Like an aborigine with a bottle of Wild Turkey, Georgia spiraled out of control. She took to her bed again. She would get the kids to school, come back, put on her pajamas, and go back to bed. It seemed like the best way to have the time go by as quickly as possible until he called. If he called. And, in Georgia’s defense, she was always able to get back up and pick the kids up from school, bring them home, and make them a snack. And then she would take to the sofa. It was as if someone had squeezed all the air out of Georgia, and now she was the carcass of a balloon, broken and lifeless, lying on the sofa, popped. Okay, maybe it wasn’t just Bryan. Maybe it was the culmination of the trauma of divorce, of missing Dale more than she wanted to admit, of becoming a single mother, of having jumped in too quickly to the brutal world of dating. Or maybe it really was that she was desperate for Bryan to call. Who knows. The love drug she had ingested turned out to be toxic and she was slowly being poisoned to death.
Finally, he called. At nine o’clock. Wednesday night. Bryan told her that he was at a little coffee shop across the street from her. Were the kids with her or could she come out?
The kids were indeed with her. So that’s what she should have said. But she wasn’t in her right mind. She needed to see him in person and find out what happened. What did she do wrong? She needed to know so she wouldn’t make the same mistake again. She didn’t want to confront him; she just wanted the quiet, possibly brutal truth. So she said that the kids were with her, but her sister was there, so she could run out for a few minutes.
I know! But you have to understand; Beth never, never under any circumstances ever gets up in the middle of the night. She could drive you to your wits’ end before she goes to bed, but once she is asleep, a bulldozer ripping through her bedroom wall wouldn’t wake her. And as for Gareth, it was the same. Also, he was old enough that if for some reason he did wake up, he could read the note that she would leave him, reading “Back in FIVE minutes! Don’t be scared!” She knew that what she was doing was dicey. But she was desperate to get this over with. So she wrote the note and ran out of the apartment, down the stairs, and across the street to the coffee shop. Bryan was sitting by the large window, and when he saw her walking across the street, he started
waving with a big smile on his face.
Georgia sat down and tried to be casual. She knew it was all about not seeming like a hysterical woman. She must not cry. She must not have Trembly Voice. Can’t have Trembly Voice when talking to a man about Things. You must have Casual Lighthearted Voice.
“Can I get you a coffee, or is it too late?” Bryan asked, politely. Georgia just shook her head, too busy trying to slow her breathing and quiet the pounding in her chest to speak. “I’m sorry to call you at the last minute. I was just grabbing a cup of coffee and thought I’d take a shot you were free.”
Georgia finally spoke. “I’m so glad you called. I’ve been meaning to ask you something.” So far, so good. No trembly voice. “I was just wondering, it’s not a big deal, but it did cross my mind, that you don’t seem that”—Georgia added a casual shrug and wave of her hand—“excited about me anymore. And that’s okay, but I was just wondering if I had done something wrong. Because it seemed like you were excited about me, and now you’re kind of…not.” Bryan caught this gentle lob of emotional vulnerability with utter grace and chivalry.
“Oh, Georgia, I’m so sorry you feel that way. Of course you didn’t do anything wrong. Of course not. I think you’re fantastic. I didn’t know it felt like that. I’m so sorry. I just got busy with school and…it’s only been a few weeks, right? So I guess I thought we were just taking it slow…?” Georgia looked at him. It made perfect sense. It had only been a few weeks. He was really busy with school. He thought they were just taking things slow. For a moment, she felt like a jerk. Why did she get so worked up over this? He didn’t do anything wrong. He was just being responsible. Levelheaded. Grown-up. But then she remembered something. She remembered “Tuesday Thursday.” This was that guy. When she met him he wasn’t Taking It Slow Guy. He was Tuesday Thursday Guy. And once a girl knows what it feels like to be dating Tuesday Thursday Guy, no matter how much she wants to pretend she believes that he’s busy or taking it slow, she can never forget that that same man thought that Wednesday, cruel, relentless Wednesday, and Thursday, that nasty, interminable Thursday, were far too long to go without seeing her.
She tried to imagine now what she had been hoping he was going to say in this moment. “I’m so sorry, Georgia, you’re right, thank you for reminding me that I’m in love with you. From now on I will see you twice a week and call you every evening to wish you a good night.” Or, “Well, now that you mention it, Georgia, what happened is that because of my recent divorce, I equate sex with commitment, and from the minute I penetrated you I knew I needed to keep you at arm’s length because ultimately I’m never going to be able to love you and deep down I knew that already.” Whatever closure she was trying to find, Georgia realized it wasn’t going to be discovered at the Adonis Coffee Shop. And her two children were upstairs without adult supervision.
“You’re right. Of course. We’re taking it slow. Absolutely. It never hurts to just check in, right?” Bryan nodded agreeably. She looked at her watch. She had been there exactly four minutes.
“You know, I should get back. I have a feeling my sister wants to get home.”
“Sure, okay, that sounds fine,” Bryan said. “I’ll give you a call soon.”
“Definitely,” Georgia said. Very casually.
She walked away from the coffee shop with a nice, relaxed stride because she knew Bryan would be watching her. But the minute she was inside her building she bounded up the four flights of stairs and into her apartment. No fire. No dead bodies. She walked quickly to her children’s rooms. Beth was sound asleep. She breathed a huge sigh of relief and walked down the short hall and peeked into Gareth’s room.
That’s when time seemed to stop.
Gareth wasn’t there. She raced to her room and was relieved to see him sitting on her bed, frightened but perfectly fine. It was what he said next that truly terrified Georgia.
“I called Daddy.”
Georgia took a deep breath, in a gasp. “What? Why did you do that?”
“I was frightened. You weren’t here. I didn’t know where you were.”
“But didn’t you see my note? I left it on the pillow next to you! I said I was going to be right back.”
He shook his head, his little-boy fear turning into large droplets of tears practically jumping off his face.
“I didn’t see it!” he wailed. “I didn’t see it!”
Georgia grabbed him and held him tightly. She rocked him and kissed his head and tried to do whatever she could think of to make up to him for the last four minutes. She stayed there for what was probably ten minutes, possibly less, when she heard Dale burst in. Georgia put Gareth down and tried to head him off at the pass, running into the living room so he could see that she was home and everything was okay.
“I’m here, I’m here!” Georgia whispered emphathically. “Everything is fine.”
But Dale was not going to be placated so easily.
“Where the fuck were you? Are you out of your mind?”
Georgia took a few steps back. This was bad. Very bad.
“Seriously, Georgia, where the fuck were you?”
Georgia was dumbstruck; his fury and her blatant guilt left her with no words to use in her defense. “I…I…It was an emergency.”
“An emergency? What kind of emergency could make you leave your kids alone? That’s the fucking emergency.”
It was then that Georgia started to cry. She didn’t want to, she couldn’t help it, but she did.
“I’m…sorry…it was just…”
“Was it some guy?” Dale walked toward her, menacingly. “Did you leave the house for some fucking guy?”
Georgia heard the way it sounded, heard her insanity in Dale’s accusation. And she just cried harder.
“I’m sorry. Please. It won’t happen again.”
“Damn right it won’t happen again. I’m taking the kids, Georgia.”
Georgia immediately stopped crying, as if instinctively she knew that her full faculties were needed for this attack.
“What?”
“I’m hiring a lawyer. I want full custody. This is bullshit.”
Georgia let out a scream, but it also came out as “WHAT?”
“You heard me. It’s over. The dropping them off with me whenever you have a hot date. The yelling at them all the time. The teachers say they look dirty, they’re acting out at school. You obviously would rather be single and go out and get laid, so now’s your chance.”
Georgia stammered. “You can’t do that…you can’t.”
Dale started to leave, but he turned back to point right at her. “You should be happy. You’ll get to go out every fucking night of the week if you want to. Don’t try to fight it, Georgia, send me a thank-you card instead.” And with that he walked out of the house. If he had looked to his left before he did, he would have seen Beth and Gareth standing in the doorway, having heard everything.
Georgia sat down at the kitchen table and started to let out a sob. She realized she had just endangered her children and now her own motherhood because of her desperation—the desperation that she had no idea how deeply she felt until it was too late.
RULE 8
There’s Really So Few People Who Have It All So Try Not to Bother with That Whole Envy Thing
On the plane from Singapore to Beijing, it felt as if Thomas and I were on the lam. Every moment we spent together now felt almost criminal; it was an act of rebellion against the agreement he and his wife had for their marriage. They were allowed to leave each other and their marriage for up to two weeks at a time. Now, he wanted more. It was like choosing to escape from a Club Med.
When he called his wife from our hotel room in Bali to tell her that he was going to be away a while longer, I had left the room. The whole thing really wasn’t pretty. No matter how I tried to rationalize it, I was participating in something that was probably causing someone else anguish. I wasn’t sure of this, because, as I said, I had left the room. When I returned, I couldn’t
help but ask him how it went.
Thomas, looking very serious, just said, “She wasn’t happy.”
I didn’t ask anything else.
So, now, going to Beijing, it all felt a little illicit, a tiny bit dirty, and somewhat dangerous. So of course some panic was to be expected. Right before we got on the plane I had taken a full Lexomil. But still, as we got up into the air, I began to feel a tightening in my chest. I’m not sure if Thomas was trying to distract me from a panic attack or if he was just trying to distract himself from his domestic concerns—but he decided to play the part of my research assistant on this trip. He had heard about my phone call from Candace, so I think he was also slightly concerned I wasn’t getting enough work done. He began filling me in on what he had learned.
“This is a very interesting thing, I think, to find out about this woman drought. I think we must get to the bottom of this.” He glanced over at me, slightly worried. “The Lexomil should start working soon.”
There was a group of fifteen people, all together, chatting excitedly a few rows ahead of us. There seemed to be four couples and seven women traveling alone, all Americans. They were swapping photos and sharing stories. There were two others who appeared to be their guides. As I tried to slow down my breath and take my mind off my oncoming terror, I eavesdropped on their conversations.
I looked over at Thomas and whispered, “They’re going to China to adopt children.” I nodded my head toward the group. Thomas looked up at them. I stared at the women who appeared to be without partners. They seemed so excited, as if they had won the lottery and were going to pick up their winnings.
“It’s amazing, isn’t it? They’re choosing to be single mothers. I think it’s very brave,” I said as my body started to relax.
Thomas looked at the women, and then back at me. “Do you want to have children, Julie?”
I tensed up again. “Well. I don’t know. I think if I met the right person I would. I don’t know if I could ever do it alone.”
