Ghosts of Boyfriends Past

by Alexander, Carly

  “Your friend is fabulous!” some guy told Leo and me. He might have been the toe cruncher; it was hard to keep track with the tequila and wine setting in. “I’ll wager you have a blast with her.”

  “We’ve never seen her before in our lives,” Leo answered.

  I stepped back and spotted an empty round table in a corner booth. “Let’s take that one,” I said, noticing Jenna was right on it, pointing it out to the waitress, who seemed agreeable.

  “Perfect,” Jenna called over her shoulder. She pushed past the occupied tables and slung her jacket over a chair.

  Leo looked over longingly. “But it’s so far from the bar, and tequila doesn’t age well,” he said, lifting the last full shotglass. “Oh, well.” He downed it, then stumbled out of his bar stool.

  “Hey, buddy, slow down,” I told him. “You’re moving like the poster child for AA.”

  Throwing his shoulders back to an erect posture, Leo smiled. “Make that triple A, and you’ve got a deal. I just love to travel.”

  18

  Once the three of us settled in at the table, Delia came over and introduced herself to Jenna and me. “I’ve heard so much about both of you,” she said, toying with a clip behind her left ear.

  I toasted her with my chardonnay. “Love your hair. Does it take long?”

  “It always does.” Delia reset the twist of hair and clamped the clip over it. “But it’s really quite wild if I don’t do something to strap it down in clippies.” She took the chair between Jenna and me and cast her piercing green eyes on us. “Now, which one of you is dating a local boy? No, don’t tell me, let me guess.” She pointed to Jenna. “You’ve got the look of love.”

  Jenna paled. “Not me. I’m still looking for Mr. Perfect.”

  “Although she’s been dating Mister Almost-Perfect for six years now,” Leo offered.

  “He” was referring to Benjamin Cho, one of Jenna’s high school classmates from Astoria, Queens. On paper, Benjamin was the perfect guy for Jenna. His family knew her family. He attended the same church, and had also gotten his master’s in social work at NYU. He and Jenna had been study buddies, and over the years Benjamin had come to be something of a fixture in our apartment—the quiet, wise Yoda with the wicked sense of humor.

  But Jenna had one problem with Benjamin: He wasn’t American enough for her. Call it reverse racism or rebellion against parents or white-boy lust, but whatever the diagnosis, Jenna was determined to choose her ultimate mate from a different gene pool. That was why she didn’t sleep with Benjamin (although I’d been tempted to pull him into bed a time or two. Let’s face it, availability is a definite plus, and Benjamin often slept on the futon couch in our living room). As far as Jenna was concerned, they were buddies.

  “Benjamin and I are just friends,” Jenna insisted, rolling her eyes at Leo the way she had a hundred times before.

  Delia took a cigarette from her pack and pointed it to me. “So you’re the one dating the Scotsman.”

  Finally, I get to talk about the huge weight crushing my heart. I nodded eagerly, extending my hand. “I’m Madison, and yes, I’m the one. He was supposed to be here, but he got tied up with business.”

  “What does he do?” Delia asked.

  “He’s a producer of comedy shows for the BBC, and he’s also done a few of those talent-search shows that are so popular everywhere,” I said. “Like Secret SuperStar.”

  “Get out!” Delia’s mouth dropped open in amazement; unfortunately, her lit cigarette dangled there, as if glued to her lip. “I love Secret SuperStar!”

  I nodded, feeling giddy. “The British version is his show. He’s really a genius at coming up with those concepts and picking the people.”

  Delia looked around her. “I’m sitting here with the girlfriend of the man who does Secret SuperStar. Unbelievable.” She leaned into me and grabbed my sleeve. “Is he attractive?”

  “Gorgeous,” I said, trying not to gush, though I wasn’t doing a very good job.

  “Does he have any friends? You can give them my number,” Delia said.

  “Hey, get in line,” Jenna teased.

  Delia laughed. “It’s every girl for herself in this market. I daresay you’re lucky to have met a man like that, Madison. I mean, what are the chances . . . he lives here in the U.K. and you shag him in New York?” She took a thick drag on her cigarette. “Totally whack. How did you two meet?”

  I smiled. How I loved telling our story!

  Leo growled. “The short version.”

  “Killjoy,” I told him, turning back to Delia. “Jenna and I were out one night—very late and very drunk. We’d gone to some museum presentation that turned out to be godawful, so we ended up at the Bull and Bear, this posh bar in the Waldorf-Astoria that neither of us can afford, but . . . What can I say? We were lit.”

  Leo whirled his hand around like a TV producer. “And . . . the wrap-up—”

  “Anyway,” I went on, trying to ignore him because the memory was so sweet, I loved to savor it. “Jenna and I were having Cosmos at the bar when Ian came in with a group of businessmen. Some from one of the big networks, a few from the U.K. All I remember is that they were intolerable. Obnoxious and full of themselves. But they paid for our drinks, and Ian sat beside me mocking them all, calling them on their bad behavior.” I shook my head. “He had us laughing the whole time.”

  “Sounds like a charmer,” Delia said.

  I nodded. “So then, the bar was closing, and—”

  “And so they met,” Leo said, brushing his hands off. “End of story.” He squinted at his watch. “Is it time for my flight yet?”

  Jenna patted his shoulder. “You’ve got a while yet.”

  “And I want to hear the rest of the story,” Delia said. “Then what happened? Did you sleep together that night?”

  “No. Jenna and I were bad girls, but not that bad. After the Bull and Bear closed, we sort of started this pub crawl, moving on to the next place that would serve us Cosmos. One place, I swear, the glasses were big enough to bathe in.”

  “That was my downfall,” Jenna said, “the killer Cosmos at Smith and Wollensky.”

  “And after all the bars closed we ended up at this private club I’d only read about, where the liquor flowed freely.” I smiled, remembering that night—at least, the pieces I could remember. Somehow, Jenna and I had made it home intact and barely conscious. “The next morning, while I was still passed out, Ian called and left a message on my machine to make sure I was okay. He was flying out at noon and wanted to see me, but I was barely able to move until the following week.”

  Jenna pressed her fingertips to her temples. “That was the worst hangover in the history of civilization. I haven’t touched a Cosmo since.”

  I had, but I didn’t feel the need to admit that to everyone here.

  “What a sweet story—you met at the Bull and Bear.” Delia tilted her head and smiled dreamily. “Sort of like Beauty and the Beast.”

  “Oh, please,” Leo said.

  “And how about you, Mr. Glum?” Delia asked Leo. “Tell us how you met the love of your life.”

  “Yes, do tell,” I prodded, folding my hands on the table.

  “It was really unexpected.” Leo turned away from me so that he could shower his attention on Delia. “Actually, it started in a vintage clothes boutique, but the great irony was that Yenta here was friends with both of us, and she never thought to introduce us.”

  Delia shot me a look. “Not a matchmaker, are you?”

  I shook my head. “I don’t even try anymore.”

  “Hey, how long has it been, Leo?” Jenna asked. “I think you and Wolf have been long-distance lovers for as long as I’ve known you.”

  “This will be our sixth Christmas together,” Leo said proudly. “Five years of long-distance phone calls and red-eye flights back from San Francisco. I highly recommend it. When you live apart, you never have time to get sick of each other. The novelty lives on.”

  “I don’t
know,” I said. “I’m not sure that Ian and I would be able to survive for five years across the Pond. I want to be with him.”

  Leo scowled at me. “Feeling needy, are we? Anyway,” Leo went on, “the first time we met . . . There he was, his back to me so I had no idea of his handsome face, but I sensed that something special was about to happen.”

  As he talked the waitress arrived with a tray of foods—a platter of ripe, gooey brie and crumbly Stilton cheeses with crackers and grapes, small clay bowls of French onion soup, mushroom tarts, and escargot in garlic butter. Although my mouth was watering, I shook my head at the waitress.

  “We didn’t order this.”

  “It’s from your mate over there,” she said, nodding toward Sugar.

  “God bless you, Sugar Plum Fairy,” I muttered, handing Jenna the basket of rolls.

  As Leo’s familiar story unfolded, Jenna and I feasted on the goodies, dipping the crusty bread into the steaming soup and cutting fat wedges of cheese. One of the guys from Sugar’s group strode over with a message for Jenna, and she scooted over so he could have a seat and share the food. He introduced himself as Simon, said he was an architect, and he and Jenna made small talk while I chowed down.

  Although I was glad to be with my friends, I still ached to see Ian. On the other hand, I had to remind myself how much this evening would have sucked if my friends hadn’t decided to make this trip across the Pond and spend Christmas in the U.K. Although we had come for different reasons, it seemed like kismet that we were stuck together on this first night of our trip.

  Sugar had started the ball rolling by announcing that she was going to cover a bunch of holiday rock concerts in London as a guest veejay for Rock-TV. After a career plateau during which she’d been temping as a computer inputter, Sugar was thrilled to get a huge break. Somehow, we’d all been at home when she got the news, and we just went wild. Despite the super’s noise warnings that we’d been trying to heed, that night our apartment rocked. Next, Jenna decided to cash in a gift her aunt had given her when she finished grad school—round trip airfare to London—and keep Sugar company. Leo had simply planned to connect to his Lisbon flight through Heathrow, and was detoured here for the night.

  I’d been a little jealous to hear that my friends were going to Britain for the holidays, but I’d felt obliged to head back to San Francisco and be with Mom. After all, it was the first Christmas since my father had died.

  But Mom wasn’t planning to spend Christmas at home. “Clay and I have booked a week in Hawaii,” Mom told me over the phone. “I thought it would be better to break tradition this year and get out of the house. Honestly, I’m not sure I have the energy to pull off all the decorating, and I guess a part of me is still in mourning. Are you terribly disappointed?” Mom asked me.

  “No,” I’d said as I realized that left me free to see Ian. “I’ll be okay.”

  “Are you sure, sweetie? You’re welcome to join Clay and me in the islands.”

  I knew her invitation was sincere, but my heart was already headed east. “No thanks, Mom. I’ll be fine with my friends ... really.” As Mom repeated her apologies and went over her gift list, I turned to my computer and logged onto British Airways. Let’s see . . . the six-thirty P.M. red-eye would have me arriving at six-twenty-five the next morning . . .

  “Madison!” Sugar called, waving me over to the bar. I dabbed at my mouth with a napkin and extricated myself from Leo’s romantic storytelling.

  “Come here, honey.” Sugar slid her arm over my shoulders. “This is Blake, and he wants to meet the girl who was named after a famous avenue in New York.”

  I cocked an eyebrow. “Oh, that’s original, Sugar,” I said, shaking hands with Blake. “And did you mention that your middle name is Plum?” Blake seemed surprised. “Yes, it’s true,” I went on. “Her real name is Sugar Plum. Isn’t that sweet?”

  “Sweet, indeed.” Blake grinned and put his big, square head into Sugar’s face. “You’re so sweet, you give me tooth decay.”

  Sugar and I burst out laughing, and Blake raised his mug, as if he’d scored. And I’d thought New York bar chatter was inane. I grabbed Sugar’s arm and whispered in her ear: “Tell me you’re not going to sleep with this asshole.”

  She shot a glance back at him, pouting. “Why not? I think he’s kind of cute.”

  “Cute is not the foundation for a relationship,” I said, starting to feel that familiar annoyance. Sugar had a habit of picking up guys the way the ASPCA picked up strays. “Sugar, don’t do this to yourself.”

  “Do what?” she asked innocently. “Is it the idea of having intercourse that bothers you? Because regular sex is a healthy activity that increases blood flow.”

  I frowned at her. “You’ve been doing research?”

  She nodded proudly. “I’ve read a few articles since the last time we had this argument. Do you know that people who have more sex often live longer? Sex reduces stress and increases self-esteem.”

  Looking past her, I noticed that Blake had overheard this last part of her argument and was grinning like a kid on Christmas morning. He turned to say something to his buddies, and they all swung around to admire Sugar.

  I sighed. “I’m just trying to look out for you, girlfriend.”

  “I know that, pumpkin.” Sugar threw her arms out and gave me a big hug. “You’re a good friend, Madison. And I’m so glad . . .” Her voice trailed off.

  “What is it?” I pulled away and turned to see what had snagged her attention.

  “Looks like somebody got bit by the worm in the bottle,” she said.

  Back in the corner, Leo was passed out, his head on the table, his arms folded underneath.

  “He looks so peaceful when he’s sleeping,” Sugar said. “You’d never know there was a torment mired in his soul.”

  “That’s all very poetic,” I said, “but how are we getting him back to the hotel?”

  Sugar winced. “Would you mind, honey lamb? I’m working on a full dance card here, and Jenna seems to be stepping out and . . . well, we know you’re saving yourself for Scotland’s answer to Matt Damon so ... Would you mind terribly seeing that Leo gets home safe?”

  And so I found myself cabbing it home, the windows of the taxi rolled down while Leo sang “Where Have All the Cowboys Gone?” like a drunken sailor. I found myself wishing I’d had more to drink.

  He nearly fell out of the cab in front of the hotel, but I have to say, he’s a nimble drunk—sort of like a rubber man. I helped him up and he flung his arm over my shoulder and let me lead him in through the lobby and to the elevator bank as he quietly sang the “Dit-dit-dit,” section of the song. At last, we reached the elevator bank, and Leo fell into my arms for a big bear hug.

  “You are the best friend in the world,” he said, squeezing me tight. “I know you think I’m toasted, and I am, but I really mean it. You’re a good, good friend.”

  “I love you, too, Leo,” I said, staggering under his weight. “But if we don’t press the elevator button, we’re not going to make it upstairs.”

  “Oh.” He straightened and cast a hand toward the elevator panel. “Okay. Whatever.”

  As I pressed the button I watched Leo carefully. Was he really drunk, or just a little drunk and feeling emotional? Was he too drunk to get himself to the airport in the morning? It was hard to tell.

  Leo paced in front of the elevator, pausing to contemplate the fake tree lit by twinkling blue lights. “Wolf’s family is going to fall in love with me.” He squared his hands around his face, as if framing a portrait. “What’s not to like? An alcoholic gay man with a shiny bald head?”

  “You know,” I said, catching him as he teetered close to the wall, “God made only a few perfect heads. The rest, he covered with hair.”

  “S’okay. S’okay,” he said. “I’m happy with the way I look. Verra, verra happy.” He was smiling at me, his face inches from mine.

  I bit my lip to keep from laughing. “And if you’re happy, I’m hap
py. ‘Verra happy,’” I mimicked.

  “Let’s party!” The elevator doors opened and he threw up his arms and pranced inside like Madonna as the Material Girl.

  I followed him in and pushed the buttons for our floors. “Are you sure you’re going to make it? You’ve got that early morning flight.”

  “I’m going to party all night!” he sang, twirling around. “Woo-hoo!”

  “Okay, then.”

  By the time the elevator reached my floor, Leo had sunk down into a heap on the floor. “Okay, you’d better come with me, bud.” Somehow I managed to wrangle him out and down the hall to my room, where he stumbled in and sat on the puffy duvet of my bed.

  “To be perf’kly honest? I’m not feeling so hot.”

  So much for the all-night party.

  “Oh, no!” Leo imploded, resting his elbows and head on his knees. “No, no, no! This isn’t right! I can’t go to sleep. Not allowed to sleep. I’ll never make my flight.”

  “It’s okay,” I said. “I’ll get you up in time.”

  “No, you won’t. You’ll fall asleep just like me. And in the morning I’ll be shtooped waiting another day for a . . . a flucking flight.” He lifted his head and there were tears in his eyes—real tears.

  I knew he was wasted, but somewhere in that land of total inebriation those tears were genuine.

  “I’ll get you there,” I promised him. “I may need to operate your arms and legs by remote control, but I’ll get you there.”

  “I can’t missss my flight,” he sobbed, turning toward the bed and lurching forward until his face was pressed into a pillow.

  “Don’t worry!” I insisted. “I won’t fail you, bud. What time is your flight?” He didn’t answer. “Leo? What time do you leave?” I crouched over him. He was already asleep. “Okay, then.” I pressed a hand over the back of his shaved head, then got a blanket from the closet and tucked him in.

  Time for some calculations. I found Leo’s tickets in the pocket of his coat. We would need to be at Heathrow three hours early. We would also need to pick up his luggage in his room. Hmm ... that left about two hours to sleep.