Diary of an Ugly, Recently Divorced Man
Page 10
Published by Felix at 3:10 a.m. * Post a comment
Sunday, September 30
The lost weekend
I've spent the entire weekend asleep. The music of Sunday night sports talk show Stadium Studio woke me up as it was ending. I gave a jolt and almost fell off the sofa, where I must have been sleeping, clutching an empty bottle of wine. I think I've been here since I came back on Friday from the meeting with Laura and the lawyers, and I felt like seeing what would happen if I drank half a cellar's worth of wine without eating any dinner.
I wasn't able to stand up, but needs are needs and I needed to talk to you, dear damn blog, and I dragged the table to the sofa over the rug that the insurance company still hasn't reimbursed me for, and which now holds about half the bottle of wine that I was sleeping with in my arms.
It was the second time I saw Laura since I moved out of the loft at the start of May. Why deny it? She's more beautiful than ever, that bitch, with happiness hidden in her eyes so I wouldn't see it and a gleam of fear in her pupils that anything she said could hurt me. Gorgeous. It wasn't necessary for her to say anything to hurt me. Her sheer presence hurt as much as her absence.
We looked at each other and that was enough. There weren't any good mornings or questions or, of course, apologies. What use would it have been to confess to her that I still have trouble sleeping, that the first time I tried to make sunny side up eggs I flipped them over and cooked them on the other side, or that I haven't managed to go out with the same girl twice?
We sat down and our lawyers talked. Everything was as cold as it was circumstantial. It seemed nothing was of greater importance than getting in and getting out, despite all the formalities and the ceremonial tone of our legal representatives. I almost fell asleep trying to avert my gaze away from her. A question from my lawyer woke me up. You're on board with this agreement? Then, I looked up and locked eyes with her with a confidence that I didn't know I had. I smiled and she smiled too, surprised. Remember when we went to Egypt and you went nuts in the duty-free store? Well, this is the same thing. Ask for whatever you want. I'll sign it.
I signed, of course, despite her timid reprimand, despite the lawyer's attempts at encouraging civility, etc. And after I got out of the elevator, I spotted in a street-level café the beer gut with slicked-back hair who she's rebuilding her life with. I made a detour so as to pass by, and as I did, I raised my hand and told him "see you later" as if we were lifelong friends. I left him in one of his usual cataleptic states, as stiff as a statue.
Published by Felix at 11:50 p.m. * Post a comment
Wednesday, October 3
In ruins
The thing with my lawyer is bothering me. If I were in the mood to make jokes, I'd say that it's like when you go to the bank, sign a forty-year mortgage and later at home you realize what you've just done with your life. I signed off on never having her again. In my life.
I've spent months mixed up in a thousand things trying to rebuild "my" life, without seeing Laura, trying to see other women, trying other things, convincing myself that everything was over and I couldn't do anything more about it, but now that I've signed the first legal separation paper, a route that reads directly to divorce, ideas keep coming to me on how to fix it, on how to go back to her or make her come back to me, on how I failed and how I've changed, on what she needs in order to change her mind and leave that dope.
The worst thing is that I know all this is nonsense, impossible, madness that causes me nothing but pain, and that the only thing this line of thinking is going to do is kill me slowly but surely. Everyone can see I'm in ruins. Not even my friends have dared to ask me how it went at the signing.
Published by Felix at 12:11 a.m. * Post a comment
Thursday, October 4
Felix reloaded
Yes, it's possible that I'm starting to seem desperate, but I'm actually desperate! If the appointment with the lawyers left me upset, today has been worse. I bumped into my brother Marcos.
It was like the Twilight Zone. I was walking down the street alone (of course!) and I bumped into my brother. It had been a while since we last saw each other, he's always moving from place to place, he never visits our hometown and never visits me, but the surprise wasn't the worst of it. Marcos has always been a demure, weak guy, more worried about losing time at his business than getting himself a life. But this afternoon, oh, this afternoon, he was different. He seemed taller to me, certainly taller than me; he told me he had left his computer store and now works in a hospital, with a good salary, and he introduced me to a dusky-skinned girl who was with him.
This is my fiancé, Susana.
His fiancé! Marcos! And me, alone, and the bastard engaged, and the girl is even pretty...
I have to ask him how he did it, update my firmware (he's a computer expert) and recharge my batteries.
Published by Felix at 12:40 a.m. * Post a comment
Friday, October 5
Felix revolutions
I've gone from bad to worse. With the whole signing-the-agreement thing, I thought I was going to need to become an alcoholic, but with the Marcos thing not even my friends can console me. So I've jumped headfirst into the bottomless pit.
I called Lolo (yes, I don't know why I keep trusting him) and Lolo perfectly understood my problems. Maybe he's a sensitive guy, I don't know, but he praised my patience and the fact that I haven't tried anything with any of our female coworkers. Have you made a move on the redhead in Administration? Of course not. Good, good, Lolo responded, apparently relieved, because I have an attack planned for her that she won't be able to resist. You? But Lolo, you're married. And that's the problem: Lolo, even though he's married, continues to cast his line, just to see if they’ll bite. Though that's not a problem, no, his address book is my last resort, and I'm clinging to it.
So, I heard as he put down his cell phone, pick up his landline (I don't know how his wife doesn't catch him doing these things) and call a girl. I had to listen to a string of excuses on my friend's part: that it's been a long time since he called her, yes, that he wants to see her, etc. And then I heard an exchange of sweet talk that made my hair stand on end.
Finally, he patched things up, telling her that he was being sent to work in the city of Sabadell for three months and promising her a blind date with an ugly, clientless executive on Saturday night. You're always so silly, I heard the girl laugh on the other end of the line. (Did he have her on speakerphone?! What about his wife?! Marta, pick up the phone!) He's definitely a handsome guy with a ton of money. And Lolo added, Just like you like them, baby cakes.
I think I threw up, but luckily the conversation ended there.
Then, he returned to his cell phone and told me that I have a date on Saturday at ten. In a restaurant. My mind started spinning, and I calculated that I have less than thirty-six hours to flee the country. Lolo told me the address and the time. It's the restaurant of a friend of mine. Mention me and they'll give you an incredible private room.
I hung up reflexively. Out of fear. But a second later I called him back. I didn't know what the girl in question's name was. Consuelo, he told me, her name is Consuelo. Consuelo means “consolation” in Spanish, and I couldn't have come up with a more appropriate girl's name for a guy as emotionally ruined as me.
Arms at the ready!
Victory is ours!
I need consuelo!
Published by Felix at 12:10 a.m. * Post a comment
Sunday, October 7
In the arms of Bacchus
Good morning, dear diary,
I don't know how I got out of bed today. Actually, I do know how. You could say I got up on the wrong side of the bed. Last night was so catastrophic or surprising or incredible or all three in equal parts.
Consuelo arrived on time, a pleasant and surprising attitude (or aptitude) in a woman. Blondes with a model body don't normally catch my eye, but she was oozing with kindness the minute she arrived, and I had no choice but to give into
her charms. And relax.
We met in a Mexican restaurant where, as is usual, we had a Romanian waitress. I mentioned Lolo's name and they shut us into a room as private and tacky as a room in a brothel (in the movies, I mean, like the ones I've seen in the movies). We ordered a bottle of wine and began to chat and laugh. I don't remember what we ate, but I do remember the waitress told us in her peculiar accent that they were about to close. We had shut the place down.
We left there at half past midnight. Some of the wait staff were clearing the last tables. By that time, Consuelo was pretty tipsy, and I didn't hesitate to ask her up to my apartment.
Between laughs and witticisms, we opened two more bottles of wine, though I hardly remember having filled my glass more than once or twice. At one point, I looked her in the eyes and saw they were so watery that I thought, She's going to start crying alcohol. Afterward, it was a whirlwind. As my best wines disappeared, her sense of humor grew more daring.
Suddenly, she said she was hot and took off her blouse. Do you mind if I get a little more comfortable? Of course you don't mind. You're probably just as hot as I am... and it didn't stop there. She jumped on me and took off my shirt—the only one left that was ironed—so eagerly that some buttons went flying. I couldn't help but remember the offer Antoinette's mother, the one from the Chinese restaurant, made me.
I don't know how to describe how it made me feel, but I never had been in a situation like that, with a girl who's completely wild, uninhibited by alcohol, straddling me, hectically undressing me, tearing her clothes off, as if buttons and zippers didn't exist, taking the initiative and treating me with the same authority as a bull rider does his mount. My bones still hurt this morning.
But, of course, with my history, it would be weird if everything ended well. I was defending myself furiously at the same time as trying to reach orgasm, attempting to pleasure her, and making sure I didn't fall off the sofa and she didn't fall off me given the amount of acrobatics involved...when Consuelo leapt up and threw herself on the floor. I don't feel good, she said so clumsily that 99 percent of her charm fell away. Next thing I knew, she vomited on my new rug, the one that the home insurance company still hasn't reimbursed me for.
I was dumbfounded, staring at the terrible image of my Sex Goddess transformed into a drunken sailor. My cell phone's ringtone cut through my stupor. You're beautiful, you're beautiful... It was Lolo calling. I forgot to tell you, man, he told me. Don't let Consuelo drink, she's a complete disaster when she drinks. The last time she drank she destroyed... I put the phone down or dropped it, stunned as I watched her swaying on the way to the bathroom, grabbing onto absurd things for support, throwing them to the floor as she passed.
Published by Felix at 1:22 p.m. * Post a comment
Tuesday, October 9
Hangover Monday
My Colombian housekeeper has sent the living room rug to the dry cleaner's. That's good news. My own life is more than I can handle, and the thought of maintaining a house and a relationship is so overwhelming that I don't know how my mother did it. Shit. I'm comparing myself to my mother. I think I'm going to have to go back to the company psychologist. Discreetly, of course. Tomorrow, I'll invite him out for coffee.
Lolo, the bastard, has spent all morning chasing me around. How was the sex? That’s what he's asked me every time we've crossed paths, including in the middle of a presentation in the conference room, when everyone was listening attentively in silence to the numbers for Germany. You didn't let her drink more than a bottle of wine, did you? That's what he asked me the fifth time he called me on the phone, and it made me mad. I almost swallowed the receiver as I shouted, Your friend ruined my living room rug, you imbecile, and screwed up the best sex I was going to have in a long time. Next time warn me, you son of a... I don't think there will be a next time. I'm never going to listen to you again. And I left it there, because I noticed everyone on the floor staring at me through the windows of my office.
But there won't be a next time. I made that clear to him.
Published by Felix at 12:29 a.m. * Post a comment
Wednesday, October 10
The second chance
A Chinese philosopher once said that the fisherman who knows how to cast his line always catches more than one fish, and if no philosopher has ever said that then someone should say it because it makes a lot of sense.
I must have done something right with Consuelo the other night because this morning she called me. Just like that. I didn't expect it. As I'm used to never getting past the first catastrophic date, hearing her voice again left me so shocked and I took so long to pick up the phone that she hung up and called again.
She apologized a thousand and one times, sounding a little more serious than when she was drunk, but just as nice. I think this girl might be, I don't know, special. Then she offered to take my rug to the dry cleaner's. I told her I was going to throw it out, but the housekeeper had sent it off to be washed. If I didn't have a housekeeper, I would have thrown it out, that much is clear, but I think if Consuelo repeats her exploits I will definitely throw it out. What a chance. To go out again with the same girl! I started to get nervous.
Maybe it would be safer if we saw each other on neutral territory. Far away from my rug. When she heard this (the second part; the stuff about the rug I didn't say out loud), she suggested getting together in the afternoon for a coffee. I had no idea what time I would finish work, but she insisted. If things run late, she whispered into the phone, you can come over to my place for dinner.
Just then, the girl from the mailroom passed by and saw me smile. She returned the smile. I hope she wasn't thinking that I was smiling at her. Though that wouldn't be so bad. There's something about her, despite being so young, despite those ripped jeans and her messy, improvised "hairstyle." Then, she walked away shaking her head, as if thinking that I was crazy, laughing at me, and I was spellbound, appreciating the movement of her hips as she pushed the mail cart, until a twinge of fidelity made me remember Consuelo.
She called me!
I have a second date!
Published by Felix at 12:06 a.m. * Post a comment
Thursday, October 11
That thing called love
Dear diary,
Ah, my dear, comprehensive electronic diary, the tortuous twists and turns of life can be incredible. Yes, I know, I don't know what I'm saying, but this morning everything is sparkling in a different way, even my cheesy words.
It's 10 a.m. I'm mentioning it for the sake of saying something, because I don't feel like going to work, because I didn't sleep at all last night. Not after my second date with Consuelo. No, I haven't slept at all. I see two reasons why I stayed up all night daydreaming. Two, yes, two affectionate arms that bound me to a bed, arms that I didn't know yesterday and today love and miss with the longing of a far-off homeland. Her body, I would make a homeland of it, yes, a homeland, a home or a ship with which I would sail to the end of the world and back if she let me, as many times as she desired.
She promised me she wouldn't drink and she followed through. We ate dinner so quickly, we made love so slowly. Ah, that thing called love. How strange. I'm so far gone that I'm even blushing as I write about her. I think that I'm, for lack of a better word, in Love. I don't want to use a word that once upon a time seemed so important in my life until Soulless Laura robbed it of its meaning, but I feel so many things today, I'm saying such cheesy, such stupid things, that this can only be Love.
Published by Felix at 10:19 a.m. * Post a comment
Thursday, October 11
Warning for sailors
Important note to my readers:
Help! Does anyone know how to erase the last entry?
I was so distracted reading and rereading what I had written that I didn't notice that imbecile, Lolo, behind me cracking up at what he was reading. Now it's too late. I've spent half an hour being mocked, and he even threatened to call Consuelo and tell her all about it. Then, I threatened
to call Marta, his wife, and tell her about all the women he picks up at the gym, and the bastard cracked up even more.
Please, please, please, does anyone know how to delete a blog entry?
(Note to self: Murder Lolo as soon as possible)
Published by Felix at 10:42 a.m. * Post a comment
Monday, October 15
Nine weeks or only a half
We spent the weekend together. Restaurants, drinks, a night in her house and one in mine, a little coffee here and a little "let's go to my house again" there, a movie on Saturday afternoon (the only time I've been able to catch some sleep) and every waking hour together, including going for strolls, the most promising, the most intimate and the most worrying thing of all: Those strolls through the park, us walking in silence or her taking my hand when we passed small children, have made me more afraid than when I woke up in the morning at her house.
I don't want to go into more detail. I'll keep an eye on it, and report back when I can.
Published by Felix at 12:24 a.m. * Post a comment
Tuesday, October 16
Jealousy and elephant seals
In elephant seal colonies, only one in fifty males achieves the status of Alpha Male. The Alpha Male, to put it simply, is in charge of copulating with 98 percent of the females in the colony. During this difficult task, he loses a metric ton of weight in a few weeks. I'm happy with less. I'm happy with Consuelo.