Emily's Reasons Why Not

by Carrie Gerlach

  The plan rattles around in my brain all through my Sunday nap. I am STILL lying awake looking at the clock as I scoot my hips and butt into him, coy, literally pivoting into his package. Oh my God, something stirred. I feel stiffening. Wow. He is kissing the back of my neck. He has my hips, his towel is open, and voilà. We have consummation!

  As soon as he is done and I am barely started, and not a second later, he gets up as if disgusted by himself and leaves my house in a huff. “What about dinner with your mom?” I shout after him as he gets to the door.

  “I’m not feeling well, I gotta go,” he shoots back.

  I immediately call Grace and Reilly. “He’s not gay. My man’s not gay. He’s a frickin’ weirdo, but he’s not gay. Or is he? I am conflicted as we did it, but he ran away. It was okay, quick, sorta good for about forty-five seconds, so why do I feel bad?”

  “The only reason you gave him a boner is ‘cause your ass was up against his unit,” Reilly reminds me. “Try to see the visual.”

  OH GOD!

  I hang up with my girls, take a long bath, and then log onto the e-mail. I see mail from Callahan26, Reese, the ultimate temptation. I click on, open it, and begin to read.

  Dear Em,

  I’m in Pittsburg at the William Penn hotel, exactly one year since I watched you dump hot coffee all down your white sweater. I couldn’t help but laugh in Starbucks. There are a new round of college kids behind the bar. I couldn’t get you out of my mind during the game against the Pirates. One thought seemed to be clear. You were not at the hotel waiting for me and it made me sad. Just wanted to let you know I was thinking about you. Hope you’re well, your friend, Reese.

  I reply …

  Dear RC, hmmmm … friend. Are we friends now?

  In the morning I tell the girls that Reese e-mailed me and I e-mailed him back.

  “What are you thinking?” they ask in unison.

  “You’re probably on a mass e-mail list,” Reilly ally-oops.

  Grace slam-dunks, “Everybody gets the same ‘I miss you’ form letter.”

  “I’m not letting him in, it just feels nice to be thought about. Don’t worry, it’s not like I’m going to call him or anything.”

  The girls cast a gloomy doom over my thoughts of Reese.

  Like reverse Nike marketing, they urge “Don’t do it!”

  After Grace’s bridal shower, the girls and I sit on the couch looking at horrible orange-and-black crepe paper and balloons strung around the room.

  Grace says, “It was a nice idea to theme it. There was just something amiss, though.”

  “Sort of like Stan.” Reilly yanks down the orange strip of paper.

  “Perfect teeth. Impeccably dressed. Hates Sam. Hates slimy dog balls,” I add. “I will not be dateless to your wedding, no matter what’s wrong with him.”

  “Uh-huh …” they say in unison, taunting me, like “We’ll see.”

  I walk into Dr. D.’s for my next session with five solid reasons not to date Stan even though I know that there are at least seven, but I refuse to give him the rest of them.

  “You made it through the shower. How was that for you?” asks Dr. D.

  “It was great.”

  “It didn’t make you sad at all?”

  “No, I am happy for Grace. I love her. I’ll just be glad when the wedding is over. If I can hold on for two more weeks, I’ve got a date.” Even if it is a fraud.

  The night of the dinner party quickly approaches. This is the ultimate test. I don’t know why I’m doing this before Grace’s wedding. I should have this party afterward. What was I thinking?

  Candles burning, the caterer finishes the last touches to the stuffed mushrooms, salmon, and assorted crudités. I watch Stan fluff the pillows. He stands back and arranges the lilies perfectly in the tall vase. To his credit, he takes as much pride in the small touches as I do. I’m not even surprised.

  Reilly stands next to me in the kitchen doorway watching Stan push each lily away from the next so they are not touching in the vase. I hold my martini, subtly scrutinizing his obsession with perfection and think to myself, No straight guy follows the caterer tasting Brie and saying, “fantastic. ’ He might as well have clicked his heels and said “fab-u!”

  Reilly doesn’t say a word. She just watches, then lets out a huge belly laugh, doubles over, and walks back into the kitchen. Stan begins to arrange the magazines alphabetically in the magazine rack.

  Throughout the night I witness Stan grow more and more agitated as Josh and Stan’s friend Adam are getting along famously. I look from Stan’s stewing anger to Josh. Josh gives an eyebrow raise, followed by an “isn’t this funny” smirk.

  Fast-forward to … I blow out the last burning candle as it drips wax all over the white linen tablecloth.

  I take a poll from my friends as they leave: sixteen gay, nine straight, four undecided. Grace is convinced, Reilly just doesn’t like him, and all, ALL of my gay friends kiss me on the cheek while handing me their empty glasses and whispering in my ear things like … Gary: “He likes cock.” Bill: “Honey, he’s not on your team.” And Josh handed me his number to give to my boyfriend, so when he decides to come out of the closet he can call him!

  That night, tucked under the covers of my bed, I say to Stan, “Honey, I think we have intimacy problems.”

  “Don’t be silly,” he says as he rolls over with his back to me, “just cuddle me.”

  Done. I am D-O-N-E. First of all, women shouldn’t spoon men. Women are on the inside of the spoon. Always. No exception. Well, unless your boyfriend has shoulder or back injuries, like Reese, who still would never ask me to cuddle him.

  He senses that I will not drop it. He opens his eyes and sees me staring at him. “What?” he defensively barks at me. “Emily, I work very hard to be intimate with you.”

  Reason #6: You don’t need any more reasons when they won’t have sex with you.

  Wow. I hate this. I know what’s coming.

  “And it isn’t easy,” he continues as if somehow I am unlovable. “I just can’t believe I’ll ever be myself with you and I think we should take some time,” he finishes.

  Wait a damn second! “All right,” I mumble as I whack myself in the head over and over that a gay man, pretending to be straight, with “wet” issues, just broke up with me. I want to scream, “You’re totally gay-straight and you’re never going to be happy in a relationship unless your partner has a penis!”

  Reasons #7, 8, 9, AND 10: No sex.

  But I say nothing. Instead I just nod, roll over, and go back to sleep. The SLAMMING door was a little unnerving, but not as bad as sharing my bed with someone who wouldn’t kiss me good night. All in all I feel relieved, and then a sudden panic strikes me.

  “I am dateless for Grace’s wedding,” I tell Dr. D., “and you are not helping enough!”

  “I am teaching you to hone your radar skills so you can see through the wrong men before you waste months only to find they are nothing but a cubic zirconium in a good golf visor with a nice smile, when what you need is the real thing.”

  Dr. D. can be so poetic sometimes.

  That night I sit at my desk, log on to e-mail, and see Callahan26. I rub Sam’s sore hips as he stands eyeing me with those old yellow wolf eyes. He is on new medicine from the vet to help him ease his aches and pains. I click on to Reese’s reply e-mail to me.

  Silly question, Em. Of course we’re friends. The question remains, are we more than friends? How are you? RC

  I type and respond to his e-mail …

  RC,

  I picture you writing your e-mails to me with the same expression on your face that I see when I watch you on TV, playing baseball. The look on your face right before you are about to steal second.

  We are sorta friends, with a hint of connection and remembrance of fear.

  I am glad you’re well. You’ll be happy to know, another boyfriend bites the dust. But he wasn’t worth keeping. He had “wet” issues and reasons. I’ll leave
it at that.

  Wish it wasn’t the season, you’d be a potential “friend” date to Grace’s wedding. Hope you’re surviving the Midwest road trip.

  Your friend???XO Emily

  I delete the XO and press SEND.

  Reasons #7, 8, 9, AND 10: No sex.

  Reason #6: You don’t need any more reasons when they won’t have sex with you.

  Reason #5: Rejection from your partner is unacceptable.

  Reason #4: Tests of any kind set your partner up to fail.

  Reason #3: Animal haters need not apply.

  Reason #2: A man/woman relationship without sex is called …“just friends.”

  Reason #1: You should never have to wonder why a man doesn’t want to have sex with you. Because no matter what the answer is … it isn’t good.

  Chapter six

  Arm Candy

  Driving to Malibu from L.A. with Grace, I get lost in my thoughts of my life itinerary. It is either stable or out of control. For now I am leaning too far in the direction of loveless and under control, suffering from P.B.W.D., Post Best Friend’s Wedding Disorder. I don’t want to sink any deeper by thinking about it too much, but the petals are wilting. There is no ship on the horizon. It has been 156 days without the touch of a male or even the possibility of interest. It is a major dry spell, a sexless Sahara desert. And the most excited I get is when I log onto my computer hoping to see Callahan26. Even Dr. D. is struggling to stay awake during my therapy sessions.

  Speaking of ships and Dr. D., he just pulled up next to me in my brand-new navy blue Land Rover at the stoplight. He’s to the right of me in a mint-condition 1978 Bronco, hunter green with a tan top, towing a beat-to-hell-and-back sailboat. He notices me at the light, staring out my window at him. I am gawking in full, mouth-gaping awe. He points up at the light, which has now turned green. Cars HONK behind me as I pull away.

  For a spilt second I almost didn’t recognize him. It’s weird. I don’t think I have ever seen him out of his office building. How can you tell someone your most intimate secrets, then when you see them out of their element, barely recognize them? I didn’t even wave. Come to think of it, neither did he, just a finger pointing at the green light, as if to say, “get going forward, Emily, keep it on the road.”

  “That was Dr. D.,” I say to Grace sitting in the passenger seat.

  “I hate seeing my patients out of the office. No matter how many times it happens, I never get used to it.” She looks back out the window.

  Dr. D. I think to myself, What must he think of me? I’m sure I promised to be an engaging patient at first, but I fear I have turned into a weekly appointment with disappointment. I got there ten minutes late this week and left five minutes early after finishing the session off with a bout of silence. I am considering liposuction or a tattoo, considering running through a supermarket naked. I am wearing forties dresses and heels. What is wrong with me? I haven’t had a period in two months. Not to worry, there isn’t any possibility of a bun in my oven, as it’s been around five months with no physical attention. So, is that it? Is that how it all ends up? Maybe I should ram my Rover into the next hot male I see on the 405 freeway before all my eggs die of loneliness.

  Fortunately there is a distraction for this, if not a cure. Here I am at the beach with the girls, hunting for prime real estate to plant our umbrella, chairs, and blanket. Grace and Reilly walk in the summer heat of Malibu staking our claim.

  “I’m exhausted,” Reilly says, dropping her chair and Chanel beach bag in the sand. She recently got promoted to western sales rep for Chanel, so she is keeping Grace and I rolling again in the hippest shades of overpriced frosty mauve and lavender.

  “Guess this is it, then.” Grace tries to dig a hole in the sand for our oversized, checkered Burberry umbrella.

  The beach is crowded with eighteen-to-twenty-four year old tan, muscular, sun-worshipping men playing volleyball beneath a rainbow flag. Why do I live in L.A.? My eyes drift over the polka-dot-bikini-wearing nineteen-year-old silicone-stuffed babes and then to my own friends, equally attractive, but desperately trying to stay OUT of the sun.

  The easiest way to tell if a woman is over or under thirty is to watch her at the beach. The 20-year-old will be toting a bottle of 2 SPF tanning oil and the thirty-year-old will be reapplying 35 SPF, antiwrinkle sunblock under an umbrella, large floppy hat, and some sort of wrap that covers her ass.

  Post-sunscreen slather, Grace, Reilly and I unpack our bags. Labor Day weekend is closing out the summer. The girls and Mark, Grace’s husband, and I rented a share in Malibu for the month of August. I miss just girl time, but must admit it is nice having Mark around, especially when the garbage needs to go out or the DVD player needs to be hooked up.

  The arrangement was flawless until Reilly, in a drunken stupor, hooked up late one night with Mark’s friend Goz, whom we all know better as the Roach, justifying his nickname with the fact that if a nuclear bomb were to explode and we were all disseminated, at least his gelled hair would survive. Roach looks like a cross between Wayne Newton and an all-black-suit-wearing throwback to the eighties who thinks he is really, really cool in his red, leased, overpriced Lexus. It wouldn’t be so bad, but his incessant need to bang every stripper in L.A. and tell us about it has given the girls and I a not-so-secret loathing for him. He made the moves on an inebriated Reilly at 2:30 A.M., and woke up the next morning and proceeded to tell everyone over bagels and coffee how she likes to have her nipples twisted. Needless to say, he was promptly banished from the beach share.

  Our little summer house isn’t too fancy, but it is down the beach from Chuck Woolery, who, I might add, is still as hot as he was on Love Connection despite the fact that he’s pushing sixty.

  After having no sex with Stan, I find myself on the prowl. I can’t stop undressing every surfing, swimming, jet-skiing, boogie-boarding hottie. Currently in my sights, a twenty-something-year-old surfer with sun-streaked hair and brown puppy dog eyes carrying a long, long board. His board shorts, hanging low on his hips, accentuate that oh-so-delectable male muscle, that hip/abdomen bulge that’s usually covered by love handles on any guy with a respectable desk job.

  His eyes have wrinkles from years of squinting at the sun in the rock-ock-ock-cocking ocean, waiting for something to surf. Surfers have an innate sense of sexiness. Perhaps it is their infinite patience. They don’t rush. They just enjoy the water, the taste of the salt, and the warmth of the sun … then, as if God put a quarter in the machine, they take off, paddling with those well-defined back muscles, springing to the erect position in a single fluid motion so they can cut loose from all boundaries known within the flat, unmoving, two-dimensional world. They play with energy, gliding and carving through an alternative, liquid dimension with a balance of fear and joy.

  I prop up on my elbows and eye him from behind my blue-tinted Dior glasses. He turns around, revealing the best young, rippled back I have ever seen. Tan shoulders to die for, with soft supple skin, glistening with salty droplets screaming: “Emily. Lick me. Love me. Look away. Quick. You’re gawking, girl.” AGAIN!

  He swings a towel around his waist and pulls down his wet trunks, replacing them with dry ones and tying them like the laces of a corset on a Danielle Steele cover.

  Drool. Physical drool wets the corners of my mouth as Grace leans up and whinnies, “Eeeaaaaasy, girl. Doooowwwwn, girl.”

  I turn and look her in the face. “He’s just the tasty treat to get me back on my horse.”

  “And judging by the way those trunks are hanging, he’s definitely a thoroughbred,” Reilly says as she rolls over onto her back.

  I get up, in my surf trunks and powder-blue bikini top, and head for the water.

  The tan surfer treat pours fresh, warm water over his face from an old gallon juice container, blinks the salt water out of his eyes, and begins to peel an orange.

  Subtly I stroll toward the water, pretending not to see him. I never look down. I am almost past him when he reaches back
ward in the sand for his beach towel and his arm trips me. I stumble, falling, landing face-first in the sand.

  I hear Grace and Reilly howl and clap in the background.

  “Jesus, I am so sorry.” His eyes widen.

  I watch his face, and a twinge of mortification flashes through my body as I look down and see that one of my breasts is out of my bikini top and in full view.

  “Nice,” sweet-treat guy says, staring at my exposed are-ola…“Really nice,” he smiles.

  His compliment fills me with relief as I readjust myself.

  With one nipple pointing west and one pointing east, I try to rearrange them to at least semipoint in the same direction.

  “I’m Lance. And, uh …”

  I nod while appearing to fondle myself. “Emily.”

  My nipples are both going in the same direction. A victory!

  As he hands me a towel to wipe the sand off my face, Rilke’s Letters to a Young Poet falls from the pouch in his faded red backpack.

  This small novel is my favorite. It was the first read that somehow validated my own personal perception of love, obsession, and passion. It is my all-time favorite book!

  My gaze darts from the book to his eyes. They appear “knowing”—can I describe these young eyes as “knowing”?

  “You should read this,” he says. “Wait.”

  What? I think to myself. What did I do? What’s wrong with me? Besides that I am old. Why is he looking so deep into me?

  “Something tells me you already have, haven’t you?”

  How did he know that?

  What I want to say is … Lance, would you mind if I threw my sandy frame onto your young, wet, buff, tan, soft-skinned-surfer, tasty morsel of a body, as my last boyfriend didn’t like things that were wet, and I really, really need to have some validation.