I cannot believe I have turned thirty, and I am still having mental battles with myself over men and sex.
I also cannot believe how much I want to get this guy back to my place!
We each make a hasty, separate exit from the party, then meet up in the parking lot ten minutes later, excitedly kissing before we reach our cars, then making out at my car for a good twenty minutes.
And Jordan follows my car back to my place.
As I fumble for my house keys, I warn him, “The place is a mess. I didn’t know I was having company.”
He stands behind me, rubbing my shoulders seductively. “Well, we could keep the lights out, so I don’t see the mess.”
I smile, turn around, and kiss him again. This is so great!
I put the key in the lock, do not turn on the light, and when we get inside, I pull Jordan down on the couch, so we can continue making out.
He tries to undo my top, but I swoop my hands over his, and gently push him away. He stops kissing me, and sits up. “Is it okay if I take off my jacket? I’m kind of hot.”
God, yes, you are, I want to say. But I’m not that drunk. “Sure,” I say, and stand up from the couch. “Can I get you that drink?” I ask, suddenly nervous, and wanting to cool down the room a bit.
“Um, sure,” he says, I think a bit confused as to why I suddenly stopped kissing him.
I make my way to the kitchen, and turn on a light. I am so nervous. I don’t want to go too far tonight. I want Jordan to call me again. I like him. I don’t want to blow it (no pun intended).
Jordan comes into the kitchen, looking around. “This is a really nice place. Do you have roommates?”
“Nope,” I say, pulling out a bottle of Stag’s Leap. “It’s just me. Merlot okay?”
“Yeah, that’s great,” he says, still looking around the room. “How many bedrooms?”
“Three,” I say nervously, rummaging around in the cupboard for a few decent wineglasses. Why is it we only give people decent wineglasses when they get married? Shouldn’t we be giving them to the single people who are still trying to impress potential mates?
I manage to scrounge up some Crate and Barrel wineglasses. “I actually bought the place last year,” I say, putting a wine opener into the bottle. “I think I bought at the wrong time. They say the market’s going to go down.”
What am I babbling about? I’m supposed to tone down the mood, not kill it.
Jordan looks around. “It’s a nice place. I love old houses. Built in the 1920s, right?”
“Yeah,” I say, surprised, as I open the bottle and pour his wine. “1925. How did you know that?”
“I grew up in L.A., We moved to Orange County when I was twelve, but I still consider this home. I love these older places.”
“Really? I grew up in L.A., too!” I say in that, “Oh my God, I love pizza, too” first date tone as I hand him his glass. “I grew up in Beverly Hills. You?”
He chuckles as he takes his glass. “We weren’t so well off. Just a little house in Burbank. But it was nice. Built in the 1930s. The schools were good….” He shakes his head. “God, the schools were good…could I be sounding any stupider right now? I’m never good at the in-between-kissing conversation. I think I better shut up.”
He puts down his glass, takes me in his arms, and French-kisses me again, making my knees lock.
“So,” he asks after we come up for air, “can I get a house tour?”
“Maybe soon,” I say, flirting. “Why don’t we have our wine in the living room first?”
“Okay,” he says, picking up his glass in one hand and taking my hand with the other.
I take my wine and follow him.
But instead of leading me back to the living room, he pulls me upstairs. “I thought we were waiting for that house tour,” I remind him.
“We are. You can show me the backyard in the morning.”
I open my mouth to protest, but he turns to me and sticks his tongue in my mouth before I can say anything. Oh well, so we end up in the bedroom. The important thing is—no sex tonight.
I’m serious.
We put the wineglasses down on the nightstand, and continue kissing on my bed. The phone rings. I let the answering machine pick up.
“Hi, it’s me,” my voice comes on the machine. “Do it now.” BEEP.
“Hi, it’s your father. I know you’re not at home, but I just wanted to wish you good luck with that guy Jordan tonight. I hope he takes your mind off that jerk David.”
Jordan abruptly stops kissing me, and turns to look at the machine. I want to shrivel up into my comforter.
“Remember,” my father continues, “we men are easy. We just want to know which chair is ours—you know what I’m saying? Oh yeah, and I’m not sure I’ll be able to live with your mother much longer. Call me in the morning.”
He hangs up, and Jordan stares at the machine. “Do you need to call him back?”
“No,” I say, a pit forming in my stomach. “Why?”
“Your father just said he might leave your mother.”
“No, no. They’re divorced. But they’re living together, and she’s making him nuts.”
“Your parents are divorced, but they’re living together?” Jordan asks, justifiably confused.
“Yeah,” I say, sighing, then forcing a smile. “They’re very…interesting.”
What I meant to say was crazy, but you know what they say:
When you marry a man, you marry his family.
Or when you marry a woman.
Or, in my case, when you’re vaguely thinking about dating a woman, at least to the point where you’re in her bed.
The phone rings again. At this point, I’m in a quandary: if I turn down the machine, it will look like I’m hiding something. If I don’t, well, there might be something I need to hide. I begin kissing Jordan again, in the hopes he will ignore my father.
“Hi, it’s me. Do it now.” BEEP.
“Hey, baby, it’s me, Dave,” Dave purrs into the phone. “I miss you so much.”
Fuck.
I jump up and turn down the machine. Jordan sits up. “You have anything you want to tell me about?”
“No,” I say a little too quickly. “I’m just…embarrassed, that’s all.” I’m watching my machine to see that the message is continuing.
Jordan looks at the now-silent machine. “I take it Dave is an ex-boyfriend.”
I have no idea how to answer that one. “Ex-shag” sounds trampy. “Well…kind of…yes.”
Okay, that sounded bad. But letting Jordan think I’m some guy’s booty call is even worse.
Jordan scratches his neck self-consciously. “An ex-boyfriend who still calls you at one in the morning?”
“It looks worse than it is,” I say weakly.
The machine stops, and the phone rings again.
I don’t pick up. Ring. Ring. Ring.
The silence between Jordan and me is deafening.
“You know,” Jordan says softly, “maybe I should go.”
“No!” I insist, then try to kiss him again. “Stay. I want you to stay.”
“It’s…a little weird. Can’t you see that?” he asks. He’s being so soft and sweet. I wish I could say or do something to make him like me again.
“But…I like you,” I say.
And it’s out there. And Jordan says nothing for several moments. Just stares at my hardwood floors—debating.
“You know what?” Jordan finally begins. “I like you, too. But this isn’t the right time. You’ve got some baggage right now, and frankly I may have a little baggage in my own life right now, too. Maybe we should wait until we’re both on solid ground. This is going to sound like a really un-guy thing to say, but I’m really not into one-night stands.”
“Neither am I,” I insist, although at this moment even I’m not buying it. “Look, Dave’s gone. I promise. I really like you. I think you’re gorgeous and you’re funny and you’re nice and this was just bad timing, tha
t’s all.”
Jordan stands up and hugs me. Damn it, and it’s the “Let’s just be friends” hug. “I should go anyway. Are you gonna be okay?”
“Yeah,” I say, confused. “Why wouldn’t I be?”
“I don’t know,” he says with a shrug.
Jordan gently takes my hand, and walks down to my door with me. He kisses me on the cheek, then tells me to “call him when things settle down.”
The moment he leaves, I am terribly sad, and I almost go look up his cell number on the crew list just to call him and make him come back.
But I don’t.
Instead I spend the next few hours alone. And definitely not okay.
Twenty-One
In five hundred years, none of this will matter.
“I feel like a dead shark,” I say to Jenn the next day as we peruse the third floor at Bloomingdale’s, searching for wedding presents for Andy and Hunter.
“I could go for some sushi,” Jenn replies. “I could go for sushi, I could go for a caffeinated coffee, a martini…Hell, I could go for some alfalfa sprouts at this point. But I can’t. I’m pregnant.”
She reads the printed registry in front of her, then lifts up a particular crystal champagne flute. She looks at the price tag on the bottom, and shakes her head. “Two hundred fifty dollars for a pair of crystal champagne glasses in the middle of earthquake territory. Another victory for marketing.”
“I didn’t mean I felt like eating shark, I meant I felt like a dead shark,” I say. Then I think about what she just said. “Since when can’t you eat alfalfa sprouts?”
“Since there’s some bacteria that grows on some of them that’s very bad for little fetuses,” Jenn tells me as we walk over to the formal china.
“Huh. And sushi’s bad because…?”
“Some parasite, or maybe it’s a bacteria, too. Who knows? With the way the doctors talk nowadays, it’s amazing any of us came out alive. You know, my mom has a picture of your mother, nine months pregnant, with a cigarette in one hand, and balancing a martini glass on her belly. And you turned out fine.”
Instead of debating that dubious point, I glance down at my sister’s registry. “My sister registered for a one-hundred-and-sixty-dollar brownie pan.”
“What’s wrong with that?”
“She doesn’t cook.”
“Neither do I, but I have this pan,” Jenn says. “I mean, I used to cook.” Jenn looks up in the air nostalgically, reliving a cherished memory. “Oh, I used to make great stuff…homemade brownies, coq au vin, haricots verts, fettucine Alfredo, three different types of fondue…. You name it, I could make it. Now I’ve learned thatravioli comes in ten different varieties—and God bless Chef Boyardee for that.”
I sigh. “Well, I do cook, and no one’s handing me a hundred-and-sixty-dollar brownie pan. It’s so unfair—not only do I not have a soul mate, I don’t even have a gold brownie pan. I don’t get two-hundred-and-fifty-dollar champagne flutes, or a…” I read from the list and knit my brows together. “What’s a dutch oven?”
“It’s a large pot. I think it’s also called a stock pot. Used for pot roasts and beef stews.”
“The one she’s registered for is two hundred and seventy dollars.”
“Well, then don’t buy it,” Jenn says, a tone of irritation creeping into her voice. “God, I hate women who use weddings and babies as excuses to try and rob their friends blind. Do you know I had to go to a baby shower of my husband’s friend’s wife—not even someone I knew—and she was only registered at Bellini, and only for things one hundred dollars and above.”
I look at Jenn blankly. She enlightens me. “It’s a store where they sell you cribs for twelve hundred dollars that you can get at Toys “R” Us for a hundred and fifty. And every woman in Brentwood seems to shop there.”
“See, I would have guessed it was yet another food you couldn’t eat.”
“Very funny. We have to sit.”
We walk over to a chair next to the wall of china plates. I have to admit, as much as I’m dying to have a baby, seeing my poor cousin sprawled out like this does make me take pause about the whole pregnancy thing.
“Has the morning sickness stopped?” I ask.
“Well, no. But it has stalled out a bit,” Jenn says, rubbing her legs. “Of course, now I’m on to heartburn that could kill a goat.”
Eww. “And that’s better?” I ask, disbelievingly.
“Oh, much.” Jenn pulls out a pack of Tums from her purse, and pops two in her mouth. “Back to you. You feel like a dead shark.”
“Yeah. Like in the Woody Allen movie.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about. I haven’t watched a film of his since he married his daughter.”
“She’s not his daughter. She’s his stepdaughter,” I point out.
“You’re right. That’s so much more normal,” Jenn says dryly. “Anyway, if I can explain Bellini, you can explain the dead shark.”
“It’s from Annie Hall. See, a shark has to keep moving forward, or it dies. Lately, I’m not moving forward.”
“Sweetie, don’t feel that way,” Jenn says, and pats my hand lightly. “Jordan’s going to want to see you again. His ego got bruised last night, that’s all. Wait online for him tonight, talk to him via the Internet, and make sure Drew doesn’t call you in the middle of the night and cut you off. That should patch things up.”
My jaw drops for a second, and I look at her in a mild panic. “You don’t think Jordan thought that was Dave calling me in the middle of the night those two times, do you?”
Jenn gives me a patronizing look, like that was the first thing that popped into her mind, and how can I be so stupid? “I would say that’s a safe bet.”
I notice Jenn’s sons Alex and Sean bound up the escalator, their father chasing behind them.
Sean just turned three. He is the cutest thing ever, and makes me want a child so much my heart hurts. He runs up to his mother, slams into her, then climbs into her lap. “Mommy, Mommy…Dad says we can get ice cream, but only if you say it’s okay. Please, please pleeeeaaasssseeee…”
Alex, four, is also the cutest thing ever, and was the first one to make me want a child so bad it made my heart hurt.
But together, they make me vow never to have kids.
Alex races over to Jenn, and tries to push Sean out of her lap so he can get on. “Move!” he yells to his brother as Jenn’s husband Rob tries to pry him away from Jenn.
“No!” Sean screams. “I was here first!”
“Well, I called it!” Alex screams back, now trying to hit him.
People are starting to stare.
“There’s plenty of room in my lap for both of you,” Jenn says in a ridiculously calm voice, as she moves Sean to her left leg and pulls Alex onto her right.
In the exact same tone of voice, she smiles and says to her husband, “I told you not to bring them up here.”
“I know,” Rob says. “But they wanted ice cream.”
“Okay, sweetie,” Jenn says to him, a crack forming in her wall of calm. “Look around. China shop. Two bulls. China shop…”
“I know,” Rob says, now in an equally we are not going to have a fight in front of the kids calm voice, “but if I said ice cream was okay, and then we went to dinner in an hour, you would have been pissed.”
“Daddy said pissed!” Alex says, giggling hysterically.
Jenn gives each of her boys a kiss, then gently pushes them off her lap. “Okay, you can each have one scoop of ice cream. But you have to be really good for Daddy, and you have to calmly walk outside, using your inside voice, and not touching anything.”
“Yay!” they both scream in glee.
“Inside voices,” Jenn reminds them quietly and calmly. “Now, each of you hold Daddy’s hand, and Mommy will see you in an hour.”
Rob leans down for a kiss. “I’m sorry,” he says sweetly.
“It’s okay,” Jenn says, although her tone tells me she’s barely keeping it togethe
r.
“I love you,” he says, and rubs her belly lightly.
She smiles like a schoolgirl, and kisses him on the nose. “I love you, too,” she says, and all is well in the kingdom again.
Until they leave. “That’s what you’re racing towards?” Jenn asks, then blows out a sigh of exhaustion. “Never having a moment to yourself? Quietly fighting with your husband about stuff you never used to fight about? Having two boys throw themselves into your pregnant lap? The total exhaustion that comes from pregnancy? And let’s not forget never spending money on yourself ever again without guilt.”
She’s crabby, so I’m not going to say it to her now.
But yes, that’s exactly what I’m racing toward.
Twenty-Two
None of us like to walk away from a game when we’re losing.
Jordan didn’t call me all week, and neither did Dave. I spent a week replaying the whole night in my head—what else could I have said to make him stay? What could I have done differently? I wrote him an e-mail, then rewrote it, then deleted it and started over again three times, still never sending it.
I was online waiting for him every night.
I thought about calling him, but that’s pathetic, right?
The following Friday, Kate, Dawn, Andy, and I boarded a Southwest flight out of Burbank, and headed for Las Vegas, for Andy’s bachelorette party. There, we were to meet eight of Andy’s friends at the Mandalay Bay Resort and Casino, a massive gold hotel at the south end of the Strip.
Our little foursome landed at two-thirty on Friday afternoon, and took a shuttle over to baggage claim (yes, the airport is that big). After getting our bags and waiting in the ridiculously long taxi line outside the airport terminal, we made it to the Strip, and into Mandalay Bay.
Mandalay Bay is sort of an ornate version of Polynesian meets French colonial meets a South Seas island. I swear the place smells like coconuts. This is a good thing. I immediately relax the second I enter the enormous marble lobby.
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