by Tracy Quan
I showed her the laundry bag with the drop cloths.
“I don’t know if I should toss these in the compactor. The hotel bag’s a dead giveaway,” I said. “It’s just a lot of whipped cream and foam plates, but we can’t be too careful.”
She nodded vehemently and pointed to a shopping bag in the corner of the room. Then she pointed to the street.
“I guess you’re right,” I said. “It does look suspicious. And you hear these stories about people being Found Out through their garbage.”
I changed quickly into exercise clothes and, when I was out on the sidewalk, headed for a rubbish bin. Looking around, I waited for some pedestrians to pass before disposing of my camouflaged drop cloths.
An emotion close to guilt but even closer to fear gripped my heart as the cab sped toward Thirty-fourth Street. Despite my best efforts, I was, in fact, later than I expected. Of course I have a million alibis. I was browsing at Barnes & Noble and got totally absorbed in… Suddenly my brain froze and I couldn’t think of a single book title. I was— What’s wrong with me? I went out for coffee after the class, is more than plausible. Why am I acting, in my head, like a prisoner who must report her every move? I’m not carrying money—after the fiasco of the tampons, I’ve been storing money in my other apartment with my other underthings—so even if he searched me, I’d be fine.
But why am I thinking this way? Matt doesn’t behave like that! Still, when you’re sneaking around, you have to think that way. Imagine the worst, most intrusive, scenarios. Be prepared. Mentally. Physically. In every way. Never underestimate your spouse.
Or am I just getting spooked because I went through his things last week?
I entered my own home a nervous wreck and tried to camouflage that as effectively as I had the drop cloths. Matt was lying on the couch reading the latest Wired.
“How was the class?” he said. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing.” I disappeared into the kitchen for a glass of water. What should I say? When I came out I told him: “It’s a very challenging class! It was great…until I started talking to one of the other women. We went out for coffee. She told me something really upsetting.”
Matt’s magazine slid to the floor. He sat up.
“Do you need to talk about it?”
“No!” I said. “I want to forget about it.”
“So tell me about the class. What’s the idea?”
“Lots of emphasis on strengthening the pelvic floor. It’s, you know, something you have to learn about if you’re preparing for pregnancy.”
I felt my equilibrium returning. Two birds with one stone: the perfect alibi and a positive message about pregnancy that strengthens my marriage and affirms our shared goals.
“Is that like Lamaze?” Matt asked.
He’s getting way too comfortable with the idea of discussing my pelvic floor muscles!
“No! This class is only for women. Honey, do you mind if I tell you something?”
I sat down next to my husband and looked into his eyes. I do my best improvisation when there’s a crisis. When I’m feeling the heat.
“I love you, but there are things I can’t share with you,” I said. “Maybe I’m a little old-fashioned,” I explained. “The pelvic floor muscles are essential to, um, female health, but it’s so unromantic. Not a topic for mixed company. If you see what I mean.”
THURSDAY AFTERNOON
A harrowing voice mail. Delivered at noon.
“How could he do this to me? When I most needed him!”
Omigosh. Did Lucho break up with Allie in e-mail? Remarry his first wife? What exactly has he done? I’m afraid to find out.
Allison’s raw distress was so horrifying that I erased her voice mail. I have no choice but to call her back. Even if I am trying to avoid her.
LATER
It was hard to get through to Allie. Her landline was going straight to voice mail. Her cell phone was behaving oddly. I checked my e-mail, and found no follow-up to her voice mail. Just some nervous nattering about her Open Society Institute panel: at two am last night, Allie was arguing with herself about
sex workers’ alliance? or prostitutes’ coalition? What do you think? The OSI panel starts at 3:00 tomorrow. Call my cell if you want to be in the audience!
That was her last e-mail.
Around three o’clock my cell phone rang. Allie’s voice sounded small and faint.
“Where are you?” I asked.
“In bed,” she sobbed. “I’m in bed. I took some Tylenols so I could sleep.”
“How many?”
“Two. They’re extra-strength.”
“Oh.” Thank god! “I thought your talk was supposed to be—”
“He abandoned me!” she exclaimed. “When I needed him! How could he do that?”
“What did he say?”
“Nothing!” she wailed.
“I don’t understand.”
“Of course you don’t! You’ll never understand! You’ll never understand what it is to be abandoned like this because you’ve never given your heart completely to—” She started to sob hysterically.
“That’s not what I mean! I don’t understand what happened. What about your panel?” I asked.
“I can’t go through with it! They’ll just have to go ahead without me.”
“I’d better come over,” I said.
“You’d better not!” Allie screamed. “Not if you’re going to sit here and pass judgment on my personal life and say I told you so! Because I don’t want to hear it today!”
“Have you eaten anything?”
She blew her nose.
“Not really,” she said. “I have a terrible craving for ice cream.”
When I arrived at Allie’s building with two cartons of ice cream, the doorman waved me through. Her apartment door was slightly ajar and the entire place was dark. Curtains were tightly drawn in the living room, and I had trouble finding the light. I stored the ice cream in the freezer and tiptoed into the bedroom, where Allie was sleeping with a big blue ice mask on her eyes. She was lying under a comforter that was pulled up to her chin. Only her long shiny hair, her nose, and the blue mask peeked out. With her arms hidden from view, she looked like a shell-shocked mummy. But, just as I turned to leave the room, she asked, “Did you get the ice cream? I can just have it out of the container.”
There was a time when I might have gone along with that. Now that I’m running an actual household with another adult, it’s out of the question. I found a bowl in Allie’s kitchen large enough to contain an entire carton and presented two flavors with a paper napkin tucked into the underplate.
As she tried to console herself with rum raisin and chocolate mint, Allie described her ordeal.
“He hasn’t written to me in a week! Last night, I got a nasty e-mail from that stalker. She says, ‘You think you’re Lucho’s girlfriend but you’re fooling yourself.’ This morning, I tried not to read any more of her e-mails. I looked at the e-mail from the Colloquium Committee. And I looked in all my accounts for an e-mail from Lucho.” Allie put down her spoon. “It was the last straw!”
The straw that broke Allie’s heart.
“He nominated me for that committee, and then he left me to fend for myself,” she said, in a quiet voice. “I cried all morning. I called Roxana. She thinks I have the flu. She’s going to replace me on the OSI panel.”
Allie looked away, slightly embarrassed, and said, “I just don’t have the heart to do it alone.”
Alone! I felt a twinge of guilt.
“But I thought the girls in NYCOT were rooting for you,” I said. “Roxana’s totally behind you on this. Isn’t she?”
“Yes,” she grabbed a tissue. “But it’s not the same. I’m not like Roxana. She’s happy as long as she has her friends in NYCOT. She doesn’t need to be in love. Lucho made me feel brave. He—he—” She was tearing up again. “He meant so much to me! I can’t explain it.”
“You don’t have to,” I said.
>
“I liked having a man in my life!” Allie said. “I don’t want to hide everything I do! I don’t want to spend all my nights alone like Jasmine! I don’t want to spend my entire life hanging out with—with a bunch of other women all the time, like Roxana! With Lucho gone, I feel empty. And afraid. People are attacking me, and I don’t have what it takes to be out there anymore. I thought we were going to be an avant-garde power couple,” she said.
After a brief silence, she added: “I guess I’ll keep going to NYCOT meetings but I don’t want to be out front anymore. I’m going to hand in my resignation tomorrow.”
When I left Allie’s apartment, it was almost six. She had finished both cartons of ice cream and was getting ready to sleep again. It’s a relief to know she’s not going on TV. And now I can stop avoiding her. But something doesn’t add up. Doesn’t feel right. And I can’t put my finger on it.
12
Misconceptions
SATURDAY, 5/19/01
This morning, I rose early and prepared a decadent breakfast while Matt slept in. Italian sausages, scrambled eggs with crème fraiche, broiled tomatoes topped with bread crumbs. I filled two small ramekins with cultured butter to complement my only concession to virtue: seven-grain toast.
Matt stumbled into the kitchen with a dreamy smile on his face. He found me warming plates and kissed the back of my neck while I poured him a cup of coffee.
“I love the way you look in an apron,” he said. “Especially when you wear those shorts.”
His hand cupped my right breast gently for a second. As he wandered back to the bedroom, I felt a sharp desire stirring beneath my shorts. Then a terrible pang, closer to my breast.
What about Allie? Is she sleeping off the Tylenol PMs? Crying her eyes out?
Did Lucho understand that he was playing with Allison’s heart? Leading her on? I can’t bring myself to say this to Allie, but it’s obvious to any sensible person that he’s visiting his family in Bogotá—and daily contact with homegrown reality has turned “the love of his life” into a fling. An adventure.
As I sat down to share an intimate meal with my husband the morning after making up with my best friend, I felt queasy.
“These are just right,” Matt said, cutting into a juicy fennel sausage. “You never overcook anything!” He gave me a curious look. “Why aren’t you eating, honey?”
I picked at my food, trying to swallow a piece of toast, and discovered that, while I can fake many things, it’s hard to fake an appetite.
Last night’s vague doubts resurfaced. Now highly magnified. Horribly clear. As I sit across from my adoring husband, Allison’s alone. And not by choice. Feeling—how did she put it? “Empty. And afraid.” Disillusioned.
Am I turning into a foul-weather girlfriend? That might be okay, if I were also manless. But I’m not. There is something indecent and even downright creepy about this. No matter how I try to dance around it, Allie’s romantic misfortune is…the basis for our reconciliation.
Some women disappear from your life when you’re happy about a man, only to reappear when you’re demoralized and licking your wounds. Please tell me I’m not turning into a break-up vulture!
And if I don’t eat something, Matt will be completely weirded out.
“I have to confess,” I said playfully. “I couldn’t stop myself from nibbling. Cooking in the morning makes me ravenous.”
After breakfast, I logged on. Whatever is wrong or right about this friendship, I do have to check in on her. I began composing a friendly note, mindful of not sounding like a foul-weather friend.
Are you okay?
…sounds condescending. Like you’re rubbing it in. Could be taken to mean: “Is your bleeding wounded shattered heart surviving okay? I’m taking five minutes off from the sweetest guy in the world while he makes dinner reservations for JUST THE TWO OF US.”
How are you?
A little formal, considering that Allie and I performed oral sex on the same guy—at the same time—not that long ago. Quite a few times, actually, in the course of our friendship.
What’s going on??
Collegial. Good. I risk sounding breezy, but that’s better than sounding like a smug sympathetic married friend.
I have some errands, your part of town, Sunday or Monday. I would love to meet up for lunch or coffee. Take care, N.
LATER
Time flies when you’re on the Pill. Just realized: today is Day 21! So it’s finally safe to fuck without a condom. Or so I keep telling myself.
But I can’t get my brain wrapped around it. Nor my thighs, which are quite well trained. Hardwired to unlock for a lubricated condom, they stay firmly shut when there isn’t one. It’s second nature by now.
On Thursday night, when Matt tried (again!) to get inside without a condom, I was almost flattered. But still, I held out for what I wanted. I’m such a pro that I can negotiate for condoms without getting turned off—and being turned on never affects my decision. This can be a useful trait, but now it prevents me from taking the plunge.
I need to at least create the illusion of reproductive intent, but can’t bring myself to go there! Even though I’ve been on the Pill for twenty-one days. Even though Matt’s my lawfully wedded husband—not some guy with an assumed nickname passing through my apartment in the middle of the day calling me Sabrina. Or Suzy.
I know more about Matt than I do about most men. I have his social security number. I know exactly what he earns. I’ve met his family. We share an ATM password. He had an annual checkup two months ago. I know because I made the appointment for him. And I love him! Most women would say this is reason enough to start fucking without a condom. Why can’t I just get with my own program? The one I so carefully erected?
Jasmine was right. There’s no point arguing with Matt about babies and condoms. A secret arms supply is sometimes the only option. The Cold War might be over but its techniques will never disappear.
So now I’m a well-defended Cold Warrior contemplating detente, but I still feel safer with a condom. I superstitiously wonder if Matt’s unabashed desire to impregnate is stronger than the medical technology I’m using on the sly.
But that’s crazy! The Pill works—when you take it. And I’m taking it religiously. At nine-thirty on the dot every morning.
I can’t relate to girls who do their clients with condoms and their boyfriends without. I’ve spent so many years not being one of those girls that the whole idea of becoming one—even a respectable married version—goes against the grain.
That’s the problem with basing your self-image on what you don’t do.
SUNDAY, 5/20/01
Brunch with Allie at Demarchelier. She didn’t mention Lucho until our food arrived. And even then, not by name.
“I’m still mourning the relationship,” she admitted. “But I don’t think grief is always a negative. It can be a growth opportunity.”
“Most definitely,” I agreed.
When a boyfriend loses his identifying qualities—when you’re no longer discussing him and you’re getting over The Relationship by dealing with larger issues like attachment, human suffering, and personal growth—then you’re starting to mend.
Allie examined her new nail polish. Like me, she’s the type to get everything done with a vengeance when things have gone wrong with a man. Her long hair, short nails, and pale skin glowed with maintenance. But there was a subdued look in her eyes.
“I told Roxana I need a break from all this public speaking. She’s thinking about taking over for me on the Colloquium Committee.” She sighed. “And I’m helping NYCOT plan the Regional Summit but now I’m staying behind the scenes. I don’t want to get in the news. I’m not cut out to be a public figure.” She stared wistfully into her soup, then looked up. “Why don’t you come to the NYCOT Regional Summit? We’re renting a space at True, downtown. Don’t worry,” she added, sensing my concern, “there won’t be any TV cameras allowed. We don’t want to scare off the girls who are still
working.”
I’ve been adamant about avoiding NYCOT events ever since I got married, but it’s hard to do “adamant” when your best friend turns to you for emotional first aid, makes all these concessions to your value system, and sips her Chardonnay with the air of a traumatized kitten.
“I’ll think about it,” I told her.
When I left Demarchelier, my phone was vibrating. Milton, returning my call.
“To what do I owe the honor?” he asked.
“How about a little party with Allison?” I suggested. “It’s a great excuse to get her into bed. And,” I giggled, “she just got back from L.A. two days ago. She’s looking very good. We just had lunch.”
“How’s four o’clock?” he said. “Tomorrow. I’ll bring some Cristal to celebrate her return. You just had lunch? Who did what for dessert?”
“Well, there wasn’t time,” I said. “I have to go and meet my…fiancé. But I’ll check with Allison about tomorrow. Dessert’s always tastier when you have to wait a day!”
“Your fiancé doesn’t know what he’s got,” Milt chuckled. “Do you organize threesomes for him too?”
“You must be kidding!”
If only we could be as objective about boyfriends and husbands as we are about customers. Milt needs a “threebie” once every eight weeks. It’s not absolutely essential but he does enjoy two girls. Without that triangular zing in his life, he would get restless.
A threesome with Milt, accompanied by good champagne, will take Allie’s mind off romance and help her to keep things in perspective.
I know now that I’ve been avoiding Allie in too many ways, ever since she started planning that television breakout. Paranoid about introducing her to my johns! Milton sees her two or three times a year when we have a threeway, and I know he’d be mortified if he caught sight of Allie on TV. Telling the world she’s a hooker! He’s got a lot to lose and can’t afford to risk indiscretion. Thank god Allie has come to her senses.
