My Guys

by Tanya Chris

  “There you are. I thought maybe you’d left.”

  “I was—” I gestured at the wall. I’d forgotten the term Derek had used.

  “Bouldering?”

  “Right. Bouldering. Where’s Bob?”

  “He left. He got pumped.”

  Pumped. I knew that one.

  “I’m kind of pumped too.” I showed her my arms which now looked merely tight, not gigantically swollen. “I wish I could belay you. I’d like to see you climb.”

  Derek landed with a thud on the padding behind us and sprang quickly to his feet. “I’ll belay her. I just gotta grab my harness.” He bounced off the mat and headed for the doorway. We watched him walk away.

  “Do you know him?” I asked Amy.

  She nodded.

  “He’s a friend or ... ?”

  “A friend. Derek doesn’t do or as far I know.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “He’s never been involved with anyone since I’ve known him. Man or woman, if that was your next question.”

  “Why not?”

  “Who knows? He was friendly when I first met him. Very helpful, very friendly. I thought maybe there was more to it, but no, not on his side anyway. God knows I was willing.”

  “But he’s ...”

  He was walking towards us, wearing a harness which I couldn’t help but notice accentuated a certain male part of him, and pulling a t-shirt over his head. He made my tongue thick.

  “Younger than I am? Yeah. Doesn’t make him any uglier though, does it?” She grabbed the rope closest to us and tied into it. Once Derek was in position, she launched herself off the ground. I tried to watch her, not him.

  “Amy said you helped her, too, when she started climbing.”

  “Did I?” He frowned. “I don’t think I’d been climbing very long when she got here. I was probably showing off for the new girl.” His eyes followed Amy as his hands ran through the complicated motions of belaying as though they were second nature.

  “You don’t seem like a show-off.”

  “I try not to be, but when a new girl comes around all the guys act like baboons trying to mate, shaking their red butts and screeching. ”

  No man had shaken his red butt at me yet. No man had so much as talked to me—not even Bob—except Derek, and Derek had been only friendly and helpful, just as Amy had said.

  “Is that why you don’t wear a shirt? You’re showing off for the new girls?”

  “I never thought of it that way. It’s cooler and ... less binding, I guess. It feels like my arms can move. Does it seem like showing off?”

  “Well, it’s certainly something to look at.”

  “Huh.” His eyes met mine and held, considering that carefully. “Thanks,” he said finally. He looked up at Amy who’d reached the top of the climb and lowered her down.

  “That was impressive,” I told her. To see Amy in her office clothes at work you’d never guess there was so much strength lurking beneath them.

  “Your turn,” she said to Derek.

  He grabbed the rope next to us and tied in while she put him on belay. When he was finished with his knot, he looked at me uncertainly. It took me a moment to figure it out: this was the point where he’d normally take his shirt off. Well, I didn’t want to be the one to stop him.

  I leaned into him and whispered, “Show me,” in his ear. He looked even less certain but he did reach up and pull his t-shirt over his head. Dropping the shirt on the ground next to his feet, he put his hands on the wall.

  “Slumming?” Amy asked him.

  “I was working my project earlier, and I don’t want to take a lot of time. It’s Lissie’s turn next.” He started climbing.

  Amy raised an eyebrow at me. “Lissie?”

  “Some of my friends call me Lissie. What did you mean about slumming?” I asked, changing the subject.

  “He can climb a lot harder than that route he’s doing.”

  He certainly didn’t look like he was having any trouble with it.

  “How can you tell how hard it is?”

  “By the number. See how the green route says ten? For him, that’s easy.”

  “How hard were the ones I was doing?”

  “Hmm, the beginner’s wall isn’t actually rated. Maybe four or five?”

  Derek was already at the top of the wall so she started lowering him back down.”

  “Your turn,” he said to me.

  “Can I do one with a number?”

  “There’s a six in the front room,” Amy said. “That’s the one that finished Bob off.”

  I followed her into the other room, wondering if I’d made a mistake in asking. My forearms were no longer swollen, but they felt weak and painfully tired. I pushed my bangs out of my eyes. At least I had enough strength to move hair now.

  At first the blue six didn’t seem any harder than the yellow one I’d climbed on the bouldering wall, probably even easier, but I was definitely tired. I tried to remember some of the pointers Derek had given me about keeping my arms straight and my hips against the wall. I wanted one success to finish the night with, but only halfway up I fell.

  I was so angry at myself, I kicked the wall. Below me I heard laughter.

  “That’s a climber,” Derek said.

  I didn’t know what was so funny. I kicked the wall again and then tried to climb it instead of kick it, but I couldn’t get my hands to hold on long enough to even get started. Futilely, I kept trying again and falling again.

  “Ready to come down?” Amy asked.

  I nodded, defeated.

  “You did great,” Derek said. “Don’t beat yourself up.”

  “You’ll be back,” Amy predicted. “Sign up for the belay class before you leave and you can belay me next time.” She walked across the room to a rope on the other side, calling “See you at work,” back over her shoulder at me.

  “Hey, it was nice meeting you,” Derek said. He looked at me curiously for a moment, then brushed the hair out of my eyes. “You should get a clip or something.”

  He was right about that.

  Chapter 3

  My friend Donna already had a drink in front of her when I walked in.

  “Sorry, sorry,” I said.

  “No worries, I just got here.” She waved the bartender over. He was a big guy with a buzz cut and a lot of visible tattoos, out of place in this trendy downtown cocktail bar. I ordered a Cosmopolitan and tucked my pocketbook beneath the stainless steel foot rail. With the practicalities out of the way, I gave Donna a hug.

  “You look great,” I told her. Donna always looked great—perfectly frosted blonde hair, manicured blood-red nails, and a body that screamed ‘I was just at the gym’ instead of ‘I’m nearly forty.’

  “You look different.” She touched my hair.

  “I’m trying to grow it out. What do you think?”

  “It’s about time you did something different with it. I think you had that same hairstyle in high school.”

  She wasn’t far from being wrong. I’d had some variation of a pageboy with bangs as long as I could remember, although the color had dimmed from bright blonde to dirty blonde to middling brown through the years.

  “Alex hated when I changed anything.”

  “Well, no one gives a fuck what he thinks anymore, do they? Anyway, men like long hair, longer the better. I’d get some highlights too.”

  “In other words, make it look just like yours.”

  “Hey, I’ve been out there. I know what works.”

  Donna had been divorced longer than she’d ever been married. Like me, she’d gotten married right out of college, but five years later she and her husband split up and she’d been in and out of various relationships ever since. Through the years she’d tried every form of dating invented, from phone numbers printed in the back of a newspaper right up to apps that told her when someone nearby was interested in hooking up.

  “Well, what I’ve got isn’t working,” I admitted. “I got set up
the other day and the guy wouldn’t even look at me.”

  “Come on, Melissa. You aren’t butt-ugly.”

  “I’m telling you,” I said, remembering how Bob had turned automatically to Amy before saying anything. “I’m starting to feel invisible.”

  “You could be more visible.” She eyed me critically. “What are you wearing?”

  “Yoga pants.”

  “Did you come from yoga?”

  “No.”

  Actually, I’d come from the theater. I’d been helping to build the set. The show opened next weekend and there was still so much to do.

  “Then there you go.”

  “OK,” I sighed. “Tell me what I should be doing. I signed up for an online dating service Wednesday—”

  “Which one?”

  “CoupleMe.”

  “Hmm. OK, for CoupleMe you want to be sweet. Sincere but cute, not serious. Let me see your profile picture.”

  I pulled up my profile on my phone and showed it to her. I’d used a picture from my niece’s kindergarten graduation last year taken in my sister’s garden. My hair looked shiny and clean and the sun gave it some natural highlights. I was wearing a long floral skirt and smiling, really smiling. I’d been happy that day. Alex and I had just agreed that I’d stop taking the pill, that it was time to start trying. Watching Lyla dancing around the garden as the princess-of-honor, I’d imagined it being my own daughter someday. Life was good and getting better.

  “Nice smile,” Donna said, handing me back the phone, “but it’s a little dowdy. Don’t you have anything younger?”

  “I’ll never be any younger than I was then.”

  “Younger looking. What age did you put in?”

  “Thirty-seven.” Exactly how old I was.

  “I’d make it thirty-five. They’re going to figure you’re lying by a couple of years, so if you say thirty-seven they’ll assume forty.”

  “And then what happens when you and the guy you lied to fall in love and want to live happily ever after?”

  “I’ll let you know when that happens.”

  “Then why even bother?” I asked.

  “I don’t know.” She looked suddenly tired. “I don’t really recommend it. Fuck ’em all anyway.” She waved down the bartender and pushed her glass at him.

  “How are things with you? I’m sorry. I should have asked.”

  “I’m tired,” she said, confirming my thought. “It’s a young woman’s game. You should stick with Alex. Hell, maybe I should have stuck with Shawn.”

  “He cheated on me, Donna.”

  “So forgive him.”

  I shook my head. “It was more than just once, more than just that.”

  “Men are scum. Even when you’re not married to them, they’re scum, but at least when you’re married to them, you’re married.” She looked ready to cry.

  “God, what happened?”

  “Sorry. I don’t meant to be a downer, what with you being new to the party and all.”

  “Tell me.”

  “Just the usual—thought it was working but I was delusional.” She paused. “Rick.”

  “Tall with a blonde mustache?”

  “That’s him.”

  “Sorry. I didn’t realize it had gotten serious.”

  “It hadn’t. So what did Alex do? Besides cheat, I mean.”

  I looked down into my drink which was nearly gone. I finished it and pushed the glass away from me. The bartender came over and picked it up and tilted his head questioningly. I nodded.

  Donna was waiting for me to answer, but I had no idea what to say. The memory of that afternoon was too painful to relive on a barstool.

  It was Sunday morning. Alex had come in from the gym, or so I’d thought. He’d gone straight into the shower and I’d waited for him. The ovulation test had said it was a good day, and so I waited. When he came out of the shower, I went up to him. Funny how after all those years together I still didn’t know how to initiate sex.

  I went up to him and stood close while he finished toweling off. He fished a fresh pair of boxers out of his drawer and dropped the towel. I was still standing there, too close, and when he went to step into the boxers he bumped into me and looked up, annoyed, like he’d just realized I was there and couldn’t understand why.

  “Let me guess,” he said. “The stick says we should have sex.”

  ‘The stick’ was what he called the ovulation test. I knew he was tired of the stick scheduling our sex life, but we’d tried for six months free-form before I started testing.

  “It’s a good day,” I said.

  “So let’s fuck. Is that it?”

  Fuck wasn’t a word we used.

  “If you want to,” I said.

  “What if I don’t?”

  “Oh. OK.”

  See, I didn’t understand. He always wanted to have sex, and I tried to be a good wife, tried to oblige, so I didn’t understand why it would be a hardship to have sex right then when it was a good time. I left him to finish dressing, moving into the living room because I felt alone, even though I didn’t understand why yet.

  “Melissa,” he said, finally coming to where I was. The expression on his face scared me. I didn’t want to hear what he was about to say. “I’m not sure we should try to have a baby anymore.”

  “Why not?”

  “I’m not sure— I’m not sure we should be married anymore.”

  And then he’d told me.

  “Did I drink all that?” I asked Donna, noticing my glass was only half full.

  “Steadily.”

  I set the glass down at arm’s reach.

  “Let’s talk about something more fun.” I told her about going to the climbing gym, glossing over both Bob and Derek.

  “So you think you’ll do it again?”

  “Absolutely. I know I can do better next time. I can definitely climb that six at least. Amy said the one I was doing on the bouldering wall was way harder than that, even if it was short.”

  “But so what if you can? I mean, you don’t get a prize or anything.”

  “No reason, I guess. What did that guy who climbed Mount Everest say? Because it’s there?”

  “Are you going to climb Mount Everest?” Donna asked, horrified.

  “I don’t think so. Not tomorrow anyway.”

  “God, Melissa, you’re going to turn into some hippie outdoor freak and stop washing your hair or shaving your legs.”

  I pushed my bangs back and wondered when I’d last shaved my legs. No one was looking at them these days.

  “It was fun,” I told her. “Not a life-changing event.” I decided not to tell her that I was signed up to take the belay class tomorrow and switched to talking about the theater instead. Theater was more her speed.

  “So you’re going to be in a play?” she asked when I explained about helping out with the set and getting roped into being a stage hand.

  “No, not in it—helping with it, like moving furniture during intermission.”

  “If it was me, I’d rather be in it.”

  “You should totally do that—be in a play.”

  She pursed her lips, considering. “And there were men there?”

  “Lots of them.”

  “Probably gay though.”

  “Not all of them. Married, some of them.”

  “Just as bad.”

  “There was one, though—” Immediately I wondered why I’d said anything. I stalled by taking a sip of my drink.

  “Oh ho,” she pounced. “Come on, Melissa, cough it up.”

  “It’s not like that.” I really shouldn’t have said anything. “He’s young.”

  “How young?”

  “Twenty-five.”

  Donna whistled.

  “It’s not like that,” I repeated. “He’s just an interesting guy, that’s all.”

  “That is so not all.” Donna raised her hands up in claws and snapped her jaw like she was taking a big bite out of something.

  “What
the hell was that?”

  “Cougar.”

  “I’m not— Oh God, I shouldn’t have said anything.” The truth was, I’d been obsessing about Nate just a little, so naturally I’d said something.

  I’d been back to the theater to help out several times since the afternoon I met him. I’d thought he’d be there. That wasn’t why I went back, I told myself, but I’d thought he’d be there. I’d painted and cleaned and done whatever they’d asked me to do. I’d gotten to know some people, even well enough to be offered a beer at three in the afternoon the last time I was there, but Nate hadn’t shown up. The time we’d spent pulling nails on the floor together was encapsulated in a Nate-envelope in my mind, waiting to be re-opened. I hadn’t even heard his name, except once.

  I was standing with a paint brush in my hand, looking for the next thing I could paint with the trim color, when a voice above me said, “Little help?”

  I looked up to find Deb on a ladder right behind me.

  “Can you hand me up a twofer?” she asked.

  “Um.”

  “In that pile.” She nodded her head towards the audience seating.

  She was sitting on the very top step of the ladder, where I was pretty sure there was a label telling you not to do that, holding one of those big lighting instruments. She had a leg on each side of the ladder, and the hand that wasn’t keeping the lighting instrument steady on the pipe over her head was using a wrench to tighten it in place.

  I ditched the paint brush and brought one of the things—a short piece of cable with two heads—over and lifted it up towards her.

  “Can you bring it up?” she asked.

  After surveying the situation, I decided that I wouldn’t be risking my own life very much to climb up a couple of rungs. After all, I was a rock climber now. I wasn’t as sure about the position she was in, but she didn’t seem to be worried about it. She took the twofer from me without looking down and attached it with quick, sure motions. I hung out to watch. I had no idea what she was doing, but it was more interesting than painting or pulling nails.

  “Thanks.” She swung her legs around so she was facing me. “I’m Deb.”

  “I’m Lissie.”

  “Melissa, right?”

  “Yes, but everyone here calls me Lissie.”