Emily's Reasons Why Not (2 page)

“Can you give me an example of how you’ve been dissatisfied?” he asks in a tone of voice that has a lullaby quality.

“Yeah, um, well …” My internal censor knows what I’m about to say and is already trying to keep me from going there. I take a deep breath. “Three months ago I realized that my boyfriend, Reese,” I look away from Dr. D., “who I fell in love with instantly, desperately, who I thought was the one … hmm, how do I put it?” I take a deep breath and look back at Dr. D., who is waiting for me to somehow sum up why I ran away from the one guy who I’m sure to this day was my soul mate because … because … I was
dissatisfied
.

“He had two cell phones. One of which I didn’t know the number to. It kept ringing and he never answered it when I was around. Do you see the problem?”

Who wouldn’t see the problem?

I can feel my throat starting to fill, the lump growing, my eyes tearing. I must change the subject away from Reese. Wow, I really need to save some of this for future sessions.

“I don’t know. Basically, I would just like to find a single guy who I like and who likes me back.”

Dr. D. is scribbling again.

“I am not alone in this, just so you know. There are an estimated forty-three million single women in the United States today … and thirty-five percent of us are twenty-five to fifty-five years old. That’s a lot of SSWs,” I pause,
“single, successful, women
, looking for love. We’re cute, funny, fairly successful, independent, yet love, normal guys, potential mates elude us.”

I try to read Dr. D.’s upside-down chicken scratch.

“The SSW was a good positioning statement in my twenties, but now, well, lately it seems that all my friends are getting married or are, at least, in serious relationships. That means that they are finding love and I can’t.”

I pause, looking for some sort of understanding, but he obviously doesn’t get a damn word I’m saying. Therapy, I can see, is going to be a joy. I should have gone to a woman. Although on the tactical side, a male might give me the missing edge, the insight into their psyche that’s been lacking all these years.

“I’ve been a bridesmaid seven times.”

“You have a lot of friends. That’s good,” he points out.

“Yeah, but they’re all
married!
Well, except for Grace and Reilly, but Grace is engaged. In November my best friend in the world is getting married. I need to have a date to her wedding. Okay.”

“Okay?” he questions.

“My friends are dropping like flies. My roommate from college has two kids and is leaving her husband. Kathy, Grace’s sister and my other roommate in college, just had her first child and they’re building a house on Gray Hawk Country Club in Scottsdale.”

Mothers. Wives. Homeowners. At what point did we stop chugging beers in college at Cannery Row, stumbling home and barfing long after we thought we were done? Now we’re supposed to be breast-feeding, going to Target and the PTA? Maybe it’s me, but I am obviously way behind on the learning curve, like a novice swimmer in an 8K, open-ocean race through heavy surf. I am drowning here, people. Drowning!

Poof! You’re a wife, a maid, a cook, a mother, a taxi. Your life, as you knew it, is over. No more sleeping in, shopping for Kate Spade bags, spa days, mashing with strangers. Before you know it, your breasts have gone from a 34C to a 34C LONG. Yet I yearn for it. For Tiffany baby rattles, an SUV stuffed with strollers, baby bags, offspring, and the comfort of a husband to spoon me at night.

Suddenly I notice the stuffed yellow canary pop out from the wooden clock. “Cuckoo!” Has it been fifteen minutes already? God, when was the last time I said anything?

“Tonight I would just like to sleep next to somebody I care about. Is that too much to ask?” I say, a little sadly.

“What
kind
of somebody do you want in your bed?” His pen perches above his pad as he waits to scratch something on it.

I look out the window at a palm tree blowing in the wind. “Someone over six foot. I have a six foot rule. With nice forearms and good teeth. Teeth are important. And maybe someone who likes to dance. Someone who stirs me inside, who gives me the ‘flutter, flutter.’”

“Flutter, flutter?” he repeats.

“You know? The ‘flutter, flutter.’ I get it right here.” I rub my belly. “Maybe it’s a girl thing?”

He obviously doesn’t know. This is a bad sign. He doesn’t understand that we, women, know within the first thirty seconds if we are interested in kissing, courting or having sex with a man. If he doesn’t know that about women, what the hell does he know?

I decide to level with him. “Anyone who thinks that women are somehow less driven than men by chemical instinct is deluding himself. We do
not
see past the potbellies and back hair, looking for nothing more than a seven series BMW, a three-bedroom house, and a 401(k). We want the guy that floats our boat. And what’s true of most women is especially true of me. I mean, if I don’t want to instantly press my lips onto that guy in the first, I mean first thirty seconds, forget about it. Call me shallow. Call me whatever. But if I don’t want to throw him on the bed and get sweaty and naked, it’s
over. I don’t want a lifetime of financial security if the trade off is passionless kisses while dreaming of George Clooney.”

Is it possible to find a man who makes me hot, but who will still be a loving, loyal husband who makes me laugh? A provider and wonderful father to my children? Is this, too, a concoction of my preteens?

“Every time I meet my potential husband, or someone I think could be my potential husband, or at the very least someone I will have sex with, the men who will have an impact on my life, hit it like a meteor hitting a small village, disseminating its populace, I get the ‘flutter, flutter.’”

“That’s your internal warning system,” Dr. D. states clinically. “It’s good that you’re in touch with it. But next time you get … the ‘flutter, flutter’ I would prescribe the following behavior: Run. It’s your fight-or-flight instinct. A lot of women confuse it with fate, or destiny, or some other illusion clouding good judgment. Please continue about the potential boyfriend.”

“Well, a guy who makes me laugh is important. And definitely a guy with a job.” I scratch my head …“And has his own car.” I pause for a minute. “A kind smile. I don’t know, that’s a good start … wait, and, and maybe,” I look down, “someone who makes me feel pretty.”

“You are pretty,” Dr. D. states flatly.

“Thank you. I guess I’m just waiting for my prince to come,” I add in hopes of taking the focus off my ridiculous list.

Dr. D. looks concerned. “Emily, I am going to tell you something now and I want you to brace yourself for it.”

No wonder I am single. Jesus, why did I go into the “flutter,
flutter” thing? Is my list unrealistic? Is that why I’m single? I’m shooting beyond my means. NO. NO. NO. A guy with a job, nice forearms, and straight teeth is not too much to ask. Stay focused. Stay on the path. He’s coming. Right?

I sit back and take a deep breath, clearing my head for whatever Dr. D. has to say.

“Your prince is never coming.” He takes off his glasses and looks me straight in the eye. “He doesn’t exist. You need to stop looking for the right man and start looking out for the wrong men.”

I hate therapy.

“Here’s what I want you to do for our next session.” Dr. D. sets down his pad and pen. “I want you to think back to the first adult relationship that you had with a man in your twenties. Teens are too early. Then I want you to make a list, a list of ten things that went wrong, not with the relationship, but with the man. The cell phone with what’s his name …” he looks at his legal pad “… Reese, is a perfect example. Then, as we progress and you begin to date again, as, Emily, you will find love, you are going to write down ten potential problem areas, reasons you should not be with your new man
before
you give your heart away.”

“Ten reasons?” I question, thinking to myself that Dr. D. is a mix between Tony Robbins and the professor from
Gilligan’s Island
.

“It’s an exercise that will help you learn from the past and protect yourself in the future. Because, Emily, if you can come up with ten reasons why you shouldn’t be dating a person,
you probably shouldn’t date him. Writing it down will just help you figure it out a little sooner with less pain involved.”

I PUT THE white top down on my navy ‘68 Mustang and start the engine. She dies. I pump the gas, turn the key, and she revs right up. Pulling out of the garage onto Sunset Boulevard, I turn up Tom Petty’s “American Girl” and sing along.

At the end of the session, I committed to weed out the losers and become my own prince, which is fine, although, I don’t really want to be the prince. I think that was my whole point for going to therapy. I am tired of being the prince. The she-wolf, SSW The cor-pra-sexual. The woman working so hard to get ahead in corporate America, she bypassed love. I can check my own oil and take out the garbage, but it’s still a man’s job. I just do it by default.

I came up with my own secret vow. I will find love. I just need Dr. D.’s help to guide me though the clutter in the maze of dating.

Saturday night I am folding laundry. Sam, my six-year-old dog, a rescue pooch, part wolf, part German Shepherd, is lying with his tongue hanging out of the front of his mouth, as it’s too long for his snout and gives the appearance that he’s always sticking out his tongue at you, and refusing to get off. Every time he sees me folding clothes he thinks I am packing to go away. Thus he blocks the whole process even when it is just about having clean towels. I think the whole rescue thing
has given him abandonment issues, made him codependent. I know the feeling. He gets a scratch behind both ears. “Come on, boy … get off.”

We live in a one-bedroom fourplex in Brentwood. It’s a cute forties bungalow-type apartment with hardwood floors, arched entries, and overstuffed shabby-chic furniture. I pull Sam out of the laundry basket and he goes for the forbidden sofa. His bad hips cause him to pause before jumping onto the end cushion. I can’t really blame him for settling in, as it is one of those sofas that makes you want to cozy up in it for the night and watch bad movies. Overall the apartment is a spacious spot with a little yard where Sam can sun and howl at passing strangers. No dishwasher, no garbage disposal, no washer and dryer. But plenty of charm. It’s home for Sam and me.

The doorbell rings and Sam begins to howl.

“Happy birthday to you. Happy birthday to you. Happy birthday … dear Emileeeeeeeee!” I hear the girls singing outside the front door. Sam howls and wags his tail, joining in the festivities. I open the door to Grace and Reilly holding a birthday cake with a huge “30” candle burning on top.

“Happy birthday, you whore,” Reilly laughs, pushing in the door and patting Sam. “Helllloooo, Sammmmmy!”

“Lovely,” I say, hugging Reilly.

Reilly Swanson and Grace Hunter are my best girlfriends. Grace and I met in college after the DGs, the sorority we wanted, didn’t want us because our bangs weren’t big enough … it was the late ‘80s. A cute blonde from Davenport,
Iowa, Grace is the type of girl who will ruin a New Year’s Eve to rescue a kitten. Reilly, an Asian with the biggest breasts I’ve ever seen, was adopted into the Swanson family of Manhattan Beach, California, the whitest, beachiest family in the area. Not only is she the youngest of all boys, she’s also the only Asian of the bunch. We all met at Cannery Row, a dive bar within walking distance from our freshman dorm at Arizona State University.

Would-be frat boys in a beer chugging contest surrounded Reilly. She won and the boy she beat threw up all over me while I was waiting for a Coors Light at the bar. Eleven years ago we began our thicker-than-thieves bond. Wow, eleven years. The thought sends shivers.

Grace kisses me on the cheek as she steps in the door. “Happy birthday, Em. You didn’t think we were going out tonight without us wishing your twenties good-bye with cake and vodka, did you?” Reilly holds up a bottle of Absolut Citron. We all head into the kitchen.

Reilly starts to mix cocktails as we sit at the breakfast nook to eat strawberry birthday cake and drink Citron martinis. “What’d you think of Dr. D.?” Grace asks.

“Why do you need to pay some stranger a hundred-plus dollars an hour when we have a licensed therapist among the ranks?” Reilly volleys at me, referring to Grace.

Grace adds in her therapist voice, “Friends aren’t supposed to counsel other friends. We’re too personally attached. Besides, she stopped listening to me somewhere between Jeff and Dennis.”

“We do it all day,” Reilly counters.

“Repressive male-bashing is not necessarily healthy counseling,” I retort.

“Stick together we must!” Reilly laughs.

We raise our glasses and Grace toasts, “To our girl. May she find a man to love her as much as we do.”

Our glasses clink at the rim.

“Happy birthday, Em,” they say in unison.

We pat Sammy good-bye, filling him with enough love so he knows we’re coming back. At least love between people and their dogs is still intact. Sammy wags his tail as if satisfied, at least for the moment, that the laundry is still unfolded and inside.

Reilly crawls into the back of my car and I notice a hickey on the back of her neck.

“I see you’re dating Denny again,” I say as I shut the door behind her and lower the top.

“I wouldn’t call it dating,” Reilly rebuts. “More like exercise with a hint of heartache.”

“And you now understand why we shouldn’t take relationship advice from our friends.” Grace looks back at Reilly.

I am always the driver. Call it control, call it love for the Mustang, but mainly call it the security that I can leave wherever we are whenever I want.

I turn on the ignition. It dies. I pump the gas, turn the key again, and rev once as we embark on the unlikely adventure of a Hollywood fund-raiser on girls’ night out.

“Lemme know if Dr. D. tells you anything we don’t know already,” Reilly says as she puts on her seat belt.

Grace pipes in, “As a licensed therapist I will tell you one thing for sure. Deep down we already know what therapy is trying to teach us way before we ever go in. We know when to leave a shitty relationship. We know when men are bad for us. We know what it means when they don’t call. We just need to pay someone to tell us before we believe it.” She smiles, satisfied, as if she has just changed the lightbulb in a dark room.