Five Things I Can't Live Without (12 page)

Larissa nodded sympathetically. “I’ve got my own set of head games. They sound similar to yours, just in the past tense. Like, if I hadn’t done x, y, and z, Dustin wouldn’t have left me.”

“Do you think Dan’s going to leave me?” I studied her face attentively.

“I want to say no, because I’m your friend and because I think Dan really loves you, but my radar is pretty bad when it comes to male behavior. Honestly, reassurance from me is worse than none at all.”

Dan and I went to one of our favorite restaurants that night, a small Ethiopian place dimly lit throughout by lamps. I’d spent much longer on my hair and makeup than usual, and as we sat on the floor on silken cushions drinking honey wine, Dan ran his finger along my cheekbone in a way that told me my efforts were appreciated.

Dan never talked much about his work, and I didn’t have any to speak of, so at times, conversation was slow going. I kept smiling at him, determined to keep everything wonderful. I knew that I was attaching far too much significance to every moment of our dinner, and instructed myself to stop, but I wouldn’t listen.

“So Larissa went to a wedding last weekend, and ended up with this stranger.”

“Happens a lot.”

“I know. But this was kind of weird, in my opinion. They’d never met before, and the bride basically set them up to share a room so that they could both save money.”

“Right.” He gave me a knowing look that I didn’t like very much.

I pushed on. “So, Larissa wasn’t planning on being with anyone because she’s still torn up over Dustin. But she and this guy, Martin, are at a dinner the night before the wedding and she said he flirted a little with her, no big deal. They go back to the room together, and he basically mauls her against the doorjamb.”

“He got violent?” Dan looked more interested at this point. Was he someone who needed violence to get into a story? Should I throw in a car chase, too?

“He didn’t literally maul her. But he was really aggressive with the kissing. Oh, I didn’t tell you the most important thing, which is that Martin is supposedly still heartbroken because he recently got left by his wife after a month of marriage.”

“Did he tell Larissa he was heartbroken?” Dan poured wine from the decanter into my glass, then into his.

“No, because they barely talked. He just jumped her, tried to get sex, and then ignored her the next day at the wedding. Kind of tacky, don’t you think?”

Dan tilted his head. “Which part?”

“Trying so hard to get sex and then ignoring her the next day.”

“Trying hard to get sex seems pretty normal. It’s a wedding.”

“It’s the night before a wedding.”

“As I see it, there should be a clear boundary. Either nothing is going on, or there should be sex. Either it’s changing into your pajamas in the bathroom and separate beds, or there should be sex.”

“Are you serious?” Who was this man?

“Sure. It’s a wedding.” Dan took a swig of his honey wine as I continued to stare at him.

The server arrived with our food: a large round tray of
injera
bread, dotted with various stews and meats. Dan immediately yanked off a piece of
injera,
scooped up some red lentils, and popped it in his mouth, oblivious to my reaction to his theory.

“You think a woman shouldn’t be able to say no to sex?” I questioned.

“You’re missing my point here. If a woman says no, a man should stop what he’s doing. But what I’m saying is that it’s normal that he’d expect sex when he’s fooling around with a woman in her thirties the night before a wedding.”

“She’s heartbroken!” I exclaimed.

“How does he know that? She was kissing him, right? He’s touching her?”

“Well, not totally.” I lowered my voice. “He kept trying to go down on her. He barely knew her, and she repeatedly told him to stop.”

“Sweetie, I’m just saying, the guy’s not a rapist.”

“I’m not saying he’s a rapist!” I said it louder than I’d intended, and the people behind us glanced over, then put their heads together in consultation. “I’m just saying the whole thing was a little—uncouth.”

“I’m sorry.” He put his palms up in a gesture of faux surrender. “I guess I just don’t share your outrage. She’s a grown woman getting into it with a man in a hotel room. I’m not saying he’s a prince. I mean, if it were me, I would have assumed that it was the ‘change into your pajamas in the bathroom’ kind of arrangement.”

“Right. You’d play the nice guy because that’s what would get you sex.” I narrowed my eyes at him.

“I wouldn’t be playing anything. And this guy probably wasn’t playing anything, either. He just went for it. And when you’re thirty, you’re in a hotel room together one night only, it’s not making out; it’s foreplay. It’s her right not to have sex with him, but then she can’t get angry when he’s not acting like her wedding date.”

“She didn’t expect him to be her date. She just expected him to be civil.”

“Was he rude at the wedding?”

I fought my rising frustration. This wasn’t how I wanted things to go. I’d just been making conversation, and now here I was, annoyed at him once again. And why was I always the one to work so hard at conversation anyway? Why was Dan so content to eat in silence while it made me want to crawl out of my skin?

Stop this.
“No, he wasn’t rude exactly,” I said through tight lips.

“Why is this getting you so upset?” Dan asked.

“I don’t know. I just—I thought this conversation would go differently.”

“You thought I’d agree with you.” I thought I detected the faintest trace of a smirk, but I ignored it.

“No. I just thought it was sort of evident what it all meant.”

“Oh, right. You didn’t think I’d agree with you. You just thought I’d agree with you,” he teased, taking my hand.

I decided to try one last time to get him to see my point, though I had the discomforting image of me as a pit bull with her jaws locked. “Here’s what I’m saying. He pressured her to get sex, and then he wasn’t nice the next day. And that’s kind of jerky.”

“And what I’m saying is that it seems like it should be all or nothing: rebuff the guy right from the start, or finish him off. Don’t just leave him hanging.” Apparently, Dan could be a pit bull, too.

“She didn’t leave him hanging. She got him off, even though she didn’t want to.”

“Well, then.” He shrugged his shoulders, as if the discussion were now over. He seemed to think Larissa’s hand job was a personal victory.

I let out an exasperated sigh. Maybe just
one
more try … “But she gave him clear signals the whole way, that’s all. Like the way she kept stopping him from going down. She was letting him know from early on that there were boundaries.”

“Okay.” He was eating some lamb with evident pleasure and didn’t seem terribly interested anymore.

I took a drink of my honey wine and a deep breath.
I can let this go. I can
. “Have you noticed,” I asked conversationally, “that men are going down far earlier than they used to?”

“What do you mean?” he said through a mouthful of peas.

“They go down now before you’ve even had sex with them. It’s invasive.”

“They’re letting you know they’re sensitive. And that they want you to go down on them. Plus, some men really like it. I really like it.”

“Do you do that? Go down on women before you’ve had sex?” I realized how curious I was, since he was generally so discreet about his previous sexual relationships. If we ever broke up, I’d probably appreciate that. But not until then.

“I have.”

“Well, why didn’t you do that for me?”

“Because you think it’s invasive.”

“You didn’t know that then!” I protested.

“If we could go back in time, I would go down on you on our first date so that we would never have to have this conversation.” He looked at me, waiting for a smile in return. The longer he held the look, with his lips pursed in amusement, the more I wanted to laugh. And the longer I held back, the more ridiculous it seemed. But I still couldn’t let go. What was that?

“Nora,” he said, and everything about him at that moment said that he loved me. So I cracked.

Chapter 8

V
incent was my second client, and we were meeting at the botanical gardens, where he worked. Even though I knew he was 6‘7”, it was still jarring to arrive at the Japanese plant display to find this hulking man, with his shock of whitish blond hair, waiting for me. He extended an enormous hand in greeting.

“Nora,” he said. When he smiled, his eyes nearly disappeared. His features were surprisingly soft and gentle in a slightly ruddy face.

“It’s nice to meet you, Vincent,” I said, squinting up at him, my hand enveloped in his.

“Let’s sit down.” He led me to a bench near the Japanese pool, where we sat side by side, gazing out.

“I’ve never been here before,” I said. “This is really beautiful. What are those trees called? You always see them in Japanese wall scrolls.”

“Japanese maples,” Vincent supplied.

The pond was ringed by boulders and shaded—as I’d just learned—by Japanese maples with leaves of varying shades of red, orange, and green, as well as bamboo. In the center of the pond was a small island, also surrounded by boulders, with an iconic tree growing out of it. Its leaves were a golden orange burnished by the late-afternoon light. It was so lovely that I fought my nervous inclination to get right down to business, and tried to just take it in.

“There are some dogwoods, too. Bamboo, of course.” He pointed. “Redwoods. Got to have a nod to California, right?” He glanced at me out of the corner of his eye, and I smiled. I liked Vincent. “The thing I like best about Japanese gardens is that they’re not overly concerned with flowers. They’re heartier than that. They’re all-weather. It’s not just about the spring, you know?”

I nodded. We fell silent for a few minutes. There were no other people, so there was only the sound of birds twittering.

“Did you think it was strange that I suggested we meet here?” he asked, turning to face me fully.

I was about to give him a quick no, but there was something urgent in his face that told me I should consider my answer more carefully. “I was going to suggest a cafe, which would have been my natural habitat. This seems to be yours.”

He faced the pond again. “That’s what I was thinking, too,” he said, with some measure of approval.

Was he testing me? I wasn’t sure. I wondered if there was something challenging about him picking his own turf for our meeting. Maybe he could smell how much I needed this gig. My face was getting hot, and my stomach was tightening. Maybe my mother was right, and I shouldn’t be meeting strangers. Maybe I had no business doing this job at all.
Stay calm and don’t talk first
, I counseled myself.
You don’t know enough. Just let it play out.

The next five minutes of silence were agonizing. When I finally cast a surreptitious glance at his face to gauge our progress, I saw that he looked completely serene. He wasn’t trying to make progress at all. I envied him.

I took a deep breath and then exhaled. It was louder than I’d intended. He looked over at me and smiled slightly, then lowered his eyes shyly. We both looked back at the water. Yes, I needed this gig. But it had been a long time since I’d sat by a pond and watched the light change. I was going to analyze this meeting to pieces later; it seemed like I might as well try to enjoy it now.

Another five minutes, then ten, passed without either of us speaking. Peculiarly enough (or naturally enough), there didn’t seem to be any tension in it. I remembered a meditation class I’d attended once to learn how to manage my stress better. My thoughts refused to be harnessed, and it felt more like an exercise in frustration tolerance than stress management. The more I sat there trying to make my mind go blank, the more flares it set off in rebellion. I talked to someone after the class who seemed so much more successful than I had been. All she said was, “You know, it’s hard.” I waited for her to say more, but she just smiled.
Zen bitch,
I had thought, figuring she was hoarding the secret of the universe. But that was probably it. It was hard, and it was frustrating, and you had to push through, and when presented with a situation like that, I did what I’d always done: I never went back.

Now here I sat, looking at the beauty, and thinking of my failings. Why did I always have to do this to myself?

And why was I always so self-obsessed?