Getting Over Jack Wagner (24 page)

I can redeem myself at Sunday dinners.

“So, Eliza,” Mom will begin.

“Mother,” I'll interrupt her. “I am dating a man. He is twenty-nine. His name is Jacques. He went to Juilliard, performs in venues around the world, and we're madly in love.”

A stunned silence will descend on the table.

“So what does he do?” someone (Scott, probably) will want to know.

“He's a pianist.”

“Eliza,” Mom will say, blushing madly. “Do you have to be vulgar?”

 

I spend hours designing the inside of Imaginary Jacques's apartment: sprawled record albums, half-filled wineglasses, itchy brown sweaters tossed over chair backs. Mysterious abstract art hung haphazardly on the walls. Refrigerator filled with decaying lettuce, olives, exotic cheeses, ripped loaves of crusty French bread. Grease-spotted Chinese takeout menu stuck to the refrigerator door. Crumpled receipts in the trash that say “Thanks for Chopin!” and “Come Bach soon!”

 

Sunday afternoon, thirteen days into hibernation, I hear a knock at my door. For a wild moment, I convince myself it's Imaginary Jacques. He has come to profess his love for me, to lure me upstairs to his tortured apartment, to woo me with a night of swordfish, Chablis, and sex in D major. On second thought, D minor. But when I press my eyeball to the peephole, I see only Andrew, his face stretched long as a tongue.

My first instinct is: Andrew has an “announcement.” He and Kimberley are engaged. Pregnant. Eloped. Eloping. I feel my heartbeat start to skitter, a combination of fear and caffeine. I don't think I can take another announcement, not now. I can't handle another friend getting married, getting settled, operating rice cookers and debating baby names and arranging crackers and cheese in a fatty orange moon on a serving tray.

“Andrew,” I say, swinging the door open so hard it slams against the wall. “Tell me you're not engaged.”

“What?”

“Oh God.”

“You lunatic. I'm not engaged.”

“Swear?”

“Yes.”

“Swear again?”

“Eliza!” Andrew steps inside and slams the door. “You must chill.”

He must have come from the gym. At this point, the combined concepts of exercising and being in public are so removed from my life they frighten me. He's wearing running shoes, a dirty Eagles cap, a gray Wissahickon Track T-shirt. His wind pants are so energetically shiny they blind me for a second.

Andrew drops his keys on my messy kitchen counter then, slowly, surveys the apartment. I follow his gaze as it crawls around the room—from the kitchen/west wing to the bedroom/east wing—feeling more and more uneasy. Living inside my head, I see, has allowed me to ignore where I actually
do
live. And now, as if an act of revenge, the apartment sells me out detail by detail. I absorb the wads of used blue tissue, strewn about like smashed blue flowers. The dust of four hundred Crispy Chocolate Wafers. I think Leroy has spelled SOS with his food.

Andrew begins to pace the room in measured steps, like a TV lawyer looking for evidence. I creep over to the couch and sit down. As he walks, his wind pants make swift, swishing sounds that make me edgy. He picks up a half-eaten banana, runs his finger through a patch of chocolate dust. He glances at the brick-and-board coffee table, which offers up a neurotic pile of lists: Words to Outlaw If I Were President. Words to Reinstate If I Were President. Minor Characters on
Charles in Charge.

When he reaches the TV, Andrew stops. Unfortunately, the tube is tuned in to a rerun of
Full House.
He points at the screen, turns to me, and demands: “Eliza, what the hell is going on?”

My eyes slide to my lap. I have no excuse. I am suddenly aware of the fact that my socks don't match and I haven't washed my hair since, like, Wednesday.

Andrew hits the OFF button, and Bob Saget disappears in a burst of startled static. The set hasn't known OFF in days.

“Listen,” Andrew says. I look up reluctantly. His arms are folded across his chest. Leroy is parked at his feet, like a junior associate. “I heard you haven't been going to work lately.”

“How could you possibly know that?”

He shrugs, protecting his inside sources. “Somebody you work with told me.”

“Who?”

“She said she was a travel agent.”

“Yeah, I know. Which
one?”

“I think her name was Kelly.”

“Kelly?”

Hearing this sends me into an inexplicable panic, probably the result of too much TV and too little human contact. Clearly, my life has become a full-blown conspiracy. An
X-File.
Now the Agents have Andrew in their clutches. They are trading inside information in exchange for sucking Andrew into the Dreams Come True underworld. Soon he will be attending birthday parties and booking honeymoons, and I'll be writing captions like “Andrew takes Portugal!”

“Kelly?” I repeat, reaching for the afghan lumped on the couch beside me. I start plucking nervously at the fringe. “How did you meet Kelly?”

“It turns out she's a friend of Kimberley's sister,” Andrew says, sounding annoyed. Leroy rolls onto his side and starts slurping his paw. Traitor. “Not that that's the point.”

“It
is
the point,” I insist, my voice rising. “It is
totally
the point!”

“Listen.” Andrew takes his baseball cap off, crunches the brim in his hand, then plants it back firmly on his head. “Let's not forget I'm the functional person here. The one who's actually leaving his apartment and showing up for work every day. You're the one who just got caught watching Uncle Joey and Uncle Jesse.”

I pull the afghan over my head.

“I'm just here because I'm worried. So don't go giving me the third degree.”

I yank the afghan off again. “So that's what this is about? Giving me the third degree? What are you, like, checking up on me or something? Casing my apartment? Looking for some kinds of clues?” Needless to say, the conspiracy theory is taking a minute to subside.

Andrew rolls his eyes. Leroy sighs. “Look. If you don't want me to stay, I'm out the door.” He points at it. “In case you forgot, that's the wooden thing over there. You use it to leave the apartment.”

Not funny.

“No really, it's easy. Just turn the round metal thing, open it up, and walk right through.” He actually makes little walking motions with two fingers as he explains this. Leroy, reading it as an invitation for petting, starts furiously head-butting Andrew's foot. I hate them both.

“I just want to know why you haven't been to work. It's kind of extreme, even for you,” Andrew says, stooping to the floor. “But, I mean, I know how it is in the beginning of a relationship.”

Relationship?

“Losing track of time, getting caught up in the flow…” He glances up at what must be a look of bewilderment on my face. “I assume this all has something to do with that Jacques guy, right?”

Hold on. Wait just a minute. I almost completely forgot my Imaginary Boyfriend! This is fabulous, ingenious! Aside from the glaring issue of how anyone could look at me and believe I'm romantically involved with
anyone
right now, Imaginary Jacques is the perfect plan!

“Exactly,” I agree, bobbing my head feverishly. “It's all because of that Jacques guy.”

“So fill me in,” Andrew says, straightening up. “So far so good? No meeting the parents? No weird toe fetishes?”

“No. Nothing. Not a thing.” Which couldn't be more true. “Just the usual falling in love stuff. You know, staying up all night. Spending every minute together.”

“So where is he now?”

“What do you mean, exactly?”

“Now. Where is he now.”

“I don't follow.”

“Eliza.”

Andrew waits, grabbing a handful of Crispy Chocolate Wafers. This is not hard to do, given that from any point in the apartment you're pretty much guaranteed some are within arm's length.

“He's in Seattle.” The only possible explanation for this city falling out of my mouth is the fact that
Full House
takes place there. I am now confusing imaginary families with imaginary boyfriends, but I don't dwell on this. “Downtown Seattle.”

“How exotic.”

“He's at a pianists' meeting.”

“A meeting?”

“You know, a convention kind of thing. With other pianists. From all over the world.”

Andrew raises one eyebrow, a genetic talent that's always made me disproportionately jealous. He is starting to have doubts, I can tell. Then, as if my worldwide convention lie weren't flimsy enough, The Piano Man chooses that moment to begin his nightly serenade. The ceiling shivers. The windows rattle. Leroy runs for cover. I hear the goddamn opening bars of goddamn Joplin's goddamn “Heart and Soul.”

The ultimate betrayal.

Andrew's floating eyebrow reappears in a deep frown. Slowly, he raises one arm and uncurls his index finger toward the ceiling. From my vantage on the couch, he looks a little like a sweat-stained Statue of Liberty.

“Is that your boyfriend?” Andrew asks, each word hard and blunt as a quarter.

“Um, yes.”

“Jacques?”

“Yes.”

“The guy playing ‘Heart and Soul'?”

“Yes.”

“‘Heart and Soul,' Eliza? I can play ‘Heart and Soul'!”

I shrug. “Sometimes he likes to dabble.”

“So he's not at a convention.”

“Not exactly.”

Andrew drops his arm. “Is he even your boyfriend?”

“Badgering the witness,” I protest, weakly.

“Jesus, Eliza. Tell me you've even
met
this guy!”

I don't think I've ever felt more pathetic in my whole imaginary life. I grope for a pillow, a bastard cat, anything as long as it's soft and familiar and mine.

Andrew crosses the room in three capable, lawyerly strides and sits down beside me. He plants his hands on his shiny kneecaps and looks me in the eye. “All right. I want you to tell me what's going on.”

Had I had a normal father, I think I could pause here to reflect: his tone sounds just like Dad's used to. At least, I'm pretty sure it sounds the way Dad's should have. Concerned but insistent. Caring but firm. Something about the firmness makes me crack: “HannahgotengagedandCamilla'shavingababyandyou're sayingIloveyouonacellphoneanditseemslikeeveryoneismoving onandsettlingdownandknowsexactlywhattheywantfromlifesoIa greedtogoonadatewiththissecuritiesanalystbecauseIthoughtifI juststoppeddatingmusicianstheneverythingwouldchangeforme butthedatewasjustlikeIexpectedandworsesomaybeit'snottheguys 'faultbutmyfaultforbeingtoopickyorbeingtoonarrowmindedor orderingmychickenwithmozzarellacheese.”

Andrew gets every word, God love him. “What's wrong with chicken and mozzarella cheese?” he says, sinking backward on the couch.

“You're not supposed to eat cheese on a first date, Andrew.”

“Says who?”

“Says Kelly,” I practically spit. (Technically, she wasn't the Agent campaigning against the cheese, but the opportunity was there and I took it.) “She said it's not a good first-date image.”

I am expecting a little consolation at this point, a little mutual Agent-bashing, but Andrew laughs. “That's ironic.”

“What's ironic?”

“That is.”

“What's that? There's nothing ironic about that. And what happened to swearing off using the word ‘ironic'? Have we learned nothing from the Alanis song?”

“What's ironic,” explains Andrew, not a man to be messed with when it comes to word usage, “is somebody telling
you
about image.”

I purse my lips and say, “Whatchu talkin' 'bout, Andrew?” in a well-honed Arnold from
Diff'rent Strokes,
but Andrew isn't kidding around.

“I'm talking about how completely hung up you are on this image stuff.”

I yank the cover up over my knees. “Andrew. Were you just hearing what I was saying?
They
were the ones telling
me
how to act on the date. And I didn't even take their stupid advice. I drank Bud. I ordered carbs. I was a women's magazine nightmare. They're the women hung up on image.”

“That's not what I'm talking about.”

“Then what the hell are you talking about?”

“I'm saying, you can't exactly get away with knocking people for going after a certain image, because look at you and the rock stars. You always want these guys to be so wild and crazy and out there.” Andrew then rolls his eyes and waves his arms in what I can only guess is an improvisation of “out there.” “But the minute they actually
do
anything remotely unusual, anything that doesn't fit this ridiculous rock-star image you have, you cut them loose.”