I Loved, I Lost, I Made Spaghetti (18 page)

“I’m not your destiny!” he said. “I’m just the last guy left on the bench who gets called to the field because there’s no
one left to play. ‘Hey, you, you’re short and you’re not the best player, but you’ll have to do,’ the coach yells. ‘Get out
there!’”

Truthfully, in those days the only time I thought about Ethan was when Mitch was acting out. Then I would think to myself,
Thanks, Ethan, thanks for throwing me to the dogs like this. Yes, in the beginning I was thrilled to have Mitch to throw into
Ethan’s face—the desire for vendetta does run in the Sicilian half of my blood, I’m afraid—but now I was discovering that
Mitch could make me happy in ways that Ethan never could. The two of them may as well have been from different planets, with
me adapting to each wildly diverse way of life while inhabiting their respective terrains. Mitch made me aware of the myriad
things that Ethan couldn’t give. The sex, for instance: Not to say that Ethan and I didn’t have a fine sex life, we did; we
had a fine sex life. But let’s just say that Ethan was squeamish in ways that Mitch was not. I am pleased that I got to experience
the kind of passion I had with Mitch. Of course, I didn’t know what I was missing out on when I was with Ethan. But that’s
just it: We don’t know what’s in store, so really there is no reason to get too upset about losing anything, not that you
could ever convince anyone in the throes of loss of this, certainly not me, who moaned about Ethan months after our breakup.

Mitch is the only man I ever dated who got jealous, or at least admitted to the feeling. I found this refreshing. I cringe
at the thought of any of my boyfriends’ exes and ruminated often upon Mitch’s. I could tell Ethan every romantic detail of
my getting together with Kit and he wouldn’t flinch. Mitch didn’t want to know the story, and he didn’t want to meet Kit.
One afternoon, before a meeting with a prospective editor at my company, Mitch stopped by my office, where he noticed an e-mail
from Ethan on my computer screen. He didn’t mention it at the time, but he didn’t call me after his appointment so I knew
something was up. The next morning, he sent an e-mail telling me what he saw. “I was sitting across from my editor and all
I could think about was: Why is that guy still e-mailing her? What is going on? Is she using me to try to leverage him into
marrying her? She’s never said they still talked or stayed in contact. I tell her about all my interactions with my exes.”

Ethan and I weren’t in touch. I just happened to run into him on the subway that morning and he wrote to apologize for being
“a little out of it.”

Even something as insignificant as parsley could set Mitch off. One evening, I was chopping a bunch, my twelve-inch cutting
board teetering back and forth on my six-inch counter. The racket upset Mitch. He thought I was acting out anger directed
at him. I had my share of reasons to be annoyed with Mitch, but I wasn’t just then, I merely like my parsley to look good.

Barring the occasional noisy run-in with an herb, things were going pretty well with us through the holiday season. Mitch
asked me to join his family at their vacation home in Mexico for Christmas. Though I’d spent a great deal of time with the
Binders and saw it add up to nothing, I viewed this invitation as a sign of seriousness on Mitch’s part. I accepted immediately
and didn’t allow myself to fret about the plane ticket, which, because I bought it somewhere close to the last minute, cost
more than any I had purchased before. Mitch went home to Portland for a couple of weeks before Christmas and flew down to
Mexico from there. I stayed in New York to eat lobsters and many other sea creatures on Christmas Eve with my family, then
got on a plane at five a.m. on Christmas morning. By two p.m., I was lying on the beach in Mexico with Mitch, drinking Fanta
and listening to Joseph Arthur on my iPod. The Smiths’ house, white stucco with a terra-cotta roof, was surrounded by flowers;
behind it was a little bridge that crossed a canal and led to the ocean. Mitch and I had our own little suite downstairs with
a private bathroom where lizards scurried around at night. The house was part of a community where a number of the Smiths’
neighbors from Portland had vacation homes. Mitch’s mother and father were there, as were his sister and brother-in-law and
their two young sons.

Mitch’s mother made a turkey from the Costco in Puerto Vallarta for Christmas dinner. It was a little dry, but the view of
the Pacific Ocean I took in while eating it moistened it right up. I brought the Smiths a bunch of my mother’s Christmas cookies
and a big box of chocolates from Jacques Torres that Mrs. Smith put on a shelf in the kitchen but never touched. Mitch said
they were afraid of those chocolates, that, like Daisy Buchanan with Jay Gatsby’s shirts, they had never seen such beautiful
chocolates in their lives. But that was all just part of Mitch’s act. Still, they never opened the chocolate, and I have no
better explanation.

The Smiths were vigilant about not drinking Mexican water. We used the bottled stuff for everything, even to brush our teeth.
“And make sure you keep your mouth firmly closed when you’re in the shower,” Mrs. Smith instructed, sealing her lips tightly
after saying it to demonstrate. Vegetables were verboten. So much for the wonderful street food I’d heard about; the Smiths
looked at me as though I were crazy when I mentioned it. Mitch’s mother and sister enjoyed going to the outdoor market to
check out the locals and the produce, but they never considered buying it. It never occurred to them that blanching vegetables
in boiling water would make them safe for us to eat. Embracing my enterprising idea, Mrs. Smith bought string beans and potatoes,
which I boiled and dressed with olive oil, garlic, and a little vinegar; we ate them with steaks that Dr. Smith had stockpiled
in a giant freezer. He would mix us vodka-and-orange-juice cocktails—“toddies,” he called them—while I cooked.

String Bean and Potato Salad for Gringos

1 pound string beans (or long beans or green beans or whatever you call them)

1 pound baby red potatoes

1 clove garlic, minced

2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil

1 teaspoon red wine vinegar

½ teaspoon salt

Freshly ground pepper

Put two big pots of water on the stove and bring them to a boil. Meanwhile, pull the ends off the string beans and halve the
potatoes. When the water is boiling, add the vegetables each to its own pot. The beans will take about 6 minutes, the potatoes
will take 12 to 15. Test them both to see if they are done to your liking. The string beans should be soft but still have
a little snap to them. When this is determined, remove the beans with a slotted spoon or drain them in a colander, then run
a little cold water over them to stop the cooking—or better yet, dump them in a large bowl filled with water and ice and drain
them again. This will stop them from cooking and give them a bright color. You can allow the vegetables to cool or season
them now, combining both with garlic, oil, vinegar, salt, and pepper.

Yield: 6 to 8 servings.

Mitch’s sister Penelope was going through some marital tensions with her husband, Michael, when we were all down there. Mitch
and I didn’t need to know what the problem was; as soon as we noticed him wearing a T-shirt that advocated “juggling for peace,”
we had all the explanation we needed, as well as a source of laughter for years to come. Someone that earnest would never
survive with a Smith. Earnest, too, was the family in its endeavors to make peace between this couple, so much so that they
were willing to take a real risk and let us go out to a restaurant for dinner to celebrate Michael’s birthday. As long as
we kept away from lettuce and ice cubes, Mrs. Smith surmised that we would be all right. We weren’t. In the middle of the
night, Mitch and I were struck by the expected unpleasantness. He succumbed first: I woke up in the middle of the night to
find him gone. He wasn’t in the bed, he wasn’t in our bathroom.

“Using the bathroom down here would be too much sharing,” Mitch explained when he returned. “I thought introducing you to
my parents and my dog were enough for this trip.” Not long after Mitch, I was stricken. I was in so much pain that I fainted
on the bathroom floor. Mitch had to bust in and rescue me. Talk about sharing! And yet as embarrassing as this all sounds,
it wasn’t. Our illness was bonding, and I was moved by Mitch’s care and heroism. (Not to mention the blatant contrast it revealed
between him and Ethan: If I had ever passed out on a bathroom floor under my last boyfriend’s watch, he would have just left
me to die while he lay in bed with his eye pillow over his face.) My illness humanized me for Mitch. Finally, I wasn’t “perfect,”
he said.

Mitch and I were on separate flights back to New York on New Year’s Eve. When we parted at the airport in Mexico, Mitch said,
“I’ll call you when I get home.” So 2002 dawned with me wishing good health and fortune to the taxi driver who was taking
me home from Newark. I checked my messages all night. Mitch never called.

Silly me to think that trip would mark the end of Mitch’s unpredictable behavior. Figuring that if an AeroMéxico plane went
down somewhere over the Carolinas I probably would have heard about it, I held out until about two o’clock on New Year’s Day
before I called him to call him on not calling. He didn’t take it well, and we didn’t speak again for a couple of days, during
which Mitch forwarded me some e-mails from his mother exclaiming how much the family liked me. I liked them, too. I could
see myself fitting in as a Smith and had spent my plane ride happily doing so. That was before he didn’t call.

Mitch thought it was awfully literal of me to get all bent out of shape over him not calling when he got home just because
he’d said, “I’ll call you when I get home.” We went to his favorite Chinatown restaurant, Sweet-n-Tart, to discuss it. I loved
that place, with its noodle soups and scallion pancakes and checks that never came to more than $14. I went there even without
Mitch. Their menu included a list of sweet teas that were supposed to contain healing properties. Each flavor was paired with
the ailment it was meant to soothe. Unfortunately, there was none claiming to alleviate the confusion of being with a guy
you are deeply drawn to, who goes out of his way to exasperate.

We made it through winter relatively smoothly. We went to movies, and Mitch even paid sometimes. “I like paying for you,”
he said in a voice tinged with amazement. On a cold and rainy Sunday, we went to the half-price matinee of
The Royal Tenenbaums.
I snuck in a thermos of coffee brewed just the way Mitch liked it. The movie dazzled, with Luke Wilson, an astonishing sound
track, and the mink coat Fendi designed especially for Gwyneth Paltrow’s role. It was a paean to hipsterism even I could love.
When we got back to my apartment, we snuggled on the sofa and Mitch kissed my face one hundred times, counting every one.

I was by now solidly opposed to eating Valentine’s Day dinner in a restaurant, and good thing, too. I couldn’t fathom sitting
with Mitch, enjoying the candlelight prix fixe à deux. Still, having spent my share of V-Days alone or out for dinner with
my widowed mother, I always insist on celebrating the holiday whenever there’s a man in my picture, however tenuous. But what
to serve Mitch? Champagne was out. He wouldn’t give a damn for oysters or caviar. No, simple meat and potatoes was the way
to go for him. When I announced that I would be making pot roast, he questioned my wisdom. But I didn’t let it deter me; I
couldn’t make heads or tails of Mitch’s mind when it came to us, but I could ascertain the needs of his palate, and pot roast
with gravy was what it craved. I was right. Mitch said it was the best thing he had ever eaten in his life. He got a lot of
things right that evening. He showed up at the door dressed in a coat and tie (from the thrift store, of course) and carrying
a bouquet (of carnations, but still).

“This is the first time I ever bought flowers for a girl,” he said.

The chocolate layer cake I made for dessert was to be a soft rose color, but the tiniest drop of food coloring immediately
turned the confection the hottest pink. It was awfully girly, but Mitch didn’t mind girly; the cover of his first novel was
hot pink. Nor did he comment on the fact that it was overfrosted and lopsided. He finished every morsel. It warmed my baker’s
heart.