Room for Love (2 page)

Alicia reached over and pried the Styles section out of my fist. “This couple?” she asked, indicating the smiling blond faces that had piqued my jealousy. “Look at him.” We did: smarmy frat boy turned smarmy investment banker with a crooked smirk on his face. “They'll be divorced by the time she's thirty. He'll be sleeping with some bimbo he met at a conference in Miami. She'll take him for everything he's worth, driving him to drink and rehab and remorse. By the time he comes back begging, she'll have found herself, sunk his millions into a successful catering business, and started having sex with her twenty-two-year-old personal trainer named Ed.”

We reassessed the photo.

“I sure am glad I didn't marry
my
high school boyfriend,” I said.

“He's gay,” said Alicia.

“Oh yeah.” We returned our attention to our six-dollar chai lattes.

Even if I'm not regretful about my life so far, I do know it's time to give up the hopeless cases that always seems to provoke my passion, say adios to the ubiquitous commitment-phobes, and meet The Goddamn Guy already. When I say The Guy, I mean the one whose name I would tattoo across my tummy. I've had boyfriends, loads and loads of boyfriends. In fact, I calculated that I've spent ten solid years of my life in serious relationships—or some combination of serious relationships and tempestuous affairs that felt awfully serious at the time. All those years in and out of love, and it occurred to me the other day with a sharp gasp that there wasn't one man among them that I considered tummy-tattoo-worthy. I fall in love the way most people tumble into bed after an excruciating day: immediately, giddy with anticipation, semiconscious, every exhausted muscle releasing into fluffy relief. My frequent romps, as passionate and consuming as they can be, tend to burn bright and fizzle fast, and I'm way too smart to get a tattoo while my head is still spinning. My longer-lasting relationships, on the other hand, have been with guys like Philippe, who loved me but never inspired the kind of certainty in me that would justify putting a sharp needle to my soft, unsullied flesh, not to mention indelibly branding me his babe.

I'm currently doing the dance with Jake, a twenty-nine-year-old artist I met at a Halloween party thrown by the specialty division of a movie studio. He was there courtesy of his roommate, the assistant to the VP of publicity, dressed as the sexiest Bamm-Bamm Rubble ever, with his messy coffee-colored hair gelled into a hyperactive mane and a tight, furry, leopard-skin outfit that showed off sinewy thighs and toned biceps. He was flying on ecstasy. I was a devil in a skimpy red dress and fishnets, soaring as high as he was on the endless stream of multicolored martinis that kept arriving on cocktail waitresses' trays. After two minutes of enthusiastic chitchat, he said, “Do you want to make out?”

“Okay,” I said.

And we did.

With all that vodka and ecstasy coursing through our veins, how could it be anything but bliss? By the time we were groping each other on my couch, I was enamored—of his unruly hair, his soft kisses, the way he gazed at me with intense, celery-green eyes and said, “God, I like you,” so lovingly I almost believed it wasn't the ecstasy talking. We had sex on my kitchen floor, my head banging against my refrigerator as October rolled into November—and I was a goner. The next morning, while I was popping aspirin to relieve my bruised skull, he told me, “Damn, you're gorgeous,” and “I'm obsessed with your body,” and “I like you, but I'm not ready for a relationship.” I chose not to listen to that last part, because I liked the first bit and because I wanted to keep having sex with him.

My wise little sister tells me that men are simple creatures. When they say something, they mean it. Like “I have to eat something right now” means feed the guy or he is going to break something. “I don't know how to be faithful” means the dickhead is about to sleep with his slutty ex-girlfriend who's been skulking about lately. And “I'm not ready for a relationship” really does mean “I'm not ready for a relationship.”

Even before my postcoital first date with Jake, the warning signs were in place: the premature gush of passion, the fact that he didn't call for five days, forcing me to call and hang up on his voice mail twelve times (dialing *67 so my number wouldn't show up on his Caller ID) before he finally picked up, enthused and genuinely surprised that so much time had passed. He wanted to see me that night, which he did (his friend's band's gig, cheap burritos, sex in the cab on the way back to his place) and continued to do, but the rules had been established.

We spent one weekend lying around his apartment eating takeout and watching bad movies on cable and finally dragged ourselves to the grocery store on Sunday afternoon, because Jake had a sudden impulse to make spaghetti Bolognese. On the way there, I made a remark about how much I love it when a man cooks for me and he made one back about how I'd better find a boyfriend who cooks, then. I didn't respond. Instead, I went silent and his words sat in my gut festering like a bad oyster. Picking up a package of ground beef, Jake said, “You all right?” I nodded. But I'm like a kid when it comes to hiding my emotions. In the pasta aisle, he nudged my shoulder affectionately with his chin and asked, “Hey, what's up?”

I swallowed hard and pulled my eyes away from a box of multicolored bow ties to look at him. “If this relationship isn't going anywhere…” I forced myself to look in his eyes. “Then what are we doing?”

He grinned and said, “Having fun, right? I mean, I'm having fun!” He said it with this big exclamation point at the end, as if there was nothing wrong with the sentiment, and then threw a couple of items into the cart. “Oops, forgot the parmesan.” He planted a peck on my cheek and bounced off to find a hunk of cheese, as I stared into jars of marinara sauce with tears blurring my vision. But I can't quite bring myself to leave. That night, as he was kneeling over me, inching his way toward orgasm in the windowless Brooklyn cave he calls a bedroom, I stared up at him: his clenched jaw (framed lovingly by my feet), loose curls just barely grazing his broad shoulders, the tattoo that circles his left arm rhythmically tensing and untensing, impossibly slim hips, golden hair creeping down his tanned, hard stomach, which was glistening ever so lightly with sweat, and I thought,
You're a god. I will never be able to leave you.

Tonight Jake has a meeting with a gallery owner who supposedly likes his bizarre paintings, and I should be supportive of his burgeoning artistic career, but the idea of going home solo on my thirty-second birthday makes me sick to my stomach.

I spy a beer can someone's left in the hallway and shake it to see if by chance it's still full, cold, and fizzy before ashing into it. I balance my cigarette on the top of the can and reach my body forward over my legs, letting my chest collapse onto my kneecaps. I close my eyes and take a few deep breaths, holding on to the bottom of my boots, gently nudging away anxious thoughts the way my yoga teacher advises. Then I lift my head from my knees, straighten my back up against the wall vertebra by vertebra, and breathe deeply in and out, before taking another hit of the cigarette.

Talking to Jake about his financial and professional woes helps take my mind off my own. The big news is I just bought an apartment. I never would have thought that I could afford it, but then my old yoga teacher, Tara, announced that she was moving to Vermont to open a studio and selling her magical mini-loft on East Eleventh Street between Avenues A and B, just as I was getting booted from my apartment. As one of those ethereal yoginis, Tara was determined to install “a loving soul” in her “space” rather than “gouging a stranger for a price dictated by an inflated real estate market. Om shanti” and sold it for substantially lower than the amount she would have gotten if she'd listed it with a Realtor. I'd been to Tara's for tea and, as corny as it might sound, it felt immediately like home. Sunlight spilled through four enormous, south-facing windows onto rough, slightly slanted hardwood floors. She had redone the kitchen, with a new stainless steel dishwasher and fridge and glass-fronted birch cabinets. The bedroom was spacious for the East Village—big enough to fit a queen-size bed and a dresser and still run and jump around a bit—and had a walk-in closet and two small, east-facing windows that filled the room with light in the morning. When I went to scrutinize the place before buying, a pigeon was warming two tiny eggs in the nest she had built outside on the sill and her eyes met mine without fear. I took it as a good omen. I knew I could transform this space into my personal room of one's own, that paragon of peace and self-examination that I had yearned for since first reading Virginia Woolf in college.

I thought I had found it once before. Days after my arrival in New York eight years ago, I landed an absurdly cheap railroad flat on East Tenth Street with hammered tin ceilings and charmingly warped floors. A friend of a friend was moving to an island in the Caribbean and didn't want to give the place up, just in case she ever chose to relinquish tropical paradise for urban squalor. It was a great deal, but I always knew I could be booted if the landlord found out about me. A modicum of fear lived in the far reaches of my mind, a miniature tiger I could sense every time he sharpened his paranoid fangs on the inside of my skull. When my fears became reality, however, I was caught unawares. I was in the shower, actually, and heard pounding so loud I thought maybe my building was burning down. With the shower still running, I wrapped a towel around myself and made watery footprints to the door, only to find a burly marshal standing there. He forced the door open and said, “Put on some clothes, miss. You're being evicted.”

I scrambled around still wearing a towel, trying to determine my next step. I threw my computer, underwear, DVDs of
Manhattan, Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown, La Dolce Vita,
and the complete second season of
Sex and the City
into a bag, while calling Courtney, who said I could stay with her, and then dialed a lawyer I once slept with who informed me that the marshal wouldn't leave without me, so I had better go without a fight.

“Put on some clothes, miss,” the marshal said again. I snarled and threw my toothbrush, condoms, and teddy bear into the bag.

In the movie version of my life, I won't have to change a thing.

That's when my stellar housing karma kicked in again: The very next day, Tara sent an e-mail around saying she was looking for someone to buy her place. My parents said it sounded like a good opportunity and agreed to loan me the $25,000 I needed for a down payment and co-sign to ensure my loan and co-op approval. And after crashing at Courtney and Brad's for a few weeks, I finally moved in three months ago. Between the mortgage, maintenance, taxes, and the lifetime repayment plan I set up with my parents, I pay about $1,400 a month. This is minimal by Manhattan standards, especially considering the amount of space I get for it, but hefty for a single, financially challenged editor of a struggling film magazine, especially one who has spent the last eight years subletting for $450 a month. Which reminds me. I drop my cigarette into the beer can, toss it into a nearby trash can, and hoist myself up off the floor.

Once reinstalled at my desk, I e-mail Clancy, an acquaintance who used to assign me movie blurbs at a trendy New York listings site, who just got a job at a new glossy women's mag,
Luscious,
editing articles about the hot new venereal disease and the most effective sexual position for firming the buttocks. Film might be my passion, but I'm more than willing to write about cellulite-reducing sneakers and celebrities' must-have beauty products if it enables me to pay my bills. I have been pitching Claney on average seven story ideas a week since she got the job, but so far nothing has stuck. I make my message quick and to the point.

Hey lady, any news on my last batch of story ideas? Can't wait to hear what you think! xx, Jacquie.

Then I Instant Message my sister about more pressing matters:
Jake is making me insane.

I hear the “You've Got an Instant Message” jangle and Alicia's deceptively innocent-looking moniker, AliCat22, appears.
don't mention his name,
she writes.
makes me want 2 kick him *really* hard in the face.
Nice.

Ever since we were kids, I've had the impression that my little sister physically feels my pain. I remember being in the doctor's office with her when I was about seven and Alicia almost three. We were both on the examining table and the doctor informed us that I needed a shot. I was terrified, but held out my trembling arm like a brave little trooper. As the needle punctured my skin, I whimpered a bit, but it was Alicia whose face quivered before crumpling into tears. It's the stuff of family legend (and it was pretty damn adorable), but here is something to ponder: If she actually, physically, feels my pain, then isn't her drive to alleviate it a selfish act?

Alicia wants to rid me of the affliction that calls itself Jake and tells me so on a daily basis. But she doesn't really know Jake. Sure, he wears a perpetual Billy Idol snarl on his lips. Sure, he occasionally makes me cry. But he does have his good qualities. Alicia doesn't know, for example, that when we're alone he actually smiles sometimes. And it feels good to be the person capable of making an unsmiling man smile. One word of praise from me, and he goes from looking like a small-town scam artist—lips a-pout, eyes darting as if he's up to something—to resembling the dynamic front man for a boy band. Alicia also doesn't know that Jake sleeps holding on to me so tightly that I have to pry his hands off me to go to the bathroom at night. She doesn't know what I know about Jake: He is so unsure of himself that sometimes he lashes out at people more confident and grounded than he is, people like Alicia, an L.A.-born smart-ass, who scares the hell out of guys much tougher than Jake. I know that I shouldn't excuse Jake's behavior just because I understand it, but I do anyway. Because I do understand it. And because he's so cute I don't really want to live without him, or at least not until the weather warms up.