Seth Baumgartner's Love Manifesto (15 page)

“What program do you use?” As soon as I say it, I want to reel the words back in. So geeky, at least by Dimitri's
definition. “I mean, what song is playing?”

“Katy Perry,” she says. “‘Hot N Cold.'”

No! That song makes me want to blow Technicolor chunks.

I nod as though I don't hate every song like this that's ever been recorded and shift in my seat, unsure of what to say next.

Should I lie down on the recliner next to her? Should I stay where I am? Should I get up and dance an Irish jig? I'm going to crucify Dimitri for springing this on me.

Caitlyn offers me an earbud, and I slide my chair next to hers. The scraping sound is loud enough to send ripples through the pool. I lean in to bring my head closer so that I can hear the music. She smells tropical, like bananas and coconuts. The beat of the music is fast, and, even with only one earbud in, the music seems to swirl around. Caitlyn lowers her sunglasses and peers at me over the top of them with huge chocolate brown eyes. My heart races, and I tell myself it's from the tempo of the dance music.

“What do you think?” she says.

“Cool.” I'm sure I sound like an idiot, so I lie back to avoid saying anything else. Reluctantly, I pull off my shirt and toss it under my chair.

“Dude, those are deeper than I thought,” Dimitri says, pointing to the scratches on my shoulder.

I glance down at them. I managed to hide them from him back at my house by keeping my shoulder turned away, but now they are out in the open for everyone to see. They don't hurt so much anymore, but they sure look ugly—four
crimson lines across the ball of my shoulder.

“What have you been up to?” Jill says playfully.

My face gets hot. “It's from rosebushes,” I say. “I was weeding in my backyard and the thorns…”

“Don't give me that,” Jill says. “I don't have to be CSI to know claw marks when I see them. You must've been—”

“Seriously,” Dimitri cuts in. “They're from sticker bushes. I was sitting right there on my lazy ass when he did it.”

I turn to Caitlyn. “They're not—”

“I don't care if they're claw marks or not,” she says.

“Well, they're not,” I say again.

I hate the idea of making a bad first impression, but I like the thought of someone
not
knowing anything about me. I can be whoever I want without any of the old baggage of who I used to be. There's no one to bring up the time in third-grade gym class when I shot the winning basket for the other team. There's no one to bring up how my lip got caught in my soda can in fifth grade and I ran bleeding from the cafeteria to the nurse's office. There's no one to mention the time in eighth grade when I rushed out of the locker room and warmed up wearing my tighty whiteys over my soccer shorts. I wonder if this is what it's going to be like my first semester of college. Fresh start. No baggage.

“Hey,” I say to Caitlyn. “You have any more of those tanning stickers?”

She digs through her tote bag and pulls out a big red heart. I peel it from the glossy backing and stick it on my left shoulder—right over my claw marks.

“How appropriate,” Dimitri says. “A heart for the love doctor.”

I shoot him a look.

“What'd he mean by that?” Jill asks me.

“No idea,” I say. “Dimitri comes out with some weird things.”

Caitlyn offers me her earbud again. “Want to listen some more?”

“Sure.” I usually hate cheeseball pop music, but somehow—lying here next to Caitlyn with a big red heart on my left shoulder and her in her pink-and-green-striped bikini—cheeseball pop music doesn't sound so terrible.

Intro Music: “She Blinded Me with Science” by Thomas Dolby

Welcome back to
The Love Manifesto.
That last tune was “She Blinded Me with Science.” I read once that Thomas Dolby had no idea what that song was about as he was writing it, but I think I know.

Everyone runs around talking about love. You see it in shows, read about it in books and poetry; you hear about it in music lyrics. But ask anyone what love really is, and the best you'll get is a shrug and some dopey comment like “I dunno, but I know it when I feel it.”

Well, that's not good enough for me, so off I went to the library to find out.

In a nutshell, when you fall in love your brain churns out a whole bunch of chemicals and dumps them into your system. You heard me. Chemicals. The crazy thing is that
it's a different chemical cocktail depending on what type of love we're talking about.

First let's talk about lust. You see someone, and something gets you going. It could be their eyes or their body or how they sing or how they play baseball. Whatever. Before you know it, you're lusting after them. The racing heart, sweaty palms, feelings of bliss, sleeplessness, focused attention, and all that other stuff are the result of this hormone called dopamine and this other stuff called norepinephrine.

According to scientists, when we feel lust, the part of the brain that is involved with addiction goes nuts. You heard me. I said addiction. And the crazy thing is that the body quickly builds up a tolerance to these chemicals, so people need more and more to get the same feeling.

Do you text a lot when you start dating someone? Me too. My ex and I texted hundreds of times every day when we were first together. I couldn't stop thinking about her. Day, night, whenever. My father freaked when he saw the bill, and sneaking away to the reference section to text is what got me fired from my job at the library.

After a while, those head-over-heels feelings change. They change to what scientists call attachment. Attachment involves a whole other set of chemicals. Oxytocin helps create an emotional bond with a partner. Endorphins are painkillers. Scientists believe this is what probably keeps us with our partner for the long haul…at least usually. Painkillers.

I remember that part, too. It's not like things changed
overnight, but after a while it was just comforting to be with her. It was like we were two puzzle pieces that fit together. When she wasn't around, something was missing.

With lust, when I wasn't with her it was like a gaping wound. With attachment, it was more like a feeling of not being whole.

I wonder if that is what's going on with my father. Years ago, he met my mother and the dopamine and norepinephrine dumped into his brain. He became a love addict, and they got married. Of course, the same thing happened with my mother since we can assume she lusted after him, too. Then they had sex at least once, as evidenced by me. As time wore on, vasopressin came on the scene and blocked the dopamine and norepinephrine. That's when the oxytocin and endorphins jumped in and did what they're supposed to do. They blocked the pain and caused them to stay attached to each other—at least for a while.

So what made my father stray with the tramp? Good question.

Another interesting thing I noticed during my research is that chocolate kept coming up. Turns out chocolate has a chemical in it called PEA. This PEA stuff is known as the “love chemical” since it releases dopamine into the brain and jacks up feelings of attraction, giddiness, excitement, and euphoria. Sound familiar? You think all those bored housewives are replacing real kisses with Hershey's Kisses? It might explain a lot.

Now I'm going to jam a Butterfinger in my mouth and
add a few more reasons to the ex list. Resistance is futile. You know you secretly love it. And by the way, I'm loving the theme songs you're sending in! I just got two more this morning, one from a guy named Tris McCall and another from a band called the Falling Motors, which makes a total of sixteen. Sixteen theme songs! I'll play the new ones for you in our next segment. They are awesome.

Reason number eighty-six is how she knew what I wanted without having to ask. I don't care if it was a VitaminWater or something dirtier, she just knew. And for those of you who don't know, I like the grape VitaminWater.

Anyhow, you're listening to
The Love Manifesto.
Check out this next song. This is “Hot N Cold” by Katy Perry. Let's see if it makes you as nauseous as it makes me.

Outro Music: “Hot N Cold” by Katy Perry

“W
hy in hell did you sell that club?” Mr. Motta swoops down on me the instant Mr. Howard leaves the pro shop with his new purchase tucked under his arm. “That lob wedge was clearly marked blue.”

“At least it wasn't an indigo,” I mutter.

“Don't sass me, Baumgartner. I specifically told you to sell reds and oranges.”

Dimitri snickers and heads to the front to re-refold the shirts.

“It's…” I take a moment to choose my words as I glance through the window at Mr. Howard. He's sliding his new club into his bag, obviously bragging to his partners about his new TaylorMade. “It's the wedge he needs.”

“Who are you to decide what wedge Mr. Howard needs?” Mr. Motta looks past me at him. “What makes you think you're any better at picking a wedge for him than
he is? It's your job to put red and orange products into his hands. It's his job to buy them.”

“Then why do we carry the yellows, greens, blues, and purples? Why don't we just carry the reds and oranges?”

“I don't expect you to understand,” he says. “We need to create the illusion of variety, and we have to have a wide array of products in case people ask for a specific item. But even if someone comes in with something in mind, if you see it doesn't have a red or orange sticker on it, you've got to put a similar item in their hand that does.”

I hoist myself onto the stool behind the counter. “Seems to me we'd get better customer loyalty by doing the right thing.”

Mr. Motta softens. “Seth, m'boy, I'm not asking you to do anything wrong, but we have a captive audience here. No such thing as customer loyalty in a pro shop. People buy equipment here because they need something last minute or because they're too lazy to shop anywhere else. And these people have money to burn. All of our products are good, all name brands, all well reviewed, so we need to get the biggest bang for each sale.”

“I agree that all our products are good,” I say. “But not all our products are good for every customer. Take that wedge I just sold, for instance. It's got an offset head, which'll be good for him on account of Mr. Howard always having trouble with getting the ball up in the air.”

Dimitri chuckles from the front of the shop. “This isn't going to turn into a Viagra joke, is it?”

“Butt out, Martell,” Mr. Motta barks.

Dimitri ducks his head and goes back to folding.

“Not to mention,” I go on, “Mr. Howard is always complaining about the arthritis in his hands. That TaylorMade has an oversized grip, which will make it easier for him to hold. It'll transmit less vibration. It's the right club for the guy.”

Mr. Motta considers what I say, but I can tell he doesn't want to give up his beloved sticker system. “All I can say, Baumgartner, is that you'd better move some product here. Selling the lower-margin stuff is going to make your job harder. You'll have to move twice as much merchandise to make the same profit.”

“But in the long run I think—”

“Keep it in your pants,” Mr. Motta says. “I've heard enough.” He grabs his iced coffee from the countertop, leaving a liquid ring on the glass. He disappears into his office and slams the door.

Dimitri, who was only making a show of folding shirts, hustles over to the counter. “Why do you bother?” he asks me. “Just sell the reds and oranges. It's no fur off your hamster's ass.”

“Nah,” I say. “These people take golf seriously. Why let them buy something that isn't going to help them? It's what I would want if I were shopping here.”

“When you think about it, golf is sort of stupid in the first place,” Dimitri says. “You're swatting a little white ball around a field with a metal stick until it falls into a four-inch hole someone's dug in some random spot.”

“That's easy to say when you pull it apart like that,
but tell me you think that way when you're winning a two-dollar Nassau that's been pressed three times and are stepping up to the eighteenth tee box. Tell me you think about it that way when you're watching the final round of the U.S. Open and the two guys in the final pair are going stroke for stroke.”

Dimitri shrugs.

“Anyhow, look who's talking,” I say. “You've got a good chance of walking away with the tournament money this year. You take the game as seriously as anyone.”

“I suppose, but it's still just a game.”

“Sometimes it's better to just enjoy golf for what it is,” I say, “to not pick it apart like that. And if I can help these people enjoy their game by putting the right equipment in their hands, then that's what I'm going to do.”

Dimitri smirks. “So you're saying you like putting your equipment in people's hands?”

“Why do I even hang out with you?”

Dimitri grabs a fistful of golf tees from the jar on the counter and lets them tumble from his hand back into the jar. A few of them bounce out and clatter on the glass. “So, when am I coming over to the multimillion-dollar studio for my first appearance on
The Love Manifesto
?”

“I guess I can set up my old mike on the pool table,” I say. “I've got something going on tonight. How's tomorrow after work?”

“I'm there,” he says.

I perch on the stool and review today's schedule. It's pretty slow until around four o'clock. Then it gets busy
through seven. Dimitri drags the tip of a golf tee across the circle of water left by Mr. Motta's iced coffee. He draws an arrow sticking off to the side, which makes the moisture ring look like the symbol for a male.

“Hey, don't you guys do any work around here?” The voice comes from behind me. It's Audrey. She's wearing her restaurant uniform and her hair is twisted up on top of her head, held in place by what looks like two red chopsticks. She is holding yet another chicken salad sandwich for me. For the past week or so, Audrey has been bringing me chicken salad sandwiches every day at lunchtime. After the first one, I haven't dared unwrap any of the others. We've also been sitting outside at the picnic tables after work. She plays her DS while we both talk about nothing important.

“Hey, thanks,” I say. I place the sandwich next to the cash register.

“What are you guys talking about?” she asks.

“Just bullshitting,” I say.

“Where's
my
sandwich?” Dimitri asks her.

“You must have left it at home.”

“That's okay,” Dimitri says. “Your sandwiches suck.”

“No, they don't,” I cut in. I don't want Audrey to feel bad. Anyhow, no matter how terrible they taste, it's nice that she thinks of me.

“Maybe you're used to eating triple-decker ass on a hard roll,” Dimitri says, “but I'm not.”

There is no good end to this conversation. I decide to change the subject. “So, what's going on?” I ask Audrey.

“Actually, I have to get back upstairs.” She heads to the
front of the pro shop. “We're setting up for the Montgomery party. He won some local election. Assembly, school board, library board. Something like that.”

“Sounds like a fun guy,” I say.

“Yeah, pretty lame.” Audrey stops in front of the neatly stacked polo shirts Dimitri had been working on. “They'll probably sit around all night eating cheese sandwiches with the crusts cut off.”

Audrey eyeballs the shirts, and with a sweep of her arm she sends all four piles flying to the floor.

“What the hell?” Dimitri cries out. He dives at the shirts as if the three-second rule might apply.

“Shh!”
Audrey flips a thumb toward the back room. “You might wake up Mr. Motta.”

“What did you do that for?” Dimitri asks, picking up the shirts one by one.

“You insulted my chicken salad,” she says. “Looks like you've got some work ahead of you, big brother.” Audrey makes her way back to me. She kicks the toe of her black waitress sneaker at the carpet. “So, I won't be able to meet you after work at the picnic table.” She jiggles her wrist, which has a hunter green rubber bracelet around it. “I forgot I promised Kevin I'd go to the movies with him.”

“What's playing?
Save the Whales, Part Thirty-two
?” I say.

“Oh, that is hilarious.” She glances at Dimitri, who is sorting shirts. Then back at me. Then down at the counter again. “Just wanted to let you know.”

“Okay.” I'm getting a weird vibe from Audrey, like she
wants to tell me something else, but before I have a chance to ask, my cell phone chirps. I get a roller-coaster feeling in my gut. I plunge my hand into my pocket and put my phone on vibrate.

Audrey starts toward the door and then turns back around. “So I guess I'll see you later.”

“Cool,” I say.

After she leaves, Dimitri swoops down on me like a vulture on the hunt for fresh eyeballs. “What's going on between you two?”

“Relax,” I say. “We're only friends.”

“Friends, my ass. Do you think I'm stupid? She's been bringing you sandwiches every day, and you guys meet outside to talk for hours on end—”

“First of all, her sandwiches are crap, and we don't talk for hours on end.”

“If you put all the time you've spent together out there…” He points through the window toward the picnic tables. “It adds up to hours. Anyhow, just look how she looks at you.”

“How does she look at me?”

“I don't know. Weird.”

“Wow,” I say. “I've never seen you so protective.”

“Just stay away from her. I know how guys think, and I don't want you thinking that way about my sister. There are plenty of girls out there. You don't need to go after her.”

“I'm not going after anyone,” I say.

“Well, good.” Dimitri holds up a yellow polo shirt.
“Hey, what does this logo remind you of?” he asks.

The logo shows a vertical golf club with two tiny white golf balls at its base. I don't take the bait. “Umm, a golf club and two golf balls? Why? What do you see?”

Dimitri shrugs as if I've disappointed him. “Nothing, I guess.”

I arrange the sleeves of golf balls into a pyramid on the countertop. Then I take the basket of minipencils and sort the stubby, dull things so they're all pointing in the same direction. I'm wiping down the countertop with Windex when Dimitri breaks the silence.

“So, what's going on tonight?” he asks.

“Nothing.”

“Bull,” he says, an edge still in his voice. “Ten minutes ago you told me you have something going on. It's why we're doing the show tomorrow instead of tonight. 'Fess up.”

“Okay, I'm 'fessing,” I say. “I'm going out with Caitlyn.”

“Caitlyn?”

“Yeah, you know. Caitlyn from the pool. Jill and Caitlyn.”

“I know who Caitlyn is.” He moves in closer and leans on my newly polished countertop. “Why didn't you tell me?”

“Because I knew you'd be on my case about it all day, telling me how you told me so and all that. Just like you're going to be on my case about this thing with Audrey, which isn't even a thing.”

“I wouldn't have been on your case about it,” Dimitri says. “But damn. I told you to get back in the saddle, not to start a freakin' stable.”

“What's it matter?” I say. “Lust, love, attraction, they're all just because of chemicals dumping into our brains. It's all just a matter of input and output. None of it really matters.”

Dimitri chuckles. “You said
input
.”

“Seriously,” I say. “We're practically robots programmed for breeding. Chemicals cause emotions. Emotions control your thoughts, your actions. It's a total joke.”

“Okay, dude, you're starting to sound weird. You're like an antilove geek with some dork overtones and a few dashes of nerd for flavor. I know this crap with your dad, with Veronica, hit you hard, but you've got to come down off the ledge.”

“I'm serious,” I say. “Why should I put myself into the same position I was in with Veronica, or my mother got into with my father? I bought into all that love crap, and for what? My father is cheating on my mother. Veronica ditched me and went out with Shovel Face.”

“Shovel Face?”

“Forget it,” I say. “My point is that from this day forward I'm going to rise above all that emotional stuff and make sure love works for me, not the other way around.”

“Seth, you're starting to sound creepy.”

“It's not creepy. It's how it is.”

Dimitri goes back to refolding.

“And look who's talking,” I say. The words come
bubbling up before I have a chance to stop them. “Ever since you supposedly hooked up with what's-her-name mystery girl in the Starbucks bathroom freshman summer, you haven't gone out with anyone. You talk like you're some expert, but you don't know the first thing about girls.”

Dimitri snaps a shirt hard before he turns in each sleeve. Then he flops the shirt over on itself, just like I taught him. He does it another dozen times until the tension is like static in the air. After a few minutes, he looks up. His face is bright red. I've never seen him look this way before. “What about Jill?”

“Jill will be just like every other girl you hang out with. You'll talk to her for a week or two, and that'll be it.”

Dimitri drops another shirt on the stack and lines it up square with the others. “Do you think I like that?” He steps around the table and over to the counter. “Do you think I like that?” he says again.

“Maybe…”

“Well, I don't.”

“I just thought maybe…”

Dimitri cuts me off. “I just think you're a jerk.”

“You never said—”

“You never asked.” Dimitri drops the shirt he was folding on the floor and heads to the door. “Tell Motta I'm going back to watercoolers and sand traps. I'd rather deal with the dozens of assholes out there than the big one in here.”