Straight Up and Dirty: A Memoir (23 page)

Seeing that doorman in the meadow brought it all to mind. It’s exactly how I felt about my relationship with Oliver. When it came down to it, there were moments I couldn’t quite remember or express, and I was left speaking about my feelings for him as if they were a flimsy pair of sunglasses. It took me months to accept that we weren’t suited for each other, and even knowing he wasn’t right for me, I still questioned my decision. What if I was just sabotaging any chance at happiness?

I paced the park, but nothing seemed worthy of a photograph. I couldn’t find a gesture or expression in anything I saw. Small uniforms with leather gloves children will outgrow and younger siblings will inherit along with reputations. Friends jogged and gossiped. I watched a redheaded girl make piles of grass and sprinkle the blades into a soda can. New lovers licked each other in violet shadows beneath ancient trees. I didn’t want to photograph any of it. I wanted to call Oliver and take it all back. Instead, I found a patch of dry grass, set down my camera, opened my journal, and began to write.

“When am I going to get this right?” I was frustrated and worried this would be it for me. I stopped writing, then thumbed through my journal and began to read entries I’d written while living with Smelly, after Gabe had canceled one of our many weddings.

This is what happens when you don’t learn to let things go. This is what comes from control. I was doing the same thing with Oliver. I took out my red pen and added to the entry:

I didn’t know yet that power would be me. In the park that day, I knew what I had to do, saw it in the pages of my journal, in my patterns and habits. I was still very frightened of alone. I was terrified of what it meant. “Oh, she’s alone because no one likes her.” “She’s alone because she’s a pain in the ass.” “No one wants her.” “She’s fat, ugly, and deserves to be alone.” I thought alone was a punishment. I’d sooner grip onto the wrong relationship than “let it go” and see what would happen if it was just me.

I phoned Dulce with one hand as I flipped through the rest of my journal in a frenzy.

“I’m having a panic attack.” I sounded like Smelly. I’d call her next.

“Like you can’t breathe and you want to go to the hospital? Where are you?”

“No. I’m in this crapass park! I came to take photos, but I can’t focus on anything. I know I should be using this time to focus on what will make me happy, but I can’t do it, Dulce. I just can’t. This is too hard.” I was whining. “I tried writing in my journal, but then I ended up reading. My God, I’m so fucked up. You know, I saw a list written in there about everything I should have now.” I was ripping out grass by the handful. “You know, that list we make for ourselves, the one about a house in the suburbs, diplomas from good schools, husband, and three kids? I was there, on that path, and now, it’s like I’m suffering from whiplash. I look around now, and what do I have? What have I accomplished? I’m living in a cramped one-bedroom with a dog that shits on my floor.” I laughed until it became crying again. “I hate myself, hate how I ruin everything. All I want to do is call Oliver, take it all back, and just move in with him. Tell me again why I shouldn’t be with him?”

“Stephanie, how are you feeling right now?”

Ew. Why wasn’t she answering me? This was her way of getting me to slow down. I had to take a moment to switch gears and respond. “Anxious and scared.”

“Why?”

“Because I’m afraid I’m making a mistake.”

“Why?”

“Because I’m frightened I won’t meet anyone.”

“Why?”

“Because maybe I’m not worth it. Maybe there aren’t really smart men out there who will love me so much.”

“Why else are you anxious?”

“I’m facing my fear of being alone and it’s scary.”

“Why?”

I wanted to hit her. “Why the fuck why?”

“Just answer me. Why are you facing your fear of being alone now?”

“Because I know that facing it will take away its power over me, but it’s still scary.”

“Stephanie, if you weren’t afraid of it, it wouldn’t take courage. I know this is hard for you. I know you’re scared. That’s why it takes strength. And, please, you’ve had to be courageous about much harder things.” This is why I phoned Dulce—she was cheaper than my therapist.

“I know, but I’ve never just faced alone, and it scares the shit out of me, Dulce.” I was whining again.

“Why? Think before you answer me. Why really, Stephanie?”

“Because I don’t want to die alone and not have a loving family or children.”

“Stephanie,” she said quietly, “we all die alone.”

I WAS HAVING A HARD TIME ACCEPTING THERE’S NO GUARANTEE
in life, that at any moment the things we hold dear, the people we love, can be ripped from us. I knew I needed to acknowledge it, but it’s grueling to work for something, to believe in it, and also accept that it can go at any time. It’s a very scary thing realizing you can’t control. I knew the people who don’t fight it, who just accept transience, will have an easier time coping with loss. I wasn’t just terrified of my new independence without Oliver. I was grieving the loss of another relationship that I thought was headed where I wanted it so desperately to go, and with that loss, I also had to give up the idea of guarantees and permanence. I was dealing with it all over again now with Oliver.

I said it aloud to Dulce. “Maybe I’m not worth it.” I didn’t believe I deserved happiness. Deep down I couldn’t understand why any man would want me when I wasn’t a whole person. I feared I wouldn’t make my dreams happen, that I wouldn’t have the courage or the strength. I didn’t want to die alone. Then the tears stained everything, leaving rings, like the insides of ancient trees. I didn’t need to call anyone to talk about it anymore. I knew what I had to do: I needed to tear up the life list, the one from my past perfect life of
had
. I also needed to get the hell out of the park.

Then the inevitable happened. No. It wasn’t Oliver. A slip of paper slid loose from the pages of my journal. It was a yellow card I’d made when I first learned I was pregnant. I’d glue-gunned a gingham ribbon on its front. Felt shapes of a diaper and baby jumper were glued inside, flanking these handwritten words:

Gabe had cried when he read it, pulling me close to him. The next week, he went shopping and bought me a new handbag. “I wanted the mother of my child to have something nice.”

I was having a pity party in the pit of Central Park, and I was the hostess. I wanted to torture myself. “Okay, Miss Melodrama, get off your sorry ass and say good-bye to this shit. It’s time for new.” I might have clapped. Oh good, everything was back to normal—I was talking to myself again.

I yanked my knapsack up, slung the SLR camera over my shoulder and headed north. I could do this. It would hurt now, but I’d be happy for it someday. It’s like dieting and sunblock. One day it would be worth it.

As I made my way toward the Seventy-second Street exit, I saw a familiar face. It was Jaimee Lowrey with her husband David and son Neil. Jaimee and I had been friends, inseparable friends, through work, back before I was married. We planned our actual weddings together, got pregnant at the same time, shared our recipes from
What to Eat When You’re Expecting
and our anxieties about childbirth and spina bifida. She had the life I was supposed to have, right there in a stroller and in her husband’s hand. I was staring at them with a forced smile. This was not my day. I mean really. Come on. Who has this shit happen?

“Oh my God, Stephanie, you look wonderful.” This had to be a lie. Maybe she meant thin. I couldn’t eat when I was anxious. Surely I weighed less, but wonderful was a stretch. “What are you up to these days?”

We hugged, and she felt warm. I didn’t want to let go. I missed her. I mean really
missed
her. Seeing her, feeling her, I suddenly felt it. I wanted my life back, the one I thought I had before learning the truth about Gabe. I dropped from our embrace slowly and told her how much I missed her with tears in my eyes. We’d been inseparable, until we weren’t. It would be easy to say we grew apart because I became single. Fact: you see less of your married friends once they have children. I’d want to meet for drinks, she’d need to feed Neil. We didn’t grow apart. We just grew.

I’ve heard married couples oust the single girl because maybe now the wife sees you as a threat. I’ve never encountered this. None of my close friends whom I actually see and spend time with have kids. I think those with children make new friends at the mommy park, through play dates and Gymboree, the same way single women find other women to play with. Beyond our love for each other, Jaimee and I had less in common.

Neil began to scream when the pacifier fell from his mouth. “He’s addicted to this thing,” Jaimee said as she fetched him a new one.

“Yeah, I know how he feels.”

As an infant, I was once addicted to a discontinued pacifier. My parents tried to replace it with new brands, but I’d just spit them out. “So what did you do?” I asked them.

“We purchased every last one,” my mother had said, “and once they were gone, we just let you cry. Eventually, you gave up.”

I’d like to say I learned my lesson then. I’d like to say that’s as close as I ever came to a security blanket, but please, this is me. Instead, I opted for a serial string of monogamous relationships to shut me up. Obviously, my parents didn’t discover the “boyfriend” brand in pacifiers.

“What’s up with that camera, Stephanie?” Jaimee’s husband asked.

“Oh, this is
my
baby. I just bought her a few months ago. You know me, always got my hand in something.” I patted the camera and turned toward Jaimee. “I’m just so sick of putting all my energy into some guy who probably won’t be there in the end. Ya know?” Of course she didn’t know. “So I figured I’d put my energy into something else. Me. Ya know?” She didn’t know that either. Her energy was spent on raising her son and loving her husband. That would have been my life. Instead, I had to create a new one.

“GET READY FOR A WHOLE NEW LIFE GABE, ’CAUSE YOU
fucked this one up real good,” I had screamed through the front door of our apartment when Gabe had returned with Linus. “You clearly don’t give out your home phone number, so I guess you don’t live here.”

“Don’t be retarded, Stephanie. Open the door.” He had no idea that the door was his friend. It was keeping me off him.

“There’s no more room in here for you.” When I said, “in here,” I smacked my hand on my heart.

I imagined him on the other side of the door, shifting his weight, not entirely knowing about what I was speaking. Still, he must have had a pit in his stomach, knowing I might have discovered something. I wanted to see his face, to watch him try to lie to me so I could learn to really hate him. Before opening the door, I glanced at my sister on the sofa. “I can’t believe this, Lea. I’m so sick.” She looked back at me, and for the first time in as long as I can remember, she was silent.