Target Underwear and a Vera Wang Gown (15 page)

“Poor baby,” he said, adding, “do you want me to bring you anything?”

“No, you go to your boss’s. I’m just going to spend the day trying to get better.”

“No,” he whined, “I don’t want to go without you. My boss wants to meet you. You think you’ll be better by tomorrow? I’ll tell him we’ll drop by tomorrow.”

Yes. I could be better by tomorrow If I planned my Saturday wisely, by getting professionally fake tanned, followed by a trip to this great bathing-suit store in the Valley to pick up that gorgeous gold-and-black sheer coverup that would look perfect with my high-cut black one-piece and gold strappy Jimmy Choo heels, yes, I could be better by Sunday.

“I’m sure I’ll be better by tomorrow,” I told him. “I’m sure this is just a twenty-four-hour bug.”

“I want you to lie in bed all day. Call me if you want me to bring some DVDs.”

“No,” I said with another sniffle, “I think I’ll just sleep. I think I’ll turn my ringer off too. You know, so I won’t be disturbed. I’ll call you later in the afternoon.”

I left my house at about noon for my 12:15 appointment with the faux tanner. The trip to the bathing-suit store in the Valley took a little longer than I thought when I spotted another upscale boutique that I hadn’t yet reported on. I didn’t take my cell phone for fear that if anyone called, I might answer it and mention that I was in the Valley. The person would, with my luck, just happen to run into Evan and tell him they just spoke to me from some bathing-suit store in the Valley. I had all my bases covered.

I got back to my home at about five o‘clock and opened the door, packages in hand, and there was Evan sitting on my couch with a Blockbuster bag sitting next to him.

“Where have you been?” he asked, looking a little closer at my orange tinted skin.

“I was feeling better so I decided to head out,” I said as I quickly threw my packages under my dining-room table.

“Where’d you go?” he asked.

“Just to finish some work. I had some more work to do in the Valley, so I figured I’d get it done.”

“And you bought some more clothes?” he asked, walking over to the table.

“It was on-sale on-sale,” I lied as I wondered where I’d left the receipts. “Plus, they gave me even more off since I’d given them so much business.”

“Why are you orange?” he asked, looking at me askew.

“They were having a promotion at the store: buy a bathing suit, get a fake tan.” Lie upon lie upon lie.

“Well, I thought I’d surprise you, but I guess you’re feeling better,” he said, walking past me.

“Hey, what’s the matter?” I asked him.

“I don’t understand why you lied. You weren’t sick at all.”

“Hey, we didn’t have plans today, ” I reminded him.

“Because you were sick,” he said. “But you’ve never looked healthier, albeit like a carrot.”

“Well I’m sorry, I wanted to be alone!” I said, raising my voice at him.

“So be alone with all your clothes!” he shouted back as he stormed out of my apartment.

Why did I feel the need to buy all these clothes? Why was I trying to be someone that I wasn’t? I felt like I had become a witch—the wicked bitch of the West. Why couldn’t I just be myself, whoever she was at that point? I took out my new gold-and-black coverup and opened my closet, searching for a free hanger. There wasn’t one, so I folded it up and left it on my dining-room table, where it sat for the next four weeks.

Evan called that night and canceled going to his boss’s the next day. He needed some alone time too.

t was four in the afternoon on a Thursday, and I was in Bloom ingdale’s at the Beverly Center mall, trying on some Theory stretch jeans and wondering if it was worth buying them since I owned a pair just like them. The difference between my Theory jeans and
these
Theory jeans was that there were no pockets in the back. I kept turning to look at my butt in the mirror, wondering if Evan would notice. I had worn my Theory jeans with the pockets in the back twice already with Evan and he commented on it. When I lied and told him I owned more than one pair, he appreciated the fact and said, “That’s a really smart thing to do.” Therefore, I had to spend $150 on another pair just so he wouldn’t catch me in yet another fib.

I kind of liked the fact that there were no pockets in the back of these Theory jeans and wondered if I might want to crop them. I went back and forth with this idea and even contemplated getting two pairs—one identical to the pair I already owned with pockets in the back, and then a pair with no pockets that I would crop.

Whenever I go to Bloomingdale’s at the Beverly Center mall in Los Angeles, no matter where I am in the second-floor ladies’ section, I always head to the dressing rooms in the middle of the floor, right off the escalator. I like those dressing rooms because they have the best light. I hate the dressing rooms on the other side of the store to the far left. There’s no light there, and I always end up buying whatever it is because I don’t notice that the sleeves are too bunchy or the pants are too tight in a bad way, given the low light factor.

I decided that I would go out and grab another pair with pockets and try them on to buy just in case. This is the only problem about my favorite dressing room. Whatever I grab is usually on the side where the low-light dressing rooms are and I have to either put on my clothes again or trudge over there in whatever I’ve tried on. Forget asking a saleswoman; they’re never around.

“Babe?” a male voice called through the slotted door.

“Yeah, Hun?” a female voice replied.

“They had it in a four.”

“Oh, that’s great,” Babe said as I heard the dressing room door next to me open.

“I think the two looks fine, though,” Hun said.

“I feel uncomfortable in it,” Babe said.

“It looks all right to me,” Hun said.

“I’ll just try on the four and see how it looks,” Babe said as I heard her dressing-room door close.

This conversation depressed me beyond belief. Why wasn’t Evan here getting me the size four instead of two?

I got dressed, picked up my no-pocket Theory jeans, and walked out of the dressing room, where I found Hun standing. He was holding three other shopping bags from other stores in the mall. Tall and built like a football player, he had a really nice head of brown curly hair that needed to be shaped and cut. He looked like this was the last place he’d be in the world, like he should be at some bar drinking beer and watching a football game, but instead he was standing in the good-light dressing rooms at Bloomingdale’s. Anything for the woman he loved. I called Evan.

“Hey, Hun,” I said when he picked up the phone.

“Hi, Babe,” he said.

“So, I was just at Bloomingdale‘s, and there was this really adorable couple next to me in the dressing rooms and I just suddenly missed you.”

“Shopping again?” he said with a sigh.

“Well, it is my job,” I copped as he sighed again. “What are you doing now?” I asked, quickly changing the subject.

“I’m actually getting some work done so I can get out of the office early,” he said. “Let me call you later.”

“We’re having dinner tomorrow night, right?” I asked him.

He paused, and my heart stopped. “Yeah, sure, uh ... I’m just in the middle of something though. Let me call you later.”

“When is later?” I asked him.

“I don’t know,” he grumbled. “Later.”

“Are you still mad at me?”

“I can’t have this discussion now. Let me call you later.”

And with that, he hung up the phone.

I rushed over to Susan and Rachel’s office. A year before, Susan hired Rachel as her second in command, so it was much easier to huddle some girls when I needed them. They would know how to handle this. They knew how to take the mature feminine approach.

“He’s just busy,” Susan said. “People get busy. You’ve been busy, haven’t you?”

“Not busy enough to let him know if I was angry with him.”

“Maybe he’s confused about things,” Rachel piped in. “I mean, after all, you have been dating for a year, and neither of you are getting any younger. If I were either of you, I’d really take the time to see where this was going. That’s probably what he’s doing. Or maybe not.”

“Well, we’re having dinner tomorrow night and I have to look special. Does anyone want to come shopping?” I asked, looking straight at Susan.

“I actually need a new sweater,” Rachel said.

“Susan?” I asked, ignoring Rachel.

“Why do you need to look so special all the time anyway?” Susan asked. “Lately, all you ever talk about is new clothes and what you’re going to wear when you see him. To tell you the truth, I don’t think this relationship is very good for you.”

“He likes that about me!” I told her.

“Are you sure?”

“He thinks I’m perfect!”

“This isn’t you, though. You’re not this person who buys all these clothes and breaks plans because you need to have the right bathing suit.”

“Look,” I said staring at them, “you don’t know what it’s like anymore. Both of you are married with children. You don’t know what it’s like out here.”

“Out where?” Rachel scoffed.

“In the single world!”

“Is that like the land of the living versus the land of the dead?” Susan laughed.

“And which land are we in?” Rachel joked, and they slapped each other a high five. I was in no mood for jokes.

“You don’t know what it’s like anymore to have to prove to some guy that you’re the one for him because at any second, some girl who looks better in a pair of jeans, or worse, some girl with a hetter personality who looks better in those jeans is going to come along and steal your guy.”

“But you’re missing the point,” Rachel said, taking my hand. “The guy who truly loves you is the one who makes you feel that any jeans are fine.”

“That’s great advice from the person who is worst at decision-making.”

“In shopping, yes, but in life,” she said, flashing her wedding ring, “obviously not.”

I hated her very much at that moment.

“Take Robert, for example,” Susan started.

“I’ve heard this.
‘I was the fattest I ever was,’
” I said, repeating the beginning of the story I always loved to hear except now.

“Well, I was. I was the fattest I ever was, and Robert came to pick me up for a blind date and I was wearing this pink muumuu, and I looked like a pink powder puff and he didn’t care.”

“Well, you got the last one who didn’t care.”

“Honestly, I don’t think that Evan cares either, but I think you’re stuck in this idea that you have to be someone you’re not.”

“You know what?” I said, grabbing my bag and heading toward the door, “I don’t need this. I don’t need your advice when you have no idea what you’re talking about anymore. I need some single friends.” I grunted and stormed out.

What did they know? I decided I would not be talking to them for a while. Evan and I were hitting a glitch. “It happens in all relationships,” I said to myself as I left my friends’ office. Relationships can’t always be all Babe and Hun. There’s gotta be a Jerk and Witch in there too sometimes to make everything more even, and that’s where we were.

ou know when someone wants to break up with you. Even when friends tell you it’s not going to happen, you know. It’s that psychic seventh sense knowledge that you try to shove underneath the blankets, saying “It’s all in your head,” or “It’s just a rough patch.” None of it matters. You know very well that you’re about to get dumped, and no matter what you do, what you say, or what you try to feel, it’s all padding for the blow.

Having said that, I had decided to wear my new cropped no-pocket Theory jeans with a robin’s egg blue-colored cardigan sweater and white T-shirt underneath for my dinner date with Evan. At five o‘clock he called and told me that he’d rather stay in so we could “talk” rather than go to a restaurant. I told him it was fine and ordered Chinese, but truthfully it wasn’t. That brief conversation earlier freaked me out to no end, and I had to make one last-ditch effort to try to get everything right. Each uncomplicated question was beyond my administrative ability with the Chinese place—“Dumplings fried or steamed? Shrimp or chicken with broccoli or both? White rice or brown?”—too many decisions, and why did my hair look so flat?

“I just feel like everything is life or death in this relationship,” Heidi said when I called her in a panic. “Just throw your hair over and spray some hairspray in it. Brown rice is better for you. You’ve always liked shrimp better than chicken, so get that.”

Evan arrived at my house in an Armani gray suit and white shirt at 7:30 on the dot, and the meal was waiting for him. As he finished his first spoonful of shrimp and broccoli, he sighed and turned to me.

“I just don’t think I can do this anymore,” he said.

“I was going to get chicken, but you know how I don’t always trust chicken under brown sauce; you don’t know what you’re getting,” I answered, praying for a glimmer beyond hope that this was exactly what he meant and we’d throw out the Chinese and order a pizza.

“No,” he interrupted, “I mean, I just don’t think we should see each other anymore.”

I looked down at my sweater. There was a stray piece of rice on it, which I quickly picked off and got up to throw it in the trash.

“Did I do something to upset you?” .I asked, looking for more stray rice on my sweater.

“No, it’s not that, I just feel like”—he paused—“I just feel like we’re not compatible. I know that’s a clichéd thing to say, but I think it’s true. The strange thing is that every now and then I see this part of you that I really like, but as the months go on, I feel like you’re too much of a perfectionist. We’ve been together for a year, and I really don’t know anything about you except where you bought tonight’s outfit. I try and get to know you, but the more I do, I feel like this wall around you gets thicker and thicker. I’m just getting sick of it.”