Sadly, this is where our online adventure comes to an end. And what happens next? Well, you’ll just have to buy the book. So now is the time to pray and hope and make all the good wishes that there will be one.
I can tell you this much – there are a number of surprises at the end of 51/50. And even I wouldn’t have been able to imagine its conclusion because reality is often far more interesting than fantasy, if you let it.
That being said, next week the book goes to publishers, and then we will find out if the grand finale will ever get the chance to be revealed. In the meantime, spread the word, take the poll, and thank you, thank you, thank you for being a part of this adventure!
“Like with your hands?” I am incredibly intrigued.
“With my hands,” he tells me.
I talk to William on the phone for an hour and a half before we meet. I try to avoid this with most of my dates because I don’t want us using up all of our material before we’re actually mano y mano. And I find that most people feel the same way. But somehow William and I start talking and the conversation doesn’t end. And that’s how I find out that William builds things. With his haaa-aaands.
“Like what things?” I worry I might be coming off as annoying, but I am truly interested, and William seems to like talking about his work. William works for two very famous artists, managing the design and construction of their large-scale art installations. He also built a tree house in Massachusetts that you can actually live in. William grew up outside of Boston and went to a small liberal arts college like mine and lives in Eagle Rock, which is a burgeoning artistic neighborhood near my established artistic neighborhood. He’s funny and we make jokes about going out to eat at some horrible corporate establishment like Chili’s or Friday’s or Applebee’s. But then we realize we live in LA.
“Is there even an Applebee’s in LA?” William asks.
I laugh, “LA is too cool for Chili’s. There is a Grand Luxe though.”
“Would that work?”
I think about it, “Naw, not really, too upscale.”
Instead, we agree to go see a midnight showing of Cool as Ice, the early nineties film starring Vanilla himself. I spent the better part of my Freshman year in high school watching that film with my best friends at the time, memorizing every line and then repeating them back to each other ad nauseum through fits of adolescent laughter. So when William asks if I’d be interested, I tell him immediately, “I’m in,” because though it is only a movie, going to see a midnight show on a first date still feels slightly adventurous.
I am at Ivan’s house the other night for one of our bi-monthly game nights when my friend John, the man who initially introduced me to Jimmy Voltage, shows up. John finds my dating adventures hysterical and he is always asking for full reports on the men I have gone out with. “So have you begun to categorize them?” he questions me over our game of Cranium.
“How so?” I ask.
“Like are some a number four? Others a number twenty-seven? You know, like they do with Hanes T-shirts and boxers and shit.”
I think about it, and I fear I might be. There are definitely types that I can spot off the bat, and those fall into four categories:
1. We will be attracted to each other.
2. He will be attracted to me with no reciprocation.
3. I will be attracted to him with no reciprocation.
4. We will both fail at attraction mutually.
William and I fall into this last category. I walk into the restaurant and know this immediately. And I can see on his face that so does he. We are both relatively good-looking people, both educated and funny and kind, we both engage in arts and culture, and probably even know some of the same people, but the Williams of the world, and the Kristens of the world were not meant for each other. And I’ve never been able to figure out why until William starts talking about how much he hates Sandra Bullock. She’s an easy target but William takes her much more personally.
William is pretty laid back, so I am rather surprised by the venom in his eyes when he tells me, “I was watching her in an interview once, and just her voice. Oh my God, that voice. She is so fucking obnoxious. I kept wanting to turn the TV off but I hated her so much I just kept watching.”
Wow. And as I think about it, I realize that I am probably pretty darn close to a Sandra Bullock in his mind. My voice is too loud, my laugh too incessant, and my need to explain, divulge and carry on, annoying.
At Ivan’s house, John joked that the pie I am eating must be good because my mouth isn’t going, and when just a few minutes later, I tried to talk with a mouthful of that pie, I realized how right he is. Ivan’s other friend Ric was also at the party. Months ago, I went to brunch with Ric, Ivan and Ric’s two-year old son Nathan. I fell in love with Nathan instantly. And when halfway through the brunch, he slid his hand up my arm, looked me in the eye, and said “Mommy,” I was sold.
Ric is in an unhappy marriage, and started calling me his second wife. I let him because he’s hot. And sober. And with a full tattoo covering his back, kind of dangerous. I drew the line however when as we were walking down the Venice boardwalk, each holding one of Nathan’s hands, and swinging him into the air, Ric referred to me as Nathan’s second Mommy. I don’t know Ric’s wife, but I can promise, I would not want the father of my children assigning the title of “Mommy” to any other woman but me.
So when I walk into the party, and the first person I see is Ric, something in me lurches. Nathan is also there, but I try to keep my distance from both of them. Even when Ric pulls me into his lap, and I notice he’s not wearing his ring, I know it isn’t right and it isn’t good, and I’m done being interested in men who do these sorts of things. I make sure that I am not on Ric’s team for the board game, and sit across the table to give myself distance. That doesn’t stop Ric from sliding his hand across my shoulder blades when he walks behind my chair to go to the kitchen. And it doesn’t stop me from being a little wistful that I want a Nathan of my own, as I watch him quiet and observant as the adults laugh and act silly and coo in his direction.
“I fear that you are going to hate men by the end of this book.” John leans over while the other team argues about their Word Worm question.
“Really, John? God, I think it’s going to be quite the opposite.” And I do. I am beginning to see that attraction isn’t about the other person, it’s about ourselves. I don’t take William’s lack of interest personally. And I doubt he takes mine as that. We just know what we like, and as he waxes on about house music, and the clothing line he once did. And as I wax on about living in South Africa, and 1980s country music, it’s okay that we don’t find a common bond. We take up the time talking as two humans can and do.
But then I begin to wonder, what kind of fit am I looking for? Because if neither the artist (#20), the electrician (#6), the TV writer (#1), the medical technician (#4), the bar manager (#5) nor the tennis pro (#16) will do, what will? Should I go back and find me another intellectual Hollywood producer like Oliver, or a lovable fashionista like Mandla, or the goofball prince like Frenchie? Because though I might have loved them all, I am not sure if any of them fit either. That the illusions about what my life would have been like had I stayed with those men are actually delusions, just another silly fantasy I torture myself with as entertainment. Maybe we would have just ended up annoying each other like Sandra Bullock and William.
William and I finish dinner and though if I could have broken the second part of our date, I would have. In the end, I am really glad I didn’t. Because Cool as Ice has aged like a fine fucking wine. It is hysterical, and William and I laugh to the point of tears, talking incessantly on the drive back to my car about how awesome the movie was.
And I am truly grateful to William for taking me out. Because without that date, I don’t think either of us would have seen it. Because we’re both single and in our thirties and have things to do on Sunday. Also, he tells me how I can find furniture making classes in Los Angeles, and about wood working and joinery, and the best way to upholster a couch. And that alone was worth a Saturday night. So John is wrong to think I will hate men. Because I am learning an enormous amount from them. I am learning what I like, and what I don’t like. Who I should get closer to, and who I should stay the hell away from. And I am learning a lot from each man himself. What people do, how they live, what they like, and what they are looking for in this life. As I get out of William’s car, I know we not see each other again, but I don’t leave with any hard feelings.
“It was really nice to meet you, Kristen,” he smiles genuinely at me.
I quote Vanilla, “Sup, Sup,” as I leave to the sound of William’s laughter. Similarly, the next night, I say goodbye to Ric just as coolly. And I kneel down and give my true love, my little Nathan, a hug. He hugs back which is odd for Nathan. I think he respects the fact that I stayed away from his player Dad, but he’s only two, and I don’t think quite there yet in his observations. Earlier in the night, Ric remarked when I showed him the peach tart that I made, “How are you not married?” For a long time, I thought it was about me. That I was missing something. But I am beginning to think that’s it actually about them – that I am just going to have to go through a lot of different patterns before I find the one that fits.
All girls should have a gay uncle. And for those who weren’t fortunate enough to have been born into a family where the gay gene is prevalent, I highly recommend finding a surrogate. My gay uncle is named Vic. He was one of Southern Florida’s premier florists until he hit fifty, and went through what appears to be a national phenomenon best called “gay menopause.” As opposed to its female counterpart, gay menopause pretty much skips on the hot flashes and memory loss and instead focuses all of its energies on making its host body completely, entirely insane. It’s sad but true. Not that my uncle Vic hasn’t always been crazy, it’s what made him my dearest uncle in the first place. Sure, my Uncle Tommy was cute and young and came to all the school dances, but my Uncle Vic took me shopping for Gaultier.
I remember first questioning my Mom and Nana on Vic’s gay-ness when I was eight. We were vacationing in Ft. Lauderdale and staying at my uncle’s house. I had noticed that his “roommate” Paul and him slept in the same bed even though they had a three bedroom house. And then there was the issue of the word, “honey.” My uncle always called Paul “honey” or some other term of endearment, and that too seemed suspicious. Because of the AIDS epidemic and the subsequent letter that was sent to every household in America, I had gotten wind of this “gay” thing, and has begun to think that my uncle might be one. I knew better then to just come out with it, this was still the eighties after all. My mom, Nana and I were getting into our rented car when I decided to pop the question, “Mom, why does Uncle Vic call Paul “honey?” I saw my Mom and Nana pause, they both shot a look at each other over the roof of the car, and then my Mother began, “Um, well, you know Uncle Vic, he…”
But Nana stepped in, “He calls everyone honey. Your grandpa did the same thing.”
My grandpa is a very rarely mentioned figure in my family so bringing him up at all almost threw me off my game, but then I remembered that Vic and Paul shared a bed and decided I would try that tack, but as though she could see me formulating it, Nana turned her steely eyed glare on me, and ordered, “Get in the car.”
The glare didn’t always get me to obey but this time it did. I got in the car and decided it was better I not bring it up. Yet. Years later, Nana and I were vacationing at Vic’s house again. I was watching TV while Nana talked on the phone behind me. I decided to see what was in the VHS because it was summer and I was bored. The next thing I knew I was watching a man get fucked in more ways than I knew was possible. In fact, more ways than I think I still might know is possible. I tried to turn it off but the battery in the remote control wasn’t working, I banged the damn thing a couple of times but it just kept going. More moans, more penises, I was on the verge of a heart attack. Nana’s back was away from the TV but she could turn at any moment. I flew up, leaped over the coffee table, slammed my ankle into the side of it, and hit the “off” button on the TV.
Nana swiveled around, “What are you doing?”
“Nothing,” I said, rubbing my ankle as I limped backwards out the front door. Then I turned around and ran. I ran fast and hard, as though if I got far enough away from the video, Nana wouldn’t dare see it. I got to the end of the block and then I began to smile. Because I was right, I was right! Vic was indeed gay. Very gay. But I still didn’t want Nana to know anything about the evidence proving as much.
Vic calls me the other day because he has been speaking with Nana and has some concerns about my recent attempts at dating.
“Nana says it’s that neighborhood you’re living in,” he tells me.
“What? Silverlake?”
“Such a good name,” he sighs.
“I know. It is and what the hell is Nana talking about? She likes Silverlake. I mean, I know she would prefer Beverly Hills, but she gets it. She thinks it’s charming and shit.”
“Yeah. But she says there are no professionals in the neighborhood. That they’re all artists. K, believe me, stay away from artists.”
My uncle and I both share of a vision of the big dream. His was to become a top florist and mine is to become a famous writer, and we both know that big dreams can come with steep prices. My mom and my Uncle Tom believe in nice things and decent jobs, but they’re no artists. They pay their bills. They do their taxes. They vote Republican. And so I understand why Vic warns me against the artist. He is warning me against our kind. He is also, without saying it, warning me against Jimmy. I knew I should have never told Nana about him.
“I go out with professionals, Vic. I just went out with a professional last night?”
“Really? How did it go?”
I don’t really know how to respond to that. How did it go?
I meet Peter last night at a local Mexican restaurant for our second date. Because of the holidays, it has been a long and lackluster break since the first time we met. We had sent a bunch of funny emails, but after date number one, I was pretty convinced on the “he makes me laugh” front, so it didn’t really add much to our already humorous rapport. I don’t dread our second date. I know I will have a good time. I know we will have enough relatable experience to connect, and enough differences to be able to mutually educate. And I know I will laugh. A lot.
Still, there is no daydreaming involved. No thinking about my outfit three days, let alone three hours, ahead. No dancing around before the time of departure. No giggling. Period. I simply shower, dry my hair, put on makeup, throw on jeans and a sweater from the night before, and leave to meet him at a restaurant up the street. And I think that this is what people do all the time and call it romance. It’s just I’m used to a little more spit in my fire. I know that life would probably be a cushy with Peter. There would be paid-for travel, and big meals we would cook at home together, and sailing lessons. And this sounds a lot like what I first wrote about Peter, but ultimately it’s the same concern as I had on the first date. The same concerns I had with Mandla years before. That for all our similarities, we’re very different people, and I’m still looking for my kind.
We sit down at the restaurant, we order drinks (me: ice tea, he: Diet Coke), and we launch into long and storied talk before we even look at the menu. We talk a lot.
“I can’t believe you got to study abroad in South Africa,” Peter seems genuinely excited about my five months in Durban. And I like that. I loved my five months in Durban.
“Well, it’s not like you’re not well traveled.”
“I guess, but really only to Europe. Although my friends and I did once go to Normandy. We went swimming there.”
“Really? Wow – I bet that was eerie.”
“Yeah, it was. It’s fucking crazy to think how many people died in those waters.”
“Hmmm,” I shrug, “Life’s a beach.”
Peter doesn’t even crack a smile he’s so good at this, “And then you’re massacred by the Germans.”
I laugh, “Don’t you know it.”
We talk about his job, and I can tell he’s been waiting for a woman with whom he can share his work concerns. The first phone call. Bad day: call her. Good day: Call her. And I know as I listen and ask questions and offer supportive thoughts and cheer, that I am making for a good her. Peter is also a good him.
“But no spark, huh?” Vic asks me.
“I don’t know, Uncle Vic. I just feel like, like is that all it’s supposed to be? Is life just supposed to be comfortable? Forgive the pun, but I don’t know if I’m comfortable with that.”
Vic sighs, “You’re so much like me, it’s scary, you know?” And I am and it is.
He continues, “K, some people just want to live life with their hearts. They don’t care that they’ll be broken, they’re not afraid to lose. They just know that they have to go wherever their hearts take them. Even if it’s really fucking hard.”
I nod, “I know.”
And he laughs, “And some people just want to be safe. And we don’t need to judge either of them.”
I don’t want this to come down to the emotional girl versus the safe guy. I have never wanted to play Dharma to anyone’s Greg. And so as I sit across from Peter as he analyzes the check and figures out exactly how much he should be tipping the waitress, I decide that I should try again. And I hope that it’s not simply a generational problem. That the men in our world today go swimming off of Normandy, and have long forgotten what it means to fight for it.
Peter is going to London for two weeks on business, and I like that. It’s why Nana isn’t the only one who wants a professional for me. Because Peter walked to the restaurant, I drive him home to his designer apartment in Silverlake, and though he might be a lawyer, he still loves this neighborhood as much as I do. I lean a little over the emergency brake and I hope that he will take the opportunity to go in for some passionate kiss that shows his artistic side. That shows that he can he storm a beach as well as play on one. But he doesn’t.
“Well, uh, let’s um, would you, um, when I get back? Would you um, like to?” he stutters. And all of his professionalism, all his humor, it just can’t seem to save him here.
“Sure, I would love to go out again,” I say because though I get flashbacks to a relationship I was in years ago, I cannot help but hope that this one will be different. That I won’t hate the safe guy for not feeling as much as I do. That I might be open to actually finding out how he feels. That I might just make it to date number three with a guy who would otherwise not have stood a chance, because I am quick to question, faster to judge, and like my uncle, believe that the big dream demands a partner who is also willing to fight for it.
My horoscope from this month’s Vanity Fair reads, “Just when you’ve accepted the fact that you’re going to spend the rest of your life under your grandmother’s afghan, peek-a-boo! There’s somebody under there with you. Try to hold on to them, however, and poof! There they go.. Besides, you’re a Virgo, remember? You’re supposed be throwing yourself into service and focusing on staying healthy, not chasing people you can’t catch. Who can blame you, though?”
Fuck. Sometimes, horoscopes scare me. Because I actually sleep under my grandmother’s afghan. I know that everyone thinks their grandmother is special, kind of like babies, except filled with wise sayings and funny quips and the occasional horrific sexual comment. But if there was a market for quirky grandparents, my grandmother would pretty much take the cake, if she ate cake. Nana, as she is known worldwide, has been a source of humor, anxiety and love from as far back as I can remember. She’s like any other one named wonder, Madonna, Cher, Elton – a diva at her best, something far worse at her worst. When I was a baby, she was probably one of the hottest grandmothers around, with her Farrah Fawcett do, and her string bikini tops, and multiple long gold necklaces. But then when my dad left, and she moved in, Nana just became the hippest grandma on the block.
Between her permed blonde hair and her CP Shades knits, her turquoise jewelry and her Rolex watch, I idolized her as much as I hated her. Because for all the times she would switch a price tag at Neiman’s so that she could buy me a designer dress, she would rip me down for not be cool enough, hip enough, in the know. I don’t know what exactly I was supposed to know at eight, but apparently talking to myself and video games were not it. A firm believer in the ethos “It doesn’t matter if you are rich, so long as you dress rich,” Nana’s obsession on how things look on the outside isn’t merely some generational concern that nothing appear less than normal. She is more like a narcissistic fashion designer, watching her looks walk down the red carpet, screaming at the models, the set designer, anyone who will listen, “Everything must be perfect!”
When I was little, there were three things Nana and I always agreed on: music (preferably Whitney Houston and Guns n’ Roses), books (Danielle Steele and JD Salinger), and movies (anything starring Robert Redford or Gene Wilder). We watched The Way We Were only as many times as we watched Willy Wonka’s Chocolate Factory. And so I learned everything I needed to know about romance from Hubble and Katie. And from Nana. Because it is Nana whose four marriages taught me that women as strong as us have trouble settling down. It is Nana whose greatest love was a married man fifteen years her junior who showed me that more often than not, it is the ones we cannot have whom we love the most. At seventy–five and as single as one human being can be, she now quips that men are only good for two things: breeding and heavy lifting.
And I learned everything I needed to know about family from Charlie and his Grandpa Joe. Because that was Nana to me. Although impossibly critical, she was also my older pal, my wing man, taking me to school, dancing with me in the living room, and joining in my birthday parties as though she was one of the kids herself. And now today, when she visits, we sleep in the same double bed just like Grandpa Joe and the rest of the family. Because what I learned from Nana is that even when the rest of the world deserts you, for better or worse, your family will always be there.
And so, I sometimes think I will spend the rest of my life under my grandmother’s afghan. And then like the horoscope says, peek-a-boo. Jimmy shows up. I return to LA, and Jimmy and I make plans for our first real date the next night. Wednesday. He picks me up and we go to a lovely restaurant up the street from our neighborhood. We sit outside. We smoke. We talk. A little awkwardly. I still have a cold, and I blame it on that. I get up to use the restroom, and discover this back room with high ceilings and dim light and wide cold walls.
I come back to the table, and take my seat across from Jimmy. I tell him, “That back room makes me want to dance.”
“Really? Why?” he asks.
“I don’t know. There was just something about it, it wanted to be danced in.”
He stands up, “Show me.”
I have been waiting years for someone to say that. “Show me.” I lead him to the room. And we slow dance. And he kisses me. And I feel just like Barbara Streisand in The Way We Were, with the cool guy sweeping me off my feet and acting as though he has never seen anything like me in his life. I laser the memory into my brain. Take the photo and develop it immediately. I know it will hurt someday and so I burn it in deeper just to be sure.
We go back to Jimmy’s house. We get into pajamas. We brush our teeth. We kiss more. Because kissing rocks. We go outside to have a smoke.
I know that Jimmy and I have the physical part down so I am not quite sure why we are having such trouble with talking. But then again, so did Hubble and Katie. And like Hubble, Jimmy is that All-American guy with the too cool style and the sense that even in his darkest moments, he has always been a golden boy. And I am the nervous, talkative nut who though charming and attractive, doesn’t generally catch myself a Hubble. I live in a world of hipsters like him, and to a certain extent, I remember how I felt when I first got sober in my neighborhood. There were lots of sober women there who didn’t reach out to me, who weren’t the friendliest, and I finally realized that though the popular girls may now have bangs and tattoos and vintage clothes, they’re still the popular girls. And Jimmy is the popular guy.
Maybe it’s just that Jimmy and I come from different cultural worlds. He likes rock music and westerns and motorcycles and has tattoos. He has lived his whole life in California, and fixes things, and reads biographies on Lee Marvin. I don’t know rock music or westerns or motorcycles and I only have one tattoo that no one can see. I have been many places and don’t fix things and just learned who Lee Marvin is. But that didn’t stop Hubble and Katie, well not at first. They were from completely different worlds, and somehow slow dancing was enough. Jimmy asks me if I’ve ever read Newsweek, and suddenly I find myself telling him about my obsession with the conservative editorialist George Will. He just looks at me. I would like to say with rapt attention, but it’s more like sleepy boredom. Sadly, this doesn’t stop me. I continue on, “Well, I was really into Ayn Rand at the time. I even wrote him a fan letter about his take on Hillary Clinton’s insurance reform.”
He doesn’t even blink. I don’t know if I am showing off or if I am just trying to make conversation, but it appears that Jimmy was trying to have another conversation.
He clears his throat and says, “Yeah, I was reading in there about corporate titans. I guess you forget what it’s like to stand at the head of a business. You know to really have that responsibility.”
There is a strange pause and I am beginning to feel like two actors who, though there is an incredible on-screen chemistry, the minute the director yells cut, have nothing to say to each other, and I wonder sadly whether we should leave the set and just go back to our separate trailers.
I shrug, “Yeah, it’s not all about power and greed.”
“I guess not.” He sounds disappointed, but I have faith that it’s simply a matter of getting more comfortable, of settling into this thing, of finding the spaces where we do meet, like on the dance floor and in his bed. I put out my cigarette. I don’t really know what else to say. I stand up and Jimmy grabs me from behind, and that type of conversation is far more comfortable.
“Mmmm, you feel so nice,” he murmurs into my hair.
We sleep in our underwear. And I want to melt into his chest. And his strong arms wrap around me. My hands flit through his hair. And he smells so good that any awkward conversations are soon lost in this impossibly lovely thing that happens when the cameras are rolling. He drives me home the next morning, and I go to work. As I drive to pick up pastries for my boss’ morning meeting, I realize that I am not in The Way We Were. And though the trip to New York, the visit to my father, this recent romance feels like it has broken open my year of peace and quiet and paid bills and boring meals and yoga and silence, I have to remember that my life is real. And as Jimmy goes off to his day as an electrician, and I go off to mine as a secretary, that I can let go of these concepts of Robert Redford romances, of the popular guy and the nerdy girl, of the way we are, were, or one day might be.
Because I think for both Nana and I, we have treated men like clothes. So long as they had the right label and looked good, we were interested. And once we found out that everything wasn’t perfect, that everything wasn’t exactly how we wanted it to look, we left. And so I forget the hard lessons of Nana, of Hubble and Katie. Because at the end of the day, what I really need is someone who can hold me, and make me feel safe. And I know that waking up in Jimmy’s arms is the happiest place I found for some time, that the way his face crinkles in the morning is enough to make me want to stay. And I believe as I get out of his truck, as he kisses the palm of my hand, as the Observatory stands tall in the hills above us, as my forehead presses against his own, that this thing we have growing between us might be worth getting out from under my grandmother’s afghan of perfection because sometimes, slow dancing is more than enough.
I fell in love with a prince when I was nineteen. This had been a dream of mine ever since I was five and read my first book, The Donkey Prince. Same story as the Frog Prince, except starring a donkey. Apparently, my love for horses at the time rivaled my later love for asses. But a real prince, well, girls like me don’t date real princes. Then again, Frenchie wasn’t a real prince. But he was French royalty, and later when Google came along, I discovered that he was in line to a number of long dead titles and possibly even a throne. So I’m gonna say he was about as close to a Prince as I’m ever going to get.
We called him “Frenchie” because that’s what you call French people in college, and I think, in general. I don’t know what arrow struck him the day he hung out his dorm room window and called down to me as though we were old friends. I had just become a nervous and regularly stoned sophomore at Hamilton College in upstate New York. I grew up in the better parts of Dallas, TX, so wealth didn’t necessarily intimidate me just because I didn’t have it. But the wealth at Hamilton was different. There were last names that you found on buildings. And international kids with diplomatic immunity. And then, there was Frenchie. I met him the year before when he was dating a quiet and beautiful Turkish girl with a strange name and lots of cashmere. She graduated and upon the first week of our new year at school, I found myself looking up into the sun and seeing Frenchie calling down to me. I invited him to my birthday that week, and we began a love affair reserved for handwritten love notes and first print books of poetry and a relationship that ultimately took me to his family’s castles in France and his mother’s rather cold disapproval of the American commoner her son had dragged in.
But none of that mattered that year. All that mattered was that I had him. Him. The first man from whom I understood why women take their partner’s names. Because I wanted to be forever identified with him. I wanted everything of who I was to be wrapped in his orange wool turtleneck and his old French movies and the accordion he would play while riding through the hallways of his dorm on a unicycle. I loved being us. And I loved being his.
Which is why when I met Phillipe on Myspace in 2004, I thought I might have found that same great French love again. From his photo, I could tell he had the same mess of curly hair as my first Frenchie, and the same big cow eyes, and that lovely pert nose that once had been a seamless counterpart to my Italian boxer schnoz. Phillipe and I emailed for a bit, and then decided to take it to the phone. The conversation was the longest five minutes of my life. Phillipe had a tenuous grasp of the English language, and in the middle of the call hurt his thumb so bad, the conversation went from awkward to irritated. I never spoke to him again, and whatever loose plans we had to meet up were dropped.
Which is why when I decided to look Phillipe up again a few months ago, I realized I had found myself in the Summer of Desperation 2007. After a very long and confusing volley about when and where we were going to meet, it was confirmed that we would get gelato together at a local gelataria in the neighborhood. The phone call was no less irritating than the one we had years before, and so I quickly moved to be done with it, but Phillipe felt like talking. Phillipe likes to talk, but more on that shortly. “So you are feeling better?” he asked.
I had been sick that week, so I replied, very slowly, because I remember in the conversation years prior Phillipe commenting that I talk too fast.
“Yes… I came home… and went to… bed… early.”
“Ah, yes, last night, I rejhnjkhf kjkheug f jkh iueyh (sic because I have no idea what was actually said), and I put zee key in zee door. With my backpack. And I sit down on zee couch. With my backpack, my pack is for my motorbike. And I close my eyes. And zee captain. You know, zee captain of zee sheep?”
I lay there on my bed wide-eyed. Did I miss something? Zee captain of what sheep? He lives on a sheep? Phillipe gets irritated that I am obviously not following his story. He can hear it in my silence.
“You know! Zee pirate. Zee pirate with zee sheep. Zee wheel, he stands, zee wheel, he drives zee sheep.”
At this point, I am playing a silent game of charades in my head. Pirates of Penzanze! Pirates of the Caribbean! There’s a pirate on TV! You’re dreaming! There’s a pirate in your house! But Phillipe has moved on.
“And zen, I open my eyes and it’s 3:30. Zat doesn’t always happen.”
I don’t know how to respond. I don’t even know what’s been said. I grasp, “You… must… have had… a long… day.”
“Yes, a long day.”
I hoped that it was just the phone. He is a French artist with a motorcycle and a cottage in Pasadena, and even beyond the Frenchie factor, man, do I want to be in that movie. Because ever since the Donkey Prince, even before the Donkey Prince, I have been a romance junkie. Romeo and Juliet. Tristan and Isolde. Frenchie and Kristen. These were stories I not only told myself, they were ones I was determined to live. I wanted to love at such an intensity it felt as though I might die because of it. I wanted Wagner in the background and rain on command. I wanted the great big handsome star to sweep me off my feet, to look deeply into my eyes and to tell me, “Get on zee back of my motorbike and I will take you to zee cottage in zee woods.”
After three years, and two horrible phone conversations, I show up for gelato, with my fair share of apprehension, and a little bit of hope. For the most part, Phillipe is what I expected. Brown curly hair, big brown cow eyes, and that nose that I consistently fall for. He is wearing a fleece because it’s October now, which is kind of cold for Los Angeles standards. But under the fleece is a button-down and some sort of cravat, which looks like a bow-tie meets an ascot. I dig that. I dig funky cravats, which is why I have the French fetish in the first place. Because the accent on its own can be a little annoying.
We sit down, and Phillipe begins talking. Who knew someone with such a basic understanding of English could speak so much. Phillipe is probably strange even in his own country. He is obviously a bit of a loner, and admittedly, is “emancipated” from his family.
“And so, I come to Los Angeles,” he tells me.
“Oh, do you like it here?”
“Ummm, let me see. I think it is…,” he thinks for a bit, “a rape of humankind. Yes, a rape of human kind.”
“Oh. That’s, yeah, that’s what a lot of people think. I guess I see it as much more than that. I think LA’s dark side is her sweetness, her quaint neighborhoods and her palm trees. The rest of it…”
Phillipe interrupts, “They are nice, but no, it is a rape of human kind.”
I am not sure if Phillipe is simply uninterested in what I have to say, or whether he is just confused by what I am actually saying. He tells me, “You don’t sound like California girl. You sound like a New Yorker girl.” When I finally do speak, he sits back, much like I do while watching Telemundo, interested if only I could understand. Then he changes the channel. Back to him.
The thing is for all of Phillipe’s knowledge, he doesn’t know how to laugh. Maybe he hasn’t learned to tell jokes in English yet. Or maybe he’s just not funny. Frenchie was hysterical. And perhaps that’s what made our otherwise fantasy romance feel so real. Because for all the slow dancing and long romantic talks, he could also make me laugh. We stayed together for the one year and then Frenchie graduated. The following summer I was working at High Times as an intern, beginning my journey into alcohol-induced bad behavior, watching as my aunt and best friend died from breast cancer, and rushing to the mail box every day to see if I had received another one of the fountain pen scrawled letters that contained the words, “I cannot stop thinking about when I will have you in my arms again, feel you. When I do, I forget everything, I’m just happy, past, future, everything disappears when I am with you, ma chere. J’attend, j’attend, j’attend.”
I wait, I wait, I wait.
There are days where I still pull out those letters. They remind me that though it’s been so long since romance held me close, at one point it did. At one point, I sat with that man on a porch in France. Like an old couple long settled into our ways, we read our respective books. And I will never forget his foot resting on mine, I looked over to find him watching me, and I knew by the look in his eyes, that this was all that love ever needed to be. He held me at night, and tickled the sides of my body in the morning and breathed in my neck while I slept. And though ten years have gone by, and he lives in France with his wife, and in many ways, feels as though he was a movie I once saw, and not a man I knew, those letters always remind me that he believed in who I was and he loved me so much for it.
In some ways, I was almost afraid that Phillipe would remind me of him. That some long healed wound would feel fresh for a moment. Maybe it wasn’t even so much fear, maybe it was hope. But he didn’t. He did remind me that my dating life since the first Frenchie has been a game of Goldilocks – always searching for the romantic perfection I found in some silly relationship that I had before I was even twenty. I hold them all up to that prince and I judge. Too smart. Not smart enough. Too wild. Not wild enough. Too funny. Not funny enough. And it’s not to say that I didn’t fall in love again. Because I have and I did. But for the most part, I find myself slowly shaking my head that this one just won’t do. Never just right, like that man, who ten years ago, held me on a Paris street, told me he would love me forever, put me in a taxi cab and never saw me again.
And when you look at it that way, I can feel the wound. I can feel the years of disappointment. I can feel the drunken nights where I would cry on bathroom floors wondering why it didn’t work. Why I could never find him again. And tonight, as the minutes drag by, as Phillipe launches from one story to the next, as I pretend to listen, I know that I need to let go of that fantasy. It hasn’t served me in years, if it ever did. The Donkey Prince decided to marry an Argentinian girl with a hyphenated last name and a background of which his family would approve. And I can’t keep thinking that it’s only the romances that take place across international lines and daunting odds that are the ones worth having.
Phillippe doesn’t seem to notice that I am making life altering resolutions across the table from him. Instead, he leans back, cocks his head, and asks, “Do you know who you look like little? I hope you don’t sink it’s an insult. Zee woman with zee curly hair, and zee big eyes, she sings, ‘I love you like a woman.’”
I don’t know this song. He attempts to sing it, but I am even worse at that game. “Oh you know, she was in zee operas in zee 70s.”
I know who means, and I smile, “Barbara Streisand?”
“YES!! YES!! Little bit. Barbara Streisand.” I don’t take it as an insult. Because I get that. Often. And I don’t even look like her. But I kind of dress like her. Or rather her in the 70s. As my friend Cyrene says, “All sweatery boots and tight pants.” I would have liked to have shared her brilliance with Phillipe, but it was terminology like “sweatery boots” that was making it easier for me just to stay silent.
“So would you like to get some food?” Phillipe asks.
I look at the time on my cell phone, “Oh well, it’s getting kind of…”
Phillipe interrupts, “Of course, I should say, I do not have enough money on me for two people. You pay for you. I pay for me.”
“Yea, I really should be going,” I say, standing up. Phillipe seems disappointed. He also seems pretty used to it. Apparently, I’m not the only American girl that’s bailed after the first date. “Okay, but next time though, we go on my motorcycle, okay. I drive you to tea.”
“Sure, why not?” I shrug. Even as I say it, I know it’s bullshit. Because as much as I like the image of dating a French artist with a motorcycle, I realize that in this case, it would only be another fantasy. A celluloid still from a silent film that always sounds interesting when you’re scrolling through Netflix, but gets boring before you’re half way through. And I know that’s not the movie I want to be in, it would just be a really bad sequel to the masterpiece I made years ago. Today, I think I think I’ll let that film reel crackle into oblivion. I will kiss that Donkey Prince on the forehead and I will leave him standing in the rearview mirror of my Parisian taxi, forever waving goodbye. Because he found his love, even if it wasn’t me, he found her, and now, I must go find mine.
“Do you want a cookie?” Richard points to one of the delicious, decadent pieces of heaven sitting safely behind the glass case. I do want a cookie, desperately. But I am playing someone else tonight. I am playing the girl who doesn’t gorge herself on sweets, who smiles sweetly instead, and says, “No, just tea for me, please.”
Bullshit. But I try to be normal. I try to be the type of woman I think Richard would like. And I have to say, I’m pretty damn good at it. I didn’t think I was going to want Richard’s attentions prior to going on the date with him. In fact, I had planned on getting a pretty massive piece of cake at the café where we had agreed to meet. It’s outdoors. It serves coffee and wine. It also serves cakes, and cookies, and brownies, and I like those things. It’s kind of romantic without being obtusely so. It’s where white people with decent jobs and Priuses go on their first date. I alluded to a book review in the New York Times, and bought us our admission.
Historically, I am not a dater. I went on my first date when I was 26 and only because my boss at the time set me up with a friend of hers and I had no other choice. High-pitched Marcus was surprised by the fact that I had made it that long without a date, but I wasn’t. I had gotten most of my boyfriends up until that point by turning them from friends into one night stands which just lasted a really, long, time. In some instances, I would stay in their beds for a good year or two. Sure there were fights and fun and family vacations, and all the conventional things that come with a relationship, but none of them had actually started conventionally. I took breaks in between, and though I worried about when the next guy would appear, within eighteen months, he invariably would. That is the beauty of one’s early twenties. There are so many of us who are single and looking for the starter romance, it seems as though love is always around the corner. But then people start getting married, or they come out as gay, or they settle into a bachelorhood that becomes far more interesting than any relationship, and the numbers grow slimmer as the blocks between this love and the next one grow farther apart.
Richard came to me by way of a former co-worker Katie, which takes us back to 2006. I relapsed in 2006. It was a short three week jaunt into what I thought was my old life. Except my old life was kind of fun. Those three weeks felt more like a bunch of naps caught between boring lines of cocaine, and me vomiting in a toilet. After three weeks I was done, and I went back to being sober, and looking for a new job. The temp agency called me with my first assignment on a Friday afternoon. It was one of those moments that never leave you. The moment in you where you know life is changing, where the sun burns brighter, and everything runs slow, because the path is being forever altered. I would be sent to a non-profit downtown which, from what I could tell, helped low-income kids of Latino descent. I would be someone’s secretary and it would pay me enough to eat.
I met Katie on my first day. We were the same age, had gone to comparable colleges, but Katie was a manager and I was a temporary assistant. I normally would have hated her for this. But Katie was a good egg, which is why when we recently got together to catch up and she asked me how the love life was going, I got honest and told her I was horribly single.
Over the last year, I had gotten rather good at posturing to the question. Bragging about my adventures and experiences and all the things that filled my life because I didn’t have a boyfriend. Generally, people ignored my buoyant optimism only to respond with a handful of platitudes that just annoyed me. Things like, “All in good time,” “The right man will come along,” and my favorite, “It happens when you least expect it.” This is why I had begun acting like I was choosing single hood in the first place. I didn’t want their condescension, their suggestions, their strange, sad smiles. Because really, I can’t be told I should read The Secret one more time without wanting to hit someone. But Katie didn’t respond with any such nonsense because Katie’s a smart girl. “I know the perfect man for you,” she told me. Alas, Richard.
People should be more careful about what kind of photos they introduce themselves with. Richard emailed me one with him sitting next to Buddy Hackett, which is odd enough, but the scary part, he looked like Buddy Hackett. And even worse, in the photo, Richard clearly had man boobs. This was disturbing. Enough so, that after showing it to a few friends in the office, his nickname became the incredibly original and possibly trademarked “Man boob.” Not a good start.
So when I walked up to the Christmas light strewn café, I wasn’t sure if the relatively good-looking guy waiting there was the man in question. I didn’t even move to say his name just in case.
“Kristen?” he asked.
To which, I responded, “You look nothing like Buddy Hackett.”
He thought that was funny, I thought that was a relief. And it is a relief. Because Richard is handsome. With a decent head of brown hair, and the educated style of a Northeastern boy come west, he stands a strong few inches taller than me, which I like. There are a lot of short guys in LA, so I always respect someone with whom I could wear heels. Richard and I get our respective teas, coffees and sweet treats (for the sir, not the lady), and sit down.
We talk about writing projects and poets and yoga and where we’ve lived and what we want to be. Richard is half Irish, half Italian. I’m half Italian, a quarter Irish and a quarter Hungarian, which is where we differ. Because Gypsy blood is dangerous. And Irish/Italian just makes for a good appetite, which is probably why he knows of the Hungarian restaurant in the Valley to which I have always wanted to go, and is also why he invites me to there for a second date. I say yes, and actually am beginning to feel like that normal woman I was trying so hard to be. The type who simply hungers, and doesn’t actually crave.
The night is wrapping up, and I feel quite comfortable sitting across from this man. It’s been so long since I did this – since I got to know someone a bit, got to settle into the easy banter of a nice first date. I have only been on three dates since I first got sober, and all of them were with sober men who already knew my life story.
Recovered alcoholics are a funny bunch. We very rarely respond to the question “How are you?” with “Fine.” It’s more like a therapy session than small talk, which is why going out on dates with them isn’t always this casual. There’s a joke that we tell that goes, “How do you know when a first date between two alcoholics went well?” The punchline: “They move in with each other.” I have barely even used a swear word, let alone told some dirty sex story, to Richard. Richard and I aren’t working on that intensity level. We are keeping up our most honest, personable, and pleasant personas. Maybe that’s all Richard has, but either way, I am appreciating it. And I am doing the same.
Our table is right next to the street, so we’re in full view of the foot traffic. And then I see my friend Ward. I call him my friend but only because I lack a better word. Ward and I have hung out several times, and he still calls me Blair. Ward and I go to meetings together for said sober people. Ward is twitchy, and sort of looks like Dave Navarro, if Dave Navarro was homeless. I think Ward might have a real case of turrets because he has a tendency to shout things out and talk to himself, but then again, so do I. At the end of the day, he can also be a really sweet guy, which is why when he recognizes me, I wave and say hello. Ward bobs over, because that’s how he moves, with a weave and a bob.
“Hi. Blair.”
“How’re you doing tonight, Ward?”
I brace myself, but Ward, even with his suspected turrets, knows better. He looks at Richard and I can see he doesn’t recognize him, so he decides to give me the pedestrian answer, “Fine.”
I introduce the two men, and then tell Ward I’ll see him on Thursday, because that’s the night we both go to the same meeting. He just nods his head and walks off in mid sentence, muttering to himself as he heads down the street. I get the feeling that the normal cover I was trying to front here just got blown. Because most upper middle class private school girls working in non-profits with a Honda Civic don’t typically hang out with men like Ward on a regular basis. I know this, and Richard knows this.
He turns to me and asks with a cock to his head, “What’s Thursday?”
What’s Thursday, Richard. Oh just the place where me and my other mutant sober hero friends get together and talk about what it was like, what happened and what it’s like now. I am terrible with confidentiality clauses, and so I explain it to him in nice friendly, “everybody does it”-like terms. But Richard does little more than shrug. And then it hits me. Maybe this means little to him. Maybe only I care about my past and my stories and my strange associates that I think would be such a flag to the different lives I am assuming Richard and I have led. But Richard doesn’t seem to be affronted at all, in fact, he seems relatively intrigued.
“Do you have a sponsor?” he asks.
I laugh, “Yes, I do. Everyone should.”
I like him more for that. I think I might actually like him. I see how he has the sleeves of his button down rolled up just right. How his arms are respectable, covered with a healthy amount of Italian hair. He could probably manage a grill, keep up a good conversation with the parents, and be the type of man I could trust. And I wonder whether I am at the point yet where I can be attracted to that kind of guy, whether it isn’t always me insisting I don’t go for the wrong ones while I continually do. Or rather that Gypsy blood is too wild and Fellini feeling for barbeque arms and a compassionate responsibility. Whether I am trustworthy when you are willing to trust.
But at that moment, I don’t feel anything but happy sitting there in the light strewn garden with all the other Prius and Civic driving liberals, sipping tea and laughing about the New Yorker, and beginning to think that this might be what I was missing. Richard and I walk to our cars and hug. We confirm the next date. And though there is no kiss, no major (or even minor) overture of romance, I am giddy. Because I met someone with whom I rather enjoyed sharing a table. Someone without man boobs. Someone who wanted to see me again. And I didn’t blow it on the first date. I didn’t blow him on the first date. And that says more about my trustworthiness than any meeting, joke or future encounter could ever mean.
“I’m going bold and selling out.” I immediately call Cyrene, my best friend and loyal confidante, to inform her of my brilliant plan. It wasn’t the first time I had come up with a brilliant plan in the middle of the night. Back when I still participated in drugs and alcohol, I was the kind of party girl who regularly called people at 1:00am to tell them how my latest epiphany would change the world. Or at least my life. I rarely left a party without a new best friend, a business plan and often a hastily scrawled contract I had drawn up over the last of the eight ball. I was a quick-talking, over-amped character in an eighties Tom Cruise movie. Hell, I was Tom Cruise. Wheeling and dealing and jumping on couches till the sun came up, always thinking that my fast plan might actually save me. And then I would fall asleep on some friend’s couch or in some stranger’s bed, and I would wake up the next evening and whatever great idea I had been so sure would fix my life, my finances, my world would be quickly replaced by my immediate need for pizza, a bong hit and more sleep.
But things had changed since that time, and I would like to think when I woke Cyrene up on that Sunday evening with my brilliant plan, she took me a little more seriously than I had once taken myself. It was simple really. I would go on 51 dates in 50 weeks and by the end of it I would have a book and a boyfriend. I had recently come to the earth shattering realization that my life sucked. And as I had done so many years before, I became convinced that my brilliant idea would offer me a way out. I thought that if I was willing to go bold and sell out, life would take care of the rest.
I knew it wasn’t an original idea. I’ve read enough books, seen enough movies, heard enough real life stories to know I wasn’t inventing the wheel here. Still, I expected some enthusiasm from the friend who I thought would be bowed over by my pesky determination. Cyrene (pronounced Serene) changed her name when she was fourteen from Rene to that of Grecian nymph known for hunting deer, wrestling lions, and bagging Apollo. We’re not generally the type of women to make it all about the guys, but then again, we’re still girls. I wait for the “That’s fucking awesome, Kristen!” or even the “Wow, you sure do have some pesky determination,” but all I get is silence. “Well?” I ask.
Cyrene clears her throat, “I don’t know. Do you really want a boyfriend that bad?” And it’s a good question. Do I really want a boyfriend that bad?
I’m Kristen and I’m an alcoholic. I say that once a day on average. But I am also much more than that. I am a young woman who has just turned thirty. I am a secretary with a fancy college degree and a fair amount of good sense. I am the daughter of an incarcerated drug smuggler and a loving and honest mother. I am the granddaughter of a woman who regularly insists that I will hate my husband in ten years so I should marry rich. I am the niece to two adoring uncles who never had children themselves (gay; Peter Pan). I am a Texan, a New Yorker, a transplanted Los Angeleno with a questioning belief in the great powers above and an awful sense that I still have more solo Saturday night trips to Trader Joe’s and Blockbuster in store for me. Because the one thing I am not, nor have I been in some years, is someone’s girlfriend. I did not come into the admission of alcoholism by any forced state. There was in fact no 5150, but the idea to go on 51 dates in 50 weeks might qualify me for such.
Before I got sober, I understood why the men didn’t want to stay. I was a mess. A fun mess, a hot mess as they say today, but the type of girl with whom you got together to have a great time, not the type you could count on to make it to brunch, let alone mother a child. And though it took me years to admit that to myself, when I got sober, I thought that all would change. I thought that men would see me as an excellent candidate to be their wife. I thought love would come easy. But it didn’t. And after years of being single, independent and relatively sane, I had begun to wonder how long I would have to wait for the right one to show. For any one to show. It had been five years since a man had told me he loved me. Three years since there was anyone close to what I would call a boyfriend. And a year and a half since I had even had sex. I had been on three dates in the last two years, and I knew that something had to change. Because it’s strange to be the girl with the charming personality, and the good looks, and the loving heart, who remains more single than any other friend on the block. After a while, it’s no longer strange, it just begins to hurt.
So I figured fuck it. I am 30 years old, single and a secretary, you might as well give me a cat and call me Cathy. And I can’t be Cathy. I just can’t. In fact, I absolutely refuse. At one point, I had big dreams for myself. I coulda been a contender-type dreams. Dreams which included a job where I wasn’t answering someone’s phone, where I dated a man who had found his way in life, where we moved into a house in the hills and fought over paint colors for the dining room. I didn’t get sober to watch myself shut down, stop waxing, and retire to overeating by myself in a studio apartment. That was not the plan. And so I decided I would come up with a new plan. I would give the middle finger to fate and the office of the interior which sends us our soul mates. I would go out and I would find him myself, thank you very much.
I would meet the successful partner, I would write myself the real career and maybe, one day, I would get myself that house in the hills, and the life for which I had always dreamed. But more than anything, more than a good job or a dashing boyfriend, I would get to be in love again. I would get to hold someone’s hand in the movie theater, I would get to put their name down as my emergency contact at the doctor’s office, I would get to slow dance and cook dinner and have someone pull me deep into their chest after sex and tell me that I am beautiful. I would get to feel that full-body tingle that is romance, and I really missed it.
Because as I lay there in bed at 1:00 in the morning, single, independent and relatively sane, I had very little faith that the universe was going to figure this one out for me. I had given it plenty of chances, I prayed and I meditated, and I did all the things we’re supposed to do in order to let go of loneliness and fear, and all I found was more loneliness and fear. They say that if you want to hear God laugh, tell him your plan. But I was fine with that, at least someone would be laughing. I wasn’t. Quite frankly, I was tired of holding up the façade that being thirty and single was so fucking great. Because though I had learned to go to the movies by myself, and take road trips alone, and sing loudly when no one was listening, I wanted something more. I need something more.
It’s just I am not quite sure what that more is, who that more is. It’s been so long since I had dated my type, I am not even sure what my type has become. Maybe I can’t find what I am looking for because I don’t even know what he looks like. So much is different in my life today, how could I possibly want the same things in a partner that I did four years ago? I don’t even really know what constitutes a date. But that’s what brilliant ideas are for – if we follow them, we might just find one hell of an adventure. Because I can’t help but feel that though I’ve changed, some things haven’t. That maybe who we are deep inside never changes, and isn’t that the part that loves so much, that hurts so much? Isn’t that the part that is leading this hunt? And maybe that’s it, I just don’t know yet.
So, my dear lovely Cyrene, I am going bold and selling out. I am going to date the fuck out of Los Angeles, and I am going to find love. I think my pesky determination will get me what I want this time. And let God laugh, it’s a brilliant plan, much better than the one he’s been offering these days. If I still drew up contracts, I would be ready to sign. Because at the end of the day, though I might always be an alcoholic, I’m gonna go get me a shot of being someone’s girl.
