Girlfriends (Patrick Sanchez) (7 page)

Gina and Griffin sipped their beers and chatted for a while until Griffin got the nerve up to lean closer to Gina and kiss her. Gina immediately regretted ever letting him into her apartment. When she wrapped her arms around him, all she could focus on were the rolls of fat around his waist. His breath smelled like an ashtray, and he was a lousy kisser. He even kept his cap on the whole time they were on the sofa. It was so ridiculous to Gina. It was obvious that he was bald underneath, and he was silly to think he was hiding it with his stupid cap.

In spite of this, Gina continued to kiss him and agreed when Griffin suggested they move to the bedroom. She didn’t quite know how to get rid of him without hurting his feelings. Why she cared about the feelings of a sleazy fat man she’d just met a few hours earlier was a whole different issue. Eventually, in her inebriated state, she decided it would be easier to just sleep with him and hope he would leave quickly afterward.

After all was said and done . . . mostly done . . . Gina lay in bed next to Griffin, feeling disgusted—absolutely disgusted. She usually felt a tinge of regret and a bit sleazy on the few occasions when she had brought guys home from the bars. But this time it was different. Generally, it was a nice-looking young man, about her age, lying next to her, and he was usually trying to figure out a good excuse for vacating the premises now that the sex was over. This time it was a short, fat, balding man who was probably old enough to be her father. She began to feel nauseated for the third or fourth time that evening and went into the bathroom. She’d had way too much to drink, and having sex with one of the seven dwarfs certainly didn’t help her upset stomach. Feeling queasy, she sat on the floor, crossing her arms over the toilet seat. In a drunken haze she buried her head in her arms and began crying hysterically, all the while managing to keep it quiet, so Griffin wouldn’t hear her. As she sobbed, she had an awful vision of herself still going to bars like Rumors twenty years from now.

As the crying quieted and the dizziness passed, Gina went to the sink and tried to gain her composure. She looked in the mirror and just wanted to cry again. Instead, she slipped on a robe, grabbed a towel, cleaned herself up, and went back into the bedroom. Griffin was asleep on the bed, and Gomez lay there wide awake, looking at her, his big brown eyes glistening in the darkness. She didn’t even want to face the dog. She nudged Griffin awake and offered him the towel. He declined and started rubbing her leg.

“I think you should go. I’m really not feeling very well. Guess I had too much to drink,” Gina said in a gentle voice, hiding her disgust at the fact that he wouldn’t use the towel. He was gross enough without being wet and sticky on top of it.

“I really don’t think I should be driving at this point. I had a little too much to drink myself,” Griffin replied.

“Maybe you could stay with your friend down the hall.” At that point, Gina didn’t care if he ran his car into a telephone pole and decapitated himself. She just wanted him out of her apartment. Griffin ignored her suggestion and lay next to her with his eyes shut.

“Well, I hate to ask, but my mother’s coming early tomorrow, and I don’t think she would be pleased to find you here,” Gina lied.

“Okay, I’ll sleep for a few hours, then leave,” Griffin replied, barely lifting his head from the pillow.

“Look! You have to go now. My friend, Peter, lives down the hall. Either get out, or I’ll call him to get you out. I’m sorry to be such a bitch, but I really don’t feel well. You need to go.”

“Okay, okay,” Griffin said, sitting up and fumbling for his clothes.

Gina looked the other way while he got dressed. She couldn’t bear to see what she had gone to bed with—those rolls of fat and his ridiculous bikini undershorts. Griffin finished dressing, put his cap on, and Gina showed him to the door. He knew better than to try to kiss her good-bye or ask for her number.

Gina quickly closed the door behind him, thankful he was gone and hoping never to see him again. She locked the dead bolt and went back into the bathroom. She slipped off her robe and turned on the faucet in the tub, getting the water as hot as she thought she could stand it. After she stepped into the tub, she switched the shower on and let the hot water cascade over her. She soaped herself up from head to toe and scrubbed her body with a washcloth. She wanted every trace of Griffin off her. She soaped up and rinsed three times and washed her hair before finally getting out of the shower. As she toweled off and took a quick swig of mouthwash, she once again caught a glimpse of herself in the bathroom mirror and quickly turned away.

Once she was all dried off and had run a comb through her wet hair, she slipped on a cotton nightshirt and got back into bed. Damn! She could smell him on the sheets—kind of a musky cigarette smell. She immediately hopped off the bed and grabbed some clean sheets from the closet. She slumped the old linens into the corner of the bedroom and stretched the fresh sheets over the mattress. Once she had the clean sheets in place, she lay back down and the dog curled up next to her. The sun slowly started to rise as Gina tried to put the whole evening behind her and drift off to sleep.

Blue Sundays

G
ina lay in bed, wishing Linda would stop calling. This was the fourth time since about eleven o’clock. After her first try she stopped leaving messages on the machine, but Gina knew it was her. She obviously was more than a little curious and wanted to know what had happened to Gina—why she had left the Phase without any notice. Linda must have been really intrigued and maybe a little worried. Gina never actually left her at a bar before—well, at least not without any explanation.

Gina groaned and reached over to get the phone. “Hello.”

“So what happened to you?”

“What do you mean?” Gina replied, knowing exactly what she meant.

“What do I mean? I saw you take off from the Phase with that short girl with the bad perm. Are you like a fucking dyke now?” Linda said only half jokingly. “I saw that chick you left with, Gina, and believe me, you can do better.”

“Very funny, Linda, and no, I regret to inform you, I’m not a lesbian. That was Annie from high school. Remember? I hadn’t seen her since graduation, and we just went for coffee to catch up a little. It was too loud at the Phase. We could barely hear each other.”

“Annie Harrison? Wow, how the mighty have fallen. She looks like crap. Anyway, thanks for telling me you were leaving,” Linda said, sounding a tad annoyed and wondering what on earth Gina and Annie had to catch up on. They had barely spoken to each other in high school.

“I’m sorry, Linda. I was a wee bit toasted at the time. I just didn’t think about it. How was the rest of your night?” Gina asked, trying to change the subject.

“Nothing interesting happened. I left shortly after you and your new
girlfriend.”

“Ha-ha, very funny, Linda. Listen, that’s my call waiting. Let me give you a ring later.”

“Hello,” Gina said after tapping over to the other call.

“Hey, sweetie. How are you?”

“Hi, Shirley. I’m really hung over and don’t feel very well.”

“Collin dumped me last night.” Shirley responded as if she hadn’t even heard Gina express her own discomfort.

“What do you mean, he dumped you? Don’t you have to have a relationship in order to get dumped?”

“We had a relationship.”

“Mother, he pages you a couple of times a week when his wife is asleep so he can come over and fuck you. That’s hardly a relationship.”

“It was more than that.”

“Not to him, Shirley. I warned you over and over again.”

“Thanks for the sympathy. I’m really upset. And do you know what the worst part is? He didn’t even dump me to be faithful to his wife. He has another honey on the side, maybe two for all I know. Can you believe that?”

“Sure, I can believe it. What did you really expect from him, Shirley?”

“I don’t know, but I’m upset, and I’m pissed—that’s what I am.”

“Look, Shirley, I’m really not feeling well. Do you want me to get him back for you?”

“How?”

“What’s his home phone number?”

“Let me see. I have it, but I wasn’t allowed to call him there. I could only page him or call him on his cell phone. Oh, here it is,” Shirley said before reciting the phone number to Gina.

“Okay, I’ll call you back later.”

“What are you going to do?”

“I’ll let you know, Shirley,” Gina said before clicking the phone and dialing Collin’s home phone number.

“Hello,” Collin’s wife said after picking up the phone.

“Hello, is Collin there?” Gina asked in the sexiest tone she could muster after just waking up.

“He’s out for a couple of hours. May I ask who’s calling?”

“This is Raquel,” Gina lied before adding, “Oh, I’m sorry, is this the maid? He told me to hang up if the maid answered.”

Gina hung up the phone, feeling that her work was done, and went to the kitchen to pop some aspirin and her antidepressant. She grabbed some orange juice and got back in bed to watch television. The night before was truly one of the most eventful nights she had had in a long time. She kept having visions of herself in the mirror, that lonely young woman standing there naked, with the bloodshot eyes from the crying and the drinking, and her hair completely frayed. But the worst, the absolute worst, was the look of sadness in her face. She felt like a character in a made-for-TV movie. One of those really cheesy ones where the nice girl becomes a slut and then has a revelation over the toilet and goes on to save poor children in India.

She tried to convince herself that she was being too hard on herself. Compared to other people she knew, she was almost saintly. Since college she’d probably only slept with a dozen guys, and she wouldn’t go home with just anyone. She had to hit it off with them, and they had better damn well be attractive. In an age of AIDS and Lord knows what else, she wasn’t about to take that kind of risk with any joe schmo who came along. But all of this changed after the “Griffin incident.” What happened to her standards? Why had she sunk so low? She was only twenty-eight. She certainly wasn’t looking old and haggard yet. She shouldn’t have to settle for a guy like Griffin for at least another ten years. Maybe another fifteen if the Pond’s Age-Defying Cream actually worked.

Passing on a Milky Way

C
heryl had just gotten back from Whatsa Bagel on 18th Street and was settling in for a relaxed Sunday afternoon. She was finishing her coffee and sitting next to the phone with the
Washington City Paper
in hand. She decided she was going to respond to the two ads she had circled the night before and was still trying to get up the nerve to actually pick up the phone. She hadn’t really prepared anything to say. She didn’t want her response to sound rehearsed. She wanted it to be relaxed and casual—even if she wasn’t.

Eventually, she picked up the phone, dialed the 900 number, and responded to the appropriate prompts. When she entered the code for the first personal ad, she was immediately turned off by his recorded greeting:

“Hi. My name is Tyrol. I’ve been told that I’m very good-looking, but I don’t get off on it or anything. I work out at Gold’s four days a week and, if I do say so myself, I have a defined muscular build. I have short black hair, brown eyes, and skin the color of a Milky Way candy bar. I enjoy the finer things in life: wine, nice restaurants, fast cars, and beautiful women. I own my home, drive a BMW 500 series, and work in high finance. I’m looking for an attractive woman with brains and beauty who doesn’t mind taking care of her man. . . .”

As soon as Cheryl heard the part about “taking care of her man” she pressed the pound key to stop the message. She had heard enough. His tone was so pompous and patronizing, not to mention the “skin the color of a Milky Way candy bar” thing—how stupid was that? And although Cheryl had to admit that owning a home and driving a luxury car were certainly things she would like in a guy, she didn’t think it was appropriate to put something like that in your initial greeting. Those were things you let your date subtly find out about, so it doesn’t appear as if you’re bragging.

Once she bypassed Tyrol, she skimmed the paper for the other ad that she had circled and punched in the appropriate code.

“Hi, thanks for answering my ad. My name is Hal, and I live just outside the city in Alexandria. I really hate talking on these things, so I’m going to keep it brief. Just to get the stats out of the way: I’m 32 years old, 5’10”, 165 pounds, light brown hair, and have green eyes. I’m certainly not buff, but I know my way to the gym and I’m in reasonably good shape. I like doing virtually anything. I enjoy hiking in the summer, going to the beach, restaurants, movies, biking, reading, you name it. I guess I’m really looking to meet some new friends in the area and see what happens. So, if you would leave your name and number and tell me a little bit about yourself, I’ll give you a call back and maybe we can meet for coffee or something. Thanks again for taking the time to answer the ad.”

Cheryl really liked the sound of Hal’s voice. He just sounded like a nice guy, not cocky or arrogant like Tyrol. He seemed friendly and maybe a bit humble. She pressed the key to leave a response.

“Hi, I’m Cheryl . . .”

She pressed the key to start again. “Hi, I’m Cheryl . . .”

Once again she pressed the key to start over. She couldn’t think of anything to say.

“Okay, just relax, Cheryl,” she told herself, hitting the key again.

“Hi, I’m Cheryl and thought I’d leave a quick response to your ad. I agree with you about talking on these recordings, so I will be brief as well. Let’s see . . . I’m about five five, one hundred ten pounds, African American, short black hair, brown eyes . . . gosh, what else? I’d like to think I’m an attractive, fun person. I don’t really have any specific hobbies, but I’m pretty much up for anything. I like doing things outside now that it’s summer, hanging out with friends, and I enjoy cooking from time to time . . . things like that. Anyway, your ad seemed pretty nice, so I thought I’d go ahead and respond. Hope to hear from you.”