I Loved, I Lost, I Made Spaghetti (17 page)

He accompanied me to church the next morning and held my hand during the service. The weekend after that, I went to Miami
for a book fair. I ran on the beach every day, thinking about Mitch and listening to the Strokes on my iPod. While I was there,
he sent a postcard to my house. It said something about missing me, or so he says; I never received it. He said it was the
most romantic thing he had ever done
.

From then on, Mitch stayed over at my apartment nearly every night. This was never planned. Inevitably at around nine o’clock
I’d get a call from an unknown number; it would be Mitch calling from the cell of some other AA member (he went to meetings
just about every evening, and he didn’t have his own phone). I’d be done with whatever drink or dinner thing I had that evening
with another adult and ready to greet Mitch with his favorite ginger beer that I kept my refrigerator stocked with for just
this sort of spontaneous (yet regular) occurrence. Good thing I broke down and signed up for cable. We would lie on the sofa
and watch TV until late at night. I supported the TV part to get to the sex part, which usually happened at two or three in
the morning. Every now and then I would get up from the couch to make us something to eat. His thriftiness must have been
rubbing off on me, because one evening in order to utilize some week-old cheese and day-old bread, I threw together something
I called
mozzarella en carrozza
and which Mitch, a WASP with no continental inclinations whatsoever, couldn’t pronounce
.
I figured this
wasn’t much different from grilled cheese and wouldn’t overwhelm his naive palate. It was another resounding success.

Italian Grilled Cheese for Teenage WASPs

Olive oil

Italian bread, or even a French baguette (1 to 2 days old is fine), thinly sliced

Mozzarella, thinly sliced (this may have been sitting around a couple of days, too)

1 to 2 eggs (depending on how much you are making), lightly beaten

Heat olive oil in a nonstick skillet over medium-high heat. Make little sandwiches with the bread and cheese and dip in the
egg. When the olive oil is hot, slip in the sandwiches (you may insert a toothpick in each for the cooking if you find they
are falling apart) and cook until golden on both sides and cheese is melted. Press with a kettle or pot full of water to flatten
(if you’ve used toothpicks, remove them when the melted cheese has glued everything into place and press them then).

Yield: 1 loaf of bread makes 8 to 12 sandwiches.

There was much to be said for my new and altogether different lifestyle. I adapted easily to the role of teenager, especially
since there were no parents in bed upstairs while we writhed around on the couch. Having never dated a teenager when that
would have been appropriate, I relished getting a little taste late in life of what it might have felt like. What a drag that
instead of school, I had to get up and go to work in the morning while Mitch could lie in bed. He would watch me dress as
he dozed. “You look like a substitute teacher,” he said, examining my outfit one morning. I was offended and brought it up
in an e-mail later that day.

“No, no,” he replied, “I meant like the substitute teacher that you lust after for the rest of your life.” He’d leave handwritten
notes around my apartment thanking me for the previous night’s dinner or that morning’s coffee. “Everything associated with
you is delicious,” read one.

These little things made him worth the trouble and filled me with hope that it would work out between us and we could buy
a little house together in Williamsburg. Yes, I’d even live in Williamsburg if that was what was required.

Mitch spent his days in his apartment writing, though his career was at a bit of a standstill when we were together. His second
novel, which was geared toward adults, was less successful than the first. A third novel, which had just come out from a San
Francisco–based indie publisher, was about two teenage boys trying to get with the coolest teenage girl. I tried to persuade
him to stick to young adult fiction, as that voice did come naturally to him. But Mitch argued—quite persuasively—that this
meant giving up dreams of being the next John Updike, and he wasn’t quite ready to let go of those. Mitch wrote all day long,
and he wrote fast; he had boxes of novels for adults in his apartment, but he couldn’t sell any of them.

One was a novel about a thirty-one-year-old woman who was loosely based on me. She used the same toiletries I did and even
wore the same kinds of shoes. She was a woman riding high in her magazine career and was much more successful than I. She
was a hard-ass, a tough boss, someone who yelled at people and got everything she wanted. Things Mitch imagined I was but
I was not and never could be. I helped him to get that one in the hands of a few editors, having a personal stake in the project,
even though it wasn’t
really
me. No one bit.

Mitch liked visiting me at my real-life office, not just for the free office supplies and books I’d give him, but because
he was excited about my work, even if I didn’t have a car and driver to take me back and forth from it every day like that
character he created. He was just as impressed that my job allowed me to talk to Harold Bloom on a daily basis, and what’s
more, to be addressed by him as “little bear” (which is what he called everyone he was fond of). Not only was Harold the smartest,
but he was one of the kindest authors I ever worked with. I first got to know him during my Ethan days, and like the father
I no longer had, he was extremely concerned about Ethan not stepping up to the connubial plate. “A very handsome fellow and
quite smart,” Harold declared in his deep, reflective, and just a tad British-accented tone, “but I fear he may be a mama’s
boy.” The case wasn’t quite as simple as Harold supposed, but I was honored by his concern.

Mitch supported me through two big career decisions. After I interviewed for the job I eventually took at
Harper’s Magazine,
he came over to my apartment and spent an entire day with me weighing the pros and cons of the move. While I was on the phone
with various advisers, including Professor Bloom, Mitch scribbled down questions for me to ask. Later, when I considered leaving
Harper’s
for another magazine, I called Mitch, who was visiting his parents in Portland at the time, to agonize over the decision.
There was no one better to discuss the dilemma with. Not that he was any less lost than I was over what to do, but he was
as revved up as I was over the two phenomenal gigs I was forced to choose between. Mitch was totally there when I needed him
for stuff like that.

Eventually, he came to terms with what seemed to be his calling and even had a dream agent in mind for the crossover. He sent
her a new novel he hoped she would represent. When she phoned him to discuss some qualms she had with the manuscript, Mitch
insisted on a meeting. He sat her and her staff down and explained to them what they weren’t getting. They signed him on the
spot. Did I mention he could be incredibly persuasive when he wanted to be?

There was another time that Mitch departed from the role of hapless teen he usually played and resembled the man of forty-two
he actually was. This occurred on Sunday mornings when he hunkered down with
The New York Times’
“Mutual Funds Report” to see how his investments were faring. Though Mitch had no pending contracts when we were dating,
he was by no means broke. He had a bunch of money in the bank from the advance, royalties, and movie deal from his first book.
But instead of spending it, he invested it in mutual funds. How many men can introduce a girl to electroclash
and
the index fund? Seven years later, my Ladytron CD gathers dust and my Vanguard account steadily loses value. I’ll stick with
the latter despite the current volatility. I may toss the CD; I never really liked it anyway.

Mitch kept his overhead low, his rent was cheap, and his Brooks Brothers oxford-cloth shirts came from the Salvation Army
(though he did spend on “tennis shoes,” as he called them; it was important to have the correct Adidas or Pumas). He would
stop to consider any old shoes or clothing that neighbors left out on their stoops to give away (a brownstone Brooklyn custom)
or those, most likely stolen from cars, that drug addicts sold in the Second Avenue subway station. I suspected he did this
mainly to get a rise out of me, so I encouraged him. “Yes, those shoes
do
look really nice, go ahead, try them on,” I would say. When I wasn’t feeding him, he was at home eating hot dogs. One rare
night I spent at his place, I made us a frittata with eggs and frozen peas from the bodega on the corner. Mitch said grace
before we ate, thanking God for me and for his new agent.

Frugal Frittata

1 cup frozen peas (or fresh if you are lucky enough to have them—Mitch never was)

Salt

1 tablespoon butter

1 tablespoon olive oil

1 small red onion, chopped

6 eggs

Freshly ground pepper

¼ cup freshly grated parmigiano

Fill a medium saucepan halfway with water, put on high heat, and bring to a simmer. Add peas and a little salt and cook for
5 minutes. Drain and set aside to cool.

Melt the butter with the oil in a cast-iron or other ovenproof skillet over medium heat, add the onions, and cook until almost
soft.

Preheat broiler.

Lightly beat the eggs, then stir in salt, pepper, parmigiano, and the cooled peas. Turn up the heat a bit on the onions and
then add the eggs; allow them to set, then stir once or twice with a wooden spoon. Once the bottom is firm, put the pan under
the broiler and cook until the top is golden, 3 to 4 more minutes. Watch constantly—with broiling, there are only a few seconds
standing between beautifully golden and terribly burned.

Remove from the oven and allow the frittata to rest for a minute or two. Serve in the skillet or flip onto a plate.

Yield: 4 servings.

I invited Mitch to spend Thanksgiving with my family in Connecticut. His only other option was to have dinner with a group
of old men from AA. Or so he said. Mitch was expert at downgrading his friends, his family, himself, and most of the situations
he found himself in. I thought it was a pose; maybe it’s what he really believed. He debated his answer for three days. Then
he called, his voice shuddering with fear. “I want to come to your house for Thanksgiving.”

Time to focus on yet another dilemma: what Mitch should bring my mother as a gift. I wanted her to like Mitch, so this was
a dilemma for me as well.

“She likes chocolate,” I said.

“But I don’t know what kind to get.”

I had Mitch come meet me at La Maison du Chocolat, which was across the street from my office. Everything at La Maison du
Chocolat costs a fortune. In fact, the very idea of Mitch Smith standing inside La Maison du Chocolat makes me giggle, even
now as I’m writing, but impressing my mother was more important than a few moments of discomfort for Mitch in a fancy French
chocolate shop. It took a good twenty minutes of scanning the shelves before we found something suitable that was pretty but
wouldn’t break Mitch’s fiercely protected bank: a big block of baking chocolate. Presenting it to my mother was another trauma
Mitch couldn’t handle, so I did it for him as he stood by. I explained that it was very fine baking chocolate but that she
could just break off a piece and eat if she wanted to, just as the saleswoman at the store told us. My mother was delighted.
So was Mitch.

____

At dinner,
my family asked how we met.

“I got this big crush on her at a party three years ago, but she didn’t notice me. When she had nothing else going on, she
called me,” Mitch announced.

Mitch didn’t much like following Ethan. He knew I’d wanted to marry my last boyfriend because he’d probed me about the reason
for our split and I’d told him the truth. I’d also tried to tell him that Ethan and I hadn’t worked out because Mitch was
my “destiny.”