loose (27 page)

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answering machine, pretending he’s someone else. I like this guy.

He’s someone I could be friends with, someone I could see wanting to have around. When I’m with him, it feels different than it usually does. I don’t feel like I’m jumping out of my skin when I’m next to him, like if he doesn’t touch me I might die.

One afternoon, out in my car, I see him biking home. He follows me back to my place where we sit outside in the yard. I get us water, and we stretch out in the sun on lounge chairs.

“So you write,” he says.

“I try.”

“I was an English major,” he says.

I turn to look at his light hair catching the sun. “You were?”

“Why does no one tell you not to be an English major?” he says.

“Unless you go on for a doctorate, you’ve basically set yourself up for a career as a waiter.”

I laugh. “No kidding.”

“Guidance from parents might have been helpful too.”

“What happened there?”

“I think my dad didn’t have time for it,” he says. “I have six brothers and sisters. Obviously my parents didn’t know when to stop.”

“Wow,” I say. I pour him more water. “So your mother’s a slut.” I smile at him.

He laughs. “Actually, she’s dead.”

“Oh, my God.” I cover my mouth. “Oh, God, I’m such an idiot.

I’m so sorry.”

“No worries,” he says, still smiling. “She died when I was six. It was a long time ago.”

“Sometimes I do stupid shit,” I warn him.

He shrugs. “Don’t we all.”

A few days later, we go to a movie together, a real date, and talk for hours afterward over beer and wine. He tells me more about his family, and they sound so, well, normal, so completely different from

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my own family. When we get back to his house, he kisses me in the hallway. Soon, we’re on his bed, stripping off clothes, but when he gets to my underwear I stop him.

“I don’t want to have sex,” I say. This is me talking, the same girl who usually can’t wait to get a boy inside her, who’s always looking for the moment when she can make a boy totally and utterly hers.

Something important is happening here, and it isn’t just that I’m not jumping to sex. I’m realizing love might look different for me than I thought it would. I don’t have to feel all that craziness to be in love. Instead, I can feel like I do: calm, satisfied, and whole.

He smiles and pushes my hair back from my face. “Whatever you want,” he says.

A month later, he tells me he loves me. Four months later, we move in together. Three months after that, we get engaged. This is what I’ve been waiting for, what I’ve been hoping for practically my whole life, and now that it’s here I’m thrilled. But I’m also surprised to find that I’m scared—terrified, actually. I’m still not sure I won’t screw it all up somehow, but I try to trust myself for once. He spends time with his friends. I do the same with mine. I stay focused on my work. We enjoy each other’s company, which is so different from all those times I sat with a boy, desperate for him to notice me.

I give him the space to love me. I used to think I would get married when someone finally loved me enough to choose me. But this isn’t about Michael being willing to love me any more than those other guys might have. This isn’t a story about how some guy finally saves me from myself. I’m my own hero here; I do the saving.

One night, lying in bed together, I tell Michael the truth. I tell him about all the boys, about the desperation and running. About all that loss. I wait, afraid this will be it. He’ll see me too clearly.

He’ll call everything off. But he just nods.

“I understand that,” he says. He turns and holds me. I breathe in his familiar scent. “I think a lot of people probably do the same thing.”

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“But I’m also telling you something here,” I say. “I’m not good at this.”

“At what?”

“At this,” I say. “At having a real relationship. I get jumpy and needy. I’m afraid I might freak out, do something stupid.”

He holds me closer. “We’ll be fine,” he says.

“Do you hear what I’m saying?” I say, irritated now. “I may fuck up this whole thing.”

“We’ll be fine,” he says again.

I try to pull away, but he holds me tight. “Why do you keep saying that?” I ask, still bothered.

“Because,” he says. “It’s what I believe.”

K

m y m o t h e r o f f e r s to take me shopping for my wedding dress, so I go to Chicago once again. I never thought I would be one of those brides, taken up with things like centerpieces and flowers and what font is on the invitations. I surprise myself a lot these days.

My friends laugh at how obsessed I am. But I know how hard it was to get here. I deserve to have this fun. My mother and I visit Bar-neys’ bridal shop and various specialty boutiques. I settle on a two-piece silk organza gown with stitching that looks like water rippling across. I turn around and around in the mirror. A bride.

In the airport heading home, I hug my mother.

“Thank you,” I say. “The dress is perfect.”

“It’s a beautiful dress.” She tears up. “I’m so glad you’re allowing me to share this special time with you.”

Her divorce is still fresh. This can’t be easy for her. “I’m sorry,” I say. “I know the timing isn’t great.”

“Yes, it is.” She carefully wipes at a tear, not wanting to mess up her makeup. “We could all use a celebration.”

I smile. I get it. This is her way of being genuinely happy for me.

At the wedding, she stands tall, her lips pursed. She finds a way

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to slip into her conversations that she’s a doctor even when nobody’s asked. She’s horrified when Michael’s and my friends call her Mrs.

Cohen instead of the name she changed it to after the divorce, and instead of Doctor. This is hard for her, watching me move on, seeing my father with his girlfriend. Dad small-talks with her. He’s jokey and fun, but also uncomfortable. Really, he’s no different from the way he was when they were together.

“This is a great guy,” Dad said on the phone soon after meeting Michael.

“I know,” I said.

“He’s thoughtful and considerate. What happened?”

“Ha ha,” I said, but really I was annoyed. Did he think I wasn’t worthy of someone like Michael?

“I’m just happy you found him,” Dad said. “Now don’t screw it up.”

I had hung up feeling hurt, feeling old familiar things I had hoped I was done with. But seeing him at the wedding, seeing him scramble to make everyone happy, so insecure around my mother, I hear his words differently. He meant, “Don’t wind up like me.”

K

n o t l o n g a f t e r the wedding, I go out with a few friends to watch a band. I sip at my wine and laugh with the friends. A boy in a booth on the other side of the bar catches my eye. Big eyes, long brown hair. He smiles at me, and I smile back. The band goes away, and so do my friends. I’m back there, the yearning, the hoping. Just me, my body, and this boy. After an hour, I decide I’d best leave. I stand to go, and I see him stand too. I make my way to the door, but he catches up to me.

“Hey,” he says. “I’m Mark.” He touches my arm, and my face grows hot. What have I done?

I bite my lip, embarrassed.

“We were watching each other, am I right?”

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I grimace. “I’m sorry,” I say. “I’m married.”

Confusion crosses his face. And maybe a hint of rejection. “Oh.”

“I’m sorry,” I say again.

I get out of there fast.

At home, I change into pajamas and brush my teeth. Michael’s already asleep, so I tiptoe into the room. For a moment I just watch him sleeping. I’m scared. I can admit that. I’m really, truly scared. I think of his words. We’ll be fine. But now I’m not so sure. Maybe he doesn’t get it. Maybe he thinks I’m not going to struggle anymore just because we’re together. Or maybe he just plumb trusts me, which frightens me even more. I can’t hurt him, not this time. Not when I’ve finally figured out how to accept being loved.

I climb into bed, and half-asleep he rolls toward me. He slips an arm around my middle and nuzzles his face into my neck. I close my eyes and listen to him breathing. How lovely that sound is. Maybe, I think, I don’t have to be great at this; maybe I just have to be good enough.

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Acknowledgments

Because this book was an effort that spanned a full decade, the people I have to thank for its creation are almost innumerable. But I will do my best.

The seed for Loose Girl began in 1996, long before I had lived out its last page. My teachers at the time, especially Garrett Hongo, Ehud Havazelet, and Chang-rae Lee, offered the encouragement, guidance, and intellectual understanding of my work to carry with me long after I left their classrooms. Sally Tisdale saw a very early draft of the first chapter at a workshop and said simply, “Keep writing.” Patricia Benesh and Rebecca Grabill offered generous, thoughtful direction and critique as first readers of the book. These gifted writers and mentors could not have known how much their words riveted, inspired, and challenged me.

The work of Naomi Wolf, Susan Bordo, Judith Butler, Audre Lorde, Mary Pipher, Lyn Mikel Brown and Carol Gilligan, Joan Jacobs Brumberg, and Ariel Levy helped me think through the problem I was trying to pinpoint in my story. Likewise, Marya Hornbacher’s Wasted, Elizabeth Wurtzel’s Prozac Nation, Lucy Grealy’s Autobiography

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of a Face, and Koren Zailckas’s Smashed set a precedent for the kind of story I wanted to tell and inspired me to keep pushing myself to do so.

My agent, Ethan Ellenberg, kindly warned me about the repercussions of exposing myself with such a personal story. Only a person thinking above all else about my happiness would even consider this, and Ethan has showed himself to be that person again and again. I also owe Ethan tremendous gratitude for getting the book into Brenda Copeland’s hands. Brenda loved, nurtured, and understood my story as though it were her own child. After nailing a particularly difficult scene together, Brenda wrote me, “Truly, this is why I love my job. Moments like these.” What more could an author want in her editor? Brilliance? Vision? Well, she has those, too.

Thanks to all the wonderful people at Hyperion—particularly Kath-leen Carr, Rachelle Mandik, Robert S. Miller, Michelle Ishay, Na-vorn Johnson, Allison McGeehon, and Ellen Archer—who have cared enough about this book to tend to it and me with care.

Thanks, as well, to Charlotte Cole at Ebury Press in the UK for her support and good work, and for kindly answering all my obnox-ious questions.

Thanks to Terri Brooks-Hernandez, Bevin Cahill, and my many other supportive and loving friends throughout the years. Tommy Mang, my first and only best friend-boy, I owe you much and miss you. Thanks also to Nadine Hamester who cared for my boys while I wrote. And to N.L., who remains in my heart, and to C.

Thanks to the many girls who shared their stories with me over the years. I hope my words then and now have made them and so many others like them feel less alone.

Tremendous gratitude to my father and mother, and to S.B. who made me feel loved when I most needed it. I hope my late grandparents know how much their generosity and kindness sustained and encouraged me. Thank you, Tyler Cohen, my fellow survivor, for never faltering in your love for me.

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Thanks to Cat Power, Richard Buckner, Uncle Tupelo, Josh Ritter, Wilco, and Gillian Welch, who provided me with the mood for my story. And since I’m thanking people here, thanks for the likes of Adrian Grenier, Leonardo DiCaprio, Emile Hirsch, Matt Dillon, and Jemaine Clement of the Flight of the Conchords. I may be married now, but I’m not dead.

Love and gratitude to Michael, who has been a support and a friend in more ways than I can list here. Most of all, I thank Ezra and Griffin, who inspired me to write constantly since their births, who have taught me to love fully and with my whole self, and who I hope will forgive me someday for writing a book for all their friends to read about their mother’s sex life.

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About the Author

Kerry Cohen is a psychotherapist who works with teens and their families.

She received her MFA in creative writing from the University of Oregon and an MA in counseling psychology. A mother of two, she is a native of New Jersey but makes her home in Portland, Oregon.

Credits

Design by Victoria Hartman

Copyright

LOOSE GIRL. Copyright © 2008 by Kerry Cohen. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of Hyperion e-books.

Adobe Acrobat eBook Reader April 2008

ISBN 978-1-4013-9201-7

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