Misery Loves Cabernet (3 page)

I hear what sounds like a tuba playing on Drew’s end of the line. “I don’t know,” Drew answers, “but if I wanted to be sexually involved with a hippo, I would date my old high-school girlfriend.”

I spend the next thirty minutes making arrangements to have Ida picked up and moved to a wildlife refuge, and calling a stable and a deli so that when I get to 3952 Greenlawn, I will be armed with one hundred pounds of grass, and a pastrami on rye with curly fries.

Well, on the plus side, I haven’t thought about Jordan’s e-mail for two of those thirty minutes.

Man, why can’t I stop thinking about Jordan? Why am I letting this relationship color every other aspect of my life? It’s becoming like OCD: I’m obsessed with figuring out what I have to do to get him to want me all the time. I have entire conversations between the two of us—completely in my head. All I can think about lately is kissing him.

I once read that an alcoholic’s brain is set up to always think about finding a way to get more alcohol delivered to the body. No matter how satisfying the job the alcoholic holds, she thinks about happy hour at the end of the day. No matter how fulfilling a family life the alcoholic has, or what hobbies she enjoys, all her brain does is compartmentalize those things while mentally in search of the next drink.

For me: I’m not appreciating anything great that’s going on in my life because in my mind all I’m doing is killing time until the next time I get to see Jordan.

I’m a Jordanoholic.

Sigh. Maybe admitting it is the first step to recovery.

I look over at the cigarettes centerpiecing my dining-room table with a longing that should only be reserved for high-school crushes and Johnny Depp sightings.

I pick up the cigarettes from the table, and examine the little cellophane tab on the pack.

One pull and they could all be mine. . . .

Maybe some nicotine gum would make me saner.

Maybe a new relationship would make me saner.

Goddamn it. I am so tired of being a silver medalist.

Every two years, I find myself feeling sorry for the person who wins the silver medal at the Olympics. They spend their entire lives focused on one goal: to win the gold medal in an event, in anything from men’s skiing to women’s synchronized swimming. Years and years of training: waking up at five in the morning when your friends are sleeping in; enduring bruises, sprains, and broken bones while your friends are off at the mall. Forgoing school dances, or the prom, so that you can travel to amateur athletic events in states you never had any interest in seeing. So much sacrifice, just in the desperate hope that you will one day attain your goal, the elusive gold medal.

And that’s what dating is like. You spend years and years training: You work out, (okay, I don’t, but I know I should), you diet, you learn how to wear the right clothes, apply the right makeup—anything to make you look good to the opposite sex. You study; you listen to all of your friends’ theories on how to find the perfect man. You read books about relationships, or how to improve yourself to get a relationship. (This includes everything from diet and exercise books to self-improvement books.)

And then you train in the methods of dating: The first few years, you order the salad on the first date and barely touch your food. Then, by your early twenties, you realize that men would prefer you to actually eat, so you order the chicken, or the second cheapest thing on the menu if you don’t want to look too obvious. Then you realize they’re onto you about the chicken, and you look ridiculous so, fuck it, you order the steak.

In other words, you observe your skills in this arena, you adjust your behavior, you perfect your technique. The goal is always the same: Do anything you have to do to get that gold medal!

And—finally!—you find the guy.
The one
.

Only it’s not everything you want it to be, and the relationship just makes you feel like you’re almost there, but not quite.

A big honkin’ silver medal.

Why do relationships always have to be so hard? Why must we constantly be tested? Shouldn’t it be enough to find the guy? And what is it about our genetic makeup that even when we have the guy, we still aren’t sure what to do next?

I shake my head to clear the cobwebs.
Hippo
, I think as I throw down the cigarettes, grab my purse, and head out the door.

Maybe Ida can keep my mind off Jordan for a few more minutes.

Oh, crap.

I knew it! Four hours, and one dead iPhone later, I
knew
I’d come home to a blinking red light on my answering machine.

I glare at the machine—not so much because I hate the machine as because I hate my boss. I press
PLAY
.

“Hey, it’s me!” I hear Jordan yell into the phone. “It’s about midnight my time, middle of the afternoon your time. I tried to call you on your cell twice, but the weirdest thing happened. The first time I heard this whooshing noise, and then the second time I called back, it went right to your voice mail.”

“Well, of course you heard a whooshing noise,” I say out loud to the machine. “Wasn’t it obvious your call would trigger my cell to play the ringtone ‘Jungle Boogie,’ scaring Ida the Hippo enough to unlock her jaw, and roar so loud that I would drop the phone into the pool?”

“Anyway, so I’m calling you here, in the hopes you’ll pick up . . . ,” Jordan continues to yell into the phone.

“Jordan, love,” I hear in a lilting (very female) French accent, “did you want a pint of Guinness or a Stella Artois?”

“Stella is fine,” I hear him yell to the mystery girl. Then, I listen to the people in the background laughing and talking as Jordan waits for me to pick up. “Okay, you’re not there. Which is not a big deal, I know you have a life and you’re not sitting by the phone waiting for me.”

Was that a joke?!
He says it lightheartedly, like it was some kind of joke.

“I was just calling to wish you a happy Halloween and to tell you I miss you. They don’t have any pumpkins here, so I turned an orange into a jack-o’-lantern. It’s. Not. Pretty.”

He pauses for a moment. Maybe hoping I’ll pick up?

“Anyway, I’m going to have a quick beer with a couple of the crew guys, then head off to bed. Call me if you get this in the next hour or so. Miss you! Bye!”

And he’s gone.

“Two oh seven,” the automated voice on my machine tells me.

Three hours ago. Which means he’s asleep by now, and I can’t call him.

Or, he’s having sex with that bimbo (or whatever word the French use for bimbo), in which case I could call him, but then I look like the clueless girlfriend.

Ex-girlfriend.

Good friend?

I open my purse, and look at the recently opened box of Nicorette gum I bought from Costco on my way home. One hundred pieces of heaven, each with four milligrams of nicotine.

I didn’t want to resort to nicotine gum. It just seemed like trading one addiction for another. But when I dropped my iPhone into the pool, one of my many unopened packs of cigarettes went in with it. And, despite Ida’s roar, I almost went in after them.

It’s when I put my toe into the pool water that I learned that when hippos feel threatened, they spin their tails while pooping, thereby spraying the shit everywhere, including all over me and Drew.

I then learned that a hippo can get so freaked out if you get near it that it can throw itself on top of you and crush you to death.

Despite the poop and the threat of death, I was still tempted to go in after my cigarettes. It was at that moment I realized that I might be more addicted to the little sticks of joy than I had been willing to own up to.

After admitting I might be more addicted to cigarettes than a 1930s beat reporter, I bit the bullet, bought the gum, and bit down into my first precious piece on the way home.

The moment I felt the gum start tingling in my mouth, I was sure the experience would be better than an orgasm. I actually pulled the car over and parked for a few minutes just so that I could enjoy my gum.

The package said to chew at least nine pieces a day for the first six weeks. That was not going to be a problem.

I pop another piece of nicotine gum out of its foil prison, and into my mouth.

Then I take a deep breath, and continue to ponder the mystery of Jordan.

Okay, on the one hand, clearly Jordan misses me: he called me twice on my cell, then called me at home, then waited for me to pick up. That definitely sounds like he wanted to talk to me.

On the other hand, he didn’t say “Call me whenever you get this.” And he did say he was having beers with some crew “guys,” but clearly that wasn’t the case—there was at least one girl there, maybe more.

But maybe he just said “guys” meaning “people.” And, if he were trying to hide something from me, he wouldn’t be so stupid as to let me hear the girl he’s interested in buy him a drink. Right? And maybe that was just the cocktail waitress who was just being friendly. . . .

I pick up the phone, ready to call Dawn and Kate, to play them the message, and to get their opinions.

It’s at this moment, staring at my phone, that I see how crazy I’ve become. And even I’m tired of it.

I hang up the phone, take a deep breath (okay, granted, only after putting my index and middle fingers up to my lips, then inhaling an invisible Marlboro), and calm myself down.

Tonight, I’m going to focus on me. I’m going to enjoy the party, talk to whomever I want, and get on with my life.

Two hours and four pieces of gum later, as I finish applying mascara to my lashes, I hear the doorbell ring.

I put on my dinosaur head, then lift my big green feet up and down, slowly making my way to the front door. As I do, I hear a dinosaur roar, and the sound of big foot stomps crashing down.

I open the door to Dawn, who is wearing a formfitting trench coat with the hem taken up enough to resemble a modest minidress. She wears dark glasses, and has unbuttoned the top button of her trench coat to make guys wonder if she’s wearing anything underneath.

“Slutty secret agent?” I ask, guessing.

“First of all, it’s sexy, not slutty. Slutty is when you unbutton your blouse to your navel, and your dress is short enough for men to see your garter belt.”

“I stand corrected,” I concede.

“And I stand here mortified,” Dawn responds. She walks around me, scrutinizing my dinosaur costume. “What the hell are you wearing?”

“You like it?” I ask, so excited. “I got it for free from the costume designer on Drew’s last movie. I couldn’t wait to show it off. Watch, it makes dinosaur noises.”

I happily stomp up and down in my costume. As I do, my feet trigger a sound like a T. rex advancing toward his prey. Then, when I stop, a thunderous dinosaur roar echoes throughout my living room.

My face beams with pride as I look at Dawn. This is the coolest costume I think I’ve ever owned.

Dawn puts her hands on her hips. “Put on your old cheerleader costume.”

I clench my jaw, purse my lips, and narrow my eyes at her. “First of all, a cheerleader wears a
uniform
, not a costume. . . .”

“First of all, the fact that you not only have that information, but choose to put it out there, is pathetic,” Dawn counters.

I ignore her and continue my point. “Second of all, I wear that every year. And every year it’s the same thing: You and Kate make fun of me for having ever been a cheerleader.”

“Yes, and it is the highlight of my Halloween, so for that I thank you.”

“And every year I have at least two guys ask me if I’m wearing underwear, ten guys ask me to give them a cheer, four ask if I can do the splits, and at least one drunk guy ask me what naughty things I can do with my pom-poms.”

“No, wait!” Dawn says, hitting me on the arm and laughing. “
That’s
always the highlight of my Halloween. You never know who the dork will be who thinks he’s not only come up with an original bon mot, but one that is so witty you’ll go home with him.”

I roll my eyes and walk away from her to get my purse. As I do, my footsteps continue to trigger the sounds of dinosaur feet pounding on the ground.

Dawn happily follows me, clearly amused. “Halloween 2006 was my favorite! I loved it when all the comic-book geeks kept whispering they wanted to . . .”—Dawn lowers her voice to a sinister whisper—“save you . . . save the world.”

I glare at her. I have gotten to the point in my life where I actively
hate
that cheerleader uniform, even though becoming a cheerleader seemed like a brilliant idea at the time.

Almost half a lifetime ago, when I was fifteen, I had this huge crush on Quentin Claiborne—the quarterback of our high-school football team. Anytime I talked to him, I made a huge fool out of myself. I never had an actual conversation with him. Instead, I would hang around his locker in the desperate hope that I would accidentally/on purpose run into him (kind of inevitable, since he had to go to his locker at some point). Once I had him in my sights, I would nervously talk at him in a streaming monologue until he politely got away from me.

Then, one morning during my sophomore year, I was so busy monologuing at him, I didn’t realize he was opening his locker, and I walked right into the door. That led to a bloody nose, and a very guilty Quentin whisking me off to the nurse’s office, where I proceeded to get bandaged up as Quentin talked to Jane Kwikaz, the head cheerleader.

The bitch had the audacity to have a—dare I say it?—
normal
conversation with him! It was insidious. They talked about mundane stuff like history class, parents, and the upcoming dance. She talked to him like he was a normal person, not the God that I knew him to be. And he seemed to
like
her!

As I kept the ice bag over my nose, and glared at Jane for effortlessly moving in on my man, I immediately decided his fondness for Jane had nothing to do with her perfect body, her clear complexion, or perhaps the fact that she could hold a conversation like a sane person.