Who You Know (22 page)

JEN

I
was experiencing testosterone overload. I never thought it could happen, but I was officially getting sick of men. Both Tom and Mike asked me out for Saturday night, and I told both of them I was having a slumber party, girls only. It was a lie, but the idea grew on me. I liked the idea of spending a night without having to hold my stomach in, a night without having to laugh at unfunny jokes, a night of eating too much and laughing till my stomach hurt.

Avery brought wine and foccacia, marinated skewers of tofu and vegetables, and grilled potatoes; Rette brought salsa and baked chips; I brought brownies, chips, dip, and guacamole.

We promptly changed into our own version of PJs: I put on a tank top and my faded University of Minnesota shorts, Rette was in her sweats and wool socks, and Avery wore flannel pajama bottoms and a T-shirt. I brought a pitcher of margaritas to the living room, where we'd spread our sleeping bags over air mattresses.

“Avery, you're looking really good,” Rette said.

“I'm feeling really good. Les and I have been dancing twice a week, and then two or three times a week we've been going to the gym together to take this Bikram yoga class.”

“Which is?”

“They turn the heat up in the room to more than a hundred degrees, so you sweat out all the impurities. You leave feeling really cleansed and recharged.”

“That sounds like punishment, but whatever,” I said. “Okay, here are the rules: Everyone has to start the evening doing two shots of tequila. It's my party and you'll get wasted if I want you to.” I gave slices of lime and a saltshaker to Avery.

Avery did a shot and her face contorted like she'd just eaten a roach. “Gaa! Oh my, I'm way too old to do shots.”

“There is nothing more juvenile than drinking to excess. I'm just trying to get you in touch with your inner youth. Now drink up,” I said, pouring her next shot.

“Yes, these are Jen's rules. We always had to do two or three shots before going to the bars when we were in college,” Rette said.

“And we always had fun, didn't we?” I said. “And, I might add, saved having to pay those inflated club prices for drinks.”

“You're so right,” Rette admitted with a smile.

“Do you know how bad alcohol is for you? It's like voluntarily going to the desert and baking in the sun until you're delirious with dehydration. That's why you feel buzzed: The alcohol zaps all the nutrients in your blood and dehydrates you. That's why your pee is bright yellow the morning after you drink. Your pee should never be bright yellow.”

“Yeah, that's very interesting. Thanks for sharing.” I handed the lime and salt to Rette. “Drink.”

“Did Jen tell you about the assassin who bought us free beer?” Rette asked.

“Yikes, he was scary,” I said. “But cute. Very cute.”

“True. But you're used to cute men surrounding you in droves. How is it that your men would give you a night off to spend with the girls?” Rette asked.

“I just told them I was busy.”

“Jen saying ‘no' to a guy? That's unprecedented,” Rette teased.

“Ha ha. Seriously, you guys have to help me decide which guy to date. Dating two guys is exhausting and I can't choose, so I need you to choose for me.”

“Maybe you can't choose because neither guy is really right for you. Maybe you shouldn't be dating either of them,” Avery said.

“I've thought of that, but that means I'll have to find someone else, and I don't really have that kind of energy.”

“Dating is exhausting,” Avery said. “I couldn't sleep at all last night. I kept thinking about meeting Art. I try to remind myself that it probably won't work out, but I don't know, I just have a really good feeling about this. I've planned all these trips we're going to take together, all these candlelit dinners we're going to have, weekend getaways with champagne and a Jacuzzi in a cabin in the mountains.”

“That sounds so awesome,” Rette said. “I miss dating.”

“Oh my god, I don't even want to hear it,” I said. “You've got it made. You'll never have to diet again and you'll always be sure of getting laid.”

“Are you kidding? Trying to make a relationship work is hard work,” Rette said.

“She's right. The trouble just starts when you say ‘I do,'” Avery said.

“Even before sometimes. I don't know, I don't like what's happening between me and Greg. When we were first dating he was always doing nice stuff for me, and now he doesn't ever even cook a meal or do his own dishes. We're not even married yet. I need to whip him into shape. Any suggestions?”

“Rette, I'm not the one to be asking for marital advice,” Avery said.

“Dave only did nice stuff for me after he did terrible stuff, like when the stripper he hired for his friend's bachelor party broke my coffee table. He didn't buy me a new one, but he went down on me for like half an hour, and I never really liked that coffee table anyway, so I forgave him.”

“Once, I guess we'd been dating maybe three months at the time,” Rette said, “I'd been grumbling about how my favorite author had just published a new book, and it would be a year until the paperback version I could afford came out, and I was sick of making the slave wages of a teacher. At school the next day the book was on my desk with a ribbon on it and a card that said ‘To the most beautiful woman in the world from the luckiest man in the world.' A gift just because. I just couldn't believe I could find such a wonderful guy. But he hasn't done anything like that for a while.”

“He's busy with school, you're busy with work,” Avery said.

“Oh my god, no kidding, it's ridiculous. I thought I put in long hours when I was teaching. I had no idea that corporate America was a sweatshop filled with people in suits. And the worst thing is that I wouldn't have to put in these obscene hours if it weren't for the grotesque incompetence of management. It reminds me of this thing that happened over Thanksgiving. We were at Greg's parents' place, and Greg's two little cousins, they were three and four and cute as can be, they were bopping each other on the head, saying, ‘You! Are! Stupid!' It was adorable. They could say exactly what was on their mind. You can't do that at the workplace. You can't just bop stupid people over the head and declare them stupid. But let me tell you, in my head, I'm giving a whole parade of stupid people a good thwap on the noggin every day. There's Eleanore, and Glenn, and all of the project managers who think I have nothing else to do but edit their reports as though they are the only people whose material I clean up. It just seems like everyone is out to irritate me. All day long I think, ‘You are stupid! You are stupid!' I know, very mature. I'm not proud. The worst thing is that I really need this stupid job.”

“Why don't you look for another job?” Avery said.

“I am looking, but do you remember how long it took me to get this crappy job? I'm not sure I'll even be able to get another job because Eleanore will give me a terrible reference. For the rest of my life, this bad experience is going to haunt me. Every time I look for a new job, I'll worry the HR person will call McKenna Marketing and find out that my boss and I hated each other. I feel ill just thinking about it.”

“You're not the first person not to get along with your boss,” Avery said.

“I know. I just feel like such a failure. I wasn't on very good terms with the head of the English department at my last job, and now there's Eleanore. I'm the common denominator here. I just don't get along with stupid people very well.”

“There are personalities like that at every job,” Avery said. “There are always these egos you have to deal with no matter where you work. It's like a family. Your parents can drive you crazy and your siblings know exactly how to push your buttons, but you don't have to spend eight plus hours a day five days a week with your family. You don't want to stay in a job that makes you miserable, but you have to know that wherever you go there are going to be personalities like Eleanore and Sharon and Glenn.”

“I used to think I would have an interesting life,” Rette said. “I was just going to be a humble schoolteacher, but I would have summers off to travel to exotic places and have affairs with good-looking men with accents. So how does my life turn out? I got myself the dullest job on earth, and even if I could save up enough money to travel, I'd never get more than two weeks of vacation at a time.”

“Why not? Why can't you? Why don't you just save your money and go?” Avery asked.

“I just told you. I mean I can take little trips here and there, but I'd always thought it would be fun to just backpack across Europe for a few months. Or take a road trip across the United States for a couple months.”

“What's stopping you?” Avery asked.

“Well, let's see. For one thing, I can't even pay off the debt I already have, let alone save up enough money to travel for six months, and for another thing, oh yeah, I have a job. I can't just call in sick for six months. Anyway, Greg wouldn't want to backpack through Europe, and it wouldn't be fun to travel alone.”

“Why do you put up so many barriers to your happiness, Rette? You make it sound as though unless all these many things go just like you want them to, you can't possibly be happy,” Avery said.

“I'm just saying I wish I'd made different choices in my life.”

“You're twenty-seven. You make it sound like you have no control over what your future brings, and you know what, Rette? It ain't so.”

They blathered on and on about boring, abstract stuff like happiness, totally ignoring the very real problem of me dating two men.

W
e finally fell asleep around two or three in the morning. At six, we were jarred awake by a sound I couldn't immediately identify. It took me a minute to figure out that it was a combination of creaky bedsprings, moans, and a headboard crashing against a wall.

“Aah,” Avery said groggily, “There's nothing like the sound of neighbors having sex to drive home the point that you ain't getting any. Thank you! I know! I'm a loser! Nobody wants to have sex with me! It's been eight million years since I've had sex. Thank you so much for the reminder!”

“She must be a prostitute. Real women don't sound like that, do they? I don't sound like that,” Rette said.

“I think their bed is going to break,” I said, listening to the bed creak rhythmically. “God, I'm jealous. I can't remember the last time I had wake-the-neighbors sex.”

“I don't think I've ever had sex like that,” Rette said.

“Thank goodness!” Avery laughed.

The racket went on for a million years, and even after it ended it took me forever to fall asleep. Something about the whole thing struck me as oddly sad, and, for the life of me, I couldn't figure out why.

RETTE

I
woke up with a start early Saturday morning. Disoriented, it took me a minute to figure out where I was—I opened my eyes and saw Jen and Avery in their sleeping bags, and remembered we'd stayed up till three in the morning. I was exhausted and sick to my stomach—my liver had spent the night marinating in tequila and my stomach was gorged with brownies and guacamole.

The noise that had woken me at that ungodly hour, I eventually figured out, was Jen's neighbors romping. The caterwaul woke Avery and Jen, too, but they were able to fall back to sleep. I couldn't, so I got dressed and drove home, my eyes stinging from lack of sleep.

That night, I went to the grocery store and when I stopped in the meat section, looking at all the meat sliced and wrapped in plastic, I began to cry, right there in the store. Not quiet, small tears, but huge, embarrassing blubbering sobs. I didn't even particularly like meat, but I bought it to make Greg happy. I cooked it to make Greg happy, and this was what I was going to have to do for the rest of my life to keep our relationship running smoothly. For the rest of my life I'd have to go to the grocery store once or twice a week; I'd have to cook and do dishes and mop and sweep and clean the muck out of the bathtub.

I dried my tears and continued my shopping, reminding myself that I wasn't a victim of war or famine or a brutal car accident that left me crippled and my flesh mottled and scarred. I wasn't living in a cardboard box.

I was, however, decidedly a failure. My career was a joke. I'd already blown my first attempt at a career, and now I was failing again. The only thing I was good at was doing absolutely everything wrong.

Why had I ever thought I could enjoy a career? I'd believed the myth that if I went to college and studied hard I would get a challenging, enjoyable, well-paying, fulfilling career. I had no reason to believe this was a reasonable expectation. It's not like Mom, Dad, Greg, Avery, or Jen had ever come home exclaiming about what a wonderful, fulfilling day they'd had. Instead, they came home exhausted, griping about the bullshit they put up with, about their incompetent bosses, about the injustice of their coworkers being promoted above them. We all go through life praying for the weekend and our two weeks off a year.