With a Little Luck: A Novel (28 page)

I don’t need to wash the makeup off because my tears have done it for me, leaving an artistic streak of mascara down my right cheek. So artistic, in fact, that I grab my iPhone and take pictures of myself in the mirror so I’ll have a record of my misery. I take one of my whole face—no smile, obviously. One of just the right side. One close-up of the eye … which comes out blurry, so I then take a series of miserable, right-eye close-ups to get the angle just right and the despondency properly captured. When I’m pleased with my selection, I start firing them off to Nat, not even to say “I’m so sad,” but more because I’m quite proud of my work. I could do an exhibit of My Sad Self and call it just that.

Seconds later my iPhone chimes with an email from Natalie.

I walk into work wearing dark Jackie O sunglasses, and it looks like I’m trying to be fashionable and aloof, but the truth is I got a total of about eleven minutes of sleep, my eyes are bloodshot, and I look like crap. My first post-breakup show with Ryan. How are we going to deal with this? Do we pretend everything’s fine? Do we make some big announcement?

I’m self-conscious as I walk down the halls. I wonder if people know, if they’ll act differently. I feel like I’m in high school all over again … and I used to be half of “the most popular couple” but now we broke up and everyone’s going to be whispering about it.

Then I see him. He’s standing over the coffee machine, talking to Brad Stevens, our sports guy. Big Brad Stevens, who moonlights as a traffic guy, the secret I know only because Ryan told me. How would Ryan feel if I told Brad I know he does traffic? My ears start to ring a little, and then a lot, and things get a little fuzzy and I feel like I might faint, so I steady myself against the wall and try to take a few breaths.

This is all I need
, I think. I’m going to pass out perfectly positioned in the direct sightline of Ryan and Moonlighting Brad. I’m going to faint right here, and they’ll think it’s because I’m so distraught over my breakup, and sure, partially it is, but they’re also not taking other factors into consideration: general anxiety; stress; zero sleep last night; Talouse, my fat mustachioed French rapist. These are all major factors.

But somehow I pull it together. I decide that it’s bad karma for me to even be thinking about telling Brad I was aware of his scheme. That’s just not who I am. Which is why it hurt so much when Ryan couldn’t respect those sacred boundaries.

When I’m certain that I’m not going to face-plant, I walk over to
the coffee machine because I need coffee, too, and Ryan doesn’t own the coffee machine. We both need to caffeinate before our show—Lord knows I do.

When he sees me his mouth tightens, then forms into a polite smile but certainly not a warm one. I smile back and simultaneously feel like I’m going to throw up. He doesn’t say anything, so I don’t say anything. I’m not going to be the first one to say something. He owes me an apology, really, and at no point did he acknowledge that he did betray my trust. Plus, we’re broken up, and it’s not exactly like he was fighting for me, so to hell with him.

I punch the buttons on the machine to make me a below-average “Starbucks” cappuccino, and by the time it starts brewing, Ryan is long gone.
Good. Fine by me
. We can speak on the radio and only on the radio.

I decide I’m not going to announce to our listening audience that we are no longer a “we,” because what’s the point? If it comes out, it will happen organically. We can still bullshit with each other on-air and talk about hot topics and do what we do that for whatever reason people want to hear. I’m definitely not going to make a big deal out of the breakup. It’s nobody’s business.

“Ryan and I are no longer a couple,” I find myself saying as soon as our intro music finishes. “Might as well get it out there right up front. We broke up. So while the tagline for our show is ‘It’s so on,’ I’m somewhat sorry to report that our relationship is definitely off.”

So much for nobody’s business.

But at least I took the bull by the horns. What’s that they say in public relations about “shaping the conversation”? Well, I just shaped the conversation before Ryan could. I wonder how he’ll respond.

“I wondered how we were going to navigate this one,” Ryan says into his mic, “but thank you, Berry, for so succinctly taking the lead.”

Can’t read much from that. Wonder when the other shoe will drop.

Of course, the phone lines immediately light up. I look through the glass to see Bill’s reaction. Clearly Ryan hadn’t let the cat out of the bag around the office, either, because Bill’s turning red and maybe even slightly purple. He’s waving his arms and trying to mouth something, and I’m pretty sure I get the gist.

Ryan punches a line. “Caller, you’re on the air.”

“Who broke up with whom?” the girl asks.

“That’s none of your business,” I answer.

“Berry broke up with me,” Ryan says.
Oh, so that’s how he’s gonna play it
. I steel myself for an interesting show.

“Are you really broken up, or are you Eminem-and-Kim broken up?”

Ryan looks at me, and we hold each other’s gaze for a moment. I speak first. “We’re really broken up.”

“Why’d you break up with him?” the caller asks.

“We’re only taking one question at a time, and you already got yours answered,” I say, and then disconnect her.

I know I can’t deflect this forever. I knew this was coming. But damn it, I’m not giving in without a fight.

Ryan punches in another caller. “You’re live with Ryan and Berry.…”

“You can’t just leave us hanging,” a male voice says. “Was it the fact that foreplay wasn’t his forte?”

I don’t have the strength to be cute about this.

“You know, that was a misleading day,” I say. “Things were misstated and blown out of proportion.” I wonder,
Why am I protecting
him?
“I’m not going to bring our sex life into this. That’s what Ryan’s nighttime show is for. Let’s move on to the news.”

“You guys are the news,” says Patrick, our board operator, and the rest of the morning crew laugh.

“Caller, you’re on the air,” Ryan says.

“Can I talk to Berry?” a male voice asks.

“You are,” I chime in. “What none-of-your-business question would you like to ask me?”

“Well,” he says, “I was wondering if you reconsidered going out with me?”

“Brendan?” I ask.

“Who’s Brendan?” Ryan says, his head cocked backward like he’s truly perplexed.

“He’s nobody,” I say.

“I’ll try not to be offended by that,” Brendan says.

“This isn’t a good time,” I say. “Thanks for your call, Brendan.”

“Hold up,” Ryan says. “Hi, Brendan.” When he says Brendan’s name, he looks like he’s smelling a fart.

“Hey, man,” Brendan says. “Sorry about your breakup.”

“Yeah, you seem real sorry,” Ryan says. “Tell me, dear Brendan, what made you think now would be a good time to ask Berry out?”

“Well,” Patrick chimes in, “you asked her out live on the radio, too, Ryan.”

“Not helping, Patrick,” Ryan says.

“She’s single, isn’t she?” Brendan asks.

Ryan looks at me for a long beat. I’m not saying a thing. This is beyond awkward. Ryan can handle it.

“Yeah, bro. She’s single.”

If you took a poll of how many people get engaged on Valentine’s Day and how many people break up on Valentine’s Day, I think you’d have an even split. Yes, it’s a nice excuse to show the person you love that you love them, even if it is a Hallmark holiday. But it’s also an opportunity to show the person you love that you are an insensitive asshole who thinks only about himself. Or herself.

I remember one Valentine’s Day when I was dating a total egomaniac. His mother had treated him as if the sun rose and set around him, so in typical spoiled-mama’s-boy fashion he expected everyone around him to jump when he called, greet him at the door like a panting puppy dog, and cater to his every whim. But would
the gestures be returned? Not so much. What his mother failed to teach him was that to inspire this kind of warmth you needed to also be a warm person. And sadly, this guy pretty much had ice water running through his veins, pumping into a makeshift contraption that was somehow functioning to keep him alive.

For whatever reason, I kept convincing myself that there was good in him even though every single one of my friends would (correctly) tell me he was a textbook narcissist. I refused to believe it. They’d ask me what I liked about him, and I couldn’t put it into words because the truth was—there wasn’t much to like. I just had this illogical crazy connection to him, and I couldn’t let it go. Even he would ask me, “Why me? What makes you so sure I’m the one you want to be with?” And every time he asked, I tried my best to convince both of us that I believed whatever I could pull out of thin air. I was just dumbstruck in love. It was magical. It was chemical. It was a disaster.

Weeks before our first Valentine’s Day, I became obsessed with getting him the perfect gift. I wound up getting him several things: some cute (prescription pills, which were actually Red Hots candy in a real prescription bottle with his name professionally inscribed as the “lovesick patient”), some touching and sweet (I won’t go into detail, because it’s so sweet you’ll get a cavity), some other little trinkets, and then his main present—an engraved silver key ring from Tiffany & Co. that he could keep with him always.

A couple days before Valentine’s Day, he finally brought up the fact that Valentine’s Day was coming up. I, of course, couldn’t contain my smile.

“Oh,” he said, somewhat surprised. “Is that something you celebrate?”

“Well,” I said, “I think it’s something every girl who’s in a relationship celebrates.”

“That’s not necessarily true,” he said.

“Is it something you don’t celebrate?”

“Doesn’t mean anything to me, but if it means something to you, then I guess we can celebrate it,” he generously offered. Nothing like being made to feel like someone’s doing you a favor by celebrating Valentine’s Day.
Quelle romance!

Come V-Day—or D-Day, as it were—I showed up at his place when instructed and was delightfully telling him about the cute “pajama-gram” that my grandmother had sent me for Valentine’s Day when he finally got it.

“We’re not exchanging gifts today, are we?”

What I thought:
I guess I’ll be having edible panties and salad for dinner tonight
.

What I said: “I guess not … although I did pick up a couple trinkets for you.”

I gave him the less-expensive gifts and saved the really nice one for later because I wasn’t certain at that point that it wasn’t just a game—him pretending not to have bought me a gift when, really, he’d done something mind-blowingly special that was going to be a surprise.