A Year Straight (12 page)

“Oh God, she's never going to call.”

“Well, you said she's a designer, right ? It's fashion week soon, so maybe she got really busy with work.”

“Too busy to pick up the phone?”

“Elena, I'm trying to help you stay hopeful. Even I would rather see you with a woman. This whole thing was fun at first, but I think you've got even worse luck with men than I do.”

Megan's comment made me anxious. I was frustrated, and determined to prove her wrong. So I did something very, very bad. After having turned him down incessantly for years, I extended an offer to Noah for an after-work drink.

“Noah, you, me, happy hour, my treat?” He didn't answer at first. “To thank you for giving me all that input on men,” I said. He just stood in front of me with his mouth gaping open. “You'd better take me up on this right now, because I'm about to change my mind.”

He was quiet as the two of us descended in the elevator alone.

Over two-for-one beers at a hipster dive bar near the office, we discussed work, sports, and his recent breakup. I offered the female perspective.

“Yes, she probably broke up with you because you turned down her offer to spend Christmas with her family. Yes, even though she said it was no big deal, it really was. Yes, by turning down the offer, you essentially said you are not that serious about her, and she dumped you to find someone who is.”

Halfway through the third round of drinks, I returned from a visit to the ladies' room to find him reading Nietzsche at the bar. I burst out laughing. The book was huge, and he must have lugged it around with him everywhere, just waiting for opportunities to impress girls.

“Noah,” I said. “Really?”

He put the book away, embarrassed. I melted at the sight of him sitting there looking so vulnerable. Without thinking, and to make up for teasing him, I leaned over and kissed him right there at the bar. He was so shocked by my seemingly spontaneous straightness that he barely kissed me back and instead nearly fell off his stool. Had he been all talk all that time ? It was beginning to seem that when women take control, men don't know what to do with themselves.

“Sorry,” I said, laughing. “That just happened.” Noah looked like a deer in headlights. We paid our tab and walked outside, where I hailed a cab, took Noah home with me, and had my way with him. The poor guy didn't know what hit him, and before either of us could catch our breath, I was calling another cab.

“Damn,” he sighed, shaking his head and laughing as he pulled on his socks.

“I'm sorry, but I'm late to see my brother deejay,” I said, grabbing my coat and my keys. My Miss Lez crown was vanishing from atop my dresser like Marty McFly in
Back to the Future.
When we pulled up to the concert venue, I jumped out of the cab and blew Noah a kiss. His hair was all mussed and he looked flustered as he gave the cab driver his address and continued uptown. I was officially out of control. And I was kind of scaring myself. Noah never told a soul. I must have scared him, too. Every once in a while at work, he'd say, “Hey, let's do that again,” and I would just smile and say, “Do what?”

 

 

ON THE PLANE to California for the training, I watched endless episodes of
Seinfeld
and ate the entire box of Triscuits I'd brought “to snack on.” By the time we landed, I had that gross carb- and oil-infused, bloated, dehydrated feeling that I associate with flying. I couldn't wait to get to my hotel room and shower. As happened every time I traveled for work, the hotel reception desk did not have the credit card authorization my company was supposed to have sent. This meant that I had to hand over my personal credit card and would inevitably wait forever to get reimbursed.

I was trying to hide my irritation when my coworker Carlos walked in. Carlos worked with me in the finance department, and his sunny disposition remained intact even through a cross-country flight. I was cheered up by the sight of him. We'd become close over the years, though our personal paths
never crossed, save for his wedding, which he'd invited me to. It was the craziest party I'd ever been to in my life, surpassing all the UMASS ragers. The dancing commenced before the cake even came out and continued well after dawn. I faked my way through the salsa and merengue with his flirtatious four-foot-four dad. When Carlos returned from his honeymoon, I was still nursing my hangover. And according to him, his was on the tamer side of Puerto Rican weddings.

“E-Money!”

“Carlos! Hey, they don't have the company card on file, so we have to use our own.”

“Oh snap, I was planning on maxing mine out tonight with my boys. My cousin lives out here, and we're gonna party.”

“I've got your back. I'll include your room on my card.”

“For real ? Aw, you're the best. And for that ? Drinks on me tonight.”

“Tonight? That's sweet, but it's already past my bedtime in New York.”

“Go get dressed, Grandma. You haven't been your perky self lately. What you need is a night on the town. Who knows, you may even meet a lucky lady. See you down here in an hour.”

Normally I would have passed up the offer, curled up under the covers, and fallen asleep halfway through a pay-per-view new release. But I was at a crossroads. If I gave in to defeat, it would only be downhill from there. It was taking
extra effort to laugh at people's jokes, and the slightest thing made me cry. I had been feeling vulnerable ever since meeting the German Girl. My heart felt like the big piece of blank poster board I'd brought home to make a collage for the New Year. Each year I like to make a visual reminder of the goals I wish to accomplish, to help me stay on track. As the subway transported me back home from the art store, I was doing my best to keep my bulky poster board heart out of the way of the other passengers. Even so, the snarky teenage girl next to me shifted dramatically and snarled, “Quit poking me with your board!” I glared back at her. And then I went home and cried.

For my outing with Carlos and the boys, I threw on some jeans, a tank top, a sexy necklace, and my boots. I checked myself in the mirror. Yep, I was ready either to dance or to paint a house. Perfect. Carlos was fifteen minutes late to meet me in the lobby, but I didn't mind because the hotel flaunted a perfect view of the Burbank Airport. I watched plane after plane take off and land; planes setting out on their predetermined routes, set for predetermined destinations. I envied the pilots just then, knowing exactly where they were headed and more important, why.

We arrived at the famed jazz club The Mint just in time for the early bird entry fee. When I hear
jazz club,
I imagine a crowd around my dad's age sitting around in comfy chairs surrounded by posters for even older jazz clubs, barely visible in the dim lighting. The lighting was dim, but that's
about all I was right about. The crowd was more of a twentysomething range. I really was Grandma.

“E-Money, what are you going to start with?”

I let Carlos choose my drink, since I tended toward the ones with predictable effects, old lady drinks like lager and chardonnay. If I was going to loosen up, I was going to need something stiff. I clinked my Long Island iced tea with Carlos and his friends. “Cheers!”

A little later, Carlos and his cousin were in a heated debate over something involving the Dodgers and the Mets. I wandered over to the bar to order a seltzer and noticed a guy standing alone. I asked him the time, knowing full well everyone has a cell phone and every cell phone has a clock. But since I'd discovered that all you need to do to get a guy to talk to you is utter anything at all, I then said, “Boy, it's crowded in here, huh?” In my former life, I would do anything to avoid guys at a bar. However, in the midst of my MANia, the abundance of single men was working for me. And in that new city, I was clad in a confidence not my own. I was acting, like everyone else in L.A.

I let him buy me a beer and we chatted while he waited for his friends. He was much younger than me, by ten years or so. I could tell by the way he spoke to me. He was playful and sweet, lacking the polished pickup lines that seemed to come with age. Quite a few wrinkles revealed themselves around the creases of his eyes when he smiled. He was either
older than he seemed, or a big-time partier. I assumed the latter, based on his Technicolor sneakers and green Puma hoodie. When Carlos fetched me to move on to the next club, I accepted the guy's phone number, just in case.

I was whisked from bar to bar, as Carlos and his friends scoured Sunset Boulevard for the happening scene. Hours past Grandma's bedtime, we landed at a strip club, where the boys just couldn't resist treating me to a lap dance.

“To cheer you up,” Carlos said, pushing me toward the girls waiting to escort me to the back of the club.

Alone in the tiny room with my private dancers, I giggled nervously as they ground against my thigh.

“We're girlfriends, you know,” one of the dancers said.

“I have some friends who are strippers,” I replied, trying to bond with them. That was apparently a big buzz kill, as they proceeded to sway around the room, looking bored, until a Herculean bouncer came in to tell us our time was up. Back in the main room, Carlos was slipping a bill into the garter belt of one of the dancers. I wedged myself in between them to tell him I was leaving and went outside to text my last resort from the first bar. We met up for last call at a lounge club down the street, and then I took him back to my hotel room. Something had taken over me. It was like Samantha Jones had possessed the body of Charlotte York.

Elena, what are you doing?
I watched myself slide the hotel room key card into the slot on the door. Click.

We started to kiss, and since I was still acting, I threw him down on the bed. We followed all the same steps I'd become accustomed to. He lifted off my shirt, I lifted off his, he unbuckled his belt, I slid out of my jeans. Everything was going according to plan. But then, once he was on top of me, he began thumping around at a manic pace. I tried moving with him, but our bodies banged around out of synch. I was in bed with the Energizer Bunny on speed.
Why does he have so much stamina? Is it because he's younger,
I wondered?

“I'm sorry, but I'm tired,” I said, stopping.

“No, it's me. I'm sorry,” he replied, “I drank Red Bulls and vodka all night.”

Nice one, Elena. Somehow, all the way in L.A., I'd ended up back in college on one of those dates I'd heard about but managed to avoid until now. I swiftly saw him to the door.

High by osmosis, I opened my computer to lull myself to sleep window-shopping for shoes (shoes that would sit in my virtual cart for days until the page eventually expired). My fake shopping was a blatant distraction from the storm brewing inside. I was growing tired of my seemingly pointless escapades and was just about ready to throw in the monogrammed towel. I “bought” pair after pair of sandals.
They're on sale!
Then I checked my email. I had to rub my eyes to make sure what I was seeing was real. An email from The Yoga Teacher! It said, “Great to see you in class today!” Was he joking with me? (Perhaps.) Did he get my email wrong
and somehow switch out someone else's with my own? (Odd, but slightly possible.) Did he think he saw me, but it was someone else who looked like me and for some bizarre reason he was happy to see me? (Highly unlikely.) Clearly, I should have gone right to sleep and brainstormed potential witty responses in the morning over a big hotel buffet breakfast. At least then my brain would have been awake. But instead, I wrote back immediately.

“That was my evil twin. I hear she's into yoga.” Send. Then I awaited his reply. They say a watched pot never boils. A watched email in-box is like a reverse time machine. Rather than speeding into the past, the future unfolds at a pregnant snail's pace. Never mind that it was 5:00 a.m. New York time (not that I was counting). There are some things I'm too embarrassed to admit to anyone. Like that
Jurassic Park
is my favorite movie to catch on TV. Or that I still yearned for approval from The Yoga Teacher, even after everything I'd put myself through. My yearning had moved beyond the sexual. I just wanted him to think I was sane so that I could prove to myself that I was. I refreshed my in-box. Nothing. I couldn't sleep, and I couldn't stand the waiting. I needed a solid distraction, so I did the last thing on earth I should have.

The groggy receptionist at the front desk was reluctant to lend me the scissors.

“I'll bring them back, I promise.” I returned to my room, wrapped myself in a towel, set up shop in the white marble
bathroom, and began to cut my hair. Snip. Snip snip. I don't know how many times it will take me to finally learn that I should never, ever pick up a pair of scissors when I'm sad. It's an express train to depression.
If I just trim my bangs a tiny bit so they're cute again, I'll feel better.
Oh sure, I always like it at first, checking out my hair in the mirror from all angles.
Wow, I did a good job this time! Maybe I should go to cosmetology school!

And then...

I went out into the room, watched a rerun of
Friends,
wished I hadn't cut my bangs so I could instead grow my hair out like Phoebe's, returned to the bathroom, checked my hair in the mirror, zoomed in on one stray strand longer than the others, picked up the scissors, and embarked on The Beginning of The End. There is a huge difference between a haircut by a professional and one by a lonely, overtired woman. A professional knows how to shape from the inside out, layer by layer, building upon a solid foundation so that everything falls into place. The disheartened, PMS-ing layperson technique is more like cutting into paper in kindergarten, fingers crossed that when you unfold it, it at least somewhat resembles a snowflake.