Cheating on Myself (9 page)

Cat and I watched the band in silence for a while then. I thought about how uninhibited Pippa, Heidi, and the other kids were up in front of the stage. I envied their complete lack of self-consciousness. I couldn’t help but think of all the times I’d been somewhere with Erik, and we’d both been so fixated on how we might be perceived by others that we failed to try something new or have a good time.

Like Justin Frederick’s thirtieth birthday party, which had been at a gymnastics center, when Erik and I had stood laughing on the sidelines instead of swinging and trampolining with our friends because neither of us was particularly physically capable. Or Lily’s annual Halloween party, where Erik and I had worn the same boring, generic superhero costumes for six years in a row because it was easy and efficient. Or our permanent role as designated drivers at all our friends’ and coworkers’ weddings, which meant I’d never been even a little bit embarrassed about my behavior the day after a wedding.

I suddenly wanted to dance. So I jogged over to the girls and held their little hands in mine and swayed to the rockabilly beat. They cheered and giggled as we all bounced to the music, and when the set was over, I didn’t think twice about joining the girls in line to get CDs signed by the band. When we got to the front of the line, the girls ran forward and hugged each member of the Dog Hounds like they were old friends.

The guys in the band were super-sweet with the kids, and gave the girls high-fives and asked them about school. I stood back, letting Pippa talk all about preschool. As she talked, Joe looked up and me and winked. I furrowed my brow, wondering what the wink meant. Despite the wink, he was
so
hot. Smoldering, sexy musician hot. My insides squirmed as I watched how he stroked his banjo and thought about what his hands would feel like on my body. Why did charming guys always have to be something skeevy, like musicians or investment bankers? Okay, investment bankers weren’t charming, but they were rich and, according to Lily, it was the same thing.

I smiled at Joe, and he grinned back.

“Hey,” he said, all smooth smarm and charm. “Did you like the show, pretty lady?” Pippa and Heidi were each talking to one of the other guys in the band, allowing him to step over toward me.

I stepped backward a hair. “Yep. Good stuff.” I smiled thinly. Not falling for it.

“I recognize these girls,” he said, gesturing the Pippa and Heidi. “You’re not usually with them. Are you the new nanny?”

I laughed, then realized I had the opportunity to give myself a whole new identity. “Yes, that’s right. I’m the girls’ nanny.”

He nodded. “Well, cool. I hope we see you at another show soon…” He looked at me questioningly, obviously waiting for my name.

“Stella.”

“Well, Stella, I’m Joe.” He grinned in a way that made it clear he thought he was really something, and then the girls pulled me back toward Cat again. When I looked back as we walked across the lawn, Joe tipped his hat at me, and I felt a lot giddier than I would have expected. Who knew I was the type of girl to swoon over a “rock star?”

* * *

“
I miss Erik,” I announced to Anders as I tucked my curls back with bobby pins for my date. I was going out with someone named Stephen, an accountant, and about as excited about it as I’d been about Jonathan
after
our date. But he looked cute in his online photos, and he and I seemed to be a decent match. His online profile had droned on and on about goals and strategies for his life, and I found the type-A tendencies somewhat comforting. I hadn’t yet told Anders who I’d picked for this date. “I haven’t talked to him in almost three weeks.”

Anders buttoned his shirt and ran his hand through his hair. He and I were both getting ready to go out—he was meeting some girl who had come into the office for a massage earlier that week. Despite all his apparent expertise with Internet dating, Anders refused to go out with anyone he met online. He said the women he met online were often stupid. I countered with the fact that maybe he just attracted that type, and he had slugged me. “You haven’t called him, have you?”

“No. But why hasn’t he called me? Doesn’t he miss me?” I knew he did—both Laurel and Cat had told me so. But without Erik actually calling and begging me to come back, I seriously questioned his misery and loneliness. I wanted him to grovel. I wanted him to beg. I wanted him to tell me his life was miserable without me, and that he was a shriveled piece of shit without someone as wonderful as me in his life. He hadn’t even called to tell me I’d forgotten a pair of socks at his house—and at this point, I’d be happy with that. Without any of those things, I wondered if we’d wasted more years than I thought we had together.

Anders sighed and flopped down on my bed. “I’m sure he misses you. But he’s a stubborn ass, and doesn’t want to admit how much he needed you.”

“You’re just saying that.”

“Yeah.” Anders nodded and took a swig of his beer. He flashed his adorable gap-toothed smile at me and I rolled my eyes. “You know I’m not an Erik fan,” he said, only slightly apologetically. “I’m not going to give the guy the benefit of the doubt and assume he’s sitting at home, full of regrets.”

“You don’t think he’s dating, do you?” I said, terrified my ex was kissing some other woman. What if he had fallen for a spontaneous vixen who had taught him all about sexiness and living for the moment? What if Erik had learned how to have fun without me? “Oh god, what if he’s
happy
?” I sobbed, just a little.

“You’re actively getting ready for a date. Need I remind you that you’ve moved on?”

“That doesn’t mean I want him to be seeing other women. There’s an appropriate amount of time one is supposed to wait before starting to date again.”

“Apparently there’s a different standard for men and women?” Anders finished off his beer and placed the bottle on my bedside table. I shot him a look and he folded up a tissue to use as a coaster. “Why do you get to start dating after two weeks, and he has to wait—what, a year?”

“That would be best.” I stepped into my closet to slip out of my robe and into the wrap dress I’d bought for that night. “The thing is, I was the dumper. That means I am
supposed
to get over him faster than he’s supposed to get over me. I had the weeks of build-up leading to the split, but he should still be processing.”

“That is completely unfair.” Anders gave me a look that was probably supposed to mean something, but I looked away so I could ignore it. “You don’t think Erik had any sense that a breakup was imminent? Seven weeks without sex was so normal he didn’t suspect something was wrong?”

“Let’s not talk about sex,” I said. “It’s irrelevant.”

“I disagree. A multi-week dry spell is very relevant.”

“Not for us.”

“Are you serious?” Anders sat up, obviously alarmed. “Was he just bad in bed or something?”

“No, he was fine.”

“Fine?” Now my roommate looked like he was going to be sick.

“That’s not the kind of couple we were. We were very deliberate and predictable in our sex life,” I said, holding up two pair of shoes I was debating between.

Anders pointed at the black Aerosoles heels. “Go with those. But honestly, they’re both ugly. Get Lily to take you shopping at lunch. You have too many ‘sensible’ things in your closet.”

I sat down on the edge of bed. “Sensible shoes, sensible boyfriend, sensible sex. It’s the story of my life.”

“All things that are fixable,” he said. He sounded alarmingly upbeat. “You’ll get there. Erik is out of the picture, so you can finally figure out what grown-up Stella wants out of life.”

“What if I can’t figure it out?” I said. “I haven’t really gotten to act on my own impulses in a while—what if I don’t even
have
any impulses anymore? What if Erik was as good as it gets?”

“God, that’s depressing.” Anders looked at his phone and hopped off the bed. “I’m leaving. Partly because I’m going to be late, but partly because I’m not even willing to get into such a stupid discussion. You’re not a needy girl, so don’t start acting like one now. Erik may have made most of the choices in your relationship, but that doesn’t mean you lost the ability to form your own opinion. Don’t fall back on old mistakes because you’re scared of making new ones.”

* * *

If things worked out the way they should have—the way I would have planned them had I, say, made a list—I would have gone off on my date after Anders’ motivational speech and met Mr. Perfect. He would have been handsome and charming and spontaneous and he’d smell good and he might have even inspired me to go out with him a few more times that week so we could spend the next weekend frolicking around in our undies between sessions of really great sex.

But you can’t plan everything, so instead of Mr. Perfect meeting me at the restaurant that night, I got Stephen.

Stephen was perfectly nice, but also painfully boring. He asked me questions as though he’d rehearsed them from a script, and answered mine in exactly the same way. The way he nodded, just once, after each of my answers felt like some sort of director-style approval. Even his smile seemed canned. I tried, really I did, but then he ordered the only other entree on the menu that cost exactly as much as mine—and I knew, because he told me, it was only so we could split the bill exactly in half and it would be fair.

A few days later, I went out with Marco. Marco spent much of the date explaining the details of his fantasy football spreadsheet. When he actually pulled out a copy of the spreadsheet and showed me his calculations, it was all over for sad, sweet, lies-on-his-online-profile Marco.

Next was Tim. Tim worked in sales, which he mentioned just a few times. Tim had a lot of interesting stories and I actually thought there could be some potential for a second date. Until the dessert menus came, and Tim informed me he wouldn’t be ordering anything because he’d already had his one dessert for the week. He wasn’t on a diet, but kept a careful food diary to avoid needing to diet in the future. Apparently, he had saved up his week’s quota of bread for our date, but wasn’t willing to veer off plan for a spontaneous, bonus dessert. I couldn’t handle food issues and the excessive planning made me think of Erik. It was a deal-breaker.

As I ate my creme brulee alone, I realized I attracted stiffs. Or sought them out. Either way, it was discouraging. But it told me something about me that I was obviously trying to suppress. I also wasn’t entirely sure I was a normal date—why were they all going so badly? What was it about me that made Marco think it was okay to talk about a spreadsheet? Did I look like that kind of girl?

More importantly, had I made a huge mistake? Even with Anders’ help spiffing up my profile, I had somehow managed to pull a large lot of losers who looked like crap compared to Erik. Unmarried-to-Erik suddenly felt a lot less horrible than it had a few weeks before. At least his flaws were familiar and he made good soup.

I spent the rest of that night considering the collection of studs I’d been matched with, and convincing myself everything that went wrong with Erik was as much my fault as it was his. The next morning when I got to the office, I wrote Erik an email. Ultimately, I never sent it… but the fact that I wrote it at all says something, I guess. And it also helps explain why, when an email from Erik appeared in my inbox later that same day, I wrote back and re-opened our line of conversation.

I blame it on Jonathan, Stephen, Marco, and Tim. If they hadn’t been such dolts, maybe I would have had the willpower to just hit delete.

CHAPTER SIX

I couldn’t cop to my email conversation with Lily (who would cringe, then call me something inappropriate, like “pussy”), Anders (who had now admitted to hating Erik and would think I was a spineless sad-sack), or obviously Cat (she’d swell with false hope), so I decided to spill the beans at the only other place I could think of: the Y.

I’d been going to water aerobics for a few weeks by then, and the women were starting to warm up to me—a little. The cluster of ladies still shot me nasty looks when I came late and left early, but no one was
obviously
whispering about me in the pool, and Heather had started dawdling in the locker room before class so she could walk out to the pool on my arm. I’d made an effort to keep my distance, but now I was starting to feel a little lonely at class and wondered if maybe it was time to stop acting like a snobby bitch. I was becoming a regular, so it was probably time to start acting like one.

“You wrote back?” Heather asked in the locker room the next week, after I gave her a brief history of Erik, all the way up to the emails we’d been exchanging for the last few days. She stared at me with her sagging swimsuit pulled only halfway up. I diverted my eyes. I was getting used to the cattiness of the water aerobics crew, but the nakedness had not gotten any easier to handle. “Stupid.”

I wrapped a towel around my body and pulled my shirt and pants off, then expertly eased my swimsuit up over my towel-wrapped body. “It’s not stupid,” I said, shaking my head violently. “He wrote to me. I was just being nice by writing back.”

“What good is it going to do you?”

“I don’t know. I guess I hope we can stay friends.”

Heather made a rude noise and waved her hand in the air. “Bullshit. You don’t want to be friends. You’re just lonely.”

“I’ve been on four dates in the last two weeks. I’m not lonely.”

“I heard about your date with Jonathan—granted, it was his side of the story, told from Barb’s point-of-view. If any of your other dates have been anything like that classy piece of work, I’d say you’re lonely.”

“I’m starting over. It just feels weird.”

“Starting over?” Heather hooted as we walked into the shower room to rinse off. “You don’t know starting over.”

“I’m ignoring you,” I said sullenly. “You’re judging. Poo-poo to that.” Heather laughed harder when I shot her a dirty look. The reality is, I wasn’t looking for advice—I just wanted a sounding board. These women were supposed to be supportive, like grandmothers, but Heather didn’t look like she was about to offer me hot cocoa and compassion. She was making fun of me.