Good Girl : A Memoir (9781476748986) (36 page)

“Well, I guess I'll go then,” he said.

“Okay.”

“Have a good night.”

“Yep.”

As soon as I hung up, all I had been holding back erupted, sometimes in tears, sometimes in profanity. I knew I was being crazy. I didn't want to be the kind of woman who spent every minute with her boyfriend. I had work and friends and my own writing, all of which I enjoyed greatly and was fed by. But, still, there remained a huge, fraught gap between what I knew to be true and what I felt to be true: that there was not enough love and would never be enough love, and I would always be the one who was left lacking. But, of course, I didn't tell Robert about this, fearing he'd think me needy and immature. I was trying to lead with my strong suits in the early days of our relationship. As if I could hide the insecurity from him. Honesty really is a funny thing.

After we'd been dating for about three weeks, during one of these tense calls, Robert mentioned he had a work event at a bar that night. I was already armoring myself to get through the rest of the call when he surprised me by inviting me to meet him there. I wasn't feeling well, really. My skin was broken out, and I felt stressed about my ghostwriting project, which I was behind on because I was spending all of my time with Robert or thinking about Robert. But I was pleased to be invited, and I put on some lipstick and a short, flirty skirt and went to meet him. I savored being introduced to his coworkers as his girlfriend, as much as I had when Scott had first said it to his bandmates in Portland. He and I sat close at the bar, talking, our hands on each other's
thighs, as the group made merry at a booth behind us. Still feeling close, we went back to my house and lay on the living room floor, making out, sprawled on the rug.

“I love you,” Robert said.

“What?”

“I love you.”

“Oh, I love you, too.”

We had sex for hours that night. And in the morning we woke up and were both moved to tears, and we had sex again, and it was all a big ball of giddy happiness, talking, and laughing, and tears seeping out, and everything pulsing and beating like birds on the wing, that first-flush feeling of love. We stayed in bed all day and then went out to lunch so late it was basically dinner, going back to the barbecue restaurant where we'd had our first date. Only, this time, we sat together in a booth, both on the same bench because we couldn't stand to have even the distance of the table between us.

The next week, Robert was due to go away to San Francisco to see friends, a trip he'd planned before we'd met. I'd done that new-­relationship thing of letting my regular healthy habits—daily ­meditation and runs and lots of salads and little booze—give way to indulging and being indulged by my new love. Although my period had remained regular since my epic health odyssey of 2009, and I had every reason to believe my PCOS was a thing of the past, my system remained very sensitive to sugar and junk food, and after a few weeks of being off my routine I felt fat and gross, no matter that Robert had told me that being with me was “like dating a Playboy Bunny with a brain.” And so I was looking forward to this time apart as a way to get back onto my routine a bit and also, more important, get caught up on my ghostwriting project, which was due in early January, but which I planned to finish in advance of the holidays. At the last minute, in the flush of our new love, Robert invited me to go along to San Francisco with him. I declined, trying to be strong and independent. But then I missed him terribly, and the one night he didn't call me, I fretted and fumed at his indifference
and cried myself to sleep. So I felt pretty shabby the next day when he told me he hadn't called because his friends had gone to sleep early and he'd stayed up late reading my script.

By the time Robert returned to LA, a day early, to hasten our rendezvous, I was feeling more like myself. As excited as I was to see him, and as pleased as I was that he invited me over right away, when I stepped across the threshold of his bungalow, I felt my old fears surface. I had trouble looking him in the eye, and all of the love and intimacy I'd felt just days before was now murky with insecurity. He felt like a stranger to me. When he kissed me, I smelled booze, not fresh booze on his breath, but old booze coming out of his pores, the result of his vacation indulgences. I pulled back, just a little, but enough for him to notice. “What?” he said.

Tension flickered between us.

“Nothing,” I said, leaning in and kissing him harder because I was afraid to speak my true reaction, because I didn't want to embarrass him, because I didn't want to make a big deal out of what was probably nothing. So I'd stayed home and been a nerd while he'd been out in the world having a good time, so what? He offered me a glass of wine, and even though I'd enjoyed how clear I'd felt all week, I agreed, hoping everything would just relax and ease up between us. And it did.

In the morning, while we were still in bed, Robert sat up against the pillows.

“I need to talk to you about last night,” he said.

“Okay,” I said, trying to sound mature and adult, even though I felt like running from the bed.

“It's really important for me to feel wanted by you,” he said. “And when you act like that, it's really hard for me to want to be close to you.”

I felt awful. I loved him. I didn't want to hurt him and make him feel bad.

“I'm sorry,” I said. “You know, it's not easy for me to trust, and being close is hard for me sometimes.”

I felt shaky throughout the conversation, but by the end I was glad he'd said something. And I was excited to be with someone who was so capable of identifying a problematic moment in the relationship and bringing it up in a neutral conversation. It felt like we were building something with real potential.

We spent Thanksgiving alone together, even as his family, who he was close with, celebrated together up in Santa Barbara. He brought over a bottle of bourbon with the remaining ingredients for dinner, and he poured us drinks and kept me company while I cooked. Tipsy, working through the multitude of steps in Marilyn Monroe's elaborate stuffing recipe, I chopped my finger badly. Queasy at the sight of blood and unable to look at the carnage full-on, I let Robert doctor and soothe me while I cried from the shock of the cut and the pain, comforted by his steadiness in a crisis.

The following weekend, he took me up the coast to meet his family, who were the kind of lovely, real people it's so easy to forget live in California alongside the stars and aspirants. They made me feel very welcome, and I was flush with good feelings as Robert took me out to an upscale bar afterward to celebrate what was also our one-month anniversary. I was still on my superstrict diet, but I hadn't wanted to put his sister-in-law out, so I hadn't eaten much at dinner, and I was starving now. When the food came, Robert picked up the knife and fork and cut the food into tiny pieces, and then he handed me the fork. I felt cared for, and I leaned in closer to him and took a bite.

“I want to talk to you about what our future might be like,” he said. “Now that you've met my family, I want you to be close to me.”

I swooned at his assuredness and his openness to discussion. Here, finally, was a secure future with a man I loved deeply. We spoke about places we might want to live, and about our thoughts on marriage. He promised me a forty-five-year honeymoon. I felt as if we were already building a shared life, even though we'd only dated for a month.

Robert was clearly besotted, and I was deeply in love, but the night before I left to go home for Christmas, my old daddy issues reared their
grizzled heads. After years of toil and aborted hope, I'd had my first feature script go out to producers, and I had a meeting in the morning with a hotshot producer who'd scored a big hit in the indie world and had told my agents she'd loved the writing enough to want to meet me. Given the pressure I was feeling to make a good impression, and the fact that I had to then get on a plane to fly home for two weeks, I'd suggested that Robert stay at his house that night so I could wake up rested and have plenty of time to get ready in the morning. He'd taken me to dinner and then come over, and we'd had a nice night in which I'd felt well taken care of and close to him.

When it was time for him to leave, I was already in bed. He got dressed and leaned down to kiss me good night. I was consumed by a wrenching sense of loss. He was going to walk out that door, and although he was driving me to the airport, I wasn't going to sleep next to him again for two long weeks. I felt as if I would never see him again. I squeezed my eyes shut and buried my head in his neck, soaking up his familiar scent of rose and musk. Hot tears punched their way out of my lids, and my body jackhammered with sobs. He squeezed me tighter, but I just cried harder.

“Hey, hey, it's okay,” he said. “You have a big meeting tomorrow. And then you'll be at home. And the time will go by before you know it.”

“I know,” I choked out. “But I'm going to miss you so much.”

“I'm going to miss you, too. But it'll be all right. You'll see.”

He climbed into bed with me and held me close. But no matter what he said or how long he lay next to me, I couldn't stop crying. I could tell he felt awful, even though he knew he hadn't done anything wrong, and that he was confused and a little scared. I was, too. Intellectually I knew that this was fucked up. But emotionally I was hemorrhaging grief and loss, and I couldn't stop. It was almost midnight, and it became clear I wasn't going to stop crying. Robert unclenched my arms from around his neck. I curled up in a fetal position.

“I love you,” he said. “I'll see you tomorrow, okay? Try to get some sleep.”

“
I love you, too,” I choked out.

Through tear-clogged eyes I watched him put on his coat and step out the door. I heard him turn the lock behind him. I heard his car start up and drive away. My tears kept up for another thirty minutes after he was gone. Clearly having a loving boyfriend wasn't going to heal my issues any more than reconciling with my dad had.

When I flew back into Los Angeles a few days after Christmas, Robert was at work, but he stopped at the grocery store to buy essentials and then came over. This was not just a thoughtful gesture on his part. One of my clients hadn't paid me thousands of dollars the previous year, and the contract for the book I was about to hand in had been delayed. My credit cards were literally charged to the max. Robert was barely keeping up with his expenses, but he told me that he had some credit available that was all mine if I needed it. I couldn't take his money, but I appreciated his keeping me in food and drink and, even more important, books. I had missed him just as much as I expected to and was ferociously glad to see him. We instantly stitched our schedules back together, but the seams were visible.

We left my friends' New Year's Eve party early and went home, where I was abuzz with bliss. As we sat together at my table, Robert's mood didn't match mine.

“That's the first time I haven't had anything to say to your friends,” he said.

“Oh,” I said. “I'm sorry you didn't enjoy yourself more. They're all really nice. They've known each other forever. I'm sure next time will be more fun for you.”

I moved on to what I really wanted to discuss.

“I think we should talk about next year.”

“What, like New Year's resolutions?” he asked.

“Sort of, more like what we want to do together, like it would mean a lot to me if you could come home with me.”

“Um, maybe in the fall,” he said, sounding less excited than I'd hoped.

“It's so
beautiful in New England in the fall,” I said, fighting to stay perky. “I'll ask my mom and Craig when would be best for foliage.”

But what I really wanted was a little bigger than a vacation.

“And I really want to buy a house next year,” I said.

I prattled away happily about neighborhoods and fixer-uppers and how Craig could come out and help us do work on the place. Robert didn't exactly run away with the conversation, but he didn't shut me down either.

The next day, Robert started to feel weird, queasy and tense, and that deflated further into him being distant and a little cross. I was already restless, and the more he pulled away from me, the more anxious I got, and the more I wanted to be closer to him. I put on my sneakers to go for a quick run. I returned feeling energized and inspired, but Robert was feeling worse than before. Later that night, he confessed he was having a hard time; feeling anxious lately. By this point, I was feeling so far away from him, it was as if I were staring at him across a vast silent library, instead of sitting next to him on my tiny love seat.

Our conversation became a subtle sortie of defensive moves. I tried to feel out how bad it might get and how much help he was willing to enlist. He tried to manage his anxiety, which wasn't being helped at all by my probing.

“You make it sound like this is a deal breaker, or something,” he said.

“Of course it's not,” I said, shocked he'd made such a vast leap. “I'm just trying to figure out what I can do to help you.”

By the time we went to bed that night, I was crying. I felt so very alone, and I felt guilty for demanding anything from him during his time of need. Instead of being better in the morning, things flatlined as they were, and even got a little worse. Robert faced off against his anxiety attacks and waged a steady war against increasingly severe neck and back pain. Socializing was out, but I didn't care. I was happy to drive up to his apartment.

Feeling helpless in the face of his unhappiness, I wanted to be near him, to try to lighten his mood. I slid into a sheer pink nightgown and twined flowers in my hair, and then pulled on my black trench coat against the January chill. I put lamby, my stuffed animal from childhood, in my bag, and when he opened the door, I held lamby aloft, an amulet against bad feelings. Once inside, I slid off my coat and showed him his other present. He laughed.