I Know What I'm Doing (7 page)

There’s that moment in any night when it’s time to go home. It can be simply because you have to get up and work in the morning and you don’t want to be hungover. Or sometimes it’s time to go home because you have to admit to yourself that the party isn’t going to get any better. The love of your life is not about to walk in. Instead, someone is about to whip out a guitar and start a sing-along, or worse, suggest playing charades.

I knew it was time to go back to my hotel room—without Kevin. My decision was made. I was going to talk to my husband about getting a separation. I wasn’t attracted enough to Kevin to want to have some night of passion or sin or selfish lust or adultery. But I wanted one more drink because I knew if I had one more drink it would lead to two more drinks. I wanted to let my guard down. I wanted to not be responsible for my decision—whatever that would be. I wanted to stay at the party and let my boring self go away. I couldn’t decide whether to stay or go. I felt like the rest of my life balanced on this one decision. If I leave here and go back to Kevin’s city art studio/sort of working apartment and do anything stupid, that would mean that my marriage has ended.

And I had my George Bailey moment—sort of. An angel named Clarence didn’t throw himself in the river to stop me from jumping, but my friend Eugene walked into the bar. He was looking for just a couple more drinks before he went home for the night. He had been next door at one of those dinner parties that abruptly ends at ten and people start ordering coffee—shooing the waiter away at his offer of another bottle. I waved him over to join us. That’s the beauty of male friends. They’re so simple. You can say, “Eugene, this is my friend Kevin. We have a mutual friend. We decided to meet up.” They say hello. We carry on. Eugene doesn’t grab me by the arm and say, “Who is this man! You’re married, Jen!” The three of us had a drink and laughed and talked about—I have no idea.

Eventually Eugene decided it was time to head home and Kevin and I were left with my conscience and us. After some alcohol my conscience told me,
You’re youngish. You’re in New York City. Your husband hasn’t checked in on you. What’s one more drink?
Something inside of me was goading me along.
Just go back to his place and see what happens. You haven’t been this free since you were twenty-nine. So many years of being spontaneous were missed out on. Go see what the inside of one more New York City basement apartment on the Lower East Side looks like.

Kevin’s apartment—which was technically just his workspace—had the décor of a madman hoarder stocking up on doomsday preparations, but really unnecessary ones like a box of hot glue guns and jars of india ink. Half-finished oil portraits sat on the couch just waiting for him to come home. They stared at me but didn’t judge me. His bed was on the floor—not on a mattress box spring but just on the floor. My hotel was only blocks away and I had paid for a bed that was actually inside of a bed.

Kevin joined me on the couch—another piece of furniture that didn’t need to go by society’s rules of “having cushions.” There was a frame, some throw pillows, and a flannel sheet. Perfect for a chat between two . . . strangers.

“You must really love him to be so torn about this. You must really respect him.” Kevin sprawled out and put his head in my lap. I rubbed his really soft curly hair—which I didn’t think I liked. The intimacy of just rubbing someone’s head while talking—I couldn’t remember the last time Matt and I shared that. My heart was breaking because this, THIS is what I wanted. I knew I didn’t want it with Kevin, but the sensation of being loving and sensual made me feel like a woman again. She’d been stuck inside her mind and her cheese-weight for so long. I told Kevin that if my husband walked in right now, I would have to jump up and say something like, “It’s not what you think! He’s gay!” Or, “He’s gay
and
has a headache and I was comforting him because gay men are so noncommittal he couldn’t find a boyfriend to do it for him!” I mean, I knew what I was doing wasn’t normal. If Matt had walked in I couldn’t exactly say, “Come snuggle with us. We’re just talking about fidelity.”

I tried to picture what Matt was doing in that exact moment across the country. He was probably binge-watching recorded episodes of
Breaking Bad
. I was sure that with all of our problems he wasn’t exactly missing me but he wasn’t on a couch touching someone else’s hair. The worst thing he would be doing at home was emptying his pockets and just leaving loose change on the coffee table with wild abandon, away from my disapproving eye. Matt would never try to figure out his feelings by doing what I was doing—getting into a danger zone just to see what emotions might get shaken free. Even though I was not having ANY fun in the art dungeon, the simple fact that I was there wasn’t fair to Matt. I had to leave.

But first, I let Kevin kiss me. I had to feel what it felt like to have a first kiss again. It was sweet, soft, and thrilling. I felt jolted back to life. But it wasn’t because of Kevin specifically. It just affirmed what I thought I knew. There isn’t anything wrong with my sex drive. There’s something wrong with my marriage. I didn’t want Kevin. I didn’t want my husband. I didn’t want anyone. I just wanted to get out. I didn’t even feel guilty and I hated myself for that. But I knew. I’m not in love. With anyone. Hot tears welled up in my eyes. I tried to make a speech but I was crying and making no sense. Kevin didn’t try to stop me from leaving. I ran outside and told him not to follow me, that I would get my own cab but maybe he could watch from the window in case there was a murderer or a sidewalk rat. I got in a cab. I felt strangely independent and wild and sort of like I’d reverted to being twenty-four again. I wanted to call Allison to tell her about my night and I actually rummaged through my purse for a moment before I realized,
Oh yeah. I don’t have a phone. It’s somewhere in Queens with a guy who really needs to clean out his voice mail.

A day later, I was on yet another mood-lit Virgin America flight, knowing that this time I was flying home to leave my husband. When I got home, I wanted to tell Matt everything about Kevin and how I’d come to my realization, but I just couldn’t. Instead I sat on our bed and told him that I didn’t think things were working out and I had this strange feeling that we shouldn’t be married anymore. I said that maybe we should go to a marriage therapist to see what she thinks. Matt looked at me with such huge relief and said, “I’ve been feeling the same way. Things suck. Thank you for saying this. I might never have said anything, I guess because I’m from Boston and I’m Irish.” I assured Matt that his hometown and heritage had nothing to do with it. He would never have said anything because he’s a nice person, a caretaker, and someone who doesn’t like to make other people sad. I felt such appreciation for who he was at his core as I crawled under the covers. I smiled at how we were going to be so nice to each other as we embarked on our new journey: to sue each other for alimony.

8

“C” IS FOR COOKIE, “D” IS FOR DIVORCE

When two people decide to get a divorce, it isn’t a sign that they “don’t understand” one another, but a sign that they have, at last, begun to.

—HELEN ROWLAND

A
fter listening and nodding and drinking her coffee throughout our first session, our marriage counselor said, “Well, Matt and Jen, I think there’s a lot of work to do and you two need at least a year here with me.” The woman was so goddamn emaciated I didn’t even think she had a year left with that body. I couldn’t imagine what more Matt and I could have worked on. The only thing left we hadn’t worked on was a papier-mâché project together. But that wasn’t going to save a marriage. Although I’m sure there’s some hippie art therapist out there who would disagree with me.

There was something so irretrievably gone between us that, from a lot of our private talks, we figured out had maybe never really been there to begin with. Neither of us being great with confrontation, we fibbed to our new therapist and said, “Sure. We’ll call you about an appointment next week.” Matt and I left her office in silence and as we waited in the hallway for the elevator, my stomach lurched. I headed for the trash bin, leaned over, submerged my head in the hole, and puked my guts out. The proof was in the pudding. Or more like the truth was in the garbage can. I couldn’t stomach any more marriage.

Matt and I shared a look and he laughed and said, “Well, I guess that’s how you feel.”

“You can’t do another year. Can you, Matt?”

“No. You must be hungry now that you’ve emptied out. You want to have lunch?”

And so even though I’d just thrown up and we were breaking up, Matt and I went to an atmospheric Italian restaurant and sat at a sidewalk table on Canon Drive in Beverly Hills. We had two glasses of wine, lots of spaghetti, and two rounds of the bread basket. We laughed a lot. We talked about all of the times that we probably should have broken up. Right before we moved in together. Right after we moved in together. Right before we got engaged. Right before we got married. We even gently ribbed each other about how our life post-marriage would be. I fantasized that we would be like Courteney Cox and David Arquette—best friends. Matt felt like when you’re done, you’re done. He wasn’t sure he wanted to be best friends with me. I wanted to start seeing other people during our separation. He said that he didn’t, but I was free to. Then we decided to just stop talking about the future because we weren’t in each other’s future. We did take a moment to toast that this was the one decision we made as a couple that took zero input from our families and that for this little ritual we were about to undertake, we didn’t have to hire a justice of the peace, wear uncomfortable clothes, or invite dozens of our least close relatives.

For once, something in this marriage—the divorce—was just about the two of us.

The feeling we had was anxious relief, like the relatives of someone who is dying on a morphine drip and then suddenly springs back to life for a couple of days. Even though you know they’re dead in forty-eight hours, you’re grateful they’re alert just one more time.

Luckily, my separation coincided with an already planned week off from my writing job, because the first week alone in my apartment (Matt had opted to move out and find somewhere new to start over), all I could do was sit in bed. I couldn’t fathom calling everyone I know and explaining that there was nothing really to explain. It was over. I sent out a mass e-mail to all of my friends and said, “Please don’t ask if there’s anything that you can do because I don’t know what I want anyone to do. I know that I’m in bed. And I’ll be here and if you can think of anything that I need, can you just please come over?”

In those moments I saw who my friends were (and weren’t). Most people didn’t get back to me right away. Some still asked, “Let me know if there’s anything I can do.” Whereas my friend Janie e-mailed me to tell me that I just had to get an Apple TV—and she came over and installed it for me. I never would have thought to ask anyone but a husband to do something like that for me. What an awful feminist I am. My friends Tami and Tara, newlyweds themselves, called me and told me to come over. They said I didn’t have to get out of my pajamas but I had to get out of bed. I went to their condo and we drank wine. And—just like I had said to Tami when she came out of the closet after insisting she wasn’t gay—Tami said to me, “I was waiting for you to admit that this particular marriage wasn’t who you are.” My friend Sharon bought me a vibrator and left it in a shopping bag on my doorstep with a note that said, “Your new boyfriend for a while.” (Yes, it was brand new. No, girls don’t share those things.)

A TO-DO AND TO-DON’T LIST FOR THE NEWLY DIVORCED

1. When breaking the news of your split to your friends, even if you’re closer with the man in a heterosexual married couple, do not tell him first about the divorce. It will seem like you’re hitting on him when he goes home and tells his wife that he just had lunch with his newly divorced friend who is a woman. Tell his wife first. This way nobody thinks you’re out to steal her man
and
she gets to tell her husband, which is a form of guilt-free gossip. You’ve given a married couple something fun to do for one night.

2. You don’t have to talk to your ex-mother-in-law. You don’t have to have a good-bye with her. You don’t have to prove that you’re not a bad person. She’s going to think you are anyway. She probably already did.

3. Enjoy your insomnia. You don’t need as much sleep when divorcing. It’s like being elderly for a week.

4. Lay off the coffee. You may not know it but you’re acting manic. No, seriously, you are. You say it’s happiness but it’s a temporary form of mania. Enjoy the weight loss.

5. Don’t think this weight loss will last forever. When you feel better your body will stop burning calories. And that’s when you’ll be ready to start dating. So, keep that wedding-registry waffle maker in the closet for now.

6. It’s okay to throw away everything from the marriage. You have your memories—unfortunately the bad ones too. Who are you saving the photos from your wedding for? Your nonexistent children? The children you’ll maybe have one day with another man? Just this once, don’t recycle, don’t be environmentally friendly. I took my wedding dress, rehearsal dinner dress, shoes, marriage license, and photographs still in their nice leather-bound books and tossed them in a Dumpster somewhere in the city of Los Angeles. I hope there is a homeless woman walking around right now in a lovely floor-length J.Crew chiffon gown. You look good, girl.

EIGHT THINGS YOU SHOULD NEVER SAY TO YOUR NEWLY DIVORCED FRIEND

1. “DON’T WORRY! YOU’LL GET MARRIED AGAIN!”

Let your friend digest their excruciating paperwork and lawyer’s fees and their natural inclination to ponder whether the institution is for them at all. How about instead of telling your friend what their future holds, you just ask them a nice question like, I don’t know, “Did you know that the candida medication Diflucan is sold over the counter in Canada but only by prescription in the United States? Why are we the land of the free but we don’t have easy access to yeast infection cures?”