Misery Loves Cabernet (7 page)

Huh. And the plot thickens
.

Dawn, normally the belle of the ball (or at least the alpha female of the litter), forces a smile. “It’s good to see you,” she says, her voice catching after the word “good.” “How did your English 90 class go?”

“Very well. I’m sorry you weren’t able to come,” he says awkwardly.

“Well, I . . . uh . . . I had to work,” she returns just as awkwardly.

Patrick looks down at the ground as Dawn looks around the backyard self-consciously.

Wait a minute . . . Dawn acting awkward? Dawn acts awkward about as often as George Clooney goes on eHarmony.com—which is to say if it ever has happened, I’m not so sure I want to know about it. Did these two recently have sex without my knowledge? What’s going on here?

“What’s English 90?” Jamie asks Patrick, trying to break the obvious tension between them.

“Oh, it’s my Shakespeare class,” Patrick answers pleasantly. “I asked Dawn if she could read Juliet for one of my lectures, but she had a prior commitment.”

Dawn looks away from us, uncomfortably. Patrick just stares at her, clearly trying to think of something witty to say.

Which, unfortunately, he doesn’t. The four of us stand around in silence for . . . I don’t know, a month? I see Jamie’s eyes flit back and forth from Dawn to Patrick, trying to figure them out.

Jamie takes my champagne flute, downs the rest of my champagne in one gulp, then declares, “We need drinks.” He turns to Patrick. “I understand there’s a Hobbit in the kitchen with Krug, if we know the password.”

Patrick looks relieved for the reprieve. “Okay,” he says to Jamie. Then he gently puts his hand on Dawn’s arm. “Don’t go away.”

And the two walk off. I watch Dawn knowingly as she watches them leave.

I’ve seen that look before.

“You-ou liiiike himmmm . . . ,” I say, dragging out the words teasingly.

Dawn blinks once, then turns to me as though she’s just realized I’m there. “What?” she says incredulously. Then she crosses her arms. “Don’t be ridiculous.”

As Patrick and Jamie walk away, I watch several women clearly check Patrick out. “So, to paraphrase you, how come we haven’t seen that gorgeous stud in your stable yet?”

Dawn turns to me, looking alarmed. “Are you kidding?! Serious type. Wants babies.”

“Pervert,” I state emphatically. “Imagine wanting a wife, a family . . .” I look around as if to catch eavesdroppers, then whisper, “Commitment.”

Dawn shrugs her shoulders. “Look, there’s no challenge to a guy like that. One time you remember to call him back and he’s yours. He’s like target practice.”

“Mm-hmm. Methinks the lady doth protest too much.”

“Oh, please. He’s an English professor. Do you see me with an English professor?” Dawn asks.

Before I can answer that yes, I can see her with an English professor, she gives me her next rationalization. “Besides, nerdy guys don’t dig me.”

“Sweetie,” I say, putting my arm around her shoulder and trying not to sound too patronizing, “All guys dig you.”

Dawn shrugs. Takes a sip of her red drink. She glances around the party, then notices Kate and Mike on the dance floor. “Wait a minute, isn’t that—”

“Mm-hmm,” I answer disapprovingly. “And get this, he’s married.”

Dawn’s jaw drops slightly as she turns to me. “Oh, hell no.”

Never date a married man
.

Dawn determinedly marches over to the dance floor. I quickly follow her. “Be subtle,” I remind Dawn. “We don’t want to do anything to embarrass her.”

“I wouldn’t dream of it,” Dawn says. I stop by the side of the dance floor to watch as Dawn walks right between the dancing couple. “Wrong!” she says to Kate emphatically, then grabs her by the hand and drags her away.

“What are you doing?” Kate seethes under her breath as she is yanked from the dance floor by Dawn. I quickly fall into step with them as we head back to our former spot.

“Saving you from six months of heartache,” Dawn says sternly. “What the fuck were you thinking, flirting with a married man?”

“He’s separated!” Kate says in a defensive tone. She tries to pull away her hand from Dawn’s kung-fu grip, but to no avail.

“Charlie, translate ‘separated’ in L.A. singleton terms,” Dawn says angrily.

“His wife doesn’t know they’re separated,” I explain. “But when she finds out what he’s doing behind her back, then they might really be separated.”

Kate begins trying to peel Dawn’s fingers off her left hand. “He’s not wearing a wedding ring. I checked.”

Dawn counters with, “I’m not wearing my ten-year-old sweatpants with the hole in the butt. But that don’t mean I don’t put ’em on the minute I get home from the party.”

“Come on, seriously, you’re embarrassing me. Let go.”

We return to our former patch of grass, and Dawn finally lets go of Kate’s hand. “What are you thinking?” Dawn grills Kate. “Do you honestly think this guy is going to leave his wife for you? And, if so, are you ready to go through a divorce that’s not even your own?”

Kate responds with just as much irritation. “Look, maybe if you look like you, you can have your pick of the litter. But it’s tough out there. Jack and I broke up almost two months ago, and the only date I’ve had has been with Mike. Beggars can’t be choosers.”

“Maybe that should be the new tagline for Match.com,” I joke.

Kate turns to me, and her facial expression subtly changes from one of irritation to one of slight desperation. “You know, when I was with Jack all that time, I always envied you guys. You got to go out anywhere you wanted without having to run it by someone else. You got to spend four hundred dollars on a dress without anyone you love rolling their eyes and lecturing you. I used to be so jealous when you talked about your first kiss with this guy or your first date with that guy. I thought if I broke up with Jack, I’d be happy. I’d be glamorous. Instead, I’m just lonely.”

I rub Kate’s arm. “Sweetie, it’s only been a few months. It takes time to get over a long relationship. You’ll get there.”

Kate shakes her head. “No, I won’t. This whole breakup has made me see myself through my eyes, not Jack’s, and I don’t like what I see. I feel fat, I feel old, and I have no clue what I even want from my life anymore. Who the hell is going to want me?”

As if on cue, from behind us, we hear a very sexy, baritone voice ask, “Kate?”

We all turn around to see an Abercrombie and Fitch model dressed as a cowboy. Or, at least he could be a model. With perfect olive skin, piercing hazel eyes, and wavy jet-black hair, he could be anything he wants to be.

Kate’s eyes bulge out of her head as though she’s seen a ghost. “Will,” she says breathlessly. “What are you . . . I mean . . . how did you . . .”

Will smiles widely as he pulls her into a bear hug. “My God, you look good.”

“Thanks,” Kate says, her body noticeably going limp.

And the two keep hugging.

Yup, just gonna keep hugging. Even though Dawn and I are exchanging glances, wondering how long a hug can go on for. A minute? Two minutes?

Dawn jerks her head toward Will and silently mouths to me, “
The
Will?”

I shrug.

Will Davies was Kate’s high school sweetheart back in Houston. The two dated for three years before she went off to UCLA, and he headed to an Ivy League school. As most high school sweethearts do, they tried the long-distance thing during the fall semester of their freshman year. And their long-distance freshman romance went the way of most: he met someone else, and he broke her heart. When Kate got back from Christmas vacation, her eyes were red rimmed, and her sense of optimism about the world was shattered. She spent the next three months so heartbroken, she could barely eat. Forget about gaining the freshman ten; Kate lost fifteen.

To make matters worse, every time Kate started to date, Will would call. I have a long-standing theory that men just instinctively know when you’re getting over them, and choose that moment to come back and mindfuck you all over again. That’s what Will did for two years. It was always under the pretense that they were “still close friends.” Will was a good guy, and I’m sure he meant well, but those calls always sent Kate spiralling down into an abyss of self-hate: “Why did he dump me? What’s wrong with me? Am I fat?”

It wasn’t until she met Jack, her boyfriend for the next nine years, that she stopped talking to Will.

And Jack’s now gone. And Will isn’t acting like a jerk. And I don’t know what to think.

Dawn breaks the hugging monotony by taking Will’s left hand, and lifting it up for me to inspect. “No ring, and no tan line.” She turns to Kate. “That’s a step up, don’t you think?”

Suddenly jolted back to reality, Kate awkwardly pulls away from the hug. “I’m sorry. Will, these are my friends Dawn and Charlie.”

Will gives us the most engaging smile, and I can see why Kate fell for him so hard all those years ago. “Nice to meet you.”

“So,” Kate begins, searching for a topic of conversation. “How’s Stephanie?”

Will’s eyes squint a bit in confusion. “Who?”

The slut you dumped her for
, I want to blurt out.

“Stephanie,” Kate manages to eek out. She cocks her head a little. “You know the, uh . . .”

Will juts his chin forward, trying to figure out who Kate is talking about. “Steph . . .” Then he gets it. “Oh! Uh, I don’t know. I haven’t seen her in almost ten years. How’s Jack?”

“He’s good,” Kate says, a little too quickly. “Running his own company now. Gets to work from home.”

“So, you’re still seeing him?” Will says, a trace of disappointment crossing his face as he looks at Kate’s ring finger.

He’s looking at her ring finger
, I think to myself.
Interesting
.

Kate doesn’t know how to respond to that. She looks down at the ground, then looks back up at Will. “No, actually. We broke up a few months ago.”

Will’s face lights up. “Really? So, are you seeing anyone?”

I watch Kate as she notices Mike from the corner of her eye. She smiles confidently as she says to Will, “Nope. It’s just me for now.”

Overall, the party was a total waste of dinosaur. By midnight, everyone had abandoned me. Dawn was flirting with Patrick, but vehemently denying she was doing any such thing. Kate had disappeared with Will, who had single-handedly rid her of Mike. Liam had to take a very drunk Megan home, and Drew was trying to convince me to come with him to a trapeze class. By one o’clock, I had cabbed it out of there.

I’ll admit, I had an ulterior motive. Although I knew from my iPhone that I had no new e-mails, calls, or text messages from Jordan, that wouldn’t stop me from composing a light and breezy e-mail to Jordan to subtly show him that I had not picked up anyone at the party, and that I had gone home to snuggle up in my best red negligee, to have a glass of wine, and to think of him. And when I say
think
of him, I will make it obvious that I mean I am
thinking
of him. . . .

The second I get home, I change out of my dinosaur costume and into my favorite old Eeyore nightshirt that’s shredded at the collar and a comfy pair of UCLA sweatpants. I know . . . how kitten-with-a-whip, right? I kill what’s left of a bottle of cabernet and head to my computer.

Never mix wine and e-mail
.

I take a sip of wine, and prepare to send off an erotic e-mail.

First, I check my inbox, just in case something happened in the five minutes since I’ve checked my iPhone. Still nothing from Jordan. One from my sister Andy, recently back from her honeymoon in Europe.

I have news. It’s huge. I will call you tomorrow at precisely nine in the morning.

Love,

Andy

I hate it when people say “I have news,” but don’t tell me what the news is. The worst is when you get a message on your machine where someone says, “Call me. I have big news. It’s huge. Call me back.” And then you spend the next hour tracking down someone, only to hear that they’ve won in fantasy baseball or saw something on
Dr. Phil
that applies to you.

The next e-mail is from my cousin Jenn. It has an attachment, probably of her ridiculously adorable boys Alex and Sean, or the latest ultrasound of her baby girl, due in late November. I open the e-mail.

Subject: Well, isn’t that always the problem?

To: Charlie Edwards

From: Jenn Smith

 

With a three-year-old and a four-year-old comes a proliferation of birthday parties. And birthday parties mean birthday gifts. Which brings us to Barbie. The hot gift this season is “Wedding Barbie”: she is blonde, she has a killer body, and she has an engagement ring that is so big, it takes up her entire finger. And it lights up. ’Cuz nothin’ says class like a light-up ring.

Anyway, on the back of the box are other toys to go with Barbie to make her wedding complete: the flower girl, the ring boy, and, of course, the groom. Which brings me to my favorite picture of the year. . . .

I click on the picture of the pink Barbie box. On the box is “Ken Groom,” wearing a tuxedo and dancing with Barbie. Underneath the picture of the happy couple is the caption:
THE GROOM
(
SOLD SEPARATELY, SUBJECT TO AVAILABILITY
.)

Isn’t that just always the problem with grooms—you need one for a wedding, but they’re subject to availability?

On another subject, Rob just got a text from Patrick that he saw you guys tonight. Ah, you glamorous single people and your glamorous Hollywood parties. So Rob wants to know, does Patrick have a shot with Dawn?

As for the Jordan e-mail you forwarded—I think Rob said it best. We’re not sure what it means, but if he is not hurling himself at your door over and over again until he’s a bloody pulp, he’s a Goddamn fool.

Love,

Jenn