The Lover's Dictionary (2 page)

There was a pause. I was still scared by every gap in our conversation, fearing that this was it, the point where we had nothing left to say. I was still trying to impress you, and I still wanted to be impressed by you, so I could pass along pieces of your impressiveness in stories to my friends, convincing myself this was possible.

“If you were a country,” I said, “what would your national anthem be?”

I meant a pre-existing song — “What a Wonderful World” or “Que Sera, Sera” or something to make it a joke, like “Hey Ya!” (“I would like, more than anything else, for my nation to be shaken like a Polaroid picture.”)

But instead you said, “It would have to be a blues song.” And then you looked up at the ceiling, closed your eyes, and began to sing a blues riff:

Nuh-nah-nuh-nuh

My work makes me tired

Nuh-nah-nuh-nuh

But I gotta pay my rent

Nuh-nah-nuh-nuh

My parents never loved me

Nuh-nah-nuh-nuh

Left all my emotions bent

Nuh-nah-nuh-nuh

I know what I’m here for

Nuh-nah-nuh-nuh

Make your dishes so clean

Nuh-nah-nuh-nuh

Just be careful what you wish for

Nuh-nah-nuh-nuh

’Cause most my shit is unseen

Nuh-nah-nuh-nuh

So many men

Nuh-nah-nuh-nuh

Fall into my trap

Nuh-nah-nuh-nuh

But, boy, I gotta tell you

Nuh-nah-nuh-nuh

You might rewrite that map

Nuh-nah-nuh-nuh

Because I’m a proud nation

Nuh-nah-nuh-nuh

It’s written here on my flag

Nuh-nah-nuh-nuh

It’s a fucked-up
world, boy

Nuh-nah-nuh-nuh

So you better make me laugh

Then you stopped and opened your eyes to me. I applauded.

“Don’t sit there clapping,” you said. “Rub this blues singer’s feet.”

You never asked what my anthem was. But that’s okay, because I still don’t know what I’d answer.

antiperspirant
,
n.

“There is nothing attractive about smelling like baking powder,” I said.

“Baking
soda
,” you corrected.

“So if I want to make a pound cake, I can throw some butter, flour, and sugar into your armpit —”

“Why are we having this conversation? Remind me again?”

“You no longer smell the yeasty goodness that you apply under your arms, because you are completely used to it. I, however, feel like I am dating a Whole Foods.”

“Fine,” you said.

I was surprised. “ ‘Fine’?”

“Let the record show, I have stepped onto the slippery slope of compromise in the name of promoting peace and harmony. There will be a ceremonial burning of the deodorant in ten minutes. I hope it’s flammable.”

“It’s just that I really hate it,” I told you.

“Well, I hate your toe hair.”

“I’ll wear socks,” I promised. “All the time. Even in the shower.”

“Just be warned,” you said. “Someday you’ll ask me to give up something I really love, and then it’s going to get ugly.”

antsy
,
adj.

I swore I would never take you to the opera again.

arcane
,
adj.

It was Joanna who noticed it first. We were over at her house for dinner, and she said something about being able to see the woman across the street doing yoga in the mornings, and how strange it looked when you were watching it from a distance.

“So how
is
Miss Torso doing?” you asked.

And I said, “Perhaps we should ask the pianist.”

Joanna just looked at us and said, “It used to be that you each had your own strange, baffling references. Now you have them together.”

People often say that when couples are married for a long time, they start to look alike. I don’t believe that. But I do believe their sentences start to look alike.

ardent
,
adj.

It was after sex, when there was still heat and mostly breathing, when there was still touch and mostly thought . . . it was as if the whole world could be reduced to the sound of a single string being played, and the only thing this sound could make me think of was you. Sometimes desire is air; sometimes desire is liquid. And every now and then, when everything else is air and liquid, desire solidifies, and the body is the magnet that draws its weight.

arduous
,
adj.

Sometimes during sex, I wish there was a button on the small of your back that I could press and cause you to be done with it already.

arrears
,
n.

My faithfulness was as unthinking as your lapse. Of all the things I thought would go wrong, I never thought it would be that.

“It was a mistake,” you said. But the cruel thing was, it felt like the mistake was mine, for trusting you.

autonomy
,
n.

“I want my books to have their own shelves,” you said, and that’s how I knew it would be okay to live together.

avant-garde
,
adj.

This was after Alisa’s show, the reverse-blackface rendition of
Gone With the Wind
, including songs from the
Empire Records
soundtrack and an interval of nineteenth-century German poetry, recited with a lisp.

“What does
avant-garde
mean, anyway?” I asked.

“I believe it translates as
favor to your friends
,” you replied.

awhile
,
adv.

I love the vagueness of words that involve time.

It took him awhile to come back
— it could be a matter of minutes or hours, days or years.

It is easy for me to say it took me awhile to know. That is about as accurate as I can get. There were sneak previews of knowing, for sure. Instances that made me feel, oh, this could be right. But the moment I shifted from a hope that needed to be proven to a certainty that would be continually challenged? There’s no pinpointing that.

Perhaps it never happened. Perhaps it happened while I was asleep. Most likely, there’s no signal event. There’s just the steady accumulation of
awhile
.

B

balk
,
v.

I was the one who said we should live together. And even as I was doing it, I knew this would mean that I would be the one to blame if it all went wrong. Then I consoled myself with this: if it all went wrong, the last thing I’d care about was who was to blame for moving in together.

banal
,
adj.
, and
bane
,
n.

I am interested in the connection between these two words, and how one denotes the series of ordinary spirit-deaths that occur during a day, while the other is the full ruination, the
core of the calamity.

I think we endure the banal —

“So how’s your chicken?”

“I’m so tired.”

“Lord, it’s cold.”

“Where were you?”

“Where do you want to go?”

“Have you been waiting long?”

— as a way of skirting around the bane.

barfly
,
n.

You have the ability to talk to anyone, which is an ability I do not share.

basis
,
n.

There has to be a moment at the beginning when you wonder whether you’re in love with the person or in love with the feeling of love itself.

If the moment doesn’t pass, that’s it —– you’re done.

And if the moment
does
pass, it never goes that far. It stands in the distance, ready for whenever you want it back. Sometimes it’s even there when you thought you were searching for something else, like an escape route, or your lover’s face.

beguile
,
v.

It’s when you walk around the apartment in my boxers when you don’t know I’m awake. And then that grin, when you do know I’m awake. You spend so much time in the morning making sure every hair is in place. But I have to tell you: I like it most like this, haphazard, sleep-strewn, disarrayed.

belittle
,
v.

No, I don’t listen to the weather in the morning. No, I don’t keep track of what I spend. No, it hadn’t occurred to me that the Q train would have been much faster. But every time you give me that look, it doesn’t make me want to live up to your standards.

bemoan
,
v.

This is dedicated to your co-worker Marilynn.

Marilynn, please stop talking about your sister’s pregnancy.

And please stop showing up late.

And please stop asking my lover to drinks.

And please stop humming while you type.

I’m tired of hearing about it.

better
,
adj.
and
adv.

Will it ever get better?

It better.

Will it ever get better?

It better.

Will it ever get better?

It better.

beware
,
v.

“My worse date ever?” I asked. “I don’t know. I’m always amazed when the other person doesn’t ask you anything about yourself. This one date — once the autobiography started, it wouldn’t stop. I actually sat there, thinking,
Wow, you’re not
going to ask me a single question, are you?
And sure enough. Ten minutes. Thirty minutes. An hour. Only one subject. And it wasn’t me.”

“So, what did you do?” you asked.

“I just started counting. Like sheep. And when the waiter asked if we wanted to have dessert, my date started to order, and I interrupted and said I had promised a friend to walk his dog. What about you?”

“It’s embarrassing.”

“Tell me!”

“Okay. It was a set-up. And the minute I saw him, I was like — the attraction level was in the deep negatives. Like, I’ve seen sexier tree stumps. But of course you can’t say that. I tried to be a better person. Then he opened his mouth and I was completely repulsed. Not only did he talk about himself all night, but he also kept cutting me off whenever I had an opinion about anything. The worst part was: I could see he was enjoying himself! So — God, I’m not proud of this. In fact, I can’t believe I’m telling you this. You promise you won’t think I’m a freak?”

“I won’t.”

“Okay. So there’d been this fly hovering over our table. I kept trying to shoo it with my hand. After awhile I was focusing on the fly more than the guy. He was getting annoyed. So the next time it came close to my face I just . . . stuck out my tongue.”

“Like you were a frog?”

You nodded. “Like I was a frog.”

“And you caught the fly.”

“Yup. Swallowed it down. It was worth it to see the look on his face. Dessert wasn’t an option after that. And I was so relieved. With all due respect to the fly and its right to live, it was completely worth it.”

At that point the waiter came over and asked if we needed anything else.

And you said, “I think we’re going to get another round of dessert.”

blemish
,
n.

The slight acne scars. The penny-sized, penny-shaped birthmark right above your knee. The dot below your shoulder that must have been from when you had chicken pox in third grade. The scratch on your neck — did I do that?

This brief transcript of moments, written on the body, is so deeply satisfying to read.

bolster
,
v.

I am very careful whenever I know you’re on the phone with your father. I know you’ll come to me eventually, and we’ll talk you through it. But I have to wait — you need your time. In the meantime, I’m careful what songs I play. I try to speak to you with my selections.

brash
,
adj.

“I want you to spend the night,” you said. And it was definitely your phrasing that ensured it. If you had said, “Let’s have sex,” or “Let’s go to my place,” or even “I really want you,” I’m not sure we would have gone quite as far as we did. But I loved the notion that the night was mine to spend, and I immediately decided to spend it on you.

breach
,
n.

I didn’t want to know who he was, or what you did, or that it didn’t mean anything.

breathing
,
n.

You had asthma as a child, had to carry around an inhaler. But when you grew older, it went away. You could run for miles and it was fine.