Until the Real Thing Comes Along (4 page)

“I …”

“You don’t love anyone else.”

“No.”

“You want children, too.”

“Yeah, I do. I really do.”

“I read in a magazine that men’s sperm counts are going down all over the world. And the sperm that
is
there isn’t as healthy as it used to be. And let’s face it, Ethan, you’re not exactly getting any younger, either.”

“I
know
that, Patty.” Uh-oh. He’s getting testy. Well, so am I.

“So why don’t you just love me, goddamn it, Ethan! Or
don’t
! I love you enough for the whole relationship. Just marry me and give me a baby! You can still see other men, I don’t care.”

I cannot believe I’ve said this. Is this what I really want? The room is very quiet.

I take in a deep breath, look into his eyes. “I mean, seriously, Ethan, how gay are you?”

He laughs, sadly. “Patty.”

“Well, it’s a continuum, isn’t it?”

“I’m gay, Patty! I am attracted to other men! We’ve talked about this so many times. What can I say to make you understand that—”

“I
know
! But we could—”

“Don’t,” he says. “For God’s sake.”

I look away, talk to the wall. “See, I’m desperate. I’ve become desperate. I should be embarrassed right now, but I’m so desperate I’m not even embarrassed. Well. Maybe a little.”

“You don’t need to be embarrassed,” Ethan says. “You just need to … move on. Listen, I think you’ll really like Mark.
Really
like him.”

I look down at my hands, which are gripping each other. I unclasp them, put them on my knees, try to relax. Then I look up at Ethan’s beautiful face. At his blue eyes that can turn green. At the
cheekbones a woman would kill for. He didn’t shave today, and the sexy roughness on his face is enough to make me nauseated with desire. Sometimes I want to slap his face and say, Oh, just stop it! But of course you can’t stop your looks.

You can’t start your looks, either, not really. I ought to know. Check out my MasterCard bill for makeup. I’m not horrible, I can look okay. I’m just not anything like Ethan. I can’t look so good it’s dangerous. Men might on occasion turn their heads in a restaurant to watch me walk by, but they never stop chewing. They stop chewing for my friend Elaine. They stop
breathing
for my friend Elaine. Sometimes it’s hard to be her friend. A lot it’s hard to be her friend. I’m Betty to her Veronica, only I don’t even get to have blonde hair.

It’s not just Ethan’s looks that I love. He makes me laugh all the time. He reads Shakespeare to me and makes it comprehensible; he taught me the thing about opera is that you have to breathe to it. When I order a second dessert, he won’t say anything; often, he’ll order a second one, too. He cries at sentimental commercials he’s seen a hundred times. His wardrobe is beautiful, his manners so softly elegant. He is so tidy about losing his temper; I have never heard him yell.

“Ethan,” I say, “I truly wish I didn’t love only you, but that’s the reality. I have loved only you since you saved me from Kathleen Mayfield on the playground in sixth grade.” He was wearing a madras shirt that day, tucked into beautifully pleated pants. Little Weejuns. Kathleen was wearing a plaid dress with a bow at the neck which belied her personality. I remember seeing her skirt blow up over her head as she straddled me, pummeling me. She
was angry because I’d laughed in gym class when the teacher said, “Now I am going to weigh you all. Is there anyone who has a problem with that?” Kathleen’s voice boomed, “
I
do!” I laughed out of admiration, really; but Kathleen was not interested in any interpretation of the event but her own. So she was letting me know her opinion of me and Ethan came flying to the rescue. After a teacher broke up the scuffle, Ethan excused himself and went to the boys’ room. He came out smelling of soap, with wet comb lines in his hair and with me smitten. “I have loved you since I discovered what love was,” I say.

“I know, that’s what you always say.”

“It’s true! I don’t say it because it’s cute, or romantic. It’s a pain in the ass! But I feel like I’m the kind of person who finds one love in a lifetime. And you’re the one.”

He sighs, kisses my forehead.

Very, very slowly, I move my mouth toward his.

“Patty,” he says gently, moving away. “Don’t.”

I am aware of the scent of his cologne now, rising up like a wall between us.

“Fine,” I say.

I am all the time saying
fine
when what I want to do is hold the sides of my head and scream NO!!! I could get ulcers living this way. I bet I get ulcers. “Wow!” some cute married doctor will say. “Look how
many
you have!”

“I think I’d better go,” Ethan says, rising, retucking his shirt into his pants, which hurts my throat.

“Ethan?”

“Yeah.”

“Did you ever … how did you used to feel when we made love? How did that feel to you?”

He sighs, sits back down.

“It felt … it was very nice, Patty.”

I nod.

“But … it was wrong. For me. There was something missing. It was painful, in that way.”

“Okay.”

“Can you understand?”

“But … You weren’t telling the truth then, you were lying to me. Now that I know the truth, it would be different.”

“Patty, what are you
asking
me?”

“I don’t know. I don’t know.” I look at him. “To marry me?”

He opens his mouth and I say, “Oh, God. Never mind. I was, you know. I was kidding.”

“I’ll call you,” he says, heading for the door.

“Ethan?”

“Yeah?”

“Could you just … would you try kissing me?”

He stands immobile.

“It’s not like you’ve never done it!”

“I know. I know that.”

“It would help me.”

“No it wouldn’t.”

“Yes it would. You don’t know what I mean, but I do.” Actually, I don’t know what I mean. I just want him to kiss me, and then kiss me again, and then everything will become very clear to both of us. Aha! he will say. I forgot! I
do
love you!

“Come on, just one time.” I stand, take in a bumpy breath.

He sighs, comes toward me, lifts my chin with his pianist’s fingers, lowers his face toward me. I raise my arms to encircle his neck, close my eyes.

There. There! Doesn’t he feel how right this is? Doesn’t he remember? I am so amazingly turned on. Isn’t he? I open my eyes to steal a quick look at his face. I’m looking for the pretty anguish of passion. What I see is the resigned patience of, say, a nursing cow. Ethan’s eyes are open, looking in the direction of the kitchen clock.

I step away, wipe my mouth with the back of my hand, though there is nothing to wipe away. “Just leave, you fuckhead,” I say.

He closes the door quietly behind him. I’m still not embarrassed. Grief is taking up too much room.

I sit down at the kitchen table, use the serving spoon to start eating the eggplant we left out to cool. My stomach hurts from eating so much before, but I just keep on shoveling it in. I can see the headline:
WOMAN, 36, CHILDLESS (NOT PREGNANT, EITHER), HOPELESSLY IN LOVE WITH GAY MAN, OVERDOSES ON LUKEWARM EGGPLANT PARMIGIANA
. A lot of single women might hang the article up on their refrigerators, and every time they passed it they might shiver, thinking,
Wow, this could be me. Only I’d never be so stupid as to be in love with a gay man
.

I dial Ethan’s number, listen to the message on his machine, say, “I’m sorry. Call me.”

And then, I swear to God, I eat more eggplant.

T
he next morning, on my way to get a manicure
(not
because I have a date, I tell myself, though this is a lie), I stop for coffee at my favorite Dunkin’ Donuts. There’s a new guy behind the counter, young, maybe twenty, thin and anxious. His paper hat is bright white, ironed-looking. I order a large regular, milk, no sugar. He repeats the order back, then stands straight before me to ask, “Would you like to try one of our fresh hot bagels this morning?”

“No, thanks,” I say. “Just the coffee.” And then, “I’m sure another time I’ll try one, though.”

He hands me my coffee, makes change for my five-dollar bill.

“Sorry, I have to ask you that,” he mumbles.

“That’s okay.”

He slides the cash-register drawer closed, looks around to see if the place is still empty. “They’re not even really fresh,” he says. “They’re kind of hard.”

“Oh. Well.” I’m not sure whether I should offer thanks or sympathy.

I sit at a table by the window, look out at the deep blue sky. The clouds are thin, filmy; they look smeared on. Ethan left me a message while I was in the shower. He didn’t call me last night because he got home too late. Uh-huh. Now he was on his way to the vet—his cat, Elton Jane, had not eaten in three days. Good, is what I say. I hate that cat. She’s Himalayan, a puffed-out freak of nature, fluffiness gone to disgusting extremes, and she has a face that looks like it slammed into a wall. If you have to have a cat, get a little orange guy from the Humane Society, don’t pay hundreds of dollars for some Greta Garbo feline who sits on top of the sofa staring slit-eyed at you, her contempt rising up off her like steam. She hates Ethan, too, so of course he loves her (you can see why I think there may be more heterosexual genes in Ethan than he’s willing to admit). He actually serves her food in a cut-crystal glass, just like on TV. Imagine washing a Waterford glass with disgusting cat food stuck to the edges. He can’t be gone for more than a few hours without worrying about her. He is just as ready for children as I am, Ethan. Well, he’s not going to get them without a woman. It might as well be me.

I blow on my coffee, stare at a man coming in the door. What if he were my date for tonight? Hey! we’d both say. Didn’t I see you this morning? The man looks at me, smiles. I smile back, straighten in my seat. Good-looking guy. Curly black hair. Dimples. Blue jeans, white T-shirt, flat stomach. I take a quick look at the black pick-up he got out of. O’Reilly Construction, it says on the side, in gold script. But maybe he’s Mark Hansen, just working for O’Reilly. But Mark Hansen works at the same software company as Ethan; he doesn’t do construction. Too bad. The door
opens again, and a perky blonde dressed in workout clothes comes in. The man turns to her, asks if it was a large she wanted. “Uh-huh,” she says musically, and slides up next to him. Where did she come from? His arm goes around her in a way that tells me they’ve slept together five thousand times. I turn away, look out the window again.

“Would you like to try one of our fresh hot bagels this morning?” I hear. The guy says, “… I don’t know. Sure. Want one, hon?” The woman says, “No, that’s okay. I’ll just have a bite of yours.”

Sometimes the feeling is that of a big steel door closing in my face. Well, obviously the guy is a moron, ordering a bagel in a doughnut shop.

A woman comes in pushing a stroller with a little boy, maybe eighteen months old, in it. He is holding a book upside down, studying the pages carefully. It is the puffy, waterproof variety of toddler book, perfect for bringing into the tubby. The woman turns the stroller so that the little boy faces me. He looks up from the book. I smile at him. He looks toward his mother, then back at me.

“Hi,” I say softly.

He smiles slightly, kicks his feet up. They are wearing baby sneakers and baby socks. I feel my hand curling into a fist of longing. “Hi,” I say again.

And now he smiles openly, revealing tiny white teeth. His mother, finished ordering (no thanks on the bagel, but how about one of them, uh, maple frostit coffee rolls), says, “Say HI, Daniel. Can you say HI?”

Daniel bites his book.

The woman smiles apologetically at me, but needn’t. Everything about Daniel is perfect. I walk over, bend down beside him. “Hey,” I say. I stroke his small hand. It’s chubby, so soft, dimples lined up in a row at the knuckles. He regards me seriously, with the moist, new-looking eyes of the very young. I touch his cheek gently.

“Okay,” the mother says, nervously turning the stroller around, away from me. “Let’s see, Daniel, what kind of munchkin should we get you?”

I stand up, go back to my table full of shame. But I would never feed him munchkins, I’ll tell you that. And I would use proper English around him.

“Aw,” Amber says. “You didn’t have to do this. Thanks!” She lifts the lid off the top of the coffee I’ve brought her. Her nails are gold today; maybe I’ll try that. She sips cautiously through exceedingly red lips. Maybe I’ll try that, too. In fact, maybe I’ll go to school and become a manicurist. I like hanging around beauty shops. I like the smell of all the products, the sound of the hair dryers, the intimate chatter between client and hairdresser. What hairdressers hear would make therapists leap out of their chairs. Actually, maybe it’s the therapists I hear talking to their hairdressers.

“What color today, babe?” Amber asks, inspecting my hands with a wrinkled brow. She takes her job seriously, and I am one of her tragic customers. “What happened here?” she asks sadly, pointing to a nail with a jagged edge.

I look at the nail with her. “I don’t know.”

She leans in closer. “Did you, like, use it to open something?”

I lean back, think a little. And then, “Oh! Yes! A CD!”

Amber leans back herself, sighs. “What have I told you?”

“I know.”

“What? I want to hear it.”

“ ‘Your fingernails are not a toolbox.’ ”

She nods, chews her gum seriously, gives me one of her oblique, I’ll-give-you-one-more-chance looks.

“It was an emergency,” I say.

“There are no emergencies that involve CDs.” She starts removing my old polish, which was not a good choice: “Cancun Calypso” went with nothing but the outfit I was wearing that particular day.

“There are, too,” I say.

She looks up. “Such as?”

“You could need to hear something right away.”

“What, there’s nothing in your house you can use to open a CD?”

“You might be in your car.”

“You have a CD player in your
car
?”

“No.”

“Your fingernails are not a toolbox,” she says, not even bothering to look up.