You're Not Pretty Enough (16 page)

“Do you want to go to Amsterdam with me for New Year’s?” We hadn’t even ordered our meals.
Why did I just ask him that?

“Yes,” he said. We spent the rest of the meal excitedly
planning the trip. Amsterdam-Paris-Amsterdam-Home. Ten days. We arrived in the Netherlands on December 29, and friends of mine flew in from London to meet us (he charmed them). Skinny, blond Dutch girls aggressively flirted with him in bars (he didn’t respond). I got jealous (he reassured me). It was all going so
well, and the trip had just started.

Paris.

We took the train from Amsterdam and arrived at our hotel in the St. Germain Arrondissement at around 9:30 p.m. We dropped our bags, bundled
up, and set out into the cold streets, which were dark save for the streetlights. Dave stopped me in the middle of our walk and leaned me against a wall. He looked at me…in my eyes, at my forehead, back to my eyes, and then at
my lips before he leaned in and kissed me. Then he tucked me into him and directed me forward. Seconds later, we rounded the corner, and there she was, the Eiffel Tower. We powered toward it, love drunk, as if it were the North Star, and once we reached it, we turned around and walked back, stopping in at
various places for warmth and drink.

Sufficiently intoxicated, we went back to our hotel, flopped in the bed, and held each other in the dark. I was feeling it—all that
gushy muck—but instead of saying, “Hey, I’m really digging this trip with you,” I said, “I love you.”

“Oh, that’s so nice. Thank you.” He stroked my hair, smiled and me, and didn’t pull away. “I think you’re great. I’m having the best time.”
Well, fantastic!

Within ten minutes he was snoring, so I went to sleep too.
Deal with it tomorrow, deal with it tomorrow.

The next morning I woke up with a cracking hangover: severe
head pain and extreme dehydration. I went into the bathroom and downed a glass of water and then stepped gingerly into the shower. I lost myself in the warm water for a few moments before my eyes shot open.

“Fuck!”
You told him you loved him last night. And he
didn’t say it back.
At the realization, all I wanted to do was get out of there. I wrapped a towel around me and saw that Dave was still passed out. I shook him lightly.

“Hmmm..?”

“Hey, I’m going to go to the Louvre. Do you want to come?”

“Uhn uhn…”

“I’ll take that as a no. OK, I’ll see you later.”

“I’ll be waiting for you…” And then he fell back into
unconsciousness.

Once coffee and croissants were inside me I felt revived and grateful for time by myself. Instead of spending the day obsessing, wondering what he thought, I could spend the day diverting myself with paintings and
sculptures and costumes and history. Someone once told me that if you spent thirty seconds viewing each piece of art in that museum, it would take you two and a half years to go through the museum. I don’t know if that’s true, but I do know that there is no better distraction from an errant “I love you” than a
trip through the Louvre.

I walked back to the hotel in a dreamy state and saw Dave sitting at a table outside with a carafe of wine. I sat down next to him, nervous, and the waiter brought over another glass.

“How was it?” Dave smiled without a hint of discomfort as he poured.

“Amazing. There was this one piece…” and there we were back in the swing. We didn’t talk about it for the rest of the trip nor soon after
that, and I’d be lying if I said it didn’t nag me.

“I mean, at some point, I’m making an ass of myself, right?” I asked my friend Claire. “At some point, I’m the girl who waits around thinking I’ll get an ‘I love you’ when in reality I get an e-mail that says,
‘Hey, got back together with my old girlfriend. I think you’re great, though, and hope we can stay friends!’ right?”

“Not necessarily,” Claire said.

“Yeah, right.”

“Think of it this way…If those three words didn’t exist, if they were just…obliterated from our vocabulary, would you be happy with the way things are?”

“Well, yes…”

“OK then.”

I’d
try
to be patient and I’d
try
to be strong, but that’s not so easy for a person who is oceans of emotions but always wants to appear in control. Sometimes it gets the better of me.

“Why haven’t you told me you loved me?” I asked one night in
frustration, while we were lying in his bed trying to fall asleep. He was silent for a moment, thoughtful.

“Give me time, I will.”

“When?” I demanded.

“I’m just not as fast as you are, Jen. It’s not that I don’t feel it; it’s just that, you know, I got out of a six-year relationship six weeks before I met you. I just want to make sure it’s right.”

“But I feel like an asshole,” I said.

He laughed and kissed me on the head. “I promise you, I’ll get there. What’s not to love?”

About a month later, he made good on his promise, and about a month after that, my friend Angela called to tell me her apartment in
Amsterdam would be empty as she was moving to London to give it a go with her boyfriend. Would we like to use it for a while before she put it on sale? We did not hesitate: yes.

Dave and I notified our employers, and they agreed to hold
our positions until we returned, even though we didn’t know when that would be. We took on second jobs to save up for the trip: Dave found another bartending gig, and I worked as a waitress in a sports bar that became a nightclub after
the games were broadcast. It wasn’t awesome: the manager was schizophrenic, people were drinking
Leaving Las Vegas
style, and the men got a little grabby sometimes. Still, I met a great friend working there, it was a few
blocks from our apartment, and I cleared about $500 per week on top of what I made from my full-time salary. We moved in together. We saved a lot of money. We were a team.

I began to imagine a life with Dave. Not as a married couple.
I didn’t want the expectations, the blatant
trap
of marriage. I wanted to be Kurt and Goldie. Oprah and Steadman. Bert and Ernie. But never, ever married.

****************

“Are you on drugs?” my dad asked when I first relayed the
plan. “The economy is slowing down, and you don’t know for sure if they’ll hold your jobs.”

My dad and stepmom hadn’t traveled much, nor were they particularly interested in other cultures, so me being on drugs was of course
the only explanation for such arresting stuff.

“Dad, just because Amsterdam has coffee houses doesn’t mean I’m addicted to drugs.” I was annoyed. Here I was successful, healthy, and on the road to happy. I had a well-thought-out plan, complete with risk mitigation
strategies, and they dare question my extracurricular activities? Who
cares
if I was on drugs? It was obviously
working!

But I wasn’t asking for their permission, only for their
blessing, which I got right before we left.

Dave traveled back to Cleveland with me two weeks before the trip and stayed at my mom’s the first night. She called me into the kitchen before dinner, leaving him in the living room. She was stirring a pot on the
stove and beckoned me to her, all
Mission Impossible
style. I gathered up close.

“Yessss….?”

“Dave just asked if he could marry you in Europe,” she said,
looking around the corner. “Isn’t that amazing?”

“Mom!” I whisper-yelled. “Don’t you think those would have been the first words out of my mouth if
I knew that
? He obviously wants that to be a surprise!” I watched as the realization spread across her face.
But she was so raw in her happiness that I decided to let it pass, and we hugged.

I was shocked, however, and went into an obsessive-compulsive churn.
How do I bring this up? He’s in the middle of
asking for my hand! What made him so sure? Isn’t he worried I’ll say no? He knows how I feel about marriage! What WILL I say? Shouldn’t I know the answer to that question?!? AHHH!

The next morning, I called my dad to alert them to Dave’s
intentions. I needed to prepare him because he cannot keep a happy secret. He wears it on his face and looks like he will burst within five seconds—which he usually does—but it’s so out of place and vague you’re left more confused than anything else. I figured he could use a few hours to get it out
of his system.

“Whatever your instinct, do the opposite!” I suggested brightly. This was actually the worst thing I could do because then I started getting
involved.

“I’ll be leaving the room for approximately twelve minutes,” I’d say at various intervals of the visit and run upstairs randomly throughout the day. By the fourth time, Dave had done the deed, and I came down and sat at
the table.

“We said yes!” said my dad.

Dave whipped his head around to my father, confused. I raised my eyebrows and gave my dad the knife-sliding-across-the-throat gesture and said, “So…what movie should we see?” That night Dave and I were making out
on the couch when I just couldn’t bear to keep the secret.

“My parents sold you out,” I said.

“What?” He tried to sit up fast and disentangle himself from me. I didn’t let go.

“Yeah, my mom slipped it…”

“Wait? You knew
yesterday…?”

“It was by mistake, and I thought we’d have one more shot with the big guy,” I said, pointing in the direction of my dad’s bedroom. “I’m
really sorry, sweetheart. I know that’s not the way you wanted it to go down, but they didn’t do it because they don’t want it to happen. They did it because they’re excited.” I realized that with Dave I was becoming less sarcastic, more
authentic. He softened me.

“I wanted to do an actual proposal while in Europe, after we got there.”

“I know, it sucks. But you still can. You can still surprise me.”

It was encouragement but also a stalling tactic. I didn’t
want to lose him, but I also didn’t want to get married.

We kissed until our lips began to blister.

****************

Dave and I arrived in Amsterdam with six full bags of
luggage. We took the tram from the airport to our neighborhood of Leidseplein. The square was pulsing with people and shops and bars and restaurants and trams and bikes. We threw our belongings in Angela’s apartment and rushed out to take
it in, practically skipping through the city, hand in hand, until the jet lag grabbed hold.

During the first two weeks, we felt invisible on the crowded streets compared to the Dutch who seemed so tall. We went to museums and packed
picnics and read in Vondel Park. We sat in outdoor cafés sipping Heineken and Witte beers while we watched street performers mime, bounce soccer balls endlessly, and dance on ropes in nude slings that made them look naked while climbing.

Then we took off.

Normandy, France.

Dave arranged for us to first stay at the Ferme de Marcelet,
a farmhouse owned by Solange and Pierre, a couple in their sixties. The house and surrounding structures were made of brick in varying shades of tan and gray. Plants and grass and hedges surrounded the property, which included cows,
a newborn calf, and a peacock that strutted around and screamed. In the morning, we gorged ourselves on warm bread and jam and butter before exploring Bayeaux.

For Dave, a history buff, the focal point of the trip was the beaches. We were there on the fifty-eighth anniversary of D-Day. We walked
around Gold Beach, Omaha, Juno, and Pointe du hoc. We peered through bunkers and went to gravesites. We imagined the kids who had to fight, particularly the Americans who had approached from the water that day. Sitting targets, but huge
in number. A reporter we met said he had talked to a German soldier who returned for the remembrance. The soldier recalled the sun rising on June 6, 1944. As he began to make out the fleet of tiny boats zooming toward shore, he
turned to his bunker mate and said, “We just lost the war.”

We talked to many people who fought that day from America and the United Kingdom, including a Welshman named Bill Evans, who planted a huge, wet, three-second kiss on my lips before saying good-bye. I looked at
Dave.

“Ah well,” he said with a shrug. “He
is
a veteran.” I wiped my mouth on my sleeve.

On the way back to Amsterdam we stopped in Rouen, where Joan
of Arc was burned at the stake at nineteen. She was a peasant convinced she heard messages from God and wound up leading the French Army to victory during the Hundred Years’ War. After a few hours, we headed north, Dave driving and me navigating as we listened to our worn out copy of the
Moulin Rouge
soundtrack.
In the summer, Holland stays light until ten or eleven. We arrived when the sun was setting amid colors of pale blues, purples, and pinks, his hand over mine, his thumb caressing my ring finger.