You're Not Pretty Enough (9 page)

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

I tried to talk to my friends about the growing unhappiness
in my marriage, but they generally—perhaps to be hopeful—blew it off as being a phase. The one sympathetic ear I had was in Cathryn, a beautiful, bohemian singer-songwriter who dated Leo’s cousin. Having been
through similar situations, she walked that perfect balance of encouraging me to trust my woman’s intuition while holding out hope that it was “nothing.”

One night in the summer of 1995 I called Leo at work to see
if he wanted to meet at one of our local haunts to watch the Major League baseball playoffs.

“Oh man, I have a major deadline. When I’m done I’ll call and see if you’re still home, and then we can make a plan from there, OK?”

“Sure, sounds good.”

I called Cathryn an hour later and asked her to meet me instead and left Leo a note telling him where we’d be.

When I walked into the bar to meet up with Cathryn, I saw
Leo and Charlotte sitting across from each other in a booth, engaged in intense conversation. I felt a rush of emotions—surprise, hurt, anger—but I just kept advancing toward them as if on autopilot. Charlotte saw me out of her
peripheral vision, mouthed the words “oh shit,” and immediately pulled back and reached for her wallet. Leo appeared completely unfazed.

“Hey, what’s up? I was just about to call you.”

“Yeah, um, this is weird,” I said.

“I was just about to call you,” he said again. I looked at Charlotte, who looked back at me, and we all froze, wondering who would make the next move. Just then, Cathryn walked in.

“Hey, party people. I’m Cathryn,” she said, all sunshine, as
she extended her hand to Charlotte, who took it and introduced herself. Our waitress appeared.

“You again,” she said to Cathryn and winked. “Like I need another drunk like you in here.”

“You love me,” Cathryn said. “Bring us another round.” No one protested, so I slowly sat down next to Leo, who was watching the game.

“Whoa, did you see that play!” yelled Leo suddenly. “That was awesome!” One of the Cleveland Indians’ best players had batted a monster
hit that barely went foul.

“Jesus, I
hate
when Thome is up to bat,” I said. “That guy grabs his crotch like he’s milking a cow.” Leo laughed and Charlotte shot him a look that said,
Why are you laughing at
her
jokes?

Oh shit.

Leo said, “I can’t believe how much Jen is into baseball this year. She used to hate sports.” Then he looked at me. “Do you remember how
much you used to nag me to turn off the game, get off the couch, and go out and do something?”

I laughed. “Well someone had to—you’d get couch sores.”

Charlotte looked directly at me. “You used to get mad at him
for watching sports? That’s what men do! They watch sports!” Leo laughed again.

“I mean,” she continued, “if he were
my
man, I’d let him watch all the sports he wanted.”

“Have you dated anyone longer than a year?” I asked her.

“No.”

“OK, well, let’s swap stories when you have.” Charlotte huffed and asked Cathryn to move so she could go to the restroom.

“What’s your problem, Jen?” Leo asked.

“What’s
my
problem?”

“She’s not going to come out of the bathroom until you go apologize.”

“Leo, what the fuck?”

“She’s going through some stuff, and she’s just a kid.” She
was twenty-two and I was twenty-five. “You’re better than that.”

I went. I still can’t believe it, but I went. She was in the bathroom playing with her hair when I walked in. I guess I was curious.

“Are you OK?” I asked. She turned to me.

“Yeah, it’s just…” And then she said something that was so devoid of any sarcasm or falseness that it arrested me. She said, “I just want you to like me.”
Maybe Leo is right,
I reasoned.
Maybe she is just a
‘kid’ going through some things and Leo is a mentor of sorts.
Her manner was one that drew out the savior in people, I guess.

I touched Charlotte’s arm. “I do like you.” And we went back
to the table with the air cleared. Charlotte, with renewed confidence, began talking to Leo, and Cathryn and I turned our attention to each other. After about fifteen minutes, Cathryn looked at me and mouthed unnoticed, “What’s
going on?” and nodded her head in their direction. It felt like we were encroaching on a date.

I mouthed back, “I don’t know.”

“This scene is LAME!” Cathryn said.

“I agree,” I chimed in.

“Leo, let’s go to the Irish place,” she continued.

“I’m gonna stay here for a minute, but I’ll meet you there in a few.” Leo looked at me and smiled. “You guys go ahead…I’ll be there.” I did not want to leave him there alone, but I was afraid if I stayed I would be
on a continuous cycle of trying to be cool, but upsetting Charlotte with increasingly malicious insults, and then having to chase her to the bathroom to boost her up, so I left.

“What the hell was that?” asked Cathryn as we left.

“Do you think I need to worry?”

“I don’t know. Just keep your eye on that one.”

Leo never met us. He arrived home at 3:00 a.m. and went
directly to the guest bathroom to vomit. I found him there when I woke up, passed out on the floor, with his work clothes still on. I got ready for work quietly and left him there to clean up his own mess.

On my way home, I picked up groceries, intending to make the
perfect meal because I somehow convinced myself that if I became a good cook that would solve our problems. When I walked through the door, Leo was there, un-showered, only wearing his boxers and a T-shirt. We didn’t greet each other.
Instead, he followed me around silently, sticking far enough away so that it couldn’t be called hovering, but close enough to let me know that he wanted me to set the tone.

I ignored him and pulled out the groceries and began to cook
dinner. As I was frying turkey cutlets—in an amateur fashion—I looked up at him and said, “Don’t ever make me feel like I’m not your wife again.”

He looked down and nodded.

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

But things only got worse.

He started going to the gym with a ferocity and dedication I’d never seen and claimed he’d finally decided to take control of his physical health and I should too, just not at the same gym. “That would be weird.”

He stopped touching me. Again. The infrequent sex was not so much the issue for me, but his hand would move away when I’d grab it, and he wouldn’t reciprocate when I’d wrap my arms around him in bed. So finally I
stopped trying.

He came home late more frequently—sometimes really late—saying he had to work, but this was before cell phones, and I could never catch him at the office after five. He always had a plausible excuse. “I
was in the bathroom,” he’d say, “and I didn’t check messages because I was in the zone trying to get everything done.”

This, of course, caused fights. In which crazy shit is often said. Once I stayed up late waiting for him, and when he walked through the
door, he sort of breathed heavy and said, “Oh, God Jen, I’m really in no mood.”

“Why are you doing this? Why are you deliberately hurting me?” I tried to be plaintive but assertive. I didn’t want to wallow in this
anymore. I wanted to force this to its natural conclusion and get to whatever was on the next side.

“I don’t know, Jen!” He ran his fingers through his hair, exasperated. “Sometimes I think you’re just not pretty enough!” I let out a
choke that can only be described as a guffaw mixed with one loud, short sob and watched as he walked toward the bedroom to go to sleep. The way he said it, the words he used: they pierced that vulnerable place in a woman’s psyche. He
wasn’t saying I wasn’t pretty. He was saying I wasn’t pretty
enough.

But then I thought,
Dude, you look like Ray Romano; you’re no Tom Cruise!
(It was 1996, so it was Jerry Maguire Tom Cruise, OK?)

I remained on the couch in the darkness and buried my head in my knees and cried.
What am I supposed to do?
I didn’t yet have the answers, but I did have the soundtrack. Alanis Morrisette’s
Jagged Little Pill
was released during that time, and I wore her song “You Oughta Know”
out, looping it over and over in the car and gripping the steering wheel tightly while I belted out the lyrics. It helped.

I’d meet my friends in bars more frequently to avoid being
alone in the house obsessing. While there, I began to look for attention elsewhere, from other men, who could validate me with that flirty, alcohol-induced banter and, sometimes, a make-out session in a car. Sometimes a make-out session in an apartment. While that would boost me temporarily, it
always left me feeling worse than before. And I never told anyone. I wasn’t ready to confront what was happening. But my veneer—the face I put on when I stepped outside my house—was beginning to crack. It was beginning
to affect my performance at work. I was drinking more.

Soon, I became a detective and snooped. I figured out Leo’s voice mail passwords and checked regularly. I paid closer attention to his comings and goings to identify trends. This led to a lot of circumstantial
evidence yet no “proof.”

But he was getting sloppy.

In November of 1995, I was getting ready for a trip to London to visit a friend with my mom and sister. I was leaving in three days.
While packing I got a call from Cathryn.

“Jim just called,” she began. Jim was a waiter and in Cathryn’s band—someone we all knew well. “Apparently Leo just left there with some girl. It was ‘dog girl,’ I know it!”

“What are you talking about?”

“Jim waited on them—I mean, they sat in his section and had this date! Jim was totally suspicious but thought maybe it was a work dinner or something until he asked them if they wanted dessert.”

“And…?” I asked, impatient.

“Well, he asked if they wanted to see the dessert menus, and this girl kind of said, ‘I don’t know…so many calories, I don’t want to have to
work an extra thirty minutes at the gym,’ and then Leo said…” Silence.

“Yeah?”

“Leo said, ‘Don’t worry, we’ll just fuck it off later.’”

“…”

Cathryn continued, “They just left. Jen, it’s time to get
his ass in line!”

I began to talk, but it was that talk that comes off like you have something in your throat and you’re trying to keep from crying but the effort burns. Still, I managed to squeak out, “I don’t know how to handle
this.”

Cathryn said, “Tomorrow…we follow him.”

And that sounded like a rational plan to me. The next day we plotted, calling each other several times at work to check and recheck our
strategy. I called Leo and told him that we were invited to dinner with Cathryn and his cousin and that I would meet him at home at seven thirty so we could ride in one car. He said he’d have to work late too, so the timing was perfect.

I met up with Cathryn and drove in her car to the upper level of the hospital’s back lot where we could sit on a perch and watch them exit the building. As we waited we chain-smoked and ran through the potential scenarios we might face and practiced our responses to each. We were ready.

We saw Charlotte and Leo exit the building together, get into their respective vehicles, and drive away. We followed them. After ten minutes, they both pulled into a bar parking lot that was a couple minutes from
our home. Cathryn and I drove around a few minutes more to give them time to walk into the bar without spotting us.

Of all the scenarios Cathryn and I worked out, we missed one: being ignored completely. We walked toward them, sat one seat away from
them, ordered beers loudly next to them, and then sat there, stumped. “This wasn’t in the script,” I said.

Finally Cathryn said loudly, “Jen, I don’t know about you, but I’m kind of partial to German shepherds…!” Well,
that
caught their
attention.

“Hi girls,” Leo said, exasperated. “It’s Charlotte’s last day at the hospital, so I’m buying her a send-off drink.” I willed my eyes to be laser beams and burn them both up. It happened to be the day of the Great
American Smokeout, and Leo asked me sarcastically if I planned to quit smoking, while I was holding a lit cigarette.

I took a drag. “Yep, this is my last one,” to which he replied, “You’re a liar,” to which I screamed, “NO, YOU’RE THE FUCKING LIAR!”
Cue record screeching sound. Everyone turned to look at us.

Leo turned to Charlotte, rolled his eyes, and sighed. “I guess I have to go now…” and then paid for
their
drinks and walked toward the
door. I looked at Cathryn, and she said, “Go…I’m going to stay and talk to ‘dog girl.’” I scurried off my bar stool and ran after Leo and got into his truck where we immediately started screaming at each other and carried this ugliness
into our house.

We walked into the bedroom where my luggage was laid out, a reminder I was leaving in two days for London. In a rage, Leo took off his wedding ring, threw it across the room, and screamed, “AS FAR AS I’M CONCERNED
YOU CAN GO TO LONDON, FIND YOUR HUGH GRANT, AND STAY THE FUCK THERE!” It’s true, I did have a crush on Hugh Grant at the time (
Four Weddings and a Funeral, hellloooo)
, but he had betrayed me too by getting a blowjob from Divine Brown a few months before.

Leo left right after that. Just…left. So I returned to packing. And crying. Later Cathryn called me. “I told her she was ruining a marriage,” she said. “But ‘dog girl’ maintains that they’re just friends.”

Leo and I avoided each other until I left. I wrote him a long letter in which I presented an ultimatum: When I come home, you need to make a decision. Either you’re in this marriage and you never see Charlotte again, or you’re not and we separate.