once upon a time

I met up with Fred who was in town to visit Mateo who I never see even though he lives 4 blocks from Ted. Mateo got married, I remembered, recently. And his wife was there, too.

And I wondered, like I always do, why things are so awkward between me and Mateo.

Then I remembered, like I usually do. There was that time we were all hanging out and drunk and getting asked politely to please go home so they could close the bar and we all said we should go watch belly dancing soon. And then Mateo called to ask if I wanted to go watch flamenco dancing at that same restaurant, and when I asked him who was coming, he said Paul and some people. But he showed up alone in Fred’s borrowed car and he paid and it was supposed to be a date.

So I pretended I was busy for a while then dated his room mate.

Ten million years ago. So easy to forget. I bet his wife doesn’t know that story.

~beatrix

don't look back

We said we’d have a berry farm in the mountains.

We would have had kids who ran around with too-long hair and never any shoes. They’d be olive like him and good swimmers. We’d have nights on porches with all the stars we ever wanted and sunshine mornings with wildflowers and sweet potato pancakes.

He answered the phone, “Hee-ey there, pretty girl.” I learned that Eagle Scouts aren’t always prepared.

It was one month, and beautiful the way something can be when it is purely hypothetical-- like communism and vegan baked goods.

We both cried, sitting on the trunk of his Blazer with the rusty top. Nine days, I’d begged. Let’s just have these last nine days.

We graduated. We never said I love you. When my brother met a whole bunch of my exes at a single graduation party, he said he didn’t like Fred. He asked if I thought Hugo would help me move.

Fred’s an accountant now. He has tidy hair and shirts with buttons and proper shoes and no piercings.

“How long have you been waiting for me to do that?” There was that sweaty weekend and that night in that hotel. Even when Eagle Scouts grow up to be accountants, they aren’t always prepared.

He doesn’t answer his phone the same way anymore, which probably makes sense. I’d forgotten about the mole on his right cheek.

Fred’s a pile of what-if. What if we’d figured it out sooner. What if I hadn’t moved when I’d graduated. What if he’d gotten this job instead of that one.

What if he’d ever fought for it.

~beatrix

p.s. i hope you click the link and remember how this used to be a dating blog.
~b

it makes my last post seem a little less crazy. . . a little

I had turned my back to the boys, and beer was running down my chin. Two-thirds of the way in, I gasped for air before beginning again.

College was worth it like never before, and those sorority dues were paying off.

Ted had assured me I didn’t have to do this if I thought it would end badly, but it was going great, and I could hear them getting excited.

Ted’s friend I’d only just met declared, “If she’s pulls this off, you’ve got to marry her.”

And Ted’s brother claimed, “That is my future sister-in-law.”

I turned around as triumphantly as is possible when you are wiping beer from your face with the back of your hand, and raised the empty pitcher.

Those boys were easily impressed. There was only a glass and a half of beer in that pitcher, maximum. And once you say you can do something, you kind of have to do it.

“That’s my girlfriend,” Ted put his arm around my waist. No one ever said he fell in love with me ’cause I’m so classy.

Later I was standing on the sidewalk waiting for people who were still inside, a course your night tends to take when you’ve been drinking beer out of pitchers.

I don’t know how Ted’s brother’s thought began, but it ended, “. . . when you get married. Or maybe I’ll be in the wedding. . . ,” with a characteristic raised palm and shifted chin that means question mark.

“Of course you’ll be in the wedding,” Ted told him.

I told Ted I only want three bridesmaids, and he said he could probably narrow his people down to three.

“Oh, and my brother,” I added.
“But will he go on your side or my side?”
“My side.”

And then Ted told his brother’s friend he could be an usher.

~beatrix

the night with the magic daiquiris or what if nobody wants to marry me before i'm 36

Almost seven years ago, I met Harper’s brother, we fell in love, and he proposed.

It was Mardi Gras, and he arrived at our house one night after we’d had 32-ounce daiquiris (and also some beer from a weimaraner and his boy until the boy’s girlfriend disallowed him from talking to me). I couldn’t feel my face, and Harper’s brother looked like Tom Cruise. He bought me a slice of pizza, I dropped it on the sidewalk, and he bought me another one. He made sure I didn’t walk in the street. He was perfect.

What should have been one magical (and hangover-free) night, became something more on the internet. He became my backup boyfriend, someone to be around when I came home alone, a sort of safety net. And we made one of those pacts: if we aren’t married by a certain time, we’ll just marry each other.

Harper’s brother got engaged. . . to some other girl. And there goes my safety net.

~beatrix

for i have sinned OR life's lessons

Hugo’s how I know.

I learned three things that night:

At nearly 22, I was too old for frat parties.

People will give you money if you ask them for it.

I am capable of cheating.

******

It was a girls’ night with a full slate. There were probably eight or ten of us, and we went to a little house party then stopped in at the volleyball game. Outside the arena, there was car fancy enough to catch our attention. One of the girls called dibs on the owner.

“I want to meet him,” I said, then asked jokingly, “Why do you get him?”
Jules looked at me with a serious face, “Because you have a boyfriend.”

He was forgettable, which is not an excuse.

We watched a little of the game, then grabbed dinner before our next two stops.

It must have been November, because one of the fraternities was throwing a Cowboy Christmas party. I was excited. The truth is, I look great in a cowgirl hat, even if it is paired with the preppiest of pink polos. But when we got to the party, I realized it wasn’t the house full of fun I’d first experienced as a fresh- and slightly numb-faced freshman. The ground was disgusting, the bodies were sticky, there was a gross smell, and no one ever really wants to drink a lukewarm can of Mad Dog. I knew I could live the rest of my life without ever seeing another frat boy in a grubby Santa suit, and I realized that maybe, just maybe, I’d actually be ready to leave this place in June.

Our next stop was a charity dating/kiss auction. The “charity” was ambiguous, and the premise didn’t quite make sense. But the girls and I had the tipsy idea that geeky and awkward Annette should buy our lovable but even-more-awkward friend Harrington. We were sure it would be a match made in the heaven of an uptown dive, but we didn’t necessarily want to bankroll it.

I guess I was just drunk enough to do it. I asked a guy I knew for money, and before I could even explain, he handed me a twenty. In a matter of minutes, a couple of us raised about a hundred dollars, and pulled off our little scheme.

Hugo was there. He told me I looked good. He was drunk enough to slur his words a little. Maybe it was the hat, he said. I was still wearing my hat, because that’s a night-long commitment. Maybe it was.

“If you wanted to go home with someone tonight, I’m sure you could.”

I laughed. He was drunk. He wasn’t making sense.

We circled each other for a while before he came up to me again.

“Earlier.” he said, “When I said you could go home with someone. Someone. I meant me.”

I rolled my eyes. Pretended his drunk offer meant nothing. Knew I couldn’t.

He shrugged, “You could call.”

When I got home it was late. I might have been drunk, but I don’t remember. My girl friends had gone home; my room mates were asleep; there was no one around to judge me, which is not an excuse. It seemed possible that the worst thing to do might really be the best thing. That maybe somehow, nine months later, I could put everything back together.

I scrolled to the name, and looked at it. The dial button was far too easy to press. The message was too easy to leave. Forgive me, for this sin was too easy to commit.

*****

I don’t know if it would make me a different person if he had answered. I don’t know if my course would have altered if he’d called back.. . if I hadn’t woken up the next day with the phone next to my head, full of anxiety and dodging calls from my boyfriend until five or six p.m.

I don’t know if things would be different if Hugo’s phone battery hadn’t died and he hadn’t lost his keys. And even though I know what I would have done, I guess I don’t know for sure what he would have done. Though, in the end, I suppose it was just logistics that saved me from my fate.

And that is not an excuse.

blah blah babies gross blah

I was the tiniest bit concerned that Pete would try to make this thing with Pamela work just to. . . be done. And on some level, I told him, I would understand that.

“Yeah, but you are young. I’m old. You have time.”
“I know, I know. But I’m a girl, so I have a shorter shelf-life. And I don’t want to be one of those women who bores everyone by talking about her fertility treatments.”*

I have a few simple life goals: I never want to live in New Jersey, I never want to work in a cubicle, and I never, never want to become one of those crazy girls who’s just out to catch a husband.

But it doesn’t mean I don’t know how to think like a crazy girl.

I remember coming up with a formula while sitting in the backseat of someone’s car, rolling down Magazine Street. Evie was there, and we couldn’t have been more than twenty-one. Here’s how it went:

If I want the option of having babies by the time I’m 30,
It might take a year to make that happen. = 29

It makes sense to have two years of newlywed bliss before any of that nonsense. = 27

I’ll need to be engaged for a year to plan a dream wedding. = 26

I need to know someone for a year before I decide to marry him.
Therefore, I need to meet the boy I’m going to marry by the time I’m 25.

No one in the car could argue with this flawless logic. But if you aren’t willing to compromise your promise to yourself to not just marry someone because you know he’d do it, you could end up two years behind that schedule you made. At least two years. Two years at the barest minimum.

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

We couldn’t go to the beach because of the weather, so we went to the American Museum of Natural History. A museum with dinosaur bones and lots of animals on a rainy Saturday just before the start of the school year meant one thing-- the place was positively swarming with children.

It turns out we aren’t used to being around the below-the-knees set, and we kept having to catch each other by the arms to prevent the accidental backing over of toddlers.

We saw the whole museum, stopped for a cupcake break in the hallway, were generally mushy and gross, and (at least half of us) were alternately entranced by and trying to ignore the millions of babies.

In the whale room, a tiny girl (6 months old? 9 months old? A whole year maybe? I don’t know these things.) passed us in a stroller. Her hand was up, fingers splayed, and she was looking at Ted with liquid-blue eyes and a uterus-wrenching smile.

“Did she blow you a kiss?”
He half shrugged, “I made a face.”

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

Why am I even thinking about babies?

Babies. . . well. . . They mostly gross me out. First they’re a little person inside a regular person, which is gross like morning sickness and parasites and aliens. Then they’ve got to come out, which is gross like stretching and tearing and forget wearing your skinny jeans ever again. And then you’ve got a baby. . . for. . . forever. Which is a long time. And that’s gross like diapers and making plans for a sitter and college funds.

And what would I even do with one if I had one? I’m not just talking about where would I put it (though Ted insists that his parents kept him in a drawer), but what would I do with it. When I tried to hold my new baby cousin, his sister, 7 years old at the time, laughed at me because I looked so funny and because he just wouldn’t stop crying. “Maybe you should get a pillow,” she told me, “He might like a little more cushion.” It was a two-pronged jab at my lack of both baby-holding skills and any bosom to speak of.

So it’s possible that I don’t want any babies at all. But I’d like to keep my options open.



*For the record: I would never actually use any sort of fertility treatment. Expensive, invasive, and leaving you at risk of never being able to remember all the names or own any normal sort of car (John and Kate - style), I think that fertility treatments are unnecessary given the number of children already out there looking for parents.


~beatrix

proceed with caution

I told my mom I was having dinner with Ted’s parents, and she told me she was jealous that we weren’t having dinner with her. I’m just surprised that I’m going to their house on purpose.

“It’s so weird. I have a real boyfriend.”

It has been very close to four months since this whole thing started. Four is the magic number, the score to beat. In college, it’s the length of a semester. It’s time enough for the weather to change. It’s a natural out.

It’s possible that I’ve declared that I’ll marry any boy who can make it past four months.

In retrospect, that seems a little drastic.

So I’m bracing myself. There’s no good reason for it, just a precedence.

If you could know the day it all would end, would you want to?


~beatrix

re-visit

When I walked into the hotel room, the party was still going full-force. I was exhausted and at least six drinks behind.

“Yeah, you look like you’ve been on a bus for seven hours,” was the first thing that he said to me, but a few minutes later, when he patted the floor and I sat down beside him, everything was easy, comfortable.

I’d known him forever: A weekend spent at a friend’s parents’ house in Texas sophomore year of college. . . A situation requiring an extra car on the return trip. . . Six hours in the passenger’s seat of a Suburban neither of us owned. . . Sunday nights with Jules watching cartoons on his sofa. . . And of course the few months I spent hooking up with his room mate.

A birthday message had re-opened the dialogue, and it gained momentum until we were talking every day-- John procrastinating writing business school papers and me staying in to enforce my no-making-out resolution. The internet makes it easy-- the facelessness of it makes it easy to tell everything, and the two of us needed no time to catch up.

We stretched out on the floor that night, and whispered before the wedding ceremony started the next afternoon. I ate the tiny zucchini off his plate at the reception, and we wandered off alone to eat cake. His arm kept falling around my waist, and I can’t say I minded. The party didn’t stop-- there was drinking back at the hotel and decorating the bride and groom’s car. He was wasted. But, somehow, at 4 a.m., I was sober. Very, very sober.

At the end of the night (rather the early, early morning), I climbed into the giant bed between John and Jay. And in the morning I woke up between them, before them. I didn’t touch John on the hand or on the chest or at all, so I don’t know what it would have felt like. And we, sluggishly, went to the send-off brunch. I ate the orange slice off his plate, and he had to go to the airport, and I’ll probably never know what it would have felt like.


~beatrix

relapse

Julianna’s fine with Simon crashing our Thursday night dinner plans, but when I text to tell her, she replies, “I guess we can’t talk about him now.”

Jules has known Simon a long time-- since this whole mess began really. Since the night junior year of college when Simon came to visit me and was my date to a sorority party. The night me and Julianna drank five kinds of champagne before we went out. And Julianna pointed out that Simon was hot, causing me to notice it for the first time. We both decided we’d hook up with our dates if we had a chance, and the dates in question heard the whole conversation through a bathroom door. The night that, after the party, I decided it was a good idea to walk to the next location and that I didn’t have to wear my shoes because my room mate wasn’t wearing hers. (Bad bad idea if you don’t want to be scrubbing New Orleans street gunk off your feet for the next three days.) It was the only time I’ve ever blacked out, and I (reportedly) did a ballet demonstration, had a drink taken away from me, and briefly spoke only French. At some point in a third location, Simon and I started kissing, and I only took momentary breaks from it to see if my cheese fries were ready yet. And the making out was a good idea, because then I didn’t have to worry about the awkward question of where Simon would sleep that night.

Julianna and Simon have lots to talk about-- work, life, and whether it’s ok to get engaged in a restaurant or not. And his crashing dinner is fine because Jules likes Simon. And also because Simon pays.



There’s nowhere to sleep in my apartment except my bed. Being in bed with Simon without touching is strange and sad.

We talk until he falls asleep. His snoring is notably less cute when there is no cuddling.

He only sleeps a few minutes, and when he wakes up, it‘s easy to tell. I look at him. He puts his hand on my back. Fuck.*

I don’t know what to do. He rubs my back slowly, softly. He puts his hand under my shirt.

Fuck. I don’t know what to do.

I reach over and put my hand on his side. I think he pulls me to him, but maybe I do the pulling.

This feels better, even with the nervousness.

I don’t know what to do. Our faces are touching, my eyelashes move against his cheek. I think I feel him moving like he wants to kiss me.

But it’s hard to tell who’s in control here. Kind of like a Ouija board. I don’t want to make anything happen.

But things happen. Maybe not as many things as usual, but things.

I wonder what he thought I meant when we had that talk. Why can’t everything just be Google so I’d have a transcript of the phone conversation? I should have done it over gchat so I could read it over and over and memorize it and analyze what he might have understood.

He gets up early to catch a flight.

“I’ll call you some day when I’m passing back through.”
“Some day?”

Sunday. I misunderstood. He really said Sunday.

(And then I noticed I’d put my underpants back on wrong-side-out.)


~beatrix



*As I am a lady, I do not talk like this. But it is what I was thinking. (And, yes, ladies do eat cheese fries and get blackout drunk and put their underpants on wrong-side-out, but we do not say the f-word, even if we think it.)