All This Heavenly Glory (21 page)

Tony and Janet went on and came back from their honeymoon and over the course of several weeks I asked Tony almost every time
I saw him if he’d talked to Matteo; I got vague answers indicating that he did talk to Matteo but maybe not about me, which
left me frustrated and eventually pretty bummed out. One morning I was driving home from the grocery store and I burst into
tears about it for no reason that seemed relative to the eleven minutes I’d spent with him (based on that thing people say
about grieving for a month for every year you’ve dated, this calculates to about forty-eight seconds of grieving time, and
that’s of course only if you allow for a generous definition of
dated,
so generous that it includes imaginary dating). And yet it suddenly struck me as tragic that Matteo and I weren’t even getting
a chance. I called Janet from my car right then, which if you know me you know is a big deal because driving’s not my thing
and the world is generally a safer place if I reserve the cell/car combo for emergencies, which is what it seemed like at
the time, and I said,
Listen, I’m going to get Matteo’s number and call him myself unless Tony gives me some good reason not to,
and Janet said,
Oh, Charlotte, I think that’s a great idea,
and called me back with the number about an hour later. I planned something clever to say and left a message on Matteo’s
cell the next day. He called me right back. He was glad I called. He told me that it was the best message he’d ever gotten.
That’s what he said. We exchanged the most basic who-are-you and where-are-you-from information. He’s second-generation Italian.
His parents are from Italy, and, okay, I’m such a sucker, but Matteo spoke Italian before he spoke English and it came up
not a few times that he had reason to say Italian things, with an impeccable Italian accent, but whatever, I went for it,
and who wouldn’t? I’m a first-generation New Yorker. (This never fails to produce an overly fascinated
Really?
which often, as in this case, implies a disbelief that anyone raised in the übercity would subsequently be inclined to make
a lateral move to a place many consider both second to the übercity and also windy. I moved to Chicago primarily because New
York got too expensive, but honestly, I love it here. Personally I don’t find it to be second at all in any number of ways,
not the least of which is that there are 5 or 6 million fewer people pressing up against me when I walk out my door.) He’s
working on a film right now. I have a film coming out. Tony hadn’t even mentioned it. Matteo was impressed. We made plans
and before we hung up, he said,
I feel like I really know you.

Shut up. Just shut the fuck up. Yes, I know a warning sign when I see one, thank you very much. I have much experience in
the way of people saying overly intense things way too soon. I wanted to be known. So fuck me. I’m not telling this story
because it went well.

So we had this one date (which word usage he would later call into question, which is just, just, just, just give me that
one little thing, we don’t call up massively foxy dudes just to be buddies, or if we do we certainly don’t leave them messages
that indicate in no uncertain terms that we think they’re massively foxy and so in my estimation if you agree to a social
outing with the calling person, no matter how casually construed, which in this case was a daytime walk on the beach, at the
very least you have to know that the calling person is thinking it’s a date, no matter what kind of denial you’re in), and
it was one of those dates that doesn’t happen very often, not for me anyway, insofar as you start out physically attracted
to someone and then it turns out that you actually have things in common, in this case he’s a budding filmmaker, and I’m a
filmmaker slightly past budding. He’s also an actor (which admittedly I should have considered as a clue; even though I try
not to draw conclusions based on any kind of stereotype, the fact is that I’d had considerable experience dating actors in
New York, and that speaking in the most general terms, they were a lot who, while often bright and engaging and charming and
funny and attractive, tended to think and talk about themselves at great length, and then I moved to Chicago where there isn’t
quite the multitude of actors that there is in New York, and although I still have actor friends, I find that I don’t really
miss them as part of the dating pool). In any case we had much to talk about, filmmaking and art and life and families and
shoes even, the guy has a thing about shoes and shopping, so that when I told him I’d just bought a pair of very
Sex and the City
shoes, he said,
Tell me about them,
tell me about them, he said, understanding that there was a conversation to be had about a pair of shoes, which is not only
rare but a major plus in my book, and I felt comfortable but excited and hopeful (the latter of which will later reveal itself
to perhaps be the element of all this that is now and has always been killing me). If I am to be entirely honest, I was never
100 percent certain that the physical attraction was mutual, but I am not an idiot, and I know when, at the very least, I
am making some kind of connection with someone, even if my radar about the rest of it is sometimes off. (Of course, sometimes
it’s obvious, people say romantic or flirty things or they kiss you or have sex with you or whatever, then there’s no mystery,
but the signs here were a little nebulous.) Anyway, I figured I’d find out next time, because at that point I was sure there’d
be a next time. He told me that Tony hadn’t said anything about me except that I don’t make left turns (which isn’t even altogether
accurate, I make a lot of left turns, and although it would not be impossible to avoid left turns entirely, it would require
an absurd amount of going out of the way; admittedly there are left turns I refuse to make, but it’s more accurate to say
that I don’t like to make left turns, and that I am sometimes willing to go a little bit out of the way, when I feel my life
is at stake, which here in Chicago comes up in a number of locations because there are these horrific six-way intersections
all over town without left-turn signals where it’s just a free-for-all of death risk, where you’re I guess just expected to
set yourself right in the middle of the massive intersection and hope for the best, and in my neighborhood I’ve figured out
the shortest ways around these intersections, but unfortunately there are other neighborhoods I don’t know as well where you
think you can just go a block past the intersection and make a right and another right and another right again but you can’t,
you end up on a street with a river or a cemetery or an industrial park on the right that goes for a mile before there’s anywhere
safe for you to turn around, anyway, that said, it’s not nearly as much of a problem for me as people think it is, and when
I questioned him later, Tony said,
It seemed like the most telling thing I could think of,
which is, all right, it’s a little bit funny but maybe isn’t the thing to be telling someone in the event of a fix up, usually
people say,
She’s funny or She’s bright or She just won an award at Sundance,
which seemed like the most obvious thing to me, since I had just won an award at Sundance, a screenwriting award for my film
All This Heavenly Glory
— you get the point, it’s usually something good), anyway when he told me this I was at that moment rather stunned, unable
to believe that that would be the thing anyone would tell someone about me, you know, as a selling point, but, and we’re getting
to the only possible compliment thing here, when I finally let him speak, Matteo said he thought it was
really cute
. (This is what I mean about it all being so nebulous in general as to what it is or isn’t that people find attractive; personally
I’m not even a little bit uncomfortable about the way I look, which is not to say that I think I’m the hottest thing ever,
either, but nevertheless may be the only thing about me that I’ve ever been completely at ease with, and if you’re interested
in the psychology behind that I will happily further digress just long enough to tell you that it’s fascinating to me, on
a bigger-picture level, the way vast numbers of parents will try to do the opposite of what their parents did that they think
fucked them up, only to leave the subsequent generation not healthier but fucked up in an entirely fresh way; in this case,
my mother, who was quite beautiful, had not ever been told she was beautiful as a child, and I think she also wasn’t told
that she was loved very often, which you can imagine left her frequently depressed, and so I think she thought that if she
told me every day, more than once a day, how beautiful I was and how much she loved me, that I would not suffer this fate
as she did, and so although I felt beautiful and loved, this would also result in some persistent confusion about whether
or not I was anything else, e.g., smart/talented/kind/whatever, or if I even needed to be, and as it turns out I did not get
discovered by a superagent as I sauntered down the street, the virtual magic of my beauty propelling me into some sort of
general superstardom, and it was probably during that phase when I realized that I should actually try to work for whatever
sort of superstardom I was interested in, and then it took a few years after I quit drinking for me to remember what that
even was, and then it was a few more years before I actually did, anyway the point is that when someone says something like
this to you, that they think it’s cute that you don’t make left turns, it kind of highlights that total subjectivity of what
anyone finds attractive, and of course in this case, as much as I find it fascinating that this would be the thing anyone
would find cute about me, in the end it still seems to me that in and of itself it’s not enough, the inability to make left
turns, that this guy and for all I know every other guy I’ve ever been with has thought something along the lines of,
Well, she’s cute, and she doesn’t make left turns, but she’s not from Kuala Lumpur.
) I’m just saying this was the only time the word cute or anything like it came up during the entire date, although there
was a protracted hug, which I could also find ways to discount because he’s Italian, and having my own Italian step-family,
I know that they are often a warm and effusive and physical people, there is a lot of hugging and bold expressions of affection
that are just part of who they are and not necessarily romantic (and yet, a guy like this, in my estimation, is smart enough
to know that this is a thing he has going for him, and might conceivably use to his favor, whether or not he was even romantically
interested in someone, do you know what I mean, he could not be interested in me but still secretly want me to be interested
in him, which, honestly, if you want to know the truth, I recognize because it’s a huge part of my own modus operandi, whether
I’m interested or not, I for sure want you to find me desirable, although actually I don’t think I usually try to actively
solicit that, beyond wearing cute clothes and fixing my hair and wearing makeup, I mean, I’m not out there flirting with every
single person, it’s just what I hope, I want people to adore me whether or not I adore them—maybe that’s some kind of pathology
but I also think it’s kind of just human). Anyway, when the date was over there was no definite plan for another date but
the phrase
next time
was used several times and he totally said he had a great day and I had no reason not to believe him. He gave me an amazing
hug and I’m sure I pulled away first because it was almost too much for me to take, but it wasn’t until I got upstairs and
was replaying it in my head that I realized he hadn’t let me pull all the way away, that he’d left his hands on my waist while
he was still talking, for an amount of time that in my estimation goes past friendly, plus it was my waist. Janet and Tony
don’t hug me like that. Tony doesn’t even hug me at all. (He has a thing about men hugging women who aren’t their wives, and
you know what, on the surface it’s kind of old-fashionedy but really, I totally get where Tony’s coming from on that, now.)
So Matteo had his hands on my waist and he asked for my number again because he lost his cell phone,
The worst part of which, he said, was losing your message
. He had been keeping my message. The best message he ever got.

And then of course, he never called. Well, technically he did call, but we never went out again as friends or anything else.
(Not that I ever had any interest in being friends, I need one more male friend I’ve dated who eventually tells me about all
the other women he loves like I need a spike through my skull.) Indulge me in providing the minutes of what followed and the
calls that were exchanged (dates approximate):

Days 1-6: Call friends to discuss minutiae of date. Regrettably, mention it to dad in an e-mail. Write minutiae in journal.
Enjoy afterglow. Program M.’s number into cell. Leave cell phone on 24/7 as he does not have home number.

Day 7: Continue hope that M. will call to make a weekend plan. Create fallback excuses for why he might not call, which include
but are not limited to: He’s busy working as a stand-in on a feature film. He went on location. He’s sick. He’s stuck in a
giant spiderweb. He’s been in a terrible elevator accident and due to a severe head trauma he’s in the psych wing at Northwestern
Memorial believing himself to be James VanDerBeek. He got three wishes from a genie but in his excitement didn’t think it
through and now he’s tiny and lives in the genie bottle. He’s been abducted by chain-smoking alien supermodels.

Day 9: Attempt to implement the more reasonable of the fallback excuses.

Day 13: Have the first in a series of meltdowns of varying intensity and duration involving peak levels of self-hate that
come as something of a surprise, as for many years up to this point, I have not been, thanks to years of therapy and twelve-step
programs, relinquishing huge portions of my day to thoughts about my irreversible romantic deficiencies and their specifics,
that in fact I have had any number of moments where it seemed a revelation, and as true as anything, that I had simply not
met the right person. Speculate that Tony’s hesitation to accelerate fix up was due to his belief that I do not have magnetic
properties and that Matteo is looking for someone silverware will stick to.