Candy and Me (14 page)

Luke became my boyfriend reluctantly. We had been friends for years. Then one day, on my incorrigibly romantic rooftop, we got involved. Not long into our unofficial relationship, I opened an email from him innocently, suspecting nothing. He had seen this movie; he had gone to a park; he had talked to his best friend in Seattle. Oh yes, and on Monday he had gone out with Catherine. They had fooled around. In fact, Luke called to my attention, he seemed to recall being with Catherine last week as well. My stomach rolled over and I thought there was some kind of white heat in or outside of my head. I was at work in an office outside the city. I went to the bathroom and refilled my glass of water, then wrote back to Luke in a flash, not angry, not accusatory, but certain.

“What you did doesn’t break the boundaries of our relationship, but I feel sick and we’ll have to stop our dalliance now,” I told him. Send Mail.

He wrote back quickly, sounding worried that I was upset but determined to stay friends.

“We’ll be okay,” I wrote back curtly.

The next night we met in a bar. We had known each other for a long time. When I found him, his freckles and round eyes were so familiar that I felt perfectly friendly toward him. He was wearing the orange sweater that I’d given him. I could easily imagine that nothing disturbing had happened.

“I know I was clear with you about what’s going on with me…. I’m not ready for another serious relationship,” he told me.

“Yes, I know,” I admitted. “You’re an ethical slut.”

“But we’ve been spending a fair amount of time together, and I like it. Most of all I don’t want to lose you as a friend. I would rather keep our friendship than risk it by being in a relationship.”

“Right,” I said, “but it’s too late for that.”

“I don’t really feel that way,” he said, “but I realized that I like being with you and your friends as more than your friend.”

“Well,” I said, “it’s not like we have to decide anything right now.”

Luke agreed. Another fifteen minutes passed; then he said, “So I think this is going well, don’t you?”

“I’m still miserable,” I said. He wanted to know why. “Because you haven’t made up your mind. We are so easy together. I can’t imagine why you wouldn’t want to keep being this happy.”

Luke took a sip of beer and began to speak. Did he say he couldn’t bear to lose me? No. Did he say that he was in love with me? No. But he did say, “I have made up my mind. I want to try being in a relationship with you.”

I did a double-take. “Um, don’t you want to take some time to think about that?”

“No,” he said. “No, I’ve thought about it.”

“You just want to get laid tonight,” I said.

“It would be nice.”

It wasn’t the healthiest launch, but I was used to finding flavor and satisfaction in less-than-nutritious morsels. A few months passed, and we found ourselves on steadier ground. My father was getting married, and Luke was my date. For the Sunday after the wedding, I invited my grandparents and some other relatives to tea at my apartment. While I was at the wedding brunch, Luke prepared my apartment for the tea. He sliced fruit and made a platter. He set the table and arranged the flowers. The stereo was cued up to appropriate music. And under the pillow in the bedroom was a bag of old-fashioned marshmallow eggs for me. He had done all the prep work and then slipped out the door. No sooner had the last relative exited than I called Luke to thank him.

“Did you find the surprise?” He meant the eggs.

“I did! I’m eating them as we speak. Where did you buy them?”

“In your local grocery, if you can believe it.”

“And you bought them for me, even though you called them vile?”

“Yes,” he said. “I want to make you happy.”

Luke was generous like that. He did me favors. He helped out. And he was like the gifts he gave—hidden treats that I always loved to find, but which added up to about six thousand empty calories. The more he made me search for him, the more I wanted us to stay home, watching TV and cooking dinner together. If I just had him alone, maybe the hunt would end.

Skittles

W
hen I took my first dot-com job, I always explained it the same way.

“Have you heard of the Internet?” I would ask. “Or the World Wide Web?”

About 50 percent of my interlocutors had. They would say,” You mean the information superhighway?”

“Yes,” I would say, “the information superhighway.” I worked for Prodigy, which at the time was number two, after AOL, in online service providers. We were based in White Plains. I took two subways, a 45-minute train ride, and a 10-minute bus ride to and from work. Our jobs were ill-defined. Sometimes we had specific projects. Sometimes we were developing new projects. Sometimes we were trying to gather the resources to execute projects in anticipation of getting them green-lit. Nothing was ever green-lit. After a while, we came to understand that the company was in the process of being sold. All assets were frozen. There was nothing for us to do but show up at work, try to think of projects that required no resources, and then try to convince people to do them. I was desperate to have something to work on. All I wanted was a normal job, where papers and email and phone calls came in, and one had an excess of work to get done in a single day. Was it too much to ask? Instead, there was my windowless office opening out onto empty hallways lined with closed doors. People were silent or, come to think of it, maybe they were out shopping at the nearby mall.

By eleven o’clock I’d generally given up on filling my time productively, and was already anticipating having a snack, but to have my one snack of the day in midmorning would doom my afternoon. I held out until lunch. Once lunch was over, it was all I could do to make it to three o’clock. Three o’clock—the workday hump hour. If you’ve made it there without already having the snack that you will most certainly have at some point, you know you’ll make it through the day. If, for some wild reason, you’re distracted or in meetings and don’t have your snack until four, you’re golden.

The vending machine was in the cafeteria, two floors up. I never took the elevator. Too fast. Up on the eighth floor, I stared at the vending machine for several minutes, even though I knew what my decision would be. A Peppermint Pattie looked sexy, but it was a single item. I knew it would disappear too quickly. Skittles had much more going for them. There was a gaggle of them, in various colors. That meant sorting, dividing, and rearranging. They were chewy, and therefore longer-lasting. Yes, Skittles it would be. Making my choice at the machine and coming back down could take as long as twenty minutes. It was a thrilling opportunity. I made the most of it.

Back at my desk, unopened candy in hand, I had new energy. I made phone calls; I initiated new projects. This is the moment to savor—the time between purchase and consumption of candy. Senses aroused in the anticipation of bliss, tongue turning in anticipation, you have not yet crossed the threshold. Sweetness awaits, but the collapse of sugar low and guilt are held at bay as long as you linger in postponed fulfillment. Don’t get me wrong—I never lasted long.

I spread the Skittles out on my desk in colored rows, lined up like an abacus, in descending quantity. I ate them by color, two at a time, with purples saved for last, naturally. Once the Skittles were gone, I was in the workday’s home stretch.

It was a marriage of convenience. Working at Prodigy was like having a few drinks too many, making Skittles seem far more attractive than they actually were. Days were long and lonely, and sometimes you just have to take what’s available. Or maybe I really did relish Skittles, and the job ruined them for me. They certainly had decent flavor and texture. I would still turn my head if a purple Skittle passed by.

Circus Peanuts

I
knew I liked Shauna when I found out that she was a fan of Circus Peanuts. I was a near stranger. She was a work friend of my boyfriend, Luke, and I had just taken a new job at the company where he worked. It was not the wisest move. Neither Luke nor I was thrilled about the proximity, but it was, as they say, a job I couldn’t refuse. Shauna had the cubicle next to mine, and saw me sampling the vending machine’s offerings. Expecting a disgusted response, she confessed that Circus Peanuts were her favorite candy, with Peeps running a close second. I took the news in stride. I had had my Circus Peanuts phase, one summer working on Wall Street, but Shauna’s passion made me realize that I hadn’t given them full credit.

“Think about it,” she said. “They are big and foamy and look sort of like peanuts. But they are orange. Peanuts aren’t orange. And if they taste like anything, it’s banana. Bananas aren’t orange, and they most certainly don’t look like peanuts.” There was a logical explanation for this. One expert claims that the original Circus Peanuts were supposed to taste like peanut, but the flavoring wasn’t consistent, so they started using cheap, reliable banana oil. Regardless of the history, Shauna had a point. True to its circus origins, the candy itself was a mockery of candy. It said, I’m not what I look like, and I’m not what I taste like. So what? Life is a farce. Send in the clowns. I looked at Shauna with new respect.