Getting Over Jack Wagner (18 page)

“A husband and wife need to honestly assess themselves. Ask: are we cool enough, genetically, to produce a Dylan? Because if you have an uncool Dylan, he's doomed. An uncool Dylan has a lot more to overcome, socially, than an uncool Johnny or Joey, know what I mean?” I take a gulp of wine. “The missed potential is so obvious.”

Alan rubs his lenses on his apron hem. “So you're saying that
coolness”
—he verbally italicizes the word, as if to exonerate himself from my theory—“is genetic.”

“Maybe.” I am not after a nature-nurture debate with Alan. “To an extent.”

“An extent?” He frowns, but plays along, pushing his glasses up on his nose. “Well, consider this, Eliza. Maybe there is no such thing as a name that's a bad fit. Maybe every person just grows into his or her name, naturally, so every name and person become a perfect match.”

I am all prepared to cite a guy who went to Wissahickon—he was five-foot, one-inch, wore bowties, and his name was Biff—when Alan cuts me off.

“Maybe any child can rise to the occasion of a
cool
name,” Alan says. He is starting to get excited. “It could be similar to nontracked classrooms. Children rising to meet their academic potential.”

“Randys rising to meet their Dylan potential,” Hannah murmurs.

I realize that this may not have been the wisest theory to broach with two psychiatrists-in-training. I also decide it's probably not the best time to introduce my companion theory: people honestly assessing whether or not they can pull off “You go, girl!”

Alan approaches the table, cradling two foggy dishes in his mitted hands. Maybe this would be a good time to change the subject. I cover my lap with a napkin as Alan sets the bowl of lean links in front of me with great ceremony. The links look pale, foreign, phallic. I remember Donny.

“So,” I say. “I have a date tomorrow night.”

Hannah dips into the brown rice. “Karl?”

“No.”

“That harmonica player you were telling me about?”

“Actually, he's not a musician.”

“What is he?”

I pause a moment, for effect. “He's a securities analyst.”

It is a sad, twisted day in this world when my date with a Securities Analyst evokes a more dramatic response than Camilla experiencing the miracle of life, but there it is. Hannah and Alan freeze. She with a spoonful of rice in midair. He with an oven mitt dangling from his hand.

“He's the grandson of this woman I work with,” I explain.

Alan begins absently stroking his chin.

“He has an MBA. He makes six figures.” I have to admit, I am enjoying this. “He drives one of those little sports cars, the ones with no tops.”

“A convertible?” from Alan.

“Yeah. A convertible. And his name is Donny. Like the Osmond.” I am feeling slightly mad with power. “You know, like
Donny Osmond.”

“Wait a second.” Hannah releases the spoonful of rice on her plate. “Let me clarify this. For as long as I have known you, you've gone out with musicians. Exclusively. No other guy has held any interest for you at all. And suddenly, you're dating a securities analyst—named Donny Osmond?”

“It's not actually Donny Osmond. Just Donny.”

“Still.”

“Still what?” I know what she means, of course; I just want to hear her say it.

“Still…it's like changing religions.”

“It's not like there's anything wrong with it, honey,” Alan reminds her.

“I'm not saying there's anything wrong with it,” Hannah argues, gently. “I think it's wonderful.” She glances at me. “Not that you're dating a businessman, specifically, Eliza…just that you're…expanding your options.”

My feeling of power is quickly eroding. I feel myself becoming a case study, caption and page reference appearing under my chin.

“The real question is,” Alan says, sitting down, stroking his chin up to his ears. “Why now? There must be a reason you suddenly find this kind of relationship appealing.”

Alan is right, of course. This is the real question. Luckily, I've had a whole bus ride to prepare for it. “Well, guys,” I answer, with a dramatic pause. “I guess I'm just feeling ready to settle down.”

Then I sit back and wait for their responses. Hannah and Alan glance at each other—will there be tears? textbooks? a gold star on my forehead?—but after ten seconds, their glance has not let up. The glance becomes a look, look becomes a gaze, and gaze lingers, gooey and sticky and slightly pornographic. It is no longer a glance about me. It was not even, I realize, a dinner about me. I feel my entire cranium start to tense.

“Settling down must be in the air these days,” Hannah says, turning to me. Alan wraps her hand in his.

 

10:23
A.M.
My head is pounding. I've hardly slept. I might still be drunk. I've hardly eaten, except for half a lean link I choked down last night after the “announcement.” From the link on, the evening is a blur of wine…wedding…summer…nondenominational…tent…flowers…three-bean salads…citronella candles…harpists…nondairy desserts…

10:42. I relocate to the couch, taking the bed with me. I submerge myself in blankets and pillows, a bottle of Advil, a college T-shirt, college warm-up pants, college baseball cap. Obviously I am regressing to hungover college weekend-morning mode, but I find it's not as comforting without the company of four to ten other college students also popping Advil and wearing baseball caps. Plus, wedding announcements were not something we dealt with back in college. No one got engaged in college. Except for Anna Maria Flora, virgin from Chattanooga, Tennessee.

10:44. Consulting VH1.

10:45. If there is anything more depressing than watching
Where Are They Now?,
it's watching reruns of
Where Are They Now?
It's the show that takes you behind the scenes into rock stars' lives, post-stardom. The first time around, watching where they are now is fun. Amusing. Even self-affirming. You can snicker at the former celebrities and how far they've fallen. But the second time around, you start feeling bad about yourself. It is as if, by watching them twice, you are somehow implicated in the patheticness.

11:20. I wallow in my patheticness. I celebrate it. I loll in it. I embrace it, remembering all the saleswomen from Young Miss departments over the years who told me to “Embrace your height!” I consider calling Andrew just to hear him cringe at the word “patheticness.”

11:46. Are there different stages of dealing with your best friend's engagement? 1) Shock. 2) Hangover. 3) Metaphor. Example: feeling like you're in a tiny glass elevator. Example: feeling like you're on a giant treadmill while everyone's life is moving forward but yours.

11:55. It occurs to me that Hannah asked me to be the maid of honor. At this point, the “honor” part is lost on me. All I can think of are all the responsibilities that are suddenly, horribly mine: buying a dress, throwing a shower, coordinating forty to fifty kitchen appliances, making sure the great-aunts are distracted while Hannah opens the negligees. For Camilla's wedding, I opted to be a bridesmaid instead of the honored maid and let Camilla give the title to her best friend Miriam, who was a) dying for it, b) good at it, and c) gave us all tiny, scented, underwear-drawer pillows to keep our “delicates smelling like daisies!”

12:10
P.M.
I think again about calling Andrew. Then I think about the moment in the car the other night and feel too awkward to go through with it. Besides, Kimberley might be listening again. She might think I'm stalking her boyfriend. She might be naked and giggling as my message drones on. Or Andrew might pick up and, God forbid, say he has an “announcement” (currently #1 on my list of Words to Outlaw If I Were President).

12:28. My machine picks up. “Hi, Eliza, it's me. Just wanted to make sure you're okay. You seemed a little distracted last night…I'm sure this news is a little weird for you. Let's talk about it. Soon. Okay? Alan and I are heading out, but call me. And have a great date!”

12:45. I toy with canceling the date. I realize that socializing is the last thing I am in the mood for. Being in public, getting dressed up, eating Italian food while actively avoiding every ingredient in Italian food. Who needs that kind of pressure? I don't. I don't need a boyfriend. I am perfectly content the way I am: curled on a couch with a cat and a baseball cap and the aging Pet Shop Boys.

12:55. Conclusion: I am much better off alone.

1:00. The hour turns and
Where Are They Now?
segues into
Before They Were Rock Stars.
This is the show that takes you behind the scenes into rock stars' lives,
pre
stardom. This change feels somewhat hopeful. Instead of slipping backward, these celebrities are moving ahead. They are getting their breaks, finding their agents, getting four stars on
Star Search.

1:15. I'm watching old footage of Paula Cole in a high school musical when I start to feel more lifelike. Maybe this show is a sign. (When you're alone and were once an English major, everything seems like a sign.) Could these “announcements”—Camilla's pregnancy, Hannah's marriage—be happening now for a reason? Maybe they are a wake-up call for me to get my life in gear. To save myself from being thirty, forty, fifty years old and still dating washed-up guitar pickers, living alone with some vintage Hootie, being one of those old women on the bus with the saggy tattoos people glance at with pity.

2:00. My mush of self-pity begins to harden. I get off the couch. I feed Leroy. I pick up my mail. I make a peanut butter sandwich and write a fridge poem that's not half bad. As I'm capping the Skippy, I hear The Piano Man upstairs start playing: something regal, firm, vaguely “Pomp and Circumstance.” He is the pit orchestra of my life, striking up at the perfect moment to accompany my new resolve.

2:29. The Piano Man's song gets more urgent, increasing in volume and bravado and tempo. Visions of the Donny-date float uncensored through my mind: Donny with a firm kiss, Donny with a sexy smile, Donny with a perfectly dry sense of humor, a wide range of cable channels, a solid bank account and (what the hell) an ear for indie rock. And, as a bonus, a knack for knowing what I mean, think, feel, and need without my ever having to say it.

2:56. I let myself succumb to all the feelings of paperback romances: pulses, trills, thumps, shivers. At one point, loins are involved.

3:30. So this is what it means to be “driven.” After The Piano Man finishes playing, I find myself doing all kinds of embarrassing, girlish things to prepare for the date. I hear an imaginary cheering section behind me at every step: Travel Agents, eyebrowists, manicurists, Nanny.

3:33. I file my nails.

3:46. I paint my nails.

3:55. Two coats.

4:15. I smear on a green face mask to tone and exfoliate.

4:34. I shave my legs, careful with the ankles.

5:14. I shower, moisturizing and deep-conditioning my split ends, hearing echoes of Kimmy, hair stylist at Fun Cuts, who has been pleading for the last eight years: “If only you would make
friends
with your roots!”

6:00. I blow-dry for a full twenty minutes.

6:30. I dress in black, but throw a scarf (red) around my neck.

6:42. I apply makeup, but go easy on the eyeliner.

6:48. I trade in my boots for black strappy shoes my mother bought me once for a funeral.

6:55. I put in my subtlest nose ring, a tiny diamond stud.

 

As soon as I see Donny in the lobby of Anthony's Italiano, I a) know it is him and b) know that I know him already. I don't mean I literally know him already, he just feels so familiar it seems like I do. Unfortunately, this is not the good kind of love-at-first-sight familiar. Donny is like a character I've read before, or written before, or seen on the big screen too many times.

Our IDs in the Anthony's Italiano lobby are based on probably loose and definitely biased descriptions provided by Beryl. “He's very broad around the shoulders,” she told me. “He has dark hair, like his father's. Oh, you can't miss him, Eliza. He's
extremely
handsome.”

As it turns out, Donny is not hard to spot, only because everyone else in the lobby is a sweating, enormous middle-aged man or a sweating, enormous middle-aged man's wife. Based on my limited experience with Anthony's Italiano—a dinner once with Andrew's family, which is now coming back to me with grease-bright clarity—“enormous” describes most of the clientele at Anthony's. It must have something to do with unlimited breadsticks.

Donny strides right over. His ID is quick, too quick. It makes me wonder how Beryl described me to him. Tall? Flat in the chest? To her credit, Beryl's grandson is not an unattractive guy. His eyes are a nice sea-green. He has good height, fair chest span, a touch of the Baldwin brothers about him. He does, however, appear to have a faint sheen all over: shiny gray suit, black gelled hair, and dark, damp sideburns that taper by the ears like fountain pens.