Authors: Sarah Mlynowski
“So tell me about Jess,” I say after two slices have been consumed and two shelves nailed in place.
“She's all right.”
What would Jess think if she knew she was being described as just all right? I think I'd throw myself in front of a train. “Not serious then?”
“No. She's fun to hang out with for now, but she's not the one.” Translation: I like sleeping with her but I don't want to sleep with
only
her.
“Pig,” I tell him.
“Me? Why?”
“Because you're using her for sex.”
“I'm not using her. We're just enjoying each other's company. Sexually.”
“And at the movies.”
“Prelude to sexually.”
“So what's wrong with her?”
He pauses. “I shouldn't say. It's inappropriate.”
“Don't be a tease. Tell me. I'm not going to say anything.”
He frowns. “She's a princess. She expects me to do everything. It's like we're living in the fifties. I have to call her all the time. I have to pick her up all the time. She never even offers to pay for anything. And it's not that I mind calling and paying, but she acts like she expects it. It's exhausting. Andâ¦I don't think we really click. You know?”
“So why do you keep seeing her?”
He smiles slyly. “Well, she's really hot.”
“See? You're a pig. And you're never going to meet âthe one' as long as you're still seeing âthe two.' You should be dating other people. I'd offer to fix you up with someone, but all my friends are presently slightly insane.” I nod in Sam's direction.
“Sam's cute.” Sam and Andrew? The initials
S
and
A
are just not as amusing as
S
and
M
. Anyway, I can't imagine anyone with her other than Marc.
“Just promise not to try to fix me up with Natalie again.”
“Why not?”
“Too flaky. She's even more of a princess than Jess.”
Hmm. Why is all this anti-princess talk making me uncomfortable? Oh right. I slide off the couch onto the floor next to him and pick up a screwdriver. “So what can I do to help, kind sir?”
Â
I am an awesome roommate and here's why:
1. I put all the pictures of Sam and Marc and all the teddy bears he gave her (all eight of them, and not the crappy, carnival kind, eitherâI'm talking Gund here) in a large green garbage bag, and stuff it in the front closet behind my long black pea jacket that I haven't worn in years but won't throw out because you never know, the style could come back.
2. I convince Sam to hang up the phone the three times I have a sneaking suspicion she's going to call him. I can tell when she's going to do it. First she starts fidgeting. Then she gets really quiet. A minute or so later, she attempts a casual stroll into her room and closes the door behind her. It reminds me of when my baby sister Iris used to crawl into the corner of a room to go to the bathroom in her diaper. When my intuition tells me that Sam is about to call, I barge into her room just as she picks up the phone, and convince her to hang up, insisting she'll thank me later. Pretty good systemâI've only had two misses. Both times she called him when I was asleep, and tearfully confessed the next morning. The both times she spoke to him made her feel worse.
3. I bought five more boxes of tissue and watched at least thirty-five episodes of
Beautiful Bride
with my broken-hearted friend. “Better to get it out of your system,” I tell her. It's addictive, this cheesiness. I can't help but wonder, Who watches this show on a regular basis? Are women that obsessed with getting married? Every episode is about a bride worrying about her flowers and veil and frilly dress. My wedding dress is going to be far more sophisticated than the ones on that show. I think I want a scooped neck, princess sleeves, and a puffed skirt. None of that bow crap. Elegant is going to be the operative adjective. “Don't worry,” I find myself telling Sam. “There's a lid for every pot.” I can't believe I said that. God save me, I'm beginning to sound just like my father.
Week One A.M. (After Marc) seems to go on forever.
On Monday, Natalie comes over for some girl bonding. Her head-cheerleader smile and perky anecdotes are a little too much for us. Sam feigns a headache and goes to sleep. I'm stuck bonding.
On Tuesday, Sam cleans the house.
On Wednesday, I turn on
Law and Order
by accident. “â¦the criminal lawyers who prosecute the offenders. These are their storiesâ¦.” Logan/Mr. Big finds a male body in the trunk of an abandoned car, and Sam gets a sad, wistful look in her eyes. I turn off the TV. Sam cleans the house again.
On Thursday, Andrew and I drag her to half-price night at Charlie's Wings. I'm not crazy about eating wings in front of a guy, even Andrew, because I have a habit of getting hot sauce all over my face. I stare at Andrew as he holds a wing by its tip and carefully chews off the meat, leaving the bone completely stripped. He then gently licks the sauce off his lips with his tongue. How can anyone eat wings with so much style and sex appeal? I'm perfectly content to sit next to Andrew and study his technique, when boom, Sam sees Marc's brother's best friend sitting two tables over. I spend the next half hour trying to coax her out of a locked bathroom stall.
On Friday morning I wake up to the sound of Gloria Gaynor's “I Will Survive” blasting through my walls.
“Hello?”
“Good morning!” Sam says, throwing open my door.
“Morning,” I say.
“Good, good, good morning!” she sings brightly. “For the first time all week I actually wanted to get out of bed.”
“Good.”
“I'm a new me.”
I'm unsure if that statement requires a positive or negative response.
She plops down on my bed. “I will be less anal, I will have female friends, and I will find a new man. And from now on I will be called Samantha.”
“Good for you,” I cheerlead sleepily. My three weeks of singleness allow me the insight that she is not quite ready for a personality overhaul, but I decide to humor her.
“I'm not wasting any more dating time. Marc is an infant. He wants space? I'll give him space. He'll have more space then he knows what to do with when I go fuck every other man on this planet.”
The word “fuck” sounds funny coming from her mouth, almost as if she has a mouthful of peanut butter. “Good for you,” I say uncertainly.
“It's time to find a
mature
man.” She pushes up her breasts and stares at the responding cleavage in my mirror. “I'm ready.”
“For what? For sex with mature men?”
“No. For Orgasm.”
Talk about out of the frying pan and into the fire. I try to talk her into going to a more shall-we-say sedate bar, like Aqua, an after-work bar on the fifty-sixth floor of the Tyler Building, but she's insistent. Natalie, thankfully, manages to set her straight later that evening, pointing out that Orgasm is for the under-thirty crowd, while Aqua is
the
place to meet older, career-minded men. Mature men.
Natalie has consented to be the designated driver, which means she'll only have one glass of wine. I have a feeling Sam is going to want to wallow, and being the good friend I am, I can't possibly allow her to wallow alone. Natalie even insists on paying for parking, and because of our perpetual state of brokeness, Sam and I don't argue.
“These things are killing me,” Sam says. She is referring to the Band-Aids strategically placed over her nipples, in case she gets cold. She's wearing one of Natalie's backless tank tops, and she gets too “nippy” when she goes completely coverage-free.
“Wait 'til you take them off,” Nat says. “Now that's pain.”
“So how do I look?” Sam asks.
“Stunning,” I answer. She does look great. Almost slutty (this is good). Definitely hot, although I'm not sure after-work appropriate.
We're standing in front of the elevator to the bar, when a short woman standing behind a counter tells us that although there's no cover charge, we have to check our coats, which will cost us each ten dollars.
All three of us cross our arms in front of our chests. “Actually, I'd prefer to keep my coat, if you don't mind,” Natalie says. It's not the money; she doesn't trust strangers with her possessions.
“So try it,” the woman says. “But they're going to send you back down.”
“No, they won't,” Natalie mutters under her breath. “I always bring my coat up.”
So up we go in one of those superspeed elevators that made me wish I was chewing gum to ease the pressure mounting in my ears.
The elevator drops us off directly in front of the hostess.
“Hi,” Natalie says. “Table for three, please.”
The hostess looks us over. “Sorry, we're full.”
I notice an empty place by the window. This calls for drastic measures. The three of us form a huddle, and after an agonizing five minutes of deliberation, settle on the grand sum of ten dollars.
“The table is now free,” says the hostess in a candy-coated voice. “But you need to check your coats downstairs.”
“We'd rather keep our coats,” Natalie says.
“Sorry. I can't seat you until you check your coats.”
Silently I press the down button on the elevator and pass out sticks of gum.
When we arrive at the bottom floor, we all stare at the ground. “We'd like to check our coats.” Natalie says. Sam and I giggle. I look up at the woman behind the counter and smile. She smiles back.
Five minutes later, the elevator drops us off in front of the hostess a second time. “Our table, please,” Natalie says, pointing to the still-vacant spot by the window.
“Sorry, we're full.”
We form another huddle, and fifty dollars poorer than when we first arrived, we're sitting at a corner table overlooking the city.
Natalie and Sam place their cell phones directly beside their napkins. In case. “So has he called?” Natalie asks. She is referring to Marc, of course.
“No.”
The moment is punctuated with silence. What can be said after that? On one hand, you want to cheer her up and tell her he'll call, but on the other hand, you want to tell her he's not worth it, he's a jerk, and she's better off if he doesn't callâbut what if he does call? If he calls, then they'll get back together and hate you for saying all those horrible things. Remember
How to Recover from a Breakup
rule number three? Only mediocre friends should say terrible things about ex-boyfriends.
We order three glasses of wineâred for Sam and Natalie and white for me.
“He likes being tied up,” Sam announces.
“Excuse me?” I choke slightly on my wine.
“Tied up. And he especially likes handcuffs. He likes being spanked, too.”
I am unable to swallow my wine. I guess Sam did understand the S-M significance of their names after all.
Natalie laughs. “Do you get off on that stuff?”
“Sometimes. Kind of weird, though.”
I will never again be able to look at Marc in the same way.
“Do you think,” Sam wonders aloud, “he'll use his handcuffs with another girl?”
“You don't buy a new box of condoms every time you sleep with a different guy,” Natalie offers wisely.
At this point, I feel compelled to add my two cents. “I think you should buy a new set of handcuffs for each partner. It's like comparing apples to oranges. Handcuffs, I assume, are so personal, so individual, but it stands to reason you wouldn't buy new condoms if you still had some left over. It's only the used ones I'd object to.”
“I don't know,” Sam says. “I'm going to keep my vibrator.”
Sam and I are on our second round of drinks when we notice the two
GQ
-ish men at the bar, both in their early thirties, both wearing suits, one talking on a cell phone, the other slightly in need of a shave, both very sexy.
“Let's call them over,” Sam says, downing her wine.
I'm not sure how you're supposed to call men over. You can't wave and shout, Come and get it boys! Wouldn't they sense our desperation? “Maybe we should just stare them down.”
“Definitely not,” Natalie says with disgust, tapping the rim of her wineglass. “We don't call
or
stare.”
Well, excuse me. “So what do you think we should do?”
“We laugh a lot and look as though we're having the most wonderful time. And we ignore them completely.”
“That's the plan?” I think it's time Nat started paying closer attention to Fashion Magazine Fun Facts.