Why I Love Singlehood: (18 page)

I offered an obligatory smile to cover up the aching feeling that lately, no matter what I’d done, Minerva disapproved. Or maybe she was right—maybe there was nothing to be happy about yet. I recalled the past couple of days, both relaxing and wonderfully exhausting. Nah, there was plenty to be happy about. I just had to give Scott a chance. And once Minerva did, she’d be happy for me, too.

“Does Jay like chai?”

“Nobody’s perfect,” Minerva said primly.

I dropped the volume of my voice as well as my playful tone. “And how’s everything else going for you guys, you know, since…” I trailed off.

She shrugged. “OK, I guess. I mean, you were right. It’s so not a good time to get pregnant. But Jay’s been his usual wonderful self. God, how I love that boy. He’s my best friend, ya know?”

I pushed an image of Shaun out of my mind at the words
best friend
.

“In addition to you, of course,” she obligingly added.

“I know. You’re both lucky to have each other.”

“Thanks to you,” she reminded me, sarcastically.

“That’s right,” I said, sitting up straight. “You haven’t thanked me lately.”

When we were classmates, I had convinced Minerva to enter a poetry slam contest at NCLA, where she met Jay. He had recited a poem called “If a Tree Falls in the Woods, Who Cut It Down?”

Minerva touched a finger to her forehead in a lazy salute. “Hat’s off to you, partner,” she said.

I returned her salute. “I gotta get back to work. Norman called in sick today.”

She looked astonished. “Norman? Sick? Is there a new strain of influenza going around?”

“Perish the thought.”

“I hope he’s OK,” she said.

“Probably just needed an extra day off.”

Before I got up, I hesitated. “You know, Scott said something a little unsettling to me the other day. He said that Norman has a crush on me, and isn’t the only one. He cracked a joke about a club. What do you think of that?”

Minerva wore her studious face, as if I’d just asked her to explain the DNA chains of mitochondria.

“Hmmmm…I have noticed the way Norman sometimes looks at you when you’re not looking. I’m not sure
crush
is the word I’d use—more like an attraction that he’s not all too certain about. He cares about you, though. I mean, that much is obvious. You’ve got me on the club. Might be fun to guess, though.” She nudged in the direction of a customer smearing a latte foam mustache off his lip. “He could be a member, for example.”

I chuckled and looked for someone else. “Could be the guy who delivers my paper products.”

“Could be Dara.”

I laughed, incredulous. “Dara has a boyfriend!”

“Maybe it’s a female crush; you know, like the one you have on Wonder Woman.”

I swooned at the thought. “It’s those red boots.”

I left the table and went into the back room to speak to vendors and do payroll. Returning to the café, I spotted Kenny sitting at Minerva’s table and stopped in my tracks. Determined to act casual, I strode past Scott and stood in front of them.

“Car Talk Kenny,” I said in a forced friendliness that was as transparent as the plastic cup from which he sipped the last of his iced coffee.

He looked up at me, perplexed, chewing on his straw.

“Yesss…” he said tentatively and went back to making teeth marks on the straw.

“Where’ve you been?” I asked.

“Busy.”

“No, really,” I said, taking a page out of his book. “Where’ve you been?”

“I stopped by the other day, but you’d already left.”

“What day?”

“Your birthday.”

Oh shit.
His words deflated me, the air
whooshing
out of my lungs.

“How’ve you been?” he asked.

“Fine.”

“No, really. How’ve you been?”

“Fine,” I insisted. Heading back to the register, I couldn’t help but wonder whom I was lying to. Safely behind the counter, I spied him giving Minerva a
what the hell?
look. As the next customer stepped up, I caught Minerva in my peripheral vision leaning in close to him—he looked like he’d just been slapped in the face.
So help me, if she’s telling him about me and Scott…
no. She wouldn’t.

Scott stayed for two and a half hours, near closing time. I had gone out of my way all day to not avoid him completely, but also not be
too
friendly or flirtatious with him. Before leaving, he handed me a napkin with a note scribbled on it, which I shoved into my pocket. When I had a moment to slip away, I pulled it out and read it:
You’re cute as hell when you’re working.
Grinning, I re-folded it and went back to work. After closing, Scott came to my house and spent yet another night with me. As I lay next to him, waiting to fall asleep and replaying the scenes of the day, it struck me that I’d missed Norman all day long.

The next morning when I checked my e-mails, I found one from Minerva, subject heading “The Club.”
Don’t rule out Kenny
, was all it said. I quickly deleted the e-mail without a response.

17

Running

DON’T RULE OUT
Kenny.

The words echoed in my head as I stood in front of the open fridge in my kitchen after work. My brain pieced the items inside together like a puzzle: bag of salad starters, veggies from the crisper, a piece of grilled chicken, a nub of Romano cheese. But I was too antsy to eat. My father’s voice—or what I remembered it as; it’d been too long to be sure it was really his anymore—came to me as minutes passed without my making a move: “No sense in filling your belly when your head’s already overflowing.”

I closed the fridge.

Tugging my running shoes out from the back of the closet, I felt a small rush of anticipation as the road awaited me, but I knew better than to skip stretching. My thoughts swarmed as I dropped to the floor of my porch and slowly began to coax length from muscles that had gone too long without. It’d been months since I’d been running, a ritual I practiced regularly during my NCLA days. Whether it was circling the two-mile campus main road (twice) or stationary on the treadmill at the campus gym (to which I still had access as an alumna), my students would call out, “Hey, Professor Perino!” and I would wave a sweaty hand in acknowledgment, uttering more of a grunt than a hello. I wouldn’t say that I love running (I’m definitely not one of those people), but I do relish the freedom and rhythm of it. Some of my best thinking happens while I’m running. My best writing, too. In college I ran for term papers; later it was tough chapters, sometimes even recipes, but they always came to me after running, and usually after ten p.m.

I’d been thinking about the Club all day, keeping an eye out for Kenny (who never showed), watching Norman for signs of a secret membership, and feeling like a twelve-year-old fool in the process. The whole thing reeked of junior high, where I spent innumerable lunch periods engaged in this same behavior trying to determine whether I had a chance with Bobby Ackerman’s younger brother Jason. The Club was all the more humiliating now that I not only had Norman to consider but an entire secret society, according to Scott. How had I gone from having no one in my life to a variety of potential suitors, not to mention one with whom I spent more time than I ever had with Shaun, and another who had already seen me naked on more than one occasion?

After ten minutes of stretching, I headed out, finding my pace easily and focusing on breathing, knowing that the tightness would leave my legs and lungs after a mile or so. I let each breath match the beats of soles on pavement—in (pound pound pound), out (pound pound pound), in (pound pound pound), out (pound pound pound)—as scenes from the day replayed before my eyes…

Although he never let a customer wait, never shirked a single duty, Norman had spent the day revolving around Speed-dating Samara. He was smitten and she loved it. She’d been in his sight from the moment she sauntered in with her Coach sunglasses tucked neatly into her trendy hairdo, the kind that comes after spending hours with your hair in big, fat rollers to give it big, loose curls. He brought her whatever she ordered, lingered just long enough to laugh over something trivial, and returned to the counter where he watched her, lest she need something else. I swear I even saw them texting each other.

And despite this alleged Club, I believed that the reasons for which guys liked me and the ways guys liked Samara were completely different. Every time I thought of her in that cute little dress she wore that dreaded speed dating night, I felt a twinge of jealousy—not because Norman liked her (after all, I was his favorite date, so he said) but because she was the kind of girl that lots of guys would like. It also reminded me of the Tom Cruise guy and everyone else who didn’t like me that night. I bet he checked her box. I’ll bet they all checked her box. I would have preferred that Samara and Tom had hooked up instead while Norman and I went out for a beer. She also happened to be dumb as a rock, with a laugh so piercing it could cut glass. Minerva and I secretly called her “Samurai” and thought Norman could do better if he randomly pointed to a name in the phonebook.

And yet, I couldn’t criticize Norman too harshly. I wasn’t much better. Although we didn’t have “eye sex” all day (as Minerva called it), I’d kept Scott in my peripheral vision throughout the afternoon, and I’d tried like hell not to be disappointed when he’d mentioned he had to lay low for the night. He’d been talking to Norman (who was fixed on Samara, who was on her cell phone with someone named Gigi who was “
too
funny”) but looked straight at me as he said that there was a big meeting in the morning with a client and he had to prepare for it tonight.

“Whatever, man,” Norman had answered, eyes shooting back to Samurai as she pealed out in laughter again.

“Ohmigod, Gigi,” she cried out, flicking something from underneath a fingernail, “you are just
too
funny, now.
Too
funny.”

I found myself neither dreading nor loving the end of my shift. On one hand, it meant I had to go home to a quiet house (in other words, sans Scott); but on the other hand, there’d be no eye sex and shrieking blonds there. I figured it was a draw.

In (pound pound), out (pound pound). More images flashed before me: Norman swirling the steamed head of each latte he made into some design before handing it to the waiting customer. Scott’s hands splayed on the counter as he leaned forward to tell Norman (and me) about his evening plans. Norman ogling Samurai as she uncrossed and crossed her legs. Scott’s steady gaze from above his laptop. I replayed events from the past couple of days, too: Yesterday’s awkward exchange with Kenny. Scott on my deck, all tan and buff and wearing nothing but a towel. Kenny yukking it up with Minerva. Shaun and his perfect Jeanette. Norman and Samara. Kenny, Minerva. Scott in bed. Shaun with me. Shaun and Jeanette.

In (pound pound), out (pound pound).
Breathe, Eva.
Is it possible to love one person your whole life?
Breathe
…

The Love of Your Life?

Is it possible to love one person your whole life? Does the myth of the high school sweetheart exist, or is it just a dream created at slumber parties and held on to for dear life by unhappy singles and desperate class reunion–goers?

Let’s say for the time being that it does. That some people (albeit a depressingly decreasing number) fall in love, get married, and stay that way for the rest of their days not because they have to, are too chicken to change, or can’t imagine life any other way, but because they
want
to. Let’s say that for some, love endures, because for some it does.

Finding a love like that is like striking gold. There can be no luckier thing. Think of all the things that have to synchronize just so for so-called “true love” to happen—and stay happening. You have to meet, first of all. You have to recognize that something’s there, and act on it. It has to work; you have to both be single and interested. You have to go through the steps of dating and falling in love, get married (or make some equivalent commitment), and then either your life is smooth sailing from them on or you have to love each other so fiercely, so completely, that no tragedy or amount of time can change the way you feel for each other.

The odds are against you every step of the way. If there are over six billion people in the world, isn’t it a bit far-fetched to believe that there’s one—and only one—out there just for you? Let’s take the stars from our eyes and face the facts. Not only is that concept impractical, it’s improbable. Think about it. See, all my life I’ve been clinging to the idea that “the right guy is out there somewhere,” but I think as an adult I owe it to myself to admit that maybe he’s not. Maybe there’s not only one. Or maybe there’s not even one. But with six billion to choose from, how does anyone know when they’ve found the love of their life?

As a kid I disliked people saying that relationships were hard work, that no relationship was 50-50, rather they should all be 100-100, and that you had to work to stay happy and in love. I thought that if a relationship was all work, then why bother? Is having to work at a relationship every day a sign that it isn’t the love of your life because it’s too hard (or even unnatural), or is it a sign that it
is
the love of your life, worth all the effort?

What if your relationship isn’t any work at all? What if it just happens, just falls into place, feels good, goes with the flow? What then?

The problem with making up rules about how love and dating should be is that there will always be an exception—a time when they either don’t fit or don’t apply—and that leaves you in the dark. And no one wants to be on unsure ground when his or her heart and soul are on the line.