Why I Love Singlehood: (4 page)

Silence.

“Don’t start, Liv,” I said.

“I said nothing,” she replied.

“You didn’t have to.”

Olivia changed the subject. “Hey, Eva, what’s with the pot shot at my calling to cancel plans with you in the blog post?”

“Aw, Liv, don’t take it personally.”

“You need to think of other people’s feelings when you write.”

“And you need to examine your own guilt.”

I could hear my nine-year-old nephew Tyler screaming, “MOM!” in the background.

“Do you need to go?” I asked, my heart sinking.

“In a minute,” she said. “Tyler needs help with his math homework. Are you OK?”

“Yeah,” I lied. “I just thought I’d tell you the news.”

“OK. Well, I’ve gotta go before Ty has a conniption.”

“Give him a hug for me,” I said.

“Will do. I’m sorry I can’t be of more comfort to you right now. And Eva, just think of it as having dodged a bullet. You’re doing fine without him. Love you.”

“Love you too.”

I hung up the phone, feeling dissatisfied. Should I call Minerva? Should I whip up a batch of brownies? Should I immerse myself in Meg Ryan movies? What would make me feel better?

Who was I kidding? Shaun was getting married. Nothing could make that better.

How could I have known that disaster would strike so swiftly, so completely, so unnervingly? How could I have known that Shaun was such a jerk?

OK. It wasn’t Shaun’s fault. I knew that. But any rate, disaster struck, and I was totally screwed. I had to act fast otherwise my cover would be blown. I’d be Valerie Plame-ed, outed, discredited. I’d have to delete the entire WILS blog, and I’d barely started it. Hell, I’d have to change my identity and move. Because all of a sudden, in the blink of an eye, I didn’t want to be single anymore. Rather, I wanted to prove to Shaun that I was just as desirable as the Jeanette was. More to the point, I wanted to make him
jealous
, make him crave to get me back. So what if he’d never once hinted at any interest in getting back together during the course of our post-breakup friendship? Perhaps he didn’t know he wanted it. Not until he saw me blissfully happy with someone else.

Worst of all, I knew that Shaun’s engagement was the end of his and my friendship—or, at the very least, our friendliness. My comfortable, familiar life had been overturned and its contents spilled out. And once again, it happened at the hands of Shaun Harrison.

You Can’t Handle the Truth

BFFs

I was only 15 when the movie When Harry Met Sally came out in the theater, but by the time I was 20, it topped my list of favorite films of all time. Feed me a line—any line—from the movie, and I’ll feed you the next three lines.

Some say that Nora Ephron ruined relationships because the likelihood of marrying someone you were friends with was even more remote than meeting Prince Charming. And I confess that I bought it—hook, line, and sinker. When it came to my ex-boyfriend, I had thought we were headed in that direction. I had thought we were best friends as well as lovers. But instead we were lovers who managed to become friends.

But can you really be friends with your ex? I say why not, as long as you both agree that it’s over. Isn’t it better than having all that animosity? Isn’t it better than carrying that baggage around with you?

And that’s another good thing about being single: you can be friends with your exes without your significant others going green and needing restraining orders after hacking into your e-mail account and stalking your ex’s old hangouts in a bout of temporary insecurity–induced insanity. I’d rather have the former than the latter. At least with the former, you get to relive the good moments, and you never have to change your phone number.

But these days, I’m more taken with the idea of being my own best friend. Because if you can’t live with yourself, you’ll never be able to live with anybody else.

I did everything in rhythmic lethargy the next morning: opened The Grounds, made the cookies, cleaned the espresso machine, wiped down the tables, reorganized the books in the reading room, prepared the pita wraps, and so on.

By midafternoon, the Originals arrived along with the post-lunch Friday crowd. Just as I removed a newspaper that a customer had left on the table, I turned to find Minerva glaring at me, arms crossed, the sleeves of her lab coat scrunched up to her elbows.

“What?” I said.

“What’s wrong?” Her words sounded more like a demand than a question.

“Nothing,” I lied. “I’m fine. I just didn’t get enough sleep last night.”

“You’re not fine.”

“Min, really, I—”

“You made almond biscotti.”

I went behind the counter, straightening the stack of paper menus by the register as I did so. “So? It sells a hundred percent,” I argued, discarding one scribble-laden menu that someone had used to test a pen.

Minerva followed me. She was perhaps the only customer I let behind the counter, not to mention the only one ballsy enough to go without permission in the first place.

“It also goes well with a cup of steamy something and childhood memories of your Nonna,” she said. “Which means you want a cup of steamy something to cradle while you escape to said memories. Which means something’s up. So what is it?”

“I told you, it’s just sleep deprivation.”

“I read your post,” she said without hesitation.

“The BFF one?”

“Yeah. Did you see the comments?”

“Already? Geez, doesn’t anyone sleep?”

“An anonymous commenter pretty much said that anyone foolish enough to live life by a movie line deserves what they get. So you know what Norman wrote in caps? YOU CAN’T HANDLE THE TRUTH!”

I laughed.

“The rest of the comments get into the men-and-women-can’t-be-friends argument.”

“Ah,” I said, wiping down the counter.

“Did I ever tell you about the last time I saw Sebastard?” she asked, still not missing a beat. “Last time I saw him, he was carrying his toddler and buying a bagel sandwich for his wife. I mean, I’m sure she’s great for him—she’s a Katie,” she said, as if that explained everything. “It’s just that he was always so clear about not wanting any of that domestic crap—his words. So obviously, she had something that made her marry-able and me dump-able. I mean, I’m happy with Jay. Blissfully happy. You know how happy. But just seeing them? I think my heart broke right there. Like some big, silent announcement that she had something I lacked.”

“She did. A baby.”

She wanted to laugh, I could tell, but didn’t. Instead, she shot me a look. “Point is, even though I know we were never right for each other, I cried for forty-five minutes at least. Hard. It sucked.”

What, had she wiretapped my phone last night?

“Seriously, Min? The Katie’s got nothing on you.”

Minerva grinned in appreciation for the validation, and we both let the silence hang in the air until the moment presented itself.
Be brave,
I told myself.
She’s your best friend, after all.

“She’s a Jeanette,” I said under my breath. Minerva made a face that registered equal parts shock and disgust, as if I’d just said, “
I have scurvy
.”

“Shaun’s got a girlfriend?”

“Worse.”

“Ohmigod,
mistress
?” she said loud enough for the nearby customers at the counter to turn their heads in our direction. Then she covered her mouth, as if doing so would erase the word from their memories.

“No!” I said, my voice still hushed. “And shut up, will you? Fiancée.”

“Oh. Oh, Eva, I’m sorry.”

“It just took me by surprise, that’s all. I didn’t even know he was dating anyone. And how’d you know I was talking about Shaun in the blog post?”

I selected a sunny yellow plate for Minerva and placed two biscotti on it.

“Who else would you be talking about? And he never told you? That shmuck…he didn’t do all this via e-mail, did he?” She fumbled in her purse for the correct change, hardly taking her eyes off me.

“No, he called me last night. And he’s not a shmuck.”

“Yes he is. He’s a shmuck because when he was with you, he had everything he needed right in front of his face and was too blind to see it. He’s chasing something that doesn’t exist.”

“She does. She’s a philosophy professor.”

“I rest my case.”

“Well, it’s what he wants, I guess. I’m fine. It was just the shock, like you and Sebastard. I’m still happy, still loving singlehood. All’s well.”

Minerva gave me one of those motherly looks that says,
You’re full of shit
, that makes you feel like someone opened the door on you while you were sitting on the john.

“You know what I wish?” I said. “I wish that just for one day my customers stayed on the other side of the counter and left me and my cookies free of psychoanalysis.”

Minerva opened her mouth, about to utter a comeback, reconsidered, and closed it. Then she grinned.

“We wouldn’t even make it till noon.” With that, she bit into her biscotti.

I didn’t deign to respond.

Lemon Torte Day

I MAKE A
lemon torte on March twenty-sixth every year. It’s my mother’s recipe; she made it every Easter for as long as I can remember, saying that the lemons tasted like spring. I didn’t even used to like it until I (almost sacrilegiously) added a raspberry drizzle to sweeten it up, but I’ve made one every year without fail since the last Easter Mom celebrated, the year I’d sneaked it into her hospital room so that she, Olivia, and I could eat it together—right out of the pan—while sitting on her bed (it was a girl’s thing).

My mother died on March twenty-sixth, from breast cancer. I was fourteen years old. Olivia was eighteen.

Mom was my Girl Scout troop leader, and we always outsold all the other scouts in the troop when it came to the cookies. She was also a great cook, and Olivia and I often helped her prepare meals, hopping up to stir some pot or check the oven in between algebra problems and vocabulary quizzes. She baked almost every night, stopping only to shoo our fingers out of the bowls while we helped. Even as a child, I excelled at baking, and Mom encouraged me by giving me my own set of mixing bowls and a handheld electric mixer and measuring cups and spoons. Every Friday after dinner, the four of us would play
Scrabble
or
Monopoly
, and on nights when Mom was too tired to play, Dad taught Olivia and me to play poker and—better yet—how to count, stack, and bluff. Our father was a crack mathematician and a movie buff; he especially loved vaudeville and slapstick comedy. Whereas Mom and I bonded over bundt cakes and buttercream icing, Dad and I routinely watched and reenacted scenes by the Three Stooges and the Marx Brothers and Abbott and Costello.

When we were children, Olivia and I were best friends. She taught me to read and write and helped me with my homework, and I taught her how to do French braids and play Chinese Jacks. I told Olivia all about my first kiss with Nicky Bates, and she told me all about the first time she went all the way with Bobby Ackerman. Together Olivia and I tried (and hated) smoking, and she always let me tag along with her friends. She taught me to drive, and I taught her how to get out of jury duty.

After Mom died, Olivia dropped out of college to help my father take care of me and see me through high school, despite his begging her not to. I have always felt guilty but to this day can’t decide if the guilt comes from her decision or the fact that in secret I was grateful that she did it because I needed her; she was someone to talk to and hug and interact with, and I was afraid to be with just my father. Not that he was some monster—far from it—but our mother’s death had shaken him to the core. He’d retreated inside himself to the point that he was no more than a shadow that lurked about the house when he wasn’t working twelve-hour days to avoid a place that was short on laughter and long on sadness. Besides, I’d lost count of the number of times he told me how much I looked like my mother.

My father died sixteen months after my mother, also of cancer, although I still believe it was brought on by a broken heart and not genetic predisposition, as the doctors told us. He had emotionally left us long before, so grieving for him was more an act of longing for the days when we were all young and carefree and close than an exercise in shock and loss. I’d thought such grief would be easier to manage. Turns out I was wrong.

After barely graduating high school, I went to work full-time at a bookstore for almost four years. It was a perfect fit for me—I couldn’t remember a time when I wasn’t escaping to some story. Time outside the kitchen was spent reading and spinning stories. Meanwhile, Olivia worked as a receptionist in a doctor’s office, where she met the man she’d eventually marry.

When I was twenty-two, the age at which the few friends I had left had graduated college, Olivia finally snapped.

March twenty-sixth, to be exact.

We had just finished the last slice of torte when she put her fork down and asked, “Eva, when are you going to get out from under your rock?”

I looked at her, bewildered. “What?”

“This has got to stop.”

“Mom’s torte?”

“You need to get a life! You’re twenty-two, and where are you?”

“What are you talking about?” I asked, feeling panic and anger rise. “This is our
home
!”

“This place hasn’t been anyone’s home since the day Mom got diagnosed.”

I sat back hard, as if she’d struck me, while she charged full steam ahead. “You should be
writing
books, not selling them! You should be out living
your
life, not what’s left of theirs.” She glanced up at me, and I was surprised to see tears lining her eyes. “And don’t even give me that look—Mom and Dad would’ve told you the same thing.”