32aa (5 page)

This is what I’ve been waiting for.

“Emmeline,” he says, reaching for my hand across the table.

Here it comes.
Although I was secretly hoping for the one-knee approach, complete with small Tiffany’s box.

“Will you—will you move in with me?”

Not exactly what I am expecting, but it is a move in the right direction, don’t you think? If we live together, full time, he’ll soon realize how perfect we are together.

But he doesn’t actually say that he loves me. I think he does love me, though, because why else would he ask me to move in with him?

“Yes, Adam,” I say. “I will.”

I think he just needs time.

Oh, if only I’d known then what I know now. But how easy it is to be wise with the advantage of hindsight.

TO DO

1. Meditate. “I do not need bigger boobs—ohm. I shall not pander to society’s (men’s) perception of the perfect breast size—ohm.”
   
2. Maybe
   should
   think about breast implants.
   
3. Repeat after me: “I am at one with my boobs—ohm. They are fine—ohm. Adam is a bastard ionic bonder—ohm.”
   

I pace up and down the restroom for a while to stop myself crying. Exercise generates endorphins, which make you feel better, so if I pace briskly for a few minutes, surely I’ll feel better?

But I don’t, and I can’t stay in here forever. I must formulate a plan…

Until now I’ve always harbored a furtive, grudging respect for Prince Charles. Not to take anything away from poor, beautiful Diana (may she rest in peace), but to me there was always something rather noble about the heir to the Kingdom (or is it politically correctly a queendom at the moment? I must ask Julia) rejecting youth and beauty in favor of true love, for the older, much less attractive Camilla Parker Bowles. Not that I think Camilla isn’t attractive, of course, because I think she definitely is. And I do hear that
she’s a very charming, witty person—and perfect looks aren’t everything.

But now that my prince is cheating on me with an older (although, I have to admit, a very attractive but scathingly bitchy) woman, my sympathy is waning sharply.

And Stella wears a C cup.

And I don’t know what to do.

I don’t know what to think.

I rub my aching temples as I pace for a bit longer to give the endorphins time to work, and try to reason this through. (I.e., lie to myself. I am in denial—but at least
I know
that I am in denial. Which is good.)

Is Stella just being her usual bitch self and tormenting me with false images of her and Adam cozying up together on Bahamian beaches? Or is she really sleeping with my boyfriend? I wish it’s the former. I don’t want to believe that Adam has betrayed me.

But he has betrayed me, hasn’t he? What about my ideas that he passed off as his own? (And what about that huge bonus he got for them?) And, the sneaky little voice of reason in my head reminds me, what about his e-mail to William Cougan? The one in which Adam definitely doesn’t recommend me for the promotion. Plus, that little voice tortures me even more, there’s that bloody
Visa
statement! I mean, it’s
obvious,
isn’t it? It’s completely
obvious,
even to my poor demented brain, that the Tiffany whatever is not for me. Because it’s
obviously
for Man-Stealing Bitch Stella!

Last night, when Adam was out at a business dinner (oh God, I bet he was with Stella), I was so happily checking out my list of Goals by Thirty, thinking I was well on my way to achieving most of them. How could I have been so blind?

Oh, I just don’t know what to think, but the pacing seems to have worked, so I stop.

Think, Emma, think clearly,
I tell my reflection. Okay. Here we go. For several minutes (double checking once again that I am alone in the bathroom) I calmly discuss the pros and
cons with the variegated ivy in the corner. I’ve always had a fondness for this particular plant—it’s about five feet tall, and beautifully proportioned, apart from one stem that sticks out too much. All of the other plants are far too perfect. I call this plant Daphne, because I think Daphne is a good, solid, no-nonsense kind of name. But still a pretty name.

And do you know what? Talking it through with Daphne really seems to help. There is something rather comforting about talking to plants, even silk ones. But I still don’t like the way the discussion is going, because, it has to be said, Daphne isn’t exactly talkative. Two questions seem to keep cropping up.

Questions:
Why did he cheat on me? Why didn’t I suspect?

Of course, if you are the
Cheated On
(me), you will probably be the last person to suspect that object of your affections, the
Cheater
(Adam) is not, as you thought, acting weirdly because he’s building up the nerve to ask you to marry him.

He’s building up the courage to
leave
you.

He’s got the
five-month itch.

The signs have all been there. In retrospect, it’s easy to spot them. Like the fact that for the last three weeks he’s been late home too many times with the lame excuse, “Business dinner. You know what it’s like in the cutthroat world of advertising.”

Well, if I didn’t before, I sure as hell do now.

Another sign—his total lack of interest in sex. Well, obviously, if he’s off for a furtive weekend with Stella then he
is
interested in sex. Just not with me. I mean, the sex was great in the beginning. But I have to say it. Adam is no longer the Sixty Minute Man. More like the Six Minute Man. Or at least he used to be. Three weeks ago. When he was still having sex with me.

But let’s face it, even mediocre, short-lived sex is better than no sex at all, isn’t it?

Oh God,
I may never have sex again!

But back to the main point, before the threatened panic attack can seize control and I crumble into a boneless heap, only to be discovered Monday morning by an unsuspecting, innocent cleaning lady.

Questions:
Why did he cheat on me? Why didn’t I suspect?

Answer: I don’t bloody know!

I rummage in my purse for my cell phone and speed dial Rachel.

“Rachel,” I croak down the telephone line. “It’s me.”

And after she wishes me a happy thirtieth birthday, and tells me that thirty is no age at all, that life begins at forty for women on account of reaching their sexual peak, I burst into tears and spill all.

Rachel is my best friend from high school—brilliant, beautiful, but
single,
on account of all men being seriously intimidated by her MENSA intellect. Rachel doesn’t exactly hate men, she just thinks they’re mainly idiots and uses them for sex.

“Emma, sweetie, the basic problem is not
you.
It’s
Adam.
He’s a bastard ionic bonder,” she rants, and I wish I’d paid more attention to sophomore chemistry.

“He is your classic alkali metal,” she tells me, and I sigh down the telephone line with confusion.

Rachel has an intellect the size of Texas and it’s not always easy for us lesser mortals to follow her meaning.

“Look, sweetie, let me put it in simple terms.”

Thank God.
Simple works for me every time.

“Adam is an atom with an extra electron,” she enunciates slowly, as if speaking to a three-year-old. “He bonded temporarily with another atom, i.e.,
you.
He’s given you his electron, i.e.,
had sex with you.
And he’s generally used you to enhance his own career by ruthlessly stealing all your great ideas and passing them off as his own. And now he’s leaving fully charged, and he’s found another atom to bond with.”

At this point I hold the receiver a little way from my ear because Rachel is now ranting full steam ahead.

“Bastard! God, I knew I should have warned you about
him. I mean, he’s successful, attractive, never been married. That’s not normal for a thirty-six-year-old guy!” she says, and I hear the angry clank of test tubes from her laboratory.

I hope I haven’t just ruined years of painstaking research in the quest for the cure to some terrible disease.

“So you don’t think it has anything to do with my breasts, then?” I mumble, seeking reassurance.

Yes, I know this is pathetic. But I am worried that my lack of mammary glands might have something to do with Adam’s defection (the older woman in question is, as I said, fully loaded). You see, Adam is a self-confessed “breast man” and has occasionally (at least once a week) urged me to take up my plastic-surgeon father’s offer to get his partner to surgically enhance what Mother Nature failed to provide.

“For God’s sake, Emma,” Rachel lectures me. “That’s a fucking pathetic male-excuse crock. How many times have we gone through this? A mature, mutually fulfilling relationship has nothing to do with breast size.”

More angry clanking of test tubes down the phone line.

I love Rachel. She’s a lot like my mother with all her radical feminist theories. But sometimes you need a bit of sympathy, and not a scientific dissertation on why your boyfriend was wrong for you from the start, and how immature it is to obsess over your lack of cup size.

“What you need,” Rachel tells me firmly, “is a covalent bonder.”

A what?

“You
must
remember high school chemistry.”

Must I?

“Er…” I squint at the window as I grope for the answer. Rachel forgets that she was in advanced-placement science and I wasn’t. I struggled in the regular class. And I’m thinking, I’m trying hard to remember…

Nope. Too busy fantasizing about Chris Stevenson and Jon Bon Jovi in high school.

“Covalent bonding is when two atoms, i.e., a man and a
woman, bond and share electrons, thereby filling each other’s outer electron fields and stabilizing each other. Look at David and Sylvester or Katy and Tom—the perfect covalently bonded relationships.”

This doesn’t cheer me up and I miserably wonder if all male covalent bonders of my acquaintance are either gay or married.

“Yes, but what should I do? Everyone knows I didn’t get the promotion. And I can’t face Adam and Stella. I feel like such an idiot…” I wail. Someone fix my life. Fix it quick!

“This is what you’re going to do,” Rachel tells me firmly.

Good. A clear voice of reason amidst chaos.

“Wipe all your files off your computer—no reason why Bastard Adam should steal any more of your fabulous ideas.”

“Good, this is good,” I say.

“Then shred his office diary, push a paper clip into his disk drive, and reformat his hard disk. For God’s sake, you’ve already devoted three years to that testosterone-biased company. Call it quits and leave.”

This is tempting. If I walk out, I won’t have to face any of the people here (or Adam and Stella) again. But if I do that, they definitely won’t give me a good reference (plus the thought of jail time is not tempting). And I can’t just walk out of a job, not with the current economic climate. And if I don’t have a job, I won’t be able to make rent and…

Oh, God, I’ve just realized that I’m homeless!

At thirty years of age I’ve just become a street person! I
can’t
move back to Julia’s in London, or in with Dad and Peri and the twins…

As I said, Rachel is great but her advice is usually extreme.

I hang up on Rachel after she forces me to promise to meet her at Chez Nous in an hour. She’s calling ahead to tell Sylvester and David my news, so I am spared the misery of having to repeat my tale of abject rejection and betrayal a million times. I don’t really want to go out and party, be
cause I have nothing to celebrate, but I know she won’t take no for an answer. Besides, it will be good to get support and sympathy from people who really love me.

I dial Tish and repeat my tale of woe to her.

“Oh, Emma, that’s terrible,” she sniffles down the telephone line, already in floods of tears on my behalf.

Then she says something really un-Tish-like.

“I just
knew it.
I should have warned you about his shifty eyes—you can never trust a man who doesn’t look you squarely in the eye without admiring his own reflection in them.”

Now she does have a point, because Adam can be rather vain, but for Tish this is a radical statement. She’s one of the nicest, sweetest people ever to grace the face of the planet with her presence, and for her to say Adam has shifty eyes is tantamount to the Pope announcing that he’s gay and is leaving the Vatican to start a new life as a drag queen.

“Oh, sweetie.” She continues to sniffle and I wonder who is supposed to be comforting who? She’s now sobbing and I spend five minutes reassuring her that I’m not about to slit my wrists with the letter opener or join a nunnery. And then I tell her I’m fine, I’m meeting Rachel at Chez Nous earlier than planned. On account of no engagement dinner.

“Well, I’ll come too. It’s not like I have anything better to do. Rufus still doesn’t know I exist.” She sighs, and I sigh with her.

“But we did kind of have a breakthrough today,” she tells me, brightening. “When he said, ‘The usual?’, I said, ‘No, Rufus, today I’d like the whole-wheat muffin with cinnamon and raisins.’ And then he actually
looked
at me. So that’s a good thing. I mean, at least he’s paying attention to me now and won’t assume that I’ll just have the banana-granola muffin every day.”

At this point I am rolling my eyes and wondering how many varieties of muffin Tish and Rufus will get through before moving on to the different flavors of decaffeinated coffee.

“Well, it’s certainly a move in the right direction,” I tell her, not wanting to sound pessimistic about her chances of getting
an actual date with Rufus this side of the next century. And then I remember that, unlike my cheating-rat
ex
-boyfriend, Rufus is coming to my ex-engagement-birthday un-party. Maybe I can give them both a push in the right direction. After all, just because I’m back on the spinsterhood shelf, there’s no reason why I can’t lend a helping hand to my best friend. Oh God, back on the spinsterhood shelf…how retread that sounds.

“Oh Emma, I’m being selfish. After all you’ve been through today, sweetie.”

And then Tish gives me her opinion about my job options.

“Well, I agree you should wait until you get another job before you walk out. Can’t you get a transfer to another department?”

This is an excellent idea.

And Tish tells me what to do about being homeless.

“Ditch Adam and move back in with me. It’ll be like old times. It’ll be fun.”

Only problem is that when I moved out of our rented apartment, Tish bought a one-bedroom shoebox in Hoboken just around the corner from Rufus’s deli. (This was no accident—she scoured the real estate agencies for two years before she found this one.) And although I’m small and don’t take up much room, there isn’t enough space in her shoebox to swing the proverbial cat.