Adventures of a Salsa Goddess (22 page)

I knew Javier was holding back, patiently waiting for me. When I came I cried out and he came a moment later. We lay there in each other arms breathing heavily. Everything felt so right, so wonderful, so ... wait! My brain synapses, which had suffered a near nuclear meltdown, came back to life.

“I have to go,” I said, standing up. I pulled on my clothes so quickly I forgot to put my panties on. I grabbed them and stuffed them inside my gym bag.

Javier just sat there, his wavy brown bangs tousled over his forehead.

“Don’t go, Sam,” he said, not making a move to stop me. “Stay with me tonight.”

“I have to go ... I’ll see you,” I said.

“I’ll call you tomorrow,” said Javier.

I rushed out into the dusk to my parked car. During the fifteen-minute drive back to my apartment, I kept my mind as blank as possible. Like Scarlett O’Hara, I decided I would think about this tomorrow. The only thing I was sure of was that I was going to take a hot bath and go right to sleep.

When the elevator doors opened, I saw a woman sitting on the floor, slumped against my apartment door. Her hands covered her face and her shoulders moved up and down.

“Lessie?”

She pulled her hands away from her face. Mascara had smeared down her cheeks.

“You’re looking at the stupidest woman in the world,” she said between sobs. “I’m so dumb I don’t deserve to live! I’m going to weaken the gene pool.”

“Lessie, what are you talking about?” I crouched down to her level and put my hand on her knee.

“I’m pregnant!” Lessie wailed. “What am I going to do, Sam?”

The Palm Polygraph

MARY

Tom, I had so much fun tonight. Thank you for a wonderful evening.

TOM

Mary, I had a fantastic time too. You’re very special to me you know. (Tom leans over and kisses Mary passionately). I’ll call you.

Three months later

Mary is sitting in her apartment in a chair next to the telephone. She is gaunt, has dark circles under her eyes and a crazed look about her. A thick cloud of cobwebs is attached from the telephone to her head.

FEMALE
ANNOUNCER (Voice-over)

Ladies, I think you can guess by the looks of Mary that Tom
never called.

(Announcer in-studio replaces shot of Mary.)

Has this ever happened to you? (Pause.) A ridiculous question. Of course it has. There’s not a woman on the planet, including our sisters living among the fourth-world Stone Age tribes in the remote jungles of Papua, New Guinea, where telephones don’t even exist, who hasn’t heard a man say those three fateful words, “I’ll call you.” While women can take a small measure of comfort in this, our common universal bond, one that crosses all language, cultural, religious, and socioeconomic barriers, at the same time we do recognize that this sucks. But thankfully, there’s an old product with a revolutionary new design that will help you avoid Mary’s plight in your future romantic dealings.

(
Announcer
holds up an object that looks like a smart phone.)

The new Palm Polygraph Machine! Don’t be fooled by its size. Although it fits conveniently into the palm of your hand, it is a fully operational, CIA-approved polygraph machine that will give you instantaneous and accurate results. The Palm Polygraph is easy to use and takes just seconds.

(Flashback to Tom and Mary in the car at the end of their date. Mary pulls out a Palm Polygraph and puts the cup on Tom’s ring finger.)

ANNOUNCER (Voice-over)

The next time a man says, “I’ll call you,” just pull out your handy Palm Polygraph, slip the finger-sized cup to the end of his left ring finger, and ask your question. The built-in digital screen will give you an easy-to-read response that will let you know exactly where you stand.

MARY

You’re going to call, Tom? (She pauses as she consults the screen.) Are you sure about that? Well, this was nice while it lasted. Thanks for everything. Good luck to you, Tom, and have a nice life. (Mary shakes Tom’s hand good-bye.)

One week later

(Mary is on a date with a different man. They are laughing as they clink their wine glasses together.)

ANNOUNCER
(Voice-over)

Mary is now a smart, sophisticated dater, who with the help of the Palm Polygraph has immediately moved on to greener pastures. Imagine, no more waiting by the phone. No more wondering. Never again be a needless victim of “I’ll call you.” Buy now, ladies. Don’t delay, and remember, there are a lot of fish in the sea!

“It’s been five days since Robert said he’d call, and nothing,” I said to Elizabeth. I stretched out onto my new patio chair. An enormous white ship silently floated across the lake, dwarfing a handful of sailboats that were sprinkled over the sapphire blue water. The ship looked like it was barely moving. But less than a minute later, when I looked for it again, it was gone.

“He’s lapsed into a coma. It’s the only possible explanation,” Elizabeth said. “Have you checked the hospitals?”

The lawn chair creaked and I experienced a momentary stab of fright as I remembered how the last chair had snapped in two when Robert and I were lying on top of it together, five nights ago.

“So that’s why men say they’re going to call and don’t. You’ve finally given me the answer to one of the greatest mysteries of the universe. Thank you, Elizabeth.”

“Sarcasm does not become you,” said Elizabeth.

“I think I blew it with both of them.”

“Both of them? Are you talking about the hypothetical roofer too? What’s going on with him?”

“Well, during my last salsa lesson we made love. It was great, fantastic actually. But then I freaked out.”

“Why?” she demanded.

“I don’t know.” I told her. “The dancing can get pretty hot and it’s easy to mix things
... It’s hard to think when I’m with him. It might be one of those mini crushes that don’t even count.”

I had to admit this sounded plausible, but truthfully, even I didn’t believe what I’d just told her. Javier had also said he’d call me and hadn’t, which had u
pset me far more than I’d expected.

“But I thought you liked Robert?” asked Elizabeth.

“I don’t know,” I confessed. “Sometimes, Robert feels like the right guy for me. But I think I’m afraid to let myself fall for him. The whole thing reminds me too much of David,” I said. I stood up and started pacing the balcony.

“Have you slept with Robert?”

“No.

“So, you made love with the roofer and not with Robert. Doesn’t that tell you something about your true feelings?” said Elizabeth.

“I wish someone would just tell me what to do,” I said.

“Oh no,” she said in the tone of a surgeon unexpectedly finding cancer during a routine appendectomy.

“Oh no, what?” I asked.

“You’re going to do it again;” she said. “You’re going to agree to marry the wrong man.”

“What?” I cried, but I knew in my heart that I couldn’t laugh off whatever Elizabeth was about to tell me. Over the years, she had demonstrated time and again an uncanny, practically paranormal ability to give dead-on accurate advice. Even more disconcerting was her ability to figure out for me what I was thinking when I couldn’t do it for myself.

“Sam, I’m going to be brutally honest with you,” Elizabeth said. “I don’t think you ever really loved David. He wasn’t right for you and on some level you knew that. But you agreed to marry him anyway because it was easier to give in to the pressure your mother has put on you your whole life to marry the so-called perfect guy, than to go on being single and wait for the right person
.”

“You’re wrong, I l
oved David,” I said defiantly.

But in that instant I realized that I had never before looked at my relationship with him from that angle. I’d always focused on the fact that he was the one who hadn’t loved me. Was it possible I hadn’t loved him either?

Time had done its usual trick of erasing the bad memories and replacing them with only the good. But there had been warning signs. We’d had a lot of arguments during our last few months together, and had stopped having the long talks we’d had when we’d first started going out. Suddenly he was busy all the time at work, even busier than usual. And there were certain things he refused to talk about, ever. Like his ex-fiancee who’d broken his heart two years before we’d met and something that had happened to him at summer camp when he was thirteen. But I’d thought it was just my own wedding jitters instead of admitting to myself what I knew in my heart of hearts, that he really hadn’t been the right man for me all along.

“Don’t you remember how you complained that he was a workaholic?” Elizabeth continued. “That he was too selfish with himself and his time? That he didn’t really listen to you or understand you?”

While I tended to take a forget-and-forget-again attitude toward the low points of my life, I could always depend on Elizabeth to remember all of them in excruciating detail, which she conveniently dredged up from her encyclopedic memory under the file: Samantha Jacobs’s Bloopers and Blunders.

“And you haven’t forgotten the pre-nup, have you?” asked Elizabeth.

When David had first sprung the big P on me a couple weeks after our engagement, I couldn’t believe it. I was hurt and insulted. He had tried to appease me by telling me that it was really his parents, from whom he stood to inherit millions, who wanted it, not him. But I had known it was really his mother who was behind the whole thing. She’d never liked me and thought I wasn’t good enough for him. I’d balked. We’d argued. I’d accused him of being a momma’s boy. But a month later, I had given in and signed it; feeling like our life together was over before it had even started.

“With David you took the easy way out, you settled,” Elizabeth said.

“Settled? You’re always saying I’m too picky.”

“You’re that too,” said Elizabeth.

“How can I be both?” I asked in a haughty tone as if to say, surely you must be discussing some other totally screwed-up human being.

“Okay, what’s wrong with the roofer?” she asked.

“His name is Javier Lora and there’s nothing wrong with him,” I said quickly. “He’s kind and gentle and smart and wonderful. Except he’s ... well my assignment ...”

“Fuck your assignment! What do
you
want?”

There was nothing quite as shocking as hearing someone you have never heard swear before, say, out of the multitude of choices
available, the F-word in particular. More than anything, this told me quite clearly how upset Elizabeth was, and how much she cared about me.

What
did
I want? I had no idea what I wanted, but at least I was insightful enough to recognize that I didn’t know. I should get some credit from the universe for that, at least, shouldn’t I? Actually, what I wanted was for the higher being who ruled the universe to hand me a schedule of exactly what I should do with the rest of my life, every second of it mapped out, no room for choice, freedom, or any of that other crap that people fought wars and died for.

“I want more time to think,” I told her. “I’ve got Elaine breathing down my neck. I’ve got my mother calling me every other day and asking me questions like should we go with chocolate cosmos or calla lilies for the guys’ boutonnieres. Am I the only one who sees that there is no guy?”

“Sam, calm down. You have all the time in the world,” said Elizabeth serenely.

“All the time in the world?”
I exploded. “What are you talking about? It’s only six weeks until Labor Day.”

“That’s an artificial deadline,” she said.

Just then my Call Waiting beeped.

“Sam, stop letting other people and events decide your life for you. Please don’t do anything that you don’t want to do. Promise?”

“I promise,” I told her, and then switched to the other call. “Hello?”

“I want to know what’s going on with your widower from the video dating service, what’s his name, Richard? Ralph?”

“Robert. Robert Mack,” I said to Elaine, who was apparently unfamiliar with customary telephone greetings.

“Yes, Robert. How are things going with him?”

“Fabulous. Things couldn’t be better.”

I was getting really good at lying—too good. Of course I was doing it over the phone. Lying was nothing I’d ever had any success at before this summer. I’ve been told my entire life that I have one of those faces that is so expressive and easy to read that I might as well have
digital tickertape affixed to my forehead giving a running readout of my every thought and emotion.

“Why hasn’t he proposed yet?” she snapped, and then without waiting for an answer asked another question. “How many dates do you have lined up for the next week?” she asked.

“A few,” I said. “At least two. I’d have to check my calendar. But I also have the singles cooking class and Three-Minute Dating.”

“What happened to the guy you met playing volleyball?” asked Elaine.

Joe, the M&M engineer/sports/music fanatic, was probably in the hospital bed next to Robert, another tragic coma victim.

“He never called.”

It felt good to tell the truth, even about something trivial.

“My dear, why is this so difficult for you?” she asked, her voice dripping with saintly understanding and concern, as if to
say, tell me about your troubles, bare your soul to me, trust me. And in that moment I wanted to believe I was seeing a new side of Elaine. I wanted to break down and tell her everything, that I didn’t know if I’d ever see Robert again, and that I thought Javier could be the right guy for me, and mostly that I felt lost and alone and confused. But of course, I couldn’t trust her. “Could your problem, my dear, be ...” she paused, “men?”

“I don’t have a problem with men,” I said with a carefree chuckle, knowing that this was
precisely the single most troublesome area of my life.

“I’m afraid you do, my dear,” Elaine said, “and if I’d known that, I would’ve found someone else for this assignment
.”

A chill ran down my spine. She’d said it casually, as if we were discussing something insignificant like a three-cent postage stamp price hike, instead of something very near and dear to my heart, the continuation of a steady paycheck and finally getting my column, “La Vie.”

“But there was no one else,” I protested. “I’m the only single woman over ...”

Elaine cut off my words with a snort. Of course there were other never-married women over forty. Not at
Tres Chic
. But there were freelance writers, hundreds, maybe even thousands across the country who fit the over-forty, reasonably attractive, and never-married status needed for this assignment. And at that moment, a cold fear gripped me, as I realized just how precarious my situation was. Maybe it wasn’t too late to get a freelancer to take over this assignment? No one knew that the Mystery Woman was I. Elaine wouldn’t stoop that low, would she? Of course she would. She’d sell her own mother for a buck.