Problems (12 page)

“You came on to me!”

“Right, the innocent sixty-one-year-old teacher who was taken advantage of. Ripped from the headlines of
Asshole Magazine
.” My voice got louder. People were staring. I was officially making a scene.

“I only answer you when you text or e-mail me first.”

“Like that proves anything except how fucked-up you are. You led me on and you know it.”

“Fine, I wanted you then, but now I don't. Clear?” He blinked, and then he glared at me. I could feel him hating me for not going along with the script. I wasn't supposed to fight back. I was supposed to cry and say I understood.

“If you never heard from me again, would you care?” Fuck it. If he wasn't going to have sex with me, then what was the point of trying to be cool about this?

“I would be concerned.”

“Concerned like they're out of milk at the store, or concerned like my child is missing?”

“In the middle,” he said.

“Why did you start with me?” I should have shut up and left. There were no answers that would make anything better.

He shrugged. “It was a long time ago.”

“How is it possible I'm sitting here dying, and you're sitting there like nothing?”

He shook his head. “We're living in two different universes.”

“Did you sleep with other people when we were together?”

“Yeah.”

“Why didn't you tell me?”

“Because it was none of your business.”

“What do you want?”

“I want to be with someone I can
be with
be with. Someone I can marry.”

“But you're old and completely fucked-up. Why would anyone want you?”

“Great point. Why did you want me?”

“Because I could tell you were sad.”

“I wasn't.”

“Can't you, like, grandfather me in to this new life of yours? Fuck me till you find a wife?”

“Grandfather you in? You're funny,” he smirked. “C'mon, let's be friends. This is the worst.” He never said anything was “the worst” before he met me. He was using my own language to manipulate me into not making a scene. He deserved to be embarrassed.

The waitress came by, and I asked for a dessert menu. I was making it uncomfortable for him by making him sit there. I was willing to endure the pain knowing at least I was making this difficult for him.

“Will you share with me?” I asked.

“Sure,” he said.

I ordered the triple chocolate mousse and banana ice cream. “You are a deceitful selfish asshole.”

“You're the one who is married, and I'm the one who's deceitful?”

That was good. I hated him. I kind of wanted to make out with him. Why was he doing this? Why couldn't we just go and fuck and be happy?

“I'm married, so I'm always the villain and you're always the innocent one, right?”

He grinned. “Why did you want an old guy like me anyway?”

I could tell it wasn't an act. Never seeing me again didn't mean shit to him. Take that, self-esteem. “Is this the only way you can get off anymore?”

“Keep it up, and I'm gone,” he said.

“Fine, go. I'll go, actually. You are officially boring the shit out of me.”

I stood up and threw my napkin in his face and knocked over my water. Before I could take his glass and throw it at him, he jumped out of his seat, and then I left. Tears running down my cheeks. I called Elizabeth, blubbering. She said, “Just come here.”

Behind every crazy woman is a man sitting very quietly, saying, “What? I'm not doing anything.”

* * *

It was inevitable from the moment we met that Peter would leave me.

After we returned from visiting his family, things cooled between us. It was obvious, but he wouldn't admit to anything being different. A common tactic of men—denying they are behaving differently so you feel like you're just going nuts.

He would wake up early, go for a run, do sit-ups as he watched
The Colbert Report
, then go to work, and then come home. Instead of pawing at me drunkenly like he usually did, he would pass out facing the wall. I tried to kiss him but would get a cheek instead of his lips. When I said, “I love you,” he said it back like a robot. When I asked him what was wrong, he said he was busy. I chose to believe him.

We had been together for so long we had gone through cycles, and I wanted to believe this was just another one. I tried waiting
it out. There would be a day when he would feel lonely or sad and then he would come to me. If I pushed too hard it would just start a fight. He would scream, “Dammit, Maya, I am exhausted.”

I called Ogden. “Hey, miss me?”

“Of course.”

“Regret dumping a hot piece of ass since you know you're closer to death, and you probably won't have that many chances to have sex?”

“Every moment of the day.”

“Good. Drinking more?”

“Yeah, Maya, I'm completely miserable and live in constant regret.”

“It's too bad you ruined a good thing. You'll never get another chance.”

“I don't think I could honestly live with myself if I lost you again, so maybe it's better we don't try it again.”

“What level is your sarcastic meter up to?” I asked.

“It's so high it's almost full circle back to being earnest.”

“I don't have time for your old-man mind games. It's kind of a waste talking to you anyway, since you probably won't remember anything because, you know, you're old and probably getting senile. Thank god I won't have to be there when you have ranch dressing running down your wrinkled varicose-veined chin.”

“All your jokes and comments about me getting old and senile never get old.”

“That's because you don't remember them because you're old and senile.”

“This is tiresome and frustrating.”

“Yeah, that's what you're going to be saying when you're trying to bang a woman your own age.”

“Maya, seriously, I have work to do.”

“Peter is being weird. Like not talking to me or touching me. Ever since we got back from Vermont. I think he's going to leave me.”

“You're the one who might be having memory issues. How many times did you say to me you needed to get out of your marriage? That you were stuck in a rut?”

“That's different from him leaving me. I was talking about me leaving him.”

“So leave him. You're unhappy with him. You need to get your life back together. Why don't you ask him to take a break?”

“A break? That's stupid. I'm not ready. It was one thing when I had you, but if he leaves . . . I'm just not ready. I need to line up another dude.”

“Why can't you be alone for five minutes?”

“I probably have some kind of personality disorder. I can spend hours alone watching television or listening to music. But being sober, the silence creeps up. I can't handle it. I can't handle not having someone around to tell me I look hot or get mad at me or just generally acknowledge my existence. It's like, what's the point of being alive if no one is there to see it? If there's no one to disapprove of my behavior, then why bother doing it?”

“Your dance card won't be empty for very long.”

“God, a new one. Find a new dude, fall in love, and then slowly start to see whatever special, unique, fucked-up hell starts to show itself. Everyone is fucked-up. It's just a matter of waiting to see what kind it is and if you can put up with it. At least Peter keeps the kitchen clean. He is a good wife.”

“Maya, I have to go.”

“What are you doing?”

“I'm reading.”

“You mean the old-timey way, with the paper and the binding and stuff?”

“Yes, Maya, with my magnifying glass because of my old, fucked-up eyes, in my wheelchair, with my catheter bag.”

“Aww, thanks, I needed that. Your body used to function, and now it's all fucked-up. Anyway, back to my life. Can you tell me
what I can do to get Peter back and then find another dude and then dump him?”

“Go away for a few days, that might work.”

“What if when he's alone he realizes he likes being alone better than being with me?”

“If there's any chance of him staying with you, I'm telling you, leaving for a week or two is the best way to get him back.”

“So, you don't think crying, threatening suicide, and throwing a nonstop tantrum is the way to go?”

“As cute as you look blubbering with spit and tears all over your face, I would say not this time.”

“It usually works when I want him to buy something and we're in public.”

“I gotta go, Maya, seriously.”

“You sure you don't want me to come over? I'll give you a
BJ.”

“I wish. Not right now. I need to get out from under this pile of papers. I keep waiting for the elves to do it.”

“So basically my amazing blow jobs don't top the amount of crazy bitch you have to put up with.”

“Maya, you're not a crazy bitch.”

“God, Ogden, you actually sound sincere when you say that. But then again, you're so fucking nuts, compared to you, I am probably sane.”

“Thanks, Maya. Any time I need to feel a little more shitty about myself, I know who to call.”

“No problem! Love you! Bye!”

I didn't leave for a week like Ogden suggested. I didn't cry and threaten suicide. I went on OkCupid and started dating. I made out with a dork outside a bar. I did coke in a bathroom with a man who allegedly worked in finance but actually worked at a movie theater and had a fake, ambiguously European accent. I never liked coke, but it was something. I learned the world was full of dudes I had absolutely nothing to say to. Peter wasn't special, but at least we
could have a conversation. Once we had kids, everything would be about raising the kids, and then we would be too old to fuck anyway. I waited patiently for the first day off he would have in a week.

I crawled out of bed and found Peter on the sofa watching television, dipping French fries into a mix of rooster sauce and mayo. Peter loved mayo. Gross.

“Peter, what the fuck is going on? Please tell me.”

He turned off the television. “I've been looking at apartments, and I found one.”

“You found what? An apartment?”

I could already feel the metaphorical luggage of Peter's leaving weighing me down, fucking up my back, turning me into one of those sad, shitty people who hunch over, don't look up, and walk around with their plastic bags full of weird things.

He hadn't caught me cheating. I hadn't done dope since we got back from Vermont except for that one time, and Peter had no clue. I bought a bundle before we left, ten bags, but since I had gone through withdrawal during the trip, I realized the hard part was over, and I didn't want to go back to doing it every day, figuring out how to get the money and the whole hassle. I put the eight bags between the mattresses. When I didn't have a supply, I was desperate, but as long as I had those eight bags, I wasn't using because I didn't have any; I could use whenever I wanted. It was a choice. When I was fiending, I would look at them. I would think about ripping them open and doing it, but then I would think about how I knew exactly how it would feel, and then I didn't have to do it. It felt like more of a high not to get high. I thought
AA
and
NA
were bullshit because they were all about things having power over you, but one of the things you learn when you starve yourself is that your mind can actually power off your body's biological need to survive. If I could deny my body what it needed, then there was no doubt I
could stop using. I could beat it. I wouldn't let it take any space or time in my real life. Drugs were for fun or true moments of crisis.

This was a true moment of crisis. In my mind, I had already ripped opened two bags and snorted them as fast as possible and was leaning back, closing my eyes, waiting for that wall of soothing numbness to hit. I stared at Peter. His mouth was moving, and he was saying words like, “friends,” “love,” “sorry,” “hopeful,” “wishing,” and more words that sounded kind, but I knew if I actually listened to him the words would feel like glass shards slowly tearing my skin.
Yeah, Peter. Sure, I'll play along. This is all reasonable
. I nodded. “Oh yeah, that makes sense,” I said, because I was in opposite world, where nothing made sense. Peter leaving me? He was the dude who didn't leave. Who promised over and over he wouldn't leave. What the fuck?

Yeah, I'm the girl who lost the boy
after
she stopped using drugs and ended her extramarital affair.

“You know I stopped using.”

“I'm so proud of you, but that doesn't change anything,” he said, rubbing my shoulder.

Proud of me? I wanted to take the ashtray and bash his face with it. It would have been better if he had said, “Here is all the money I have. You can have it because what I'm doing is fucked-up. It's assumed because I married you that I wouldn't say out of the blue that I'm leaving you, since that's what marriage is. Since I have no words to offer, I will give a bunch of money.” That was the least he could do. But words were all he had. Stupid dumb words that didn't mean shit to me.

“I'll be right back,” I said. I got the bags and
The Bell Jar
(a little on the nose but whatever) from the bedroom and went back to the
living room. I did the two bags off the coffee table in front of him because what the fuck was the difference?

He kept talking in that nice way of his about how he had tried and how it was nobody's fault. He sighed and said, “We can stop pretending.” What the hell did that mean? He had been pretending? He had tears in his eyes. He was serious.

“What do you mean, pretending?”

“Didn't it feel like we were going through the motions?”