Romantically Challenged (2 page)

Going Home

The next thing I remembered was answering my wake-up call at 9 a.m. The brunch was scheduled for 10 a.m. I could live without food. I rolled over and went back to sleep.

The phone rang again at 10:15.

“Where are you?” my mother’s voice boomed through the receiver. “Everyone’s asking for you.”

“Tell them I don’t feel well and I’m not coming.”

“Everyone will just think you’re hung-over,” my mother said, clearly intending the accusation.

“Then tell them I’m hung-over and I’m not coming.”

“Fine,” she said. “I’ll make an excuse. But your father wants to leave for the airport by noon so make sure you’re ready.” Click. She hung up on me.

I lay on the bed with my head throbbing and tried to put the pieces back together. I was alone, on top of the covers, and still wearing my bridesmaid dress. That was a good sign. No pantyhose, but I vaguely remembered ripping those off in the bathroom earlier in the evening.

I still had my panties on, but my bra was missing. That was weird. I must’ve taken it off during the night. The last thing I remembered was talking to the cute bartender. I guessed (hoped) I must’ve just gotten drunk and come upstairs and passed out. If it was anything else, I’d hear about it sooner or later. I always did.

After four aspirin and three bottles of water I felt well enough to shower and get dressed. When I’d finished, it was almost noon and I still hadn’t packed so I just threw everything from the dresser and closet into my suitcase. I’d sort it all out when I got home.

At exactly twelve o’clock (my parents are punctual if nothing else) my dad knocked on my hotel room door. My mom had sent him upstairs to get me, while she stayed downstairs in the lobby making all the requisite goodbyes. Apparently, when you’re married, one partner can fulfill all social obligations on behalf of both partners, thereby freeing up the other partner for the more mundane matters. No wonder single people are so busy. We have to handle everything ourselves.

* * *

As soon as the valet closed my mom’s car door she turned her attention to me.

“Where were you last night?”

“With you and Dad at the wedding,” I said. “Remember?”

“Don’t be a smart ass” my dad said, but smiled at me in the rearview mirror.

“We were looking for you,” my mom said. “You missed a real scene. Peter, the groom’s younger brother, was sneaking beer all night and passed out under the table. No one even knew he was gone until he woke up during the cake cutting ceremony and started vomiting all over the table. The other groomsmen had to carry him out with an ice bucket under his chin.”

I’d escaped just in time.

My mom continued, “Of course his parents were mortified. Sharon said she thought you were keeping an eye on him, but you were nowhere to be found.”

“I wasn’t his baby sitter. I just sat next to him at the table.”

“Where were you when they were cutting the cake?”

“I must’ve just left. I was tired, so I went upstairs a little early.”

“Your sister said you got mad at her when she tried to talk to you. She told me you were yelling at Maureen too.”

Thirty-six years old and Deborah was still tattling to mommy. “Mother, can we please not discuss this right now.” I didn’t like discussing my love life (or lack thereof) with my mother even when I wasn’t hungover.

“Okay,” my mother said. “All I’m saying is you can’t get upset every time you go to a wedding.”

“I don’t get upset every time I go to a wedding,” I said, trying and failing to remain calm. “I get upset when everyone hounds me about getting married.”

“Well, you know, dear”—Here it comes—“you’re not getting any younger…” I mouthed the words along with her.

At this point my dad spoke for the second time that hour. “You know what the alternative to aging is don’t you?”

My dad’s favorite rhetorical question. I looked out the window and saw the first sign for Newark Airport. Only two miles ahead. Thank God.

And So It Began

I was just happy to be on the plane. The airline could even lose my luggage and I wouldn’t care. My weekend of humiliation was over and I had five hours to read the new Jennifer Weiner novel I’d started on the flight out. This time I had an aisle seat and the woman on my other side was listening to her i-pod on, so I was in the clear.

I was standing in line for the restroom when I heard, “Boy this plane is crowded.” I turned around and saw a skinny guy with a deeply receding hairline smiling down at me.

“It’s summer,” I said and turned forward again to watch the end of the
Office
rerun playing on the video monitor.

“Have you seen this one?” the skinny guy asked.

“Yeah,” I said, “but it’s funnier with the sound.”

He nodded. “I’m John, by the way.”

I introduced myself and we continued with meaningless airplane chitchat until the restroom opened up.

I didn’t see John when I returned to my seat and happily went back to my book.

Five minutes later I heard, “So do you live in L.A.?”

John was standing in the aisle next to me. I held my place in my book with my finger. “Yeah,” I said. “Do you?”

“I just moved there.”

I nodded and went back to my book. I guarantee that if I was even remotely attracted to this man, he would not be talking to me. It was my cosmic karma. Lucky finding parking, unlucky in love.

“Did you grow up out there?” he persisted.

“No,” I said. “I’m originally from New Jersey. I moved out to L.A. ten years ago.” Maybe if I don’t ask him any questions in return, he’ll figure out that I’m not interested.

“I’m from New York myself,” he said.

I nodded. Would it be too rude if I read while he talked? I was still pondering this question when John sat down in the middle of the aisle. I, along with everyone else in the vicinity, just stared at him. Surely this had to violate some sort of airline regulation.

I glanced at the man sitting across the aisle. I was almost positive he was listening to every word, but he kept his eyes pinned to his crossword puzzle. The woman on my right took off her headset. When I looked at her, she just smiled and pulled a magazine out from the seat pocket in front of her.

“So what kinds of things do you like to do in L.A.?” John asked.

Was this guy actually going to ask me out? Didn’t he realize all of these people were listening? Apparently, my weekend of humiliation was not quite over.

“Oh, the usual things. Movies, the beach, hanging out with my friends.” Just pick one and get this over with!

“I like movies,” he said. “Why don’t I give you a call sometime and we can catch a movie together.”

“Sure.” I still wasn’t interested, but I couldn’t just reject the guy with everyone watching. It was too cruel. I’d blow him off later, in private.

“Why don’t you give me your number,” he said.

“I don’t have a pen,” I replied, hoping he didn’t either.

Before he could respond, the guy across the aisle ripped off the corner of his crossword puzzle and handed it to John with his pen.

I knew he’d been listening.

* * *

I waited in baggage claim for my suitcase and my friend Kaitlyn, who’d promised to pick me up. Kaitlyn would be easier to spot than my black luggage. With her mass of wavy, red hair and her minimum four-inch heels, she always stood out in a crowd.

“So how was the weekend?” Kaitlyn asked after a perfume-infused hug. “I bet it wasn’t as bad as you thought it would be.”

“No, it was worse.” Then I spotted John on the other side of the luggage carousel. He’d retrieved his bag and was scanning the crowd. I positioned Kaitlyn in front of me and said, “And it’s not over yet.”

“Who are you avoiding?” she asked, scanning the crowd.

“Brown hair, blue jacket, dark green suit bag.”

“I don’t see him,” she said, still scanning.

“Good, maybe he left.” I spotted my suitcase rolling down the chute and stepped out from behind Kaitlyn to retrieve it just as John rounded the carousel from the other side. He rolled his luggage over to us, not caring that he was blocking access for several people who were forced to maneuver around him.

“I’ve been looking for you,” he said.

“Why?” I asked.

“I thought maybe I could give you a ride home.”

“Actually, I have a ride.” I introduced John to Kaitlyn.

He looked dejected for a moment, but quickly rebounded. “Then I’ll give you a call this week. I thought we could do something Friday night.”

This time no one but Kaitlyn was listening, so I didn’t have to feel guilty. “I’m not sure I can make it Friday night.”

“Then how about Saturday?”

“I know I have plans one night next weekend,” I told him. “I’m just not sure which one.”

“No problem,” he said. “I’ll take whichever night you’re free.”

Some people can’t take a hint.

* * *

John walked us to the exit, then left to catch the shuttle to long-term parking. I followed Kaitlyn to her car in the short-term lot. I waited until we were buckled into her Mustang convertible before I filled her in on the wedding and how I’d met John.

“I didn’t think he was bad looking,” Kaitlyn said as she sped down the 405 Freeway. But Kaitlyn liked bald men. “At least you have a date for next weekend.”

“I’m not going out with him.”

“Why not?”

“Besides the fact that I’m not attracted to him, he’s pushy and annoying.”

“He likes you,” she said.

One of Kaitlyn’s most annoying traits. She insisted on seeing the good in everyone. “But I don’t like him.”

“You’re just scared.”

“No, I’m not.”

“You haven’t gone out with one guy since you and Scumbag broke up.”

“Not true. I had lunch with that auto broker last month.”

“That wasn’t a date. He was trying to sell you a car.”

Kaitlyn was right about that. As soon as I told him I still had a year of payments left on my Acura, he asked the waitress for the check and never called again.

“It’s been over a year Julie. It’s time.”

“It’s only been eleven months and you know I spent most of that time working on the trial. I didn’t even have time to sleep, let alone date.”

“I know, I know.” I was sure she was rolling her eyes behind her sunglasses. “All I’m saying is you need to get back out there.”

“You should’ve been at the wedding.”

Monday Morning Depression

Even after a bad weekend, I still get Monday morning depression. It usually starts as an anxious feeling on Sunday evening, which turns into a mild unhappiness the next morning when the alarm clock rings, and blossoms into a full-blown depression the moment I pull into the office parking garage. My only consolation is that I know all of my coworkers are afflicted with the same disease.

I arrived at the office at 9:25 a.m., my usual time. Six years ago when I’d started at Rosenthal & Leventhal right out of law school, I arrived at 9:00 a.m. But I quickly learned that any time I spent in the office prior to 9:30 was a waste. The Rosenthal of Rosenthal & Leventhal never arrived before 9:30.

A few of the firm’s senior attorneys arrived at 9:29, but they’d already made partner so they could afford to be bold. Occasionally my friend Simone, who occupies the office next to mine, would sneak in at 9:45 a.m. But she always called her assistant in advance and told her to turn on her lights and computer before Rosenthal arrived so he would think she’d just stepped out to the ladies’ room when he made his morning lap around the office to count heads. My assistant Lucy, besides being completely incompetent, was also Rosenthal’s step-daughter, so I couldn’t get away with anything.

After unlocking my own office door, turning on my own lights, and retrieving my own mail (this was one of Lucy’s mysterious illness Mondays), I followed my usual morning routine. I turned on my computer and checked voicemail while I waited for it to boot up, then I checked e-mail, snail mail, and skimmed
Variety
while occasionally admiring the view of the Santa Monica Mountains from my thirty-second-floor office window. By the time I finished, it was 10 a.m. Since this was Monday, and Rosenthal left the office every Monday morning for his weekly 11 a.m. appointment with his shrink two floors below us, that meant I only had to work for an hour before I got a break.

* * *

Simone walked into my office promptly at 11:02 for our Monday morning depression-reliever/bitch-about-our-jobs/weekend-catch-up session. She must’ve had a court appearance earlier that morning because she was wearing her conservative (for her) outfit – black summer- weight wool Armani jacket with matching skirt that stopped short four inches above her knee, four-inch pumps that brought her 5’8” frame to a full six feet, and her long, silky-straight, chestnut hair pulled back in a clip.

“I could think of a million places I’d rather be today than here,” Simone said, flopping down in my guest chair.

“So could I, but Jersey wouldn’t be one of them.”

She sat up. “I almost forgot. How was the wedding?”

I gave her the highlights.

“Don’t take this the wrong way,” Simone said after I’d finished, “but I think your mother may be right.”

First Kaitlyn and now Simone. What was this, a conspiracy? “Consider yourself my ex-friend.”

“Just hear me out,” she said. “Your sister was telling the truth about that article. I read it myself.”

Before I could object to what I would’ve argued were the obvious flaws in the analysis, she put her hand up to stop me. “Assume for the sake of argument that the article is correct. That means you need to be married by the time you’re thirty-five.”

“You’re supposing that I want to get married and have children.”

“You know you do, so don’t bother denying it.”

“Not true.” Simone leaned back in the chair, folded her arms across her chest, and puckered her lips. “Okay,” I said, “if you swear never to tell my mother, I’ll admit that I really would like to get married some day. But I’m still undecided about the kids.”