Screw Everyone: Sleeping My Way to Monogamy (13 page)

Through a friend of a friend, I landed both a house-sitting gig and a job as a receptionist at a sewage pump company. Shit was about to start paying my bills. I was the world’s worst receptionist: I came
in late every day and could never figure out how to transfer calls and play Minesweeper at the same time. The environment was stale, serious, and cold. Actually freezing. The office complex was so overair-conditioned I took to wearing layered turtlenecks and arm warmers in the middle of August. I was the only single girl in the office, with the exception of the head secretary, who admitted that late at night she talked to angels. Not one angel. Many.

I was beyond lonely, and house-sitting was starting to get to me. Staying alone in a strange apartment full of someone else’s stuff—their snow globes, beaded pillows, and framed photos of smiling people having a good time at weddings and barbecues—can make you feel invisible. Sometimes I’d pretend I was there; I was the one taking the photo, getting everyone to smile. I began to understand why people talked to angels.

The only imprint I was leaving in life was that of my butt on the couch. I knew every crack in the ceiling and every fleck of peeling paint on the door frames from studying them intensely while lying on my back. I wasn’t sure how to move forward, so I started reflecting on the past, remembering happier times when I’d felt valued, had a purpose—like back in Montreal. I started to glamorize my college years as if they were a golden era, discarding all the difficult stuff: the panic of not getting papers done, the stressful exams, the weird cliques, and the confusing relationships. Suddenly, my college years were the best years of my little life.

I also romanticized Sammy. I missed him, mostly because . . . he was the last guy I really dated. I forgot all about our inability to
connect emotionally unless it was through masks and puppets, and reminisced instead about our
Midsummer Night’s
sex, his dreamy sense of wonder, drinking cheap wine, and laughing. We did do that, right? I couldn’t quite remember, but I was pretty sure that we were borderline soul mates. So I called him. I was sitting on the couch, bored. I didn’t even let my brain debate whether it was a good idea or not; I just picked up the phone and dialed his number.

We talked. It flowed easily, and I was surprised at how happy he was to hear from me. We entertained each other with witty observations about our twentysomething lives. He told me about his recent adventure smoking a little pot and syncing up Pink Floyd’s
The Dark Side of the Moon
with
The Wizard of Oz
movie, which I’d never heard of anyone doing before. Sounded supercool. I felt as if we were totally on the same wavelength. I wasn’t even annoyed when he slipped into little cartoon character voices or told me about some Irish poetry he was really getting into. If anything, my past relationship amnesia was only getting worse. The nostalgia made our connection feel deeper. I was tormented by the feelings erupting in me, and now I couldn’t recall why we’d broken up in the first place. Before we hung up he said, “Let’s talk again.”

I mulled it over for a week and asked the universe for guidance. On my way to work in the morning, I’d say things in my head like,
Okay world, if Sammy and I aren’t meant to be together again then someone on this bus should ask for my phone number
. I was asked if I needed a transfer, had change for a dollar, and to move out of the way, but that was it. So I was confident that we were meant to be. It was that simple.

One night I came home from the shit factory clutching a bottle of Merlot and a Lean Cuisine dinner. I tore off my wool turtleneck, poured a mug of wine, and quickly became maudlin. It was time to call Sammy and lay it all on the line. I picked up the phone and then slowly replaced it on the receiver. Had I come to my senses? No. I’d hatched an even better plan. I’d write him a letter. That way I’d have uninterrupted time to tell him how I really felt, without the fear of getting shot down midpitch. I was going to be honest. And we all know that when it comes to mixing Merlot with ex-boyfriends, honesty’s the worst policy.

I scribbled that letter quickly, and by the end it was five pages of flowery prose describing my longing, mixed in with apologetic please-take-me-back drivel. I used the kind of language you’d read in a romance novel to describe how I felt about him, like
rapturous, lavish, pulsing, heaving
, and
hot
. It was more of an open letter to my imaginary, ideal man than to Sammy, but I signed it, folded it, and searched for an envelope as if I were running a race. I knew I had a small window of time before I sobered up and talked myself out of the whole thing. Rummaging through a desk, I found a stamp but didn’t see an envelope anywhere. I was on the verge of ransacking the place when I realized I could make an envelope by folding a piece of paper in half and taping up the edges. As a matter of fact, it looked so good that I thought,
I’ll never have to buy envelopes again. Think of all the money I’ll save!
I ran out in search of a mailbox at ten thirty at night.

The second I heard the scraping metal sound of the mail chute slamming shut instead of a rush of relief I was filled with dread.
What
did I just do? Nooooo!
I didn’t want to be with an up-and-coming puppeteer. All the real memories flooded back in HD: the despondent looks across the breakfast table, his surprising me on Valentine’s Day by inviting his friend Jason to join us for dinner, the fact that on a very basic level, I didn’t
really
get him, nor did he
really
get me. We had such a good conversation over the phone only because I wasn’t talking with anyone these days. He had zero competition.

If you think you can’t unsend an e-mail, try getting a letter out of a mailbox. Impossible. I had no choice but to return home and finish the Merlot.

Another week passed. I picked up the phone one evening to hear Sammy’s voice. We muddled through hellos and how-are-yous, and then he blurted out, “I should tell you that I got engaged. You don’t know her, but we met a few months ago.”

Wow. That was not what I’d expected to hear. I felt even more rejected. Sammy, on the other hand, must have felt great. As far as he was concerned, everyone wanted him.

“So, I got your letter,” he continued.

“I’m sorry.” It was all I could muster.

I took a breath and prepared to tell him that I was drunk or high or both and missing him, and it was a dumb thing to do. Before I could get out my opening line, Sammy laughed.

“So now you’re making your own envelopes?”

“Yeah, I’m trying to save money. No, I couldn’t find one so I thought I’d just make one . . .”

“Well, you’re not very good at it.”

Sammy went on to explain that he received my letter—sort of. He had received my homemade envelope, but that was all. It seemed that the Dollar Store scotch tape wasn’t quite up to snuff, and the envelope snapped open somewhere along its mail journey causing the letter to drop out.

I couldn’t believe it. It was a mail miracle. I was saved. This was amazing. There must have been an angel watching over me.

“So,
um
, what was the letter about? Why are you sorry?” he asked.

“Nothing, no reason. I felt bad for calling you out of the blue, and I thought I’d write you, you know, like people would write people when we were kids. I just like letters.” Now I was feigning nostalgia for the lost world of pen pals. “But that’s great about the engagement. Best of luck!”

We said our good-byes. This time we meant it.

I didn’t even care if Sammy was lying. At least he came with a plan.

T
he longer I lived in Vancouver, the more depressed I got. Even worse, I was at peace with my sadness. I wasn’t going anywhere, and I wasn’t worried about it. There was a morose coziness to the place. Once you accepted the nine months of rainy gray skies, they wrapped around you like a lukewarm blanket. I couldn’t decide if it was heaven disguised as a city, or a moss-covered jail. My only real responsibility was keeping track of an umbrella.

Every so often I’d have enough guts to sign up for amateur night, and if I got on stage, all I wanted was reassurance that I was funny. However, the general response afterward was that I was “very brave” or “seemed very smart.” It was like telling an ugly person, “Hey, it’s great how your face is . . . always there, and your eyes really know how to blink.” I’d return home to the apartment I shared with a prison guard and her misanthropic landscaper brother who was the meanest
gardener I’d ever met. If I’d had any real courage, I would have sat him down and said, “Listen, if you hate flowers that much, quit. It’s okay. Maybe your sister can get you a nice job at a jail before you otherwise end up there.”

Meanwhile, I found some seasonal employment as an income tax return sorter for Taxation Canada. It had all the classic markings of a true soul-sucking job: a draining forty-five-minute commute to an industrial suburb of brown government buildings, a windowless basement office with rows of identical cramped cubicles, and an ID badge with an unflattering, out-of-focus photo. Fifty other people and I would open up tax returns, put the forms in order, mark down if something was missing, and then separate them into piles. It paid a decent hourly wage with bonuses for speed. The fastest person was a woman in her mid-sixties who averaged around 170 tax returns an hour. I never broke one hundred.

I loved that job.

There was something about its simplicity, its mindlessness, that appealed to me at the time. There would be no upward mobility, no promotions, and no reason to settle in. I never made friends with any of my coworkers, nor did they attempt to learn my name. We’d arrive, sit in our cubicles, sort papers, and leave. One perk was that we were permitted to listen to music while we worked. I opted to borrow the entire Kurt Vonnegut collection of books on tape from the library, thinking I would have deeper insight into his characters if I listened to them while working for the man in the tan suit.

In between rewinding
Breakfast of Champions
and stapling
forms, I hung out at Gene’s apartment. I’d met Gene through the comedy scene. He was a radio DJ who was legally blind and legally albino, meaning that he couldn’t drive and had to avoid the sun. His hair was three shades lighter than wheat, and the lenses of his glasses were so thick they magnified his eyes, making him look like a Manga character. We got along famously. He had a razorsharp wit, loved shock humor, and was very, very funny—all personality traits expertly honed to compensate for his odd looks. Gene and I would spend hours smoking pot and bantering, volleying jokes and comments back and forth until the sun came up. Good talk is like seduction, and although I never felt any sexual vibe off him, he’d always comment that I was the most beautiful woman he’d ever met. Then again he was legally blind.

It was another typical night of hanging out. We were only about three joints in, laughing along to Jerky Boys tapes, when Gene put his arm around me, as if we were on a first date. I saw it coming, much like how once I looked at my sideview mirror and watched a car rear-end me. I didn’t try to stop him; I went for the ride, mostly out of curiosity. We kissed, stopped to nonverbally check in with each other, and mutually returned a “Yeah, why not?” shrug. At worst, we’d be able to laugh about it later, right? He probably had
something
cool to show me. As we moved into his bedroom, Gene pinned my arms against the wallpapered hallway and said, “I’m warning you, you’re about to see the smallest penis ever.”

Talk about managing expectations. I replied in my usual upbeat manner, “I’m sure it’s fine.”

Our bedroom compatibility didn’t hold a candle to the intimacy we shared sitting fully clothed across the room from each other. There was no artistry to what we were doing; it was like we both wanted to get it over with. I did everything I could to not look down at his penis, afraid that the resulting expression on my face would damage him forever. Then again, it’s not like he could see it. In spite of this, it was the only time in my life I had to ask, “Are you sure it’s in?” I’d never understood how or why anyone would have to ask that, but all of a sudden I was honestly inquiring.

He claimed,
“Yes, it’s in,”
and I suspected that further investigation wouldn’t help things.

Suddenly he announced that he was “done” and left the half-made bed to throw out the condom, which was weird because I didn’t remember seeing him put one on. Was he wearing it the whole night in anticipation? I quickly got dressed and called out that I was going to grab a cab. He yelled, “See you later, sucker,” from the bathroom, and then I heard water running. I hoped we didn’t just fuck everything up.

He didn’t contact me that week, and I finally broke down on Sunday and called him to assess the damage. We chatted like nothing had happened, which was a huge relief, but he also announced that he was moving to Ottawa for a while, or maybe it was Toronto, for some radio training, or a job, or family stuff, I can’t remember which. It didn’t matter; all I heard was that he was leaving, and I was sure it had everything to do with whatever that was we’d done together. Thinking back, it was a little presumptuous to assume
that my actions profoundly affected his life, travel plans, and career path, but the timing was too perfect. I feared that I was losing my best friend.

Before he hung up, Gene mentioned that his pal was going through a hard time and could use someone fun to hang out with. I should give him a call. Flattered that he considered me the go-to person for cheering up, I told him I’d be happy to do some outreach work on his behalf. At the very least I could use this friend to maintain a connection to Gene.

On the phone, Roger sounded a little dull. Not boring, but not very quick. Nothing like Gene. He asked me to meet him for a cappuccino over the weekend. It seemed harmless enough, so I said sure.

We met at an Italian café on Commercial Drive. It was the last bastion of an old neighborhood that was being taken over by trendy gourmet shops and hemp clothing stores. At first sight, I wouldn’t have said Roger was attractive. He had long blond curly locks in a ponytail, cascading down from a growing bald spot, as if he’d recently quit a heavy metal band but couldn’t let go of the hair. He wore old jeans that bunched for yards around his calves and ankles, the extra material stopped from hitting ground by a huge pair of off-brand high tops, which he wore with their massive tongues sticking out. Underneath his plaid button-up, a promotional T-shirt of some sort, the logo indiscernible, poked out, making me think that most of his wardrobe came to him via T-shirt gun. But he did have a warm, inviting face and an authentic smile. He was thrilled to see me, and enthusiasm goes a long way. I joked with him about how
Gene was my pimp, and Roger responded with a high-pitched giggle that exposed a mouth of crooked teeth and made me wince.