The Opposite of Love (3 page)

“Both of which are terrifying.”

“But the point is, Mel, you have to risk it. It’s the only way you’re ever going to be happy.”

“I
am
happy.”

“Don’t you want love, Mel?”

The question made her squirm a little, but it was Derek asking, so she resisted the urge to change the subject.

“Sometimes. But it seems like a lot of risk for very little chance at a return on my investment.”

“Love doesn’t work like a stock portfolio. Money is easier than love. That’s why rich people usually aren’t happy.”

“Do you really believe that?”

“Think about it. When you’re able to earn money systematically, and large sums of it at that, you expect to be successful at everything if you just take a systematic approach and work hard. Love doesn’t work that way. Any reformed stalker will tell you.”

Melanie let out a small laugh. “Point taken.”

“And if you take that approach and the investment isn’t paying off, you dump the property, sell the stock, offload the holdings, or in the case of a relationship, head for the door.”

“So why is that such an unreasonable approach?”

“Because you’re trying to anticipate the downturn. You’re trying to get out
before
the relationship fails. And so it fails.”

This was what she liked about Derek. He could call her on what he perceived as her B.S., but she never felt the compulsion to defend herself with him. The nature of their relationship was unorthodox for Melanie, but was becoming commonplace these days, and it worked for them.

It started four years before when she’d gone with her friend Lea to First Friday, a monthly festival put on by the Las Vegas arts community. Melanie had sipped wine and drifted through the mazes of galleries; she’d always been enamored with the bohemian atmosphere and ultra-friendly vibe of artists who were no doubt starving in the shallow pool of culture that existed in Las Vegas at the time, but who seemed equally as thrilled to receive a compliment as a sale.

Derek’s work was particularly captivating. A mix of impressionism and surrealism, he captured skylines and landscapes in a way that was surprising but still pleasing to the eye. Derek turned out to be a friend of Melanie’s friend Lea, so she introduced them. And when the festival wound down at eleven o’ clock, he joined them at the Artisan Hotel for drinks at the bar.

Lea yawned dramatically and excused herself around one, and it was around three in the morning when the rest of the crowd started trickling out. Melanie was embarrassed to find that she was in no shape to drive, but Derek seemed to know this and offered her a ride home.

They waited together at valet, and when his car arrived, Derek said, “Let’s get you home.”

“How about your place instead?” she asked.

He nodded, but looked confused.

The car ride was awkwardly quiet at first, so they’d gone back to chatting about art and his job as a high school teacher. And once they got to his townhouse, she’d had to practically force herself on him because his attempts at chivalry were becoming tiresome. As they sat on the sofa, he mentioned that he had a spare bedroom and she responded by kissing him and running her hands up under his shirt. She could feel that he had a solid chest and she was looking forward to getting a better look at it.

He broke the kiss and she trailed her lips down his neck.

“I don’t know if we should…”

She stopped kissing his neck and looked him in the eyes.

“Do you have a condom?” she asked.

“Yes.”

“Then I think we should.” She resumed kissing his cheek and neck.

“But you’ve been drinking.”

She stopped again.

“Am I throwing up?”

“No.”

“Am I passed out?”

“No.”

“Am I slurring?”

“No, but—”

“Are you gay?”

“No.”

“Prove it.”

And he did. Vigorously.

In the morning, regret sank in quickly. While this wasn’t a completely unique situation, it had been years since she’d had such a casual hook-up.

It was a warm Saturday morning as Derek drove Melanie back to the Artisan to pick up her car, warm enough that he had the windows up and the air conditioning on. Melanie closed her eyes and pretended to doze.

When Derek dropped her off they exchanged business cards. His was a card promoting his work at the gallery, and the bold colors and eclectic font were a stark contrast to the classic simplicity of the card she had given him. Melanie looked at it twice as she drove home; he was not someone she would call. They had nothing in common. Derek was a high school art teacher, Melanie was a high-end real estate executive, and the differences were not only occupational but financial. In addition, he was a vegetarian, she was a voracious carnivore. He was a pot-smoker, she was a wine connoisseur. He was a yoga-practicing Buddhist. She was an avid runner who’d been brought up with an amalgam of spiritual beliefs.

Melanie entered Derek’s phone number in her cell so she’d know not to answer it when he called. But once he’d been ignored, Melanie feared he would go to Lea and enlist her help, which would only complicate things. If she hadn’t been so horny and tipsy, she wouldn’t have set herself up this way, but she knew that whatever the consequences might be, it had been worth it. The sex had been amazing and Melanie felt like a new woman. After an eight-month dry spell, it had been just what she needed.

When two weeks had gone by and Derek hadn’t called, she breathed a sigh of relief. Clearly he also felt they had nothing in common.

Except good sex, of course.

But then why hadn’t he called? Hadn’t the sex been good for him? The thought that he might not have enjoyed it as much as she did ate at her until she was forced to call him.

It wasn’t until they’d had sex twice more that she was sure he was enjoying it as much as she was, and they settled into a sexual relationship that left her feeling uniquely satisfied. Their worlds were very different, as she’d suspected, but they spent the majority of their time at his place with only an occasional excursion for food. She’d been able to enjoy their relationship for the benefits it offered rather than focusing on the things it lacked because she didn’t think of him as a potential mate. The conversations they had were revealing, yet comfortable. The lack of investment carried with it a lack of vulnerability. There was an intimacy that was only possible because there was no anticipation of betrayal; without strings, there could be no betrayal. There was no fear of disappointment because there were no expectations.

They had developed a friendship—founded on sex, sure—but a friendship nonetheless. And four years later, it was still just as comfortable.

It was early April and the weather was heating up during the day. Melanie sat quietly at the breakfast bar and enjoyed the breeze coming through the open window above the sink. It was almost eleven and Derek would have to be up early for school. She was wrung out from the day’s events.

Melanie yawned and stretched her arms over her head. “Enough about me,” she said. “How are things going with the new girl?”

“Sharon? They’re going ok.”

“So where’s all that unrestrained optimism now?”

Derek shrugged. “Too soon to tell, but she might have potential.”

“Oh really now? Should I save the date?”

“Don’t get ahead of yourself, Mel. It’s only been a couple months.” Derek stood and placed his cup in the sink. Melanie moved to his side of the counter.

“Ok, but warn me if you two start to get serious. You’d be a tough one to replace.” She grinned, pressed herself against him and ran her hands over his backside.

Derek kissed her and raised his eyebrows at her. “I’d like to see you try.”

I know too much. I am less easily conned. I don’t beam up at them with those eager eyes. I don’t smell the bullshit and call it roses.

—
Erica Jong,
“Any Woman’s Blues”

Chapter Three

“Just let it go.”

That was the mantra, the edict, the decree Melanie lived by—in life, in love, in work and in traffic. It was also the last thing Jen appeared to want to hear at the moment.

“You always say that. But you never explain how to do it,” said Jen. Sitting cross-legged on the couch, she pulled her blonde hair back from her face and then let it fall again. She swiped at her nose with the back of her hand.

Melanie smiled and handed her sister another tissue from the box on the coffee table.

“Look, there are a lot of ways to let go. Where would you like to start?”

“Give me the quickest one.”

Melanie shook her head. “None of them are all that quick. But they’re a hell of a lot quicker than what you’re doing. At this rate you could get old and gray before you get over that loser.”

Jen lowered the tissue from her nose and sobbed. “It’s only been six months.”

“So?”

“They say if you cut the time you were together in half, that’s how long it takes to get over him.”

Jen blew her nose and dropped the soiled tissue into the pile on her lap. Melanie handed her another tissue.

“If you get snot on my sofa, I’m not giving you any more wine. Understand?”

Jen wailed in reply.

“Look,” said Melanie, “that ‘half’ rule only applies to people who call their exes on a regular basis and hook up on late-night booty calls and drag shit out longer than is necessary and way longer than is healthy. Baby, can’t you see that the contact you’re having with him only makes things worse?”

Mel had always called her older sister “Sis”—short for Big Sis, which was how her father had referred to her—and her younger sister “Baby,” as her birth order had determined she be referred to as “the baby” since conception. Melanie was referred to as Mel by everyone in the family, except her mother of course, who abhorred the idea of calling a female child by a man’s name.

“What am I supposed to do?”

Melanie was protective of her younger sister due to the fact that Jen had an exasperating habit of almost dying. When she was an infant, Jen forgot to breathe for a while, turned blue and had to be rushed to the hospital. When she was six a German Shepherd bit into her scalp and Jen bled like she was doing it on purpose. When she was eight she consumed fistfuls of poisonous pods from a golden chain laburnum tree and had to have her stomach pumped. Realizing early on Jen was prone to wandering into life-threatening situations, Melanie had taken it upon herself to watch out for her, much to their mother’s relief.

Under normal circumstances, Melanie would have already done everything in her power to prevent Jen from getting to her current state, but her sister hadn’t been honest. Melanie felt she could gently dislodge herself from the hook because, until tonight, Jen hadn’t disclosed the full extent of her recent contact with her ex, Justin.

“Do you really want to know how to get over this now? Or do you want to suffer just a little bit more first?”

Jen coughed and sniffed, stalling for time. She finally choked out, “Over.”

“Ok, good. Here’s what you need to do.”

She laid out the plan in careful steps, making notes in a notebook to send home with Jen in the morning. Jen followed along, sniffling gently and nodding, but when Melanie got to the part about throwing out his things—cards, letters, emails, clothing, toothbrush and all—Jen got wide-eyed, threw her head back on the couch and started wailing again. Melanie expected this and sat quietly until it passed. She was consistently bewildered by her sister’s capacity for tears.

Jen opened her puffy eyes again.

“You’ve been reading them, haven’t you?”

Jen stared at the ceiling and nodded.

“Can you throw them out? Or do you need me to do it?”

“I can do it.” Then, nodding with conviction, “I can. Really.”

Jen sat up straight as though she’d found her resolve again, so Melanie continued.

Between Melanie’s three-page prescription for the expulsion of Justin, and Jen’s promise to meet her twice a week for kickboxing class, Melanie felt she’d done all she could to put her back on track.

“Can I just cry now?” Jen asked.

“Fine. But no snot on the sofa.”

When Jen dragged herself out of the guest room in the morning, Melanie was in the kitchen pushing eggs around a pan, the bacon already frying on the stove. She grabbed bread from the fridge and filled the toaster with four pieces. Jen sat at the breakfast bar, holding her head in her hands and inhaling the pungent smell of pork fat.

“I feel like shit,” she said. “I’m not used to drinking wine.”

“What do you normally drink?” Melanie asked.

“Beer. Vodka and cranberry. Jager. That kind of thing.”

"Geez, Jen. You’re thirty-three not twenty-three. And doesn’t Jager make you feel like shit?”

“Sometimes, but it’s worth it.”

Melanie poured a cup of coffee and slid it across the breakfast bar. “Drink this, it’ll help.”

Jen grunted. She shuffled out of the kitchen and then returned with the notebook they’d been working on the night before. She sipped her coffee and studied her assignment.

“Mel, tell me something. How do you know so much about breaking up with guys?”

“Practice. Plus I’ve had to counsel plenty of girlfriends who were in your same position doing exactly what you’re doing.”

“Ok. But when was the last time
you
were in a relationship?”

Melanie paused at the stove, stared at the diamond-shaped tiles on the backsplash. “I guess that would be Joel.”

“I remember him. He seemed cool. How long were you guys together?”

“Two years.”

“How come you broke up?”

“It’s complicated.”

“Meaning you don’t want to talk about it.” Jen sat back and crossed her arms over her chest.

“No. I can talk about it.” Melanie slid a plate of food across the breakfast bar and sat down with her own. “Joel wanted to settle down and have a family and my career was taking off. I couldn’t just abandon what I’d worked for to sit at home and become a baby factory.”

“Well what about now? You’ve got the time now, don’t you?”

This was true. Through a series of well-timed and high-profile successes, Melanie had gone from a high-paying job as a real estate executive to a mid-six-figure job as a real estate marketing consultant. She’d replaced a nine-to-five day with an open and undemanding schedule, and she could pick and choose her own projects and write her own ticket. Instead of dealing with office politics and backstabbing agents, she flew to the occasional conference to give a lecture on marketing. Articles had been written in the trades and in mainstream media on the subject of her exceptional instincts and her reputation for placating tough clients, and she would often pepper her sessions with anecdotes on troublesome multi-millionaire buyers or tips on predicting market trends, well aware that this was what people really came for.

“I’ve got time, yes. But I’m not with Joel anymore. And I’m still not enamored with the idea of being a stay-at-home mom like Sarah.”

“Don’t you want to have kids at all?”

Melanie shrugged and munched her toast. At thirty-seven years old, it was starting to look like it wasn’t in the cards for her. She had always had a focus and clarity to her life’s path that made decisions relating to career and relationships automatic and downright simple. No regrets. No looking back. But the idea of being a mother was different. It had never been a sure thing for her because she had never prioritized it. She’d left that one to the universe to decide and it had simply never happened.

“Why don’t you see if Joel’s still interested? How long ago did you guys split?”

“Four years ago. He got married last year.” Melanie cocked her head at her sister. “And what’s it to you anyway?”

“Just curious. So how come you haven’t been in a relationship in the past four years?”

“I’ve dated,” Melanie said. “Just haven’t met the right guy.”

“What was wrong with the guys you dated?”

“Ok, that’s enough. You just worry about getting over Justin and leave my love life alone.”

Since Joel, Melanie had started to seek out relationships with men she considered her equal, not out of a sense of parity, but to limit the temptation to lean on each other. During college, she’d heard her girlfriends talk about finding a guy with a lucrative career ahead of him so as to support them, and she’d wondered why they were pursuing a rather lofty education with no plans to use it. Even her older sister Sarah, with her PhD in psychology, had always just wanted to get married to someone who could support her so she could have babies. Melanie had never wanted to rely on anyone else. She never trusted a man to hold up his end of the agreement. She’d seen girlfriends get left with bills, rent and evictions just as often as she’d seen them lean on partners who were willing to help carry the load. But she wasn’t keen on rolling the dice and seeing which one she got. She dated, of course, and she had quite a good time of it. But when it came to relying on a man, she abstained, never believing that someone would be completely on her side.

There was a difference between hope and belief though. Belief was based on facts. Hope was to wish. To hope for something and achieve it was to both belie and conquer the facts. Hope was irrational. And even though she did her best to steer clear of it, hope was as seductive as an all-but-forgotten drug. There was a memory to it, something that reminded her of how candy tasted as a child, like liquid sunshine, to the point that the name of a treat could be simply mentioned and the taste was immediately present—not strong enough to satisfy, only strong enough to make her want it. And that was how hope felt to Melanie. It felt like a long-ago desire; a sweet, childish wanting. But there was a part of her—what part was that exactly?—that wouldn’t let it go.

As a woman, was it natural—even biological—to start thinking about the future as soon as the condom wrapper hit the floor? Was there some mechanism in the uterus that flipped a switch so that a voice—one that sounded suspiciously like one’s own thoughts—started asking what it might be like to build a life with the man in the bathroom flushing his sperm down the toilet? And of course, because she’d chosen each man so carefully, he
was
the kind of man she could see herself with. Sure, he’d have some flaws, some bad habits. In fact, he’d usually have more than she did. But Melanie could allow that no one was perfect and that his flaws made him human, just like her.

Hope was more than optimism though. It was optimism wrapped in passionate desire and tied up in the desperate longing for something that was all but lost long ago. And it was this last part that made her feel vulnerable.

And when hope arrived and started implying that yes, this would be a good idea, she fell for it. Every single time. It’s not that she suddenly morphed into a love-struck teenager—far from it. But she’d start looking at her man through the eyes of a benevolent benefactor, bestowing herself, her affections, her future upon him, and waiting for grateful acceptance. This was never verbal, of course. It was just a shift in thought, a slight change in focus that made the object of her affection just a little shinier than he had previously been.

Sometimes it would take a while, and sometimes only a few weeks between this shift in her brain and the inevitable exit of her man of the hour. But during those weeks or months, hope was there, sitting in her lap, cooing softly and begging to be stroked. And when her man was gone, hope went with him. Even if it had been a short relationship, it would tear at her heart and make the world seem darker and much more sinister. There were nights spent out on her balcony, staring up at the sky, tears streaming down her face. It was never the man she mourned, as by then he’d pretty much shown her why she didn’t want him anyway. Hope was gone. A future, with someone to love daily, was gone. And every time it happened, she became more convinced that hope was not on her side.

In her logical mind, it was simply that she wanted what her parents had—minus the untimely death. She knew it was possible to have a loving, secure relationship because she’d seen it with her own eyes. She’d seen the support they’d shown each other, the affection. She saw the team mentality with which they approached all aspects of their marriage and their children’s lives. Theirs was not a household in which a child could ask the mother for something, and if refused, play on the father. To do this was to undermine them as a team and would assure swift and severe punishment, and the girls all learned this lesson quite early. Their parents were two very different people, but their goals were the same and so they were outwardly of the same mind on virtually every issue.

After college, Melanie still had not quite given up entirely on marriage, kids and the family ideal. Men were more interested in dating her than ever and her phone buzzed nonstop with invitations, but most of them were in an occupation the same as or similar to her own, and therefore aware of the fact that she was achieving great success at an earlier age than most of her colleagues. It wasn’t hard to figure out how much she made, as the exact dollar amount of every major real estate deal was disseminated throughout the industry more efficiently than if it had been published in the Las Vegas Review-Journal. So when the men came courting, she resented that they hadn’t been as interested in her ten years before when she was struggling through college or just starting out in her career. Like someone who loses a hundred pounds and then is suspicious of attention from the opposite sex, she was bitter that they hadn’t wanted her when she was clearly a promising ground-floor opportunity. Of course, how could they have? They weren’t even there. But they were all the same man to her. They all represented the same thing: a promise of companionship and a future and the arrival, once again, of hope—and she wanted nothing to do with that creature.