You Have To Kiss a Lot of Frogs. Laurie Graff

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СКАЧАТЬ Day of Summer

      Los Feliz, CA 1997

      Starry, Starry Night

      Last Day of Summer

      Hollywood, CA 1997

      There’s No Place Like Home 250

      Two Weeks Later

      Hollywood, CA 1997

      We Have So Much in Common 262

      The Next Night

      Hollywood, CA 1997

      You Should Be So Lucky

      Presidents’ Day

      West Hollywood, CA 1998

      A Eulogy for Henry

      My Fortieth Birthday

      West Palm Beach, FL 1998

      The Wedding

      Father’s Day

      Brentwood, CA 1998

      How Personal Do You Want to Get?

      Halloween

      Columbus Avenue, NYC 1998

      Putting Back the Pieces

      Thanksgiving

      West Palm Beach, FL 1998

      In Motion

      St. Patrick’s Day

      Baltimore, MD 1999

      Unscrambled

      Liberation Day

      NYC Underground 1999

      I Can Do That

      Martin Luther King Day

      My Kitchen, NYC 2000

      Modem Operandi

      Columbus Day Weekend

      Henry Hudson Parkway, NY 2001

      Shiksa Syndrome

      Counting the Omer

      West End Avenue, NYC 2002

      In Search of the Regular Ultimate Hold

      Fourth of July

      East Hampton, NY 2003

      The Water in the Walls

      New Year’s Eve

      Brooklyn Heights, NY 2003

      About the Author

      Coming Next Month

      1

      You Have to Kiss a Lot of Frogs

      April Fools’ Day

      Hell’s Kitchen, NYC 2003

      I like being a woman. I also like being friends with other women. I don’t, however, like feeling forced into participating in some ritual with an entire flock of them I’ve never even met. It’s like having to wear those dumb party hats, and blow on those even dumber paper things at midnight with a bunch of strangers on New Year’s Eve. You’re thrown in with people you don’t know and don’t want to be with, but you’re all going to share this intimate event with glee. If it kills you. And that’s how I feel at this bridal shower.

      Here I am. Tuesday. 6:00 p.m. Right after work, if you actually have a normal job, and I’m standing in a Mexican restaurant in midtown Manhattan, holding a margarita I’m not drinking because I don’t like the salt. I’m stuck wearing gray wool slacks because I came from an audition for a soup commercial, à la Winter in Vermont, and realized way too late that the bag with my dress was at home on my bed, and not with me. The bright fluorescents highlight the brown roots on my red head, and a silver barrette is holding together a few strands of hair, attempting to disguise a bad bang trim. That time-of-the-month bloat is making my size-four pants feel tight, and my hair feels hot around my neck. I can’t help but compare myself to everyone around me. They seem perfectly coiffed, and groomed, and excited to be here. I’m one of fifty overeager women waiting for Marcy to arrive to surprise her because, finally, after twenty-five years of dating, she’s met some guy she’s going to marry. And everyone’s gabbing how they’re sooooooo happy for her. Frankly, I don’t believe it.

      The married ones must be remembering their showers. The too many toaster ovens and Crock-Pots, the friction between the maid of honor and the other best friends, and now the contemplation if the marriage has lived up to the fanfare of the shower.

      The single ones are standing with plastic smiles, wondering if the person getting married is really better off than they are. That’s me. I wonder, is Marcy really Happy Now? And is that to say she really never was before? After the years of angst and dates and therapy and plans for when The One arrives, when It happens, what does It feel like? What does it feel like to be with Mr. Right. Mr. It. Does it feel great? Does it? Does it feel better than it did before? Does it feel better than I feel standing in the middle of it? Watching. Comparing. Are other people unconditionally happy for this person or is it just me?

      “Sssshh, she’s coming.”

      “AAHHHHHH!!!”

      “QUIET…QUIET…quiet…”

      The lights in the restaurant are out, and there’s chatter coming up the stairs to the balcony. Everyone pushes together in the middle to see. To see how Marcy will react. She thinks her mom and aunt are taking her to see The Phantom of the Opera. Aunt Tessie’s visiting from Philadelphia and wants to see it, she’s heard “The Music of the Night” sung so much over the years. Marcy thinks they’re coming to Fajita Fajita for a bite before the show. Little does she expect that tonight, eight weeks before her wedding, years after attending God knows how many showers herself, instead of seeing Phantom, she would see every important female she knows tell her, “I’m so happy for you. I told you it would happen. It happens for everybody. It just has to be your time.”

      “Watch it, Marcy,” I hear a gravelly voice say. “You stepped on my toe.”

      “Oops. Sorry, Mom.”

      “I can’t see,” says the other one. Obviously Tessie. “Go ahead of me, Marcy, dear. It’s dark.”

      “SURPRISE!”

      The lights snap on, and Marcy sees every woman she’s ever known in her entire life before her—wide-eyed, drunk from waiting and wishing her well in her new life. Marcy is heroic, because Martin has found her. Marcy is elevated to another level, because Martin has picked her. Marcy is thrown to the other side. The side that is validated. She’s no longer going to be Single. It’s happened. It’s happening now. And as a result, Marcy can’t move.

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