Starting From Square Two. Caren Lissner

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ life—and was reminded again that he was gone. They’d met sophomore year of college, so that was eight years or 2,920 days of memories she had to suppress in order to even feel remotely okay. Didn’t people understand that?

      The only people who did understand were the women in her support group on Long Island, where she went every week. Among her circle of friends, there was not exactly a surfeit of twenty-nine-year-olds who had lost their husbands. Most of them had not even been married yet. And Gert, who had counted herself so lucky for so long, and who had been far outside the realm of her lonely single friends, was now—because of one horrible day—among their ranks.

      It had only been a year and a half since the car accident. That was barely enough time to even accept what had happened. It was also barely enough time to stop having those brief moments when she felt as secure as she used to be, then, in a flash, remembered that everything was all wrong.

      But Gert was finally giving in to one of Hallie and Erika’s many exhortations to go out. It certainly would be healthier than sitting home all night. Still, her heart wouldn’t be in it and her mind wouldn’t be on it. She’d just be going through the motions—like she did with so many things these days.

      Gert looked at Hallie and Erika. Both of them had complained about dating since college graduation. They always made it sound like war, packed with battle plans and tricks and conspiracies. Gert had been skeptical in the past. Wasn’t dating supposed to be fun?

      In college, it had been. It went like this: A guy in your class or dorm would strike up a conversation, he’d invite you for coffee or a movie, you’d flirt relentlessly in the study lounges, and eventually the conversations would turn into heated dormroom aerobics. Or in the case of Marc, the two of you were at the bookstore, and he saw you buying a used copy of Calculus for $44.99 instead of $60 new, and he said, “Where’d you get that?” and you talked about how you almost placed out of the class entirely and how you both thought that math was the worst and best subject in the world. It was the worst because it was boring, but it was the best because it always provided finite answers—no room for guesswork or interpretation. You came to realize you both liked things you could count on. You were in the same lecture, so you could study together. You got an A-minus and the first intense relationship of your life.

      Gert’s other dates, before Marc, hadn’t been bad, either. There was cynical Andy, who was obsessed with Ultimate Frisbee and PEZ dispensers. Paul, the head of the political union, called the profs and deans by their first names when he saw them on campus. He went to their office hours even if he wasn’t in their classes, because other students didn’t take advantage of them and he figured it was a good time to schmooze. But neither of them was as driven or interesting as Marc, a guitar-playing business student who had three red-haired Irish brothers, none of whom looked a thing like him.

      Gert’s closeness with Marc was what made her realize that someday, she might need to be with someone again. The idea of going through the rest of her life without a person beside her to help her through it was torture. But she couldn’t imagine dating right now. No one could possibly have Marc’s ideas and expressions, those idiosyncrasies and small kindnesses that made her smile. There couldn’t possibly be anyone like him.

      Gert looked at Hallie, dressed so scantily in the middle of February. Hallie’s dating troubles always had seemed self-imposed. When Hallie had told Gert about the guy who’d said, “I actually drive better after a few beers,” Gert couldn’t believe Hallie hadn’t walked out on him right then. But Hallie had told Gert she wanted to stick with him because he was “sensitive.” Next, Hallie met a guy who didn’t drive drunk, but had big ears. So Hallie stopped dating him. Gert worried that Hallie was focusing on all the wrong things.

      One day Gert actually told Hallie that her priorities seemed skewed.

      “You meet a nice guy and his forehead’s too high,” Gert said. “You meet a jerky guy and you date him anyway and end up bitter when he doesn’t morph into a poet. You hate bars but you go to the same ones five days a week. Why don’t you just relax a little and have fun?”

      Hallie got angry. She said Gert had no idea at all what it was like out there.

      That’s the phrase Hallie had used: Out There.

      Like it was a jungle.

      The subway bumped a bit, and everyone grabbed their belongings to prevent liftoff.

      “Well?” Hallie said.

      “Well, what?” Gert asked.

      “Name one decent guy you’ve met since college who’s single.”

      Gert sighed. “Marc’s brother Michael,” she said. “He’s normal. He’s nice. So there is one who exists.”

      “And you’d date him?” asked tall, ponytailed Erika, from somewhere near the ceiling.

      “I didn’t say I would date him,” Gert said. “He’s Marc’s brother. I’m just saying he exists.”

      “Isn’t he the short one with the mutton chops?” Erika asked.

      “No. Eddie’s married.”

      “Is he the one who wears stained overalls and lives in Maine and breeds Sea Monkeys?”

      “Patrick doesn’t breed Sea Monkeys; he’s a crabber. And he’s married too.”

      “Oh. So you mean the third brother, the eighteen-year-old.”

      “Michael’s twenty-two now,” Gert said.

      Hallie and Erika looked at each other.

      “So you would date a twenty-two-year-old?” Hallie asked.

      “I didn’t say I would….”

      “See!” Hallie said, her voice surging with victory. “That is exactly my point, and something you will learn soon enough. There are no single guys who don’t have at least one major flaw, and a flaw, I might add, that would stop you from dating them—even if everything else was great. Why? Simple math. Women are interesting and honest and sensitive. Most men are not. There is only one normal, decent single guy for every five women in this city. This is what’s known as the Great Male Statistic. Girls don’t want to face the GMS. They want to believe there’s someone for everyone. The truth hurts. You only start coming to terms with the GMS when you’re twenty-six or twenty-seven. It actually killed Sylvia Plath. She finally found this guy in grad school who she thought was so great, and she married him, and he cheated on her.”

      “Didn’t Sylvia Plath have a history of mental illness since she was an undergrad?” Gert asked.

      “Incidental. She didn’t kill herself until Ted Hughes cheated. The truth is, the really good men are snapped up quickly. You get into your mid-twenties and it’s five to one. Don’t give me that look. You don’t believe it because you don’t want to.”

      Gert was ready to go home. “Then why are we doing this?”

      “Because looking for the one in five,” Hallie said, “is still better than being alone.”

      The bar was two blocks from the mouth of the subway. When the women emerged on Bleecker Street, a frigid wind swept through, grazing their bare arms. Hallie wrapped her hands around herself as she walked, but insisted to Gert that she wasn’t cold.

СКАЧАТЬ