51/50: The Magical Adventures of a Single Life (32 page)

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Authors: Kristen McGuiness

BOOK: 51/50: The Magical Adventures of a Single Life
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Somehow the book is supposed to balance things out. And if I were a hooker, which I pretty much feel like, I have just sold myself for
The Complete Illustrated Guide to Joinery
.
 
I get home, shower, and call Mimi. And she meets me at a local meeting because that’s just the type of friend she is. We walk into my meeting, and immediately I see Jimmy Voltage. As the way things go, he is the speaker for that day, and I have never heard him share his story before. As he does, I realize how different and yet how alike we are. I listen to him tell his own tale of bad decisions and regrettable mistakes, and I remember that we are not perfect.
 
Afterward, I go and hug Jimmy, and he pulls me in for one of the biggest, tightest, safest hugs ever. And I smile up at my friend, and I say, “I loved your share.”
 
And there is nothing counterfeit about it. Just as I did with Jimmy so many months before, I know I need to pick myself up and brush myself off. Jimmy invites me to see the new house he lives in, and though I can tell we will only be friends, I also know that this is how things change. We fuck up. We get hurt. We move on. And we try to do it better the next time around.
 
43
 
Date Forty-Three: Love Will Tear Us Apart
 
Fantasy has never done anything but disappoint me. In fact, I can almost guarantee something will not happen once I have a fantasy about it. But it never stops me. Oh no, the many magical moments, the great Oscar-winning scenes, the music videos of my life are some of my many great distractions, and quite possibly, fantasy is my most unconquered addiction. Lately, I have been driving around, listening to “Love Will Tear Us Apart,” by Joy Division, and I have been envisioning the fabulous way in which this book will end. I was telling Siren recently that I do not know which man will ultimately get to star in the final scene, but I do like scripting it.
 
I almost want to ask Ben what he thinks will be my ending, but I don’t. Though I feel unreasonably comfortable with him, I am not sure if that’s in a romantic way or just in a jocular one. We have now been e-mailing for weeks—all of which have been long and funny and filled with literary jags and some serious details.
 
One thing becomes clear: we will not be able to continue communicating at this pace without getting a little worn out. I went to a wedding last Saturday, and I wondered as I watched the beautiful couple join a perfect union whether Ben will make the move and at least ask me to coffee. I sat at a table of mostly single girls, and I knew that we were all thinking about when it will be our turn. The night was thick, the weather warm, and the bride and groom happily, giddily in love. I watched them at their table for two, and I wondered if that’s what I want.
 
“So, are you looking to get a husband out of the book?” Ben sits across the table from me, stirring his coffee. Two days after the wedding, Ben asks me out. Since Ben is also a writer, he does it under the pretense that we can, “ya know, talk about our books.”
 
I shake my head. “I was actually just hoping for a three- to six-month relationship.”
 
He laughs. “Isn’t a year of dating an awful lot to go through just to get a three- to six-month relationship?”
 
I rethink my offer. “Okay, then, nine months.”
 
Because the truth is I don’t see myself with Ben for much longer than that. I could see us breaking down each other’s walls a bit, letting one another in, teaching each other a thing or two about our diverse interests, and ultimately just not seeing eye to eye on enough things to go much further.
 
Ben takes me to the cake-filled café where I went for my first date in this little experiment, bringing me full circle. As we navigate the crowded restaurant and shift around the heavy wrought-iron chairs, and Ben gets back up because his coffee isn’t warm enough, and I try to find honey, and my tea cup is shaking because I am nervous, and Ben forgets to get utensils, and I still haven’t found the honey, I am just grateful that we have made it through all the pitfalls of social anxiety to actually make it to our table.
 
When we walked to the restaurant from our meeting, the sidewalk got a little narrow, and I found Ben walking at least three feet in front of me, and I couldn’t help but feel strange. Why would he leave me behind? Even as the sidewalk widens, and there is room for the both of us, Ben moves at a pace that is too fast for me. And I am not about to break into a trot just to keep up.
 
“So, did you ever end up finding some honey?” he asks, referring to my tea.
 
“No. It was too hard. And I was already holding a cup of steaming water, and I don’t know, I just get nervous,” I admit.
 
“Do you want honey?”
 
I nod my head. “Yes, please.”
 
Ben smiles and gets up to find me some, and for a moment I forget about the fast walking and his sarcasm. I wonder whether Ben’s attitude of being jaded and aloof is really just a front for the kind person struggling to get out. He tells me off the bat, “I feel a little guarded around you.”
 
“Why? Because I’m writing a book?” I ask.
 
“Yeah.”
 
I think he means emotionally, and so I explain, “Really, Ben, it’s not as much about the dates as it is about me, about my own lessons and observations and growth.”
 
“Yeah, I get that,” he says. “The thing is, I’m writing a book too. I don’t want you using any of my stories.” God love him for being honest, but really?
 
Ben tells me how when he was eighteen, he lived an entire year making decisions with a flip of a coin. He was already sober at the time, so he agrees he could probably chalk it up more to youthful folly than actually being fucked up. But almost every decision that year was made by the toss of one very fateful quarter.
 
“It was my higher power,” he explains. And so he decided not to go to college right away (tails); he decided to break up with his girlfriend (also tails); he decided to move to Israel for six months (heads); and he decided to sleep with his best friend’s girlfriend (heads, again). When I hear this I am in awe—what an incredibly ridiculous form of faith. To truly give up all power to some seemingly insignificant quarter and then to follow suit on it seems like exactly the type of ruthless bravery I have been searching for in another.
 
“I still kind of live that way,” Ben says with a shrug. And I realize two things: one, I will use that story anyway; and two, it might not be the allegory I wished it would be. Because that’s the thing. Ben is fine with going wherever the flow takes him. In fact, he seems so nonchalant about whether he finds love or passion or the house and kids, I wonder whether he will ever be able to stop flipping that coin, not caring about the outcome.
 
Ben and I walk back to our cars and hug. I can feel that something is there, some spark of intimacy and knowing. Much like the reflection I once so desperately sought, I see myself in Ben and him in me.
 
I get in my car and see that my dad has called. I call him back because, just that day, I bought my ticket to Texas. He answers the phone, but I can barely hear him.
 
“Dad?” I shout.
 
“Hold on.” There are loud music and laughter and women’s voices in the background. It sounds like a saloon. It takes a moment for the noise to die down, and then I can hear him.
 
“Hey, K.” I can tell he got my message. I can tell he is excited. “I’m in Mexico tonight. And God it’s beautiful here. The stars, the moon...we’ll come down here for a night when you visit, okay?”
 
I smile because I am just as excited. “That sounds great, Daddy. And it’s perfect. Because I’ve decided that you’re gonna be my fiftieth date, so we’ll have to have it in Mexico.”
 
“Oh, I’m gonna be your best date.”
 
“I know you will, Dad.” And though I still feel a little awkward here, I know he will.
 
I tell him that I am flying into Dallas, but that I will be able to spend two to three days at the farm. Though he wants me to come for a whole week, I am learning not too rush so quickly into things. We hang up the phone as I arrive at my own house. I walk home, down my favorite street, and I look up at the stars and the moon my father and I share, and I flip my coin.
 
44
 
Date Forty-Four: The Magic of Growing Up
 
Three weeks after my night with Eli, Noelle calls me into her office. I have not spoken to Ben since our night out for tea, and I am beginning to feel that this adventure isn’t getting easier. I am not sure if she can sense the crack in my spirit, but when she offers me her home for July Fourth weekend, I smile for the first time in a week. I tell my mom about Noelle’s house, and it only takes a few minutes on the Internet for us to do something we have never done before. My mom and Nana will both be coming out that weekend to spend it with me, in Noelle’s La Cañada and in my Los Angeles.
 
The next day, I go to my agency’s staff retreat, feeling as though neither of these opportunities are going to save me from the disappointment I have been carrying around lately. But that’s the funny thing about faith—it will always show up if you make room for it.
 
I am sitting in the retreat, bored. It is at the Los Angeles Cathedral. I look down at the agenda and am pleased to see that the next portion will be a client panel, meaning some of our clients will be coming to speak to us. They are parents of our children, teens from our youth center, young mothers and grateful fathers. As one of our clients speaks, telling us that our agency is the bright light in their dark world, that they would not be able to survive without the work we do, that they are so grateful to us for making their children’s worlds a safer place, I see that bright light. And I know that I might make my mistakes, but I also make this. I am part of something wonderful. After the panel, a new presenter comes on to discuss child abuse. I walk outside and find three of our younger panelists sitting in the lobby. They cannot hear this part, these truths, these horrors of childhood that I fear some of them might have already endured.
 
Since they are bored, I offer to take them on a tour of the Cathedral. One of the younger boys, Michael, tells me he has never been, and we all walk over together. I have known Michael since he was eight, and as he approaches fifth grade, I am beginning to understand what it means to watch children grow up. That there is a magic to seeing these young lives mature. Michael takes my hand as we walk into the chapel.
 
I do not attend Church. I might have been born Roman Catholic, but outside of the traits of sexual shame and familial guilt inherent to its principles, I do not practice anything close to its demands. But as we kneel down on the padded bench, it doesn’t matter what I believe. I sit next to these beautiful young children, who without the right education and the right direction will spend their lifetimes on their knees. They bow their heads, and there the four of us pray.
 
Two weeks later, I show up at Lidia’s and immediately see that the “For Sale” sign is down. I am saddened by this. I love Lidia’s house, with its Prius and work truck in the driveway, the aquarium in the foyer, and the large rambling front yard that I stare out at while talking with her. I ask if she is sad, and she says, “Oh no, not at all. I’ve found the perfect place.” She tells me about her new home, set off a dirt road up in Box Canyon deep in the hills around Chatsworth. She says it’s like entering a different world, and I can see in her eyes that this is all a good change. The divorce, the move, the next stage of her own journey.
 
I tell Lidia how I ended up at Eli’s house, and I tell her what happened there.
 
“Why do you think you were so affected?” Lidia asks.
 
I look out the window, and then I smile at Lidia with tears in my eyes. “Oliver.”
 
Oliver. The ghost of this story. The memory I have yet to expunge. Lidia asks if I still fantasize about having a future with this man I have not seen in two years. But I don’t. I think Oliver wanted someone else. I imagine that the woman he marries cooks dinner every night using organic vegetables and amazing sauces. She plays the piano and works in an interior design firm. She probably has an absentee father or some troubled element in her childhood, but funnels it into being comfortable around a large, wood island in the middle of her Spanish-tiled kitchen. I imagine a lot of silk and linen.
 
Lidia has me get on the floor. And I cannot figure out which stone to choose so I choose two. Lidia places them on me, and I realize that this is no longer uncomfortable for me. In fact, I find myself channeling energy and spirit a lot more on my own these days. The energy has been giving me strength, and though sometimes that strength may be clumsy and a little messy, it’s still there. As I lie down, I tell Lidia about one morning in La Cañada when I went hiking with my mother while we house sat. We had brought Rocky and were walking back to Noelle’s when I told my mom about a vision I had while I was dating Oliver. He had asked me what I wanted from my life, and I told him that I saw myself standing at the edge of a yard, overlooking a cliff, staring out at the Mediterranean Sea, with two children standing on each side of me. They are my children, and we are vacationing at a home somewhere in Europe. In the vision, I hold their hands and stand in front of a white fence that lines the edge of the yard. I turn around and watch as my husband walks out of the house to meet us.

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