Confessions of an Ugly Girl (11 page)

This morning, I called Sam as soon as it was early enough for him to be awake, which is actually kind of late. Sam likes to sleep in. He picked up, which made me feel relieved. I asked him if he was in the mood for some company and he said sure, so I hopped in my car and drove over to his apartment.

I still felt really guilty about last night and the second I saw him, I was overwhelmed by a rush of affection. I was just so relieved to be with him again and not on a stupid date with a stranger. Also, he looked completely adorable. Even though it was almost noon, he still had that “just rolled out of bed” look. His hair was kind of sticking up and he was wearing the shirt he slept in. He had on his boxers and his legs seemed a little off in the footrests. He yawned when he saw me.

“Good morning,” I said.

He smiled. Maybe it was my imagination, but his smile seemed a bit strained.

I wanted to kiss him a million times. I slid into his lap and pressed my lips into his forehead, brushing against this little scar he has just below his hairline. I felt him stiffen and he didn’t kiss me back. He
always
kisses me back. Suddenly, I felt scared that Laura really did tell Sam about my faux-date last night.

“So did you have fun with Donna last night?” he asked me.

OK, now I was about 99% sure that he knew. And if he did, continuing my lie about Donna was going to make things worse. I needed to come up with a lie, but as usual, I went blank.

“Um,” I said. “Yes.”

(God, I better never commit a crime. I’d get caught in like five seconds.)

“Millie,” he said quietly. “Who were you with last night?” When I just stared at him, he added, “Laura told me she saw you with a guy at Mario’s.”

I wanted to confess everything, I really did. But that would involve confessing to not having told my mother about him. And that would have been bad. So I went with the lie I told Laura. “My cousin,” I said. “It turned out he came in suddenly from out of….”

I stopped talking because it was obvious from the way Sam was looking at me that he didn’t believe a word I was saying. He wasn’t dumb enough to fall for this ridiculous cousin story. Nobody would be.

“Okay,” I said, standing up from his lap. “It was a date.”

Sam just stared at me with this really wounded look on his face. If he had been angry, that would’ve been easier to deal with. But he just looked so
hurt
. It made me feel terrible, especially when I remembered that his last girlfriend had been cheating on him.

“So what then?” he said quietly. “Are we seeing other people or…?”

The way he said it was like a punch in the gut. I felt tears welling up in my eyes and I started talking in a jumble of words, kneeling before him, explaining that yes, it was a date, but it was a set-up, and I just couldn’t cancel it, so I figured I’d just go through with it, and it was a one-time thing that was never going to happen again
ever
. I didn’t even know what I was saying by the end, it was just babbling. I was so scared he was going to break up with me and honestly, I almost felt like I deserved it. I kept trying to gauge the look on his face and I was also trying to keep from crying. “I swear it will never happen again,” I said. “I swear. It wasn’t anything, but it will never happen again.”

“Okay,” he said after I was done talking. “I believe you.”

I looked at him, shocked. I hadn’t thought I was so convincing. “You do?”

“Yes, I do.”

“But why?”

“I don’t know, maybe because you have a truthful face,” Sam said. “Or maybe because I’m a sucker.”

“You’re not a sucker,” I said. I fell back into his lap and kissed him a hundred times. “I love you. I’m so sorry.”

He kissed me finally and I was scared he’d still be stiff and angry, but he wasn’t. “Laura said the guy you were with was really hot,” he said. “It must have been hard to resist that.”

“You’re way hotter.”

“Oh, am I?”

“No contest.”

He smiled. “She also told me you looked miserable.”

“I was,” I assured him. “I missed you.”

“So,” he said. “Who set you up?” I hesitated and he shook his head. “Forget I asked. Let’s just forget the whole thing.”

He said he wasn’t upset about it but a small part of me still thinks he might be. But after we fooled around in bed for a while, the whole thing seemed pretty much forgotten.

October 24:

Sorry I haven’t written in forever. I’ve been spending most of my nights at Sam’s place so I haven’t had a chance to write anything. Funny how I started this journal to talk about being single and how great it is, then immediately I met the greatest guy ever.

(Good thing, because it honestly wasn’t
that
great being single.)

The reason I’m home now is that Sam’s parents are visiting and staying at his place, and we thought it would be kind of inappropriate for them to see me spending the night, since we’re not engaged or married or anything. Oh yeah, I met his parents. Isn’t that awesome? It made me feel like Sam is really taking this relationship seriously.

Sam’s parents are great. I know all women hate their in-laws, but I will definitely not have that problem if we end up together. I can see why Sam is such a good guy now that I’ve met his mom and dad. Especially his dad, who is exactly like Sam in both looks and personality. The two of them could have formed a comedy team together. I was jealous that Sam had such a great relationship with his parents and they hadn’t screwed him up like mine did.

And yes, I do feel guilty that I’ve now already met Sam’s parents and I haven’t even
told
my mother that I’m seeing someone seriously. I think my mother is beginning to suspect something, but she doesn’t even have a name to run with. Also, I’m a dirty liar, because I told Sam that my mother knows about him. This will almost definitely explode in my face pretty soon.

Sam’s parents, Peter and Jean, took us out to dinner. (Actually, it ended up nearly being a fight to the death between Sam and his dad over who would pay, but Peter won out.) I’m embarrassed to admit that when we were first introduced, Jean hugged me. I wasn’t entirely sure what to make of it, but I took it as a good sign. I think she saw me as potential daughter-in-law material. Luckily, I have nice childbearing hips.

Jean Webber was a stay at home mom to Sam and his two brothers (one older, one younger) and it was obvious she doted on them a lot. In addition to hugging me, she probably hugged Sam three times in the course of the evening. Sam said that she was probably the clingiest to him of all his siblings, because she almost lost him in that accident. And also because he wasn’t married yet, while both of his brothers were. “She wants me to get married, like, five years ago,” Sam said.

Over dinner, Jean asked me a lot of questions about my job and made all sorts of noises like she thought my work was really interesting. While
I
find my work interesting, I have no delusions that it is interesting to anyone else. But the fact that she gasped no less than three times while I described actuarial analysis is a tribute to how nice she was being to me.

“I always wished I had a great job like that,” she told me. “Not that it wasn’t wonderful staying home with Sam and his brothers. But I think it’s nice to have a life outside the home too.”

“That’s not what you said twenty years ago, Jeannie!” Peter snorted.

Jean ignored her husband. “And it just shows how responsible you are,” she said. “Unlike that awful Holly, who could never hold down a job. She was always borrowing money from Sam.”

“Mom, I don’t think Millie wants to hear about Holly,” Sam said.

Except I did. I wanted to know everything about Holly in the same way that you can’t look away from a horrible car wreck. I hung on to any tidbit about Holly, especially any stories about how I’m better than she was. Because in looks, there was obviously no competition.

“Well, I’m just saying,” Jean went on, “Holly was so wrong for you. We all knew it.” She looked at me and said conspiratorially, “We all knew it. Sam wouldn’t listen.”

Sam sighed. “Mom…”

“How did you meet her anyway?” Jean asked. “Wasn’t she the waitress in some sleazy bar you went to?”

“She was the waitress at a
diner
, not a bar.” I didn’t see Sam get angry often, but he looked really close right now. It bothered me that he seemed to be defending her.

“And then didn’t she go to beauty school?” Jean said. “Which you
paid
for, didn’t you? Until she dropped out. Did she ever pay you back?”

“No.” I could see the red creeping into Sam’s ears. God, he looked pissed.

“You’re lucky, you know that?” Jean said. “You’re so lucky you met Millie. What if Holly had agreed to marry you? Then where would you be?”

Sam looked as horrified as I felt. “Mom!”

Jean got quiet, realizing she had said something wrong. “Oh, you didn’t tell Millie that you asked Holly to…?”

Sam kept shaking his head with a glazed look in his eyes. Jean tried to play it down, like it wasn’t a big deal, but clearly it was. Sam had asked Holly to
marry
him, not just move in with him. He had wanted to spend
the rest of his life
with her.

Clearly, he had really loved her.

I was dying to say something to him, but I couldn’t until his parents excused themselves to go to the bathroom, finally leaving us alone. I think Sam had been waiting for this opportunity too, because the first thing he said when they were gone was, “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you I asked Holly to marry me.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?” I asked, even though I sort of knew the answer.

He sighed. “You seemed insecure and I just… I thought it would upset you. I should have been honest. I’m sorry.”

“So you were really in love with her, huh?”

He lowered his eyes. “Yeah, I was,” he admitted.

I appreciated that he was being honest, but the words still felt like a dagger in my chest. I wish he had lied. I probably should’ve dropped the whole thing, but instead I heard myself asking:

“Do you still love her?”

There was a long pause. Too long. “I don’t know,” he finally said. “I guess I still have some feelings for her. We were together so long.”

I felt like crying. That wasn’t the answer I wanted to hear. I wanted him to tell me absolutely not, that he hated her guts. After all, she had broken his heart and cheated on him. Then again, she was really pretty so I couldn’t entirely blame him.

I took a deep breath and forced myself to ask the most important question of all: “Would you consider getting back together with her?”

“No,
never
,” Sam said, this time answering instantly. He rubbed my cheek with the back of his hand. “I love you, Millie. You know that.”

I keep thinking about that conversation. I wish that Sam and I could have just met and become each other’s first loves. Instead, I’m dating a guy who had his heart ripped out of him less than a year ago and he’s clearly not over it. I’m beginning to suspect that as much as he plays it down, Sam really adored Holly. I think she was the love of his life. And if she wants him back bad enough, I don’t know if there’s much I can do to stop it. I can’t compete with someone like Holly.

I wish I could talk to Sam about it but his parents are there and I don’t want them to think I’m so clingy that I have to call him during the night. I just have to try not to think about it.

October 25:

Okay, I just went insane and called Sam on his cell phone at two in the morning.

I couldn’t sleep and I kept thinking about him and Holly, and it was driving me totally crazy. And then I reasoned that it was Sam’s fault that I couldn’t sleep because he had kept this secret from me. So I called him.

Amazingly, he wasn’t angry. He sounded tired, but not angry. He said that he had been sleeping badly too and he felt really guilty about what happened that night. He said he should have told me the truth from the start.

Then he reassured me that he felt nothing for Holly and that he loved me. And tomorrow, when his parents were gone, he was going to show me how much he loved me.

He was so sweet that I feel kind of ridiculous for how upset I got. I have no reason to ever doubt that Sam loves me. He’s been nothing but wonderful to me.

On that note, I’m exhausted and am going to sleep.

NOVEMBER

November 7:

Okay: funny story.

I was cooking dinner last night at Sam’s apartment, just as a way to earn my keep. I brought over a bag of groceries because his fridge is generally not very well stocked, except for TV dinners. Sam was messing around with his computer while I was cooking and I approached him from behind. I ran my hands over his shoulders and he sighed contentedly. He actually has pretty nice, tight muscles in his shoulders. “Maybe we could listen to some music?” I suggested.

“Oh,” he said. “You want to hear music?”

“Why don’t you put on something from the Beatles?” I suggested. I figured since he had
Rubber Soul
, my favorite album, in his car on our first date, he must have had some other Beatles albums.

“Er,” he said, scratching his chin.

“Do you have any other Beatles albums?”

“Um, not really.”

I crossed my arms. “Do you actually even like the Beatles?”

He grinned sheepishly. “Busted. Donna told me you liked them so I bought the album in a foolish attempt to impress you.”

I had to laugh. “Okay, so what sort of music do you like?”

“I don’t really like music.”

I stared at him. “Seriously? You’re so weird.”

He laughed. “Well, you know, when I was in high school I sort of liked the alterna-grunge music, but it seems sort of loser-y to be listening to Nirvana when you’re 34. So all I’ve got is some classical stuff, so I seem cultured. I think I have Bach, if you’re interested. I’ve heard listening to it makes you perform better on exams.”

“Are you planning on giving me a pop quiz?” I teased him.

He wheeled closer to me and slid his hands under my skirt, up the inside of my thighs. I gasped and totally forgot about dinner or Bach or any of that. “I’m planning on giving you something...”

So, um, cooking dinner didn’t end up happening
yet again
. But man, we sure worked up an appetite for pizza.

November 12:

Sam is taking me out to a fancy dinner and a show tonight.

I’m so lucky. I love him so much. I feel blessed.

That’s all.

November 14:

According to a study, the average man watches 29 hours of television per week and the average woman 34 hours per week. That is a
lot
of television.

Sam and I aren’t making that problem any better.

But if you think about it, we get out from work around five, are home by 5:30, and then don’t go to bed until midnight. It takes less than an hour to eat dinner, then throw in another hour or so of sexy time, that’s still at least four hours of time that has to be filled. What exactly are we supposed to
do
during that time? I like Sam a lot, but I don’t want to talk to him for
four hours
every night. And the weekends are just endless.

So we do watch television. We watch the usual stuff that everyone likes plus the news, and sometimes we watch a movie. Sam has all the good channels at his apartment, so a lot of the time we’ll just turn on HBO or Showtime and see what movie is playing.

Last night, I turned on the television while Sam was grabbing some snacks from the other room, and that Clint Eastwood/Hilary Swank movie
Million Dollar Baby
was on. I think in the movie, Hilary Swank becomes a boxer or something. I’d seen it once before and remembered liking it, so I left it on. 

When Sam came back into the room with a bowl of popcorn on his lap, he regarded the television with a frown. “What is this?”

“
Million Dollar Baby
.”

“Boo!” Sam hissed at the television. He took a few kernels of popcorn and threw them at the screen with surprising accuracy, everything considered. “I hate this movie. Turn it off.”

I clicked the power off as I looked at him in surprise. I’d never seen him have such a strong opinion about a movie that he felt the need to toss food at the television. “How come?”

“How come?” he repeated. “Have you
seen
this movie?”

I nodded. “It wasn’t awful or anything.”

“At the end she becomes a quadriplegic,” he said, shaking his head. “And it’s all about how she petitions for the right to die. The movie wouldn’t have been half as popular if that part didn’t happen. Do you know how
insulting
that is?” 

“Oh.” I guess he had a good point.

“It just pisses me off,” Sam said. “There all these books and movies about quadriplegics who want to be euthanized. It’s like a recipe for critical acclaim. It’s offensive, and more importantly, it’s just not
real
. Most quadriplegics don’t want to end their lives. Trust me.”

I toyed with a remote control, unable to quite look him in the eyes. “You mean you never…”

“Are you kidding?” Sam sounded shaken by my question. “
Never
. Millie, I almost died. Every day I’m thankful that I’m still here.”

I don’t know what to say. I believe him, I suppose. But there’s also part of me that feels like after such being injured so badly and knowing his life would be so difficult, I wouldn’t have blamed him for wanting to end it all. Even now, there had to be times when he felt frustrated with his situation.

Sam seemed to recognize the expression on my face. “I have a really good life,” he said. “I have a great job, great friends, and… I’ve got you. I have so much more than so many other people. I’m really grateful for all that.” He grinned crookedly. “So my life isn’t absolutely perfect. So what? It’s pretty damn good.”

I loved how he counted me among his blessings. The truth is, he’s become the best thing in my life too.

“I heard
The Hunger Games
is on,” he said, nodding towards the remote control my hand. “Come on, this popcorn isn’t going to eat itself.”

The popcorn definitely did not eat itself.

November 16:

Sam and I got into a fight today. It was like our first fight ever and it was completely my fault.

Stupid Thanksgiving is coming up. My parents live down in Southern California and they expect me to come visit them for the holiday every year. They make a huge deal out of Thanksgiving. When I was a kid, I really loved getting to stuff my face every year with turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes, apple pie, and whatever else my mother made that year.

Unfortunately, now that I’m an adult, it’s become this horrible obligation and there’s no way to get out of it. I’ve tried, believe me. If I dropped dead, I swear to God, they’d ship me out to Thanksgiving dinner in my coffin.

Sam invited me to his parents’ house for Thanksgiving. It was a casual invitation, while we were lying in bed after having had some very satisfying sex. His parents live out in Ohio, as does one of his brothers, but he moved here because he said he can’t deal with snow in his wheelchair. He used to live there and any moderate storm would completely trap him in his house. Silicon Valley doesn’t get snow ever. Sometimes it gets cold though. Like, fifty degrees. It’s brutal.

When Sam invited me, I told him without thinking that I had to go to my parents’ house for the holiday. I should have told him I had to work or something. “Do you want me to come?” he asked.

“Um, that’s okay,” I said. “I’m sure your parents want to see you and I don’t want you to miss out.”

“No, it’s fine,” he assured me. “They’d understand.”

I was sure the Webbers would understand, but I wasn’t feeling quite so sure that the Glockenfelds would understand that I had a boyfriend who was disabled.

“No, it’s really okay,” I said. “I know you miss your brothers. Really, go see your parents.”

“But I’d like to meet your parents,” he said. He touched me in this really tender, loving way which made me feel all the worse about my lies.   

“It really isn’t a big deal,” I mumbled. “You’ll meet them next time.”

I think that was when Sam figured it out. “Millie, did you tell them that I’m in a wheelchair?”

I stammered something that sounded like a cross between yes, maybe, and no.

“You didn’t tell them.” He frowned. “Well, what
did
you tell them about me?”

I didn’t say anything.

“You told them about me, didn’t you?” Sam’s voice rose in volume.

“Um…”

“Oh my God, Millie, I don’t
believe
this.” He sounded as angry as I’d ever heard him. “We’re practically living together. How could you not tell them?”

I hung my head.

“Are you ashamed of me?” He looked really hurt when he said it.

“No!”

“Then why won’t you tell your parents about me?”

“It’s not about you,” I told him. “My mom just has really high standards.”

“Gee, thanks.”

“That came out wrong,” I said quickly. “You have to understand, nothing I do is ever good enough for my mother. No guy is ever good enough, and it’s just easier not to deal with it.”

Sam raised his eyebrows at me. I knew everything I had just said sounded really lame.

“I’m sorry,” I said helplessly.

“You need to learn to deal with your mother,” Sam said. “I’m coming with you to Thanksgiving.”

“Sam…”

“She’ll love me,” Sam said. “Don’t worry. I’m super charming, right?”

Sam is so confident that my mother will like him. I don’t get that. She’s going to freak out when she sees him. I’m used to it by now, but I know that objectively Sam looks very disabled, with his hands and all. My mother has made derogatory remarks before about “the crippled” and I know there’s no chance she’s going to accept him as a potential son-in-law. The only difference is now I’m going to have to hear about it all the time.

November 28:

Well, I knew Thanksgiving was going to be bad, so I shouldn’t feel surprised by what happened.

Sam offered to drive us down to SoCal, which was great because I was really busy having a stroke. He didn’t seem nervous at all. He was playing loud music and making jokes during the entire five-hour trip, broken up by one stop at McDonald’s and one stop at In ‘N Out Burger.

(Yes, we ate lunch twice. What of it?)

We arrived at our destination by dinnertime, so we got some food (only one dinner) and checked into our hotel. When I told my mother that I was bringing Sam, she offered to put us both up for the night, but I think that was just to make sure we weren’t sleeping in the same bedroom. I lied and told her that Sam and I had separate hotel rooms.

So yes, I told her about Sam. Finally. I would’ve liked to wait another three or four years ideally, but I didn’t have much choice in the matter. I called her the weekend before we were coming to break the news.

“So I’m going to bring someone with me this year,” I told her on the phone.

“Donna?” my mother asked, which shows what she thought of my prospects of having a boyfriend.

“No, it’s a… guy,” I mumbled.

“You mean a
boy
?” my mother asked, sounding completely stunned. (Is there a point in your life when your mother starts referring to the men in your life as something other than “boys”?)

“Yes.” I cleared my throat. “Actually, he’s sort of my… boyfriend. That’s why I didn’t want to go out with that guy George.”

“Millie, that’s wonderful!” my mother exclaimed. She really sounded floored. I guess this was the first time I’d ever brought a guy home for Thanksgiving, so it was sort of a big deal. “What’s his name?”

“Sam.”

“Is that short for Samuel?”

“Yes.”

“And what’s his last name?”

“Webber.”

“So he’s not Jewish?” I could hear the twinge of disappointment in my mother’s voice. I didn’t have the heart to tell her this was only the tip of the iceberg.

“No, he’s not.”

“Well, that’s okay,” my mother said thoughtfully. “And what does he do?”

“He works in information technology at my company,” I said. “He’s sort of a computer expert.”

“That sounds nice,” my mother said. She paused for a minute. “So what’s wrong with him?”

I tried not to be offended by her assumption that obviously any guy I’d date had to be defective.

(Well, I guess she was right.)

I took a deep breath and braced myself. “He uses a wheelchair,” I said.

My mother snorted. “Very funny, Millie.”

“I’m not being funny.”

“No, seriously,” she said. “Stop making fun of me.”

“I’m serious!” I said.