Graduates in Wonderland (16 page)

Oh God, do you think this is how George justified my odd be­havior?

Wait, that doesn't make sense. George and I are the same age. ­Discuss.

J

OCTOBER 10

Rachel to Jess

Old-­school rules? Jess. Ray was born in the 1960s. Not the 1800s. People have been having premarital sex this entire century and probably, in fact, for long before that. I think he's playing a game. I don't know how you can win it, though. What can you possibly win?

OCTOBER 11

Jess to Rachel

I win the sex with Daniel Craig? Except that I haven't. He always cancels. “I'm on deadline. Maybe we'll meet up later this week.”

I can't live like this!!! The uncertainty is killing me!

Remember that Master List we supposedly sent the universe? The universe couldn't find everything in one man, so it sent me two. George had about 80 percent of the qualities and Ray has the remaining 20 percent (sexy, manly, fixes things, more worldly).

Telling detail: While George sent me one hundred e-mails a day, Ray will only send me one per day. Never more.

OCTOBER 11

Later that day

Jess to Rachel

Oh! Oh! Ray text. He wants to meet up tomorrow. Feels serious. Romantic restaurant.

Do you think I have to get a bikini wax? I don't want to....Do I have to? Don't want to.

Maybe he is used to old-­fashioned ways.

Maybe, in fact, a bikini wax would freak him out and he'd be shocked by the lack of body hair?

OCTOBER 11

Later that day

Rachel to Jess

He's forty-­one. He's seen porn. I think he knows about waxing.

OCTOBER 12

Jess to Rachel

He canceled again.

OCTOBER 12

Later that day

Rachel to Jess

I'm starting to think that he is the worst.

And you are the best, so something's not adding up.

OCTOBER 29

Jess to Rachel

I tried calling your Paris phone, but you aren't there. You're probably eating a baguette or discussing Foucault with French film students or being Parisian by showing up late somewhere. It's very comforting to think of you in the sunlight in Paris, when it is dark over in Beijing. Especially on a night like tonight.

How do I begin to explain what happened next with Ray? After the numerous cancellations, he called me up and told me how sorry he was and how much he wanted to see me. He made a joke about how he hadn't called earlier because he was trying to figure out the perfect place to take me. I knew this was a lie, but I wanted to believe it. It could have been true, right?

We met the next day at eight for dinner in a tiny Chinese restaurant. And we got along so well. The initial awkwardness and all of the doubts that I had before were gone. I wasn't worried about other women he's been with, about seeming young and shy, about teasing him. I felt totally at ease and he seemed to laugh at all my jokes. And at the end he told me how much he liked me.

We walked to a nearby bar, where we sat close together in a booth and he stared into my eyes. Again, he told me how much he likes me. He told me he was leaving for Hong Kong for two weeks, but I said, “Well, you have to see me Saturday, before you go.” He said, “Of course. I have to see you before I go.”

And I believed him.

We went back to his place, kissing as we walked. I tripped in his bathroom and broke his shower curtain. We laughed a lot about it, though. We laugh a lot.

We start making out on his bed. Clothes come off. (Note: There seem to be no discernible differences between a forty-­one-­year-­old body and a twentysomething body. Maybe a tad softer.) Everything was going great. We're kissing, he's stroking my neck, and he's running his hands over my body.

This is the moment where one of us should have reached for a condom. I thought we'd continue kissing and at least discuss the next step, but instead Ray made the decision for us and just went for it, no condom.

WHAT? RAY! WHAT?

Suddenly, it was a flashback to my Bruno freak-­out. Total shutdown of all of the sexual buildup as sirens start ringing in my mind. I am not having sex without a condom.

With Bruno, it was just a broken condom—­his intentions were still good! I shoved Ray away from me but tried to play down my panic because I didn't want to completely lose the moment. I asked if he had a condom. He didn't seem to like this.

I reminded him I'm young (unlike him) and therefore fertile. He still didn't seem convinced. I had to finally firmly tell him NO—­this was not going to happen without a condom, under any circumstances. And, as if on cue, he went completely, totally, limp.

He told me that condoms aren't sexy. What does he want? A condom with a naked woman painted on it? Would that be more effective than an
actual naked woman
? This coming from the guy who,
just last month
, wrote a column about the importance of preventing the spread of HIV through sex education in China.

I wasn't even freaking out at this point. I feel like I've seen movies where the guy loses his erection, and I always feel bad for the guy. I feel like it's ingrained in women that, around lost erections, we must talk in hushed voices so that we don't further scare the penis. We must protect the penis's feelings at the cost of all other feelings. And whatever we do, we must not comment on it and just have to pretend like it never happened.

And, Rachel, I was still thinking, “Maybe we can work through this.” My mind kept coming up with solutions: Maybe we can both get tested for STDs and maybe I'll go on the pill and then we can have sex without the vile, off-­putting condom? Maybe he'll change his mind. We'll figure this out.

So I was cool and levelheaded as we kept lying in bed talking. I try to change the subject and begin asking about his life in Beijing before he met me. I casually ask him about the last person he dated and slept with. He says it was a Chinese woman. Fair enough. Our hands are intertwined. I ask, “When was that?”

“Last week.”

Last week! LAST WEEK! LAST FUCKING WEEK!

I met him a month ago. Three weeks ago we went out on our first date. Two weeks ago we were at a bar kissing while he ran his fingers through my hair! I thought he was crazy about me. I thought our waiting so long had built up sexual tension, and that he didn't want to rush things with me because he was considerate. But no—­he was just off having sex with
someone else
.

And yet he wanted to have sex with me without a condom! He doesn't know any of my sexual history
and
he just assumed I would do this. He doesn't even
own
a condom, which means he's definitely not having protected sex with these other women.

I think my mouth actually dropped open. I felt the rage rising in me. Red-­hot anger. My mind couldn't even compute all the information. It was like a domino effect of terrible revelations.

1. REFUSES CONDOM

2. LOSES ERECTION

3. SLEEPS WITH OTHER WOMEN

4. SLEEPS WITH OTHER WOMEN WITHOUT CONDOM

5. IF I STAY HERE, I WILL BECOME PREGNANT WITH STD-­RIDDEN BABY BY PHILANDERING OLD NON-­BOYFRIEND

I didn't know how to react outwardly, because I didn't know if I had the right to be angry. We never said we were exclusive. The worst part is, I felt embarrassed, like I wasn't good enough for him. This whole time, I'd been afraid I'd be one of those crazy girls he always bemoans who get so crazy and obsessed with him.

I totally get these girls now. They are not the problem. They are just like me.

I got up and got dressed. To my shock, this surprised him. He wanted to know when he could see me again. Despite my silence, he followed me out, because that's what older men do. He tried to kiss me good-­bye as I hailed a cab at a busy intersection, but I just stood there, arms straight by my side, frozen.

What the fuck, what the fuck, what the fuck.

I hate him, and I'm angry, but I'm also hurt. Unbelievably hurt.

And embarrassed. What was I doing with him? I'm twenty-­three! Why am I wasting my youth on this scumbag? Never again.

I think I'm particularly bewildered and bitter about Ray because I used to have George. George, who adored me and loved me and would never ever hurt me.

I never thought a lost erection would be a godsend, but it was. It was sent by my guardian angel, the Erection Angel, coming down and preventing me from sleeping with Ray. I'm counting my limp blessings.

Ray was a mistake I would erase in a heartbeat, and I really can't blame anyone but myself. I played an equal role in this and invited him into my life as I pretended to play some ingenue role that seemed interesting and fun.

I remember telling Victoria that I was young and I could make mistakes. And she said, “Make the wrong one and you'll regret it forever.”

I'm going to try my best to never run into Ray, but the expat bubble in Beijing feels so small. We have so many people in common. I already feel like I know everybody here and so many of my good friends have already left. Maxwell's gone, Astrid's gone, Victoria's gone.

The saying here is that if you stay in Beijing for three years, you'll be here forever. I'm in year two.

I actually e-mailed a friend from my journalism class at Brown, asking him for advice about opportunities in New York, because I thought he might offer an escape route. He told me that he and a crew from our old class try to sneak into all the New York media parties and line up to pitch their ideas to editors. They have about a 2 percent success rate and most of them work in retail during the day. I guess I'm staying here for now.

I miss you.

Love,

Jess

OCTOBER 30

Rachel to Jess

I'm so disgusted by Ray. How many half-­Ray babies do you think are wandering around China? It just seems like another one of his power games....He's old, but he's not
that
old. It's not like condoms are a recent invention or something.

And WHAT THE FUCK? Last week?

I hate him. I wish there were something I could do to him from Paris that would totally fuck him up.

I think it is time to make the clean break with the past. This is the year we leave our Rays behind and put our plans into action.

My biggest news this week is that I had a response from my dad's author friend Lee about my first chapter in the novel I sent him:

Rachel,

I am being pulled along by the language.

Please write and tell me what you dream for as a writer and a person

What kind of life you want

And send more

—­Lee

I stared at his reply for a while before writing back.

I think the absolute truth is this:

“I am almost twenty-­four years old and beyond a few glimmering out-­of-­reach hopes, I still don't know what I want from life. I want to fall in love. I want to be happy, and while I'm still trying to figure out how, I know that it is contingent on writing.”

I also considered adding, “I would also like to someday be so talented that my name gets turned into an adjective (as in Kafkaesque. “That mermaid scene was so Kapelke-­Dale-­esque.”). Also, my book is translated into ALL the languages, and I get to be on the cover of
Vogue
, in which they Photoshop me to make me look fatter because I am too thin.”

I'm trying to get the courage to send this to him (just the first part?). What I really want to say is, “I'm so happy now, and I want to figure out how to keep growing without ruining this balance.”

All my love,

Rach

NOVEMBER 3

Jess to Rachel

Send Lee the second part too, and see if he can have it arranged.

I also don't know how I would respond to his question about the kind of life we want. All I'm sure of right now is that I'm growing antsy. What would my name become if it were a literary device someday? Maybe it will refer to when a character relocates to another country on a whim. “She pulled a Pan and we heard from her six months later when she wrote from a boat off the coast of Ecuador.”

I love Beijing but living here long-­term isn't feasible. I'll never be completely fluent in the language. And there's so much pollution. A ridiculously fast pace of life. So far from home. I can't live here forever, but it doesn't feel right to go somewhere else without a purpose. I'm ready for a new adventure. I still feel too young to stop exploring.

My dad wants me to come home to America. Instead of saying, “You must come home this instant,” he says, “I wish you'd come home. I miss you so much. You've been gone for so long.”

I
have
been gone for some time now. It's hard to see my family only once or twice a year. I thought it would get easier as time passed, but it feels like as I get older, it makes me more sad. Sometimes I wake up in my apartment and really remember that most of my friends and family are more than six thousand miles away from me and I get a pang of loneliness.

It rarely lasts past noon, though. Work seems to help. I started a section in our magazine that gives free makeovers to moms. My plan to surreptitiously turn it into
Glamour
is slowly taking hold, although what do I do now that I can't be promoted any higher at my magazine?

My parents don't expect me to move back to Amarillo, but when they ask me to come to the United States for good, all I see is a vision of me ringing up customers at our local bookstore for the rest of my life. Whenever I'm back in Texas and someone finds out I live in China, they respond in one of two ways. Often, the person compliments me on the great missionary work I must be doing over here. Otherwise, they just ask, “But...why?” Lately, I'm beginning to ask myself the same thing.

The weather has turned very chilly in Beijing and they haven't turned the heat on yet.
They
is the Chinese government. The heat here is controlled by the government! They pick an arbitrary day to just flip the heat switch on, and it can't come soon enough. I'm sleeping in long underwear, sweatpants, a hoodie, and a beanie. I use a hair dryer to warm my frozen face in the morning.